he
hostile vote of the House of Commons in 1785, he had succeeded in
finding money enough to enable the Duke of Richmond to place those
dockyard towns beyond reach of a _coup de main_; and to Pitt may be
ascribed the unquestioned superiority of Britain at sea. Of the 113
sail-of-the-line then available, about 90 could soon be placed in
commission, that is, so soon as the press-gang provided the larger part
of the _personnel_.

The state of the army was far less satisfactory. Never, in all
probability, since the ignominious times of Charles II, had it been in
so weak a condition relatively to the Continental Powers. In the Budget
of 1792 Pitt asked merely for 17,013 men as guards and garrisons in
these islands; and he reduced even that scanty force to 13,701 men for
the next six months. The regiments were in some cases little more than
skeletons, but with a fairly full complement of officers. Nominally the
army consisted of eighty-one battalions; but of these the West Indies
claimed as many as nineteen. India needed nine; and on the whole only
twenty-eight line regiments, together with the Guards and the cavalry,
remained for the defence of Great Britain and Ireland. Efforts were made
in December 1792 to bring in recruits, but with little effect. The
defence of London, the dockyard towns, and other important posts,
depended of course partly on the militia; 19,000 of that useful force
were embodied early in February. But as the authorities forbore to
compel men to serve in person, there was a rush for substitutes, which
naturally told against recruiting for the Line.[207] Volunteer
Associations were also relied on for local defence, and for overawing
the malcontent or disorderly elements in the populace. The safety of the
coasts and therefore of the capital rested primarily with the navy; and
for England the war promised to be almost entirely a naval war.

Equally chaotic was the administration for war. Some time in February
1793 Dundas sent to Pitt a Memorandum respecting a new arrangement of
offices which had been mooted in the Cabinet. The need of some change
may be judged by the fact that Dundas was Secretary for Home Affairs
(down to July 1794), First Commissioner for India (that is, virtually,
Secretary for India), and Treasurer of the Navy, besides drawing glory
and profit from his airy duties of Groom of the Stole. What changes had
been proposed does not appear; but Dundas expressed himself as follows:
"First: T