Remounts again were a heavy tax upon the officer. An allowance of levy-money at the rate of twelve pounds a horse[444] was granted to officers for the purpose, but was complained of as quite inadequate to the charge,[445] in consequence of heavy losses through the epidemic of horse-sickness in Flanders. Carelessness in the hiring and fitting of transports also caused much waste of life among the horses,[446] until Marlborough, as his letters repeatedly show, took the matter into his own hands. It is interesting to learn that Irish horses, being obtainable for five pounds apiece,[447] were much used in Spain, though less in Flanders, Marlborough having a prejudice in favour of English horses as of English men, as superior to all others. This cheapness, however, was of little service to the officers. They were expected to pay for the transport of their horses at a fixed rate, and though at length in reply to their complaints free transport was granted for twenty-six horses to a battalion, yet this privilege was again withdrawn as soon as it was discovered that Irish animals were to be purchased at a low price.[448]
Again, the officers were always subject to extortion from civilians. Parish constables, to whom the law allowed sixpence a day for the subsistence of recruits, declined to deliver them unless they were paid eightpence a day.[449] But as usual the chief delinquents were the regimental agents. The Controllers of Accounts early made an attack on these gentry, but with little success, the fellows pleading that they were not public officials but private servants of the colonel, and therefore not bound to produce their accounts. The complaints of the officers against them were endless, and with good reason. Perhaps the most heartless instance of an agent's rascality was that of one who stole the small allowance made by a lieutenant on active service to his wife, and refused to pay it until ordered by the Queen.[450] Officers clamoured that the agents should be tried by court-martial, but this was not permitted, and perhaps wisely, for a court-martial would probably have sentenced a scoundrel to the gantlope, in which case the men would not have let him escape alive.
Yet another tax fell upon officers in the shape of contribution to pensions and regimental debts. In every regiment except those serving in Flanders a fictitious man was allowed in the roll of each troop or company, whose pay was taken to form a fund for the support of officers' widows;[451] but in Marlborough's army these widows were supported by a voluntary subscription from the officers, without expense to the State. By some contrivance, which seems utterly outrageous and was presumably the work of the War Office or of the Treasury, this voluntary fund was saddled with the maintenance of widows who had lost their husbands in the previous war, so that in 1709 Marlborough was obliged to protest and to ask for the extension of "widows' men" to some at least of his own troops.[452] Again, some regiments appear to have been charged with pensions to particular individuals, though by what right or for what service it is impossible to say.[453] Yet again, by misfortune, carelessness, or roguery of a colonel, or more commonly of an agent, regiments found themselves burdened with debts amounting to several thousand pounds, as, for instance, through the loss of regimental funds by shipwreck or through mismanagement of the clothing. In such cases the only possible relief was the sale, by royal permission, of the next company or ensigncy for the liquidation of the debt.[454]
Another form of pension which, though sometimes used for worthy objects, was at least as often perverted to purposes of jobbery, was the appointment of infant officers. In many instances children received commissions in a regiment wherein their fathers had commanded and done good service, either for the relief of the widows, if those fathers had fallen in action, or for a reward if they were still living. Sometimes these children actually took the field, for there is record of one who went to active service in Flanders at the age of twelve, "behaving with more courage and conduct than could have been expected from one of his years," and ruined his career at sixteen by killing his man in a duel.[455] But beyond all doubt in many instances the favour was granted without sufficient cause, while even at its best it was an abuse of public money and a wrong done to the regiment. This abuse was of course no new thing, and did not amount to an actual grievance; but it had fostered a feeling, that was already too strong, of the privileges conferred on colonels by their proprietary rights in their regiments.
