Note 238 — 1816-1818.

Generally the sub-lieutenants were commissioned into the corps from the ranks of other regiments, as a patronage to the military friends of the Master-General. Many of them had distinguished themselves in the field, were good drills, and fine-looking soldiers; but though considered at first to promise well, they disappointed the expectations formed of their probable usefulness. Wanting the necessary ability and weight, they were neither respected in the army nor by the corps; and unable, therefore, to give the satisfaction which was reasonably hoped for, the first reduction ordered after the peace, embraced thethe abolition of the rank.—Pasley’s Mil. Pol., pp. 18, 19, Introduction. Their removal from the corps was, nevertheless, alluded to in terms of “extreme regret” by Colonel Carmichael Smyth in his orders of the 22nd April. In concluding his address at parting, he thus wrote, “With the conduct of the whole of the sub-lieutenants Colonel Carmichael Smyth has had every reason to be satisfied, but more particularly with those who, having been longest under his command, he has had more occasion of knowing. If, in the course of future service, he should have any opportunity of being useful to them, he assures them he will embrace it with pleasure.”