DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.34827#0420
404 Zz/p <?/* ZZ?ZZ72ZZz<37^ Zz^AAzvZzZ^. on. xix.
at any time, and seeing regiments round him continually
changing in the ordinary course of reliefs. But a recruit for an
exclusively Indian army would be transferred at an early age to
a country where he would be raised by his colour, as well as by
some moral qualities, to undisputed superiority over the millions
round him, while he himself would have no superior except a
body of insolent and meddling civilians, whose power depended
entirely on his support, and whom the slightest movement on
his part would be sufficient to intimidate or remove. Where
should we have been if such had been the state of feeling at
fhe time of the Affghan war or the Sikh invasion, not to
mention the mutiny of the Bengal sepoys ?
' Yours most sincerely,
' M. ELPHINSTONE.'
' March 16.
' My dear Colebrooke,—It is an odd coincidence that so
soon after my last letter (perhaps before you have had time to
read it) I should receive a letter written from the Pyrenees by
an old military with whom I had no previous corre-
spondence on the subject, anticipating everything I had said
about the Anglo-Indian army, and containing several further
remarks that had not occurred to me.
' I send you an extract of it, were it only that you might
have the case put before you in a more legible hand than
mine. The writer is a man of much ability, and what is more,
much good sensed
Pau, March 12.
' " In all this talk of having only a European army in India,
it never seems to strike any one that there is any danger of
their combining. It will scarcely bear to be told, but there is
danger, and the day may come when the natives may aid
Europeans in shaking off the mother country, or taking a
lesson from ourselves, conquer ourselves by ourselves. There
" He afterwards informed me that the -writer was Grant Duff, the historian
of the Mahrattas.
at any time, and seeing regiments round him continually
changing in the ordinary course of reliefs. But a recruit for an
exclusively Indian army would be transferred at an early age to
a country where he would be raised by his colour, as well as by
some moral qualities, to undisputed superiority over the millions
round him, while he himself would have no superior except a
body of insolent and meddling civilians, whose power depended
entirely on his support, and whom the slightest movement on
his part would be sufficient to intimidate or remove. Where
should we have been if such had been the state of feeling at
fhe time of the Affghan war or the Sikh invasion, not to
mention the mutiny of the Bengal sepoys ?
' Yours most sincerely,
' M. ELPHINSTONE.'
' March 16.
' My dear Colebrooke,—It is an odd coincidence that so
soon after my last letter (perhaps before you have had time to
read it) I should receive a letter written from the Pyrenees by
an old military with whom I had no previous corre-
spondence on the subject, anticipating everything I had said
about the Anglo-Indian army, and containing several further
remarks that had not occurred to me.
' I send you an extract of it, were it only that you might
have the case put before you in a more legible hand than
mine. The writer is a man of much ability, and what is more,
much good sensed
Pau, March 12.
' " In all this talk of having only a European army in India,
it never seems to strike any one that there is any danger of
their combining. It will scarcely bear to be told, but there is
danger, and the day may come when the natives may aid
Europeans in shaking off the mother country, or taking a
lesson from ourselves, conquer ourselves by ourselves. There
" He afterwards informed me that the -writer was Grant Duff, the historian
of the Mahrattas.