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From The Royal Marines 1664 to the present.
Major Pitcairn makes note of the consequences of a lack of central administration, in a letter to Chatham’s Colonel Commandant:
‘A Marine enlisted in a particular company, remaining there until promoted or discharged. Companies were purely administrative units, ship’s detachments taking officers and men from the top of the list for sea duty, ensuring that only trained, rested and paid Marines went to sea. On return they went back to their own Division, to be paid and deloused, to remove the “Bugs and other Vermin” inseparable from shipboard life, reclothed, and brought up to scratch as soldiers. Marines thus avoided the trap into which seamen fell, of being constantly turned over from one ship to another, which may explain the willingness of recruits to volunteer for the Marines, but not the Navy.’
The Marine Corps was not as fashionable as the army, as noted by a Marine officer’s father in India: “I wish you had bought him a very good employ in the English Guards, though it had cost three times the money, for being in the Marines will oblige him to have a great deal at sea ports, where the associations are none of the best.”
In the 1740s, a Marine lieutenancy cost between £200 to £250, in comparison to a lieutenancy in a line regiment, which cost between £350 to £400. Many volunteers received free wartime commissions as well.
Purchase was replaced by patronage as a suitable means of obtaining a commission. On the whole, Marine officers were gentlemen, but there were exceptions. The butler of the retired Commissioner of the Chatham Dockyard was successful in securing a lieutenant’s commission for his son. Another, “of respectable connections, and of the best morals” advertised for a patron in The Times.
Promotion was dependent upon seniority and merit.
The inability of Marine officers to exchange into line regiments meant promotion past the rank of lieutenant colonel was all but impossible, which created “a dismal Prospect for a young Man who has Ambition, and perhaps Capacity, to distinguish himself in the Service of his King and Country.”
Having a family connection to the Corps soon became a primary way of obtaining a commission. There were several proven ‘Marine Families’: Adair, Collins, Elliot, Halliday, Oldfield, and Pitcairn.
The Marines were, until 1850, the only permanently established personnel in the Navy.
Notice rarely given to Marine detachments at sea, except in the form of defaulters or casualty returns. Private men largely unable to document their experiences and officers seldom had time to be particular. There were, however, exceptions.
A Lieutenant of Marines remarks upon the Battle of the Nile:
On the pursuit of a French corvette through the Malacca Straights, Lieutenant John Robyns writes:
Lieutenant Mortimer Timpson, with HMS Mermaid, 32, writes about an encounter with Loire, of forty guns:
John Howe, a Corporal of Marines, was in HM Sloop Serpent, 14, during a chase of a French ship in the West Indies:
On the tactical uses of Marine raiding parties:
Further, regarding the importance of flexibility and speed:
Due preparation before making any landing is vital. When paraded for inspection, “they must be told at the same Time, the Nature of the Service they are going upon.” Further, during the inspection, attention to be paid to ensure that:
On debarking from the boats:
On the Importance of offensive action: “One invariable Rule is, that in Skirmishes of this Nature, you are to attack the Enemy, and not wait to be attacked; for if you will not act upon the Offensive, you had better stayed on board.”
Instructions from a ship’s captain to a sergeant (off Anholt in 1809): “Whatever you do, in God’s name, no manoeuvring or soldier’s tricks... but short smart work of it. It must be a bold straightforward coup de main - all depends on that.”
Simplicity best for 18th century Marines: “who (though as Brave as any Men) cannot be expected to act in so regular a Manner as well-disciplined Soldiers on Shore.”
Lieutenant MacIntire’s advice regarding night attacks:
In a letter, Major Pitcairn expresses that he is wishing “most anxiously to Convince both the Army and Navy that we can do our duty with propriety both on board and ashore”. Further, in a complaint sent to the First Lord (regarding difficulties with Admiral Graves): “This distresses me greatly, as I have a great desire to convince everyone of the utility of keeping a large body of Marines, who are ever capable of acting either by sea or land as the public service may require.”
In the spring of 1775, the major ordered conditioning marches into the countryside. “The people swear at us sometimes, but that does us no harm.”
Trouble had with local rum:
Despite ordering these men flogged, Pitcairn notes: “I assure you it gives me such distress to be obliged to act in this manner, that I would rather live on bread and water, than have command of such people.” Further: “The rum is so cheap that it debauches both navy and army... Depend on it, my Lord, it will destroy more of us than the Yankies will.”
