100 NOTES AND QUERIES.
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Replies.
NEW SOUTH WALES CORPS.
(clxviid. 245, 286, 340).
'PHI'S corps was formed in 1789 especi-
•*• ally for garrison work at Sydney,
N.S.W., and first appears in the Army List
of 1790. Its strength was at first deter-
mined to be one major commandant, and
thirteen commissioned officers, a chaplain, a
surgeon, a surgeon's mate, twenty-four non-
commissioned officers, eight drummers and
268 privates, but the full strength was not
reached until 1791. Additional companies
were added to the strength of the corp6 from
time to time, the first of these being raised
in 1791 from among the marines who had
formed the first garrison of Sydney. In Eng-
land the Corps was often dubbed " The
Botany Bay Rangers," and in Australia it
became known as " The Rum Corps." It
possessed an unenviable reputation. It was
only natural that the recruits offering for
such uncongenial and distant service should
have been of poor quality, and they included
men sentenced to death but pardoned on
agreeing to enlist in the Corps. In, New
South Wales, however, the behaviour of the
men was fair; but that of the officers, who
quarrelled with governor after governor and
finally led the Corps into mutiny against
Governor Bligh, was extremely bad.
In 1808 the Corps was brought into the
line as the 102nd Foot, and in 1810 it re-
turned to England. In 1816 it was renamed
the 100th, and in March, 1818, it was dis-
banded. Some members of it, however,
served on garrison work until finally dis-
banded in 1823, and in 1825 volunteers were
called from among the former members of the
Corps to reconstitute the N.S.W. Corps.
Known variously as the " Veteran Corps "
and " the Royal New South Wales Veteran
Companies," these volunteers reached Syd-
ney in July, 1826, and were not finally dis-
banded until 1833.
The firet commandant of the N.S.W.
Corps was Major Francis Grose (ensign, 1775 ;
lieutenant, 1775; captain, 1779; major, 1783;
lieutenant-colonel, 1795; colonel, 1798; major-
general, 1805). He was the son of Francis
Grose, the antiquary. He saw service in
America, and after his return from Sydney
in 1795 went on half-pay., until 1798, when
he was appointed to the staff in Ireland. He
AUGCST 10, 1935.
later served at Gibraltar, and left the Army
in 1809, dying at Croydon in 1814. Other
original officers of the corps included Cap-
tain Nicholas Nepean (younger brother of Sir
Evan Nepean; at the time of his death in
1823 he was a Lieut.-Gen.), Captain William
Hill, Captain Wm. Paterson, Lt. John
Maoarthur, the father of the Australian wool
trade, Lt. Edward A'bbott, and Lt. John
Townson.
Much information relating to the corps
and ite officers will be found in the
' Historical Records of Australia' and
the ' Historical Records of New South
Wales.'
HENRY BATESON.
CAY1NGS OF NAPOLEON (clxviii. 30).-
• It would be interesting to know what
authority there is for the story that Bona-
parte, during his short stay at Valetta in
June, 1798, removed a ring from the hand of
St. John the Baptist. Permission was given
to the Knights of St. John to retain three
relics, to which they attached great value,
one of £hem being the Baptist's right hand,
and these relics were not given over to them
until they had ibeen stripped of all their
ornaments. Are we, then, to suppose that
the relics were first taken to Bonaparte and
that he inflicted a gratuitous outrage on the
Maltese by appropriating the ring? More
than one reason may be given to show how
Little likely such an ac.tion on his part would
have been. And yet, of course, it is possible
that he did so.
In the first place, Bourrienne, who was
in close contact with Bonaparte at Malta,
makes no mention in his Memoirs of any
such incident. Bonaparte, while still on
board the Orient, gave ordere that a proclama-
tion in simple Maltese language should be
issued as soon as the French arrived, declar-
ing that they had not come to interfere with
the religion of the islandere and that the
greatest respect would be paid to the priests.
It is true that the tenor of the constitution,
founded on the principles of the French
Revolution and imposed on the Maltese by
Bonaparte, was at variance with this declara-
tion. So, too, was the seizure of the jewels,
gold and silver in the churches and elsewhere,
for the conqueror was in need of money for
his expedition to Egypt and also to satisfy
the rapacity of the impoverished Directors,
who were really his masters. The task of
taking the jewels was assigned to that insep-
arable couple, Monge and Berthollet; tho
 -AUGUST 10, 1935.
