Read Ebook: The Life of a Regimental Officer During the Great War 1793-1815 by Mockler Ferryman A F Augustus Ferryman

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The above is a brief outline of the purchase system, in so far as transactions between officers and the Government were concerned, but many and various complications arose from the over-regulation prices of commissions, with which the Government had nothing to do. These transactions were carried out among the officers of the regiment, with the assistance of the regimental agents, and the object of them was to maintain a healthy flow of promotion by buying out the senior officers. Death was the only other way of displacing them, for there was no regulation by which an officer was forced to give up the command of a regiment after holding it for a certain length of time, and no age limit for any other officers. Every regiment appears to have had its own recognised tariff, depending principally on the purses of the officers; thus the over-regulation price of, say, a lieutenant-colonelcy of a cavalry regiment was considerably higher than that of an infantry regiment, and a lieutenant-colonel would not retire unless the officers junior to him subscribed the sum which he considered his rank and appointment were worth. In such a case the procedure would be something as follows: the lieutenant-colonel would name his price to the senior major, who would then see how the amount could be made up by voluntary subscriptions from such officers as would benefit by the retirement of the lieutenant-colonel. The senior major would, of course, pay the largest amount, and the senior captain and senior lieutenant would probably subscribe handsomely, if they intended to purchase their respective steps. It frequently happened, however, that officers could not afford to purchase their promotion, in which case a junior officer could purchase over the heads of his seniors, the latter deciding to wait for a death vacancy, for which no over-regulation money was required.

The injustice of a system which permitted men with money to buy their way to the front does not seem to have struck the officers--probably because they knew of no other system,--and its advocates maintained that it never interfered with the advancement of a good man, whom the authorities were able to reward with free promotion to half pay, or even to full pay. Still, there can be no two opinions about a system which induced officers of the army to give as a common toast, "A bloody war and a sickly season!" The system lived long and died hard. Its abolition was debated for thirteen years, and even then a Bill relating to it which was introduced in the House of Commons was thrown out by the Lords, and purchase was only finally swept away by a Royal Warrant of 1871, at great expense to the Government, for compensation had to be paid to such officers as had subscribed over-regulation money for their different steps.

The references to flogging in the two last letters must not be taken to imply that young Rice was shaping for a martinet in this early stage of his military career. In those days sentence of flogging was passed on a soldier for offences which nowadays would carry no higher punishment than a few days' detention; and, in reading descriptions of military and naval punishments of a century ago, one marvels at their positive brutality. It may be that we have finer feelings than our ancestors had, or our natures may have become softer, but whatever has brought about the change, the fact remains that accounts of what took place on an ordinary flogging parade in time of peace make one wonder how a civilised country like England could have permitted such barbarities. Men were sentenced to receive so many hundred lashes--even up to two thousand, on the bare back, with a cat-o'-nine-tails--and the mode of carrying the punishment into execution was as follows: The regiment having been drawn up in square facing inwards, and the "triangle," of solid spars, having been erected in the centre of the square, the prisoner was marched in and ordered to strip to the waist. He was then secured by the wrists to the top of the triangle, and by the thighs and ankles to the side spars. At a given signal the drum-major and his drummers advanced, and were ordered by the commanding officer to "do their duty." The first drummer took off his coat, and delivered twenty-five lashes, when he was relieved by a second drummer, who delivered the same number, the drum-major standing by with a cane ready to strike the drummer if the lashes were not administered with sufficient strength. And these drummers were all trained to the work, by flogging the fleece off a sheep's skin, both with the right hand and with the left, so that alternate drummers should inflict the punishment from opposite sides of the triangle. Near at hand stood the adjutant and the surgeon, the former to register the number of lashes, and the latter to observe the victim and order him to be taken down if he thought that further punishment at the time would endanger his life. But there was no question of respite, for the number of lashes awarded had to be given, if not at one time, then at several times. Immediately the man was taken down, he was marched to hospital, and carefully attended to until his back had healed; then, if he still had more lashes to come, he was taken out again, and his back cut open afresh; and we have it on the authority of Sir Charles Napier, the Conqueror of Sind, that a man was often brought to the triangle a third and a fourth time to receive the remainder of his punishment.

We spare the reader further details of this barbarous work, and we have only said so much because it was necessary in order to show the spirit of the times, and in order to draw attention to some of the unpleasant duties of regimental officers. It may be thought that corporal punishment was rarely inflicted, but official returns prove otherwise, and it is no exaggeration to say that, towards the end of the eighteenth century, a regiment on home service would parade round the triangle at least two or three times in a month. "In 1793," says Lord William Bentinck, "infliction by the cat-o'-nine-tails was the ordinary and general punishment for every offence, great and small, only varied as to the amount according to the different degrees of culpability, but always the lash; except in regard to the most trivial offences, corporal punishment was the echo in each and every one of the Articles of War."

It is not difficult to understand that, under such circumstances, recruits for the army were slow in coming forward. Moreover, the Government of the day neglected the soldier's comfort and welfare in every possible way, underfeeding him, underpaying him, and accommodating him in vile quarters. The majority of the recruits brought up for enlistment were produced by the "crimps," who resorted to every mean device in their prosperous business of catching men and selling them to Government, and one can scarcely wonder that such unwilling soldiers should have resented the harsh discipline to which they were immediately subjected. These were the men with whom young Rice first came into contact at Portsmouth--men, cooped up on board ship, without recreation of any kind, for weeks on end, and unable even to make a bid for freedom by desertion.

