t printed. The publication of the complete work took place
in 1844. The Mutiny broke out in 1857, and proved that the fidelity
of the sepoys could not be so easily assured as the author supposed.

29. I believe the native army to be better now than it ever was--
better in its disposition and in its organization. The men have now a
better feeling of assurance than they formerly had that all their
rights will be secured to them by their European officers that all
those officers are men of honour, though they have not all of them
the same fellow feeling that their officers had with them in former
days. This is because they have not the same opportunity of seeing
their courage and fidelity tried in the same scenes of common danger.
Go to Afghanistan and China, and you will find the feeling between
officers and men as fine as ever it was in days of yore, whatever it
may be at our large and gay stations, where they see so little of
each other. [W. H. S.] The author's reputation for sagacity and
discernment could not be made to rest upon the above remarks. His
judgement was led astray by his lifelong association with and
affection for the native troops. Lord William Bentinck took a far
juster view of the situation, and understood far better the real
nature of the ties which bind the native army to its masters. His
admirable minute dated 13th March, 1835, published for the first time
in Mr. D. Boulger's well-written little book (_Lord William
Bentinck_, 'Rulers of India', pp. 177-201), is still worthy of study.
As a corrective to the author's too effusive sentiment, some brief
passages from the Governor-General's minute may be quoted. 'In
considering the question of internal danger,' he observes, 'those
officers most conversant with Indian affairs who were examined before
the Parliamentary Committee apprehend no danger to our dominion as
long as we are assured of the fidelity of our native troops. To this
opinion I entirely subscribe. But others again view in the native
army itself the source of our greatest peril. In all ages the
military body has been often the prime cause, but generally the
instrument, of all revolutions; and proverbial almost as is the
fidelity of the native soldier to the chief whom he serves, more
especially when he is justly and kindly treated, still we cannot be
blind to the fact that many of those ties which bind other armies to
their allegiance are totally wanting in this. Here is no patriotism,
no c