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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference

C.O.

885

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

Great Britain

Ireland

2

The Force at Home consists of

CAVALRY.

4,705 1,824

Total

6,529

INFANTRY.

Great Britain, including Foot Guards Ireland

Total

14,315

12,839

27,254

Thus making the whole establishment of the regular army abroad and at home amount, under the foregoing regulation, to--

CAVALRY.

Rank and file.

3,056 abroad

6,529 at home

9,585

49,034 abroad

INFANTRY. 27,264 at home

76,288

Total

85,873

exclusively of officers and non-commissioned officers.

To this must be added the colonial corps, viz.—

Two West India regiments

Ceylon rifle regiment

Cape corps

African corps

Maltese fencibles

Total

1,995

1,600

234

479

468

4,776

Each regiment of infantry of the line of ten companies is divided into two parts.* Six service companies for foreign duty.

Four depot companies for home duty, and to keep the service companies always effective.

From this arrangement it necessarily results, that while the service companies abroad may be considered as generally effective to their establishment, the strength of the depot companies at home must be continually varying, by reason of the detachments sent from time to time to complete the vacancies abroad, arising from casualties, discharges, and invalided men.

This remark it is essential to bear in mind, in determining upon what ought to be the effective force maintained within the United Kingdom; and in thus making a wide differ- ence between the effectives and establishment of a regiment at home, and the effectives and establishment of a depot at home.

Thus, while there are in Great Britain-

Five battalions of foot guards .

Ten battalions of infantry

3,232 6,590

all of which may be considered effective for home service, and preparing for their regular tour of duty abroad; there are also-

Twenty-six depots, whose united force amounts to Twenty-five India depots

4,393 100

and from which, for the reasons above stated, and from the number of recruits, so large a proportion as nearly one half must be deducted as non-effective for any duty.

* The manner in which this force is composed may be briefly stated as follows:-

The service companies of a regiment in Canada consist of The depot companies of

Rank and file.

600

139

Rank and file

739

Rank and file.

479

180

Rank and file

659

The service companies of a regiment in any other colony consist of The depot companies of

=

In Ireland the force is as follows:-

Twelve battalions infantry

Thirty depots

·

3

to all of which the same reasons will generally apply.

7,908

4,931

Having thus shown the total force at home and abroad, and the manner in which it is composed and distributed, the next consideration is, the extent of duty which this army is now called upon to perform.

The regiments employed in New South Wales and India it has not hitherto been found practicable to relieve under a period of twenty years, but the term of service in every other foreign possession has not generally exceeded the period of ten years, and it is to this point that the attention of the Government is more immediately directed.

It appears that exclusively of the twenty-five regiments of infantry in India, and New South Wales, there are now employed abroad, no less than nine regiments, who in the course of the year 1839, will have completed their usual period of ten years foreign scr- vice, and of these there are three who will then have served twelve, and one eleven years abroad, and all of which therefore have a claim, and ought in their due course to be relieved during the year 1839.

That the total impractability of effecting the whole, and indeed any part of this relief with any reasonable consideration to the regiments recently returned from abroad, may he clearly understood, it will be only necessary to state that the first regiment now at home, in its regular turn for foreign service disembarked in England in January 1836, after a period of ten years service in the West Indies, and that there are nine other regi- ments of the same year, every one of the other eleven battalions having disembarked in 1837, and subsequently, and therefore could not with any fairness be again sent abroad in time of peace upon another tour of foreign duty of at least ten, eleven, or as now shown of twelve years.

Unless therefore the regiments are as soon as reformed after their ten and twenty years foregn service, to be again sent abroad on another regular tour of foreign duty, and in time of peace thus kept in almost perpetual exile, it has been shown to demonstration

that the present establishment of the army is unequal to supply the demands made upon it. It is also indispensable that Her Majesty's Government should be fully informed of the severity with which the ordinary duties upon the home service press at this moment upon the troops.

In all the garrisons upon the sea coast, and at the principal dock yards, the usual assistance from the Royal Marines, at all times fluctuating and uncertain, has for some considerable time been greatly reduced, and the troops are now doing duty with barely two nights in bed, a duty which at any season is hard work, but in the winter may essen- tially affect their health.

Nor is this all, the most pressing applications have been made for re-inforcements in Australia and the Cape, and the manner in which the troops have been dispersed in the smallest detachments over the farms, and settlements, upon the Swan River has been clearly brought to the notiee of Her Majesty's Government as being essentially destruc- tive to their efficiency and discipline.

The force stationed in Ireland may be said to be an army of detachments in aid of the civil power, and with a disposable force greatly disproportioned to its numerical strength, and when the constant recurrence of demands for these detachments is consi- dered, with the extent and frequency of the marches made in consequence, the duty must be pronounced to be of a very harassing nature. And if agitation should continue and prevail, and the country become in consequence to be so generally disturbed as to compel the Government to require the Lieutenant-general commanding, to increase the detach- ments, or to form moveable corps to repress insurrection, or outrage, there cannot in such case he any question, but that the wants of the public service could not be supplied with- out a considerable augmentation to the present military establishment in that country.

No. 2.

Lord Glenelg to Lord Hill.

Downing-Street, December 4, 1838. My Lord,

I HAVE the honour to convey to you the Queen's commands, that those of Her Majesty's regiments of infantry of the line, which have not already been ordered to be com- pleted to their full establishment of 739 rank and file, be forthwith recruited to that

amount.

I have further to inform you, that the service companies of the regiments, ordered to proceed to North America, are, as soon as it may be practicable, to be raised to the same strength, of one hundred men a company, with the regiments already serving there. In the case of the regiments which will remain in Jamaica and the West Indies, the addition of eighty men is to be made to the service companies; but with respect to other regiments serving abroad, the increase is, until further orders, to be made to the depots, no drafts being sent to the service companies, except such as may be necessary to keep them up tụ their present establishment.

To the General Communding-in-Chief.

Lord Hill, K.G.C.B.

I have, &c.

(Signed)

GLENELG,