The Sun.
London, England, 1829-10-22 00:00:00

i~

INDIA.

MEMORIAL OF SIR ALEXANDER MACLEOD, C. 8., COM-
MANDANT OF ARTILLERY, AND THE OFFICERS AT

THE HEAD-QUARTERS OF THAT CORPS.
No. I.
COPY OF THE MEMORIAL SENT TO GOVERNMENT

FROM TILE HEAD•QUARTERS OF THE ARTILLERY. •
Dum Dum, Jan. 6, 1829.
SIR,—I have the honour to request, in my own
behalf and in that of the officers whose signatures
are annexed to the accompanying separate paper,
that you will lay before his Excellency the Right
Honourable the Commander-in-Chief, to he by him
submitted to the Goverhor-General in Council, and
supported by him as our natural and constituted
protector, our most respectful representation of the
feeling of dismay with which I, and the said officers
of artillery, have been impressed by the promulga-
tion of General Orders, No. 251, November 29,
1828—feeling; which must, eve believe, be equally
participated in by all the officers of the regiment
when these orders become known.
We need not now submit for the consideration of
his Lordship the disappointment which the army
suffered, when so large a defalcation from regimen-
tal allowances, in particular situations, to a propor-
tion of the officers of the army was made by the
batta arrangement of 181)1, nor the expectations,
resting, as we believe, on grounds as valid as the
most solemn engagements, which were entertained
by us, our parents and guardians, when we devoted
ourselves to serve in a distant country and unconge-
nial climate, that the allowance then established
should be continued to us during our period of service.
We do not press these considerations, not only

,-;"- because we feel persuaded they are too prominent
to have escaped the deliberate and serious attention
to which they are entitled from the Government,
but because we feel pressed by motives of greater
and more immediate urgency, as well as of a deeper
interest, by addressing ourselves to principles of ne-
cessity, humanity, and policy.
The abstraction► of superfluity might be received
with indifference, and an overpowering state neces-
sity might reconcile men of honourable principles to
temporary privations; hut when no imperious ne-
cessity is alleged, we cannot contemplate successive
reductions from our personal allowances with indif-
ference, or refrain from declaring ourselves wholly
unable to bear quietly a pe►manent reduction from
that which was before barely adequate for a decent
maintenance, without viewing with despair the po-
verty entailed on us, and the consequent distress we
must suffer, and which must ultimately lead to our
renouncing those expences ever deemed necessary
to foster the feelings and support the habits required
from us, in order to maintain the respectability of
our profession, and the efficiency of the army of
which we form not the least important part.
We assure his Lordship that regimental allow-
ances, including half batta, half tentage, and reduced
house rent, are insufficient to prov►de for decent
food, lodging, and clothing to subaltern officers, and
are wholly incompetent to the maintenance of officers
of every rank who have families, at any station in
this presidency, but at those stations in particular
which have been selected for the present arrange-
ment, where the existing system, in regard to quar-
ters and other expences, has been so long esta-
blished (but it is probably more difficult than at
any other to curtail our expences were it possible).
Unmarried officers must in future remain so ; but to
those who, under different expectations, have al-
ready entered that state, and to the subaltern offi-
cers, there is no remedy beyond the redress we
trust they may yet receive from a reconsideration of
the consequences of the orders in question. Against
such a state of privation of all domestic enjoyment,
and of continued banishment from our country and
friends, we hope the army at large will not plead
in vain.

But we, in particular, respectfully appeal to the
Commander-in-Chief, whether the nature of the
artillery service, and the constitution of the regi-
ment, does not expose its officers to especial charges
in the performance of their duty, beyond those likely
to fall on other classes.

We cannot do our duty in the field without being
mounted—an expense borne by the State in his Ma-
jesty's service ; and we are liable to constant de-
tachment duty with small parties, and to removals,
as vacancies or the events of the service demand,
from one branch, or one troop or company, or any
ono artillery station, to another, not unfrequently at
very great distance asunder, necessarily producing
great charges of moving and expenses of equipment,
to the hindrance of all benefit from messing, enjoyed
by regiments serving in one body at their head-quarters.
The profession to which we have the honour and
pride to belong, has induced us collectively to de-
vote a considerable portion of our pay to the fur-
therance of pursuits, which, we trust, are alike cre-
ditable to ourselves and beneficial to the Govern-
ment ; and the respectable establishment of our
library and regimental institutions already created and
supported at Dum Dum by our united exertions,
will, we trust, bear testimony to our zeal in profes-
sional pursuits. These institutions are only main-
tained by subscriptions on a scale, such, that officers
on half batta at Dum Dum must pay double of
those absent on full batta from head-quarters. A
partial, if not a total failure of the subscription upon
which these establishments depend, must, we regret
to apprehend, be one of the consequences of the late
Government order.

