But it was the inevitable tendency of our increasing power in India to oust the native functionary from his seat, or to lift him from his saddle, that the white man might fix himself there, with all the remarkable tenacity of his race.... So it happened in due course that the native officers who had exercised real authority in their battalions, who had enjoyed opportunities of personal distinction, who had felt an honourable pride in their position, were pushed aside by an incursion of English gentlemen who took all the substantive power into their hands. As the degradation of the native officer was thus accomplished, the whole character of the Sepoy army was changed. It ceased to be a profession in which men of high position accustomed to command might satisfy the aspirations and expend the energies of their lives.... Thenceforth, therefore, we dug out the materials for our army from the lower strata of society.' Captain Macan, an officer who had long experience and knew the Sepoys well, gave evidence before a Parliamentary Committee in 1832, and declared that 'in all the higher qualifications of soldiers, in devotedness to the service, cheerfulness under privation, confidence and attachment to their officers, and unhesitating bravery in the field, the native soldier is allowed by all the best informed officers of the service, and by those who have most experience, to have infinitely deteriorated.' The late Rev. Mr. Gleig, in a remarkable article in the 'Edinburgh Review' in 1853, wrote: 'The original native army consisted chiefly of infantry, who, though drilled after European fashion, worked both in peace and war under chiefs connected with the men by ties of consanguinity and friendship.' He goes on to point out that the English element gradually increased until 1784, when a European subaltern was allotted to command each company, and he says: 'Though the subalterns thus disposed of were carefully selected, and the feelings of the subadars spared as much as possible, the native gentleman could no longer disguise from himself or from his men that his shadow was growing less. He supported himself, however, tolerably well till the tide which had begun to set in against him acquired greater force. In 1790, and again in 1796, the European element became still stronger, and then, and not till then, the spirit of the native sank within him. The effect produced by these changes upon the native officers, and ultimately upon the service at large, has been deplorable.' Mr. Gleig's article--written, be it borne in mind, in 1853, shortly before the Mutiny--concludes as follows: 'We have won an enormous empire with the sword, which is growing continually larger. We have established a system of civil administration there which protects the peasant and disgusts all the classes above him.... With a large body of discontented gentry everywhere, and whole clusters of native princes and chiefs interspersed through our dominions, it is idle to say that