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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
C.O.
Reference :-
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1 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
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deal of improvement might be effected. These corps should be of two kinds: those in which both men and officers are of British origin, and those of which the officers only, and sometimes not even the officers, are British. We have already several colonial corps of both de- scriptions. The West India and Malta Re- giments, the Cape and Ceylon Rifle Corps, and the Royal African Corps, are of the last kind; the Canadian Rifle Corps, the Newfound- land Veterans, and the St. Helena Regiment, of
the former. The employment of troops, of which the officers only are British, even to the extent to which it has already been practised, has been attended with the happiest effects. The West India Regiments have been found perfectly efficient for the purposes for which they are intended, and have been the means of late
of preventing a fearful sacrifice of the years, lives of British soldiers, by doing the duty of those stations which have proved most unhealthy to Europeans, but where black troops do not suffer. The Cape Mounted Rifle Corps and the Ceylon Rifles have also been found exceedingly economical, and at the same time much more efficient than any other troops for the parti- cular description of service for which they are required. I am strongly of opinion that the employment of a corps of this description to a greater extent than has hitherto been practised, is most desirable; but I conceive that it is still more important to form also colonial corps, of which the soldiers as well as the officers are British. In forming such corps the objects should be kept in view which were originally contemplated, but unfortunately lost sight of in forming the Canadian Rifle Corps. These objects were to make admission to such corps a reward to good soldiers of the line, and at the same time to make them the means of in- creasing in the colonies the population of Bri- tish origin, closely connected with the mother country by the ties of family and kindred. With this view it is proposed that the colonial should be recruited from the army of the corps
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line, giving the preference to men having at least one good-conduct stripe, which under the new warrant would be to men of five years' service. It is perfectly easy, without any in- crease of pay or expense, to render admission
to these colonial corps an object of great desire
to the soldiers of our army. All that is neces- sary for this purpose is to lodge them, not in re- gular barracks, but in villages, where each man should have his own cottage or hut, and, either attached to it or at a short distance, a small plot of ground for a garden. In the great majority of our colonies, where land is so easily to be had, and where the principal materials for building cottages quite good enough for the purpose are to be found upon the spot, it is proved by the experience of what has been done in Jamaica, that by the labour of the troops themselves, huts or cottages may be built quite sufficient for comfortable accommo- dation, at a first cost not greater than the average annual cost of repairs for ordinary barracks. To the married soldier (and married soldiers form a large proportion of our whole army) to be exempted from the discomfort (and worse than discomfort) of either having his wife and family in barracks or in lodgings generally
of the most wretched description, which he must pay for; to be no longer liable to all the distress of leaving them behind, or of carrying them with him with much inconvenience and suffering every time the regiment to which he belongs changes its quarters-and instead of this to be permanently fixed in a cottage, which, however humble, he would have to himself, and which he could improve by his labour; would render admission into such corps one of the greatest boons that could be offered. But these corps consisting, as I propose they should. of men of good conduct and of five years' ser- vice, might be reckoned upon as being in the highest degree efficient whenever their services should be called upon.
Of course also the
right would be retained, though it would not be exercised except in cases of necessity, of em-
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