sian ruler could afford to treat cavalierly the head of the great military State of Western Europe. It is no small triumph that within a few years the sons of Nicholas have come to pay their respects to the man who was not thought worthy to be styled the "brother" of a Russian Emperor. If the throne of Napoleon III. rests on prestige and glory, there is certainly something in this Stuttgart interview to give it a firmer support. With regard to political matters, there will be little done at the meeting, simply because there is little to do. Those who think that a conversation between two Sovereigns can decide the destinies of Europe have little notion of the change which has passed over the world since last a Bonaparte met a Romanoff. Then there were only Kings and Generals, now there are nations well acquainted with their own interests, there are From The Times, 25 Sept. MEETING OF THE EMPERORS. THE meetings of Sovereign Princes are now but commonplace things. In old times the portentous conjunction of two great Potentates filled the world with forebodings of change and disaster; but now the facility of intercourse, the love of travelling, and the special activity and curiosity of two or three occupants of thrones have accustomed us to the sight of Royalty either unbending among its loyal subjects or fraternizing gracefully with its august equals. The approaching interview between the Emperors of France and Russia cannot be expected to excite among us any deep emotion. Indeed, the locomotion of Monarchs is pre-eminently one of the Napoleonian ideas. George III. and Louis XVI. vegetated quietly enough in their capitals or their almost suburban Windsor and Versailles. In those days one King an enlightened public opinion and a high seldom looked on the face of another, and moral code. No State is powerful enough though the whole race were related within to invade a neighbor's rights, or too weak to. no very distant degree of affinity, they sel- maintain its own. Prussia and Austria, dom communicated, except when a piece of whatever may be their jealousies, are united Sèvres porcelain or a marriageable princess was in upholding the independence of Central despatched from one capital to another. But Europe, and the smaller States of Germany the great Conqueror liked to be his own Am- are indissolubly linked with them by interest bassador as well as General, and even when and the memory of past dangers. Belgium there was no particular business to be done and Holland are prosperous, respectable, and it was gratifying to be the centre of a crowd respected. Sardinia has the sympathies of of Kings, Electors, and Princes, all with the world and may fearlessly continue in the favors to ask and flatteries to offer. Now course she has chosen. Never was the fabric such meetings have become habitual, and of Europe more solid and well cemented though the interview at Stuttgart may call than at the present time, when the progress up some memories of Tilsit and its confer- of events and the spread of enlightenment ences of 50 years since, we see in it more have realized the long-desired balance of an act of mutual courtesy than the inaugur-power. Therefore, without urging the charation of a scheme of European policy. acter and repeated assurances of Napoleon, The emperor of the French is, indeed, we or the obvious interests of Alexander, we think, wise in thus demonstrating openly his may dispel the fears of alarmists, if such full reception into the brotherhood of Euro- there be, by pointing out that Europe is too pean Sovereigns. The late Czar inflicted on strong to fear the alliance of any pair of him five years ago a slight which was fol- Potentates. Nothing can be done except in lowed by a severe retribution. When the accordance with the principles already acrepresentative of the Caesars and the Sover- cepted as public law. Then, too, the princieign who fills the venerable throne of these pal questions which have been lately in kingdoms were content to address the new dispute may now be considered as settled. Monarch as their equal, the arrogant despot The last subject connected with the Eastof a half-civilized empire chose to withhold from the political arrangement of the Danubian him the usual expressions of courtesy. The provinces is understood to be no longer a insult was open and studied; it was intended matter of contention. Each nation has fulto show to Europe that the chorus which filled the Treaty of Paris, and seems inclined hymned the greatness and power of the Czar to abide by it. The question of Italy, the was justified in its praises, and that a Rus- question of Spain and Mexico, need present no insuperable difficulties. The two Emperors, should they discuss the affairs of Europe, will find as little field for pacification as there is opportunity for disturbance. From The Times 24 Sept ENGLAND AND INDIA. WHAT is happening to us in India cannot be represented by any of the ordinary types But there is one point to which the two of misfortune. Earthquake, disease, mutilaSovereigns may turn their attention. Europe tion, and such natural images are employed has at last, after the struggle of centuries, to describe confusion, agony, prostration, and established the principle of national inde- difficulty. But they suppose only a partial pendence. It may be said to be now part of loss, or a degree of suffering. In this inpublic law that no State of our community, stance the very thing that constituted our however poor, or perverse, or ill-behaved strength and our substantial existence is not shall be conquered or despoiled. The merely injured and weakened, nor does it Turkish Empire and