Thus, not only our subsistence, but our respect-
able and useful ex►stence (as a body of officers) is,
indeed, precarious by the operation of the orders
against which we now appeal. We therefore im-
plore that the Governor-General in Council will
not deny us the only relief to which we can look for-
ward, by withholding the operation of the Govern-
ment Order No. 254, of the 29th November, 1828,

TINCK, G.C.8., GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF INDIA, &C.
The respectful memorial of Lieut.-Colonel Henry
Hawtrev, on his own part, and in behalf of the
Officers of the 3d Regiment Light Cavalry serv-
ing at the head-quarters of the Cawapore division
of the Army;
Sheweth—That your memorialist deems it ineums
bent on him, in justice to the interests and under,
stood rights of himself and his brother officers, and
as an act of duty to the Supreme Government,
under which they have the honour to serve, to sub-
mit with all respect, and in honest sincerity, for the
consideration of your Lordship in Council, the senti-
ments of surprise and deep concern with which they
have been impressed by the publication of the
General Orders of the 29th November, 1828, by
which it is enacted, that at certain specified stations
the allowance of full batta, heretofore considered as
a fixed and permanent portion of the salaries of tho
Honourable Company's officers, is to bediscontinued.
That although the Order above referred to does
not as yet, and is not likely to immediately affect
the personal interest of your memorialist* and his
brother officers, they nevertheless would feel them-
selves wanting in a due regard for the welfare of
the army to which they belonged, and culpably in-
different to its rights, were they silently to submit
to the operation of an Order whereby, as they feel,
and most. respectfully submit to your Lordship in
Council, the interests of the army are deeply injured.
That the allowance of full batta at every station
under this presidency (excepting only the garrisons
of Fort 'William and Allahabad) has ever been con,-
sidered to form a certain component part of the.iii-
come of the officers of the Bengal army, That
your memorialist and-his brother officers are ire.
pressed with a belief that this allowance was Nisi.
tively guaranteed to the army by the Honourable
Court of Directors on occasion of the discussions
which took place respecting the allowances and or-
ganisation of the army, towards the close of the last
century. That they, in common with, they believe,
every officer in the service, have ever considered
the allowance in question as one that could not be
legally taken from them, or reduced. That the
Honourable Court of Directors, in their general
letter of the 15th September, 1808, have admitted,
" that persons nominated to employments in India
enter their service perfectly aware of the respective
scale of allowances of the three presidencies." That
if this argument could be considered valid in refut-
ing a claim put forward by the Madras army for an
increase of allowances (the occasion on which it was
adduced) it must be equally conclusive against the
justice of the reduction of allowances now ordered,
and that in this view of the case, your memorialist
and his brother officers cannot but consider the latter
as a breach of the—at all events, understood and
implied, if not positive, agreement under which they
became the servants of the Honourable Company.
That, although your memorialist and his brother
officers conceive the preceding arguments will be
sufficient to convince your Lordship in Council of
the hardships of the reduction of allowances against
which they have ventured to appeal; and, conse-
quently, hope to obtain a repeal or suspension of the
General Orders directing it, they still deem the pre-
sent occasion a not unapt one to lay before your
Lordship in Council a few remarks on the same sub-
ject, bearing not so much on the justice or injustice
of the measure ordered,r,as on the positive cruelty of
enforcing its execution, and of curtailing the already
limited means of a body of officers, whose allow-
ances at best afford them but a bare subsistence, arid
are quite inadequate to support them in the style of
life in which, as gentlemen, they were born and bred,
and to which, as officers, they must conform. That
this is no imaginary assertion is but too clearly
proved by the melancholy fact, in which there can be
no doubt, that at least 9-10ths of the officers of the
Bengal army are more or less involved in debt and
difficulties, which it is almost impossible for any
care or economy to avert, where an individual enters
the service with no advantage or income beyond his
regimental pay and allowances.

