from year to year to the honour of carrying a fusil in the ranks of a corps with which they feel themselves identified, they are particularly quick in attaining a knowledge of their duties. Indeed the principal amusement of the little broad-faced urchins who crowd the lines, is

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playing at soldiers " and aping their seniors in the performance of the "manual and platoon' and light infantry manœuvres. Little fellows of three and four years of age draw up to the side of the road when an officer passes, and salute him with a dignity and solemnity perfectly edifying.

With such materials, therefore, to select from as vacancies occur in the ranks, there is little fear that the Sirmoor battalion will degenerate; and when an opportunity is again furnished, there can be no doubt that the "little Goorkhas" will maintain their character, and

gather fresh laurels wherewith to adorn their cherished garland.

In commemoration of the affair at Koonja,

the Honourable Mr. Shore presented the corps with a magnificent "battering ram," constructed on scientific principles, and the head and curved horns covered with a thick plate of brass. This stands in front of the quarter guard, and on occasions of festivity is gaily painted and festooned with flowers.

APPENDIX.

A.

THE MEMORIAL of sir DAVID OCHTERLONY, TO

THE HON. THE COURT OF DIRECTORS.

To the Honourable the Court of Directors of the East India Company.

Honourable Sirs,

After serving the East India Company nearly half a century, I now approach you, on relinquishing employment, to place in your hands a defence of the only part of my official conduct which has ever met with public reprehension.

Having lost the confidence and incurred the censure of the present Governor-General in Council, for adopting measures hostile to the recent usurpation of the

sovereignty of Bhurtpore, I feel myself reduced to the alternative of tacitly acknowledging error, or of openly charging my superior with injustice. I come prepared, in consequence, to shew that my proceedings were not only expedient in themselves and demanded by the circumstances of the period, to maintain the honour and tranquillity of the state, but fully sanctioned by the same government which has since condemned them without reservation. In protesting against acts which followed this disavowal of my procedure, I hope also to exonerate my character and memory from the just reproach, which might otherwise await the unwilling agent of a transaction in which the British government shrunk from an important duty, and for a time abandoned the high station that it had obtained in India. I shall, therefore, proceed first to advert briefly to those principles which have hitherto been recognised in our relations with Indian States; next to the disposition of the public mind when I was called on to decide; and lastly, to the affairs of Bhurtpore which led to my interference as a political functionary and military commander.

1st.-Were it not for the doctrine solemnly inculcated by his Lordship in Council, that "the will of the chiefs and people" is to be consulted when their sovereign solicits the aid of his acknowledged para

mount, I should deem it superfluous to mention the fact of all these Hindoo or Mahommedan principalities being pure despotisms. The voice of the people has not yet been heard in the East. Without a legislative organ to give it utterance, or the last conception of their inherent right to appoint and control their rulers, the allegiance of the multitude is readily yielded to the strongest, nor am I aware that the nobility have any admitted privileges. They may offer the advice of servants to a master, but on no occasion can they dictate or legislate for themselves or community. Ambitious and equally devoid of patriotism and loyalty, these chiefs, so far from supporting order, are the constant instigators of internal discord, unable at the same time to reconcile the jarring pretensions they were wont to effect, or accompany changes of administration with bloodshed and convulsion. Among such nobles and peasantry in their state of society, no usurper, however flagitious, if possessed of wealth, need want abettors in seizing the rights of another. The ever-recurring evils to which the native states are liable, when left to themselves, are attested by the former history of India, in which the tranquil reign of a minor is scarcely on record. Still, conscious of the existence of this turbulent and predatory inclination in their powerful subjects, the princes acknowledging our supremacy have sought