for their own aggrandizement,
and to the prejudice of their neighbours; and to strengthen that of
the paramount power by which the whole are kept in peace, harmony,
and security. We give to India what India never had before our rule,
and never could have without it, the assurance that there will always
be at the head of the Government a sensible ruler trained up to
office in the best school in the world; and that the security of the
rights, and the enforcement of the duties, presented or defined by
law, will not depend upon the will or caprice of individuals in
power. These assurances the people in India now everywhere thoroughly
understand and appreciate. They see in the native states around them
that the lucky accident of an able governor is too rare ever to be
calculated upon; while all that the people have of property, office,
or character, depends not only upon their governor, but upon every
change that he may make in his ministers.

The government of the Muhammadans was always essentially military,
and the aristocracy was always one of military office. There was
nothing else upon which an aristocracy could be formed. All high
civil offices were combined with the military commands. The emperor
was the great proprietor of all the lands, and collected and
distributed their rents through his own servants. Every Musalman with
his Koran in his hand was his own priest and his own lawyer; and the
people were nowhere represented in any municipal or legislative
assembly--there was no bar, bench, senate, corporation, art, science,
or literature by which men could rise to eminence and power. Capital
had nowhere been concentrated upon great commercial or manufacturing
establishments. There were, in short, no great men but the military
servants of Government; and all the servants of Government held their
posts at the will and pleasure of their sovereign.[11]

If a man was appointed by the emperor to the command of five
thousand, the whole of this five thousand depended entirely on his
favour for their employment, and upon their employment for their
subsistence, whether paid from the imperial treasury, or by an
assignment of land in some distant province.[12] In our armies there
is a regular gradation of rank; and every officer feels that he holds
his commission by a tenure as high in origin, as secure in
possession, and as independent in its exercise, as that of the
general who commands; and the soldiers all know and feel tha