The Rev. Alexander John Forsyth obtained the foundation patent on the percussion ignition system in 1807; the following is a brief quote from the English wikipedia article on Forsyth at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_John_Forsyth

"During the Napoleonic Wars Forsyth worked on his design at the Tower armories but when a new Master General of Ordnance was appointed he was dismissed; other experiments had had destructive results and the new master general did not wish to see Britain's main arsenal destroyed."

"Napoleon Bonaparte offered Forsyth a reward of £20,000 if he took his invention to France but Forsyth declined. The French gunsmith Jean Lepage developed a similar form of ignition in 1807 based on Forsyth's design but this was not pursued."

Forsyth appears to have persisted with his original "scent-bottle" mechanism, with its loose fulminate powder, for his firearms; this mechanism had one major fault -- when the scent-bottle seal failed, ignition flame would leak from the anvil into the fulminate-magazine chamber, causing it to explode off the weapon.

I am curious as to whether any officers during the era were known to posses any of Forsyth's percussion pistols?

Regards, John