in excess, of the highest numbers during the Burmah and Sikh wars. Allowing then the police in all its branches to do ordinary police work, as in good hands it is amply able to do, we have the Army to support it and to watch a sea-girt frontier, whence nothing can touch us, the Nepal and N. W. borders where we are scarcely less safe, and to overawe the rabble portions of the Hydrabad army, and deal with Sonthal and other half armed savages, and even less formidable discontented chiefs.

For these purposes our means are most ample, if we are true to ourselves. In the words of the first Punjab Report,

"It is not open war that is to be guarded against (at Lahore,) but secret intrigue, and outbursts of small bands of desperate men: against the first, the best remedy is a mixture of the different arms, with a large sprinkling of Europeans; for the other, Irregular horse, and such Infantry as unencumbered with baggage, can be under arms and in movement at an hour's notice."

One thousand (1,000) men (half Cavalry, half Infantry,) and two guns, put in motion within two hours of the news of a disturbance reaching any of our stations, and able to traverse the country at the rate of twenty or thirty miles a day, will do more to secure the peace of the Punjab than the tardy assemblage of armies. Indeed, we do not hesitate to state, that our anxiety is rather on account of the number of troops, and the system on which we understand they are to be located, than of any deficiency of force."

The above passages entirely express our opinion. There is nothing in the length or breadth of the plains of India that could for an hour stand against such a force. Had such a one been put in motion at the outset of the Sonthal insurrection, the whole affair would not have lasted as many weeks, as it has months. Had the ten thousand men that had been told off, on the N. W. Frontier to meet disturbance, promptly marched on Mooltan, in 1848, there would probably have been no siege; or at least the affair would have been as insignificant as it proved momentous. Decisive and energetic measures have never yet failed, though contrary courses have often brought us very near destruction. Arcot, Plassey, Buxar, Assaye, and Laswaree, tell their own tales, as do Baillie, Monson and Elphinstone theirs. With less means than Monson, Goddard successfully performed twice his task. By a bold front, Goddard marched across the continent of India, and carried every thing before him. Monson by distrusting his troops, by retreating, when he ought to have advanced, drew Holkar after him and lost his army. A few hours' stand, or a single march in the right direction, would have saved Baillie. A three mile movement would have preserved Elphinstone, even after months of insane delusion. The very first day he taught the Affghans their game. Instead of attacking the rabble, who

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had murdered Burnes in the city, he called in his detachments and kept close within his intrenchments, letting nothing but hunger move him. A single Regiment would have dispersed the mob on the first day. For three days the very men who afterwards destroyed our army, supported Mackenzie and Trena in the city, and eventually aided their retreat. Thus it will always be. Providence helps those who help themselves. Those who don't, need not look for friends any where, especially in the East. Lords Hardinge and Gough won Feroshuhur by holding their ground during the night. Lord Gough lost the fruits of Chilianwalla, by not following the same course.

Rome conquered the world by never yielding a foot, by never confessing herself beaten, by rising with renewed courage from every defeat. We require such fortitude more than Rome did. As yet our tents are only pitched in the land. We have a numerous and a noble Army, but six-sevenths of it are of the soil. We have one fortress in all India. We offer no inducement to extraordinary fidelity, even while we place our magazines, our treasuries, and our very throats, at the mercy of any desperado. While we English are thus reckless, we both at home and in India, are more easily panic-stricken than perhaps any brave people in the world. Not only does a Cabul, or a Chilianwalla, strike terror from one end of the country to the other, but a simple murder, a Sonthal or a Moplah outbreak, has scarcely less effect. With few exceptions there is no preparation to meet sudden danger. There is the most helpless alarm when it does occur.

