The Press.
London, England, 1857-07-25 00:00:00

724

THE WEEK.

THE week has been rife with rumours of bad news from India.
The Australian steamer Simla, which arrived at Suez with eight days'
later intelligence from Ceylon, is declared to have brought intelligence
of the repulse of General BARNARD before Delhi, and of the disaffec-
tion having spread among the Bombay and Madras armies. We
frankly confess that we are fully prepared for such intelligence. We
shall not in the least be surprised to hear that Delhi, held by 16,000
well-armed, well-stored resolute Sepoys, and 40,000 fanatic Mahome-
dans, has defeated every effort of General BARNARD with his handful of
troops to take it by a coup de-main. We shall not be surprised to hear
that these Sepoys, fighting with the rope about their necks, have
exhibited a courage and a determination unequalled in the annals
of Asiatic warfare. And if General BARNARD fails in his coup-de-main
we may rest assured that he will not take Delhi, with its new ditch
and bastions and four miles of defences, its two parks of artillery,
its hundred thousand muskets, and its tons of stores and gunpowder,
for the next three months. We repeat, if he fail, Delhi may prove the
Sebastopol of Bengal. We fear that it is wilfully ignoring facts
to expect that General BARNARD, with 5,000 men hastily collected,
ill-provisioned, and worse stored, harassed with outpost duty by
night, and exhausted with the intense heat of the plains by day, should
succeed in the first assault of such a stronghold as Delhi, defended
by men flushed with all the vigour of a bloody rebellion, and prepared
to encounter every hazard than again submit to British dominion.
What may be the effect upon Hindustan of a successful defence of
Delhi by the rebels it is not easy to say Each native regiment
in India snuffs the approach of plunder iu every tainted breeze from
Delhi. Those who not very long ago were unable to discern the
nearest and most probable event, pretend to see far into futurity now,
and deny that it would endanger the submission of Hindostan.
Who can believe it? Experience and the evidence of facts are all the
other way. What do HEBER, METCALF, and NAPIER tell us ? Do we not
know that for years the East India Company have denied to the
natives the existence of grievances, and have refused redress ? The
patience of the people has been exhausted ; and this is not the worst
of the mischief. Such a revolt as that in Bengal shakes authority to
its centre. Men's mind s become unsettled, and with the Asiatic such a
feeling is only one step from revolt. The European troops are known
to be more or less concentrated in few positions ; and if the British
residents generally exhibit such alarm as they did at Simla, so far
from being a matter of surprise, a general rising may very naturally be
expected. We fervently hope that such a terrible crisis may be
averted. But for years past every writer upon India has thrust at us
the same truth that we have no root in the country, and that we sit
upon a mine which any day may explode with terrible consequences.
We are willing to believe that much of this may be magnified ; but if
we neglect to take more than ordinary care, if the Government at Cal-
cutta and at the Presidencies isnot administered with firmness and cau-
tion, if the management of the British forces is not conducted with
skill and success, these dangers will rapidly become such in reality as
they are represented to be. To restore order and repose to a province
so great and so distracted as Bengal, is a matter for after consideration.
At present we have to stamp out a rebellion. If the Government of
India had employed proper precaution and exercised becoming firm-
ness months since, they had in their power the remedy for the ill ; but
that time is passed, and only one thing is now clear—that such is our
condition in India, such a crisis are we in there, that if they do not
speedily resolve and carry out their resolutions, it may be probably
out of their power to do it hereafter with any effect.

The reluctance of Government to embody the Militia in the pre-
sent crisis is attributed to a variety of causes. Some say it arises from
unwillingness to interfere with agricultural labour others, that the
Militia are considered to have been backward during the late war in
volunteering for the Line ; others, again, are to be found sufficiently
daring to suggest that the solution of the problem is to be found in the
word patronage. Probably there may be some truth in all three of the
reasons alleged. But the first is only transient, and the third we do not
choose to discuss on the present occasion. But as to the second we feel
desirous that the public should avoid the error of looking upon the
Militia merely as a nursery for the Line. Such a view is at once deroga-
tory to both officers and men, and
,injurious to their public utility.
The business of the Militia is to act as a substitute for our regular troops,
when suddenly called abroad by military emergencies like the
present. No feasible scheme of national defences could equal that by
which if every soldier of the line were drafted out of the country one
week, fifty thousand trained men would step into their places
the next. These in the course of a month or two
woull attain to as high a state of discipline as the
bulk of the regulars, would perform home duties equally
well, and might be made sufficiently numerous to defend the
island from invasion. Why any Minister should hesitate to employ a
force thus, as it were, ready made to his hand, we cannot well compre-
hend. We are loth to believe that professional jealousy has weight
enough to retard the fulfilment of a great national requirement. If
so, the rulers of the State are lamentably untrue to their trust. But
we shall say no more on this unpleasant subject at present ; sinc,wely
trusting that, unless an extraordinary change for the better takes place

THE PRESS, JUL! '25,1857.

in our Indian prospects, Lord PALMERSTON Will have energy enough to
resist the pressure of his colleagues, and embody the national
force in preference to any more costly aul abiding addition to our
armaments.

