The Sun. — 1858-01-16 (London, England)

THE LATE GENERA, NEILL.  We learn from Madras that the community of that city have resolved to commemorate the gallant Neill, and the honour he has done to the Madras army, by the erection of a monument. This will consist of a granite obelisk suitably inscribed, and bearing, besides the name and services of Neill, the names of the officers and men of the Madras Fusileers who have fallen in this conflict in Bengal. A public meeting on this subject, held at Madras on 6th Dec., was presided over by Lord Harris, who spoke i❑ especial praise of Neill's care of his men. The last words that officer addressed to him before leaving Madras, were commending the families of the soldiers to his lordship's care. Two of the speakers singled out another of Neill's qualities for peculiar eulogy. This was his readiness in an emergency to undertake fur the public good heavy personal responsibility from which most men would have shrunk. The Hon. the Chief Justice of Madras said—l firmly believe that to the decided conduct, the unflinching energy, and the noble selfdevotion of the late Gen. Neill, not only the safety of Calcutta, but the peace of this and the sister Presidency of Bombay is mainly, if not wholly, owing. He was essentially the man for the occasion—equal to it, because he dared to take upon himself responsibility, and, having dcne so, to act irrespective of the opinion of others. He was not the man to wait for orders in an emergency which required to be met at once with energy and decision, and in a mode fitted only to the extraordinary circumstances then occurring. I feel that in thus speaking I may be approaching dangerous ground ; but I beg most distinctly to disclaim all intention of referring to or reflecting in the slightest degree on, the conduct of others. My object is to do honour to the gallant Neill, and to show to how large an extent his country, in my opinion, is indebted to him. Had a less determined or less energetic man appeared at Beflares at the important moment that he did, who can say to what places the conflagration, then raging and threatening to involve the whole of India in its flames, might not have reached We need not attempt to conceal the fact now. This was no partial disaffection and mutiny of a portion of an army, to be put down by ordinary means." The AttorneyGeneral held language nearly similar, and said : "He believed he might safely say that with the single exception of the gallant Havelock, whose loss he feared they had also to lament, there was ❑o man on whose steps the country hung with such intense interest, or who so absorbed their admiration. From the time when the general took possession of the railway station at Calcutta, there, as so often afterwards, fearlessly assuming responsibilities from which ordinary men nervously shrink, to the time when he saved Allahabsd, and at Cawnpore inflicted righteous retribution on those high caste murderers, the Bengal Brahmin Sepoys, the fame of his deeds rang trumpet-tongued through the land, and in England, at all events, that retribution was not looked on as vengeance or revenge, but simply as that which the Commander-in-Chief of theßritish army, the Duke of Cambridge, had so lately said, amidst the cheers of all who heard him, he hoped and trusted would be rigidly carried out, namely justice—prompt and stern justice—on every sharer in those atrocitie." (Loud applause.)