1710-1714

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1710 starts off with what looks like a polite reprimand from Chris Lister asking Mr. Hooper for a statement of the stores held at Portsmouth.

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Included in a letter of 21^st January 1710 is an order to prepare three ships for refit and request for an inventory of bomb vessels at Portsmouth, curiously a similar request was made in November of 1707. However, in this case they also specifically enquire about Cohorn Mortars, a lightweight mortar.

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Mr. Hooper must have submitted his account of mortars because on 28^th January, along with an instruction to prepare HMS Berwick (1697) and Leopard for refit, The Board agree to his suggestion to break up a rotten mortar bed.

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Another example of the difficulties transporting stores and communicating is given in the letter from Chris Lister on the 22^nd of February 1710 where he is inquiring about a shipment of stores that were sent to Guernsey, it appears that they arrived, but the storekeeper there has not properly communicated their arrival. one might expect the Tower to simply ask the receiving storekeeper to clarify his receipt, however, if writing to Guernsey the reply would not be received for some days, whereas there was a regular daily post to Portsmouth.

Near the end of this letter, Chris uses a contraction for ‘particulars’ by using the elaborate capital ‘P’ followed by ‘ticulars’.

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Several bills follow presenting a challenge in transcription. Mr. Maxwell’s bill for carriage repairs in the March quarter is really difficult to read, full of contracted words and untidily written. The figures do not add up correctly, so there must be mistakes in my transcription.

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Similarly Edward Silvester’s bill for new carriages is difficult to read, although Mr. Silvester’s figures for new carriages do add up.

Part of the problem is that these were written on fine paper which does not last as well as the heavy paper used by The Tower, being fine, it also allows the ink to show on the reverse side, with time this obscures the writing on both sides.

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Edward Silvester’s bill for new carriages during the March quarter 1710.

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When not pressured, Chris Lister had a truly beautiful hand as is demonstrated by a run of the mill request to prepare the Mary Galley for Channel Service on 1^st March 1710.

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Mr. Stanyford’s bill for carpentry has survived a lot better than the others and is more tidily put together. It is interesting to note that, even though these are all bills, the carpentry bills, while quoting weights for some items, are counted in pounds shillings and pence, whereas the smithies’ bills are counted in hundredweights, quarters and pounds.

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On 7^th March HMS Strombolo (1691), an 8 gun Fireship was ordered into Portsmouth to refit for a foreign voyage, yet 9 days later, on the 18^th, she is to be refitted for Channel Service. A change of heart by The Admiralty?

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Here we see the same HMS Strombolo is now to be refitted for Channel service.

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On 28^th March 1710 Christopher Musgrave wrote to Mr. Hooper in his own hand, more difficult to read than that of his clerk, to ask for his help in a personal matter concerning his cousin, called Dawnay. It would appear that he was supposed to join a ship, but has not done so.

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There is no information regarding HMS Monks Prize, yet the Proportion of Ordnance for on 30th March tells us that she was carrying 12 minions. These fired a small shot of 5 pounds (3 ½ inch), so we must assume that Monks Prize was a relatively small vessel. There are no other ordnance or stores mentioned, other than 150 falcon shot (2 ½ inch), so she probably also carried a few smaller guns.

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Mr Hooper writes to John Silvester in April 1710 with a list of small arms to be cleaned and repaired. John Hooper has initialled the note at each stage, presumably this is to indicate that he has checked that the work has been done.

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Also, on the 1st April Mr. Hooper is asked to prepare three ships for refit.

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Also on April 1^st Christopher Musgrave writes again, in his own hand, to Mr Hooper about his wayward cousin, Dawnay. This would have been one of the Dawnays from the west Riding of Yorkshire. He asks that Mr. Hooper supplies him with money for a fare to get himself to London. Mr. Musgrave is clearly most displeased with his relative.

It is unusual to get such an insight into the personal world of these people. I feel privileged to have been party to this.

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17th April 1710 a seemingly innocuous letter from The Board asks Mr. Hooper to supply ‘flock beds’ for the use of armourers going with Colonel Nicholson to New England. This was in preparation for an expedition to capture Port Royal in Nova Scotia on 2^nd October 1710.

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40 tons of junk (rope remnants) are to be delivered, and several ships have been sent stores. In the post script we see that HMS Valeur is to be prepared for a journey to Newfoundland.

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On 4^th May 1710 we see an excellent example of the use of a double ‘S’ in the word Issued, showing how the first ‘s’ is using upper and the second, lower case.