“The Army here will if they are ordered most willingly give the People here a severe Chastisement, they are heartely provocked at them.”
The colonists “laugh at the thought of little Great Britain sending out such small Numbers to oppose them, saying we are a Mouthful only for them, and calling the Soldiers Bloody-Backs.” (Captain William Souter, Marine Light Company.)
On the skirmish at Concord: “From this unhappy Accident the Americans have plunged themselves into the Horrors & Miseries of a Civil War.” (Captain William Souter.)
Further:
Post Lexington/Concord, in May, a further six hundred Marines were landed. Two full battalions were thus formed, each with a grenadier and a light company and eight battalion companies.
17 June 1775: General Gage sends eight battalions to Bunker/Breed’s Hill to dislodge rebels entrenched there. The flank companies from both Marine battalions were present, alongside all of the 1st Battalion Marines.
The Marines left coats and knapsacks behind during the attack(s). The hillside was difficult to ascend, with rails and hedges impeding progress.
Exchanges of fire made, until a bayonet attack ordered:
Major Pitcairn was mortally wounded. His son, Lieutenant Thomas Pitcairn, recovered him: “My father is killed - I have lost my father”. To which the Marines reply “We have all lost a father”.
The major's orders: “Push on or the 18th will get the honour of the day.” On the soldiers’ demurring, he adds: “Then break and let the Marines pass through you”.
This story somehow changed to involve the 88th, who were not present: ‘causing fights whenever a Marine met a Connaught Ranger and called out, “Lie down 88th, and let the Marines pass to the front.” ’
The Marines took 123 casualties. David Collins notes “they die so fast of their wounds that nobody as yet has got a true state of our loss”. No sympathy from him for Major Shorte, who succeeded to overall command of the Marines after the death of Major Pitcairn, and who in the battle’s aftermath suffered “not of any wound but of an absolute Penury and narrowness of Soul, which had brought on a Flux, he denied himself the Necessaries of Life and the company of his Brother officers only to gratify a stingy Method of thinking”.
There was great uncertainty at home, in each of the Divisions, “as no accounts received in private specify the names of the soldiers of the Corps, all the wives and families of the common men are therefore sighing and weeping, lest their husbands and fathers should be among the killed”.
For David Collins, it was “difficult to say how matters will turn out. The Rebels are throwing up immense strong redoubts all over the country, resolved only to act upon the defensive, while we are fortifying equally strong this little Peninsula”.
On claims in newspapers of victories, Captain Souter states “No such things have happened since the Battle of Bunker’s Hill except a little Marauding Party of two hundred Light Infantry, who were longing for Beef Stakes which relished the better in not having a Man hurt”.
There were also grumbles about food from David Collins:
Marines received half rations, consisting of dried fish, flour, and rice instead of salt beef and pork that was their norm (when at sea). There were also a few potatoes and vinegar to make “sour crout”.
About firewood, General Howe complains (in October 1775) about “The frequent depredations committed by the soldiers in pulling down the fences and houses”. He orders the Provost “to hang upon the instant the first man he should detect in the act”.
No records indicate Marines being caught in this offence, though a grenadier received eight hundred lashes for insolence and mutinous behaviour.
British withdraw from Boston in 1776. Marines provided security around the docks and ‘once back at sea followed their usual trade as surrogate seamen aboard short-handed transports’.
Colonel Arthur Collins sent from Plymouth to replace Major Pitcairn. He writes to the First Lord “that the Marines on this service have proved beyond a doubt that every soldier should be a marine.”
Major Souter took a dimmer view:
Halifax still a naval base, and one suggested by the king as ‘a suitable station for the Marine Battalions’. After withdrawing to Halifax, the bulk of the Marines remained there. Lord Howe took only the grenadiers when he departed for New York. (The grenadiers saw action at Long Island in August 1776 and were present at the taking of Philadelphia. They captured an American vessel on the Delaware River.)
Marines and soldiers in Halifax fared tolerably well, receiving soft bread and a half-gallon of spruce beer a day. Lower ranks also received a subscription “for the Encouragement and Relief of the troops employed on the most important service in North America”. The soldiers and their families also received shoes, stockings, warm caps, and five hundred pounds of “Donation tobacco” per each battalion.
Life in Halifax was otherwise boring and cold. David Collins’ mother sent green tea and cheese, to which her son moaned, “But my dear Mother, where are the Magazines and News-papers you tantalised me with. I would really give you back the Cheese for the thirteen Critical Reviews”.
