456 
MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS OF 
when you sink your platform, the earth should be thrown between the ditch 
and the enemy. The ditch should not be less than 7 or 8 feet deep, which 
will be y e means of preventing the enemy (should they make a sortie), from 
getting into your battery and spiking up your guns. 
“ Your magazine must be some distance to the right and left of your 
battery, and a line of communication to them, and not to have above 
6 rounds to each gun in each of them at a time. 
“ Before you unmask your battery, and begin to fire at the enemy, you 
should clear your platform, as also every unnecessary article in the rear of it, 
to a good distance—in short, no one thing should be left but the guns, car¬ 
riages and shot, as the enemy will, on discovering you, throw as many shells 
as possible they can into your battery, which will not only be destructive to 
every thing they fall on, but the pieces will wound and kill your men equal 
to shot; and for this reason the powder magazine must never be in the rear 
of your battery, as it would be in the range of the enemy's shells, and liable 
to be blown up every instant. Be sure that the limbers of your guns, and 
the triangle gin, are sent to a place of safety. 
“ When I had the honor of serving under his Highness Count le Lippe, at 
the siege of Munster (1759), he gave me orders not to carry any small arms 
on the battery; and at the same time, should the enemy make a sortie, I was 
in that case to retire with my men into a redoubt that was about 100 yards 
in the rear, and withall to the right of the battery that I commanded, and 
was manned with 100 infantry, for the purpose of driving the enemy 
out of the battery, should they enter, and attempt spiking the guns and 
destroying the works. His Highness did not allow any troops with small 
arms on the batteries; they were all posted in the lines to the right and left 
of all the gun and mortar batteries, and in the redoubts. I am thoroughly of 
opinion that no one artilleryman should, on real service, be incumbered with 
either carbine, musket, knapsack, or haversack. They are injurious to the 
artillery service; they destroy the power of the best and bravest men from 
acting in the manner they would otherwise do; they prevent the men from 
giving their assistance in bad roads to carriages, which they should do in going 
up hill, down hill, and in getting them out of sloughs and deep holes that 
are very frequent in bad roads. 
“ In all the service that I have seen, from the year 1743 to this day, it is 
inconceivable how ignorant all ranks and degrees of the army are, in regard 
to the proper method of preparing and providing for the attack and defence 
of places—particularly in the construction of works. As to the knowledge of 
the engineers, I shall not presume to give my opinion, except by saying that 
I could wish that their duty were entirely confined to forts and garrisons, 
and leave the duty of the field to the commanding officer of artillery, under 
whose direction all works for attack and defence should be carried on; and as 
such works would be for the safety of himself and the soldiery under him, 
they would be no doubt properly and well constructed. 
“ There is a battery constructed at Woolwich for practice (as I have been 
told), in order to show young officers and the gentlemen cadets the manner 
batteries should be made —somebody should inform them it is the manner in 
which they should not be made. I will undertake to affirm that such a 
battery would not be tenable against an enemy's works, if within 100 yards 
of the covert way; the enemy's small arms would not suffer you to load a 
