1826.] The King's Trpops in India. 271 



and disciplined soldiers, and on whose skill, valour, and fidelity the Com- 

 pany know they must in the lonj;; run depend for political existeiice? — 

 deteriorate them too, when they come into a country where all their 

 habits must be changed, where their health is perilled, their expenses 

 augmented, and opportunities for advancement lessened rather than 

 increase d ! 



. Not make distinctions I Why there are nothing hut distinctions. To 

 what office of trust and emolument not in the direct line of the service 

 does the King's officer succeed ? To what staff appointment is he 

 entitled ? Here and there, by special favour or special interest, such an 

 office is obtained, but that is all. The truth is, and we appeal to the 

 Calcutta Directory, the latest we have seen, 1822, that while 539 of the 

 Company's officers were on the staff, only 21 of the King's were so 

 placed. But, consider how much more numerous are the Company's 

 officers in India than the King's. Take then the difference propor- 

 tionally, and you will find that one out of three of the Company's 

 officers were in possession of staff employments, while of the King's only 

 one out of seventeen w^-re so favoured. But are there not sound reasons 

 for preferring the Company's officers for such situations, without recurring 

 to the invidious imputation now ascribed ? For a staff employment, is 

 not an intimate acquaintance with the regulations of the Indian army 

 indispensable, and where would you look for such familiarity but among 

 the Company's officers ? Is not, again, great knowledge of the languages 

 of the country equally indispensable for the efficient discharge of staff 

 and other employments alluded to ; and who but the Company's officers 

 are so qualified ? Doubtless such knowledge is indispensable ; but why, 

 we ask, why is it to be thus unceremoniously concluded that the King's 

 officer can never be on equal terms in these respects with the Com- 

 pany's ? What deep-hidden mysteries, what inextricable intricacies do 

 these regulations involve, or what peculiar intractabilities exist in the 

 languages, that none but a Company's officer can grapple with them ? 

 But the King's officer has not been educated for the service. And has 

 the Cadet? Not one in fifty ever cast his eyes upon these recondite 

 regulations ; not one in fifty knows a syllable of the languages before he 

 quits his paternal shores : or, if we are wrong, what necessity was there 

 for Dr. Gilchrist's proposal the other day in the Court of Proprietors, to 

 feather the unfledged cadets with a little oriental plumage before tl>eir 

 flight ? Or if the languages of the countrj' be so indispensable as the 

 rejection of King's officers for the supposed want of them implies ; 

 why was not the proposal promptly and handsomely adopted, but 

 malignantly to defeat the hoary and learned proposer's desire of a job, 

 or to give the directors an opportunity, by and bye, of magnanimously 

 taking credit to themselves for introducing the very same measure ? 

 Fas est ab hoste dooeri but not so to confess the obligation. 



. But any deficiency in these respects must soon be abundantly supplied 

 by residence in the country. The King's officer goes out with no 

 prospect of remaining, and so can scarcely be expected to supply it. 

 How can that be ? On calculating the service of no less than fifty-three 

 rfigiments, we find the average duration to be twenty years*, and how much 



• Nay the average is higher; twenty years is the average of the regiment, but how 

 many otficers exchange to remain in the country ? to remain, because, disadvantageous as 

 is the nature of tlie sei-vice, it is better than to return, as they are pretty sure of doing, 

 to half-pay and iialf-starvation. 



