The Press.
London, England, 1855-03-24 00:00:00

FRESH RESULTS OF INQUIRY.

Wz must caution our readers against the art-
ful attempts made to disparage the labours of
the Sebastopol Committee. We know all that
can be said against the repetition of some
statements, and the occasional want of method
in the investigation, but in spite of these de-
fects the Committee has already achieved a
great result in substantiating the accusations
made about our army in the Crimea. Unless
the public had the detailed evidence of trust-
worthy witnesses, it would be impossible to
find data for bringing the culpable persons to
account. Without this inquiry we should be
debarred from further proceedings, and the
" responsibility" of our rulers would become a
mere mockery. We repeat emphatically that
the substantiating of the charges made by the
press is an object of the highest importance.
As the inquiry advances, the more culpable
appears to have been the conduct of the late
War Department.
Vast progress has been made in the present
week by the Committee. Foremost in import-
ance comes the evidence of Mr. STAFFORD.
Never did a British people hear of such hor-
rors as that gentleman deposed to having
witnessed. We shall not here repeat the horri-
ble disclosures made by him, which have ex-
ceeded aught that has yet appeared. if the
inquiry had brought forth nothing else but the
evidence of Mr. STAFFORD it would have
achieved an important result.
But it is not our object here to excite indig-
nation. The task is unnecessary. Men and
women throughout the land feel intensely
upon the subject. Our purpose now is to see
how we can give a still more practical turn to
the toils of the Committee. The evidence of
Dr. ANDREW SMITH shows us how that may be
accomplished. His assertions distinctly cri-
minate the heads of the War Department, and
fasten guilt upon them.
1. Thus, in few ways were more lives sacri-
ficed than by intrusting the ambulances t.
worn out pensioners. infirm and disabled
men were sent to a campaign to help those
stricken in the fight. It appears that twelve
months ago, in March, 1804, Dr. SMITH pro-
posed that four hundred ablebodied men should
be enrolled from the depot at Chatham for an
ambulance corps. After stating that pen-
sioners were quite unfit for such a work, Dr.

NOW'

MARCH 24, 1855.

Siam' deposed " that he thought the War-office
" as it then existed, in February last, was re-
" sponsible" for having sent out the old pen-
sioners. We think so too ; and, in saying so,
we echo the universal opinion on that point.
2. But it may be said that the Doctor's com-
munication was only " verbal," and the guilty
parties may try to escape. Unfortunately for
them, the correspondence is extant about the
waggons for carrying off the sick and wounded,
so long since as the 3rd of March,lBs4 ; and the
previous charge relative to the pensioners is
fully proved by a subsequent letter, put in by
Dr. SMITH and read, " suggesting, as it had
" been resolved not to employ ablebodied soldiers,
" that a corps should be organised consisting
" of eight hundred natives and Armenians" for
this service, to be enrolled under military dis-
cipline. To that letter Dr. SMITH " got no
" answer for some time. At last the Duke of
" NEWCASTLE sent out Dr. Bran to endeavour
"to raise such a corps. Dr. Bazrr was told
" that these men would run away, and Dr.
" BRETT was sent home again."
Let it here be observed that the formation
of the ambulance corps was of the greatest
importance, yet "no answer was returned for
" some time." But "at last" the Duke of
NEWCASTLE stirred in the matter, and sent out
a " Doctor" to organise a corps, though several
military men on the spot would have done as
well as the Doctor, whose faith as to what
"he was told" was very facile.
3. Doctor SMITH produced letters, dated
Bth May, 1854, addressed to the Military
Secretary about ships for the transport of the
wounded, also about hospital ships, and a
fixed hospital on a healthy island in the
Mediterranean. "He received no answer to that
" letter. He repeated his advice from time to
" time, and at last two hospital-ships were
" fitted up." And on the same point the fur
ther evidence of Dr. SMITH is of great impor-
tance, as bringing home continued neglects
to the War-office.
4 On the 28th of April last year, Dr. SMITH
wrote to the Military Secretary about the
winter clothing. " They were at work all the
" summer examining it." And it would seem
that vast difficulty was found in getting warm
clothes in manufacturing England to supply
fifty thousand men ! Credat Judaus. Officials
who could not find time to answer letters
about the Ambulance Corps, addressed to them
by their medical chiefs, would, of course, find it
difficult to write to the manufacturers of the
north for warm drawers, flannels, &c. Yet we
were told of their " great administrative
" abilities."
5. So erroneous, in Dr. SMITH'S opinion, was
the plan fur the Smyrna hospital, that he
claimed to " be exonerated from all responsi-
bility in that instance," and Mr. SIDNEY
HERBERT consented w that request.
Now, here arc revelations which, beyond
question, establish cases of gross neglect on
the part of the War-office. Further disclosure,
we do not doubt, will be made, and the
Ministers to whose mismanagement the dis-
asters of our army can now be directly traced
must be brought to the bar of the country, to
answer the charges fastened by evidence upon
them.

