As regards the duties of reconnaissance, not a treatise on cavalry omits to mention that it is the function of the horse to scour the ways in advance of an army; but there are no precise directions as to the manner of fulfilling it. Cromwell's constant references to a "forlorn" of horse show that he employed advanced parties regularly, and attention has already been called to the efficiency of Rupert's patrols. There is no evidence, however, that the men received any instruction in the matter of reconnaissance, and it is only from the Royalist Vernon that we learn that vedettes were posted then, as now, in pairs. The dragoons of the New Model seem, in spite of a resolution of the Commons that they should be regimented, to have been organised in ten companies, each one hundred strong. Their officers were a colonel, a major, eight captains, ten lieutenants, and ten ensigns. The dragoons were mounted infantry pure and simple, riding for the sake of swifter mobility only, and provided with inferior horses. They were armed with the musket and drilled like their brethren of the foot; their junior subalterns were called ensigns and not cornets, and they obeyed not the trumpet but the drum. Their normal formation was in ten ranks of ten men abreast. For action, nine out of the ten dismounted, and linking their horses by the simple method of throwing the bridle of each over the head of his neighbour in the ranks, left them in charge of the tenth man.[168] Next we must glance at the Artillery which, together with the transport, was comprehended under the head of the Train. The only organised force of which we hear as attached to the train is two regiments of infantry and two companies of firelocks, which were used for purposes of escort only. The firelocks were distinguished from the rest of the army by wearing tawny instead of scarlet coats, and seem therefore to have been a peculiar people, but the immediate connection of flint-lock muskets with cannon is not apparent. The truth seems to be that the English were behind the times in respect of field artillery, and indeed we hear little of guns, except siege-cannon, during the whole period of the Civil War. English military writers of the period rarely make much of artillery in a pitched battle. They recommend indeed that the enemy's guns should be captured by a rush as early as possible, and they generally agree that cannon should be posted on an eminence, since a ball travels with greater force downhill than uphill. On the other hand, it was objected even to this simple rule that if guns were pointed downhill there was always the risk of the shot rolling out of the muzzle, so that in truth the gunner seems to have been sadly destitute of fixed principles for his guidance in action.