It is very certain that, until the time of Alexander the Great, the commercial operations and geographical knowledge of the Greeks were far inferior to those of the Phoenicians. The genius and talents of Alexander gave a new impulse to the energies of Greece. His insatiable ambition led him to explore many regions previously unknown, in search of conquests; and thus, under his direction, the Greeks, though enthralled and subjected, extended their geographical knowledge far more rapidly than they had done in the days of their national glory.

Grecian commerce also owed much of its importance to Alexander. The siege of Tyre, which detained him seven months in his career of victory, taught him the power and consequence which commerce can give a nation; and the lesson thus given him he was not slow to improve. He saw that there were places in his dominions capable of being made all-and more than all-that Tyre ever was, and he knew that he possessed resources far greater than that proud mart could ever boast; he therefore resolved to build a city which should be called after his own name, and which should become the commercial emporium of the world. In the selection of the site for the contemplated city, Alexander showed the correctness of his judgment, and the grandeur of his views. Situated in a country then rich and prosperous, at the mouth of a noble river, and near to both the great scenes of enterprise, Alexandria in a short time became the most important commercial city in the world, and controlled the trade of both the East and the West; and notwithstanding the commotions which followed the death of Alexander, the trade to India continued to flow through the city which bore his name, till the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope, a period of more than 1800 years. During all this time it was one of the principal commercial cities of the world, and even at this day it is a place of considerable trade; few cities, indeed, have maintained their rank as seats of commerce for so long a period as Alexandria.

The progress of discovery under Alexander has already been alluded to*. Before his time, the regions east and north of Persia were almost wholly unknown to the Greeks; but in the course of his victorious career he is said to have visited Samarcand, and to have explored all that part of Asia which lies south of independent Tartary, and west of the Indus, and a considerable portion of the rich and extensive country between the Indus and the Ganges. How much farther he would have gone, had his soldiers been willing to follow him, we cannot say ; but they, seeing no prospect of termination to their toils and wanderings,

* A recent discovery seems to afford strong evidence that the soil of America was once trodden by one of Alexander's subjects. A few years since there was found near Monte Video, in South America, a stone, with the following words in Greek written on it: " During the reign of Alexander, the son of Philip, king of Macedon, in the sixty-third Olympiad, Ptolemy;" the remainder of the inscription could not be deciphered. This stone covered an excavation which contained two very ancient swords, a helmet, a shield, and several earthen amphora of large capacity. On the handle of one of the swords was the portrait of a man, and on the helmet there was sculptured work representing Achilles dragging the corpse of Hector around the walls of Troy. This was a favourite picture among the Greeks. Probably this Ptolemy was overtaken by a storm in the great ocean (as the ancients termed the Atlantic) and driven on the coast of South America. The silence of Greek writers in relation to this event may easily be accounted for, by supposing, that on attempting to return to Greece, he was lost, together with his crew, and thus no account of his discovery ever reached them.

refused to proceed, and the ambitious conqueror was constrained to yield to their wishes and return. On reaching the Indus, he directed Nearchus, a general in whom he placed great confidence, to proceed down to the mouth of that river, whilst he went on to Persia by land. On reaching the mouth of the Indus, the Greeks beheld with astonishment and terror the ebb and flow of the ocean, which are there very great. The object of Alexander in sending Nearchus on this voyage was to see if a channel for the commerce of India could not be opened through the Euphrates.

After the death of Alexander, his empire fell to pieces, and in the division of his possessions, Seleucus obtained that part of India which had become subject to Greece. Some exploring tours were made under his patronage, but the reader can easily judge of the value and correctness of the information thus obtained, from the fact, that the tourists stated that they met with men who had ears so large that they could wrap themselves in them, and that they saw ants as large as foxes, employed in digging up gold.

After the overthrow of Grecian power in India, no European nation obtained possessions in that country till near the close of the fifteenth century. The change of political relations did not, however, produce any material effect on the commerce with India: this still continued to flourish, and to add wealth and splendour to Alexandria, by which city it was entirely possessed.

THE INDIAN ARMY.

No. II.

