The following are copies of fifteen testimonials addressed to the late Quartermaster Surtees.

Dear Sir,

As you are on the point of removing to the 1st battalion, I take this opportunity of expressing my entire satisfaction at the very regular and orderly manner in which your department has been conducted during the time you have been placed under my command; and it will give me great pleasure should an occasion occur where my testimony to your gentlemanlike conduct can be of service to you.

Quartermaster Surtees,
1st Bat. Rifle Brigade.

Dear Surtees,

With feelings of most sincere regret I read your letter to me, which I received yesterday, and lose not a moment in complying with your request, which, should it prove to be of any use to you, I am sure will be productive of the most heartfelt gratification to every one of those concerned, whose opinions of you are, as they always have been, of the highest description. Your conduct, both as a gentleman and soldier, has ever been such as to excite in the breast of your brother officers sentiments peculiarly favourable; and for myself, I have only to say, that few of my old acquaintances in the corps have had my esteem in a higher degree. I send you the sentiments of such of your old brother officers, in the shape of a certificate, as I could obtain, whose standing may have some influence in the procuring the accomplishment of your wishes, and regret that the dispersed state of the regiment prevents its being more general.

Wm. Surtees, Esq.
Quartermaster, Rifle Brigade.

The following testimonial is subscribed by us, in hopes it may prove beneficial to an officer who has so long supported the character which we are desirous to portray in the terms it deserves.

We certify, that Mr William Surtees, late Quartermaster in the Rifle Brigade, has been for a considerable number of years known to us in the regiment, and that for soldierlike and gentlemanly conduct, no person bore a higher character. He served in the situation he filled in the corps, particularly that of Acting Paymaster, for two considerable periods in the Peninsula, and with the expedition to New Orleans, with credit to himself, and satisfaction to his superiors, and, to our knowledge, obtained the general esteem and approbation of all his brother officers of the regiment who knew him.

Tuam, 19th April 1820.

Dear Sir,

I learn with extreme regret that you consider it to be expedient to make application to be removed as Quartermaster to a veteran battalion. I have stronger reason to feel this regret than I believe any other of your brother officers, as I have known you longer, it being now about twenty years since we met at the formation of the Rifle Corps; during the greater part of this time you served, I may say, under my immediate command; and I can bear the most ample and unqualified testimony to the zeal, intelligence, and gallantry with which you discharged the duties of the different situations you have filled in the corps.

I shall have great pleasure in hearing of your future welfare; and should it ever happen to be in my power to promote your views in any way, I hope you will consider that you will only have to make them known.

Quartermaster Wm. Surtees,
Rifle Brigade.

My Dear Sir,

Were it permitted a soldier to regret the loss of his comrades, then truly should I deplore yours; I have only just learned that you are about to avail yourself of Lord Palmerston's permission to retire from the service on account of ill health, after having in your present situation completed your period of twenty years. You have struggled against indisposition with manly fortitude in various climes, and have ever performed your duty zealously and conscientiously.

I, as well as the other officers of the corps, have ever lamented that your natural zeal and talent as a soldier, should not have been called forth in a more conspicuous situation; and there is not an old officer in the regiment who has not witnessed your intrepid bravery in the field.

I must again assure you, that you leave us with the most heartfelt good wishes for your welfare, and the universal regret of the corps, in which you have served so many years with the most rigid integrity and zeal; and should I have it in my power upon any future occasion to render you any service whatever, it will afford me as much satisfaction as I now feel distress, in losing one of my old companions in arms, with whom I have been so many years happily associated.

Quartermaster Surtees,
Rifle Brigade.

We the undersigned officers present with the 1st Battalion Rifle Brigade, who have had the satisfaction of an intimate acquaintance with Mr Surtees for a series of years at home and abroad, beg leave to add our testimony as to the valour, integrity, zeal, and gentlemanlike conduct which we have ever witnessed in him; and beg to express our sincere regret at the prospect of losing his society and services.

My Dear Sir,

I most truly and sincerely regret that your long, zealous, and indefatigable duties have so seriously undermined your constitution, as to oblige you to retire from the service.

Although I feel a very lively gratification in bearing testimony to your merit and gallantry in the field, as well as to your public and private character as an officer and a gentleman, in the most unqualified sense, during a period of twenty-four years which I have known you, I cannot, at the same time, but lament the circumstances which bind me, in justice to your meritorious services, to tender you this my humble tribute of regard and esteem for all you have done for the service and the corps, and for such unremitted integrity and worth. You have my ardent wishes for your health and happiness wherever you go.

Dear Sir,

Having served in the same battalion with you for eighteen years, during which time I had every opportunity, both public and private, in various situations of home and on foreign service, of witnessing your very exemplary conduct, both as an officer and a gentleman, I, with my brother officers, have to regret that your ill health has deprived the regiment of a valuable officer, and your companions of a friend, whose amiable and excellent qualities will ever be revered by them.

With regard to myself, it will afford me the greatest pleasure if at any future period I can in any way be of service to you.

Quartermaster Surtees,
Rifle Brigade.

