The Press.
London, England, 1857-08-29 00:00:00

THE PRESS, AUGUST 29,1857.

one of the noblest and most capable of our Indian Generals, a victim
of the fearful massacre at Cawnpore. In this bloody fate every sol-
dier of the garrison and 240 English women and children have shared.
Again, at Agra, after an " obstinate battle," we have lost 140 killed and
wounded out of the small garrison, and from their having had
recourse to the desperate measure of a sortie. Then we have a
mutiny and a massacre at Sealkote, and a rising at Hyderabad.
This is terrible intelligence. Let us not attempt to deceive
ourselves. It is pregnant with matter for the gravest reflection.
In the first place, what is our condition before Delhi. a.
fortnight since we were told that we had 13,000 men before the city,
and that the assault was imminent. The truth has now come out.
We have 2,000 men before Delhi, and we have the cholera in the camp.
The rebels, better stored, better fed, and better sheltered, continue
their occasional !sorties ; our men are harassed to death, the rains
have set in, and, if we may credit the general opinion of well-informed
persons in India, Delhi will not be captured for some months. If we
pass from Delhi to Cawnpore, a terrible disaster appals us The
gallant WHEELER, with his heroic band, surrounded by thousands of
bloodthirsty fanatics, has succumbed, after a noble defence, to meet a
horrible fate. Lucknow, it is true, holds out; but it is straitened for
provisions; the Governor is driven to sorties to keep off the hordes
which surround the defences, and they have lost their noble leader. In
a word, its position is not reassuring, for we dare scarcely hope that
General HAVELOCK will be able to leave NANA SAHIB in his rear and push
forward to its relief. But if the position of Luckuow is far from satis-
factory, that of Agra is most critical. The garrison, after an obstinate
battle, driven within its walls, and surrounded by 10,000 mutineers,
who, sweeping the country from Neemuch, have swelled their ranks
with every vagabond within reach, and pant for the plunder of the
town and the massacre of our heroic soldiers. For the rest, there is
too little detail yet for us to pronounce upon the mutiny at Sealkote,
the rising at Hyderabad, or the disposition of the Punjaub, on the one
hand, and of Bombay and Madras upon the other. But this great fact
is now clear to us, the rebels sweep the province of Bengal, and
though they recoil from our terrible bayonets, those, alas ! are too few
and too scattered to maintain any definite ascendancy. In a word,
our position is most hazardous. It is true that, with the exception of
Agra, we have defeated the rebels wherever we have come in contact
with them; but the success of General HAVELOCK in the recapture of
Cawnpore was only purchased after three desperate engagements.
This at least proves NANA SAHIB to be nut easily disconcerted, and to
have both the will, the capacity, and the means to give our generals
serious trouble. Yet it is not so much the force of the
rebels that we dread—we won our ground in the face of
greater odds ; but it is the thought that pestilence and
famine as well as battle may thin their scattered ranks, may
strike down the bravest hearts, and render them in camp, in town, or
in garrison, an easy prey to cruel massacre. It is this that we dread,
that they will be worn out before relief is afforded, and a Cabul
massacre repeated. It is this dread, as a morning contemporary
well expresses it, which makes every earnest man " writhe with impa-
tience " at the flippancy with which in anticipation the great deeds of
the army, now scattered at sea, are boldly foretold when
concentrated at Calcutta. Our soldiers and civilians—nay, our
very women and children—at this moment display under
terrible catastrophe and disaster the most illustrious example of
fortitude and daring ; but before relief can reach them from England,
their very bones may whiten the plains of Bengal, and instead of suc-
couring the besieged, we may find that we have Hindostan to re-
conquer. The country must arouse itself to a full sense of the danger
which threatens our very existence in India, and of the terrible fate
our countrymen are so gallantly struggling against. The rebellion we
may rely upon it is not yet exhausted ; the flame is burning slowly,
but alas surely, and may yet wrap the whole of Hindostan in its em-
brace. The troops sent omit are not adequate to the crisis. We must have
an expedition up the Indus—the whole country from the Indus
to Delhi is favourable to military operations during the rainy season—
and we should despatch the troops with all haste across the Isthmus
of Suez. If that fatal inertness of the Government which has brought
such misfortune and disasters to our doors is persisted in, and
entire reliance rested upon the troops despatched, the country
must ho prepared to submit to the most serious sacrifices, and to
encounter heartrending calamities.

For some time past there have been many reports that a large
increase to the Peerage was intended. It was said that her Majesty
would in this fashion celebrate the completion of the first twenty years
of her august reign. Some said that the marriage of the Princess
Royal, others that the majority of the Prince of WALES would be the
occasions on which the prerogative of the Crown would be employed.
The journals have discussed the subject, and a leading one has
attempted to cajole Lord JOHN RUSSELL into consenting to become a
Peer. His position we have discussed separately. With respect to
the number of new Peers there are various reports. Lord ROBERT
GROSVENOR is certainly to be one, in fulfilment of a former promise.
The name of Sir FRANCIS BARING is mentioned, but that family already
has a title in it, and we are not aware that its public services would
justify a second ennobling. The Marquis of LANSDOWNE. it is
said, will be raised to the rank of Duke, taking the title
of Kerry. A Scotch Peer is spoken of for further promotion
and a Scotch Baronet is also mention as about to receive an English
Barony. The Earl of LISTOWEL also (nephew to General WiNneam) is
not unlikely to obtain an English Barony. For two generations Lord
LISTOWEL'S family has held places about the Court, and his Lordship
joins the Marquis of LasspowNE and Earl of KENMARE in nominating
the members for Kerry. He was severely wounded at the battle of the

