at Woolwich. On 20 March 1817 he was promoted brevet-major for gallant and distinguished conduct on service, after both Lord Exmouth and Wellington had made strong recommendations on the subject. On 1 Feb. 1819 he was placed on half-pay, on the reduction of the corps of royal engineers, consequent on the return of the army of occupation from France; but he was brought back to full pay on 12 March 1824, and quartered in Ireland. In December he was appointed to the ordnance survey of Ireland, and remained in Dublin until June 1827, when he was left without employment until his promotion, on 28 Jan. 1829, to the regimental rank of first captain. He was then sent to the Exeter district, and took part in the measures for quelling the reform riots in the west of England. On 8 Dec. 1831 he embarked for the West Indies, and at Barbados he did good service in rebuilding the government buildings which had been blown down in the hurricane of 10 Aug. 1831.
The disastrous effect of this hurricane directed Reid's attention to the subject of storms. In his researches he was materially assisted by the previous labours of Mr. William C. Redfield of New York, who had, in a paper to the ‘American Journal of Science’ in 1831, demonstrated that the hurricanes of the American coast were whirlwinds moving on curved tracts with considerable velocity. Reid's correspondence with Redfield in three folio volumes was presented to the library of Yale University, U.S.A., by John H. Redfield. Reid set himself to confirm and extend Redfield's view by collating the log-books of British men-of-war and merchantmen. He also collected data in order to corroborate the theory that south of the equator, in accordance with the regularity evinced in all natural law, storms would be found to move in a directly contrary direction. In May 1834 he returned to England, and, not being required for military duty, he, for a year and a half, continued his investigations.
On 7 Sept. 1835 Reid was placed on half-pay on embarkation for Spain to join the British legion of ten thousand which had been raised in England, with the sanction of the English government, for the service of the queen regent of Spain against Don Carlos. Reid had accepted from General Sir George De Lacy Evans [q. v.], his old comrade in the Peninsula, the command of a brigade of infantry. He saw a good deal of fighting; was at the siege of Bilbao, which was raised in November 1835, co-operated with Espartero in the attack on Arlaban in January 1836, and assisted to raise the siege of San Sebastian on 5 May, when ninety-seven officers and five hundred men out of a force of five thousand were lost. On this occasion Reid was again wounded in the neck while attacking the lines in front of San Sebastian. On 31 May and in the early part of June he took part in the repulse of the Carlist attack on the position of Evans. He returned to England in August, and was restored to the full-pay unemployed list.
On 10 Jan. 1837 he was promoted lieutenant-colonel, and on 17 Feb. was sent to Portsmouth, where he remained for nearly two years. On 19 July 1838 he was made a C.B. In this year the result of his scientific labour was published in London in ‘An Attempt to develop the Law of Storms by means of Facts, arranged according to Place and Time, and hence to point out a Cause for the Variable Winds.’ The volume was illustrated by charts and woodcuts (2nd edit., with additions, 1841; 3rd edit. 1850). The work laid down, for the guidance of seamen, those broad and general rules which are known as the ‘law of storms.’ The announcement of this law was received with the greatest interest by the scientific world, and the book went through many editions and has been translated into many languages, including Chinese.
In January 1839, in which year he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, Reid was appointed governor of the Bermuda Islands. He found the coloured population of the Bermudas, who had been recently freed from slavery, without any education. He established parochial schools throughout the colony and procured annual votes from the legislature for their support. Agriculture was in a very backward state; the chief implement for tilling was the hoe, and exports were confined to arrowroot and onions, the latter being sent only to the West Indies. Reid soon perceived that the Bermudas might be made a market garden for early potatoes and other vegetables for the United States. He set to work to train the people in an improved system of cultivation. He purchased the discharge of some soldiers with a good knowledge of gardening, and employed them as instructors. He imported ploughs and other suitable implements. He introduced the best varieties of seeds, and, by holding agricultural shows and ploughing and sowing matches, stimulated the people to adopt an industry which is now their main support. He started a public library, and in so many ways developed the resources of the colony and improved the condition of the people that to this day he is remembered as the ‘good governor.’
On 23 Nov. 1841 Reid was promoted re-
