Carole Divall

2nd Battalion: Gibraltar

[Pictute to be added]

The problem of sickness is getting worse.  As well as the NCOs and men sick in quarters or in the regimental hospital, Lieutenant Adamson, recently promoted from ensign, has been given leave of absence for recovery of health.  Assistant Surgeon Purdon, who was left with the depot in Kinsale, has also reported sick.

Lieutenant Machell is reported to be at Lisbon.

Lieutenant Forbes, having returned from Brazil, where he has been with the British Legation, has effected his transfer into the 10th Garrison Battalion (with Captain Spawforth, who has still to join the depot).

Five sergeants, Henry Hunt, William Murfin, William Brumish, Joseph Colville and William Wooden, arrived from Portugal on the 4th July, the same day that Thomas Chesterton re-joined from the regimental hospital.

Two corporals, Joseph Newbury and Terence O’Neil, were reduced on the 1st July.  On the same day, Corporal Philip Lynch re-joined from the regimental hospital.  John Watson was promoted from private to corporal.

The strength of the battalion (NCOs and privates) is 580, although the paper strength is over 800.  This includes the 103 men at the depot, various men on detached duties, and the 2 sergeants and 101 men being held by the French as prisoners of war.  (These were the men on board the transport Jenny, which was wrecked at Gravelines three years ago.)

1st Battalion: in Trichinopoly

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Ensign Todd is still on leave for recovery of his health. Lieutenant Jones is now into the final month of his six month suspension from rank and pay under sentence of a court martial.

On 6th July Lieutenant Nicholson, having requested to stand a court martial in order to clear his name, wrote a letter to Major Vaumorel in which he offered to resign from the regiment in return for all charges against him being dropped. (Captain Chambers wrote a similar letter.) According to surgeon Pearse, who has been treating Nicholson on a daily basis for a serious liver complaint, this condition was being made worse by the stress of the court martial.

Before the letters are delivered to Major Vaumorel the officers of the mess have decided to assemble to settle some points of order. Lieutenant Charles Cunningham has agreed to act for Nicholson and Chambers in this increasingly unpleasant affair.

Depot: Wakefield.

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The detachment from Kinsale has now reached Wakefield but as yet there is no sign of Captain Spawforth who should be in command.

Second battalion: Gibraltar

The battalion landed safely on the 7th June after an uneventful voyage round from Lisbon – very different from the voyage from Ireland to Portugal, particularly for those who sailed in the transport Susan.  Captain Machell, son of a wealthy banker from Beverley, Yorkshire, is reported to be on his way to join the battalion, having returned from the West Indies via Ireland.  There is no news of the other two recently transferred officers, Captains Spawforth and Fullerton.  Captain Bamford has been appointed to recruit in England, while Lieutenants Masters and Adamson have both been given leave of absence for recovery of health.

Quartermaster Kingsley has left for Ireland, where he will collect the battalion’s heavy baggage, still at Kinsale, and bring it to Gibraltar.

There have been no promotions or demotions among the NCOs during the past fortnight.

First Battalion: Trichinopoly

Captain Beaumont is reported to be on his way to Madras from Penang.   He took over responsibility for negotiating with the Portuguese in Macao after the death of Major Wright a year ago.  His task was to persuade the Portuguese that, with their country in French hands, they should hand over control of Macao to the British so that it also did not become French territory.  Beaumont’s persuasion was successful

News has arrived of the death of Captain Watson while recuperating from ill health at St Thome.

General Wilkinson is still concerned about the unrest among the British officers of the East India Company army.

Depot: en route from Kinsale to Wakefield

There are no returns from the depot as the two ensigns, Light and Herring, and the men under their command are travelling from Kinsale to their new headquarters at Wakefield where the main focus will be under the command of Captain Spawforth.

Second battalion: en route for Gibraltar

On the 19th May orders were received to march to Azambuja, from where the battalion would join Wellesley in the north of Portugal.  Before they could set off, however, the orders were rescinded.  Wellesley decided that a unit consisting of superannuated and young, inexperienced soldiers was not suitable for the hard campaigning which lay ahead now that Marshal Soult had been driven out of Oporto.  Ten days later fresh orders arrived.  The battalion was ordered to embark for Gibraltar, along with the 29th, where they would take the place of the thoroughly acclimatised 1/48th and 1/61st Regiments.

The battalion, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Minet, are taking with them the two majors, Hamilton and Grey, five captains, two lieutenants and two ensigns, along with the paymaster, Wray, the quartermaster, Kingsley, Surgeon Hennen, and Assistant Surgeon, Brett.  Gibraltar is not a particularly healthy posting, so the presence of John Hennen, one of the leading medical men of his day, will prove particularly valuable.  The battalion strength, present, is thirty-eight sergeants, fifteen drummers, twenty-eight corporals and 484 privates.

A further 102 men have been left in Lisbon, many of them sick, a few on command (mainly as officers’ servants).  Captain Thomas Williamson and Ensign John Garvey have also remained in Lisbon, the former because he is on the staff in Portugal and the latter through sickness.

Since the 15th May only one sergeant has been demoted (Thomas Hamilton on the 19th), while Corporal John Surety has been promoted.  One corporal has been demoted, John Robinson on the 31st May.  There have been no promotions at this rank.

