stationed in Ireland; regiments were freely moved between the establishments, and the regiments of foot were numbered consecutively through both establishments. In the early nineteenth century, there were 13,140 officers in "the Army", 992 in the Royal Artillery, and 202 in the Royal Engineers. "The army" had 181,000 other ranks, while the Royal Artillery had 12,500. Rank and file The British Army filled their ranks through voluntary enlistment. The enlistment period lasted for life (in practice, 25 years), ending only by death or through wounding. During war, the army offered shorter enlistment periods to entice more recruits. The army faced a constant lack of men wanting to enlist. As such, the army often forcefully recruited vagrants in wartime periods. During the Napoleonic wars, the militia was mobilized, but it could not serve outside England. As a result, the government tried to induce the militiamen to enlist in the regular army. Starting 1803, the government also drafted men into an Army of Reserve, the real purpose being to form a recruitment surplus for the regular army. This proved very unpopular politically, and the government abolished the system after three years. The government also recruited foreigners, to include the King's foreign subjects, other Germans, and even Swiss and Royalist French, into special foreign regiments. Since 1701, the recruitment of both Catholic and Protestant Irish was prohibited by the Irish Establishment. Yet, this exclusion did not encompass the officer corps, and, at the end of the eighteenth century, Irish Protestants occupied a full third of the Irish regimental positions. The British Establishment formally prohibited recruiting Catholics, a ban that was abolished from practice in 1771. In 1775, the Irish Establishment began recruiting both Protestant and Catholic Irish. Apprentices, indentured servants, and coal miners could not enlist. Seamen were reserved for the need of the Royal Navy. The hardship of military life, low pay, and the low social standing of the soldiery filled the ranks with men driven by impoverishment or drinking to enlist as a last resort. Contemporary social analysts placed the soldiery at the bottom of society, below common labourer's but above paupers and vagrants. Most enlistees were young and almost always unmarried. Elder and married men had hope for some stability in life, but young rural day labourers found the labour market to be unsecure. Their best options for employment centered around seasonal farm hand labour, a full year if lucky.