'History of the Indian Navy. (1613-1863).' [‎493] (512/622)

HISTORY OP THE INDIAN NAVY.
493
with such testimonials to good conduct in quarters, and steadi
ness in the field, as are supplied by the letters of Colonel Knox,
of the 67th, the Superintendent of Alipore jail. Colonel Haugh-
ton, the Commissioners of Patna and Chota Nagpore, and the
Military Commanders under whom they served in action.
After taking their discharge, a large number of the seamen were
so enamoured of soldiering, that they enlisted, strangely enough,
into the mounted corps, the Horse Artillery and the Cavalry.
The full meed of justice has never been awarded to the
officers of the Indian Navy, who trained and led the Detach
ments of the Naval Brigade. Yet, beyond the War Medal,
which those Detachments who were engaged with the enemy
received, in common with the Army, and the two Victoria
Crosses, to which the recipients would have been equally en
titled had they been private soldiers, not a solitary decoration
was conferred on an officer of the Service. Properly to gauge
the difficulties under which they laboured, it should be borne in
mind that the men, with the exceptions of the Detachments
under the command of Commander Batt and Lieutenants Lewis,
Carew, and Duval, were recruited from the merchant ships in
the Hooghly, and chiefly consisted of the most adventurous and
turbulent spirits among the crews; also, that the time of training
in Fort William, under those smart officers and strict disci
plinarians, Lieutenants Sweny, Warden, Duval, and Hellard,
was very brief, and that, the supply of commissioned officers
being limited, the Lieutenants had to depend for assistance, in
managing their men, upon inexperienced mates of merchant
ships, unacquainted with small-arm or gun drill, and unac
customed to the strict discipline of Martial Law.^ That such
unpromising material as these seamen and subordinate officers
should, when broken up into small parties, under the most
trying circumstances, such as service in the deadly jungles ot
Chota Nagpore or the remote solitudes of Upper Assam, peitorm
their duty with the orderly discipline of veteran soldiers, speaks
more highly for the efficiency and devotion to duty ot the
officers of the Indian Navy, than could any words of eulogmm
on the part of a brother officer, who may be accused ot par
tiality—a deadly sin in an historian. i ^ j. +
It is a thankless and unwelcome task to refer to the treatment,
alike unjust and ungenerous, to which the Indian Navy was
subiected by the Government, or to contrast it with that re
ceived by the Royal Navy. The ' Shannon' Brigade was formed
on the 14th of August, 1857, and that of the ' Pearl on the 14th
September; the former served exactly a year on shore, ana tne
' Pearl' Brigade fifteen months. On the other hand, the Naval
Detachments from the 'Punjaub,' 'Coromandel, 'Aucklan , an
' Zenobia,' were disembarked in June and July, 1857, ana, in
conjunction with the Queen's troops, which those ships brought