24 CAWNPORE.
a stranger was soon driven from the regiment by that untiring and organized social oppression, in which, ifwe are to believe the daily press, military men of all nations and grades are such admirable adepts. And so it came to pass in the course of time, that the company partook of the nature of a family, and the battalion of the nature of a clan. The consequence was, that there existed a sympathy and free-masonry throughout the ranks of quite another tendency from that tone of regimental patriotism and martial brotherhood, known in European armies by the title of “ esprzé-de-corps.’ Such a state of things afforded peculiar facilities for conspiring. A disaffected body of sepoys possessed the power of a host, and the discretion of a clique. The most extensive and perilous designs could be matured in perfect secrecy, and carried into effect by the weight of a vast and unanimous multitude.
The real motive of the mutiny was the ambition of the soldiery. Spoilt, flattered, and idle, in the insolence of its presumed strength that pampered urmy thought nothing too good for itself, and nothing too formidable. High caste Brahmins all, proud as Lucifer, they deemed that to them of right belonged the treasures and the empire of India. « Hampered with debt, they looked for the day of a general spoliation. Chafing under restraint, they panted to
