that would prevent the European officers from having such reliance on the support of their men, and teach the latter that they have a duty paramount even to their obedience to their officers, in that which they owe the state: but it is a great fallacy to conceive that such a feeling can ever exist as an operative principle in the minds of such a class of men; and if it did, it must weaken a devotion and attachment that are quite essential to the preservation of our power in India[25]. The next positive evil that was certain to attend this course of measure, was the destruction of that harmony which it had been the labour of years to introduce and maintain between his Majesty's and the Company's service, and which had so greatly contributed to our military successes in India. It could hardly be expected that these would (for some years at least) serve together again with those sentiments towards each other which before inspired them: and nothing can be so dangerous to our interests in India, as feelings of irritation and jealousy being kindled betwixt the two services. Those who have cast away this harmony, which has so long been deemed one of the chief sources of our permanent strength, would perhaps see more security to the Government of India in an irreconcileable division between the King's and Company's troops. But there is no danger of an error, in predicting that the date of our rule over India will be short, if our Government in that quarter can only be supported by such weak and wretched expedients as that of keeping up a principle of division among its own officers. The last positive and immediate evil which could not but attend this measure, was that effect which it was calculated to produce among the natives of all ranks and classes. Our strength in India has hitherto greatly rested upon the supposed impossibility of any civil commotion among ourselves: and the dissolution of this charm will give rise to a thousand doubts regarding the stability of our power; and, in all human probability, excite ambitious projects to assail it. This effect is of a magnitude that in itself required every exertion should be made to avoid an extreme that could not but make so general and dangerous an impression regarding the character of our power in India. It must show our enemies in that quarter that we are not exempt (as it has long been believed we were) from those internal divisions and civil wars which have accelerated the fate of the other conquerors of the East[26].