temps nos ordonnances et nos loix sont gardées, mais après tout s'abastardit,) car c'est le vrai moyen d'avoir tousjours une bonne armée sur pied, comme faisoient les Romains, et de tenir son peuple aguerri : combien que je ne scai si cela est bon ou mauvais. La dispute n'en est pas petite, si aimerois-je mieux me fier aux miens, qu'aux estrangers.' But despite of the obvious advantage, which Montluc had the sound sense to appreciate, of forming a national in preference to employing a mercenary army, the times were unfavourable to the attempt; and France remained for almost another century, as we have seen, without any permanent body of good native infantry."

"But, during our Gascon's service, the greatest change in the organization of infantry seems to have consisted in diminishing the number of men in each band?"

"It should rather be said, in increasing the number of subdivisions of which each great mass of infantry was composed, as well as the gradations of command among their leaders. He thinks it worthy of mention, when, in the year 1523, the bands were formed of three hundred men each, that it was the first time they were reduced to that number. 'Car auparavant elles estoient touts de cinq cens, ou de mille hommes qui apportoit beaucoup de soulagement aux finances du Roi, parceque tant de Lieutenans, Enseignes, Sergens, et autres officiers emportent beaucoup de paye, que aussi le commandement d'un bon nombre d'hommes appellent les gentils-hommes de maison à ces charges. Lesquels à present les disdaignent, voyant tant de capitaineaux, ausquels on voit donner ces charges sans avoir jamais donné coup d'espée.' He does not seem to have perceived with his usual sagacity how much the efficiency of the troops must be improved by this augmentation in the proportion of officers: but when we find that, in their earlier organization, these bands of five hundred or a thousand men had each fewer officers than are allotted to a modern company of one hundred, the secret of their imperfect discipline, unwieldiness, and incontrollable disorder in action, is at once revealed to us. In the later legions of Francis I., an attempt was made to supply the previous paucity of officers: for Montluc selected for his colonel 'ses centeniers, cap-d'esscouades et enseignes,' for the cohort of a thousand men; and it is clear that these centurions, platoon-leaders, and ensigns answered precisely to the captains and subalterns of a modern company. However, the formation of the independent companies, each of two or three hundred men under its distinct standard, still continued some time longer in every European service; and the loose and often mere temporary union of several of these composed a regiment under a colonel. Every company having its own ensign, that word became the term for the body as well as the standard-bearer; and a regiment was said to be composed of so many ensigns. In like manner, as you know, the cornet or standard of the cavalry became at once the collective designation of the squadron, and the individual title of the officer who carried it.

"Originally the office of colonel scarcely implied more than a general superintendence of the various bands, and had more analogy with the rank of a general of brigade or division, than that of the immediate commander of a regiment. Thus Pietro Navarra was colonel of all the Basque infantry, some thousands strong, in the Neapolitan campaign;

!

as was Orazio Baglioni of the Italian Black Bands, horse and foot. And so likewise we find Montluc himself with the title of colonel of the infantry, commanding all the French troops of that arm at the leaguer of Thionville. In 1569, however, according to Davila, this office of supreme authority over the foot was enlarged into the title of colonelgeneral: for in that year he mentions Filippo Strozzi as having been declared by the French king colonello generale dell' infanteria.'

"I observe that, on the roll, which Grose has copied from one of the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum, of the little expeditionary army of our English who rendered the Spaniards such good service as auxiliaries at the battle of St. Quentin in 1557, there is enumerated a rate of pay for a 'captain-general of the foot-men: but no colonels are mentioned; nor does the infantry, which consisted of forty ensigns or companies, appear to have been at all formed into regiments. It is remarkable that both these companies, and the troops or cornets of horse, were each of a hundred men, and officered by a captain, a lieutenant, and a standard bearer. But the roll in question is very curious altogether as exhibiting a more complete organization and due proportion of troops of the different arms than was common in that age. There were five cornets of heavy and five of light cavalry, making one thousand horse; four thousand foot in the forty companies; eighteen hundred pioneers; and two hundred miners; besides the artillery train of about one hundred and fifty men."

