A fortnight later the estimates for the Army were submitted to Parliament. Notwithstanding the urgent danger of the situation, the number of men proposed on the British Establishment little exceeded thirty-four thousand men for Great Britain and thirteen thousand for the colonies. A few days afterwards the question was debated, and Barrington then announced a further increase of troops; whereupon Pitt very pertinently asked the unanswerable question why all these augmentations were made so late. The House, however, was in earnest as to the military deficiencies of the country. Fox had taunted Pitt by challenging him to bring forward a Militia Bill, and Pitt seized the opportunity offered by a debate on the Militia to give the outlines of a scheme for making that force more efficient. His proposals were embodied in a Bill, which formed the basis of the Militia Act that was to be passed, as shall be seen, in the following year. So far therefore the Commons forced upon the Government and the country at least the consideration of really valuable work. [Sidenote: 1756.] On the re-assembly of Parliament after Christmas an estimate was presented for the formation of ten new regiments, to be made up in part of certain supplementary companies which had been added to existing battalions in 1755. These new regiments were, in order of seniority, Abercromby's, Napier's, Lambton's, Whitmore's, Campbell's, Perry's, Lord Charles Manner's, Arabin's, Anstruther's and Montagu's, and they are still with us numbered in succession the Fiftieth to the Fifty-ninth.[267] At the same time a new departure was made by adding a light troop apiece to eleven regiments of dragoons, both men and horses being specially equipped for the work which is now expected of all cavalry, but which was then entrusted chiefly to irregular horse formed upon the model of the Austrian Hussars. Yet another novelty was foreshadowed in February when a Bill was introduced to enable the King to grant commissions to foreign Protestants in America. The origin of this measure, according to Horace Walpole, was a proposal made by one Prevost, a Protestant refugee, to raise four battalions of Swiss and Provincials in America, with a British officer for colonel-in-chief but with a fair number of foreigners holding other commissions. Quite as probably this new step was quickened, if not suggested, by the news that the French contemplated the enlistment of recruits among the foreign population of British America. The vote for these four battalions was passed without a division, though Pitt opposed the Bill with all his power and was supported by a petition from the Agent of Massachusetts. He was vehement for the employment of British soldiers to fight British battles; whereas so far the most important military measure of King and ministers had been the hiring of Germans. The Bill was none the less passed, and on the 4th of March the order for the enlistment of the four battalions was given.