Sweden have just been merely disappear; it is turned against us; it solemly guaranteed the integrity of their has become our deadly foe and our imminent territory, and each of the great military peril. We held India as a great military States repudiates the notion of offensive war. Power, and as a military Power we may be Why, then, should the continent bristle with said at this moment to have ceased-worse bayonets, and every city echo with the roll of than ceased, inasmuch as our own power is drums and the challenge of sentinels? Why that against which we have to contend for should young men be torn by hundreds of existence. A disembodied army we know by thousands from the plough to pass years of our home experience may be a very harmless military idleness in barracks and camps, while thing. But in India we are now realizing the women hoe the cabbage-ground or carry bas- metaphysical conception of a body at war kets of earth on their backs up the hill-side with the spirit, possessed with an evil spirit vineyards? If the French Empire means of its own, and fighting against its proper peace, if the Russian Empire means railways soul. Even Mezentius did not inagine so and corn-crops, let the world have the benefit horrid an idea; and it would require the fanof the change. Where no one wishes to tastic genius of Dante to do it justice. To strike, there can be no need of this unchang- take another more familiar simile. A short ing posture of defence. War itself is hardly year since we trod the deck of a mighty vesa greater evil than such an exhausting pre- sel, proud of its strength, its vastness, its paration for it. The two Sovereigns who will beauty, and, above all, its absolute and unmeet in a few days at Stuttgart rule the shaken security. Year after year, alike in nations which, in the opinion of the world; calm and in storm, under all possible circumare the great obstacles to a general disarma- stances, it had borne us where we wished. ment. Every one knows that Prussia and In sacred phrase, it was that wherein we Austria are not aggressive Powers. Eng- trusted. We could not but trust it, and that land, of course, desires not an inch of ground confidence had become a second nature. All on the continent of Europe, and is prosper- at once it leaks, it fills, it settles down, it ous in proportion to the peace and prosperity crashes, it bursts, it sinks in the waves. But of the continent. It is France and Russia it was that whereon we walked. It was our which by their armaments continually menace the quiet of Europe. We firmly believe that France in the present day has no appetite for conquest, and that her vast army is kept up in a great degree in deference to certain traditions of former days. But the French have nothing now to fear from AngloAustrian or Anglo-Russian coalitions, and half their enormous army might beat its swords into ploughshares with perfect safety. If Napoleon III. can promote a general disbanding of levies which are now unneeded for any good purpose, this jubilee of Tilsit I will not have been held in vain. stand and footing. When it sinks beneath our feet we are left helpless. In its faithfulness all is gone, for the present at least Half an hour ago we were a floating city, a little State, a world of our own. Now we are drifting here and there in the waste of waters, catching, if fortune favors, at a plank, a spar, a tub, or a hencoop. Perhaps a boat has been launched; more likely it has been swamped or crushed; perhaps a raft has been hastily constructed, and half-a-dozen sailors are fighting for dear life against sun and storm, hunger and thirst. But this is all that remains of the noble craft that lately trod the waves like a thing of life. The stronger hold upon India than this one has Eastern story of the sailors who landed on a proved to be. It is now said we have to regreen island, made a fire, and began to cook conquer India. That expresses the very natheir dinner, when the monster, as it turned ture of the task, though only half of it, for out to be, went under and left them adrift, we have to reconquer India organized, disciapproaches to the case of a whole army in plined, trained, armed, provisioned,, fortified, mutiny. But it only approaches, for the re- emboldened by ourselves. It is a task far ceding mass re-appears and forms itself anew greater than that which offered itself to us a into a fearful antagonist. Yet it is that which century ago. We can only now succeed by we created. Suppose Frankenstein hunted the extraordinary prowess of the British soldown by his monster; suppose Prospero dier making up for the most fearful odds; mastered by Caliban and his drunken associ- and even that would now be utterly unavailates; and we have a faint image of our con- ing, but for another means equally the subdition. The theory was that we held and ject of invidious scepticism. We could not governed India by means of itself. We are now march 1,500 miles right through India now at deadly issue with "itself," and have to with a handful of men, opposed everywhere destroy it by means of India. When that is by a magnificent army of our own creation, done we have to consider how to hold and and with every advantage of possession, ungovern India for the future, for the first in- less we enjoyed the confidence and goodwill strument is gone. of the native population. When we resume our position there, will our neighbors who now tell us candidly all is lost, then tell us as candidly how we have recovered it? It can only be done by virtues which must then be conceded to us, with whatever 'reluctance. We must be a nation of soldiers; and, what is more, we must have the