My dear Sir,

It affords me much pleasure to assure you, that during the time I was in the Rifle Brigade (13 years), and more particularly when you served under my immediate command, I can bear the most ample and unqualified testimony to the zeal, intelligence, and gallantry with which you discharged your duty—and wherever you may go, you carry with you the good wishes of,

Quartermaster Surtees,
Rifle Brigade.

Dear Sir,

I have heard with great regret that your state of health has obliged you to avail yourself of the regulation which enables you to retire from the Rifle Brigade, in which corps I had such frequent cause to praise the gallantry and assiduity which you showed in the discharge of your duties in the field, and your regularity and assiduity in quarters.

The officers of the corps, I am confident, will all regret the loss of a person whose mild and gentlemanlike manners and disposition had so much endeared him to them.

With every wish for your future welfare,

Quartermaster Surtees,
Rifle-Brigade.

My Dear Surtees,

I have just learnt with much regret that you are about to retire from the Rifle Brigade, from an impaired constitution, owing to your unwearied and zealous exertions in the service.

From the period of my entering the Corps, twenty-two years ago, I have had the pleasure of being intimately acquainted with you, and I must do you the justice to state, that a more gallant, zealous, and indefatigable officer, I have seldom fallen in with. As a gentleman, your conduct always won and gained the esteem of your brother officers.

Believe me I shall ever feel warmly interested in your welfare.

To Quartermaster Surtees,
1st Bat. Rifle Brigade.

My dear Surtees,

I cannot suffer you to return to your home, without adding my mite of applause to that of our brother officers, who have, together with myself, known you so well and so long.

From the day that we were employed together at Ipswich, in obtaining volunteers from the Militia, when you were so instrumental in obtaining so large a number of men for the service, and during the whole of our services in the Peninsula, and elsewhere, when my situation as Assistant Quartermaster-General of the Light Division threw us so constantly together, until the last period of our regimental service, I have always known and respected your courage, your active discharge of your duties in times of difficulty and hardship, and your zeal and affection for the Rifle Brigade.

Your present poverty is the surest testimony of your integrity, which you have always kept in times of strong temptation, when very many others similarly placed have not resisted so well.

All my feeble services are constantly at your disposal, and wishing you content, and as much happiness as we can reasonably expect here,

Quartermaster Surtees,
Rifle Brigade.

If the three or four-and-twenty years, my dear sir, that I have had the satisfaction of having had you under my command in the Rifle Regiment or Brigade, suffice not to authorize my full approval of your conduct, both towards that corps and towards the public service, I know not what experience would do so. To this extent and to still farther extent, if it be required in detail, I am gratified by your having given me this opportunity of certifying the above. The loss that my battalion will sustain by the deprivation of your services will be great, and the only consolation that I shall have will be in learning that your present object of retiring on full pay be obtained, and that your health, injured, as my own has been, by perhaps too great a zeal in the fulfilment of our respective duties, may be somewhat amended by your retirement in private life. I have much to thank you for the most justly merited encomiums from your several commanders and from your elder brother officers, enclosed in your letter of the 13th instant, and to these honourable documents favour me by adding this one. I wish it was in my power to be of any service to your views towards a civil appointment under government, but as your age much exceeds that to which all official nominations are now limited, application for such will be fruitless.

Quartermaster Surtees,
1st Bat. Rifle Brigade.

My Dear Surtees,

I enclose herewith copies of two letters which I have received from the office of his Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief.

In congratulating you on their contents, I cannot refrain from expressing, strange as it may seem, not only my gratification but also my regret; gratification that you have succeeded in obtaining the object of your wishes, and regret the most lively, that your state of health should have obliged you to quit the corps; the more particularly, as the regiment will not only by your retirement be deprived of the benefit of your zealous and meritorious services, but I shall lose the society of one of my oldest and most valued friends.

The senior part of the regiment will ever remember with pride the glorious occasions in which you so often signalized yourself in the field, while the younger members of the corps will not fail, equally with the former, to admire the gentlemanlike conduct and urbanity of manners which have secured to you the friendship and good wishes of us all.

To Quartermaster Surtees,
Rifle Brigade.

My Dear Sir,

In returning to you the packet you have favoured me with the perusal of, I cannot refrain from expressing, in common with all your old friends and brother officers of the Rifle Brigade, my regret that your health made it necessary for you to retire from a corps, where your faithful and unremitting services for nearly thirty years had been so eminently useful, and where you possessed the friendship and confidence of every individual of any standing in it.

That your concern is as sincere as theirs in parting with them, I am perfectly convinced; yet it will be matter of real consolation to you to be able to reflect that you never gave just cause of offence to any member of the corps, and never neglected an opportunity of rendering them a service when in your power.

That you have not retired a richer man, is a subject of regret to us all; and we shall learn with great satisfaction of any event, that may tend to increase your means of doing good to those who look to you for protection.

Should any such opening present itself, I do not hesitate to express my conviction, that whoever may employ you, will never have reason to repent doing so; as I am well assured you will undertake no situation, without due reflection, and the nature of which you do not understand; and that, once taken in hand, you will discharge the duties of it with the same diligence and fidelity that you have performed those of your public life for so many years past.

Earnestly wishing that a little repose after such a lengthened series of toils and dangers, may restore you to health and strength,

To William Surtees, Esq.
Late Rifle Brigade.