Page:The Mutiny of the Bengal Army.djvu/12

8 sergeants are allowed to each corps, who are required to live in the lines, and to report all that goes on daily to the Adjutant.

Duties of Officers.—The duties of the officers are very similar to those performed in an English regiment. There is a Commander, generally of the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, who commands the regiment; an Adjutant, who superintends the drill, and makes daily reports to the commanding officer; an Interpreter and Quarter-Master, whose duty it is to look after the clothing of the men, and to interpret all orders: then each company is assigned to a separate officer, who is expected to settle all matters connected with his men every morning; or, should he be unable to do so, to refer them to the commanding officer.

Powers of the Commanding Officer.—The power of a commanding officer is of a very limited nature: he can make no promotions to the grade of commissioned officer; even in the ordinary rise from Sepoy to naick, should he think fit to pass over a man, his decision is liable to be upset by the Commander-in-Chief: he can make no prompt recognition of distinguished services; and, worse than all, by a recent order of Sir W. Gomm, he cannot refuse a court-martial to any Sepoy who may choose to demand it, in reference to the punishment which may have been awarded to him. The commanding officer is therefore quite powerless, and the men know it. Once it was otherwise: there was a time when the Commandant had it in his power to punish or reward, and his decision was irrevocable. But the system has been gradually changed. Commanders-in-Chief fresh from Europe, and accustomed all their lives to command Englishmen, have forgotten the inherent distinction between the European and the Asiatic, and in endeavouring to assimilate the rules for the latter to those which are suited only to the former, have broken down one of the chief barriers to Brahminical supremacy. One consequence of the present system is the gradual decline and final loss of all regard on the part of the men for their officers. As members of a Christian and converting religion they are disliked, as superiors they are no longer feared. Personal qualities may attract a short-lived admiration, but even that would shiver to atoms in the encounter with Hindoo fanaticism.

The Pension List.—But there was one resource upon which the Government relied above all others to influence their Sepoys, and this was by making it their interest to remain faithful to the British standard. The establishment of a pension list on a large and liberal scale, by the operation of which a fixed monthly stipend was secured to any soldier who might be incapacitated for further duty after a service of fifteen years, and which, moreover, provided for the heirs or nearest of kin of those who might perish in the field of battle, or from sickness whilst on foreign service, seemed well adapted to secure this end. A nobler or more liberal institution than the pension establishment for native soldiers does not exist, and it was thought by those competent to judge, that the estimation of the benefits accruing from it was fixed so firmly in the minds of the Sepoys, that that single consideration would weigh against all