Russia did not wait until she was attacked to fortify Sebastopol, Bomarsund, and a hundred other points. She will now lose character if, at the present juncture, she fortify St. Petersburgh and Moscow. Let us profit by experience. Let us put our house in order. We know not how soon a coalition may press Britain, as Russia is now pressed. While the war lasts, there will be no undue economy; but should peace occur to-morrow, we run the risk of reverting to the old apathy, that left the whole coast of England undefended, and only thirty guns in the Isles available for Field service at the very time we were expecting war with France. Let us not be misunderstood; we are no alarmists. testify to what we have witnessed during the last twenty years. We only Our disgust was often great at what we did so witness. History testifies to the preceding eight years. our eyes the terror of Madras, when Hyder Ally's horsemen swept We have vividly before its suburbs. The alarms caused by the failures of the first Nepal campaign; also those by supposed Mahratta combinations, and by Pindaree incursions, by Murray's and by Monson's retreats, by the occupation of Furruckabad, and the beleaguerment of Delhi, and, lastly by our four failures at Bhurtpore. Even greater, though

utterly without reason, was the panic at Calcutta at the outset of the first Burmah war. Chittagong was reported in flames. Bank. ers asked to be allowed to send their cash to Fort William, and Burmah war boats were reported on the salt-water-lake; and all this because the Calcutta militia ran away at Ramoo! These are historical facts. Nor were the whisperings of alarm less loud on the occasions of the murders in 1848, or when, in the ensuing year, six Malay-like Sikhs sold their lives in an onslaught on a whole European Regiment at Lahore. Or, on each Moplah affair, through the number of fanatics concerned was scarcely more numerous than in that of Lahore. Finally, our readers will remember how the murders of Mackeson and Connolly and the attack on Mackenzie were received. The first was supposed to be connected with a simultaneous rise at Peshawur and invasion from the Khyber; the others as the forerunners of the assassination of all Europeans.

It must be pleasant to our enemies, and amusing to others who watch our arrogance and insolence, in ordinary times, to observe the dastard fear with which many of our numbers receive such events. The loud talk, even in mess-rooms, of general insurrection, the loading of pistols and the doubling of sentinels. Such acts are all wrong. They tend to produce the very danger that is feared. It is right always to bear in mind that we are but encamped in the land. We are dwelling "in the tents of Shem." We have yet to prove the permanence of the encampment, whether it is to be rudely broken up in blood; whether to be a Mogul "Oordoo" a Mahratta or a Sikh "Lushkur," or "Chaonee," or whether, after a fertilizing and blessed rule of centuries, we are voluntarily to hand over regenerated India to her own educated and enlightened sons. But whatever be ours and India's destinies, our obvious duty is to avoid all unnecessary occasion of danger, at the same time always calmly and unostentatiously stand to our arms. The spirit of Wellington's and Cromwell's words should be our motto, and always in our hearts, "Trust in God," "Keep your Treaties"-" and keep your powder dry."

To such of our readers as are disposed to tax us with exaggeration, in the above rough sketch, we recommend a glance at recent newspaper statements regarding Connolly, Mackenzie, and the Sonthal disturbances. Above all, let them read Sir William Napier's pamphlet of 1854, on the Dalhousie and Napier controversy. They may then blush for British officers. It is difficult to know whether William Napier believed those incendiary and dastardly reports. If he did, he was as credulous as his gallant brother when the latter perceived danger from Hyderabad, Burmah and Cashmere. Such records of our shame, how

ever, abound in the newspaper correspondence of the Affghan, Scinde and Sikh wars. Wellington and Raglan were equally molested by scare-crows, and according to the accounts from our own ranks Spain should have been lost, and the army before Sebastopol destroyed. The public enunciation of such opinions is by few, the talkings and murmurings are by many. Even brave men-men ready to lead the storming party, or to die at their posts, consider themselves privileged to talk in strains they would never permit in the ranks under them, strains that must weaken their own influence and might even endanger their own lives.

