Cuttack and Chittagong, can only send one set of men on leave in a season; and as a ɛet does not exceed 100 sepoys, a regiment of 1,000 men would only enjoy the indulgence once in eight or ten years, and not so often if wars should intervene. To those unacquainted with the habits and customs of the natives of India, it is not easy to comprehend the extent of privation that the abridgment of furlough occasions, or the effect it produces in loosening attachment to the service.

A third cause of deterioration arises out of a system of substituting local and provincial corps within our old provinces. The deterioration under this head has operated by dislodging the regular army from cantonments, at stations near the recruiting districts. These may generally be described as commencing at Monghecr, extending on each side of the Ganges from thirty to seventy miles, and terminating at Futtehgurh. A reference to the East India Register will exhibit sixteen local, and fourteen provincial battalions; nearly three-fourths of which occupy stations prized by the regular army, as either affording contact with the districts from whence the great body of sepoys are drawn, or such vicinity as may be deemed equal to contact.

6

By reducing the number of the regular troops at such stations, the furlough indulgence is not only abridged, but the chance of the course of service taking any regiment to the recruiting district, has fallen away from one year in six, to one in twenty years. This fact will be established by the annexed Disposition Table, which embraces a period of thirty-four years; the current year being omitted, as the Burinese war has drawn a very unusual force into Bengal:

An examination of the opposite Table will show, that the middle, or recruiting districts which, from 1790 to 1803, cantoned an average of twenty-one out of thirty-six battalions, or nearly two-thirds of the regular army of that period, in 1823, only cantoned thirteen out of sixty battalions, while forty battalions, or two-thirds of the army, were pushed forward to new, distant, and expensive stations; the greater part of which would formerly have been considered FOREIGN SERVICE DUTY,'

* Although the infantry arm of the service has been more particularly adverted to, these reasonings and facts apply to the other branches of the Native army. The cavalry-recruiting districts vary somewhat from those of the infantry, from the greater proportion of Mohanimedans in those regiments; but the effects of the system of local corps, and consequent dislodgment from old stations, apply with. equal force to this arm.

7 The consideration and indulgences that have been granted the Native soldier for foreign service duties, may be estimated from the following statement :—

1. General Goddard's army, which left the Bengal provinces in 1778-9, and returned in 1784, after services principally from Oujain to Surat and Guzerat, was rewarded with gold and silver medals; while every sepoy received, for life, an addition to his pay of one rupee per mensem. Honorary standards were given to each regiment.

2. On Colonel Pearse's detatchment, which both went and returned by land from the Carnatic, about the same period, similar houours and rewards were conferred.

3. Lieutenant-Colonel Cockerell's detachment, which went by land to the coast in 1790, and returned in 1793, received, with the approbation of the Court of Directors, a donation of six months' batta.

4. The army engaged in the Rohillah war, in 1794, received from the Vizier of

DISPOSITION OF THE NATIVE INFANTRY ON THE BENGAL ESTABLISHMENT,

3

*

*

Middle or Recruiting Provinces.

and have entitled corps so employed to advantages, and peculiar indulgences granted to troops detached under that plea. Ejectment from old stations is a point not unfrequently alluded to with regret, by the most respectable Native officers, when they discourse on the golden era of their service. Had it been possible, with our present widely-dispersed army, to extend the furlough indulgence, or to have secured to regiments a return, at short intervals, to stations within the old line of service, depreciation of allowances would have been long borne in silence, although it must gradually engender discontent.

Sir

The military service may also be now less esteemed by the Natives, from the great extension of our civil establishments giving to a large class of Natives posts of great influence and responsibility, which they are not a little inclined to exercise and display, to the chagrin of the military class, which was heretofore more highly esteemed than any other. John Malcolm, in his Sketch of the Political History of India,' adverts at large to the feeling of the military in this respect; and suggests plans for elevating the Native soldier, by promoting the most deserving members in the highest rank to special commands, to civil offices, and by conferring honorary posts and distinctions. The sixth and last chapter of this work is worthy of a careful perusal at the present crisis, as it indicates a course well calculated to regain and secure the fidelity and attachment of the Native soldier. A worn-out soldier might not, perhaps, be easily moulded into a Native man of business; and, in upholding the consequence of the military class by attentions, or privileges, when its members appear in civil courts as plaintiff or defendant, care would, of course, be taken that a privilege of priority of hearing to their causes, should not be extended to the general detriment of the larger classes of applicants for justice.

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Should the foregoing observations contain unpalatable truths, let it be remembered, that the sole aim in undertaking such a task, (neither light nor agreeable to a writer sincerely attached to the service of which he is

Oude a donation of cleven lacs of rupees; which were distributed under the sanc tion and orders of the Bengal Government.

5. Three volunteer battalions, called out in Sept. 1798, for service in the Carnatic, received a bounty of one month's allowances, besides advance of pay and bountyclothing. On their return, in 1800, they were formed into the leth and 19th Regiments of Native Infantry; when medals were distributed, and other peculiar distinctions were conferred.

6. The 10th Regiment of Native Infantry, which was detached from Barrackpore to Hyderabad in 1798, and was absent above three years, returned to Cawnpoor via the Nurbudah in 1200. Honorary medals were then conferred on the regiment for its employment on such foreign service.

These distinctions and indulgences, with Madras allowances to troops serving under that presidency, with furlough on their return, rendered absence on such duties rather sought than avoided. But of late years, equally distant duties, with equal privation, are exacted, as a matter of course, on the mere pay and batta of the soldier, without a shadow of advantages real or honorary.

