The Sun.
London, England, 1859-09-06 00:00:00

THE EUROPEAN ARMY IN _INDIA.

The following is a dopy of the General Order in
virtue of which the European soldiers of the late
Company's army have claimed their discharge :
" June 20th—His Excellency the Viceroy and
Governor-General of India in Council calls the

attention of the English soldiers of her Majesty's
Indian forces to this general order.
" On entering the service of the East India Com-
pany every soldier was attested in the following
manner :

6" Among the ' questions to be put separately by
the justice to a recruit on enlisting,' was this one,—
" 8. Are you willing to be attested to serve in
the East India Company's (Infantry, Cavalry, or
Artillery, as the case might be), foi the term of . .
. . provided the said Company should so long re-
quire your services, and also for such further term,
not exceeding two years, as shall be directed by the
commanding officer on any foreign station ?'
" He then made the following declaration before

he justice on attestation ;
I do declare that the above questions

have been separately put to me ; that the answers
thereto have been read over to me ; and that they
are the same that I gave, and are true.'
" He then took the following oath :--
- " 6 I do make oath that I will be faith•

ful and bear true allegiance to her Majesty, her
heirs and successors, and that I will, as in duty
bound, honestly and faithfully defend her Majesty,
her heirs and successors, in person, crown, and dig-
nity against all enemies, and will observe and obey
all orders of her Majesty, her heirs and successors,
and of the generals and officers set over me.
" And that I also will be true to the said Com-
pany, and will duly observe and obey all their
orders, and the orders of their generals and officers
who shall be lawfully set over me
" The first part of the oath is not a mere oath of al-
legiance, but an oath both of allegiance and of mili-
tary service. It is not an oath taken by civilians ;
for when a civilian takes an oath of allegiance, he
swears that he will be faithful and bear true alle-
giance to the Queen, and nothing more. But it is
precisely the same oath as that under which every
soldier of her Majesty's service, enlisted in England
and elsewhere, engages to serve in the Royal
Army, and it is the only oath administered to a
recruit on attestation for her Majesty's service.
" The second part of the oath binds the sol-
dier to serve the East India Company faith-
fully, and to obey orders, precisely in the same
terms as those in which in the first part of the oath
he has sworn to serve the Queen.
" Every man who took this oath bound himself
to serve the Crown as well as. the Company, but
with a clear understanding that he was to serve in
India only, and exclusively in the British forces of
the Company, as distinet from the ordinary service
of the Crown.
" It having been deemed expedient by the Legis-
-1 ature of the United Kingdom that th• East India
Company should cease to administer the govern-
ment of India in trust for the Crown, an Act of
Parliament was passed on the 2d of August, 1858,
for the better government of India,'—the Act of
the 21st and 22d Victoria, cap. 106.
" Of this statute the 56th section enacted as
follows :

The military and naval forces of the East

India Company shall be deemed to be the Indian
military and naval forces of her Majesty, and shall
be under the same obligation to serve her Majesty
as they would have been under to serve the said
Company, and shall be liable to serve within the
same territorial limits only, for the same terms only,
and be entitled to the like pay, pension, allowances
and privileges, and the like advantages as regards
promotion and otherwise, as if they had continued
in the service of the said Company ; such forces,
and all persons hereafter enlisting in or entering
the same. shall continue and be subject to all the
Acts of Parliament, laws of the Governor-General
of India in Council, and Articles of War, and all
other laws, regulations, and provisions, relating
to the East India Company's military and naval
forces respectively, as if her Majesty's Indian
military and naval forces respectively had through-
out such acts, laws, articles, regulations, an&
provisions been mentioned or referred to, instead of
such forces of the said Company ; and the pay and
expenses of and incident to her Majesty's Indian
military and naval forces shall be defrayed out of
the revenues of India.'

" Under this section of the Act, the forces of the
East India Company are not transferred to the
Crown, so as to place them on the same footing as
her Majesty's troops of the Line, but the most care-
ful provision is made to preserve inviolate the terms
of service under which the men enlisted, so that no
man shall be required to serve out of India, nor in
any British regiments other than those which com-
posed the army of the Company, and that the pay,
pension, and all other rights and privileges hereto-
fore enjoyed by them in the service of the Com-
pany, shall continue in every respect to be enjoyed
by them.
"The sole change made by the Act of Parliament
is in the designation of the troops. It is enacted
that they shall be deemed to be ' the Indian military
forces of her Majesty.'
" The service is precisely what it was before—its
local limits, its peculiar advantages, its entire dis-
tinctness from the ordinary service of the Crown,
are exactly what they have heretofore been. But
the forces which bore the name of the Hon. East
India Company's forces, so long as that Company
administered the Government of India in trust for
the Queen, have now the honqur of being known
as the Indian forces of the Queen herself.
" Some portion, however, of these troops, shortly
after the Act of Parliament came into force, came
forward to claim a bounty or their discharge, on
the ground that they had been transferred without
their consent from the service of the Company, to
the service of the Crown, as to a different service
from that into which they enlisted.
" This claim received all proper consideration
where it was becomingly made ; it was submitted
by the Government of India to her Majesty's Go-
vernment; it was the subject of careful deliberation,