That the Honourable Company's military ser-
vants in general have entered the army with a belief
and understanding that they would enjoy, during
their exile from their native land, a scale of income
not only sufficient to support them as gentlemen,but
to enable them (with care and prudence) to Inv by a
small sum monthly, towards the formation of a fund
on which and their pensions they might hope in the
vale of years, with a constitution most probably se-
verely injured, and incapacitating them from further
active duties, to be at last able to retire for the few
remaining days of life that might be allowed them.
How different is this picture from the sad reality !
An officer now has no sooner entered the service
than he finds he is an exile for life. He has too
much good feeling to allow of his returning again as
a burthen on his family, and he resigns himself
hopeless and despairing to the destiny which too
surely awaits him. It is easy to chew the causes
which have led to this state of things. The scale of
pay and allowances has remained stationary (it may
rather be said to have lowered) for a length of
years; whilst at the same time the wages paid to
domestic servants and labourers of every distinction
have been constantly, and still are, on the increase,
and the wide extent of territory now occupied by
the army, and the distance of many stations from

when
e-
l
marches water carriage, have also tended not only to increase
thel expense
m of
re thelVi tohffitcheorsse ofhi formerlong
v
double full batta was given) and additional esti (compared
blishments of extortionary servants, but to enhance
most considerably the price of all the comforts and
necessaries of life. It is also to be remembered
that, in the calculations of the cadet—nay more, in
the table of pay and allowances to be seen by him at
the India House, the Sonat rupee stands as equiva-
lent to 2s. 6d. He comes to India, and finds it not
worth Is. 9d.; and if he happens to be stationed at

All cavalry corps are stationed in Upper India.—
Note of a Correspondent.

•
tengal, end be aid in the Siccs tUrreney, 4 per
cent. is ds:ilueted from his salary, while he at the
same time is obliged to pay for every article he pur-
chases for his house and servants in the coin he re-
ceives, without the power of making any reduction
whatever.

The case of married officers, who have families to
support and educate, is melancholy to eontemplate,
especially when we see them struggling with penury
and in debt in India, to enable them to give a decent
education to their children in England, for the ex-
pellees of which they have to pay with the rupees
issued out to them at the imaginary value of Ps-. to.,
and for which they barely receive erdit at the rate
of Is. Bd. each. Enough has been Said to show that
the common dictates n befit anity would forbid the
enforcement of the braers conveyed in the Hon.
Court of DirettOrs" military general letter, dated
the 28th May, 1828. Your memorialist and his
brother Officers are too well satisfied 'of tire liberality
of thßt Honourable Body, to be able to stippose for
a moment that the wants, the diffieultiee, and the
distresses of their faithful r.ad devoted servants of
this army are known to them ; if they were, they
feel fully convinced that the first impulse of the
Honourable Cottrt would be to improve their pro-
spects and ameliorate their condition,
Your memorialist, and those associated with him
in the prayer of this addresS, feel also a gratifying
and confident assurance that in the elevated spirit
of liberality with which your Lordship hes ever been
distinguished, and in the breasts of those Honourable
Gentlemen who now compose yOur Lordship's
Council, They may safely etnicipate, not only a
favourable and lenient interpretation of the freedom
used in this address, hut also that the prayer they
venture to make for the repeal (or siopension pend-
ing a referenee home) of the General Orders No. 234,
of the 29th November last, will not be disregarded
nor refused. Should your Lordship in Council think
it expedient to refer the Case to the Honourable Court
of Erectors, your memorialist ventures to hope that
the resent opplication may he forwarded for the
ieferination of tile Honourable Body, and he trusts
tint his long and faithful services will plead his ex-
eusc for the freedom he has taken in stating truths
and facts connected with the state and feeling of the
army.---Annexed to ties Yttmerial is a list of
the officers who wish to se considered as joining
in its prayer and its opinions ; and your memorialist
has the honour to 'subscribe himself,
Your Lordship's most obedient servant,
Signed) 11. HAWTREY,
Lient. OA. Commanding 3d Light---Cw4lry,
nil ether Officers of the Corps.
Cairnpore, 20th Peb. 1829.

OF OFFICERS PRESENT WITH TILE con.rs.
Lieutenant Tottenham Liimtenant Voules
Pcnnefar her Cornet Gordon
Christ;e Britlll
Lawrell ilarriogroa
Trevor ----- Liudesay
---- Marsh Sir• Ilarriutt
Brownlow ---- Mosley.