This paper was intended to embrace many of the points noticed by Sir John Malcolm; but on further reference to the Sketch,' the writer finds the ground already so ably and completely occupied,while the shades of variation from the views taken by that distinguished individual are so slight,--that deference to such high authority as Sir John Malcolm would alone deter from attempts to discuss them; if not more forcibly withheld by a conviction that the parade of trivial objections would be justly scorned as hypercritical.

a member,) as an exposure of the wounds which are festering in the Bengal Native army, was to indicate thereby a safe and permanent remedy. The leading causes of deterioration, and their effects on the Native army, have been now adverted to: should the correctness of the opinions advanced be questioned and disproved, it will remain to account for changes not less apparent than lamentable. The question to be solved is, how to secure the attachment and allegiance of the Native soldier? That these essentials to a permanency of our Indian empire are not to be attained without a greater military expenditure, the past will testify, and the future will verify the test.

To the policy of keeping up a system of local and provincial corps, as a saving, there are many obvious objections: they aid little in times of pressure from general war and commotion, for they cannot be called to a distance without breach of faith; and the provincials are so lightly esteemed by the civil authorities, that they are constantly striving to draw on the regular army for the performance of duties expressly assigned to the irregulars. A consequence, too, of keeping up so large a body of irregulars, is the drain on the regular army for European officers to command and discipline them. It is, indeed, this begging of the most expensive class from the regulars, that constitutes the cheapness of irregular troops.

There can be little doubt that the system of fixed, or local corps, has greatly aggravated the difficulty in recruiting regiments of the line; yet, notwithstanding this circumstance, and the increase to the regular army, the military still bear so small a proportion to the whole population, that the ranks of regiments would now be as complete, and the soldiers as faithful, as at any period of our history, unless the regular service had fallen into disrepute.

The system of local and provincial regiments is exclusively confined to Bengal, so that any evil arising from this source is not equally applicable

9 This policy has, it is believed, obtained the countenance of several military officers of rauk, experience, and reputation, as well as some Commanders-inChief.

The relief of regular soldiers from duties either degrading, or, from their scat tered nature, incompatible with the discipline and efficiency of the troops, are the great objects which its military supporters contend for.

On the first point, it might be observed, that a greater evil is produced, in a country filled with the prejudice of caste, by keeping an inferior and degraded class of soldiers, as it naturally tends to sink the profession of arms in general estimation; while the duties which could be exacted of a nature reputed or actually degrading, ought always to be performed by the civil police establishment, of which a very large body is kept up.

vate.

On the second point, the dispersion of the regular troops, by taking civil duties, the evi! could scarcely be felt, if a strict application were made of the rules in the military department regarding escorts for show, or for purposes virtually priThe treasure-escort system, for sums under 23,000 rupees, should also be abolished. In a country possessing an efficient civil establishment, both criminal and revenue, it can surely not require a guard of military every time such a sum, and less, (as low as 3000 rupees,) is sent from twenty to one hundred miles. One thing is certain, that the military commissariats and contractors contrive to manage these matters without escorts, or loss from their absence.

Were civil guards and escorts limited within the bounds they might and ought to be, there would be neither detriment nor degradation arising from the employment of regular troops; their augmentation, too, from an abolition of the present system, would more than compensate for increased demands.

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to the other presidencies; at which, also, the Native soldier has long enjoyed higher rates of pay and allowances. The policy of a local Native militia establishment, if it did not originate with the Marquis of Wellesley, dates its extension from that administration; and it is from about the same era that the attachment of the Bengal native soldier to the service has gradually declined.

The novelty now introduced, of raising regiments for general service, (meaning liability to sea-voyages and foreign stations,) is one, the advantages of which are highly problematical. When a single marine, or general service regiment of two battalions existed, it was with difficulty kept complete. Now that there are seven such battalions, filling their ranks will either be still more difficult, or men will enter on the lottery, in the hope they may escape embarkation on shipboard; but were the whole of their corps, after the lapse of a few years, ordered on board of transports, it remains to be proved with what alacrity they will obey." The past system of raising volunteer corps, has none of the objections that apply to “ general service regiments;" for, in that case, men who stepped forward as volunteers, did so with some advantages in promotion, &c., and with a view to immediate embarkation for foreign service. No battalions ever raised in India surpassed the Isle of France, Java,12 and Ceylon Volunteers; why then depart from a system of tried advantages, to one of speculative result?

By the plan of giving additional European officers to each regiment of the line, when volunteers are called for, (as in the Ceylon instance,) home corps are not stripped of their officers,-all parties are gratified, and no unnecessary expense incurred; for when volunteers fall again into the line, the additional officers of all ranks die off to the fixed establishment. If the Native army were kept upon a maximum, there might be cause for having a portion of the regiments raised for general service; but as the Indian establishments are notoriously kept up on the opposite principle, or minimum, no regiment can be detached for a foreign and unprovided service, without its absence being felt as an inconvenience, if not dangerous.

The whole of the evils which threaten our empire in India, as far as its preservation depends on military occupation and force, arise out of a determination to have the cheapest, and consequently worst military establishment possible. Here lies the rock on which our dominion will split, if not speedily guarded against by improved pilotage.

There is a fine display of European officers to each regiment, on paper; and were the compliment assigned, bona fide regimentally employed, the Native Indian army would, in discipline and efficiency, rival any army in the world. But while the Court of Directors only pay for one set of

10 The old Pergunnah battalions were possibly the origin. These were, however, so frequently thrown into the line, and their organization so similar to the regular corps, that the distinction was rather nominal than real.

This predicted refusal of the troops in question to embark, has since taken place to such an extent, as to reuder it necessary for the Commander-in-Chief to have the refusing meu tried and severely punished.

12 It is not a little in favour of the arguments advanced in these observations, that in the last mutiny that happened at Java, in a regiment of Bengal Native soldiers, there were only two European officers, very young subalterns present; all the older officers were drawn away from regimental duty.