The Sun.
London, England, 1857-09-04 00:00:00

TI, SUN,

and in the province of Oude. Our troops, we
greatly fear, will not escape this plague ; you will I
have an idea of its intensity when you learn that(
the inhabitants of the country desert their villages
for the purpose of taking refuge in the jungle,
where, nevertheless, the cholera decimates them in
greater numbers than in the open country.
"General Van Cortlandt has operated in the
districts of Hansee and Hisser, and holds possession
of those countries.
" I have reason to believe that our Government
is organising regiments of Sikhs. These are, it is
true, hardy soldiers, who have shaken off the re-
ligious superstition of the country, and who hate
as much Mahomedan as Hindoo fanaticism. We
have known how to appreciate their bravery upon 1
the field of battle, and as long as we can reckon
upon them they will be terrible rivals to place in
opposition to the Sepoys. But the experience of
the past should tell us that the Sikhs should only
be employed iu arresting the course of insurrection,
massacre, violation, and incendiarism, and should
not be relied upon for the reconquering of Bengal.
"Madras and Bombay continue to enjoy the
most complete tranquillity, and the native troops
of those two Presidencies have shown no signs of
disaffection. May Heaven be praised for it ! There,
perhaps, is the only safe plank for the European
populations of Bengal, whom the rebellious Sepoys,
drunk with the blood of innocent woman and chil-
dren, have not as yet been able to destroy.
" As to our fellow-citizens of the Presidencies of
Madras and Bombay, the knowledge of those fright-
ful massacres will not have bean lost upon them.
They will see the necessity of being upon the
qwe vivo.
" Even here all concur in giving to the revolt a
purely military and not a national character. That
is also to us a subject of immense satisfaction.
"It is then evident that the reorganizstion of
our military system in India should be the object of
the solicitude of the metropolitan government and
of the local administration from henceforth, and
especially when the revolt shall have been subdued.
Permit me to give to your readers some details
which will enable them more properly to adjudicate
on the question with a knowledge of its origin.
"By the official reports published last year at
Calcutta upon the Anglo-Indian army, that army
comprised in 1856 320,000 men able to bear arms.
In that army there were but 30,000 men of the
British troops, being a little less than one-tenth.
The extreme disproportion between the Bri ish
troops and the native troops of India contributes
essentially to explain the present revolt in Bengal.
The history of the world offers no other example of
a conquering power of 30,000,000 of people govern-
ing a conquered race of 140,000,000 by means of an
army the vanquished element of which exceeded
the conquering element in the proportion of 10 to 1.
" The possibility of the existence of such a state
of things is the most striking proof of the superi-
ority of intellect over purely physical force. But,
to-day, having taught to the native troops nearly
as much as we know ourselves of the art of war, we
must be the more surprised to find, under all the
circumstances of the present case, that the at mies
of Madras and Bombay still remain faithful and
loyal during the revolt of the Bengal army.
" On the other hand, the Sepoys of the Bengal
army are not so much formidable by their number
as from the fact that they belong to a race far more
dangerous than the Sepoys of other times. The
Sepoys who were subject to Clive, to Coote, and
even to Wellesley, were principally taken from the
Presidency of Madras, or the inferior provinces of
Bengal—populations remarkable for their peaceable
and submissive character ; but the Sepoys of the
army of Bengal have been drawn from the Mussul-
man tribes and the Mahrattas, people of the most
bellicose and most enterprising spirit of the Hindos-
-1 tanee race. Their stature generally equals, if it
does not exceed, that of the English soldier ; their
complexion is scarcely darker than that of the
Spaniard, while they carry their fanaticism to the
extreme, whether it be prompted by the spirit of
intolerance of the Mahomedan or Hindostanee re-
ligions, or by the dreadful wars which the two races
have carried on in India during whole centuries.
" Far from appreciating or practising the virtue
of toleration the one towards the other, the Ma-
homedans and Mahrattas look upon it as a mer•
delusion or sign of weakness. Since they have
been allowed to have a voice in the Indian Govern-
ment, and since we have treated them with the most
perfect impartiality, they have encouraged the be-
lief among themselves that such conduct on our
part but serves to conceal some sinister project, and
that we contemplate making them Christians upon
one day or another either by deceit or by compul-
sion. So far they judge according to their own
tactics. Every time that the Mahommedans have
seized upon the Hindoos they have put the Brah-
mins to death, and have compelled the Hindoos
to embrace Islamism. On the other hand, when
the chiefs of the Mahrattas have captured the Mus-
sulmaus, they have treated them in such a way as
to render their existence intolerable to them.
"We might very easily argue against those sus-
picions, but we shall never be able to eradicate
them ; and the necessary result of this state of things
is, that without a strong European army, we can-
not either maintain our position in India or pre-
serve the population of the country from religious
persecutions or anarchy.
" These premises admitted, the re-organisation
of our military system in India is imperiously de-
manded, not only by existing circumstances, but
also to secure our conquests for the future. Accord-
ing to competent authorities that re-organisation
ought to be founded upon two principal bases.
"In the first place the Anglo-Indian army ought
to be composed henceforward of at least one-third
of British troops. Every brigade of division should
have a quartermaster-general in hostile places, and
the fortifications and garrisonsof those places should
be maintained of sufficient strength to resist either
insurrection or foreign invasion.
" The amelioration in our commercial matters,
which I have glanced at in a preceding lettei has not
yet been carried out as much as it ought to be. Our
bankers and native merchants, who find means of
being well-informed upon all events passing in the
districts even the most distant in connexion with the
rebellion of the sepoys, have suddenly suspended the
operations which they had resumed at the end of
June and at the commencement of this month.
All our manufactures have become idle, and our
exports nil. Scarcity is beginning to be felt, and
the Pessimists already warn us of an approaching
famine. We receive much and various provisions
by water, but they sell at exhorbitant prices. What
is still more frightful, the harvest appears to be
radically deteriorated from the want of the neces-
sary number of labourers to cut it down, and the
lands are beginning to be wholly neglected as re-
gards their cultivation.
" But I am happy to observe to you that
here the Pessimists are but a very feeble ma-
jority of our fellow-citizens. The mass of the Eng-
iish established at Calcutta regard the terrible
crisis through which we are passing with a deter-
mined aspect, and without entertaining a doubt as
to the future. That crisis imposes on us the most
enormous ,'sacrifices. We hesitate not, we should
never hesitate, to make-them. Our Government
has confidence in this spirit ; and even should the
other presidencies be subjected to the same calanai-
tie ; our courage will never be weakened,—it would
in that case be rather redoubled. Without doubt
our eyes are fixed upon the mother country, and
upon the assistance which we are expecting from
it, and which is now Leginning to arrive ; but if,
in the interval, the danger should become still
more imminent, the local Government may calcu-
late to the furthest 1. t • •"--upon our devotion and
upon our entire abn e • ; and at the last ex-
tremities, even, we sh. _e.e in it, as the Venetians
thanked their senator; never having once des-
paired of the safety of C . ..
" P.S.—We have reieived about 1,500 men as a
reinforcement of troops which have been recalled
from the Chinese expedst' on. The new reinf rce-
merits from England are landing here at this mo-
ment, to the great satisfaction of the inhat•ittnts,
who see in their arrival the commencement of the
r.;-eet iblishment of our authority in India."