ince the British
Government will endeavour to net the whole monstrous crew that have
one and all broken the _sacramentum militare_, for which scourging
with rods and subsequent strangulation is the inevitable penalty, what
will remain to his poor family? His cottage, that once had been his
pride, will now betray him, as soon as ever movable columns are
formed, and horse-patrols begin to inspect the roads. But, as to his
money, in nineteen cases out of twenty, he will find himself obliged
to throw it away in his flight, and will then find that through three
months of intolerable suffering he has only been acting as steward for
some British soldier.

The private letters and the local newspapers from many parts of India
having now come in, it is possible through the fearful confusion to
read some facts that would cause despair, were it not for two
remembrances: first, what nation it is that supports the struggle;
secondly, that of the six weeks immediately succeeding to the 10th of
September, no two days, no period of forty-eight hours, _can_ pass
without continued successions of reinforcements reaching Calcutta. It
should be known that even the worst sailers among the transports--namely,
exactly those which were despatched from England through the course of
_July_ (not of August)--are all under contract to perform the voyage in
seventy days; whereas many a calculation has proceeded on the old rate
of ninety days. The small detachments of two and three hundreds,
despatched on every successive day of July, are already arriving at
their destination; and the August detachments, generally much stronger
(800 or 900), all sailed in powerful steamers. Lord Elgin arrived at
Calcutta in time to be reported by this mail, with marines (300) and
others (300), most seasonably to meet the dangers and uproars of the
great Mahometan festival. The bad tidings are chiefly these:--

1. The failure of a night-attack upon the Dinapore mutineers by
detachments from two of our British regiments, with a loss of '200
_killed_'; in which, however, there _must_ be a mistake; for the total
number of our attacking party was only 300. On the other hand, there
may have been some call for a consciously desperate effort; and the
enemy, having two regiments, would muster, probably, very nearly 2000
men; for the sepoy regiments are always strong in numbers, and these
particular regiments had not suffered.

2. Much more ominous than these reports, is an e