was approved by Gough, was in the first instance applied to the troops which occupied Scinde; after Sobraon it was extended to the regiments which entered the Punjab, and in 1847 it was applied to the Native army generally. In 1850 Hearsey, whose prudent conduct had just averted mutiny at Wuzeerabad, drew Napier's attention to the circumstance that at that time, and at that place, the new regulation was less favourable to the troops than the old order of 1844.1 The obvious answer was, that it was meant to be less favourable. The Company had purposely intended to remedy the mistakes made in 1844, and to secure the sepoy his rations at 7s. a month, not to enable him to obtain it for a lower sum. The order of 1844 had gone too far; the order of 1845 had corrected the error. conduct. No harm would probably have resulted from Hearsey's application if the Commander-in-Chief had been one of those men who are content to move in the grooves which ordinarily regulate official intercourse. But, unluckily, Napier Napier's had an impulsive temperament which was more fitted to win him laurels in the field than to gain him respect in the council chamber. Unfortunately, too, he had contracted a distaste for the supervision of civilians over military men, and he had a personal dislike for the Governor-General under whom it was his lot to act. Dalhousie happened, moreover, to be at sea on one of those excursions which diversified his busy rule. The Supreme Council at Calcutta was 1500 miles from the Punjab; and Napier therefore had the opportunity, as he had the will, to act alone. He took upon himself to suspend the order of 1845, and he not only did so, but he proceeded to brand it as "impolitic and unjust," and to declare that it only required to be brought to the notice of the Government to ensure its immediate rectification.2 Whatever excuse Napier might have had for temporarily suspending an order of the Government till the decision of 1 The loss to the troops was 2d. a month. Parl. Papers, pp. 5 and 62. 2 Correspondence relating to Resignation of Sir C. Napier, pp. 3, 4. the authorities was known, it was impossible to justify language of this character. Dalhousie was the last man likely to brook such conduct.1 He refrained from reversing Napier's order so far as it applied to the Punjab. But he intimated that he would "not again permit the Commander-in-Chief, under any circumstances, to issue orders" changing "the pay and allowances of the troops serving in India, and thus practically to exercise an authority which has been reserved, and most properly reserved, for the Supreme Government."2 Just as heat begets heat, so rejoinder produces rejoinder. The Commander-in-Chief retorted on the GovernorGeneral, the Governor-General replied to the Commander-in-Chief. The dispute, which resulted in Napier's resignation, was ultimately carried from India to London. It was referred to Wellington; it was criticised by the Directors of the East India Company; its details were laid before Parliament; it gave birth to a literary controversy whose fires are hardly yet extinguished. His controversy with Dalhousie. In the heated conflict which thus took place between two officials, exaggerated arguments were used on both sides. Napier, on the one hand, was naturally induced to aggravate the character of the crisis which had led to his intemperate action, while Dalhousie, on the other, was tempted to minimise its significance. Napier declared that he had acted "in a moment of great danger," that he was "surrounded by a hostile population," and that he had "an army of upwards of 40,000 men infected with a mutinous spirit." Dalhousie distinctly denied. that there was any mutiny at all, and declared that the safety of India had never for one moment been imperilled by the partial insubordination in the ranks of its army." Napier declared that "all was on the balance when I flung the Ghoorka 1 Napier in 1849 had suggested Dalhousie's recall, and had proposed that he himself should be made Governor-General in his place. Greville, second series, vol. iii. p. 280. He was not likely, therefore, to work smoothly with Dalhousie ; and, if Dalhousie were by chance acquainted with the suggestion, he was not likely to work smoothly with Napier. 2 Correspondence relating to Resignation of Sir C. Napier, p. 8. 3 Ibid., pp. 11-18. 1 battalion into the scale as Brennus did his sword, and mutiny having no Camillus was crushed." His detractors, on the contrary, declared that "the idea of replacing our sepoys with Ghoorkas was a mere absurdity; that the mountaineers could not be enlisted in sufficient numbers; and that, if they were, the notion of their military value would prove a delusion." Into the details of this altercation it is unnecessary Its conto enter; it is sufficient to say, that the glare of a sequences. personal controversy dazzled men's eyes and prevented them from penetrating the mysteries of an important question. It was much more exciting to attend to a duel between heroes than to master the dull financial regulations of which the Native army was complaining. The mere fact, too, that the Governor-General's success in the controversy was both necessary and assured had an unfortunate result. Dalhousie was thenceforward bound to deny the reality of the insubordination which he had officially