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his Lordship's sense of the virtue and attainments which have rendered the death of this native officer a severe loss to the service, has been pleased to confer on his family a pension equal to the pay of a subadar of the body guard, being thirty pagodas a month. And his Lordship has further directed that a certificate to this effect, translated into Persian and Hindoostanee, may be presented to the family, as a record of the gift, and a tribute to the memory of the brave subadar Shaikh Ibrahim.'

The posthumous praise given to Shaikh Ibrahim appeared to have inspired others with a desire to share his fate, that they might attain his fame. A jemadar of the same corps, some days afterwards, being appointed with a few select men to watch a road, where it was thought the chief whom they were attacking might try to escape, with one or two followers, determined, when a whole column came out, to make an attempt against its leader, and such was the surprise at seeing five or six horsemen ride into a body of between 200 or 300 men, that he had cut down the chief before they had recovered from their astonishment; he succeeded in riding out of the column, but was soon afterwards shot. He had, when he meditated this attack, sent a person to inform Captain J. Grant (who had recovered of his wounds) of his intention. The captain will discover,' he observed, that there are more Shaikh Ibrahims than one in the body guard.' Captain Grant, when the service was over, erected tombs over these gallant officers; a constant lamp is kept at them, which is supported by a trifling monthly donation from every man in the body guard, and the noble spirit of the corps is perpetuated by the contemplation

The Marquess Wellesley was at this period Governor General of India; and it is the testimony of all contemporary authorities (a similar remark applies to Earl Powis, then Lord Clive and Governor of Madras), that virtue, talent, or valour, either in European or native, were certain, under his adminis tration, of attaining distinction and reward.

of these regimental shrines (for such they may be termed) of heroic valour.

Shaikh Moheedeen, a subadar of the body guard of Madras, who was one of the first officers appointed to the corps of native horse artillery, accompanied me to Persia, and was left with a detachment of his corps, under the command of Captain Lindsay, to aid in instructing the Persians in military tactics. This small body of men and their gallant European commander were engaged in several campaigns in Georgia, and his conduct has obtained not only for the subadar, but for all the men of his party, marked honours and reward, both from the Persian Government and their own. Their exertions received additional importance from the scene on which they acted, for it is not easy to calculate the future benefits which may result from the display of the superior courage and discipline of the native soldiers of India on the banks of the Araxes.

The native infantry of Madras is generally composed of Mahomedans and Hindoos of good caste : at its first establishment none were enlisted but men of high military tribes. In the progress of time a considerable change took place, and natives of every description were enrolled in the service. Though some corps that were almost entirely formed of the lowest and most despised races of men obtained considerable reputation, it was feared their encouragement might produce disgust, and particularly when they gained, as they frequently did, the rank of officers. Orders were in consequence given to recruit from none but the most respectable classes of society, and many consider the regular and orderly behaviour of these men as one of the benefits which have resulted from this system. The infantry sepoy of Madras is rather a small man, but he is of an active make, and capable of undergoing great fatigue, upon a very slender diet. We find no man arrive at greater precision in all his military exercises; his moderation, his sobriety, his patience, give him a steadiness that is almost unknown to Europeans; but though there exists in this body of men a fitness to attain mechanical perfection as soldiers, there are no men whose minds it is of more consequence to study.

The most marked general feature of the character of the native of India is a proneness to obedience, accompanied by a great susceptibility of good or bad usage; and there are few in that country who are more imbued with these feelings than the class of which we are now treating. The sepoys of Madras, when kindly treated, have invariably shown great attachment 1 to the service; and when we know that this class of men can be brought, without harshness or punishment, to the highest discipline, we neither can nor ought to have any toleration for those who pursue a different system; and the commanderin-chief is unfit for his station who grants his applause to the mere martinet, and forgets in his intemperate zeal, that no perfection in appearance and discipline can make amends for the loss of the temper and attachment of the native soldiers under his command.

