I I 1 * * I I 1 /? * '& ./ "*<>. 4r S % ^ *o. *. \ #' % i: KOVAL FAMILY CASTES AND CREEDS IN THE INDIAN ARMY, 161, 162 CHAPTER X. OUDE, ROHILCUND, AND THE DOAB : JUNE, . 163 CHAPTER XI. CENTRAL REGIONS OF INDIA : JUNE, . 176 CHAPTER XII. EVENTS IN THE PUNJAUB AND SINDE, . . 191 NOTES. MILITARY DIVISIONS OF INDIA AKMIE8 OF INDIA AT THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE MUTINY, 208 CHAPTER XIII. PREPARATIONS : CALCUTTA AND LONDON, . 210 NOTE, 227 CHAPTKB XIV. THE SIEGE OF DELHI : JUNE AND JULY, . . 230 CHAPTER XV. HAVELOCK'S CAMPAIGN: ALLAHABAD TO LUCK- NOW, 2*7 CHAPTER XVI. THE D1NAPOOR MUTINY, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES, 264 CHAPTER XVII. MINOR MUTINIES: JULY AND AUGUST, . 277 NOTE. THE BRITISH AT THE MILITARY STATIONS, 29 ** vi CONTENTS. CHAPTER XVIII. CHAPTER XXVII. pagb PAGE THE SIEGE OF DELHI : FINAL OPERATIONS, . 295 DISCUSSIONS ON REBEL PUNISHMENTS, 446 CHAPTER XIX. THE STORY OF THE LUCKNOW RESIDENCY, . 316 NOTE. BRIGADIER INGLIS'S DISPATCH, . 336 CHAPTER XXVIII. MILITARY OPERATIONS IN APRIL, 462 CHAPTER XX. NOTE. NATIVE POLICE OF INDIA, 480 MINOR CONFLICTS : SEPTEMBER AND OCTOBER, 338 CHAPTER XXIX. CHAPTER XXI. PROGRESS OF EVENTS IN MAY, 482 THE RESCUE AT LUCKNOW, BY SIR COLIN NOTE. TRANSPORT OF TROOPS TO INDIA, 501 NOTE. CAVANACIl'.S ADVENTURE, . . 371 CHAPTER XXX. CHAPTER XXII. ROSE'S VICTORIES AT CALPEE AND GWALIOR, . 504 CLOSING EVENTS OF THE YEAR, . . . 374 NOTES. PROPOSED RE- ORGANISATION OF THE INDIAN ARMY PROPOSED INQUIRY CHAPTER XXXI. INTO THE CAUSES OF THE MUTINY, 386, 387 STATE OF AFFAIRS AT THE END OF JUNE, NOTE. QUEEN'S REGIMENTS IN INDIA IN 517 CHAPTER XXIII. 535 A SECOND YEAR OF REBELLION, . . . 388 CHAPTER XXXII. CHAPTER XXIV. MILITARY OPERATIONS IN FEERUARY, . . 398 GRADUAL PACIFICATION IN THE AUTUMN, 537 NOTES. SIR COLIN CAMPBELL'S ARMY OF OUDE MOHAMMEDAN REEEL LEADERS, 409,410 CHAPTER XXXIII. CHAPTER XXV. LAST DAYS OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY'S RULE 561 FINAL CONQUEST OF LUCKNOW: MARCH, . 412 NOTE. LUCKNOW PROCLAMATIONS, . 427 SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER. CHAPTER XXVI. 1. THE PERSIAN EXPEDITION, 1856-7, 578 MINOR EVENTS IN MARCH, .... 429 2. THE CHINESE AND JAPANESE EXPEDITIONS, NOTES. 'COVENANTED' AND ' UNCOVE- 1856 7 8, 585 NANTED ' SERVICE COLLECTORS AND 3. ENGLISH PROSPECTS IN THE EAST, . 604 A P P E KB IX. EAST INDIA COMPANY'S PETITION TO PARLIA- ABSTRACT OF ACT FOR THE BETTER GOVERN- MENT, JANUARY 1858, ... G13 MENT OF INDIA RECEIVED ROYAL ASSENT EAST INDIA COMPANY'S OBJECTIONS TO THE 622 FIRST AND SECOND INDIA BILLS: APRIL THE INDIAN MUTINY RELIEF FUND, 623 QUEEN VICTORIA'S PROCLAMATION TO THE EAST INDIA COMPANY'S OBJECTIONS TO THE PRINCES, CHIEFS, AND PEOPLE OF INDIA, 623 THIRD INDIA BILL : JUNE 1858, . . .621 VISCOUNT CANNING'S PROCLAMATION, 624 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE, . . 625 629 INDEX, LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAQI Delhi, 1 Initial Letter, .... 1 Tail-piece, ..... 13 Initial Letter, .... n Boats on the Q*l 19 Pslamiuin, ..... u Indian Don 12 . . . . . M Troops on the March, 80 Initial Letter, ..... n no, itta, ..... -ii 43 i il-housc at Calcutta, 47 King Ihi, .... 48 Initial Letter, .... Laboratory at ID ... 66 l);*ik Runner, .... Initi;. .... 59 Bird's-eye view of Delhi. From a Coloured Jtho- graph by A. Maclure ; taken from Original I Jativo Drawings, .... G4 vdah of an Indian Prince, G8 King of Delhi, ... 89 Initial Letter, ..... 09 ipc from Delhi, . . . . 7:? Delhi from 11a. . . 7C Elephant and State Howd;.h, 81 Lucknow, ..... 82 Initial Letter, . 82 ""fin Henry Lawrence, !'2 dency at Lucknow, . 98 Kkah, or Officer's Travelling Wagon, 98 n] View of Calcutta from Fort William, 97 Initial Letter, .... 17 Chat on il. 105 City and Fort of Allahabad, . . 108 Agra Fort, ...... 109 Nynee Tal a Refuge for European Fugitives, . 110 Palanquin, ...... 120 Parade-ground, Cawnpore, . 121 . 121 Sahib. From a Picture painted at Bith x>r in by Mr Beechy, Portrait-painter to the Kj ng of Oude, ..... . 124 The Intrenchment at Cawnpore, . Plan of Sir H. Whe.b-r's Inuenchnunt at Cawnpore. From an Official Su. ..t Cawnpore, in which the Women and Children were massacred, . The Well ft* I House of the Rajah at Allahabad, Initial Letter, . . . . ss of the fttfa NfttiVB Infantry at Allahabad, ..... Sikh Cavalry, ..... Initial Letter, ...... Simla, the Sumim I I > mor-general of India, ...... Tomb at Futtehpore Sikri, Initial Lett ..... Fort of Mhow, ..... Girls at the Gang. .... Akali of the Sikhs, .... Initial Letter, ...... Sir John Lawrence, .... Camel and Rider, ..... Catholic Church, Sirdhana; built by Begum Sumroo, Sir On. in Campi . .... Initial Letter, ..... 1 View of Madras. From a Drawing by Thomas Daniell, ...... Bombay. From a View in the Library of the East India Company, ..... Jumma Musjid, Agra; Mosque built by Shah .d km inlGSG, . . . . . Initial Letter, ..... Su; Henry Barnard, .... HINDOO Pah's House Battery in hunt, The Ceneral and his Staff at the Mosque Picket before Delhi, ..... General Wilson, ..... Engineer Officers in Battery before Delhi, Bullock-wagon, .... i : \KY H.WELOCK, .... Initial Letter, ..... Plan of Action near Cawnpore, July 18, U Plan of Action near Bithoor, August 16, 1857, Brioadieb-general Neill, Initial Letter, ..... PAGE 128 129 ill ii; 147 147 187 182 183 ITS L78 17G L8S WO 191 191 183 205 209 210 210 21G 217 229 230 232 237 240 244 246 24(1 247 247 252 287 281 viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE Major Vincent Eyre, .... 265 PAGE Obelisk built on the Site of the Black Hole, Calcutta. Mr Boyle's House at Arrah, defended for seven days From a Drawing in the India House, . 441 against 3000 rebels, . . . .269 Group of Indian Arms, . 445 Initial Letter, ..... 277 Zemindar, Hindoo Landowner, . 446 Tort at Agra, from the river Jumna, . . 281 Initial Letter, ..... . 446 Mount Aboo Military Sanatarium in Rajpootana, 292 East India House, ..'... 452 Native Musicians at a Sepoy Station, . . 294 Ganges Transport Boat, . . . . 461 Brigadier-general Nicholson. Copied by permis- Jung Bahadooe, of Nepaul, . . 462 sion from a Portrait published by Messrs Gambart, 295 Initial Letter, ..... . 462 Initial Letter, ..... 295 Goorkha Havildar or Sergeant, . 408 Jumma Musjid at Delhi. From a Photograph, . 304 Ghazeepore, ..... . 471 Corporal Burgess, blown up at Cashmere Gate, 308 Fort of Peshawur, . 477 Scene of capture of the Princes of Delhi Tomb of Tail-piece, . . . . . 481 Emperor Humayoon, .... 313 Summer Costumes, Indian Army, 482 State Palanquin, ..... 315 Initial Letter, ..... . 482 Sir J. E. W. Inglis, Defender of Lucknow, . 316 Dacca, ...... 485 Initial Letter, ...... 316 Fyzabad, ..... . 489 Plan of Residency and part of the City of Lucknow, 321 Hindoo Fruit-girl, ..... 493 English Church and Residency at Lucknow from Tail-piece, ..... . 503 Officers' Quarters, .... 329 Sir Hugh Rose, ..... 504 - Mr Colvin, Lieutenant-governor of Northwest Pro- Initial Letter, ..... . 504 vinces, ...... 338 Gwalior, ...... 512 Initial Letter, ..... 338 The Ranee of Jhansi, .... . 513 Camp within the Fort, Agra. From a Photograph, 349 Darjeeling Hill Sanatarium in Sikkim, . 517 Lieutenant Home, Bengal Engineers, . . 352 Initial Letter, ..... . 517 Colonel Burn, Military Governor of Delhi, . 356 Principal Street in Lucknow, . 524 Ruins near Kootub Minar, Delhi, . . . 358 Surat. From a View in the Library of the East India Lucknow, from the Observatory, . . . 359 Company, ..... . 528 Initial Letter, ...... 359 Lahore, ...... 529 Plan of the Residency and its Defences, Lucknow, 362 Kolapore, ..... . 533 Plan of Fort of Alum Bagh, near Lucknow, . 370 Tail-piece, ..... 536 Group of Mahratta Arms. From the Collection of Sir Initial Letter, .... . 537 S. Meyrick, 373 Almorah, Hill-station in Kumacn, 537 Initial Letter, ..... 374 Lrfcerior of Hindoo Rajah's House, . . 545 Plan of the Battle of Cawnpore, December 6, 1857, 379 Umritsir, ...... 549 St James's Church, Delhi, .... 384 Jeypoor, ..... . 556 Tail-piece, ..... 387 Poonah, ...... 559 Colonel E. H. Greathed, . . . .388 Hyderabad, ..... . 560 Initial Letter, ..... 388 Government Buildings, Madras. From a Drawing by Houses in the Chandnee Chowk, Delhi, . . 396 Thomas Daniell, .... 561 Tail-piece, ...... 397 Initial Letter, ..... . 561 Sir James Outram, ..... 398 Old East India House, Leadenhall Street, 574 Initial Letter, ..... 398 Calcutta. Company's Troops early in the 19th Cen- Moulvies, or Mohammedan Religious Teachers, . 408 tury, 576 Tail-piece, ...... 411 Ormuz Entrance to the Persian Gulf, . 577 Goorkhas in their native country, Nepaul, . . 412 Initial Letter, ..... 577 Initial Letter, ..... 412 Bushire, ..... . 585 Gateway of the Emanbarra at Lucknow, . , 420 Chinese War-junks, .... 589 Major Hodson, Commandant of Hodson's Horse, 425 Canton, ..... . 592 Hindoo Metallic Ornaments, . , . 428 Hong-Kong, ..... 600 Barrackpore, ..... 429 Sir Edward Lugard, . . . . 604 Initial Letter, . . . 429 Fort St George, Madras ; in 1780, 608 Kootub Minar, near Delhi, . . . .436 Tail-pieces, ..... 612, 624 Various Tail-piec 2s, Vignettes, &c. Map of India or Hindostan. (Facing Title-page.) Map of Part of India Chief Scene of the Mutinies of 1857, ....... 49 Sketch Map to illustrate Havelock's Operations during July a nd August, 1857, . . . . . 289 Map of Asia, .-., . 577 INTRODUCTION. INDIA II 1856: A RETROSPECT. CARCELY had El recovered from the excite- ment attendant on the war with Russia ; scarcely had '/fc,-' 1 '' '" ,u,lt, ''l tne cost, I )r<> - [^ rided for the expenditure, rc[)rohatcd the blunder- bigs, mourned over the sufferings ; scarcely had she struck a balance be- tween the mortifying in- capacity of some of her children, and the Christian heroism of others when she was called upon anew to unsheath the sword, and to wage war, not against an autocrat on this side of the Caspian, hut against some of the most ancient nations in the world. Within a few months, almost within a few weeks, China, Persia, and India appeared in battle-array against her they being the injuren or the injured, according to the bias of men's judgments on the matter. It may almost be said that five hundred millions of human beings me her enemies at once : there are at the very least this number of inhabitants in the three great Asiatic empires ; and against all, proclamations were issued and armaments fitted out. Whether the people, the millions, sided more .2. ..-.", THE REVOLT IN INDIA. 'with her or with their own rulers, is a question that must he settled in relation to each of those empires separately; hut true it is that the small army of England was called upon suddenly to render, services in Asia, so many and varied, in regions so widely separated, and so far distant from home, that a power of mobility scarcely less than uhiquity, aided by a strength of endurance almost more than mortal could have brought that small force up to a level with the duties required of it. Considering how small a space a month is in the life of a nation, we may indeed say that this great Oriental outbreak was nearly simultaneous in the three regions of Asia. It was in October 1856 that the long-continued bickerings between the British and the Chinese at Canton broke out into a flame, and led to the despatch of military and naval forces from England. It was while the British admiral was actually engaged in bombarding Canton that the governor- general of India, acting as viceroy of the Queen of England, declared war against the Shah of Persia for an infringement of treaty relating to the city of Herat. And lastly, it was while two British armaments were engaged in those two regions of warfare, that disobedience and disband- ing began in India, the initial steps to the most formidable military Revolt, perhaps, the world has ever seen. The theologian sees, or thinks he sees, the finger of God, the avenging rod of an All-ruling Provi- dence, in these scenes of blood-shedding: a punish- ment on England for not having Christianised the natives of the East to the full extent of her power. The soldier insists that, as we gained our influence in the East mainly by the sword, by the sword we must keep it : permitting no disobedience to our military rule, but at the same time offending as little as possible against the prejudices of faith and caste among the natives. The politician smitten with Russo-phobia, deeply imbued with the notion, whether well or ill founded, that the Muscovite aims at universal dominion in Europe and Asia, seeks for evidences of the czar's intrigues at Pekin, Teheran, and Delhi. The partisan, thinking more of the ins and outs of official life, than of Asia, points triumphantly to the dogma that if Ms party had been in power, no one of these three Oriental wars would have come upon England. The merchant, believing that individual interest lies at the bottom of all national Avelfare, tells us that railways and cotton plantations would be better for India than military stations ; and that diplomatic piques at Canton and at Teheran ought not to be allowed to drive us into hostility with nations who might be advantageous customers for our wares. But while the theologian, the soldier, the politician, the partisan, and the merchant are thus rushing to a demonstration, each of his favourite theory, without waiting for the evidence which can only by degrees be collected, England, as a nation, has had to bear up against the storm as best she could. Not even one short twelvemonth of peace was vouchsafed to her. The same year, 1856, that marked the closing scenes of one war, witnessed the commencement of two others ; while the materials for a fourth Avar were at the same time fermenting, unknown to those whose duty it was to watch symptoms. Few things in the history of our empire are more astonishing than the social explosion in India, taken in connection with the positive declarations of official men. Historical parallels have often been pointed out, striking and instruc- tive ; but here we have a historical contradiction. At the time when the plenipotentiaries of seven European empires and kingdoms were discussing at Paris the bases for a European peace, the Marquis of Dalhousie was penning an account of India, in the state to which Britain had brought it. A statesman of high ability, and of unques- tioned earnestness of purpose, he evidently felt a pride in the work he had achieved as governor- general of India ; he thought he had laid the foundation for a great future ; and he claimed credit for England, not only in respect to what she had done, but also for the motives that had dictated her Indian policy. It was in the early part of 1848 that this nobleman went out to the East ; it was in 1856 that he yielded the reins of power to Viscount Canning ; and shortly before his departure from Calcutta he wrote a minute or narrative, formally addressed to the East India Company, but intended for his fellow-countrymen at large, giving an account of his stewardship. Remembering that that minute Avas Avritten in March 1856, and that the Revolt commenced in January 1857, it becomes very important to knoAv, from the lips or the pen of the marquis himself, Avhat he believed to be the actual con- dition of the Anglo-Indian Empire Avhen he left it. The document in question is Avorth more, for our present purpose, than any formal history or description of India; for it shews not only the sum-total of poAver and prosperity in 1848, but the additions made to that sum year after year till 1856. A parliamentary paper of fifty folio pages need not and cannot be reproduced here; but its substance may be rendered intel- ligible in a few paragraphs. This we will attempt at once, as a peculiarly fitting introduction to the main object of the present work ; for it sheAvs hoAv little the Revolt was expected by him who was regarded as the centre of knowledge and influence in India. The marquis said : ' The time has nearly come when my administration of the government of India, prolonged through more than eight years, Avill reach its final close. It Avould seem that some feAv hours may be profitably devoted to a short review of those eventful years ; not for the purpose of justifying disputed measures, or of setting forth a retrospective defence of the policy Avhich may, on every several occasion, have been adopted ; but for the purpose of recalling the political events that have occurred, the measures that have been INDIA IN 1856 : A RETROSPECT. taken, and the progress that has been made, during the career of the administration which is about to close. I enter on that review with the single hope that the Honourable Court of Directors may derive from the retrospect some degree of satisfaction with the past, and a still larger measure of encourage- ment for the future? The words we have italicised are very remarkable, read by the light so soon and so calamitously to be afforded. The minute first passes in review the proceed- ings of the Indian government with the inde- pendent native states, both east and west of the Ganges. How little our public men are able to !! the course of political events in the East, is shewn by the very first paragraph of the governor- general's narrative : 'When 1 sailed from England in the winter of 1847, to assume the government of India, there prevailed a universal conviction among public men at home that permanent peace had at length been secured in the Haft Hcfore tin- summer came, we were already involved in the second Sikh war.' Be it observed that public men re hero adverted to : of what were the opinions of public men in India, the English nation was not kept sufficiently informed. Then had been British officers murdered at Moultan ; there was a rebellion of the Dcwan Moolraj against the recognised sovereign of Lahore ; but the renewal of war is attributed mainly to the 'spirit of the whole Sikh people, which was inflamed by the bitterest animosity again when chief after chief violated treaties, insulted our traders, worried our envoys, and drove away our commercial agent at Rangoon ; and as the gov< rnment of India 'could , consistently with its own safety, permit, itself to stand for a single day in an attitude of inferiority towards a native power, and least of all towards the court of Ava, war was declared. After some sharp fighting, the kingdom of Pegu was taken and annexed, ' in order that the government of India might hold from the Burman state both adequate compensation for past injury, and the best security against future danger A sense of inferiority has penetrated at last to the convic- tions of the nation ; the Burman court and the Burman people alike have shewn that they now dread our power ; and in that dread is the only real security tee can ever have, or ever could have had, for stable peace with the Burman state' These words are at once boastful and saddening ; but the notions conveyed, of 'sense of inferiority' and 'dread of power,' are thoroughly Asiatic, and as such we must accept them. Another independent state, Ncpaul, on the northern frontier of India, remained faithful during the eight years of the Dalhousie administration ; it carried on a war of its own against Tibet, but it was friendly to England, and sent a be-jewelled ambassador, Jung Bahadoor, to visit the island Queen. The moun- tain region of Cashmere, stolen as it were from the Himalaya, was under an independent chieftain, Maharajah Oholah Sing, who, when he visited the Marquis of Dalhousie at Wuzeerabad, caught, the vice-regal robe in his hand and said : ' Thus 1 grasp the skirts of the British government, and I will never Ki go my hold.' The governor-general expresses a belief that Gholab Sing 'will never depart from his submissive policy as long as he while Gholab'l -on and anticipated suc- Mcean llumbecr Sing, is spoken of as one who will never give 'any cause of offence to a powerful neighbour, which he well knows can crush him at will.' The Khan of Khclat, near the :i frontier, was brought into close relation- ship, insomuch that he became 'the friend of our friends, and the enemy of our enemies,' and d to give us temporary possession of such military stations within his territory as we might at any time require for purposes of defence. At the extreme north-west of our Indian Empire, the Afghans, with whom we had fought such terrible battles during the Auckland and Ellenborough administrations of Indian affairs, had again been brought into friendly relations ; the chief prince among them, Dost Mohammed Khan of Cabool, had been made to sec that England was likely to be his best friend, and ' had already shewn that he regards English friendship as a tower of strength.' Thus the governor-general, in adverting to inde- pendent states, announced that he had conquered Od annexed the Punjaub and Pegu ; while ho had strengthened the bonds of amity with Ncpaul, Cashmere, Khelat, and Cabool amity almost led to abject servility, if the protestations of some of the chieftains were to be believed. Having disposed of the independent states, the marquis directed attention to the relations existing between the British government and the protected THE REVOLT IN INDIA. or semi-independent states, of which there are many more than those really independent. The kingdom of Nagpoor became British territory by simple lapse, 'in the absence of all legal heirs.' In bygone years the British put down one rajah and set up another ; and when this latter died, without a son real or adopted, or any male descendant of the original royal stock, 'the British government refused to bestow the territory in free gift upon a stranger, and wisely incorporated it with its own dominions' a mode of acquiring territory very prevalent in our Eastern Empire. The King of Oude, another protected sovereign, having broken his engagements with the Company in certain instances, his state was treated like Nagpoor, and added to British India. Satara lost its rajah in 1849, and as no male heir was then living, that small state shared the fate of the larger Oude : it was made British. Jhansi, a still smaller territory, changed owners in an exactly similar way. The Nizam of Hyderabad, OAving to the Company a sum of money which he was unable or unwilling to pay, and being in other ways under the Company's wrath, agreed in 1853 to give up Berar and other provinces to the exclusive sovereignty of the British. Early in 1848 the Rajah of Ungool, a petty chieftain in the Jungle Neehals, resisted the authority of the government ; his raj Avas taken from him, and he died in exile. The Rajah of Sikim, a hill-chieftain on the borders of Nepaul, ' had the audacity ' to seize a Company's official at Darj cling ; as a punishment, all the territories lie possessed within the plains were confiscated and annexed. In Sinde, Meer Ali Morad of Khyrpore, having involved himself in an act of forgery concerning the ownership of territory, ' the lands were taken from him, and his poAver and influence Avere reduced to insignificance.' The NaAvab Nazim of Bengal having committed a murder by bastinado, 'his highness's peculiar jurisdiction and legal exemption were taken away from him ; and he A\ r as subjected to the disgrace of losing a large portion of the salute of honour which he had previously received.' The NaAvab of the Carnatic died suddenly in 1855 ; and as he left no male heir, and his relations lived very disreputably, the title of nawab ' Avas placed in abeyance : ' that is, the Carnatic was made British territory, and the several members of the nawab's family Avere pensioned off. About the same time, the Rajah of Tanjore died, in like manner Avithout male issue bearing his name ; and the same process was adopted there as in the Carnatic sovereign poAver was assumed by the Company, and the ex-royal family Avas pensioned off. Counting up his treasures, the governor-general was certainly enabled to announce a most extra- ordinary accession of territory during the years 1848 to 1855. The Punjaub, Pegu, Nagpoor, Oude, Satara, Jhansi, Berar, Ungool, Darjeling, Khyrpore, the Carnatic, and Tanjore, all became British for the first time, or else had the links Avhich bound them to England brought closer. While, on the one hand, it must be admitted that the grounds or excuses for annexation would be deemed very slight in any country but India ; so, on the other, there can be no doubt that the Marquis of Dalhousie, and the directors with whom he was acting, believed that these annexing processes were essential to the maintenance of British poAver in the East. He takes credit to his govern- ment for havdng settled certain family quarrels among the petty royalties of Gujerat, Buhawalpore, Jummoo, and Mumdote, without paying itself for its services : as if it were a virtue to abstain from annexation at such times. The mention made of Delhi must be given in the governor-general's oAvn Avords, to shew how much the descendant of the once mighty Mogul was regarded as a mere puppet yet maintaining a certain hold on the reverence of the people, as was destined to be sheAvn in a series of events little anticipated by the Avriter of the minute. ' Seven years ago the heir-apparent to the King of Delhi died. He Avas the last of the race avIio had been born in the purple. The Court of Directors Avas accordingly advised to decline to recognise any other heir-apparent, and to permit the kingly title to fall into abey- ance upon the death of the present king, avIio even then Avas a very aged man. The Honourable Court accordingly conveyed to the government of India authority to terminate the dynasty of Timour, Avhenever the reigning king should die. But as it Avas found that, although the Honourable Court had consented to the measure, it had given its consent with great reluctance, I abstained from making use of the authority Avhich had been given to me. The grandson of the king Avas recognised as heir-apparent ; but only on condition that he should quit the palace in Delhi in order to reside in the palace at the Kootub ; and that he should, as king, receive the governor- general of India at all times on terms of perfect equality? Hoav strange do these words sound ! A board of London merchants sitting in a room in Lcadenhall Street, giving 'authority to terminate the dynasty of Timour ; ' and then, as a gracious condescension, permitting the representative of that dynasty to be on terms of 'perfect equality' Avith whomsoever may be the chief representative of the Company in India. The Marquis of Dalhousie pointed to the revenues derivable from the newly annexed territories as among the many justifications for his line of policy. He sheAved that four millions sterling Avere added to the annual income of the Anglo-Indian Empire by the acquisition of the Punjaub, Pegu, Nagpoor, Oude, Satara, Jhansi, and Berar increasing the total revenue from about twenty-six millions in 1848 to above thirty millions in 1855. The extreme importance of this official docu- ment lying in the evidence it affords hoAv little dread Avas felt in 1856 of any approaching out- break, Ave proceed with the governor-general's narrative of the augmentation and stability of British power in the East, power of which he was INDIA IN 1856: A RETROSPECT. evidently proud presenting, of course, as a mere outline, that which his lordship fills up in more detail. Credit is claimed in the minute for the im- proved administrative organisation both of the old and of the newly acquired territorial Able men were selected to administer government in the Punjaub ; and so well did they fulfil their duties that internal peace was secured, violent crime repressed, the penal law duly enforced, prison- discipline maintained, civil justice administered, taxation fixed, collection of revenue rendered just, commerce set free, agriculture fostered, national resource-; developed, and future improvements planned. Not only did the marquis assert this; bat there i ral concurrence of opinion that the I'unjaub fell into fortunate hands when its administration came to be provided for. In the administration, less brilliant than in the I'un- jaub, is nevertheless represented as being SOOnd in principle; tranquillity was restored; effective police had secured the safety of all ; trade was increased and increasing] a fair revenue v.as derived from light taxation; 'the people, lightly taxed and prosperous, are highly contented with our rale;' ami, when population has iocn ' Pegu will equal Bengal in fertility of production, and surpass it in every other respect.' At Nagpoor the assumption of supreme authority by Britain hailed with lively satisfaction by the whole population Of the province;' no additional soldier had been introduced thither; the civil adminis- tration was introduced every where ; the native army was partly embodied and disciplined in British pay, and partly discharged either with pensions or gratuities. In short, 'perfect con- tentment and quiet prevail ; beyond the palace walls not a murmur has been heard ; and in no single instance throughout the districts has the public peace been disturbed.' In I.erar, we are told, the same phenomena were observed ; as soon as the cession was made, our numerous disputes with the nizam ended ; the civil administration v.as broughl into working order ; crime, especially the violent crime ofd gang-robbery without murder) was diminished ; the ' admirable little army,' formerly called the Nizam's Couth was made available as part of the British force; the revenue rapidly increased ; and the public tranquillity had 'not been disturbed by a single popular tumult.' The kingdom of Onde had only be. 11 annexed a few weeks before the Marquis of Dalhousie wrote his minute ; but he states that a complete civil administration, and a resident mili- tary force, had been fully organised before the annexation took place ; that the troops of the deposed native king were contentedly taking service in British pay ; that no zemindar or chief had refused submission to our authority ; that the best men who could lie found available were ted from the civil and military serrio the new offices in Onde; and that no popular resistance or disturbance had occurred. Nothing could be more clear and positive than these assertions. Not only did the governor- general announce that the Punjaub, Pegu, Nagpoor, Berar, and Oude had been completely annexed, bringing a large accession to the British revenues ; but that in every case a scheme of administration had been framed and established, conducive to the lasting benefit of the natives, the honour of the British name, and the development of the natural resources of the several districts. Not a whisper of discontent, of spirits chafed by change of rulers, did the marquis recognise : if they occurred, they reached not him ; or if they did reach him, he passed them by as trifles. Nor was it alone in the newly acquired terri- tories that credit for these advantageous changes I aimed. Improvements in the government of India were pointed out in every direction. The governor-general bad been relieved from an over- whelming press of duties by the appointment of a lieutenant-governor for Bengal. A Legislative Council had been organised, distinct from the Supreme Council : the public having access to its deliberations, and its debates and papers being printed and issued to the world. The Indian civil service, by an act passed in 1853, had been thrown open to all who, being natural-born subjects of the British u, should oiler themselves as can- didates for examination and admission. Young cadets, who previously had been allowed nearly fears to 'idle and loiter' at the presidencies while studying for examination as civilians, were by a new regulation required to complete their studies in a much shorter period, thereby lessening their idleness and rendering them sooner useful. Periodical examinations of the civil servants had been established, to insure efficiency before pro- motion was given. A board of examiners had been founded, to conduct examinations and super- intend studies. All ollicers of the Indian govern- ment had been formally prohibited from engag- ing in banking or trading companies ; and any bankruptcy among them entailed suspension from ofiice. In many of the civil otlices, promotion, before dependent on seniority alone, had been made dependent on merit alone. A pension or superannuation list had been established in many departments, to insure steady and faithful service. Three boards of administration for salt, opium, and customs bad been replaced by one board of revenue, simpler in its constitution. The annual financial reports, transmitted to the home govern- ment, had gradually been made more clear, full, and instructive. All the salaries throughout India had been placed under the consideration of a special commissioner, for equitable revision ; and the authorities hail determined that, in future, no salaries, with a few special exceptions, shall exceed fifty thousand rupees (about five thousand pounds) per annum. Nor hail legislative reform been wholly forgotten. During the eight years under review, laws had been passed or rules laid down for the punishment THE REVOLT IN INDIA. of officials guilty of corruption, or accountants guilty of default ; for allowing counsel to prisoners on their trial ; for abolishing the semi-savage custom of branding convicts ; for rendering public officers more amenable to public justice ; for vesting a right of pardon in the supreme government ; for improving the procedure in all the civil and criminal courts ; for rendering the reception of evidence more fair and impartial; and, among many less important things, for ' securing liberty of conscience, and for the protection of converts, and especially of Christian converts, against in- jury in respect of property or inheritance by reason of a change in their religious belief.' For the amelioration of prison-discipline, inspectors of prisons had been appointed in all the three presi- dencies, as well as in Oude, the Punjaub, and the north-west provinces. Equally in moral as in administrative matters did the Marquis of Dalhousie insist on the manifold improvement of India during the eight years preceding 1856. Schools for the education of natives had been established ; the Hindoo College at Calcutta had been revived and improved ; a Presidency College had been founded in the same city, to give a higher scale of education to the youth of Bengal ; similar colleges had been sanctioned at Madras and Bombay ; grants-in- aid to all educational establishments had been authorised, subject to government inspection of the schools aided ; a committee had been appointed to consider the plans for establishing regular universities at Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras ; a distinct educational department had been formed at the seat of government, with director-generals of public instruction in all the presidencies and governments ; and the East India Company had, by a dispatch framed in 1854, sanctioned a most extensive educational scheme for the whole of India, to be rendered available to all the natives who might be willing and able to claim its advantages. The delicate subject of female educa- tion had not been forgotten. Instructions had been given to the officers of the educational department to afford all possible encouragement to the establishment of female schools, whenever any disposition was shewn by the natives in that direction. There is a peculiar difficulty in all that concerns female education in India, arising from the reluctance which has always been shewn by the higher classes of natives to permit the attend- ance of their daughters at schools. Mr Bethune commenced, and the Marquis of Dalhousie con- tinued, a delicate and cautious attempt to overcome this unwillingness by establishing a Hindoo ladies' school at Calcutta ; and the minute gives expres- sion to an earnest hope and belief that the female character in India will gradually be brought under the elevating influence of moral and intel- lectual education. As the native mind was thus sought to be ameliorated and strengthened by education ; so had the prevention or cure of bodily maladies been made an object of attention. Additional advantages had been granted to natives who applied themselves to the study of the medical sciences ; the number of dis- pensaries had been greatly increased, to the immense benefit of the poorer classes of Hindoos and Mohammedans ; plans had been commenced for introducing a check to the dreadful ravages of the small-pox ; admission to the medical service of the Company had been thrown open to natives ; and, as a first-fruit of this change, one Dr Chuckerbutty, a Hindoo educated in England, had won for himself a commission as assistant- surgeon in the Company's service. In so far as concerns superstition and religion, the minute narrates a course of proceeding of which the following is the substance. Among the extra- ordinary social customs atrocities they are un- questionably considered in Europe of India, those of Suttee, Thuggee, Infanticide, and the Meriah Sacrifice, are mentioned as having undergone much amelioration during the eight years to which the minute relates. The suttee, or burning of widows, had been almost suppressed by previous governor-generals, and the marquis had carried out the plans of his predecessors : remonstrating where any suttees occurred in independent states ; and punishing where they occurred in the British and protected territories. Thuggee, or systematic murder of travellers for the sake of booty, had been quite suppressed east of the Sutlej ; but having unexpectedly made its appearance in the Punjaub in 1851, it was thoroughly put down there as elsewhere; those who turned approvers or king's evidence against their brother Thugs now form or rather did form in 1856 a peaceful industrious colony at Jubbulpoor, where they spun and wove muslins of exquisite fineness, instead of cutting the throats of unsuspecting travellers. Female infanticide, the result of pride of birth and pride of purse parents murdering their infant daughters either because they cannot afford the marriage expenditure which must one day be incurred on their account, or because they see difficulties in marrying them suitably had been greatly checked and discouraged. In the Punjaub a most signal and singular conquest had been achieved ; for the British representative, calling together the chiefs of tribes in 1854, unfolded to them a plan, ' the observance of which would effectually secure that no man should feel any real difficulty in providing for his daughter in marriage ; ' whereupon the chiefs, as well as those of the Cashmere tribes, promised that, as the motive for infanticide would thus in great measure be removed, they would cheerfully aid in suppress- ing the practice. Lastly, the Meriah sacrifice a horrible rite, in which young human victims are sacrificed for the propitiation of the special divinity which presides over the fertility of the earth had been nearly rooted out from the only district where it was practised, among the hill and jungle tribes of Orissa. In religious matters, the ecclesias- tical strength of the established church had been INDIA IN 1856 : A RETROSPECT. largely increased; clergymen had been occasion- al ly sanctioned, besides those acting as chaplains to the Company ; places of worship had been provided for the servants and soldiers of the Company ; Protestant churches had been built in place! where the worshippers were willing to contribute something towards the expenditure; Roman Catholics serving the Company had been provided with places of worship ; salaries had been granted to three Roman Catholic bishops, one in each presidency; the salaries of the priests had been revised and augmented ; and a wish was manifested to observe justice towards the Catholic 11 as the Protestant who served his country well in the East. Thus in the acquisition of territory, in the augmentation of revenue consequent on that acquisition, in the administrative organisation, in the spread of education, in the provision for religions services, and in the plans for improving the moral conduct of the natives the Marquis of Dalhonsie claimed to hare done much that would redound to the honour of the British name ami to the advancement of the millions under British rule in India. The problem still remains un Why should India, or the native military of that country, have revolted from British service 1 Let us see, therefore, whether the goven, says BOght that throws light upon the matter in connection with trade and commerce; and in order to understand thi clearly, let us treat separately Of Productive Industry and I of Communication. -tined, according to the ideas of to mark a great future for India; but meanwhile we are told in the minute that, by the acquisition of 1 r and Rerar, many fertile cotton districts were brought under British rule ; and that since the acquisition of Pegu, an exami- nation of the cotton-growing capabilities of the northern part of that kingdom had been com- d. Hie tea-culture in Assam had prospered greatly during the eight years from 1^48 to 1856; the plant had been largely introduced into the Upper districts of the north-west provinces ; plant- ations had been established at Peyrah Uhoon, Kumaon, and Gurhwal ; Mr Fortune had brought supplies of Chinese seeds and Chinese work- men to India ; many of the native zemindars had begun the cultivation on their own account in districts at the foot of the Himalaya; and every a crease in the production of Indian tea, which was excellent in quality, and readily at a high price. In agriculture illy, improvements of all kinds had been ieultural and Horticultural Society had been established in the Pnnjaub; carefully eds had been procured from Europe; the growth of flax had been encouraged ; the growth of the mulberry and the rearing of silk- wprms ha by the government; and a grant had been made in aid of periodical agri- cultural shows in the Madras presidency. In relation to live-stock, plans had been formed for improving the breed of horses ; merino and Australian rams had been introduced to improve the breed of sheep ; and sheep had been intro- duced into Pegu, to the great delight of the natives and the advantage of all; 'for the absence of sheep leads to a privation in respect of food, which is severely felt, not only by European soldiers in the province, but also by all of every class who are employed therein.' The forests had been brought under due regulation by the appointment of conservators of forests at Pegu, Tenasserim, and Martaban; by the careful examination of the whole of the forests in the Punjaub ; by the planting of new districts, hitherto bare; and by the laying down of rules for the future preservation and thrifty management of these important sources of Umber and fuel. The inestimahlo value of coal being duly appreciated, careful researches had made, by order of the government, in the Punjaub, Pegu, Tenasserim, Bengal, Silhet, and the Nerbudda Valley, to lay the groundwork for careful mining whenever and wherever good coal may he found. Practical chemists and geological surveyors had been set to work in the Simla Hills, ton, Gurhwal, the Nerbudda Valley, Beer- boom, and Jubbulpoor, cither to discover beds of one, or to organise ironworks where such iiad already been discovered ; and an experi- mental mining and smelting establishment had been founded by the government among the Kumaon Hills, to apply tests likely to be valuable in future. t, in connection with means of communica- tion, the channels by and through which commerce permeates the empire, the governor-general had a very formidable list of works to notice. Surveys, Irrigation and canals, rivers and harbours, roads, railways, electric telegraphs, and postal communi- cations had all been made the subjects of great engineering activity during the eight years of the Halhousie administration. A few words must be said hero on each of these topics ; for it becomes absolutely necessary, in order to a due appreciation of the narrative of Revolt about to follow, that we should, as a preliminary, know whether India really had or had not been neglected in these elements of prosperity in the years immediately preceding the outbreak. Measures, we learn from the minute, had been taken for executing exact surveys of all the newly annexed territory in the Punjaub, Pegu, Sinde, Nagpoor, and Berar in the same careful manner as the survey of the older territories had been before carried out ; and in Central India ' the consent of all the native states has been obtained to the making of a topographical survey, and to a demar- cation of all the boundaries between the several native slates, and between the British territories and those of native states :' a proceeding expected MB the frequency of feuds concerning disputed bounds The activity in irrigation-works and canal- THE REVOLT IN INDIA. cutting had unquestionably been very great. In 1854 the Ganges Canal was opened in its main line, for the double purpose of irrigation and navi- gation. A mighty work this, which no mutiny, no angry feelings, should induce the English public to forget. It is 525 miles in length, and in some parts 170 feet in width ; and considered as a canal for irrigation, ' it stands unequalled in its class and character among the efforts of civilised nations. Its length is fivefold greater than that of all the main lines of Lombardy united, and more than twice the length of the aggregate irrigation lines of Lombardy and Egypt together the only countries in the world whose works of irrigation rise above insignificance.' Nor is this all. ' As a single work of navigation for purposes of commerce, the Ganges Canal has no competitor throughout the world. No single canal in Europe has attained to half the magnitude of this Indian work. It nearly equals the aggregate length of the four greatest canals in France. It greatly exceeds all the first-class canals of Holland put together; and it is greater, by nearly one-third, than the greatest navigation canal in the United States of America.' Pausing for one moment just to observe that the writer of the words here quoted seems to have temporarily forgotten the great canal of China, we proceed to state, on the authority of the minute, that when all the branches are finished, this noble Ganges Canal will be 900 miles in length. It will then, by its periodical overflowings, irrigate a million and a half of acres, thus lessening the terrible apprehensions of famine or dearth among millions of human beings. We may doubt or not on other subjects, but it is impossible to doubt the sincerity of the Marquis of Dalhousie when he says : ' I trust I shall not be thought vain-glorious if I say that the successful execution and completion of such a work as the Ganges Canal would, even if it stood alone, suffice to signalise an Indian administration.' But this work did not absorb all the energies of the canal engineers ; much of a similar though smaller kind had been effected elsewhere. An irrigation canal had been begun in the Punjaub, which, when finished, would be 4G5 miles in length, fed from the river Ravee. All the old canals formed in the Moultan district of the Punjaub, 600 miles in length, had been cleansed, enlarged, and improved, and the distribution of the waters for the purpose of irrigation placed under judicious regulation. Irri- gation canals had been made or improved in the Derajat, in the provinces east of the Sutlej, in Behar, and in Sinde. A magnificent work had been executed for carrying an irrigation canal over the river Godavery ; and canals of much import- ance had been commenced in the Madras and Bombay presidencies. Rivers and harbours had shared in the attention bestowed on irrigation and canal navigation. The Ganges had been opened to river steamers before 1848, and it only remained to advance in the same line of improvement. The Indus, by the conquest of the Punjaub, had been made a British river almost from the Himalaya down to the ocean ; steamers had been placed upon it ; and it had become a direct route for troops and ti'avellers to many parts of Northern India, before attainable only by the Calcutta route. All the rivers in the upper part of the Punjaub had been surveyed, with a view to the determination of their capabilities for steam -navigation. No sooner was Pegu acquired, than steamers were placed upon the Irrawaddy, the great river of that country ; and short canals of junction between vai'ious rivers had been so planned as to give promise of a complete line of river-steaming from Bassein to Moulmein. Arrangements had been made for placing steamers upon the river Burhampooter or Brahmaputra, to connect Assam with the Bay of Bengal. Exten- sive works had been commenced to improve the navigation of the Godavery. The channels that lead from Calcutta through the Sundurbunds to the sea had been enlarged ; and a great bridge over the Hoogly near the city had been planned. The port of Bombay had been greatly improved, and large works for water-supply commenced. At Kurachee, at Madras, at Singapore, at Rangoon, and at other places, engineering improvements had been made to increase the accommodation for shipping. We follow the Marquis of Dalhousie from the river to the land, and trace with him the astonish- ing length of new road constructed or planned during his administration. A great trunk-road from Calcutta to Delhi had been extended nearly to the Sutlej ; and when the Punjaub became a British possession, plans were immediately marked out for prolonging the same road to Loodianah, Umritsir, Lahore, Jelum, Attock, and Peshawur thus form- ing, if all be completed, a magnificent road 1500 miles in length from Calcutta to the Afghan frontier, available both for commercial and mili- tary operations. The difficulties of crossing so many broad rivers in Northern India is immense, and the cost great ; but the road, as the minute tells us, ' will repay a thousandfold the labour and the treasure it has cost.' Then, fine roads had been formed from Patna to Gya, from Cuttack to Ungool and Sumbhulpore, from Dacca to Akyab, and thence towards Aracan and Pegu ; while vast systems of roads had been brought under consider- ation for Pegu, the Punjaub, Sinde, and other newly acquired regions. Engineers had been employed to plan a road from Simla up to the very Himalaya itself, to connect India with Tibet ; as it would greatly improve the social position of all the native tribes near it. When Pegu was attacked, and when a military force was sent thither over- land from Calcutta, hundreds of elephants were employed to force a way through the forests and roadless tracts between Aracan and Pegu ; but by the spring of 1855 a road had been formed, along which a battalion could march briskly on foot. The Marquis of Dalhousie was not in a position to say so much concerning railways in India as INDIA IN ISoG: A RETROSPECT. 9 ordinary roads. Although railways were brought under the consideration of the Company in nothing was done regarding them till 1849, when a contract was entered into with a separate Company to construct a certain length of railway which, if continued, would connect Calcutta with the north and north-west of India. In the spring of 1868 the marquis recommended a bold line of policy in these matters the sanction and rapport, in every available way. of great of railway to conned Calcutta with Lahore, Bombay with Agra, Bombay with Madias, and Madras with the Malahar coast. A qualified approval of then schemes had heen accorded by the East India Company, and i its to the extent of ten millions sterling had been made (or a railway from Delhi to Burdwari: a line from Uurdwan to Calcutta having heen opened in 1865. The governor-general, n.t dreaming of mutinies end rebellions, Darned tin- year 1859 as the probable time of finishing the iron route from Calcutta to Delhi Besides ements with the East India Railway Com- pany iii the Bengal presidency, contracts had been made with the Great India Peninsula Company for a railway from Bombay to the Gliaut Moun- tains ; and another with the Bombay and Central India Company for a railway from Bombay to Khandeish and ." and for another from to ahmedabad, <>n the eai tern coast, the govern- ment had arranged with the Madras Railway Company for lines from Madras to the Malahar Ooimbatore, and from Variembaddy to Bangalore. The Bnglisb nation has long blamed the Fast India Company for a dilatory policy in I to railways; hut all we have to do in this place is, on the authority of the governor-general, to specify in few words what had been done in the years immediately preceding the outbreak. The electric telegraph perhaps the grandest invention of our age found in India a congenial place lor its reception. Where the officials had no more rapid meant of lending a message to a distance of a thousand miles than the fieetni a corps of foot runners, it is no marvel that the achievements of the lightning-n. were regarded with an > An experimental line of electric telegraph WSjI determined on, to 1m- carried out by Dr(now Bir William) 0*Shangh- ; and when that energetic man made his report on the result in 1868, it was at once deter- mined to commence arrangement-; for lit. immense length, to connect tin; widely separated cities of Calcutta. Madras, Bombay, and l'cshawur, and the great towns between them. It WSJ a grand idea, and was worthily realised ; for by the month of March L864 an electric wire of 800 miles was established between Calcutta and Agra; by the month of Fehruary 1866, tin; towns of Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras were placed in telegraphic communication by 3000 miles of wire, serving nearly forty towns on the way ; and by the beginning of 185G another length of 1000 miles was added, from Attock to Peshawur, from Bangalore to Ootacamund, and from Rangoon to the Burmese frontier. Many works of great mag- nitude were required ; there were few good roads for the workmen to avail themselves of; there were few bridges; there were deadly jungles to be 1 ; there was every variety of foundation, from loose black soil to hard rocky wastes ; there were seventy large rivers to be crossed, either by sables in the water, or by wires extended on the tops <>f BSastSj there was a cable of two miles required to cress the Toongabudra, and one of three miles to cross the SottC and yet the entire work- was coin prised within a cost of 600 rupees or 50 per mile : perhaps the wisest expenditure ever incurred in India. Repeatedly has a message, relating to news from Bngland, heen transmitted 1800 miles, from Bombay to Calcutta, in less than three-quarters of an hour ; and it has become a regular routine that the government at Calcutta shall he in possession of a considerable body of telegraphic news from England within twelve hours after the anchoring of the mail-steamer at Bombay. Who can conceive the bewilderment of the Hindoo mind at such achievements! It is cer- tainly permissible to the governor general to refer with pride to two or three among many instances of the remarkable service rendered by these tele- graphs. ' When her Majesty's loth Hussars were ordered with all s p eed from Poonah to the Crimea, requesting instructions regarding their despatch was one day received by me at Calcutta from the government of Bombay, about nine o'clock iii the morning. Instructions were forth- with sent oil' by the telegraph in reply ; and an answer to that reply was again received at Calcutta from Bombay in the evening of the same day. A year before^ the same communications for the despatch of speedy reinforcements to the l' war, which occupied by the telegraph no more than t w t ht hours, could not have been made in less than tlkcrtj day*.' Again: 'When it was resolved to send her Majesty's 12th Lancers from Bangalore to the Crimea, instead of her Map 14th Dragoons from Meerut, orders were forth- with despatched by telegraph direct to the regi- ment at Bangalore. The corps was immediately got ready for service ; it inarched two hundred miles, and was there before the transports were ready to receive it.' Again: 'On the 7th of February 1866, as soon as the administration of Oude was assuredly under British government, a branch-electric telegraph from Cawnpore to Luck- now was forthwith commenced ; in eighteen work- ing-days it was completed, including the laying of a cable, six thousand feet in length, across the river Ganges. On the morning on which I resigned tin; government in India, General Outram was asked by telegraph i " Is all well in Oude V The answer: "All is well in Oude," was received soon after noon, and greeted Lord Canning on his first arrival.' Little did the new governor-general then foresee in how few months he would receive 10 THE REVOLT IN INDIA. painful proof that all was not well in Oude. How- ever, the Marquis of Dalhousie was justified in adverting with satisfaction to the establishment of telegraphic communication during his reign of power ; and he insists on full credit being due to the East India Company for what was done in that direction. 'I make bold to say, that whether regard be had to promptitude of executive action, to speed and solidity of construction, to rapidity of organisation, to liberality of charge, or to the early realisation and vast magnitude of increased politi- cal influence in the East, the achievement of the Honourable Company in the establishment of the electric telegraph in India may challenge com- parison with any public enterprise which has been carried into execution in recent times, among the nations of Europe, or in America itself.' The postal system had not been allowed to stagnate during the eight years under considera- tion. A commission had been appointed in 1850, to inquire into the best means of increasing the efficiency of the system ; and under the recom- mendations of this commission, great improvements had been made. A director-general of the post- office for the whole of India had been appointed ; a uniformity of rate irrespective of distance had been established (three farthings for a letter, and three half-pence for a newspaper) ; prepayment by postage-stamps had been substituted for cash payment ; the privileges of official franking had been almost abolished ; and a uniform sixpenny rate was fixed for letters between India and England. Here again the governor-general insists, not only that the Indian government had worked zealously, but that England herself had been out- stripped in liberal policy. 'In England, a single letter is conveyed to any part of the British isles for one penny ; in India, a single letter is con- veyed over distances immeasurably greater from Peshawur, on the borders of Afghanistan, to the southernmost village of Cape Comorin, or from Dehooghur, in Upper Assam, to Kurachec at the mouth of the Indus for no more than three farthings. The postage chargeable on the same letter three years ago in India would not have been less than one shilling, or sixteen times the present charge. Again, since uniform ratesof postage between England and India have been established, the Scotch recruit who joins his regiment on our furthest frontier at Pcshawm*, may write to his mother at John o' Groat's House, and may send his letter to her free for sixpence : three years ago, the same sum would not have carried his letter beyond Lahore.' So great had been the activity of the Company and the governor-general, in the course of eight years, in developing the productive resources of our Oriental empire, that a department of Public Works had become essentially necessary. The Company expended from two to three millions sterling annually in this direction, and a new organisation had been made to conduct the various works on which this amount of expenditure was to be bestowed. When the great roads and canals were being planned and executed, numerous civil engineers were of course needed ; and the minute tells us that ' it was the far-seeing sagacity of Mr Thomason which first anticipated the necessity of training engineers in the country itself in which they were to be employed, and which first suggested an effectual method of doing so. On his recom- mendation, the civil engineering college at Roorkee, which now rightly bears his honoured name, was founded with the consent of the Honourable Court. It has already been enlarged and extended greatly beyond its original limits. Instruction in it is given to soldiers preparing for subordinate employ- ment in the Public Works department, to young gentlemen not in the service of government, and to natives upon certain conditions. A higher class for commissioned officers of the army was created some years ago, at the suggestion of the late Sir Charles Napier ; and the government has been most ready to consent to officers obtaining leave to study there, as in the senior department at Sandhurst. Excellent fruit has already been borne by this institution ; many good servants have already been sent forth into [from 1] the department ; and applications for the services of students of the Thomason College were, befoi'e long, received from other local governments.' But this was not all : civil engineering colleges and classes were formed at Calcutta, Madras, Bombay, Lahore, and Poonah. So greatly had the various public works on rivers and harbours, roads and canals, telegraphic and postal communications, increased the trade of India, that the shipping entries increased regularly year by year. There were about six hundred vessels, exclusive of trading craft, that ascended the Hoogly to Calcutta in 1847; by 1856, the number had augmented to twelve hundred ; and the tonnage had risen in a still greater ratio. What is the English nation to think of all this, and how reconcile it with the tragedies destined so soon to afflict that magnificent country 1 Here we find the highest representative of the British crown narrating and describing, in words too clear to be misunderstood, political and commercial advancements of a really stupendous kind, effected within the short period of eight years. We read of vast territories conquered, tributary states annexed, amicable relations with other states strengthened, territorial revenues increased, improved administration organised, the civil service purified, legislative reforms effected, prison- discipline improved, native colleges and schools established, medical aid disseminated, thuggee and dacoitee put down, suttee and infanticide discouraged, churches and chapels built, ministers of religion salaried. We are told of the cultivation of raw produce being fostered, the improvement of live-stock insured, the availability of mineral treasures tested, exact territorial surveys com- pleted, stupendous irrigation and navigation canals constructed, flotillas of river-steamers established, INDIA IN 1856 : A RETROSPECT. 11 ports and harbours enlarged and deepened, magni- ficent roads formed, long lines of railway com- menced, thousands of miles of electric tele Bet to work, vast postal improvements insured. We read all this, and wo cannot marvel if the ruler of India felt some pride in his share of the work. But still the problem remains unsolved was the greet Revolt fbrohadowed in any of these achievements ? As the mutiny began among the military, it may be well to see what information is afforded by the minute concerning military reforms between the years 1848 and 1850. It is truly remarkable, knowing what the English nation now so painfully knows, that the Manpiis <>f Dalhootie, in narrating the various improvements introduced by him in the military a, passes at once to the British sol distinctly asserting that 'the position of the native soldier in India has long been such as to leave hardly any circumstance Of his condition in of improvement.' The British troops, we are told, had been benefited in many ways. The terms of service in India had been limited to twelve years gj s maximum ; the rations had been greatly improved ; malt liquor had been substituted for destructive ardent spirits; the barracks had 1 iv rebuilt, with modifica- tions depending on the climate of each station ; separate barracks had been set apart for the married mm of each regiment ; lavatories and reading-rooms had become recognised portions Sty barrack ; punkhas or cooling fans had been adopted for barracks in hot stations, and additional bed in cold ; swimming-baths had been formed at most of the stasio&fl; soldiers' gardens had been formed at man'. .uton- ments ; workshops and tools for handicraftsmen had been attached to the barracks; sanitaria had been built among the hill; tor sick soldiers; and arrangements had been framed for acclimatising all recruits from Kntrland before sending them into hot districts on service. Then, as to the officers. Encouragement bad been offered for the officers to make themselves proficient in the native languages. A principle had been declared and died, that promotion by seniority should no longer govern the service ; but that th should be ' the selection of no man, whatever his standing, unless he was confessedly capable and efficient' With the consent of the Queen, the Company's officers had had granted to them the recognition, until then rather humiliatin.dy with- held, of their military rank, not only in India but throughout the world. A military orphan school had been established in the hill districts. All the military departments had been revised and amended, the commissariat pined on a wholly new basis, and the military clothing supplied on a more efficient system than before. Again is the search baffled. We find in the minute proofs only that India had become and grand ; if the seeds of rebellion existed, they buried under the language which described material and social advancement. Is it that England, in 185G, had yet to learn to understand the native character ? Such may be ; for thuggee came to the knowledge of our government with astounding suddenness ; and there may be some other kind of thuggee, religious or social, still to bo learned by us. Let us bear in mind what this thuggee or thugism was, and who were the Thugs. Many years ago, uneasy whispers passed among the British residents in India. Rumours went abroad of the fate of unsuspecting travellers ensnared while walking or riding upon the road, lassoed Of Strangled by means of a silken cord, and robbed of their personal property ; the rumours were believed to be true ; but it was long ere the Indian government succeeded in bringing to light the stupendous conspiracy or system on which these atrocities WON based. It was then found that there kind of religious body in India, called Thugs, among whom murder and robbery are portions of a religious rite, established than a thousand years ago. They worship Kali, one of the deities of the Hindoo faith. In varying bom lea to two hundred, they distribute themselves or rather did distribute themselves, before the energetic measures of the government had nearly suppressed their system about various parts of India, sacrificing to their tutelar | ly victim they can sei/.e, and sh ar i n g she plunder among themselves. They shed no blood, except under special circumstances; murder being their religion, the performance of ities requires secrecy, better observed by a noose or a cord than by a knife or firearm, livery gang has its leader, teacher, entrappers, strangers, and gravediggcrs ; each with his MSSCribed duties. "When a traveller, supposed or known to have treasure about him, has been led to a selected spot by the Sothas or entrappers, he is speedily put to death quietly by the BkvttotoQT straaglers, and then so dexterously placed underground by the Lugkahen or grave- is that no restige Of disturbed earth is visible* This done, they oiler a sacrifice to their . :di, and finally share the booty taken (torn the murdered man. Although the cere- monial is wholly Hindoo, the Thugs themselves comprise Mohammedans as well as Hindoos; and it is supposed by some inquirers that the Mohammedans have i ngrafte d a system of robbery on that which was originally a religious murder murder as part of a sacrifice to a deity. We repeat \ there may be some moral or social thuggee yet to be discovered in India ; but all we have now to assert is, that the condition of India in 1856 did not suggest to the retiring governor- general the slightest suspicion that the British in that country were on the edge of a volcano. 1 1 e The visitor to the British Museum, in one of the saloons of th" Ethnological department, will find awry remarkable M I figures, modified by a native Hindoo, of the individuals for gang of Thugs; all in their proper costumes, and all as they are (or were) usually engaged in the successive proces-cs of entrapping, strangling, and burying a traveller, and then dividing the booty. 12 THE REVOLT IN INDIA. said, in closing his remarkable minute : ' My part- ing hope and prayer for India is, that, in all time to come, these reports from the presidencies and provinces under our rule may form, in each suc- cessive year, a happy record of peace, prosperity, and progress.' No forebodings here, it is evident. Nevertheless, there are isolated passages which, read as England can now read them, are worthy of notice. One runs thus : ' No prudent man, who has any knowledge of Eastern affairs, would ever ven- ture to predict the maintenance of continued peace within our Eastern possessions. Experience, fre- quent hard and recent experience, has taught us that war from without, or rebellion from within, may at any time be raised against us, in quarters where they were the least to be expected, and by the most feeble and unlikely instruments. No man, therefore, can ever prudently hold forth assurance of continued peace in India.' Again : ' In terri- tories and among a population so vast, occasional disturbance must needs prevail. Raids and forays are, and will still be, reported from the western frontier. From time to time marauding expedi- tions will descend into the plains ; and again expeditions to punish the marauders will pene- trate the hills. Nor can it be expected but that, among tribes so various and multitudes so innum- erable, local outbreaks will from time to time occur.' But in another place he seeks to lessen the force and value of any such disturbances as these. ' With respect to the frontier raids, they are and must for the present be viewed as events inseparable from the state of society which for centuries past has existed among the mountain tribes. They are no more to be regarded as interruptions of the general peace in India, than the street-brawls which appear among the every- day proceedings of a police-court in London are regarded as indications of the existence of civil war in England. I trust, therefore, that I am guilty of no presumption in saying, that I shall leave the Indian Empire in peace, without and within.' Such, then, is a governor-general's picture of the condition of the British Empire in India in the spring of 1856 : a picture in which there are scarcely any dark colours, or such as the painter believed to be dark. We may learn many things from it : among others, a consciousness how little we even now know of the millions of Hindostan their motives, their secrets, their animosities, their aspirations. The bright picture of 1856, the revolt- ing tragedies of 1857 how little relation does there appear between them ! That there is a relation all must admit, who are accustomed to study the links of the chain that connect one event with another ; but at what point the relation occurs, is precisely the question on which men's opinions will differ until long and dispassionate attention has been bestowed on the whole subject. Dtohs. [This may be a convenient place in which to introduce a few observations on three subjects likely to come with much frequency under the notice of the reader in the following chapters; namely, the distances between the chief towns in India :md the three great presidential cities the discrepancies in the current modes of spelling the names of Indian persons and places and the meanings of some of the native words frequently used in connection with Indian affairs.] Distances. For convenience of occasional reference, a table of some of the distances in India is here given. It has been compiled from the larger tables of Taylor, Garden, Hamilton, and Parbury. Many of the distances are esti- mated in some publications at smaller amount, owing, it may be, to the opening. of new and shorter routes : To Calcutta. To Madras. To Bombay. Miles. Miles Miles. From Agra 736 1238 754 i Allahabad 498 1151 831 u Arcot . . 1085 71 715 it Aracan 93 1661 1795 1 Benares . 428 1151 927 ii Bhopal 849 944 492 it Bombay . . 1185 763 1 Calcutta 10G3 1185 a Cawnpore Cflli 1200 854 ii Delhi . 900 1372 868 ii IMnapore 376 1337 1072 ii Furrukhabad . 722 1257 892 ii Gwalior . 782 1164 680 ii Hyderabad* . 962 398 4.14 t Indore 965 979 378 $ Jaunpore 473 1196 972 * There are two Hyderabads one in the Nizam's dominions in the Deccan, and the other in Sinde (spelt Hydrabad) : it is the former here intended. To Calcutta. To Madras. To Bonibay Miles. Miles. Miles. From Jeypoor . 921 1352 757 t Kolapoor 1245 584 228 , Kurachee . 1610 1567 873 , Lahore 1241 1712 1208 n Lucknow 619 .1253 907 ,i Madras 1063 763 a Masulipatam 797 322 654 , Meerut 906 1405 912 ii Moorshedabad 123 1186 1308 * Mysore 1245 290 635 it Nagpoor 677 713 508 n Oodypoor 1139 1209 606 n Patna 3(59 1299 10(15 Peshawur 1543 2014 1510 ii Pondicherry . 1157 98 803 n Poonah 1107 667 94 a Kungpoor 271 1&34 1156 n Satara 1180 609 163 ii Seringapatam . 1230 281 62G ii Shahjehanpoor 735 1320 936 Simla . 1112 1611 1086 Surat . 1232 867 191 Tanjore . . 1257 212 871 ii Trieliinopoly . 1254 209 835 , Umballa . . 1033 1532 1007 Umritsir . 1193 1664 1160 , Veil ore . 1100 86 700 ' Vizagapatam . 557 501 834 INDIA IX 1856: A RETROSPECT. 