INDIA. (From the Morning Chronicle, March 7.)

New Zealander, Volume 5, Issue 319, 20 June 1849, Page 3

INDIA. (From the Morning Chronicle , March 7.)

The cheering announcement with which, yesterday afternoon, the Prime Minister greeted the House of Commons, will be received with heartfelt satisfaction by all classes and parties of our countrymen. Her Majesty has been pleaded to appoint General bir Charles Jdines Napier Coinmander-in Chief of the Forces in India ; and the Conqueror of Sciude has accepted the critical responsibilities and the penlous honours conveyed in that act of Hoyal confidence. The Court of Diiectors of the East India Company meet this day, for the pu'pose of giving final and iouual ratification to the Sovereign's choice j and General Napiei leaves our shores, with the Indian mail, to be himselt the bearer ol a messoge that will put new heart and life into 'he brave defenders of our Eastern Empire. A few brief weeks— and the magnificent Army of the Funjaub wjll feel Itie inspiring presence of tUe

fittest man in the Queen's dominions to lead it to victory. Alost cordially do we congratulate the country on tfic promptitude and completeness with which the difficulties that once appeared to stand in the way of this appointment have yielded to considerations of patriotism and public duty. We were, indeed, persuaded, from the nist, tiiat it could not lie otherwise ; and we will not now pay the Directors of the East India Company the equivocal compliment of assuming that their wise and generous superiority to personal and private feeling;, hi the discharge of their functions of delegated sovereignty, has been in any respect, a difficult virtue. On this suhject it is enough to Scty, that the public will appreciate the sound judgment and admirable temper with which, at the call of a great emergency, the rulers of our Indian Empire have resolutely unnoted all considerations save those bi fitting their high responsible lities, and their historical name and fanie« We isliictantly pass to another topic, of a far less welcome description. It has been our wish, in all our comments on the recent disastious occurrences in the I'unjaub, to bear as lightly as possible on the military faults of the General whom, happily, we may now speak of as the late Cominanderin-Chief. But there is, at least, 01 c obvious limit to this forbearance. We must not spaie Laid Cough, at the expense of those gallant troops whose momentary breach of discipline was the comparatively vcuirtl consequence of his amazing neglect of the p. imary duties of generalship, cincl whose apparent forgetfuluess of their wonted valour is solely eh trgeable on tlie ma'ness th.it lecklcssly thrust them ino a cruelly false position. Already we have suggested — though only as a distant possibility— the existence of some undiscovered "palliative" for the calamitous shoit comings of certain corps of our army, during the engagement of the 13th January. It is now our duty to state, that since we last adverted to this painful subject, new evidence has come before v*, which, while it adds peculiar giavity to the censures universally pronounced on the military conduct of the Commander, tends, in the same proportion, to exonerate the men. We pray the reader's special attention to the following extract of a letter from Major-General Sir Joseph Thackwell to a near connection in England, dated Dec. 28, 1848, and written, therefore, move than a fortnight before the late battle, and while Lord Uouglt was still a* a distance from the Sikh entienchmcits oa the Jhelum : — " On the Ist December I inarched to cross the Chenaub, to turn tlic left of Sherc Singh's iirniy. 'I he operation was successful ; but on the 3rd December, at Soodalaporo— owing to orders and counter orders— the approach of night, and the strong position of the Sikh right and centre, with strong entrenchments near, prevented my taking the guns from between 20,000 and 30,000 men. I had 28 guns, the 3rd Light Dragoons, sth and Bth Light Cavalry, and two companies of the 3rd Irregulars, Her Majesty's 24th and 61 st, and 25th, 31st, 36ih, 46th, and six companies of the aanrt and sCth Native Infantry— between 6.U00 and 7.000 men. The enemy lost about 500 killed and wounded. The loss of the British was veiy small; no officer lulled and very few men, lam here 16 miles from Ramnuggur, and the Comniander»in* Chief is eight miles in my rear. 1 have with me 53 guns, the 3rd, 9ih, and 14th Dragoons, the sth and Bth Light Cavuliy, H, M. 2'lth and fiist, the 2nd European Regiment, the 25th, 31 t, 36th, 4fith, 56th, and 70th Native Infantry. Sheie Singh is on the Jhelum, at Moongh, about 13 miles in my front ; but there is an impracticable jungle y of six or eight miles through, which would make it most hazardous to attack them. If there were opeuings in the jungle where our co'nmns could c osf up, it might do ; but none such exist ; and I saw quite enough to convince me, in the four miles I went into it, ot its ditucnlties, and that far lengthened columns to debouch upon the Sikh position, bruthng with guns, would be very unwise.'' So, then, it was even worse than we had thought.— The accounts were not exactly comxt, in stating that I "the k round had ii"t yet been leconnoitered. 1 ' The I ground had been rcconnoitered, by the brave and cautious Genet al second in comnvmd, upwards of a fortnight before our hatrassed and jade 1 troops were oidered to make their insane rush on an invisible e-iemy, entrenched among ambuscade batteries. Loid Gougn might, therefo c— but for his own taslii ess and disregard of the advice of his officers -have known, without any need of further recaunoitering, that it was "an impracticable jungle, of six or eight miles through," in wh'icn he was about to squander brave men's lives, and to risk, not only the loss of a battle, but the destruction of an ai my. But we have no wish to amplify on this painful topic. It is not hi oidcr to heap redundant censures on Lord Goughs stupendous eriois of military Judgment and tempei , that we adduce this iie\v illustration of the nature of that deplorable conflict — but to place in its true light the conduct of our troops. The commonest justice to our Indian army demands that it should be distinctly known, that the pressure under which discipline partially gave way, and tried valour was momentarily forgotten, was such as no troops in the world could be rationally expected to endure. It was in a pathless an d* impracticable jungle," where columns could neither " debonch" nor ''close up," that the retreat of one corps degenerated into a disorderly flight, and that another hesitated and wavered in its advance. It was under circumstances which rendered both attack and defence little short of a physical impossibility, that a portion of our troops failed, for the instant, in the cardinal soldierly virtue of unquestioning obedience. In a word the misconduct of the cot ps in question, however reprehensible in a strict military point of view, was, alter all, but one of those momentary, partial, and more than half excusable—because little less than inevitable— breaches oC discipline and order, which the bravest of men may commit, under bad gene alship, but which they may be safely trusted to repair, at the first fitting opportunity. We will answer for it, that, before this J?un jaub war is over, the wot Id wll hear of those regiments again, in prominent connection with some exploit of gallant and successtul dating ; and we venture to say that the new Commander-in-Chief, in apportioning the distribution of posts of danger and honour, will rely as heartily on the enthusiastic courage and fidelity of the few who have a reputation to recover, as on the steady valour of the many who, despite odds so fearlul, no only averted utter defeat, but achieved a quasi victory.