We discover in the pages of Orme many examples of that patient endurance of privations and fatigue, and that steady valour, which has since characterized the native infantry of Madras. Their conduct in the war against Hyder Ally in 1766, was such as justly to entitle them to admiration. In the battle of Trincomalee and Molwaggle they displayed all the qualifications of good and steady soldiers; and it was during this war that the 5th battalion of native infantry, commanded by Captain Calvert, distinguished itself by the defence of Ambore, and obtained the honour of bearing a representation of that mountain fortress on one of its standards. To the campaigns of Sir Eyre Coote we have already alluded, and have spoken of the unshaken fidelity which the sepoys of Madras

1 In old corps, that have been chiefly recruited within the territories which have been long in the possession of the Company, desertion is of very rare occurrence.

The first battalion of the 3rd native infantry marched, in 1803, from near Madura (of which district, and Trichinopoly, a great proportion of its men were natives), to the banks of the Taptee, a distance of above 1000 miles, without one desertion!

evinced at that trying juncture; but if a moment was to be named when the existence of the British power depended upon its native troops, we should fix upon the battle of Portonovo. Driven to the seashore, attacked by an enemy exulting in recent success, confident in its numbers, and strong in the terror of his name, every circumstance combined that could dishearten the small body of men on whom the fate of the war depended; not a heart shrunk from the trial. Of the European troops it is of course superfluous to speak; but all the native battalions appear, from every account of the action, to have been entitled to equal praise on this memorable occasion; and it is difficult to say whether they were most distinguished when suffering with a patient courage, under a heavy cannonade, when receiving and repulsing the shock of the flower of Hyder's cavalry, or when attacking in their turn the troops of that monarch, who, baffled in all his efforts, retreated from this field of anticipated conquest with the loss of his most celebrated commander and thousands of his bravest soldiers. The defeat of Colonel Baillie's detachment, which occurred at the commencement of this war, has been variously attributed to bad arrangements in the general plans of the campaign, to mismanagement on the part of the commanding officer, and to the misconduct of the native troops. It is probable all these causes combined to produce this great misfortune; but we must recollect that the native battalions that were chiefly accused of bad behaviour on this occasion were raw levies, who had never before seen service, and most of whom had hardly been in the army a sufficient time to be disciplined. The men composing these corps had been hastily raised in the Circars, or northern possessions of Madras, and their conduct created a prejudice (which experience has since proved to be unjust) against recruits from this quarter.

I shall not dwell upon the different actions in the war against Tippoo and the Mahrattas, in which the Madras sepoys signalized themselves, but merely state some anecdotes of corps and individuals which appear calculated to give a fair impression of the general character of this class of the defenders of our empire in India.

The natives of India have, generally speaking, a rooted dislike to the sea; and when we consider the great privations and hardships to which Hindoos of high caste are subject on a long voyage, during which some of them, from prejudices of caste, subsist solely on parched grain, we feel less surprise at the occasional mutinies which have been caused by orders for their embarkation than at the zeal and attachment they have often shown upon such trying occasions.

A mutiny had occurred in the 9th battalion when ordered to embark for Bombay, in 1779 or 1780, which however had been quelled by the spirit and decision of its commandant, Captain Kelly. A more serious result had accompanied a similar order for the embarkation of some companies of a corps in the Northern Circars, who, when they came to Vizagapatam, the port where they were to take shipping, had risen upon their European officers, and in their violence shot all except one or two, who escaped on board the vessel appointed to carry their men.

These events rendered government averse to a repetition of experiments which had proved so dangerous; but in the year 1795, when the island of Ceylon, and the possessions of the Dutch in the eastern seas were to be reduced, Lord Hobart, who was then Governor of Fort St. George, made a successful appeal to the zeal and attachment of the native troops, who volunteered in corps for foreign service. His Lordship (afterwards Earl of Buckinghamshire), was very successful in inspiring zeal in every branch of the government under his charge, and his attention was peculiarly directed to the conciliation of the natives. The local information he acquired at this period was subsequently matured by a study of the general interests of the Indian empire; and the life of this virtuous nobleman terminated at a moment when his services, from the high station he had attained of President of the Board of Control, were most valuable to his country.

A still greater call for men was necessary when an army was formed, in 1797, for the attack of Manilla, and many of the best battalions in the service showed a forwardness to be employed in this expedition. Among these, one of the most