tures in the character of the natives of India is a proneness to obedience, and a great susceptibility of good or bad usage; and there are few in that country who are more imbued with these feelings than the Madras Sepoy.
BOMBAY.
One brigade of Horse Artillery, European and Native. Two battalions European Foot Artillery. Two battalions Native Foot Artillery. Corps of Royal Engineers. Three regiments of Native Light Cavalry. Two European regiments, Fusiliers and Light Infantry. Twenty-nine regiments of Native Infantry. Fifteen regiments Irregular Native Cavalry and Infantry.
It was at Bombay that the first native troops were disciplined by the English. Of the exact date we are ignorant; but regular Sepoys are noticed in the account of the transactions of that part of India, some time before they were embodied at either Madras or Bengal. A corps of 100 Sepoys from Bombay, and 400 from Tellicherry, is mentioned as having joined the army at Madras in 1747; and a company of Bombay Sepoys, which had gone with troops from Madras to Bengal, were present at the battle of Plassey.[1] The men of the Bombay infantry are of a standard very near that of Madras, the average being five feet five; but they are robust and hardy, and capable of enduring great fatigue upon very slender diet. The Bombay army, from its origin to the present day, has been indiscriminately composed of all classes, Mahomedans, Hindoos, Jews, and some few Christians. Many of the Jews attain the rank of commissioned officers. The Bombay Sepoys have at all times been found ready to embark on foreign service; but this is only one of their merits, for they are patient, faithful, and brave, and attached in a remarkable degree to their European officers.
- ↑ The decisive battle fought and won from Suraja Dowlah by the immortal Clive, at the village of Plassey, in Bengal, not a vestige of which remains at this day, from the inroads of the Ganges, the main stream of which now runs through where it stood.
