446 
THE " DICKSON MEMOIRS.” 
" His Royal Highness has dec:, the most convenient course 
"will be to entrust this collection.to the custody of the Committee of 
“ the Royal Artillery Institution, requesting them to use their best en¬ 
deavours to obtain the of an officer willing and qualified to 
“ edit them with a, view to publication ; and I am to request you will give 
" the necessary directions for the transfer of these papers from the (tern- 
" porary) charge of the Royal Artillery Record Office, Woolwich, to the 
" Institution accordingly. 0 
I have, etc., F. T. Lloyd, D.A.G. 
The General Officer 
Commanding the Troops, Woolwich. 
The Committee having, in August last, done me the honor of en¬ 
trusting to me the collating and editing of the “ Dickson Memoirs,” 
with the stipulation that the task be completed within two years, a 
brief general outline of the result of cursory examination of the nature 
and extent of the ground covered by the " Memoirs ” and of their role in 
relation to archives of artillery may be not without present interest. 
From the date of his being commissioned into the Royal Artillery 
(1794), from Cadet of t [ilitary Academy, until the year of 
his death (1840), Sir AL 1 had continued to compile 
Journals and to pres relating to all artillery affairs within 
his personal cognisance an ; and these may be grouped as 
series B and C — the former including service at Gibraltar, the last siege 
and capture of Minorca, expeditions to Egypt, Buenos Ayres, Monte 
Video, and events which led to his embarkation for the Peninsular in 
1809, when Wellesley (afterwards Duke of Wellington) was given 
command of the Army in the field after the disastrous expedition 
under Sir John Moore; and the B series to the Artillery of the Penin¬ 
sular Campaigns to 1814, the War in America (1814), the battle of 
Waterloo, and the closing incidents of the Army of Occupation in 
France, 1816. 
From 1816 to 1840 there was but one Artillery officer (Sir Alexander 
Dickson) whom the Duke of Wellington consulted —directly, or through 
the Military Secretary, Lord Fitzroy Somerset — on matters of Royal 
Artillery personnel or materiel ; and this circumstance gave occasion 
for Sir Alexander’s posting himself up in everything relating to Ar¬ 
tillery in the past as well as to everything Artillery in the then present 
—the former comprised in series A and the latter (to 1840) in series D.. 
These are supplemented by MSS. preserved by General Sir Colling- 
wood Dickson— grouped — from 1837 to 1856, and include 
services in the Carlist W< id i'r Fur key and the Crimea con¬ 
tinuously from 1840. to 1836. 
The A series will thus include the period to. 1794 from temp. Ed. I. 
(1294) and Ed. VI. (1547). . 
The B series will thus include the period to 1809-10. 
The C „ „ „ „ to 1818.. 
The D „ „ „ „ to 1840. 
TheE „ „ „ „ to 1837-1856. 