13 Orthography. It is perfectly hopeless to attempt here :tl>'iiient of the TXfid question of Oriental ortho- graphy, the spelling of the names of Indian persons and If we rely on one governor-general, the next lietfl him; the commander-in-chief very likely differs from both ; authors and travellers have each a theory of his own ; while newspaper correspondents dash recklessly at any farm of word that first comes to hand. Headers must therefore hold themselves ready for these complexity for detecting the same name under two or three different The following will suffice to shew our meaning: Rajah, raja nal*>l>, nawah, nawauh Punjab, Punjauh, Penjal), Panjab Visierabad, Wuzeerabad Qhengis Khan, -Khan Cabul, Caboul, > ibul 0, Dekkan, Dukhun Feshawur, Peshawar Uahomet, 1, Muhnmmnd Sntlej, iii Himalaya, Himmaleh Gawnporei Cawnpoor- ? Ali, Alee, Ally (ihaut -. . Sipahis- Faquir, Burhampooter, Brahmaputra Ana, Assam Nepal, SiUdm, Sikim Thibet, Tibet Qoorkaa, hmere, Kashmir- sb Sudra, Soodra Vishnu, Vishnoo Huddist, Buddhist, kc, Mr Thornton, in hi of tlJ- modes of s]>ellin',' the t tin,' on some good authority -Rikaner, Bhicaner, Bikaneer, B lokanc ar , Bickanere, liik i Bhikai r, Bicanere. One in il Canning, writing seeming the eondnet of i Qed the sun's name 8hiek I A fortnight writing uder the form Shaik ibk to make the spelling in the ive and the map I 'iifuri/. AY v of about in India, both in on and in writ ith the military life of the natives; with the initials or syllables 1'.. Pod , EL, M , A., T.. Tank, S., I ! from the i r, Tamil, Tamil or Tamul is spoken in some of t 1 ithern India. terms of spelling are gii the reader for tl kbove advert Ah,auh (P.), water; used in composition thai I by live r lt , equivalent in meaning to the (I\>, inhibited ; a town or city ; Byder. ; a female attendant on a lady. State meat in t ; circle, piivalent to the English dear, and applied l>oth to a father and his child. 100, a Hindoo title, equivalent Bag, bdffk, a garden ; Kudsiya bdyh is a celebrated Delhi. ; a title of retpect added to the names of militai ti intoxicat from hemp. ii exchange or market ; /ii>/um (T.), a princess, a lady of high rank. Hhccitce, lift izht i, a water-carrier. ha; liihnnr/u (T.), an Indian officer's cook. Bvdgerov, bajrd (8.), s Ganges boat of large size. talow, bangld (H.), a house or dwelling. Cherry, chert (TaniA, village or town ; termination to the name of many places in Southern India; such at Pondirhtrrij. Chit, chitti (HA, a note or letter. Chap/iff//, chdpdti (P.), a thin cake of unleavened Indian- corn bread. '.'<'il (H.), a packet of letters; the post. dar, zamind&r (P.), a landowner. CHAPTER I THE ANGLO-INDIAN ARMY AT THE TIME OF THE OUTBREAK. HE magnificent India which began to revolt from England in the early months of 1857 ; which ^ continued that Revolt until it spread to many thousands of square miles ; which conducted the Revolt in a manner that appalled all the civilised world by its unutterable L-rors this India was, after all, not really unsound at its core. It was not so much the people who rebelled, as the soldiers. Whatever grievances the hundred and seventy millions of human beings in that Avonderful coun- try may have had to bear; whatever complaints may have been justifiable on their parts against their native princes or the British government ; and whatever may have been the feelings of those native princes towards the British all of which matters will have to be considered in later chapters of this work still it remains incontestable that the outbreak was a military revolt rather than a national rebellion. The Hindoo foot-soldier, fed and paid by the British, ran off with his arms and his uniform, and fought against those who had supported him ; the Mohammedan trooper, with his glittering equipments and his fine horse, escaped with both in like manner, and became suddenly an enemy instead of a friend and servant. What effect this treachery may have had on the populace of the towns, is another question : we have at present only to do with the military origin of the struggle. Here, therefore, it becomes at once necessary that the reader should be supplied with an intel- ligible clue to the series of events, a groundwork on which his appreciation of them may rest. As this work aims at something more than a mere record of disasters and victories, all the parts will be made to bear some definite relation one to another ; and the first of these relations is between the mutinous movements themselves, and the soldiers who made those movements. Before we can well understand what the sepoys did, we must know who the sepoys are; before we can picture to ourselves an Indian regiment in revolt, wc must know of what elements it consists, and what ai'e its usages when in cantonments or when on the march ; and before we can appreciate the importance of two presidential armies remaining faithful while that of Bengal revolted, we must know what is meant by a presidency, and in what way the Anglo-Indian army bears relation to the territorial divisions of India. We shall not need for these purposes to give here a formal history of Hindostan, nor a history of the rise and constitu- tion of the East India Company, nor an account of the manners and customs of the Hindoos, nor a narrative of the British wars in India in past ages, nor a topographical description of India many of these subjects will demand attention in later pages ; but at present only so much will be touched upon as is necessary for the bare under- standing of the facts of the Revolt, leaving the causes for the present in abeyance. What are the authoritative or official divisions of the country in reference to the governors who control and the soldiers who fight (or ought to fight) for it ? What are the modes in which a vast region, extending more than a thousand miles in many different directions, is or may be traversed by rebel soldiers who fight against their employers, and by true soldiers who punish the rebels 1 What and who are the soldiers thus adverted to ; how many, of what races, how levied, how paid and supported, where cantoned, how officered ? These are the three subjects that will occupy a brief chapter ; after which the narrative of the Revolt may with profit be at once entered upon. And first, for India as an immense country governed by a people living eight or ten thousand miles distant. Talk as we may, there are few among us who can realise the true magnitude of this idea the true bearing of the relation borne by two small islands in a remote corner of Europe to a region which has been famed since the time of Alexander the Great. The British Empire in India what does it denote 1 Even before the acqiiisition of Oude, Pegu, and Nagpoor, the British possessions in India covered nearly 800,000 square miles ; but as the influence of England is gradually extending over the protected .and the hitherto independent states, we shall best conceive the whole (without Pegu, which is altogether eastward of what is considered India) as a compact territory of 1,400,000 square miles twelve times as large as the United Kingdom, sixteen times as large as Great Britain, twenty-five times as large as ANGLO-INDIAN ARMY AT THE TIME OP THE OUTBREAK. 15 England and Wales: double the size, in fact, of Great Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Prussia, and Switzerland, all combined. Nor is this, like the Russian Empire, a vast but thinly populated region. It contains at least a hundred and eighty millions of human beings, more than a hundred and thirty millions of whom are the direct subjects of Queen Victoria that is, if anything can be direct, connected with the anomalous relations between the Crown and the East India Company. It comes within the knowledge of most intelli- gent English readers at the present day, that this Indian Empire, governed by a curiously compli- cated bargain between sovereign and a company, Ben growing for a hundred years, and still continues growing. In fits of national anger or international generosity, we inveigh against the Czar of Russia for processes of aggression and plans of annexation in regions around and bei tipian and Bla< d we compassionate and BJBttTl his weak neighbours under the pn of his ambition ; but it is only in times of excite- ment or peril that we consider the extraordinary way in which our own Indian Empire built np by conquest^ by purchase, by forfeiture and in soni hieh, called robbery by our enemies, do at any rate demand a little com- punction from us as a Christian people, Kxactly a century ego, England occupied a foot rand in India ; her power was aim- out by the native nawab who tendered hi] infamous by the episode of the Black Hole at Calcutta ; and it was in the year after that atrocity iifly, in 17~>7, that ('live began those wonder- ful victories which established a permanent basil for a British Empire in Hindostan. And what a continuous growth by increment has since displayed! The Pergunnahs, Masnlipatam, Burd- wan, Miduapore, Chittagong, Bengal, Bahar, the Northern Circars, Benaiv British hinds by the year 1775; the next twenty-five brought to us the ownership of Sa' , Pule Penang, Malabar, Dindigul, Balem, Barramahal, Oofanbatore, Canara, Tanjore, and portions of the Decean and Mysore; in the first quarter of the present century the list was [net by the Carnatic, Gorukhpore, the reflly, portions of Bundclcund, Cuttaek, Balasore, Delhi, (iujerat, Kum; or, Khandeish, Ajl 1'oonali. the Concan, portioni of Mahratta country, districts in Bejapore and Ahmednuggur, Singapore, and M in the next period of equal 1 the acquisitions included Awrnm, Aracan, 'I serim, theNerbudda districts, Patna, Sumbhulpore, Koorg, Loodianah, Kurnaul, Sinde, and the Jul- lundur Doab; while during the eight years of the Manpiis of iJalhou-ie's administration, as we learn OO his own authority, there were added Pegu, the Punjaub, Oude, Sahara, Jhansi, and Berar all tin tly a century. The whole of British India is placed under a governor-general, whose official residence is at Calcutta, and who is assisted by a kind of cabinet or council of ministers. Formerly there were three presidencies, under whom the whole territory was placed ; two being under the governors of Bombay and Madras, and tho remainder, called the Bengal presidency, being under the governor-general him- self, who was to this extent vested with a special as well as a general government. But in process of time it was found impossible for this official to fulfil all the duties imposed upon him ; and the I tongal J 'residency became subdivided. There are now five local governors of great districts the governor-general himself, who directly rules many of the newly acquired regions; the lieutenant- governor of the Northwest Provinces, who rules some of the country formerly included in the my of Bengal ; the lieutenant-governor of the Lower Provinces, who rules the rest of that country; and the governors of Madras and Bombay, range of territory has not undergone much increase in recent years. Let us learn a littlo concerning each of these live. Madia-, a> a presidency or government, includes tin- whole of the south of India, where its nar- rowed, pen i nsular form is mosl apparent, up to about latitude lf north, together with a strip .still further north on tho east or Coromandel coat. Its greatest inland extent is about 950 miles in one direction, and 400 in another ; while its shores are washed by the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal along a coast-line of no less than 1700 -unfortunately, however, very ill provided with ports and anchorages. There are about thirty districts and states under tho governor's rule some as ' regulation districts,' others as 'non-regulation districts,' and others as 'native The difference between these three kinds may be thus briefly indicated: the 'regulation' districts are thoroughly British, and arc governed directly by the chief of the presidency; tho 'non- regulation ' districts are now equally British, though of more recent acquisition, but are governed by agents or commissioners; while the ' natin have still their native princes, 'protected,' or rather controlled by the British. "NVithout any formal enumeration, it may be well to remember that the following names of some of these districts, all more or less familiar to English readers as the names of towns or pro- vinces, are included among those belonging to the presidency or government of Madras Masulipa- tam, Nellore, Chingleput, Madras, Arcot, Cudda- lore, Ouddapah, Balem, Coimbatore, Trichinopoly, Tanjore, Madura, Tinnevelly, Malabar, Cani.ia, Yizagapatam, Kurnaul, Koorg,* Cochin, Mysore, Travancore. Some of these are not absolutely British ; but their independence is little more than a name. There are various important towns, or places worth knowing in connection with Indian affairs, which are included in some or other of * A voting native princess was sent to England from this i to be educated as a Christian lady ; and Queen Victoria became a sponsor for her at a baptismal ceremony. 16 THE KEVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. these districts, but not giving their names to them such as Seringapatam, Golcandah, Rajamandrj-, Juggernaut, Vellore, Pulicat, Pondicherry (French), Tranquebar, Negapatam, Bangalore, Ootacamund, Mangalore, Calicut. Bombay, as a presidency, is a curiously shaped strip. Exclusive of the subordinate territories of native princes (over which, however, the Company exercises paramount political sway) and of Sindc, which, though recently placed under the govern- ment of Bombay, may properly be regarded as a distinct territory exclusive of these, the presi- dency occupies a narrow strip, of irregular outline, stretching for a considerable distance north and south. It occupies the western coast of the penin- sula, from Gujerat on the north, to the small Portuguese settlement of Goa on the south ; and has a length of 660 miles, with a maximum breadth of 240. The Bombay provinces included in the strip just noticed, the neighbouring territories administered by or on behalf of native princes, and Sinde, form three sections about equal in size, the whole collectively being thrice as large as England and Wales. To assist the memory, as in the last paragraph, we give the names of the chief districts likely to be. known to English readers all of which either belong absolutely to the presidency of Bombay, or are more or less under the control of the governor Surat, Barochc, Ahmcdabad, Khandeisb, Poonah, Ahmednuggur, Bombay, Concan, Satara, Baroda, Kattywar, Kolapore, Cutch, the Mahratta districts, Kurachcc, Hyderabad, Shikarpore, Khyrpore. The last four are districts of Sinde, conquered by the late Sir Charles James Napier, and placed under the Bombay presidency as being nearer at hand than any of the others. Besides the towns similarly named to most of these districts, the following may be usefully mentioned Goa (Portuguese), Bejapore, Bassein, Aurungabad, Assaye, Nuseera- bad, Cambay. Lower Bengal, or the Lower Provinces of Bengal, considered as a sub-presidency or lieutenant-govern- ment, comprises all the eastern portion of British India, bounded on the east by the Burmese and Chinese Empires, and on the north by Nepaul, Sikim, and Bhotan ; southward, it is washed by the Bay of Bengal ; while inland or westward, it reaches to a point on the Ganges a little beyond Patna, but not so far as Benares. Fancy might compare it in shape to a dumb-bell, surmounting the upper part of the Bay of Bengal, which washes its shores throughout a distance of 900 miles. Without reckoning native states under the control of the Company, this lieutenant-governor- ship is considerably more than three times as large as England and Wales ; and nearly the whole of it is in the basins of, or drained by, the two magnificent rivers Ganges and Brahmaputra. On the principle before adopted, we give the names of districts most likely to become familiar- iscd to the reader Jessore, Burdwan, Bancorah, Bhaugulpore, Monghir, Cuttack, Balasore, Midna- pore, Moorshedabad, Rungpoor, Dacca, Silhet, Patna, Bahar, Chittagong, the Sunderbunds, Assam, Aracan. Most of these are also the names of towns, each the chief in its district ; but there are other important towns and places not here named including Calcutta, Cossimbazar, Barrack- pore, Chandernagore, Serampore, Culpee, Purneab, Boglipore, Rajmahal, Nagore, Raneegunge, Jella- sore, Dinapore, Bahar, Ramghur, Burhampore. Northwest Bengal, or the Northwestern Pro- vinces of the Bengal presidency, regarded as a sub-presidency or lieutenant-governorship, com- prises some of the most important and densely populated districts of Northern India. It covers seven degrees of latitude and nine of longitude; or, if the portion of the ' non-regulation ' districts under the control of this lieutenant-governor be included, the range extends to ten degrees of latitude and twelve of longitude. Its boundary is roughly marked by the neighbouring provinces or states of Sirhind, Kumaon, Nepaul, Oude, Lower Bengal, llewah, Bundelcund, and Scindiah's Mah- ratta territory ; but many of these are included among its ' non-regulation ' territories. In its limited, strictly British territory, it is a little larger than England and Wales ; but including the ' non- regulation' provinces, such as Kumaon, Ajmeer, Saugor, &c, it is vastly larger. As the chief city is Agra, the lieutenant-governorship is often called by that name : more convenient, perhaps, thau the one officially adopted indeed it Avas at one time determined, though the plan has been post- poned sine die, to form an entirely new and distinct presidency, called the Presidency of Agra. The Ganges and the Jumna are the great rivers that permeate it. As before, we give the names of the most familiarly known divisions or dis- tricts Delhi, Meerut, Allygurh, Rohilcund, Bar- eilly, Shahjehanpoor, Bijnour, Agra, Furrucka- bad, Allahabad, Cawnpore, Futtehpore, Benares, Gorukhpore, Azimghur, Jounpore, Mirzapore, Ghazeepore ; and if to these we add the names of towns not indicated by the names of their districts such as Simla, Sirhind, Umballa, Loodianah, Shahabad, Buxar it will be seen how many places noted more or less in Indian affairs lie within this province or lieutenant-governorship. For the sake of brevity, it may here be remarked, we shall frequently, in future chapters, use the names 'Northwest Bengal' and 'Lower Bengal,' instead of the tedious designations ' North- western Provinces' and 'Lieutenant Government of Bengal.' As to the fifth or remaining sphere of govern- ment that which is under the governor-general himself it is Avith difficulty described ; so many are the detached scraps and patches. The over- Avorked representative of the crown, Avhether his name be Auckland or Ellenborough, Dalhousie or Canning, finding the governorship of Bengal too onerous Avhen added to the governor-generalship of the Avhole of India, gives up his special care of Bengal, divides it into two sub-provinces, and ANGLO-INDIAN ARMY AT THE TIME OF THE OUTBREAK. 17 hands it over to the two lieutenant-governors. But the increase of territory in British India has been so vast within the last few years, ami the difficulty so great of deciding to which presidency they ought to belong, that they have been made into a fifth dominion or government, under the governor-general himself. The great and import- ant country of the Punjaub, acquired a few years ago, is one of the list; it is under the governor- general, and is administered for him by a board of commissioners. The kingdom of Oude is another, annexed in 18of>, and similarly represented by residents or commissioners acting for and under the orders of the governor-general. The province of Nagpoor is a third: a large country in the very centre of India, annexed in 1853, and nearly touching all the four governorships alrcady deecribed. Peru is a fourth, wrested from the Rdtan of Barman, in is").', and placed under the L'overnor-gencral's administration. A tiftli is i, a strip of country stretching five hundred miles along tl. of the of Bengal. There are other fragment!; but the above will suffice to shew that the trovcrnor- .1 has no inconsiderable amount ot territory under his immediate eontrol, repr esen ted by iers. If we look at the n;i:, - included within these limits, we shall be struck with their number and importance in connection with stirring events in India. In the Punjaub we find Peshawar, Attack. Kav.ul l'indce, Jelum, Ranrangnr, chillian walla, Wnseerahad, CTmritsir, Lahore, .lullundur. Ghoorka, Ferozshah, Moodkee ; in the once independent but now British province or kingdom of Onde will be found the names of Lucknow, Oude, Pyzabad, Sultanpore, Khyrabad ; in the tcrritoi y oor is tlic town of the same name l.ut other towns of any note are scarce. In Pegu and rim. both ultra-Can; ctie - d of I langes, we find Rangoon, Bassein, Prome, Moulmein, and Martaban. The reader has here before him about a hundred and forty names of places in this rapid - of tlv divisional governments of India, mostly the names of important towns; and without any p simply a -Ii< >it stick bound round at one end with a piece of rag or a tuft of hemp, on which oil is occasionally dropped from a flask or a hollow bamboo ; the odour of the oil-smoke is disagreeable, and most travellers .are glad to dispense with the services of a second torch-hearer. LOp Debar*! journey from Delhi to Benares was a good example of dak-travelling in his day; and t: i has altered very little since. Ik- had twelve bearers, on account of his route lying partly through a broken country. His cloth, writing-desk were planed in the two pctarrahs, carried by the two bangey-burdars. ' The men set out across the meadows at a good round trot of about four miles an hour, grunting all the way like paviers in England : a custom which, like paviers, they imagine eases them under their burden.' Only four men can usually put their shoulders to a palanquin at the same time ; but the bishop observed that whenever they ap- ied a deep nullah or steep bank, the bearers who were not at that time bearing the palanquin, but were having their interval of rest, thrust stout bamboos under the bottom of the palanquin, and took hold of the ends on each side ; so that the Strength of several additional men was brought into requisition In crossing a stream, 'the boat (the spot being a regular ferry), a broad and substantial one, had a platform of wood covered with clay across its middle. The palanquin, with me in it, was placed on this with its length athwart the middle; the man gee steered, and some of the dak-bearers took up oars, so that we were across in a very short time. 1 Private daks are occasionally employed, a specu- lator undertaking to supply the bearers. Having no large establishments to keep up, these men can ailbrd to undersell the government that is, establish a lower tariff; and they provide a little additional accommodation in other ways. Some travellers, however, think these specu- lators or chowdrics not sufficiently to be trusted, and prefer the government dak at higher rates. Experienced men will sometimes dispense with tho preliminary of ' laying a dak,' or arranging for the whole journey : depending on their own sagacity for hunting up bearers at the suc- ve stations. There have also been intro- duced horse-daks, wheeled palanquins drawn by horses ; but these are only available on the great trunk-roads recently executed by the government. It was observed, in relation to 'marching' or horse-travelling, that there are no hotels or inns 22 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. on the road ; there is a partial substitute, however, that may here be noticed. The Company have established dak-bungalows at certain stations, varying from fifteen to fifty miles apart, according as the road is much or little frequented. These places are under the control of government officers : a khitmutgar or servant, and a porter, attend at each ; the traveller pays a fixed sum for the use of the room, and makes a separate bargain for any few articles of provisions that may be obtainable. The building is little more than a thatched house of one story, divided into two small rooms, to each of which a bathing- room is attached. The servant cooks and serves a meal, while the porter assists in subsidiary offices. If a traveller does not choose to avail himself of these bungalows, he can travel continuously in his palanquin, sleeping and waking by turns. This, however, is a great trial for most persons ; because the bearers make an unpleasant grunting noise as an accom- paniment to their movements ; and moreover, Indian Domestics. 1. Dirgee tailor. 2. Khitmutgar writing the accounts of the previous day. 3. Sepoy after parade. 4. Maitre, or house-cleaner. 5. Dobee washerman. C. Chuprassee going out with gun before a shooting-party. 7. Chuprassee letter-carrier. 8. Bengalee Pundit, or scholar. unless well drilled, they do not balance the palan- quin well, but subject its inmate to distressing joltings. It has been placed upon record, as an instructive commentary on the immense distances to be tra- versed in India, the imperfection of most of the roads, and the primitive detail of travelling arrange- ments that when Viscount Hardinge was engaged in the Punjaub campaign in 1846, one hundred European officers were sent off from Calcutta to aid him. Although the distance was nearly fifteen hundred miles, nothing more rapid than palanquin travelling was available ; and, as a consequence, the journey became so tediously prolonged that only thirty out of the hundred officers arrived at the Sutlej before the campaign was over. Palanquin-bearers were posted at different stations to carry three persons daily ; and it was calculated that, assuming twelve bearers to be posted at every station, and the stations eight miles apart on an average, the duty must have required the services of seven thousand of these men all to carry one hundred officers: a waste of muscular energy singular to contemplate by the light of an English- man's home experience. The Indian post is still more simple than the dak. It is conducted by runners, each of whom slings his mail-bag on the end of a stick over his shoulder. He runs five miles in an hour, and then gives his bag to another man, who runs five miles in an hour ; and so on. Strictly speaking, dak is an appellation properly belonging to this letter- ANGLO-INDIAN ARMY AT THE TIME OF THE OUTBREAK. 23 carrying system. It is equivalent to the English post ; and as the English have adopted the custom of applying the term post to quick travelling M well as to letter-carrying, in like manner have the Anglo-Indians adopted a douhle application of the word dak. It is only the express or quick dak which maintains a speed of five miles an hour ; the ordinary speed, when the letter-bag is heavy, is four miles. In order that the runners may not bo required to go far from their homes, each man curies his bag one static, exchanges bags with another runner who has come in the opposite direction, and then returns. A letter may thus be conveyed hundred miles in a day a distance which, considering the nature of the system, is quite as great as can reasonably be es peotcd Horse and camel daks are occasionally employed ; but they are not easily available, except on good roads. Besides tho letter-dak, there is parcel- dak or bangey, the runner carrying I packet or box, in which small parcels or newspapers are <1. It will become a duty, in a later portion of this work, to notice somewhat fully the railway schemes of India, in relation to the plans for developing the industrial resources of that great region ; but at present this would be out of place, since the Revolt lias been dependent on the actual, not the prospective. This actuality, so far as concerns means and modes of travelling, is summed up in a few words. An Indian officer, we haw wen, must travel to his station by horse or by palanquin if on land, by drag-boat or by steam-boat if on the rivers. In any case his rate of progi W ; his movements are encumbered by a train of servants, by a whole bazarful of furniture and culinary apparatus, and by an anxiously selected provision is larder. To move quickly is well-nigh impossible : all the conditions for it are wanting. Improvements, it is true, are in progress : steamers of light draught and rapid movement are being planned for the rivers ; the great trunk-road from Calcutta to the Afghan frontier is beginning to offer facilities for wheel-carriage transport ; and the railways are beginning to shew their iron tracks in various regions; nevertheless, these are rather indications of the future than appliances for the present ; and the Indian officers are not yet in a position to say much about them from personal experience. The humbler soldiers, whether Europeans or sepoys, are of course less favourably 1 than the officers. There is no Weedon in India, connected by rail with a Chatham, a mouth, a Liverpool, a Leeds, along which a whole regiment can be conveyed in a few hours ; and as saddle-horses and palanquins are out of the ion for infantry privates, it becomes neces- sary to trudge on foot along such roads as may be available, or to linger on the tardy river route. Once now and then, it is true, a daring man, a Napier or an Edwardes, will swiftly send a small body of troops over a sandy desert or a marshy plain on camels, horses, elephants, or some exceptional modes of conveyance ; but the prevalent characteristics of travel arc such as have here been described, and such will doubtless be the case for many years to come. Such, then, being the territorial arrangements by which Anglo-Indian troops are considered to belong to different presidencies and states; and such the modes in which military as well as civilians must move from place to place in those territories; we shall be prepared next to under- stand something about the soldiers themselves the Anglo-Indian army. In no country in Europe is there an army so anomalous in its construction as that which, until lately, belonged to the East India Company. Different kinds of troops, and troops from different provinces, we can well understand. For instance, the French avail themselves of a few Algerine Aral >s 5 and a small foreign legion, as components in the regular army. The English have a few colonial corps in addition to the Queen's army. Tho Proaaanfl have a Imdwekr or militia equal in magnitude to the regular army itself. The BMrfanfl have military colonists as well as military tributaries, in addition to the great corj>s d'< The Austrians have their peculiar Military Frontier regiments, besides the regular troops furnished by the do/en or score of distinct provinces and king- doms which form their empire. The German provide their several contingents to form (if tho States can ever bring themselves to a unity of opinion) an Army of the Confederation. The iitans employ Swiss mercenaries as a portion of their army. The Romans, the subjects of the pope as a temporal prince, have the 'protection' of French and Austrian bayonets, in addition to a small native force. The Turks have their regular army, aided (or sometimes obstructed) by the contingents of vassal-pachas and the irregulars from mountain districts. But none of these resemble the East India Company's army. Under an ordi- nary state of affairs, and without reference to the mutiny of 1857, the Indian army is in theory a strange conglomerate. The Queen lends some of her English troops, for which the Company pay ; the Company enlist other English troops on their own account; they maintain three complete armies among the natives of India who are their subjects ; they raise irregular corps or regiments in the states not so fully belonging to them; they claim the services of the troops belonging to certain tributary princes, whenever exigency arises ; and the whole of these troops arc placed under the generalship of a commander-in-chief, who is appointed not by the Company, who have to pay for all but by the Queen or the British government. The Company's army rose by degrees, as the territorial possessions increased. At first the troops were little better than adventurers who sold their swords to the highest bidders, and fought for pay and rations without regard to the justice of the cause in which they were engaged ; many were liberated convicts, many were deserters from 24 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. various European armies, some were Africans, while a few were Topasses, a mixed race of Indo- Portuguese. The first regular English troops seen in Bengal were an ensign and thirty privates, sent from Madras to quell a petty disturbance at the Company's factory in the Hoogly. Gradually, as the numbers increased and the organisation improved, the weapons underwent changes. The troops originally were armed with muskets, swords, and pikes twelve or fourteen feet long: the pikemen in the centre of the battalion or company, and the musketeers on the flank. In the beginning of the last century the pikes were abandoned, and the soldiers armed with bayonets in addition to the muskets and swords. When the custom was adopted, from European ex- ample, of forming the companies into a regular battalion, the swords were abolished, and the common soldiers left only with muskets and bayonets. Various changes were made during the century, assimilating the troops more and more to those of the English crown, in weapons and accoutrements. The regiments became, by successive ameliora- tions, composed almost wholly of native Hindoos and Mohammedans, officered to some extent by Europeans. An English sergeant was given to each company, and a drill-sergeant and sergeant- major to each battalion. Afterwards, when the battalions were formed into regiments, natives were appointed as sergeants of companies ; and then the only European non-commissioned officers were a sergeant-major and a quartermaster-ser- geant. By the time of Lord Clive's achievements, just about a century ago, three armies were owned by the Company one in Bengal or the Calcutta presidency, one in the Coromandel or Madras presidency, and one on the Malabar coast, south of the present station of Bombay. These three armies were totally separate and distinct, each under its own commander, and each presenting some pecu- liarities of organisation ; but they occasionally joined as one army for large military operations. There were many native corps, and a few Euro- pean corps ; but all alike were officered by Euro- peans. The cadet, the young man sent out from England to ' make his fortune ' in India, was appointed to a native corps or a European corps at the choice of the commander. The pay being good and regular, and the customs and prejudices respected, the sepoys, sipahis, or native soldiers became in most cases faithful servants to the Company, obeying their native officers, who, in their turn, were accountable to the European officers. The European and the native corps were alike formed by enlistment: the Company compelling no one to serve but those who deemed the pay and other arrangements suffi- cient. An endeavour was made at that time (afterwards abandoned) to equalise the Hindoos and Mohammedans in numbers as nearly as possible. From an early period in the Company's history, a certain number of regiments from the British royal army were lent for Indian service ; the number being specified by charter or statute ; and the whole expense, of every kind, being defrayed by the Company including, by a more modern arrangement, retiring pay and pensions. There were thus, in effect, at all times two English armies in India ; the one enlisted by the Company, the other lent by the Crown ; and it was a matter of some difficulty to obviate jealousies and piques between the two corps. For, on the one hand, the officers of the Company's troops had better pay and more profitable stations assigned to them ; while, on the other hand, the royal officers had precedence and greater honour. A Company's captain, however so many years he might have served, was subordinate even to the youngest royal captain, who assumed command over him by right. At length, in 1796, the commissions received by the Company's officers were recognised by the crown ; and the two corps became placed on a level in pay and privileges. The year just named witnessed a new organis- ation also of the native army. A regiment was ordered to be of two thousand men, in two corps or battalions of one thousand each ; and each battalion was divided into ten companies, with two native officers to each company. Thus there were forty native officers in each of these large regiments. Besides these, there were half as many European officers as were allowed to a European regiment of the same magnitude. There had before been a native commandant to each bat- talion ; but he was now superseded by a Euro- pean field-officer, somewhat to the dissatisfaction of the men. The service occasionally suffered from this change ; for a regiment was transferred at once from a native who had risen to command by experience and good conduct, to a person sent out from England who had to learn his duties as a leader of native troops after he went out. The youngest English ensign, perhaps a beardless boy, received promotion before any native, however old and tried in the service. And hence arose the custom, observed down to recent times, of paying no attention to the merits of the natives as a spur to promotion, allowing seniority to determine the rise from one grade to another. While on the one hand the natives volunteered as soldiers in the Company's service, and were eligible to rise to a certain rank as regimental officers ; the English officers, on the other, had their own particular routine and hopes of preferment. The cadets or youths went out partially educated by the Company in England, especially those intended for the artillery and engineer departments ; and when settled with their regiments in India as officers, all rose by seniority ; the engineers and artillery in their own corps, the cavalry and in- fantry in their own regiments. It often happened, however, that when few deaths occurred by war, officers reached middle life without much advance- ment, and retired after twenty years or more of ANGLO-INDIAN ARMY AT THE TIME OF THE OUTBREAK. 25 service with the pay of the rauk they then held. In 1836, however, a law was made to insure that the retiring allowance should not be below a certain minimum : if an oflicer served twenty- three retired with captain's pay; if twenty-seven years, with major's pay ; if thirty- one years, with lieutenant-colonel's pay ; if thirty- live years, with colonel's pay whatever might have ben his actual rank at the date of his retirement. There was also permission for them 11 their oommisBions, although those com- missions were not bought by them in the first instance. I'nquestionably the sepoy was well paid, con- sidering the small value of labour and personal services in his country ; and thus it arose that the Company had seldom any difficulty in obtaining The sepoys were volunteers in the full of the word. Their pay, though small in our ition, was high in proportion to the station they formerly held. The Bengal Infantry sepoy rwthn rupees (fourteen shillings) per month, with an additional rupee after sixteen service, and two after twenty year havildar or sergeant received fourteen nip. jemadar or lieutenant twenty-four rupees; and a subadar or captain sixty-seven rupees. Tli; I good, that each man was usually able to send two-thirds of it to his relations. And 1 ranker to them at the end > ; if the Company's irregular corps of horse be included, there are 280,000 ; if it include the contingents supplied by native princes, the number amounts to 320,000; and lastly, if to these be added the armies of the independent and semi-inde- pendent princes, more or less available by treaty to the Company, the total swells to 700,000 men. As exhibiting in detail the component elements of the Company's Anglo-Indian army at a definite period, the following enumeration by Captain Rafter may be adopted, as applicable to the early pait of 1666, Certain minor changes were made in the two years from that date to the com- ment of the outbreak; but these will be noticed in later pages when necessary, and do not affect the general accuracy of the list. The three presidencies are kept separate, and the three kinds of troops regiments of the royal army, the Company's native regular regiments, and native irregular regiments are also kept separate. First we take the Bengal presidency in all its completeness, stretching almost entirely across Northern India from the Burmese frontier on the east, to the Afghan frontier on the west : BBXOAL PRESIDENCY. Queen's Troops. Two regiments of light eavalry. Fifteen regiment! of infantry. One battalion oi'GOth Rifles. Company's Regular Troops. Three brigades of horse-artillery, European and native. Six battalions of European foot-artillery. Three battalions of native foot-artillery. ( 'orps of Royal Engine Ten regiments of native light eavalry. Two regiments of European fusiliers. Seventy-four regiments of native infantry. One regiment of Sappers and Miners. 26 THE EEVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. Irregular and Contingent Troops. Twenty-three regiments of irregular native cavalry. Twelve regiments of irregular native infantry. One corps of Guides. One regiment of camel corps. Sixteen regiments of local militia. Shekhawuttie brigade. Contingents of Gwalior, Jhodpore, Malwalx, Bhopal, and Kotah. The European troops here mentioned, in the Company's regular army, are those who have been enlisted in England or elsewhere by the Company's agents, quite irrespective of the royal or Queen's army. The above forces, alto- gether, amounted to somewhat over 150,000 men. Let us now glance at another presi- dency : MADRAS PRESIDENCY. Queen's Troops. One regiment of light cavalry. Five regiments of infantry. Company's Regular Troops. One brigade of horse- artillery, European and native. Four battalions of European foot-artillery. One battalion of native foot-artillery. Corps of Royal Engineers. Eight regiments of native light cavalry. Two regiments of European infantry. Fifty-two regiments of native infantry. No irregular or contingent troops appear in this entry. BOMBAY PRESIDENCY. Queen's 1'roops. One regiment of light cavalry. Five regiments of infantry. Company's Regular Troops. One brigade of horse-artillery, European and native. Two battalions of European foot-artillery. Two battalions of native foot-artillery. Corps of Royal Engineers. Three regiments of native light cavalry. Two regiments of European infantry. Twenty-nine regiments of native infantry. Irregular and Contingent Troops. Fifteen regiments of irregular native troops. The European and the native troops of the Company are not here separated, although in effect they form distinct regiments. So costly are all the operations connected with the Anglo-Indian army, that it has been calculated that every English soldier employed in the East, whether belonging to the Queen's or to the Company's forces, costs, on an average, one hundred pounds before he becomes available for service, including his outfit, his voyage, his marching and barracking in India. This of course relates to the privates ; an officer's cost is based upon wholly distinct grounds, and can with difficulty be estimated. The greatly increased expenditure of the Company on military matters has partly depended on the fact that the European element in the armies has been regularly augmenting : in 1837 there were 28,000 European troops in India ; in 1850 the number was 44,000, comprising 28,000 Queen's troops, and 16,000 belonging to the Company ; while the new charter of 1854 allowed the Company to raise 24,000, of whom 4000 were to be in training in England, and the rest on service in India. What was the number in 1857, becomes part of the history of the mutiny. In the whole Indian army, a year or two before this catastrophe, there were about 5000 European officers, governing the native as well as the European regiments ; but of this number, so many were absent on furlough or leave, so many more on staff appointments, and so many of the remainder in local corps and on civil duties, that there was an insufficiency of regimental control leading, as some authorities think, in great part to the scenes of insubordina- tion ; for the native officers, as we shall presently see, were regarded in a very subordinate light. There was a commander-in-chief for each of the three presidencies, controlling the three armies respectively ; while one of the three, the com- mander-in-chief of the Bengal army, held at the same time the office of commander-in-chief of the whole of the armies of India, in order that there might be a unity of plan and pur- pose in any large combined operations. Thus, when Sir Colin Campbell went out to India in the summer of 1857, his power was to be exerted over the armies of the whole of India generally, as well as over that of Bengal in particular. Continuing to speak of the Indian army as it was before the year 1857, and thereby keeping clear of the changes effected or commenced in that year, we proceed to mention a few more circum- stances connected with the Company's European element in that army. The formation of an Indian officer commenced in England. As a youth, from fourteen to eighteen years of age, he was admitted to the Company's school at Addis- combe, after an ordeal of recommendations and testimonials, and after an examination of his proficiency in an ordinary English education, in which a modicum of Latin was also' expected. A probation of six months was gone through, to shew whether he possessed the requisite abilities and inclination ; and if this probation were satis- factory, his studies were continued for two years. His friends paid the larger portion of the cost of his maintenance and education at the school. If his abilities and progress were of a high class, he was set apart for an appointment in the engineers ; if next in degree, in the artillery ; and if the lowest in degree, for the infantry. At the end of his term the pupil must have attained to a certain amount of knowledge, of which, however, very little was professional. Supposing all to be satisfactory, he became a military cadet in the service of the Company, to be available for Indian service as occasion arose. , Having joined one of ANGLO-INDIAN ARMY AT THE TIME OP THE OUTBREAK. 27 the regiments as the lowest commissioned officer, his subsequent advancement depended in part on his qualifications and in part on seniority. He could not, by the more recent regulations of the Company, become a captain until he had acquired, besides his professional efficiency, a knowledge of the spoken and written Hindustani language, and of the Persian written character, much used in India. "When placed on tho general staff, his services might be required in any one of a number of ways quite unknown in the Queen's service in England : he might have a civil duty, or be placed at tho head of the police in a tract of country recently evacuated by the military, or be made an adjutant, auditor, quarter-master, survivor, pay-master, judge-advocate, commissary-general, brigade-major, aid-de-eainp, barrack-master, or clothing agent. Many of theso offices being lucra- tive, the military liked them ; but such a bestowal created some jealousy among tho civil servants of the Company, whose pr im in the Indian lottery were thereby diminished ; and, what was v it shook the connection between an officer and his regiment, rendering him neither able nor willing to throw his sympathies into his work. No officer could hold any ot if appoint- ments, as they were called, until he had been two years in the army. Theoffio 1 in the last paragraph wen appointed to the command both of European and of native regiments. As to privates and non-com- rs in tho European regiments, they were much the samo class of men, and enlisted much in the same way, as those in the Qa army. The privat. of the native of course different, not only from Europeans, but different among themselves I-\r.;r- fifths of the Bengal native infantry were Hindoos, mainly of the Brahmin and Rajpoot castes ; and the remainder Mohammedans. On the other hand, three-fourths of the Bengal native cavalry were Mohammedans, the Ilindous being generally not equal to them as troopers. In the Madras native army, the Mohammedans predominated in the cavalry, while the infantry comprised the two religion! in nearly equal proportions. In Bombay, nearer the nations of "Western Asia, the troops comprised volunteers of many countries and many religion! more easily managed, our officers found, on that account. Without at present going into the question how far the religious feelings and caste prejudices of the natives induced a revolt, it may be useful to shew how a regiment was constituted, of what materials, and in what gradations. An infantry regiment in the Bengal presidency will serve as a type. The organisation of a Bengal native regiment, before the mutiny, was nearly as follows : An infantry regiment consisted of about 1000 privates, 120 non-commissioned officers, and 20 native commissioned officers. It was divided into ten companies, each containing one-tenth of the above numbers. When stationary, the regiment seldom had barracks, but was quartered in ten lines of thatched huts, one row for each company. In front of each row was a small circular budding for containing the arms and accoutrements of that particular company, under the charge of a havildar or native sergeant. All these natives rose by a strict rule of seniority : the sepoy or private soldier becoming a naik or corporal, the naik being pro- moted to be harildar or sergeant, the havildar in time assuming the rank of jemadar or lieutenant, and the jemadar becoming a subadar or captain. All these promotions were necessarily slow ; for the English colonel of the regiment had very little power to promote a worthy native officer or non-commissioned officer to a higher rank. The jemadar often became a graydieaded man of sixty before he rose to the rank of subadar, the highest attainable by a native. As a rule, there were four or live Hindoos to one Mohammedan in a Bengal infantry regiment ; and of these eight hundred Hindoos, it was not unfrequent to find four hundred Brahmins or hereditary priests, and two hundred Rajpoots, a military caste only a little lower in rank than tho former; while the remain- vo hundred were low caste Hindoos. The European officers, as will be explained more fully further on, lived in bungalows or detached houses near the lines of their regiment ; but as the weather is too hot to admit of much open-air duty in the daytime, these officers saw less of their men than is customary in European armies, or than is neces- sary for tho due preservation of discipline. The head of a regiment was the commander, generally a lieutenant-colonel ; below him was an adjutant, who attended to the drill and the daily reports ; below him WSJ a quarter-master and interpreter, whose double duties were to look after the clothes and huts of tho men, and to interpret or translate <. Besides these three, there were ten subordinate officers for the ten companies, each expected to make a morning scrutiny into the condition and conduct of his men. The Europeans in a native regiment were thus fourteen or fifteen. It is true that the theory of a regiment involved a complement of about five-and-twenty European officers ; but the causes of absenteeism, lately adverted to, generally brought down the effective number to about twelve or fifteen. The arrange- ments of the infantry in the other presidencies, and of the native cavalry all over India, each had their peculiarities. Leaving for future chapters a further elucidation of the relations between the European officers and the native troops so important in connection with the Revolt and a description of the sepoys in their dresses, usages, and personal characteristics we shall now proceed to view the native army under two different aspects first, when barracked and cantoned in time of peace; and, secondly, when on the march towards a scene of war. And first, for the army when stationary. At Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras, there are solidly 28 THE REVOLT IN INDIA: 1857. built barracks for the whole of the soldiery, men as well as officers ; but in almost all other parts of India the arrangements are of a slighter and less permanent character. At the cantonments, it is true, the officers have houses ; but the sepoys are lodged in huts of their own construction. Around the cantonments at the stations, and generally skirting the parade-grounds, are the houses or bungalows of the officers. Within the lines of the cantonment, too, the officers' mess-rooms are situated ; and at the larger stations may be seen ball-rooms, theatres, and racket-courts ; while outside is a race-stand for witnessing the sports which Englishmen love in India as well as at home. The Indian bungalows, the houses inhabited by European officers at the different towns and sta- tions in India, have a certain general resemblance, although differing of course much in details. A bungalow of good size has usually a central yoom 1. Subadar major. Group of Sepoys. 2. Jemadar Lieutenant. ' 3. Subadar Captain. 4. Naik Corporal. 5. Havildar Sergeant. 6. Sepoy Private. called the hall, a smaller room opening on the front verandah, a similar one opening on the back verandah, three narrower rooms on each side of these three, and bathing-rooms at the four corners. A verandah runs entirely round the exterior. The central hall has only the borrowed light derived from eight or a dozen doors leading out of the surrounding apartments : these doors are always open ; but the doorways are covered, when privacy is desired, with the chick, a sort of gauze-work of green-painted strips of fine bamboo, admitting air and light, but keeping out flies and mosquitoes. The floors are usually of chunam, finely tempered clay, covered with matting, and then with a sort of blue-striped carpet or with printed calico. The exterior is usually barn-like and ugly, with its huge roof, tiled or thatched, sloping down to the pillars of the verandah. Air and shade are the two desiderata in every bungalow, and adorn- ment is wisely sacrificed to these. The finest part of the whole is the surrounding space or garden, called the compound, from a Portuguese word. The larger the space allowed for this compound, the more pleasant is the residence in its centre, and the more agreeable to the eye is a canton- ment of such bungalows. The trees and fruits in these enclosures are delicious to the sight, and most welcome to the heat-wearied occupants of the dwellings. Officers in the Company's service, whether military or civil, live much under canvas during the hot seasons, at some of the stations ; and the tents they use are much larger and more like regular habitations than those known in Europe. The tents are double, having a space of half a yard or so between the two canvas walls, to temper the heat of the sun. The double-poled tents are ANGLO-INDIAN ARMY AT THE TIME OF THE OUTBREAK. 29 large enough to contain several apartments, and are furnished with glass-doors to fit into the openings. A wall of canvas separates the outer offices and bathing-rooms. Gay chintz for wall- lining?, and printed cotton carpets, give a degree of smartness to the interior. Movable stoves, or else fire-dishes for wood-fuel called chillumcfh provided as a resource against the chill that often pervades the air in the evening of a hot day. The tents for the common soldiers hold ten men each Bunga'ow. with ! have a iloul wall like the otl An important part of every cantonment is the 1 in convenient proximity to the huts or tents of the troops. It comprises an enor- mous number of sutlers, who sell to the soldiers thOM OOmmoditiei which cannot well be dis; with, but which cannot conveniently bo provided and carried about by them. Curry stufl rice, arrack (in addition to the Company's allow- ance), cotton cloth, ami a multiplicity of other articl* "M at these bazaars ; and the market-people who supply these things, with their families, the coolies or porters, and their hackeries or carts add enormously to the mass that consti- tutes an Indian cantonment. The sepoy has little to spend with his sixpence a day ; hut then his wants arc few; and his copper fries, somewhat larger than the English farthing, will bay an amount of necessaries little dreamed of in England. The Hindoos have such peculiar notions com. with food and cooking, that the government leave them as much to them- issihle in those matters ; and the basaar and sutlers' arrange- ments assume a particular importance from this circumstance. An Anglo-Indian army we have seen at rest, in cantonments. Xi.sv let us trace it when on a march to a scene of war ; but while describing this in the present tense, we must make allowance for the changes which the Revolt has inevitably produced. The non-fighting men who accompany the troops greatly exceed in number the troops themselves. Captain Ifunro says: 'It would be absurd for a captain to think of taking the field without being attended by the following enormous retinue namely, a dufxish (agent or commissionaire), a cook, and a wtaty hoy (servant-of-all-work) ; if he cannot get bullocks, he must assemble fifteen or twenty coolies to carry his baggage, together with a horse- keeper and grass-cutter, and sometimes a dulcinea and her train, having occasionally the assistance of a barber, a washer, and an ironer, in common with the other officers of his regiment. His tent is furnished with a good large bed, mattress, pillows, n t : of February, and selected a portion of ti. 'iment to come forward and explain the i n to or of which the new rifle-cartri One of the sepoys, Byjonath I'andy, that he felt a suspicion that the paper might afTee! I On being asked his reason for uspicion,he answered that the paper a new kind which he had not seen before ; and there was a 'bazaar report' that the paper con- tained animal fat. On being requested to examine the paper carefully in the light, and to explain to the court what he saw objectionable in it, he i that hi on proceeded from the being stiff and cloth-like, and from its tear- mtly from the paper formerly in use. Anotl: i hand Khan, was then examined, lie objected to the paper because it was tough, and burned as if it contained -fated that much dismay had been occasioned in the regiment by the fact that 'on the 4th of February a piece of the cartridge-paper was dipped in water, when burning, it made a fizzing and smelt as if there were grease in it.' Thereupon a piece of the paper was burned in open court ; Cliaud Khan confessed that he could not smell or see grease in it ; but he repeated his objection to the use of the paper, on the plea that ' everybody is dissatisfied with it on ;:! of its being glazed, shining like waxed cloth.' Anothi , Kliadu Buksh, filling the rank of subadar or native captain, on being examined, frankly stated that he had no objection to the cartridge itself, but that there was a general report in the cantonment that the paper was made up with fat. A jemadar or lieutenant, named Golal Khan, said very positively: 'There is grease in it, I feel assured ; as it differs from the paper which has heretofore been always used for cartridges.' As shewing the well-known power of what in England would be called ' public opinion,' the answer of one of the sepoys is worthy of notice ; he candidly confessed that he himself had no objection to use the cartridges, but he could not do so, as his companions would object to it. While these occurrences were under scrutiny, a jemadar of the 34th regiment came forward to narrate what he knew on the matter, as affording proof of conspiracy. On the 5th, when the fear of detec- tion had begun to work among them, two or three of the sepoys came to him, and asked him to acco mp any them to the parade-ground. lie did so, and there found a great crowd assembled, com- of men of the different regiments at the station; they had their heads tied up in handker- chiefs or cloths, so that only a small part of the faeewa i. They mid him they were deter- mined to die for their religion; and that if they could oonceri I plan that evening, they would on the next night plunder the station and kill all the Europeans, and then depart whither they pleased. The number he stated to be about three hundred. - not at the time known to the authorities, but Wl I probable by circumstances after- wards brought to light, that letters and emis- saries were being despatched, at the beginning of February, from the native troops at Barraekpore to those at other stations, inviting them to rise in osl the British. lii'! Other circumstances, a discussion concerning such petty matters as bits of cartridge- paper and items of grease would be simply ridi- culous ; but at that time and place the ruling authorities, although ignorant of the real extent of the danger, saw clearly that they could not afford to regard such matters as otherwise than serious. There was either a sincere prejudice to be conciliated, or a wide-spread conspiracy to be met ; and it was at once determined to am the sincerity of the sepoys, by yield- their (apparently) religious feelings on a matter which did not affect the efficiency of the service. A trial was made, therefore, of a mode of loading the rifle without biting the cartridge, by tearing off the end with the left hand. The commander-in-chief, finding on inquiry that this method was sufficiently efficacious, and willing to get rid of mere formalism in the matter, con- sented that the plan should be adopted both for percussion-muskets and for rifles. This done, the governor-general, by virtue of his supreme com- mand, ordered the adoption of the same system throughout India. The scene now again changes : we have to attend to certain proceedings at Berhamporc, fol- lowing on those at Barraekpore. Of Berhamporo 40 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. as a town, little need be said here ; and that little is called for principally to determine which Berhampore is meant. Under the forms Berham- pore, Berhampoor, or Burhampore, there are no less than four towns in India one in the native state of Nepaul, sixty miles from Khatmandoo ; another in the Nagpoor territory, sixty miles from the city of the same name ; another in the Madras presidency, near Orissa ; and a fourth in the district of Moorshedabad, Lower Bengal. It is this last-named Berhampore to which attention is here directed. The town is on the left bank of the river Bhagruttee, a great offset of the Ganges, and on the high road from Calcutta to Moorshed- abad distant about a hundred and twenty miles from the first-named city by land, and a hundred and sixty by water. It is in a moist, unhealthy spot, very fatal to Europeans, and in consequence disliked by them as a station in past times ; but sanitary measures, draining, and planting have greatly improved it within the last few years. As a town, it is cheerful and attractive in appearance, adorned by stately houses in the neighbourhood, to accommodate permanent British residents. The military cantonments are large and striking ; the grand square, the excellent parade-ground, the quarters of the European officers all are hand- some. Before the Revolt, Berhampore was included within the presidency division in military matters, and was usually occupied by a body of infantry and another of artillery. There is painful evidence of the former insalubrity of the station met with in a large open space filled with tombstones, con- trasting mournfully with the majestic cantonments of the military. Berhampore has, or had a few years ago, a manufactory of the silk bandana handkerchiefs once so popular in England. The troubles in this town were first made mani- fest in the following way. On or about the 24th of February, a portion of the 34th regiment of Bengal infantry changed its station from Barrack- pore to Berhampore, where it was greeted and feasted by the men of the 19th native infantry, -stationed there at that time. During their feast- ing, the new-comers narrated all the news from Dumdum and Barrackpore concerning the greased cartridges ; and the effects of this gossip were very soon made visible. To understand what occurred, the mode of piling or storing arms in India must be attended to ; in the Bombay army, and in the Queen's regiments, the men were wont to keep their arms with them in their huts ; but in the Bengal army, it was a custom to deposit them in circular brick buildings called bells, which were kept locked under native guard, each in front of a particular company's lines. The men of the 19th regiment, then, excited by the rumours and stories, the fears and suspicions of their com- panions in arms elsewhere, but not knowing or not believing or perhaps not caring for the promises of change made by the military author- ities, broke out into insubordination. On the 26th of February, being ordered to parade for exercise with blank cartridges, they refused to receive the percussion-caps, as a means of rendering their firing impossible alleging that the cartridge-paper supplied for the charge was of two kinds ; that they doubted the qualities of one or both ; and that they believed in the presence of the fat of cows or pigs in the grease employed. That the men were either dupes or intriguers is evident ; for it so happened that the cartridges offered to them were the very same in kind as they had used during many years, and had been made up before a single Enfield rifle had reached India. This resistance was a serious affair ; it was something more than a complaint or petition, and needed to be encountered with a strong hand. It is a matter of opinion, judged differently even by military men accustomed to India and its natives, whether the proper course was on that occasion taken. The commanding officer, Lieutenant- colonel Mitchell, oi'dcred a detachment of native cavalry and a battery of native artillery the only troops at Barrackpore besides those already named to be on parade on the following morning. Between ten and eleven o'clock at night, however, the men of the 19 th regiment broke open the armouries or bells, took possession of their muskets and ammunition, and carried them to their lines. The next day, the guns were got ready, and the officers proceeded to the parade-ground, where they found the men in undress, but armed, formed in line, and shout- ing. The officers were threatened if they came on. Mitchell then expostulated with them ; he pointed out the absurdity of their suspicions, and the unworthiness of their present conduct, and com- manded them to give up their arms and return peaceably to their lines ; whereupon the native officers said the men would refuse so to do unless the cavalry and artillery were withdrawn. The lieutenant-colonel withdrew them, and then the infantry yielded. It was a difficult position for an officer to be placed in ; if he had struggled, it would have been with natives against natives ; and, doubtful of the result of such a contest, he assented to the men's conditional surrender. The affair could not be allowed to end here. The Calcutta authorities, receiving news on the 4th of March of this serious disaffection, but deem- ing it unsafe to punish while so few European troops were at hand, sent quietly to Rangoon in Pegu, with orders that Her Majesty's 84th foot should steam up to Calcutta as quickly as possible. On the 20th, this regiment arrived ; and then the governor-general, acting in harmony with Major- general Hearsey, resolved on the disbandment of the native regiment which had disregarded the orders of its superiors. Accordingly, on the 31st of March, the 19th regiment was marched from Berhampore to Barrackpore, the head- quarters of the military division ; the men were disarmed, paid off' marched out of the canton- ments as far as Palta Ghaut, and conveyed across the river in steamers placed for the purpose. In short, the regiment, in a military sense, was SYMPTOMS : CILUPATTIES AND CARTRIDGES. 41 destroyed, without personal punishment to any of the men composing it. But though not punished, in the ordinary sense, the infliction was ;i great one ; for the men at once became penniless, unoccupied, ohjectless. The governor-general, in describing these proceedings for the information of the home government, added : ' We trust that the severe measarei which we have been I to adopt will have the effect of convincing the nativo troops that they will only bring ruin on themselves by failing in their duty to the state and in obedience to their officers.' On the occasion just adverted to, General Hearsay addressed the men very energetically, while an official paper from the governor-general, read to the troops, asserted in distinct terms that the rumour was wholly groundless which imputed to the government an intention to interfere with VlSCOC.VT C .'. the religion of the people. It was a charge soon afterwardi brought in England against the nor general, that, having rabscribed to certain nary societies in India, he did not like to abjure all attempts at the conversion of the natives; and that, being thus balanced between his public duty and his private religious feeling, he had issued the general order to the whole army, but had not shewn any solicitude to convey that positive declaration to all the natives in all the cantonments or military stations. This, how- ever, was said when Viscount Canning was not it to defend himself; reasonable men soon saw that the truth was not to be obtained by such charges, unless supported by good evidence. It ever, certain, that much delay and routine formality occurred throughout all these proceed- As early aa the nth of February, General Hearsey wrote from Barrack pore the expressive words : 'We are on a mine ready to explode in allusion to the uneasy state of feeling or opinion among the sepoys that their religious usages were about to be tampered with ; and yet it was not until the 27th of March that the Supreme Council at Calcutta agreed to the issue of a general order declaring it to be the invariable rule of the government to treat the religious tendencies of all its servants with respect ; nor until the 31st that this general order was read to the troop! at l!a track pore. Considering the mournful effects of dilatoriness and rigid formalism during the Crimean war, the English public had indulged a 42 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. hope that a healthy reform would be introduced into the epistolary mechanism of the government departments ; and this was certainly to some extent realised in England; but unfortunately the reform had not yet reached India. During these early months of the mutiny, an absurd waste of time occurred in the writing and des- patching of an enormous number of letters, where a personal interview, or a verbal message by a trusty servant, might have sufficed. Eight letters were written, and four days consumed, before the Calcutta authorities knew what was passing at Dumdum, eight miles distant. A certain order given by the colonel of a regiment at Calcutta being considered injudicious by the general, an inquiry was made as to the grounds for the order ; eight days and nine letters were required for this inquiry and the response to it, and yet the two officers were within an hour's distance of each other during the whole time. Although the affair at Barrackpore on the 6th of February was assuredly of serious import, it was not known to the government at Calcutta until the evening of the 10th, notwithstanding that a horseman might easily have ridden the sixteen miles in two hours. General Hearsey's reply to a question as to the cause of the delay is truly instructive, as exem- plifying the slowness of official progress in India : ' I have no means of communicating anything to the government ; I have no mounted orderly, no express camels ; I must always write by the post ; and that leaves Barrackpore at the most inconvenient hour of three o'clock in the after- noon.' These facts, trivial in themselves, are worthy of being borne in mind, as indicative of defects in the mechanism of government likely to be disastrous in times of excitement and insubordination. Barrackpore was destined to be a further source of vexation and embarrassment to the government. It will be remembered that a part of the 34th native infantry went from that town to Bcrham- pore in the last week in February ; but the bulk of the regiment remained at Barrackpore. Inquiries, afterwards instituted, brought to light the fact that the European commander of that regiment had been accustomed to distribute religious tracts among his men ; and it was surmised that the scruples and prejudices of the natives, especially the Brahmins, had been unfavourably affected by this proceeding. But whether the cause had or had not been rightly guessed, it is certain that the 34th displayed more mutinous symptoms at that time than any other regiment. When the news of the disturbance at Berhampore reached them, they became greatly excited : they attended to their duties, but with sullen doggedness ; and they held nightly meetings, at which speeches were made sympathetic with the Berhampore mutineers. The authorities, not wholly ignorant of these meetings, nevertheless remained quiet until a European regiment could arrive to aid them. When the Queen's 84th arrived at Calcutta, the 34th were more excited than ever, believing that something hostile was intended against them ; their whispers became murmurs, and they openly expressed their sympathy. When, in accordance with the plan noticed in the last paragraph, the 19th were marched off from Berhampore to be disbanded at Barrackpore, the 34th displayed still greater audacity. The 19th having rested for a time at Barraset, eight miles from Barrackpore, a deputation from the 34th met them, and made a' proposal that they should that very night kill all their officers, march to Barrackpore, join the 2d and 34th, fire the bungalows, surprise and overwhelm the Europeans, seize the guns, and then march to threaten Calcutta. Had the 19th been as wild and daring, as irritated and vengeful, as the 34th, there is no knowing what calamities might have followed ; but they exhibited rather a repentant and regretful tone, and submitted obediently to all the details of their disbandment at Barrackpore. It will therefore be seen that the seeds of further disaffection had been already sown. As the 34th native infantry had been instrumental in inciting the 19th to mutiny, ending in disband- ment, so did it now bring a similar punishment on itself. On the 29 th of March, one Mungal Pandy, a sepoy in the 34th, roused to a state of excitement by the use of intoxicating drugs, armed himself With a sword and a loaded musket, traversed the lines, called upon his comrades to rise, and declared he would shoot the first European he met. Lieutenant Baugh, adjutant of the corps, hearing of this man's conduct, and of the excited state of the regiment generally, rode hastily to the lines. Mungal Pandy fired, missed the officer, but struck his horse. The lieutenant, in self-defence, fired his pistol, but missed aim ; whereupon the sepoy attacked him with his sword, wounded him in the hand, brought him to the ground, and tried to entice the other soldiers to join in the attack. The sergeant-major of the corps, who went to the lieutenant's assistance, was also wounded by Mungal Pandy. The dark feature in this transac- tion was that many hundred men in the regiment looked on quietly without offering to protect the lieutenant from his assailant ; one of them, a jemadar, refused to take Mungal into custody, and forbade his men to render any assistance to the lieutenant, who narrowly escaped with his life. Major-general Hearsey, on being informed of the occurrence, proceeded to the parade-ground, where, to his astonishment, he saw the man walking to and fro, with a blood-smeared sword in one hand, and a loaded musket, in the other. He advanced with some officers and men to secure the sepoy, which was accomplished with much difficulty ; and it was only by the most resolute bearing of the major-general that the rest of the men could be induced to return quietly to their lines. A court-martial was held on Mungal Pandy, and on the rebellious jemadar, both SYMPTOMS : CHUPATTIES AND CARTRIDGES. 