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John Harmood acknowledges receipt of over 1 ½ tons of lead in his note of 9^th May 1710. We are told that he received 30 pigs weighing 38 hundredweight, 1 quarter and 25 pounds, meaning that a pig weighed 6.8 pounds. The lead was for Calshot castle at the entrance of Southampton Water and for Sandham Fort on the south coast of the Isle Of Wight at Sandown.

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A bill of laden from 16^th May 1710, from Francis Masters, commander of the pinke (a ship with a narrow stern), named Two Brothers provides interesting reading. We have seen letters from The Board instructing Mr. Hooper to prepare ships for refit whereby they say: ”You will take out her guns and gunner’s stores and send up her remain as usual.” This bill of laden lists ‘the remain’ being sent up to Woolwich and Greenwich. Among the remain we see mentioned: Brass monkeys of 13” – 2.

What was a brass monkey? We have all heard the term ‘cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey’. There is speculation as to what this means in actual fact. A monkey is a frame used to hold cannon balls close together allowing them to be stacked, either in a square or triangular fashion and often piled into a pyramid. In a land fort, monkeys would have been made of iron, examples of these survive. If iron was used on a ship, the balls and the monkey would be subject to rust, brass however does not rust, so it is probable that brass monkeys were employed. It has been argued that to stack cannon balls on the deck of a ship in a monkey would risk them rolling out if the weather was rough and so balls were stored in galleries, a wooden plank with holes. This is true, so if a brass monkey was employed, it is likely that they would have been used temporarily, possibly with only one layer of balls being contained. As for the brass shrinking enough to release the balls, this is unlikely, but not impossible. There are also suggestions that the term ‘brass monkey’ didn’t appear until the 19^th century, this document debunks this idea.

Another possible explanation purported is that a brass monkey was a small cannon, however, a gun firing balls of 13-inch diameter would not be small, and it is unlikely that a gun of only 13 inches in length would be of much use on a ship, so this idea can also be dismissed. Besides: the ‘great guns’ were mostly named after birds of prey, not monkeys.

The bill of lading (here called as bill of laden) goes on to list the guns being carried and states their length, a detail not often mentioned.

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Josias Clarke’s tidy June quarter cooperage bill shows us the work he and his men have done in various places around Portsmouth and on several ships.

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Following Josiah Clarke’s cooperage bill we see an account of cooperage work in April May and June of 1710, seemingly an appendix to the previous bill.

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Similarly, Henry Stanyford’s June quarter carpentry bill is very detailed. It talks of work at The Saluting platform, this is still there jutting out into the sea close to the Royal Garrison Church.

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Two notes regarding powder for the Marquess of Montander’s regiment on 2^nd June 1710.

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A letter from The Board on 10^th June 1710 instructs Mr. Hooper to go to Cowes to assess the repairs required to the castle. He could probably make the return journey easily in one day.

The castle at Cowes, dating from 1539, was deteriorating, and in 1716 was partially rebuilt. It was later described as useless for defence. Later still it became the home of the Royal Yacht Squadron.

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A bill, presumably from John Silvester, for refurbishing small arms.

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On 11^th July a letter advises that HMS Humber (1693) is to be laid up and that the master gunner should report on his expense of munitions. This implies that careful records must have been kept of how much powder, shot, &c. were expended whether in practice, saluting or in battle.

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A letter from Chris Lister on the 13^th July 1710 refers to four ships to be expected in Portsmouth and that, should they arrive, he should restock these ships as quickly as possible.

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Chris Lister’s second letter of July 13^th questions the whereabouts of the 150 falcon shot that was aboard Monks Prize when the remain was sent up in March.  Mr. Hooper is to investigate and report back.

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The following day a note from ‘Christopher Myngs’, (a difficult to read signature), who was in Gosport on 14^th July 1710. It is written on fine paper yet appears to have been sealed. It asks Mr. Hooper to speed the resupplying the four ships. It is unclear who the writer was, he was not issuing orders as he signs ‘your humble servant’, yet he says that he has orders to dispatch these ships, so we must assume he holds Naval rank, possibly a commodore or an Admiral. He was almost certainly Christopher Myngs, commander HMS Namur in the battle of Malaga in 1704; was afterwards commissioner of the navy at Portsmouth and son of ‘Cromwell’s Pirate’ the notorious Sir Christopher Myngs (1625-1666). One must assume that an expedition was being arranged and that the four ships were to form a convoy.