qualities for attaching to us those less powerful nations whom the fortune of war throws upon our hands. No doubt such a mishap can be an object of deep and dispassionate interest to our European neighbors. Here is England, little England, so lavish of her money, but so thrifty of her men, with an army of sentries, which shortens the muster-roll to burden the Army List,-what will she do to replace the boasted weapon which she borrowed from India to turn against her? Dire indeed must the extremity be when the first thing to be done is utterly to destroy that which constituted our power, and when it can only be replaced from the same vitiated or suspected materials. Well, let us wait and see. Let our neighbors have their say and speak out. From their own mouths let us accept candid testimony to the condition out of which we have to emerge. The event will show how we really do hold and govern India. The Bengal army is no more. A hundred thousand men are lost to us, and the greater part are in arms against us. That noble body of born and bred soldiers by the aid of which we have conquered and annexed so many rich territories and warlike tribes, and which dissipated in a few days the dark cloud from the Punjab to which our European neighbors had long pointed with expectancy, is now sternly bent on numbering England in the long list of its conquests. If it was ever true that the native army was the whole or nearly the whole, of our strength in India, then our empire would indeed be now in its last hour. But the world will shortly find they must give us credit for other resources and a On this point, so far, the evidence of facts is most cheering. The mutineers have not the confidence or sympathy of the general population. The natives plainly understand that the cause of order, security to life and property, religious liberty, justice, and humanity, are involved in the British rule. We must not confound first appearances or exceptional incidents with the evident tenor of their conduct. There are in India those who in fact, war on the population, and at such a crisis do it the last injury of seeming to take its place. There are robber tribes who traverse India, sometimes on the move, and sometimes settled, by the chance of war and politics, in particular localities. There are military populations. There are still the immediate descendants of marauders who, within living memory, have won for themselves principalities, and some of whom can still muster men for any cause. There are a over India, as elsewhere, bad subjects, simple ruffians, men who live by light wits and light fingers. Carrying our British humanity with us, we have not followed the example of former rulers in disposing of such men summa all the North-Western provinces of Hindostan, except a few stations, and when 70,000 men are in arms against us, our relations with the country at large are just as usual. From the walls of Delhi all the way to the Sutlej, on the west, and the Himalayas on the north our communications are uninterrupted; we have the services of men and cattle at our command; we have supplies as abundant and cheap as before the mutiny; and to all military purposes the country is our own. With few exceptions the native chiefs befriend us, give shelter, carriage, and escort to our fugitives, and do this without expecting to offend their immediate neighbors. Here, then, we have that resource which is stronger than the sword, and which some people have been slow to credit us with-we have a secure place and a solid foundation in the confidence of the people. That remains when the army of Bengal has turned against us; and by it, as well as by British prowess, we shall speedily recover our position in India. rily and finally; but we try them, give them | lagers and those of mutineers, professional every chance, and then put them in prison, robbers, and disorderly tribes. Even at this where they are cared for and guarded at no moment, when we may be said to have lost small cost to the treasury. At every important station we have had several thousand such prisoners, and incredible numbers even at stations hardly known to this country. For all this century we have been engaged in the most incessant and laborious attempts to extinguish Dacoitee, Thuggee, professional poisoning, and other systems and classes of crime. The mutiny has of course released all these mischievous elements, which have immediately, and by a species of necessity, followed their natural instinct. The release of crowds of murderers and robbers from prison, the flocking of others from the villages, and the stimulus given to latent roguery by the prospect of plunder "beyond the dreams of avarice," and absolute license for everything bad, would account for almost any extent of outrage in most places in the world. But in India there certainly is a good deal of innate barbarism which ages of gaudy magnificence, grotesque poetry, and dreamy metaphysics have not smoothed away. All history there, public or private, is a catalogue of horrors. Massacres, assassinations, generally of the most treacherous kind, tortures, usually for the discovery of supposed treasure, long-cherished revenges, and extensive conspiracies, have there constituted the ordinary tenor of events. Every Indian rajah or gentleman has looked upon the British as very dull fellows, with no relish for this kind of sport, and has hated them for standing guard between uncles and nephews, between the children of different wives, the partizans of rival viziers, and all sorts of people who would otherwise long ago have disposed of one another after their own fashion. All this has broken out, and the saying