ARTILLERY SERVICE UNDER “JOHN COMPANY.” 
11 
a regiment of three battalions of five companies each, with, thirty com¬ 
panies of lascars attached. The rank of Captain-Lieutenant was re¬ 
stored, as a compensation, for the necessarily slower promotion, in a 
large, than in a small seniority regiment. The establishment of a 
company was fixed at 1 Captain, 1 Captain-Lieutenant, 2 Lieutenants, 
1 Lieut.-Fireworker, 4 Sergeants, 4 Corporals, 2 Drummers, 8 Gun¬ 
ners, and 56 Matrosses. Total 6 Officers, and 74 N.C.O.’s and men. 
On the 8th of June, 1796, a letter was received from the Court of 
Directors, announcing that in order to prevent officers of the Indian 
Army being superseded by junior officers of the same grade in the 
King’s service, the Secretary of State had recommended His Majesty 
to give every officer in the Indian Army a commission bearing the 
same date as that which he held from the Honourable East Indian 
Company. Up to this time every officer in the King’s service, took 
precedence of all the Company’s officers of the same rank. 
A proposal made by Lord Cornwallis to incorporate the Indian with 
the King’s Artillery was held by the officers of the former to be pre¬ 
judicial to their interests, and likely to augment the mutual dis¬ 
contents which had long existed between the two corps, 
jygy An establishment of 74 N.C.O.’s and men, was found to be 
quite inadequate, especially when a company had to pro¬ 
vide outlying detachments, so in 1797, 10 Matrosses were added to 
each company, the 1st European Regiment supplying drafts for this 
purpose. 
On the 13th March, Major-General P. Duff* arrived from England, 
andtook over the command of the regiment from Major-General Deare. 
He did not however hold it long, for the following month, he was ap¬ 
pointed to command the Presidency, and Colonel Hussy succeeded to 
the regiment. General Duff appears to have been a man of very 
powerful physique, and some wonderful anecdotes are told of his feats 
of strength. On one occasion it is said, he was attacked by a leopard, 
who sprung suddenly upon him, but seizing the animal by the throat, 
he never relinquished his grasp, until it was fairly powerless, and 
easily put an end to. On another occasion finding a sentry over the 
gun park asleep on his post, he lifted a 6-pr. gun weighing something 
over 4-cwt. off its carriage and carried it away with him under his 
arm, like a telescope, “ durbeen ke moaffik ” his orderly, an old native 
officer expressed it. 
General Duff finally returned home in December. 
1798 Lieut.-Colonel Hussy was promoted Major-General in 
September, 1798, and Lieut.-Colonel C. Green assumed 
command of the regiment. 
About this time the political horizon was everywhere clouded. The 
Afghans and the Mahrattas, to say nothing of the French and Tippoo, 
in Mysore, were almost openly hostile, and a further increase to the 
* Note by Secretary It.A.I. 
There is a very fine portrait of this officer over the fire-place in the South-West Anteroom, 
Woolwich Mess; Mr. Morris named it as that of £ Tiger ’ Duff, this being the nick-name given 
by the late General Sir George Brooke, Bengal Artillery. 