The private men were permitted to undertake paid employment, “provided they do their own duty... and give up part of the whole of what they earn to the Captains to pay off their debts.”
For discipline, Colonel Collins favoured humiliation over flogging. Unsoldierlike Marines were confined to barracks with their coats turned inside-out. Regimental feeling was encouraged. On 17 June, the anniversary of Breed’s Hill, “where the Marines behaved in a brave and gallant manner at the attack of the rebel redoubt on the heights of Charlestown”, he issued a general pardon of defaulters.
Only one action took place, involving the Royal American Fencibles and the Marine light companies. A night march was made to surprise would-be revolutionaries:
Only one Marine was wounded. “And when the Doctor applied the bandage the ball fell out.” No tally taken of the enemy casualties, with “the thickness of the cover rendering it exceedingly difficult to find them.”
The Commanding Officer at Halifax, General Massey, recalled wood fighting during the Seven Years’ War:
Upon the entry of France to the war, the situation of the Marines changed, with Admiral Keppel considering it “absolutely necessary that the Marines serving as part of the army in North America should be directly sent home.”
This was viewed with regret by General Massey:
To be edited regularly.
Major Pitcairn makes note of the consequences of a lack of central administration, in a letter to Chatham’s Colonel Commandant:
It is the Devil to come out with Marines, for what with the ignorance of Admirals of our business, and the inattention of our Commanding Officers at Quarters I am exceedingly distress’d: Some of the Marines from the other Divisions are sent out in a most shameful manner, not a greatcoat from Plymouth, and some of them not a Coat to put on their Backs, all those things I conceal like murder here, nor do I intend to say anything about [it] to anybody but you, it would hurt the Corps.
‘A Marine enlisted in a particular company, remaining there until promoted or discharged. Companies were purely administrative units, ship’s detachments taking officers and men from the top of the list for sea duty, ensuring that only trained, rested and paid Marines went to sea. On return they went back to their own Division, to be paid and deloused, to remove the “Bugs and other Vermin” inseparable from shipboard life, reclothed, and brought up to scratch as soldiers. Marines thus avoided the trap into which seamen fell, of being constantly turned over from one ship to another, which may explain the willingness of recruits to volunteer for the Marines, but not the Navy.’
The Marine Corps was not as fashionable as the army, as noted by a Marine officer’s father in India: “I wish you had bought him a very good employ in the English Guards, though it had cost three times the money, for being in the Marines will oblige him to have a great deal at sea ports, where the associations are none of the best.”
In the 1740s, a Marine lieutenancy cost between £200 to £250, in comparison to a lieutenancy in a line regiment, which cost between £350 to £400. Many volunteers received free wartime commissions as well.
Purchase was replaced by patronage as a suitable means of obtaining a commission. On the whole, Marine officers were gentlemen, but there were exceptions. The butler of the retired Commissioner of the Chatham Dockyard was successful in securing a lieutenant’s commission for his son. Another, “of respectable connections, and of the best morals” advertised for a patron in The Times.
Promotion was dependent upon seniority and merit.
The inability of Marine officers to exchange into line regiments meant promotion past the rank of lieutenant colonel was all but impossible, which created “a dismal Prospect for a young Man who has Ambition, and perhaps Capacity, to distinguish himself in the Service of his King and Country.”
Having a family connection to the Corps soon became a primary way of obtaining a commission. There were several proven ‘Marine Families’: Adair, Collins, Elliot, Halliday, Oldfield, and Pitcairn.
The Marines were, until 1850, the only permanently established personnel in the Navy.
Notice rarely given to Marine detachments at sea, except in the form of defaulters or casualty returns. Private men largely unable to document their experiences and officers seldom had time to be particular. There were, however, exceptions.
A Lieutenant of Marines remarks upon the Battle of the Nile:
August 1st. Fought the French fleet at anchor off Alexandria, consisting of 13 sail of the line and several frigates; took 10 sail of the line and burnt one three-decker and one frigate and sunk one frigate. Capt Faddy of the Marines and six privates killed and seven wounded.
On the pursuit of a French corvette through the Malacca Straights, Lieutenant John Robyns writes:
we had an evident superiority and by eight o’clock was nearly within gun shot range, when a dead calm arrested our Progress, the Corvette taking advantage of this got 24 sweeps out, and rowed from us like a Long Boat.
