so great, as that it is rare for even half of a battalion to be found at its head-quarters. Occupation of dependant stations; detachments with treasure, which is in constant transit; escort of stores 'periodically dispatched from Calcutta to the several provinces; charge of convicts working on the roads; custody of prisoners transmitted from different parts for trial before the courts of circuit, and guards over jails, form a mass of demand which our fullest military complement could barely answer. A great number of those among whom such duties had been divided, could not be dismissed without causing the service to be oppressive to the remainder; but there was a further consequence, which rendered the burden intolerable to the native soldier. This incompetence of strength involved nearly an extinction of those leaves which it had been the custom to grant annually, for a proportion of the men in each regiment to visit their villages: the privation of hope to see his connexions occasionally was insuperably irksome to the Bengal sepoy, usually of high caste. In consequence, very many in each corps solicited discharge from the service. Unless when in the field, this indulgence had been uniformly conceded on application, as the individual had received no bounty on entrance; of course there was an awkwardness in refusing what had from practice assumed a color of right, when contest was only secretly anticipated by Government, from particulars which it wished not to divulge. So many of those who thus petitioned to quit the service, were veterans approaching the periods of claim to the invalid pension (the great object of the native soldier), that the sacrifice which they desired to make, exhibited unequivocally the deep discontent of the army. I therefore found Government convinced that perseverance in the experiment was too dangerous; and the re-adoption of those military provisions which had been stricken off, would have taken place, even had not another consideration pressed its being done with the utmost speed. The disgust of our native troops was so loudly expressed in all quarters, that the causes of it were universally canvassed, and as such an extraordinary lessening of our military means was ascribed to uncontrollable necessity, the same inferences of our debility were drawn by all the surrounding states. As might have been expected, a tone and procedure altogether novel had been assumed towards the British Government. There were made over to me, when the reins were placed in my hands, no less than six hostile discussions with native powers, each capable of entailing resort to arms. It was thence obvious, that a beneficial alteration in our pecuniary condition was not to be effected by parting with the sinews of our strength; but by striving to cultivate and render more productive those sources of revenue which we possessed. In

the above-mentioned number of angry controversies, no advertence ismade to the Pinda rries. Communication could not be held with those execrable spoilers; yet the atrocity of their character, though it forbade the degradation of negociating with them, could not disparage their inherent force, so as to prevent my regarding them, even at that juncture, as the most serious of the difficulties with which I had to deal. Could the moral call, for suppressing one of the most dreadful scourges that ever afflicted humanity, be set aside, still the task of dispersing an association, whose existence was irreconcilable to our ultimate security, as well as to our more immediate interests, seemed to me not capable of being long postponed. At the same time, I saw the intimacy of connexion between the Pindarries and the Mahrattas so distinctly, as to be certain that an attempt to destroy the former must infallibly engage us in war with the whole body of the latter. While the extreme effort was delayed, which our entanglements in other quarters made unavoidable, it was desirable to impose some check on the plunderers. The year before my arrival, they had ravaged part of our territories; they had carried off an immense booty, with impunity; and they were professedly meditating another invasion. Every military man well comprehends that defensive frontier stations, though heavily expensive to the state, were absolutely nugatory against a mounted enemy without baggage, following at will, through a vast expanse of country, any line which the information of the moment might recommend. There was a chance that interposition from Gwalior might cause the Pindarries to suspend their inroads. It was inappreciable to us to stop if possible the projected devastation, while we were to be occupied elsewhere; on which account, I proposed a remonstrance to that Court, on the score of the Pindarries being permitted to arrange within the Maharajah's dominions, the preparations for assailing the Honorable Company's provinces. The present unreserved acknowlegement of our supremacy throughout India, will scarcely leave credible the then existence of a relative position, which could occasion my being met in council by a representation, that a remonstrance of the above nature might be offensive to Scindiah, and that nothing ought to be ventured which could give him umbrage. Such, however, was at that period on either side the estimate of British power.

This introduction, though longer than I could have wished, was necessary to render our circumstances at that crisis accurately intelligible. There was especially a necessity to explain why, when a surplus of revenue had been actually exhibited, it had no permanence. The delusiveness of the principle on which such a surplus had for the moment been obtained has been disclosed;

and it will be understood that we were to seek other supplies, should contests not be avoidable. A large sum is always required to be kept in hand by Government for current purposes; because the revenue from land (the chief article in our income) is not receivable at periods corresponding with the regular disbursements, and is moreover liable to defalcation from the remission allowed in case of bad seasons. Therefore a sum deemed simply adequate to this object cannot be relied on as a provision for a further contingency. Of the six disputes which I have noticed, four were amicably adjusted; one, in the instance of Rewah, was speedily settled by the storm of a principal fortress, with the menace of a siege to its capital; and the sixth (the contention with Nepaul) remained for decision by arms. A struggle with the latter was unpromising. We were strangely ignorant of the country or its resources; so that, overlooking the augmented abilities latterly furnished by science to a regular army for surmounting local obstacles, it was a received persuasion, that the nature of the mountainous tract which we should have to penetrate would be as baffling to any exertions of ours, as it had been to all the efforts of many successive Mahommedan sovereigns; no option, however, remained with us. We were not through a point of honor demanding atonement for the wanton invasion of our territories, the brutal massacre of our police man, and the studied cruelty of tying to a tree and shooting to death with arrows the native officer whom we had appointed to preside over the district; though the hopelessness of obtaining from the Government any disavowal of such a complicated outrage must have made us look to war, even on that ground. But we were at issue with a nation so extravagantly presumptuous respecting its own strength, and so ignorant of our superior means, that the Gorka commissioners had on a former occasion remarked to ours, the futility of debating about a few square miles of territory, since there never could be real peace between the two states, until we should yield to the Gorkas our provinces north of the Ganges, making that river the boundary between us; as Heaven had evidently designed it to be. The conviction that the evil day of contest could not be put off, weighed heavily on the minds of functionaries in Calcutta. The possible necessity of withholding an investment was anticipated, and even hinted to the Court of Directors. I endeavored to allay this anxiety by assurances, that, as far as my professional judgment went, the difficulties of mountain warfare were greater on the defensive side, than on that of a well-conducted offensive operation; that I believed myself able to calculate tolerably what expenditure would be entailed by the necessary efforts, estimating the charge much below what they apprehended; and that I could

