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case, if I entered the service of the Foreign Office, the Home Office, or that of a private firm.
6. This seems still more hard, when it is born in mind, that when in the end of 1880 (while serving under the Colonial Office) I was, for a time, compul- sorily retired as Captain and Brevet Major, I was then informed by the Military Secretary, that no objection would be made to my drawing my rotired pay of £218 15/-, in addition to the pay of my appointment in Cyprus, if I selected full-pay retirement, instead of half-pay.
7. There are, however, some special grounds which I desire to submit to the Secretary of State why, even if the general ruling of the Military Secretary should be correct, special consideration should be devoted to my case.
8. It was in my case quite accidental that I came to serve under the Colonial Office. In 1879, while home on sick leave from India (where I was a Brigade Major), I was asked by the Foreign Office (to whom I had, quite un- known to myself, been recommended by Lord Wolseley) to undertake to raise and discipline a Turkish battalion for service in Cyprus. I accepted this flatter- ing offer, on the sole condition that my service should be counted as military service, which was acceded to by the War Office. I carried out this duty; raised and disciplined the Regiment, which was afterwards amalgamated with the Military Police, and the command of the amalgamated force given to me. After about a year, Cyprus was handed from the Foreign to the Colonial Office, and I passed with it into Colonial Office service.
9. All this time, however, although serving under the Colonial Office, I was really performing military duty to the Empire. I drilled and disciplined, according to the English system, what was practically a Colonial Force. The Force under my command performed military duty during the whole time I commanded them. They furnished orderlies, guards, and escorts to the High Commissioner and Major-General Commanding the Troops, furnished guards for Commissariat and Ordinance stores, and during the hot weather relieved the British Troops of all their duties in the plains enabling them to be sent to the hills.
10. But not only did the Force under my command do Imperial duty, but they were actually paid from Imperial funds. During the the first two years I was in Cyprus, £26,000 were granted annually by Great Britain for the main- tenance of this force. This was afterwards, for financial reasons, changed to a general grant-in-aid to the Island; but I understand this grant-in-aid was chiefly given on account of the military services rendered to the Imperial Government by the Force under my command.