In the middle of July the officers on the transports saw a chance of sailing with the fleet under Lord Howe, but he had other business on hand, and went without them. Sam expressed his disgust at his lordship's conduct. "We thought that we were to sail under the protection of Lord Howe's fleet, but in that we were disappointed, for he sailed last Sunday evening without having the politeness to take us with him. When we shall now sail I know not; but the report is that it will be very soon and suddenly. It needs be so, for they have given us a fair spell of Portsmouth. I now know enough of a transport, which means that I will never go in one again, if I can get my passage in any other vessel. I almost agree with Dr Johnson that it is as well to enter a jail as a cabin. We have had a bad fever on board our ship for some time. Two have died of it, and many more are ill at the hospital. I should not be surprised if we were all to take the fever, after being so long confined in these old rusty colliers, now in His Majesty's service for the purpose of transporting us to Gibraltar. We are to be joined by seven more transports, and Colonel Lindsay is to take the command of us all. He has sent us two thousand cartridges on board, and orders how we are to act in case of attack by the enemy. If one of us should be separated from our convoy, and see a Frenchman, we are to run immediately, and our men to be ordered to go betwixt decks. But, if the Frenchman sails better than us, and comes alongside, we are, with all our padding, to board, and play hell and the devil among them--that is to say, if possible. There has been a great change among the officers from ship to ship. I am the only one left upon this ship, and consequently am officer commandant, till a Captain Alcock, who is appointed here, comes on board. He has got a wife, whom he intends to take to Gibraltar with him. I'd just as soon have the devil on board as a woman; not that I have any natural antipathy to women, but I assure you they are a great nuisance, especially in such a confined place as a cabin. You might perhaps think a lady a wonderful acquisition to a sea party, but I am very certain, if you had ever been on a voyage with a woman you would never desire it again."

Writing from Torbay on the 17th September he describes what had happened--

"We left Weymouth on the 8th, the wind being in our favour. I believe never so large a fleet sailed from that place before, or ever will again. We were no less than two hundred sail in number. Many were the people who assembled to see us depart, and I do not in the least doubt but that the sight was highly worth seeing. We passed by this port, where we saw the Grand Fleet lying at anchor, and we little thought then that we should be obliged to go in. In a very short time we cleared the Land's End and steered on our course for Gibraltar. We had nearly reached the Bay of Biscay, when, to our great surprise, a frigate came up and spoke to our Commodore, upon which a signal was made for us all to bear homewards as fast as possible. You may be sure we were all thunderstruck at this uncommon proceeding, and were not a little vexed at the thought of returning after having made so much way. The next morning we passed by the Scilly Islands, and from thence bore away as fast as possible for this place, where we are safely riding with the Grand Fleet. The frigate above mentioned had been sent by Lord Howe, who, having had intelligence that the French fleet was not far off, and consisted of thirty-two sail of the line and nine frigates, very prudently, and fortunately for us, dispatched a frigate immediately with orders for us to return with all possible expedition. I was at first very much vexed at returning, but am now rejoiced to think that we have been fortunately saved from the rapacious claws of the French 'Sans culottes.' I hear we have taken Toulon, with a great deal of shipping, but that we have had bad success before Dunkirk. Three regiments are gone from the garrison of Gibraltar to Toulon; so, if any regiments go to the West Indies, ours most probably will be one. Our men are now in a sad condition; we have now three hospital ships, and all full of men with fevers. Several have died, and, no doubt, more will, if they continue much longer on board a ship. It is thought that we shall sail with Lord Howe's fleet, but that is at present quite uncertain."

Eventually, after having put back no less than nine times altogether, the transports succeeded in getting away, and reached Gibraltar in November, when Ensign Rice and his two hundred recruits joined the 51st. He found war the one topic of conversation, and the prospects of the regiment proceeding on active service being freely discussed. He learned now the true story of Toulon, which, although actually in the occupation of a British and allied force, had not been "taken with a great deal of shipping," but had been peacefully garrisoned at the request of the Royalist inhabitants. Admiral Hood, who had brought his fleet to the Mediterranean, was cruising up the coast from Gibraltar, when he received a message from the Royalist Admiral at Toulon, asking him to co-operate in the defence of that place against the Republicans , and to hold it until the monarchy should be restored. Hood agreed, and on the 27th August, troops having been sent from Gibraltar, and a Spanish squadron having joined the British fleet, the Admiral took possession of the forts and the many men-of-war in the harbour--amounting to not less than one-third of the navy of France. He at once dismantled the ships, and removed such of the sailors as were known to favour the Republican cause, and he then sought assistance from the Spanish, Neapolitan, and neighbouring Allies who, in the course of time, sent him some 12,000 men. This mixed force, with 2000 British troops under General O'Hara, essayed to protect Toulon from the ravages of the Republicans, who soon arrived--to the number of 25,000--to besiege the place, and by November became so active that General O'Hara sent to Gibraltar for reinforcements.

