In the early days of our connexion with India, we had no need for an army.  Living, as we were, on sufferance in a foreign land for commercial purposes, armed men were only required to guard the factories.  As these factories increased in size and importance, these armed men were given a semi-military organization, and in time they were formed into levies as a reserve to the few Europeans entertained by the merchants, to enable them to hold their own against the French, who were then beginning to dispute with us for supremacy in southern India.  When employed in the field, the Native troops were associated with a varying proportion of British soldiers, but the number of the latter was limited by the expense of their maintenance, the difficulty of supplying them from England, and the unadvisability of locking up a part of the British army in distant stations, which at that time were very inaccessible and generally unhealthy.  Native troops were therefore raised in continually increasing numbers, and after the battle of Plassey the Native army was rapidly augmented, especially in the Bengal Presidency; and, trained and led as it was by British officers, it achieved remarkable successes.

During the thirteen years preceding the Mutiny, the Native army, numbering 217,000 men and 176 guns, was increased by 40,000 men and 40 guns, but no addition was made to the small British force of 38,000 until 1853, when one regiment was added to each Presidency, or less than 3,000 soldiers in all.  This insignificant augmentation was subsequently more than neutralized by the withdrawal of six British regiments from India to meet the requirements of the Crimean and Persian wars.  Lord Dalhousie, Governor-General in 1854, saw the danger of this great preponderance of Native troops.  He represented that the annexations and conquests which had taken place during his tenure of office necessitated a proportional increase of British soldiers; he protested against the withdrawal of a single European regiment, either on account of the war with Russia or for operations in the Persian Gulf, and he solemnly warned Her Majesty’s Government that the essential element of our strength in India was the presence of a large number of British troops.

No attention, however, was paid to Lord Dalhousie’s representations by the authorities in England, who doubtless thought they understood the requirements of India better than the Governor-General, with his more than six years’ experience of the country.  In spite of his remonstrances, two regiments were ordered to England, and four were sent later to the Persian Gulf, with the result which I have already stated.