Peculiar circumstances, now long obsolete, gave this irresponsible secretary peculiar powers. In the first place, it must be remembered that as yet barracks were almost unknown. There were, it is true, barracks at the Tower, at the Savoy, at Hull, and at Edinburgh, wherein there was accommodation for the half or even the whole of a battalion; and there was also a barrack at every garrisoned town capable of holding at least the handful of men who were supposed to keep the guns in order. But for the most part the Army was scattered all over the country in minute detachments,[30] for inns were the only quarters permitted by the Mutiny Act, and the number of those inns was necessarily limited. In Ireland the paucity of ale-houses had led comparatively early to the construction of barracks, with great comfort alike to the soldiers and to the population, but in England the very name of barrack was anathema.[31] It was in vain that military men pointed to the sister island and urged that Great Britain too might have barracks. The Government was afraid to ask for them, and the opposition combated any hint of such an innovation, "that the people might be sensible of the fetters forged for them."[32] The apportionment of quarters fell within the province of the Secretary-at-War; and it is obvious that whether the presence of soldiery were an advantage to a town or the reverse, the power to inflict it could usefully be turned to political ends. A frequent accusation was that troops were employed to intimidate the voters at elections; and indeed the newspapers, not very trustworthy on such points, assert that at the election at Coventry in 1722 the foot-soldiers named two persons and the sheriff returned them.[33] Whether this be true or false it was not until 1735 that the Mutiny Act provided for the withdrawal of the troops to a distance of at least two miles from the polling-place during an election. But it was not so much for their interference with the free and independent voter as for the burden which they laid on the innkeeper that the soldiers were disliked. Whether this burden was really so grievous or not is beside the question; it was, at any rate, believed to be intolerable.[34] As early as in 1726 the King had asked for additional powers in the Mutiny Act to check the evasion by the civil authorities of their duty of quartering the men, and it was just after this date that municipalities began to abound in complaints.[35] The question was one of extreme difficulty for the Secretary-at-War, since the outcry of the civilians was balanced by a no less forcible counter-cry of officers. Municipalities seemed to think that no military exigency could excuse the violation of their comfort. Riots, for instance, were expected at Bath which, as a watering-place, was exempt from the duty of finding quarters for soldiers. The Secretary-at-War, though he did not shrink from sending troops thither to put down