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On 22^nd July 1710 a letter from Chris Lister demonstrates the trust placed in Mr. Hooper by The Board who advise him to draw money to pay labourers. It also mentions that HMS Colchester (1707) is to be restocked at Spithead. Not an easy procedure as Spithead is in open sea between Gosport and the Isle Of Wight.

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HMS Mary Galley & Southsea Castle to be refitted for Channel service.

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Curiously, very little information is available on HMS Towy, but the indent dated 9^th August 1710 tells us that she carried Demi Culverings (4” 8lb shot, lower deck), Sakers (3.65” 6lb shot main deck) and Minions (3.5” 5.2lb shot, upper deck). It does not tell us how many guns but it is fair to assume that she had three gun decks, so was a vessel of at least 64 guns.

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Two letters arrive on the 12^th August 1710, the first suggests that Mr. Hooper make use of paper available from Mr. Basket who has some in Portsmouth. Although specifying paper royal (cartridge paper) The Board ask that Mr. Hooper report on the weight of the paper, presumably to measure the quality. Mr. Basket was based in London, so must have also had premises in Portsmouth.

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The second letter is asking Mr. Hooper to bargain with John Owen over the price he is asking for salvaged guns. They offer him 30 shillings for the smaller guns, 40s for the larger ones and £3 each for the biggest.

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The letter of the 19^th of August is of particular interest as it bears the stamp of the PENY POST. The Penny Post was established in the 1600s to serve the city of London and surrounding areas with several deliveries a day, obviously by 1710 it had extended as far afield as Portsmouth.

The letter itself is to ask Mr. Hooper to make a close inspection of the guns on HMS Delight which are reportedly becoming ‘honeycombed’. This was a problem affecting iron guns whereby the chemicals in the gunpowder attacked the metal creating pits inside the barrel.

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John Golding’s bill of laden of 31^st August 1710 introduces to us several unfamiliar terms. Muscov lights were lanterns which used mica as the transparent medium, previously cow horn would have been used (lanthorns). Mica was superior as, unlike cow horn, it did not distort with the heat of the candle. We are told that they are transported in a ‘falt’. This was a measure used for wheat and contained 9 bushels (72 gallons), yet in this case was probably a container which held one falt. We also see the symbol indicating ‘cable’, 10 fathoms or 600 feet, used for measuring rope or cables. The symbol represents the letters ‘Cb’.

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There follows the usual list of small arms repairs for Mr. John Silvester, a bill for cooperage from Mr. Clarke and a bricklayer’s bill from Mr. Thomas Freeman who gives a neatly written and very precise, to the last farthing, account of materials expended, and work done. Sadly, the paper is in poor condition which obscures some of the writing making it difficult to read.

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This bill for bricklaying from Mr. freeman was somewhat damaged, but a little arithmetic helped me to determine the original figures.

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On 25^th September 1710 The Board order the arming of HMS Swallow Prize (1704) with 32 guns, we are treated to a detailed list of the guns that a 32 gun ship held, in this case 22, 6 pounders of different lengths and 10 Minions of 6 feet.

We can also see that the Royal Ann Galley (1709) of 42 Guns carried 20, 9 foot, Demi Culverings and 20 7 ½ foot 6 pounders. Incidentally, Royal Ann Galley was the last British warship to carry oars. Interestingly, we see ‘as soon’ written as one word: ‘aSsoon’, we can see that it is as one word because the first ‘S’ is written in upper case.

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It would be easy to dismiss the bill for cooperage of 30^th September 1710 as uninteresting until one notices the spelling of ‘been truly performed’ spelt: ‘ben trewley pe formed’. It says that the work was done at ‘Key Gayt’. This was Quay Gate, also known as King George’s Gate, which stood by the Town Quay, today, the fish market.

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It does seem that there was a recurring problem with supplying the army. In a previous letter Mr. Hooper was advised to insist that the army apply for stores through The Board. In their letter of 30^th September 1710, they point out that Lord Kerr and Livesay’s Regiment have been issued a double ration of powder.

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On 7^th October comes a request from the army that has followed procedure and come via The Board. Lord Dartmouth (William Legge) an interesting character. It is asking for powder to be supplied to the forts on the Isle of Wight.

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10^th October sees more confusion regarding the supply of powder to the army and regarding Mr. Basket and paper royal supplies.

