Page:British campaigns in Flanders, 1690-1794; being extracts from "A history of the British army," (IA britishcampaigns00fort).pdf/295

 their qualifications as light troops were exhausted; for they received no sufficient instruction in their peculiar duty.

The Light Dragoons likewise continued to belie their name, being trained in reality simply as cavalry of the line of battle; but for this, probably, the civil rather than the military authorities of the Army were responsible, for at this period it was literally impossible to obtain officers for the mounted troops. It will be remembered that before the outbreak of the war the Adjutant-general had constantly, but in vain, endeavoured to obtain an increase of the wholly inadequate pittance of pay meted out to subalterns of dragoons. Even in peace the burdens laid upon them were too heavy to be borne, and to these were now added inadequate compensation for losses in the field, only eighteen pounds being granted to replace a charger which had cost thirty-five. The consequences became immediately apparent. The Duke of York was obliged to beg that the cornetcies of regiments serving in the Low Countries might be given away, since purchasers for them could not be found. Thus the Light Dragoons were untaught, because there were no officers to teach them; patrols and advanced detachments lacked the daring and adventurous leading of youth; and one of the highest schools for the training of subalterns was wholly neglected. It is hardly possible to estimate the evil consequences of Pitt's misdirected parsimony, in devoting to the hire of mercenaries the money which should have been spent in the improvement of the British Army.

So much must be said of the regular forces; but the year 1794 was not less remarkable for an enormous