Alma. We do not believe in the silly rumour that Sir BENJAMIN HALL
is to be made a Peer. He has made himself a most invidious character
by constantly dealing in " exposures ;" he is not an orator, or a ready
debater, or a practical statesman. and it would be useless giving the
rewards given to distinguished Englishmen if a Coronet was beto wed
on the brawling Member for Marylebone. We can understand the
policy which makes peers if commoners of high birth and great
estate, but no one could see grounds for bestowing hereditary honours
on one whose station in Parliament or society does not justify such
an elevation.

The resolution of the Government to add twenty new battalions
to the regular army is not wholly satisfactory. We are unfeignedly
glad to see any evidence of active preparation for avenging our tor-
tured countrymen and regaining our lost dominions ; but the tone of
the Government on military questions for some time past has indi-
cated a desire to make a permanent addition to our standing army,
and to allow the Militia to become obsolete. Now, we are strongly
opposed to such designs for two reasons. In the first place, in time
of peace it would be a superfluous expense, provided we always had
the Militia to fall back upon ; and in the next place, it increases the
patronage of Government and the power of the Executive to an undue
degree. It is, in our opinion, perfectly useless to keep up the Militia
as a channel of recruits for the Line. Such a go-between
is net required ; it is merely an expensive encumbrance,
and benefits nobody except the militia adjutants, who get
so much a head for every volunteer into the line. It is
their interest, of course, to keep the regiments disembodied and
to that end ineffective. Embodiment removes them from their homes
without increasing their pay; and if the men remain firm to their regi-
ments, their emoluments are of course diminished. It is possible that
this class of officers may exercise an injurious influence upon the
prospects of the Militia ; and we advise all who are interested in the
subject to aid in investigating what the colonels have been doing
during the last twelvemonth, and how far they have allowed the adju-
tants to have their own way in this !natter. A good deal of correspon-
dence has appeared in the 'lilacs relative to milli.ia officers in general.
We have no doubt that a judicious admixture of linesmen and county
gentlemen is the best system. The one are respected for their know-
ledge of discipline, the other for their local influence. The latter
bring recruits, and the former keep them. And we strongly urge
upon all militia officers the propriety of averting any unseemly
collision between the classes.

The Hon. Mr. BYNG has published an address to the electors of
Middlesex, in whieh he simply enunciates the stereotyped Liberal
creed. Among its articles are the " total abolition of church rates, the
adoption of the vote by ballot, the admission of my Dissenting fellow-
subjects to the advantage of our university education, and all ►measures
tending to promote and secure iu its best and highest acceptation the
great principle of civil and religious liberty." We should not have
called attention to this otherwise unimportant circumstance except
for the purpose of repeating to all our readers that the time is fast
approaching when Englishmen will have to decide between the two
great conflicting parties of this country—the Destructives and the
Conservatives. Mr. BYNG has spoken out plainly. His friends and
his enemies know what they have to expect. This is fair fighting.
But the true enemies of both stability and improvement are those
varnished obstructives who talk politics without acting up to their
talk—who have one voice for the reporter's desk, and another for the
peer's' drawing-room. We have too many such, who, because
they are unprincipled, call themselves independent.

Lord STRATFORD has done it all ! This is a repetition of the old
cry when Kars fell. Her Majesty's Government, it must be admitted,
are very frequently in want of a scapegoat, and of course, because the
intrigues in the Principalities of Lord PALMERSTON have been recently
exposed, and the Noble lord has been compelled to " eat his leek "
which be did, by the way, with all the humility becoming a Prime
Minister of England—Lord STRATFORD is by anticipation to be visited
with public indignation, and to be recalled. The conduct of the Noble
Lord has created a lively sensation in Europe, and particularly at
Paris. Assertions of his Lordship's immediate recall are rife. The
Times Paris correspondent calls him " a troublesome and turbulent
personage." The continental papers teem with remarks upon
his " arrogance" and his eminent " unfitness " for his post, and in anti-
cipation dwell with no little satisfaction upon his approaching downfall.
Lord STRATFORD has weathered too many such storms, has triumphed
over too many more subtle diplomatists than himself, to be easily
shaken from his post. At the same time the pliant Minister who so
humbly " eat his leek " at Osborne might feud no obstacle in his way
to sacrifice our veteran Ambassador to considerations of expediency.
The recall of such an energetic representative of British influence from
Constantinople at a moment when our prestige and our power is to the
Eastern mind quivering in the balance, will tend to confirm any doubts
in the Divan at Constantinople or at the Court of Teheran that the
power of England has in reality declined.

The late lamentable and fatal accident to Mr. T. PLATT, the
Liberal Member for Oldham, is one of those occurrences with which
the shooting season is but too often ushered in. Next Tuesday will,
no doubt, witness the debut of many a youthful sportsman, Who, amid