Though there were many signs that France looked upon the Peace of Amiens more as a truce than as the end of her struggle with Britain, our Government soon began to cut down all military expenditure with unreasoning haste. Wholesale discharges from the army left only 40,000 regular troops in the United Kingdom; the militia, after an embodiment of nine years, were sent to their homes; the “fencible” regiments of horse and foot, raised for purposes of local defence, were disbanded. Thus the renewal of the war in 1803 found us almost disarmed; and when Napoleon collected an army for the invasion of England the Government was hard pressed to raise a garrison sufficient for the needs of the United Kingdom. By paying huge bounties to recruits the numbers of the regular army were increased to 12,000 cavalry and 75,000 infantry; bounties nearly as large attracted 80,000 men to the militia; while to escape a mitigated form of compulsory service, introduced to catch those who would not serve of their own free will, 343,000 men joined corps of Yeomanry or regiments of Volunteers. How far this mass of armed men would have been able to face veterans who had won innumerable victories in western and central Europe is a matter of speculation. Happily for England at the beginning of the nineteenth century, though perhaps unhappily for the British Empire of the present day, the threatened invasion did not take place, and our race had no opportunity to ascertain by practical experience whether Britons, very imperfectly trained to war, are as good fighting men as foreigners who have thoroughly mastered the soldier’s trade before they meet their enemy on the battlefield. [Illustration: MAP N^o. 3. THE BASIN of THE MEDITERRANEAN 1727. 1793-1801 W. & A.K. Johnston Limited, Edinburgh & London.] Among the steps taken to increase the regular army was the formation of additional battalions of infantry, one or two of which were allotted to existing regiments. The second battalion of the XVIIIth was raised in Ireland in 1803, and, like the first, served in Scotland until the summer of 1804, when both were sent to Barham Downs, one of the many camps in the south of England where large numbers of troops stood ready to march towards the coast. After a few months the first battalion was ordered to the West Indies, and sailing in January, 1805, with other corps, reached Jamaica at the end of April, 935 strong.[116] The second battalion remained at Barham Downs until the destruction of the Franco-Spanish fleet at Trafalgar put an end to Napoleon’s hope of obtaining the temporary command of the Channel necessary to pass his troops across the Straits of Dover. As soon as all danger of invasion was over the encampment was broken up, and the second battalion was sent to garrison Jersey.