The 50th and the 51st, which, for some weeks, had been standing ready to go to the relief of the garrison of Toulon, at once embarked , and young Rice considered himself in luck's way in being called upon to take the field so soon after joining. Ill-fortune, however, still dogged his footsteps, for the captains of the transports delayed for three days in putting to sea, thus losing a fair wind, so that it was not until the 29th that the regiment arrived off Toulon, when it learned that the place had been evacuated in haste ten days before, the garrison having made an unsuccessful sally, in which General O'Hara was severely wounded and captured. Finding that the garrison was now too weak to hold the town against the vastly superior numbers of the Republican forces, Lord Hood set fire to as many as possible of the French ships in the harbour, blew up powder and stores, successfully embarked the British garrison, as well as nearly 15,000 Royalists, who feared for their safety when the Republicans should enter the town, and sailed for Hy?res Bay , where, on the 31st December, the transports conveying the 50th and 51st joined the fleet--to be received very coldly by the Admiral.

THE ATTACK ON CORSICA.

When Sam Rice joined the 51st, Lieut.-Colonel Moore had held the command for three years, but was even then only in his thirty-second year; for his promotion had been rapid, and he had reached the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the thirteenth year of his service. That Moore was a strong man goes without saying, and that he was a man of very exceptional talents the world discovered subsequently. A perfect gentleman, of unblemished character, a reliable and zealous soldier, he was able to bring a great influence to bear on those whom he commanded, and he had a special gift for training young officers. It was in this respect that Sam Rice benefited by being appointed to a regiment with such a commanding officer, and he learned under Moore things which he never forgot. At that time the condition of a regiment depended entirely upon the commanding officer, for in the last decade of the eighteenth century the British army was not in a very satisfactory state. Sir Henry Bunbury, who made a study of such matters, wrote sixty years afterwards: "Men of the present generation can hardly form an idea of what the military forces of England really were when the great war broke out in 1793. Our army was lax in its discipline, entirely without system, and very weak in numbers. Each colonel of a regiment managed it according to his own notions, or neglected it altogether. There was no uniformity of drill or movement, professional pride was rare, professional knowledge still more so. The regimental officers in those days were, as well as their men, hard drinkers; and the latter, under a loose discipline, were much addicted to marauding and acts of licentious violence, which made them detested by the people of the country."

It is perhaps unjust to describe the officers as hard drinkers, if by that is meant that they were all drunkards, or that they drank harder than did their civilian friends and relatives. The morals of the army were possibly no worse than the morals of general society at that period, for it was an age of heavy drinking, when respectable and respected old gentlemen drank themselves under the table every evening, and boasted of the number of bottles of port which they could consume at a sitting. Yet, if the opinions of Bunbury and other writers holding somewhat similar views of the British army in pre-Peninsular times are to be accepted, it cannot be maintained that the tone among the officers of ordinary regiments of the line was of a high order. Some certainly drank a great deal more than was good for them; otherwise it would hardly have been necessary to put in print in the standing orders of a certain regiment the caution that "the Surgeon and his Mate must always be strictly sober." Gambling was indulged in to an inordinate extent; and duelling was not unknown. The fact is that the army was suffering from long years of inaction, and from the pernicious effects of service in America, India, and the West Indies, where regiments went to pieces and took years to recover themselves. To this must be added the further fact that the regimental officer was promoted not by merit, but by purchase; so that it was only necessary for a man to bide his time, and to have sufficient money at his back to buy his steps when they came, and in due course he commanded his regiment, and continued to command it until he could be bought out.

But, it may be asked, if such was indeed the state of affairs, how came it that the British army rapidly emerged from this condition of darkness to save Europe? How came it that the hard-drinking British officer was able to pull himself together, and become transformed into an upright and zealous soldier, capable of enduring endless hardships and displaying great gallantry? The answer is that all regiments were not bad; that most regiments--even the bad ones--possessed some officers of high moral character and endowed with exceptional talents, and when war came in 1793 these officers, on the principle of the "survival of the fittest," came to the front, and gradually established a tone on active service which had been impossible to uphold in times of peace. Some regiments possessed more of such officers than others, and some regiments, again, chanced to have a colonel with sufficient strength of will to give a short shrift to any of his subordinates who were not likely to be of value to him. As the war progressed many of the junior, and not a few of the senior, officers willingly or unwillingly fell out, to make room for better men; many were found wanting and were removed; and many had undermined their constitutions to such an extent that in their first campaign they were carried off by what was commonly described as "the fever," or the "distemper." While the weeding-out process was at work during the last few years of the eighteenth century, and during the opening years of the nineteenth, the annual wastage of officers was immense; after that, matters righted themselves.

Still, it is an error to suppose that the whole army was in so bad a state in 1793 as Bunbury would have us believe, for there are still in existence the printed standing orders of a few regiments of the line of about this date, and from these there is proof enough that very great attention was paid to the wellbeing of corps. The discipline was strict, though of the severe and mechanical order, and it was maintained solely by the lash; duties in quarters were performed with the utmost regularity; and if the standing orders were carried out, the regiments should have been in excellent order. It may, of course, be possible that such regiments as had standing orders were, from this very fact, good regiments, and that the strictures of Bunbury and others applied to the bad regiments, which were, perhaps, more numerous than the good ones.

