During war, chief officers of towns quartered and billeted royal
army officers and soldiers in inns, livery stables, alehouses, and
victualling houses for 4d. a day, but not in any private house
without consent of the owner. From 1714 to 1739, the army
regiments were split up and scattered among the ale-houses of
small towns for maintenance; this was to disperse the army and
also to keep a check on its numbers, which might be
surreptitiously increased if they were in barracks. The towns
protested and town magistrates imposed severe penalties for small
offenses by soldiers. Their drunkenness and violence were not
tolerated as it was for ordinary people. Their officers not being
with them, the soldiers retaliated with troublesomeness. As of
1763 English troops could be quartered in unoccupied houses or
barns and supplied with necessities such as bedding, firewood,
candles, vinegar, salt, cooking utensils, and beer or cider. The
Royal Hospital gave pensions to maimed and worn out soldiers
treated there.
Sailors had more status than soldiers because they had regular
work as seamen in times of peace and they did not remind the
people of the idea of a standing army, which they had hated
especially since Cromwell.
Justices of the Peace, mayors, and other officers could bind boys
as apprentices to sea service if they were at least ten and their
parents were chargeable to the parish or begged for alms.
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