the European officers in the Native regiments, and to thoroughly reform the Commissariat arrangements by separating it from the regimental strength, and constituting it (as it now is constituted) a separate Staff Department.
From first to last Lord Dalhousie insisted on the European Force, 'as the essential element of our strength.' He urged the decrease of the Regular Native Army, which was the cause of our disaster in 1857. He not less solemnly urged the increase of the Punjab Irregular Regiments and gallant Ghúrkas, whose loyalty so materially helped us to retrieve that disaster. Again I feel that any words of mine would only weaken the force of the actual facts.
While the public was declaring that his conquests had put an end to the possibility of war in the Company's possessions, and was prophesying smooth things, Dalhousie seriously admonished not only the Government in England, but likewise the officials whom he was leaving behind in India, of the perpetual presence of danger. Nor was he content with impressing this great fact on the authorities, English and Indian alike. He spoke also with the utmost plainness, and in memorable words, to the Anglo-Indian community. Let me quote the solemn warning, I had almost said the too prescient forebodings, with which he replied to the congratulatory addresses of the citizens of Calcutta in February 1856:
