convent, were permitted to argue in favour of their opinions, and then to share the bounty of their orthodox superiors. Thirdly, the efforts of the human intellect to obtain knowledge were such as have not been exceeded in any age or country: Hiouen-thsang's enterprise, undertaken from the love of knowledge, was gigantic and sufficient to appal the stoutest heart; no threats, labours, fatigues or dangers could deter him from travelling in search of books, and when he had obtained them he studied them, from a Brahmanical grammar to a Boodhistical scripture, with an appetite which was never satisfied. Nor was there less eagerness amongst those whom he visited. Some came to learn from him; others to dispute with him, and all religious persons were at least anxious to prove the learned man of Tschin. Often are we reminded by these scenes of the struggles which the schoolmen of Europe held in the middle ages, and on one occasion we have a bold Brahman suspending at a convent gate forty propositions which he is prepared to maintain against all the inmates. Little did he know, however, what a doughty champion those walls contained,-worsted by the irrefragable arguments of Hiouenthsang, he became a convert and humble disciple of "the great vehicle."

ART. IV. AN INDIAN CONTINGENT FOR THE CRIMEA,

AND OTHER MILITARY TOPICS OF THE DAY.

1. Debate on the Motion of Sir E. Perry in the House of Commons, for the appointment of a Select Committee to consider and enquire how the Army of India might be made most available for War in Europe; and to enquire into the steps necessary to be taken, if it should be deemed expedient to constitute the Army of the East India Company a Royal Army.—Thursday 10th May, 1855. 2. The Memorandum from the Horse Guards, conferring rank on the Officers in the East India Company's Service, in all parts of the world.-25th April 1855.

Falst.-"Is there not wars? Is there not employment? Doth not the king lack subjects ?"-SHAKSPEARE.

THE great want of the British government, at the present juncture, is "soldiers." The spirit of the nation is staunch, its population abundant, its finance flourishing; but it ranks, notwithstanding, only as a second-rate military power. The reason is obvious. Its recruiting system is ineffectual; and so odious are conscriptions, and other arbitrary methods of raising soldiers on the Continent, that, however urgent may be the necessities of the war, no other system will be enforced; not because the British hate Russia less, but because they love their constitution more. In the mean time the existing system has been allowed its fullest latitude. The term of military service has been contracted, the amount of bounty virtually increased, the pay of the soldiers raised. The Militia has been ordered on foreign service. A bill for the enlistment of foreigners has become law. The population of our ally the Sultan has been indented on. But the utmost efforts have failed hitherto, to maintain in efficiency at the seat of war, a British army of 25,000 men; and that army without a reserve. Notwithstanding our will, our wealth, and our numbers, we find France furnish nearly hundreds to our tens, Turkey two to our one, and Sardinia-save the mark— without much effort, nearly man for man with ourselves! In the event of a protracted struggle, is this state of things to continue? Is Great Britain to be represented at the seat of war, by a force so utterly disproportionate to her resources? Are her rulers to remain content that her army should rank with the armies of third-rate

powers? Are her allies to be permitted to monopolise all the glories of the war, and the benefits at the settlement of peace? Is there no remedy for such an anomaly as this?

There is;-and its application we consider the weightiest practical question of the day. The remedy is to be found in India, which possesses a large army, and, above all, a large warlike population, all willing, for fair pay and advantages, to serve as soldiers in any cause, in any quarter of the globe; and there are three ways of applying the remedy.

The first-the most obvious, though as we shall show, the most objectionable is to select and send at once, from the three Presidencies, regiments already organised and disciplined, with all their European officers.

The second, is to raise new levies, officered by European officers, on the system which prevails in irregular forces.

The third, is to call for volunteers from every regiment in India, and form these into other regiments, also on the irregular system.

It will be well, that before discussing the merits of these methods, we state clearly, what we think the great object to be gained by sending a contingent from India to the seat of war; especially as that object does not, in general, seem to have been fully preceived. We would not wish such a measure, then, to be undertaken in a dilletante spirit. We would not wish to send a choice body of irregular Horse, or a picked brigade of Sikhs, or some crack troops of Horse Artillery, to show what a fine force India can furnish; but we would bear in mind, that the crying want of our country is men ;— men, with breasts to fill ground, and hands to hold muskets; men, to save our small army from overwork; men, to balance the immense preponderance of our allies in the field. This can be effected only by sending large masses of Infantry; and large masses of Infantry India could supply, in process of time, to almost any extent; but as in all the operations of war it is a great object to avoid delay, and as a small contingent ready to take part in the campaign of 1856, would be of more value than a larger one for the next year-" bis dat qui cito dat," we shall confine ourselves to showing, how a force of at least 30,000 men could be supplied from India, with the least possible delay, and maintained in efficiency at the seat of war; without, at the same time, endangering our Provinces by their sudden withdrawal.