It is, however, quite certain that when the 51st regiment went on service in 1793, its general condition left nothing to be desired, since Moore had paid attention to such weeding-out of officers as was necessary when he first took up the command in 1790, and all young officers who joined afterwards were kept under his ever-watchful eye until he was sure of them. "He felt that a perfect knowledge and an exact performance of the humble, but important duties of a subaltern officer, are the best foundations for subsequent military fame"; and he required from his officers a punctilious attention to duty and a thorough knowledge of their profession, so that they might be looked up to and respected by the soldiers whom they were called upon to command. And, a perfect gentleman himself, he had no place in the 51st for any officer who was not the same. He was not a martinet, and he did not ride rough-shod over his officers and men, but he knew exactly when the occasion demanded a right enforcement of discipline, and when discipline could be relaxed without detriment to the "machine," which he proudly described, in September 1793, as being in as good order as he could get it.

It is unnecessary to dwell on Corsican history further than to say that from 1559 to 1768 the island was a dependency of Genoa, and that in the latter year, contrary to the wishes of the people, was basely sold to France. The Corsicans then made a bid for independence, but within a few months their army, under Pascal Paoli, was defeated and crushed by the Count de Vaux. It was with this Paoli, who, after a period of exile in England, had returned to Corsica, that Sir Gilbert Elliott opened up negotiations, and from him, without much difficulty, obtained the promise that the Corsicans would aid the British in every possible way. Moore and his companion made a careful reconnaissance of the various French posts and forts, and on the 25th January the former returned to the Admiral with his report. The fleet was then on its way from Hy?res Bay to the island of Elba, and in a few days anchored off Porto Ferrajo, where it was proposed to disembark the Royalist refugees from Toulon and place them under the protection of Tuscany , while arrangements were being made for the leap on Corsica.

The three principal places in Corsica held by the French were St Fiorenzo on the north, Bastia on the east, and Calvi on the west; and in that order Lord Hood decided to attack each place in succession. St Fiorenzo, the first to be dealt with, was situated at the head of a deep bay, studded on the western shore with detached forts, or towers, which, being constructed of solid masonry in a circular form, deflected the round-shots which struck them. The most formidable of these advanced works was the tower of Mortella, and it was impossible to attack St Fiorenzo until these outworks had been carried. With the object, therefore, of reducing the Mortella Tower, Moore was ordered to land at a little distance away, and with the 51st and a mixed force of soldiers and sailors , and with two guns, to march inland and take the tower in rear, while the ships bombarded it from the sea. Moore's force landed on the night of the 7th February, and after a long march among the mountains reached, on the following evening, a point from which the enemy's fortifications could be clearly examined. Moore, who had reconnoitred them on his previous visit, was surprised to find that the French had strengthened their position considerably, and he came to the conclusion that his handful of men was quite insufficient to assail all the fortifications in front of St Fiorenzo. He therefore sent a despatch to General Dundas, and reported that to attack with any prospect of success would require all the General's available troops.

That day was spent in getting the guns into position and in a further reconnaissance, while two ships bombarded the Mortella redoubt, though without breaching it. The ships, moreover, were set on fire by the enemy's hot shot, and were forced to sheer off, with a loss of some sixty men. On the next day more guns were mounted on land, but although they did little damage to the solid tower, their fire made it impossible for the enemy to show himself or reply, and the French officer in command, seeing that he could no nothing, surrendered. The next outwork to be disposed of was the Convention redoubt, and this gave a good deal of trouble. Moore, who was still conducting operations on land, inspected the ground with General Dundas and Major Koehler, and discovered an excellent artillery position, from which it would be possible to batter the Convention. The difficulty was to get the guns up the steep, rocky hill, but, with the aid of a party of seamen with tackle, two 18-pounders and a howitzer were mounted within the next few days, and a mortar and some other guns were placed on a more accessible position, when the enemy's redoubt was subjected to a heavy cannonade for two days. Moore had now with him only the 51st, but on the 17th February the General gave him orders for the assault that night. The Royals were to join the 51st, and Moore was to assail the front of the redoubt, while the other British regiments and the Corsicans were to deliver simultaneous assaults on either flank.

Moore decided to attack in column of companies, the first company consisting of the grenadiers and light infantry of the Royals, the second of the grenadiers of the 51st, the third of the light company of the 51st, then the battalion of the Royals , then three companies of the 51st. The other five companies of the 51st followed in rear as a support; and in rear again came 130 sailors, under Captain Cooke, with entrenching tools.

At 8.30 P.M., by the light of a brilliant moon, Moore led the advance, which for a quarter of a mile could only be made in file. After a little he reached a spot open enough to form up the column; the enemy's piquets fired a few shots, as they realised what was taking place; and Moore immediately ordered his column to push on. When within fifty yards of the redoubt, they found themselves in a slight hollow, unexposed to the enemy's fire, and here Moore halted them for a few seconds preparatory to the final uphill rush. A moment later the Royals and the 51st leaped into the head of the work, and crossed bayonets with the Frenchmen, who stood their ground gallantly and fought with desperation. Eventually, however, the flank attacks pushed in and overwhelmed the defenders, though in the darkness it was difficult to distinguish friend from foe, and, to add to the confusion, the enemy holding the neighbouring redoubt of Fornali began to open with grape-shot upon the victorious British. But before midnight the latter had entrenched themselves, and within an hour it was learned that the French had abandoned Fornali.

Arrangements were now made for the attack on St Fiorenzo itself, but before they had been completed the enemy withdrew from the place and retired to the fortified town of Bastia, situated on the east coast of Corsica, and barely ten miles across the neck of the peninsula from St Fiorenzo.

