Again, the Adjutant-general, if consulted, could have warned Dundas to be chary of his battalions, since some of them would certainly be required for the Fleet. The King’s Navy was labouring under the grievances which in four years were to drive the seamen to mutiny; and as a natural consequence men were hardly to be obtained by any means. ◆Feb. 7.◆ On the very day when the declaration of war was received, the Fleet swallowed up two battalions; and by the end of March it had absorbed so many men that only three regiments of the Line were to be found south of the Tweed. In fact the Horse Guards did not know where to turn for another battalion. This, however, did not prevent Dundas from presently sending another emissary to Jamaica, to commit England still more deeply to operations in the most leeward sphere of the West Indies. Yet he had no reserve of any description to rely upon, except fourteen thousand Hanoverians and eight thousand Hessians, which, pursuant to the time-honoured practice, were taken into British pay; and of these the latter only, being mercenaries pure and simple, could be counted upon for service beyond sea.[108] Since the kingdom was thus stripped of regular troops, it was necessary to raise other forces for its security; but this also was done as foolishly as possible. Early in February it was rightly and wisely decided to call out nineteen thousand additional Militia; but in the execution precisely the same mistake was made as in France. Personal service was not insisted upon; there arose a great demand for substitutes; and the Militia, instead of gaining a substantial increase, simply cut off from the Army the sources of its supply of recruits. In Scotland, which as yet had no Militia, recourse was made to the raising of Fencible regiments, that is to say, of regular troops enlisted for home-service and for the duration of the war only. This system had so far been applied only on a small scale, the regiments of Fencibles during the Seven Years’ War and the American War of Independence having been but few;[109] but it now received great and sudden expansion. On the 2nd of March authority was issued for the raising of seven regiments of Fencible Infantry in Scotland at a stroke; besides one already authorised for the Isle of Man ◆Feb. 20.◆, and another, added in April, for the Orkney Islands.[110] With the leading magnates of Scotland at their head, these new corps were speedily completed; but there was one Scottish nobleman who went further than his peers, and raised a regiment in the Highlands for general service. This was Thomas Humberstone Mackenzie, afterwards the last Earl of Seaforth; and his regiment remains with us, still known by his name, but yet more famous under its number of the Seventy-eighth. The reader should take note of the Fencible regiments, for in the years before us we shall see them increased and multiplied in all three kingdoms. Meanwhile, he should