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The first of several instructions to issue ‘The Flag of Beauport’. Beauport is a borough of Quebec City, Quebec, Canada on the Saint Lawrence River, established in 1634. However, this flag is so called after the type of cloth with which it is made. The Oxford English Dictionary says: it is referring to Beaupreau, a town of France with manufactures of linen. The flag itself would have been the Union Flag of Great Britain.

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A somewhat confusing letter follows on 26^th October 1710 as the body of the letter is regarding a storeship bound for Gibraltar while the postscript asks Mr. Hooper to send axletrees for demi culverings.

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November 2^nd, 1710, an indent for the brigantine HMS Dispatch lists the stores she has remaining and those that are issued. Interesting to note is the supply of ‘barras’, measured in ‘ells’. Barras was a coarse linen fabric, an ell was one cubit, the length from one’s elbow to outstretched fingertips. Ell was an old word for arm, so elbow is where the arm bows or bends. Barras would have been used for caulking, or to make wadding for the guns. In this indent we also see tarred rope measured in fathoms (6 feet), port tackle (ropes for opening gun ports) measured in cables (600 feet) and junk (scrap rope) measured by the hundredweight. Wikipedia shows her as a 2 gun vessel launched in 1691 and sold in 1712. We know from this indent that she was a relatively small vessel carrying 4, 3 pounder guns.

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The letter of 7^th November regarding HMS York from Chris Lister is rather long winded. It would appear that, as usual, there is a rush for HMS York to be on her way to the Mediterranean, so, if necessary, Mr. Hooper is to restock her from his stores in advance of receipt of fresh supplies from Woolwich.

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On the 18^th November Mr. Hoper is asked to advise upon repairs ‘absolutely necessary’ in the coming year.

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Another Flag of Beauport to be issued, this time for Hurst Castle.

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The letter from The Tower on 28^th November, a run of the mill request to prepare HMS Rose and Monks Prize for refit, is rather exciting as is still bears the seal of the Office of the Ordnance. All of the letters from The Tower would have been sealed, but the wax would usually have been removed and melted down for reuse.

We can see from the scan that the letter was written on one side of the paper and the address on the reverse. This was then folded in two places horizontally, then the ends of the paper folded inward vertically overlapping slightly, before the seal was applied. The precis was then written after the seal had been broken, and the letter opened.

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We finish 1710 with a cooper’s bill from Josias Clarke.

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1711 starts with an instruction to supply small arms to HMS Portmohon (1711).

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On 22^nd February 1711 The Board ask Mr. Hooper to supply corn powder and musket shot for the Marquis de Montandre, also known as Francis de La Rochefoucauld. It is beautifully written and demonstrates that a double ‘s’ was written ‘Ss’, we see this in the first sentence: “To be forthwith ISsued…”. Something that often catches people out when trying to transcribe documents from this period.

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One would assume that Thomas Ellys, boatswain to Portsmouth Dockyard would, as his primary duty, be responsible for rope and rigging for the visiting vessels, but it would appear that he also had a hand in the protection of the yard as on February 29^th, 1711, he was in receipt of powder for “Use of the watch and small armes.” Under order of commissioner Isaac Townsend who had a long and notable career in the navy. He is buried in Winchester Cathedral where there is an elaborate memorial to him.

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We can imagine a scene of the gun wharf where the guns would be laid out in neat rows on baulks of timber while the ships to which they belonged were undergoing refit. The order of 28^th June 1711 lists the new timbers, supplied by Henry Stanyford, ‘for laying the guns on.’ The list is endorsed by Thomas Bowerbank.

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A receipt for sheet lead on 11^th February 1712 says that the lead had been stolen from the Hospital Barracks. On a map dating 1850, there are two barracks shown: Colewort barracks was where Armoury Lane is now (on the site of the old Portsmouth power station), and Cambridge Barracks was where the Portsmouth Grammar School now stands.

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Unfortunately, Mr. Maxwell’s bill for March quarter 1712 iron works is so faded as to make it almost unintelligible.

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A bill of laden from Nicholas Fellows, master of the Elizabeth and Mary hoy in August 1712 lists among the stores a Flag of Beauport for Cornett Castle in Guernsey.

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Next: letter from The Tower to Peter Coward regarding the load mentioned in Mr. Fellows’ bill of laden.

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David Patten’s bill for repairing the pinnace was certified in September 1710, yet covers work done for a period beginning in 1705. To confuse matters further, there is a postscript, mostly unreadable, dated 9^th October 1712. He may well have been a good carpenter, but his writing is most difficult to read. Another example of phonetic spelling; its about the sound of the words, not the spelling.

