Page:John Russell Colvin.djvu/173

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DISTRIBUTION OF TROOPS
165

the vital gain of the one Province, was fatally felt in the other. The North-West was 'very weak after so much depletion.'

In the Punjab, too, were gathered the British bayonets. The Mower of the military, as of the civil, service were in Lord Dalhousie's new Province. A Lieutenant-Governor is only a civil official. In extreme cases, the military secure order. In their efficiency is the last word of the administration. The distribution of the British and native military forces in April, 1857, three and a half years after Mr. Colvin took charge, was as shown in Table A, p. 166, in the North-West, in Oudh, and in the Punjab. Oudh was annexed in 1856, and the year 1857 is more convenient therefore than 1853 for the purpose of this comparison. The figures are taken from a return furnished to Parliament in February, 1858; and so much of the old Dinápur Division as lay in Bengal has been eliminated from them. The sick are not included, because the return does not discriminate between European and native sick.

The proportion of British to native troops in the Punjab, viz. 13,421 to 42,904, was, in round numbers, one to three; in the North-West, with its 4,179 English and 41,410 native soldiers, one to ten; in Oudh, where there were 993 English to 11,319 natives, one to eleven.

On May 1, 1893, the corresponding figures were as shown in Table B.