At the same time the army as a whole was wounded by harsh criticism and harsh reforms. This, like much of Frederick’s conduct, may be ascribed to the contempt for mankind which experience only increased, and to the almost inevitable effect upon himself of the unbridled absolutism described in the sixth chapter of this book. “Dogs, would ye live for ever?” he shrieked at his men in the crisis of one of his fights. He was forced to confess that, as his strength became less and the number of his subjects greater, he could not hope to look into all affairs of government with his own eyes. Yet he shrank more and more from creating an official or a system in anywise independent of his own immediate control. In 1763 he therefore appointed inspectors of cavalry and of infantry in every province and endowed them with wide powers of supervision of the officers and all that they did. This measure, it need hardly be said, roused the utmost bitterness among the regimental staff, which had hitherto enjoyed a great measure of independence on the sole condition that the King was satisfied with the results of its work. It was the more distasteful for the very reason which made it acceptable to Frederick—that the new inspectors were appointed at the royal pleasure without regard to seniority. The chief officer of a regiment, who had been wont to rule it like a patriarch, was now subjected to the control of a rival, perhaps his junior, who did not resign his own command and could favour it as he pleased. The captains, too, suffered in pocket from another unpopular reform. They had hitherto received from the treasury the full wages of every man on the muster-roll of their company. In time of peace, however, the native-born soldiers spent nine or ten months of the year on furlough without pay. Each captain defrayed the cost of recruiting foreigners for his company out of what he received and pocketed the balance. Now, at the moment when war ceased, Frederick cut off this source of income. By retaining regiments of special merit on the old footing he insulted the rest, and by graduating according to his opinion of the regiment’s efficiency the trifling allowances paid by way of compensation he cast a slur upon the professional honour of officers and men alike. The King paid his officers ten thalers a month and their pensions depended entirely upon his caprice. Many captains were thenceforward unable to resist the temptation to falsify the muster-rolls so as to receive pay for soldiers who did not exist.