The annual total of this stoppage—amounting to 1058l. 10s.—was in the first instance applied to the payment of the supernumerary second lieutenants, and any surplus that might remain was ordered to be divided annually on the 31st December (in proportion to their pay) among the several officers who were at the time contributing towards it; and it was directed that as soon as the number of second lieutenants should be reduced to one per company, the stoppages should cease to be made.

The effect of the alteration in the proportion of officers in the various ranks is very distinctly shown by Colonel Miller in his pamphlet. Previous to the change, the proportion of company to field officers had been as 21 to 1; now it became as 8½ to 1.

The following tables show (1) the establishment and cost of the Regiment in 1782 prior to the introduction of the new system; and (2) the proposed establishment, which came into force on the 30th November, 1782. The number of company officers—five per company—then fixed, remains, to this day, unchanged in the Horse and Field Artillery; but a subaltern per company or battery in the Garrison Artillery was reduced by the late Secretary of State for War, thus further improving the proportions of the field and company officers:—

With the Peace of 1783 came a reduction in the Regiment from 5337 of all ranks to 3302, with a saving to the country of the difference between 148,488l. 1s. 8d., the cost of the old establishment, and 110,570l. 13s. 4d., the cost of the new. But the reduction and the saving were not effected at once. Every allowance was made for existing claims and interests; and for the first year after the Peace of Versailles, a charge was allowed of 129,373l. 11s. Two schemes were submitted by the Board for carrying out the required reductions: one left the number of non-commissioned officers untouched; the other reduced it by one-half and spared the privates, who now were to receive the title of gunner universally, that of matross being abolished. The first scheme was approved, but only as a temporary measure, and many of the details were left optional to the captains of companies. In the words of the Royal warrant, "If in any company the commanding officer and captain should choose to keep all the four sergeants, the four corporals, the nine bombardiers, and the eighteen gunners, he will of course have but twenty-two matrosses to retain, and must discharge the remainder, as each company is to consist only of sixty men, whether non-commissioned officers or privates (including three contingent men), besides the two drummers, so that a company wishing to preserve its present sergeants, corporals, bombardiers, and gunners, will be composed of as follows, viz.:—

"But a company choosing to discharge any of their present sergeants, corporals, bombardiers, or gunners, will have so many more matrosses to keep, and all future vacancies of sergeants, corporals, bombardiers, or gunners will be supplied by matrosses only, until the establishment is brought to

"It is further intended that fifteen men of each company should be artificers in the following proportion, viz.:—

"The captains are therefore to endeavour to preserve in each company as many men of those trades as will make up the number required; and should there be in any of the companies more of one trade than the complement, they will be set down as men to be transferred to some other company that may be in want of them. These fifteen artificers, with ten labourers from each company, are to be employed as such at Woolwich, and at the different outposts or garrisons where they may be stationed, and will receive the following extra pay, viz.:—

and the labourers at 9d., for so many days as they work, which will be four in each week, the other two days being reserved for their being trained as Artillerymen. The other twenty-five men per company are to do all the duty of the Regiment.

"Such men as are entitled to go to the Invalids are to receive the pension, and whom the officers may wish to have discharged will, of course, receive that provision.

"If any of the sergeants, corporals, bombardiers, or gunners, who from their services are not entitled to the Invalids or pension, should wish to be discharged, and can take care of themselves, they should be parted with in preference to matrosses, as the difference of their pay will be a saving to Government, and the establishment will approach so much the nearer to what it is intended to be. It is not, however, meant that men under this description, whom the officers may wish to keep should be discharged, but only such as they can spare without prejudice to their companies....

All honour to the Duke of Richmond! No Master-General ever penned a more considerate and kindly Warrant, and none ever more fully realized the speciality of the Artillery service. "Without prejudice to their companies:" here is the true Artillery unit officially recognized. No word of battalions: these were mere paper organizations, devoid of all tactical meaning. History in the end always preaches truth; and at the close of a seven years' season of very earnest war, the uppermost thought in the mind of his Grace—the Colonel ex officio of the Royal Artillery—was the welfare of the companies.

The pruning-knife had to be used, for the taxpayers of England were yet staggering and reeling under the burden of wide-spread and continuous hostilities; but it was to be used with all tenderness for the susceptibilities of the true Artillery unit, and of the captains through whom the needs of that unit found expression.

The reductions having been decided upon, the following was the first distribution of the Regiment after the Peace of Versailles:—

First Battalion.—Six companies were ordered to Gibraltar to relieve the five belonging to the Second Battalion, which had been stationed there during the Siege. Four companies went to the West Indies, and one was reduced.

Second Battalion.—The whole ten companies of this battalion were ordered to Woolwich.

Third Battalion.—The companies were directed to be stationed as follows: five at Woolwich; one at the Tower; two at Portsmouth; one at Plymouth; and one at Chatham.

