’They have all the same; there is not, I believe, one in a hundred that does not think as I do upon the subject.  Flogging was an odious thing.  A man was disgraced, not only before his regiment, but before the crowd that assembled to witness the punishment.  Had he been suffered to remain in the regiment he could never have hoped to rise after having been flogged, or sentenced to be flogged; his hopes were all destroyed, and his spirit broken, and the order directing him to be dismissed was good; but, as I have said, he lost all hope of getting into any other service, and dared not show his face among his family at home.’

‘You know who ordered the abolition of flogging?’

’Lord Bentinck.’[6]

’And you know that it was at his recommendation the Honourable Company gave the increase of pay with length of service?’

’We have heard so; and we feel towards him as we felt towards Lord Wellesley, Lord Hastings, and Lord Lake.’

’Do you think the army would serve again now with the same spirit as they served under Lord Lake?’

’The army would go to any part of the world to serve such masters—­no army had ever masters that cared for them like ours.  We never asked to have flogging abolished; nor did we ever ask to have an increase of pay with length of service; and yet both have been done for us by the Company Bahadur.’

The old Sardar Bahadur came again to visit me on the 1st of December, with all the native officers who had come over from Sagar to attend the court, seven in number.  There were three very smart, sensible men among them; one of whom had been a volunteer at the capture of Java,[7] and the other[s] at that of the Isle of France.[8] They all told me that they considered the abolition of corporal punishment a great blessing to the native army.  ’Some bad men who had already lost their character, and consequently all hope of promotion, might be in less dread than before; but they were very few, and their regiments would soon get rid of them under the new law that gave the power of dismissal to regimental courts martial.’

’But I find the European officers are almost all of opinion that the abolition of flogging has been, or will be, attended with bad consequences.’

’They, sir, apprehend that there will not be sufficient restraint upon the loose characters of the regiment; but now that the sepoys have got an increase of pay in proportion to length of service there will be no danger of that.  Where can they ever hope to get such another service if they forfeit that of the Company?  If the dread of losing such a service is not sufficient to keep the bad in order, that of being put to work upon the roads in irons will.  The good can always be kept in order by lighter punishments, when they have so much at stake as the loss of such a service by frequent offences.  Some gentlemen think that a soldier does not feel disgraced by being flogged, unless the offence for which he has been flogged