The last section of this I found impossible to transcribe, yet Philip Eley rose to the challenge and made a really good job of it.

Also, on the 9^th of October 1712 an order to supply Cowes Castle.

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A beautifully scripted list of gunner’s stores and a flag of Beauport to be issued to Cowes Castle.

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1^st November 1712 Thomas Coles, master of the Charles hoy, lists the salvage from the wreck of HMS Dragon (1647) that was wrecked, with no loss of life recorded, on the Casquets, a group of rocks to the northeast of Guernsey in the Channel Islands. The note is somewhat damaged, and very difficult to read, but still gives us a good insight into just how much was salvaged from the wreck. Although daunting at first sight, the whole letter is a joy to read.

Some of the abbreviations and contractions are challenging, for example: ‘uns’ for unusable, ‘rePble’ for repairable, ‘serble’ for serviceable.

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A seemingly incomplete yet highly detailed cooperage bill follows. We have no date other than 1713.

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A note from the master gunner of HMS Canterbury dated 20^th January 1713 asking for two barrels of powder contains an unusual contraction for ‘PP’ (per procurationem – Latin for per proxy) to indicate that it has been signed by someone on his behalf. It looks like two ‘L’s with a bar above them.

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On 9^th February 1713 there was a demand for paper, powder and junk for HMY Soesdyke (1702), endorsed by Sir Isaac Townsend. However, a record of Soesdyke states that she was paid off in 1708. We can only assume that she was returned to service, or replaced by another vessel of the same name that is not recorded.

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Always fascinating, a proportion of Ordnance for HMS Dreadnaught (1691) lists 44 guns being supplied: Culverings, Demi-Culverings and Sakers, yet at the time she was a 60-gun 4^th rate ship. She is also issued 2000 round shot for Falconets (2” shot, 3’9” long), and with 60 Ells of Barras (a coarse linen fabric, used as wadding or for caulking.), and 9 reams of Paper Royal which they would have mostly used for making cartridges for the guns. Unfortunately, one page has been badly torn. There is no address, but the precis is in a particularly pretty hand.

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10^th April 1713 a new flag of Beauport, with halliards, for Calshot Castle.

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In June and July of 1713, we see that work is in progress at Fort Blockhouse, Thomas Bowerbank, under instruction from Major Hanway, probably of the Royal Engineers, requests lead, tallow and rosin. The lead he receives is in pigs and old aprons. Aprons of lead were used on the great guns to cover the touch hole area when not in use. Being soft, they could be wrapped around the gun to give a seal. Pigs of lead were so named as they were cast directly into sand. A central trough would be formed in the sand with feeders running from it to the impressions for the ingots. Molten lead was poured into the central trough and would run down the feeders to fill the ingot moulds. Once full it would look a little like piglets suckling the mother. The resulting ingots could be broken off and were known as pigs.

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A note from Thomas Bowerbank who worked with Talbot Edwards, engineer, and Major Hanway on the fortifications of Gosport and Portsmouth.

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Joseph Ambler’s bill of laden of 14^th August 1713 contains an eclectic list of stores to be transported including ‘Budge Barrels’. These were used by the powder monkeys to deliver fine powder to the guns from the magazine. They were small barrels with no top, instead they had a rope handle and a canvas or leather cover, drawn together with strings as with a purse, to prevent sparks entering.

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Brigadeer Borr’s regiment returned small arms to the stores on 23^rd September 1713.

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Although a hoy was a single masted vessel, the account of Sir John Miller’s hoys for October to December 1713 shows us that there were differing types of hoy employed two and four oared open boats, open and closed sailing vessels. We even get to see the days of demorage (delay incurred while being loaded).

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A demand for gunners stores to discharge the watch in Portsmouth Harbour, perhaps this is why only stores for 6 pounders (sakers) are requested even though HMS Yarmouth 1695 also had 12 and 24 pounders.

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Another neatly written list of stores for one of the forts, in this case Hurst Castle. This includes ‘melting ladles’ which would have been for melting metal as opposed to ladles for guns, the latter being used to remove powder and shot from loaded guns.

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Some pilfering was underway in November 1713 when James Rolfe and Samuel Palmer were caught stealing and selling the ‘decayed stores’. This was a lucrative business for dockyard employees for many years. It was easy for a small boat to tow baulks of timber across the harbour to Gosport where it could be disposed of. Some of this trade was perfectly legal, traders had a contract with the Dockyard to collect and sell second hand timber. Ring bolts can still be found on the foreshore at Hardway in Gosport where hulks could be winched up onto the beach to be dismantled, the timber being recycled for building work. The foreshore is still littered with ancient nails and other discarded fittings. Until the late 1970s there was a timber yard, adjacent to the slipway, selling offcuts and recovered timber.