43 of whom were forthwith found guilty, and executed on the 8th of April. No assignable cause appeared for the conduct of this man : it may have been a mere drunken frenzy ; yet there is mere probability that a mutinous spirit, concealed within his breast during sober moments, made its appearance unchecked when under the influence of drugs. There was another sepoy, however, who acted faithfully on the occasion ; this man, Bbiek Paltoo, was accompanying Lieutenant Laugh as orderly officer at the time of the attack ; and by his prompt assistance the lieutenant was saved from further injury than a slight wound. Bbiek Paltoo was raised to the rank of supernumerary havildar for his brave and loyal conduct. The outrage, however, could not be allowed to terminate without further punishment. For a time, the government at Calcutta believed that the execution of the two principal offenders would suffice, and that the sepoys would quietly return to their obedience ; but certain ominous occurrences at L uekno w and elsewhere, about the end of April, shewed the i for a stern line of conduct, especially as the :51th still displayed a kind of sullen dozedness, as if determined 00 further insubordination. After mature consider- ation the whole of the disposable troops is and around Calcutta were, on the 6th of May, marched i Ifcct the disarming and riding of .such sepoys among the 34th as were present in the lines when Lieutenant h was wounded. The force comprised the Queen's 84th regiment, a wing of the 63d, the 3d, and 70th native infantry, two squadrons of cavairy, and a light field-battery with six mm*. When these troops had been drawn up in two sides of a square, on the morning of the 6th, about four hundred sepoys of the 84th were halted in front of the guns. The order for disbandment was read out by the interpreter, Lieutenant Chamier; and after a (few energetic remarks upon the enormity of their offence, General Hearsay commanded them to pile their arms, and Strip off the uniform which they had ced, When this was done, the work of paying up their arrears was commenced. They were then dismissed with their families and baggage, to Chinsura, a town a few miles higher up the Hoogly. The grenadiers of the 84th, and a portion of the cavalry, accompanied them that they went to and settled at Chinsura, and did not cross the river to Chittagong, where three other companies of the same regiment were stationed. Four of the disbanded sepoys were officers; one of whom, a subadar, lobbed bitterly at his loss and degradation, although 44 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. it was strongly suspected that he had been one of the leaders in the insubordination. In the general order which the governor-general ordered to be read to every regiment in the service, concerning this disbandment, words occur which shew that the old delusion was still working in the breasts of the natives. ' The sepoy who was the chief actor in the disgraceful scene of the 29th of March called upon his comrades to come to his support, for the reason that their religion was in danger, and that they were about to be compelled to employ cartridges, the use of which would do injury to their caste ; and from the words in which he addressed the sepoys, it is to be inferred that many of them shared this opinion with him. The governor-general in council has recently had occa- sion to remind the army of Bengal that the govern- ment of India has never interfered to constrain its soldiers in matters affecting their religious faith. He has declared that the government of India never will do so ; and he has a right to expect that this declaration shall give confidence to all who have been deceived and led astray. But, whatever may be the deceptions or evil counsels to which others have been exposed, the native officers and men of the 34th regiment native infantry have no excuse for misapprehension on this subject. Not many weeks previously to the 29th of March, it had been explained to that regiment first by their own commanding officer, and subsequently by the major-general command- ing the division that their fears for religion were groundless. It was carefully and clearly shewn to them that the cartridges which they would be called upon to use contained nothing which could do violence to their religious scruples. If, after receiving these assurances, the sepoys of the 34th regiment, or of any other regiment, still refuse to place trust in their officers and in the government, and still allow suspicions to take root in their minds, and to grow into disaffection, insubordina- tion, and mutiny, the fault is their own, and their punishment will be upon their own heads.' Five weeks elapsed between the offence of the 19th native infantry and its punishment by dis- bandment; five weeks similarly elapsed between the offence and the disbandment of the 34th ; and many observant officers were of opinion that these delays worked mischief, by instilling into the minds of the sepoys a belief that the authori- ties were afraid to punish them. Whether the punishment of disbanding was, after all, sufficiently severe, is a question on which military men are by no means agreed. At a later date than the events narrated in this chapter, but closely connected with them in sub- ject, was the circulation of a report manifestly intended to rouse the religious prejudices of the Hindoos by a false assertion concerning the designs of the ruling powers. In some of the towns of Southern India, far away from Bengal, unknown emissaries circulated a paper, or at least a story, of which the following was the substance : That the padres, probably Christian missionaries, had sent a petition to the Queen of England, complaining of the slowness with which Hindoos were made to become Christians ; they adduced the conduct of some of the Mohammedan potentates of India in past times, such as Tippoo Saib, who had com- pelled the Hindoos to embrace Islamism; and they suggested a similar authoritative policy. The story made the padres give this advice : to mix up bullocks' fat and pigs' fat with the grease employed on the cartridges ; in order that, by touching these substances with their teeth or lips, the sepoys might lose caste, and thus induce them to embrace Christianity as their only resource. The climax of the story was reached by making the Queen express her joy at the plan, and her resolve that it should be put in operation. The success of such a lying rumour must, of course, have mainly depended on the ignorance and credulity of the natives. A far-distant region now calls for notice. At a time when the Upper and Lower Bengal provinces were, as the authorities hoped and believed, recovering from the wild excitement of the cartridge question, the commissioner of the Cis- Sutlej territory had ample means for knowing that the minds of the natives in that region were mischievously agitated by some cause or other. It is necessary here to understand what is meant by this geographical designation. If we consult a map in which an attempt is made, by distinct colouring, to define British territory from semi- independent states, we shall find the region between Delhi and Lahore cut up in a most extraordinary way. The red British patches are seen to meander among the scraps of native territory with great intricacy : so much so, indeed, that a map on a very large scale could alone mark the multitudinous lines of boundary ; and even such a map would soon become obsolete, for the red, like a devouring element, has been year by year absorbing bits of territory formerly painted green or yellow. The peculiar tribe of the Sikhs, besides occupying the Punjaub, inhabit a wide region on the east or left bank of the river Sutlej, generally included under the name of Sirhind. For fifty years the British in India have had to deal, or have made a pretext for dealing, with the petty Sikh chieftains of this Sirhind region: at one time 'protecting' those on the cast of the Sutlej from the aggression of the great Sikh leader, Runjeet Singh, on the west of that river ; then ' annexing' the small territories of some of these chieftains on failure of male heirs ; then seizing others as a punish- ment for non-neutrality or non-assistance during war-time. Thus it arose that before the annex- ation of the Punjaub itself in 1849 much of the Sikh country in Sirhind had become British, and was divided into four districts marked by the towns of Ferozpore, Umballa or Umballah, Loodianah, and Kythul ; leaving Putialah, Jeend, and Furreedkote as the three principal SYMPTOMS : CHUPATTIES AND CARTRIDGES. 45 protected or semi- independent Sikh states of that country. Meanwhile a region somewhat to the east or north-east of Sirhind was subject to just the same process. Being hilly, it is called the Hill Country ; and being ruled by a number of petty chieftains, the separate bits of territory are called the Hill States. During about forty the process of absorption has been going on arising primarily out of the fact that the British aided the Hill chieftains against the Nepaulcse, and then paid themselves in their wonted manner. Part of Gurhwal was annexe! ; then Sundock, Malowa, and a number of other places not easily found in the maps ; and after- wards Ramgurh was given back in exchange for Simla, to form a healthy holiday-place among the hills, a sort of Balmoral for sick gorernoin and command) it, much of the Hill Country became British, and the rest was left in the hands of about twenty petty chieftains. Now, when the Cis-Sutlej territory is mcnti it must be interpreted as including all the region taken by the British from the minor Sikh chief- tains in Sirhind ; together with such of the Hill States of Gurhwal and its vicinity as have become British. The whole together have been made a trernment, under a commissioner responsible to the governor-general , or, more strictly, the commissioner rules the Sirhind region, while the Hills are included among the noii-ie/ulation dis- tricts of the Agra government. The four towns and districts <>f Ferozpore, Loodianah, Umballa, and Kythul, east of the Suflej, will suffice for our purpose to indicate the Ois-Sntlej territory so named in a Calcutta point of view, as being on the cis or hither side of the Sutlej, in reference to that city. It was at Umballa, one of the towns in the Ltlej territory, that the commissioner, Mr Parries, reported acts of incendiarism that much perplexed him. On the 26th of March, Hurbunsee Singh, a snbadar or native captain in the 30th regiment native infantry, attached to the mus- ketry depot at that place, became an object of attack to the other men of the regiment ; they endeavoured to burn his hut and his property. It was just at the time when reports reached Dmballa relative to the cartridges, the using of which was said by the sepoys to lie an innovation derogatory to their caste and religion. Hurbunsee Singh had at once come forward, and publicly stated his willingness to tire with such cartridges, :;_:, in his opinion, free from objection. The incendiarism took place on the day named ; and the commissioner directly inferred that there must be something wrong in the thoughts of men who would thus seek to injure one of their own native officers on such grounds. Nothing further occurred, however, until the 13th of April, when another fire broke out. This was followed by a third on the 15th, in some outhouses belonging to the GOth native infantry; by two fires on the 16th, when nment property was burned to the value of thirty thousand rupees ; by the burning on the 17th of an empty bungalow in the 5th regiment native infantry lines, of a stable belonging to an English officer of the 60th, and of another building. On the 20th, attempts were made on the houses of the jemadar and havildar of the 5th regiment, two native officers favourable to the new cartridges ; and under the bed of the jemadar were found gunpowder and brimstone, as if to destroy the man IS well as his property. Some of the buildings are believed to have been set on fire by dropping burning brimstone through holes in the roof; and on one occasion, when the attempt at incendiarism had failed, a paper containing powder and brim- stone was found. On the 21st and two following -imilar tires occurred. On the 25th, the house of the band-master of Her Majesty's 0th Lancers was tired and burned ; and two or three similar attempts were shortly afterwards made, but frustrated. At all these fires, the engines of the cantonment were set to work ; but it was observed that many of the sepoys worked listlessly and indifferently, as if their thoughts were bent rather upon fire-raising than lire-quenching. That such occurrences produced uneasiness among the English authorities at Umballa may well i>e supposed. Captain Howard, magistrate of the cantonment, wrote thus to the Calcutta government: 'The emanating cause of the arson at this cantonment, I conceive, originated with I to the newly introduced cartridges, to which the native sepoy shews his decided objec- tion : it being obnoxious to him from a false idea which, now that it has entered the mind of the sepoy, is difficult to eradicate that the innovation of this cartridge is derogatory both to his caste and his religion .... That this has led to the fires at this cantonment, in my own private mind I am perfectly convinced. Were it the act of only one or two, or even a few persons, the well-disposed sepoys would at once have come forward and forthwith informed ; but that there is an organised leagued conspiracy existing, I feel confident. Though all and every individual com- posing a regiment may not form part of the com- bination, still I am of opinion that such a league in each corps is known to exist ; and such being upheld by the majority, or rather connived at, therefore it is that no single man dared to come forward and expose it.' Although proof could not be obtained, of the culpability of any one sepoy, the incendiarism was at once attributed to them rather than to the peasantry. The existence of some oath or bond of secrecy was further supposed from the fact that a reward of one thousand rupees failed to bring forward a single witness or accuser. After about twenty attempts at burning buildings, more or less successful, the system was checked by the establishment of mounted and foot patrols and pickets ; by the expulsion of all fakeers and idle persons not belonging to the cantonment ; by the refusal of a passage through it to sepoys on furlough or discharged ; and by the arrest of 46 THE REVOLT IN INDIA: 1857. such sepoys in the Umballa regiments as, having furloughs, still remained in the cantonment influenced, apparently, by some mischievous designs. Every one coincided in opinion with Captain Howard that there had been an organised plan among the sepoys ; but some of the officers in the Company's service, civil as well as military, differed from him in attributing it solely to the cartridge affair they thought this a blind or pretence to hide some deeper scheme. The commissioner of the Cis-Sutlej states, however, agreed with the magistrate, and expressed an opinion that nothing would restore quiet but a concession- to the natives in the matter of greased cartridges ; and he recommended to the government at Calcutta the adoption of that line of policy. Writing on the 7th of May, he said : ' Fires, for the present, have ceased ; but I do not think that this is any indi- cation that the uneasy feeling among the sepoys is on the wane.' Considering the position of Umballa, it is no wonder that those in authority at that spot should feel anxiety concerning the safety of their position. Umballa is more than a thousand miles from Calcutta, separated from it by the whole of the important states in which the cities of Delhi, Meerut, Agra, Cawnpore, Lucknow, Allahabad, and Benares are situated, and deprived of assistance from thence in the event of the intei'- mediate regions being disturbed. Umballa is a somewhat important town, too, in itself, with more than twenty thousand inhabitants ; it is large, and surrounded with a wall, well supplied with water, bounded by a highly fertile district, and capable of furnishing abundant supplies to rebels, if held by them. The authorities, awakened by these events in so many parts of India, sought to inquire whether the native newspaper press of India had fermented the anarchy. It seemed at first ridiculous to suppose that those miserable little sheets, badly Avritten and worse printed, and having a small circulation, could have contributed much to the creation of the evil. Yet many facts tended to the support of this view. It was a frequent custom in those papers to disguise the writer's real sentiments under the flimsy mask of a dialogue, in which one side was uniformly made victor. When the government was not actually abused and vilified, it was treated with ridicule, and its motives distorted. There were not many . copies of these papers printed and sold ; but a kind of ubiquity was afforded to them by the practice of news- mongers or tale-bearers, who went from hut to hut, retailing the various items of news or of comment that had been picked up. Indeed, the tendency of the people to listen to attacks against the government is now known to have been very marked among the Hindoos. Predictions of the downfall of rulers were a favourite subject with them. Of course, such predictions would not be openly hazarded in news- papers ; but they not less surely reached the ears of the natives. Thirty years ago, Sir John Malcolm spoke on this subject in the following way : 'My attention has been, during the last twenty- five years, particularly directed to this dangerous species of secret war against our authority, which is always carrying on by numerous though unseen hands. The spirit is kept up by letters, by exag- gerated reports, and by pretended prophecies. When the time appears favourable, from the occurrence of misfortune to our arms, from rebel- lion in our provinces, or from mutiny in our troops, circular-letters and proclamations are dis- persed over the country with a celerity almost incredible. Such documents are read with avidity. The contents in most cases are the same. The English are depicted as usurpers of low caste, and as tyrants who have sought India with no other view but that of degrading the inhabitants and of robbing them of their wealth, while they seek to subvert their usages and their religion. The native soldiery are always appealed to, and the advice to them is, in all instances I have met with, the same " Your European tyrants are few in number : kill them ! " ' This testimony of Malcolm is espe- cially valuable, as illustrating, and illustrated by, recent events. The native press of India will come again under notice in a future chapter, connected with the precautionary measures adopted by the governor- general to lessen the power of those news-writers, whether English or native, who shewed a dispo- sition to encourage rebellion by their writings. News and rumours always work most actively among credulous people an important fact, knowing what we now know of India and its Hindoo inhabitants. When General Anson, commander-in-chief of the forces in India, found that the small events at Dumdum, Bcrhampore, and Barrackpore had grown into great importance, and that the cart- ridge grievance still appeared to press on the con- sciences or influence the conduct of the sepoys, he deemed it right to make an effort that should pacify the whole of the native troops. Being at Umballa on the 19th of May, to which place he had hastened from"iiii5"Sojourn at Simla, he issued a general oi'dcr to the native army, informing the troops that it had never been the intention of the government to force them to use any cartridges which could be objected to, and that they never would be required to do so. He announced his object in publishing the order to be to allay the excitement which had been raised in their minds, at the same time expressing his conviction that there was ho cause for this excitement. He had been informed, he said, that some of the sepoys who entertained the strongest attachment and loyalty to the government, and who were ready at any moment to obey its orders, were nevertheless under an impression that their families would believe them to bo in some way contaminated by the use of the cartridges used with the Enfield rifles recently introduced in India. He expressed SYMPTOMS: CHUPATTIES AND CARTRIDGES. 47 regret that the positive assertions of the govern- ment officers, as to the non-existence of the objectionable substances in the grease of the cartridges, had not been credited by the sepoys. He solemnly assured the army, that no interference with their caste-principles or their religion was ever contemplated; and as solemnly pledged his word and honour that no such interference should ever be attempted. He announced, therefore, that whatever might be the opinions of the govern- ment concerning the cartridges, new or old, he bad determined that the new rifle-cartridge, and every other of new form, should be discontinued ; balled ammunition being made up by each regi- ment for its own use, by a proper establishment maintained for the purpose. Finally, he declared his full confidence, 'that all in the native army will now perform their duty, lice from anxiety or care, and be prepared to stain! and ihed tl: drop of their blood, as they hail formerly done, by the side of the Britiah troops, and in d< of their country.' The central gOTOrnment at Calcutta, on receipt of the news of this order having been promulgated, 1 tl to state that, in implying that new cartridges had been issued, the commander-in-chief had overstepped the actual facts of the case ; nothing new in that way had been introduced throughout the year, except to the troops at the Depot of Musketry Instruction at Dumdum. From this fact it appeal! certain that the credulity of the sepoys at the more distant stations had been imposed upon, either by their fellow-Hindoos engaged in (piracy, or by Mohammedans. In this chapter have been discussed several subjects which, though strange, exhibit nothing terrible or cruel. The suspicions connected with the Oude princes, the mystery of the ehupatties, the prophecies of British downfall, the objections to the greased cartridges, the insubordination arising out of* those objections, the incendiarism, the Inflammatory tendency of the native news- paper pros all were important rather as symptoms, than for their immediate effects. But the month of May, and the towns of Meerut and Delhi, will now introduce us to fcaiiul proceedings the beginning of a series of lies. Council-house at Calcutta. King's Talace, Delhi. CHAPTER III. MEERUT, AND THE REBEL-FLIGHT TO DELHI. HE first "week in May marked a crisis in the affairs of British India. It will ever remain an insoluble problem, whether the hideous atrocities that followed might have MW&~) been prevented by any different policy yL*v* at tna * t * ate * ^ nc Pomplaiilings and the j^V disobedience had already presented them- / selves : the murders and mutilations had not yet commenced ; and there are those who believe that if a Lawrence instead of a Hewctt had been at Meerut, the last spark that ignited the inflammable materials might have been arrested. But this is a kind of cheap Avisdom, a prophecy after the event, an easy mode of judgment, on which little reliance can be placed. Taking the British officers in India as a body, it is certain that they had not yet learned to distrust the sepoys, whom they regarded with much profes- sional admiration for their external qualifications. The Brahmins of the Northwest Provinces a most important constituent, as we have seen, of the Bengal army are among the finest men in the world ; their average height is at least two inches greater than that of the English soldiers of the line regiments ; and in symmetry they also take the lead. They are unaddicted to drunkenness; they are courteous in demeanour, in a degree quite beyond the English soldier ; and it is now known that the commanding officers, proud of the appearance of these men on parade, too often ignored those moral qualities without which a good soldier is an impossible production. Whether, when the disturbances became known, the inter- pretation was favourable to the sepoys, depended much on the peculiar bias in the judgment of each officer. Some believed that the native soldier Avas docile, obedient, and loyal as long as his religious prejudices were respected ; that he was driven to absolute frenzy by the slightest suspicion, whether well or ill grounded, of any interference with his creed or his observances ; that he had been # V. ft K. CHAM BOS. I. >a/bjTr &AJolm#tan r MEERUT, AND THE REBEL-FLIGHT TO DELHI. -w gradually rendered distrustful by the government policy of forbidding suttee and infanticide, by the withholding of government contributions to Hindoo temples and idol-ceremonies, by the authorities at Calcutta subscribing to missionary societies, and lastly by the affair of the greased cartridges ; and that the sensibilities of Brahmin- ism, thus vitally outraged, prepared the native mind fur the belief that we designed to proceed me stratagem or other to the utter and final abolition of caste. This interpretation is wholly on the Hindoo side, and is respectful rather than otherwise to the earnestness and honesty of tlit' Brahmins. Other officers, however, directed their attention at once to the Mohammedan clement in the army, and authoritatively pro- nounced that the Hindi imply dupes and tools in the hands of the M interpreters s;iid We have 1 the Mohammedan power in India; we have dethroned the descendants of the great Aurung/cbo and the r Akbar ; we have subjected the mogul's lieutenants or nawabs to our authority ; we have lately extinguished the !;i-t remaining monarchy in Northern India held by a son of the Faithful ; WO have redueed a OOOqnering ami domimint race to a position of inferiority and subserviency; ami hence their Ottdying resentment, their implacable hatred, their resolute determination to try one more straggle for supremacy, and their crafty employment of simple bigoted Bindoos as worthy instruments when sufficiently excited by dark hints and bold 1 But there was one fact which all these officers admitted, when it was too late to apply a remedy. Whether the Hindoo or the Mohammedan element disturbed, all agreed that the British forces were ill placed to cope with any difficulties arising out of a revolt. Doubt might be enter- tained how far the disloyalty among the native troops would extend ; but there could be no doubt that European troops were scanty, just at the v> here most likely to be needed. There were somewhat over twenty thousand Queen's troops at the time in India, with a few others on the way thither. Of these, as has been shewn in a former page, the larger proportion was with the Bengal troops; but instead of being distributed in the various Bengal and (Hide provinces, they were rather largely at two extreme points, certainly not less than two thousand miles apart on the Afghan frontier of the Punjaub, and on the Burmese frontier of Pegu. Four regiments of the Queen's army were guarding the newly annexed country of the Punjaub, while three - were similarly holding the recent conquests in Pegu. What was the consequence, in relation to the twelve hundred miles between Calcutta and the Sutlej ? An almost complete denudation of European troops : a surrendering of most of the strongholds to the mercy of the sepoys. Only one European regiment at Lucknow, and none other in the whole of Oude; two at Mcerut, one at Agra, one at Dinapoor, and one at Calcutta none at Cawnpore or Allahabad. The two great native capitals of India Delhi, of the Moham- medans : Benares, of the Hindoos had not one European regiment in them. Indeed, earlier in the year, Calcutta itself had none; but the author- ities, as narrated in the last chapter, became so uneasy at the thought of being without European supporters at the seat of government, that they sent to Rangoon in Pegu for one of the Queen's regiments, and did not. venture upon the Barrack- pore disbandments until this regiment had arrived. The lieutenant-governor of the Northwest Pro- vinces, comprising Delhi and the surrounding regions) had in his whole government only three European regiments, and a sepoy army, soon found to be faithless. Oude had a considerable native force ; but Bengal proper had very few troops of any kind. In short, the Company's forces were almost as unfavourably distributed as they could |y be, to stem the Revolt at its beginning; and theiC nia y not nc nmch hazard in assuming that the natives were as well acquainted with this fact as the British. The reader will find it useful to bear in mind, that the unfavourable symptoms during the first four months of the year did not present themselves in those districts which were afterwards associated with such terrible deeds. Meerut and Delhi, Dinapoor and Ghazccpore, Benares and Allahabad, Cawnpore and Lucknow, Mir/.apore and Agra not in open disaffection during the period under notice, however much the elements for a stonn may have been gathering. It was at Dumdum, Barrack pore, and Berhampore, on the Iloogly branch of the Lower Ganges and at Umballa near the Sutlej, separated from them by moie than a thousand miles that the insubordi- nation Mas chiefly shewn. Now, however, the scene shifts to the Jumna and the Upper Ganges with which it will be well to become familiar by means of maps. Especially must the positions of Mcerut and Delhi be attended to, in relation to the events detailed in this and the next following cha] iters. Meerut, as a district, is a part of the Doab or delta enclosed between the rivers Ganges and Jumna; but it is Mcerut the town with which this narrative is concerned. It came into the -ion of the British in 1830, and is now in- cluded in the territories of Northwest Bengal. The town, standing on the small river Kalee Nuddee, is about equidistant from the Ganges and the Jumna, twenty-five or thirty miles from each, and nearly nine hundred miles from Calcutta. Meerut is interesting to the Indian antiquary in possessing some good architectural remains of mosques and pagodas ; and to the European residents, in pos- sessing one of the largest and finest Christian churches in India, capable of accommodating three thousand persons, and provided with a good organ ; but the houses of the natives are wretchedly built, and the streets narrow and dirty, as in most 50 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. oriental towns. It is as a military station, how- ever, that Meerut is most important. The canton- ment is two miles north of the town, and is divided into two portions by a small branch of the river, over which two bridges have been thrown. The northern half of the cantonment contains lines for the accommodation of a brigade of horse- artillery, a European cavalry corps, and a regiment of European infantry separated respectively by intervals of several hundred yards. In front of these is a fine parade-ground, a mile in width and four miles in length, having ample space for field- battery practice ' and the manoeuvres of horse- artillery ; with a heavy battery on the extreme right. Overlooking the parade are the barracks, with stables, hospitals, riding-schools, canteens, and other military offices. The barracks consist of a series of separate brick-built low-roofed structures, each comprising one large and lofty room, surrounded by a spacious enclosed verandah, divided into apartments for the non-commissioned officers and the families of married men. Behind the barracks, in a continued line three deep, are the bungalows or lodges of the officers, each surrounded by a garden about a hundred yards square. The opposite or southern half of the cantonment is mainly occupied by the huts (not barracks) for native troops, and by the detached bungalows for the officers who command them. This description, applicable in some degree to many parts of India, may assist in conveying an idea of the manner in which the European officers have usually been lodged at the cantonments in detached bungalows at no great distance from the huts of the native troops : it may render a little more intelligible some of the details of the fearful tragedies about to be narrated; Before the Revolt, it was customary to keep at Meerut a regiment of European cavalry, a regiment of European infantry, one of native cavalry, and three of native infantry, besides horse and foot artillery. The station is a particularly healthy one ; and, both politically and geographically, is an important place to the British rulers of India. Meerut, in some respects, was one of the last towns in which the mutiny might have been expected to commence ; for there was no other place in the Northwest Provinces containing at the time so many English troops. There were the 60th (Rifle) regiment, 1000 strong ; the 6th Dragoon Guards or Carabineers, 600 strong (but not fully mounted) ; a troop of horse-artillery ; and 500 artillery recruits altogether about 2200 men, with a full complement of officers. The native troops were but little more numerous : comprising the 3d Bengal cavalry, and the 11th and 20th Bengal infantry. In such a relative state of the European and native ' forces, no one for an instant would have admitted the probability of a revolt being successful at such a time and place. xil though it was not until the second week in May that those events took place which carried grief and mourning into so many families, Meerut began its troubles in the latter part of the pre- ceding month. The troops at this station had not been inattentive to the events transpiring in Lower Bengal ; they knew all the rumours con- cerning the greased cartridges; they had been duped into a belief in the truth of those rumours ; and, moreover, emissaries had been at work among them, instilling into their minds another preposterous notion that the government had plotted to take away their caste and insult their religion, by causing the pulverised bones of bullocks to be mixed up with the flour sold in the public markets or bazaars. Major-general Hewett, commanding the military division of which Meerut was the chief station, sought by every means to eradicate from the minds of the men these absurd and pernicious ideas ; he pointed out how little the government had to gain by such a course, how contrary it would be to the policy adopted during a hundred years, and how improb- able was the whole rumour. He failed, however, in his appeal to the good sense of the men ; and equally did the European officers of the native regiments fail : the sepoys or infantry, the sowars or cavalry, alike continued in a distrustful and suspicious state. Many British officers accus- tomed to Indian troops aver that these men had been rendered more insubordinate than ever by the leniency of the proceedings at Barrackpore and Berhampore ; that disbandment was not a sufficiently severe punishment for the offences committed at those places ; that the delay in the disbanding was injurious, as denoting irreso- lution on the part of the authorities at Calcutta ; and that the native troops in other places had begun to imbibe an opinion that the government were afraid of them. But whatever be the amount of truth in this mode of interpretation, certain it is that the troops at Meerut evinced a mutinous spirit that caused great uneasiness to their com- manders. Bungalows and houses were set on fire, no one knew by whom ; officers were not saluted as had been their wont ; and whispers went about that the men intended to adopt a bold course in reference to the greased cartridges. The military authorities on the spot resolved to put this matter to the test. On the 23d of April, Colonel Smyth, the English commander of the 3d regiment of native Bengal cavalry, ordered a parade of the skirmishers of his regi- ment with carabines on the following morning, to shew them the newly introduced mode of adjusting their cartridges without biting, hoping and believing that they would be gratified by this indication of the willingness of the govern- ment to consult their feelings in the matter. He caused the havildar-major and the havildar- major's orderly to come to his house, to shew them how it was to be done ; and the orderly fired off a carabine under the new system. At night, however, uneasiness was occasioned by the | burning down of the orderly's tent, and of a MEERUT, AND THE REBEL-FLIGHT TO DELHI. 51 horse-hospital close to the magazine. Although this act of incendiarism looked ominous, the colonel nevertheless determined to carry out his object on the morrow. Accordingly, on the morning of the 2 1th, the troops assembled on parade ; and the havildar-major fired off one cartridge to shew them how it was to be done. The men demurred, however, to the reception of the cartridges, though the same in kind as had been used by them during a long period, and not the new cartridges. An investigation ensued, which was conducted on the BSth by Major Harrison, deputy-judge advocate. ' >n being examined, the men admitted that tbey could discern nothing impure in the composition IBDg of the paper; hut added that they had heard it was unclean, and believed it to be so. The inquiry, after a few conciliatory observations on the part of the judge, ended in the men expn contrition for their obstinacy, and prmllMng I ready obedience in the use of the cartridges whenever called upon. A hope was now entertained that the difficulties had been smoothed away; but this hope proved to be fallacious. Major-general Hewett, wishing to put an end to the stupid prejudice, and to settle at once all doubts as to the obedience of the men, ordered a parade of the 3d cavalry for the morning of the 6th of May. On the evening of the 5th, preparatory to the parade, cartridges were given out to the men, the same in quality as those which had been freely in use during many Eighty-live if the sowars or ' either still incredulous on tho grease-qm or resolved to mutiny whether with Jtnl not positively refused to receive the cartridges. This conduct, of course, could not bo srerlo the men were taken into custody, and tried *by a court-martial ; they were found guilty of a military offence, and were committed to imprison- ment with hard labour, for periods varying from six to ten years. The governor-general, seeing the necessity of promptitude at this crisis, had just sent orders to tho military stations that the judgments of all court-martials should be put in force instantly, as a means of impressing the troops with the seriousness of their position ; and Major-general Hewett, acting on these instruc- proceeded on the Oth to enforce the sentence of the court-martial. A European guard of 60th Rifles and Carabiniers was placed over the con- victed men ; and at daybreak tho whole military force at the station was assembled on the rifle parade-ground. All were there the European 60th, Carabiniers, and artillery the native 3d, 11th, and 20th. The European cannon, carbines, and rifles were loaded, to prepare for any emer- gency. The eighty-five mutineers of the 3d native cavalry were marched upon the ground; they were stripped of their uniforms and accoutrements; were shackled with irons riveted on by the armourers. While this was being done, very meaning looks were exchanged between the culprits and the other sowars of the same regiment the former looking reproachfully at the latter, while the latter appeared gloomy and crest- fallen : it was evident that the unconvicted men had promised to resist and prevent the infliction of the degrading punishment on their convicted associates; but it was equally evident that the presence of so many armed European troops would have rendered any attempt at rescue worse than useless. The manacles having been adjusted, the men were marched off to jail. And herein a grave mistake appears to have been committed. Instead of keeping a watchful eye over these men at such a perilous time, and retaining them under a guard of European troops until the excitement had hlown over, they were sent to the common jail of Mcerut, two miles distant from the can- tonment, and there handed over to the police or ordinary civil power of the town. How disastrous was the result of this course of proceeding, we shall ntly see. The native troops, when the cul- prits had been removed from the parade-ground, returned to their lines furious with indignation at least the 3d cavalry were so, and they gradually brought over the infantry to share in their indig- nant feelings. It was a degrading punishment, unquestionably : whether the remainder of the native troops at the station would be terrified or exasperated by it, was just the problem which remained to be solved. All the afternoon and evening of that day were the men brooding and whispering, plotting and planning. Unfortunately, the European officers of native regiments were omed to mix so seldom with their men, that they knew little of what occurred except on parade-ground: this plotting was only known by its fruits. Judged by subsequent events, it appears probable that the native troops sent emissaries to Delhi, forty miles distant, to announce what had occurred, and to plan an open revolt. The prime plotters were the 3d; the 20th were nearly as eager ; but the llth, newly arrived at Meerut, held back for some time, although they did not betray the rest. Little did the European inhabitants, their wives and their children, at Meerut, dream what was in store for them on Sunday the 10th of May a day of peace in the eyes of Christians. It was on the Oth that the sentence of the court-martial on the eighty-five mutineers was enforced : it was on the 10th that the Revolt, in its larger sense, began. "Whether these two events stood to each other in the relation of cause and effect, is a question not easily to be answered ; but it may safely be asserted that the Revolt would not have resulted from the punishment unless the men had been generally in a state of disaffection. The Sunday opened as most Sundays open in India, quiet and uneventful, and remained so till evening. Ladies and families were then going to evening-service at the church. Some of them passed the mess-room of the 3d cavalry, and there saw servants looking towards the road leading to the native infantry lines. Something was evidently wrong. On 52 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. inquiry it appeared that a mutiny had hroken out, and that fighting was going on in the bazaar. Crowds of armed men soon hurried that way ; and families who had been on the route to church, drove or walked back in haste to escape danger. So it was on all sides : whoever on that evening ventured forth, found that blood-shedding instead of church-service would fill their thoughts. The Rev. Mr Smyth, chaplain of Meerut, while driving to church for the seven o'clock service, met two of the 60th Rifles covered with blood; and on reaching the church, he saw buggies and carriages driving away in great confusion, and a body of people pointing to a column of fire and smoke in the direction of the city : frequent shots were heard, amid the cries of a large mob. In another direction the wife of an officer in the 3d cavalry, going like other Europeans to church, and startled like them by sounds of violence, saw a private of the Carabiniers unarmed, and running for very life from several men armed with latthies or long sticks : she stopped her carriage and took in the English soldier; but the men continued to strike at him until the vehicle rolled away. This lady, on reaching her bungalow in haste and dismay, was the first to give notice to her husband that something was wrong among the native troops: he instantly started off on foot to the lines, without waiting for his horse. In another part of the scene, an English officer of the 11th native infantry, at about six o'clock on that evening, while in his bungalow preparing for a ride with Colonel Finnis of the same regiment, had his attention attracted to his servants, and those in the bungalows of other officers, going down towards the front of the several compounds or gardens, and looking steadily into the lines or cantonment of the regiment. He heard a buzzing, murmuring noise, which at first he deemed of no consequence ; but as it continued and increased, he hastily finished dressing and went out. Scarcely had he reached his gate, when he heard the sound of firearms, which his practised ear at once told him were loaded with ball-cartridge. An European non-commissioned officer came running towards him, with others, and exclaimed : ' For God's sake, sir, leave ! Return to your bungalow, change that dress, and fly ! ' Shortly afterwards shots came into his own compound ; and the havildar-major of the 11th, rushing terrified and breathless into the bungalow, exclaimed: 'Fly, sahib fly at once ! the regimeuts are in open mutiny, and firing on their officers ; and Colonel Finnis has just been shot in my arms ! ' The officer mounted and started off at first leisurely because ' a Briton does not like actually running away under any circumstances ; ' but when the havildar-major (native sergeant-major) advised him to gallop off to the European cavalry lines, he saw that the suggestion was good ; and he immediately started over a rugged and barren plain, cut up by nullahs and ravines towards the lines of the Queen's Carabiniers. When these, and a dozen similar mysteries, came to receive their solution, it was found that a mutiny had indeed broken out. Shortly before five o'clock on that Sunday afternoon, the men of the 3d native cavalry, and of the 20th native infantry, rushed out of their lines on a given signal, and proceeded to the lines of the 11th native infantry, all fully armed. After a little hesita- tion, their comrades joined them ; and then all three regiments proceeded to open acts of violence. Colonel Finnis of the 11th, the moment he heard of this startling proceeding, rode to the parade- ground, harangued the men, and endeavoured to induce them to return to their duty. Instead of listening to him, the men of the 20th fired a volley, and he fell, riddled with bullets the first victim of the Indian Revolt. The other officers present, feeling that their remaining longer on the ground would effect no good, escaped. Whether a daring man might have stemmed the torrent, cannot now be told : no one attempted it after Finnis's death ; his brother-officers were allowed to escape to the lines of the artillery and the Carabiniers, on the other side of the encampment. So far as the accounts are intelligible, the first shots appear to have been fired by the 20th, the 11th joining afterwards in the violence. While the infantry were thus engaged, the omin- ous but natural step was taken by the 3d cavalry of releasing their eighty-five imprisoned com- panions ominous, because those men, enraged at their incarceration, would join in the disorder with heated blood and excited passions. The troopers proceeded to the jail, set their companions free, armed them, and invited them to share in the mutiny. All this was evidently preconcerted ; for native smiths were at hand to strike off' the manacles. Yelling and threatening, the whole returned to the lines ; and then commenced the direful mischief. Within a very short time, all three regiments became busily engaged in burning and murdering. But this was not all; when the eighty -five troopers were liberated, the other prisoners in the jail, twelve hundred in number, were set at liberty at the same time ; and then the scum of Indian society entered into the scenes of violence with demoniac relish, adding tenfold to the horrors perpetrated by the sepoys and sowars. The mutineers and the ruffians set fire to nearly all the bungalows of the native lines, and to the government establishments near at hand, murder- ing, as they went, the Europeans who fell in their way. The bungalows being mostly thatched with straw, the destruction was very rapid; the cow- ardly assailants, setting fire to the thatch, Availed till the flames had driven out the inmates of the bungalow, and then fell upon them as assassins. The conflagrations were accompanied by the yells of the rioters and the shrieks of the sufferers, ren- dered more terrible by the approach of darkness. The rabble of the bazaar, and the lowest portion of the population generally, as if intoxicated by release from the dread of Europeans, now MEEBUT, AND THE REBEL-FLIGHT TO DELHI. 53 joined the mutineers and the released felons, and the horrors thickened. On all sides shot up columns of flame and smoke ; on all sides WT8 hoard the shouts and curses of some, the and lamentations of others. One redeeming feature there may have been others marked these proceedings ; the sepoys of the 11th, in most aces, connived at the escape of thejr officers nay, strove earnestly to save them : it was not by men of his own regiment that poor Colonel Finnis had been shot down. A few individual examples, drawn from the simple but painful narratives of eve-witnesses, will hew in what way misery and death were brought into homes where the peaee of a Christian Sabbath had reigned only a few hours b. The Rev. Mr Smyth, after returning hurriedly from the church where he had intended to perform divine service, took shelter in tl. of an of the artillery in the English lines. Shots had JO been aimed at that otlicer and his wife by eight or ten sepoys of the artillen i or school, while standing at the very gate of their compound ; and yet Mr Smyth himself WSS -alutcd fully by several sepoys daring his hurried il shewing th( mixture of def< and ferocity exhibited by thoM misguided men. i:tly afterwards another shot was heard, a : d galloping past with a boggy; and it was soon found that tin- surgeon and the BOO of the 3d cavalry had wounded and mutilated. Tie aped unhurt, to learn and to mourn over the c transpiring in other parts of the town and lllliellt. A captain of horse, the husband of the lady mentioned in a former paragraph, hastened on the :ie\vs from his hunualow to the lines of the 3d cavalry, in which he commanded a troop, lb- was by his men, who offered him no hurt, and who seemed to hesitate for a time whether to join the reel in mutiny or not. Soon, however, the mania infected them ; and the captain, seeing the jail opened and the prisoners liberated, hastened back. The road from the town to the cantonment :i an uproar; the infantry and the bazaar- re in crowds, armed and tiring; and he saw one of the miscreant troopers stab to death an Englishwoman, the wife of the Meerut hotol- d. Boon a ball wi .n ear, and he saw one of his own ti aiming at him; he shouted: ' Was that meant lor ue .' was the reply; ' I will have your bloodl' The captain detected this man as one whom he had been obliged to punish for careless- lience. The man fired again, but his aim; and although the other troopen did not join in this, they made no attempt to check i lant The captain, abandoned gradually by all but a very few .it length reached the European lines, where he tool; part in the pi afterwards adopted. Meanwhile the poor wife had | two hours of terrible suspense. Believing at first that the carabinier whom she had saved might have been the main object of attack, she hid his uniform, dressed him in a coat of her husband's, and bade him sit with herself and family, for mutual safety. Out of doors she heard shots and shouts, and saw houses burning. In the next bungalow, speedily tired, was the wife of an adjutant lately arrived from England ; she was entreated to come over for shelter, but not arriving, servants were sent in to seek her. A horrid sight met them : the hapless lady lay on the floor in a pool of blood, dead, and mutilated in a way that the pen re fa-, cribe. The noises and Haines increased ; eight or ten flaming bungalows wire in si;_rht at once; and many a struggle took place between the captain's servants and the mutineers dating which it was quite un- certain whether one more burning, one more massacre, would ensue. Troopers rushed into the bungalow, endeavouring to fire it; while others, with a lingering affection towards the family of their officer, prevented them. The husband arrived, in speechless agony concerning . of those dear to him. Wrapped in black stable-blankets, to hide their light dn all left the house amid a glare of llame from neighbouring buildings, and hid under ti* - the garden: whence they sped to a small ruin it hand, where, throughout the remainder of the night, they crouched listening to the noises without. Bands of aimed men passed in and out of the bun npound during the night, and were only 1 from prosecuting a search, by an assurance from the domestics that the officer's family had effected their escape. When morning came, the (now) houseless Europeans, with about t wenty troopers who remained faithful to the last though agitated by strange waverings and irresolution left the place, taking with them such few clothes and trinkets as could be hastily collected, and started off for the Carabinicrs' lines, piimg on their way the smouldering ruins of many bungalows ami public buildii Howsoever the narratives might vary in details, in substance they were all alike; they spoke of a night of burning, slaughter, and dismay. Wher- ever there was a bungalow, the European inhabit- ants of which did not succeed in escaping to the English lines, there was murder perpetrated. The of Mr Grcathcd, civil commissioner for Meerut, was a narrow one. His house flat-roofed, as it fortunately happened was one of the first attacked by the mutineers: at the first alarm, Mi- ami Mrs Qreathed fled to the roof; thither, on the least intimation from any of the servants, the mis- creants would have followed them ; but the servants fed that the family had departed; and the assailants, after searching every room in the house, took their departure. One officer after another, as he rushed from his bungalow to call his men back to their allegiance, was shot down; and wher- ever the mutineers and their ruffian companions 54 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857, brought murder into a house, they mingled with the murder a degree of barbarity quite appalling ancr* unexpected. There were a few Europeans in the town and vicinity not connected with the military department; and these, unless they effected their escape, were treated like the rest ; rank, age, and sex were equally disregarded or, if sex made any difference, women, gentle English women, were treated more ruthlessly than men. An officer of the 20th, living in his bungalow with his wife and two children, was sought out by the ruffians : the father and mother were killed ; but a faithful ayah snatched up the two children and carried them off to a place of safety the poor innocents never again saw their parents alive. An English sergeant was living with his wife and six children beyond the limits of the cantonment ; he and three of his little ones were massacred in a way that must for very shame be left untold : the mother, with the other three, all bleeding and mutilated, managed to crawl to the European lines about midnight. With what inexpressible astonishment were the narratives of these deeds heard and perused ! Men who had been in India, or were familiar with Indian affairs, knew that the sepoys had before risen in mutiny, and had shot their officers ; but it was something strange to them, a terrible novelty, that tender women and little children injuring none, and throwing a halo of refinement around all should be so vilely treated as to render death a relief. The contrast to all that was considered characteristic of the Hindoo was so great, that to this day it remains to many an Indian veteran a horrid enigma a mystery insoluble even if his heart-sickness would lead him to the attempt. Be it remembered that for a whole century the natives had been largely trusted in the relations of social life ; and had well justified that trust. Many an English lady (it has been observed by an eloquent reviewer, whose words we have before quoted) has travelled from one end of the country to the other along desert roads, through thick jungles, or on vast solitary rivers miles and miles away from the companionship of white men, without the slightest anxiety. Her native servants, Moham- medans and Hindoos, were her protectors ; and she was as safe in such custody as in an English home. Her slightest caprice was as a law to her attendants. These swarthy bearded men, ready at her beck, ever treated her with the most delicate respect, ever appeared to bear about with them a chivalrous sense of the sacredness of their charge. Not a word or a gesture ever alarmed her modesty or excited her fear ; and her husband, father, brother never hesitated to confide her to such guardianship. It was in the year 1857 that the charm of this delicate fidelity was first broken ; and broken so appallingly, that men were long incredulous that such things could be. But the children, the sabred and mangled little ones that these could be so treated by the same natives, was more astounding to the Anglo-Indians than even the treatment of the women. ' Few of our countrymen have ever returned from India without deploring the loss of their native servants. In the nursery they are, perhaps, more missed than in any other part of the establishment. There are, doubtless, hundreds of English parents in this country who remember with feelings of kindliness and gratitude the nusery bearers, or male nurses, who attended their children. The patience, the gentleness, the tenderness with which these white-robed swarthy Indians attend the little children Of their European masters, surpass even the love of women. You may see them sitting for hour after hour, with their little in- fantine charges, amusing them with toys, fanning them when they slumber, brushing away the flies, or pacing the verandah with the little ones in their arms, droning the low monotonous lullaby which charms them to sleep ; and all this without a shadow on the brow, without a gesture of impatience, without a single petulant word. No matter how peevish, how wayward, how unreason- able, how exacting the child may be, the native bearer only smiles, shews his white teeth, or shakes his black locks, giving back a word, of endearment in reply to young master's imperious discontent. In the sick-room, doubly gentle and doubly patient, his noiseless ministrations are continued through long days, often through long nights, as though hunger and weariness were human frailties to be cast off at such a time. It is little to say that these poor hirelings often love their master's children with greater tenderness than their own. Parted from their little charges, they may often be seen weeping like children themselves ; and have been known, in after-years, to travel hundreds of miles to see the brave young ensign or the blooming maiden whom they once dandled in their arms.' These men, it is true, were domestic servants, not sepoys or soldiers fighting in the army of the Company ; but it is equally true that the British officers, almost without exception, trusted implicitly to the sepoys who acted as orderlies or servants to them ; and that those orderlies shewed themselves worthy of the trust, by their scrupulous respect to the ladies of each household, and their tender affection for the little ones born under the roof of the bungalow. Hence the mingled wonderment and grief when fiend- like cruelties suddenly destroyed the charm of this reliance. Allowing the veil to remain, at present, drawn over still greater horrors in other places, it must be admitted that the principal atrocities at Meerut were perpetrated by the twelve hundred mis- creants liberated from the jail, aided by the general rabble of the town. The native troops had something in their thoughts besides firing bungalows and murdering a few Europeans ; they had arranged some soft of plot with the native troops of Delhi ; and they set out in a body for that city long before the deplorable transactions at Meerut had ceased. Those scenes continued more or MEERUT, AND THE REBEL-FLIGHT TO DELHI. less throughout the night ; officers and their wives, parents and their children, were not relieved from the agony of suspense before morning broke. The number massacred at Meerut on this even- ing and night was not so large as the excited feelings of the survivors led them to imply ; but it was large to them; for it told of a whole cluster of happy homes suddenly broken up, of bungalows reduced to ashes, of bleeding corpses brought in one by one, of children rendered fatherless, of property consumed, of hopes blasted, of confidence destroyed. The European soldiers, as will presently be seen, soon obtained the mastery so far as Meerut was concerned ; but the surviving women and children had still many hours, many days, of discomfort and misery to bear. The School of In- struction near the artillery laboratory became the place of shelter for most of them ; and this place was much crowded. How mournfully does it tell of large families rendered homeless to read thus : Laboratory at Meerut. ' We are in a small house at one end of the place, which consists of one large room and verandah rooms all round ; and in this miserable shed for we can scarcely call it anything else there are no less than forty-one souls' then are named thirteen members of one family, ten of another, three other families of four each, and two others of three each ' besides having in our verandah room the post-office, and arranging at present a small room adjoining the post-office as the tele- graph-office.' Some of the houseless officers and their families found temporary homes in the aits' rooms of the European lines ; space was found for all, although amid much confusion; and one of the refugees writes of 'a crowd of hclp- abiei' that added to the misery of the scene. ting to others like herself, she remarks: ' Ladies who were mere formal acquaintances now wring each other's hands with intense sympathy ; what a look there was when we first assembled all of us had stared death in the face.' Let us turn now to a question which has probably presented itself more than once to the mind of the reader during the perusal of these ad details "What were the twenty-two hundred European troops doing while the three native regiments were imbuing their hands in the blood of innocent women and children ? Could not they have intervened to prevent the atroci- ties? It must be borne in mind that these fine English troops, the Carabiniers and COth Rifles, with artillery, were nearly equal in number to the rebels; and that, if quickly moved, they would have been a match for five or ten times their number. Whether or not they were quickly moved, is just the question at issue. Major- general Hewctt's dispatch to the adjutant-general thus describes the course adopted as soon as the THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. outbreak became known to him : ' The artillery, Carabiniers, and 60th Rifles were got under arms ; but by the time we reached the native infantry parade-ground, it was too dark to act with efficiency in that direction ; consequently, the troops retired to the north of the nullah, so as to cover the barracks and officers' lines of the artillery, Cara- biniers, and 60th Rifles; which were, with the exception of one house, preserved ; though the insurgents for I believe the mutineers had by that time retired by the Allygurh and Delhi roads burned the vacant Sapper and Miner lines.' One thing is quite certain the mutineers were not pursued: they were allowed to go to Delhi, there to raise the standard of rebellion in a still more alarming way. The Carabiniers, it is true, were deficient in horses to join in pursuit; but this might assuredly have been obviated by precautionary arrangements during the many days on which the 3d native cavalry had shewn symptoms of insubordination. An officer of the 11 th native infantry, who narrowly escaped death in his gallop to the European cantonment, accom- panied the Queen's regiments to the scene of anarchy; but there is evidence that he considered the movements somewhat tardy. ' It took us a longtime, in my opinion,' he says, 'to get ready, and it was dark before the Carabiniers were prepared to start in a body.' In the latitude of Meerut, we may remark, in the second week in May, darkness can hardly come on until near seven o'clock, whereas the outbreak occurred two hours earlier. He continues : ' When the Cara- biniers were mounted, we rode off at a brisk trot, through clouds of suffocating dust, and darkness, in an easterly direction, and along a narrow road not advancing in the direction of the conflagration, but, on the contrary, leaving it behind on our right rear. In this way we proceeded for some two or three miles, to my no small surprise, when suddenly the "halt" was sounded, and we faced about, retracing our steps, and verging off to our left. Approaching the conflagration, we debouched on the left rear of the native infantry lines, which of course were all in a blaze. Skirting along behind these lines, we turned them at the western end, and wheeling up to the left, came upon the 11th parade-ground, where, at a little distance, we found the horse-artillery and her Majesty's 60th Rifles. It appears that the three regiments of mutineers had by this time commenced dropping off to the westward to the Delhi road, for here some firing took place between them and the Rifles ; and presently the horse-artillery, coming to the front and unlimbering, opened upon a copse or wood in which they had apparently found cover, with heavy discharges of grape and canister, which rattled among the trees; and all was silent again. The horse-artillery now limbered up again, and wheeled round ; and here I joined them, having lost the Carabiniers in the darkness. By this time, however, the moon arose. The horse-artillery column, with Rifles at its head, moving across the parade-ground, we entered the long street turning from the southward behind the light cavalry lines. There it was that the extent and particulars of the conflagration first became visible; and, passing the burning bungalow of the adjutant of the 11th native infantry, we proceeded along the straight road or street, flanked on both sides with flaming and crashing houses in all stages of combustion and ruin ; the Rifles occasionally firing volleys as we proceeded. It was by this time pas"t ten o'clock ; and having made the entire circuit of the lines, we passed up to the east of them, and, joined by the Carabiniers and Rifles, bivouacked for the night.' Collating various accounts of this evening's events, it becomes evident that the military move- ments of the Europeans were anything but prompt. Even if the two regiments and the artillery could not have reached the scene of tumult before dark a supposition not at all borne out still it seems strange that all should have 'bivouacked for the night' at the very time when three mutinous native regiments were on the way to Delhi. Hasty critics, as is usual in such circumstances, at once condemned the military commander at Meerut; and an ex-governor-general, dwelling, in his place in the House of Lords, on the occurrences in India, spoke in a contemptuous tone of 'an unknown man named Hewett' as one whose misconduct had allowed the rebel troops to escape from Meerut to Delhi. It was hard for a soldier who had served for forty years in India, without once returning to his native country, to find contumely thus hurled at him; it is one of the bitter things to which public men are subjected, not only from anonymous writers, but from other public men whose names carry authority with them. A near relation of the major-general afterwards took up his defence, urging that it might have been unwise policy to send the only European troops in pursuit to Delhi, at a time when the magazines and stores at Meerut required so much attention. The defence may possibly be insufficient ; but the history of the Crimean war had shewn how hastily Lord Raglan had been accused of offences, things committed and things omitted, for which he was afterwards known not to have been respon- sible ; and this experience ought to have suggested caution to assailants, especially remembering how long a time must often elapse between an accu- sation and a refutation, during which time the wound is festering. Declining years certainly did not prevent the officer whose name is now under notice from taking a part in the operations, such as they were, of the English troops at Meerut ; although in his sixty-eighth year, he slept on the ground among the guns, like his men, on the 10th of May, and for fourteen consecutive nights he did the same ; while for many following weeks he never doffed his regimentals, except for change of apparel, night or day. Whether such details are trivial or not, depends on the nature of the accusations. It is only the hasty judgments of those at a distance that are here commented on ; MEERUT, AXD THE REBEL-FLIGHT TO DELHI. the dissatisfaction of the Calcutta authorities will be adverted to in a future pa The sympathies of the Europeans at Meerut wen drawn in a forcible way towards the inmates of a convent and school at Sirdhana an estab- lishment remarkable as existing in that part of India. We must go back sixty years to understand this. Towards the close of the last century, there was a Cashmerian bayadere or dancing-girl, who became associated with a German adventurer, and then, by a course of unscrupulous intrigue and fearl ess sanguinary measures, obtained pos- n of three considerable jaghires *>r prinei- ] >alitics in the region around and between Meerut and l>el!ii. These cities, as well as Agra and others in the I re at that time in the hands of the great Mahratta chief, Dowlnt Rao Scindia. After a Lliant vie: the British obtained possession of the Doab in but awarded a < ity to the female adventurer, who became thenceforth known as the Began Bumroo. she retained her qi dom until her death in 1836, after which the three jaghii I into the hands of the British, This remarkable woman, during the later yean of her life, professed the Roman Catholic (kith; the had I spacious and handsome palace at Sirdhana, twelve miles from Meerut; and near it she built a Catholic church, imitative on a small scale Rome, with a be aoti fnl altar inlaid with mosaics and pr Out of twelve thousand inhabitants in Sirdhana, about tenth now profess thein>elves Christians, having imitated the begum in her change of religion ; and ti nt there, containing a member of priests, nuns, and pupils. When, mired at Meerut, apprc- ms naturally arose concerning the fate of the Bnropean won: :rls at this convent. Aliout five days alter the Revolt commenced, rumours came in that the inmates of the con- vent at Sirdhana were in peril ; and it was only by great exertions that the posf Meerut was enabled to bring tome of them away. A letter written in reference to this proceeding said: 'The poor nuns begged of him, when he Dg away, to try and send them some help ; he tried all he could to get a guard to escort them to this station, but did not succeed; and day morning (16"th of May), having given up the idea of procuring a guard from the military authorities, he went round, and by speaking to gentlemen, got aliout tin is to volun- iieir servi te the poor nuns and children from Sirdhana; and I am happy to say they succeeded in their charitable errand without any one having been injured.' It will he remembered that, (luring the burnings and murderings at Meerut on the evening of the loth, mod of the mutineers of the three regiments I off to Delhi. They took, as was aft erwa rds found, the high road from Meerut, and passing the villages of Begumabad, Moradnuggur, Furruck- nuggur, and Shahderuh, reached Delhi early on Monday; the infantry making forced marches, and the cavalry riding near them for support. Proof was soon afibrded that the native troops in that city, or some of them, had been waiting for the mutineers, prepared to join them in an organ- ised attack on the Europeans. "What aspect that attack put on, and what were the calamities to which it gave rise, will be narrated in the next two chapter^. 31 any days elapsed before Meerut recovered its tranquillity. Such men of the 3d, 11th, and 20th remained faithful especially the 11th, of whom there were more than a hundred ,. 