“The excellence of the English cavalry is sufficiently acknowledged in Europe: and its advantages consist less in the goodness of the horse, than in the choice of the horsemen. The pay of a horseman in England is such as renders his situation very eligible; so that the sons of rich farmers and tradesmen are very desirous of entering into the service. This being the case, it is in the power of the officers to select handsome well-formed men of good character, and to keep them in good discipline merely by the fear of being dismissed. The officers who were first entrusted with the formation of a body of cavalry in India, thought to establish and preserve the same discipline among them, without attending to the great difference of time, place, and persons. The recruits sent from England to India are in general libertines, and people of bad character: and, as the Company will not dismiss a soldier, all the punishment inflicted on a horseman is, to reduce him to serve in the infantry; so that a man is no sooner put among the cavalry, than he is sent back to his former station. The French have succeeded in forming very good cavalry in India, by attending more to their horsemanship, and less to their discipline and manners.” Hyder Ali’s cavalry numbered at that time about twenty-five thousand horsemen, among which was a body of French dragoons and hussars. The Company maintained no Cavalry establishment, beyond a small European troop formed, as related by M. le Maitre de la Tour. When at war, they borrowed a few hundreds of horsemen from the Nawab of Arcot, unpaid, undrilled, and undisciplined. Sir Eyre Coote, the Commander-in-chief in India, was loud in his demands for Cavalry. In his dispatch on his victory at Porto Novo he wrote: “From the want of a corps of cavalry on our side equal in number to the service required, we were, with victory decidedly declared, obliged to halt just beyond the enemy’s grounds, not being able to take advantage of so distinguished a day; for with a corps of cavalry, the enemy’s guns, stores, &c., would, to a certainty have fallen into our hands.” Again, after the battle of Arnee, (2nd June 1782) he wrote: “There was nothing wanting to have enabled me on this occasion to ruin and disperse Hyder’s army, but a respectable body of cavalry. One thing is certain, that had I such a corps we should have captured the greatest part, if not the whole of his cannon.” Under the urgent demands made on them, the Court of Directors applied to the Crown for the loan of a Cavalry Regiment, and, in accordance with the usual practice at that date, it was determined to raise a Regiment for service in India. On the 24th Sept. 1781, the following Warrant was issued to Colonel Sir John Burgoyne Bart., of the 14th Light Dragoons, a cousin of General Burgoyne who surrendered at Saratoga in 1777.