First Battalion: Trichinopoly

There have been no changes to the battalion in Trichinopoly.

Lieutenant Charles Watson has been returned “sick at St Thome” after several years away from the regiment.  When the battalion arrived in India, they were nominated by Admiral Pellew to take part in a planned expedition against Java which, with the Dutch now in alliance with the French, was seen as enemy territory.  Watson commanded 34 men of the battalion, serving as marines, on board the Psyche.  Although the expedition was delayed, in 1807 the Psyche went into action as part of Pellew’s command.  In September she was involved in an action against enemy ships in Samarang Roads.  The Dutch ran their ships aground and then fired on the Psyche and the other British ships but before the British could launch their boats to board the enemy ships, the colours were struck on the Resolute (700 tons), Ceres (a 12-gun brig), and the 24-gun corvette, Scipio.  Other officers and men of the battalion took part in Pellew’s subsequent successful attack on the Dutch ports and then  returned to Madras.  Watson, however, remained at sea with a small party of marines for another two years, at great cost to his health.

General Wilkinson is having to deal with discontent among the British officers of the East India Company’s army.  They have been protesting against the increasingly erratic behaviour of Thomas Barlow, Governor of Madras.  Falling within Wilkinson’s remit are the 6th Native Cavalry, 2/13th and 2/24th Native Infantry, district staff, some artillery and engineers.  In May the Madras Government issued a form of declaration which required all British officers to state their obedience to the Company, in accordance with their commissions.  Such is the resentment this has caused that mutiny now seems a very real possibility.

Depot: Kinsale

Captain Christopher Williamson remains at Kinsale with the two ensigns, Light and Herring, and 105 NCOs and privates.  (There are also 101 men returned as at the depot who are actually prisoners of war, taken when the transport Jenny was wrecked at Gravelines in 1805.)

News has been recieved that two extra companies are to be added to the regiment as a depot.  This is normal practice when both battalions of a regiment are serving abroad.  The depot’s principal function will be to oversee recruiting activities and receive and train recruits.  Two extra companies means promotion for two lieutenants without purchase.  Alexander McNabb, son of an Americaan Loyalist who settled in Canada, has been given one of the companies, while the other has been given to James Fullerton from the Ceylon Regiment.  McNabb is with the second battalion in the Peninsula, and Fullerton has yet to join.  In the mean time, command of the depot is given to Captain (Brevet Major) James Spawforth of the 8th Garrison Battalion who in April exchanged into the 30th with Lord Forbes (still serving with the British legation in Brazil).  The Depot will be at Wakefield, and the Kinsale detachment has been ordered there.

Captain Williamson, who is in poor health, has been given command of the army depot on the Isle of Wight.

Second battalion: Lisbon Citadel

The battalion is still in Lisbon, awaiting further orders.  Any hope of becoming part of Wellington’s force as it continues north to deal with Soult in Oporto is fading fast.

Captain Thomas Williamson has been appointed to the department of the Assistant Adjutant General to the forces in Portugal; another officer who has been seconded to the staff.

There have been two sergeants reduced to the ranks, Joseph Jackson and James McDoole, and three corporals, John Wire, John Hamilton and James Reeves.  This is a high number for a period of two weeks.  In their place, Henry Hunt, William Hill, William Hassell and John Surety have been promoted from corporal to sergeant, while John Morissey and George Burrows have been appointed corporal.

First Battalion: Trichinopoly

At Trichinopoly on May 6th, General Wilkinson inspected the regiment.  In a letter to the Adjutant General he explained that  he had “the Honor to command the battalion from the 4th of last August to the 1st February.  In fact, it may be said to have been under my Command until the 16th April last, as it formed part of a Detachment which I commanded when in the Field during that period.”

The actual inspection report criticises many of the manoeuvres and the slow rate of loading but the excuse is offered that “two Hundred of the Men, with a proportion of the Officers and non-commissioned Officers were upwards of nine months at sea, and thirty above one Year and a half serving as Marines, and the whole of them only joined a short time before the review; in addition to which the Battalion itself was near three months in the Field, most of the time on the March and only arrived in quarters a little more than three weeks before the Review.”  Wilkinson, of course, has a great fondness for his old regiment.

There were six complaints.  Five of them concern men who came in from the Army of Reserve or Militia units and are still waiting for their bounty.  The sixth, Owen Brennan, having been taken sick on furlough, was posted as a deserter.  He has a sick certificate for the period, and wants the back pay to which he is entitled.

The strength at this point is 947 English NCOs and privates, 27 Scottish, 192 Irish and 4 foreigners (including one from the West Indies).

Of the officers attached to the battalion, although not necessarily serving with it, 27 are English, 6 are Scottish and 14 are Irish.

In both respects, the first battalion is a much stronger unit than the second.

Captain Beaumont is serving on a court martial, while Lieutenant Jones is under sentence of a court martial, for the second time in fifteen months.

Lieutenants O’Brien and Champion have been posted absent without leave.  Both officers have already left the 3oth, but the time taken to sail from Britain to India means this information is not available to the battalion.

Depot: Kinsale

Captain Christopher Williamson remains with the heavy baggage at Kinsale, along with Ensigns Light and Herring (who joined the regiment within a day of each other), two sergeants, two drummers, two corporals and ninety-seven privates.