Page:Viscount Hardinge and the Advance of the British Dominions into the Punjab.djvu/185

Rh distribution of public appointments of great importance. It shows how marked was the confidence which Lord Hardinge enjoyed, and it may be said to reflect credit on both the parties concerned.

One of the first acts of his Ordnance administration was to augment the field batteries of artillery. In his evidence before the Sebastopol Committee in May, 1855, he stated that on coming into office he had found only about forty or fifty guns fit for service in Great Britain, and those of the date of Waterloo. He at once proposed to Lord Derby's Government that 300 guns and 200 ammunition waggons should be immediately prepared. The Government assented, and the estimated sum was voted by the succeeding administration. This timely action enabled the Ordnance Department to supply seventy-eight field guns for the Crimea, which would not have been possible if the establishment had been maintained at the figure at which Lord Hardinge found it when he came into office. During the Crimean War the Ordnance was also required to send suddenly a number of heavy guns to Sebastopol. Three complete siege trains were despatched with their ammunition, proving that the department was equal to the emergency. When asked by the Committee whether the arrangements were good and the guns well manned on their arrival, he stated that according to the latest reports nothing could be more satisfactory than the state of the artillery, which presented a strong contrast to that of the French.