The grant of commissions to children was forbidden by the Royal Regulations of 1st May 1711, a collection of orders which had at any rate for their ostensible object a considerable measure of reform, and therefore demands some notice here. Hereby the grant of brevets, which had given considerable trouble to Marlborough, and had already been forbidden in 1708, was again prohibited; and finally an attempt was made to limit the sale and purchase of commissions. To this end no sale of commissions whatever was permitted except by royal approbation under the sign manual, and then only to officers who had served for twenty years or had been disabled by active service. The announcement appears to have been treated as a joke;[456] and within six months the rule, in consequence of representations from Marlborough, was considerably modified.[457] If (so the Duke pointed out) subalterns who have been unlucky with their recruits may not sell their commissions, the debt will fall on the regiment: if, again, the successors to officers who die on service do not contribute something towards the dead man's wife and family, many widows and children must starve; lastly, colonels often wish to promote officers from other regiments to their own when they have no officer of their own fit for advancement, which is for the good of the service but must become impracticable unless the superseded officer receive something in compensation.[458] His arguments were seen to be irresistible unless the State were prepared to incur large additional military expenditure, and the rules were shortly afterwards amended in the spirit of his recommendations and for the reasons that he had adduced.[459]
Thus almost the final administrative act of Marlborough as Captain-General was to uphold the system of purchase then existing against the hasty reforms of civilian counsellors. Enough has been said to show that contemporary military policy in England, with which he was chiefly identified, tended always to make the regiment more and more self-contained and less dependent on the support of the State: it will be seen before long how regiments met the charge imposed on them by the institution of regimental funds in the nature of insurance. The drawback of such a system is obvious. Excess of independence in the members can hardly but entail weakening of central control, with incoherence and consequent waste of energy in the action of the entire body. Regimental traditions, regimental pride, are priceless possessions well worthy the sacrifice of ideal unity of design and perfect assimilation to a single pattern. But regimental isolation, fostered and encouraged on principle to the utmost, must inevitably bring with it a certain division of command, a want of subordination to the supreme authority, in a word that measure of indiscipline in high places which distinguishes an aggregation of regiments from an army.
Yet who can doubt but that Marlborough acted with his usual strong good sense as a soldier and his usual sagacity as a statesman? He had risked his popularity in the Army by his avowed severity towards officers in the matter of recruits,[460] because he knew that the slightest attempt to shift this burden upon the State would mean the refusal of Parliament to carry on the war, and a wholesale disbandment of the Army. He favoured the sale of commissions on precisely the same principle; for, as his letter clearly shows, he foresaw the growth of what is now called a non-effective vote, and doubted the willingness of Parliament to endure it. That which he dreaded has now come to pass, for better or worse; the country is saddled with a vast load of pensions, and the Commons grow annually more impatient over increase of military expenditure without corresponding increase of efficiency. Marlborough's choice lay between an aggregation of regiments and no army, and of two evils he chose the less. It still remains to be proved that he was wrong.
From the regimental I pass to the general administration. Herein the first noticeable feature is the amalgamation by the Act of Union of the English and Scotch establishments into a single establishment for Great Britain. Ireland of course still remained with a separate establishment of her own, and all the paraphernalia of Commander-in-Chief, Secretary-at-War, and Master-General of Ordnance. There continued always in Ireland as heretofore a different rate of pay for all ranks, which, owing to constant transfer of regiments from Ireland to England or abroad gave rise to great confusion in the accounts. The chief matter of interest in Ireland is the very reasonable jealousy of the Irish Commons for the retention within the kingdom of all regiments on the Irish establishment, or at least for the substitution of other regiments in their place if they should be withdrawn. Their intention was that Irish revenue should be spent in Ireland, and it is satisfactory to note that it was rigidly and conscientiously respected by the authorities in England.[461]
Another important matter was a first attempt to settle the position of the marines, who up to the middle of the reign were subject to a curious and embarrassing division of control. St. John early disclaimed all authority over them,[462] but they were evidently subject to the regulations of the army and suffered not a little in consequence. The rigid rule that regiments must be mustered before they were paid inflicted great hardship on marines, for it could not be carried out when a regiment was split up on half a dozen different ships, and the result was that the men were not paid at all. Even when ashore they were exposed to the same inconvenience owing to the inefficiency of the commissaries,[463] so that some regiments actually received no wages for eight years.[464] The inevitable consequence was hatred of the service and mutiny, which at one moment threatened to be serious.[465] Finally, on the 17th of December 1708, the marines were definitely placed under the jurisdiction of the Lord High Admiral.[466]