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For thirteen years after his retirement he remained out of office, and took little part in the affairs of government. He joined the Russell administration in July 1846 as master-general of the ordnance, finally retiring with his chief in March 1852. His promotion in the army was completed by his advancement to the rank of field-marshal in 1846.
As it happened, however, no intervention on the part of the alcalde was required; possibly his presence on the poop of the Nonsuch beside George, where he could be distinctly seen by everybody, may have exercised a wholesome restraint upon the Spanish crew; or the sight of the entire crew of the English ship, mustered on deck, armed to the teeth, the gunners standing by their ordnance with lighted matches, may have had something to do with it; be that as it may, the Spanish seamen offered no resistance when it became apparent that the English were about to transfer the treasure from the plate ships' strong rooms to their own; nay more, they even assisted in the transfer, when commanded to do so, although it must be confessed that they worked with sullen countenances, and many muttered threats and grumblings.
We were all amused to read in the Manchester Guardian that Halstead had been lately in the Army Ordnance Corps; it is, of course, incorrect. "Whenever Colonel Best-Dunkley or Major Brighten come into our Mess they always ask me what I think of the war and when I think it is going to end. They came in yesterday.
He began life as apprentice to a linen-draper on Tower Hill; but, leaving that business after his apprenticeship was out, he next entered as a clerk in the Ordnance Office; and it was while engaged in that humble occupation that he carried on in his spare hours the work of Negro Emancipation.
The "General Historie" says that he left them "with three ships, seven boats, commodities ready to trade, the harvest newly gathered, ten weeks' provision in store, four hundred ninety and odd persons, twenty-four pieces of ordnance, three hundred muskets, snaphances and fire-locks, shot, powder, and match sufficient, curats, pikes, swords, and morrios, more than men; the Salvages, their language and habitations well known to a hundred well-trained and expert soldiers; nets for fishing; tools of all kinds to work; apparel to supply our wants; six mules and a horse; five or six hundred swine; as many hens and chickens; some goats; some sheep; what was brought or bred there remained."
Those in Charlestown harbour are now in a very shattered condition, occasioned by the late violent storms and hurricanes, which already cost this country a great deal of money, and now requires several thousands of pounds to repair the old and build new ones, to mount the ordnance which your Majesty was graciously pleased to send us, which, with great concern, we must inform your Majesty we have not yet been able to accomplish, being lately obliged, for the defence and support of this your Majesty's province and government, to raise, by a tax on the inhabitants, a supply of above forty thousand pounds paper currency per annum, which is a considerable deal more than a third part of all the currency among us; a charge which your Majesty's subjects of this province are but barely able to sustain.
On becoming King of France, Henry IV., in 1594, made him secretary of state; in 1596, put him on the council of finance; in 1597, appointed him grand surveyor of France, and, in 1599, superintendent-general of finance and master of the ordnance.
Long boats and flat boats went hither and thither across the blue waves: the grim ports of the men of war were open and the guns frowned darkly from their coverts; the seamen were gathering for muster on the flagship, and drums beat from the barracks on shore; the Lincoln gun, a fearful piece of ordnance, rose like the Sphynx from the Fortress sands, and the sodded parapet, the winding stone walls, the tops of the brick quarters within the Fort, were some of the features of a strangely animated scene, that has yet to be perpetuated upon canvas, and made historic.
A joyous stir was within its courts the gleam of arms and the fluttering of banners was seen upon its battlements and towers, and the ringing of bells, the beating of drums, and the fanfares of trumpets, mingled with the shouting of crowds and the discharge of ordnance.
Whatever it might be in other respects, the community in question, in power to do mischief, was not despicable. It was well provided with ordnance, small arms, and ammunition, and might easily seize on the unarmed boats, freighted with millions of property, which passed almost daily within its reach.
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