“What shall I say of the Company’s Europeans? I did not think Britain could have furnished such a set of wretched objects--I would infinitely rather take the 73rd regiment upon service with me, than the whole six Company’s battalions--Indeed I have great doubts whether by drafting the whole six, I could complete one serviceable battalion to the present establishment.”
It is only by appreciating the condition and circumstances of our military services in India at this time, and the jealousy existing in the highest quarters in England of the exercise of the authority of a Government by the East India Company, that the almost independent position held by the King’s troops in India can be understood. The chief want was in Cavalry, and it is a proof of the ill-judged parsimony or poverty of the Company that, in a country so well adapted for that arm, where the cavalry of the enemy were counted by tens of thousands, they should have failed, till the time treated of, to produce an efficient mounted Corps. M. le Maitre de la Tour, a French officer in the service of Hyder Ali, writing about the events then occurring, says:
“ ... The English have never yet succeeded in the attempt to form a good troop of European horse in India. As they have sent a regiment of dragoons[3] from England, it is probable that their arrival may place the affair on another footing. Though it may not immediately be conceived, the reason of the want of success in forming their intended troop of horse, consisted in the good discipline to which they were desirous of subjecting them.
“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.”