The coast near Bastia was quite open, and the town was not fortified on that side; elsewhere, however, it was defended by four detached redoubts and a citadel placed on heights at a little distance inland. On February 23, Moore and General Dundas went across the mountains to reconnoitre the enemy's position, and on the following day the 51st and 69th advanced to within a mile and a quarter of the French piquets, who were heard throughout the night digging entrenchments for their further security on the ground which it was necessary for the British to occupy in order to capture Bastia from the land side. Becoming aware of this, General Dundas, in the morning, ordered Moore to withdraw his force, and, to the surprise and disappointment of every one, the withdrawal took place. Moore at first imagined that the General's idea was to perfect arrangements before delivering the assault, but after a while he discovered that, in spite of Lord Hood's constant request for co-operation from the land forces, General Dundas had refused to attempt the capture of the town with the small force under his command. This was a bitter discovery for Moore, who was longing to lead his regiment to the front, but he concealed his disappointment, as he considered that it would be "a species of mutiny for a subordinate officer to pass any opinion" on the action of his General.

Lord Hood, never on good terms with General Dundas, now brought matters to a head by sending a somewhat extraordinary letter, in which he said that upon the evacuation of Toulon the General's command had practically ended, and that he was in supreme command of both the fleet and the army. The General replied with calmness that, unless the Admiral could produce his commission from the King, neither he nor his officers would acknowledge his pretensions to the command of the land forces. But Lord Hood's letter probably had the result which he desired, for on the following day General Dundas, on the grounds of ill health, gave up the command, and having appointed the next senior officer, Colonel D'Aubant, a brigadier-general, and given him the temporary command of the army, left for England on the 11th March. D'Aubant proved himself a useless commander, and being averse to an assault on Bastia, threw cold water on every plan laid before him. In vain did Lord Hood urge the necessity for an attempt being made by the land forces; and, after holding several councils of war, he at length declared that he would take Bastia with the marines and sailors. Already a month had been wasted in looking at the place--a month which gave the enemy leisure to perfect his fortifications and entrenchments. Almost another month passed before Bastia fell; and its fall was brought about not by assault or bombardment, but by starvation, resulting from Lord Hood's careful blockade from the sea and the Corsicans' watchfulness on land. There had been practically no fighting, and though Hood and Nelson dignified the operations with the name of siege, the army was never in position, and all that was undertaken by the ships was the maintenance of a strict blockade, and the landing of some guns and a fighting force under Nelson. The guns did little damage to the enemy or his works, thus wasting much valuable ammunition, and the force commanded by Nelson made no advance. On the 19th May Bastia was starved into surrender, and the 3500 men of the garrison gave up their arms to the British combined forces, which numbered no more than 3000 soldiers and sailors.

Before daylight on the morning of the 19th July, a breach having been effected in the walls of the Mozzello redoubt, the troops moved forward to the assault. Colonel Moore led the stormers, some of whom carried sandbags, and others ladders. Shot, hand-grenades, and live shells were hurtled down upon them by the defenders, but, nothing daunted, the grenadiers charged forward, and plying their bayonets with vigour, drove the Frenchmen out of the redoubt. In this desperate encounter Moore was wounded in the head by a splinter of a shell, but though knocked senseless for a moment, he continued to lead his men until he made certain that the place had been secured, and that entrenchments had been thrown up to cover the troops from the fire of the enemy's guns in Calvi.

Young Rice, as a very junior subaltern in the 51st, of course had no opportunity of distinguishing himself in these operations, and he does not appear to have been much impressed by his first campaign. On the 2nd August 1794 he wrote to his father from "Camp before Calvi," as follows:--

"A flag of truce having just gone in, or rather hoisted in the town by the enemy, and being not so much distracted by shot and shell, I embrace the opportunity of writing these few lines. Do not expect now, when I begin, that I am going to give you minute details of all our operations here. In the first place, it would not be in my power, and, in the next, they would be very uninteresting. The papers will in all probability soon show the fate of Calvi and the operations before it. They are, in my opinion, better able to provide news of that nature than are private letters. The most satisfactory news, I imagine, to you will be that of my health and safety. The flag of truce above mentioned will in all probability terminate in the capitulation of Calvi, which I am extremely glad to think likely, not on account of the danger of shot and shell, but on account of the great sickness from which both officers and men are suffering. The disease, which is a fever, not only happens to the most delicate, but seizes in the most sudden manner on the most robust and healthy. We have now out of our army upwards of 2000 lying in fevers, and a great number of officers. It is not very dangerous, but two officers have died of it. In my opinion, the disease arises from our having to lie in the trenches exposed to the intense heat of the sun. I am quite tired of the siege. We have taken all the enemy's outposts and silenced all his guns, and the town has been in flames for some days. If they continue stubborn, the General is determined to hearken to no more flags of truce, as he has so often been humbugged by them before; but to batter a breach and enter the town by storm, which will be easily effected, though perhaps not without a few broken heads. As yet only four officers have been killed, and six or seven wounded. Colonel Moore was slightly wounded on the head at the storming of the Mozzello redoubt, but is now, I am happy to say, quite recovered. An unfortunate shot killed an officer of ours the day before yesterday in the trenches. He had only just joined, and was an excellent young fellow, and is much lamented.

"I would thank you to tell Mr Greenwood to write to Colonel Moore, as is customary, about my promotion; for until that time I do not take the rank of lieutenant in the regiment.

