14 MOORE m COMMAND OF SIST [MT. 30

scheme, could hardly be credited in the present times. They occasioned many serious riots, and they spread the taint of disaffection to the service." 1

When Moore first joined the 5ist in Minorca he had been exceptionally fortunate. General Murray had told him that he did not believe that there was such a corps of officers in the Army. "There is no such thing," Moore writes himself at that time, "as either drinking or gambling going on." Yet so completely in those days did a regiment depend, as Sir Charles Bunbury says, upon its Colonel, that, when Moore came into command, the battalion had gone to pieces under the man to whom he succeeded.

The following extract from a letter to his father will show with what he had to contend and how he dealt with it:—

COEK, Feb. ijth, 1792.

I have been obliged to punish soldiers twice, since I joined, very severely, for drunkenness upon duty. It is a crime I have often declared I never would pardon. About a week ago a lieutenant of the regiment was guilty of it; he went rioting about the town, and was absent from his guard all night. There may be some excuse for a poor soldier forgetting himself so far; there can be none for an officer. When it was reported to me, I had still fresh upon my mind the disagreeable recollection of a flogging which had been inflicted upon a corporal, for something very similar, two days before. I assembled the officers, related what I had heard, and sent the adjutant with a message to the lieutenant, who was confined to his room, and not present, immediately to dispose of his lieutenancy to the ensign the first for purchase; for if he hesitated, I should put Mm in arrest, and report Mm to the Commander-in-chief. He knew if I did so, he must be broke, and therefore chose to take the money. He was a blackguard, as you may

1 Bunbury, pp. vii.-xviii., xx.-xxi.