It is not for us to speak authoritatively as to the cause of the Sepoy mutiny, but we venture to express our concurrence with those who have regarded it as, in considerable measure, of Mahometan origin. The Mahometan rule was displaced by the British rule. The Mahometans were for centuries the aristocracy of India, standing to the genuine Indians in pretty much the same relation that the Normans held to the Saxons in England; only it is but justice to them to say, that they rarely bore themselves so offensively towards the Indians as the Normans were accustomed to bear themselves towards the English. They have never lost the recollection of their former _status_, or ceased to sigh for its restoration. Nor is the time so very remote when they were yet great in the land. Old men among them can recollect when Tippoo Saib was treated as an equal by the English, and have not forgotten how powerful was his father, Hyder. Some few aged Mussulmans there may be yet living who heard from their sires or grandsires, who saw it with their mortal eyes, of the glories of the magnificent Aurungzebe, ere the Persian, or the Affghan, or the Mahratta had carried fire and sword into Shahjehanabad. Two not over-long lives would measure the whole interval of time between the punishment of the English by Aurungzebe and the mutiny at Meerut. Time enough has not yet elapsed to cause the Mahometans to forget what they have been, or to cease to hope that they may yet surpass their fathers. They are not actuated by anything of a sentimental character, but desire to win back, and to enjoy at the expense of the Indian races, the solid advantages of which they have been deprived through the ascendency of a Christian people in the East. "Mahometans in India sigh for the restoration of the old Mahometan _régime_," says Colonel Sleeman, "not from any particular attachment to the descendants of Tymour, but with precisely the same feelings that Whigs and Tories sigh for the return to power of their respective parties in England; it would give them all the offices in a country where office is everything. Among them, as among ourselves, every man is disposed to rate his own abilities highly, and to have a good deal of confidence in his own good luck; and all think, that if the field were once opened to them by such a change, they should very soon be able to find good positions for themselves and their children in it. Perhaps there are few communities in the world, among whom education is more generally diffused than among the Mahometans in India. He who holds an office worth twenty rupees a month commonly gives his sons an education equal to that of a prime-minister." [Footnote: _Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official_, Vol. II. pp. 282, 283.--Colonel Sleeman's work is one of the best ever published on India,--learned, liberal, and philosophical. It has been highly praised by so competent a judge as Mr. Grote.] This very capability for rule must