y thousand of well-armed and well-disciplined men),
that would otherwise have been roaming over the whole face of Bengal
as marauders and murderers. These men, left to follow their own
vagrant instincts, would, it is true, in some not inconsiderable
proportion, have fallen victims to those fierce reactions of rustic
vengeance which their own atrocities would very soon have provoked.
But large concentrated masses would still have survived in a condition
rapidly disposable as auxiliary bodies to all those towns invested by
circumstances with a partisan interest, such as Lucknow, Benares,
Cawnpore, Agra, Gwalior, and Allahabad.

Secondly, Delhi it was that opened the horrors of retribution; mark
what chastisement it was that alighted from the very first upon all
the scoundrels who sought, and fancied they could not fail to find, an
asylum in Delhi. It is probable that hardly one in twenty of the
mutineers came to Delhi without plunder, and for strong reasons this
plunder would universally assume the shape of heavy metallic money.
For the public treasuries in almost every station were rifled; and
unhappily for the comfort of the robbers under the Bengal sun of June
and July, very much of the East Indian money lies in silver--namely,
rupees; of which, in the last generation, eight were sufficient to
make an English pound; but at present ten are required by the evil
destiny of sepoys. Everybody has read an anecdote of the painter
Correggio, that, upon finishing a picture for some monastery, the
malicious monks paid him for it in copper. The day of payment was hot,
and poor Correggio was overweighted; he lay down under his copper
affliction; and whether he died or not, is more than I remember. But
doubtless, to the curious in Correggiosity, Pilkington will tell. For
the sepoys, although _their_ affliction took the shape of silver, and
not of copper, virtually it was not less, considering the far more
blazing sun. Mephistopheles might have arranged the whole affair. One
could almost hear him whispering to each separate sepoy, as he stood
amongst the treasury burglars, the reflection that those _pensions_,
which the kind and munificent English Government granted to their old
age or their infirmities, all over India, raising up memorial trophies
of public gratitude or enlightened pity, never more would be heard of.
All had perished, the justice that gave, the humble merit that
received, the dutiful behaviour that hoped; and hence