Talk:James Gabriel Montresor

Rapid promotion
According to the article, he rose from being a matross to chief engineer at Gibraltar in 20 years. Pretty rapid promotion even by the standards of 18th century Britain. On looking at the matross article, I find that a "Matross was a soldier of artillery, who ranked next below a gunner. (my emphasis). [And that] the duty of a matross was to assist the gunners in loading, firing and sponging the guns." If the previous two sentences are correct, Montresor's story seems to be all the more remarkable.

RASAM (talk) 21:31, 18 August 2011 (UTC)