[408] Abundant instances in the Secretary's Common Letter Book.
[409] Ibid., 13th March 1704.
[410] S. P., Dom., vol. v. 135; vol. ix. 75.
[411] S. P., Dom., vol. v. 128.
[412] Tindal.
[413] A curious and, I imagine, illegal stretch of the Royal prerogative appears in the shape of a Royal warrant for the impressment of fifes, drums, and hautbois. H. O. M. E. B., 1st Jan. 1705.
[414] The levy-money was £4 per man, of which it seems that half was bounty, and half for expenses of the recruiting officer.
[415] The system was introduced by Lewis XIV. in the autumn of 1703. The still earlier suggestion of a short-service system in the sixteenth century has already been related.
[416] The number of volunteers enlisted in March 1708 for the regiments in the Peninsula was something over 800, of which London and Middlesex supplied just twenty-three.
[417] Newspapers, 13th March 1709.