Page:Viscount Hardinge and the Advance of the British Dominions into the Punjab.djvu/41

Rh punishment at once became practically a dead letter in the Native army.

The following Memorandum, drawn up in 1826, when Sir H. Hardinge was Clerk of the Ordnance, is interesting, as showing the views he advocated with regard to the want of preparation and organisation which he thought existed at that period: — 'The expediency,' he remarks, 'of being prepared at all times for a renewal of war, as it regards the security of the country and its colonies, and the power of making early and vigorous offensive exertions, cannot admit of a doubt. This object, it is conceived, may be assisted by carefully looking into every branch of the Ordnance establishment as it now is [in 1826] after ten years of peace. Assuming the establishment to rest on its present basis, and that all augmentations in case of war have to be provided for, it will be desirable to ascertain whether the Department, in all its parts dispersed over this vast empire, is in that state of order and readiness in which it ought to be to meet a sudden renewal of hostilities, to discover those parts which are defective, to apply remedies, to distribute the Ordnance resources in just proportions to its necessary wants, so that by previous arrangement every measure of a general and local nature should be decided in order to avoid delay at the moment of action, and that the means and mode of augmenting each branch with rapidity should be calculated and fixed beforehand, thereby accomplishing the double purpose of putting everything in a secure state of