Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a man mustered for duty in the army (and thus ‘bound’ to service) but not yet formally enlisted.

1672–1719		J. Addison quoted in Imperial Dict. n.p.: There were several counterfeit books which were carved in wood, and served only to fill up the number like fagots in the muster of a regiment [F&H].
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Faggots Men Muster’d for Souldiers, not yet Listed.
a.1704		T. Brown Comical View of London and Westminster in Works (1760) I 154: Faggots summon’d in from all parts of Westminster, whores and bailiffs busy to pick up the military sparks as soon as the show is over.
1714		T. Lucas Lives of the Gamesters (1930) 182: He (being then [i.e. 1710] a Faggot in Colonel Charter’s Company, in the Foot-Guards).
1723		C. Walker Authentick Memoirs of Sally Salisbury 61: The Father [...] being, as you have rightly observ’d, a Military Faggot.
1730		Hist. of Col. Francis Charteris 15: He had not above One third part effective Men in his Company, the rest being what the military Gentlemen term Faggots.
1736		‘Downfall of Mother Gin’ in Gent’s Mag. 6 311: [note] Faggots are Fellows, for whom pay is received by the Captains, and who appear only occasionally at muster.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Faggot, a man hired at a muster, to appear as a soldier; to faggot, in the canting sense, means to bind, an allusion to the faggots made up by the woodmen, which are all bound; faggot the culls, bind the men.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.