“Sergeant Kite’s” statement in the _Recruiting Officer_[21] is, though coarse, a not much exaggerated picture of what was _thought_ of the soldier, though it can never assuredly be applied to all who wore the uniform. He says: “I was born a gipsy, and bred among that crew till I was ten years of age; there I learned canting and lying. I was bought from my mother Cleopatra by a certain nobleman for three pistoles, who, liking my beauty, made me his page; there I learned impudence and pimping. I was turned off for wearing my lord’s linen and drinking my lady’s ratafia, and then became bailiff’s follower; there I learned bullying and swearing. I at last got into the army, and there I learned wenching and drinking, so that if your worship pleases to cast up the old sum, viz.--canting, lying, impudence, bullying, swearing, drinking, and a halberd, you will find the sum total amounting to a recruiting sergeant.” This, then, is reputed to be the material; the following was the method of capturing it.[22] The crown contracted with gentlemen of position or known soldiers to raise a certain body of troops, and bounty money per head was granted for the purpose. Regiments, therefore, long bore the names of the colonels who had raised or those who had recruited them. Sometimes in lieu of money the contractor sold the commissions, which was called “raising men for rank”; and hence arose a further extension of the purchase system which seems to have originated with Charles II. For the maintenance of this force the colonel received an annual sum to defray the cost of clothing, pay, and recruiting; thus it is related that a British Fusilier Regiment had four years’ pay owing to officers and men, who, in spite of repeated memorials, could not obtain any portion of it. After the lapse of some time, it transpired that Lord Tyrawley, the colonel, had appropriated the arrears to his own use; an act which he attempted to justify by pleading the custom of the army, and by the fact of the king being cognisant of his proceedings.[23] Recruits were raised by “a beating order,” without which recruiting was illegal, and the regiment was kept up to full strength. Field officers, to increase their rate of pay, received, say, colonel _as_ colonel, 12s. a day, and in addition, as captain of company 8s. a day. The term of enlistment of the recruit was a matter of arrangement, and was often for life. The troops were long disposed in billets in Great Britain, but in the early part of the eighteenth century barracks for about 5000 men had been created, and the evils of billeting were fully recognised. The barrack accommodation had not increased to more than sufficient for 20,000 men by 1792.