We find with regret that old Madras officers are deeply
hurt by our recent reference to the White Mutiny of 1859.. They say that our description of that singular episode in Indian history was too broad, that the regiments differed greatly in their n?ode of manifesting discontent, and that, whatever occurred in Bengal, the " Europeans " in Madras, though they were aggrieved, and though they accepted the discharge ultimately offered to the entire force, never lost their subordination. We derived our information entirely from official sources, but it is impossible to doubt the evidence offered, at all events as to Madras, and especially as to the Madras Artillery, and we can only suppose that the Govern- ment saw no way of making any distinctions. We need not say that we had no intention of depreciatingthe Company's European soldiers, whose devotion and courage, displayed through a hundred years, did so much to build up the British Empire in India. No history of the unhappy movement which ended their career exists, and the truth about it will probably now never be known, unless some letters which Lord Canning must have written to Lord Palmerston should see the light. He considered the affair one of the most menacing that the Empire had ever survived.
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