The Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-03-20 00:00:00

her accommodations were ample, the accotn-

modations, we mean, which the owners of

the ship were required to afford, although there

were no doubt other and further accommo-

dations, more especially for the sick,—and many'

it appears, were severe invalids when they

embarked at Calcutta,—which they who had
chartered the ship for such a purpose ought to
have seen to. They, the Government authorities,
of course, were responsible for a proper provision
being made for so many men so situated, and

ought to have taken care that their preparations
should prove equal to so important an occasion.
Under any circumstances, we say, due pains
ought to have been bestowed in providing for
the health and comfort of so many as a thousand

•
men, who were thus to be immured for four

dreary months at sea—to be " cabined, cribb'd,
confined," day by day, and night by night, often in
an atmosphere, and amidst discomforts and pti-

vations, at best, under which even the healthy and
the robust, let alone the sick and the weakly,
would find it difficult to bear up. But remem-

bering that they were soldiers—that many of
them were veterans, and all of them heroes, who'
had fought for their country's interests and
honour in her Eastern empire—surely they de-
served to have had, if possible, more than ordinary
attention shown them, in preparing for their
voyage home, thus distinguished as they were by
their valour, and honoured by their victories.
The poet has asked the significant, and in this
case the only too apt and apposite question,-r-

"Dost thou not know the fate of soldiers ?"

his answer to which the history of too many wars
has only over correctly illustrated—that
" They're but Ambition's tools, to cut a way
To his unlawful ends."

Now this conclusion, in the case in question, may
not exactly hold good. But when it is added, that

When they're worn,

Hack'd, hewn with constant service, thrown aside,
To rust in peace, and rot in hospitals,"—
too many who hear of the fate of the poor suf.:-
ferers we refer to, may take it for granted that
this has been the case with them—that having
served their turn, they are not only thrown
uuprovided for upon the world, but sent home to
that world, over a weary waste of waters, more
like criminals than warriors.

Glad indeed shall we be, should the inquiry
prove that we are wrong in hazarding such a
supposition as this. But, at any rate, it is evi-
dent that a great mistake was committed by the
Government of India, in rendering it necessary to
send the men home at all. They were wanted in
India far more than in Britain ; and if not
retained as soldiers, they , might have been
arranged with as colonists. But they were
actually and urgently needed, it seems, as soldiers ;
nor would they, or the great body of them, have
refused, apparently, to remain—to be transferred,
that is, from the late East India Company's to
Her Majesty's service, had they been liberally
treated with. There were some ten thousand of
them altogether—tried, able, and gallant troops,
most of them ; and they wanted but such gene-
rous overtures, we repeat, as they had earned a
claim to, to induce them to enter the service' of
Queen VICTORIA. But a miserable Whig-Liberal
economy disregarded their claim, and preferred
to incur, in the end, the far greater expel
of taking recruits in their stead. As a
Liberal contemporary has only too truly'
stated the case, —" It took XlOO, to pre-
' pare each of the disbanded soldiers fbr the
field ; and these were 10,000 soldiers drilled,
disciplined, and acclimated. They did not wantr
to leave the service. They were ready to ton--
thine in India, provided their little claims. w.ere-
recognised. Lord CANNING was obstiaate,. and
for his obstinacy the country pays £A,006,000; fob
recruits to supply their place, and a quarter of a
million at least to pay for their passage home.'
Another of the many costs, this, which the
country is doomed to pay for preferring to have
its affairs in such extremely Liberal and econo-
mical hands as those to which its interests are pew
committed at home and abroad.
Whatever, therefore, may be the issue of the
painful inquiry to which we have alluded, the
Government of India stands condemned on the
very face of such a policy as that which it so
clearly involves, awl so terribly illustrates. A
mean and miserable principle pervades the
whole proceeding, from first to last. But for
it, the men would never have been summarily
dismissed from their field of glory, and thank=
lessty cast upon their own exhausted resources
and but for• it, when they were to be seat bowie,.
they would have been provided with all that was
necessary for the exigencies of so long and dreary
a voyage, and been landed ampng their country-
men under feelings of lively gratitude tbr their
treatment, instead of bitter discontent and ani-
mosity for th,eitr su,ff,erings.

THE LATEST NEWS.

IBY BRITISH AND IRISH MAGNETIC TELEGRAT*./

FRANCE.

PARES, March 19,
Judgment has bev-,s givel irk the law-suit
against M. DApkilourt. The complaints of the
Siede lave been rejected oh the ground of their
being unfounded. The complaint made by the
heirs of M. Rosseau has also been rejected, the
laws nut making the defamation of a dead person
actionable.

The Bishop of Orleans spoke for half-an-hour
on Saturday, in defending himself against the
charge brought against him. Judgment was
to be pronounced yesterday (Monday).

AGGRESSIVENESS OF THE FRENCH
PRESS.

A writer in the Cl*nione Nationale, who it is
understood is to get a prefecture in Savoy, boasts
that the French Government would like nothing
so much as a general war to revenge Waterloo
and Leipsic, and to rally, disaffected subjects at
home to the Emperor's dynasty, and expresses a
regret that the republic of 1848 did not stretch
its hand to take not only Savoy but .Belgium and
the Prussian provinces of the Rhine. This repre-
sentative of aggressive policy of Napoleon 111.
distinctly lays down the necessity under which
the Emperor of France is placed to carry.
foreign wars, in order to prevent divisioints at hole..

marlset has been depressed, ad
transactions Ihnited, Rentes opened at 67f, ide.,
and closed at 67f. 80c., or about, the same as
Saturday.

CENTRAL ITALY.'

There are some fresh rllAsagit #01:11 Peril as to,
the intention of the flige,roT IC-al/demi in regard
to the annexation cpestAoll iq c entral Italy. It
is said At "Vienna that the French troops, at Rome,
NOI Te%ise to, Civita Vecchua. if the Pope should
eNcommunicate Victor Emmanuel. Another
report from Vienna is, that the Neapolitan troops
will at once enter the Papal States if the Sar-
dinians take possession of the Romagna. All the
Austrian frigates have been unrigged. „