was completely vanquished by its rival. But before that could be accomplished the system had taken a firm hold of that rival. When, in 1756, Clive set out from Madras to recover Calcutta from the hands of Suráju-daulah, he took with him, in addition to his 900 Europeans, 1200 sipáhís, natives of Southern India, armed and drilled on the European system. These men formed the nucleus of that glorious native army which, led by European officers, helped their English masters to win Bengal and Bihár from the satraps of the Mughals; to wrest Banáras and the delta of the Ganges from the Nuwáb Wazir of Oudh; to expel the Maráthás from the North-west Provinces; to establish a frontier on the Satlaj; to invade Afghánistán; and, finally, to acquire the Panjáb.
In another work[1] I have told in detail the principal achievements of that army up to the time when Lord Dalhousie annexed the Panjáb (1849). During that period of a hundred years the organisation of the native army had been more than once altered, but the spirit of devotion to its European officers had been manifested throughout all the changes on many memorable occasions. In the time of Clive the sipáhís had stood firmly by their European masters (1766) when the European troops in India, officers and men, had mutinied. They had never shrunk from following their European officer whithersoever he would lead them. And if, on some rare occasions, some few of them had displayed momentary disaffection, that disaffection had been, up to 1857, the result of feelings in which there was not the smallest tinge of patriotism. Speaking broadly, the result in each instance was the consequence of an attempt, well meant but clumsily carried out, to graft western ideas upon an
- ↑ The Decisive Battles of India. London: W. H. Allen & Co, 1888. New Edition.
