The Press.
London, England, 1854-10-21 00:00:00

SATURDAY,

quarrel with Sir CHARLES NAPIER arose in the
first instance out of the indignant language in
which the latter denounced the employment
of troops in the wholesale massacre of villagers
at Kohan and the burning of their villages, by
way of punishment for withholding their
rents—a . Governor-General who, moreover,
reprimanded Sir COLIN CAMPBELL, one of the
lierdes of Alma, in no measured terms for refus-
ing to be a party to the similar employment, on
requisition by the Punjaub employes, of the
force itt Peshaw ur under his command. Sir Colas
is alive ; we speak of what we know on his own
authority, communicated to us personally by
his own mouth ; and we have no hesitation in
asserting, without fear of contradiction, that
he resigned the Peshawar command on the
very ground of refusing to allow, without
the express and written orders of the
Commander in-Chief, atrocities of this kind
on our Punjaub frontier, ten . times greater
than any that have ever been perpetrated by
the Ministers of the King of OUDE. But, even
were the case otherwise, we have the power by
treaty of interfering in the King of /DUDE'S
affairs, and enforcing good government if ho
neglects it. If there is bad government, there-
fore, in OUDE, it is Lord DALHOUSIE who is
responsible for it, and Sir CHARLES Woon , and
those high officials and the Directors] are alone
to blame. To neglect their duty, and then to
make the consequences of their neglect the
ground of confiscating the King of Ounes domi-
nions, is a proceeding which we have no hesita-
tion in denouncing as the most Machiavelian
and infamous that has been practised by any
ruler in any country.
So far we have treated the question as
relating to the King of OUDE personally ; but
another and a much weightier consideration
remains behind. By far the largest portion
of the sepoys in the Bengal army, and a very
considerable portion of those in the Bombay
army, are natural-born subjects of the King of
OUDE. Their lands are in Oude, for the
sepoys are mostly of the agricultural class ;
their families aro in Oude, and when their
time of service has expired it is to Oude that
they return to pass the remainder of their
lives. That these sepoys, accustomed in Oude
to the rule of men of their own colour, caste,
and nation, would view with any feeling but
that of the deepest resentment the transfer of
their homes to the withering blight of the
Company's domination is not to be suspected.
They like the pay of the Company and the
advantages to be obtained in its military ser-
vice, for they are the Swiss of India, but they
have no wish to see their families become
ryots of the Company, or, in other words,
transformed from comparative freemen into
serfs. That the transfer of Oude to the
Company will be the signal for resistance by
these men we cannot doubt; and it is a re-
sistance which, if made, must endanger our
Indian empire. We hold India by the swords
of these men, and if we once turn their arms
against us the few Europeans in India, would
be powerless to resist them, and the fabric of
our dominion might receive a shock from
which it would never recover.
The arrogance of a DALHOUSIE and the
imbecility of a Woon may not shrink even from
the risk of such a catastrophe ; but we look
for calmer wisdom and deeper conscientious-
ness at the hands of those who in such a crisis
must be the nation's reliance,—the representa-
tives of the people of England.

STORIES FROM THE BALTIC.
SEVERAL rumours have been put in circulation,
chiefly in Paris, as to alleged councils of War
in the Baltic fleet. In such mere on (Zits We
cannot place much confidence. It is certain
that NAPIER wished for gun-boats, and it is
certain that he did not get them. Neither
was there an expeditionary force given to him
in time with which he might have attacked
Cronstadt. With respect to the propriety of
bombarding Helsingfors or Sweaborg, it is
plain that their destruction would not mate-
rially weaken the influence of the Czar, and
their subsequent abandonment would only be
an acknowledgment of the futility of such