"In France, however, before even the close of Montluc's service, there was a greater approach to a regular and permanent division of the infantry into REGIMENTS: which became a common term both in our language, and in the German and English. Thus the German infantry of the Emperor, before Landrecy in 1544, are described by Montluc as consisting of seven regiments, from each of which a thousand men were drafted for the Italian campaign; and the Swiss mercenaries began also to be regularly banded into regiments, each under a colonel of its own: by whose names, in our French civil wars, you will always find these corps enumerated. And the same may be said of the French foot, at least in the latter campaigns of the century. In the Spanish armies, the bands were still earlier brigaded into tercios: c'est,' says Montluc, ce que nous appellons regiment."" And which, our old translation of Bentivoglio, Englished by Henry, Earl of Monmouth,' and honoured with the laudatory muse of Davenant and Waller, renders indifferently by regiment and brigado." "The numerical force of the regiments varied at different periods and in different services. Of the earlier strength both of the cornets and ensigns of horse and foot, and of the collective regiments, some idea may be formed from Montluc's enumeration of the French army before the battle of Cerizolles. The Swiss infantry are there described as about five thousand strong, in two regiments, one of six, the other of seven ensigns: which would give about four hundred men to each company. The cornets of gens-d'armerie and light horse should have had each two hundred maitres. Two German regiments Montluc elsewhere rates at twelve ensigns each, and six thousand men in all. The famous ordinance of the Emperor Charles V. to which I before referred, fixed the strength of the bands or ensigns of infantry at four hundred, and that of cornets of horse at two hundred and forty men.

Under both Prince Maurice's and Parma's discipline, the latter were reduced to about one half that number. With regard to the foot, it may therefore on the whole be concluded that, in the middle of the century, the ensigns usually varied from two to four hundred men, and the regiments between as many thousands: though at one time the Gascon bands, in which Montluc served, were composed of no less than twenty-two ensigns, all under one colonel, De Tais, and must have consisted of some seven or eight thousand men.

"Towards the close of the century, as the organization of the infantry became more regular, there is apparent some tendency to diminish this unwieldy array, at least in the French armies: for we read frequently in Davila of regiments of about fifteen hundred men. On the strength of the Spanish tercios, or terzi, we have an interesting example in the minute enumeration which Strada has given us of the forces brought into the Low-Countries by Alva; whose small, but veteran and well-disciplined army, may be quoted as beyond all comparison the finest which that age had seen, and the most perfect example of array and composition which the state of the science could produce. It consisted of 8700 foot, and but 1200 horse; for the Duke cared not for multitude, which commonly is a hindrance to a march, but desired to have stout hearts and valiant hands rather than numerous muster-rolls; meaning to encrease them on better occasion in the Low-Countries, where he might safely add to his veteran army, as to a body strong in nerves and bone, as much young flesh, in the shape of new levies, as he willed. The foot, almost all Spanish, he divided into four terzi (legiones), as having been drafted from as many provinces, and gave the command to Spanish colonels, (tribuni) all of distinguished service. Alfonzo Ulloa led the terzo of Naples, consisting of nineteen ensigns and 3230 men; to Sancho Londognios was assigned the Milan terzo of ten ensigns and 2200 men; the terzo of Sicily, under as many ensigns, and mustering 1620 men, was commanded by Julian Romero; and that of Sardinia, composed in about equal numbers of natives of that isle, by Gonsalvo Bracamonte. The cavalry, consisting of Spaniards, Italians, and Albanians, was commanded in chief by Ferdinando di Toledo, natural son of Alva. The part of camp-master-general was filled by Chiappino Vitelli, Marquess of Cetona, a commander renowned for many victories, whom the King had borrowed for this expedition from the Duke of Florence: as he had also from the Duke of Savoy, Francesco Pacciotto da Urbino, Count of Montefabro, an engineer of admirable skill. The master of the artillery-train was Gabriel Serbelloni, Knight of Malta and Grand Prior of Hungary, an officer of high distinction and science.' We find elsewhere that the cavalry, though only 1200 strong, was composed of eleven cornets, nine Spanish and Italian, and two Albanian, and augmented on the march by four hundred Burgundian horse ;---and, on its entrance into the Low Countries,-the army were joined by three regiments of German foot, of which one, that of Count Alberic Lodronio, is specified to have consisted of twelve ensigns of 300 men each. Again, to take an example some years later, the nine thousand Spanish and Italian foot, which Parma recalled into the Netherlands in 1582, were divided into four terzi, two of each nation; and in the splendid army which the same consummate leader assembled in pre

paration for the invasion of England, in concert with the 'Invincible Armada,' there are enumerated three thousand cavalry, in twenty-two cornets or squadrons, and forty thousand foot divided into twenty-one terzi or regiments: of which, as it is specified by Strada, four were Spanish, three Italian, five German, seven Walloon, one Burgundian, and one Irish. Here then, we find the regiments averaging less than two thousand men; and as we are told that Parma had previously caused the ensigns to be recruited in Spain and Italy, to three hundred men each, there might be six or seven of such bands in each regiment. The squadrons of cavalry, you observe, were not one hundred and fifty troopers each.