THE " PRESS " AND THE "FRIEND OF
INDIA."
IN Calcutta there is a paper published weekly
called the Friend of India. At the present
day the title is a complete misnomer, and one
would suppose that it had been given on the
"Lucus a Don lucendo " principle—the doe
trines which the paper advocates being at
present wholly opposed to the welfare and
happiness of the people of India. It was not,
however, always so. The cause of good govern-
ment, progress, and the abolition of abuses, was
that in the interest of which the Friend of India
was first established ; and, in order to obtain
a security and freedom not then accorded to the
. _ _

THE PRESS.

Thence in those days issued spirit-stirring
denunciations of the monopolising spirit
of the Company ; and the young Ben-
gallee who had mastered the English lan-
guage felt his pulse beat high at the future
shadowed forth for his race in the columns of
the Friend of India.
Papers, however, like the beings who edit
them, have their several phases of existence;
and the Friend, when the first flush of youth
had worn off, became temperate and steady.
As years progressed it sunk into the extreme
of calmness and sobriety, and finally it con-
sented to take the pay of Government, and
turn Swiss in the cause of those whom it had
been perpetually attacking. It is not easy
for the mental eye to perceive an abuse when
a well-salaried sinecure and a lucrative con-
tract are conjointly operating to intercept the
view.
Such being the antecedents and present
position of the Friend of India, it is not very
astonishing that, in pursuance of its duty,
it should have expended a little ink in
endeavouring, to counteract, as fur as possible,
the effects of some articles rather damaging to
the present rulers of India which have lately
appeared in this paper ; but to those who are
acquainted with the facts of the case little
weight will be attached to the Friend of India's
assertions. When, for instance, it tells us
that Sir COLIN CAMPBELL did not resign his
Peshawur command in consequence of the
treatment he met with at the hands of the
Governor General, it states what it ought to
know to be untrue, and what it may learn to
be so, by applying to Sir Court CAMPBELL.
When it says that his actual resignation took
the form merely of an application to return to
England, it is either very ill-informed or very
dishonest, as such application, it is perfectly
well understood, is the usual mode of relinquish-
ment of office adopted by commanders who are
dissatisfied with their situation. When it says
that Surat-men were insurgents, it omits to say
that their rebellion amounted simply to a re-
sistance to the compulsory collection of rent
from them at the bayonet's point, they having
lived rent free under every former Govern-
ment from the time of ALEXANDER THE GREAT to
the present period ; and when it says that the
measures pursued by the Marquis of DALHOUSUC
on the north-west frontier had been attended
with complete success, it fails to notice
another expedition ordered against the
tribes about a month since to renew the
system of making peace by deliberately in-
vading the hereditary rights of villagers to
their lands, and then punishing the resist-
ance naturally engendered by a wholesale de-
struction of the houses, crops, and orchards,
of the villagers, and by handing over them-
selves and their families to the mercy of
the invaders. It was not out of any mawkish
sensibility that Sir COLIN CAMPBELL protested
against this policy as Sir CHARLES NAPIER had
protested against it before him ; but out of that
tender respect for human life so often risked, so
easily taken, but so impossible to restore, that,
anomalous as it may seem, is rarely found so
conspicuous in any one as in the brave old
soldier.
As regards the Friend of India's comparison
of Lord DALHOUSIE to Lord WELLESLEY, we
must merely, in the words of Mr I3URCHELL,
say " Fudge." The penuriousness of the
one in his personal expenditure affords
not a greater contrast to the princely munifi-
cence and generosity of the other than the
narrowness of Lord DALHOUSIE in public
life does to the noble and boundless libe-
rality of view exhibited by the Marquis of
WELLESLEY. The one is the lauded tool
of the Directors, the other was their uncom-
promising and contemptuous opponent. It
would not be a greater sacrilege to compare
Mr. FREDERICK PEEL to the elder Prrr than to
compare the Marquis of DALHOUSIE with one
of the noblest of modern intellects, and one
of the purest and most single-minded of
modern statesmen—the great and good Lord
, WELLESLEY.
.d

