One noticeable thing relating to the Highland forces had occurred in the early part of the period under consideration. Between 1793 and 1809, Scotland had willingly furnished some 70,000 men to fill the ranks of her national section of the army. But North Britain was not populous, and the supply of men, more than such a country could afford, began to fail. There were then one cavalry and nineteen infantry regiments serving with the colours and wearing the tartan; but already, as too often occurs at the present time, there were many regiments which perforce were recruited in England, and were only Scottish by name and dress. Hence it was that six of these regiments, the 90th, 91st, 72nd, 74th, 75th, and 94th, were ordered to abandon the kilt, and adopt the ordinary line uniform. There had been many changes in the form of the sword. At first a broad two-edged blade, a heavy, hacking weapon with a cross hilt, it was designed to wound men in armour. Not that, apparently, they ran much danger, for in many a battle few were killed. The wounds received in action appear to have been chiefly contusions.[48] The mace or axe was in armoured days probably more effective than the sword. As armour was abandoned, and the mail gauntlet discarded, so the hilt became more complex (as in the so-called modern “claymore” hilt), to guard the naked, or merely gloved hand. The weapon itself was now made to thrust as well as cut, and the lighter and thinner blade was stiffened and strengthened (as in bayonets) with grooves. Finally, about the end of the last century, and for long after, the merely thrusting rapier was almost universal, save the hanger or cutlass used by bluejackets. But fashions change, and the rapier blade widened out into the modern cut-and-thrust sword, and the simple shell-like rapier guard again spread out to cover hand and wrist. Swords were worn by the rank and file of the British infantry battalions up to 1745, the grenadiers carrying them seventeen years longer. [Illustration: _Spears & Swords._ _Pike_ _BlkBill_ _Partisan_ _Lochaber Axe_ _Halberd Geo: II._ _Halberd Geo: III._ _Spontoon 1820_ _1350_ _1580_ _Scheavona 1600_ _Claymore 1700_ _Rapier 1800_ _Modern 1896_ ]