officers, who were commissioned by the lord lieutenant. An adjutant and drill sergeants were to be provided to each regiment from the Regular Army, and arms and accoutrements would be supplied when the county had secured 60 per cent of its quota of recruits. Middlesex was given a quota of 1600 men to raise, but failed to do so – possibly because the Lord Lieutenant of Middlesex, the Duke of Newcastle, was Leader of the Opposition, who had opposed the Militia Acts. A patriotic ballad of the time declared: All over the land they'll find such a stand, From our English Militia Men ready at hand, Though in Sussex and Middlesex folks are but fiddlesticks, While an old fiddlestick has the command (the 'old fiddlestick' was Newcastle, who was also powerful in Sussex). Claiming insufficient numbers of qualified officers, Newcastle suspended the execution of the Act in Middlesex for two years. However, opinion in the county shifted and in July 1760, the lieutenancy began forming three regiments (Western, Eastern and Westminster) and the arms and accoutrements were supplied from the Tower of London on 7 and 12 August. By then the war was going in Britain's favour and the threat of invasion had lifted: no further militia were required, and the Middlesex regiments were not actually embodied before the war ended in 1762. Parliament did however provide the money to continue training the militia in peacetime (two periods of 14 days or one period of 28 days each year). War of American Independence The militia were called out in 1778 after the outbreak of the War of American Independence, when the country was threatened with invasion by the Americans' allies, France and Spain. The three regiments of Middlesex Militia were 'embodied' for permanent duty for the first time on 31 March 1778, with the 1st Middlesex Eastern Militia at Hampstead. In the summer of 1780 the East Middlesex formed part of a brigade under Lieutenant-General Simon Fraser in a training camp at Waterdown Forest, near Tunbridge Wells. The Peace of Paris ended the war in 1783, but the militia had already been disembodied in 1782. From 1784 to 1792 the militia were assembled for their 28 days' annual peacetime training, but to save money only two-thirds of the men were actually mustered each year. French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars The militia were already being embodied when Revolutionary France declared war