The Press.
London, England, 1857-08-15 00:00:00

THE WEEK.

Tnx intelligence from India is such as the good sense of the country
very generally anticipated. Delhi has not fallen ; the sorties of the
mutineers have been numerous, desperate, and repulsed with heavy
loss on both sides. General BARNARD, though according to the
accounts with 13,000 men, waits further reinforcements before he
hazards an assault. As the Gallant General when he first arrived
before Delhi had scarcely 4,000 men, and the capture of Delhi was
then confidently predicted, we are now jplaced in this unpleasant
dilemma,—either that Delhi is so much stronger and better defended
than we ever anticipated that 13,000 men are considered insufficient
to attempt so hazardous an undertaking, or that the return given of
General BARNARD'S force is false. We are disposed altogether to doubt
the return; and as further reinforcements to any extent cannot reach
the Gallant General for some time, we can scarcely venture to antici-
pate the news of the fall of Delhi by the next mail, and if not by the
next mail, from the peculiarities of climate, it is not easy to predict
the precise month in which the city will be captured.
For the rest the Ministerial papers assure us that " the worst"
is over, that there aro no more regiments to mutiny, and that Bombay
and Madras are sound. Now, is this attempt to lull the excitement in
England either honest or politic ? Is there one single fact in the intel-
ligence brought by this mail which convoys to us a sense of consola-
tion or of security? Tho mutiny has extended to eight fresh stations.
Communication between Calcutta and the Upper Provinces is com-
pletely cut off. Madras is seriously unsettled, and the public feeling
is Bombay is the reverse of perfect confidence in the native troops. The
Rajah of BHITOOR has risen, and barbarously massacred 132 Europeans
flying for their lives ; bands of marauders and brigands infest the whole
of Bengal, and rob and plunder upon all sides. The revolt is general
along the Saugor and Nerbudda districts. At Cawnpore GeneralWri EELER
was shut up in barracks with a handful of men. Sir llaNity LAWRENCE at
Lucknow was in a similar position. Far up at Peshawur the native
regiments had been disarmed, and our situation was most precarious.
Meanwhile, down in the south, at the important stations of Indore and
Mhow, the rebellion was slowly but surely extending, and the Maho-
inedans everywhere preaching the extermination of the Feringhes.
There is surely nothing here to afford us cause for self-gratulation. If
we venture to underrate the vast dangers which continue to threaten
our rule in India, the most fatal consequences will ensue to this
country. The rebellion, we may rely upon it, is far from exhausted—
it is not yet developed to its full extent; and, instead of depreciating
our danger, or permitting ourselves to be betrayed into supineness, let
us prepare boldly to meet it with our national fortitude, and, by per-
severance and firmness, endeavour to master it with effect and success,
so as to transmit intact to our posterity the inheritance our ancestors
so gloriously won.
It is for want of common sense and foresight that this great
calamity has occurred. Let us endeavour to repair the faults of the
Government, and take good care that India is not, like Minorca
seventy years since, lost for want of "four battalions." The force pro-
posed to subdue this gigantic rebellion of near 100,000 armed men,
not centred in one spot, but spread over a vast country in detail,
consists of a few scattered regiments in India, and of some 17,000 or
18,000 men from home who will be decimated by the
climate before they can be brought into the field. This
force is utterly inadequate to the occasion. From the statements of
Ministers, they would seem to be balancing between a rebellion they
ought to have foreseen, and the demands of a crisis they fail to appre-
hend. Their conduct throughout has been inconsistent, unintelligible,
and impolitic. The country cannot too seriously reflect that in the con-
test in which we are now engaged is staked the existence of the
British empire. It is a contest which must be prosecuted at every
risk. If we fail we fall, and if greater and more vigorous exertions are
not made to bring this disastrous war to a speedy and a successful
termination, a perplexed Sovereign and an alarmed country no longer
trusting to the guidance of men who in every single step of this critical
contest have exhibited a tardiness of action and a vacillation of
policy indicative of disaster, will seek for a loftier spirit and a firmer
energy to extricate the empire from its complicated peril.

The explanations her Majesty's Ministers have offered in both
Houses in reparation of their recent conduct in the Danubian Prin•
cipalities are marked in detail by a singular obscurity. Neither of the
Noble Lords can understand how it is that the elections in Moldavia
were permitted to be carried out illegally. It was all the electric
telegraph, they say. We have not the least doubt of it. Between the
telegraph and Mr. PHOTIADES we can readily understand how it was
that tho patriotic VOGORIDES was enabled to put an original interpre-
tation upon the firman of his master the Sultan, and by the aid of
Austria and England to carry out his own personal views in the
elections. The document referred to by Lord PALMERSTON in expla-
nation of the firman, and prescribing freedom and regularity for the
conduct of the elections, but which never reached the Kaimakan, was
posted in Constantinople by Mr. PHOTIADES ill the Austrian
post, and—missed its destination ! Mr. PHOTIADES, we may remark,