look with confidence to a supply of treasure from a source which they had never contemplated. Soon after my arrival in India, some British officers came to me from the Nawab Vizier Saadat Ali, sovereign of Oude, bringing to me a representation of the painful and degrading thraldom in which, through gradual, and probably unintended encroachments on his freedom, he was held, inconsistently with the spirit of the treaty between the two States. The system from which he prayed to be released, appeared to me no less repugnant to policy than to equity. On my professing a disposition to correct so objectionable a course, those officers (who had been long in the Nawab Vizier's service) assured me that any persuasion of my having such an inclination would cause Saadat Ali to throw himself on me with unbounded confidence ; and to offer from his immense hoard, the advance of any sum I could want for the enterprise against Nepaul. The gratitude with which such a supply would be felt was professed. While I was on my passage up the Ganges, Saadat Ali unexpectedly died. I found, however, that what had been provisionally agitated by him was perfectly understood by his successor; so that the latter came forward with a spontaneous offer of a crore of rupees, which I declined, as a peishcush or tribute on his accession to the sovereignty of Oude; but accepted as a loan for the Honorable Company. Eight lacks were afterwards added to this sum, in order that the interest at six per cent. of the whole might equal the allowances to different branches of the Nawab Vizier's family, for which the guarantee of the British Government had been pledged, and the payment of which without vexatious retardments was secured by the appropriation of the interest to the specific purpose. The sum thus obtained was thrown into the general treasury, whence I looked to draw such portions of it as the demands for the approaching military service might require. My surprise is not to be expressed, when I was shortly after informed from Calcutta, that it had been deemed expedient to employ fiftyfour lacks of the sum obtained by me in discharging an eight per cent. loan; that the remainder was indispensable for current purposes; and that it was hoped I should be able to procure from the Nawab Vizier a further aid for the objects of the war. This took place early in autumn, and the operations against Nepaul could not commence until the middle of November, on which account the Council did not apprehend my being subjected to any sudden inconvenience, through its disposal of the first sum. Luckily I was on such frank terms with the Nawab Vizier, that I could explain to him fairly my circumstances. He agreed to furnish another crore; so that the Honorable Company was accommodated with above two millions and a half sterling on my simple receipt. Parti

cular details of the war in Nepaul would be superfluous; the terms on which it closed will suffice. That state, instead of flanking, as it had done for nearly six hundred miles, our open frontier or that of the Nawab Vizier, which we were bound to defend, while itself could only be attacked in front, was reduced to about a half of its original extent; remaining with both its flanks exposed to us, through the connexion which we formed with the Rajah to the east, and our possessions of Kemaoun to the west. The richest portion of the territory conquered by us bordered on the dominions of the Nawab Vizier. I arranged the transfer of that track to him, in extinction of the second crore. The charges of the war absorbed fifty-two lacs; forty-eight lacs (600,000%.) were consequently left in the treasury a clear gain to the Honorable Company, in addition to the benefit of precluding future annoyance from an insolent neighbor.

While the war was raging in the mountains, my attention was anxiously fixed on our southern boundaries. I had traced many indications of active communication between states which had for many years no political intercourse. As I could not then know, what has since transpired, that a wide conspiracy was forming for the expulsion of the British from India, I ascribed the symptoms to vague speculations excited in the native powers, by seeing us engaged in an undertaking where they considered our failure certain. The anticipated exhaustion of our strength in the rash enterprise would present advantages, for the improvement of which they might think it desirable to be prepared; and their several views were to be reciprocally ascertained for the eventual crisis. This spirit, though it did not lead them to immediate action, would naturally prompt them to steps which could not be regarded by us with indifference: in one instance the forecasting disposition of our neighbors showed an intelligible consistence. An agreement was made between Scindiah and the Rajah of Nagpore, that the forces of both should act under Scindiah, for the reduction of Bhopaul. The very terms of the agreement betrayed the real object; for Bhopaul, when conquered, was to be made over to the Nagpore Rajah. It was obvious that Scindiah only wanted an excuse for bringing the Nagpore troops into junction with those under his command, in which case he would have found himself at the head of a very powerful army. It was not a moment for hesitation. Had Scindiah's forces, which were assembled and ready to march, once entered Bhopaul, shame would have made him risk any extremity, rather than recede on our intervention. The Nawab of Bhopaul had solicited to be taken under British protection. I was at that time on Scindiah's frontiers, my escort being composed of one weak battalion of native