The task of bringing America to submission by force of arms was a military operation beyond the strength of any nation in the world at that time, and very far beyond that of England as she was in 1775. No effort was made to augment the Army until hostilities had actually broken out, and consequently there were no troops at hand. Recruiting, moreover, was so difficult, owing to the insufficiency of the pay, that the country resorted to the hiring of German mercenaries and to the transfer of Hanoverian battalions to Gibraltar and Minorca, so as to release four British battalions from thence. Faction violently obstructed all military measures until a great disaster to our arms in 1777 made it practically certain that France would declare war; but then, in spite of all the ravings of the King's enemies at home, patriotic feeling prevailed, and fifteen thousand men in new regiments were raised by private subscription alone. Troubles multiplied now on all sides; troubles in India, in Ireland, in Great Britain, everywhere. France declared war in 1778, Spain in 1779; Holland became an open enemy in 1780; and the Northern Powers formed an Armed Neutrality to curb our pretensions at sea. What with regular troops and embodied militia we had more than one hundred and eighty thousand British soldiers afoot, besides some twenty thousand Germans; but this was not enough. Our preparations, thanks to Parliament's eternal jealousy of the Army, were made too late. Our military policy was wrong, for we dispersed our forces so as to endeavour to hold every point; and thus we were everywhere overmatched. The war ended with the loss of America and very nearly of India also; of Minorca in Europe, of Senegal and Goree in West Africa, and of St Lucia and Tobago in the West Indies.