History of the Royal Regiment of Artillery, Vol. 1 Compiled from the Original Records

THERE are many reasons why the Masters-General of the Ordnance must interest the student of the History of the Royal Artillery. In the days before the Regimental organization ex...

THE term Ordnance was in use in England before cannon were employed; and it included every description of warlike weapon. The artificers employed in the various permanent milita...

THE first step, of course, on the restoration of Charles II., was to undo everything in the Ordnance, and remove every official bearing the mark of the Protectorate. Having fill...

IN the chaotic sea of warrants, correspondence, and orders which represents the old MSS. of the Board of Ordnance prior to the formation of the Royal Regiment of Artillery, ther...

ALTHOUGH the description of campaigns which occurred before the regimental birth of the Royal Artillery is beyond the purpose and province of this history, yet so many of the of...

ON the Nova Scotian side of the Bay of Fundy, immediately opposite the City of St. John, New Brunswick, there is a narrow inlet of the sea, walled by perpendicular and densely w...

THE hour had come,—and the man! The Duke of Marlborough was again at the head of the Ordnance, and was both capable himself of detecting the faults of the existing system, and o...

NOT a statesman, not over-refined, and no scholar, a mere soldier of fortune—yet brave, and honest, and true—Albert Borgard deserves more than a passing notice in a history of t...

TWENTY years, during which Englishmen made no conquests; but during which they had "peace, ease, and freedom; the Three per Cents, nearly at par; and wheat at five- and six-and-...

FROM what was mentioned in the last chapter, it will be seen that there were cadets long before there was an Academy. Although, however, this institution is of a date so long po...

THE same year which saw the foundation of the Royal Military Academy witnessed the commencement of a seven years' schooling, which was to leave an indelible mark on the Regiment...

LIFE in the Barracks in the Warren, where the Artillery at Woolwich were stationed, with the exception of one company, which was detached at Greenwich whenever the Warren was ov...

The dress and equipment of the Regiment underwent a change. In 1748, the last year of the war, the field staffs of the gunners, their powder horns, slings, and swords, and the m...

THE Ordnance Department in Ireland was independent of that in England until the year 1674, when Charles II., availing himself of the vacancy created by the death of the then Iri...

IN the beginning of the year 1757, the Regiment consisted of nineteen companies, with four field officers. On the 2nd April four additional companies were added, giving a total...

FORMED in 1757, at the same time as the 1st Battalion, the 2nd Battalion at first included companies in all parts of the world—the East Indies, America, Gibraltar, and England....

AT this time the Regiment well deserved the motto it now bears, "Ubique." The feeling uppermost in the mind of one who has been studying its records between 1756 and 1763 is one...

THE year in which the Regiment was divided into two Battalions witnessed the commencement in America of military operations which were to result in the complete removal of Frenc...

CERTAIN Goths and Vandals, connected with the Board of Ordnance in 1799, issued an order granting permission for the destruction of many old documents which had accumulated in t...

NOT very long after the Battle of Minden, and while the lessons of the war were urging on the military world the increasing importance of Artillery, the Board of Ordnance resolv...

ALTHOUGH the History of the Royal Artillery is the history of England's campaigns since the existence of the Regiment, there are occasional chapters in these wars more interesti...

AT the conclusion of the war in 1763, the reductions in the Regiment were carried out on a different system from that which had hitherto prevailed. At the Peace of Aix-la-Chapel...

THIS Battalion was formed on the 1st January, 1771, by drafting six companies from the Battalions already in existence, which were thus reduced from ten to eight companies, and...

FOR a few years after the formation of the Fourth Battalion, the History of the Regiment contains little that possesses more than domestic interest. It was the stillness which p...

"Neither, while the war lasts, will Gibraltar surrender. Not though Crillon, Nassau, Siegen, with the ablest projectors extant, are there; and Prince Condé and Prince d'Artois h...

one-half—sixteen companies—was in America; one company in Newfoundland; three in the West Indies; three in Minorca; and five in Gibraltar:—a total abroad of twenty-eight service...

THE military importance of the capture of Minorca from the English in 1782 was not, perhaps, such as to warrant a separate chapter for its consideration. But the defence of St....

THERE are few campaigns in English history which have been more systematically misunderstood, and more deliberately ignored, than the American War between 1775 and 1783. The dis...

AT the foot of Broadway, in New York (the principal street during the American War, as it is yet, although eclipsed in point of size by those known as Avenues,) there was, and t...

BEFORE summing up the Artillery share in the American War of Independence, a glance may be taken at the domestic life of the Regiment at this time. From the date when the Regime...

ALTHOUGH the Royal Horse Artillery, and the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Battalions were formed subsequently to the Peace of 1783, it has been considered desirable to insert a summ...