1 at the cantonment, and their pre- vious insubordination pardoned on account of their subsequent tidelity ; but still there were many r anxiety. In the major-general's eport on the disasters, he said : ' Nearly the whole of the cantonment and Zillah police have ted.' These police or watchmen are referred an officer familiar with the district, who ' Round about Meerut and Delhi there are r three peculiar castes or tribes, something similar to OUT gipsies, only holding human life at due, and which in former days gave constant trouble. Of late years, they have lived in more and Quietness, contenting themselves with picking up Stra; ad things that did not belong to them. They have now, however, on the earliest occasion broken out again, and have been guilty of all kinds of depredations. Skinner's Hone riginally raised to keep these people in order, about the time Of Lord hake; such men have hither at Meerut, Delhi, and watchmen ; every one was obliged avoid being robbed to a certainty.' The Meerut inhabitants had thus, in addition to their other troubles, the knowledge that gangs of desperadoes would be likely to acquire renewed audacity through the defection of the native police. It was soon ascertained that the dak communi- cations on many of the roads wen; cut off, and the military commandant found much difficulty in transmitting intelligence to the seat of government. Five days after the great outbreak, another cause of inn asued. Six companies of native Sappers and Miners arrived at Meerut from Koorkce, under their commander, Major Eraser. The place here named is interesting in a twofold point of view. Being situated in one of the most elevated sites in the Doab between the Jumna and the Ganges, about eighty miles north of Meerut, it was selected as the head-quarters for operations on the great Ganges Canal, the noblest British work in India ; and here has been made a magnificent aqueduct nine hundred feet in length, with arches of fifty feet span. This aqueduct, and the necessary workshops and model-rooms of the engineers, have rled the place from a small village to a considerable station. Koorkce also contains an establishment called the 'Thomason College, 1 for affording instruction in civil engineering to 58 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. Europeans and natives. When the native Sappers and Miners, about eight hundred strong, arrived at Meerut from this place, on the 16th of May either excited by the news of the late occur- rences, or moved by some other impulse they suddenly shot their commanding officer, and made off for the open country. A force of the Carabiniers and horse-artillery went in pursuit of them, and shot down many; but a greater number escaped, probably to Delhi. Such of the companies as did not attempt flight were disarmed and carefully watched. Too soon, alas ! did the Europeans at Meerut know that atrocities were being committed at Delhi. By twos and threes did fugitives come in, glad to sacrifice all else for the sake of very life. Now several officers of the 38th native regiment ; now a merchant and his family ; now officers of the 74th and their families ; now civil servants of the Company ; now officers of the 54th all toil-worn, dirty, ragged, hungered, weighed down by the miseries of their forty miles' flight from brutal assailants : women, as is usual with English- women, bearing their share of these miseries with the truest heroism. All was doubt as to the occurrences in other quarters ; daks were cut off, telegraphic wires were severed ; the wishes and orders of the governor-general at one place, and the commander-in-chief at another, could not yet be known. On the night of the outbreak, two Europeans had endeavoured to travel by dak from Meerut to Delhi ; they encountered the rebels, and were murdered; and this was the commence- ment of indications, afterwards abundant enough, that the roads were no longer safe. All that was certain was, that a sudden social earthquake had overturned the homes of families distant nine hundred miles from Calcutta, bringing death to many, mourning and loss to others, distrust and anxiety to all. Dak Runner. CHAPTER IV. DELHI, THE CENTRE OF INDIAN NATIONALITY. HE course of this narrative now requires that attention more particular than will he required in relation to other cities in India durnld be bestowed on the world-renowned Delhi, the of all that can be called truly national in that vast country. Three mentl Bed from Mecrut to Delhi, and there found other regiments ready to join them in scenes of 1 and violence, of spoliation and murder ; hut it is necessary, in order to appreciate what followed, to know why Delhi is regarded in a peculiar light by the natives : why a successful British rule wa-=, and i continue to he, more serious in that locality than in any other part of the bet Not only ought the position of the city, considered M the nakhinui of a hundred and sixty thousand Mohammedans and Hindoos, to be rendered familiar; hut the reader should know how it has happened that the of that city has, for eight or nine hundred years, been regarded in a peculiar sense M the autocrat of Hindostan, the one man before whom millions of natives have been wont to bend the knee, or rather to lie prostrate in abject ntbmh What India was before the arrival of the ilmans, need not be told here at any length. We know, in truth, very little on that matter. It was from the days of the first Moslem conqueror that the i of Delhi Long beforo the Christian era, Arab merchants brought rich spiceries from Siude and Malabar, and sold them to Phoenician merchants, who conveyed them on laden camels by way of Petra to the shores of the Mediterranean. Other >ns of Indian merchandise wcro carried up the Persian Gulf and the Euphrates to a point whence they were transported westward leppo or Antioch a route almost iden- tical with that advocated in the present day for a Euphrates railway and a Euphrates tele- graph. The Greeks derived all their knowledge of Indian commodities through the Pho nicians : while their information concerning the country taelfwej obtained from the Persians, wh at one time held sway as far as the Indus. The expedi- tion of Alexander the Great into India, about 326 B.C., first gave the Greeks a personal know- ! this wonderful land ; and many successors af the great Macedonian added to the then existing amount of information concerning the tribes, the productions, the customs of the region beyond the Indus. Consequent on those discoveries, the merchants of the newly founded city of Alexandria gradually obtained a command of the trade with India: bringing the rich produce of the East by ship to Berenice on the Red Sea, and then trans- porting it overland to Alexandria. The commo- ;hus imported were ehieily precious stones, . perfumes, and silks; and during some centuries the Roman Empire was drained of much specie to pay for these imports. Alexandrians the principal merchants who furnished the nations of Europe with Indian articles till the n ry of the passage round the Cape of Good Hope by Vaseo do Gama in 1498. The western nations of Asia, however, continued to be supplied principally by the merchants of Basra or Bussorah, very nourishing commercial city near the point where the Euphrates empties itself into the Persian Gulf; and there was also an extensive caravan -trade from Northern India through Northern Persia to the Caspian and the Black Sea. The discovery of the Cape of Good Hope route naturally attracted the attention of the maritime nations of Europe towards India, followed by the settlement of Portuguese and Dutch traders on the coast, and ultimately by the wonderful rise of British power in those regions through the instrumentality of the East India Company. But although trading instincts thus laid India open to the commercial dealings of merchants, and to the cupidity of European prince*, it was not until modern erudition had been applied to the subject that the true history of the land of the Hindoos became at all known. Scholars found, when they had mastered the Sanscrit or sacred language of that people, that a wonderful mine of information was thrown open to them. They ascertained that the nation, whatever it may CO DELHI, THE CENTRE OP INDIAN NATIONALITY. have been called, from which the genuine Hindoos are descended, must at some period have inhabited the central plains of Asia, whence they migrated into the northern parts of India; that for at least a thousand years before the Christian era, great and powerful empires existed in Hindostan, which made considerable progress in knowledge, civilisation, and literature ; that Southern India, or the Deccan, was conquered and peopled by the Hindoos at a much later date than the rest ; that Buddhism, the religion of the earlier inhabitants, was overruled and driven out by Brahminism or Hindooism in the fifth century of our era ; and that for five centuries longer, the Hindoos were the true rulers of this much-coveted land. It was, however, as has been already implied, only with the arrival of the Mohammedans that the course of Indian history took that turn which is now interesting to us, especially in connection with the city of Delhi. The year 1000 was marked by the invasion of India by Mahmoud of Ghiznee, a Tatar sovereign Avho held sway among the chieftains of Afghanistan. He defeated the rajah of Lahore at Peshawur ; then penetrated beyond the Sutlcj ; and returned laden with spoil. In a second expedition he con- quered Moultan ; in a third, he reconquered the same city after a revolt. A fourth expedition found Mahmoud opposed by a confederacy of all the sovereigns of Northern India, who, seeing a com- mon danger, resolved to unite for a common cause ; they were rapidly gaining an advantage over him, when the sudden fright of an elephant induced a panic in the Hindoo army, and left the victory to Mahmoud, who returned to Ghiznee still more richly laden with booty than ever. For a time, the Hindoo king who reigned over the region of which Delhi was the chief city, managed to ward off the hostility of the great invader ; but taking offence at a departure from neutrality during one of the later expeditions, Mahmoud captured that city, and returned to Ghiznee with forty thousand prisoners. For thirty years did these raids and spoliations continue. The most celebrated next to that which resulted in the sack of Delhi, was the expedition intended for the destruction of the Hindoo temple of Somnauth in Gujerat : a temple which, if native annals arc to be believed, had fifty thousand worshippers, and Avas endowed with a revenue of two thousand villages ; which had two thousand Brahmins officiating as priests, five hundred daughters of noble Hindoos as dancing-girls, three hundred musicians ; and the sandal-wood gates of which were the theme of magniloquence from the pen of an English governor-general eight centuries afterwards.* *When General Nott returned to India after his victorious campaign in Afghanistan in 1842, he brought away with him the gates of Somnauth, which, according to the tradition, had remained at Ghiznee since the days of Mahmoud. This and other trophies gave occasion to an address from Lord Ellen- borough to the native princes of India, conceived in somewhat bombastic language, in which the recapture of the gates was characterised as an achievement 'avenging the insult of eight hundred years.' The chiefs and princes of Sirhind, Eajwarra, Mahmoud broke all the idols, and carried off countless treasures to Ghiznee. From that time to the period of the rise of British power, the Mohammedans never lost their hold upon India, however much it may have been shaken by occasional success on the part of the Hindoos ; nor did they ever cease to regard Delhi as the chief Indian city. Although Mahmoud made twelve expeditions across the Indus, the object was mainly booty, rather than permanent settlement. His successors, however, established a regular government in the Punjaub, and in the region thence eastward to Delhi. The Ghiznee dynasty was put an end to in the year 1184, when it was overcome by the Seljuks ; and in 1193 Delhi was formally appointed capital of the Moslem sovereigns of India. After a succession of rebellions and murders, exhibiting all the hideous features of Oriental politics, the Seljuk dynasty fell to pieces in the year 1289. Then arose a third Mohammedan dynasty, that of the Afghans or Patans, who came like all the other conquerors of India from the north-west, and who like them coveted Delhi as their capital. For about a cen- tury did these Patan emperors reign, continually struggling against Hindoo rajahs on the one hand, and Mussulman adventurers on the other. It was in the year 1398 that Tamerlane familiar to all school-boys in England by the famous name of Timour the Tatar first set foot in India, and laid the foundation of the Mogul dynasty. Properly speaking, he was not a true Mogul, but belonged to the rival Tatar nation of Turcomans ; nevertheless the line of emperors to which he gave origin has always been known as the Mogul dynasty. He was a ruthless con- queror, who, having ravaged all Central Asia from the Black Sea to the Chinese frontier, turned his attention towards India. He crossed the Indus at Attock, w r cnt to Moultan, and extended his march to Delhi, wading through Hindoo blood, which he shed without resistance and almost without cause. The native annalists record how he put a hundred thousand beings to death in the great city ; how he caused himself to be pro- claimed Emperor or Great Mogul of India ; how he departed suddenly to end his days on the other side of the Indus ; and how Delhi mourned for many a year over its miseries. No pen can describe what India suffered during the next century and a quarter, with a Mogul emperor at Delhi, constantly fighting with the Mohammedan chieftains who resisted his authority. The long but often broken line of Avrctched despots need not be enumerated here : a few land- marks of great names Baber, Akbar, Jehanghire, Mahvah, and Gujerat, were enjoined to transmit, 'with all honour,' the gates to Somnauth. The address was much ridiculed in England; but those on the spot believed it to be calculated to make an impression on the natives. The home government, how- ever, would not permit the gates even if the genuine sandal-wood originals, which is not free from doubt to be sent to the still- existing temple of Somnauth; they considered such an act would identify the Company injuriously with one of the two great parties of religionists in India, and deeply offend the other. THE REVOLT IX INDIA: 1857. 61 Shahjehan, Aurungzebe, Nadir Shah will furnish all that is needful for our present purpose. Baber or, in more majestic form, Zahircddin Mohammed Baber a descendant of Tamerlane, was the first really ureal Mohammedan emperor of Delhi, the first Mogul who regarded his subjects in any other light than as a prey to be spoliated. Centering his power at Delhi, he extended it eastward to the mouth of the Ganges ; and although, in his short reign of four yean, from atantly engaged in military expeditions, he nevertheb -s found time to culti- vate the arts of peace, and to attend to whatever appeared calculated to promote the prosperity of his empire. In blood-shedding, he was scarcely surpassed by his predecessor Tamerlane: it this was a propensity among all the Tatar chief- tains of tip When nil warlike and angry is were not excited, Baber coul. l, howi come forth in a very different light, as a kind and fo rg ivin g man, one fond of friends and friendship, and not without a tinge of poetry in his tastes. He was a man of business, who attended personally to the affairs of government, and passed fewer hours in sensual idleness than is customary with oriental princes With the Hindoos he had little trouble ; their national character was by this time much broken; the rapid mcOBSSJon of n families had inured them to change ; and they had imbibed a feeling of horror and dismay from the at to which the various Ifnalwil con- qneroti had abjeetod mem. Winn opposition to his progress had once ceased in India, he became an altered man. He made Of improved roads ; established resting-plaees for travelf suitable distance-; caused the land to be measured, in order to fix taxation by equitable adjustment ; planted gardens, and introduced many trees and plants until then unknown in India ; established a r post from Agra, through Delhi, Lahore, and Peshawar, to Cabool; and wrought many improvements in the city of Delhi. Akbar, unquestionably the wisest and greatest prince who ever ruled India a prince who was really a benefactor to his people was the grandson of Baber. Becoming emperor of Delhi in 1666, he established the Mogul dynasty on a firmer basis than it had before occupied. The native Hindoos ed, under him, greater \ than they had ever experienced sine" the first invasion of the Mohammedans. He wai distinguished by a spirit of toleration and a love of justice ; and the memory of his virtues is to this day treasured Dp by the Hindoos as well as me Mussulmans of India. As the worshippers of Islam had, by the time of Akbar, fallen out much among themselves, in various par , the Mogul Moslems of India gradually became weaned from sympathy with the rest, and prepared for more thorough amal- gamation with the Hindoos than had ever before been po lible. If not an amalgamation by family :t was at least an incorporation by civil and C8 ; and thus it is that from the time of Akbar may be dated the remarkable mixture of Mohammedans and Hindoos in so many towns of India. Ambitious chieftains might continue to struggle for supremacy ; but the populace of the two religions began to wish rather to trade together than to exterminate each other. Akbar had the genius to sec the full force of this tendency, and the honesty to encourage it. He never crushed those whom he conquered ; but invited all alike, Hindoos as well as Mohammedans, to settle down as peaceful citizens, assured that they would receive equal justice from him regardless of their religious differences. He placed natives of both races in ofliees of trust ; he abolished the capitation-tax on infidels ; he forbade the degradation of war-prison- ers to the position of slaves; he abrogated such of the Hindoo laws as were most repulsive to reason or humanity, without being vital parts of their religion ; he discouraged fanaticism among those of his own faith ; he encouraged trade and com- merce ; he reduced taxation ; and he kept a strict watch over the conduct of the officers of his govern- ment. The mildness of his character, his strict impartiality to the different classes of his subjects, the magnanimity which he shewed to his enemies, and his great personal courage are mentioned with praise even by the Jesuits, who visited India during his rei-.ru. Well did this eminent man, during his long reign of forty-nine years, deserve the title of Akbar the Greed ; and natural was it that his subjects should look up with reverence to Delhi, the centre and seat of his empire. 1 1 is both in its beginning and its end, was almost exactly contemporaneous with that of Elizabeth in England. Jchanghire, a tar inferior prince to Akbar, succeeded him in 1606, and soon became involved in troubles. The Uzbeks obtained possession of his dominions in Cabool ; the King of Persia took Caadahar from him; the Afghans revolted from his rule ; the Hindoo Rajpoots commenced their struggles for independence ; and, at a later date, his son Shahjehan rebelled against him. Nevertheless, Jchanghire, judged by an oriental Standard, was not a bad ruler of Hindostan. The country enjoyed considerable prosperity under him ; literature was extensively cultivated ; many new cities were built ; the Hindoo religion experi- enced even greater toleration than in the reign of Akbar; and he gave a courteous reception to Sir Thomas Hoe, sent on an embassy from England to the Great Mogul. He was, however, a strange being. In a fit of anger against certain rebels, he caused several hundreds of them to be impaled, and placed in a row leading out of the Lahore gate at Delhi; and he himself rode past them on an elephant, ' to receive the obeisance of his friends.' His native ferocity also shone out, in his causing one of his principal councillors to be sewed up in the hide of a newly flayed ox, and thrown into the street ; the hide, shrinking in the heat of the sun, compressed him to death ; but as the compression came too soon to satisfy the savage 62 DELHI, THE CENTRE OF INDIAN NATIONALITY. feelings of the monarch, he caused the next victim, Avhen similarly incased, to be sprinkled with water occasionally, to prolong the torture. One of the most remarkable circumstances in the career of Jehanghire was the influence gradually acquired over him by his Sultaness Nurmahal, the 'light of the palace,' whose name became changed to Nurjehan, the 'light of the world;' her exquisite beauty, wit, and accomplishments, won the love of the monarch ; and as she was in mind and heart far his superior, her power over him was often exerted for good purposes. Shahjehan, an ungrateful son to Jehanghire, was destined to be, in turn, the victim of his own son Aurungzebe. He was an emperor from 1627 to 1659, and then a miserable uncrowned captive for seven years longer. He attacked all the neigh- bouring princes whose dominions or wealth he coveted ; and blinded or murdered all his rela- tions whose ambition he dreaded. And yet, amid his atrocities, he was a man of much ability. Delhi, Agra, and other cities, benefited by his rule. The internal government of his kingdom was very complete. The great mosque at Delhi, and the Taj Mahal at Agra, which rose at his command, are, to this day, objects of admiration to the natives of India. Though it may, to English minds, have been a waste of public money to spend six millions sterling on the far-famed peacock's throne ; yet, as all his establishments were formed on a scale of great magnificence, and as numerous other cities and towns throughout the Empire vied with the splendour of Delhi and Agra there is evidence that the Mogul and his dominions must have owned vast wealth. He possessed both taste and financial tact; and thus, with all his atrocities, Shahjehan left behind him a full treasury and a splendid and prosperous empire. Aurungzebe, the last Mogul who maintained the real greatness of the native court of Delhi, became emperor in 1659, by an act of violence against his royal parent. He captured the cities of Hyderabad, Bejapore, and Golconda, and ex- tended his dominions nearly to the limits of the Camatic. There were, however, the germs of mischief perceptible in his reign : the warlike Hindoo tribe of Mahrattas rose into note ; and though they were frequently defeated in the plains by the troops of Aurungzebe, he was unable to subdue the country inhabited by these moun- taineers. Sevajee, the founder of the Mahratta empire, gradually conquered the greater part of the Deccan ; he died in 1682, and his son, Sambajee, was put to a cruel death by Aurungzebe in 1689 ; but the Mogul emperors of the north could never afterwards wholly subdue the Mahratta rajah of the south. Aurungzebe was illiberal towards his Hindoo subjects; and this circumstance threw them into closer sympathy than would other- wise have been produced with the rude Mahratta mountaineers. He was not without ability ; but he had neither the wisdom nor the justice to maintain his wide-spreading empire in a state of greatness; and when he died in 1707, he left the Mogul power at Delhi much weaker than he found it at the period of his seizure of the crown. Nadir Shah, although never emperor of Delhi, must be named here as one who contributed to the crumbling of the Mogul dynasty. This man, one of the grand barbarians whom Central Asia has so often sent forth, was the son of a sheep-skin cap-maker. He became a soldier of fortune ; then the leader of a band of robbers ; then governor of Khorassan ; then Shah of Persia ; then a formid- able opponent of the Turks and the Afghans ; and then a scourge to India. While devastating Afghanistan in 1738, he required of the Emperor of Delhi that none of the Afghans should find shelter in his (the Mogul's) dominions ; but as no attention was paid to his demands, he marched into Hin- dostan in the following year, and entered Delhi with an enormous army on the 8th of March. He seized the whole of the vast treasures which had been amassed in the course of nearly two centuries by the Mogul monavchs. The citizens not being so submissive as he wished, he ordered a general massacre. His commands were only too well obeyed ; for, from sunrise till noon, the inhabitants were slaughtered by his soldiers without distinction of sex or age. At the earnest intercession of the emperor, Nadir ordered the butchery to be stopped. Where the estimates of human beings murdered varies from 8000 to 150,000, it is clear that no trustworthy data are obtainable ; but it is unques- tionable that Delhi suffered immensely, both in its population and its wealth. The ruthless despoiler not only refrained from claiming the crown of Hindostan, but he did not make any conquests whatever : he came simply as a Shah of Persia on an errand of vengeance ; he remained two months at Delhi ; and then departed westward, carrying with him treasures that have been variously estimated at from thirty to seventy millions sterling. The Delhi monarchs no longer need or deserve our attention ; they had fallen from their high estate, and were forced to struggle constantly for the maintenance of their authority. A number of obscure names meet our view after the time of Aurungzebe Shah Alum, Moez-Eddin, Furrucksir, Mohammed Shah, Ahmed Shah, Alumghir, and Shah Alum II. : each more powerless than the preceding. Now they were attacked by the warlike Mahrattas ; now by the Rajpoots, a mili- tary Hindoo tribe which had never been wholly subdued by the Moslems ; now by the Sikhs, a kind of Hindoo dissenters, brave and independ- ent in their bearing; now by the Rohillas, an Afghan race, who effected a settlement in the very neighbourhood of Delhi; now by many of the Mohammedan nawabs or viceroys, who, like other Asiatic viceroys in parallel circumstances, were willing to rise on the fall of their masters ; now by the competing sons and nephews who surrounded every emperor ; and now more striking in its THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. 63 consequences than all the rest by the ever- encroaching British. Nevertheless, amid all this decadence of Mogul power, the natives of Hindostan never ceased to :]> to the emperor as the centre of power, to Delhi as the centre of nationality. Their traditions told them of Mahmoud, of Tamerlane, of Baber, of the great Akbar, of Jehanghire, of Shahjehan, of Auruugzebe ; and although ruthless barbarities were connected with the names of many of these rulers, there was still a grandeur that impressed the imagination. The Hindoo*, it is true, had their sacred associations connected with Benares rather than with Delhi ; but their distinct nationality had been almost stamped out of them during eiirbt centuries of Mohammedan supremacy ; and they, like the rest, held in reverence the city where the i .k's throne had glittered on the world. what strange steps the descendants of the Great Mogul bceauie pensioners of the Ea-t India Company, will be explained presently ; but it will be well first to describe Delhi itself. This far- famed city is situated on tli<- river Jumna, about five hundred miles by road above Allahabad, where the Jumna flows into the Ganges, and nine hundred by road from Cal- cutta. In the opposite direction, Delhi is nearly four hundred miles from Lahore, and six or seven hundred from Pcshawur so great arc the distances between the chief towns in India: distances that terribly hamper the operations of a British army during any sudden - geney. Striking as Delhi may be, it presents but faint approach in splendour to the city ol the home of the grand old Moguls. Of the original Delhi, the natives give the most extrava- nt; they even rui i a period three thou i before tho Christian era for >undation. All that is certain, however, is, that Inderput or Indraprestha, the name of the old city, was the capital of a Hindoo kingdom under a rajah, long before its conquest by the Mohammedans. When or how the original city went to ruin, is not exactly known ; but modern Delhi owes its chief adornments to Shahjehan. A traveller from the south or Agra direction is struck with the evidences of ruined Inderput before he sees anything of modern Delhi. ' Everywhere throughout the plain riso shapeless half-ruined 4cs, the relics of massive Patan architecture, their bases buried under heaps of ruins bearing a dismal growth of thorny shrubs. Every wb I on overthrown walls. Brick mosaics mark the ground-plan of the humbler dwellings of the r classes. Among the relics of a remote age, are occasionally to be seen monuments of light and 'it style of architecture, embellished with brilliant colours, gilt domes, and minarets incased in enamelled tiles.' Some travellers have asserted that they have traced these ruins thirty miles along the Jumna; but these cannot all have been the ruins of one city. Approaching the present Delhi, it is seen that the ruins are spread over a plain, in the midst of which the city is situated ; and they give place, after a time, to the tasteful villas of the Europeans who exercise civil or military control within Delhi. Most of these villas are on the site of tho once famous garden of Shalimar. On the northern side of the city, close under a ridge of sandstone rocks called the Mijnoon Pahar, are the cantonments an alternation of bungalows, huts, and groups of trees. So much for the environs. Although not entitled to tako rank among the great cities of ith, Delhi is nevertheless a considerable place, for it is seven miles in circumference. The Jumna bounds it on the east, while a lofty crenel- wall, of horseshoe shape, completes the boundary on the other sides. This wall has been an object of much attention at different times. As built by Shahjehan, it possessed little strength. When the British obtained ascendency over the city in 1803, the wall was found to be in a ruinous without other flanking defences than small circular bastions placed at intervals ; the ditch was imperfect; there was scarcely any vestige of s or exterior slope; and the crumbling ruins of dilapidated buildings had been allowed to accu- mulate all round the wall. Captains Hutchinson mith, of the Bengal engineers, were there- upon deputed to restore and strengthen the forti- fications. It was determined to establish a scries of bastions, with faces and flanks to defend the curtain or plain wall, and to mount them with heavy artillery. The walls were repaired; and to shield them from escalade, they were protected, lly on the river-front, with beams of timber, the sharpened ends of which were pointed at an downward into the ditch. The ditch 1 out and deepened ; the glacis was math" SO cover, in some degree, the scarp of the wall; the ground outside was cleared to some distance of ruins and houses; and the ravines were filled up to check the approach of marauding horsemen. To prepare for a rising within the city as well as an attack from without, detached martcllo towers were constructed, entirely separate from the walls, and accessible from them only by drawbridges; each tower had a gun mounted on a pivot, so that in the event of a tumult in the city, the towers might be occupied by artillerymen, the drawbridges drawn up, and the guns in round to pour a fire upon the insurgents. The gateways of the city were strengthened ; outworks were provided in front of some of them, while were provided with guard-houses ami places- d'artnes. At a much later date in 1838 Lord Auckland caused the walls and towers to be strengthened, and one of the new defences, called the Wellesley Bastion, to bo reconstructed. In what relation these defences stood to a British ing force in 1857, will remain to be told in a futuro chapter: we proceed here with the descrip- tion of the city. Delhi has seven gates on the land-side, named, respectively, the Lahore, Ajmcer, Turcoman, DELHI, THE CENTRE OF INDIAN NATIONALITY. 65 Cabool, Mohur or Moree, Cashmere, and Gates ; while along the river-front are four others, the Rajghat, Negumbod, Lall, and Kaila Gates. Some little diversity u shewn by travellers in giving these names; and some make the number of gates twelve instead of eleven. The Cashmere Gate is provided with easemated or shot-proof chambers, for the accommodation of a city-guard. A bridge of boats over the Jumna connects Delhi with the road leading north-eastward to Meerut, and the chief magazine is, or was, between the centre of the city and this bridge. Eight of the defences on the walls an- called the Shah Bastion, Born Bastion, Gnrstin l College Bastion, Ochterlony Bastion, Lake bastion, WeHedej 11, and Nawab Bastion names obviously derived, in most instances, from military officers d in the Company's service. Strictly speak- ing, the wall does Dot quite surround the cii J on one side it abuts on a small branch of the river, where there is a short brid to the old fort limgurh, built in a very heavy style by one of the iperors. Entirely outside the wall, north of the city, is a CUStom-honse, which affords a curious commentary on the relations existing ivil and military officer! of the Company. It was fust built by a medical officer, then sold to the Company for a treasury, and then adapted a The engineers wanted to get rid of this building, as an obstruction to their plan of defences, in the same way as they wept away numerous outhouses, ha/aai ruins; but. the civilians prevented this; and so the custoimhouse remained till 1857, when the building and its garden became a ready prey to the rebels. The city, considered without relation to its defem ats many of those features so fami- liar in oriental towns. A- >.-. n by the approaching traveller, few of the dwelling-ho us es peep above the ramparts ; but the Jumma Musjid or principal ue, the turn ted and battlemented palace, the minarets, and other public buildings, combine to form a majestic picture ; while the graceful acacias and lofty date-trees bending over the ramparts, and the grouping of tombs with sombre foliage on add new features to tin- seem-. Arrived within the city, it is teen that the narrow. The chief exception is that of a h a n dsome street running south from the palace to the te: three quarters of a mile long by a hundred and fifty feet wide. This street has, therefore, length ami breadth enough to afford tor much Bplendour; but the Delhians have not fully availed themselves of this opportunity, for they have built blocks of small houses in the midst of this street, analogous in some degree to the 'Middle Rows' known to the inhabitants of London. Another large street, similarly shorn of its dm; dignity, runs from the palace westward to the halio: h streets are, however, enlivened by raised water-courses flowing in chan- nels of red stone part of a great work begun and finished by the Company, for supplying Delhi with water. The glories of Delhi are the great mosque and the still greater palace. The Jumma Musjid, situated in the centre of the city, is one of those buildings to which Mohammedans point with pride : famous not only in Hindostan, but all over Southern and Central Asia. It presents to the eye an open court on an elevated plat- form, nearly live hundred feet square ; in the middle of which is a marble fountain for the ablutions necessary in the ceremonials of Islam- bm. On three sides of this court are open arcades and octagonal pavilions ; while on the fourth side is the mosque, a structure of great splendour approached by a magnificent flight of marble steps. White marble cornices inlaid in black marble with inscriptions from the Koran ; walls, ceilings, and pavements of the same delicate materials; beautiful domes and lofty minarets all combine to render the Jumma Musjid a truly gorgeous structure. The Emperor Shahjehan built it more than two ccntur and the British government '.rave orders in 1851 that it should be kept in repair. But, splendid as is the Jumma Musjid, the imperial palace is still more striking partly for what it is, but principally for what it has been. The palace stands between the two principal streets and the bridge. Some travellers have compared it with Windsor Castle, some with the Kremlin at >W, in size ami majesty; while others insi : that it has no compeer, Bishop Ileber was quite enthusiastic in its praise. In the first place, the palatial buildings are surrounded by a wall to which there is certainly no parallel either at Windsor or at Moscow ; it is of red granite, three quarters of a mile in circuit, nearly forty feet high, Banked with turrets and domes, and entered by two noble gates with barbicans. This wall is B grand work in itself, irrespective of the structures it encloses. Strictly speaking, the wall is only on three sides, the fourth abutting on a small branch of the Jumna, where occurs the short bridge cross- the old fort of Selimgurli. The palace itself is entered by a series of beautiful gateways, all of ltd granite, and all sculptured with flowers and inscriptions from the Koran. The vaulted aisles and the open octagonal courts are spoken of by Ileber with great admiration. The Dewani Khas, or private council-chamber, although allowed to become filthy by the visits of crows and kites, is an exquisite structure ; it is a pavilion of white marble, supporting four cupolas of the same delicate material, with pillars and arches elabor- ately inlaid with gilt arabesques, tlowers, and inscriptions. The garden around it has numerous white marble fountains of elegant form, and a small octagonal pavilion with hath-rooms, but all dirty and neglected. The Moti .Musjid or private mosque for the court, and the Dewani-aum or public hall of audience, arc, like the rest of the palace, ornate in marble and in carving, in m THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. sculpture and in inscriptions, in gilding and in inlaying ; and, also like the rest, disfigured with filth a combination truly oriental. In the hall of audience is, or was before the Revolt, the dais on which once stood the world-renowned peacock's throne, formed entirely of gold and jewels ; and it was in this same chamber that the victorious Nadir Shah, by exchanging turbans with the defeated Mogul Mohammed Shah, obtained possession of a treasure almost as renowned as the peacock's throne itself the koh-i-noor, the 'mountain of light,' the glorious diamond which, after various vicissitudes, now occupies a place in the regalia of Queen Victoria. Passing from a scene of decayed splendour to one of living interest, we find 'Delhi to be inha- bited by almost an exactly equal number of Hindoos and Mohammedans, eighty thousand of each ; but it is essentially a Mohammedan city, the centre of their prestige and influence in India ; and all the dwellings and public buildings of the Hindoos are indicative of a race locally less power- ful. Besides the imperial palace just described, there is, about nine miles from Delhi, near an extraordinary pillar called the Kootub Minar, the country residence of the emperor, or, as it has been more customary in recent years to call him, the King. It is a large but paltry building, in an inferior style of Italian architecture, with a public road running through the very court-yard. Within the city a palace was built for the British resident a few years ago ; and around this building a number of elegant houses have since been erected, by the natives as well as by the Europeans. Since the once great Mogul has been a king without a kingdom, a pensioned puppet of the Company, a potentate having nothing to employ his thoughts and his pension but political intrigue and sensual indulgence the representative of England has been a sort of envoy or resident, ostensibly render- ing honour to the Mogul, but really watching that he does no mischief, really insuring that he shall be a king only in name. But more on this point presently. The British civil staff in the city comprises or did comprise before the Revolt a resident or commissioner, a revenue collector, a magistrate, and other officials. There have usually been three regiments barracked or stationed in the cantonment ; but the military importance of the place has been rather due to the fact that Delhi has been made a depot for a large park of artil- lery valuable enough when in the hands of the British, but a source of dismay and disaster when seized by mutineers. Although this narrative has little to do with the merits or demerits of Delhi as a place of residence ; yet, knowing something of what Englishmen and Englishwomen have had to bear when cooped up within a town or fort menaced by ruthless natives, every compatriot at home would like further to know in what way those trials are likely to have been aggravated by the incidents of climate. A lady-traveller furnishes a vivid picture of Delhi in a hot-wind, such as frequently visits towns in India during certain seasons of the year. ' Every article of furniture is burning to the touch ; the hardest wood, if not well covered with blankets, will split with a report like that of a pistol ; and linen taken from the drawers appears as if just removed from a kitchen-fire. The nights are terrible, every apartment being heated to excess. Gentlemen usually have their beds placed in the verandahs, or on the chubootiar or terrace on the top of the house : as they incur little risk in sleeping in the open air, at a season in which no dew falls, and when there is scarcely any variation in the thermo- meter. Tornadoes are frequent during these hot winds ; while they last, the skies, though cloud- less, are darkened with dust, the sun is obscured, and a London fog cannot more effectually exclude the prospect. The birds are dreadful sufferers at this season ; their wings droop, and their bills are open as if gasping for breath ; all animals are more or less affected.' Then, when this frightful heat is about to depart, ensues a storm, more terrible to look at, though easier to bear. 'The approaching strife is made known by a cloud, or rather a wall of dust, which appears at the extremity of the horizon, becoming more lofty as it advances. The air is sultry and still : for the wind, which is tearing up the sand as it rushes along, is not felt in front of the billowy masses, whose mighty ramparts gather strength as they spread. At length the plain is surrounded, and the sky becomes as murky as midnight. Then the thunder breaks forth, but its most awful peals are scarcely heard in the deep roar of the tempest; burst succeeds to burst, each more wild and furious than the former ; the forked lightnings flash in vain, for the dust, which is as thick as snow, flings an impenetrable veil around them. The wind having spent itself in a final effort, suddenly subsides, and the dust is as speedily dispersed by torrents of rain, which in a very short time flood the whole country.' This is the last agony of the storm; after which the temperature lowers and nature becomes more tranquil. Such is Delhi such the city which, amid all its changes of fortune, has for so many centuries been an object of reverential affection to the natives of Hindostan. When the disorganised regiments from Meerut entered the imperial gates, they found an aged mogul or king, with sons and grandsons, courtiers and retainers, willing to make him a stepping-stone to their own advancement. Who this king was, and how he had come into that position, may soon be told. Precisely a century ago, when Clive was prepar- ing to revenge the atrocities connected with the Black Hole at Calcutta, the Delhi empire was rapidly losing all its power; the northern and northwestern provinces were seized upon by the Afghans and the Sikhs ; the Rajpoots extended their dominions as far as Ajmeer ; and the Emperor Alumghir was too weak to protect his capital from the monstrous barbarities of the DELHI, THE CENTRE OF INDIAN NATIONALITY. G7 Afghan insurgents. The next emperor, Shah Alum II., unable either to repel invaders or to control his rebellious nawabs, virtually yielded to the rapidly rising power of the East India Company. He signed a treaty with Give in involving mutual obligations ; he was to yield to the British certain provinces, and to I to a resident appointed from Calcutta con- siderable power at the court of Delhi ; while the British were to protect him from his numerous assailants, and to secure him a pension of 260,000 per annum, which, with other sources of wealth, brought the degenerate descendant of the Moguls nearly half a million annually. Troubled by the Mahrattas on one side, by the Rohillas on a second, and by the Nawab of Oude on a third, the paralysed emperor became so bewildered that he knew not which way to turn. About 1788 a Rohilla chieftain suddenly entered Delhi, and put out th the unfortunate emperor with a poniard; then the Mahrattas defeated this chief- tain, seized the capital, and reduced Shah Alum himself to a mere puppet. During this anarchy the British in India were so fully occupied in other quarters, that they could not make a resolute demonstration in the centre of the i I empire; but in the year 1809 all prepared by Lord Lake for a n tempt to lueak down the Mahratta and Rohilla | in the north, and to insure that the emperor should have no other master than the Company a kiudness, the motives for which will n<>' very close scrutiny. The battle of Delhi, fought on the 11th of September 1803, opened the gates of the city to the British, and relieved the emperor from his thraldom. A reverse had very nearly occurred, however. White Lake was ng after his victory, llolkar, the great Mahratta chief, leaving his cavalry to attract the i of the British at Muttra, suddenly appeared Delhi with a force of 20,000 infantry and 100 trims. The garrison comprised only two battalions and four companies of native troops, with a few irregular horse ; and as some of these deser; the iir>* affright, there were left only 800 men and 11 guns to defend a city seven mil circuit. By unwearied patience and daring intre- pidity, however, Colonel Burn, who was military commandant in the city at the time, and who -ted by Colonel Ochtcrlony and Lieutenant Rose, succeeded in repelling all the attacks of the Mahrattas ; and Holkar retired "lnlited. Fran that day from the 16th of October 1803, until the 11th of May 1857 an enemy was never seen before tin Delhi ; a day had never passed during which the city had been other than the capital of a state governed nominally by a Mogal king, but really by a British resident. Shah Alum, after thirty years of a troubled life, was vouchsafed three years of peace, and died in 1806 a pensioner of that great abstraction, that inscrutable mystery to the millions of Hindostan, tho ' Coompanee Bahadoor,' the Most Honourable Company. The behaviour of the Company's servants towards the feeble descendant of the Great Moguls was, until about thirty years ago, the most absurd mockery. They took away all his real power, and then offered him a privilege, the least exercise of which, if he had ventured on such a thing, they would at once have resented. Shah Akhar, who succeeded his old, blind, feeble father, Shah Alum, in 1806, became at once a pensioner. He wai really king, not over a kingdom, but only over the twelve thousand inmates of the imperial palace at Delhi, his relations and retainers the whole of whom he supported on a pension of about a hundred thousand pounds pat annum, paid by the Company. Hindoo and Mussulman, notwithstanding bis fallen state, aliko looked up to him as the only representative of tho ancient glories of India ; numerous princes rod their solemn and legal investiture from him; and until 1827, the Company acquired no new province without applying for Ait m tarnation and official Jirman. He was permitted to bestow dresses of honour on native princes at their accession to the musnud, as a token of suzerainty ; and the same ceremony was attempted by him ionally towards the governor-general. At i, under the rulo of Earl Amherst in 1827, it was determined to put an end to a system which In t i mockery, or an incentive to disaffec- tion on the part of the Delhians. The pension to the king was increased to a hundred and fifty thousand pounds, but the supposed or implied vassalage of the East India Company to the nom- inal Padishah or Mohammedan ruler of India brought to an end ; Shah Akhar being, from that date, powerless beyond the walls of his palace except as the representative, the symbol, of something great, still venerated by the natives. Palace intrigues have not been wanting at Delhi during the twenty years that preceded the Revolt ; and these intrigues have borne some relation to the state of disaffection that accompanied that outbreak. Shah Akhar reigned, if reigning it can be called, from 1806 until 1837. lie wished to bo succeeded by his second son, Shah-zadah Jehanghire ; but the British authorities insisted that tho succession should go, as before, to the eldest son ; and consequently Mccrza Abu Zuffur became emperor on Shah Akbar's death in 1837, under the title of Mahomed Suraj-u-deen Shah Ghazce. This monarch, again, exhibited the same distrust of the next heir that is so often displayed in Oriental countries ; the British authorities were solicited to set asido the proper heir to the peacock's throne, in favour of a younger princo who pos- sessed much influence in the zenana. Again wai the request refused ; and the palace at Delhi was known to have been a focus of discontent and intrigue for some time previous to the Revolt. The mode in which the Marquis of Dalhousic treated these matters, in his minute of 1856, has 6S THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. already been adverted to ; but it 1 may be well to repeat his words here, to shew the exact state of Delhi palace-politics at that time. ' Seven years ago [that is, in 1849], the heir- apparent to the King of Delhi died. He was the last of the race who had been born in the purple. The Court of Directors was accordingly advised to decline to recognise any other heir-apparent, and to permit the kingly title to fall into abeyance upon the death of the present king, who even then was a very aged man. The Honourable Court accord- ingly conveyed to the government of India autho- rity to terminate the dynasty of Timour, whenever the reigning king should die. But as it was found that, although the Honourable Court had consented to the measure, it had given its consent with great reluctance, I abstained from making use of the authority which had been given to me. The grandson of the king was recognised as heir-appar- ent ; but only on condition that he should quit the palace in Delhi, in order to reside in the palace at the Kootub; and that he should, as king, receive the governor-general of India at all times on terms of perfect equality.' It was therefore simply a suspension of the absolute extinction of the kingly title at Delhi : a suspension dictated, apparently, by the existence of a little more hesitation in the court of directors, than in the bold governor-general. The king who occupied the nominal throne of Delhi at the time of the Revolt was neither better nor worse than the average of his predecessors. A pensioned prince with no responsibilities, he was a true Oriental sensualist, and had become an almost imbecile old man between eighty and ninety years of age. Nevertheless, for the reasons already more than once stated, he was invested with a certain greatness in the eyes of the natives of Hindostan ; and Delhi was still their great city. Hindoos, Afghans, Patans, Seljuks, Rajpoots, Tatars, Moguls, Persians, Rohillas, Mahrattas, Sikhs all had left their impress upon the capital ; and with one or other of these, the millions of India had sympathies either of race or of creed. Even to the hour of the outbreak, the king was approached with the reverence due to royalty. In the ruined paradise of Oriental sensualism, the great palace of Delhi, ' the house of Tamerlane still revelled in unchecked vileness. The royal family, consisting of many hundreds idle, dissolute, shame- less, too proud or too effeminate for military service lived in entire dependence on the king's allow- ance. For their amusement were congregated from all India the most marvellous jugglers, the most cunning bird-tamers and snake-charmers, the most fascinating dancing-girls, the most skilled Persian musicians. Though the population was exactly balanced between Mohammedans and Hindoos, it was the Moslem who here reigned supreme.* * Quarterly Review, No. 204. IIowdah of an Indian Thince. King of Delhi. CHAPTER V. THE EVENTFUL ESCAPES FROM DELHI. BMEMBBRING that in the month of May 1807 there was a very aged king living in the g r eat palace at Delhi; that the heir-apparent, his grandson, redded in the palace of Kootub Miliar, or nine miles from the city; that the Modem natives still looked up to the king with a sort of reverence ; ainl that his enormous family had become ktisfled with the prospective extinction the kingly power and name remembering these facts, the reader will be prepared to follow the fortune! Of the lfeemt mutineers, and to understand on what grounds the support of the royal family was counted upon. The distance I 1 over being forty miles, it was not till the day after the outbreak at , it namely, the 11th of May that the three mutinous regiments reached Delhi. The telegraphic wires were SO soon cut, and the daks bo effectually interrupted, that it is doubtful at what hour, and to what extent, the transactions at Mecrut became known to Brigadier Graves, who commanded at Delhi. The position of that officer was well calculated to produce uneasiness in his mind at a time of insubordination and distrust ; for he had no European regiments with him. The garrison consisted of the 38th, 54th, and 74th native regiments, and a battery of native artillery ; the English comprised only a few oflicers and sergeants of those regiments, the various servants of the Company, and private traders within the city. The 54th and 74th had 70 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. not up to that time shewn any strong symptoms of disaffection ; but the 38th, which had achieved a kind of triumph over the Marquis of Dalhousie in 1852, in reference to the proposed expedition to Pegu, had ever since displayed somewhat of a boastful demeanour, a pride of position and influence. The three regiments and the artillery had their regular quarters in the cantonment, about two miles north of the city : sending into Delhi such companies or drafts as were necessary to man the bastions, towers, magazine, le, a train of gunpowder was laid down from tho magazine to a distant spot ; and it d that, on Lieutenant Willoughby the onler, Conductor Buckley should raise his hat as a signal to Conductor Scully to fire the train and blow up the magazine with all its contents. Having done all that a cool and circum- spect leader could do to prepare for the worst, Lieutenant Willoughby awaited the issue. Very soon, mutinous sepoys or rather the palace guards, who had not until that hour been mutinous came and demanded possession of the magazine, in the name of the King of Delhi! No answer being vouchsafed to this demand, scaling- ladders were sent from the palace, and placed against the wall of the magazine. This decided the wavering of the native artillerymen ; they all as with one accord deserted, climbed up to the sloping roofs on the inside of the magazine, and descended the ladders to the outside. The insur- gents now appearing in great numbers on the top of the walls, the little band of Europeans com- menced a brisk fire of grape-shot, which worked much mischief among the enemy ; although only nine in number, they kept several hundred men at bay. At last, the stock of grape at hand was exhausted, and the beleaguered garrison was shot at instead of shooting : seeing that none could run to the storehouses for more grape-shot without leaving to the mutineers freedom of entry by Leap- tin the walls. Two of the small number being wounded, and the impossibility of longer holding out being apparent, Lieutenant Willoughby gave the signal ; whereupon Conductor Scully 72 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. instantly fired the train. An awful explosion followed, amid the din and confusion of which, all who were not too much injured made their way out of the sally-port, to escape in the best manner they could. What was the number of insurgents killed and wounded by the grape-shot discharges and by the explosion, no one knew ; some of the English officers estimated it at more than a thousand. It was at the time hoped by the authorities that the whole of the vast store of ammunition had been blown into the air, beyond the reach of the mutineers ; but subsequent events shewed that the destruction was not so complete.* To return to the agitating scenes within the city. Major Abbott, immediately on hearing of the explosion at the magazine, found himself placed in a painful position : urged to different courses by different persons, and doubtful how long his own regiment would remain faithful. He was requested by the commandant to send back two guns to the cantonment, as a means of defence ; while, on the other hand, ho was entreated by Major Paterson, and by the civil collector who had charge of the treasury, to retain his small force for guarding the various government establishments within the city. Major Abbott listened to this latter suggestion for a time, but then made arrangements for sending off the two guns to the cantonment. By this time, however, he found it was of little consequence what orders he gave : the native troops were fast getting beyond his control. The two guns, and some men of the 38th regiment, returned ; the gunners had deserted on the road, and the guns had thei*efore been brought back again. A few of the native officers who were still faithful now importuned him to leave the city as soon as pos- sible ; he at first interpreted their request as an advice to hasten to defend the cantonment ; but soon found that it bore relation to his own safety. Presently he heard shots whizzing in the main- guard. He asked what they meant, and was told : ' The 38th are shooting the European officers.' He then ordered about a hundred of his men to hasten with him to the rescue ; but they replied : * Sir, it is useless. They are all killed by this time, and we shall not save any one. We have saved you, and we are happy ; we will not allow you to go back and be murdered.' The history of the Revolt presented many such incidents as this ; in every native regiment there were some men Avho wished to remain faithful, and some officers who were * Eightly did the governor -general, when officially informed of this achievement, speak of ' the noble and cool soldiership of the gallant defenders ' of the magazine : ' The governor-general in council desires to offer his cordial thanks to Lieutenants Iiaynor and Forrest, and the other survivors among the brave men men- tioned in this report, and to express the admiration with which he regards the daring and heroic conduct of Lieutenant G. D. Willoughby and the warrant and non-commissioned officers by whom he was supported on that occasion. Their names are Lieutenants Raynor and Forrest, Conductors Shaw, Buckley, Scully, Sub-conductor Crow, Sergeants Edwards and Stewart. The family of the late Conductor Scully, who so devotedly sacri- ficed himself in the explosion of the magazine, will be liberally provided for, should it be ascertained that they have survived him.' favourites among them. The sepoys formed a ring round the major, and hurried him on foot along the road leading to the cantonment. He stopped some time at the quarter-guard, and sent a messenger to the saluting tower to obtain information of the proceedings in other parts of the city. The sun was now setting, and evening approach- ing, giving omen of a night of danger and difficulty. Major Abbott espied two or three carriages belong- ing to officers of his own regiment, going northward on the road to Kurnaul ; and on inquiry, he was told by the men at the quarter-guard : ' Sir, they are leaving the cantonment ; pray follow their example. We have protected you so far ; but it will be impossible for us to do so much longer. Pray fly for your life ! ' Willing as he was to remain at his post to the last, the major felt that the men around him were so far faithful as to deserve credence for what they had just uttered ; and that his own life, if now taken, would be sacrificed without in any way contributing towards the retention of Delhi in British hands. He there- fore replied : ' Very well ; I am off to Meerut. Bring the colours ; and let me see as many of you at Meerut as are not inclined to become traitors.' Major Abbott and Captain Hawkey now mounted one horse and started off after the carriages. They overtook some guns going the same road ; but after a progress of four miles, the drivers refused to go any further, and insisted on driving the guns back again to Delhi. The officers, thus entirely deserted by the native troops, having no European troops with or near them, and being powerless to effect any good, rode or drove off to seek safety in other directions. Major Abbott afterwards learned at what point in the day's proceedings his own regiment, the 74th, first broke out in mutiny. As soon as the explosion of the magazine was heard, he ordered Captain Gordon to take a company with him, to see whether he could render any aid in that quarter ; the captain found, however, not only that his aid would be useless, but that his men exhibited great unwillingness to move. Somewhat later, several officers of the 74th were about to march out with a detachment, when a ball whistled among them : Captain Gordon fell dead. Another ball was heard, and Lieutenant Revely was laid low. It now became a matter of life and death : each officer, without any imputation of selfishness, looking after his own safety. Among others, Ensign Elton made for the bastion of the fort, jumped over the parapet, descended into the ditch, clambered up the counterscarp on the other side, ran across the country to the cantonment, and then followed the road which many of the other officers had taken. Captain Tytler, Captain Nicoll, and some others, went towards Kurnaul ; Major Abbott, Captains Hawkey and Wallace, Lieutenant Aislabie, Ensign Elton, and Farrier-sergeant Law, took the Kurnaul road for some distance, and then struck off on the right to Meerut, where THE EVENTFUL ESCAPES FROM DELHI. 73 they arrived at eight o'clock in the evening of Tuesday the 12th thirty-six hours after the mutineers from Mecrut had reached Delhi. After stating that almost all the European inha- bitants of Delhi had been murdered, except those who had at once been able to effect their escape, Major Abbott thus expressed the opinion whieh lie formed during these two days of terrible excitement, concerning the successive steps of the mutiny at Delhi : ' From all 1 could glean, there is not the slightest doubt that this insurrection has been originated and matured in tin- palace of the King of Delhi, witli his full knowledge ami sanc- tion, in the mad attempt to establish himself in the sovereignty of this country. It is well known that he has called on the neighbouring states to co-operate with him in thus trying to subvert the existing government. The method he adopted appears to have been to gain the sympathy of the 38th light infantry, by spreading the lying reports now going through the country, of the government having it in contemplation to upset their religion, and have them all forcibly inducted to Christianity. The 98th, by insidious and false arguments, quietly gained over the 54th and 74th native infantry, each being unacquainted with the other's real sentiments. 1 am perfectly persuaded that the 04th and 74th were forced to join the combination Escape from Delhi. by threats that the 38th and 64th would anni- hilate the 74th if they refused ; or, vice versa, that th and 74th would annihilate the 5 ith. 1 am almost convinced that had the 38th not been on guard at the Cashmere Gate, the results would have been very different ; the men of the 74th would have shot down every man who had the temerity to assail the post.' It may be that this officer, anxious to lessen the dishonour of his own lent, viewed somewhat too partially the relative merits of the native troops ; but it is unquestionable that the 74th remained faithful much longer than the :> ih. To what extent the King of Delhi was really implicated, neither Abbott nor any other Englishman could at that time correctly tell. It was not during the dire confusion of this terrible day that the i events in the streets and buildings of Delhi could be fully known. The facts came to light one by one afterwards. When the 3d Bengal troopers, who preceded the mutinous infantry in the march from Mecrut, arrived at the Jumna about seven in the morning, they killed the toll-keeper of the bridge of boats, took the money found in his office, and crossed the bridge. Arrived in Delhi, they hastened to the royal palace, whero they made some sort of announcement of their arrival and its purport. Mr Simon Fraser, the commissioner for Delhi, Captain Douglas, his assistant, and one or two other officials, hearing of this movement, and seeing the approach of nt infantry on the other side of the river, hastened to the palace to watch the conduct of the royal | e at such a suspicious time. No sooner did they enter the palace precincts, 74 THE REVOLT IN INDIA: 1857. however, than they were shot down. Shortly afterwards, the Rev. Mr Jennings, chaplain of the residency, was killed; as were likewise his daughter and another lady near him after, it is to be feared, atrocities worse than death. It was seen that the insurgent troopers were in a state of the greatest excitement and fury, as if they had worked themselves up, by indulgence in the intoxicating hang, to a level with their terrible plans. While the military operations, already noticed, were going* on at the Cashmere Gate, the magazine, and the cantonment, all the ruffians of Delhi and the neighbouring villages, eager for loot or plunder, joined the insurgents. Every European residence was searched: the troopers and sepoys seeking the lives of the inmates ; while the rabble followed, and swept off every shred of property. Bungalows were fired one by one, until glaring sheets of flame were visible in every direction. Bands of Goojurs a kind of Hindoo gipsy tribe were lying in wait after nightfall all along 'the line of road twenty miles out of Delhi, on the watch for refugees. It was a day of jubilee for all the miscreants; they did not stay their hands when the Europeans had been pillaged, but attacked the houses of all the Hindoo bankers, carrying off" great treasure. Some of the Europeans concealed themselves for a time within the palace gardens a vain refuge, for they were all detected, tied to trees in a row, and shot or sabred by the mutineers. Many of the troopers, during the savage scenes of tbesc days, pointed to the marks of manacles on their ankles ; they were of the eighty-five who had been put in irons at Meerut on the preceding Saturday ; and they now shewed how deep was the revenge which they intended to take for that degrading punishment. The military officers and their families were, from various causes, those whose fate became more publicly known ; but the number of civil servants, Christians of humble grade, and half-castes, put to death, was very great. The bank -clerks, with their wives and children, were murdered ; and similar scenes occurred at most of the public offices. Mr Farrington, deputy-commissioner, when at Jullundur two or three weeks afterwards, received a written account from a native of the occurrences at Delhi during the days immediately following the Revolt an account considered worthy of credence. A part of this narrative comprised the following sad talc : ' On the third day they [the mutineers] went to a house near the mosque where some Europeans had taken refuge. As they were without water, &c, they called for a subadar and five others, and asked them* to take their oaths that they would give them water, and take them alive to the king : he might kill them, if he liked. On this oath, the Europeans came out : the mutineers placed water before them, and said: " Lay down your arms, and then you get water." They gave over two guns, all they had. The mutineers gave no water. They seized eleven children among them infants eight ladies, and eight gentlemen. They took them to the cattle- sheds. One lady, who seemed more self-possessed than the rest, observed that they were not taking them to the palace ; they replied they were taking them by the way of Duryagunge (one of the gates on the river-side of the city). Deponent says that he saw all this, and saw them placed in a row and shot. One woman entreated to give her child water, though they might kill her. A sepoy took her child, and dashed it on the ground. The people looked on in dismay, and feared for Delhi.' The imagination can, too truly, alas ! fill up the deficient incidents in this tale of treachery. Mr Farrington deemed his informant worthy of reliance. He said : ' The man has been with me. He speaks frankly, and without fear. He is able, evidently, to narrate many a harrowing tale ; but I did not wish to hear any. He seemed really to recall with dismay what he had witnessed.' The aged but wretched king of Delhi wretched in having the hopes of earlier years revived, only to be crushed again for a time distrusted the mutineers ; he entertained misgivings that all might not end well. The shops and bazaars were being plundered ; the king was in the palace ; and some of those around him urged that order could be restored only by his assumption of the imperial purple. After three or four days, he went in a kind of state through the city, advising or commanding the people to re-open their shops, and resume their former commercial dealings advice more easily given than acted upon ; for the devastation had been terrible, striking grief into the more peaceful portion of the native inhabit- ants. The king assumed command in the city; he named .Mirza Mogul commander-in-chief, and gave the title of general of cavalry to Mirza Abu Bukur; he collected around him eight or nine thousand mutineers and volunteers, who were posted at the several gates of the city, or cantoned in the Duryagunge Bazaar. Additional guns were placed on the ramparts; and the native sappers and miners were placed in command of the cannon in the old fort of Selimgurh. The Company's treasury, one of the largest in India, is said to have been respected by the mutineers to this extent that they did not appropriate it among themselves as spoil, but guarded it as belonging to their newly chosen leader, the King of Delhi. To shew how perplexed the Calcutta government must have been at the first news of these events, it may be mentioned that the king's name was adverted to as that of a friend rather than an enemy. On the 14th of May, three days after the arrival of the Meerut mutineers at Delhi, Mr Colvin, lieutenant-governor of the North- west Provinces, telegraphed from Agra to the governor-general as follows: 'We have authentic intelligence in a letter from the king that the town and fort of Delhi, and his oivn person, are in the hands of the insurgent regiments of the place, which joined about one hundred of the THE EVENTFUL ESCAPES FROM DELHI. 75 troops from Mecrut and opened the gates.' Judged by tho ordinary rules of probability, it would appear that the mutineers first secured the person of the king, and then compelled him to head them: the old man being further urged by the entreaties and threats of his intriguing sons and grandsons. It is difficult, under any other supposition, to account for his transmission of a message of infor- mation and warning to the chief British authority in those regions. On the loth Mr Colvin sent a further telegraphic communication to Calcutta, containing this information: 'The rebels have declared the heir-apparent king. They are appar- ently organising the plan of a regular government; they still remain In the place. Their policy is supposed to he to annex the adjoining districts to their n.e\vly formed kingdom. They are not likely, therefore, to abandon the country or leave Delhi ; they have probably strengthened them- selves there. They may ha\ 1 fifty lacs of rupees [half a million sterling].' No further mention was here made of the old man ; it was a younger relation who had been set up as king ; and this younger prince may possibly have been the one whom the Marquis of Dalhousie had insisted should be the heir-apparent, with such prospective limitations of authority as the I pany might hereafter declare to be expedient. The ordinary motives which intlueuce men's conduct would be quite strong enough to induce this prince to avail himself of any accidental or unexpected means of insuring the crown without the limitations here adverted to. Ambi- tion was almost the only sentiment not absolutely ling left to the pensioned, sensual, intriguing dwellers in the pah The details of this chapter have hitherto been confined chielly to the course <> e _ a a s ss g ft-a 2 r 2 a to' 3 h- ^ jri c*-j * < 2 S O te: .2 C C3fe.2 -^ t* 'I* g Hi*! bo ^ v 9 ~ CO -4-3 *3 - f-> s P-5 .So >, g * H tp^ M-JI .9 J f g S3 fcb p C - . > ^.2^ 33 fe ""< 00 to in ^h o P . t3 P _0S O J ? &,q o H CO r3 o 2 P * g 2 > & ci -I o u Is Si en,' C +2 H -I ^ S^i :r" o o o 53 ^ S3 K rfS -g si u " s= es ? .* . _ -3 a o ill ~ ^ 2 -3 r C S3 s 2 o o z s CS s-i OR ? r CS E-t rG S3 ^. rf3 ^ CS , w p > ^^ "m ?3 eS c 2 2 p g p &,' -B S3 a S 5 *-3 Sort tr"^ > 2 a .S . S O 03 c3 -B a w "73 fcfi 'S "S tt- -2 .5 rt > 2 c^5 -c S -S6 2 -b X 03 9 .2 -P J! ^ a> 2 O o3 o o _h ~ ,d ^ to -B v ^ fl C fl ^f'?^S^ r ^ rt h c jt S -aS ^ -2 S a - 5 S --S 9 o WS.Si^85 o 03 S S3 .^ fl r - s S 2 sor2^ (Br S 650 bC O b 3 s S3 2 r; t/j s- , ~ r < T-J W3 *-( S*-i THE EVENTFUL ESCAPES FROM DELHI. 