The Press.
London, England, 1857-07-18 00:00:00

THE PRESS, JULY 18, 1857.

the aid of the local corps, to collect a portion of the revenue,
but Ido not think they can possibly do more. Certainly
they will not be able to move beyond the banks of the
Sutlej to render assistance to any other corps. All I can
hope is that in these provinces our authorities will stand
their grc.und, and that the Punjaub will be maintained.
Lord Ellenborough then placed before the house a
masterly plan of operations in detail for the suppres-
sion of the insurrection :
When the insurrection first broke out we had only two
regiments at Calcutta and its neighbourhood. The Go-
vernment sent for one regiment from Madras, and two
from Bombay, which were in the Persian Gulf at the
time. This, with another regiment previously ordered up,
will make six regiments at Calcutta when these troops
arrive. The first thing to consider is the protection of
the capital, the seat of Government, where there is a
treasury containing many millions, and an enormous
amount of mercantile property. It is the point through
which alone the Customs, the salt tax, and the opium
revenue can be levied. It is essential to the maintenance
of British authority in India not only that Calcutta should
be held, but that there should be no possible doubt as to
our holding it, and that the Government should be always
able to act and legislate there in perfect security. In
addition to the troops there you ought to have at least six
steamers in the river to protect the Government offices,
Allahabad is a most important station at th 2 junction
between the Jumna and the Ganges ; while at Lucknow—
the centre of a great Mahommedan population—there
ought to be more than one regiment. Thus, the whole of
the six regiments which will arrive at Calcutta will be
required for the protection of Bengal alone, without the
power of moving beyond the confines of that presidency,
and therefore they will have no disposable force for
retrieving affairs at the other provinces. Of these six
regiments three must, at the earliest convenient moment,
be sent back to their previous stations—one to Madras
and two to Bombay. Consequently, of the eight regi-
ments which we know have now been ordered to sail for
India three will be detaintd in Bengal to supply the
place of a corresponding number who will return to
Madras and Bombay. Thus there will remain of the
entire force of which we have as yet heard only five
regiments for any operations from Allahabad. I hold
that five regiments are totally insufficient. And here I
ought to observe that. whatever force the Government may
send out the difficulties of the Governor General in

affording it means of movement will not, perhaps, be
insuperable, but they will be enormous ; and unless he in-
terferes in the business himself, looking into every detail
and communicating personally with the officers intrusted
with the duty of furnishing transport for the troops, our
measures will entirely fail. There is no use in having
men if you cannot move them. In Bengal you cannot
find horses to mount the cavalry, or for the purposes of
the artillery. It is absolutely necessary that the horses
should be sent hence ; and it is most desirable that you
should at the same time give orders in the Cape and in
Australia for the furthering to India of all horses fit for
the service of the city airy and artillery. But I shall
assume that these five regiments have all reached Allaha-
bad. They will not, however, be there by the Ist of
November. That is the day on which they will arrive at
Calcutta ; and, having obtained the means of transport,
they cannot possibly get to Allahabad before the Ist of
January. This force will be wholly inadequate to enter
without cavalry or artillery into a country with from
30,000,000 to 40,000,000 of inhabitants, full of disbanded
troops, and containing the really military population of
India—the Rajpoot population. I say that your force
should consist of at least nine regiments of infantry, three
regiments of cavalry, and six batteries of artillery. Upon
a late occasion Calcutta was left with only one battery of
six guns, and, although it is contrary to all our previous
notions, it will be necessary for the first time to send ar-
tillery to India. And now comes another difficulty. The
gun carriages made here will be of no use there, and unless
you send out orders to Madras and Bombay to provide gun
carriages those made in this country will crack in pieces,
anti your guns will be lost. My lords, I think I should
fail in my duty if I did not say most decidedly that I do
not think it sufficient to act on that line of operations
alone. There will be on the right bank of the Sntlej a
force which may maintain its own, but which will be in
jeopardy in the midst of a great population very *dike
and very hostile, and I hold it essential that there should
be a movement of troops by the line of the Indus and the
Sutlej, which may connect itself with the force from
Allahatiad, and crush all opposition between those two
points. And more, I hold it to be most expedient, wise,
and necessary to go yet further, and to have some reserve
of perhaps two European regiments—one at Allaliabrul
and another on the other line of operations I have indi•
cated—to which some native regiments might be joined
wllo might be relied on for the purpose of completing the
communications, of sending up supplies, and protecting the
rear of the army.

With this force, which lie would make up by
diverting the regiments now destined for China,
the existing rebellion might be stamped out,
and by the end of April British authority firmly
re-established in every part of the upper provinces.
But their lordships might rely on it that the rebellion
could only be extinguished by prompt and vigorous
means :

But if you act in a different way—if you act undeckledly
—if you think there is nothing in It, and that it will die
out of itself—if you are not determined to put forth your
w' ole strength and crush this rebellion against your
iomiuion which threatens your elistence in India as con.
quelois, you may depend upon it you will have entailed
upon you campaign after campaign, and the suspense which
will affect the minds of the whole people of India will im•
peril your rule and destroy your character and authority in

India. My lords, Ido not believe there will be any Indio'.
position on the part of Parliament to supplrt the Govern.
went, if the Government take the right, view of the present
state of things. It is for them to decide. I trust that they
will prove worthy of the difficulties of their position, and
of the greatness of the danger in which we are all involved,
and that by cowing forward in a manner to maintain the
national character and the public interests they will give
permanent security to our Indian empire, as well as honour
—which I shall nut grudge them—for themselves.
He concluded by asking for further official informa-
tion connected with the Indian mutines.

Lord URANVIII.E replied that the Government were
only at present in possession of the telegraphic mes-
sage which had been already made public. Further
intormation might be expected that evening or in
the course of the next day, the substance of which
would, of course, be published. We regard to the
whole question, he could assure Lord Ellenborough
that the Government were not at all inclined to
treat the matter lightly, and though be could
not agree with him when he talked of calamity and
disgrace, and though be declined to follow him
into the realms of prophecy, Lord Ellenborough
might rest assured that the Government were pre-
pared to act with the greatest vigour in this emer-
gency.

Lord hIxLvILLE, in an impressive speech, called
the attention of the house to the bad discipline
which had existed for years past in the Bengal army
as distinguished from those of the other Presidencies,
supported his assertion by examples derived from
his Indian experiences, and called the attention of
the house to the wilful neglect of the East India
Directors or the Government to remedy abuses when
pointed out to them by their own officers :

Nobody could deny that the discipline of the Bengal army
was of the worst possilile description, and in that light it
had been looked upon by the late General Anson, who hail
in conseqnce, ever since he had assumed the command
of the arm3r in India, deemed it to he his duty to represent
to the Board of Directors the absolute necessity of increas•
ing the European force in India—a recommendation to
which, however, so far as the Government was concerned,
no sort of attention had been paid. In proof of the state-
ment that the discipline of the Bengal army was of the
worst description he might inform the house that in the
year 1819, shortly after the first occupation of the Punjaub,
when he had commanded on the frontier, two Bengal regi•
ments had mutinied, and when he had returned home in
1850 he had expressed the greatest disapprobation of the
condition of the troops of which that army was composed.
He had, however, been told that, no matter how just his
opinions upon the subject might be, he must not give
utterance to them in public, inasmuch as it was extremely
undesirable that foreign nations should be acquainted with
the real state of affairs. The result, at all events, had been
that no steps had been taken in the matter by the Board of
Directors, and that the discipline of the Bengal army eon-
tinned to be of that character to which he had drawn their
lordships' attention.
A few remarks from Lord ALBEIIARLE concluded
the discussion.