"I was at the taking of Bastia, though did not reap many laurels there. All I can say is that we were ready to do anything that there was to be done. My Lord Hood and his marines claimed the honour--if there was any--of taking that town. Bastia is a very good town, and will make very pleasant quarters. Calvi is to appearance no great things. Ajaccio is much the pleasantest place in the whole island.

The cause of all this sickness among the troops was undoubtedly exposure, for there appears to have been no epidemic of any kind, and modern soldiers under similar circumstances would probably suffer equally. In the daytime the men lay out continuously beneath the fierce heat of a Mediterranean summer's sun, and their dress was that worn in England in the winter--viz., tight-fitting cloth clothes, with their "clubbed" hair beneath a hat which, if anything, made their heads the hotter. At night they slept out, almost uncovered, among the mountains, at a temperature sometimes so low as almost to freeze the very marrow in their bones. That sunstroke and sun fever should have fallen upon them was little to be wondered at.

CORSICA WON AND LOST.

With the capture of Calvi French resistance in Corsica came to an end, and the island became a British possession, the Corsicans, some two months earlier, having declared their allegiance to the King of England. Sir Charles Stuart at once began the distribution of his troops in garrisons about the island, and the 51st sailed from Calvi on the 19th August, going round to Bastia, of which place they were to form the garrison. Writing from Bastia on the 11th September, Sam Rice gives some account of events:--

"I have the pleasure of telling you that we have quitted our canvas houses, and have taken up our quarters in this garrison, which is by no means an unpleasant one. How long we shall continue here is very uncertain at present, as there are other places in the island which must be garrisoned. Our regiment will very probably go to Ajaccio, which is, by all accounts, one of the pleasantest and most healthy places in the whole island. General Stuart, Colonel Moore, and some others of the great men set out, about a week ago, to take a tour of the island, for the purpose, I suppose, of finding out what places it will be necessary to garrison. The French, I hear, are making great preparations at Toulon, to endeavour to retake the island. I hope they will make the attempt, when we will give them a warm reception.

"In the letter which I wrote to you after the surrender of Calvi, I think I mentioned the extreme sickness of our army. It was nothing then to what it is now. You will be astonished when I tell you that the 51st Regiment was almost 500 strong at the commencement of the siege of Calvi, but now, I am sorry to say, we have not a hundred fit for duty. The rest of the regiments are in the same way. The 12th Light Dragoons, who have had no fatigue, suffer alike from this shocking and unwholesome climate. The Corsicans say that, after this month is over, the climate will be very healthy until July. It is to be hoped so, else I am certain that in the course of three months we shall not have an English soldier in the island, if they continue to die as they have done for this some time past. The officers have suffered just as much as the men. I am the only officer of the regiment who has not been sick, and how I have weathered it so long is to me astonishing. In the conquest of this island we have suffered little by the sword, but sickness has played the devil. This is a subject too shocking to dwell upon, though we are so habituated to hear of deaths, that the death of a man is scarcely more noticed than that of a fly.

"I forgot to tell you that we left Calvi the 19th August--my birthday--and embarked on board transports for this place, which is not above a day's sail with a good wind, but we unfortunately were kept nearly a week at sea. I believe I never gave you an account of Bastia; indeed I don't know whether I can, further than that it is a large and populous place, and resembles very much the generality of French towns. We are very much crowded here with French refugees who came from Toulon, so much so that the officers cannot get lodgings, which I think a great hardship after having been so long in the field. I have been employed since I have been here in recruiting my kit, which was rather the worse for campaigning. My bedding and cot I had the misfortune to lose the first week I was in Corsica, which was, I think, the greatest misfortune that could happen to a man, except the loss of his head. My softest bed for many months was the ground, with one blanket to cover me. It was not really cold, so it did not much signify. You used to tell me what a lazy life a soldier's was. I don't know how it is, but I have not yet found it so, without you call lying in one's clothes for three or four months together, mounting out-pickets, and all such pleasant amusements being lazy. I assure you that the little service I have seen here has done me a great deal of good, and has shown me that there are more rough things than smooth in life.

"We are going to be very gay here. An Italian Opera is shortly to open, which is to be patronised by the Governor, and is much approved of by the garrison. A coffee-house for English papers is also to be established, which I think a much better thing than the former. In fact, you do not know how grand we are going to be.

This letter and the following one give some idea of the life of a subaltern in a marching regiment on foreign service in 1794, and for that reason are not without interest. They deal little with politics, because such matters did not concern a junior lieutenant in the army who had sufficient to occupy his time in looking after the welfare of his men, and in performing the ordinary routine duties of his regiment and of the garrison. And it may be taken as certain that a subaltern in Moore's regiment did not have much idle time.

"Since my last, Sir Gilbert Elliott has been appointed Viceroy of the extensive kingdom of Corsica, on account of which the municipality gave a Ball to the officers of the garrison and inhabitants. It was 'perfect liberty and equality,' for I believe such a mixture of people never was seen at any assembly whatever. The supper induced a great many of the poor Toulon emigrants, of whom there are numbers here, to go. Without exaggerating, they eat more voraciously and in a more unchristianlike manner than any pack of hounds I ever saw. It was certainly the most beastly sight I ever beheld, though at the same time the most laughable. Some pulling fowls into pieces with their hands; others legs and shoulders of mutton, and many pocketing. In short, it was the most complete scramble that I ever saw, or, I believe, ever was seen. Colonel Hely, of the 11th, gave the garrison a Ball last week, which was done in a very genteel manner. General Stuart gives one to-night, which, I daresay, will excel them all in brilliancy. He is a very gentlemanlike, pleasant man.