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A bill of laden listing stores transported by Henry Brown, wagoner. Presumably this was from The Tower to Portsmouth and included flags of Beauport.

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A very brief demand for powder from the master gunner of HMS Canterbury.

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A challenging cooperage bill, badly faded.

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16^th March 1714 a proportion of ordnance for HMS Tyger (1647), a 38-gun frigate with an interesting history. She was in service for almost 100 years, wrecked in 1742, her crew were stranded in the Florida Keys and eventually escaped in small boats to Jamaica losing only 5 crewmembers.

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12^th April 1714 a note on fine paper from Jonathan Baylis, possibly master gunner of HMS Norfolk (1693), lists stores received, but gives us a clue that stores were short. He says that ‘but 30’ cases of wood were delivered adding that ‘no more in the store house’. It also says that 9 cwt of breechings were supplied in lieu of junk. Breechings were the large ropes used to haul a gun to the gun port, these could be unlaid to make wadding for loading the guns.

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25^th May and again on the 20^th of June 1714, two related documents regarding the hoy Unity, Anthony Swift, master. They list stores for use aboard the vessel.

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A cooperage bill from Mr Josias Clarke.

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On 12^th June an unsigned receipt from Sir Charles Milne Rees, for 3 months’ supply of powder and shott for the guards stationed at Portsmouth,

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On June 16^th, 1714, a note from Thomas Bowerbank, who was based at Fort Blockhouse, asks for tallow, presumably to re-caulk their six oar boat.

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A bill of laden from Mr Swift, master of HM Hoy Unity.

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Usually, we see Mr. Hooper’s instructions to John Silvester repair small arms, but in September 1714 we see Mr. Silvester’s bill for repairs for the period from July to September.

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1^st August 1714, was a bad day: Queen Anne died and Mr John Jones writes a sad letter to Mr. Hooper with bad news about Mr. Moses Baxter who appears to be in very poor health. We have no other information about who Moses Baxter was, but he was clearly well known to Mr. Hooper. Strangely, the date of the letter and of the precis appear to disagree.

This is the first time we see the monarch referred to as ‘His Majesty’.

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The letter from The Board on 17^th August 1714 regarding ship carriages for Jersey has additional notes, presumably added by the storekeepers at Portsmouth. They are difficult to read and contain an unfamiliar contraction ‘yber’ is used to represent the month, one must assume that this is September.

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From the account of smiths work for the September quarter 1714 we learn that there are two Archibald Maxwells, senior and junior, both are blacksmiths working with Edward Silvester. We can also assume that William Ogbourne is a carpenter as it is he who has made new carriages.

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Another cooperage bill from Josias Clark.

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Written on fine paper, probably by John Hooper himself, this is a request to Mr. Silvester to ‘Probably written by John Hooper himself, this is a request to Mr. Silvester to ‘make clean and repair’ small arms.

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On 2^nd September we are introduced to Captain Talbot Edwards who was a Royal Engineer, later to be appointed Chief Engineer of Great Britain. It would appear that at this time he was based at Fort Blockhouse in Gosport at the entrance of Portsmouth Harbour. His note is very brief and demands beds and quoins. These were parts of a gun carriage used for elevating the gun.

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Two receipts dated 14^th September 1714 for muskets, halberds, pikes, drums and cartouche boxes is for the Regiment of Invalids. These were veterans of the British army who were employed for garrison work and occasionally as Royal Marines. They were formed in 1688 and were active until 1802 when they were absorbed into the regular army. Their legacy is the uniform worn by Chelsea Pensioners.

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A more polite note from Talbot Edwards arrived on 20^th September requesting 180 feet of rope and a flag of Beauport. This time he signs off ‘your humble servant’.

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The letter from Mr. John Jones of The Tower on 5^th October 1715 is in three parts and somewhat difficult to read. It looks as though Mr. Hooper is to be stopped one day’s pay over the course of a year from his salary leaving him £28/4/4d. A brief comment states that “Our master continues to decay.”, this is Mr. Baxter referred to by Mr. Jones in September.

The letter also holds an expense account for Mr. Hooper and, written at 90 degrees to the rest of the letter a reply from Mr. Hooper to John Jones, the writing is crammed, and some words defy transcription.

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