While walking along High Street on one occasion, attention was attracted to two medals exposed for sale in the window of a well-known silversmith of that day. To them was attached a short printed notice relating that they were the identical decorations presented to the two men most distinguished for gallantry in the battle of Waterloo. In default of heirs they had come to be among the contents of an old curiosity shop. They had respectively been bestowed upon Colonel Macdonell and Sergeant Graham, both of the Coldstream Guards, for their defence of Hougomont against the combined forces under Jerome Bonaparte, Foy, and Bachelu. On subsequent occasions, orders and decorations for the Mutiny campaign were, for lack of heirs, sold by public auction; a commentary on the passing value of such things, highly prized though they are by those on whom, for services rendered, they were conferred in the first instance.
In the spring of 1870 I experienced in person what in many other instances is a sequence of continued attacks of malarious illness, in that they seemed to culminate in one of great severity, even after nearly a year and a half of English climate. To the great care and skill of two army surgeons[273] I owe my recovery--indeed, my life.
Restoration to full activity was slow. Meantime, a duty devolved upon me the nature of which was unpleasant, as it seemed to me invidious. A scheme of Army retrenchment was to be enforced. In accordance therewith reductions in the numbers of men borne on their rolls were ordered to be carried out in regiments in our particular district as in others; the instructions under which officers concerned were obliged to act leaving to them little, if any, discretionary power.
The classes of men to be selected for discharge, and so make room for recruits to be enlisted under the short service system, comprised--(1) the sickly and weak; (2) those of bad character; (3) those who for reasons of their own were desirous of obtaining discharge. It was felt that, of the first, the greater number would be cast adrift, incapable of earning a livelihood, and so be thrown upon parish relief; that by the second, a number of incorrigible characters would be let loose on the public, to prey upon it either by begging or by crime, to be further a burthen to the taxpayer in respect to expenses of prosecution, and of maintenance in prison while undergoing punishment for crimes committed. The third class was composed of those who, having become trained soldiers, inured to discipline, were lost to the service when their individual value was at its greatest. Some of us felt strongly then that such numerical reductions as were deemed necessary, on account of public reasons, might have been carried out by the more gradual and less objectionable method of ceasing to recruit for a few weeks or months.