576 LIFE OF COBDEN. [oma®

1857.
zr, 53.

Domingo, in the French Revolution, and in the revolt of
the Polish peasants, but in our time nothing like it hss
happened, and I would not have believed that any tribe
of men which had been in contact with civilized life could
have committed such barbarities. But we seem in danger
of forgetting our own Christianity, and descending to a level
with these monsters who have startled the world with thei’
deeds. It is terrible to see our middle-class journals and
speakers calling for the destruction of Delhi, and the indiscriminate
 massacre of prisoners. Leaving humanity out of
the question, nothing could have been more impolitic than
the wholesale execution of common soldiers with which we
attempted from the first to put down the rebellion. Had it
been a mutiny of a company or a regiment, it would have
been of doubtful policy to hang or blow from the guns all
the privates concerned. But when an entire army of
100,000 men have planted the standard of revolt, it is nO
longer a mutiny, but a rebellion and civil war. To attempt
to hang all that fall into our power can only lead to reprisal?
and wholesale carnage on both sides.
* Did you observe that the men who swam ashore at Cawnpore
 after the boats, in which were the garrison who had
been promised a safe passage, had been treacherously sunk;
were blown from the guns on successive days, no doubt it
imitation of our treatment of the Sepoys? To read the
letters of our officers at the commencement of the outbreak:
it seemed as if every subaliern had the power to hang OF
shoot as many natives as he pleased, and they spoke of
the work of blood with as much levity as if they were
hunting wild animals. The last accounts would lead one
to fear that God is not favouring our canse, and that
too many of our countrymen are meeting the fate which
was intended for the natives,
“ But the fubure—what isin the distance? The most cer