Lieutenant Mortimer Timpson, with HMS Mermaid, 32, writes about an encounter with Loire, of forty guns:
Captain Newman, then, finding his ship dreadfully cut up in the action, and that he would be unable to board the French frigate, on account of the number of troops on board her, thought it prudent to put the Mermaid before the wind and crowd as much sail as possible on the Foremast. The Frenchman still stood after, but did not gain on us: finding he made no progress he brought his broadsides to bear on the Mermaid’s stern, but the shot went over us: he then stood away, and gave over the chase about Sunset.
John Howe, a Corporal of Marines, was in HM Sloop Serpent, 14, during a chase of a French ship in the West Indies:
made sail after her till Six oClock in the evening when she was Joind by a Line of Battle Ship who Proved to be French this turnd the Scale and we were oblige to Runn from them as fast as we had before Runn after one of them.
On the tactical uses of Marine raiding parties:
to dislodge a small Body of the Enemy, while a Sea Officer is burning some Vessels in a Creek or Harbour; to attack a small Fort on the Land- side, when a Ship is battering in from the Sea; to secure an advantageous Post, till some Troops, landed in another Place, can take Possession of it; to burn a Village, attack a Battery, nail up the Cannon, carry off some Prisoners, to gain Intelligence from the Enemy, support a body of Troops already landed. - Lieutenant John MacIntire
Further, regarding the importance of flexibility and speed:
by Reason of the Variety of Places and Positions, and the unforeseen Circumstances a Skirmish may produce. The whole depends on seeing favourable Opportunities, and knowing how to benefit by them in a Moment; for an Attack often succeeds, according to the Velocity with which it is made.
Due preparation before making any landing is vital. When paraded for inspection, “they must be told at the same Time, the Nature of the Service they are going upon.” Further, during the inspection, attention to be paid to ensure that:
the Flints good and well screwed in; the Bayonets fixed properly, and the Rammers well fitted; taking care that every Soldier carries with him a Screw-driver, a Worm, two good Flints, besides the one on his Piece; forty rounds of Ammunition, and a Day’s dry provisions, in Case of Accidents.
On debarking from the boats:
When the Boats are near the Shore, the men unsling at once, pull off the Lock Cover; and when they leap into the water, must hold their Firelocks high recovered, to preserve their Shot, keeping their Ammunition from the Wet.
On the Importance of offensive action: “One invariable Rule is, that in Skirmishes of this Nature, you are to attack the Enemy, and not wait to be attacked; for if you will not act upon the Offensive, you had better stayed on board.”
Instructions from a ship’s captain to a sergeant (off Anholt in 1809): “Whatever you do, in God’s name, no manoeuvring or soldier’s tricks... but short smart work of it. It must be a bold straightforward coup de main - all depends on that.”
Simplicity best for 18th century Marines: “who (though as Brave as any Men) cannot be expected to act in so regular a Manner as well-disciplined Soldiers on Shore.”
Lieutenant MacIntire’s advice regarding night attacks:
Without Silence and Resolution, nothing can be done in the Night. If you surprise the Enemy act with Vigour, Half the Battle is over; because they are only putting themselves in a Posture of Defence, when you are actually conquering.
In a letter, Major Pitcairn expresses that he is wishing “most anxiously to Convince both the Army and Navy that we can do our duty with propriety both on board and ashore”. Further, in a complaint sent to the First Lord (regarding difficulties with Admiral Graves): “This distresses me greatly, as I have a great desire to convince everyone of the utility of keeping a large body of Marines, who are ever capable of acting either by sea or land as the public service may require.”
In the spring of 1775, the major ordered conditioning marches into the countryside. “The people swear at us sometimes, but that does us no harm.”
Trouble had with local rum:
We have lost Seven by Death, kill’d by Drinking the Cursed Rum of this Country... I was never so plagued and distrest with such a set of profligate Scoundrels in all my life, the Plymouth people by much the worst, they sell the beds from under them to get this Cursed Rum.
Despite ordering these men flogged, Pitcairn notes: “I assure you it gives me such distress to be obliged to act in this manner, that I would rather live on bread and water, than have command of such people.” Further: “The rum is so cheap that it debauches both navy and army... Depend on it, my Lord, it will destroy more of us than the Yankies will.”
“The Army here will if they are ordered most willingly give the People here a severe Chastisement, they are heartely provocked at them.”
