the three-decker battleship HMS Britannia at Dartmouth. He obtained only an "average" certificate which required him to do a further six months of training on board another ship — the frigate HMS Bristol at Sheerness from January 1868 — before qualifying as a midshipman. In 1869 he served as a midshipman on HMS Warrior commanded by Captain Boys, an old friend of French's father. She patrolled in the English Channel and off Spain and Portugal. While in Lisbon French was able to hire horses and ride over Wellington's old battlefields. During his service he also witnessed the accidental sinking of HMS Captain. He resigned from the Royal Navy in November 1870 as he was discovered to be acrophobic and to suffer from seasickness. Early army career French joined the Suffolk Artillery Militia in November 1870 where he was expected to put in about two months a year with the regiment. He initially failed his exams (mathematics and foreign languages) for a regular commission and had to hire a new tutor losing the fees he had paid in advance to the previous one. He was commissioned as a lieutenant in the 8th King's Royal Irish Hussars on 28 February 1874, a prestigious regiment whose officers often drank claret for breakfast but there is no evidence that he ever served with them. He transferred to the 19th Hussars on 11 March 1874 possibly as it was less expensive — following the sale of the family home at Ripple Valley French's private income of £1,000 per annum was enough to cover the £500–£600 required by his new regiment. He was posted to Aldershot Command which then contained a division (three infantry brigades and one cavalry) under Sir Hope Grant. He became an expert hunter and steeplechaser permanently damaging the little finger of his right hand in a fall. The 19th Hussars were posted to Ireland in June 1876. In September 1877 French was one of two lieutenants who persuaded 70 drunk and mutinous troopers, who had armed themselves with sticks and threatened "murder" if infantry pickets were sent after them, to return to barracks (the ringleaders were subsequently imprisoned — they had been protesting at an unpopular commanding officer who remained in command for another sixteen months). In the autumn of 1880 the 19th were deployed by rail to Ballinrobe and Lough Mask to protect labourers ricking hay at the height of the