67th Tigers
Banned
Strength increased. See Fortesque: http://archive.org/stream/countylieutenan00fortgoog#page/n316/mode/2up
Hmmm. Pardon me for being suspicious, but I've never heard any figures remotely close to those before. Even if you totalled up all the garrison regiments around the world, the numbers I've seen wouldn't surpass 150k. Granted it's a while since I've read any books on this era, but I've never seen anything like that.
Cavalry was the traditional tool of crowd control: there weren't any militia cavalry regiments, but the yeomanry (which was a similar force) had two regiments involved in Peterloo, the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry and the Cheshire Yeomanry. The 15th Hussars, who were the only regular unit there, had been back in the UK since May 1816.The reason for the Peterloo massacre of 1819 becoming the bloodbath it was is that that job would normally have been done by militia - and quite efficiently, I might add - but since a unit of Waterloo veterans had only just returned to Manchester, they were asked to go instead, and their blood was still up after fighting Napoleon and having to spend several years occupying France.
Cavalry was the traditional tool of crowd control: there weren't any militia cavalry regiments, but the yeomanry (which was a similar force) had two regiments involved in Peterloo, the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry and the Cheshire Yeomanry. The 15th Hussars, who were the only regular unit there, had been back in the UK since May 1816.
Since you mention the Bank of England's specie reserves as of 1814, it's only fair to mention the trade situation in 1814. So, no, it's not misleading unless we're only allowed to look at the bad news and not the good.
And what about the other markets, though? Some regions being a problem some of the time does not equal trade overall declining over the whole length of the period (1807-1812?).
I'm not saying Britain had no issues at all - but it's not as if it had to trade with, for instance, the Netherlands or not be able to export its goods anywhere - that paints too dark a picture.
The reason I think specie reserves differ from trade is because if you look at the statistics, trade recovered very rapidly once the blockade was lifted; Simon Schama has some interesting numbers for the Netherlands, but I don't have his book with me. Whereas specie, IMO, shows the nation's ability to wage war. France was obviously in worse shape by 1814, but I think they are different metrics.
Unsurprisingly I have issues with 67th Tiger's numbers and will address them later.
What exactly is the difference between the yeomanry and the militia, for us undereducated Americans?
So in short, I don't think specie reserves show anything about Britain's ability to continue raising funds and continuing to support (financially, at least) the war.
This data is interesting. On the other hand, there's some evidence that the British government thought they were at their limit.
Ina memorandum written by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1809, who doubted that the war could be continued on its present scale. He concluded it would be impossible to retain Walcheren, send an army to the Continent, and pay further subsidies. "The difficulty therefore of supporting any considerable increase in the Foreign Expenditure of the Country, conspires . . . to establish the necessity of limiting the Scale of Operations, and of endeavoring as far as possible to confine the War to a War of defense."
By 18712, Wellington's troops had not been paid for five months, and his muleteers for thirteen. Castlereagh noted that "the scarcity of specie become the subject of much anxiety," and by 1810 Lord Liverpool wrote that, "We cannot expect to carry on the war on a large scale, without some difficulties, those of a pecuniary nature perhaps more trying than any other, but they are at the same time most common."
( I don't get that either).
In 1810 the British PM William Huskisson complained that "the demands on the military chest in the Peninsula . . . were such as to create the greatest apprehension that the chest would be entirely exhausted if the expenditure should be very considerably increased." For similar reasons he thought that the financial problems imposed by landing troops in Westphalia in 1809 would be insurmountable.
side note: Interestingly, in 1811, the First Lord of the Admiralty ruled out another attack on Flushing on the grounds that "The Peninsula and Ireland absorb all we have and would do so were it double what what it is."
I wasn't aware that Ireland was garrisoned so heavily to keep it from rising up; and it seems weird to list it next to the Penninsula as a drain on troops.