The equestrian robber had his horse, and was called ‘ghurasi’, horse-robber, a term which he never thought disgraceful.  The foot-robber under the native government stood in the same relation to the horse-robber as the foot-soldier to the horse-soldier, because the trooper furnished his own horses, arms, and accoutrements, and considered himself a man of rank and wealth compared with the foot-soldier; both, however, had the wherewithal to rob the traveller on the highway; and, in the intervals between wars, the high roads were covered with them.  There was a time in England, it is said, when the supply of clergymen was so great compared with the demand for them, from the undue stimulus given to clerical education, that it was not thought disgraceful for them to take to robbing on the highway; and all the high roads were, in consequence, infested by them.[10] How much more likely is a soldier to consider himself justified in this pursuit, and to be held so by the feelings of society in general, when he seeks in vain for regular service under his sovereign and his viceroys.

The individual soldiers not only armed, accoutred, and mounted themselves, but they generally ranged themselves under leaders, and formed well-organized bands for any purpose of war or plunder.  They followed the fortunes of such leaders whether in service or out of it; and, when dismissed from that of their sovereign, they assisted them in robbing on the highway, or in pillaging the country till the sovereign was compelled to take them back, or give them estates in rent-free tenure for their maintenance and that of their followers.

All this is reversed under our government.  We do the soldiers’ work much better than it was ever before done with one-tenth—­nay, I may say, one-fiftieth—­part of the numbers that were employed to do it by our predecessors; and the whole number of the soldiers employed by us is not equal to that of those who were under them actually in the transition state, or on their way from the place where they had lost service to the place where they hoped to find it; extorting the means of subsistence either by intimidation or by open violence.  Those who are in this transition state under us are neither armed, accoutred, nor mounted; we do not disband en masse, we only dismiss individuals for offences, and they have no leaders to range themselves under.  Those who come to seek our service are the sons of yeomen, bred up from their infancy with all those feelings of deference for superiors which we require in soldiers.  They have neither arms, horses, nor accoutrements; and, when they leave us permanently or temporarily, they take none with them—­they never rob or steal—­they will often dispute with the shopkeepers on the road about the price of provisions, or get a man to carry their bundles gratis for a few miles, but this is the utmost of their transgressions, and for these things they are often severely handled by our police.