Page:History of India Vol 8.djvu/212

172 sional mercenaries (reckoned by good contemporary authority at two millions) who roved about India in those days. It is on record that any number of foot-soldiers might be enlisted, although they "deserted in shoals" when a very distant march was in prospect; and that the best cavalry of Hindustan (Afghans, Tartars, Persians, or Marathas) might be had in abundance at six weeks' notice, "many of them," as the East India Records state, "out of the very camp of the enemy." The English commanders, however, seem to have relied for their infantry chiefly upon natives of India, who were probably more faithful to their salt, and more amenable to discipline, than the wilder folk of Central Asia. And for a hundred years the Indian sepoy well repaid the confidence placed in his courage and loyalty. With artillery served by men who stood fast to their guns, with a few red-coated English battalions, with a strong contingent of well-drilled native infantry and some excellent native light cavalry, the Company's army presented a combination of war material that only wanted good handling to dispose of any opponent in Southern India.

The foregoing observations on the native armies of this period may help to explain the rapidity with which the English won their earliest battles against Indian adversaries and made their first conquests in the seaboard provinces, especially in Bengal. They had only to upset a few unstable rulers of foreign descent, whose title rested on dexterous usurpation; and to disperse by their trained battalions, European and native, great