A well known writer, Mr. Charles Reade, afterwards made the persecutions of the boy Andrews, and the whole of the disclosures, into a powerful and of course a highly-coloured episode in his exciting novel entitled, It is Never too Late to Mend. This adaptation of the evidence of the cruelties practised in the Birmingham county jail, which was accepted as an indication of the illegal and monstrous treatment too often inflicted on a certain class of prisoners, continued to be read with resentment long after it had ceased to belong to reality, and it was reproduced on the stage, where it has recently been revived, though it has certainly become an anachronism.

Amidst the comparatively small excitements and anxieties of the year successive reports had arrived which may be said to have temporarily excluded the ordinary news and topics of the day from prolonged discussion. By about the middle of June 1857, it became known that a serious revolt had occurred among the Sepoys in our army in India, and it was feared that the whole of the native troops would join in a general mutiny, and, aided by a large proportion of the population, would endeavour to overthrow British rule in Hindostan.

It is usually represented that the intelligence of the mutiny came upon the government here with the suddenness of a surprise; but if this was really the case, the government must have been more careless and less informed than a good many other people who had long regarded the rumours from India with some anxiety. Probably the chief surprise was at the rapid and wide-spreading growth of a disaffection, which had in a few days apparently attained such proportions that our force there was unable at once to cope with it.

to have been a fictitious excuse for an insurrection which had long before been decided on, and for which the incident of the introduction of the Enfield rifle among the Sepoys seemed to give an opportunity. It was evident that the mutiny had been planned and prepared for some time before the first outbreak at Meerut, but people in England found it difficult to believe that a mere revolt could be so serious as to call for immediate reinforcements, and to produce even more anxiety than had been felt during the actual wars which had made us masters of Hindostan. It was true that fifty years before, in 1806, there had been as general and as threatening a revolt at Vellore, when the family of Tippoo Sahib thought to turn the outbreak to account, and to restore the power of their house by joining the mutineers. That also was an event which required us to put forth our strength as though to engage in a war; but since that time much had been achieved. We had grown stronger and held India with a firmer, though not with so harsh a grasp. The glove upon the hand by which we kept our hold was of leather rather than of steel. The power of English rule to encourage or to restrain had been so long felt, that even a serious outbreak was looked upon as a temporary disturbance to be promptly, and if necessary, sternly, repressed, that a progressive government might be resumed. By a progressive government of course was meant continued annexation of provinces under native princes, who relinquished their territory, became our willing tributaries, or rather nominal subordinate rulers, and who, in return for these concessions, were mostly led to expect large or moderate pensions which they did not always receive.

That several of these princes came to the conclusion that they had been cajoled and hardly used was not unnatural, and that some of them should have cherished the idea of making reprisals, or of seeking an opportunity for revenge, was not surprising to those who understood the native character, which in this respect did not greatly differ (except, perhaps, in patient intensity of hatred), from that of many other people. That these princes

even by the aid of a mutiny, be able to overthrow us nobody believed, even during the darkest hour and the most terrible tidings of the conflict. At the worst we were bound to trample down the insurgents, if only for the sake of their own countrymen. "We must hold our own in India at any cost," was the determination come to by everybody in England, and it was done; but there was perhaps nobody who dreamed what that cost would be, nor how at last the fiendish atrocities of the mutineers so steeled the hearts and nerved the arms of our soldiers and officers that, but for the wise restraints imposed by the policy of the calm and able governor, who was at the time nicknamed "Clemency Canning" in angry scorn of his just humanity, a war not of repression alone, but of extermination, might have raged in the land of which we were already masters. The mutiny of 1857 differed from merely military revolts, one of which had happened in a Bengal regiment at Lahore in 1849, and against which the higher military commanders in India had more than once warned the government. Both Sir Charles Napier and Colonel Hodgson had called attention to the probabilities of an outbreak, and the latter had pointed out that the admission of the higher caste of Hindoos too freely into the Bengal army was a dangerous means of fomenting sedition, but none of those who saw a probable danger seemed to contemplate any such explosion as that which actually took place.

