oriental people. The secret of the influence of the Englishman in India has lain in the fact that he had so conducted himself, in all his relations with the children of the soil, that his word had come to be regarded as equal to his bond. It was only when the sipáhí, at Vellor in 1806, at Barrackpur in 1824 and again in 1852, in the North-western Provinces in 1844, in the Panjáb in 1849-50, deemed that the promises made to him on his enlistment had been deliberately violated, that he displayed an obstinate determination to break with his master rather than to continue service on terms which, it seemed to him, could be disregarded at that master's pleasure.
Action of a different character, although based on the same principle, so dear to the untravelled Englishman, of forcing the ideas in which he has been nurtured upon the foreign people with whom he is brought into contact, assisted, especially after the first Afghán war, to loosen the bonds of discipline, which, up to that period, had bound the sipáhí to his officer. In the time of Clive the sipáhí army had been officered on the principle which, in India, is known as the irregular system. The men were dressed in the oriental fashion, the companies were commanded by native officers; the European officers attached to each battalion, few in number, were picked men, selected entirely for their fitness to deal with and command native troops. The powers of the commanding officer were large. He was, to the sipáhí, the impersonification of the British power in India. His word was law. Beyond him the mind of the sipáhí did not care to travel. The sipáhí did not concern himself with regulations and appeals to the Commander-in-Chief. The system had answered admirably. It was in force throughout the reigns of Clive and Warren Hastings, and in no single respect had it failed.
