The first step to be taken towards this end was, it seemed to me, to substitute men of the more warlike and hardy races for the Hindustani sepoys of Bengal, the Tamils and Telagus of Madras, and the so-called Mahrattas of Bombay; but I found it difficult to get my views accepted, because of the theory which prevailed that it was necessary to maintain an equilibrium between the armies of the three Presidencies, and because of the ignorance that was only too universal with respect to the characteristics of the different races, which encouraged the erroneous belief that one Native was as good as another for purposes of war.

In former days, when the Native Army in India was so much stronger in point of numbers than the British Army, and there existed no means of rapid communication, it was only prudent to guard against a predominance of soldiers of any one creed or nationality; but with British troops nearly doubled and the Native Army reduced by more than one-third, with all the forts and arsenals protected, and nearly the whole of the Artillery manned by British soldiers, with railway and telegraph communication from one end of India to the other, with the risk of internal trouble greatly diminished, and the possibility of external complications becoming daily more apparent, circumstances and our requirements were completely altered, and it had become essential to have in the ranks of our Native Army men who might confidently be trusted to take their share of fighting against a European foe.

In the British Army the superiority of one regiment over another is mainly a matter of training; the same courage and military instinct are inherent in English, Scotch, and Irish alike, but no comparison can be made between the martial value of a regiment recruited amongst the Gurkhas of Nepal or the warlike races of northern India, and of one recruited from the effeminate peoples of the south.

How little this was understood, even by those who had spent a great part of their service in India, was a marvel to me; but, then, I had had peculiar opportunities of judging of the relative fighting qualities of Natives, and I was in despair at not being able to get people to see the matter with my eyes, for I knew that nothing was more sure to lead to disaster than to imagine that the whole Indian Army, as it was then constituted, could be relied on in time of war.

General Chesney fortunately shared my opinions, and as Lords Dufferin and Lansdowne trusted us, we were able to do a great deal towards increasing the efficiency of the Native Army and improving the status and prospects of the Native soldier.  Several companies and regiments composed of doubtful material were disbanded, and men of well-known fighting castes entertained instead.  Class regiments were formed, as being more congenial to the men and more conducive to esprit de corps; recruiting was made the business of carefully selected officers who understood Native character, and whose duty it was to become acquainted with the various tribes inhabiting the districts from which the recruits for their own regiments were drawn; and special arrangements were made with the Nepalese Government by which a sufficient number of the best class of men could be obtained for our thirteen Gurkha regiments.