§ MR. VANSITTARTsaid, he rose to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he has received any information regarding the excitement which has prevailed among the late East India Company's European regiments, consequent upon the withholding of the alternative of re-enlisting with new bounty or of being discharged, on the occasion of the transfer of their services to the Crown; and if so, whether he has reason to believe that such excitement no longer exists.
§ SIR CHARLES WOODsaid, the House was aware that information had reached this country that a certain degree of excitement prevailed at two or three stations, and some discontent more generally, on the part of the soldiers of the East India Company, on being transferred to the service of the Queen without any fresh bounty, a transfer which they regarded in the light of a re-enlistment. He believed that the claim was totally unfounded, and that from the investigation which was now going on it appeared that those men had all forgotten the oath they had taken. On one occasion when that oath was shown to one of them he declared that he had no reason to complain, and that bad he known its terms he should not have acted as he had done. The matter was the subject of an inquiry still pending. He was happy to say that the discontent on the part of the men was very much subsiding, but he could give no more decisive answer until he knew the result of that inquiry.