3l 
one instance of it during our stay in Fort- William, and that 
was in the case of a native artilleryman, who was convicted 
of desertion, and after receiving his punishment, instantly 
dismissed the service. If corporal punishment were always, 
as in this instance, followed by dismissal, it might still have 
its use in the army, as applicable to cases of inveterate delin- 
quency, but, as it has hitherto been administered, no man 
possessed of the ordinary feelings of humanity will regret that 
it is falling into disuse. 
* At the time we arrived in Bengal, the annual inundation 
of the Ganges was at its highest point, and the waters just 
beginning to abate. "The weather was extremely sultry, and 
seldom refreshed by a breeze. Showers of rain, accompanied 
with lightning, fell almost daily. The ordinary range of the 
thermometer was from 86? to 90? in the shade, and it rarely 
sunk more than two or three degrees during the night. _ 
* The soldiers began very soon to suffer from the diseases 
of the climate. Bilious fevers, and affections of the liver, 
degenerating into obstinate dysenteries, carried numbers of 
them to their graves. "These distempers, virulent under the 
most favourable circumstances, were aggravated in a tenfold 
degree by that intemperance in the use of spirituous liquors, 
which forms the deepest stain on the character of a British 
soldier. The ration of provisions allowed to the soldier by 
the India Company is extremely liberal; but the practice of 
issuing out spirits, as part of it, is attended with the most - 
ruinous consequences, and causes, I am well convinced, the 
loss of one-half of the Europzan soldiers that perish in India. 
* The recruits sent out to the King's regiments are mostly 
young lads, who are slightly, if at all, tainted with the vice of 
drinking. By a general, but most pernicious regulation, 
these youths are daily plied, during the voyage, with an — 
allowance of half a pint of ardent spirits, which the greater - 
number of them reject at first with loathing. But the force - 
of example, and the ridicule of their more debauched asso- 
-ciates, soon conquer their scruples, and they learn in due 
time to swallow their dram without reluctance. Thus, by 
the time they arrive in India, they are pretty well prepared. 