The colonists “laugh at the thought of little Great Britain sending out such small Numbers to oppose them, saying we are a Mouthful only for them, and calling the Soldiers Bloody-Backs.” (Captain William Souter, Marine Light Company.)
On the skirmish at Concord: “From this unhappy Accident the Americans have plunged themselves into the Horrors & Miseries of a Civil War.” (Captain William Souter.)
Further:
it not being possible for us to meet a Man otherwise than from behind a Bush, Stone hedge, or Tree who immediately gave his fire and off he went... On our leaving Concord we were immediately surrounded on every Quarter, and expected to be cut off every Moment, sometimes we took possession of one Hill sometimes of another; at last it was determined to push forward to Lexington, which we did thro’ a plaguey Fire, when we were joined by Lord Percy with the First Brigade [and the remaining Marines] with four pieces of Cannon, otherwise I do not believe one of us had got into Boston again.
Post Lexington/Concord, in May, a further six hundred Marines were landed. Two full battalions were thus formed, each with a grenadier and a light company and eight battalion companies.
17 June 1775: General Gage sends eight battalions to Bunker/Breed’s Hill to dislodge rebels entrenched there. The flank companies from both Marine battalions were present, alongside all of the 1st Battalion Marines.
Two companies of the 1st Battalion of Marines and part of the 47th Regiment were the first that mounted the breastwork; and you will not be displeased when I tell you that I was with those two companies, who drove their bayonets into all that opposed them. Nothing could be more shocking than the carnage that following the storming this work. We tumbled over the dead to get at the living, who were crowding out of the gorge of the redoubt, in order to form under the defences which they had prepared to cover their retreat. - Lieutenant J. Waller
The Marines left coats and knapsacks behind during the attack(s). The hillside was difficult to ascend, with rails and hedges impeding progress.
but when we came immediately under the work, we were checked by the severe fire of the enemy, but did not retreat an inch. We were now in confusion, after being broke several times in getting over the rails, etc. I did all I could to form the two companies on our right, which I at last effected, losing many of them while it was performing.
Exchanges of fire made, until a bayonet attack ordered:
I ran from right to left and stopped our men from firing, while this was doing, and when we had got into a tolerable order, we rushed on, leaped the ditch and climbed the parapet, under a most sore and heavy fire.
Major Pitcairn was mortally wounded. His son, Lieutenant Thomas Pitcairn, recovered him: “My father is killed - I have lost my father”. To which the Marines reply “We have all lost a father”.
The major's orders: “Push on or the 18th will get the honour of the day.” On the soldiers’ demurring, he adds: “Then break and let the Marines pass through you”.
This story somehow changed to involve the 88th, who were not present: ‘causing fights whenever a Marine met a Connaught Ranger and called out, “Lie down 88th, and let the Marines pass to the front.” ’
The Marines took 123 casualties. David Collins notes “they die so fast of their wounds that nobody as yet has got a true state of our loss”. No sympathy from him for Major Shorte, who succeeded to overall command of the Marines after the death of Major Pitcairn, and who in the battle’s aftermath suffered “not of any wound but of an absolute Penury and narrowness of Soul, which had brought on a Flux, he denied himself the Necessaries of Life and the company of his Brother officers only to gratify a stingy Method of thinking”.
There was great uncertainty at home, in each of the Divisions, “as no accounts received in private specify the names of the soldiers of the Corps, all the wives and families of the common men are therefore sighing and weeping, lest their husbands and fathers should be among the killed”.
For David Collins, it was “difficult to say how matters will turn out. The Rebels are throwing up immense strong redoubts all over the country, resolved only to act upon the defensive, while we are fortifying equally strong this little Peninsula”.
On claims in newspapers of victories, Captain Souter states “No such things have happened since the Battle of Bunker’s Hill except a little Marauding Party of two hundred Light Infantry, who were longing for Beef Stakes which relished the better in not having a Man hurt”.
There were also grumbles about food from David Collins:
The very thing that was my aversion in old England, is the only thing I can get to eat in New England. Pork, and to my comfort the fattest of all Pork. Vegetables we have none: I have not seen a Potato or Turnip since I have been here. The vileness of the Pork has bred the flux or as we call it the Yankey.. Very few have escaped... It has proved fatal to our wounded people.
Marines received half rations, consisting of dried fish, flour, and rice instead of salt beef and pork that was their norm (when at sea). There were also a few potatoes and vinegar to make “sour crout”.