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Altogether then, it may be concluded that, during the civil wars in France and the Netherlands, the infantry gradually acquired that distinct organization into regiments and companies, with a gradation of commands which it was left to later times to perfect; and that by diminishing the unwieldy establishments of the old bands, and subdividing the huge masses into which they were crowded in order of battle, some approach was made towards the attainment of that moveability-if I may coin a phrase-which was communicated to the infantry in the next age by the genius of Gustavus."

H. R.

A KEY FID FOR STRIKING TOPMASTS AND TOP-GALLANT MASTS; AND FOR ADJUSTING THE SHROUDS TO A PROPER DEGREE OF TENSION, WITHOUT SLACKING THE

LANIARDS.

SUGGESTED BY MR. WILLIAM M'PHERSON RICE, OF HIS MAJESTY'S

DOCKYARD AT CHATHAM.

A METHOD has long been practised in the merchant-navy for fidding topgallant-masts, by introducing two wedges one upon the other, in the square fid hole, from opposite sides of the masts, bringing the back of one wedge to coincide with the point of the other, in which position a forelock, or pin, is introduced laterally, to keep the wedges from working out. A plan has been described to the present projector by an officer in the East India Company's Service, in which a roller was introduced in the fid-hole, immediately over the centre of the upper wedge, to facilitate its motion in fidding, or striking masts. The expense and difficulty of fitting the roller, so as to be free to work, soon caused this plan to be abandoned. A wedgeupon-wedge fid was introduced for one of the topmasts of H. M. Ship Prince Regent, during the command of Sir Benjamin Hallowell, in the river Medway; a forelock, or pin, was used in this instance also, for securing the two wedges; but here nothing was aimed at beyond facilitating the operation of striking the masts, the laniards having generally required to be slackened, in order to get the wedges sufficiently entered to secure them, as in ordinary cases. Seeing these disadvantages, the projector submitted an improvement to the Honourable Navy Board, in December 1829. An immediate trial was ordered to be made of the proposed plan, on the main-topmast of H. M. Ship Druid; subsequently, the fore-topmast of the Ganges, 84, and the whole of the top-masts and top-gallant-masts of H. M. Sloop Gannet, have been similarly fidded. The Honourable Court of East India Directors have also been pleased to give this plan a trial on the top-gallant-masts of a 1300 ton ship.

The plan in question will be better understood by reference to the annexed diagrams.

Two iron wedges, or adjusting keys, are passed through the heel of the top-mast H, from opposite directions, side by side, bearing upon the tristle trees, as shown in Figs. 1 and 3. The fid-hole is cut to correspond to the alternate angles, and thickness of the keys, as indicated by Fig. 2, and sufficiently deep to allow the keys to be driven within a few inches of the mast, as I.-The keys are thus proportioned: the length to be one foot more than the spread of the tristle trees, and the angle, or taper of the wedge, invariably two inches to every foot of the length; the point to be two inches deep, well rounded, and the thickness varying according to the diameters of the respective masts, from two and a half inches for a first-rate's main-top-mast, to one inch for a sloop's top-gallant-mast. To avoid friction, the sides of the keys are slightly hollowed, as shown by Fig. 4. The mode of operation and advantages are as follow.

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In getting the top-mast an end," the key fids may be entered when the fid-hole is but two inches above the tristle trees; and being brought into simultaneous action by aid of a top-maul, will serve as a powerful auxiliary to the top-tackle purchase: thus, the top-mast may be raised, and the shrouds set up at pleasure, as their degree of tension may suggest, according to the state of the weather: when the mast is sufficiently high, it is secured by passing laniards (L) through eye-bolts A and B, in the sides of the keys and tristle trees, as denoted in the diagrams.

In using the common square fid, wedge upon wedge, or even the lever fid, the top-mast must always be brought to one certain height; and frequently in the attempt to fid, or unfid without slacking the laniards, the top-tackle purchase is much distressed, and sometimes carried away, occasioning much delay, if not serious accidents. When a top-mast has been struck with the laniards all fast, it is rarely possible to hoist it to the same height for fidding