Supposing twenty more European regiments to be added to Bengal, there might be twenty native regiments of the nature I describe. Not a Brahmin should be admitted; they should be composed chiefly of low-caste Hindoos and Sikhs. The Goorkhas should remain as they are, unmixed.
The men of the regiments thus re-formed should never be sent on escort duty; they should remain cantoned with Europeans, and should be constantly brigaded and exercised with them.
To carry on other duties, mere police duties, such as escorting treasure and commissariat stores, other regiments should be raised, under the denomination of Police Corps. To these fire-arms should not be entrusted. A short sword and an iron-bound club should be their weapons; they should be paid at a lower rate than the others, and should not be allowed to rank as soldiers.
As a preliminary measure it will be necessary, merciless as it may sound to English ears, to hunt down every mutineer. India will not be secure so long as a single man remains alive. Since I commenced this page, details have been received of the merciless slaughter of upwards of an hundred unarmed ladies—women and children flying for a place of refuge. These are our sisters and your sisters, people of England! And ought their murderers to be spared, perhaps pensioned? Yet, canvass Calcutta at this moment—inquire from civilians, merchants, and military men, and the all but universal answer will arise, that at the hands of our Government—a Government comprehending such men as Messrs. Dorin, J. P. Grant, Beadon, and Birch, there will be the same shrinking from severe punishment, the same paltering with mutineers, the same truckling to rebels, by which their measures, up to the present moment, have been fatally marked.
Dii avertant omen!
END OF PART I.
