Note 36 — Chapter II · 1701-1717. MARLBOROUGH’S CAMPAIGNS IN THE WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION.

The practice of compelling or inducing prisoners of war to enlist in the army of their captors lasted until the nineteenth century. During the great war with France we had in our pay battalions composed of subjects of every country into which Napoleon had carried his arms. The Emperor had drafted them into his regiments, and when they were taken prisoners they usually preferred to earn pay by enlisting in our army to languishing at Dartmoor or in the hulks. Not unnaturally they showed, as a rule, no great anxiety to meet their former comrades in battle, and usually found their way to the West Indies as garrison troops.