77 robbed and vilely addressed. Even the velvet headdress of one of them was torn off, for the value of the bugles that adorned it. A jewel- box had been brought away in haste, as the only treasure preserved ; and it became every hour more uncertain whether this would be a I rev to the spoilers. Returning to the high road, the ladies met some gunners with two guns ; and as the men told them certain death would be the result if they took the mail to Kurnaul, they drove in another direction to the Com- rden outside Delhi Here, marauding was everywhere going on ; the poor ladies soon had the misery of seeing their carriage, horse, jewel-box, and most of their outer clothing reft from them. In the dead of the night they ventured to a neighbourim: villa_-. The surgeon, husband to one of the ladies, here managed to join them ; but bring enfeebled by previous sickness, and wounded in the jaw during the day's exciting troubles, he was powerless as a defender, and far from being able to succour others needed succour himself. During the next fifteen hours were these three persons hiding in fields and huts, befriended by a few natives, and conscious that roving sepoys were near, ready for murder or pill lying forth again on the even: . iy. they were speedily stopped by six men, who robbed them of a further portion of their scanty apparel, and only stopped short of murder when the officer's wife pleaded for mercy, on the "round that she was searching for her husband and her child, both of whom had knew not whither. The three fugitives walked all that night, the wounded surgeon dragging hi along. In the morning they wire again ac and only escaped death by the ladies yielding up a further part of their attire, the only property they had left to <_'ivc. Daring the remainder of that day they crept on, obtaining a little food and water from some villagers, who were, how- ever, too much afraid of the afford the fugitives the shelter of a roof; and it was terrible work indeed to roam along the roads with a burning sun overhead and burning sand under They sat down by a well-.-ide, and drank -Miii'- water; but rude fellows accosted them, and after insulting the hapless women, compelled them to withdraw. They next encountered a party of irregular horse, who had not yet joined the mutineers; the men were at first inclined to befriend them ; but fears of the consequences supervening they soon deserted the fugitives. Here were these two Englishwomen, gently nurtured, and accustomed to all the amenities of good ty, again compelled to wander like miserable outcasts, helping along a male companion whose under-jaw had been shattered, and who was other- ;i a weak state. They crawled on during another night, and then reached a village, which, y saw it was Hindoo, they did not scruple to Kindm corded to them for one whole day ; after which the humane natives, timid lest the sepoys should burn their village if they heard of Feringhees having been harboured, declared they could no longer afford shelter. Once more, therefore, were the fugitives driven forth : having seen renewed symptoms that the sepoys, or rather the marauding ruffians, would not scruple to murder them, if opportunity offered. They had now been live days wandering about, and yet were only ten miles distant from Delhi : so completely had each day's plans been frustrated by the events of the next day. Again they entered a friendly village, and again were they compelled soon to depart, after receiving simple but kind assistance. No villagers, it was found, were free from dread at having assisted a Fcringhee. Once they hid for shelter under a bridge ; but an armed ruffian detected them, and behaved so unbearably towards the women that the surgeon, who was a Roman Catholic, took a gold .cross from his bosom, and gave it as the price of their freedom from further molestation : a wounded, shattered, sinking man, he could not offer them a strong arm hield from insult. On the night of the 17th, at a little more than twenty miles from Delhi, they were glad to obtain the shelter of an outhouse containing twenty cows, the only roof that the owner dared to oiler them. They made an attempt. to have a letter forwarded to Kurnaul, praying for nee ; but none in those parts could be depended upon for faithfulness beyond an hour or two : so much was there of treachery on the one hand, and timidity on the other. On the 18th they heard that Major Taterson, of the Msb regiment, was in the same village as themselves ; and he, power! tccour, contrived to send a short them, written with a burnt stick on a piece of an old broken pan. Shortly afterwards they were greatly astonished, and not a little delighted, to see an officer, the husband of one of the ladies, enter the village ; but more like a naked savage, blistered from head to foot, than like an English gentleman. An eventful tale had this officer to narrate. "When the scenes of violence on the 11th at Delhi had reached such a point that to remain longer l meet certain slaughter, he sent off his little Uh friends towards Mecrut, and saw his wife and her lady-companion start for Kurnaul. After being robbed of his horse, and having three bullets sent through his hat, and one through the skirt of his coat, he ran past the blazing houses of the cantonment, and, being ill at the time, sank down under a tree exhausted. A gang of ruffians found him, stripped him, robbed him of every- thing, and endeavoured, Thug-like, to strangle him using, however, the sleeve of his own shirt instead of a silken cord. Happily the choking was only partial ; he recovered, staggered on a mile or two, rested briefly in a hut, and then walked twelve miles to Alipore in a broiling sun. Ur obtained a little water, a little bread, and a few fragments of clothing, but was refused shelter. He wended his painful way barefoot, keeping to 78 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. ploughed fields as safer than the high road, and reached a village where the headman gave him an asylum for five days. During these days, however, he twice narrowly escaped death from sepoys prowling about the village. On the sixth he received information which led him to believe that his wife and her travelling companions were within six or seven miles of him. He hastened on, with swollen and blistered feet, wretched sub- stitutes for raiment, and a frame nearly worn out by sickness and anxiety; but a gleam of joy burst upon him when at length he overtook the surgeon and the two wives, though dismayed to see the plight to which they had been reduced. The poor ladies he found to be, like himself, reft of every- thing they had in the world except a few torn and toil-worn fragments of garments. The surgeon had been less rudely stripped, simply because the clothes of a wounded man were less acceptable to the spoliators. The fugitives, now four in number, continued their journey, their feet pierced with thorns and sharp stones, and the difficulty of carrying or dragging a wounded man becoming greater and greater. The officer's wife, having had no head-covering for many days, felt the sun's heat to be gradually affecting her brain; she was thankful when a villager gave her a wet cloth to bind round her temples. Matters now began to mend ; the villagers were less afraid of the Delhi sepoys ; the vicinity of Kurnaul exhibited less violence and marauding; horses and mules were obtained on one day to take them to Lursowlie ; and on the next a carriage was provided for their conveyance to Kurnaul. How they got on from Kurnaul to Umballa, and from Umballa to Simla, need not be told the romance of the incident was over when the three fugitives, two women and a wounded man, were joined by a fourth ; although much physical and mental suffering had still to be endured. The little son of this lady, it was afterwards found, had been carried by some friends safely to Mcerut on the 12th. The four fugitives, when they reached friendly quarters, were poor indeed : no beggars could be more completely dependent on the sympathy of those whom they now happily met. Next we will follow the steps of .some of those who chose Meerut rather than Kurnaul as their place of refuge. Their adventures partake of a new interest, because there was a broad and swift river to be crossed. A young ensign of the 54th regiment, a stripling who had just commenced military service under the Company, had a sad tale to tell, how the European officers of his regiment had fallen almost to a man. He was in the cantonment when the news arrived of the approach of the Meerut mutineers ; his regiment was ordered to hasten to the city ; and he, like other officers, was fain to hope that the men would remain true to their colours. Leaving two com- panies to follow with two guns, the other eight marched off to the city, distant, as has already been stated, about two miles. Arriving at the mainguard of the Cashmere Gate, the regiment encountered the mutinous 3d Bengal cavalry, who immediately shot down nearly all the officers of the eight companies : the men of those companies shewing, by a refusal to defend their officers, that they were quite ready for revolt. The colonel, indeed, was bayoneted by one of his own men after a trooper had shot him. In about half an hour the other two companies arrived with the two guns ; but as the few remaining officers of the regiment knew not which of their men, if any, could be depended on, they formed a kind of small fort or citadel of the mainguard, into which they brought their few remaining companions one by one. The poor youth, who had just commenced soldiering, and who had never seen a dead body, was nearly overwhelmed with grief at the sight of his brother-officers, with whom he had laughed and chatted a few hours before, lying side by side dead and mutilated. The main body of the regiment remained sullen, though not mutinous, until about five o'clock in the evening ; but then the spirit of evil seemed to seize them, and they turned upon the Europeans near them, shooting indiscriminately. The scene became agonising. Many women and children had gone to the mainguard for security ; and now they as well as the officers found it necessary to flee for very life. Some ran, leaped, clomb, until they got beyond the wall of the city ; others waited to help those who were weaker or of more tender years. Some of the ladies, though wounded, lowered themselves by handkerchiefs into the ditch, from embrasures in the parapet, and were caught by officers below ; and then ensued the terrible labour of dragging or carrying them up the counterscarp on the other side of the ditch. (A ditch, in military matters, be it remem- bered, is a dry, broad, very deep trench outside a fortified Avail, with nearly vertical sides, called the scarp and counterscarp.) The young officer tells how that he and his male companions would have made a dash towards Meerut, sword in hand, or have sold their lives at once ; but that their chief thoughts were now for the women and children. What were the privations of such a company as this, in fords and jungles, in hunger and nakedness, we shall presently see by means of a narrative from another quarter. It is an officer of the 38th who shall now tell his tale how that his own personal troubles, when alone, were slight compared with those which he had afterwards to bear in company with other fugitive Europeans. This officer states that, while the refugees were anxiously watching the coui'se of events at the Flagstaff Tower, they Avere momentarily expecting aid from Meerut. They could not believe that Major-general Hewett would have allowed the mutineers to march from Meerut to Delhi without either making an attempt to in- tercept them, or following on their heels ; and their disappointment in this particular led to some of the unfavourable comments made on that general's THE EVENTFUL ESCAPES FROM DELHI. 79 liuo of conduct. Tho officer of the 38th, whose narrative is now under notice, shared the difficulty of all the others in endeavouring to keep the men at their duty ; and he speaks of the terrible sight, more than once adverted to, which met his eve at the mainguard inside the Cashmere Gate: 'By the gate, side by side, and covered by pretty ladietf I taken from some house, as if in mockery, lay the bodies of poor Captain Smith, Burrowes, Ed ward es, and Waterlield, and the quarter-mailer* sergeant ; some lying calm as shot dead, and others with an expression of pain, mutilated by bayonets and swords.' "When all became h<>; within the city, and the brigadier had given orders to retire, the officers made a show of bringing off their regiments as well as their families; but it nly a show ; for such of the men as had remained faithful up to this time now fell away, and the Europeans found theniseh nai compelled to they could. Tho officer hastened to the cantonment, disconsolate and helpless, but bavin? no immediate idea of escape. With the colonel of tho I iment, however, he was I to adopt that course, as the cantonment itself BOW in a blaze. The two ran oft' in the of the night towards the river, crouching beneath trees when enemies seemed near; they forded the Jumna Canal, slaking their parched lips as they waded or swam ; and they tore off the brighter littering accoutrements, to prevent betrayal. In the morning, faint and hungered, they took refuge in a hut while a body of m searching around, as if for victims. A lew Hindoo peasants discovering them, told them where they could hide in a tope of trees, and bro u g ht them chupatties and milk. Being able to ford across a narrow branch of the Jumna soon afterward':, they concealed thi in the wild jungle ; and there, to their joy and surprise, found others of their friends in the same kind of concealment joy damped, it is true, at the thought of educated English men and women crouching among long jungle-grass like sava wild beasts. On counting numbers, they found they were thirteen, eight gentlemen and live ladies and children; and as they had several guns and swords among them, they took heart, and prepared to st; inst further difficulties. To bring up the two parallel threads of the story, the escapes of the larger party, comprising the women and little ones, must now be told. In the afternoon of the preceding day, after arrangements boon made for conveying the ladies on gun- carriages from the city to the cantonment, the natives who had been trusted with this duty turned faithless, and the Europeans within the Cashmere finding themselves shot at, sought to escape beyond the walls in any way they could. One after another, women and children as well as men, leaped over into the ditch, scrambled up the other Off towards the house of Sir T. lie. One lady, the mother of three daughters who had to share in the flight, was shot through the shoulder, yet still kept on. Tho native servants in the absence of their master, who afterwards had his own tale to tell of jungle-life and narrow escapes gave them a little food ; but just before the house was about being fired by the insurgents, the fugitives left it, and succeeded in fording the narrow stream to the spot mentioned above. When the thirteen had told their adventures, and formed a plan, they started anew, and sought a spot where they could ford the majestic Jumna. The officer must here tell the story of this perilous fording : ' ( )ur hearts failed, and no wonder, where ladies were concerned, as we looked at the broad swift river. It was getting dark, too. Two natives went across. We watched them anxiously wade a considerable portion of the river ; then their heads alone appeared above water. It was our only chance of life, and our brave ladies never flinched. The water was so deep, that where a tall man would wade, a short man would be drowned. I thought it was all over when, on reaching the deep water with Mrs on my left arm, a native supporting her on the other side, we wan shot [drifted] down the river; however, by des- perate efforts and the assistance of another native, we reached the bank in safety. I swam back onee moro for another of our party ; and so ulti- mately we all got safe over. It was a brave fooi for our ladies to do.' But so it was throughout terrific scenes : tho heroism, the patience, the long-suffering endurance of tlxeso gentlewomen, up to the I leness of frame was van- quished by nobility of spirit ; and the men were often kept in heart, though deeply pained, by the uneomplaining perseverance of their gentle com- panions in misery. Our fugitives passed a wretched night after this fording of tho Jumna, crouching in the jungle, with no sound ' but the chattering of their teeth.' The next day threw them into the hands of a large band of ruffians ; and as the guns of the officers had been rendered useless by wet, the consequence was direful : the whole party were stripped and robbed, and then left without food, without clothing, without resource, to wander whither they could. With naked feet, and skins blistering in the sun, they toiled on. ' How the ladies stood it,' says the officer whose narrative Ave are following, ' is marvellous ; they never murmured or flinched, or distressed us by a show of terror.' Fortunately, a fakcer, in a Hindoo village, ventured to give them shelter; they remained three days, obtaining a little food, but nothing more. A German zemindar or landowner, who had been so long in India as to be hardly distinguishable from a Hindoo, hearing of their plight, sent for them, gave them some rough cloth to huddle on as substitutes for garments, and caused a message to be sent to Mccrut, which brought relief to them; and they reached that town in seven days after leaving Delhi worn out in mind and body, haggard, lame, penniless, but thankful that their lives had been spared. Strange as these escapes and perils were, they 80 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. were eclipsed in individual daring and fertility of resource by one which remains to be told, and which may form the last of this little group of painful narratives. Mr Batson, surgeon of the 74th regiment, was unheard of during so long a time after the events at Delhi on the fatal Monday that he was given up for lost ; but in a letter which he wrote to announce his safety, he detailed such a scries of adventures as appear to belong rather to romance than to real life Defoe-like, but entirely true instead of fictitious. And here it may be again remarked that these narratives must not be suspected of boastful exaggeration ; there were links which connected all the eventful stories into one chain each receiving corroborative strength from the others. Mr Batson states that when it was found that the three regiments at Delhi refused to act against the mutineers from Meerut, and that when such of the women and children as could be collected were placed in the mainguard and the Flagstaff Tower, he went to Brigadier Graves, volunteering to convey a letter to Meerut, in hope of obtaining the aid of European troops. His offer being accepted, he took leave of his wife and three daughters in the Flagstaff Tower, went to his house, dressed himself like a native fakcer or mendicant devotee, and coloured his face, hands, and feet. Off he set on his perilous errand. He first tried to cross the Jumna by the bridge of boats, but found it broken. Then he ran to the cantonment, and endeavoured to cross by a ferry near that spot, but found the insurgent cavalry and the neighbouring villagers plundering and marauding. Next he hastened across the parade- ground, and, after escaping two or three shots, was seized by some of the villagers and stripped of every bit of his fakeer clothing. On he ran again, in his now truly forlorn state, towards the Kurnaul road, hoping to overtake some of the officers who were escaping by that route ; but before he could do so, two of the insurgent troopers intercepted him. Just as they were about to cut him down with their drawn swords, his tact and knowledge saved him. Being familiar both with the Hindostani language and Avith the Mohammedan customs, he threw himself into a supplicating position, and uttered the most exalted praises of the great Prophet of Islam : begging them to spare his life for the sake of the Moslem. Had his assailants been infantry sepoys, he would probably not have attempted this manoeuvre, for most of them were Hindoos ; but knowing that the cavalry sowars were chiefly Mohammedans, he made the venture. It succeeded. Whether they knew him as a fugitive Englishman, is not certain ; but they let him go, saying : ' Had you not asked for mercy in the name of the Prophet, you should have died like the rest of the Kaffirs [infidels].' After run- ning another mile at once shivering with naked- ness and burning with excitement he encountered some Mussulman villagers, who rushed upon him, crying : ' Here is a Feringhee ; kill the Kaffir ! You Ferinsdiees want to make us all Christians!' They dragged him to a village, tied his hands behind him, and sent one of their number to a house hard by to get a sword, with Avhich to despatch him. At this critical moment some excitement the nature of which Mr Batson could not understand caused them all to leave him, and he ran off again. He fortunately fell in with some smiths who had been employed in the Delhi magazine, and who were willing to save him ; they urged him not to go forward, or the villagers would certainly murder him. They took him to a hut, gave him an article or two of apparel, and fed him with milk and bread. He tried to sleep, but could not : he lay awake all night, restless and excited. In the morning he bethought him of informing his protectors that he was a physician, a doctor, a 'medicine-man;' and this proved to be an aid to him ; for the villagers, finding that he could answer questions relating to maladies, and was familiar with their religion, language, and customs, began to take much interest in the Feringhee doctor. He found that two officers were in hiding at no great distance, but he could reach neither of them. To get to Meerut in time to deliver his message was of course now out of the question : all that Mr Batson could do was to secure his own safety. More perils were in store for him. The villagers of Badree were informed that if they harboured any Feringhees, the now triumphant King of Delhi would direfully punish them ; they became alarmed, and hid him in a small mango tope. ' Here,' the surgeon says, ' I was left night and day alone. I was visited at night by some one or other of the villagers, who brought me bread and water in a ghurrah. I am unable to describe my feelings during this trying time. I was all day in the sun, in the extreme heat, and alone at night, when the jackals came prowling about and crying. It is only God and myself know what I have endured. After five nights and days in this tope of trees, I was again taken back to the village and concealed in a bhoosa house. I was here shut in for twenty-four hours ; the heat and suffocation I cannot find language to describe. I do not know which was the greatest misery, the tope of trees in solitude or the bhoosa kotree.' At length the villagers, afraid to keep him any longer, dismissed him enabling him to dress himself up again as a fakeer. Tramping on from village to village, he acted his part so well as to escape detection. He gave himself out as a Cashmerian ; and although one of the villagers suspected his European origin by his blue eyes, he did not betray him. He observed from village to village and the fact is worthy of note in relation to the causes and details of the Revolt that the Mohammedans were much more savage than the Hindoos in their expressions and threats against the Feringhees. The further he proceeded from Delhi, the less did Mr Batson find himself in- volved in danger ; and he was fortunately picked up by Captain M'Andrews and Lieutenant Mew of his own regiment. He had been out no less THE EVENTFUL ESCAPES FROM DELHI. 81 than twenty-five days, wandering from village to village, from tope to tope ; suffering privations which none but himself could know, and not even he adequately describe. One great anxiety gnawed him the while the fate of his family : one great joy awaited him his family escaped. Hre this chapter may close. We have seen that on the morning of Monday the 11th of May, the European inhabitant! of Delhi arose from their beds in peace ; and that by the close of the Bane day there was not a single individual of the number whoso portion was not death, flight, or terrified concealment. So far as the British rule or influence was concerned, it was at an end. The natives remained masters of the situation ; their white rulers were driven out; and a rcconquest, complete in all its details, could alone restore British rule in Delhi. At what time, in what way, and by whom, that rcconquest was effected, will remain to be told in a later portion of this work. Much remains to be narrated before Delhi will again come under notice. a y Elephant and State Howdah. LUCKNOW. CHAPTER VI. LU0O0W AND THE COURT OF OUDE. NOTHER regal or once-regal family, another remnant of Moslem power in India, now comes upon the scene one which has added to the embarrassment of the Eng- lish authorities, by arraying against them the machinations of deposed princes as well as the discontent of native troops ; and by shewing, as the King of Delhi had shewn in a neighbouring region, that a pension to a sovereign deprived of his domi- nions is not always a sufficient medicament to allay the irritation arising from the deprivation. What and where is the kingdom of Oude ; of what rank as an Indian city is its capital, Lucknow ; who were its rulers ; why and when the ruling authority was changed these matters must be clearly understood, as a preliminary to the narra- tive of Sir Henry Lawrence's proceedings about the time of the outbreak. Oude, considered as a province of British India, and no longer as a kingdom, is bounded on the north and northeast by the territory of Nepaul ; on the east by the district of Goruckpore ; on the southeast by those of Azimghur and Jounpoor ; on the south by that of Allahabad ; on the southwest by the districts of the Doab ; and on the north- west by Shahjehanpoor. It is now about thrice the size of Wales ; but before the annexation, Oude as a kingdom included a larger area. On the Nepaul side, a strip of jungle-country called the Terai, carries it to the base of the sub-Himalaya range. This Terai is in part a wooded marsh, so affected by a deadly malaria as to be scarcely habitable ; while the other part is an almost impassable forest of trees, underwood, and reeds, infested by the elephant, the rhinoceros, the bear, the wild hog, and other animals. Considered generally, however, Oude surpasses in natural advantages almost every other part of India having the Ganges running along the whole of its southwest frontier, a varied and fertile soil, a LUCKNOW AND THE COURT OF OUDE. 83 genial though hot climate, and numerous facilities for irrigation and water-carriage. It cannot, how- be said that man has duly aided nature in the development of these advantages ; for the only regularly made road in the whole provinco is that from Lueknow to Cawnpore : the others being mostly wretched tracks, scarcely passable for wheel- carriages. The railway schemes of the Company include a line through Oude, which would be of incalculable benefit ; but no definite contract had made at the time when the Revolt, com- menced ; nor would such a railway be profitable until tho trunk-line is finished from Calcutta to Benares and Allahabad. A ltliu u r h the Moham- medans have, through many Ogee, held the ruling in Oude, tho Hindoos arc greatly more numerous ; and nearly the wbolo of the inhabit- ants, five millions in number, speak the Bindoetani itta speak cwing the kind of houses in which Buropt -tonally Mraght concealment daring the disturbance^, the foUowiag deaorlption of the ordinary dwelling-pl I lode may be useful. They i ally built either of unburnt briek, or of ton about three foet in Ith and one foot high. The roofs are made of placed a foot apart, and covered with planks laid trai mats, and a roofing of well-rammed wet day half a in thickness. The walls are carried to a 1 six or seven foal abort the upper surface of the afford a -cation for he family; and during the rainy i this small el ith a alight awning of bamboos and grass. Though so simply and cheaply constructed, those hosJu- \ round the house then is usually a verandah, ith a sloping tilcude, Xussir-u-Deen, in 1834 and following years.* Though the name of the author does not appear, the work is generally accepted as being trustworthy, ><> many corroborations of its statements having appeared in other quarters. Speaking of the king's palace within the city, this writer says ; ' The great extent of the building!, generally called the king's palace, surprised me in the first instance. It is not properly a palace, but a continuation of palaces, stretching all along the banks of the Qoomtee, the river on which Lucknow is built. In this, however, the roja] residence in Oude but resembles what one reads of the Seraglio at Constantinople, the khan's residence at Teheran, and the imperial buildings of Tekin. In all oriental states, the palaces are not so much the abode of the sovereign only, as the centre of the government : little towns, in fart, containing exten- sive lines of buildings occupied by the harem and I number of attendants; containing courts, gardens, tanks, fountains, and squares, as well as tin- offices of the chief ministers of state. Such is thi 1 case in l.ucknow. One side of the narrow Goomtee a river not much broader than a middle- sized London street is lined by the royal palace ; the othef if occupied by the rumna or park, in which the menagerie u (or was) maintained There is nothing grand or striking about the exterior of the palace, the Pureed Buksfa, as it is called. Its extent is the only imposing feature about it ; and this struck me more forcibly than any magniticcnee or loftiness of structure would have done' These few topographical and descriptive details concerning Oude and its two capitals, the former and the present, will prepare us to enter upon a abject touching immediately the present narrative: namely, the relations existing between tin India Company and the Oudians, and the causes which have generated disaffection in the late royal family of that country. It will be needful to shew by what steps Oude, once a Hindoo L'uujJum, became under the Mogul dynasty a Mohamme- dan nawabsJiiji, then a MOM hip, then under British protection a Mohammedan kingdom, and lastly an Anglo-Indian province. Whether or not historians arc correct in asserting that Oude was an independent Hindoo sovereignty fourteeu hundred years before the Christian era, and that then, for an indefinite number of cen- turies, it was a Hindoo dependency of a prince whose chief scat of authority was at Oojein it to be admitted that Dakhtiar Khil/.i, towards the close of the twelfth century, was sent to conquer the country for the Mohammedan sovereign at that time paramount in the north of India ; and that Uy Mr Knighton, author of Forut Life in Ceylon. Oude became at once an integral part of the realm of the emperor of Delhi. Under the powerful Baber, Oude was a lieutenancy or nawabship: the ruler having sovereign power within his dominions, but being at the same time a vassal of the Great Mogul. This state of things continued until about a century ago, when the weakening of the central power at Delhi tempted an ambitious nawab of Oude to throw r off the trammels of dependency, and exercise royalty on his own account. At that timo the Mohammedan rulers of many states in Northern India were troubled by the inroads of the fierce warlike Mahrattas ; and although the nawabs cared little for their liege lord the emperor, they deemed it expedient to join their forces against the common enemy. One result of this struggle was, that the nawab of Oude was named 'perpetual' nawab the first loosening of the imperial chain. The nawab-vi/.icr, as he was now- called, never afterwards paid much allegiance to the sovereign of Delhi: nay, the effete Mogul, in 1764) asked the British to defend him from his ambitious and disobedient neighbour. This ;: ance was so effectively given, that in the next year the nawab-vi/ier was forced to sue humbly lor piace, and to give up some of his possessions as the price of it. One among many stipulations^ of the East India Company, in reference to the military forces allowed to be maintained by native princes, was made in 170S, when the nawab- vizier was limited to an army of 35,000 troops ; namely, 10,000 cavalry, 10,000 sepoys or infantry, 6000 matchlock-men, 600 artillery, and 0600 irregulars. In 177:3, Warren Hastings had become so com- pletely Involved in the perplexities of Indian politics, and made treaties so unscrupulously if lie could thereby advance the interests of the Com- pany that Company which he served with a zeal worthy of a better cause that he plotted with the nawab-vi/.icr against the poor decrepit Mogul : tin; nawab to obtain much additional power and terri- tory, and the British to obtain large sums of money for assisting him. When the next nawab-vizier, A/of-u-Dowlah, assumed power in Oude in 1775, he hastened to strengthen himself by an alliance with the now powerful British ; he gave up to them some territory ; they agreed to protect him, and to provide a certain contingent of troops, for which he was to pay an annual sum. This war; the complicated way in which the Company gained a footing in so many Indian provinces and kingdoms. It was in 1782 that that shameful proceeding took place, which though Warren Hastings obtained an acquittal concerning it at his celebrated trial in the House of Lords has indubitably left a stain upon his name ; namely, the spoliation of two begums or princesses of Oude, and the cruel punishment, almost amounting to torture, of some of their dependents. The alleged cause was an arrcar in the payment of the annual sum due from the nawab. Even if the debt were really due, the mode of extorting the money, and the selection of the persons from whom it was THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. extorted, can never be reconciled to the principles of even-handed justice. The truth may be com- pressed into a short sentence the Company being terribly in want of money to carry on a war against Hyder Ali, the governor-general determined to obtain a supply from some or other of the native princes in Northern India ; and those natives being often faithless, he did not hesitate to become faithless to them. During the remainder of the century, the Company increased more and more its 'protection' of the nawab-vizier, and received larger and larger sums in payment for that pro- tection. Azof-u-Dowlah was succeeded in 1797 by Vizier Ali, and he in 1798 by Saadut Ali. We come now to the present century. In 1801, the Marquis Wellesley placed the relations with Oude on a new footing : he relinquished a claim to any further subsidy from the nawab- vizier, but obtained instead the rich districts of Allahabad, Azimghur, Goruckpore, and the Southern Doab, estimated to yield an annual revenue of nearly a million and a half sterling. Oude was larger than England before this date; but the marquis took nearly half of it by this transaction. Matters remained without much change till 1814, when Saadut Ali was succeeded byGhazee-u-Deen Hyder. During the war between the British and the Nepaulese, soon afterwards, the nawab-vizier of Oude lent the Company two miUions sterling, and received in return the Terai or jungle-country between Oude and Nepaul. A curious system of exchanges, this ; for after receiving rich districts instead of money, the Company received money in return for a poor district inhabited chiefly by wild beasts. In 1819, the Company allowed Ghazee-u-Deen Hyder to renounce the vassal-title of nawab-vizier, which was a mockery as connected with the suzerainty of the now powerless Emperor of Delhi, and to become King of Oude a king, however, with a greater king at his elbow in tbe person of the British resident at the court of Lucknow. The Company again became a borrower from Ghazee, during the Mahratta and Burmese wars. In 1827, the throne of Oude was ascended by Nussir-u-Deen Hyder an aspirant to the throne who was favoured in his pretensions by the Company, and wbo was, as a consequence, in bitter animosity with most of his relations during the ten years of his reign. Com- plicated monetary arrangements were frequently made with the Company, the nature and purport of which are not always clearly traceable ; but they generally had the effect of increasing the power of the Company in Oude. On the death of Nussir, in 1837, a violent struggle took place for the throne. He, like other eastern princes, had a large number of sons ; but the Company would not acknowledge the legitimacy of any one of them ; and the succession therefore fell upon Mahomed Ali Shah, uncle to the deceased sovereign. The begum or chief wife of Nussir fomented a rebellion to overturn this arrangement ; and it cost Colonel (afterwai'ds General) Low, resident at Lucknow, much trouble to preserve peace among the wrangling members of the royal family. Now approaches the arrangement which led to the change of rulers. Oude had been most miser- ably governed during many years. The king and his relations, his courtiers and his dependents, grasped for money as a substitute for the political power which they once possessed ; and in the obtainment of this money they scrupled at no atrocities against the natives. The court, too, was steeped in debaucheries of the most licentious kind, outraging the decencies of life, and squandering wealth on the minions who ministered to its pleasures. The more thoughtful and large-hearted among the Company's superior servants saw here what they had so often seen elsewhere : that when the Company virtually took possession of a native state, and pensioned off the chief and his family, a moral deterioration followed ; he was not allowed to exercise real sovereignty ; he became more intensely selfish, because he had nothing to be proud of, even if he wished to govern well ; and he took refuge in the only oriental substitute sensual enjoyment. AVhen Mahomed Ali Shah died in 1842, and his son, Umjud Ali Shah, was sanctioned by the Company as king, a pledge was exacted and a threat foreshadowed: the pledge was, that such reforms should be made by the king as would contribute to the tranquillity and just government of the country ; the threat was, that if he did not do this, the sovereignty would be put an end to, and the Company would take the govern- ment into its own hands. In 1847, Umjud Ali Shah was succeeded by his son, Wajid Ali Shah : a king who equalled or surpassed his predecessors in weakness and profligacy, and under whom the state of matters went from bad to worse. The Marquis of Dalhousie was governor-general when matters arrived at a crisis. There can be no question that the Company, whatever may be said about aggressive views, wished to see the millions of Oude well and happily governed ; and it is equally unquestionable that this wish had hot been gratified. The engagement with Umjud Ali Shah had assumed this form : ' It is hereby pro- vided that the King of Oude will take into his immediate and earnest consideration, in concert with the British resident, the best means of remedying the existing defects in the police, and in the judicial and revenue administration of his dominions ; and that if his majesty should neglect to attend to the advice and counsel of the British government or its local representative, and if (which God forbid !) gross and systematic oppres- sion, anarchy, and misrule, should hereafter at any time prevail within the Oude dominions, such as seriously to endanger the public tranquillity, the British government reserves to itself the right of appointing its own officers to the management of whatsoever portion of the Oude territory, either to a small or great extent, in which such misrule as that above alluded to may have occurred, for so long a period as it may deem necessary.' The LUCKNOW AND THE COURT OF OUDE. 87 marquis, finding that thirteen years had presented no improvement in the internal government of Oude, resolved to adopt decisive measures. He drew up a treaty, whereby the administration of the territory of Oude was to be transferred to the British government : ample provision being made for the dignity, affluence, and honour of the king and his family. The king refused to sign the treaty, not admitting the allegations or supposi- tions on which it was based ; whereupon the marquis, acting with the sanction of the Company and of the imperial government in London, announced all existing treaties to be null and Void, and issued a proclamation declaring that the government of the territories of Oude was hence- forth vested exclusively and for ever in the Bast India Company. The governor-general in his minute, it -will be remembered, spoke of this trans- fer of power in the following brief terms: 'The kingdom of Oude has been assumed in perpetual nment by the Honourable Hast India Com- pany; in pursuance of a policy which In recently been under the consideration of the Honourable Court, that I deem it unnecessary to to it more particularly here.' Everything tends to shew that the king violently ed this Iosj of his regal title and | When the governor-general and the resident at Lucknow waited on him with the draft of the Meaty, towards the dose of 1S55, ho not only refused to sign it, but announced his intention to proceed to England, with a vi< lining justice from Queen Victor! tnpany. This the marquis would not prevent ; hut he intimated that the king must travel, and be treated by the Company's serv an t if he adopted this step. The stipend for the royal family was fixed by the Company of course with- out the consent of the king and his relations at l l'ih uick soldier, its quality, the Hindoos near at hand refused to partake of it, lest the taint of a Christian mouth should degrade their caste. Tiny complained to Colonel Palmer, of the 48th native regiment, who, oi he believed and hoped, adopted a conciliatory coarse that removed all objection. This hope was not realised, however ; for on that same night the r*s bungalow was tired and destroyed by some of the sepoys, whom no efforts could identify, afterwards, nearly all the huts of the 13th regiment were burned down, under similarly mysterious areumstai Sir' Henry Lawrence's difficulties began with the ions cartridge-question, as was the case in so many other parts of India. Towards tin; c! April, Captain Watson found that many of the s or lakhs of rupees : a lac being 100,000, value about recruits or younger men in his regiment, the 7th Oude infantry, evinced a reluctance to bite the cartridges. Through some oversight, the new method of tearing instead of hiting had not been shewn to the sepoys at Lucknow ; and there was therefore sufficient reason for adopting a concilia- tory course in explaining the matter to them. The morbid feeling still, however, remained. On the 1st of May, recusancy was again exhibited, followed by an imprisonment of some of the recruits in the quarter-guard. The native officers of the regiment came forward to assure Captain Watson that this disobedience was confined to the 'youngsters, 1 and that the older sepoyi discountenanced it. He believed them, or seemed to do so. On the 2d he sddressed the men, pointing out the folly of the conduct attributed to the young recruits, and exhorting them to behave more like true soldiers. Though listened to respect fully, lie observed BO much sullenness and doggedness among the troops, that he brought the matter under the notice of his superior officer, Brigadier Grey. The native officers, when pot to the test, declined taking any steps to enforce obedience; they declared their be in danger from the men under them, should tiny do so. The brigadier, accompanied liv Captains WatBOn and Harlow, at once went to the lines, had the men drawn up in regular order, and put the question to each company kingly, whether it was willing to use the same cartridges which had nil oJeae been employed. They I. The brigadier left them to arrange plans for the morrow ; placing them, however, under sard for the night On the morning of the 3d, the grenadier company (picked or most skilful company) of the regiment went through the lines, threatening to kill some of the European officers; and soon afterwards the tumult became so serious, that the fulfilment of 1 he threat seemed imminent. By much entreaty, the officers, European and native, allayed in some degree the excitement of the nun. While this was going on, however, at the post or station of Moosa Bagh, a mess* lit by the intriguers of the 7th regiment to the cantonment at Murreeoun, with a letter inciting the 48th native infantry to join them in mutiny. This letter was fortunately brought, by a Bubadar true to his duty, to Colonel Pahner, the commandant. Prompt measures were at once resolved upon. A considerable force con- sisting of the 7th Oude cavalry, the 4th Oude infantry, portions of the 48th and 71st Bengal infantry, a portion of the 7th Bengal cavalry, a wing of her Majesty's 3Sd, ami a field-battery of guns was sent from the cantonment to the place where the recusants were posted. The mutineers stood firm for some time; but when they saw- cannon pointed at them, some turned and tied with great rapidity, while others quietly gave up their arms. The cavalry pursued and brought back some of the fugitives. The 7th Oude irre- gular infantry regiment, about a thousand Strong, was thus suddenly broken into three fragments 90 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. one escaped, one captured, and one disarmed. A letter from the Rev. Mr Polehampton, chaplain to the English residents at Lucknow, affords one among many proofs that Sunday was a favourite day for such outbi'eaks in India perhaps pur- posely so selected by the rebellious sepoys. The 3d of May was Sunday : the chaplain was performing evening-service at the church. ' Towards the end of the prayers, a servant came into church, and spoke first to Major Reid, of the 48th; and then to Mr Dashwood, of the same regiment. They both went out, and afterwards others were called away. The ladies began to look very uncomfortable ; one or two went out of church ; one or two others crossed over the aisle to friends who were sitting on the other side; so that altogether I had not a very attentive congregation.' When it was found that the officers had been called out to join the force against the mutineers, the chaplain ' felt very much inclined to ride down to see what was going on; but as the Moosa Bagh is seven miles from our house, and as I should have left my wife all alone, I stayed where I was. I thought of what William III. said when he was told that the Bishop of Derry had been shot at the ford at the Battle of the Boyne, " What took him there?" ' The course of proceeding adopted by Sir Henry Lawrence on this occasion was quite of an oriental character, as if suggested by one who well knew the Indian mind. He held a grand military durbar, to reward the faithful as well as to awe the mutinous. In the first instance he had said that the government would be advised to disband the regiment, with a provision for re-enlisting those who had not joined the rebels ; but pending the receipt of instructions from Calcutta, he held his durbar (court ; levee ; hall of audience). Four native soldiers a havildar-major, a subadai*, and a sepoy of the 48th regiment, and a sepoy of the 13th who had proved themselves faithful in an hour of danger, were to be rewarded. The lawn in front of the residency was carpeted, and chairs were arranged on three sides of a square for some of the native officers and sepoys ; while a large verandah was filled with European officials, civil and mili- tary, upwards of twenty in number. Sir Henry opened the proceedings with an address in the Hindostani language, full of point and vigour. After a gorgeous description of the power and wealth of the British nation overwrought, per- haps, for an English ear, but well suited to the occasion be adverted to the freedom of con- science in British India on matters of religion : ' Those amongst you who have perused the records of the past must well know that Alumghir in former times, and Hyder Ali in later days, forcibly converted thousands and thousands of Hindoos, desecrated their fanes, demolished their temples, and carried ruthless devastation amongst the household gods. Come to our times ; many here present well know that Runjeet Singh never permitted his Mohammedan subjects to call the pious to prayer never allowed the Afghan to sound from the lofty minarets which adorn Lahore, and which remain to this day a monu- ment to their munificent founders. The year before last a Hindoo could not have dared to build a temple in Lucknow. All this is changed. Who is there that would dare now to interfere with our Hindoo or Mohammedan subjects?' He contrasted this intolerance of Mohammedan and Hindoo rulers in matters of religion with the known scruples of the British government ; and told his hearers that the future would be like the present, in so far as concerns the freedom of all religions over the whole of India. He rebuked and spurned the reports which had been circulated among the natives, touching meditated insult to their faith or their castes. He adverted to the gallant achievements of the Company's native troops during a hundred years of British rule ; and told how it pained him to think that disbaud- ment of such troops had been found necessary at Barrackpore and Berhampore. And then he presented the bright side of his picture : ' Now turn to these good and faithful soldiers Subadar Sewak Tewaree, Havildar Hecra Lall Doobey, and Sipahi Ranura Doobey, of the 48th native infantry, and to Hossein Buksh, of the 13th regiment who have set to you all a good example. The first three at once arrested the bearer of a seditious letter, and brought the whole circumstance to the notice of superior authority. You know well what the consequences Avcre, and what has befallen the 7th Oude irregular infantry, more than fifty of whose sirdars and soldiers are now in confinement, and the whole regiment awaits the decision of government as to its fate. Look at Hossein Buksh of the 13th, fine fellow as he is ! Is he not a good and faithful soldier? Did he not seize three villains who are now in confinement and awaiting their doom. It is to reward such fidelity, such acts and deeds as I have mentioned, and of Avhich you are all well aware, that I have called you all together this day to assure you that those who are faithful and true to their salt will always be amply rewarded and well cared for ; that the great government which Ave all serve is prompt to reAvard, SAvift to punish, vigilant and eager to protect its faithful subjects ; but firm, determined, resolute to crush all avIio may have the temerity to rouse its vengeance.' After a further exhorta- tion to fidelity, a further declaration of the poAver and detei'mination of the government to deal severely Avith all disobedient troops, Sir Henry ai'rived at the climax of his impassioned and vigorous address : ' Advance, Subadar SeAvak TeAvaree come forAvard, havildar and sepoys and receive these splendid gifts from the govern- ment which is proud to number you amongst its soldiers. Accept these honorary sabres ; you have Avon them well : long may you live to wear them in honour ! Take these sums of money for your families and relatives ; wear these robes of honour at your homes and your festivals ; and may the bright example which you have so conspicuously LUCKNOW AND THE COURT OF OUDE. 91 set, find, as it doubtless will, followers in every tent and company in the army.' To the suba- dar and the havildar-major were presented each, a handsomely decorated sword, a pair of elegant shawls, a ehoogah or cloak, and four pieces of embroidered cloth ; to the other two men, each, a decorated sword, a turban, pieces of cloth, aud three hundred rupees in cash. Hossein Buksh too made a naik or corporal. Let not the reader Judge this address and these proceedings by an English standard. Sir Henry knew well what he \ ; for few of the Company's servants ever had a deeper insight into the native character than that eminent man. There had been, in the Company's general system, too little punishment for misconduct, too little reward tor faithfulness, among the native - : knowing this, lie adopted a different policy, so far as he was empowered to do. When the news of the Locknow disturl deutta, a adopted reminding amount of written correspondence involved in the mode of managing public affairs. The _ moral, it may here he explained, mncil, consisting of four persons, himself making a fifth; and the council was aided by four ' the home, the foreigu, the military, and the financial aftairs of India. All thee their inquiries, communicate their am state their opinions, and notify their acts in writing, for the information of lit of nd the Board Of Control in London; and ti a why parliamentary ] touching Indian attain are often so volum At the period in question, Vi Dorm, Qenera] how, Mr Crant. ami Mr Pei the live members of council, each and all of whom prepared 'minutes' declar their opinions whether Sir Henry Lawrence had done right or wrong in threatening to disband the mutii; regiment The viscount wished to support the chief-commissioner at once, in a bold 1 of dealing with the disaffected. Mr Dorin went further. He said: 'My theory is that no - that is well commanded ;' he hould be of the 7th, and that the men '.it should receive more ment than mere disbanding. General Low midway between the other me time it right to inquire how it happened that the men ha i required bo bite the cartrii log that instroo* had already 1- I from head-tnir.rters that the platoon exercises should be conducted without this necessity. Mr Grant's minute was ; he wanted more time, more reports, minations, aud was startled at the 9 with which Lawrence had pr Mr Peooook also wanted further informa- tion i iding on the plan proposed by the authority at (hide. The governor-'eii' ruTs minute was written on the 9th ; the other four commented on it on the 10th ; the governor- general replied to their comments on the 11th ; and they commented on his reply on the 12th. Thus it arose that the tedious system of written minutes greatly retarded the progress of bu at Calcutta. There cannot be a better opportunity than the i far adverting to the extraordinary services rendered by the electric telegraph in India during of the Revolt, when the mutineers had not yet carried to any great extent their plan of cutting the wires. We have just had occasion ribc the routine formalities in the mode of conducting business at Calcutta; but it would be quite Indefensible to withhold admiration from the electro-telegraphic system established by the East India Company. This matter was touched upon in the Introduction; and the middle of M;iy furnished wonderful illustrations of the value of the lightnil iger. Let us fix our atten- tion on two days only the 16th and 17th of May than one week alter the commencement of violent scenes at Mcerut and Delhi. Let us picture to ourselves Viscount Canning at Calcutta, examining every possible scheme for sending to the disturbed districts; Sir John Lawrence at Lahore, keeping the warlike ition of the Punjaub in order by his mingled and tact; Sir Henry Lawrence at Lucknow, surrounded by (Indians, whom it required all his : kill to kiftlc; MrOolvin at Agra, watching with an anxious eye the state of affairs in the Northwesl Provinces; General Anson at Simla, preparing, as commander-in-chief, to hasten down to the Delhi district; Lord Bphinstoneat Bombay, as governor of that presidency; and Lord Harris, filling an ms otiice at Madras. Bearing in mind these what was done by the electric telegraph on those two busy days deriving our information from the voluminous but ill-arranged parliamentary papers on the affairs of India : papers almost useless without repeated perusals and collations. First, then, the ICth of May. Sir Henry Law- rence sent one of his pithy, terse telegrams* from Lucknow to Calcutta, to this effect: 'All is quiet here, but affairs are critical; get every European you can from China, Ceylon, and elsewhere; also all the Gooikiias from the hills. Time is pn i On the same day he sent another: 'Civc me plenary military power in Oade; I will not i unnecessarily. I am sending two troops of cavalry to Allahabad. Send a company of Europeans into the fort there. It will be good to raise regiments of irregular horse, under good officers.' In the reverse direction from Calcutta to Lucknow * The word notiac a message sent, as distinguished n a subject of much the validity of the on which it i but as the new term is conv brevity and exptwwivwiew, and as it lias the governor general and the various officer* connected with India, it will occasionally be employed in this 92 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. this message was sent : * It appears that the regi- ment of Ferozpore [Sikhs] has already marched to Allahabad, and that, under present circumstances, no part of that regiment can be spared.' And another, in like manner answering a telegram of the same day: 'You have full military powers. The governor-general will support you in every- thing you think necessary. It is impossible to send a European company to Allahabad; Dina- poor must not be weakened by a single man. If you can raise any irregulars that you can trust, do so at once. Have you any good officers to spare for the duty V All this, be it remembered was telegraphed to and from two cities six or seven hundred miles apart. On the same day, questions were asked, instructions requested, and information given, between Calcutta ^on the one hand, and Agra, Gwalior, Meerut, Cawnpore, and Benares on the other. Passing thence to Bombay twelve hundred miles from Calcutta by road, Sib Henry Lawrence. and very much more by telegraph-route we find the two governors conversing through the wires concerning the English troops which had just been fighting in Persia, and those about being sent to* China ; all of whom were regarded with a longing eye by the governor-general at that critical time. Viscount Canning telegraphed to Lord Elphin- stone on the 16th: 'Two of the three European regiments which are returning from Persia are urgently wanted in Bengal. If they are sent from Bombay to Kurachee, will they find conveyance up the Indus? Are they coming from Bushire in steam or sailing transports 1 Let me know imme- diately whether General Ashburnham is going to Madras.' The genei'al here named was to have commanded the troops destined for China. The replies and counter-replies to this on the 17th, we will mention presently. Lord Harris, on this same day of activity, sent the brief telegram : 'The Madras Fusiliers will be sent immediately by Zcnobia ; but she is hardly fit to take a whole regiment.' This was in reply to a request trans- mitted shortly before. Next, the 17th of May. Sir Henry Lawrence telegraphed from Lucknow : ' You are quite right to keep Allahabad safe. We shall do without Sikhs or Goorkhas. We have concentrated the troops as much as possible, so as to protect the treasury and magazine, and keep up a communi- cation. A false alarm last night.' He sent LUCKNOW AND THE COURT OF OUDE. 93 another, detailing what he had done in managing the turbulent 7th regiment. In the re direction, a message was sent to him, that ' The artillery invalids at Chunar, about 1U9 in num- ber, have been ordered to proceed to Allahabad immediately.' The telegrams were still more numerous than on the 16th, between the various towns mentioned in the last paragraph, in Northern India. From Bombay, Lord Elphin- stone telegraphed to ask whether an extra mail- steamer should be sent off to Suez with news for England; and added: 'The 64th will arrive in a few days from Bushire; their destination is Bengal; but we can keep them here available, or send them round to Calcutta if you wish it.' To which the governor-general replied from Calcutta, still on the same day, expressing his wishes about the mail, and adding: 'If you can send the 64th to Calcutta by steam, do so without any delay. If steam is not available, I will wait for an answer to my last message before deciding that they shall come round in sailing-vessels. Let me know when Residency at Lucknow. you expect the other European regiments and the artillery, and what stcam-ve.--e]s will be availahle for their conveyance. Have you at present a 1 that eoidd go to dalle to bring troops from there to Calcutta i Tins must not interfere with the despatch of the 61th.' Another, front Lord Elphinstone, on the \ < rv BUM day, announced that the best of the Indus hoats were in 1'ersia ; that it would be impoaalbk to send up three European regiments from Kurachee to the I'un- jaub, within any reasonable time, by the Indus l.oatsthen available; that he nevertheless intended to send one regiment, the 1st Europeans, by that route ; and that the 2d Europeans were daily expected from Persia. He further said: 'Shall I send them round to Calcutta; and shall I send the 78th I nil Ashhurnham leaves this v by the steamer for Galle, where he expects to meet Lord Elgin; he is not going to Madras.' While this was going on between Calcutta and Bombay, Madras was no! idle The governor- general telegraphed to Lord Harris, to inform him of the mutiny, on the previous day, of the Sappers and Miners who went from lloorkcc to Meerut ; and another on the same day, replying to a pre- vious telegram, said: ' If the Zcnobia cannot bring all the Fusiliers, the remainder might be sent in the Bcntinck, which will be at Madras on the 26th ; but send as many in the Zenobia as she will safely hold. Let me know when the Zcnobia sails, and what force she brings.' If we had selected three days instead of two, as illustrating the wonders of the electric telegraph, we should have had to nar- rate that on the third day, the 18th of May, Lord Harris announced that the Fusiliers would leave Madras that evening ; that Viscount Canning thanked him for his great promptness; that Lord Elphinstone received instructions to send one of 94 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. the three regiments up the Indus, and the other two round to Calcutta ; that he asked and received suggestions about managing a Beloochee regiment at Kurachee; and that messages in great number were transmitted to and from Calcutta, Benares, Allahabad, Cawnpore, Lucknow, Agra, and other large towns. The imagination becomes almost bewildered at contemplating such things. Between the morning of the 16th of May and the evening of the 17th, the great officers of the Company, situated almost at the extreme points of the Indian empire cast, west, north, and south were conversing through four thousand miles of wire, making requests, soliciting advice, offering services, discussing diffi- culties, weighing probabilities, concerting plans ; and all with a precision much greater than if they had been writing letters to one another, in ordinary official form, in adjoining rooms of the same building. It was, perhaps, the greatest triumph ever achieved up to that time by the greatest of modern inventions the electric telegraph. We shall find the present part of the chapter an equally convenient place in which to notice a scries of operations strikingly opposed to those just described slow travelling as compared with quick telegraphy. It is full of instruction to see how earnestly anxious Viscount Canning was to send troops up to the northern provinces ; and how he was baffled by the tardiness of all travel- ling appliances in India. The railway was opened only from Calcutta to Raneegungc, a very small portion of the distance to the disturbed districts. The history of the peregrinations of a few English troops in May will illustrate, and will receive illustration from, the matters toeated in Chapter I. The European 84th regiment, it will be remem- bered, had been hastily brought from Rangoon in the month of March, to assist in disbanding the sepoys who had shewn disaffection at Barrackpore and Berhampore. When the troubles began at Meerut and Delhi, in May, it was resolved to send on this regiment ; and the governor-general found no part. of his onerous duties more difficult than that of obtaining quick transmission for those troops. On the 21st of May he telegraphed to Benares : ' Pray instruct the commissariat officer to prepare cooking-pots and other arrangements for the 84th regiment, now on its way to Benares ; and the barrack department to have cots ready for them.' On the 23d, Sir Henry Lawrence asked: 'When may her Majesty's 84th be expected at Cawnpore V to which an answer was sent on the following day : f It is impossible to convey a wing of Europeans to Cawnpore (about six hundred and thirty miles) in less time than twenty-five days. The government dak and the dak companies are fully engaged in carrying a company of the 84th to Benares, at the rate of 18 men a day. A wing of the Madras Eusiliers arrived yesterday, and starts to-day ; part by bullock-train, part by steamer. The bullock-train can take 100 men per day, at the rate of thirty miles a day. The entire regiment of the Fusiliers, about 900 strong, cannot be collected at Benares in less than 19 or 20 days. About 150 men who go by steam will scarcely be there so soon. I expect, that from this time forward troops will be pushed upwards at the rate of 100 men a day from Calcutta ; each batch taking ten days to reach Benares ; frohi Benares they will be distributed as most required. The regiments from Pegu, Bombay, and Ceylon will be sent up in this way. Every bullock and horse that is to be had, except just enough to carry the post, is retained ; and no troops Avill be sent by steam which can be sent more quickly by other means.' These details shew that Cawnpore and Benares were both asking for troops at the same time ; and that the governor-general, even if he possessed the soldiers, had not the means of sending them expedi- tiously. On the 24th, a message was sent to Raneegunge, ordering that a company of Madras troops might be well attended to, when they arrived by railway from Calcutta ; and on the next day, Benares received notice to prepare for four companies proceeding thither by bullock- train, one company per day. The Benares commissioner announced the arrival of fifteen English soldiers, as if that were a number to be proud of, and stated that he would send them on to Cawnpore. (It will be seen, on reference to a map, that Benares lies in the route to almost all the upper and western provinces, whether by road or by river.) The Raneegunge agent telegraphed on the 26th: 'If the men reach Sheergotty, there is no difficulty in conveying them to Benares; the only difficulty is between Raneegunge and t Sheergotty. Ekahs are not, I think, adapted for Europeans ; nor do I think that time would be gained.' An ekah or ecka, we may here remark, is a light pony-gig on two wheels, provided with a cloth cushion on which the rider (usually a native) sits cross-legged. It shews the nature of Indian travelling, to find the officials discussing whether English soldiers should be thus con- veyed one cushioned vehicle to convey each cross-legged soldier. At Benares, the commis- sioner borrowed from the rajah the use of a house in which to lodge the English troops as fast as they came ; and he sent them on by dak to Allahabad and Cawnpore. Nevertheless Sir Henry Lawrence, disturbed by ominous symptoms, wished for ekahs, daks anything that would give him English soldiers. He telegraphed on this day : ' I strongly advise that as many ekah-daks be laid as possible, from Raneegunge to Cawnpore, to bring up European troops. Spare no expense;' and on the next day he received the reply : 'Every horse and carriage, bullock and cart, which could be brought upon the road, has been collected, and no means of increasing the number will be neglected.' On the 27th it was announced from Benares that 'the steamer had stuck,' and that all the land-daks were beins used that could LUCKNOW AND THE COURT OF OUDE. 95 My be procured. On the same day the Allahabad commissioner spoke hopefully of his plan that by the aid of 1000 siege-train bullocks from that place, 600 from Cawnpore, the govern* ment bullocks, the private wagon-trains, and magazine carts he might be able to send 160 Europeans per day up to Cawnpore. On the 28th, the Calcutta authorities sent a telegram to Benares, to announce that ' Up to the 1st of June seven dak-carri:iges will be despatched daily, with one officer and 18 soldiers. On the 1st of June, and daily afterwards, there will be despatched nine dak-carriages, with one officer and M Europeans; and 88 bullock-carts, with one officer, B0 Euro- peans, tow followers, and provisions to till one cart. The Calcutta steamer and Hat, with four officer-;, Europeans, and proportion of followers; and the o r, with about the same numbers, will reach Benares on the 10th or 11th of June.' From this it will be seen that a * dak-carriage' jred throe soldiers, and a ' bullock-car 'followers' probably accompanying them on foot The Benares commissioner on the laid : ' Happily we have good metalled all over this division' there!')- implying what would have been the result if the road- ">d. The more particu- larly adverted to in a telegram of the :J()tli of May: 'Gun-bullocks would be - 1 e, if they could DO from Calcutta in time ; if there are carts, the daily dispa? 1 j DOt otherwise, (iuu- bulloeks would save a day, M they travel qt than our little animals.' Immediately afterwards, -ix elephants were sent from 1'atna, and one hundred from Dacca and Barrackporo, to Sheergotty, to assist in the transport of b On a lat in, when more troops had arrived from England, Viscount Canning two steamers from Calcutta to Pegu, to bring eargoei of elephants, to be used as draught- animals ! Thus it continued, day after day all the servants of the Company, civil and military, calculating how long it would tako to send driblets of soldiers up the country; and all harassed by this dilemma that what the Ganges steamers gained in roominess, they lost by the sinuo of the river ; and that what the daks and bullock- trains gained by a direct route, they lost by the inevitable slowness of such modes of conveyance, and the BmallneSS of the number of soldiers that could be carried at. a time. Thankful that they telegraphs, the authorities had little to be thankful for as concerned railways or roads, vehicles or horses. We now return to the proceedings of Sir Henry ' nee at Lucknow. Before the collective minutes of the five mem- bers of the Supreme Council were fully settled, he had acted on the emergency which gave rise so thorn, lb' held a court of inquiry, the result of which was that two subadars, a jemadar, and forty-four sepoys of tho mutinous 7th wero com- mitted to prison ; but he resolved not at present to disband the regiment. His grand durbar has been already described. In the middle of the month, as just shewn, he sent many brief telegrams indi- cating that, though no mutinies had occurred at Lucknow, there was nevertheless need for watch- fulness. He had asked for the aid of some Sikhs, but said, on the 18th: 'As there is difficulty, do not send the Sikhs to Lucknow.' On the next day, his message was : ' All very well in city, cantonment, and country;' but after this, the elements of mischief seemed to be gathering, although Lawrence prepared to meet all contin- gencies resolutely. 'All quiet,' he said on the 21st, ' but several reports of intended attacks on OWOVer, more solicitous about the fato of Cawnpore, Allahabad, and Benares, than of Lucknow. Tho military position of Sir Henry towards the last weelc in May was this, lie had armed four posts for bis defence at Lucknow. In one were four hundred men and twenty guns ; in another, a bundled Europeans and as many ; in another was the chief store of powder, well under command. A hundred and thirty Europeans, two hundred sepoys, and six guns, guarded the treasury; the guns near the residency under European control. The old magazine lonoded of its former contents, :is a precau- tionary mi ix guns, and two squadrons Of the 2d will retain their advantages and avoid their defects ; there may be groups of days and groups of places ; and these groups may be so treated as to mark the relations both of sequence and of simul- taneity, of causes and of co-operation. In the present chapter, a rapid glance will be taken over a widespread region, to shew in what way and to what degree disaffection spread during the month of May. This will prepare us for the terrible episode at one particular spot Cawnpore. To begin, then, with Bengal the fertile and populous region between the Anglo-Indian city of Calcutta and the sacred Hindoo city of Benares ; the region watered by the lower course of the majestic Ganges ; the region inhabited by the patient, plodding, timid Bengalee, the type from which Europeans have generally derived their idea of the Hindoo: forgetting, or not knowing, that Delhi and Agra, Cawnpore and Lucknow, exhibit (lie Hindoo character under a more warlike aspect, and arc marked also by a difference of language. 