ABSTRACT
War is often seen as a forcer of innovation, technical in the form of new weaponry, governmental and social in the shape of the demands created by the burdens of major conflicts. A number of scholars, including Michael Roberts and Brian Downing,1 have advanced theories about the governmental consequences of military change, and the “fiscal military state” has been seen as a development of the period,2 but there are methodological questions in assessing the impact of such change. It is clear that the pressures of sustained war and military expenditure were not new. It is not clear how the pattern of causality should be discerned between military and political-governmental changes, and, as already suggested in this work, it can be argued that many military changes reflected political-governmental counterparts rather than causing them. Nevertheless, the degree of administrative sophistication required to sustain global military systems and, in particular, large specialized battle fleets, was considerable. As is to be expected, it is clear that these systems encountered many problems. For example, the correspondence during 1781-3 between Lord Macartney, Governor of Madras, and Sir Eyre Coote, the British Commander-in-Chief in India, is full of references to financial and other problems.3 Their correspondence with others addressed similar themes. In July 1781 Macartney claimed that:
the extreme scarcity of grain, the impractability of getting means of drawing or carrying artillery, provision, and baggage, so as to enable the army to quit the borders of the sea, by which it is now supplied, the want of cavalry essential to oppose Hyder with real effect, and our total inability to pay the army, which is about three months in arrears, afford but a gloomy prospect to an attentive observer.4