It should be remembered that the condition of India had greatly changed during a comparatively short period. The inventions and discoveries of science had been taken thither, railways had been established, the electric telegraph was in operation, the old slow processes of agriculture, even if they had not been superseded by modern methods and appliances, had been vastly improved by a new system of irrigation for the rice-fields and plantations. Broad roads had been formed, and places formerly distant, because of the difficulties of transit, were brought near together. A material revolution had taken place, but it was a revolution which, while it conferred immeasurable advantages on the

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country, and was designed to benefit the people, was all in favour of the permanency of British rule, and was in fact accompanied by the introduction of a system of native education, which included special provision for the instruction of native girls, calculated entirely to abolish some of the oldest and most obstinate superstitious customs, and to substitute, for the dark and cruel observances of the Hindu tradition, the reasonable and humanizing influences of European society and of the Christian religion.

But it must not be supposed that the conduct and demeanour of English subaltern officers, or of official civilians, always tended to commend British authority by promoting the moral influence which is enforced by example. While many superior officers and civilians of high standing conscientiously endeavoured to introduce to India a system which should gradually bring about a change in the moral and social condition of the people, abolish the tyranny and oppression by which the natives had suffered under the rule of their own princes, and inspire them with confidence in English institutions and English administration of the laws; the British manner of regarding native races over whom conquest or treaty had given us authority, had not been corrected. The ordinary British officer usually seemed to be imbued with the notion which prevailed in some higher quarters, that the oriental mind can only be influenced by fear, and though he did not apparently act with deliberate cruelty, he was too often ready to visit small offences or negligences with angry severity, occasionally accompanied by unjustifiable acts of physical violence. He became a bully from the mistaken notion that in that way alone he could exercise immediate control. The natives to him were a "set of niggers," over whom he thought he should exercise almost absolute authority. His common attitude towards them was that of contemptuous toleration, sometimes good-humoured, but seldom either conciliatory or considerate. Without much ability or inclination to understand their peculiarities, or to look into the meaning or obligation of their customs, he almost entirely disregarded many things, a recognition

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of the importance of which was a part of their religion. Some of their sacred observances, the neglect of which they believed would entail dreadful penalties, he regarded as "a parcel of rubbish," not worth the attention of any sensible person, and he did not fail to treat them with marked indifference, if not with open derision. His business was to help "to hold India," and he troubled himself very little about the way in which it was to be held, except that while the natives were quiet and submissive they were to be tolerated, and even their fantastic ceremonies might be permitted; but that the way to keep them in a condition of subordination was to show them the clenched fist or the raised stick whenever there was a reasonable pretext for threatening.

There had been more than one warning, which might have prepared the government at home as well as the authorities in India for some attempt at mutiny among the troops, or for a sudden outbreak of a fanatic no less than a military character. As early as 1851, at Meerut, the very place where the revolt subsequently commenced, Colonel Hodgson published a pamphlet in which he called attention to the admission of men of the Brahmin or priestly caste to the ranks of the Indian army, in spite of certain prohibitions, and this he declared was the source of disaffection and sedition among the troops. In this respect Colonel Hodgson's explanation differed from that of some other persons. Instead of regarding the selection of British officers to take exclusive command of native troops as a grievance which provoked the men, who could feel no personal confidence in superiors possessing no sympathy with their religion, customs, or mode of thinking, he declared that the promotion of native officers failed to encourage the men to fulfil their duties to the state. He said, "On all occasions of discontent and insubordinate caballing, how very rare it is to see a native officer come forward in a firm and unequivocal manner to disclose what has come to his knowledge, and thereby to evince a becoming consciousness of the duty he owes to his own rank and to the government which conferred it! It would be the height of credulity to imagine the possibility

of evil intention existing in the lines without his most entire cognition; and therefore by failing in moral energy he virtually becomes an accomplice, shrinking from the manly performance of his duty as a commissioned officer, which imperatively requires a prompt disclosure of such seditious designs. It is lamentable to know that, with his increased rank, he acquires not the slightest perception of his increased responsibility. He still remains in all his feelings and sentiments a common soldier, and seldom assumes the moral tone of a commissioned officer."

