Chapter SEETULPUTTY to SEPOY of S by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

ever had … say that he considered them no otherwise than as so many Seapoys; for acting under blacks they became mere blacks in spirit.”—Price, Some Observations, 95–96.

1789.—

“There was not a captain, nor scarce a seapoy,
But a Prince would depose, or a Bramin destroy.''

Letter of Simpkin the Second, &c., 8.

1803.—“Our troops behaved admirably; the sepoys astonished me.”—Wellington ii. 384.

1827.—“He was betrothed to the daughter of a Sipahee, who served in the mud-fort which they saw at a distance rising above the jungle.”—Sir W. Scott, The Surgeon’s Daughter, ch. xiii.

1836.—“The native army of the E. I. Company. … Their formation took place in 1757. They are usually called sepoys, and are light and short.”—In R. Phillips, A Million of Facts, 718.

1881.—“As early as A.D. 1592 the chief of Sind had 200 natives dressed and armed like Europeans: these were the first ‘sepoys.’”—Burton’s Camoens, A Commentary, ii. 445.

The French write cipaye or cipai:

1759.—“De quinze mille Cipayes dont l’armée est censée composée, j’en compte à peu près huit cens sur la route de Pondichery, chargé de sucre et de poivre et autres marchandises, quant aux Coulis, ils sont tous employés pour le même objet.”—Letter of Lally to the Governor of Pondicherry, in Cambridge’s Account, p. 150.

c. 1835–38.—

“Il ne criant ni Kriss ni zagaies,
Il regarde l’homme sans fuir,
Et rit des balles des cipayes
Qui rebondissent sur son cuir.”

Th. Gautier, L’Hippopotame

.

Since the conquest of Algeria the same word is common in France under another form, viz., spahi. But the Spahi is totally different from the sepoy, and is in fact an irregular horseman. With the Turks, from whom the word is taken, the spahi was always a horseman.

1554.—“Aderant magnis muneribus praepositi multi, aderant praetoriani equites omnes Sphai, Garipigi, Ulufagi, Gianizarorum magnus numerus, sed nullus in tanto conventu nobilis nisi ex suis virtutibus et fortibus factis.”—Busbeq, Epistolue, i. 99.

[1562.—“The Spachi, and other orders of horsemen.”—J. Shute, Two Comm. (Tr.) fol. 53 ro. Stanf. Dict. where many early instances of the word will be found.]

1672.—“Mille ou quinze cents Spahiz, tous bien équippés et bien montés … terminoient toute ceste longue, magnifique, et pompeuse cavalcade.”—Journal d’Ant. Galland, i. 142.

1675.—“The other officers are the sardar (Sirdar), who commands the Janizaries … the Spahi Aga, who commands the Spahies or Turkish Horse.”—Wheeler’s Journal, 348.

[1686.—“I being providentially got over the river before the Spie employed by them could give them intelligence.”—Hedges, Diary, Hak. Soc. i. 229.]

1738.—“The Arab and other inhabitants are obliged, either by long custom … or from fear and compulsion, to give the Spahees and their company the mounah … which is such a sufficient quantity of provision for ourselves, together with straw and barley for our mules and horses.”—Shaw’s Travels in Barbary, ed. 1757, p. xii.

1786.—“Bajazet had two years to collect his forces … we may discriminate the janizaries … a national cavalry, the Spahis of modern times.”—Gibbon, ch. lxv.

1877.—“The regular cavalry was also originally composed of tribute children. … The sipahis acquired the same preeminence among the cavalry which the janissaries held among the infantry, and their seditious conduct rendered them much sooner troublesome to the Government.”—Finlay, H. of Greece, ed. 1877, v. 37.