Fourth Battalion.—Three companies of this battalion were stationed in Jamaica, four in Canada, two at Halifax, Nova Scotia, and one in Newfoundland.

Besides various small detachments in Great Britain, the Invalid Battalion had to find the Artillery part of the garrisons of Jersey, Guernsey, Newcastle, and Scotland. It will be observed that Ireland is not mentioned, that country being garrisoned by the Royal Irish Artillery, which still enjoyed a separate existence.

On a November night in 1783, a large gathering of Artillery officers took place at the 'Bull' Inn, on Shooter's Hill, to welcome Colonel Williams and the officers who had served during the Great Siege of Gibraltar, on their return to England. Among those present were officers who had served in the Regiment during the Seven Years' War, in the American War of Independence, in the East and West Indies, and in Minorca, besides those guests whose deeds had attracted such universal admiration. This convivial meeting seems a fit standpoint from which to look back on the years of the Regiment's life and growth between 1716 and 1783. From the two companies with which it commenced, it had now attained forty service, and ten invalid companies; and instead of pleading—as was done in its infancy—inability to find men for the foreign establishments, it was able now to furnish Artillery for Canada, Gibraltar, and the West Indies, to the extent of twenty companies, besides finding drafts for the service of the East India Company, one of which had left only a few nights before this gathering to welcome the Gibraltar heroes.

Already the motto—not to be given until 1832—had been earned; already Ubique represented the services of the corps; already Quo fas et gloria ducunt represented the aspirations of its members.

Much jealousy had been displayed by the other arms of the service; but it merely served to consolidate the scattered Regiment, and to awaken as decided a Regimental esprit, as existed in smaller and less distributed corps. The decisions on points of difference had almost invariably been in favour of the Royal Artillery: in 1756 the Artillery were directed to take the right of other troops on parade; and every argument as to the status of the officers was answered in their favour up to 1751, when all doubt on the subject was removed, and all discussion ceased, by the King instead of the Master-General signing their commissions.

On every occasion when the services of the corps were required, the zeal and ability of officers and men were readily acknowledged; and their conscientiousness in duty was as conspicuous as their knowledge of their profession. And with this sense of duty and professional skill, came that loveable feeling so well described in the words quoted in the introductory chapter of this volume. "It has ever been our pride, as a corps, to be regarded as one family; and if one member of it, in any remote part of the world, in any way distinguished himself, it was felt universally that he had reflected credit and honour on the whole corps." In this gathering among the woods on Shooter's Hill, on that November night, this Regimental feeling found expression.^[51]

Many of the readers of this volume are doubtless familiar with the beautiful interior of the new Garrison Church at Woolwich, the Walhalla of the Royal Artillery. Over the communion table, memorial windows have been placed by the officers of the Regiment, "To the glory of God, and in commemoration of the services of their Corps during the great wars with France and Russia." As autumn deepens into winter, and the twilight comes down during the evening service, many must have noticed how with the dying light all the figures in the painted windows sink away in shadow and darkness, with the exception of the centre figure, whose pale form—ghastly pale as Rubens' Dead Christ in Antwerp Cathedral—seems to start out from the darkness, and become more distinct as the others fade away.

Is the simile far-fetched—it certainly is not irreverent—to say that, as out of the gathering chancel-gloom He, the great emblem of affection and duty, seems to come and linger among his worshippers, so out of the twilight of the receding years there seems to stand amid all the dimness and uncertainty of details—the confusion of figures—the forgetfulness of even great facts, a grand eloquent figure of Duty, learnt in stern warfare, impressed in no idle peace, and loved in exact proportion as the heart became inspired by increasing esprit, and enlarged by unselfish pride?

Duty needs not love, nor encouragement, to make it noble; but a warm blush comes into the marble cheek, and a quickened pulse to the strong heart, when affection and duty go hand in hand, and the two great lessons of the God-man—love and obedience—blend unconsciously into one.

During the sixty-seven years of the Regiment's existence, at the date when this chapter concludes, this blending had gradually and surely been effected; the fierce and selfish spirit of the pre-regimental trains had disappeared, and an unselfish ambition had taken its place.

Who shall say that in the sympathy of numbers there is not a power incalculable? And who can say that in its highest sense this sympathy can be attained without either a common object, a common charge, or a common danger? If the Regimental system failed in all else in military life, it succeeds in answering these three requisites. A common object—the attainment of a glory which can be common and yet personal; a common charge—the great legacy of former glory, which a man would be a craven if he let the breath of scorn approach; and a common danger, which on service shall knit every man to his neighbour, and in after times shall bind them together again by sympathies and memory.

At times, indeed, the gloom may be great; the twilight may deepen with unnatural and unexpected rapidity; but even among beaten, and dying, and darkening figures, one must ever stand out in a Corps which has learnt true discipline—a figure which twilight cannot shroud, and which even disaster itself at times may illumine, which not even monotonous routine, nor seemingly valueless tasks can dim—the eternal and divine figure of Duty.