Union Bank of Australia, Jan. 22—Half-yearly meeting. 38. Old Broad-street, W.lson, Esq., hi the chair. The report is dated London, December, 31* ;■—

The statement of pnfit shows a balance of undivided profit up to the 31st December, JB4B, of £'50.800 S)s» 5d The reserve fund at the end of Urc. amounted to £59 606 13s. sd. It was Mine) tl.at the liabiluks of tbecooip.njr were about £500,iiCO, £400,000 being the amount of deposits in the bank, and £100,000 the amount of the emulation.—The repoit having been adopted, a dividend of 3 percent, for tue halt-yeai, with a bonus of ss. per share, was declared, aud Uia mwling separated,—Atl<U, January %?>

LIABILITIES. JK I. 0. Bills payable 53,327 5 8 sundry balances 8,192 14 7 Llc»ervefund(lO percent) £09,666 13 5 Profit tnd loss 50,800 9 5 ► 110,467 2 10 Paid up capital 820,000 0 0 £991,987 3 I ASSETS. ■ 3rnnch accounts (ba'ance) ..£491,494 9 8 Bi'ls receivable 28,218 16 1 Investments, government stock, and loans on secuiity 458,790 16 2 Insurances, and open policies, &c. . . 7, OSS 3 t 3aih 6,314 18 1 £991,937 3 1