e on their pay, and did
in every regiment live on their pay.” This statement, however, seems
to refer to the days of the Peninsular War, and not to the long peace
that followed it. With greater wealth in the country came also among
all classes greater luxury, though possibly by slow degrees. General
Wetherall, however, though he “knew a great many examples of men who
had passed, and had been many years in the army without a shilling
besides their pay, and who had saved money upon it,” considered a young
officer should have “a minimum of £60 and a maximum of £100 per annum
in addition to his pay.” Colonel Adams gave as his opinion: “You can
never get one person out of fifty to enter into any studies whatever
when once they have got their commission.” This was the general feeling
during the period from 1825 to 1858. There is no doubt that the Crimean
War first, and the Mutiny finally, altered much of this; but the change
was very gradual none the less.

Turn now to the military history of the time in which these men lived.
During the period under review, from 1825 to 1858 and afterwards, there
were hostilities in the Levant in 1840-41, at Beirouth, D’Jebaila,
Ornagacuan, Sidon, and Acre, under Sir Charles Napier, but these
were mainly naval operations, in which the Royal Marines only of the
army shared; and a second war occurred in Burmah in 1852, which will
be dealt with in a later chapter; as also will the wars with China
beginning in 1839, which resulted in the cession of the island of Hong
Kong to Great Britain. There were also disturbances at Aden, suppressed
by the 5th Foot and the Bombay European Regiment in 1840.

But before the Crimean War there were important campaigns fought in
the Indian Peninsula which had important results. These were the first
wars with the Afghans, that with the Ameers of Scinde, and the two
Sikh campaigns. The first of these, that with Afghanistan, was induced
by causes somewhat similar to those which caused a recrudescence of
hostilities many years later. What we