Concurrently the King took steps, not always with great effect, to check the still existing abuse of false masters.[65] A more real service was the prevention of illegal deductions from the pay of the men, a vice from which hardly a regiment was wholly free, by the regulation of all stoppages by warrant.[66] As part of the same principle, he endeavoured also to ensure honesty towards the country and towards the soldiery in the matter of clothing. In fact, wherever the hand of King George the First can be traced in the administration of the Army, it is found working for integrity, economy, and discipline; and it is sufficiently evident that when he gave decided orders the very officials at the War Office knew better than to disregard them. It is melancholy to record the fact that he was ill supported by the General Officers of the Army. The Board of Generals, to which the settlement of all purely military questions was supposed to be referred, seems to have been lazy and inert, requiring occasionally to be reminded of its duty in severe terms.[67] It may well be that this supineness was due to the general arrogation of military authority by civilians, but even so it remains unexcused. Colonels again appear to have been scandalously negligent and remiss in every respect; and it may have been as a warning to them that the King on one occasion dismissed seven of their number in one batch from his service.[68] But issue orders as he might, the King could never succeed, owing to the prevailing indiscipline, in making a certain number of officers ever go near their regiments at all. This habit of long and continued absence from duty, especially on colonial stations, is said to have troubled him much, and to have caused him greater uneasiness than any other abuse in the Army. It will be seen when we read of the opening of the Seven Years' War that he had all too good ground for misgiving. Yet the regimental officers must not be too hardly judged. In foreign garrisons, as shall presently be shown, they were exiles, neglected and uncared for; at home they were subject to incessant provocation, to malicious complaints, and in every quarter and at all times to the control of civilians. Lastly, though frequently called out in aid of the civil power, they had the fate of Captain Porteous before their eyes, and indeed took that lesson so speedily to heart that for want of their interposition the life of that unlucky man was sacrificed.[69]