The real motive of the mutiny was the ambition of the soldiery. Spoilt, flattered, and idle, in the insolence of its presumed strength that pampered army thought nothing too good for itself, and nothing too formidable. High-caste Brahmins all, proud as Lucifer, they deemed that to them of right belonged the treasures and the empire of India. Hampered with debt, they looked for the day of a general spoliation. Chafing under restraint, they panted to indulge themselves in unbridled rapine and licence. They were bent upon the foundation of a gigantic military despotism. They looked forward to the time when Soubahdars and Jemmadars should be Maharajas and Nawabs; when the taxes should be collected by sepoy receivers-general, and paid into sepoy treasuries; when every private should have his zenana full of the loveliest daughters of Lahore and Rohilcund; when great landholders from Bundelcund and Orissa should come with cases of diamonds to beg a favourable decision from Mungul Pandy; when great merchants from Liverpool and Marseilles should come with bags of sovereigns to ask leave of Peer Bux to establish a factory at Mutlah or Chandernagore. They evinced an equal contempt for all the other classes of the inhabitants of India. They despised the excellent armies of Bombay and Madras, and their insolence was requited with bitter aversion. They looked down on the Ghoorkas as savages, and presumed to regard the heroes of Chillianwallah and Ferozeshah as a conquered race; as if, forsooth, it was sepoy prowess which, after more than one series of fierce and dubious battles, had at length prevailed over the brave and haughty warriors of the Punjaub. And at length, in the plenitude of their pride and folly, they began to call in question the efficacy of the English name. We had, indeed, been negligent. We had been improvident even unto madness. Some twenty thousand European troops were scattered over the continent of India; for the security of which seventy thousand are now held to be barely sufficient. In the May of 1857, from Meerut in the North-west, to Dinapore in the South-east, two weak British regiments only were to be found. In these days, a battalion of English infantry may be placed at any important city in our dominions within the twenty-four hours. Then, all the field-batteries throughout the entire region of Oude, with a single exception, were manned by native gunners and drivers. Now, in every station on the plains, the artillerymen, the trained workmen of warfare, without whom in modern times an armed force is helpless, are one and all our own countrymen. Then, our only communication was along roads which the first rains turned into strips of bog, and up rivers treacherous with crossing currents and shifting sandbanks. Now, through the heart of every province, there run, or soon will run, those lines of rail and lines of wire, which defy alike season and distance.