98 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. A fact already mentioned must be constantly- borne in mind that few Bengalees are (or were) in the Bengal army : a population of forty millions furnished a very small ratio of fighting men. Although not a scene of murder and atrocity during the Revolt, Calcutta requires a few words of notice here: to shew the relation existing between the native and the European population, and the importance of the city as the head-quarters of British India, the supreme seat of legislation and justice, the residence of the governor-general, the last great city on the course down the Ganges, and the port where more trado is conducted than in all others in India combined. Calcutta stands on tho left bank of the Hoogly, one of the numerous streams by which the Ganges finds an outlet into the sea. There are no less than fourteen of these streams deep enough for the largest craft used in inland navigation, but so narrow and crooked that the rigging of vessels often becomes entangled in the branches of the trees growing on tho banks. The delta formed by these mouths of the Ganges, called the Sunder- bunds, is nearly, as large as Wales ; it is little else than a cluster of low, marshy, irreclaimable islands, very unhealthy to the few natives living there, and left almost wholly to tigers, wild buf- faloes, wild boars, and other animals which swarm there in great numbers. The Hoogly is one of the few really navigable mouths of the Ganges ; and by this channel Calcutta has free access by shipping to the sea, which is about a hundred miles distant. The city, extending along the river four or five miles, covers an area of about eight square miles. A curved line nearly bounds it on the land-side, formed by the Mahratta ditch, a defence-work about a century old. Beyond the ditch, and a fine avenue called the Circular Road, the environs are studded with numerous suburbs or villages which may be considered as belonging to the city : among these arc Nunden- bagh, Bahar-Simla, Sealdah, Entally, Ballygunge, Bhowaneepore, Allipore, Kiddcrpore, Seebpore, Howrah, and Sulkea. The three last are on the opposite or west bank of the river, and contain the dock-yards, the ship-building establishments, the railway station, the government salt-warehouses, and numerous extensive manufactories. The ap- proach to the city from the sea presents a succession of attractive features. First, a series of elegant mansions at a bend in the river called Garden Reach, with lawns descending to the water's edge ; then the anchorage for the Calcutta and Suez mail- steamers ; then the dock-yards ; next the canal junction, the arsenal and Fort William. Above these is the Chowringhee, once a suburb, but now almost as closely built as Calcutta itself, containing the Esplanade, the Town Hall, the Government House, and many European residences. ' Viewed from Garden Reach,' says Mr Stocqueler, 'the coup d , o?il is one of various and enchanting beauty. Houses like palaces are studding the bank on the proper left of the river, and a verdure like that of an eternal summer renovates the eye, so long accustomed to the glitter of the ocean. Anon, on your left, appears the semi-Gothic Bishop's College; and in front of you, every moment growing more distinct, are beheld a forest of stately masts, a noble and beautiful fortress, a thousand small boats, of shapes new and undreamed of by the visitant, skimming over the stream ; the larger vessels of the country, pleasant to look upon even for their strange dis-symmetry and consequent unwieldiness ; the green barge or budgerow, lying idly for hire ; and the airy little bauleahs, with their light venetianed rooms.' All this relates to the portion of the city lying south or seaward of the Chandpaul Ghat, the principal landing-place. Northward of this stretches a noble strand, on which are situated the Custom-house, the New Mint, and other government offices. It must be noted that, although the chief British city in India, Calcutta in ordinary times contains no less than seventy times as many natives as English only six thousand English out of more than four hundred thousand inhabitants. Even if Eurasians (progeny of white fathers and native mothers) be included, the disparity is still enor- mous ; and is rendered yet more so by the many thousands of natives who, not being inhabitants, attend Calcutta at times for purposes of trade or of worship. Many wild estimates were made a few years ago concerning the population of Calcutta, which was sometimes driven up hypothetically to nearly a million souls; but a census in 1850 determined the number to be four hundred and seventeen thousand persons, living in sixty-two thousand houses and huts. The Hindoos alone exceed two hundred and seventy thousand. Cir- cumstances of site, as well as the wishes and con- venience of individuals, have led the Europeans to form a community among themselves, distinct from the native Calcutta. Many natives, it is true, live in the southern or British town; but very few British live in the northern or native town. The latter differs little from Indian towns generally, except in the large size of the dwell- ings belonging to the wealthy inhabitants. The southern town is European in appearance as in population ; it has its noble streets, sumptuous government offices, elegant private residences sur- rounded with verandahs. On the esplanade is situated Fort William (the official name given to Calcutta in state documents), one of the strongest in India ; it is octagonal, with three sides towards the river, and the other five inland ; and it mounts more than six hundred guns. Whatever force holds Fort William may easily reduce Calcutta to ashes. The public buildings, which are very numerous, comprise the following among others the Government House, that cost 130,000 ; the Town Hall, in the Doric style ; the Supreme Court of Judicature ; the Madrissa and Hindoo Colleges ; the Martiniere, an educational establishment founded by Martine the Frenchman, who has been mentioned in connection with Lucknow ; the SPREAD OF DISAFFECTION IN MAY. 99 Metcalfe Hall ; the Ochterlony Monument ; the -cp Testimonial; the Calcutta Asiatic Society's Room ; St Paul's Cathedral, the finest Christian church in India ; the Bishop's Palace and Ool the European Fcmalo Orphan Asylum ; the Botanic Gardens. The Episcopalians, the National ami the Free Churches of Scotland, the Independ- the Baptists, the Roman Catholic Armenians, the Jews, the Creeks all have places of worship in Calcutta. The native tempi are of course much more numerous, amounting to two hundred and fifty in number. Concerning the inhabitants, the English com- die Company's civil and military servants, a ' the learned proles retail-dealers, and artisan and Mohammi 1 of the former, ! that one-third undcr-cl' remainder pick up a living on the er carrying palanquins m bearers, attending hopkeepers, and Ml op the number. It will be remembered, from the del ipter II., that the anthori lentta, dnring the ir months of the year, were ing the transactions at Dumdum, Harrackpore, and Berham 1 with the cartridge grievances. not ai '. the inhal which that concerned only remotely. When the middle oi arrived, ho nd when the startling i from Mccmt and Delhi became known, an oi ultcd. Tta d Oalcntta a kind of alarm, a n of some hidden danger. At that time there wet infantry, and a wing of the 17th Madras infantry, barracked on the esplanade between the Coolie Bazaar and the fort, were without ammunition. There were, detachments of two other regiments Is in the fort, provided with ten rounds of ammunition per man. It came to light that, on the 17th of May, the men of the 25th * ately to he allowed to share . promising to aid them in captur- if during the following night This !i was betrayed by the guards to the town- . who at once ordered bugles to sound, and made for defending the fort ; the drawbridges were raised, the ladders with- drawn from the ditches, additional guards placed upon the European sentries placed at on the ramparts, and armed patrols made to perambulate the fort flaring the night. The refractory thus checked, made no ript to cam' out their nefarious project. An ' oil' to Immdum for the portion of her Maj< Lment, in their comrades already at Calcutta. Although the immense value of these English troops was at once felt, the inhabitants of Calcutta were thrown into great excitement by the rumoured outbreak ; they talked of militia corps and volunteer corps, and they purchased muskets and powder, rifles and revolvers, so rapidly, that the stores of the dealers were speedily emptied. Two demonstrations of loyalty or rather two sets of demonstrations were made on this occasion, one from the Christian inhabitants, and one from the natives. The mutineers found head-quarters not quite suited for their operations ; order was soon red j and then all parties came forward to state how faithful, contented, and trustworthy they were. It is not without interest to glance at some of these demonstrations. One was from the iation, which held a meeting on the MHh of May. The resolution agreed to was that ' This body do send up to govern- ment a statement that they are prepared to afford 'vcrnnient every assistance in their power towards the promotion of order and the protection of the Christian community of Calcutta, either by servin !es <>v otherwise, in such manner as may appear most desirable to govern- ment j and at the same time suggesting to govern- ment that their services should he availed of in manner, as they deem the present ci. id one in which every avail- aide means should be brought into action for le riot and insurrection.' veil by rnor-general in council to the addn up in virtue of this rthy of note : how anxious he lieve, and to make others believe, that the mutiny was very partial, and that army generally was sound at heart, lie thanked the Trade Association for the address ; he announced that he had no appre- ii whatever of riot or insurrection ami any class of the population at Calcutta ; he d his possession of sufficient means to crush nch manifestation if it should be made; but at the same time ho admitted the prudence of civilians enrolling;; themselves as special stables, ready for any emergency. In refer however, to an opinion in the address that the sepoys generally exhibited a mutinous spirit, he expressed uneasiness at such an opinion being publicly announced. 'There arc in the am this presidency many soldiers, and many regiments who have stood firm against evil example wicked counsels, and Avho at this moment are giving unquestionable proof of their attachment to overnment, and of their abhorrence of the atrocious crimes which have lately been perpe- trated in the Northwestern Provinces. It is the earnest desire of the governor-general in council that honourable and true-hearted soldiers, whose name he is bound to protect, and of whose fidelity he is confident, should not be included in a condemnation of rebels and murderers.' for the honourable and true hearted soldiers ! ' 100 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. Another movement of the same kind was made by the Freemasons of Calcutta a body, the numbers of which are not stated. They passed a resolution on the same day, 'That at the present crisis it is expedient that the masonic fraternity should come forward and offer their services to government, to be employed in such manner as the governor-general may deem most expedient.' The Armenians resident in the city met on the following clay, and agreed to a series of resolutions which were signed by Apcar, Avdall, Agabeb, and others of the body declaratory of their apprehension for the safety of Calcutta and its inhabitants; their sincere loyalty to the British government ; their grateful appreciation of its mild and paternal rule ; and their fervent hope that the energetic measures adopted would suffice to quell the insurrectionary spirit: concluding, 'We beg most respectfully to convey to your lordship in council the expression of our willing- ness and readiness to tender our united services to our rulers, and to co-operate with our fellow- citizens for maintaining tranquillity and order in the city.' The Armenians, wherever settled, are a peaceful people, loving trade better than fighting: their adhesion to the government was certain. The French inhabitants in like manner held a meeting, and sent up an address to the governor- general by the hands of Consul Angclucci. They said: 'Viewing the dangers that, from one moment to another, may menace life and property at Calcutta, all the French resident in the city unite with one accord, and place themselves at the disposal of your excellency in case of need ; beseeching that their services may be accepted for the common good, and as a proof of their loyalty and attachment toAvards her Majesty, the Queen of England.' It is more interesting, however, in reference to such a time and such a place, to know in what way the influential native inhabitants comported themselves on the occasion. The meetings held, resolutions passed, and addresses presented, were remarkable for their earnestness, real or apparent. Although Viscount Canning gladly and promptly acknowledged them as valuable testimonials; yet the subsequent lying and treachery in many quarters were such that it is impossible to decide how much or how little sincerity was involved in declarations of loyalty. There was a body of Hindoo gentlemen at Calcutta, called the British Indian Association. The committee of the Asso- ciation held a meeting on the 22d of May, and the secretary, Issur Chunder Singh, forwarded an address from the committee to the govern- ment. The address asseverated that the atrocities at Meerut and Delhi had been heard of with great concern ; that the committee viewed with disgust and horror the excesses of the soldiery at those stations ; and that such excesses would not meet with countenance or support from the bulk of the civil population, or from any reputable or influential classes anions them. The committee recorded ' their conviction of the utter groundless- ness of the reports which have led a hitherto faithful body of the soldiers of the state to the commission of the gravest crimes of which military men or civil subjects can be guilty ; and the committee deem it incumbent on them on the pi'esent occasion to express their deep abhorrence of the practices and purposes of those who have spread those false and mischievous reports.' Finally, they expressed their belief that the loyalty of the Hindoos, and their confidence in the power and good intentions of the government, would be unimpaired by 'the detestable efforts which have been made to alienate the minds of the sepoys and the people of the country from their duty and allegiance to the beneficent rule under which they are placed.' Three days later, a meeting was held of Hindoo persons of influence generally, at Calcutta, without reference to the British Indian Association ; and the chairman of this meeting, Bahadoor lladha- kant Rajah, was commissioned to forward a copy of resolutions to the governor-genei'al. These resolutions were similar in character to those passed by the Association ; but two others were added of very decided character : ' That this meet- ing is of opinion that, should occasion require, it would be the duty of the native portion of her Majesty's subjects to render the government every aid in their power for the preservation of civil order and tranquillity ; and that, with a view to give an extensive circulation to the proceedings of this meeting, translations of the same into the vernacular dialects of the country shall be printed and distributed amongst the native population.' Another Hindoo manifestation was remarkable for the mode in which the intentions of the persons concerned were proposed to be carried out. A meeting Avas held on the 23d, of ' some young men, at the premises of Baboo Gooroo Churn Dey, BhoAvanipore, Chuckerbaria, in the suburbs of Calcutta: to consider the best means of keeping the peace in the said suburban town at this crisis of panic caused by some mutinous regiments.' These ' young men,' Avho appointed Baboo Gooroo Churn Dey and Essan Chunder Mullick as secretary and assistant-secretary, threw into their deliberations an abundance of youthful enthusiasm not to be found in the resolutions of their seniors. Their plan not expressed in, or translated into, very good English was: 'That some of the members will alternately take round at every night, Avith the view of catching or detecting any Avrong-doer that may be found in the work of abetting some such malicious tales or rumours, as the tOAvn will be looted and plundered by the sepoys on some certain day, and its inhabitants be cut to pieces ; and will, by every means in their power, impress on the minds of timid and credulous people the idea of the mightiness of the power of the British government to repel aggression of any foreign enemy, however poAver- ful and indomitable, or put doAvn any internal SPREAD OP DISAFFECTION IN MAT 101 disturbance and disorder.' They announced their a in obtaining many 'strong and brave men' to aid tliem in this work. The Mohammedans of Calcutta were a little behind the rest of the inhabitants in time, but not in expressed sentiment, concerning the position of public affairs. On the ^7th, many of the leading men of that religion held a meeting; one was ;i deputy-magistrate ; two were pleaded in the sudder or native courts of law ; others were moulvies, moonshees, hadjis, agas, Arc. ; and all signed their names in full such as Hadji Mahomed Hfaahim lshphahanee, and Aga Mahomed :i Coosa Kenanee. Nothing could lie more re than some of the assertions contained in the resolutions passed by this meeting: 'We subjects are well aware that the members of the British government, from the commencement of their dominion in llindostan, have repeatedly declared and made known their determination not to interfere with the religion or religious observances of any of their subjects; and we entire faith in this declaration, and aert, that np to the present time, a space of nearly one hundred years, our religion has never been inter- fered with. A number of us having left our iind a dwelling and asylum under overnnieiit, where we live in peace and safety, protected by the equity and fostering care of the British government, and safiering no kind of injury < we have ever lived in safety and comfort under the British rule, ami have or interfered with in religions matters; we therefore, with the Btmoet and sincerity, hereby determine, that in C | rnineiii to the 1 of our abilities and means.' In true il form the resolutions ended, in allusion to ueral, 'May his prosperity inert Wli, ant Canning say to all this I How could he, in that early stage of the com- motions, but believe in the sincerity of these men : and, believing, to thank them for their expression of loyalty and support >. His official reply, in each case, conveyed in pointed terms onviction that the disaffection among the sepoys was only local and temporary. He could not at that time foresee how severely this conviction would be put to the teat The hostility to the governor-general, manifested at a later date by sonic of the English inhabitants leutta, will be noticed in its due place. Leafing Calcutta, the reader is invited to direct his attention to towns and districts north and northwest, following the course of the Boogly and to the b: of mutiny and warfare. The whole district from Calcutta to Benai alarly devoid of ml The railway is open through Burdwan to Kanee- gunge; but thence to the great Hindoo capital there i ; scarcely a town or village worthy of note, ely one in which the mutineers disturbed the lul occupations of the inhabitants. Three military stations on thelloogly Dumdum, Barrackpore, and Berhampore all concerned, as we have seen, in the cartridge disturbances remained quiet during the month of May, after the disbandments. One inquiry connected with those occurrences, not yet adverted to, must here be noticed. The conduct of Colonel S. G. Whaler, commanding the 34th regiment B. N. I.,* occupied much attention on the part of the Calcutta govern- ment, during and after the proceedings relating to the disbanding of the seven companies of that regiment at Barrackpore. Rumours reached the government that the colonel had used language towards his men, indicating his expectation that they would be converted to Christianity, and that he had addressed them on religious subjects gener- ally. In the usual epistolary formalism of routine, the secretary to the government was requested to request Major-general Hearsey to request Brigadier Grant to request Colonel Wheler to furnish some reply to those rumours. The substance of the colonel's reply was contained in these words ; ' Daring the last twenty years and upwards, I have been in the habit of speaking to the natives of all classes, sepoys and Others, making no dis- tinction, since there is no respect of persons with God, on the subject of our religion, in the high- cities, bazaars, and villages not in the line.; and regimental bazaars. I have done this from \iction that every converted Christian is expected, or rather commanded, by the Scriptures to make known the glad tidings of salvation to his i llow-crcaturcs: our Saviour having offered himself as a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, by which alone salvation can be secured.' He quoted from the J\pistle to the Roma, prove that a Christian must necessarily be a, better subject to any state than a non-Christian. He declared, however, that he had not given the sep oy s cause for believing that any proselyting violence would be used against their own religion. Viscount Canning, passing over in silence the Scriptural phraseology used by Colonel Wheler, Wished to ascertain whether the colonel's religious conversations had been held with the men of the 34th regiment as well as with other natives: seeing that the critical subject at that particular time was the dogged suspicion of the sepoys of that regiment on matters affecting their faith. In a second letter, Colonel Wheler adopted a still more decidedly evangelical tone. He stated that it was his custom to address all natives, whether sepoys or not, on religious matters. ' 1 have told them plainly that they are all lost and ruined sinners both by nature and by practice, like myself; that we can do nothing to save ourselves in the way of justifying ourselves in the sight of God. Our hearts being sinful, all our works must piently be sinful in His sight; and therefore there can be no salvation by works, on which * The initials N. I., H. N. I., M. N. I., Sic. in official document* aa abbreviations of ' Native Infantry,' I Native Infantry,' 'Madras Native Infantry,' &c. 102 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. they are all resting and depending.' This homily, singular as forming part of a military reply to a military question, was carried to a considerable length. On matters of plain fact, Colonel Whelcr stated that it was most certain that he had endea- voured by argument and exhortation to convert sepoys as well as others to Christianity; that he was in the habit of enforcing by the only standard which he could admit to be valid, objections concerning ' the efficacy of their own works of washing in the Ganges, proceeding on pilgrimage, worshipping all kinds of creatures instead of the Creator, and other methods of man's invention.' Finally, he announced his determination to adhere to the same policy, even if his Avorldly position were injured thereby : taking shame to himself for his past lukewarmness as a soldier of Christ. The "whole of the members of the Supreme Court at Calcutta at once decided that an officer, holding Colonel Wheler's views of duty, ought not to remain in command of a native regiment, especially at such a critical period. The question was not, whether that officer was a good Christian, anxious to communicate to others what he himself fervently believed; but whether the black gown was not more suitable to him than the red coat, in such a country and at such a time. The native troops at Barrackpore and Chitta- gong, after the disbandment of the mutinous corps, made professions of loyalty and fidelity to the government, concerning the sincerity of which it is now exceedingly difficult to judge. One theory is, that the men were designing hypocrites from the first; but the frequent examples of wavering and irresolution, afforded during the progress of the mutiny, seem to shew rather that the sepoys were affected by the strength of the temptation and example at each particular time and place. Be this as it may, some of the petitions and addresses deserve notice. Towards the close of May a petition, written in the Persian character (much used in India), was prepared by the native officers of the 70th regiment B. N. I., stationed at Barrackpore, and presented to their commander, Colonel Kennedy. In the names of themselves and the sepoys they said : ' It is reported that European troops are going up to Delhi and other places, to coerce the mutinous and rebellious there; and we wish to be sent with them also. In consequence of the miscon- duct of these traitors and scoundrels, confidence in us is weakened, although we are devoted to government ; and we therefore trust that we may be sent wherever the European troops go; when, having joined them, we will, by bravery even greater than theirs, regain our good name and trustworthiness. You will then know what really good sepoys are.' Colonel Kennedy, in a letter to Major-general Hearsey, expressed his full belief that the men were sincere in their protestations ; and added, that_ hitherto he bad always been satisfied with the regiment. So important did this manifestation appear to Viscount Canning, that he went to Barrackpore in order to thank the men in person. He appeared before them on parade, on the 27th, and said, among other things : ' Men of the 70th, I will answer your petition. You have asked to be sent to confront the mutineers of Delhi. You shall go. In a few days, as soon as the arrange- ments can be made for your progress, you shall proceed to the northwest.' He expressed his conviction that they would keep their promise to vie with the Europeans in fidelity and bravery; and added : l You have another duty to perform. You are going where you will find men, your brothers in arms, who have been deluded into the suspicion against which you have kept firm, that the government has designs against their religion or their caste. Say to them that you at least do not credit this; that you know it to be untrue ; that for a hundred years the British government has carefully respected the feelings of its Indian subjects in matters of caste and religion.' Arrangements were immediately made for sending this faithful, or apparently faithful, regiment to districts where it might render useful service. As there was an insufficient supply of steamers available, the government resolved to send the regiment the whole distance from Barrack- pore to Allahabad by country boats on the Ganges an excessively protracted voyage of eight hun- dred miles, as the reader is already aware. When the men were about to start, they expressed to Colonel Kennedy a wish that the new Enfield rifle should be served out to them. They declared themselves entirely satisfied with the explanations concerning the cartridges ; and they added, in a written petition to which the names of twelve subadars and jemadars were appended : ' We have thought over the subject ; and as we are now going up the country, Ave beg that the new rifles, about which there has been so much said in the army and all over the country, may be served out to us. By using them in its service, we hope to prove beyond a doubt our fidelity to government ; and we will explain to all we meet that there is nothing objectionable in them: otherwise, why should Ave have taken them 1 Are we not as careful of our caste and religion as any of them 1 ' All the native officei's of this regiment, so far as can be judged from the names appended to the petition, were Hindoos. When the 70th started to the northwest, every effort was made by the government to set the unhappy cartridge troubles wholly at rest, and to enlist the services of the sepoys of that regiment in diffusing among their compatriots a knowledge of the real facts. Orders, instructions, memoranda, circulars were brought into requisition to explain that the new rifle fired nine hundred yards, against the two hundred yards' range of the old musket ; that it was lighter than the musket ; that its great range and its lightness caused it to be introduced into the Anglo-Indian army ; that the new r rifle-bullets, requiring machinery for SPREAD OF DISAFFECTION IN MAY. 103 their manufacture, were sent out from England in a finished state ; that a few cartridges for those hullets were in the first instance sent out ready red with a lubricant, but that the Indian nment resolved not to issue them to the native troops, in deference to their religious scruples; that the cartridge-paper had long been, and would continue to be, made at Serampore, without any admixture of grease ; that every native regiment would be allowed to lubricate its cartridges with any suitable substance preferred by the men ; and that the practice of biting oifthe ends of the cartridgei might be wholly disj . with. In short, everything that could be done, lone, to remo\ ion unsound in its ieious in its continuance. Another regiment, the 94th B. N. I., adopted nearly the same course as the 70th. The I portion of tin at, it will be remem- was at Dai: be time of the cartridge troubles ; but the i at Chitta- oamed detachment came forward with a very pointed declaration of their loyalty. Captain Dewaal, in command of that detachment, assembled his men one day towards the cud of April, and told them how shamefully their compann ; rack- pore, and how much disgrace had tin h\ upon the regiment. T or petition I to him, : by th and havildars in tl of all; in which r aarpresse ; the mutineers at Barrack pore. 'Bj I per- ,icc,' the i I, 'of our dnti :'.>r fidelity to government, men have deprived us of it. We well know that ament will not with our on. Wo hope that the government will eon- faithful as ever ; and we pray that this petition may be sent to the governor-general, in order that his lordship may know the state of our four weeks later, when this remnant of the regiment had been removed to ickpore, the men made another profession of In a petition to their commander, ue cvil-d; ten of the ment have deprived us of the reputation for y which we have ever held. They have ed the fruits of their misconduct by being nded. We that remain arc wilting to serve ist the mutineers at Delhi, and are anxious to ie. We pray that the govern- ment will ever regard us as faithful soldiers.' Two further examples of a similar kind were nted, one by the 43d and another by regiments D. N. 1. About the end of the commandant of the first of these two at Barrackpore, received a petition ! by the native commit pray- that the regiment m: lowed to proceed t the mntinei .hi a wish that had to him on parade. iy at the same time Captain Pester, command- ing the 63d at Berhampore, received a petition signed by the whole of the native officers on parade, intended to be forwarded to the governor- general ; aud, this petition being afterwards read in the native language to the whole regiment, the sepoys unanimously expressed their concurrence in the sentiments it conveyed. The petitioners said: 'We have this day heard on parade the order issued by your lordship consequent on the petition forwarded by the native officers and sepoys of the 70th regiment of native infantry. On hearing the same, we were greatly rejoiced ; for, in truth, all the men of that regiment have behaved as becomes loyal and faithful soldiers, and your lordship has in every way been pleased with them. Now do n all petition that we may be numbered among the good and trustworthy soldiers of the state, as we have always been ; and we are pre- pared and ready, with heart and hand, to go wherever, and against whomsoever you may to send us, should it even be against our own kinsmen. ' The governor-general could do no other than receive these demonstrations. Whether he acceded to the request for permission to 'march against the mutineers,' depended necessarily on the mili- irrangemcnts of the time ; whether fully believed the protestati ms, may perhapi doubti h nn disbelief was expr< Happily Beeted by few of flic disturi ! the more western pro- Consulting a map, we shall sec that the banks of the lloogly and the Lower Gangf thickly studded with towns ; and it may here at once ed, that the peaceful industry of these towns cry little interrupted during the month of rom Calcutta, we meet with Dumdum, Barrackpore, and Serampore, the first two of which experienced a lull after the storm. Seramporo was once the Alsalia of Cal- cutta, a place of refuge for schemers, insolvent debtors, and reckless adventurers ; but the Com- pany bought it from the Danish government, to which it had belonged, and the Baptist mission- aries helped to civilise it; it is now a clean cheerful town, with a large paper-manufactory. Higher up is the once flourishing but now decayed town of Chandcrnagore, one of the few places in India still belonging to tho French. Near this is Chinsura, held by the Dutch until 1820, but now a flourishing settlement belonging to the Company, provided with an extensive military depot for Europeans, with a magnificent hospital and bar- racks. Then we come to lloogly, a town beariDg the same name as the river on whoso banks it stands: a busy place, with many civil and educa- tional establishments. Further north is Plassy, the place near which Clive fought the great battle that virtually gave India, to the British. Beyond this is Berhampore, which, very refractory in March and April, had become tractable and obe- dient in May. Next we meet with Moorshcdabad and its suburb Cossimbazar. Once the capital of 104 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. Bengal when a Mohammedan dominion, Moor- shedabad contained a splendid palace belonging to the nawab ; but though no longer possessed of this kind of greatness, the city is commercially very important, as standing on the great highway, or rather water-way, from Calcutta to the northwest. All the places above named are situated either on the Hoogly or on the Bhagruttee, those two rivers combining to form the most convenient outlet from the Ganges to the sea. The Ganges itself, too the majestic, far-famed, sacred Ganges was little disturbed by commotions in May throughout the lower part of its course. Rajmahal, Bhagulpore, Curruckpore, Monghir, Behai', Futwah, Patna, Hajeepoor, Dinapoor, Chupra, Arrah, Bishunpore, Buxar, Ghazecpore all lie on or near the Ganges between the Hoogly and Benai'es, Some of these places are centres of commerce for the opium-trade ; some arc busy with the trading in rice grown in neighbouring districts; others are shipping-places for corn and other agricultural produce ; while all regard the Ganges as an invaluable channel, affording inter- course Avith the rich districts of the west, and with the great focus of authority and trade at Calcutta. Such of these towns as were involved in trouble in later months of the year, will be noticed in the proper chapters ; of the others, this narrative is not called upon to treat. One fact, however, may be mentioned in connection with Dinapoor. So early in the year as the middle of February, the Calcutta authorities wrote to the commander at that town, apprising him that a messenger was known to have been sent to the native regiment at Dinapoor, from some men of the 2d Bengal grena- diers, inciting them to mutiny. Major-general Lloyd promised to look out sharply for the mes- senger, but candidly expressed a doubt whether the astute native would suffer himself to be caught. Benares may conveniently be described at once; for, whether disturbed or not by mutineers, it is so remarkably situated as to lie in the line of route of all commerce, all aggression, all military movement, between Calcutta and the upper provinces, whether by road, by rail, or by water. Regarded in this light, its possession and security are, and were in an especial degree during the mutiny, objects of the highest importance. This renowned city stands on the left bank of the Ganges, about four hundred and twenty miles by road from Calcutta, and seventy-four from Allahabad. The magnificent river, half a mile wide in the rainy season, forms a kind of semi- circular bay in front of the city, which has thus three miles of river-frontage. Among the chief characteristics of Benares arc the ghats or flights of fine broad freestone steps, giving access to the river : mostly very solid in construction, and in some cases highly decorated. So numerous are they, that they extend almost in a continuous line along the river's banks, interrupted here and there by temples. 'Upon these ghats,' says a lively traveller, 'are passed the busiest and happiest hours of every Hindoo's day : bathing, dressing, praying, preaching, lounging, gossiping, or sleep- ing, there will be found. Escaping from the dirty, unwholesome, and confined streets, it is a luxury for him to sit upon the open steps and taste the fresh air of the river ; so that on the ghats are concentrated the pastimes of the idler, the duties of the devout, and much of the necessary inter- course of business.' Artists in India have delighted to portray the beauty and animation of this scene ; but they cannot, if they would, reveal the hideous accompaniments the fakeers and ascetics of revolting appearance, 'offering every conceiv- able deformity which chalk, cow-dung, disease, matted locks, distorted limbs, and repulsive attitudes of penance, can shew.' Benares, beyond any other place in India, perhaps, is studded with religious structures. Thirty years ago the Moslem mosques were more than three hundred in number, while the Hindoo temples exceeded a thousand. The pinnacles of the Hindoo pagodas combine to give a very picturesque appearance to the city, viewed from a distance. Large as the number is, the Benares temples, as has been sarcastically observed, are not too many, for religion is ' the staple article of commerce, through which the holy city flourishes and is enriched.' The Mohammedan mosques, mostly situated in the northeast quarter of the city, are generally elegant little edifices crowned by small slender minarets, each standing in a gai'den planted with tamarinds. Most of them have been constructed on the sites, and with the materials, of demolished Hindoo temples. By far the grandest is the great mosque of Aurung- zebe, built by that emperor on the site of a temple of Vishnu, which he destroyed to sig- nalise the triumph of Islamism over Brahminism. It rises from the platform above the Madhoray Ghat. The miliars or minarets, admired for their simplicity and boldness, taper from eight feet in diameter at the bottom to seven at the top ; and though so slender, they are carried up to a height of a hundred and fifty feet, and have each an interior staircase from bottom to top. The streets of Benares have the usual oriental character of narrowness, crookedness, and dirti- ness ; they are mere alleys, indeed, that will admit no wheel-carriages ; nor can beasts of burden pass without sorely disturbing pedestrians. The houses are more lofty than in most Indian cities, generally from three to six stories high ; and as the upper stories usually project beyond the lower, the narrow street is almost closed in above : nay, in some cases, the inmates of one house can walk over to the opposite tenement through the upper windows. The houses are, in the better streets, built of stone, small-windowed and gaily painted. During the hot season the citizens arc much accustomed to sleep in screened enclosures on the roof, open to the sky above, and to the night-breezes around. There are somewhat under SPREAD OF DISAFFECTION IN MAY. 105 two hundred thousand inhabitant!, who live in about thirty thuusand boil Benares is a religious, not a military city. The district around was at a very remote period the seat of an independent Hindoo state, founded, according to native tradition, twelve hundred years before the Christian era. It subsequently formed part of the dominions of the Rajpoot sovereign* Then began the Mussulman rule, and Benares became a dependent province under the Moguls. The nawab-viziers of Oude, when the Mogul power was declining, seized Benares ; and during some of the political jugglery of the year 1775, the territory was transferred to the East India Company, by whom it has ever since been held. But under whatever dynasty it has been placed, Benares lias from remote ages been known as the sacred city of the Hindoos, where all that is remarkable, all that is abominable, in Brahntinism, flourishes. It has been described Gbat on the as the Jerusalem of Hindustan swarming with religions teachers, devotees, mendicants, and sacred bulls. To wash in tli' Ganges in front of Benares, to die in that city, are precious pri\ to the Hindoo. Some writers have given the inhabitants a bail character in what concerns loyalty to their present British rulers. 'Benares M of the most unsafe and rebellious cities in Hindustan. It once successfully oppo house-tax imposed on the people by the British government. There was also recently a strong commotion when the magistrate attempted to equalise the weights and measures. To shew the hostility of the Hindoos of Benares to the English, it may be mentioned that when we lay before Bhurtpore in 182$ no less than thirty thousand were sharpened at the cutlers' in expecta- tion of our repulse.' If this statement be well founded, it does indeed denote a perilous state of feeling at the time in question. Benares, we have said, is not a military city ; but so important a place could not safely be left unguarded. Accordingly a British cantonment has been built at Secrole, two or three miles to the northwest. Secrole contains not only the barracks and huts for soldiers, but various civil establish- , and the residences of most of the British population of Benares. The cantonment consists of the usual buildings belonging to the head- quarters of a military division of the Company's army, and capable of accommodating three or four regiments ; it lies on both sides of a small stream called the Burnah Nuddee, crossed by the great road from Benares to Allahabad. On the side of the cantonment furthest from the city are the bungalows of the various officials 106 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. and European residents : substantially built, well fitted and appointed, and surrounded by pleasant gardens. There are, among the public buildings, a Christian church and chapel, a court of justice, the treasury, the jail, and a mint the last named never yet appropriated to its destined purpose. Secrole is thus, in effect, the British portion of Benares. Another military station, subordinate to Benares, Chunar or Chunargur, is about sixteen miles distant ; indeed, being nearly midway between Benares and Mirzapore, it may be an auxiliary to either in time of need. Chunar is a town of about twelve thousand inhabitants, standing on a plateau or elevated cliff close to the Ganges. It was regarded as a stronghold more than three cen- turies ago ; and, like many other places in the neighbourhood, belonged to the great Mogul ; from whom, in lapse of time, it was wrested by the ambitious nawab- viziers of Oude ; until at length it fell into the hands of the British. It was for some years the Company's principal artillery depot for the Northwestern Provinces. The for- tified portion of the town, on the heights, is surrounded by a rampart a little over a mile in circuit, and from ten to twenty feet high, guarded by towers, and in its turn completely commanding the river and its banks. The space enclosed by this wall or rampart, however, has very little of a military aspect ; part is open grass-land ; part occupied by bungalows and gardens of Europeans ; part by the governor's house, the hospital, and the state prison ; and part by the ancient Hindoo palace, a massy vaulted edifice presenting little of its original splendour. An article of Hindoo faith is recorded in connection with a slab of black marble in a small square court of this palace ; to the effect that ' the Almighty is seated personally, though invisibly, on this stone, for nine hours each day, removing during the other three hours to Benares ; ' so that the fort, in sepoy belief, can only be taken between the hours of six and nine in the morning. Considered in a military sense, the fort is by no means strong ; nevertheless the steepness of the ascent would render storming difficult ; and to increase this difficulty, the garrison was wont in former times to keep a number of large rudely made stone-cylinders at hand, to roll down upon a besieging force. The citadel or stronghold is in the northeastern part of the enclosure ; it is mounted with several cannon, and has a bomb-proof magazine. The native town, consisting principally of two-storied stone-houses, is spread over a slope lying eastward of the fortifications. The English dwellings, and the station for invalid soldiers, arc lower down the slope. As soon as the Revolt began, the safety of Benares became an object of much solicitude to the governor-general at Calcutta, to Sir Henry Lawrence at Lucknow, and indeed to all the Company's servants : seeing that the maintenance of free communication would greatly depend on the peaceful condition of that city. We have seen that telegrams passed almost daily between Benares and the other chief cities in May ; intended partly to facilitate the transport of reinforcements to the northwest, and in part also to insure the tranquillity of Benares itself. About the middle of the month the military commandant had to announce that there had been some excitement in the 37th native infantry ; that a Sikh regiment had been sent on to Mirzapore and Allahabad ; that the 13th irregular cavalry Avere at Sultanpore ; and that his position was rather weak. On the 18th he telegraphed for aid : stating that 'if one hundred European infantry could be spared for duty here, it would restore confidence, and make Benares more secure, so as to maintain communication with the northwest.' General Lloyd was asked whether he could spare that much- coveted reinforcement a hundred Europeans from Dinapoor. About the same time the commandant was directed to defend Chunar fort with European invalids and veterans, and to keep the native infantry regiment at hand in Benares. Mr Tucker, civil commissioner, writing to the government on the same day, spoke of the 'bold policy' which had been adopted Avhen the 37th shewed disaffection ; the Euro- peans remaining in their houses, and acting so as neither to exhibit nor inspire distrust instead of attempting to escape. On the 19th, arrange- ments were completed for sending a company of her Majesty's 84th from Dumdum to Benares, in five separate parties of twenty-one each, in transit- carriages. By the 19 th, the irregular cavalry had been brought in from Sultanpore, and every precaution taken to guard against a surprise insomuch that the Europeans at neighbouring stations were looking to Benares as a sort of stay and support. More than once allusion was made, by the civil commissioner at that city, to the tactics of serenity, as a medium between severity and fright. One of tho telegrams told that ' Brigadier Ponsonby carries out Colonel Gordon's quiet policy of shewing no fear or distrust ; not a muscle is moved.' Until towards the close of the month, Benares was included in the military command of which Dinapoor was the centre ; but as the distance between the two towns is a hundred and fifty miles, Brigadier Ponsonby received permission to act for himself, irre- spective of control from General Lloyd. The 31st of May found Benares and its neigh- bourhood at peace. How close at hand were days of violence and bloodshed a future chapter will shew. We have now left Bengal, both in its original and in the Company's acceptation of that term, and have arrived within the territories grouped together as the Northwest Provinces. From Benares and Chunargur, as a glance at the map will shew, the course of the Ganges, of the great trunk-road, and of the railway in process of con- struction, brings us to Mirzapore a town not actually thrown into rebellion during the month SPREAD OF DISAFFECTION IN MAY. 10, of May, but placed between two foci of inflam- mable materials, . and Allahabad, and liable at any time to be inflamed by them. Mirza- pore is on the right bank of the Ganges, which is half a mile wide at this spot, and is crossed by a in the absence of a bridge. It is a commercial city, with about eighty thousand inhabitants; the emporium of the cotton trade of Bundelcund and the adjacent provinces; not rich in Mohammedan or Hindoo antiqui 1 splendour, associated with lew military events, but wealthy on account of its industry. The military cantonment, as in so main other parts of India, is two or three mi!' of the town ; indeed, this is a fact that mi borne in mind throughout, as a neeessan . to the under . with the Revolt Approaching now the Jumna regions, the plot thickens and the character. increase in number. We come to that rich country, the Doab, on tli id on the other by the Jumna, with Oude and Rohilcund on the north, Bundolcund ai try on the south. We hi bio number of and important towns Lucknow, Pj reilly, Allahabad, Futtehpoor, Caw.. .truckabad, ut in the immediate vicinity of oik or other of these two more thickly posted in that in in any ess in the gth ; for as the 11 i all thi their nunf I he men. | mainly intended, as already lew how remarkably the ma .dating during the month i lb with fright I'ul violence in Jane, we shall glance rapidly and touch lightly here on many of th itoated westward of to place the reader in a on to understand what will follow treating - in some and in others of a deceitful calm before i in. Allahabad, in a milit;.: more im- an any 1 and Calcutta : 1, there are few to equal it throughout India. is due principally to the fact that it lies at a of the two great rivers Ganges and Jumna, the northei ed by the one, tl rn by the other. It occupies the most I ther southeastern point of the rich and fertile Doab ; it lies in the direct water- route from Calcutta to both of the upper rivers ; it the great trunk-road from fa to the Puujaub, and on the East India a ; and a ry that railway across the Jumna No wonder, therefore, if the i; all were directed anxiously towards Allahabad during the mutinies and consequent struggles. The fort and arsenal are among the largest and finest in India. The fort rises direct from the point of confluence of the two rivers, and is on that side nearly impregnable. It is a mile and a half in circuit, five-sided, stone built, and bastioned. Two of the sides, near the water, are old, and weak as against a European force ; the other three are modern, and, with their bastions and ravelins, com- mand the city and the country beyond. Bishop Ileber remarked that Allahabad fort had lost in grandeur what it had gained in strength : the lofty towers having been pruned down into bastions and cavaliers, and its high stone ramparts obscured by turf parapets and a sloping external glacis. The principal gate of the fort, surmounted by a dome witli a wide hall beneath, and surrounded by arcadi lleries, forms a very majestic orna- ment. The arsenal, situated within the fort, is one of great magnitude, containing (before the Revolt) arms for thirty thousand men, an immense park of artillery, and the largest powder-magazine in Upper India. Altogether, it is a place of great strength, probably impregnable to natives, and fitted to bear a prolonged and formidable In a part of the fort overlooking the Jumna ious palace, formerly fitted up as nces for the superior European officers, but latterly used for slate pri I a balcony :imit of a tov.tr on which the windows of one of the chain' . a sceno is prose i j-ean travellers in India speak with much admiration. The spectator looks down upon a grove of ma :i fine with innumerable pediment pinnacle, and ti. die feathered tribe build their plume their wings. Along the thickly .n the north or Allahabad side of the Jumna, buildings of various degrees of in are seen interspersed with the small islands which speckle the river; while the opposite or Buudcl- cund shore forms a noble background to the picture. In the days before the Revolt, the Euro- pean troops of the garrison were accommodate well-constructed barracks within the fort; while the military cantonment for the native troops lay northwest of it. The city of Allahabad, westward of the fort, and on the Jumna shoj rcely worthy of its lificent situation. It contains seventy thou sand inhabitants; but i. and house poor ; nor do the mosques and temples in many other parts of Hindoatan, th the gardens and tomb of Sultan Khosroo and his serai are almost unequalled in India. There is a particular spot, outside the fort, where the actual confluence of the two great rivers is considered to take place ; and this presents the liveliest scene in the whole city. One traveller tells of the | numbers of pilgrims of both sexes, anxious to bathe in the purifying waters; and of de. who, causing earthen vessels to be fastened round 108 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. their waists or to their feet, proceed in a boat to the middle of the stream, and precipitate them- selves into the water supposing that by this self- immolation they secure eternal bliss. Another states that when a pilgrim arrives here Benares, Gyayah, and Allahabad being frequently included in the same pilgrimage he sits down on the brink of the river, and causes his head and body to be so shaved that each hair may fall into the water for the sacred writings promise the pilgrim a million years' residence in heaven for every hair thus deposited and that, after shaving and bath- ing, he performs the obsequies of his deceased ancestors. The Brahmins are the money-makers at these spots ; each has his little platform, standing in the water, where he assists in the operations by which the pilgrim is supposed to become holy. Skinner describes the whole scene as a kind of religious fair. When the events at Meerut and Delhi became City and Fort of Allahabad. known at Allahabad, the native troops shewed much excitement. One of them, the 6th Bengal infantry, drew down encomiums for fidelity, in offering to march and fight against the insurgents ; whether all the officers believed the men, may be doubted ; but the chief authorities did not deem themselves justified in shewing distrust. Thanks came from Calcutta for the manifestation of loyalty made by the regiment a loyalty destined to be of brief duration. A detachment of her Majesty's 84th reached Allahabad on the 23d of May, sent up from Calcutta by the laboriously tedious methods lately described. There being some disturbance expected at the jail, the detachment was sent into the fort, and held in readiness to proceed to the cantonment with two guns ; but as the alarm ceased for a time, the troops were sent on to Cawnpore, where much more anxiety was felt. Lieutenant Brasyer commanded four hundred Sikhs of the Ferozpore regiment in the fort ; while Captain Hazelwood took charge of the European artillerymen. About two hundred Englishwomen and children were in the fort ; and all hoped that the native troops in the can- tonment could and would be kept in subjection. How far this hope was well founded, will be shewn in a future chapter. Lucknow and the important temtory of Oude, so far as concerns the events in May, have already been treated. The relations of the British govern- ment to the court of Oude, the assiduous exertions of Sir Henry Lawrence to maintain subordination and tranquillity, and the vigorous measures adopted by him against the mutineers at Luck- now towards the close of the month of May, were followed by occurrences in June which will come for notice in their proper place. Of Cawnpore a name never to be uttered by SPREAD OF DISAFFECTION IN MAY. 109 an English tongue without a thrill of horror, an agony of exasperated feeling all notice will be postponed until the next chapter ; not because the hapless beings there residing were free from peril in the month of May, but because the tragedy must be treated continuously as a whole, each scene leading forward to the hideous climax. Suffice it at present to know that Cawnpore con- tained so many English men and women, and so many mutinous native troops, that all eyes were anxiously directed towards the progress of events at that city. Let us turn to towns and districts further west- ward. Agra, once the capital of the Patan emperors, is the chief city of the Northwestern Provinces. Delhi is historically, and in population, more important ; but was still at that time nominally under another sovereign ; whereas Agra has been British terri- tory since 1803, and is very well suited for a seat Agra Fort. of government. The city, like Delhi, is situated on the right bank of the Jumna, and will, like it, be ne future time accommodated l.y the Bad India railway. In round numbers, its distance from Delhi is a hundred and fifty miles ; from Calcutta, a little under eight hundred ; and from re, five hundred. The boundary of the old pace of twelve square miles ; but lore than half of this is at present occupied Then Lb one fine street, with houses built of red sandstone; the remaining streets are mostly narrow, with wry small, insignificant-look- ing shops. The public buildings are numerous, and of them very magnificent, telling of the past days of imperial glory and splendour. One is the palace of Shahjehan ; small, but rendered very beautiful by its white marble surfaces, arabi and ii Bowers, inlayings of black and yellow marble, enrichments of gilding, screen- works of marble and metal, fountains in the mosaic pavements. Near this is Shahjchan's audience- chamber, as large as the palace itself, originally enclosed by arcades hung with tapestries. And also close at hand is the Moti Musjid or Pearl Mosque ; with an exterior of red sandstone and an interior of white marble ; a court with arcades and a fountain ; a vestibule raised on steps ; three terraces surmounted by beautiful domes ; and nine elegant kiosks equidistant along the front. Put the crowning beauty of Agra in its Mohammedan aspect is the celebrated Taj Mahal, a little way outside the city. This was the mausoleum of Shahjehan and his favourite sultaness Nurjchan, the 'Light of the World,' and occupied in its con- struction twenty thousand men during a period of more than twenty years. Page after page of travellers' descriptions are occupied with this glorious structure its facade of a thousand 110 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. feet jn length ; its dazzling whiteness of marble ; its mosques, at either end, with their domes; its stupendous marble terraced platform, with steps and pillars, minarets and kiosks ; its great dome surmounted by gilded globes and crescents ; its octagonal shrino or sepulchral apartment, with enclosures of extraordinary marble lattice- work ; and its sarcophagi, literally covered with arabesques, fanciful mouldings, sculptured flowers, and inscriptions from the Koran. What a mockery of past grandeur is all this now ! Shahjehan, two centuries ago, was kept closely a prisoner in his splendour at Agra, while his ambitious son, Aurungzebe, was seizing the throne at Delhi ; and now another race is dominant in both of those cities. Shahjehan' s audience-chamber has had its arcades walled up, and is converted into an arsenal for and by the British; and near it are now an armoury, a medical depot, and a district collcctorate treasury. Nearly all the once-imperial buildings arc within the fort, a large place nearly a mile in circuit; it contained a hundred and sixty guns when Lord Lake captured it in 1803. Adjacent to the city, on the west, is the government-house, the official residence of the lieutenant-governor of the Northwestern Provinces ; and in various places arc numerous buildings belonging to the Company, for revenue, magisterial, and judicial establish- ments. The military lines arc outside the city- wall. Before the Revolt, this station was within the Meerut military division, and was usually occupied by a considerable body of European and native troops. It was a fact of small importance in peaceful times, but of some moment when rebellion arose, that the civilians and writers in the public offices were accustomed to live three or four miles from the cantonment containing the military, quite on the opposite suburb of Agra. None would live in the city itself, unless com- pelled, owing to the intense heat. It will be Avell to bear in mind that the fort at Agra was, as just noticed, not mei"ely a post or stronghold, indicated by its name, but a vast enclosure containing most of the palatial as well as the defensive buildings, and ample enough to contain all the Europeans usually residing in the city and its vicinity large enough in dimensions, strong enough in defences, provided a sufficient supply of food were stored within its walls. Here, as at Delhi, Lucknow, Allahabad, and other places, the due understand- ing of the mutinous proceedings requires an appreciation of this fact that the city, the fort, and the cantonment were all distinct. Agra, being the seat of government for the Northwest Provinces, was naturally the city to which the Calcutta authorities looked for infor- mation touching the Revolt ; and Mr Colvin, the lieutenant-governor, was assiduously engaged in collecting details, so far as telegraphs and daks permitted. On the night of the 10th of May he received sinister news from the postmaster at Meerut, telling of deeds of violence being at that moment committed. Next he heard that a young sepoy, mounted on a travelling troop- horse, was stopped at Bolundshuhur, on suspicion of being en route to excite other sepoy regi- ments to rebellion. On the 13th, it was ascertained that a few sepoys were on their way from Meerut through Allygurh to Agra, bent on mischief ; and that others were supposed to be advancing from Delhi. So little, however, did Mr Colvin appre- hend serious results, that when Scindiah, the maharajah of Gwalior, came forward to offer his body-guard of three hundred men, and a battery of artillery, as an aid to the Company, the governor accepted the offer as 'a personal compliment for a short time ;' but in the same message saying, 'though we really do not require more troops.' This was obviously said on the supposition that the native troops in and near Agra would not be affected by the rebellious epidemic prevailing further northward ; a supposition destined to be sadly overturned. Nevertheless the government made arrangements for placing at the disposal of Mr Colvin two regiments of irregular horse from regions further west. Day after day did evidence arrive shewing that the various districts around were gradually becoming disturbed. On the 15th, the governor reviewed the native regiments in Agra, and, finding them deeply impressed with a conviction that the government intended in somo way to degrade their caste, gave them the most positive assurance that they had been grossly deceived by such reports. He believed his explanation to have given satisfaction. Towards the close of the month a step was taken by Mr Colvin which brought him into collision with his superiors in power. As lieu- tenant-governor of the Northwest Provinces, surrounded on every side by a teeming population, he wished to believe that the native troops as a body would still remain faithful, and that an indulgent tone towards them would effect more than severity to bring the erring back to a sense of their duty. It was not a thoughtless proceed- ing : if wrong, the mistake arose from the estimate formed of the native character, and of the effect which indulgence would produce. 'Hope,' he said, in a letter to the governor- general, ' I am firmly convinced,, should be held out to all those who were not ringleaders or actually concerned in murder and violence. Many are in the rebels' ranks because they could not get away; many certainly thought we were tricking them out of their caste ; and this opinion is held, however unwisely, by the mass of the population, and even by some of the more intelli- gent classes.' When he found some of the troopers of the Gwalior Contingent, on whose fidelity much reliance had been placed, become mutinous on the 24th of May, he resolved on issuing a proclama- tion, based on the supposition that 'this mutiny was not one to be put down by indiscriminating high-horsed authority.' The pith of his proclama- tion was contained in these words: Soldiers, SPREAD OF DISAFFECTION IN MAY. Ill od in the late disturbances, who are desirous of going to their own homes, and who give up their arms at the nearest government civil or military post, and retiro quietly, shall ho per- mitted to do so unmolested.' To this another nee was added, in a less prominent form : ry evil-minded instigator in the disturbances, hose guilty of heinous crimes against private >ns, shall bo punished.' Mr Colvin earnestly solicited the assent of the Calcutta government to this proclamation ; but the assent was as earnestly withheld. Viscount Canning I hed orders to Agra to recall the proclamation as quickly a . and to substitute another sent for that purpose. ' Use every p the circulation of tho proclama- tion .... do everything to stop its operation." Mr Colvin was oh! announce the abro- i of nil own proclamation by a second which contained these words : ' Every soldier of a lent which, although it has d< has not committed outrages, will receive free pardon if ho immediately deliver up his arms to ivil or military authority, and if no heinous crime perpetrated by himself personally. Tins offer of free and uncon- ditional pardon cannot be aeten intent* officers or Mr Colvin v. anion all wi op their arms, a few ringleaders, and individually engaged in outrage; while Viscount Canning \\ in the murderous atrocities at Meerut, Delhi, Genera] Anton, the eommander-in- ion could ; but and (at a later date) the lent and tl public, Q with the governor-general. Mr Colvin was ; in a i; ition ; for he was called upon in his own proceedings, thereby departing from a plan which he believed adequate and weakening bis authority in t! of the natives. Canning raphed to Colvin: 'The embarrassment in which your proclamation will place the govern- ment and the commander-in-chief is very great;' while iphed to Canning: 'Openly to my public act, where reallj tantial e is made, would fatally shake my power ioiL' Bi rhmandin^ the Rohilctmd division, with Bareilly for his head- quarters, joined Mr Colvin in opinion on this matter; he said : 'Were the men under my com- mand fully convinced that lie pott should he for- ored their loyalty and good conduct 1 upon.' The general tendency of opini n that stern measures were ncces- at that crisis; but it was unquestionably that these contradictory views should have been held at such a time in high quai : Mr Colvin, perpetually harassed with the accounts daily received from the various important towns included in his government, was nevertheless secure at Agra itself until towards the close of the month of May. Then, however, he found stern measures necessary. Having two regiments of native infantry with him, the 44th and the 67th, ho sent two companies, one of each regiment, to Muttra (on the Delhi road), to bring down treasure to Agra. On the road, they mutinied, murdered some of their officers, and hastened to join the insurgents at Delhi. Mr Colvin at onco resolved to disarm the remaining companies of those regiments : this he was enabled to do by the prete n se of the 3d Europeans and Captain D'Oyloy's European field-battery ; and the dis- arming was quietly effected on the 1st of June. Shortly afterwards, a corps of volunteer horse was I among tho Europeans .at Agra, and placed under the command of Lieutenant Grcathed one of three brothers at that time actively engaged in tho Company's service. This corps rendered good service by putting down rebellious petty chieftains in the neighbourhood. Mr Colvin felt the full weight of his position ; the governor- general was far from him in one direction John Lawrence far in another; while Sir Henry Lawrence had no troops to spare, and the com- mander-in-chief con! j be heard of. it Mahratta stronghold, Gwalior, did not be of mutiny until June; we therefore notice the city or its chief, Bdndiah, in tl, : but by following tho fortunes of a portion of the Gwalior Contingent, nncnt of irregular horse, we shall learn much concerning the stale of the country round and of the active services required from Mr Colvin having accepted the pr rvieea of the contingent from the maharnjah, Lieutenant Cockburn received orders to head half the regiment, together with a battery of guns. He started on the 13th of from Gwalior, and accomplished the distance of ninety miles to Agra by the 1.0th, without knocking up man or horse. On tho 18th, news arrived that troubles had broken out at Ally- gurh, fifty-five miles north of Agra, ami that the services of the contingent were y for the protection of the ladies and the civilians. Cockburn with his troopers marched thirty-four miles to Hattrass on that day, and tho remaining twenty-one miles on the 19th seeking shelter from the tremendous mid-day heat in any dilapi- dated building that might oiler ; and each officer keeping in store his only clean shirt 'to meet the fugitive ladies from Allygurh.' "What he saw, and what he had yet to see, at Allygurh, was serious enough. This town was destined to affect the operations of the British, not so much by its intrinsic importance, as by its position on one of the great lines of route between the eastern and rn provinces of India. Allygurh commands the road from Agra to Meerut; and thus, in hostile hands, it would necessarily add to the 112 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. difficulties attending the temporary loss of Delhi ; seeing that the road both to Simla and to Lahore would thus be interrupted. The town is so surrounded by marshes and shallow pools, as to be almost unassailable in the rainy season. The fort consists of a regular polygon, with a broad and very deep ditch outside; it was of simple construction at the time of its capture by the British in 1803, but has since been much strength- ened and improved. The military cantonment, the civil establishments, and the bazaar, are situated towards Coel, a little southward of the fort. At the beginning of the troubles in May, Allygurh was under the care of Mr Watson, as magistrate and collector. There were in the place, at the time, the head-quarters and three or four companies of the 9th regiment B. N. I. : the remainder of the regiment being in detachments at Minpooree, Etawah, and Bolundshuhur, towns further to the southeast. The troops at Allygui'h behaved well and steadily during the first half of the month ; but gradually a change supervened. A spy was one day caught endeavouring to excite the men. Lieutenant Cockburn, in a private letter, thus narrates the manner quite melo- dramatic in its way in which this villain was foiled : ' An influential Brahmin of this neighbour- hood having been seen lurking about the lines for the past day or two, a native non-commissioned officer concealed a number of sepoys, and induced the Brahmin to accompany him to where the men lay hidden ; under pretence of its being a secluded spot where they might safely concert matters. The Brahmin then made overtures to the soldier, and told him that if he would persuade the men of the regiment to mutiny, he would furnish two thou- sand men to assist in murdering the Europeans and plundering the treasury. At a preconcerted signal, the sepoys jumped up and secured the ruffian.' lie was hanged the same day. The troops at Bolund- shuhur, really or affectedly expressing horror at the hanging of a Brahmin, marched to Allygurh, and, on the 20th, succeeded in inducing their com- panions to mutiny. This result was so wholly unforeseen, the 9th had hitherto behaved so well, and had displayed such alacrity in captui'ing the treacherous Brahmin, that neither the civilians nor the English officers were prepared to resist it. Cockburn at first intended to dash at them with his troopers ; but the approaching darkness, and other considerations possibly a doubt concerning the troopers themselves led to a change of plan. ' One holy duty remained to be performed to save the ladies and children. This we accom- plished ; and whilst they were being put into carriages, we shewed a front to the mutineers, and hindered their advance. An occasional bullet whistled by our heads, but it was too dark for taking aim. One man was shot through the wrist, and five are missing. We then heard that the inhabitants were rising, so we determined on retreating. The ladies were sent on direct to Agra, and we went on to Hattrass. We had not gone far, when the bright light behind us told too plainly that the cantonment was in flames.' The civilians and the officers of the 9th lost all except their horses and the clothes on their backs. Allygurh remained for a considerable time in the hands of the insurgents : almost cutting off communication between the southeast and the northwest. . While the refugees remained in safety at Hattrass, the troopers scoured the country to put down marauders and murderers for it was a saturnalia of lawlessness. On the 21st, many of the ruffians were captured, and speedily hanged. On the 22d, two headmen of neighbouring villages joined the marauders in an attack on some English refugees, but Avere frustrated. On the 23d, Cockburn and his troop galloped off from Hattrass to Sarsnee, and rescued eighteen refugees from Allygurh. ' Poor people ! They have sad tales to tell. One indigo planter, Mr , has had one son murdered ; another son, his wife, and himself, are wounded. His house and all he possessed have been destroyed. The very clothes were torn from their backs ; and even the poor women, naked and bleeding, insulted and abused, had to walk many miles. At length they received shelter from a kind-hearted native banker in the village where I found them ; but even there the house in which they were sheltered was twice attacked.' The good Samaritan for there were some good and kind amid all the villainies that surrounded them gave two or three sheets to the poor sufferers, to cover their nakedness, and to enable them to proceed to Hattrass. The 24th of May shewed how little the Gwalior troopers could be depended upon. Of two hundred and thirty that had been intrusted to Lieutenant Cockburn, a hundred and twenty suddenly mutinied, and galloped off to join the insurgents at Delhi. As the villagers began to shew symptoms of attacking him in his weakness, and as a hundred and ten troopers still stuck by their colours, he marched off that night nineteen miles from Hattrass to Kundowlie. On the road, the troopers told the lieutenant of many little grievances that had affected them at Gwalior, and that had partly led to the mutiny of the rest of their body ; and he felt grateful that some at least of the number had remained true. During the remainder of the month, and in the early part of June, this dimi- nished body of troopers was incessantly engaged in skirmishing, attacking, or resisting attacks ; the country around being in such a frightful state, that a dozen villages were sometimes seen in flames at once the work of desperadoes, who took advant- age of a time of anarchy. On one occasion, Cockburn baffled a horde of scoundrels by a capital stratagem. They had collected to the number of about five hundred, and were plundering every one on the road in a shameful manner. The lieutenant went after them with fifty troopers. He sent four of his men in a bullock- cart, a curtained vehicle such as women usually ride in. SPREAD OF DISAFFECTION IN MAY. 113 When the marauders s-aw this, they made a rush l'or plunder, and perhaps something worse, belicv- the cart to contain defenceless women; they approached, but the four men jumped up, fired their muskets, and by that signal brought Cockburn and his party forward. An exciting chase ensued, whicli,ended in the death of fifty of the marauders, and the capture of many others. The Oth native regiment, it will be remembered, was quartered in four detachments at Allygurh, Minpooree, Etawah, and Bolundshuhur. At all four places the troops mutinied. At Etawah and Dolundshuhur, the course of events was not so exciting as at Allygurh, although amply sufficient to try the tact and courage of the few officers and civilians stationed at those places. Minpooree, on the road from Agra to Pnrruekabad, was, however, the scene of so smart an affair, that the governor- d, amid all his harassing employments, made it a matter of special comment. The officer chiefly concerned was Lieutenant de Kant/.ow ; the dale was Hay the 83d, when three com- panies of the 9th broke out into revolt. On the night of the ^_'d, news arrived that the chief portion of the regiment had mutinied at Allygurh, ami it thence became at once doubt- ful whether the three companies at Minpooree could be depended upon. The magistrate and the collector of the district, acting with Lieutenant Crawford, resolved on removing all the English women and children for safety to Agra : this done, promptly and BOCCCRsfally. A plan 1 oil, relating to the three oompai native troops on the morrow ; but the sepoys anticipated this plan by mutinying at four in the morning, and endeavouring to shoot down their officers. They loaded themselves with a store of ammunition, and tried first to bring down their officers, and then to plunder the treasury and the bungalows. Lieutenant de Kant/.ow, : in command under Crawford, confronted them undauntedly, reasoned with them, and endeavoured to stop them in their mad career. Some of the men, attached to the chivalrous officer, dashed down several muskets levelled at him, and saved bis life. But a terrible scene occurred at the treasury. De Kant/.ow, with a mere handful of ill-armed jail-guards and jail-officials, maintained a three hours' struggle against three compan: fully armed troops. The commandant had gone off; the collector also had made a hasty escape, deeming the magistrate's conduct 'romantic' in remaining behind; and thus I>e Kant/.ow was I do the best he could at the treasury, the magistrate elsewhere. De Kant/.ow sent a hasty requesting the magistrate not to come to the treasury, as it would make one European the more for the sepoys to yell at and attack. How lone the unequal struggle would have been main- tained, cannot be said ; but the magistrate found an influential native, Has Bhowanee Singh, willing and able to visit the ex' \s, and induce them to desist from further violence. They did so : they decamped with a good deal of property, but xcitltout three lacs of rupees deposited in the treasury, and without taking one English life. Right indeed was it that De Kantzow should receive the thanks of the government;* for if he hail flinched, Minpooree with its twenty thousand inhabitants would have been at the mercy of three hundred brutal armed men, ready to plunder natives as well as Eeringhccs. It was about one week after this event that Captain Carey, of the 17th B. N. I., rode into Minpooree, the only remaining one of four English officers who had' been endeavouring 1o render useful service in the neighbourhood. They were at the head of a small body of native cavalry. The sowars suddenly turned upon them in an open road. Major Hayes, military secretary to Sir Henry Lawrence a great oriental scholar and most able officer, whom Genera] Wheeler bad just before solicited Sir Henry to send him, to open the communications with Agra was tly cut down with a sword, his head frightfully hacked, his right hand cut off, his left mutilated. Another, Lieutenant Layer.;, had his head nearly severed from bis body by a lly villain, while the unfortunate young officer was drinking at a well. An old Sikh rushed forward to prevent the atrocity, but was repelled with the words: 'What! are you with rsl Look to yourself!' Lieutenant Barber, adjutant of the Sd irregular cavalry, made an attempt to escape, but was shot down, cut to robbed, and left dead. The fourth, Captain Carey, trusted to the heels of bis good horse ; on doped over field.; and roads, followed by a I iod>thirsty miscreants, yelling and firing v rode. Happily, just as his steed was about to sink through exhaustion, his pursuers gave up the chase. He reached Minpooree in safety; and on the 1st of June, followed the mangled remains of his three poor companions to the grave. Another exploit connected with Minpooree shall be given in the words of Lieutenant de Kant/.ow, affording as it docs one among many examples of the extraordinary risks to which the officers were exposed at that turbulent period, and of the rattling, quick-witted, fearless, persevering way in which such dangers were met, and afterwards described in the letters written to friends at home letters that admit the reader behind the scenes in a way not possiMc in official dispatches : ' I was returning from reconnoitring, when information was brought me that five troopers of the 7th light cavalry (native) were coming along the road. An * Viscount Q!anniii;:, in a ! iter written on the 7th of June to Lieutenant de Kantcow, Mid : 'I have read the account of your conduct with nn admiration anil respect I cannot adequately describe. Toons '" 7****i *Bd at the outset of your career, you have given to your brother-soldiers .1 noble example of courage, patience, good Judgment, and lam pet, firom which many may profit. I bc^' you to believe that it will never be forgotten by me. I write this at once, that there may be no delay in making known to you that your conduct iias not been overlooked. You will, of course, receive a more formal acknowledgment, through the military department of the government, of your admirablo service." 