The effect on the Army was immediate. A great many of the returned exiles, including Charles and James themselves, had served in the French army, where the system of purchasing commissions had never been abandoned, and where the abuses which had been shaken off by the New Model were still in full vigour. The old corrupt traditions had not been killed in thirteen years, and, reviving under the general reaction against Puritan restraint, they sprang quickly into new life. The old military centralisation of Oliver, upheld for a time by Monk, rapidly perished, and what might have still been an army sank into a mere aggregate of regiments, the property of individual colonels, and of troops and companies, the property of individual captains. Every civilian of the military departments hastened to make money at the expense of the officers, and every officer to enrich himself at the cost of the men. The flood-gates so carefully closed by the Puritans were opened, and the abuses of three centuries streamed back into their old channel to flow therein unchecked for two centuries more. At its first renewal the system of purchase was carried to such lengths that the very privates paid premiums to the enlisting officers; but the practice was speedily checked by Monk in 1663. In March 1684 the system received a kind of royal sanction through the purchase by the King himself of a commission from one officer for presentation to another. Then nine months later Charles suddenly declared that he would permit no further purchase and sale of military appointments. Whether he would have abolished it if he had lived may be doubted, but it is certain that the system continued in full operation under James the Second, gathering strength of course with each new year of existence.