INIMICAL, hostile.
INLISTING, the act of engaging soldiers, to serve either in the cavalry, infantry, or artillery. For the regulations respecting the inlisting soldiers, see [Recruiting].
INNONDER, Fr. See [Inundate].
INQUIRY. See [Courts of].
INROAD, incursion, sudden and desultory invasion.
INSCONSED, in the military art. When any part of an army has fortified itself with a sconce, or small work, in order to defend some pass, &c. it is said to be insconsed.
INSIDE guard, a guard with the broad sword, to secure the face and front of the body, from a cut made at the inside of the position above the wrist. See [Broadsword].
INSPECTEUR, Fr. Inspector. Military inspectors were originally instituted among the French, after the peace of Aix la Chapelle in 1668. Two persons at that epoch occupied this important situation; one being called inspector general of cavalry, and the other inspector general of infantry. Louis XIV. under whom France assumed over the rest of Europe a preponderance of military character, increased the number of inspectors, and ordered them to be distributed in the different departments for the purpose of reviewing the troops every month, and of transmitting to him a regular statement of their effective force, &c.
It was the duty of these inspectors to examine minutely at the commencement of every month the state of each regiment, to look at the books belonging to the several companies, and to mark out such men as did not appear fit for the service. Each inspector had a separate dwelling-house allotted to him in the garrison town of his department, and he had the power, on giving previous notice to the governor, of ordering the men under arms. A brigade major delivered to him every evening the orders of the day.
Inspectors general of this description ranked with the army, without bearing any direct commission, and in time of war, they were acknowleged as general officers, brigadiers, or colonels.