40 SWABEY DIARY. 
to run out, the most effectual method of smothering, perhaps, ever con- 
trived.t This observation is worth recording, as the hurry of people in 
their charitable endeavours is very often a bar to their reasoning on 
the best way of making them effectual. Sergeant Wightman,’ who 
was very active in getting ready and in lowering the boat, was so haunted 
by the scene that in the night, fancying himself still in it, he was seen 
pulling in his cot, and calling to everybody to pull. . . . . . 
4th August—This morning went on shore to Falmouth. I was 
much disappointed on nearer acquaintance. Its white, or rather brown, 
brick houses, and the fact of its being built on the side of the hill, had 
given it from the ships a too favourable appearance, for its streets are 
both narrow and dirty. I should say, however, that for poultry and all 
sea stock, particularly goats, it is the best and cheapest place I ever 
heard of. I walked up to Pendennis which commands a noble prospect 
of the sea, and opposite, the old castle and village of St. Mawes and 
the surrounding country. There appear to be few gentlemen’s seats in 
this part of Cornwall. Pendennis Castle is famous for its having suc- 
cessfully opposed Oliver Cromwell, for which service some of the 
neighbouring Cornish boroughs received their charters, and elective 
franchises. It appears, however, that the safety of the garrison was 
owing more to a singular accident than to their resolution, for, having 
dispaired of holding out longer, they were preparing to retreat to their 
boats on the sea side, and out of bravado flung over the walls two 
1Tt is a common and time-honoured practice among sailors to this day, to hang a half-drowned 
man up by his heels. —F.4.W. 
2Sergeant James Wightman was a very gallant soldier, and hada distinguished career. He 
entered the R.H.A. in 1797, went with ‘‘H’’ Troop to the Peninsula and was present at 
Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajos, Salamanca, (where he laid the gun which wounded Marshal Marmont 
just before the battle), and at Vitoria. In June, 1818, he was promoted Sergeant-Major to 
“FF”? Troop, and was present at Nivelle, Nive, St. Sebastian, as well as many minor affairs 
during the war. At St. Jean de Luz he was wounded in the left leg, and specially mentioned on 
the occasion by Major Webber Smith, R.H.A. He received the Peninsular medal and 7 clasps. 
Sergeant-Major Wightman, who was a disciplinarian, was with his troop at Waterloo, and lost 
his right arm by a cannon shot. It is related that on this occasion one of the men exclaimed, 
‘«* D—n that marksman,” for which language he was tried by a court-martial, but was forgiven, 
as he pleaded that he used it hastily in his sorrow at seeing the Sergeant-Major wounded. Wight- 
man, when taken to the rear, underwent amputation of his arm at the same time and place as 
Lord Anglesea his leg, who never afterwards forgot him. 
Though a one-armed man, he was eventually appointed Brigade-Sergeant-Major, R.H.A. 
Lieut.-Colonel Sir Augustus Frazer commanding, and who presented him with a sword, saying, 
“che preferred him to any other N.-C. officer.”” Wightman was both a good equestrian and swords- 
man, he was an excellent fencer, and at stick and basket few could beat him, and he assisted to 
bring out the new sword-exercise of that day, at which time, with other picked mounted men, he 
attended the riding establishment then at Pimlico, and also Angelo’s fencing-rooms in London. 
In 1821, he was mainly instrumental in getting up a gymnasium and small sword school in aroom 
over the stables, near the Riding-house at Woolwich. This may be said to have been the parent 
of the present gymnasium establishment in that Garrison. 
Wightman was appointed a Lieutenant of Invalid Artillery in 1825, and as Quarter-Master, 
R.A., accompanied the expedition to Portugal in 1827. He was appointed, in 1848, a Military 
Knight of Windsor, where the same year he died and was buried. 
He had a son who died as a Staff-Sergeant, R.H.A., and another who for many years served as 
an officer in the 11th Hussars. Jieutenant Wightman had also two grandsons, who served in the 
Crimean War—one, in the Scots Greys, died of cholera ; the other, in the 17» Lancers, was wounded 
and taken prisoner in the Light Cavalry charge at Balaclava, and who wrot in 1892, in the May 
number of the Nineteenth Century Magazine, a very graphic description of his experiences on that 
day. 
tt November, 1891, a picture (now inthe R.A. Institution), taken in 1821, of James Wightman 
when Brigade-Sergeant-Major, R.H.A., riding a horse that was at Waterloo, was presented to 
officers of the Royal Artillery by his son, Major J. T. Wightman, late 11‘ Hussars.—From Record 
of Service and family papers, 
