INDIAN AFFAIRS.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 1, Issue 42, 10 July 1858, Page 3

INDIAN AFFAIRS.

As to the present state of the rebellion, the Bombay Telegraph of April 30th says : —

If we wish to preserve the empire, and reduce the refractory to a speedy submission, we must either have more troops or more experienced generals. It is now a painful fact that the rebels merely fight and run away, for the puipose of living to fight another day. The Ranee of Jhansi is again at the head of a large army, and the mutineers of Kotah are marching away from Rajpootana. Lucknow is ours, but Oude is in arms ; Rohilcund is bristling with rebel bayonets, and the Kara Sahib, instead of being a miserable fugitive, hunted hither and thither, moves proudly over the land, at the head of an army of 20,000 men. Our proclamations, setting a price upon his head are, for the present, quite as gasconading as his own, with regard to the Governor- General and other high magnates. This is not the time for talking and writing, but for fighting. We want men and generals, not proclamations and legislative enactments. When the rebels are destroyed, and the Nana Sahib hi our hands, it will then be time enough to talk of conciliation. The English parliament are beginning their preparations for roasting before catching the hare. The country not only swarms with armed rebels, but they band themselves together in armies of from ten to twenty thousand men, and frequently offer fight to the most formidable of our Field-Forces. While such a state of things exists, it is in vain for hon. members ef the House of Commons to indulge in inflammatory debates as to whether India is to be the property of the Crown or the Company. Whilst England is being agitated by tho debates on the new India Bill, the one thing neadful — reinforcements of soldiers and supplies — is being overlooked. The campaign of the next winter will be even more severe than the past. The mutineers will recruit themselves during the next summer, will elude our flying columns, and so fatigue our troop 3 that unless powerfully reinforced, they will scarcely be able to make head against the operations of the enemy in September and October. The mo3t culpable negligence has, we have also heard, been displayed by the authorities on the other side of India, with regard to getting the troops under shelter. Their comforts are not at all attended to as they ought to be, our short-sighted administrators believing that the crisis had passed, and that clemency will subdue Oude, and restore tranquillity everywhere. Never was there a more fatal delusion. The repulse at Roowah, the inexplicable vacillation of Sir Colin Campbell after the capture of Lucknow ; the departure of Jung Bahadoor for Nepaul ; and the undecided conduct of the Governor- General at Allahabad, will all tend to prolong the revolt. Every hour that is now lost will add a year to the duration of the rebellion, by increasing the confidence of our enemies, and augmenting their numbers. We again repeat that if we wish to preserve the empire, consolidate our power, and render another mutiny an impossibility, we must strike with vigour and promptitude. We must have no maudlin sentimentality to interfere with the sword of justice ; as for every traitor that is now allowed to escape, thousands will bleed hereafter. We must relvain from singing Io Pecans until the empire is really ouvs ; and instead of Parliament spending their time in discussing the best means to be adopted for governing India, they ought to be zealously employed in devising the best measures for its re-conquest. We have still a great work befoi'e vs — a work which no words can accomplish ; and the sooner the sword is drawn and the scabbard thrown away, the better it will be for England, and the better it will be for India.

The disclosures on the trial of the King of Delhi plainly shew that for a long period of years there avos a deeply laid plan for the restoration of the Mogul empire, in the execution of which every Hindoo or Mahomedan was to lend his aid, each expecting in turn to regain the position and influence he had lost through British supremacy. The Times Cokkespondent at Ltjckttotv. — The Times world- famed correspondent, Mr. W H. Hussell, we are informed, " is a universal favourite, full of mirth, and overflowing with good nature. His fund of anecdote is inexhaustible ; and so seems his stock of general information. Never was there a man more devoted to his duty. Day and night — at all events, till late in the evening — is he to be met riding about in all manner of dry places in the pursuit of knowledge, and of all from ■whom he may reasonably hope to obtain it. At one moment he is seen earnestly conversing with Sir Colin Campbell, next, squatted on a pile of prize property, at the corner of a street, cheroot in mouth, and bridle in hand, you find him pumping some intelligent non-commissioned officer. A short inter and he may be discerned on the top of a minaret. His survey over, and its results noted, he tears along the streets to where, from the sounds of musketry, he concludes that "something" is go : ng on. And having "mastered the situation," lie plunges into an intricate labyrinth of lanes, guided by some extraordinary intuitions, to the spot where a civil officer is giving audience in a Bunneah's shop or other improvised durbar, to some distinguished rebel, or illustrious bndmash. And thence he may be seen to emerge listening with discipular attention to the explanatoiy prelecLlons of some Assistant Commissioner, or plying Sir James Outram with jocularities, the convulsive effects of which threaten to lar . the Bayard of India in the gutter or in a fit of apoplexy. There is no one, however humble, from whom he is ashamed to seek information ; no one, however stupid, from whom he could not contrive to extract enlightenment of some kind. And his wonderful sagacity, and exquisitely keen perceptions, effectually preserve him from falling into the mistakes which griffin travellers so readily commit. For him the "Monsoon of the Desert" blows in rain ; for him the "ferocious dooly" hath no terrors."