It was the business of such officers, again, when the war-tide had finally ebbed, to replace the ancient landmarks, and turn the swords into plough-shares and reaping-hooks.

Some account of the manner in which this was done is now, for the first time, offered. Two lessons, at least, may be drawn from the record. One is that, whatever posts are hereafter to be made available to Asiatics, there is one which - save in the most peaceful and orderly of neighbourhoods, perhaps should always be reserved to men of European birth and training: I mean, of course, that of District-officer. It is sufficient to reflect what might have been the consequences had districts like Saharanpur, Meerut, or Etáwa been in the hands of Asiatics during the time that is here treated of. With the greatest loyalty and good-will, Asiatic officers would be always likely to fall into one of two temptations. Either they would show weakness or they would act with undue severity. Nothing but the combination of impartial humanity with an unimpressionable firmness could possibly have nerved Spankie, Dunlop, Hume, and their contemporary District-officers, with the will and power to make head against all the troubles of their position, and to restore order and confidence at the earliest available moment.

* "They are specially fit for judicial functions, much more so than for executive or administrative functions."-Lord Hartington in the House of Commons, 23rd August 1883.

The careers of de Boigne, Thomas, Perron, and other adventurers of the last century-no less than that of Avitabîle under Ranjit Singh-show how much this truth was appreciated even by the comparatively uncivilised rulers to whom India was subject then. And it would be a deplorable error if this lesson were to be ignored or neglected now by a Government which, in a much greater degree, has undertaken to regenerate a region so long demoralised by anarchy as Hindustan. If the native powers had to employ European administrators, how much more must Britain!

The other lesson to be heedfully appropriated is the necessity of a just and discriminate use of native talent and loyalty. In most, if not all, of the districts here observed, it will be clear that the exertions of the British District-officers and their European associates -heroic, as we need not hesitate to call them—were only rendered effective by the co-operation of Asiatics, military and civil. If the assistance of Sindhia and Holkar, of Jang Bahadur and the various minor chiefs of the province of Hindustan (to say nothing of the Sikh chiefs to the north and Salár Jang in the Deccan) deserve credit, as they undoubtedly do, no less acknowledgment is due to the fidelity of the Sikhs and Gurkhas, of Hindu clans in one part and (to a less degree) of Muhamadan gentlemen in another; most of all, perhaps, to the exceptional loyalty of bodies of native troops who, amid all temptations, remained "true to their salt," protecting when

possible their officers and their officers' families, and following white leaders whom they trusted in the punishment of offenders of their own blood and religion. Nor ought we we to forget the faithful among the "Amlah," or subordinate native officials: a class who had much to tempt them from the British cause, and little reason, perhaps, to love it but what they might find in hard work, bad pay, and precarious promotion; even precarious tenure of office. Many of these men did good work.

It is my earnest hope that something has been here set down to give emphasis to both the above-stated doctrines. If India is ever to be made prosperous and happy, it must be by a combination of native merit with European direction and control. The subject races of Her Majesty's Eastern Empire are endowed with many good qualities; but, owing to the long centuries of misrule and anarchy that—with the one brief exception of Akbar and his immediate successors-have crushed their energies, these qualities are mostly of the negative kind. To abstain from drunkenness, from disorder, from debauchery, are hardly felt as difficulties by the masses of the rural population, since they and their fathers have, for some generations, had little scope or opportunity for the practice of those vices. They have still to be taught to acquire secondary wants; to improve their agriculture and commerce; to respect themselves and others; to join in the application of their industry and dexterity for the welfare of the community

at large. How far they were from having learned these lessons in 1857-8 is shown by the glimpses of anarchy and civil strife that are obtained in the course of our narrative; and it would be bold to assert that the rural population had come much nearer to the qualifications for Home-Rule in the quarter of a century that has since elapsed. To illustrate and impart these lessons is among the true arts of European civilisation, in spite of its many excesses and defects; and thus we may borrow the words of Virgil to Rome, and say to our country

"Hæ tibi erunt artes."

If there be any other moral deducible from my story, it is surely this: that it is perilous to keep any class of the population in ignorance. If the sepoys had understood the merest rudiments of contemporary history, they would have known that the British could have no wish to convert them to Christianity, either by force or by fraud. If the Jats and Gujars, and other tribes of the peasantry, who availed themselves of the temporary paralysis of power in Upper India, caused by the mutiny of the Bengal army, had been at all educated, they would have known that England had other soldiers who would soon appear on the scene, and that such outbreaks as theirs must, in any case, end badly for themselves. The agitation of educated men takes a different form, and meets with a different result. However disagreeable may be some of the features of political agitation, it may lead to good when addressed

b

to hearers capable of understanding their evils and how to obtain permanent relief. But the history of all ignorant rural risings shows that, without general instruction, and something which is best represented by a free press, no political progress is possible. These efforts of brute force only lead in the direction of chaos.

H. G. K.

ATHENEUM,

October, 1883.