About firewood, General Howe complains (in October 1775) about “The frequent depredations committed by the soldiers in pulling down the fences and houses”. He orders the Provost “to hang upon the instant the first man he should detect in the act”.
No records indicate Marines being caught in this offence, though a grenadier received eight hundred lashes for insolence and mutinous behaviour.
British withdraw from Boston in 1776. Marines provided security around the docks and ‘once back at sea followed their usual trade as surrogate seamen aboard short-handed transports’.
Colonel Arthur Collins sent from Plymouth to replace Major Pitcairn. He writes to the First Lord “that the Marines on this service have proved beyond a doubt that every soldier should be a marine.”
Major Souter took a dimmer view:
A pretty Situation for an English Army & Navy this - Twenty thousand souls on an Average, including the Friends of the Government taken on board from Boston, stuffed on board Ships with not room to stir. No Asylum on the Continent to receive us. No Provision to hold out till a Reinforcement arrives, nor Shipping to take us off.
Halifax still a naval base, and one suggested by the king as ‘a suitable station for the Marine Battalions’. After withdrawing to Halifax, the bulk of the Marines remained there. Lord Howe took only the grenadiers when he departed for New York. (The grenadiers saw action at Long Island in August 1776 and were present at the taking of Philadelphia. They captured an American vessel on the Delaware River.)
Marines and soldiers in Halifax fared tolerably well, receiving soft bread and a half-gallon of spruce beer a day. Lower ranks also received a subscription “for the Encouragement and Relief of the troops employed on the most important service in North America”. The soldiers and their families also received shoes, stockings, warm caps, and five hundred pounds of “Donation tobacco” per each battalion.
Life in Halifax was otherwise boring and cold. David Collins’ mother sent green tea and cheese, to which her son moaned, “But my dear Mother, where are the Magazines and News-papers you tantalised me with. I would really give you back the Cheese for the thirteen Critical Reviews”.
The private men were permitted to undertake paid employment, “provided they do their own duty... and give up part of the whole of what they earn to the Captains to pay off their debts.”
For discipline, Colonel Collins favoured humiliation over flogging. Unsoldierlike Marines were confined to barracks with their coats turned inside-out. Regimental feeling was encouraged. On 17 June, the anniversary of Breed’s Hill, “where the Marines behaved in a brave and gallant manner at the attack of the rebel redoubt on the heights of Charlestown”, he issued a general pardon of defaulters.
Only one action took place, involving the Royal American Fencibles and the Marine light companies. A night march was made to surprise would-be revolutionaries:
When there was sufficient daylight to enable us clearly to distinguish objects, we began to ascend the hill, in a short time the advanced guard heard the Indians talking in their wigwams, and finding we were wholly undiscovered, I detached Captain Branson’s company [Marines] to fall upon their right flank, and Captain Pitcairn’s [Marines] on their left, whilst I pressed forward in the centre with our detachment but as we reached the top of the hill I heard them beat to arms, on which the men gave a loud huzza and ran like lions.
Only one Marine was wounded. “And when the Doctor applied the bandage the ball fell out.” No tally taken of the enemy casualties, with “the thickness of the cover rendering it exceedingly difficult to find them.”
The Commanding Officer at Halifax, General Massey, recalled wood fighting during the Seven Years’ War:
if attacked by the enemy on the scout we had a good command “Down all Packs”, the pack was one blanket and so many days’ provisions dressed in it... It is therefore MGen Massey’s orders that the D.A.Qm.Gen. orders good provisions to be dressed this day for Lieut Bourne’s scout and that he fills their canteens with rum and that Lieut Needham give their scout two quarters of rice a man with a quart of treacle to improve their grog.
Upon the entry of France to the war, the situation of the Marines changed, with Admiral Keppel considering it “absolutely necessary that the Marines serving as part of the army in North America should be directly sent home.”
This was viewed with regret by General Massey:
The C-in-C cannot part with the Marine Corps without telling them he was pleased with their soldier like appearance at the review yesterday... he has had the honour to command that Corps for above two years without ever hearing of a Court Martial in it, or ever rebuking an officer or soldier. He will therefore make such a report of that respectable body of men as they merit; and now wishes officers and soldiers plenty of prize money, and makes not a doubt that they will always contribute to the glory of his Majesty King George’s army.
To be edited regularly.