There was weight in these representations, especially when it is considered that in the native regiments the observance of distinctions of caste must have had enormous influence, and that whatever may have been the results of discipline in securing the professional obedience of the private soldier to his officer while on duty, it was always possible that the private might be a Brahmin, and the officer (promoted only for military efficiency or for some other reason) might be of a caste so inferior that he was compelled secretly to regard his subordinate with veneration. But, as we have noticed, an equal source of danger was perhaps to be found in the inferior character and low tone of many of the English officers commanding native regiments. General Sir Charles Napier, the conqueror of Scinde, had strongly but ineffectually remonstrated against this defect, and Colonel Hodgson endorsed his representations by writing: "It is chiefly upon the zeal, loyalty, competency, and conciliatory deportment of the European officers that the efficiency and allegiance of the Sepahees must depend. The British officer of the native army must always look upon himself as a very closely connected part of it; should he in the smallest degree alienate himself from the men, or in any way evince by his demeanour that their interests and professional honour are something distinct from his, or superciliously neglect to become acquainted with all the circumstances of those under his command, he is deficient in a most essential portion of his official qualifications. Unless he is familiar with all their habits and peculiarities, and properly mindful of their

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subaltern officer of the native army, too, generally looks upon the performance of regimental duties as a task, irksome if not humiliating. He has very little ambition to acquire the character of a good regimental officer. He has scarcely joined the corps when his every effort is strained to quit it, so as to escape from what he is apt to pronounce drudgery and thraldom. A wide chasm separates the European officer from his native comrade-a gulf in which the dearest interests of the army may be entombed, unless a radical change of relations between the parties is introduced." This was written in 1851, and the colonel went on to say that the great secret of the success of the British in India had been a most judicious and careful avoidance of every act that would greatly alarm the religious and conventional prejudices of the natives, or call in question our national good faith. This may in general terms have been the principle on which the chief authorities had theoretically proceeded, and even before the rule of the East India Company had been practically superseded by that of the British government, operations for the complete subjugation of the country had been conspicuously allied to the profession of a more imperial policy of combined firmness and conciliation. We have already noticed that remarkable changes had been introduced by the extension of roads and railways, the adoption of a cheap postage system, the increase of public works, and the establishment of schools; and these improvements had been chiefly effected within ten years, under the administration of Lord Dalhousie, who succeeded Lord Hardinge as governor-general in 1847. Such changes could not be made without exciting the antagonism of the more fanatic portion of the native population, and the opposition of the devotees of the old cruel and immoral superstitions. Suttee was abolished, and widows were no longer burned at the funeral pyres on which the bodies of their husbands were

founded a kind of religion on assassination, was, if not entirely stamped out, at least made an offence the perpetrators of which were pursued and condemned to death or to heavy punishment. Lord Dalhousie effected many changes which preceded the bill introduced by Sir Charles Wood in 1853, abridging the power of the East India Company. Sir Charles Wood, in his speech on that occasion, referred to the existing evils of the mixed government, the maladministration of justice, the want of public works, and the laws for the tenure of lands. Much had been already accomplished for India, but still it did not follow that it possessed the best government that could be devised. The question was whether that rule should continue in a double character of a home government and a government in India, or whether it should be administered singly by a secretary of state. The proposed measure was to continue it in the latter character, but to diminish the patronage of the court of directors, and to extinguish their power of nomination to office, so that civil and scientific appointments should depend on merit alone. The bill was opposed by Joseph Hume as premature and unstatesmanlike, and the debate became involved in a tangle which nothing but a real and almost personal knowledge of Indian affairs could unravel. Lord Macaulay, however, supported the proposed measure, because it would introduce present improvements and leave a scope for further improvements when required. In some shape or other a double government was most suitable for India, and he thought that the changes proposed in the machinery at home,—which absorbed too much attention, would impart to it a greater amount of vigour and ability. But India must be governed in India. Whatever might be the instructions from home, the local authorities must exercise a discretion. As to patronage, if the governor-general were allowed to nominate the civil servants, the most monstrous age of jobbing the world had ever seen would commence. Because the plan proposed by the bill would fill the service with fit and superior men by the plan of competition, he was