The Neapolitan revolt at Sapri is one of those failures
of rabid republicanism that the arch conspirator MAzzisi has
concocted in London, and so often endeavoured to carry out in any
spot of Italy deemed appropriate for the attempt of the
moment. But the organisation of this particular conspiracy had
larger dimensions than is commonly supposed. The Neapolitan
Government, well aware that in England Italian affairs are imperfectly
known, and still more imperfectly treated, has taken great pains to
persuade the few who are friends to King FERDINAND that the Sapri
insurrection is to be attributed entirely to a Murat source, hatched at
Paris, and privately aided by Sardinia. Such are the accounts put
forth by Neapolitan authority, and credited by some journals, or rather
affected to be so for the sake of party. It is well known by those who
have any pretension to an acquaintance with the Mazziniati system,
that the outbreak was to have been simultaneous in Piedmont,
Tuscany, and Naples, and that the signal of general revolt was to be
the assassination of the Emperor NAPOLEON. Documents exist, and
will be produced, to substantiate this fact. The pecuniary loss to the
Mazzinians and their allies has been above twenty thousand pounds ;
and it is perfectly true, as stated by the Governmental organs of
Naples, that these funds came from a French quarter, but that quarter
was neither Imperialist nor Muratist, which is sufficiently evident by
the signal for a general rising being the assassination of the Emperor
of the FRENCH. There are those in Fiance and out of France
that believe the death of the Emperor would lead to an enthroni-
sation of their interests, and whether republicans or not is another
question. Suffice it that the republic, one and indivisible, serves as a
cry and collects dupes ; and to prove at once the correctness of the
position, the Courts of Piedmont, Tuscany, and Naples were apprised
of the forthcoming insurrection by the French Government. The
latter had knowledge of the conspiracies and intended assassination
from England, but not from the police in the first instance, if ever.
Neither was that knowledge conveyed through the French Embassy.
The assassins, four in number, went by way of St. Malo, and their
route had been forwarded to the French police. The fabrications of
the Court of Naples, by which it is intended to throw suspicion on the
Court of France, will not serve the purpose. When
the Mazzinian insurgents landed at Sapri, the projeot
was so utterly hopeless, that many were urgent to re-
embark in order to wait for a more opportune time, and it is
reported that PISACANE had nine of these dissentients shot for insub-
ordination. Oue hundred and sixty-seven of the insurgents have been
killed. Those who were taken—to the number of three hundred—
have been sent to Salerno, where they are to be rejoined by ninety-one
other prisoners from Naples, and they will be immediately tried before
the Criminal Court of that town, specially summoned for the occasion.
Papers have been found in the possession of the mistress of PISACANE
which throw a considerable light on the ramifications of the conspi-
racy ; but it is doubtful whether these will be publicly produced at the
trial, since they establish a perfectly different version of the affair from
that which the Neapolitan Government seeks to propagate. The fact
of the Pied montese colours having been hoisted on board the Cayliari
is advanced as a proof that the insurrection was undertaken with the
connivance of that State ; and this, too, is boldly asserted after it has
been overtly shown that one of the objects of the grand conspiracy of
republicanism was to overthrow the present constitution of Sardinia.
The trials at Salerno and those at Paris will settle the matter in dis-
pute, for the evidence suppressed at Salerno will be published at.
Paris, and will disprove and utterly confound the Neapolitan Govern-
ment in its endeavour to throw odium on the Government of France.

The Indian debate on Monday next is looked forward to with
considerable interest. The papers presented to Parliament concern•
ing the Indian question are so meagre in detail, and so mutilated in
extent, that a debate is felt to be the only means of arriving at some
definite conclusion upon the origin of the rebellion iu India, and of
satisfying the public mind upon the point whether the Government
and the East Indian Company were or were not forewarned of
the hazardous state of the Bengal provinces. Lord PALMERSTON
last night endeavoured to induce Mr. DISRAELI to postpone
the debate on the plea that, as the Indian mail was not expected
to arrive before Monday night, it might be as well to delay the
motion until some later day. We sce no relation between the
latest intelligence of the progress of the rebellion and the
inquiry into the origin and causes of that rebellion. What
the country desires to arrive at is some explanation of the course of
affairs from the earliest symptoms of disaffection in Bengal, and of the
conduct and measures of the East India Government and of the Board
of Control during that period. It is incredible that so vast a con-
spiracy should have suddenly arisen from some superstious motive of
caste, or that it could have attained the complete organisation it has
since displayed, without the knowledge of the Government. The
papers presented to Parliament explain little on this point. Front
them we learn, it is true, that, on the 19th of May last, Lord CANN I s(i
wrote home " that the necessity of an increase of European trooi:s "
upon the Bengal establishment had been " long apparent," but that
the necessity of keeping down the military charges had prevented
him from taking any steps in the matter. This, at least, is a question
able economy. Upon the other hand, we learn something of the
nature of the Directorial Government. On the Bth of this month Lord