Mercer's Journal is an invaluable resource for the workings of an RHA troop.
Mercer also comes across as a very competent troops commander who knew how to take care of his men and horses.
From Mercer, pages 90-91:
'Soon after our arrival at Strytem, an officer of the commissariat was attached to the troop, for the purpose of feeding us and our animals. His first care was to secure a sufficient number of country wagons, with their drivers and horses, intending to keep them together ready for a move. The farmers, finding this a grievance, besieged me, personally and through Mynheer Evenpoel, to allow them to remain home until wanted. This Mr Coates (who, by the way, was an experienced and excellent commissary) strongly opposed, foretelling the consequences but too truly; however, I yielded, upon a solemn promise of M l'Adjoint that they should be held ready to move at a moment's notice. Having committed this folly, I was well punished for it by the anxiety I experienced at every report of a move; and at last when the hour did come, they were called and found wanting, and poor Mr Coates had to mount and hunt them up, when they thought to have been loaded and on the road. This was a lesson to me.'
[It's too bad that Mr Coates' undoubtedly pointed remarks both at Captain Mercer and the civilians concerned are not recorded here].
'Another misery I endured was the constant apprehension of falling under the Duke's displeasure for systematic plundering of the farmers by our people, which I could not well check without risk of incurring the same on another score-ie, for not doing it! This is enigmatical; let me explain. Our allowance of forage, though sufficient to keep our horses in pretty good condition when idle, was not sufficient when they were hard worked; nor was it sufficient at any time to put on them that load of flesh, and give them that rotundity of form which Peninsular practice had established as the beau ideal of a horse entering on a campaign, the maxim being-'the more flesh a horse carries, the more he has to lose, and the longer he will be able to beat privation.' To keep up this, therefore, it was necessary to borrow from the farmers; and at this time of the year the superb crops of the trefe offered themselves most opportunely. The practice was general amongst cavalry and artillery, so that all the horses were equally in good case; and it would have been a most dangerous proceeding, by abstaining from it, to let your horses appear thinner than those of your neighbor. The quick eye of the Duke would have seen the difference, asked no questions, attended to no justification, but condemned the unfortunate victim of samples as unworthy of the command he held, and perhaps sent him from the army. We therefore, like others, plundered the farmers' fields; with this difference, however, that we did it in a regular manner, and without waste-whereas many of the cavalry regiments destroyed nearly as much as they carried away, by trampling about the fields. The dread of this being reported kept me continually in hot water, for my farmers (who, under the reign of the Prussians, would never have dared utter a complaint), hearing how strictly plundering was forbidden by the Duke, soon became exceedingly troublesome with their threats of reporting me. How we escaped it is difficult to say, but certainly we continued helping ourselves; and latterly St Cyr, and some other farmers, getting more docile, would themselves mark out where we were to cut. Our neighbor at the chateau farm (Walsdragen) was the most troublesome. The Duke was not partial to our corps, which made it still more fortunate for me that these people never put their threats into execution…'
There is a footnote to this last section, stating that 'A report was sent to Brussels, but it never reached the Duke, for the simple people went in the first instance to Sir G Wood [commander of the army's artillery], and there is was strangled.'
Mercer did what was necessary to ensure his troop horses were properly fed and cared for and it should be noted that good commanders did what was necessary to feed their horses and troops. There is a difference between foraging and requisition on the one hand, and looting and pillaging on the other. That fact is often overlooked.
