Native Troops, East India Company's Service, 1812

Aquatint by J C Stadler after Charles Hamilton Smith, 1812.

The armies of the East India Company were recruited from Indian peoples that had their own long traditions of soldiering on the sub-continent. They combined their own military skills with western weapons and the military training provided by the Company. The figures depicted here include cavalrymen from the Body Guard of the Governor General and the Bengal Regular Cavalry, alongside a private of the Java Volunteers.

From Charles Hamilton Smith's 'Costumes of the Army of the British Empire, according to the last regulations 1812', published by Colnaghi and Company, 1812-1815.