252 
THE BROME-WALTON FAMILY. 
an incredible quantity of baggage, provisions, and warlike stores. 1 2 
This day and the next were spent by the allies in rejoicings and rest. 
The Soldier’s Song, of 1729 3 —-which Handel, while President of onr 
Royal Academy, had set to music in his own characteristic grand style, 
as secular companion melody to his Te Deum, and which was sung by 
our gunners at Dettingen, Fontenoy, Culloden, and Waterloo, and by 
Wolfe on the night before Quebec'—is preserved alive, in affectionate 
remembrance, by the gunners of to-day with the same words, the same 
voice (baritone), and the same melody. General Wolfe's present locum 
tenens being the genial D.-A.-A.-G. of the Intelligence Department. 8 An 
account of it will be found on p. 268, Yol. I. of the interleaved edition 
of the two ponderous tomes of the “ Life of Nelson ” (by Rev. Steiner 
Clarke) in the Guildhall Library. 4 
A sad ending had this day, of 1st August, amidst the camp rejoic¬ 
ings, for poor Captain Joseph Brome : his chief in disfavour : his own 
prospects blighted : and his unfortunate brother to be sought for, ebbing 
out his life blood among the corn on that field of gore, whom he 
“ Buried, darkly, at dead of night, 
With his martial cloak around him.” 
Minden , like Waterloo, crushed the land power of France; and, 
although that brave nation contested every foot of ground and main¬ 
tained the struggle incessantly until the Peace of Paris in 1768 put 
an end to the Seven Years War, the records of the three succeeding 
campaigns will not supply another pitched battle. 
* * * * 
The task which lay before us, in introducing the hitherto unknown 
Brome - Walton family, R.A., upon the theatres of war—-that of “ cutting 
an artillery road through the tangled jungle of impersonal history" 5 — 
is now accomplished ; and in our next chapter we must conclude these 
Memoirs by summarising the remaining personal histories of the mem¬ 
bers of this distinguished family of gunners. The role of the Bromes was 
to bridge the gulf between the “Field Artillery of the Great Rebellion" 6 
and the “Achievements of (modern) Field Artillery," 7 to open the history 
of “ Bombs " or shell fire—the sea service of which has now been be¬ 
queathed by the Royal Artillery as a splendid heritage to the Royal 
Navy—and to illustrate the evolution of materiel, and the growth of 
that predominance of artillery fire in deciding the fortunes of war which 
1 “ Campaigns, 53 1769, p. 113. 
2 With the Brome-Walton family papers, presented by a great-grandson of General Joseph 
Brome. 
3 This song is being re-published by Chappel & Co., of New Bond Street, who have unhappily 
marred one line by misprinting “ d-n 55 for “ drown. 53 
4 On p. 143 is an excellent portrait of Brigadier-General Koehler, B.A., Sirdar of Egypt, 1801. 
5 Chap. II., “Proceedings 35 B.A.I., Vol. XX., No. 8, p. 413. 
6 By Lieut.-Col. H. W. L. Hime, E.A., “Proceedings 33 R.A.I., Vol. VI., No. 8. See also 
Col. Hime’s “Mobility of Field Artillery, Past and Present, 35 Vol. VI., No. 12. 
i By Major E. S. May, E.A., “ Proceedings 55 E.A.L, Vol. XIX., No. 10. et $e%. 