"Sir Gilbert Elliott went yesterday to Corte, where he is going to stay a few months, and then returns to Bastia. Corte is distant about five-and-forty miles from here, and is the place where the Corsican parliament is held. There is an excellent road all the way to it, which was made at considerable expense by the French. I cannot give you any account of the country, as I have seen so little of it. Those who have been round the island, and in the internal parts, do not speak very favourably of it. I am sorry I cannot tell you our troops get much better, though it is to be hoped that they soon will, as the weather begins to get cold and consequently more favourable to their complaints, which are chiefly the fever and ague. We continue daily to bury a great number of men, and I am afraid we shall for this some time to come. It is a shocking sight to go round the different hospitals, which are crowded with patients. It is a duty which we have frequently to do, and which, you may conceive, is not a very pleasant one, though at the same time very necessary.

With the departure of Lord Hood, the navy ceased to be interested in Corsican affairs, so all cause for rivalry between the two services came to an end. A new rivalry, however, at once arose. Sir Gilbert, as Viceroy, became an autocrat, and although the exact terms of his commission had not yet been made known to him, he took a leaf out of Lord Hood's book, and informed General Stuart that he considered himself Commander-in-Chief. The General, however, was not the man to quietly accept a subordinate position in the force with which he had completed the conquest of Corsica, and he politely gave Sir Gilbert to understand that he intended to retain the command of the troops until the Viceroy should receive the King's commission authorising him to assume the functions of Commander-in-Chief, when he would be prepared to hand over the command. Sir Gilbert was content to bide his time, but friction, of course, was inevitable, since, without a complete understanding between the heads of the civil and the military departments, it was impossible to establish any proper form of government in a newly acquired British possession. Moore's position is a little difficult to understand, as at that time he held no appointment other than that of Lieut.-Colonel commanding the 51st Regiment, although he had been recommended for the post of Adjutant-General, in place of Sir J. St Clair, who was going home. Yet all along Moore was General Stuart's right-hand man, and to all intents and purposes acted as his chief staff officer. Consequently, he upheld his General in everything that he did, and resolved to stand or fall with him. And the fall eventually came, though not for some months.

In the meantime the troops were moved about and garrisons established at various places, while three battalions of Corsicans were raised for home defence. The 51st continued to garrison Bastia until the end of the year, and from that place Sam Rice, on the 28th December wrote to his father as follows:--

"I am sorry to tell you that, since my last, we have had the misfortune to lose poor Captain Tourle, who died a martyr to the complaint of this climate. He was the handsomest and most healthy man I ever saw. No regiment, I believe, ever lost so worthy a fellow, both as an officer and man; nor was any one ever more regretted. He was buried with all military pomp, attended by the two generals and all the officers of the garrison. We have still two or three officers ill, but not dangerously so. The nature of the climate is such that, if once attacked, a person is subject to relapses. What is very singular is that the inhabitants throughout the country are subject to the same complaint, which carries off numbers of them. There was a report the other day that the French fleet was off Ajaccio, but it was unfounded. Admiral Hotham's fleet is at Leghorn, and is daily expected at St Fiorenzo. We expect to march in a few days for Corte, to take up our quarters there. It is by all accounts a wretched place, but we are all happy at the thoughts of anything for a change. There are three Corsican battalions raised here. If they are to be drilled as our soldiers are, to stand the charge, which I suppose they are, I do not know how they will behave, as their manner of fighting is what we call bush-fighting--that is, to take a steady aim upon any one from behind a bush or tree,--in short, from any place from which the man can fire without being seen. I see that there is a talk of peace. I am afraid that, if we make peace, we must resign the West India Islands and perhaps the famous island of Corsica, which will be a great loss to Government.

"If I have made many blunders in this letter, I ascribe it all to a pretty Corse, who has been chatting to me all the time from the opposite window."

In the first week of January 1795, Sir Gilbert Elliott received despatches from home, giving him supreme command of the army in Corsica. Thereupon General Stuart resigned, and at the same time General Trigge was appointed by the Viceroy to command the troops, and Colonel Moore was put in orders as Adjutant-General, though, before taking up the appointment, he took the 51st to Corte and settled the regiment in its new quarters. Grave fears of a French descent on Corsica soon began to be entertained, and the defence of the island against a strong invading force gave the military authorities cause for apprehension. The British fleet in the neighbouring waters was still, however, of sufficient strength to give a measure of confidence to the sister service on shore, and if there were jealousies when the army and the navy were employed together, they were forgotten by the soldiers when they heard of the sailors' victories at sea. At any rate, so much may be gained from the following letter, written by Sam Rice from Corte on the 28th March 1795:--

"I am sorry to tell you," he writes, "that we have had the misfortune to lose Captain Alcock of our regiment, who departed this life, like poor Tourle, a martyr to the complaint of this cursed climate. He had been but a short time ill at Bastia, from whence he went to Leghorn for the recovery of his health, but on his first landing was seized with a violent fever, which carried him off in the course of a few days, in spite of the faculty. You may recollect my mentioning both him and his brother--the latter who was so civil to me on coming from England, and the former on my joining the regiment. Thus we have lost two of the worthiest, gentlemanlike, and handsomest men that ever any regiment possessed--the one captain of grenadiers, the other of light infantry. They were both great friends of Colonel Moore's, and, in short, of all the officers.