114 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. immediate pursuit was of course ordered by me, and my thirty-nine troopers tore away at full speed after them. I was just coming up to them, and had already let drive among the murdering villains ; when, lo ! I came upon two hundred of their comrades, all armed with swords, and some with carbines. A smart fire was kept up at a distance of not more than twenty-five yards. "What could thirty-nine do against two hundred regular troopers, well horsed and armed par- ticularly when walked into by the bullets of a hundred of the infantry ! I ordered a retreat, but my cavalry could not get away from troopers mounted upon good stud-bred horses ; so we were soon overtaken, and then commenced the shindy in earnest. Twelve troopers surrounded me: the first, a Mohammedan priest, I shot through the breast just as he was cutting me down. This was my only pistol, so I was helpless as regards weapons, save my sword ; this guarded off a swingeing cut given me by number two, as also another by number three ; but the fun could not last. I bitterly mourned not having a couple of revolvers, for I could have shot every man. My sword was cut down, and I got a slash on the head that blinded me ; another on the arm that glanced and only took a slice off; the third caught me on the side, but also glanced and hit me sideways. I know not how I escaped : God only knows, as twelve against one were fearful odds, especially as I was mounted on a pony bare back. Escape, however, I did.' Twenty-four out of his thirty-nine troopers were killed, wounded, or missing. The region lately noticed, including the towns of Allygurh, Hattrass, Etawah, Minpooree, &c, was formerly included in Rohilcund, or the land of the Rohillas ; but according to the territorial or political division adopted by the Company, it is now partly in the Meerut division, and partly in that of Agra; while the present Rohilcund division is wholly on the left bank of the Ganges. These technical distinctions are, however, a matter of very little importance in connection with the progress of the Revolt ; for the insubordinate sepoys tempted and imitated each other wholly in disregard of mere conventional boundaries. We must now follow the stream of insurrection across the Ganges, and shew how deplorable was the anarchy, how sad the sufferings, that began there towards the close of May. The districts of Rohilcund in its modern or limited sense are Bareilly, Boodayoun or Budaon, Shahjehanpoor, Mooradabad, and Bijnour, each named after a chief town ; and not only were the whole of these towns more or less disturbed, but throughout the intervening country the military cantonments were set into a flame figuratively and often literally. In some instances the civil servants of the Company, chiefly magistrates and revenue collectors, made their escape with their wives and children, leaving the mutineers to occupy the stations and pillage the treasuries ; in others the civil servants, led by one of their number possessing tact and resolution, held the marauders at bay until assistance could be pro- cured ; while in many cases the English officers of native regiments, as well as the civilians, yielded by flight or by death only after a determined resistance. Two of the towns above named, Bareilly and Boodayoun, will suffice at present to illustrate the state of affairs in Rohilcund. Sunday, as we have often had occasion to observe, was a favourite day for the native outbreaks ; and it was on Sunday the 31st of May that the miseries at Bareilly began. The 18th and 68th regiments N. I. were cantoned there. The bungalow of Colonel Troup was suddenly surrounded by two companies of his own regiment, the 68th : and it was only by a hasty exit through a side-door that he escaped death. During many previous days and nights the troops had been in a rebellious state ; the English, civilians and military, had slept in their clothes, with pistols ready loaded, and horses kept ready saddled. The ladies had all been sent up for safety to Nynee Tal ; and thus, when the struggle arose, the officers had only themselves to protect. This word ' ladies,' however, is to be interpreted in its conventional sense ; for many women in a humbler grade of life, together with their children, remained in the town ; and among these some deplorable scenes occurred. The members of one family were brought before a ruthless fellow who assumed some kind of authority ; and in a very few minutes their heads were severed from their bodies. At the same time, Mr Robertson the judge, two medical men, the professors of the college, and others, were subjected" to a mock trial and publicly hanged. The mutinous sepoys took aim in the most deli- berate way at their officers, while the latter Avere fleeing ; Mr Alexander, commissioner of Bareilly, though ill at the time, was forced to mount his horse and gallop off as the only means of saving his life, amid a shower of bullets and grape-shot for the treacherous villains not only used muskets and rifles, but fired grape from the cannon. Many of the gentlemen rode off in haste without any head-coverings, the rays of an Indian sun pour- ing down upon them in full force. When the English were driven out, the Mohammedans and Hindoos began to fight fiercely against each other for possession of the treasure one among many indications that plunder was at least as strong a desire as revenge in impelling the natives to deeds of violence. The name of Nynee Tal is mentioned in the above paragraph; and it may be well to under- stand on what grourfd that town was so often named with earnest solicitude by officers engaged in arduous struggles in various parts of the north of India. Nynee Tal is a healthy spot on the banks of a beautiful lake, a few miles from Almora in Kumaon, and not far from the Nepaulese border: indeed it belonged to the Goorkhas of Nepaul until recent times, when it was conquered SPREAD OF DISAFFECTION IN MAY. 11/ from them by the British ; since which occur- rences the late owners have been friendly neigh- bours within their own territory of Nepaul. Nynee Tal became a second Simla during the disturbances. Women and children, if their lives were spared at the scenes of tumult, were hurried off to the placet just named, and to one or two other towns among the hills there to remain till lays of peace returned, or till means of safe con- oce to Calcutta or Bombay could be procured. When the troubles in Rohilcund commenced; when Bareilly and Boodayoun, Mooradabad and Shahjehanpoor, fell into the hands of the rebels all fled to Nynee Tal who could. Captain Be commanding at that town, at once made an ments for protecting the poor fugitives ; he formed the gentlemen of the station into a militia, who took it in turn to fulfil the duties of an armed patrol, to keep in order the dacoits and ruffians in the neighbourhood ; he laid in I of three n; r all the mouths in . and ho armed the station and the I with companies of a Goorkha regiment. explain, are of Mongol origin, hut smaller and darker than the Chinese, They belong to Nepaul, an.: me familiar to the British by their ret irly qualities during t - war. Although Hindoos by religion, they have lit! nothil ' prejudice, and s of a B< have shewn a I I ; ami :' v important (act to tl d in quelling the revolt, that the Ooorkhas mani a rather to remain faithful to their than to join the standard of rapine and mm illy, we have just seen, was one of the s from which fugitive ladies were sent for to Nynee Tal ; and now the town of youn, on the road from Atrra to Bareilly, for notice under similar conditions. sidering that the course of public events often histration of a remarkable kind from the experience of single individuals, we shall odayoon in connection with the strange advents. ie of the Com- il servants adventures not so deeply of the fugitives from Delhi, but continued during a much longer period, and bringing to light a much larger number of facts connected with the feelings and position of the natives in the disturbed districts. The wanderer, Mr Edwards, collector of the Boodayoun district, mot i'i If in reaching Cawnpore layoun a distance scarcely over a miles by road. About the middle of the districts on both sides of the Gi very disturbed, Mr Edwards sent his and child for rein ynee Tal. IIo European officer in charge of the Boodayoun district, and felt his anxieties deepen as rumours reached him of disturbances in other quarters. At the end of the month, news of the revolt at Bareilly added to his difficulties ; for the mutineers and a band of liberated prisoners were on their way from thai place to Boodayoun. Mr Edwards expresses his opinion that the mutiny was aggravated by the laws, or the course adopted by the civil courts, concerning landed property. Landed rights and interests were sold by order of the courts for petty : they were bought by strangers, who had no particular sympathy with the people ; and the old landowners, regarded with something like affection by the peasantry, were thrown into a discontented state. Evidence was soon afforded that these dispossessed landowners joined the mutineers, not from a political motive, but to hold of their old estates during a time of turmoil and violence. ' The danger now is, that they can never wish to see the same government power ; fearing, as they naturally must, that they will have again to give up possession of their estates.' This subject, of landed tenure in India, will call lor further illustration in future the condition of die people. : peril himself, Mr Edwards, on tho 1st of dune, saw that flight I only chance, 'i two English indigo-planters with another Euro- mpany him wherever nt, thinking their mid be thereby I him, for friendly i), would prob- ably hesita - ".r; and so it proved, on ! oil' on horseback, d by a faithful Sikh servant, Wu/.eer Singh, who never deserted him through aii The worldly wealth of Mr Rdwardl at this moment consisted of the clothes on his back, a revolver, a watch, a purse 1 , and a New Testament. During the first few days they galloped from village to village, just as they found the natives favourable or hostile ; often forced to flee when most in need of food and rest. They crossed the Ganges two or three times, tracing out a strange zigzag in the hope of avoiding dangers. The wanderers then made an attempt to reach Futtcghur. They suffered much, and one life was lost, in this attempt ; the rest, after many days, reached Futtcghur, where Mr Probyn was the Company's collector. Native troops were mutinying, or consulting whether to mutiny ; Europeans were departing ; and it soon became evident that Futtcghur would no longer be a place of safety either for Probyn or for Edwards. Flight again became necessary, and under more anxious cir- cumstances, for a lady and four children were to be protected ; but how to flee, and whither, became anxious questions. Day after day pa before a friendly native could safely plan an escape for them by boat ; enemies and marauders 116 THE KEVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. were on every side ; and at last the danger became so imminent that it was resolved to cross the Ganges, and seek an asylum in a very desolate spot, out of the way of the mutineers. Here was presented a curious exemplification of 'lucky' and 'unlucky' days as viewed by the natives. ' A lucky day having been found for our start,' says Mr Edwards, ' we were to go when the moon rose ; but this moon-rise was not till three o'clock on the morning after that fixed for the start. This the Thakoovs were not at first aware of. I was wakened about eleven o'clock by one of them, who said that the fact had just come to his knowledge, and that it was necessary that some- thing belonging to us should start at once, as this would equally secure the lucky influence of the clay, even though we ourselves should not start till next morning. A table-fork was accordingly given him, with which he went off quite satisfied, and which was sent by a bearer towards the village we were to proceed to.' Under the happy influence of this table-fork, the wanderers set forth by night, Nyncc Tal a refuge for European fugitives. Mrs Probyn and her children riding on an elephant, and the men walking on roads almost impassable with mud. They reached the stream ; they crossed in a boat ; they walked some distance amid torrents of rain, Mr Edwards ' carrying poor baby ;' and then they reached the village, Runj- poonah, destined for their temporary home. What a home it was ! ' The place intended for the Probyns was a wretched hovel occupied by buffaloes, and filthy beyond expression, the smell stifling, and the mud and dirt over our ankles. My heart sank within me as I laid down my little charge on a charpoy.' By the exercise of ingenuity, an extemporaneous chamber was fitted up in the roof. During a long sojourn here in the rainy season, Mr Edwards wrote a letter to his wife at Nynee Tal, under the following odd circum- stances : ' I had but a small scrap of paper on which to write my two notes, and just the stump of a lead-pencil : we had neither pens nor ink. In the middle of my writing, the pencil-point broke ; and when I commenced repointing it, the whole fell out, there being just a speck of lead left. I was in despair ; but was fortunately able to refix the atom, and to finish two short notes about an inch square each : it was all the man could con- ceal about him. I then steeped the notes in a little milk, and put them out to dry in the sun. At once a crow pounced on one and carried it off, and I of course thought it was lost for ever. Wuzcer Singh, however, saw and followed the creature, and recovered the note after a long chase.' Several weeks passed ; ' poor baby ' died ; then an elder child both sinking under the privations they had had to endure : their anxious mother, Avith all her tender solicitude, being unable further to preserve them. Mr Edwards, who was one of those that thought the annexation of Oude an unwise measure, said, in relation to a rumour that Oude had been restored to its kin? : ' I would SPREAD OF DISAFFECTION IN MAY. 117 rejoice at such an equitable measure at another time ; but now it would be, if true, a sign of a foiling cause and of great weakness, which is I fear our real case.' On another occasion, he heard ' more rumours that the governor-general and the King of Oude had arrived at Cawnpore; and that Oiule is then formally to be made over to the king. 1 "Whether Oudians or not, even- where he found the Mohammedans more hostile to the British than the Hindoos ; and in some places the two bodies of religionists fought with each other. After many more weeks of delays and disappointments, the fugitives were started off down the < i Cawnporc. In effecting this start, the 'lucky-day' principle was again acted on. 'The had fixed an hour fur starting. As it was not possible lor M the fortu- nate moment and secure the advantage, a shirt of mine and some garnu nts of those who were to Many me, were forwarded to a village some way on the load, which is considered equivalent to our ' Half-a-dozen times on their re they in danger of being shot by Hi shore ; but the fidelity and tact of the natives who had befriended them carried them through all their perils. At length they reached Cawnporo on the Is! of September, just three calendar months after Mr lldwards took hi.; . departure from Boodayoon. This interesting train of adventure; we have followed to lustrating so many points OOnneeted with the state of India at the time ; but now attention must he brought hack to the month of May. I of the Itohilcuud district, and north- west of Ally .urh and it> neighbouring duster of town ;, lie Mi ('.ut and Delhi, the two place at which the atrocities were first manifested. it, after the departure of the three mutinous regiments on the night of the loth of May, and the revolt of the Sappers and Miners a few days afterward', remained unmolested. Major-general Ilewctt was too strong in European troops to he attacked, although his force took part in many operations against the rebels elsewhere. Several prisoners, proved to have been engaged in the murderous work of the 10th, wen i. On her hand, many sowars of the 3d native cavalry, instead of going to Delhi, spread terror among the villagers near Ifeerot one of the last military dispatches of the commander-in-chief was . announcing his intention to send available troops from Kurnaul by Bhagpul and l'aniput, to Delhi, and requesting Hcwett to ch from' Meerut an auxiliary force. This he directed should consist of two squadrons of carabiniers, a wing of the 00th Rifles, a light field-battery, a troop of horse-artillery, a or artillerymen to work the siege-train, and ai many sappers as he could depend upon. General Anson calculated that if he left Umballa on the 1st of June, and if Ilewctt sent his force from Meerut on the 2d, they might meet at Bhagput on the 5th, when a united advance might be made upon Delhi ; but, as we shall presently see, the hand of death struck down the commander-in-chief ere this plan could be carried out ; and the force from Meerut was placed at the disposal of another com- mander, under circumstances that will come under notice in their proper place. Delhi, like Cawnpore, must be treated apart from other towns. The military proceedings connected with its recapture were so interesting, and carried on over so long a period ; it developed resources so startlingly huge among the mutineers, so lamentably small on the part of the British that the whole will conveniently form a subject complete in itself, to he treated when collateral events have been brought up to the proper level. Suffice it at present to say, that the mutineers over the whole of the north of India looked to the retention of Delhi as their great stronghold, their rock of defence ; while the British saw with equal clearness that the recapture of that celebrated city was an indispensable pre liminary to the restoration of their prestige and power in India. All the mutineers from other towns either hastened to Delhi, or calculated on tpport to their cause, whatever that cause may have been ; all the available British regi mints, on the other hand, lew indeed as they were, either hastened to Delhi, or bore it in memory daring their other plans and proceedings. at the time when (lie Services of a military commander were most needed in the regions of which he centre, and when it was m sary to be in constant communication with the governor-general and authorities, General Anson could not be heard of; he was supposed at Cal- cutta to be somewhere between Simla and Delhi; but daks and telegraphs had been interfered with, and all remained in mystery as to his movement k Lawrence at Lucknow, I'onsonby at Benares, Wheeler at Cawnpore, Colvin at Agra, Ilewctt at Meerut, other commanders at Allahabad, Dina- poor, and elsewhere all said in effect: 'We can hold our own for a time, but not unless Delhi be !y recaptured. Where is the commander-in- chief?' Viscount Canning sent messages in rapid succession, during the second half of the month of May, entreating General Anson to bring all his power to bear on Delhi as quickly as possible. Duplicate telegrams were sent by different routes, in hopes that one at least might reach its ation safely ; and every telegram told the same story that British India was in peril so Ion;; as Delhi was not in British hands, safe from murderers and marauders. Major-general Sir Henry Barnard, military commander of the Umballa district, received telegraphic news on the Uth of May of the outrages at Meerut and Delhi : and immediately sent an aid-de-camp to gallop oh' with the information to General Anson at Simla, seventy or eighty miles distant, 'flic commandcr- in-clii. ce hastened from his retirement among the hills. Simla, as was noticed in a 118 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. former page, is one of the sanataria for the English in India, spots where pure air and moderate temperature restore to the jaded body some of the strength, and to the equally jaded spirits some of the elasticity, which are so readily lost in the burning plains further south. The poorer class among the Europeans cannot afford the indulgence, for the cost is too great ; but the principal servants of the Company often take advantage of this health-restoring and invigor- ating climate where the average temperature of the year is not above 55 E. The question has been frequently discussed, and is not with- out cogency, whether the commander-in-chief acted rightly in remaining at that remote spot during the first twenty weeks in the year, when so many suspicious symptoms were ob- servable among the native troops at Calcutta, Dumdum, Barrackpore, Berhampore, Lucknow, Meerut, and Umballa. He could know nothing of the occurrences at those places but what the telegraphic wires and the postal daks told him ; nevertheless, if they told him the truth, and all the truth, it seems difficult to under- stand, unless illness paralysed his efforts, why he, the chief of the army, remained quiescent at a spot more than a thousand miles from Calcutta. Startled by the news, the commander-in-chief quitted Simla, and hastened to Umballa, the nearest military station on the great Indian highway. It then became sensibly felt, both by Anson and Barnard, how insufficient were the appliances at their disposal. The magazines at Umballa were nearly empty of stores and ammu- nition ; the reserve artillery- wagons were at Phillour, eighty miles away ; the native infantry were in a very disaffected state ; the European troops were at vaxious distances from Umballa; the commissariat officers declared it to be almost impossible to move any body of troops, in the absence of necessary supplies for a column in the field ; and the medical oificers dwelt on the danger of marching troops in the hot season, and on the want of conveyance for sick and wounded. In short, almost everything was wanting, necessary for the operations of an army. The generals set to work, however ; they ordered the 2d European Fusiliers to hasten from Subathoo to Umballa; the Nusseree Battalion to escort a siege-train and ammunition from Phillour to Umballa ; six companies of the Sappers and Miners to proceed from Roorkce to Meerut; and the 4th Irregular Cavalry to hold themselves in readiness at Hansi. Anson at the same time issued the general order, already adverted to, inviting the native regiments to remain true to their allegiance, explaining the real facts concerning the cartridges, and reiterating the assurances of non-intervention with the reli- gious and caste scruples of the men. On the 17th there were more than seven regiments of troops at Umballa namely, the Queen's 9th Lancers, the 4th Light Cavalry Lancers, the Queen's 75th foot, the 1st and 2d European Fusiliers, the 5th and 60th native infantry, and two troops of European horse-artillery ; but the European regiments were all far short of their full strength. Symptoms soon appeared that the 5th and 60th native infantry were not to be relied upon for fidelity; and General Anson thereupon strengthened his force at Umballa with such European regiments as were obtain- able. He was nevertheless in great perplexity how to shape his course ; for so many wires had been cut and so many daks stopped, that he knew little of the progress of events around Delhi and Agra. Being new to India and Indian warfare, also, and having received his appointment to that high command rather through political connections than in reference to any experience derived from Asiatic campaigning, he was dependent on those around him for suggestions concerning the best mode of grappling with the difficulties that were presented. These suggestions, in all probability, were not quite harmonious ; for it has long been known that, in circumstances of emergency, the civil and military officers of the Company, view- ing occurrences under different aspects or from different points of view, often arrived at different estimates as to the malady to be remedied, and at different suggestions as to the remedy to be applied. At the critical time in question, however, all the officers, civil as well as military, assented to the conclusion that Delhi must be taken at any cost; and on the 21st of May, the first division of a small but well- composed force set out from Umballa on the road to Delhi. General Anson left on the 25th, and arrived on the 26th at Kurnaul, to be neai*er the scene of active opera- tions ; but there death carried him off. He died of cholera on the next day, the 27th of May. "With a governor-general a thousand miles away, the chief officers at and near Kurnaul settled among themselves as best they could, according to the rules of the service, the distribution of duties, until official appointments could be made from Calcutta. Major-general Sir Henry Barnard became temporary commander, and Major-general Reid second under him. When the governor- general received this news, he sent for Sir Patrick Grant, a former experienced adjutant-general of the Bengal army, from Madras, to assume the office of commander-in-chief ; but the officers at that time westward of Delhi Barnard, Reid, Wilson, and others had still the responsibility of battling with the rebels. Sir Henry Barnard, as temporary chief, took charge of the expedition to Delhi with what results will be shewn in the proper place. The regions lying west, northwest, and south- west of Delhi have this peculiarity, that they are of easier access from Bombay or from Kurachee than from Calcutta. Out of this rose an important circumstance in connection with the Revolt namely, the practicability of the employment of the Bombay native army to confront the mutinous SPREAD OF DISAFFECTION IN MAY. 119 regiments belonging to that of Bengal. It is difficult to overrate the value of the difference between the two armies. Had they been formed of like materials, organised on a like system, and officered in a like ratio, the probability is that the mutiny would have been greatly incr :ent the same motives, be they reasonable or unreasonable, being alike applicable to buth armies. Of the degree tu which the Bombay tents shewed fidelity, while those of Bengal unfurled the banner of rebellion, there will be frequent occasions to speak in future pages. The subject is only mentioned here to explain why the western parts of India are not treated in the present chapter. There were, it is true, dis- turbances at Neemuch aud Nuseerabad, and at various places in llajpootana, the Punjaub, and Sinde ; but these will better be treated in later . in connection rather with Bombay than with Calcutta as head-quarters. Enough has been said to shew over how wide an area the taint of disaffection spread during the month of May to break out into something much more terrible in the next following month. Soit s. question presents fully i purposes, and tin robability is in f:ivour of the it as to be ai m dak hunts, ekal u painfully slow was t! a less fuvnui rthwest Pi vantages wouM til in the >n was degree ; would have sufficed to send truops dpoor to " in the as where their services Although the RaneogBBflB branch of the I only portion open in the north of India, ik. This . r es, from Allahabad; it will then pea I follow the J strike re to be continued at Puniaub to Peshawar. y ] iie- various railways for which engb i a minimum n guaranteed by the j is of about of railway in Ind e extent of t cent. The ated to be worth of construction are of solidity, not cheapness ; for it is expected they will all be remunerative. Arrangements are Ear a double line of rail.'; a single line i .id down until the trailie is developed. The gauge is nine inches wider than the 'narrow gauge' of under die, about one-fourth of the Engfial dble to be amount of m the i.iii.iit nam at which the ably be finished. ipanies the Bast Indian, the atral India, ad the Madras we shall simply arras ys into two nth, and t! few of i u to a tabulated form. NOKTUERN INDIA. Railways. Lengths. . 191 . 440 . 126 . 260 { Calcutta to Raneegunge, Bardwu to Bajmabal, Kajm.ihal to Allahabad, Allahabad to Cawnpore, Cawnpore to Delhi, . . Mirzapore to Jubbulpoor, .300 Jubbulpoor to llhosawal, . .'(14 wal to Oomrawutt' Oomrs -.-poor, . 138 \al to Callian, . . 241 i" Bombay, . . . 33 Surat to Ahmedabad, . . 160 Kurachee to liydrabad, . 120 ils Time of Opening. Opened in IMS. December 185!(. December 1857. October 1858 (excepting bridge at Agra over the Jumna). No date specified. End of 11161. December 18G0. Hard) 1861. October 1 !!;!>. Opened in 1854. 1858 and 1 ;;:,!>. October 1859. SOUTHERN INDIA. Bombay to Poonah, . . 124 l'oonah to Sbolaporc, . . 161 Sholapore to Kistnah, . . 101 Ki.itnah to Madras, . . . 310 Madras to Arrot, . . . Arcot to Variembaddy, . Madras to Beypore, . . . 430 February 1858. End of : 1861 and 1862. Opened in 1856. . I0 other events connected with tlie Revolt in India made so dec]) an impianon on Um public mind, or produced so utter an astonish- ment and dismay, as those relat- ing to Cawnporc the treachery of an arch-villain, ami the suffer- that resulted therefrom. The mystery for so many weeks veiled the fate of the victims heightened the painful interest; for none in England knew how the troubles in May gave rise to the miseries in Jane, and these to the horrors of July, until nearly all were dead who could faithfully have recorded the progress of events. Now that the main incidents are known, they come upon the reader almost with the force of a tragic drama; associating themselves in succes- sion with five scenes the iutrenchment, the bottl, the ghat, the house of slaughter, the well the intensity deepening as the plot advances towards its end. Bo unutterably revolting were the indignities to which some of the unfortunates were subjected, at Cawnporc as at other places, that no one dared to Bpeak or write fully of them; even men, hardy and world-worn men, almost shrank from whis- pering .the details to each other. Vague generali- ties of language were employed, in sheer dismay be use of precise words should lift too high the veil that hid the hideous scene. So much was this fell, so much were the facts understated, that persons of unblemished moral character almost regretted the reticence of the press. A nobleman held in very high estimation, the Karl of Shaftes- bury, on one occasion expressed at a public meeting a wish that the daily journals would proceed one stage further in making the mournful tale known : on the ground that Englishmen, by learning more of the real truth, would appreciate more fully the sufferings of our countrymen and countrywomen, the heroism and Christian patience with which those sufferings were borne, and the necessity for (not vengeance, but) retributive justice on those who had ordered and executed the devilish 122 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. barbarities. It is ilot a trifling compliment to the delicacy of the English press, that a Christian nobleman should thus have suggested less scruple, less reserve, in the treatment of a most trying subject. In every narrative of these mournful events, the reader feels, and must continue to feel, that the worst is left unsaid. The first matters to treat are the locality in which, and the native chieftain by whom, these wrongs were inflicted. Cawnpore, a terrible word to English readers, is the name both of a district and of its chief town. The district, a part of the Doab or delta between the Ganges and the Jumna, is included within the government of the North- western Provinces. The city of Cawnpore is on the right bank of the Ganges, about two hundred and seventy miles below Delhi ; and the river flows down nearly a thousand miles below this point to Calcutta ; the land -distance, however, from Cawnpore to Calcutta is between six and seven hundred miles. The Ganges here is some- times more than a mile in width at and soon after the rainy season, and is at such time very difficult to be crossed by bodies of troops. Cawn- pore is an important city to the British in India, both commercially and in a military sense. The ghat or landing-place, in peaceful times, is a scene of great liveliness and bustle. When Skinner was there, 'Every description of vessel that can be imagined was collected along the bank. The pinnace, which with its three masts and neat rigging might have passed for a ship ; budgerows, the clumsiest of all clumsy things, with their sterns several times higher than their bows; the bauleahs, ugly enough, but lightly skimming along like gondolas compared with the heavy craft around them ; the drifting haystacks, which the country-boats appear to be when at a distance, with their native crews straining every nerve upon their summits, and cheering themselves with a wild and not unfrequently a sweet song ; panswees shooting swiftly down the stream, with one person only on board, who sits at the head, steering with his right hand, rowing with his foot, and in the left hand holding his pipe. A ferry-boat constantly plying across the stream adds to the variety of the scene, by its motley collection of passengers travellers, merchants, fakeers, camels, bullocks, and horses all crowded together. The vessels fastened to the shore are so closely packed, that they appear to be one mass, and, from their thatched roofs and low entrances, might easily pass for a floating village.' Cawnpore is (or rather was) remarkable in its military arrangements. The cantonment, six miles long by half a mile bi"oad, often contained, before the Revolt, a native population of fifty thousand persons, besides sixty thousand in the city itself, irrespective of military and Europeans. The native infantry of the station encamped here in the cool part of the year, when there were regular streets and squares of canvas stretching over an immense space ; each regiment was pro- vided with its bazaar; in the rear and far beyond the lines, were the bivouacs of every kind of camp-followers, in immense numbers. All these, with many hundred bungalows or lodges of officers and European residents, gave great animation to the cantonment. The bungalows, though tiled or thatched, were here, as in other parts of India, large and commodious; each standing pleasantly in the midst of its compound or enclosure, richly planted with grapes, peaches, mangoes, shaddocks, plantains, melons, oranges, limes, guavas, and other fruits especially acceptable in a hot climate. There was accommodation for seven thousand troops, but the number actually stationed there was gener- ally much less. In accordance with the Com- pany's regulations, the English military officers, whether of European or native regiments, always resided within the cantonment where their services were required ; while the civilians, although residing chiefly in the suburbs, had their offices and places of business within the city itself. There were thus, to some extent, two sets of English residents. The next point to render clear is, the position of the man who so fatally influenced the affairs at Cawnpore in the summer months of 1857. Nena Sahib wasiiis name to an English eye and tongue, and as Nena Sahib he will ever be execrated ; but that was his titular or honorary, not his real name, which appears to have been Dhundu Punt or Dhoondhoopunt. When called the Nena or Nana, the Nena Sahib, the Peishwa, the Maharajah, the Nena Bahadoor, he was recognised by one of his oriental titles of honour. Let him to us be the Nena Sahib. There was a motive, however inadequate in the estimate of persons possessing a spark of human feeling, for the black treachery and monstrous cruelty of this man. He had a quarrel with the East India Company : a quarrel which the Company had nearly forgotten, but not he. The disagreement arose out of the prevalent Eastern custom of adoption, in default of legitimate male heirs. Bithoor, a town six or eight miles from Cawnpore, and within the same district, had long been the residence of the chief of the Mahrattas or Peishwa, with whom, as with other native princes, the Company had had many negotiations and treaties. Bithoor itself, a town of about fourteen thousand inhabit- ants, possesses numerous Hindoo temples, and several ghats or flights of steps giving access to the Ganges, to which the Brahmins and their followers frequently resort for the purpose of ritual ablution. The place is not without fortification, but it does not take rank among the strongholds of India. The last chief, Maharajah Bajee Rao Peishwa, died in 1851 ; and in consequence of that event, a jaghire or estate, near the town, which had been bestowed upon him during pleasure by the Company, lapsed to the government, and was subjected to the general regulations in force in Cawnpore. Being sonless, he had adopted a son, or indeed two sons not merely to inherit the vast TREACHERY AND ATROCITIES AT CAWNPORE. 123 wealth which belonged to him independently of the arrangements with the Company, but also to perform certain filial duties which high-caste Hindoos deem it necessary to their religion that a should perform. This adoption was so far as concerned the Peishwa's personal pro- perty ; but the Company would not admit its validity in relation to a pension of 50,000 per annum which he had been in the habit of receiving. A slight obscurity in the wording of an official document led to some doubt on this matter. On the 1st of June 1818, Sir John Malcolm, on the part of the Company, signed a treaty with Bajee Rao, granting a pension to the rajah and hit f am ily , Tbis has since been inter- :. by the Bithoor intriguers, as a perpetual grant to the heirs : but there is abundant evidence Sir John and the Company meant the pension for Bajee Rao's lift only, to be shared 1 v his family then living, Nil. name' so adopted two children, Suddchoo Rao and Dhundu Punt, the one four years and the other two tears ;md a half old j jfere the suns of two Brahmins, nati. the Decean, who had come to reside at Bithoor about a year before. There is 'no evidence that Bajee Rao ever considered tin f them, entitled to a continuance of the Company's pension ; although Dhundu Punt may !y have thrown out frequent hints, to sound the Company on this subject. It has been thai when the old King o! proclaimed after tl ik, he ! to acknowledge the Xma Sahib, Dhundu lie proper successor of the Peishwa of idition tl receiving his aid and is probably true, but would not . without the incentive of private auin; to account for his subsequent actions, fcjo little aim in England when the Revolt . that doubt prevailed whether he was really the adopted son of Bajee Rao ; some writers hat that honour had been conferred upon another Dhundu Punt, and that the Nena himself was the eldest son of the rajah's subadar, founder Runt. It* hatred ruled his heart during the six ; from 1851 to 1867, he must indeed have been a [inmate hypocrite ; for the English were always courteously received by him at his petty court, and generally came away impressed in his :: impressed, however, at the same time, with a conviction that he entertained a sort of that the Queen of England would graciously ad him in his contest with the Calcutta rnment, the Court of Directors, and the Board of Control, all of whom disputed his adoptive claims. He had a curious taste for mingling the It with the oriental in his palace at Bithoor. An English traveller, who visited him a few years e the Revolt, and was received with an amount of flattery that appeared to have a good deal o I calculation in it, found the rooms set apart for him decked with English furniture arranged in the most incongruous manner a chest of drawers and a toilet-table in the sitting-room ; a piano and a card-table in the bedroom ; tent- tables and camp-stools in the same room with elegant drawing-room tables and chairs ; a costly clock by the side of cheap japan candlesticks ; good prints from Landseer's pictures, in juxtaposi- tion with sixpenny coloured plates of AVellington and Napoleon ; sacred prints, and prints of ballet- girls and Epsom winners all kinds were mingled indiscriminately, as if simply to make a show. The guest was most struck by the oriental com- pliments he received from the Nena, and by the odd attempt to provide English furniture where Bnghah habits and customs were so little known ; yet there were not wanting dark tints to the picture. He heard rumours ' that two women of rank were kept in a den not far from my apartments, and treated like wild beasts ; and that a third, a beautiful young creature, had recently been bricked up in a wall, for no other fault than attempting to escape.' An agent of the Nena, one Azimullah, resided some time in London, about the year 18.0o ; he came to Eng- land to advocate the Nena's claims, and man- aged to ingratiate himself with many persons moving in the upper circles of society, by his manifest abilities, his winning grace, his courtesy to all with whom he came into relation. Yet there were strange lits of moody .silence observable in him ; and when the failure of his mission b M .ident. he was heard to throw out dark ; ious threats, which were disregarded at the time, bttt were brought vividly to recollection afterwards, when the deeds of his master forced themselves into notice. It will presently be seen that Nena Sahib, what- ever were his thoughts at the time, did not depart, when the Revolt commenced, from his usual demeanour towards the English ; he was courteous to them, and was always courteously saluted by them when he rode past. How interesting it is nay, how affecting to trace the mode in which the unfortunate Euro- peans at Cawnpore became gradually shut out from communication with the external world ; neither knowing what was occurring cast and west of them, nor able to communicate news of their own sufferings ! In May, messages and letters passed to and from them ; in June, authentic intelligence was superseded by painful rumours; in July, a deadly silence was followed by a horrible revelation. When the Meerut and Delhi outbreaks occurred, the attention of the civil and military authorities was toned to the importance of securing Cawn- pore : because of its native troops, its store of ammunition, its large treasury, its considerable English population, and its position on the Ganges and the great road. Sir Henry Lawrence, knowing that Sir Hugh Wheeler's force in European troops him fifty English infantry in the 124 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. third week in May, #nd also sent the aid (aid as it was hoped to be) of two squadrons of Oude irregular horse. But Lucknow could ill spare these armed men, and hence the telegrams already briefly adverted to. First, Lawrence to Canning : ' Cawn- pore to be reinforced with all speed. When may her Majesty's 84th be expected?' Then Canning to Lawrence : ' It is impossible to place a wing of Europeans at Cawnpore in less time than twenty- five days.' Then Wheeler to Canning : ' All is quiet here, but impossible to say how long it will continue so.' Next a telegram from Benares, announcing that every possible exertion would be made to send on troops to Cawnpore as fast as they came from Calcutta. Then, on the 25th, Wheeler telegraphed to Canning : ' Passed anxious night and day, in consequence of a report on very good authority that there would be an outbreak during one or the other. All possible preparations to meet it, but I rejoice to say that none occurred.' On this, Lawrence sent his earnest message recommending the establishment of ekah daks Nena Sahib. From a picture painted at Bithoor in 1850, by Mr Bccchy, portrait-painter to King of Oude. anything at any expense to carry troops on to Cawnpore. Towards the close of the month, about seventy men of the Queen's 84th reached the city ; and Sir Hugh telegraphed ' All quiet : ' at the same time making very evident the existence of anxiety on his mind concerning his prospects. The governor-general telegraphed to him : ' Your anxious position is well understood ; and no means have been neglected to give you aid.' On another day Sir Hugh telegraphed : ' All quiet still, but I feel by no means certain it will continue so. The civil and military are depending entirely upon me for advice and assistance.' Ho announced to Lawrence that he had been obliged to send irregular cavalry to clear the roads of insurgent ruffians ; and added, ' Europeans arc arriving but very slowly here.' The dilemma and doubt were painful to all ; for Viscount Canning had few troops to send up from Calcutta, and no facilities for sending them rapidly; while, on the other hand, he did not know that death had cut off General Anson ere an advance could be made to Delhi and Cawnpore from the northwest. Hence such telegrams as the following from Canning to Anson : ' Cawnpore and Lucknow arc severely pressed, and the # country between Delhi and TREACHERY AND ATROCITIES AT CAWNPORE. 125 Cawnpore is passing into the hands of the rebels. It is of the utmost importance to prevent this, and to relieve Cawnpore ; but nothing but rapid action will do this. ... It is impossible to overrate the importance of shewing European troops between Delhi and Cawnpore. 1 Sir Hugh Wheeler's anxie- ties did not relate wholly to Cawnpore ; he knew that a wide region depended on that city for its continuance in loyalty. I>y the 2d of Juno only ninety European troops had reached him. On the next day he telegraphed that the population was much excited, and that unfavourable report coming in from the districts between Cawnpore and Lnoknow. To make matters worse, Lawrence was becoming weak at the last-named place, and Wheeler Bent him fifty-two of his highly cherished a number to how pre- liom its scarcity, this military element was ded by the two commanders. 'This leaves me weak,' said Wheeler; and well might he say so. Then occurred the catting of the telegraph on all sides of Cawnpore, and the stoppage of the dak runners. After this, all was doubt and iv, for if was only by Stealthy means that and nir agl COUkl leave or enter tliat city. By degrees there reached the Company's offio I.ucknow, Allahabad, and Benares, indirect news telling of disaster of a rebellious rising of the troops at Cawnpore ; of the mutineers being aided and abetted bj a Sahib of Bithoor ; of all the Europeans baking refuge in an in- trenched barradi ; of the forlorn band being cil in that spot ; of terrible suf- ; being endured; and of the soldiers and civilians, the women and children, being bn to death by numerous privations. The c >in- ncr at Benares, when these rumoc ter reached him, telegraphed to Calcutta: '.May God Almighty defend Cawnpore; for no help can we afford.' And so it was throughout June Benares, Allahabad, Lucknow, Agra, all equally unable to send aid to the be] >n. Gradually the I became fewer, and the rumours darker ; escaped fugitives and native messengers came in stealthily to one or other of the neighbouring towns ; and men talked of a massacre at Cawnpore of English fugitives from Futtehgur, of another massacre of English in bound for Calcutta, of women and children placed in confinement, aud of Xcna Sahib's cruelty. b was the condition of Cawnpore I from without, by those who could necessarily know but little of the truth. Let us now enter and trace the course of events as experienced by the sufferers themsel There is abundant evidence that, previous to the actual outbreak at Cawnpore, the native troops consisting of the 1st, 53d, and 66th B. N. I., and the 2d native cavalry were much agitated by the rumours of matin; re; and that the European inhabitants felt sensibly the paucity of ildiers at that place. A lady, the wife of the magistrate and collector of Cawnpore one of those who, with all her family, were barbarously slaughtered in cold blood a few weeks afterwards writing to her friends on the 15th of May, said j ' Cawnpore is quiet, and the regiments here are stanch ; but there is no saying that they would remain long so if they came in contact with some of their mutinous brethren. We have only about a hundred European soldiers here altogether, and six guns Down-country, from Mccrut to Dinapore, there is but one regiment of Europeans, of which we have a hundred.' Nevertheless, although the sepoys at Cawnpore were restless, an impression prevailed that, even if they joined in the mutiny, and inarched off to Delhi, they would not inflict any injury on tho military commander, Sir Hugh Wheeler, or tho other English officers, who were much respected by them, The general thought it right to obtain correct though secret information from spies who mixed among the men in (he cantonment j and these spies reported that the three infantry regiments, except a few refractory sepoys, appeared well disposed towards overnment; whereas the 2d native cavalry, discontented and surly, had sent their families to their homes, to he out of danger, and were in the habit of holding nightly meetings or pttnchqycta (a kind of jury of live persons, one of the Hindoo .ions of very ancient formation), in their to concert measure, of insubordination. i . adeavoured to bring over tho foot eheme for rising in revolt, seizing OVernment treasure, marching off to Delhi, and presenting that treasure to the newly restored Mogul as a token of their allegiance. The Euro- pean inhabitants were numerous; for they com- i not only the officers and civilians with their families, but European merchants, missionaries, is, pensioners, <.c., and also many non- v, ho had either come to Cawnpore from parts of the country supposed to be less protected, or had been stopped there on their way up-country by the mutineers in the Doab. These, relying on the report concerning the apparently favourable feeling among the native infantry, made no immediate attempt to quit the place. Sir Hugh "Wheeler, however, did not deem it consistent with his duty to remain unprepared. Cawnpore is built on a dead level, without stronghold or place of refuge, .and could not long be held against a rebel besieging force; the cantonment was at a con- siderable distance; and the general resolved on making some sort of defensive arrangement irre- spective both of the city and the cantonment. He secured sufficient boats to convey the whole of the Europeans down the Ganges if danger should appear ; and he formed a plan for protection at night, in an intrenched position. This stronghold, if so it may be called, afterwards rendered memor- able as 'the Intrcnchmcnt,' was a square plot of ground on the grand military parade, measuring about two hundred yards in each direction ; within it were two barrack hospitals, a few other build- ings, and a well ; while the boundary was formed 126 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. by a trench and parapet or breast-work of earth, intended to be .armed and defended in case of attack. The intrenchment was entirely distinct both from the city and from the cantonment, and was further from the Ganges than either of them, about a quarter of a mile out of the Allahabad and Cawnpore high road. On the side of it furthest from the river were several barracks in course of construction. It was not intended that the European civilians should at once enter the intrenchment, but that they should regard that spot as a place of shelter in time of need. Sir Hugh brought into this place a supply of grain, rice, salt, sugar, tea, coffee, rum, beer, &c, calculated at thirty days' con- sumption for one thousand persons. He gave orders to the assistant-commissary to blow up the magazine if a mutiny should take place ; while the collector was instructed to convey all the Company's cash, estimated at ten or twelve lacs of rupees, from the treasury in the city to the canton- ment an instruction which, as we shall see, he was able only to obey in part. As another precaution, the executive commissariat and pay-officei*s, with all their records and chests, were removed into bungalows adjacent to the intrenchment. There is reason to believe that the ringleaders among the native troops sought to terrify the rest into mutiny by representing that the digging, which had been seen actively in progress at the intrench- ment, was the beginning of the construction of a series of mines, intended to blow them all up. One of the most painful considerations associated with these events in May was, that the heartless man who afterwards wrought such misery was trustingly relied upon as a friend. The magistrate's wife, in a series of letters before adverted to, wrote under date May 16th : ' Should the native troops here mutiny, we should either go into canton- ments, or to a place called Bithoor, where the Peishwa's successor resides. He is a great friend of C 's [the magistrate's], and is a man of enormous wealth and influence ; and he has assured C that we should all be quite safe there. I myself would much prefer going to the cantonment, to be with the other ladies ; but C thinks it would be better for me and our precious children to be at Bithoor.' Again, on the 18th : ' If there should be an outbreak here, dearest C has made all the necessary arrange- ments for me and the children to go to Bithoor. He will go there himself, and, with the aid of the rajah, to whose house Ave are going, he will collect and head a force of fifteen hundred fighting-men, and bring them into Cawnpore to take the insur- gents by surprise. This is a plan of their own, and is quite a secret ; for the object of it is to come on the mutineers unawares.' Here, then, in the month of May, was Nena Sahib plotting with the English against the mutineers. It was on the 20th that Sir Hugh, rendered uneasy by the symptoms around, sent to Lucknow for three hundred Euro- pean soldiers ; but as Sir Henry Lawrence could hardly spare one-sixth of that number, arrange- ments were made for accommodating as many English families as possible in the cantonment, and for fitting up the intrenchment as a place of refuge. On the 21st, the magistrate, with Wheeler's consent, wrote to the Nena, begging him to send the aid of a few of his Mahratta troops. The native soldiers being hutted in the cantonment, and the few English soldiers barracked in the intrenchment, it was speedily determined that while the English officers should sleep at the cantonment, to avoid shewing distrust of the native troops their wives and families, and most of the civilians, should remain at night in the intrenchment, under protection of English soldiers. On the first night of this arrangement, 'there were an immense number of ladies and gentlemen assembled in the intrenchment ; and oh ! what an anxious night it was ! The children added much to our distress and anxiety,' said the lady whose letters were lately quoted ; ' it was some hours before I could get them to sleep. I did not lie down the whole night. Extraordinary it was, and most providential too, that we had a thunder- storm that night, with a good deal of rain, which cooled the air a little ; had it not been for this, we should have suffered much more.' An English officer, in relation to this same night, said : ' Nearly all the ladies in the station were roused out of their houses, and hurried off to the barracks. The scene in the morning you can imagine. They were all huddled together in a small building, just as they had left their houses. On each side were the guns drawn up ; the men had been kept standing by them all night through the rain, expecting an instant attack. There are few people now in the station but believe this attack had been intended, and had merely been delayed on finding us so well prepared.' On the last day of the month a day that seems to have ended all communication from this hapless lady to her friends in England she wrote : ' We are now almost in a state of siege. We sleep every night in a tent pitched by the barracks, with guns behind and before. We are intrenched, and are busy getting in a month's provisions in case of scarcity. For the first four or five nights, we scarcely closed our eyes Last night, the sepoys of the 1st regiment threatened to mutiny, and poor Mrs Ewart was in dreadful distress when Colonel Ewart went to sleep in the lines, according to orders ; and he himself fully expected to be killed before morning ; but, thank God, all passed off quietly. The general remains in the barracks day and night, to be at hand if anything should happen. We still pass the day at the Ewarts' house ; but at night every one returns to the barracks, which is a wretched place Poor Mrs has quite lost her reason from terror and excitement. Oh ! it is a hard trial to bear, and almost too much ; but the sight of the children gives us strength and courage.' Colonel Ewart, mentioned in the above TREACHERY AND ATROCITIES AT CAWNPORE. 127 . and Major Hillersdon, were the com- mandants of the 1st and 53d native regiments, ctively; they lived in pleasant bungalows out- awnpore; but at this perilous time they slept near their men in the cantonment, while their families took refuge within the intrenchment. Ewart destined, like the magistrate's wife, to be in a few weeks numbered among the out- and slaughtered wrote like her of the ries of their positiou, even at that early period of their privation. Speaking of the interior of the intrenchment, she said : ' We have a tent, which is, of course, more private and c<>mibrtal>le for the night; and at there is no occasion to spend days M well as nights there, though many 10. This is fortunate, since the weather .r fully hot. int that we may not bo expo.- ai a confinement within that intrenchment must entail ; even should we it, I know not how our poor little lould go through the trial.' The gi e toward! the 1 than in the following words : ' Wc are living face to faco with great and awful realities life and property most : ithin our camp, treachery and di rywhere. We can scarcely believe in the change v. so suddenly < pose and enjoyment of life. We Ith dangers all annul Major Hillersdon joins us daily at otir four o'clock dinner, till half i i. when we holy nurht-qr. hind guns and intrenchments. My husband Detail to his couch in the muUi of ! ; and you can fancy the have to pass. real trials, but we i much actual ph offering yet.' In another she forth* d the intrenchment and icks as they were at night: 'We returned '; it-quarters. Oh, such a men and children, beds and chairs, all mingled together inside and outside me talking or even laughing, some eflant, others despairing. Such nl women ; and the mil 'I ifl caused not it by the treachery of these we had ad pampered, honoured and trusted, [i many 1 Ewart, in probably the last ived from him by his friends in England, on the 31 pcatnry, containing some ten or twelve lacs of rupees, is situated five miles the cantonment. It has hitherto been dient to bring the treasure into the antonment ; but the general has now resolved on og the attempt to-morrow. Please God, he it officer, very i in the midst of l-pounders ; and with the shot from these guns not only were valuable men struck down, but the walls and verandahs of the hospitall pierced, spreading terror among the helpless inmates. There was but one well within the intrenchment ; and so hot re from without, that, to use the words of Mr Shepherd, ' it was as much as giving a life-blood to go and draw a bucket of water ; and while there was any water remaining in the jars, usually kept in the verandah for the soldiers' use, nobody ventured to the well; but 1 day, the demand became so great that a bheestee bag of water was with difficulty got for five rupees, and a bucket for a rupee. Most of the servants - nid it therefore became a matter of I for every person to fetch his own water, which was usually done during the night, when the enemy could not well direct their What was the degree of thirst borne under iices, none but the forlorn garrison could ever know. As there WSJ no place under 'which to shelter live cattle, some of the animals were let loose, and others slaughtered ; entailing a -ary exhaustion of meat-rations after three or four days. The commissariat servants, however, now and then managed to get hold of a stray bullock or cow near the intrenchment at night, which served for a change. Not only was it difficult to obtain suitable food to eat, but the native servants took every opportunity to escape, and the cooking was in eonteqiienoe conducted under very sorry conditio The tale of accumulated suffering need not, and indeed cannot, be followed day by day : several days must be grouped together, and the general character of the incidents noted so far as authentic recitals furnish the materials. Meat, as has just been intimated, soon became scarce ; hogsheads of rum and malt liquor were frequently burst by cannon-balls, but the supply still remained considerable; chupatties and rice were the chief articles of food for all. The English found their troubles increase in every way : the rebels at first fired only cannon on them ; but by degrees, after burning the English church and all other build- ings around and near the intrenchment, the sepoys masked themselves behind the ruined walls, and kept up an almost incessant fire of musketry, shooting down many who might have escaped the cannon-balls. There were seven unfinished barracks outside the intrenchment, three of them at about a furlong distance. These were scenes of many an exciting encounter. Captain Moore of the 32d foot, a gallant and intrepid officer, often encountered the rebels near those places. He would send some of his men, with field-telescopes, to watch the position of the enemy's guns, from the roof of one of the barracks, as a guidance for the besieged ; and as soon as these men were attacked, a handful of gallant com- panions would rush out of the intrenchment, and drive off the assailants with a fire of musketry. The enemy having no cannon on this side, a sort of drawn battle anmed : the besiegers holding three or four of the barracks, and tin maintain- ing a hold of the three nearest to the intrenchment. After a while, the enemy brought one gun round to this quarter; but twenty English made a sortie at midnight on the 11th, spiked the gun, and returned safely. Whenever fighting on anything like terms of equality took place, the European troops proved themselves a match for many times theb number of natives ; but any daring achieve- ments for effectual liberation were rendered nuga- tory by the presence of so many helpless women and children, whose safety was the first thought in the minds of the men, whether civilians or military. Numbers of the poor creatures died within the first week, from illness, heat, fright, want of room, want of proper food and care. In the obituary of many an English newspaper, when news of the terrible calamity had crossed the ocean, might be read that such a one, probably an officer's wife, had 'died in the intrenchment at Cawnpore ;' what that intrenchment meant, few readers knew, and fewer knew what sufferings had preceded the death. The dead bodies were thrown into a well outside the intrenchment, lest they should engender disease by any mode of burial within the crowded and stifling enclosure ; and even this sad office could only be rendered under a shower of shot and shell. ' The distress was so great,' says Mr Shepherd, 'that none could offer a word of consolation to his friend, or attempt to administer to the wants of each other. I have seen the dead bodies of officers, and tenderly brought-up young ladies of rank (colonels' and 132 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. captains' daughters), put outside the verandah amongst the rest, to await the time when the fatigue-party usually went round to carry the dead to the well ; for there was scarcely room to shelter the living.' During all these days, Cawnpore itself, and the country between it and the intrenchment, became prey to a marauding host of sepoys, liberated prisoners, and ruffians of every kind. The native before adverted to, one Nujeer Jewarree, referring to this period, said : ' In whatever shop the sepoys entered to ask for sugar or rice, they plundered everything belonging to the citizen that they could find ; so much so, that plunder and oppression were the order of the day. Every violent man did what came into his mind ; and the troopers got possession of a note, the value of which amounted to twenty -five thousand rupees, belonging to Eman-u-Dowlah and Bakir Ali. One troop, or thereabouts, left the cantonment and proceeded to the buildings in which the civil and revenue and judicial courts were held, and commenced firing them. In the city and gardens there was so much villainy committed that travelling became danger- ous, and to kill a man Avas quite easy. They (the marauders) committed deeds of oppression and plundered each other ; some forcibly cut the grain out of the fields, and others were occupied in picking up plundered property. He then spoke of the houses and offices of certain English merchants and traders Greenway, Crump, Mackintosh, Reid, Marshall, Kirk, &c. and of the 'lacs' of treasure that were plundered from each ; too vaguely estimated to be relied on in detail, but evidently denoting a scene of unscrupulous pillage. Another native, Nerput, presently to be noticed more parti- cularly, said : ' Zemindars of the neighbourhood are fighting among themselves in payment of old quarrels ; sepoys, making for their homes with plundered treasure, have been deprived of their plunder, and, if any opposition is made, imme- diately murdered. Such few Europeans as had remained beyond the intrenchment, were caught and put to death.' The native authority just referred to states (although the statement is not confirmed by Mr Shepherd), that on the 9th of June Sir Hugh Wheeler sent a message to Nena Sahib, demand- ing why he had thus turned against the English, who had hitherto been treated by him in a friendly spirit ; and why he was causing the death of inno- cent women and children to which the Nena gave no other reply than from the cannon's mouth. One day was so much like another, after the actual commencement of the siege, that the various narrators make little attempt to record the parti- cular events of each. Every day brought its miseries, until the cup nearly overflowed. The food was lessening ; the Avater was difficult to obtain ; strength was sinking ; lives were being rapidly lost ; the miscreant rebels were accumulat- ing in greater and greater number outside the intrenchment; the tAvo buildings Avere becoming every day more and more riddled with shot ; the wounded had their wretchedness increased by the absence of almost everything needful to the com- fort of the sick ; the hearts of the men were wrung Avith anguish at seeing the sufferings borne by the women ; and the Avomen found their reso- lution and patience terribly shaken when they saAv their innocent little ones dying from disease and want. A scene was presented on the 13th that filled every one with horror. The officers and their families had hitherto lived chiefly in tents, within the intrenchment; but the rebels now began to fire red-hot shot, which not only necessitated the removal of the tents, but ignited the thatch-roof of one of the two hospitals. This building contained the Avives and children of the common soldiers, and the sick and wounded. The flames spread so rapidly, and the dire confusion among the wretched creatures was such, that forty of the helpless invalids were burned to death before aid could reach them. The rebels appeared to have calcu- lated on all the men within the intrenchment rushing to save the victims from the flames, leaving the besiegers to enter Avith musket and sword ; and so threatening Avas the attack, so close the approach of the enemy, that the Europeans Avere forced to remain watchful at their frail earthen defence-Avork, despite their wish to rescue the shrieking sufferers in the hospital. Nearly all the medicines and the surgical instruments Avere at the same time destroyed by the fire, affording a hopeless prospect to those who might after- wards fall ill or be wounded. The rebels by this time amounted to four thousand in number, and their attacks increased in frequency and close- ness ; but the besieged had not yielded an inch ; every man Avithin the intrenchment, a few only excepted, Avas intrusted with five or six muskets, all of which were kept ready loaded, to pour a fire into any insurgents who advanced within musket-shot. Bayonets and SAvords Avere also ready at hand, for those ayIio could use them. The condition of every one Avas rendered more deplorable than before by this day's calamity; the fire had wrought such mischief that many of the men, Avho had until then occasionally sheltered themselves under a roof for a few hours at a time, were now forced to remain permanently in the open air, exposed to a fierce Indian sun at a date only one week before the summer solstice. That many were struck down by coup de soleil at such a time may well be conceived. The poor ladies, too, and the Avives of the soldiers, Avere rendered more desolate and comfortless than ever, by the destruction of much of their clothing during the fire, as Avell as of many little domestic comforts Avhich they had contrived to bring Avith them in their hurried flight from their homes in the city or the cantonment. "What transpired outside the intrenchment, none of the captives kneAv ; and even at later times it Avas difficult to ascertain the real truth. The TREACHERY AND ATROCITIES AT CAWNPORE. 