The first British occupation of Minorca produced two chroniclers who have left valuable accounts of garrison and civilian life on the island during that period. These were 'Engineer in Ordinary' John Armstrong and Dr George Cleghorn, whose account of the climate of Minorca we have already read.
Armstrong arrived in Minorca early in 1738 on a tour of duty lasting four years. During this time he collected material and drafted his book (written in the form of letters) A History of the Island. of Minorca, which has become a classic on life in the eighteenth century in 'a remote part of His Majesty's Dominions'. It was completed at his Chelsea home in 1752.
Little is known about Armstrong apart from the internal evidence of his book. From his carefree life on the island he was probably a bachelor at the time, perhaps in his middle twenties. The Royal Engineers were not founded till 1787, and he was one of a small cadre of civilian engineers who were attached to artillery units, mainly to look after ordnance.
In addition to history, natural history and topography, he gives a detailed account of Minorcans as he saw them, and went about his task with praiseworthy industry. 'I had not been long there,' he writes, 'before I had acquired a competent Skill in their Language, to enable me to converse with the Natives. . . I contrived to make all my excursions and parties of pleasure, with my Friends, subservient to my Designs.'

Garrison life
In peacetime five British regiments were stationed in Minorca. Mahon was the military headquarters, and there were detachments at Alayor, Fornells and Ciudadela. At Mahon each officer had a house assigned to him, while other ranks were accommodated in houses requisitioned from unwilling families who were paid compensation in return. The idea of barracks was still a new one, and this form of permanent billeting was then common. The town authorities were also required to provide each man with a ration of wood and oil, of which Armstrong writes: 'A Subaltern's Allowance of Oil is sufficient for one Lamp, and his Wood with very good management will boil his Tea-kettle two mornings in the Week.' A lot of complicated sharing must have taken place.
Of his average day at Mahon, he says:
I have a good House, decently furnished. I rise early and breakfast alone, then write and draw till Noon. It is then time to dress, after which I walk till Dinner is ready at a Publick-house at one; where eight of us who like one another, eat very well for twelve Shillings a Week, finding our own Wine, which costs only three halfpence a Bottle, and is very good. After Dinner we walk again, or make a Party at Cards, or to the Gardens, and so to Supper at eight o'clock.

On more formal occasions:
At our Mess we seldom dine without a Soup and dish of Fish, with a couple of other things, as a piece of Beef, a joint of Mutton, a Turkey, Goose, Ducks, Fowls, wild and tame Rabbits, a Pudding or a Pye, with plenty of Roots, Greens and Fruits, all according to the Season. We have very good French Bread, Cheese from England, and Butter from Ireland. . .

In the cooler months of the year officers went on numerous pleasure excursions by mule, and were sometimes accompanied by their families: 
'there is scarce an Officer among us whose house does not afford a spare bed for his Friends, even for a month or six weeks, where you are treated with great Cheerfulness'. 

The whole picture is one of comparative ease and expectation of permanence. But in his last chapter Armstrong mentions an occasional misgiving that old service officers will recognise:
 'Here my Youth passes in Obscurity and Indolence, my Friends grow old and my pretensions forgot, while my juniors are promoted by being on the Scene, and my letters make little impression in my Absence.'

This comfortable picture takes no account of the very different lives of the 'other ranks'. There had been little improvement since the days of Allin and Spragge, and in the mid-eighteenth century troopships such as existed for transport of troops to Minorca have been described by a contemporary writer as: 'floating slaughter-houses'. The wastage of men at sea was appalling: up to half a ship's complement could be lost by sickness on a long voyage, a situation as advantageous to the enemy as a sea victory.
Recruits were often professional criminals, fraudulently enlisted, or press-ganged. Once on the island the prospect of home leave was extremely remote. Owing to a surviving Tudor tradition, a regiment became irretrievably attached to a particular base, and a regiment might remain unrelieved for up to sixty years. Such garrisons overseas were often shockingly neglected as was Minorca in the 1750s - and even forgotten. Entries in a warrant book at this period read: 
'the fortifications are as in ill condition as the quarters, and the unhappy soldiers beg in vain for new bedding to replace that which had worn out by ten years of service' .

   In spite of the difficulty of escaping by sea, soldiers sometimes deserted. Having broken barracks, they made for the country and lived off the land. Ferrerias was a favourite goal as there was no garrison there, though later a barracks was built (it is now the country house of  Son Telm) to house a permanent guard of dragoons. 
From there deserters would make their way through the rugged defile of Algendar to the beaches of Galdana or Macarella which were nearest Majorca, where they stole a boat or forced a Minorcan at knife-point to sail them across.

For their own protection Minorcans were given powers by the governor to arrest any soldier trespassing on their land, and were advised to secure their boats against theft. For failure to report the presence of a soldier, they themselves would be punished. Thefts of produce from the land became a capital offence, and when two soldiers were sentenced to death in Fort St Philip in 1755 for doing so the Court with unusual generosity allowed them to cast lots for their lives, and only hanged one.

The Duke of Argyll, writing in Parliamentary History in 1742 on conditions in Minorca, expressed the opinion that 'A long term of duty at Mahon was equivalent to a punishment, and my only surprise was that the troops had not mutinied.' The Duke did not often go himself.

Nothing is known of the latter part of Armstrong's life or when he died. He is worthy of remembrance for his excellent 'Correct Map of the Island of Minorca' as well as his book. He has left no portrait but a signed silhouette of his head in profile, which shows an ageing, portly man.

  41