Page:The Marquess Cornwallis and the Consolidation of British Rule.djvu/105

Rh but a scheme originating with Cornwallis was eventually carried out, by which the Company's officers were allowed to take rank equally with those of the Royal regiments, according to the dates of their respective commissions, while serving in India. Jealousy between the two sets of officers — though always kept within bounds in action and in a campaign, owing to a sense of military subordination — occasionally came to the surface in peaceful times; but it would not be easy to find any instances in which military operations were impeded or marred by any such social antipathy. Some of the most signal victories in India have been gained by Company's officers commanding a combined force of the soldiers of the Sovereign and the Sepoys of the Company. With all his philanthropy and considerate regard for the feelings of the natives, Cornwallis was quite alive to one danger to which India has never at any time been unexposed.

'It must be universally admitted,' he tells the Court of Directors, 'that without a large and well-regulated body of Europeans, our hold of these valuable dominions must be very insecure. It cannot be expected that even the best of treatment would constantly conciliate the willing obedience of so vast a body of people, differing from ourselves in almost every circumstance of laws, religion, and customs; and oppression of individuals, errors of government, and several other unforeseen causes, will no doubt