NOTES AND QUERIES.
former had been the valuer of the diamonds h
the Papal treasury after the conclusion ol
the treaty of Tolentino. The attempt to tak
the jewels caused great excitement; thi
inquisitors worked under the protection o
•soldiers with fixed bayonets, and it was th<
•closing of a church, three months later, for
the purpose of removing the tapestries, that
•caused an outbreak on the part of peasants,
and was the signal for the insurrection that
led to the loss of Malta by the French.
I t is one of the proofs of the high intelli
gence of Bonaparte that in the early days
of his career he refused to associate himself
with the anti-religious policy of the fanatics
who governed France, and that he refrained
•as far as possible from tampering with the
•explosive forces that are always latent where-
ever there is strong religious feeling. . Hence
the doubts that are aroused by the statement
that he took the ring. The story does not ap-
pear to have had a wide circulation for thero
is no mention of it in several books that
I have consulted on the French conquest of
Malta.
T. PERCY ARMSTRONG.
P A K I N G (dxviii. 420, 466; clxix. 53).—I
-*- remember to have read somewhere this
anecdote on faking: —A foreign lover of
pictures discovered in Italy a painting by
Titian, anH bought it for a considerable sum.
To avoid the paying of the higih duties for
the exportation of art-works from Italy, he
had the picture painted over with a portrait
•of Benito Mussolini, and then brought it
home without paying the customs. At home,
he had the over-painting taken away by an
•expert. But great was his astonishment,
when not only Mussolini's portrait, but also
Titian's painting disappeared, and there re-
mained only—a portrait of Franz Joseph I.
Se non e vero, e ben trovato.
OTTO F. BABLER.
V A L E EDITION OF HORACE WAL-
1
POLE'S CORRESPONDENCE (clxix.
45, 63, 84). — 14. " Joan " was a common
nick-name for 0. Cromwell's wife Elizabeth.
There is a Royalist pamphlet about her par-
simonious housekeeping entitled ' The Court
and Kitchen of Elizabeth, commonly called
•Joan Cromwell.'
E. G. W.
TYPOGRAPHICAL MANUALS (clxix
x
65).—T. R. P. will probably find infor-
mation in " Typographical Printing-Sur-
101
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faces," by Legros & Grant; Longmans,
Green & Co., 1916.
A. S. E. ACKERMAXX.
HEADING IN ANCIENT ATHENS (clxix.
•*•" 64).—The question is discussed by Sir
Frederic Kenyon in the first chapter of his
' Books and Reading in Ancient Greece and
Rome,' Oxford, 1932. In this chapter, 'The
Use of Books in Ancient Greece,' he writes
thus of the fifth century B.C. :
It is a period of intense literary creativeiiess
on the highest scale, and yet, so far as we can
judge, of very limited book-production. Oral
methods of publicity continued . . . Contem-
porary references to the reading of books are
very rare during the golden age of Greek
literature . . . It would be a mistake, how-
ever, to overstress this scantiness of evidence
as an argument against the existence and even
the abundant existence and free use of books
in the latter part of the fifth century. . . .
The general conclusion would therefore seem
to be that at the end of the fifth century and
in the early part of the fourth, books existed in
Athens in considerable quantity, and were
cheap and easily accessible. A habit of read-
ing was growing up, but was not yet very
firmly established.
Sir Frederic points out that when we pass
from the generation of Plato to that of
Aristotle, a very distinct change is marked;
" We have now reach a period of readers
and libraries." One of the most important
and interesting parts of the book is devoted
to showing that writing mu6t have been
familiar to the Greeks far earlier than was
formerly supposed.
EDWARD BEXSLY.
As ALTRO is already probably aware,
Macaulay touches upon this subject in his
essay ' On the Athenian Orators ' (' Miscel-
laneous Writings of Lord Macaulay,' vol. i.),
but is not helpful as regards " proof that
books were widely read in Athens "—rather
the reverse.
After attacking Samuel Johnson, whom
(with his customary moderation !) he describes
as " a man who knew nothing of Greek litera-
ture beyond the common school-book6, and
who seems to have brought to what he had
read scarcely more than the discernment of
a common school-tboy," he goes on :
He used to assert, with that arrogant
bsurdity which, in spite of his great abilities
nd virtues, renders him, perhaps the most
ridiculous character in literary history, that
Demosthenes spoke to a people of brutes;—to a
barbarous people;—that there could have been
no civilisation before the invention of printing.
He then proceeds to deal with the "general