In the July Number of this Journal a paper appeared to which we gave the general title of the "Indian Army," and of which it was the object to point out both the actual condition of that very important branch of the public service, and the best means, according to the views of the writer, for increasing its efficiency. We stated, in our short preface to the paper in question, that we were anxious to follow it up with others of a like nature. We cannot, indeed, conceive a more agreeable task to one who may be familiar with the subject, nor any by a successful completion of which he would earn for himself greater credit, than the compilation of a faithful and spirited history of the Indian Army. The annals of war, from the earliest times, present not, to our minds at least, a chapter more full of interest, whether we look to the slender beginnings, to the noble services, or to the rapid growth of that body. But we ourselves have neither time nor space to enter on so wide a field. Still, in the hope that we may induce some competent Indian soldier to undertake the task, we propose to sketch a sort of outline of a plan, which, if judiciously filled up, might do more to serve the cause of our brother soldiers in the East than all the remonstrances of counsel or the set speeches of advocates. Let him who feels that he is able to improve upon our suggestions do so.

The Indian Army forms, perhaps, the most extraordinary spectacle on which the eye of the philosopher has ever rested. Composed

almost exclusively of natives, none of whom are ever permitted to rise to offices of rank or trust, it has ensured to England, for not less than seventy years, the undisputed sovereignty over a tract of country incalculably more extensive than herself, and divided from her by the distance of half the globe. Nor is it alone by preserving peace at home, and supporting a handful of strangers in the dominion which they there exercise, that the Indian Army has established for itself an illustrious name: whenever they have been employed in the field-whether against foreign or domestic enemies-whether against Asiatics or Europeans,the Sepoys have done their duty, if not with the daring recklessness which characterises British soldiers, at all events with steadiness, with patience, and with courage. Such a body deserves, if ever an armed body did, that its merits should not pass unnoticed, and that they who benefit by its devotion and its truth should at least give to it the recompense of well-earned praise.

There is nothing in the records of ancient or modern times more remarkable than the rise of the Indian Army. It has been, if we may so express ourselves, the growth of a day. It sprang up all at once from the seed to absolute maturity. For many long years after the trade with India had been opened, and the Company had established factories at different points along the coast, the Indian Army had positively no existence. A few peons, armed, according to the custom of the country, with swords and circular shields, were the only species of guards which the factories admitted; and these never ventured to oppose themselves to the encroachments of the local authorities, however flagrant and however unjustifiable. The fact, indeed, is that when the English merchants first established themselves in the ports of Hindustan, they did not dream of the possibility of founding anything like an empire in a country thickly peopled, highly civilized, and accustomed to the working of regular governments. They were content to receive protection-they never thought of being able to afford it; and so long as the native princes permitted them to trade, their ambition soared no higher. The excessive caution with which they departed from this system is very striking, and we will endeavour to give of it a sort of bird's-eye view.

On the 2nd of May, 1601, Captain Lancaster's renowned squadron sailed from Torbay. After touching at Acheen, in Sumatra, and trading there-after capturing in the Straits of Malacca a rich Portuguese ship, and receiving from the Moluccas large quantities of spices, Lancaster steered for Java, where, in Bantam, the first factory was established over which an English merchant had ever presided in those seas. This was in 1602. In 1612 we find new factories erected at Surat, Amedabad, Cambaya, and Goja. As these increased in wealth and importance, they drew towards themselves the notice not only of the native princes but of European rivals, who, sometimes by force, but much more frequently by intrigue, endeavoured to ruin them. Against direct hostility, however, the English were content to guard themselves by appealing to the Nabobs and Naigs on shore; while at sea their ships maintained, as they best could, a struggle with their assailants.

But this state of things could not last for ever. Their rivals, especially the Dutch, gathered strength from day to day they built forts, they sent out bodies of troops, and began to wage war with the powers

around them a species of hardihood which both astonished the English and very justly alarmed them. They conceived that they must in some sort follow the example, not indeed in commencing hostilities with the princes under whose protection they dwelt, but by assuming such an attitude as might overawe the Europeans, and hinder them from acting towards themselves on the offensive.

In 1626, when displays of hostile intentions had become, on the part of the Dutch, more than ever frequent, and the condition of India, torn by civil wars, chanced to be peculiarly forlorn, the English merchants judged it expedient to apply to the soubahdars of the different provinces in which they were settled, for permission to inclose their factories with fortifications. Some tine elapsed ere the desired sanction was obtained; and when it did reach them, they were too poor and too feeble every where to avail themselves of it; but at Armagon, on the Coromandel coast, a fort was erected in 1628, which mounted twelve pieces of cannon. The garrison of that fort-the nucleus as it may be called of the Indian Army-consisted of twenty-three soldiers,-Europeans hired by the chief of the factory, and of course subject to no species of military law; for the idea of establishing an armed force in the East had never occurred to any of the home authorities, and no provision could of course be made for its management. There it was, however, the foundation-stone of the hosts which now keep in subjection a population of one hundred millions of souls-a gallant army of twenty-three burgher-guards, of which the chief of the factory was the commandant.

