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climate, the terrible marches to which an Indian army are liable, and periodically called on, to perform,* and, above all, the numerous establishment of servants, which the poorest subaltern is unavoidably necessitated to maintain, the pay of a lieutenant is actually, as well as proportionally, much less in India than in the colonies. The proposition of Sir E. Paget would, therefore, not merely render an equalization of rank necessary, but it would also include, at the very least, an equalization of pay. Nay more, it would affect the whole revenues of India, for it must be remembered that the Indian army is paid two months in arrear, while the king's troops in the colonies are paid in advance; so that independent of state policy the following measures would be required on an endeavour to amalgamate the two armies, for surely it will not be contended that invidious distinctions, greater than those which now exist, it would be prudent to extend throughout both services :1. An equalization of rank, emoluments, and honours, between both armies.

2. An equalization of pay and allowances. §

3. A knowledge by all the British officers of the Indian languages, now acquired by the Company's officers.

4. That both services should be one of seniority or of purchase.

But it is unnecessary to particularize further, the egregious absurdity of such a proposition even on these grounds,

* A regiment from Calcutta, for instance, is frequently ordered to the most distant station of the presidency twelve hundred miles off; and marching in India is not marching on a turnpike-road in England.

The very lowest establishment of the lowest commissioned officer in Bengal, consists of a kitmugar, head-bearer, dobie, syce, half a bheestie, and half a sweeper; to which must be added a horse and its keep, which no ensign even can dispense with.

I use the word endeavour, because I believe the idea to be im practicable of effective adoption.

§ Requiring an immediate advance of £1,500,000.

being apparent; let us, however, examine the question on the loftier views of policy, or expediency. Constituted as the Anglo-Eastern Empire is, the civil power must go with the sword;-whoever wields the latter commands the former; this absolute rule, the merest tyro in Indian politics must be aware of; to transfer therefore, the Indian army to the king, leaving the civil power as it now stands, would be perfect mockery; so much so that I cannot believe the Court of Directors, or any other body of men, would accept the charge offered them. But it may be said "Oh, it shall be only a Royal Colonial Army." What !—are we to see a king's colonial force, amounting to upwards of 200,000 men, while the home established army is not half that amount? Are we to permit the disbursement of ten million sterling to be added to that of the British army and ordnance, amounting in 1832 to £9,029,454? Are the deeds of the royal colonial Spanish army forgotten? Is the conduct of the royal Portuguese colonial army unremembered? Is the dismemberment of Mexico from Spain-of Brazil, from Portugal-obliterated from the recollection of Englishmen? Have they not seen the bloodshed, and discord with which South America, has been desolated in mad attempts at reconquest? Have the United States' royal colonial army left no trace behind them of their proceedings ?-Bunker's Hill or New Orleans? +-Do we not at this moment witness a contest between the rival branches of the House of Braganza, after they had agreed on the

*

Look, for instance, at the Nizam, or any other of the subsidiary princes, the moment they surrendered the command of the troops, their power passed from them; the shadow, without the substance of sovereignty, alone remained.

† I might refer to Greece and Rome as highly illustrative of the dangerous effects of royal colonial armies to the liberties and integrity of a nation, but that they are familiar to every school boy. How Sir Edward Paget has drunk of the waters of Lethe on this subject I cannot divine.

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division of their Eastern and Western dominions? And is there no remote or even proximate possibility of such an event in this country? of a disputed succession? of a popular military favourite placing himself at the head of the " Royal Colonial Indian Army," and declaring his independence of Great Britain?

I might multiply my questions, and each time bring them nearer to present events and to approaching contingencies, until they would assume a startling reality, and place the enemies of England in possession of knowledge pregnant with danger to her Eastern empire ;-but I forbear to draw further aside the curtain-I will not attempt displaying a prescience of futurity, for enough has been said to awaken every patriot Briton to a sense of the impending evils which inevitably await his country, by a transfer, in the most remote degree, of the Indian army to the Crown. As I have before said,* unless it be by reason of that incomprehensible fatality, which seems blindly to urge onwards kingdoms as well as individuals to their ruin, and which the ancients so well comprehended when they exclaimed

"Quos Deus vult perdere prius dementat”

I cannot bring myself to believe that Englishmen will thus madly rush down a precipice which fearfully yawns before them. Should this magnificent empire, on which the solar orb never sets, crumble into atoms as did the realms of Babylon, Nineveh, Assyria, Egypt, Carthage, and Rome, and—

"like the baseless fabric of a vision, Leave not a wreck behind,"

the destruction thereof will be occasioned by the folly of its own people,—by the suicidal decrees of the senate,—

• In an anonymous work published some time ago.

N

by flying in the face of Providence, which has wisely assigned a limit to all earthly things; * by, in fact, building up a moral Frankenstein, which will crush with its weight the being or people who impiously created it; —then indeed shall once proud and free England—

"be bought

And sold, and be an appanage to those

Who shall despise her! She shall stoop to be

A province for an empire, petty town

In lieu of capital, with slaves for senates,
Beggars for nobles, panders for a people!"

* The dying language of one of the wisest of the Cæsars, was— "to keep the empire within its boundaries." His monition was disregarded; I refer to the immortal Gibbon for the results.

CHAPTER VI.

GREAT EXTENT AND FREEDOM OF THE INDIAN PRESS; -EDUCATION OF THE NATIVES OF INDIA COMPARED WITH THOSE OF EUROPE;-THE CLERICAL ESTABLISHMENT OF INDIA ADEQUATE TO ITS DUTIES;-MR. POYNDER'S MOTION FOR THREE INDIAN BISHOPS, AND HIS ASSERTIONS RESPECTING THE COMPANY'S PARTICIPATION IN IDOLATRY REPLIED TO.

MANIFOLD as have been the misrepresentations respecting the functionaries of the East-India Company, there have been none more glaring than that which denounced them as vehemently hostile to the spread of knowledge in India— as loving "darkness rather than light"-as, in fact, trying to smother the leviathan by which England and France are (and by which ultimately the whole world will be) governed-the public press!

It is a homely but no less true saying, that "the best proof of the pudding is to be found in the eating of it;" so the best proof of the truth of the foregoing assertion is by examining facts; and the first evidence I adduce is the following return laid before Parliament :

PUBLIC ENGLISH and NATIVE JOURNALS or PERIODICALS in INDIA, at THREE PERIODS.

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