Ireland itself effectively ceased and Irishmen seeking employment in foreign armies had to make their own way to the Continent. Replacements accordingly were drawn increasingly from the descendants of Irish soldiers who had settled in France or Spain; from non-Irish foreign recruits such as more readily available Germans or Swiss; or from natives of the recruiting countries. In 1732, Sir Charles Wogan indicated in a letter to Dean Swift that 120,000 Irishmen had been killed and wounded in foreign service "within these forty years", with Swift later replying: As noted above, as late as the late 1780s, there were still three Irish regiments in France. During the Napoleonic Wars at least nominally Irish units continued to serve in the Spanish and French armies. At the time of the Franco-Prussian War a volunteer Irish medical unit, the Franco-Irish Ambulance Brigade, was serving with the French Army. It was some time before the British armed forces began to tap into Irish Catholic manpower. In the late 18th century, the Penal Laws were gradually relaxed and in the 1790s the laws prohibiting Catholics bearing arms were abolished. Thereafter, the British began recruiting Irish regiments for the Crown Force including for such units as the Connaught Rangers. Several more Irish-labelled units were created in the 19th century. By 1914 infantry regiments in the British Army that were associated with Ireland included the Prince of Wales's Leinster Regiment, the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, the Irish Guards, the Royal Irish Regiment, the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, the Royal Irish Rifles, the Royal Irish Fusiliers, the Connaught Rangers and the Royal Munster Fusiliers. With the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922, five of the above regiments were disbanded, with most of the remainder undergoing a series of amalgamations between 1968 and 2006. The United Kingdom still retains four Irish-named regiments: the Irish Guards, the Royal Irish Regiment, the Scottish and North Irish Yeomanry, and the London Irish Rifles. The Queen's Royal Hussars, the successor regiment of the Queen's Royal Irish Hussars, and the Royal Dragoon Guards, the successor regiment of the 4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards and the 5th Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards, maintain the Irish heritage of their antecedent regiments through their uniforms, regimental bands and traditions, such as the celebration of St. Patrick's Day. See also Battle of Pensacola (1781) Count Joseph Cornelius O’Rourke Early Modern Ireland 1536–1691 Great Britain in the Seven Years' War