4 
dinner, and in a few kind words proposed Major Boileau’s health, which was drunk 
and accompanied by the usual salute of one gun, tired by the junior R.A. subaltern 
present, Second Lieutenant Dwyer. 
On 19th September a shocking accident occurred, resulting in the deatli of Major 
J. C. M. de la Poer Beresford, R.E. The deceased officer was walking in the roof 
garden of the Halifax Hotel, when he ’lost his balance and fell over into Water 
Street, a height of 50 feet. Death was instantaneous. Much, sympathy was felt 
for Mrs. Beresford and his son, who were living in the Hotel at the time. Major 
Beresford was buried with full Military honours in Fort Massey Cemetery on 
21st September. The funeral was attended by the whole Garrison, a detachment 
of the Royal Navy, the Canadian Militia, and a number of representative civilians, 
and was witnessed by thousands of spectators. 
These notes are the last from Halifax that will be furnished by Major Boileau, 
R.A. Since the first institution of Corresponding Members he has regularly 
supplied a batch of interesting and amusing Regimental information, and the 
Committee would be much pleased if other Corresponding Members would fol¬ 
low his example. 
OBITUARY. 
The death, at a comparatively early age, of Major Coffey, will be read of by all who 
knew him with much regret, and as the commencement of his military career was 
somewhat remarkable, I do not think we should allow it to remain unrecorded. 
I only wish that it had fallen to some one better able than I am to give a fuller 
and more accurate account of what happened. 
Charles Edward Coffey, who was born in Dublin, 5th May, 1851, came of an Irish 
family, his father being a Queen’s Counsel, and joined the R.M. Academy on 2nd 
February, 1869. When approaching the end of his course at that institution, the 
all-absorbing topic of interest was the Franco-German War of 1870-71, and 
Coffey, suddenly fired by enthusiasm and imbued with a spirit of restlessness and 
recklessness, made up his mind to risk throwing up the career which he was so 
soon to have entered on and to depart for the seat of war with a view to getting- 
employment in the French army. He accordingly raised sufficient ready money 
on some of his property, bought a regulation sword, and thus equipped he 
left the R.M.A. in November, 1870, and made his way to France, having taken 
“ french leave ” of the authorities. He was struck off the books of the R.M. 
Academy, at the request of his father, on 31st December, 1870. His journey 
through France to Bordeaux, where Gambetta was carrying on the government of 
the country, was by no means an easy one, as he had to run the gauntlet or turn 
the flank of the German armies, but lie eventually reached Bordeaux safely in the 
winter of 1870, and obtained an audience of M. Gambetta by means of a letter of 
introduction which he had to a French officer. Coffey petitioned that he might be 
employed in the French army, and preferably in the Artillery, and on being asked 
what qualifications he had, he stated that he was a student of the English Artillery 
School at Woolwich. In telling me the story about two years afterwards, Coffey 
said he imagined that the French authorities must have believed him to be 
an officer of Artillery, who had been going through a course of gunnery, for they 
at once acceded to his request, and attached him as a volunteer to a Field Battery, 
having rigged him out with a kepi and a very limited kit. He found himself in 
the thick of it within a very short while; the battery he was attached to formed 
part of the Army of the Loire, under General Chanzy, and with it Coffey took part 
in the battle of Le Mans and in other minor actions until the conclusion of the 
