Soldiers: Army Lives and Loyalties from Redcoats to Dusty Warriors. Richard Holmes

In 1759, with more troops being enlisted, Bagshawe wrote to the Duke of Bedford, lord lieutenant of Ireland, offering ‘to raise a regiment of infantry at his own expense.’ By this procedure, known as ‘raising for rank’, Bagshawe would recruit the regiment and furnish its swords and accoutrements at his own expense, although if the regiment was disbanded in less than three years the public purse would refund the cost of these items. The government accepted the offer, and his commission as colonel was dated 17 January 1760.

      No sooner had Colonel Bagshawe set about raising his regiment, the 93rd Foot, than he found himself the target of just the sort of pleas that powerful men had once made on his behalf. Lieutenant Francis Flood was the nephew of Warden Flood, attorney general for Ireland, and Bagshawe thought that part of the agreement for Flood’s commission was that his uncle would provide sufficient money for Flood to raise ten men. The attorney general loudly denied that any such agreement existed, and young Flood was soon in financial difficulties, for he could not balance his recruiting account. ‘My family is in distress,’ he lamented, ‘being concerned with a contested election’, so no money was to be had there.²⁹