THE BROME-WALTON FAMILY. 
461 
should be obliged to you, sir, to favour'me with a line whether the iron mortars 
we are to receive are as long as the brass ones we have on board : if they are not, 
I shall thank you for your ideas on this subject, whether there would not be some 
danger arising from the firing of them at the low angle. The iron, 16" mortars, 
on Captain Shanks’s Bombs are about 9" shorter than the brass ones that we 
have, which strikes me as a great consideration, in firing at the low angle, by 
bringing the fire so much more into the body of the ship.” 
***■*".* 
CONCLUSION. 
Of the extensive and brilliant war services of Genl. Charles Mercator 
Brome-Walton (“Fontenoy” Walton, as he was called, from the cir¬ 
cumstance of his having been born on the battle-field of Fontenoy— 
for which see Chapter III.), and of General William Lovelace Walton — 
son and grandson of Lieut.-General Joseph Brome —we are not per¬ 
mitted to discourse in this Memoir of Royal Artillery history, as these 
worthies served in the Guards : suffice it to say that in all respects 
they emulated the deeds of their illustrious Artillery progenitors, and 
added lustre to the achievements of the Brome- Walton family. 
The writer has long pondered how he could in one sentence express 
the predominant characteristics of this distinguished but hitherto 
comparatively unknown family, whom he has been pleasurably con¬ 
strained to disentomb out of the long buried past and to <c make free 
from among the dead;” and in defining these as the union of brilliant 
abilities and performances of the individual members with uniform con¬ 
scientious performance of duty he is but applying to one Royal Artillery 
family the characteristics which all history attests have ever distin¬ 
guished the Regiment at large, so inimitably pourtrayed in the well- 
weighed and deliberate expressions of His Excellency, General Sir 
H. A. Smyth, K.C.M.G., in bidding farewell to the Royal Artillery in 
Malta - 
“ His Excellency, the Governor, assured his hearers that he left, with great 
regret, the Regiment he was proud of belonging to, not so much because of the 
brilliant abilities and performances of some of its members, or so much because 
of its old institutions, or its general good repute (though none of these attributes 
should be underestimated), but because of the high sense of, and devotion to, 
duty, which, during nearly 50 years’ service, he had always found to be a 
characteristic of its members as a whole. It is by this conscientious performance 
of duty that the honour of the Regiment in the field has been upheld, and the 
difficulties which the progress of inventions, and the constant and rapid changes 
of armament, must continually present to artillerymen, have in the past, and will 
in the future, be successfully overcome by the Royal Artillery.” 1 
#-.*** * 
The writer must not close these pages without placing on record his 
sense of the deep obligations he is under to the splendid Royal Artillery 
Library at Woolwich, to the vast stores of material available in the 
R.A. Institution, and to the assistance so generously accorded by the 
officers in charge—particularly to Major A. J. Abdy, R.A., the Institu¬ 
tion Secretary: and last, not least, to his private friend, John Watts, 
Esq., of Kent House, Deal, for the care and judgment with which he 
revised the proofs of the several chapters of these Historical Memoirs. 
1 “ Proceedings,” R.A. Institution, February 1894, p. 4 of Notes. 