I have the honour to transmit a memorial, ad-
dressed to the Right lioneurable the Governor-
General in Council, which I shall feel very much
obliged by your laying before his Excellency the
Right Honourable the Commluder-in-Chief, with
my respectful solicitation that should it not be
deemed ohjectiothble, l,is Lorthhip will do me the
honour of forwarding, together with such recom-
mendation and support as his Excellency may con-
sider it to deserve,

I have, &c.
(Signe3) H. H A WTII F.Y,
Livut.-Coc commandinß*3d itegt. Light Cnvdlry.
To Lieut.-CA. Commandant Fagan,
Adintant-General of the Arms, Head-quarters.

THE MEMORIAL OP THE SUPERINTENDING SURGEON,

SURGEONs, AND ASSISTANT-SURGEONS, SERVING IN

TUE, cAWNPoRE DIVISION CF THE ARMY,
To Right Honourable the Governor-General in
lON:tied, the Memorial of the Assistant-Surgeons
serving in bundlekund.
Your memorialists beg leave respectfully to call
the attention of the Right Honourable the Governor-
Gerter.4l in Council to the orders of Government,
No. 2IA, Nov. 28, 1828, on the subject of medical
allowances. By these orders your memorialists
Lave been deprived of a!lowarices which for a long
set ies of years have been granted to medical officers
in charge of trocps (for the supply of medicines and
Itccessaries), but which, through the liberality of
Gore:meta, were intended as a compensation for
the trouble and great responsibility attached to the
arduous duties of the profession in this climate.
That these allowances, though liberal, were by no
means inadequately large, will, it is hoped, appear
from the fact that the income of an Assistant-Su;-
germ, after deducting the necessary cxpences for the
support of an hospital, did not exceed the multi-
mews granted to Adjutants and Quarter-masters,
lion duties are necessarily of a much less revolt-
sWle nature.

While these who are destined for the other
branches of the public service arrive in this country
at any catty age, and receive incomes sufficient for
their support, the members of the medical deport-
areoe are prevented accepting of appointments till
they have completed their tweNty-second year, and
are requi-ed io qualify themselves for admission into
the ,crviee by it long and most expensive course of
professional education—and even after entering the
service, are required to keep up and extend their
knowledge by means of scientific publieatioas,which
are now beyond the reach of your memorialists.—
Nor is it unworthy of observation that medical
officers, dieting the first years of their service, are
frequently exposed to hardships, and put to expenses
unknown to any other clas of public servants—
moveri from station to station, with small detach-
MeV:5 of troops ; exposed to the inclernencies of the
climate at every season of the year; and often
placed in the most trying. situations in a professional
point of view, for which the hope of respectable al-
lowances alone formed a recompence.
On the present reduced scale of allowances your
memorialists, after several years' service, whether as
enoistant-surgeons in charge of corps, or attached to
civil stations, with the additional charge of troops,
find themselves receiving the same recompence for
their services as a cornet of cavalry, or a subaltern
of infantry of two years' standing; while even the
small allowance now granted for the charge of a
whole regiment becomes subject to a deduction of
nearly one-half in those districts placed on half
batta, and where it is notorious that the duties of the
medical officer are uniformly increased. Veterinary
surgeons whose professional knowledge can be ob-
tained at a comparative small expence, and whose
care extends but to horses, at present enjoy supe-
rior allowances to those who are entrusted with the
lives and health of the civil and military servants
of the State.*

Your metnorialistA, in compliance with the former
regulations of the -service, have supplied themselves
with a stock of instruments and necessaries, for which
no compensation has been offered, and thus a heavy
loss is superadded to that sustained by the above
order.

The receipts of assiqant-surgeons in every branch
of the service- being hardly sufficient for their imme-
diate support, the hope of securing a provision from
the efforts of economy become extinguished, and the
prospect of retiring from the service cannot be in-
dulged in, more especially as the pensions granted
to every grade of the department are wholly insuffi-
dent for the support of a respectable station in after
life.

Your memorialists must consider themselves,
Ivbile the present regulations remain in force, as
doomed, along with the rest of their professional
brethren, to spend tire remainder of their days in
India amidst the united evils of poverty and exile.
With due submission, your memorialists trust that
these considerations may induce the Right Hon. the

* This is what might be expected from a trading com-
pany. The horses cult John from 600 to 100 rupees
each : the poor sepoy is got for nothing—Note of a Cor-
rexponthnt.
t They have taken away 100 rupees a month cut of 400.
Oulu the Civil Assistant-Surgeou.•—lbid,

Governor-General in Council either to restore the
department to its former footing, or to grant a more
liberal compensation for the allowances withdrawn.
(Signed by the Superintending Surgeon, Surgeons, and
Assistant Surgeons, in the district of Buudlekund.)
No. 3.

