The Press. — London, England, 1857-10-24 00:00:00

154r,e1,6 N0.234.—V0L.V. Vress. LONDON, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1857. LORD JOHN RUSSELL expressed his conviction at the dinner given to him at Birmingham on Thursday week, that in January or February next, when Parliament met, we should have the assurance that the sanguinary mutiny and rebellion in India had been entirely sup pressed. He based this conviction on the number of reinforcements which are already pouring in from our colonies and from the United Kingdom. There is no doubt that when all these are assembled we shall have an immense force of Europeans quite able to put down all opposition that they may meet with ; but as we may be sure that the rebels will not be so considerate as to come down to the landing-place at Calcutta to be destroyed by them, they will have to seek the rebels and get at them as they can. The policy of the latter will probably be, as it has been hitherto, to leave them undisputed masters of the ground, unless when they judge them to be in such numbers as may safely be attacked and destroyed ; returning and reoccupying the spot, if there be anything left to plunder, when our soldiers have moved on. In short, we may expect a long and a very trying cam paign. Our well-known resolution to give no quarter to the rebels leaves them no choice but— like every animal, whether man or beast, that knows his pursuers have doomed him to de struction—to make the best play for their lives they can. It is only tame deer that allow themselves to be captured and carted when they think that they and their pursuers have run long enough. No doubt the King of DELHI would be glad to get out of the scrape if he could ; for he cannot escape with all his wives and children and treasures and comforts about him when Delhi falls. We fear, however, that they who construe messages from the King of DELHI into signs of early submission on the port of the Sepoys reckon without their host. There is, in fact, nothing to prevent the latter leaving Delhi without asking us permission when they please. If they could march out en masse several miles to attack Brigadier NICHOLSON, and afterwards return to Delhi at their leisure. it must he clear that as fur as egress and ingress are concerned they are masters of the situation, and have as regards that matter nothing to fear from us. Lord JOHN will probably find that what holds good of the navy holds good of the army as well ; and that a stern chase is always a long chase, more especially when, as will be the case in this instance, it is a chase by line-of-battle ships of a host of inferior but much lighter craft. In ordinary wars the mere vindication of supre macy usually terminates the contest, and that in India was always a comparatively easy task But where we have to pursue and cut up thousands of rebels on all sides over a space of some hundreds of thousands of square miles, the term of three months is rather short for the LATEST EDITION. LONDON, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 24,1857. STAMPED ... SIXPENCE. UNSTAMPE ' D ..FIVEPENCE. operation, unless Lord JOHN RUSSELL is possessed of some military locomotive secret that he can furnish our troops with, but which is unknown to us. The fact is, that when people talk of an army of eighty thousand men (the number we are told we are to have in India for the work), they have for the most part very little notion of what the term implies ; as little as a lady allowed to take a million sterling in banknotes into her hand has of the enormous mass of human labour represented by that sum. To equip and send into the field from Calcutta an army of eighty thousand Europeans, for a three months' really efficient campaign, there would be required the following trifling adjuncts. We leave to the sagacity of the reader to determine how long in the present state of the country it would take our officials there to collect them. There ought to be some thirty or forty river steamers, with several thousands of tons of coals for their use. There would be required some thirty thousand baggage animals, and eighty thousand camp followers, at the very least. There would be required some seven or eight thousand re mount horses for the cavalry and artillery, and almost as many saddles ; and several bat teries, with their carriages, harness, &c., com plete, for the troops and companies that left their guns and stores at home. There would be required nearly nine thousand tents. There would be required thirty-six million pounds of forage for the troop horses and baggage animals, and about nineteen million pounds of grain for them, to be collected on various points. There would be required about a hundred and twenty thousand pairs of shoes and boots, and a proportionate number of blankets and other slops. There would be required ten million pounds of biscuits, three million six hundred thousand pounds of pre served or salt provisions, about twelve thou sand