has the command (the 'old fiddlestick' was Newcastle, who was Lord Lieutenant of Middlesex and later of Sussex also). Newcastle had opposed the Militia Acts, but even he felt that Sussex, a county standing right in the path of potential invasion, should raise its men. Nevertheless, the county gentry were apathetic, preferring to pay a large fine instead. American War of Independence Sussex remained a defaulter county liable for militia fines throughout the 1760s. It was not until the American War of Independence, when Britain was threatened with invasion by the Americans' allies, France and Spain, that the Sussex Militia was reformed. It was raised and embodied at Chichester on 29 June 1778, the Lord Lieutenant of Sussex, Charles Lennox, 3rd Duke of Richmond, taking personal command as colonel. The force was still unpopular in Sussex: the imposition of the Militia Ballot caused riots in the county, but the officers took over from the parish constables the task of raising subscriptions from those who were liable, and used the money to hire volunteers. Richmond did not ask for army pensioners as drill sergeants. A professional soldier, Richmond believed that the militia should not mimic the Regular Army's drill, but should only operate in its own localities, where local knowledge in the event of invasion would be valuable, and the militia could implement a strategy of 'scorched earth' allied with digging entrenchments. However, his efforts to obtain for the Sussex Militia the privilege of being stationed in their own county were unsuccessful. Richmond appointed one of the Pelhams, his young friend Thomas, later 2nd Earl of Chichester, as a captain, even though they were at the time political opponents, later promoting him to major and to lieutenant-colonel. The colonel arranged smallpox inoculation for the 390 men of the regiment who had not previously been exposed to the disease. Inoculation required three weeks' sick leave in an isolation hospital; the duke was able to provide a building for this, but it could only taken 60 men at a time, so it took from May to August 1779 before the whole regiment as immunised. The Sussex Militia spent the summer of 1779 in Sussex, at Shoreham-by-Sea and Brighton. The following summer the regiment was at Ranmore Camp near Dorking in Surrey, close enough to Sussex for Pelham to stand as a candidate for Sussex in the general election and to be elected. (A