Were the first plan fixed upon, our irregular regiments of Infantry, being nearly all local, and maintained for objects utterly incompatible with foreign warfare, could not of course be made available; and, in consequence, regiments of the line would have to be selected to form the contingent. Were orders promptly issued to that effect, twenty

Ways of sending Sepoys to the Crimea.

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or twenty-five regiments-volunteers from Bengal and the most convenient corps from Madras and Bombay-could be collected at the ports of embarkation in a few months, and shipped for Suez; and this would, doubtless, be the shortest way of solving the difficulty. But the objections to it are two-fold. In the first place, it would be dangerous to withdraw suddenly so many regular regiments from India. In the second place, so many European officers would be required to accompany so many regular regiments, that the machinery of government would be injured by the simultaneous evacuation of numerous responsible appointments, and the efficiency of the rest of the army seriously impaired by the increased demand on it for European officers to fill those appointments.

No person of any Indian experience, whose mind is unwarped by the nature of his duties, or free from the traditional prejudices of his office,—that is to say, no man who is not a Director or a Financial Secretary, or an Accountant General-supposes, that our army is too large for the work it is required to perform; or that it could be weakened without danger to our rule. It is well known, that financial difficulties have always kept it on the lowest possible scale, consistent with an extremely doubtful and much disputed notion of internal and external security. It is smaller in proportion to the population it protects, and the frontier it defends, than any other standing army in the world. It has duties to perform more onerous and various. It is constantly employed in active operations in the field. In peace, garrisons, commands, escorts, treasure parties, the capture and custody of malefactors, and the multifarious duties of police, keep it in incessant employment ;-so far, in the opinion of some, as even to injure its efficiency as an army. It is evident, then, that it would be impolitic at any time to withdraw a large portion of it from the extended sphere of its duties, without, at the same time, taking measures promptly to fill the void that would be left; and such an act would be still more impolitic, when rebellion is raging in one part of our Empire, and when, in Europe, we are at war with a foe by no means contemptible, whose reputation in India is much more formidable than it deserves to be. Now it would be much more difficult to fill the void caused by the withdrawal of a certain number of regiments, than that caused by the withdrawal of an equal number of men, selected from a greater number of regiments; and for these reasons:-firstly, the head quarters of corps are so many nuclei of organisation and discipline, round which recruits are quickly attracted and trained into soldiers; and which, if taken away, would, by their very absence, retard the speedy embodiment of fresh regiments to fill their places. Secondly, there would be a serious difficulty in finding officers for the corps to be newly raised. Thus the danger, difficulty,

and inconvenience would be less, if one or two companies, or bodies of volunteers from every regiment, amounting in all to 25,000 men, and formed into irregular corps, were embarked for the war, than if twenty-five whole regular regiments were embarked.

Another consideration in connection with this plan is, that, in weakening an army, especial reference should be had to the opinion of those whom that army is intended to awe; and this more especially under circumstances in which the force of opinion' contributes so materially to the strength of an army, as it does to ours in the East. To use a trite, though a very happy metaphor, there lies beneath the seemingly smooth and undisturbed surface of Indian society, a vast smouldering unconformable stratum of uneasiness and discontent, ready at any moment to burst into a blaze. Nothing is so likely to give vitality to these embers of unrest, as the absence of troops; for their only true wet blankets are bayonets. The late Santhal insurrection verifies this; and shows how, even on the part of a fostered race who had derived more than ordinary advantages from our rule, these outbreaks can be sudden and unforeseen, and, in the absence of troops, overwhelming. Endless causes have been assigned for this outbreak; but all that have been assigned are secondary. Grant everything; grant that Mr. Pontet and his myrmidons, or the Bengalee Mahajuns, were extortioners; that the railway contractors were tyrants; that another Vicovich sowed among them the seeds of discontent; that a whiskered Avatar, eighteen years old, and of elegant proportions, made his appearance unto them in one day. All these, if true, must of course have a certain influence; but the great first cause was indubitably the absence of bayonets. Our civilized faith in feelings and motives, which are not entertained by, and do not actuate, less civilized races, had put us completely off our guard. We had sent all available troops to our frontiers, and left our central provinces unprotected. We had forgotten that we ruled India by bayonets; and the Santhals-not seeing bayonets-had forgotten it too. Again, long before our disasters in Afghanistan, when our puppet Monarch was issuing his subventaneous orders from the Balahissar of Cabool, when our luckless envoy was weaving a good network of diplomacy from the Caspian to Kokan, and our fortune had exceeded the expectations of the most sanguine, the whole of Central India was in a ferment. It was known that large forces were employed by us beyond our reach, and that those left in our provinces were constantly weakened by drafts sent through the defiles of the "Hindu killer" (Hindu-koosh); and it was only through the unaccountable hesitation of our enemies, the consummate ability of our officers, and perhaps, through our being by that time forewarned and fore-armed, that we were not engaged in a death struggle, when the disasters