There is, however, another and more recent authority, greater perhaps than any; one who, year after year, and not long before the Mutiny, urged that we should give opportunities to the natives, and enable them to rise to power, civil and military; and who predicted that unless this were done our system must collapse, either in a mutiny or in general despair. That authority is Sir Henry Lawrence, who fell at his post in the Residency of Lucknow, killed by the mutineers in the very crisis which he had, as it were, foretold. Writing in 1855[51] he pointed out that the natives had no outlet for their talents and ambition as of old, and said: 'These outlets for restlessness and ability are gone; others are closing. It behoves us therefore now, more than ever, to give legitimate rewards, and as far as practicable employment, to the energetic few, to that leaven that is in every lump--the leaven that may secure our empire, or may disturb, nay even destroy, it.' Again, he says: 'Legitimate outlets for military energy and ability in all ranks and even among all classes must be given. The minds of subadars and resseldars, sepoys and sowars, can no more with safety be for ever cramped, trammelled, and restricted as at present than can a twenty-foot embankment restrain the Atlantic. It is simply a question of time. The question is only whether justice is to be gracefully conceded or violently seized. Ten or twenty years must settle the point.' Leaving for the moment the political results of our conquests in India, it will be well now to consider its military aspects; to trace the formation and services of our native armies, and to watch the signs of their gradual decline both in efficiency and loyalty; and I will again give short quotations from the writings of recognised authorities as conveying clear outlines of this interesting and important subject.