text:  "India " again to quote his own words on a late public occasion "was won by the sword;" yet the military spirit of the army on which the preservation of our empire depends had been damped and its efficiency wofully impaired by the injudicious reductions introduced by Lord William Bentinck and persevered in by his successor; and the reverses and losses of the Affghan war following close in the train of these ill-advised measures had produced a disaffection for the service and deterioration in the _morale_ of the sepoys from which evil auguries were drawn by those best acquainted with the peculiar temperament of the native soldiery