But the continued necessity for an increased army, and the dread of serious invasion that obtained, and not without reason, during the closing days of the eighteenth and the early days of the nineteenth centuries, was fast wearing down the old civil dislike. Officers on half-pay were rendered liable to trial by court martial. The militia system was introduced into Scotland, and the Shropshire Regiment was the first of the English militia to serve in that country, while greater care was taken as regards home defence. France was not content with a mere defensive rôle; but attempted, though with extreme feebleness, to carry the war into her enemy’s territory. She had threatened to land at Ilfracombe and then in Pembrokeshire; and actually did so at Castlebar during the Irish insurrection of 1797-98, though with no result save that of having to surrender. Ireland in that year had required, as she has before and since, a large garrison, and seven regiments of cavalry and four of infantry had been necessary to put down the rising that was practically crushed at Vinegar Hill. The pay of the rank and file remained much the same, 1s. a day for a private; but the stoppage for the food ration out of it amounted to 6½d. Still the army was everywhere growing in esteem and in popularity. Decorations and brevets were largely bestowed in 1795, after the return of the army from foreign service. Frequent reviews, at which George III. and the Prince of Wales attended, were held. The Duke of York was a popular Commander-in-Chief, and did much to improve the discipline of the army. He was so well liked by the men as to win the name of the “Soldier’s Friend,” a title which his founding the “Royal Military Asylum” for the education of soldiers’ children emphasised. Under his auspices, too, and helped by Sir David Dundas, the somewhat varied and irregular systems of drill were made uniform by the introduction of the first real drill-book, the _Rules and Regulations for the Formations, Field Exercise, and Movements of His Majesty’s Forces_, in 1792. At that time Prussia was looked on as the great schoolmaster in the art-military, as France was later, and as Germany is now. The English army has been mainly a copyist of other people’s methods since the century began. If, after the Crimea or the Italian campaign of 1859, we adopted kepi-shaped hats, baggy “pegtop” trousers, and “booted overalls” for riding, so, when Germany became successful, we copied her “Blucher boots,” flat-topped forage-caps, infantry helmet, and rank distinctions! In this case, too, the Prussian system was the basis of our drill instruction, and, with but slight modifications, so remained until 1870, when linear formations gave place to extended order.