Ti OS .:IbiORIAL OF LIEUT.-COL. J. COMYN, AND OM

culls OF TILE 24TH BENGAL N. I.

Most respectfully Sheweth,—That your memoria-
lists, whose ria..les•Ae‘;:ottipany this, cannot but con-
templtte the introduction of half batta stations as a
measure fraught with the most distressing results,
and one calculated, by reducing their present scanty
allowances, to deprive them even of the means of
supporting themselves in a manner *hich their situa-
tion as British oNcets inipz.'ratively demands.
It tr.tto: ii *ell known to your Lorthhip in Coun-
el, trait the respect of the soldiers composing this
army, and of the natives generally, depends mainly
on the appearance your memorialists are able to
maintain; and, deprived of the means of appearing
respectable in each- eyes, the power of upholding
the serviec mitirely withdrawn, particularly when
t•_, this want of the means is added the disap-
pointment of finding their just expectations blasted,
and their probable, although distant, prospect of a
return to their native land withdrawn from within
their reach,

Your m?mori7dist and his brother officers most
respectfully beg to bring under under your Lord-
ship's consideration that when the present allow-
ances of the army were fixed (never, they had
hoped, to be reduced), Fi;ttyghur was the most diN-
ttut or frontier station, and comparatively little ex-
pence was incurred by the periodical reliefs; and
water-carriage being in most situations available,
the necessaries of life were procured at a moderate
charge, and consequently your memorialists' allow-
ances wei e commensurate to their wants ; but your
memorialists beg to state that their situation is now
altered considerably fur the worse, for not only are
the expences attendant on their lengthened periodi-
cal movements, caused by the extension of the Ho-
nourable Company's territories, increased to almost
a ruinous extent, but the natives have increased
their demands for their labours and services, and the
productions of the country enhanced at least fifty
per cent. _ _ _

Your memorialist and his brother officers, so far
from even contemplating a reduction in the allow-
ances, have hitherto, trusting to the liberality and
justice of their honourable masters, forborne to press
their claims for an increase to meet the increased
expellees attendant on the unexampled extension of
the Honourable Company's territorial possessions,
or to petition for those advantages of increased pay
for length of service which have been granted to his
Majesty's army, and which your memorialists can-
not but think the hardships and privations they suf-
fer during their banishment in an uncongenial
give them a fair title to expect.
Your memorialist and his brother officers most
respectfully urge on your Lordship's favourable con-
sideration, that should the reduction of their allow-
ances be persevered in, the difficulties with which
they are struggling will be ruinously aggravated, awl
the cheerfulness and promptitude which your memo-
rialist and his brother officers have ever evinced to
meet the calls of the service give place to feelings
of dissatisfaction and despondency which it is not
in human nature to combat or overcome.

Independent of personal considerations, some of
you; memorialists, finding the hope of a return to
their country so distant, have sought to increase
their comforts during their banishment, by forming
domestic ties, which have rende;ed their lives a con-
stant struggle with pecuniary difficulties ; still, how-
ever, by the sacrifice of many things, which a resi-
dence in this climate renders almost necessaries of
life, and by the practice of the most t igid and per-
severing economy, your memorialists have been able
to cheer themselves with the hope of having it in
their power to educate their children decently and
respectably (the provisions for them remaining an un-
certainty); but even thi, hope must be entirely lost
to them should the reduction of their allowances be
persevered in.
Under these circumstances
your memorialists en-
tertain a confident hope and expectation that your
Lordship will take this their urgent representation
under your Lordship's favourable consideration; and
your memerialists pray, that your Lordship will de-
fer carrying into immediate effect the order of the
Hon. the Court of Directors for the reduction of the
allowances until reference can be made to the Hon.
Court on the subject, and the Hen. Court's ultimate
order be received ; and your memorialist and his
brother offieers, as in duty bound, will ever pray.
(Signed) J. COMYN, -
Lieut.-Col. Commanding 24th Bengal, N. I.
and all the officers of the corps present.