bullocks for slaughter, nine hundred thou sand quarts of spirits,and tea,sugar, rice, lemon juice, and various other little articles of that kind in proportion. There would be required about a hundred and fifty thousand rounds of gun-ammunition, and about thirty-two million rounds of ball-cartridge. The etceteras of an army, and its ambulances, and its hospitals, one need not specify ; though, like the etceteras of a lady's travelling-luggage, they form no small item in the whole. There is, besides, the military chest, which must be well filled. We suppose that in thus enumerating some of the principal articles required for the per fect efficiency of an army of eighty thousand men in the field for three months, we shall have done enough to satisfy Lord JOHN RUSSELL that such a force is not likely to he brought to bear upon the rebels at any time between this and January next. Indeed, we may safely say that the sending such an army up thecountry is simply an impossibility in the present condition of Bengal. A fourth of that number is all that the resources there, tax them to the uttermost, are likely to prove avail able for the equipment of; and, indeed, we take leave to doubt whether there will be at the outside more than ten thousand men got off in a style adapted for fairly following up the rebels before the end of the year. One may do something, to be sure, with very small means in the way of putting our now menaced garrisons into a position of safety ; but that is a very different thing from the completion of the mighty task that has to be completed before the rebellion shall be finally suppressed, and that retribution inflicted on all the parti cipators in it which Lord JOHN expects. As to the latter point, however, the examples made will probably not be very numerous, for beyond those taken in arms there will be few against whom proof of complicity will be producible. The police will not dare to aid in ferretting out the rebels after the affair is over ; besides, it is pretty generally understood that the police are tolerably deeply implicated themselves. And as to our own powers of discovery, we may instance the well known fact that ever since the practice of branding felons in India has been abolished, it has been found impossible to prevent Sepoys dismissed from one regiment with sen tence of penal servitude from enlisting into another when their term of punishment has expired. There were numbers of such in the ranks of late years. The man changed his name, and gave a different village as his birthplace, and the thing was done. The deception may or may not have been known to the other Sepoys, but discovery of it by the officers was extremely rare. There is, indeed, nothing more probable than that many of our present trusted natives are no better than mutineers in mufti, spies and agents of the rebel camps. We are sorry to say, therefore, on the grounds that we have given, that we have no hope whatever of the business being disposed of by January next. Delhi, to be sure, may have fallen by that time, for the mutineers will probably cease to defend it after they have got :all the plunder from the King and the people that they are able to extract. But, after Delhi falls there will still be the whole country to be reduced to order, and that assu redly, under the most favourable circum stances, will be a work of time. If, however, the latest intelligence received from Calcutta is to be relied on, circumstances are not likely to be so favourable as the English public ap pear to expect. We do not allude to little indi cations of a storm to the north-west, though that in the present condition of India would be hard to face. What we allude to is the feeling which has been engendered among the European community at Calcutta, by Lord CANNING'S yielding so implicitly to the evil counsellors about him, whom Mr. DISRAELI in the House of Commons so long since de nounced. Nor is the feeling confined to the Calcutta community alone. We learn from sources which we see no reason to doubt, that most unmistakeable signs of mutiny have made themselves apparent among the Euro pean troops. We hear that the commanding officer of one of her Majesty's regiments has communicated to the Governor-General the fact that his men are not to be depended on unless their demands aro submitted to, and that the rest of the European troops have sworn to uphold them if the Govern ment should venture to resort to force. We do not vouch for the statement , we only say that it has reached us from a source on which we think -- rely • ld there can be no indiscretion bringing the matter to authorities, because it alluded to in terms tr .72 gible by One of the journals here. We hope like Sir COLIN CAMPS/ the army, these sparks exist, will be speedily intelligence that such a tic we can rely ; and tion in thus publicly the notice of the has alrs47 been sufacieptly. - 4 1 . 4109Mig tbst gia. lit Pike lad a of mdiiAy, OW put iitic spirit *as• ben eta • e-•