of" Hell let loose" does not mean more. But, nevertheless, there is a simple, industrious population, attached to their homes, struggling hard for life, who have found England their friend. It is not to be denied that the occupation They see and feel that we are humane, just, of this famous city was a piece of great good and true. They see that life and property fortune for the mutineers. Delhi is the only are safer under us than under the tyranny of town of Hindostan where the ancient fortifithe Moguls or the utter lawlessness of the cations have been kept in repair, and these Mahrattas. They are on our side. As a defences-not very considerable in themselves rule, the villagers have not risen against even-have been strengthened by some additions our poor fugitives. The narratives of escape from British engineers. Of still greater immust, indeed, be read with care, in order to portance to the revolters was the Arsenal, distinguish between the acts of ordinary vil-which supplied them with guns for the ram From The Times, 24 Sept SIEGE OF DELHI. THE sympathies and interest of the nation have recently been so absorbed in the fortunes of General Havelock and his troops on their advance from the lower provinces of India, that attention has been somewhat diverted from the spot which at first arrested the thoughts of all. The siege of Delhi, however, by the latest accounts still proceeded, and though the operations to which that term is rather loosely applied have not yet been directed towards any immediate or decisive result, they have been successfully conducted, and have probably tended upon the whole as much to the advantage of the Government and the damage of the rebellion as any tactics which could have been adopted. parts, with abundant ammunition, and with the large reinforcements which it was exall the small arms they could require. The pected would reach our camp in the course Treasury, too, was richly stored, and in gene- of last month the chief part by far would ral opulence, population, and resources the have proceeded from these districts. Our city had no superior in native India. .To communications, too, in this direction have these advantages we may add that of its been admirably maintained. On the western position which was in the very focus of dis- banks of the Jumna the Hindostanee eleaffection. The adjacent provinces represent ment begins to lose its predominance in the the cradle and hotbed of Hindostanee population, and the Sikh chiefs on this side fanaticism. It was from these parts that the the Sutlej who have been for some time high cast Sepoys were drawn, and the under British protection have thrown themrevolters accordingly when established at selves into the cause of Government and Delhi found themselves exempt from any order with a cordiality and faithfulness leavsuch popular hostility as their brethren ex- ing nothing to be desired. In some instances perienced in the Punjab. they have brought their retainers to the camp in person; in all they have provided us with unfailing and invaluable supplies. The result is seen in an open and secure line of communication with the Punjab and its resources. At one time the rebels had succeeded in occupying the cross road from Delhi to Meerut, but Meerut itself, Mozuffernuggur, Umballah, and all beyond and around we still hold and control, while, at the same time, the comparative proximity of such a force as that at Delhi reacts with a certain beneficial effect on the Punjab itself. Yet, notwithstanding these favorable conditions, it is undisputable that the balance of advantages has been on the side of the Government. At first, of course, the march of our forces upon Delhi was suggested by the natural and instinctive desire of closing at once with the enemy in the quarters where he was to be found, but when it appeared that the strength of the mutineers precluded the idea of an immediate assault, and our own position had been taken up outside the city, the value of such a position became speedily visible. As this inaction itself presumed Our position has, by these circumstances, such a numercial inferiority on our side as been rendered extremely favorable to the rendered it expedient to wait for reinforce- health and spirits of the men; and the ments, it is obvious that under such circum- reader, indeed, had an opportunity of obstances the conditions most desirable were serving, from some letters which we pubthat we should be as near as possible to our lished on Monday last, to what a remarkable source of succor, preserve our communica- extent these advantages had been developed. tions uninterrupted, and engage the largest Not only were "supplies as plentiful and amount of the rebel force while maintaining cheap" in the camp "as they would be in ourselves in security and good plight. All the best regulated cantonments," but the these conditions were satisfied by our encampment before Delhi. The Punjab, as we explained the other day, promised more speedy and more ample reinforcements than could be expected from Calcutta. It contained some 10,000 European soldiers, with a population destitute of all sympathy with the revolters, and was under energetic government. At the first outbreak, indeed, of the mutiny the only effective communication which our commanders could maintain was with Sir John Lawrence, who was then at Rawul Pindee, and but a short time elapsed before troops were pushed across the Sutlej to the support of the Delhi force. Recently the complete pacification of the Punjab has enabled its authorities to despatch succours in considerably greater numbers, but of all condition of the troops was quite extraordi- |