"We still continue to be very sickly in our regiment, having above one hundred privates sick in the hospital, and an equal proportion of officers, for of the latter we have here five sick in the hospital, one in Italy, two gone home for the recovery of their healths, two dead, and several others who have had a lucky escape from death. What great acquisition this island can be to the Crown of Great Britain I leave to abler politicians than myself to determine. It certainly has a tolerable bay for our shipping, and that is all. It has been a fine burying-ground for the British this last year, and if we continue during this next year to bury in the same proportion, I am afraid that the air will become more pestilential than it naturally is. In the time of the Romans this place was well known for its insalubrity, and the banishment of a criminal to Corsica was thought sufficient punishment. We expect Colonel Moore here daily, who is coming for change of air, he having been likewise ill."

Soon after this it appears to have gradually dawned on even the regimental officers that the defences of the island were not in too satisfactory a condition. Moore, who was indefatigable in touring the country, knew that the coast-line was open everywhere, and that the towns were defenceless. The Viceroy, generally optimistic, at times suffered from panic, and went so far as to consult the military authorities on the state of the defences and how they could be improved. He had his own views, however, on the subject, and as they differed entirely from those of the Adjutant-General, little, if any, improvement took place. Moreover, intrigue was at work among the Corsicans, many of whom already doubted if British rule was any better than French. How much the "man in the street," otherwise the regimental subaltern, knew of what was going on is shown by the following letter from Sam Rice:--

"I marched here about a fortnight ago with a detachment to assist in doing duty in this garrison. How long I shall stay here I cannot say. The number of French prisoners that we have in different parts of the island makes the duty hard, as they must, of course, be guarded. I went yesterday with a party to fetch above a hundred of them from near Fiorenzo, and brought them here the same day. They behave themselves very well at present, but should the French fleet appear off the coast I don't know what they may do.

"A report prevails here that the French have received a reinforcement from Brest of six sail of the line. If such is the case I think we shall not long remain in the island. The French have a great party here, who would immediately join them in the event of a descent, and those who are now of our party would, I daresay, be better paid by the French, and so abandon us--such is the character of the Corsicans. If we may believe the French, they will not come here; they say that they are a nation too polished to ever think of so barbarous a country as Corsica. Barbarous as it is, I daresay they would be glad to chase us from it; not that it would be of any value to them, but, as long as we are here, they will be ever jealous, and indeed, in my opinion, very naturally so. We have orders to hold ourselves in readiness to take the field. Provisions and ammunition are constantly going to the interior of the country, in case of a retreat. Do not be surprised if my next is from some camp among the mountains. I send this by Captain St George, who takes home the Viceroy's despatches."

From this letter it would seem that the existence of two political parties among the Corsicans was a matter of common knowledge, and it would seem also to have been generally known that one party favoured the French and the other the English. How the strings were pulled was probably only known to a very few Englishmen; possibly only to the Viceroy and Moore. Yet the puppets, placed upon the stage, played gaily to the audience for a while, then snapped their strings and played without them. From the beginning the Viceroy's methods had been distasteful to the people, and their beloved Paoli, the Corsican patriot, endeavoured to hint as much to Sir Gilbert, who, however, took the hint as unwarrantable interference. From that time the Viceroy became distrustful of Paoli, and set up, in opposition to him, one Pozzo di Borgo, a man versed in intrigue, of few scruples, and hated by the Corsicans, who, though they continued to be loyal to the British Government, distrusted the influence which Pozzo had over the Viceroy. Had Sir Gilbert kept in with Paoli, and governed through him, all might have gone well. Instead, as Sir J. F. Maurice puts it, he attempted to apply the British Constitution to a people to whom it was unsuited, and, in doing so, he used as his instrument a worthless man, who had not the confidence of the people. Now, Moore was a personal friend of Paoli, and the Viceroy knew it, and he suspected Moore of intriguing against him, though, had he been a judge of character, he would have known that Moore was always too straightforward and outspoken to be capable of intrigue. Yet, believing that Moore was disloyal, he took the step which any man so placed would take. Not being an Oriental potentate, he did not have his enemy quietly poisoned off, but he wrote home and asked for his removal, and Moore was, in September 1795, ordered to quit the island within forty-eight hours. On the 4th October Moore visited the 51st at Corte and shook the dust of Corsica from off his feet. After his departure the plot thickened, and in the early months of 1796 matters began to assume an uncomfortable attitude; disaffection among the people grew rife; and Paoli, in despair, went to England. From bad, things then went rapidly to worse, and the following letter from Sam Rice shows how, by the middle of the year, Corsican affairs were already approaching a crisis.

"Our correspondence, I am afraid, will, every day now, become more uncertain and of course less frequent, owing to the French having overrun so great a part of Italy, and the rapid progress which they are still making. Our last news from Leghorn was that the Republicans were within a very few hours' march of that place; if so, the communication by that part of Italy will be entirely at an end. An officer from this garrison, who is going to England, and who will be the bearer of this, in order to be certain of avoiding the French, sets out this evening for Civita Vecchia, a seaport near Rome, and from thence will cross the Roman territories to some place on the Adriatic coast, whence he will take a vessel for Venice.

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