refused to recognise. He was disabled from taking steps to probe the realities of mutiny. Regard for his own consistency compelled him, in fact, to ignore the circumstances which required immediate and prompt consideration. Yet two years The 38th afterwards a fresh warning was given to him. The Regiment. first Burmese war had produced the second mutiny of the nineteenth century. The second Burmese war was destined to result in a refusal which was almost tantamount to mutiny. The 38th Native Infantry had a high reputation-"it was believed that it would follow its officers to any part of the world"—and it was asked to embark for Rangoon or Aracan. And the sepoys refused. The terms of their engagement freed them from crossing the seas, the obligations of caste disinclined them from encountering a voyage, and respectfully, but firmly, the regiment declined the service.2 A ruler less occupied than Dalhousie with war and annexation might have foreseen the fatal consequences of this decision. A wish 1 Life of Sir H. Lawrence, pp. 447, 448. 2 For this incident, Kaye's Sepoy War, vol. i. p. 461; Holmes's Indian Mutiny, p. 61. conveyed by authority to a military body almost necessarily partakes of the nature of a command, and, if a regiment once learn that it may decline the services which it is asked to undertake, it will soon venture to refuse the duties which it is ordered to perform. The 38th should never have been invited to volunteer for a foreign service if it had not previously been ascertained that the men were ready to accept the invitation. The sepoys, however, were within their rights; Dalhousie could hardly venture on punishing them for their conduct; and he "meekly" ordered them to march to Dacca, where, as his apologist remarks, "cholera decimated them."1 If it were unfortunate for Dalhousie to drift into a situation which compelled him to tolerate a refusal which outsiders could magnify into mutiny, it was equally unfortunate that disaffected persons should have the opportunity of thinking that troops whom the Governor-General was afraid to punish would be selected for unhealthy stations. of Burma. But still graver difficulty resulted from these circumstances. The war was waged, the Burmese were subdued, and, across that black water on which the 38th had refused to embark, there were thenceforward new duties for the Native Indian The garrison army. So long as the Company's possessions had been confined to Hindostan and the Deccan, no serious embarrassment had proceeded from the terms on which the Bengal army was enlisted. But the annexation of Pegu made their continuance impossible. There were only six general service regiments in the Bengal army, and in 1856 three of these were in Pegu, and two out of the three had been promised relief, while the remaining three had lately returned from the same possession.2 Canning, Dalhousie's successor, had to fall back upon the Madras army, which was enlisted for general service, to enable him to provide the necessary reliefs. The authorities at Madras helped him in his difficulty, but they protested against being compelled to afford a permanent garrison for Pegu.3 Canning was 1 Arnold's Dalhousie's Administration, vol. ii. p. 51. 2 Kaye's Sepoy War, vol. i. p. 463. 3 Ibid., p. 465. almost driven by this protest to consider the terms on which the mass of the Bengal army was enlisted. He found in his records an old despatch from the Company, suggesting that the army should in future be enlisted for general service. He saw that both at Madras and at Bombay the armies were thus raised, and he concluded that there could be no insoluble difficulty in accomplishing in Bengal what had already been effected in other Presidencies. Accordingly, in 1856, he issued a general order declaring that the Government of India, thenceforward, "would not accept the service of any Native recruit who would not, at the time of his enlistment, distinctly undertake to serve beyond the seas, whether within the territories of the Company or beyond them." To the eyes of an ordinary administrator no harm deducible from such an order was visible. The experience of Bombay and Madras proved that the policy which Canning was originating was practicable, and an arrangement which was purely prospective could not inflict hardship on any existing soldier. 2 Canning's 1856. Yet the step which Canning thus took was attended with momentous consequences. The sepoy of the Company's Indian army was the representative of a class composed of men on whom, for many reasons, the British were dependent. Service in the Company's army was to these men both an advantage and a pride; it gave the soldiers not merely pecuniary benefit but civil privileges. Hence it followed that military employment, instead of being, as in England, a subject for reproach, was in India an object of ambition; and the sepoy, whose father had perhaps fought and bled for the Company, looked forward to the period when his son would follow his father's and grandfather's example. anticipations were destroyed by the new order. high-caste sepoy thenceforward was aware that his sons could not adopt the profession which he had chosen for them with 1 Kaye's Sepoy War, vol. i. p. 467. The sepoy's These objection The to it. 2 These privileges will be found described in ibid, p. 255, and Appendix, p. 619. |