We freely admit that, with the march of civil improvement, much has been done, during the last few years, to improve our military position. But, in the words of Napoleon, moral is to physical force as three to one, and moral strength is not altogether at the bidding of Governor Generals, Commander-in-Chiefs, or subordinate leaders. But, to a great extent it is. The Army at Candahar never lost heart, because Nott kept his. MacLaren's Brigade, intended for Ghuznee, failed even to reach Khelat-iGhilzie, because MacLaren never expected to carry out his orders. It did not require a Xenophon to do so. Havelock, Monteith, Richmond, Mayne, MacGregor, Broadfoot, Pottinger, MacKenzie or Backhouse, with many others engaged in Affghanistan, would have saved not only Ghuznee but Cabul. The futile attempt of MacLaren did mischief. It added to the previous discouragement of our own people; it gave courage to the Affghans. The fact is notorious. Mahomed Akbar had failed in an attack on the citadel of Cabul held by Shah Soojah; but the same night, hearing of MacLaren's retreat, he renewed the assault, and succeeded. With Cabul also fell Ghuznee, and Khilat-i-Ghilzie was left to its fate, for Craigie to make a defence not often surpassed. The counsel of a few brave hearts saved Jellalabad after their own Government had abandoned them.

It was the moral depression of Wilde's brigade added to the shameful manner in which it, a body of four sepoy battalions with a hap-hazard Brigadier and Brigade Major, taken from their own ranks, without a single other Staff officer, without carriage, commissariat, guns, or cavalry, was sent to Peshawur, that not only prevented its reaching Jellalabad, but nearly caused its own destruction in the Khyber. The Blue Book records Sir Jasper Nicholl's opinion-"I have yet to learn the use of guns in a pass." On this wondrous conclusion, a General who, four and twenty years earlier had himself done good service in a mountain country, or rather, we suspect, on the preconceived opinion that Jellalabad must be lost, acted. It would have been more honest, sensible, and humane, to have boldly refused to permit a man to

cross the Sutlej. That chapter of Indian military history has yet to be written. Kaye's work, admirable as it generally is, has not done justice to those concerned, but has done very much more than justice to the Commander-in-Chief. Few officers have been worse treated than the gallant and unfortunate Wilde. As brave a soul as ever breathed, he was driven, broken hearted, to his grave.

We might adduce scores of such examples, bad and good, from past Indian history, of the effect of prestige and of leading; of good and of bad conduct, by the very same men, all induced by individual example, or by the moral effect of circumstances. No soldier is more open to the influence of all the above causes than the sepoy. He has a wonderful opinion of the "Ikbal" of the Company. He has also a keen perception of the merits or demerits of his officers. He loves the memory of the commander who has led him successfully; and, in extreme old age, will talk of the subaltern who was kind to him and shared his dangers.*

In the track of Monson's retreat, we have repeatedly heard an old Subadar recount the doings of his own corps, going over not only the names of his own officers, but of others with whom he was not immediately connected. Telling how nobly Lucan died in covering the retreat through the Mokundra Pass; how the 12th N. I. was destroyed in covering the passage of the Bunnas River. History corroborates the old man's tale, and tells how the sepoys bade their officers keep heart; " we will take you safe to Agra." Captain Rafter records that "out of twelve thousand men, scarcely one thousand entered Agra, without cannon, baggage or ammunition." The guns dragged by bullocks were, of course, lost in a country which in the rains is a quagmire; but our author has, unintentionally no doubt, exaggerated the tale of misery and disaster. Never was more devotion shewn by a mercenary army. With Holkar at their heels, slaying them like sheep, or sending them in noseless, and otherwise maimed, to terrify their comrades, and on the other hand, offering them service with the prospect of high command in his own ranks; there were

*Malcolm's anecdote of the old native officers, always taking their sons to salaam to the pictures of Coote and Medowes in the Town Hall of Madras, but of their making a distinction in favor of the former, is an example of the advantage of long intimacy with sepoys. Sir William Medowes was an admirable soldier. On the breaking out of the American war, being transferred from a corps he had long commanded, he called for volunteers to accompany him, and, every man stepped out. Such an officer must everywhere be loved, but probably he could not talk to natives, and therefore lost one important engine of influence. Sir Eyre Coote was perhaps as badly off in regard to the languages, but he had more knowledge of the habits of sepoys. Let us not be told that Hastings and Clive could not converse with natives. They were giants: rules are not for such.