Page:Earl Canning.djvu/203

ceptance with the authorities in England. The Queen and Prince Consort had previously expressed a strong opinion on the desirability of amalgamation. At that time Lord Derby had been opposed to the change, and Lord Palmerston had acquiesced in Lord Derby's view. The insubordinate behaviour of a portion of the European force at the close of the Mutiny helped to strengthen the case for amalgamation. 'I think that it is necessary,' Sir W. Mansfield (Lord Sandhurst) had written in 1859, 'not only for our future safety in India, but as an example to Her Majesty's army, which cannot but be affected by the dangerous example before it, that the local European army should cease to exist.' He supported his view by a grave picture of the lengths to which the European Mutiny had gone. In May, 1860, the Cabinet determined on amalgamation, and in August the House of Commons gave legislative sanction to the change by enacting that Europeans should not for the future be recruited for local purposes in India. The creation of Staff Corps for each of the Presidencies for the supply of officers for native regiments, and for staff employment, as well as for numerous civil duties — judicial and executive — supplemented the organic changes involved in the amalgamation of the two armies, and provided effectually against the grave inconveniences which had been experienced under the previous régime.