Lord Dalhousie, while thus endeavouring to provide against the dangers of the Regular Native Army in India, frankly and generously acknowledged the merits of the Native troops. In so doing he could scarcely go further than the encomiums passed upon them by his soldier-predecessor Lord Hardinge, and indeed by Sir Charles Napier himself, when that fiery warrior was in a praising mood.
During the embittered discussions which Sir Charles Napier afterwards raised, Sir Charles posed as the foreseeing man, and accused the Native troops of general mutiny at Wazírábád in December, 1849, or January, 1850. This charge was quite honestly believed by the passionate old Commander-in-Chief to justify the usurpation which he had made on the powers of the Governor-General in Council, when ordering, on his own authority, an increase in the Code of Allowances to the troops. Such an act, if permitted, would have rendered illusory the financial and general control of the Army vested in the Governor-General by Parliament.
In judging of this occurrence we must correct the subsequent, and perhaps pardonable, violence of the disappointed old soldier, in his Indian Misgovernment[1], by the Official Records written at the time. Those Records have been printed in a
- ↑ Defects Civil and Military of the Indian Government, by Lieutenant-General Sir C. J. Napier, edited by Lieutenant-General Sir F. W. P. Napier.