The small end of the wedge being thus introduced, the enterprising men who managed the Company's affairs did not delay to drive it continually farther into the wood, though for a time with excessive caution. In 1629 Bantam was fortified; and in 1630 an addition was made to the garrison of Armagon of not less than twenty men. Thus, allowing fifteen for the garrison of Bantam, and forty (for death had not been idle) to that of Armagon, we have a force, in 1630, of fifty-five soldiers, to whom if we add the merchants themselves and their peons, we may perhaps make out an army of one hundred Europeans and seventy topasses.

The site of Armagon had been selected for a fort because it was that of a considerable factory; it soon began to be discovered that it was not convenient as a place either of defence or of commerce. Something more close to the sea was needed; and in 1640 Madraspatam, the present Madras, having been purchased from the Nabob, permission was applied for and obtained to build a fort there. The fort was built accordingly, and became, what it now is, Fort St. George, though the town was permitted to retain its ancient name; and thither, as being in all respects more commodious, the strength of the English factory was removed. In proportion, however, as the Dutch war became more and more alarming, the Governor-for so he came now to be called— felt and deplored his own weakness, so he solicited an increase to his garrison, and received twenty-six men. This was in 1652, at which period likewise the works of the fort were improved and extended. Neither was the Company indifferent to the chances of effecting something elsewhere. In 1643 Surgeon Broughton, of the ship Hopewell, having succeeded in earning for himself a good name in Delhi, solicited and obtained leave for his countrymen to establish a factory on

the Hooghly, out of which in due time sprang up Fort William, as well as the flourishing and wealthy capital of the British power in the East, Calcutta.

ten men.

The Dutch war, though it threatened much, brought no serious evils on the Company's stations; and being exclusively a naval contest, afforded little opportunity to the Company's troops of gathering laurels. At its termination, moreover, the spirit of economy awoke; and the mighty garrisons by which the factories had been held were pronounced unnecessary. That of Fort St. George was reduced to the number of But the time was approaching when the folly of not retaining force enough at each station at least to protect it from the attacks of marauders was to be demonstrated. In 1657 there was a fierce struggle among the native princes, consequent on the death of the Emperor Shah Jehan; and one of them, seizing upon the Company's factory at Surat, gave it up to plunder. Now, if ever there was a time when the English ought to have resisted, and might with an adequate force have resisted in perfect safety, it was then: for the Dutch had set them the example, and the individual who maltreated them, failing in his attempt on the throne, any repulse which he might have sustained at their hands would have been accounted by his rival a meritorious act. But they had not force enough; and if the contrary had been the case, it may be questioned whether they would have had the courage to make use of it. For when, in 1650, Bantam was attacked by the Dutch, they were content to act solely on the defensive-not presuming, in a strange country, to return evil for evil, even in their dealings with Europeans. Thus no scope was as yet given for the display of any species of military virtue, unless indeed subordination and a steady performance of garrison duties be so accounted.

While the military affairs of the Company-if the phrase be admissible thus languished, an act of indiscretion on the part of their chief at Calcutta had well nigh brought upon them the whole force of the Mogul empire. Meer Jumlah, the Nabob of Bengal, had, it appeared, exercised some severities towards their agents-a line of conduct which in the end provoked the chief to attempt a reprisal: he seized a junk upon the Hooghly, detained its crew as prisoners, and removed the goods with which it was laden to Calcutta. Great was the indignation of Meer Jumlah, who immediately threatened to march the whole force of the province against the factory, and who, without doubt, would have kept his word, had not his wrath been appeased by submission; for when it came to this, the strong disinclination of the English to involve themselves in a native war displayed itself. Peremptory orders were sent round to Calcutta for every compensation to be made, and that no consideration whatever should induce the local authorities to add to the enormity of their offence by making a show of resistance; on the contrary, all the out-stations were abandoned; and the goods being packed up, and shipping held in readiness, all things were prepared, in case of extremity, to abandon the settlement. Happily this extremity did not arrive, and the merchants returned to their former vocations.

From the outline which we have sketched, it will be seen that hitherto the merchants neither possessed nor desired to possess in India one inch of territory, properly so called. Some of their factories had, indeed, become forts, under the protection of which their trade was carried on;