t ourselves; but we have not taken that opportunity which the
moment of victory gave us, of effectuating a government essentially
strong and beneficial to the governed. The time therefore, we may
expect, will come, when a second interference will be demanded, both by
the recollection of our present conquest and the incompleteness of its
consequences; and we shall be doomed to find, that we have won two
hard-fought battles merely to enforce the necessity of a third."

The late campaign, short as it has fortunately been, becomes important,
if viewed with reference to a subject to which we have more than once
before alluded,[22] but which cannot be too often or too prominently
brought before the British public, who should never be suffered to lose
sight of the great truth, that it is _by our military power alone_ that
we hold our Indian empire. It is evident from all the circumstances, not
less than from the candid confession of Sir Hugh Gough himself, that the
determined resistance opposed by the Gwalior troops, (whom of late years
it has been the fashion in the Indian army to speak of as "Sindiah's
rabble,") and the discipline and valour shown in the defence of their
positions, were wholly unexpected by their assailants. But the prowess
and unflinching resolution displayed at Maharajpoor and Punniar, under
all the disadvantages of a desperate cause and inefficient commanders,
were worthy of the troops of De Boigne and Perron in their best days,
and amply prove that the Mahrattas of the present day have not
degenerated from their fathers, whose conduct at Assye won the praise of
the great Duke himself.[23] The defeat of British force in a pitched
battle on the soil of India, would be a calamity of which no man could
calculate the consequences; yet such a result would not have been
impossible, if the contempt of our commanders for the enemy had brought
them to the encounter with inadequate numbers; and the rulers of India
have reason to congratulate themselves that this underrated force
remained quiescent during our Affghan disasters, when intrigue and
difficulties were at their height among both Hindoos and Moslems, and
every disposable regiment was engaged beyond the Indus, in a warfare, of
the speedy termination of which there then appeared little prospect;
while the Moslems, both of the north and south, in Rohilcund and the
Dekkan, were on the verge of insurrection, the Rajah of Sattarah, the
representative of the forme