[30] Lord Minto. [31] Vide Lord Minto's dispatch. [32] General Maitland, late Governor of Ceylon. [33] These words have been, in the course of the discussion regarding the disturbances at Madras, as they were during their existence, greatly distorted from their simple and plain meaning. _Concession_, I conceive, is to grant the original and substantial objects of the demands made by the mutinous army. To have restored the tent contract, to have promised an effort to obtain an equalization of their allowances with the officers of Bengal, would have been concessions: but if the exercise of a generous clemency, in pardoning those who had offended in a moment of general insanity, and to have held out hope to others of even deeper guilt, be deemed _concessions_ which a Government _cannot make_, there can be no such thing as conciliation _in act_: and as to the profession of kindness and consideration, when the conduct observed by the ruling power is inflexible and severe in its measures, it can have no effect but that of aggravating men's feelings into greater crime. [34] The whole power was in the commanding officers of the sepoy battalion, and the native officers had much greater influence than the European subalterns of the corps: _the latter were not even attached to companies_. It has been the labour of near twenty years to supersede the effects of this system, which was deemed bad, and to transfer the influence formerly enjoyed by the native officers to the European: and the eagerness with which the native officers grasped at a prospect of reviving their power, though it might have had a favourable operation for Government under that desperate expedient to which they had resort, must have given rise to dangerous feelings, and produced jealousy and distrust in that important link between the European and native officers, where complete confidence and cordiality is most essential to our safety. [35] Disturbances in Bengal in 1794 and 1795. [36] Lord Teignmouth. [37] Lord Melville. [38] William the Third, and Demosthenes. [39] See the letters to Lord Wellesley and Sir A. Wellesley, p. 64, 65. PART II. A NARRATIVE OF THE CONDUCT OF LIEUT.-COLONEL MALCOLM DURING THE _DISTURBANCES IN THE MADRAS ARMY_. A NARRATIVE, &c.