all corps, regular and irregular,
attached to the Bengal, Madras, and Bombay Presidencies, which are
paid by the British Government. The feelings and opinions of the Oude
Government had not been consulted in the origin of this privilege,
nor were they now consulted in the extension given to it.

Officers commanding regiments and companies complain that the
sipahees and native officers never get redress, whatever trouble they
take to obtain it for them; and, I believe, they hardly ever hear a
sipahee or native officer acknowledge that he has had redress. A
sipahee one day came to the first Assistant, Captain Shakespear,
clamouring for justice, and declared that not the slightest notice
had been taken of his petition by the Oude Government or its local
authorities. On being questioned, he admitted that no less than forty
persons had been seized and were in prison on his requisition; but he
would not admit that this was any proof of the slightest notice
having been taken of his complaint. All are worried, and but few
benefited by the privilege, and the advantage of it to the army never
can counterbalance all the disadvantages. Invalid pensioners do not
now enjoy the privilege, but are left to prefer their claims direct
to the King's Courts, like others of the King's subjects, on the
ground that they cannot--like _sipahees still serving_--plead
distance from their homes; but a large proportion of the sipahees
still serving who have, or pretend to have, claims, obtain leave of
absence from their regiments to prosecute them in person.

The objection once raised by Lord William Bentinck against our
employing troops in support of the Government of Oude against
refractory landholders, is equally valid against our advocacy of the
claims of sipahees to lands. "If," said his Lordship, "British troops
be lent to enforce submission, it seems impossible to avoid becoming
parties to the terms of submission and guarantees of their observance
afterwards on both sides; in which case we should become mixed up in
every detail of the administration." If the sipahee does not pay
punctually the assessment upon the lands which he has obtained
through the Resident, the Oude Government calls upon the Resident to
enforce payment; and if the Oude Government ventures to add a rupee
to the rate demanded for the year, or for any one year, the sipahee,
through the commandant of his corps, and, perhaps, the Commander-in-
Chief and Governor-General,