271

less than the gravity of an awful dispensation
of events could impart such interest as most
Christians felt when discharging the duties
appropriate to the day for humiliation. Not a
twelvemonth since a former day for public prayer

was set apart. Some of the considerations on

this awful theme belong only to the minister of
religion, or to the sincere worshipper in the
closet; but some views upon it are fairly
within the province of a journalist, and on
these we desire to speak.
Looking calmly back upon the course of the
last twelvemonth, is it quite certain that we
entered upon the present war with feelings of
the right spirit? Were we not too boastful
and confident ? We are afraid that even yet
we have not fully realised the excess of levity
with which we engaged in a tremendous con-
test with one of the mightiest Powers on earth,
and on this pcint we were struck by some
detached portions of the eloquent discourses
delivered before the public authorities last
Wednesday. Having to preach to the House of
Commons, it was only to be expected that a
practised preacher like the Rev. HENRY MEL-
viLLE would indicate the grounds on which, to
a Christian moralist, the war might be justified.
"It was not," said Mr. MELVILLE, " for Eng-
" land to sit tamely by while country after
" country lost its independence." And again,
"We took up the championship of the op-
" pressed." Now, assuming that such objects
and motives fully justified our going to war,
there remains the question, whether we acted
in our measures with the caution belong
ing to our experienced nation, ruled over by a
time-honoured and trusted Legislature ? On
these heads we think that the Bishop of
LONDON was fully justified when, towards the
close of his masterly discourse delivered at St.
Paul's Cathedral, his Lordship touched on our
overweening pride—our vain-glory--our boasts
about our armaments—the underrating our
foes, and our ignorant exaggerations of our
own strength.
After what that eminent Prelate urged on
that point, it might be almost superfluous to
say more. Yet let us look at some of the most
disgraceful incidents which accompanied our
commencement of the war. After having flung
down the gauntlet to a gigantic adversary, it
appears that our Government thought that
England could play at war ; and we learn from
Dr. ANDREW SMITH'S valuable evidence, on
Tuesday, before the " Inquiry Committee"
that, in the first instance, he was told to pre-
pare suitable medical aid for "an army of
" observation of about ten thousand men."
Then it was increased afterwards " to twenty
"or twenty-five thousand more." And with
tHis handful of troops we were, forsooth, "to
" take up that championship of the oppressed"
which was to be England's mission, and it was
with these units we were to show the hundreds
of our adversary that " England would not sit
" tamely LI."
As if such " overweening pride," such " vain
glory," and such " boasting of our armaments "
(to use the Bishop of LONDON'S words), were
not absurd enough, we made ourselves still
more ridiculous by the swaggering and
arrogant speeches at the absurd banquets
given at the beginning of the war. On this
point we must observe that there was not the
least resemblance between the dinner given
at White's to the Duke of CAMBRIDGE and the
grotesque entertainment at the Reform Club.
The dinner at White's was attended by noble-
men and gentlemen of opposite parties in the
State, and the speech of the Duke of CAM-
BRIDOE, in returning thanks for his health, was
(like the tone of the company) modest and
Unassuming, and quite different from that
ridiculous scene when the present Premier
and Sir JAMes GRAHAM made speeches which
even then were felt to be most offensive to the
public mind. We have not forgotten bow,
when Mr. BRIGHT drew attention to these
unhappy scenes, Lord PALMERSTON had the
singular want of taste to sneer
,!it " the
" honourable and reverend gentleman.
,ful to recollect

that in the interest of which the Friend of India of the purest and most sirigle•nunaea oI "LIVIA had
was first established ; and, in order to obtain modern statesmen—the great and good Lord unhappy scenes, LOTU rALMERBTON the
a security and freedom not then accorded to the WELLESLEY. singular want of taste to sneer
,at " the
newspaper press in British India, it was printed " honourable and reverend gentleman.
and published in the then Danish settlement ofThese things are now painful to recollect;
DAY OF
Serampore—a town so near to Calcutta as to HUMILIATION. but we should turn meditation upon them to
be practically within its suburbs, while, at the Jr cannot be often in the history of our age good account. Let us, therefore, take care
same time, being a foreign settlement, it was that days of such serious import as last Wed- that we do not again expose ourselves to
out of the East India Company's jurisdiction. nesday can be expected to occur. Nothing moral censure by making a perfect mockery