133 native chronicler already referred to speaks of many deeds of cruelty, but without affording means of verification. On one day, he says, a family was seen approaching from the west in a carriage ; the husband was at once killed ; the others, ' one lady and one grown-up young lady and three children,' were brought before the Nena, who ordered them to be instantly put to death. * The lady begged the Xena to spare her life ; but tin's disgraceful man would not in any way hearken to her, and took them all into the plaiu. At that time the sun was very hot, and the lady said: "The sun is yery hot, take me into the shade;" but no one listened. On four sides the children were catching hold of their mother's gown and saying : " Mamma, come to the bungalow and give me some bread and water." At length, having been tied hand to hand, and made to stand up on the plain, they were shot down by pistol-bullets.' This story, touching amid all its (piaintn. recital, was probably tpiite true in its main features. Another lady, whom he calls the wife of Mukan Sahib, merchant, and who had been hiding for four or five days in the garden of her bungalow, 'came out one evening, and was dieeoTered She had through fear changed her appearance In- putting on an Hindustani bodice, and folding a towel around her head. She was taken before the Nena, who ordered her to be killed. The writer of this journal having gone in person, saw the head of that lady cut off, and presented as a nazir (gift of royalty).' There can be BO QW that the vicinity of Cawnpore was at that time in a frightful state. Not only were mutinous sepoys and sowars engaged in hostilities against the ' PeringheeB, 1 whom they had - !. and whose 'salt' they had eaten; but many of the ambitions petty rajahs and chieftains took advant- age of the anarchy to become leaders on their own special account ; plunderers and ivl prisoners were displaying all their ferocious reck- eoi; while timid, sneaking villagers, too cowardly to be openly a were in many instances quite willing to look complacently at of savage brutality, if those deeds might hot, or plunder, as their share. Consequently, when any English refugees from other town that way, their chance of safety was small indeed. Before tracing the course of events in the intrenchment during the third week in June, we must advert to another calamity. The griefs and sufferings endured by the English soldiers and residents at Cawnpore did not fill up the measure of Nena Sahib's iniquity. Another stain rests on his name in connection with the fate of an unfor- tunate body of fugitives from Futteghur. It is an episode in the great Cawnpore tragedy ; and must be narrated in this place, in connection with the events of the month. Futteghur, as will be seen by reference to a map, is situated higher up the Ganges than Cawn- r Furruckabad. Practically, it is not so much a distinct town, as the military station or cantonment for the place last named. Furruckabad itself is a city of sixty thousand inhabitants; handsome, cleaner, and more healthy than most Indian cities, carrying on a considerable trading and banking business, and standing in the centre of a fertile and cultivated region. It has no other fortifications than a sort of mud-fort connected with the native nawab's residence. When this nawab became, like many others, a stipendiary of the modern rulers of India, the British built a military cantonment at Futteghur, about three miles distant, on the right bank of the river. To- wards the close of May, Futteghur contained the 10th regiment Bengal native infantry, together with a few other native troops. Among the chief Fnlish officers stationed there, were General Goldie, Colonels Smith and Tucker; Majors Robert- son, Phillot, and Munro ; Captains Phillimore and Vibert; Lieutenants Simpson, Swettenham, and Fitzgerald ; and Ensigns Henderson and Eckford. The troops displayed much insubordination as the month closed ; and on the 3d of June the symptoms were so threatening, that it was deemed prudent to arrange for sending off the women and children for safety to Cawnpore in ignorance that the Europeans in that city were in a still more perilous Boats had already been procured, and held in readiness for any such exigency. On the next day the 10th infantry exhibited such ominous signs of mutiny, that a large party of the English at once took to their boats. After a short voj finding the natives on the banks of the Ga likely to be troublesome, the fugitives resolved on separating themselves into two parties ; one, I by Mr l'robyn, the Company's collector, and consisting of about forty persons, sought with a friendly zemindar named llcrden Buksh, living about twelve miles from Futteghur, on the Oude side of the river ; while the other party proceeded on the voyage down the Ganges to Cawnpore. This last-named party amounted to more than a hundred and twenty persons, nearly all non-combatants ; missionaries, mer- chants, indigo planters, estate stewards, agents, collectors, clerks, shopkeepers, schoolmasters, post and dak agents such were the male members of this hapless band of fugitives ; most of them had wives ; and the children far exceeded the adults in number. It is pitiable, knowing as we now know the fate that was in store for them, to read such entries as the following, in a list of the occupants of the boats ' Mr and Mrs Klliott and five children ;' 'Mr and Mrs Macklin and eight children;' 'Mr and Mrs Palmer and nine children.' ns survived from Futteghur, that it is not certain at what places and on what days they separated into parties ; nor how many lives were lost on the way ; but there is evidence that while some pursued their way down the Ganges without much interruption until they reached Bithoor, others went back to Futteghur. This 134 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. retrograde movement was due to two causes ; for while, on the one hand, the officers trusted to a report that the sepoys had returned to a sense of their duty ; Herden Buksh, on the other, was threatened by the Oude mutineers if he harboured any of the English. We will follow the fortunes of this second party." From about the 12th to the 18th of June there was a lull in the station ; but on the last-named day the 10th infantry broke out in earnest, and being joined by the mutinous 41st from the other side of the Ganges, seized the treasure and threatened the officers. There were about a hundred Europeans now in the place ; and as the river was at the time too low to render a boat-voyage to Cawnpore safe, it was resolved to defend a post or fort at Futteghur, and there remain till succour arrived. Out of the hundred there were scarcely more than thirty fighting-men, so numerous were the women and children ; nevertheless, Colonel Smith, of the 10th, organised the whole, and prepared for the worst. He had a fair store both of ammunition and of food within the fort. Until the 4th of July they maintained a manly struggle against the mutineers, hold- ing their fort until they could hold it no longer. Colonel Tucker and one of the civil officers were shot in the head while acting as artillery- men ; General Goldie was slightly wounded, as was likewise one of his daughters ; and many other casualties occurred. The besieged had great difficulty in making a covered-way to protect their servants, to enable them to pass to and fro with the meals for the ladies and children, who were collected in a room or godown overlooked by a two-storied house held by the insurgents. Then commenced a voyage full of miseries, in boats that contained all the Europeans still remaining at that spot. First the rebels fired on the boats as they rowed along ; then one of the boats ran aground ; then a boatful of rebels approached, and the ladies in the stranded boat jumped overboard to avoid capture. Death by bullets, death by drowning, took place every hour ; and the fugi- tives were thrown into such dire confusion that none could help the rest. Some crept on shore, and wandered about the fields to escape detection ; others found shelter under friendly roofs ; one boat-load succeeded in prosecuting their voyage down to Cawnpore, or rather Bithoor. There were thus two sets of Futteghur fugitives; one that reached the clutches of the Nena towards the middle of June ; the other, much smaller, that was spared that fate until the middle of July. So complete was the destruction of both, however ; so sweeping the death-stroke hurled against them by Nena Sahib, that the details of their fate have been but imperfectly recorded. Towards the close of June, Mr Court and Colonel Neill, at Allahabad, received information touching the events at Cawnpore from a native named Nerput, an opium gomashta or agent at the last-named city ; he gave them or sent them a narrative written in Persian, portions of which were afterwards translated and published among the official papers. Nerput was one of the few who wrote concerning the arrival of the first party of Futteghur fugitives at Cawn- pore. Under the date of June the 12th he said : ' Report that Europeans were coming in boats to relieve Cawnpore ; and two companies sent west- ward to make inquiries. They found that a hun- dred and twenty-six men, women, and children, were in boats, sick.' Another narrative of the Futteghur calamity simply states, that when the unhappy fugitives arrived at the part of the Ganges opposite Bithoor, Nena Sahib ' stopped their boats, brought the fugitives on shore, and shot every one. He then tied their bodies together, and threw them into the river.' A native resident at Cawnpore, who was examined a few weeks after- wards by Colonel Neill concerning his knowledge of the atrocities committed by the rajah, and of the sufferings borne by the English, gave an account of the Futteghur catastrophe corresponding nearly with those derived from other quarters. He states that on the 12th of June, just as the customary daily cannonading of the intrenchment was about to recommence, a report came in that Europeans were approaching from the west. Immediately a troop of cavalry and two companies of infantry were sent to reconnoitre (probably to the vicinity of Bithoor). There were found three boats, containing about a hundred and thirty men, women, and children. ' The troopers seized them all and took them to the Nena, who ordered that they should all be killed ; and sundry Ram- poorie troopers of the Mussulmans of the 2d Cavalry, whom the Nena kept with him for the express purpose, killed them all. Among them was a young lady, the daughter of some general. She addressed herself much to the Nena, and said : " No king ever committed such oppression as you have, and in no religion is there any order to kill women and children. I do not know what has happened to you. Be well assured that by this slaughter the English will not become less; whoever may remain will have an eye upon you." But the Nena paid no attention, and shewed her no mercy; he ordered that she should be killed, and that they should fill her hands with powder and kill her by the explosion.' The fate of the second party of fugitives from Futteghur will be noticed presently. We must return now to the unfortunate occupants of the intrenchment at Cawnpore. When three weeks of the month of June had transpired, the rebels, joined by a number of ruffians who had crossed over the Ganges from Oude, made a more determined effort than ever to capture the intrenchment ; they had made the subadar-major of the 1st N. I. a sort of general over them ; and he swore to vanquish the weak- ened garrison, or die in the attempt. They brought large bales of cotton, which they rolled along the ground, and approached in a crouching position under cover of these bales, firing their muskets at TREACHERY AND ATROCITIES AT CAWNPORE. 121 intervals. About a hundred sepoys thus advanced within a hundred and fifty yards of the intrench- ment, backed up by a strong body, who seemed bent on storming the position. In this, as in every former attempt, they failed ; their leader was struck down, nearly two hundred were killed or wounded by a fire of grape-shot, and the rest driven hack to their former distance. At tit same time, contests were maintained on all sides of the enclosure ; for what with musketeers in the unfinished barracks, guns and mortars in four different directions, and rifle-pits approached under cover of zigzags, the rebels maintained a tremen- dous fire upon the beti^ged. Wheeler's guns, under a gallant young officer, 6t George Ashe, were manned at all hours, lolled and tired with great quickness and precision, and pointed in such directions as might produce most mischief UMOg the enemy. But the contest was unequal in this as in most other particulars ; one gun after another was disabled by the more powerful artil- lery of the insurants until the eight were reduced to six, then to four, three, and at last two. As the forlorn irarrison became weaker and weaker, so did the heroic men redouble their exertions in defence. One day a shot from the enemy blew up an ammunition-wagon within the intreiichment ; and then it became a question of terrible import how to prevent the other wagons from being ignited. Lieutenant Delafosse, a trotted but now disloyal ISd, ran forward, bid himself down under the wagons, picked up and threw aside the burning fragments, and i be flaming portions with handrail of earth all the while subject to a f< cannonading from a battery of six guns, lined purposely by the enemy at that spot ! Two soldiers ran to him, with tv of water; anil all three 1 in rescuing the other arnmunition- qb from peril, and in returning from the rous spot in safety. ipeakable must have been the misery of nine hundred persons or rather, nine hundred wofully diminished by deaths after twentj ing. The hospitals were so thoroughly riddled with shot, and so much injured by the fire, as to afford little or no shelter; and yet the greater portion of the non-combatants remained in them rather than be exposed to the scorching glare of the sun outside. Borne made holes for themselvi a behind the earthen parapet that bounded the intrenchment ; these holes were covered with boxes, cots, ur oath is, that wdioever wo take by the hand, and he relies on us, we never deceive; if v. God will judge and punish us." The general said : ' If you intend to deceive me, kill me at once: I have no arms." The Xena replied : u I will not deceive you ; rely on OS. I will supply you with food, and convey you to Allahabad." On this the general went inside the intrenchment, and con- ! with the soldiers. They said : " Then reliance to be placed on natives ; they will deceive you.'' A few said : " Trust them ; it is better to " On this the general returned, and said: "I agree to your t us away as far as Futtehpoor, thence we can get easily to Allahabad." reply was: "Xo; I will see you all safe to Allahabad." ' That Sir Hugh Wheeler was mortally wounded before his unfortunate companions left the intrenchment under a solemn pledge of safety, seems to be generally admitted, but the date of his death is not clearly known ; nor do the narrators agree as to the names of the persons by whom the convention was signed. But on the main point all evidence coincides that a safe retirement to Allahabad was guaranteed. How villainously that guarantee was disregarded, we shall now It was on the 27th of June that those who remained of the nine hundred took their departure from the intrenchnient where they had borne so many miseries. Collateral facts lead to a con- jecture that the sepoys, belonging to the native regiments that had mutinied, had become wearied witli their three-weeks' detention outside the intrenchment, and wished to start off to a scene of more stirring incidents at Delhi. This would not have suited the Xeiia's views ; he wanted their aid to grasp the remainder of the Company's treasure and ammunition at Cawnpore ; and hence he formed the plan for getting rid of the Europeans and obtaining their wealth without any more fighting. Cannonading ceased on both sides from the evening of the 21th; and from thence to the 27th all was done that could be done to fit out the boat-expedition. But under what miserable circumstances was this done ! The unburied bodies of relations and friends lay at the bottom of a well ; the sick and wounded were more fit to die than to be removed : the women and children had become haggard and weak by almost every kind of suffering; the clothes of all hail become rent and blood-stained by many a terrible exigency ; and misgivings occupied the thoughts of those who remembered that the same Xena Sahib, at whose mercy they were now placed, was the man who had proved a traitor three weeks before. Twenty boats were provided, each with an awning. The English were forced to give up the three or four lacs of rupees which had been brought to the intrenchment. Early on the morning of the 27th, the Nena sent a number of elephants, carts, and doolies, to convey the women, children, sick, and wounded, to the river-side, a distance of about a mile and a half: the hale men proceeding on foot if hale they can be called, who were worn down with hunger, thirst, fatigue, heat, grief for the dear ones who had fallen, anxiety for those who still lived to be succoured ami protected. If Mr Shepherd is right in his statement that the number who took their departure in this mournful procession from the intrenchment was four hundred and fifty, then one half of the ori- ginal number of nine hundred must have fallen victims to three weeks of privation and suffering. who first reached the river took boat, and proceeded down stream ; but the later comers were long detained ; and while they were still embark - r preparing to embark, they were startled by the report of a masked battery of three guns. 138 THE REVOLT IN INDIA .1857. The dreadful truth now became evident ; the execrable rebel-chief, in disregard of all oaths and treaties, had given orders for the slaughter of the hapless Europeans. Some of the boats were set on fire, and volley upon volley of musketry fired at the unfortunates scores of whom were shot dead, others picked off while endeavouring to swim away. A few boats were hastily rowed across the river; but there a body of the 17th N. I., just arrived from Azimghur, intercepted all escape. The ruffians on both banks waded into the water, seized the boats within reacli, and sabred all the men yet remaining alive in them. The women were spared for a worse fate ; though many of them wounded, some with two or three bullets each, these poor creatures, with the children, were taken ashore, and placed in a building called the Subadar Kothee, in Nena Sahib's camp. The fortunes of two separate boat-parties must be traced. Lieutenant Delafosse, whose name has already been mentioned in connection with a gal- lant achievement in the intrenchment, has placed upon record the story of one boat's adventure, shewing how it happened that he was among the very few who escaped the Cawnpore tragedy. After stating that nearly all the boats which attempted to descend the Ganges were either stopped one by one, or the persons in them shot down where they sat, he proceeds thus: 'We had now one-boat, crowded with wounded, and having on board more than she could carry. Two guns followed us the whole of that day, the infantry firing on us the whole of that night. On the second day, 28th June, a gun was seen on the Cawnpore side, which opened on us at Nujjub- gurh, the infantry still following us on both sides. On the morning of the third day, the boat was no longer serviceable ; we were aground on a sand- bank, and had not strength sufficient to move her. Directly any of us got into the water, we were fired upon by thirty or forty men at a time. There was nothing left for us but to charge and drive them away ; and fourteen of us were told off to do what we could. Directly we got on shore the insurgents retired ; but, having followed them up too far, we were cut off from the river, and had to retire ourselves, as we were being surrounded. We could not make for the river ; we had to go down parallel, and came to the river again a mile lower down, where we saw a large force of men right in front waiting for us, and another lot on the opposite bank, should we attempt to cross the river. On the bank of the river, just by the force in front, was a temple. We fired a volley, and made for the temple, in which we took shelter, having one man killed and one wounded. From the door of the temple we fired on every insurgent that happened to shew himself. Finding that they could do nothing against us whilst we remained inside, they heaped wood all l'ound and set it on fire. When we could no longer remain inside on account of the smoke and heat, we threw off what clothes we had, and, each taking a musket, charged through the fire. Seven of us out of the twelve got into the water ; but before we had gone far, two poor fellows were shot. There were only five of us left now; and we had to swim whilst the insurgents followed us along both banks, wading and firing as fast as they could. After we had gone three miles down the stream [probably swim- ming and wading by turns], one of our party, an artilleryman, to rest himself, began swimming on his back, and not knowing in what direction he was swimming, got on shore, and was killed. When we had got down about six miles, firing from both sides [of the river] ceased ; and soon after we were hailed by some natives, on the Oude side, who asked us to come on shore, and said they would take us to their rajah, who was friendly to the English.' This proved to be the case ; for Lieutenant Delafosse, Lieutenant Mowbray Thomson, and one or two companions, remained in security and comparative comfort throughout the month of July, until an opportunity occurred for joining an English force. Although the boat-adventure just narrated was full of painful excitement, ending in the death of nearly all the persons by shooting or drowning yet there is one still to be noticed more sadden- ing in its character, for the sufferers were reserved for a worse death. The name of Sir Hugh Wheeler is connected with this adventure in a way not easily to be accounted for ; Mr Shepherd and Lieutenant Delafosse were not witnesses of it, and no reliable personal narrative is^ obtainable from any one who was actually present when it oc- curred. The probability is, that Sir Hugh, although wounded in the intrenchment, did not die until the boat-expedition had commenced, and that the same boat contained his daughter and his (living or dead) body. At anyrate, this was the last the w r orld could hear of a brave old soldier, who went to India fifty-four years before ; who fought with Lord Lake before Delhi in 1804 ; who took an active part in the Punjaub war ; and who had been military commander of the Cawnpore district from 1850 to 1857. It was also the last to be heard of Brigadier Jack, who commanded the Cawmpore cantonment ; and of many brave Eng- lish officers, from colonels down to ensigns, of both the English and the native regiments. Whether the general was alive or dead, and by whomsoever accompanied, it appears certain that a large party rowed many miles down the Ganges. One account states that Baboo Rambuksh, a zemindar of Dowreea Kheyra near Futtehpoor, stopped the boats, captured the persons who were in them, and sent them in carts as prisoners back to Cawnpore. The names of Mr Reid, Mr Thomas Green way, Mr Kirkpatrick, Mr Mackenzie, Captain Mackenzie, and Dr Harris, were men- tioned in connection with this band of unfortun- ates ; but accuracy in this particular is not to be insured. The narrative given by Nujoor Jewarree, the native afterwards examined by English officers TREACHERY AND ATROCITIES AT CAWNPORE. 139 at Cawnpore, was different in many points, and much inure detailed. He stated that the boat in question, after proceeding some distance, got upon a Band-bank, where there was a severe encounter; the Sepoys not only ran along the shore, but fol- lowed in boats shooting at the victims as soon as they got within musket-range, and receiving many fatal shots in return. A freshet in the river released the boat, and the voyage recommi Meanwhile, the probable escape of this party being reported t<> Vena Bahib, he ordered three com- panies of the 3d Onde infantry to puisne the and effect a complete capture. The boat was soon after taken, and all the occupants as prisoners. ' Then came out of that Hujoor Jcwanve. 'sixty sahil)S (gentlemen), twenty -five memsahibs (ladies , and four children one boy and three hal: | story then proceeded to details which, i. shew that Sir li , ler was in the boat, and still alive; for a contest enanad between Nena and eldJetl whether or not the old il should be put to death: many of the io preserve his life. It will beeome apparent to the reader, from the nature of the above details, that the true story of the boat catastrophe at Cawnpore will probably be fully told. All that we positively know is, that one portion of the wretched victim- their death in the river, by inu>kets, p drowning | anil that two other portions were a captivity WOfM even than that of the intrenchment. proeeedia tin, after the baiqnit- ous t: u of Jam own advancement as an independ- ent chieftain. At sunset un that day he held a review of all the rebel troops aro'mid < awnpore on a plain between the now iunent anil t: i, They appear to have com of live regiments of Bengal native infantry, two of Oude native infantry, one of Bengal cavalry, 0'> a y of held .-undry detachi; nd marauders who became tem- poral} in the hope of sharing pil (Juns were Bred in honour of the Noi: of his brother as governor-general, and of an ambitious Brahmin as command chief, of the newly Mahratta kingdom. lay more troops joined his standard, mutinying at various stations on all sides Twenty thousand armed men are BO in that city by the loth of July ; and as the Nena was very slow in awarding to them any of his ill-gotten wealth, they recom- y plundering the inhabitants, under pretext of searching for concealed Euro- iwnpore waa thus plunged into misery, and speedily had cause to lament the e of its former ma I new . for bestowal upon those who had si him ; and he ordered the neighbouring zemindars to pay to him the revenue that had wont to be paid to the Company. He caused to be proclaimed by beat of tom-tom, throughout Cawnpore and the surrounding district, that he had entirely con- quered the British ; and that, their period of reign in India having been completed, he was prepar- ing to drive them out foot by foot. During this heyday of self-assumed power, he issued many remarkable proclamations, worthy of note as indications of his ambitious views, of his hopes as dependent on the mass of the native people, and of the stigma which he sought to throw on the British government. Some of these proclamations are given in full at the end of the present chapter. There are many facts which lend support to the supposition that this grasp at power and wealth iggested to him by the gradual development of events. He probably entertained crafty designs and suppressed vindictiveiiess from the outset ; but these did nut shew themselves openly until the native troops at the cantonment had rebelled. Seeing a door opened by others, which might possibly lead him to power and to vengeance, he 1 the occasion and entered. Tin' 4 the Cawnpore tragedy now await our attention. What horrors the poor women suffered during their eighteen days of captivity under this detest- able miscreant, none will ever fully know ; partial glimpses only of the truth will ever come to light. ding to the ayah's narrative, already noticed, men and children who were conveyed from the lwjats into captivity were a hundred and i in Dumber, The poor ereatores (the women and elder girls) were sought to be tempted by an ;y of the .Nena to enter quietly into his i : but they one ami all expressed a determi- nation to die where they were, and with each Other, rather than yield to dishonour. They were then destined to be given up to the sensual licence of the sepoys and sowars who had aided in their capture ; but the heroic conduct of Sir Hugh Wheeler's daughter is said to have deterred the ruffians. What this 'Judith of Cawnpore' really did, is differently reported. Her heroism was mani- . in one version of the story, by an undaunted and indignant reproach against the native troops for their treachery to the English who had fed and clothed them, and for their cowardice in molesting defenceless women ; in another version, she shot down five sepoys in sin cession with a revolver, and then threw herself into a well to escape outi in a third, given by Mr Shepherd, this English lady, being taken away by a trooper of the 2d native cavalry to his own hut. rose in the night, secured the trooper's sword, killed him and three other men, and then threw herself into a well ; while a fourth version, on the authority of the ayah, -cuts the general's daughter as cutting off the beads of no less than five men in the trooper's hut. These accounts, incompatible one with another, nevertheless reveal to OS a true soldier's daughter, an English gentlewoman, resolved to proceed 140 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. to any extremity in defence of her own purity. The victims were detained three days at Nena's camp, with only a little parched grain to eat, dirty water to drink, and the hard ground to lie upon, Avithout matting or heds of any kind. The ayah states that the Nena, after the events of the 27th of June, sent to ask the temporarily successful King of Delhi what he should do with the women and children ; to which a reply was received, that they Avere not to be killed. Whether this state- ment be right or wrong, the captives were taken from the camp to Cawnpore, and there incar- cerated in a house near the Assembly Rooms, consisting of outbuildings of the medical depot, shortly before occupied by Sir George Parker. Here they were joined by more than thirty other European women and children, the unhappy relics of the boat-expedition that had been recaptured near Futtehpoor in the vain attempt to escape. Without venturing to decide whether the ayah, Nujoor Jewarree, Mr Shepherd, or Lieutenant Delafosse was most neai'ly correct in regard of numbers ; or whether Sir Hugh Wheeler was at that time alive or dead it appears tolerably cer- tain that many unhappy prisoners were brought back into Cawnpore on the 1st of July. All the men were butchered in cold blood on the evening of the same day. One officer's wife, with her child, clung to her husband with such desperate tenacity that they could not be separated : and all three were killed at once. The other women were spared for the time. This new influx, together with five members of the Greenway family, swelled the roll of prisoners in the small building to a number that has been variously estimated from a hundred and fifty to two hundred, nearly all women and children. Their diet was miserably insufficient ; and their sufferings were such that many died through want of the necessaries of life. ' It is not easy to describe,' says Mr Shepherd, ' but it may be imagined, the misery of so many helpless per- sons : some wounded, others sick, and all labouring under the greatest agony of heart for the loss of those, so dear to them, who had so recently been killed (perhaps before their own eyes) ; cooped up night and day in a small low pukha-roofed house, in the hottest season of the year, without beds or punkahs, for a whole fortnight and con- stantly reviled and insulted by a set of brutish ruffians keeping watch over them.' Added to all these suffering women and chil- dren, were those belonging to the second boat- expedition from Futtcghur. It will be remem- bered, from the details given in a former page, that one party from this fort reached Bithoor about the middle of June, and were at once murdered by orders of Nena Sahib ; while another body, after a manly struggle against the rebels for two or three weeks, did not prosecute their voyage down- wards until July. It will throw light on the perils and terrors of these several boat-adventures to transcribe a few sentences from an official account by Mr G. J. Jones, a civil servant of the Company, who left Futteghur with the rest on the 4th of July, but happily kept clear of the parti- cular boat-load which went down to Cawnpore : 'We had not proceeded far, when it was found that Colonel Goldie's boat was much too large and heavy for us to manage ; it was accordingly determined to be abandoned ; so all the ladies and children were taken into Colonel Smith's boat. A little delay was thus caused, which the sepoys took advantage of to bring a gun to bear on the boats ; the distance, however, was too great ; every ball fell short. As soon as the ladies and children were all safely on board, we started, and got down as far as Singheerampore without accident, although fired upon by the villagers. Here we stopped a few minutes to repair the rudder of Colonel Smith's boat ; and one out of the two boatmen we had was killed by a matchlock ball. The rudder repaired, we started again, Colonel Smith's boat taking the lead ; we had not gone beyond a few yards, when our boat grounded on a soft muddy sand-bank ; the other boat passed on ; all hands got into the water to push her ; but, notwithstanding all our efforts, we could not manage to move her. We had not been in this unhappy position half an hour, when two boats, apparently empty, were seen coming down the stream. They came within twenty yards of us, when we discovered they carried sepoys, who opened a heavy fire, killing and wounding several. Mr Churcher, senior, was shot through the chest ; Mr Fisher, who was just behind me, was wounded in the thigh. Hearing him call out, I had scarcely time to turn round, when I felt a smart blow on my right shoulder ; a bullet had grazed the skin and taken off a little of the flesh. Major Robertson was wounded in the face. The boats were now alongside of us. Some of the sepoys had already got into our boat. Major Robertson, seeing no hope, begged the ladies to come into the water rather than fall into their hands. While the ladies were throwing themselves into the water, I jumped into the boat, took up a loaded musket, and, going astern, shot a sepoy. . . . Mr and Mrs Fisher were about twenty yards from the boat ; he had his child in his arms, apparently lifeless. Mrs Fisher could not stand against the current; her dress, which acted like a sail, knocked her down, when she was helped up by Mr Fisher. . . . Early the next morning a voice hailed us from the shore, which we recog- nised as Mr Fisher's. He came on board, and informed us that his poor wife and child had been drowned in his arms.' The occupants of the boat that prosecuted the voyage down to Cawnpore, or rather Bithoor, suffered greatly : the hands of the gentlemen who were on board, and who pulled the boat, were terribly blistered ; the women and children suffered sad hardships ; and all were worn down by fatigue and anxiety. At Bithoor, so far as the accounts are intelligible, Nena Sahib's son seized TREACHERY AND ATROCITIES AT CAWNPORE. 141 the boat, and sent all the unfortunate Europeans in her into confinement at Cawnpore. As in other parts of this mournful tragedy, it will be vain to attempt accuracy in the statement of the numbers of those that suffered; but there is a subsidiary source of information, possessing a good deal of interest in connection with the July occurrences. When, at a later date, the reconqucrors of Cawn- pore were in a position to attempt a solution of the terrible mystery; when the buildings of ('awn- pore were searched, and the inhabitants examined, for any documents relating to the suffering Euro- peans a paper was found, written in the Mahratta language, in the house of a native doctor who had been in charge of the prisoners, or some of them. It was, or professed to be, a list of those who were placed under his care on Tuesday the 7th of July ; but whether invalids only, does not clearly appear. All the names were given, with some inaccuracy in spelling; which, however, cannot be considered as rendering the document untrustworthy. In it were to be found large families of Green ways, Reids, Jacobis, Fit/geialds, Dempsters, and others known to have been in Cawnpore about that time. They were a hundred and sixty-three in number. To this -s group was added another list, containing IIoue at Caw nporo in which the women and children were massacred. the names of forty-seven fugitives belonging to the boat-party from Futti _dmr. who are reported aa having arrived on the 11th of duly, and who included many members of the families of the ruths, Tuckers. Ileathcotes, .W\, already named in connection with the Futtcghur calam- ' The Mahratta document .ether the names of two hundred and ten persons ; but sit on the question how many other Europeans were on those days in the clutches of the ruthless chieftain of Bithoor. A further list contained the names of about twenty-six persons, apparently all women and children, who died under this native doctor's hands between the 7th and the loth, diminishing to that extent the number of those left for massacre. To most of the names ' cholera,' or ' diarrhoea,' or ' dysentery' appended, as the cause of death ; to two : ' . while one of the patients was 'a baby two days old.' In what a place, and what circumstances, for an infant to be born, and to bear its two wretched days of life! Let us follow Mr Shepherd's two narratives one public, for government information ; one in a relating more especially to his own personal troubles and sufferings concerning the crowning iniquity of Nona Sahib at Cawnpore. After his capture, on attempting to hasten from the intrenchmont to the city, the commissary was subjected to a sort of mock-trial, and con- demned to three years' imprisonment with hard labour; on what plea or evidence, is not stated, lie implies that if he had been known as an Englishman, he would certainly have been put to death. On the third day after his capture he heard a rumour of certain movements among his unfortunate compatriots in the intrenchment. ' Oh ! how I felt,' he exclaims, ' when, in con- finement, I heard that the English were going in safety ! I could not keep my secret, but told the subadar of the prison-guard that I was a Christian ; 142 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. I nearly lost my life by this exposure.' Mr Shep- herd was confined for twenty-four days in a miserable prison, with heavy fetters on his legs, aud only so much parched grain for food as would prevent actual starvation. As days wore on, he obtained dismal evidence that the departure from the intrenchment had not been safely effected ; that coward treachery had been displayed by the Nena ; that innocent lives had been taken ; and that the survivors were held in horrible thraldom by that cruel man. The commissary was a prisoner within the city during all the later days of the tragedy ; whether he was within earshot of the sufferers, is not stated ; but the following contains portions of his narrative relating to that period : 'Certain spies, whether real or imaginary is not known, were brought to the Nena as being the bearers of letters supposed to have been written to the British [at Allahabad] by the helpless females in their captivity ; and with these letters some of the inhabitants of the city were believed to be implicated. It was therefore decreed by Nena Sahib that the spies, together with all the women and children, as also the few gentlemen whose lives had been spared, should be put to death.' Mr Shepherd connected these gentlemen with the Futteghur fugitives, con- cerning whom, however, he possessed very little information. It was a further portion of Nena's decree, that all the baboos (Bengalees employed as clerks) of the city, and every individual who could read or write English, should have their right hands and noses cut off. At length, on the 15th, just before quitting Cawnpore in the vain hope of checking the advance of a British column, this savage put his decrees into execution. ' The native spies were first put to the sword ; after them the gentlemen, who were brought from the outbuildings in which they had been confined, and shot with bullets. Then the poor females were ordered to come out ; but neither threats nor persuasions could induce them to do so. They laid hold of each other by dozens, and clung so closely that it was impossible to separate or drag them out of the building. The troopers therefore brought muskets, and after firing a great many . shots through the doors, windows, &c, rushed in with swords and bayonets. Some of the helpless creatures in their agony fell down at the feet of their murderers, and begged them in the most pitiful manner to spare their lives ; but to no purpose. The fearful deed was done deliber- ately and determinedly, in the midst of the most dreadful shrieks and cries of the victims. From a little before sunset till dark was occupied in completing the dreadful deed. The doors of the buildings were then locked for the night, and the murderers went to their homes. Next morning it was found, on opening the doors, that some ten , or fifteen females, with a few of the children, had managed to escape from death by hiding under the murdered bodies of their fellow- prisoners. A fresh command was thereupon sent to murder these also ; but the survivors not being able to bear the idea of being cut down, rushed out into the compound, and seeing a well there, threw themselves into it. The dead bodies of those murdered on the previous evening were then ordered to be thrown into the same well; and julluds were appointed to drag them away like dogs.' Mr Shepherd himself did not witness this slaughter; no looker-on, so far as is known, has placed upon record his or her account of the scene. Nor does there appear any trustworthy evidence to shew what the poor women endured in the period, varying fuom four to eighteen days, during which they were in the Nena's power ; but the probability is fearfully great that they passed through an ordeal which the mind almost shrinks from con- templating. Mr Shepherd was evidently of this opinion. While telling his tale of misery relating to those poor ill-used creatures, he hinted at ' sufferings and distresses such as have never before been experienced or heard of on the face of the earth.' It was in his agony of grief that he wrote this ; when, on the 17th of July, a A'ictorious English column entered Cawnpore ; and when, immediately on his liberation, he hastened like others to the house of slaughter. Only when the manacles had been struck from his limbs, and he had become once more a free man, did he learn the full bitterness of his lot. ' God Almighty has been graciously pleased to spare my poor life,' was the beginning of a letter written by him on that day to a brother stationed at Agra. 'I am the only individual saved among all the European and Christian community that inhabited this station.' [Nearly but not exactly true.] ' My poor dear wife, my darling sweet child Polly, poor dear Rebecca and her children, and poor innocent children Emmeline and Martha, as also Mrs Frost and poor Mrs Osborne ' [these being the members of his family whom he had left in the intrench- ment on the 24th of June, when he set out dis- guised on his fruitless mission], 'were all most inhumanly butchered by the cruel insurgents on the day before yesterday ; ' and his letter then conveyed the outpourings of a heart almost riven . by such irreparable losses. While reserving for a future chapter all notice of the brilliant military movements by which a small band of heroes forced a way inch by inch from Allahabad to Cawnpore ; and of the struggle made by the Nena, passionately but ineffectually, to maintain his ill-gotten honours as a self-elected Mahratta sovereign it may nevertheless be well in this place to follow the story of the massacre to its close to know how much was left, and of what kind, calculated to render still more vividly evident the fate of the victims. Never, while life endures, will the English officers and soldiers forget the sight which met their gaze when they entered Cawnpore on the 17th of July. It was frequently observed that all were alike deeply moved by the atrocities that TREACHERY AND ATROCITIES AT CAWNPORE. 143 came to light in many parts of Northern India. Calcutta, weeks and even months afterwards, con- tained ladies who had escaped from various towns and stations, and who entered the Anglo-Indian capital in most deplorable condition : ears, noses, lips, tongues, hands, cut off ; while others had suffered such monstrous and incredibly degrading barbarities, that they resolutely refused all identi- fication, preferring to remain in nameless obscurity, rather than their humiliation should M known to their friends in England. Their children, in many instances, had their eyes gouged out, and their feet cut off. Many wore taken to Calcutta in such hurry and confusion, that it remained in doubt from what places they had escaped; and an instance is recorded of a little child, who no one knew to whom, and whose only account of herself was that she was ' Mamma's mournfully touching words, telling of a gentle rearing and a once happy home. An officer in command of one of the English ment i of the effect produced on his men by the sights and rumours of fiend-like cruelty, y little is said among the men or officers, the subject being too maddening ; but t! curious expression discernible in every face when it is mentioned a stern preadon of the lips, and a tierce '.'lance of the which shew that when the ti- .no mercy will 1 who have shewn none.' He told <>\' fearfol i two little children tortured to death, and portions of their quis 1 down the tin ir parents, who tied op naked, and had been compelled to : of their innocent ones. The s of those who were not actually rror are well expressed in a letter written by a Scottish Officer, who was hemmed in a during many weeks, when he longed to I in active service chastising the rebels. ad, some months before, been an officer in one of the native regiments that mutinied at Oawnpore; and, in relation to the events at that : ' I am truly thankful that most of the officers of my late corps died of fever in the intienchment, previous to the awful massacre. i that it had been the will of Heaven that- all had met the same fate, fearful as that was. For weeks exposed to a scorching sun, without shelter of any kind, and surrounded by the dying and the dead, their ears ringing with the groans of the wounded, the shouts of sun-struck madmen, -.' children, the bitter sobs and of bereaved mothers, widows, and orphans. Kven such a death was far better than what fell to the lot of many. Not even allowed to die without made witnesses of the bloody deaths of all they loved on earth, they were insulted, al and finally, after weeks of such treatment, cruelly and foully murdered. One sickens, and shudders at the bare mention of it Oh ! how thank- ful I am that I have no wife, no sisters out here.' It was a terrible crisis that could lead officers, eight or ten thousand miles away from those near and dear to them, to say this. It is necessary, as a matter of historical truth, to describe briefly the condition of the house of slaughter on the 1 7th of July ; and this cannot be better done than in the words employed by the officers and soldiers in various letters written by them, afterwards made public. The first that we shall select runs thus : ' I have seen the fearful slaughter house ; and I also saw one of the 1st native infantry men, according to order, wash up part of the blood which stains the floor, before hanged.' [This order will presently be noticed in the words of Brigadier Neill.] ' There quantities of dresses, clogged thickly with blood ; children's frocks, frills, and ladies' under- clothing of all kinds ; boys' trousers ; leaves of Bibles, and of one book in particular, which seems to be strewed over the whole place, called ration for Death ; broken daguerreotypes ; hair, some nearly a yard long; bonnets, all bloody ; and one or two shoes. I picked up a bit of paper with the words on it, "Ned's hair, with love;" and opened and found a little bit tied up with ribbon. The first [troops] that went in, I believe, saw the bodies with' their arms and legs sticking out through the ground. They had all been thrown in a heap in the well.' A second le 'The house was alongside the Cawnpore hotel, where the Nena lived. I never was more horrified. I am not Dg when I tell you that the of my boots were more than covered with the blood of these poor wretched creatures. Portions of their dresses, collars, children's socks, and ladies' ronnd hats, lay about, saturated with their blood ; and in the sword-cuts on the wooden pillars of the room, long dark hair was sticking, carried by the of the weapon, and there hung their tresses a most painful sight. I picked up a mutilated Prayer-book ; it appeared to have been open at ;G of the Litany, where I have little doubt poor creatures sought and found consolation in that beautiful supplication ; it is there sprinkled with blood.' A third : ' We found that the Nena had murdered all the women and children that he had taken prisoners, and thrown them naked down a well. The women and children had been kept in a sort of zenana, and no attention whatever paid to cleanliness. In that place they had been butchered, as the ground was covered with clotted blood. One poor woman had evidently been working, as a small work-box was open, and the things scattered about. There were several chil- dren's small round hats, evidently shewing that that was their prison. The well close by was one of the most awful sights imaginable.' A fourth ; ' It is an actual and literal fact, that the floor of the inner room was several inches deep in blood all over ; it came over men's shoes as they stepped. Tresses of women's hair, children's shoes, and articles of female wear, broad hats and bonnets, books, and such like things, lay scattered all about the rooms. There were the marks of bullets and 144 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. sword-cuts on the walls not high up, as if men had fought but low down, and about the corners where the poor crouching creatures had been cut to pieces. The bodies of the victims had been thrown indiscriminately into a well a mangled heap, with arms and legs protruding.' Some of the officers, by carefully examining the walls, found scraps of writing in pencil, or scratched in the plaster, such as, ' Think of us ' ' Avenge us ' ' Your wives and families are here in misery and at the disposal of savages ' ' Oh, oh ! my child, my child.' One letter told of a row of women's shoes, with bleeding amputated feet in tltem, ranged in cruel mockery on one side of a room ; while tile other side exhibited a row of children's shoes, rilled in a similarly terrible way ; but it is not cer- tain whether the place referred, to was Cawnpore. Another writer mentioned an incident which, unless supported by collateral testimony, seems wanting in probability. It was to the effect that when the 78th Highlanders entered Cawnpore, they found the remains of Sir Hugh Wheeler's daughter. They removed the hair carefully from the head ; sent some of it to the relations of the unfortunate lady ; divided the rest amongst themselves ; counted every single hair in each parcel ; and swore to take a terrible revenge by putting to death as many mutineers as there were hairs. The storm of indignant feeling that might suggest such a vow can be understood easily enough ; but the alleged mode of manifestation savours somewhat of the melodramatic and improbable. A. slight allusion has been made above to Brigadier Neill's proceedings at Cawnpore, after the fatal 17th of July. In what relation he stood to the reconquering force will be noticed in its due place ; but it may be well here to quote a passage from a private letter, written independently of his public dispatches : ' I am collecting all the property of the deceased, and trying to trace if any have survived ; but as yet have not succeeded in finding one.' [Captain Bruce's research, presently to be mentioned, had not then been made.] ' Man, woman, and child, seem all to have been murdered. As soon as that monster Nena Sahib heard of the success of our troops, and of their having forced the bridge about twenty miles from Cawnpore, he ordered the wholesale butchery of the poor women and chil- dren. I find the officers' servants behaved shame- fully, and were in the plot, all but the lowest-caste ones. They deserted their masters and plundered them. Whenever a rebel is caught, he is imme- diately tried, and unless he can prove a defence, he is sentenced to be hanged at once ; but the chief rebels or ringleaders I make first clean up a certain portion of the pool of blood, still two inches deep, in the shed where the fearful murder and mutilation of Avomen and children took place. To touch blood is most abhorrent to the high-caste natives ; they think by doing so they doom their souls to perdition. Let them think so. My object is to inflict a fearful punishment for a revolting, cowardly, barbarous deed, and to strike terror into these rebels. . . . The well of mutilated bodies alas ! containing upwards of two hundred women and children I have had decently covered in and built up as one grave.' With one additional testimony, we will close this scene of gloomy horror. The Earl of Shaftesbury, as was noticed in a former page, took occasion soon after the news of the Cawnpore atrocities reached London, to advert at a public meeting to the shrinking abhorrence with which those deeds were regarded, and to the failure of the journalists to present the full and fearful truth. He him- self mentioned an incident, not as an example of the worst that had been done by the incarnate fiends at Cawnpore, but to indicate how much remains to be told if pen dare write or tongue utter it : 'I have seen a copy of a letter written and sent to England by an officer of rank who was one of the first that entered Cawnpore a few hours after the perpetration of the frightful massacre. ... To his unutterable dismay, he saw a number of European women stripped stark naked, lying on their backs, fastened by the arms and legs ; and there many of them had been lying four or five days exposed to a burning sun ; others had been more recently laid down ; others again had been actually hacked to pieces, and so recently, that the blood which streamed from their mangled bodies was still warm. He found children often, twelve, thirteen, and fourteen years of age treated in the same horrible manner at the corners of the streets and in all parts of the town : attended by every circumstance of insult, the most awful and the most degrading, the most horrible and frightful to the conception, and the most revolting to the dignity and feelings of civilised men. Cawnpore was only a sample of what was perpetrated in various parts of that vast region, and that with a refinement of cruelty never before heard of. Women and children have been massacred before; but I don't believe there is any instance on record where children have been reserved in cold blood to be most cruelly and anatomically tortured in the presence of their horrified parents before being finally put to death.' Something must be said here concerning the devastated property at Cawnpore, in relation to the miserable beings to whom it had once belonged. When the city was again in British hands, and the Rajah of Bithoor driven out with the curses of all English hearts resting on him, it was found to be in such a devastated state, so far as regarded Euro- peans, that Brigadier Neill was at a loss what to do with the wrecks of spoliated property. He requested Captain Bruce, of the 5th Punjaub cavalry, whom he had appointed temporarily superintendent of police, to write to the Calcutta newspapers, inviting the aid of any one able to identify the property. The letter said: 'The property of the unfortunate people who lost their lives here has been collected in one spot ; and any which can be recognised will be handed over to the owners, or put up to auction TREACHERY AND ATROCITIES AT CAWNPORE. 145 for the benefit of the estates of the deceased. There is a good deal of property belonging to the different mercantile firms here, .as Avell as to the heirs of deceased officers, etc.; but when I mention that every house was gutted, and the property scattered over sixty or seventy square miles of country, it will be apparent how impossible it was to take care of individual interests Almost all the former European residents here having been murdered by the miscreant Nona Sahib, there is no one forthcoming to recognise or give any information concerning the property that has been saved.' At a later date Captain Brace cap- tured one of the boatmen who had come down from Futteghur with the first party of unhappy fugitives from that place ; the man had a large amount of English jewellery in his 1 comprising brooches, earrings, bracelets, clasps, studs, shawl-pins, hair-lockets, gold chains, and similar articles. The boatman had probably secreted the jewel-caskets of the unfortunate ladies, at or shortly before the forcible landing of the boat party at Bithoor. A much more painful inquiry, than any relating to pr oper ty, was that relating to the loss of life. When Captain Bruce, after many days of sedulous inquiry, had collected all the available information bearing on the fate of the hapless sufferers, he arrived at these conclusions that the oidy European! who escaped from the boet-masesere, and really obtained their liberty, were two officer! and two soldiers probably Lieutenant Dela and three of li is companions ; that the only one who remained in Cawnpore and yet preserved his life, was a pensioner of the 3d light dragoons, who was concealed in the city by a t rooper of the 4th avalrv ; and that there were, on the 31st of duly, six Englishmen, three Englishwomen, and three children, concealed and protected by the Rajah of Calpec, across the Jumna; but it was not stated, and perhaps not known, whether they had gone thither from Cawnpore. Mr Shepherd himself was not included in this list. When Lieutenant Delafofse, about a fortnight after the recapture of Cawnpore, was requested by Brigadier Xeill to famish the best list he could of the h sufferers at that place, he endeavoured to separate the victims into three groups, according y had died in the intrenchment. in the boats, or in the house of slaughter. But this was neces- sarily a very imperfect list ; for, on the one hand, he knew nothing of the two parties of fugitives from Futteghur; while, on the other, he speaks of many persons who came into the station with their families on account of disturbance, and whose names he did not know. Taking the matter in a military estimate, however, he gave the names of one general (Wheeler), one brigadier (Jack), three colonels, five majors, thirteen cap- tains, thirty-nine lieutenants, five ensigns, and nine doctors or army-surgeons ; Lady and Miss Wheeler, Sir George Parker, and two clergymen or missionaries, were among the other members in his melancholy list. No guess can be made of the total numbers from this document, for the persons included under the word 'family' are seldom specified by name or number. The mourn- ful truth was indeed only too evident that many complete families families consisting of very numerous members were among the slaughtered. When the lists began to be made out, of those wdio had been known as Cawnpore residents or Futteghur fugitives, and who were found dead when the English recaptured the place, there were such entries as these 'Creenway: Mr, two Mrs, Martha, Jane, John, Henry' 'Fitzgerald: John, Margaret, Mary, Tom, Ellen ' ' Gilpin : Mrs, William, Harriet, Sarah, Jane, F.' ' Reid : Mr, Susan, James, Julia, C, Charles' 'Reeve: Mrs, Mary, < 'atherine, Ellen, Nolly, Jane, Cornelia, Deon.' Religious men, thoughtful men and, on the other hand, men wrought up to a pitch of exasperated feeling afterwards spoke of the fatal wll as a spot that should be marked in some way for the observance of posterity. Two church varies were among the murdered at Cawn- pore ; and it was urged in many quarters that a Christian church, built with the splendour and resources of a great nation, would be a suitable erection at that spot as an appropriate memorial to the dead, a striking lesson to the living, and the commencement of a grand effort to Christianise the heathen millions of India. Whether a church be the right covering for a hideous pit containing nearly two hundred mangled bodies of gentle English women and children ; and whether rival creeds would struggle for precedency in the manage- ment of its construction, its details, and the form of its service may fairly admit of doubt ; but with or without a church, the English in no parts of the world are ever likely to forget Tub Well at Cawnpore ! |t0tf. .V'T frthiVs Proclamations. 'When Generals Ncill and k were at Cawnpore, during a period subsequent to that comprised within the ran;'e of the present chapter, they found many proclamations which had liecn printed in ' hratta language by order of Nena Sahib* as if for distribution among the natives under his influence. These proclamations were afterwards translated into English, and included among the parliamentary papers relating to India. A few of them may fittingly 1>e reproduced here, to shew by what means that consummate villain sought to attain his ends. The following appears to have been issued on or about 146 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. the 1st of July : 'As, by the kindness of God and the ikbal or good-fortune of the Emperor, all the Christians who were at Delhi, Poonah, Satara, and other places, and even those 5000 European soldiers who went in disguise into the former city and were discovered, are destroyed and sent to hell by the pious and sagacious troops, who are firm to their religion ; and as they have all been conquered by the present government, and as no trace of them is left in these places, it is the duty of all the subjects and servants of the government to rejoice at the delightful intelligence, and to carry on their respective work with comfort and ease.' This was accompanied by another : ' As, by the bounty of the glorious Almighty God and the enemy-destroying fortune of the Emperor, the yellow-faced and narrow- minded people have been sent to hell, and Cawnpore has been conquered, it is necessary that all the subjects and landowners should be as obedient to the present govern- ment as they had been to the former one ; that all the government servants should promptly and cheerfully engage their whole mind in executing the orders of government ; that it is the incumbent duty of all the ryots and landed proprietors of every district to rejoice at the thought that the Christians have been sent to hell, and both the Hindoo and Mohammedan religions have been confirmed ; and that they should as usual be obedient to the authorities of the government, and never to suffer any complaint against themselves to reach the ears of the higher authority.' On the 5th of the same month the Nena issued the following to the kotwal or Mayor of Cawnpore : ' It has come to our notice that some of the city people, having heard the rumours of the arrival of the European soldiers at Allahabad, are deserting their houses and going out into the districts ; you are, therefore, directed to proclaim in each lane and street of the city that regiments of cavalry and infantry and batteries have been despatched to check the Europeans either at Allahabad or Futtehpoor ; that the people should therefore remain in their houses without any apprehension, and engage their minds in carrying on their work.' Another proclamation displayed in an extraordinary way the Rajah's mode of practising on the credulity of the natives, by the most enormous and barefaced fictions : ' A traveller just arrived in Cawnpore from Calcutta states that in the first instance a council was held to take into consideration the means to be adopted to do away with the religion of the Mohammedans and Hindoos by the distribu- tion of cartridges. The council came to this resolution, that, as this matter was one of religion, the services of seven or eight thousand European soldiers would be necessary, as 50,000 Hindustanis would have to be destroyed, and then the whole of the people of Hindostan would become Christians. A petition with the substance of this resolu- tion was sent to the Queen Victoria, and it was approved. A council was then held a second time, in which English merchants took a part, and it was decided that, in order that no evil should arise from mutiny, large reinforcements should be sent for. When the dispatch was received and read in England, thousands of European soldiers were embarked on ships as speedily as possible, and sent off to Hindostan. The news of their being despatched reached Calcutta. The English authorities there ordered the issue of the cartridges, for the real intention was to Christianise the army first, and this being effected, the conversion of the people would speedily follow. Pigs' and cows' fat was mixed up with the cartridges ; this became known through one of the Bengalese who was employed in the cartridge- making establishment. Of those through whose means this was divulged, one was killed and the rest imprisoned. While in this country these counsels were being adopted, in England the vakeel (ambassador) of the Sultan of Roum (Turkey) sent news to the sultan that thousands of European soldiers were being sent for the purpose of making Christians of all the people of Hindostan. Upon this the sultan issued a firman to the King of Egypt to this effect : " You must deceive the Queen Victoria, for this is not a time for friendship, for my vakeel writes that thousands of European soldiers have been despatched for the purpose of making Christians the army and people of Hindostan. In this manner, then, this must be checked. If I should be remiss, then how can I shew my face to God ; and one day this may come upon me also, for if the English make Christians of all in Hindostan, they will then fix their designs upon my country." When the firman reached the King of Egypt, he prepared and arranged his troops before the arrival of the English army at Alexandria, for this is the route to India. The instant the English army arrived, the King of Egypt opened guns upon them from all sides, and destroyed and sunk their ships, and not a single soldier escaped. The English in Calcutta, after the issue of the order for the cartridges, and when the mutiny had become great, were in expectation of the arrival of the army from London ; but the Great God, in his omnipotence, had beforehand put an end to this. When the news of the destruction of the army of London became known, then the governor-general was plunged in grief and sorrow, and beat his head. 'Done by order of the Peishwa Bahadoor, 13 Zekaida, 1273 Hegira.' -J "The Well at Cawnpore. House of the Rajah at Allahabad. CHAPTER IV BIIGAL AND THE LOWER GANGES: JUNE. HEX, through the media of telc- y grams, dispatches, and letters, the ( tragical events at Cawnporc became *}; known in England, and were in- . ith an additional horror on account of a vague suspicion that e remained untold, a painful and 7 widely spread Bfrnitimi was produced. Nay, more ; in almost every part of the ? civilised world, whether or not in harmony with the British government on political and international questions, astonishment was excited by these recitals of unapproachable barbarity among a people who had acquired a sort of traditional character for mildness and gentleness. It was about the end of June when news of the Mcerut outbreak reached London ; and from that time each fortnightly mail revealed the truth that per and larger area of India was becoming involved in the troubles of insurrection that a gradually increasing number of military officers and civil servants of the Company, with their wives and children, were placed in circumstances of imminent peril. Residents in the United Kingdom, any of whose relations and friends were stationed at Cawnpore, sought eagerly and anxiously, as each mail arrived, for indications that escape had been effected, or a rescuing force obtained No such news came, no such hopes were realised ; darker and more silent was every- thing relating to that much-dreaded city, until at length the frightful climax became known. There has been a designed avoidance, in the preceding chapters of this work, of any account of the measures adopted by the British govern- ment in military matters, or by the British nation in .active benevolence, to remedy the disasters and allay the sufferings to which the Anglo-Indians had so suddenly been exposed; for, in truth, India knew little of such measures until August was far advanced. "Whether all was done that might have been done to expedite the passage of British troops to India, is a question that will have to be considered in its proper place; the significant truth now to be borne in mind is that the Calcutta government had to meet the difficulties as best it could, with the scanty supply of troops at that time in India sending to the Mauritius and the 14S THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. Cape of Good Hope for such reinforcements as might be available, but knowing that aid from England could not arrive for many months. The mode of treatment adopted here is naturally sug- gested by the course of events themselves. When the ramifications of the Revolt have been traced throughout the month of June, a chapter will then be devoted to the subjects above indicated; for, although Cawnpore carried us into July, we have yet to watch what was concurrently passing at other places. We begin with the region extending from the Burmese frontier to the Doab, and forming the eastern portion of Northern India ; it may for convenience be called Bengal, without any rigid adherence to territorial subdivision. The Indian government was not as yet troubled with any serious outbreaks at Chittagong or Dacca, or in any of the districts bounding the Bay of Bengal on the north and east. There were a few native troops at the first named of these two towns, belonging to one of the mutinous regiments at Barrackporc ; but tranquillity was not disturbed by them. It is true that, when the disloyalty of the 34th became known, the inhabitants of Chittagong and Tipperah experienced some alarm lest the detachment of this regiment stationed at the first-named town might follow the pernicious example ; but the Company's collector, having three lacs of rupees in hand, quietly removed his treasure on board a steamer ; and all uneasiness was soon allayed. Along the extreme eastern border of the Bengal presidency, from Assam down through Dacca to Chittagong, the month of June similarly passed over without any disturbances calling for notice, although a temporary panic was excited in more than one spot. At Dacca, for instance, the approach of disbanded native mutineers was apprehended ; and a mischievous set of Mohammedans, under one Keramut Ali, were detected in the endeavour to sow the seeds of disaffection ; but by the firmness of the civil authorities, and the arrival of a hundred seamen in two pinnaces from the Company's steamers Zenobia and Punjaub, tranquillity was soon restored. In the Calcutta and Barrackpore district, although no actual mutiny occurred, symptoms were presented that gave much anxiety to the Europeans residing at the capital, and prompted energetic preventive measures. We have seen, in Chapter II., that much discontent was exhibited at Dumdum, Barrackpore, and Berhampore, between the months of January and May, by the native troops ; that this discontent was (professedly) associated with the affair of the greased cartridges ; that insubordination led to disarming and dis- bandment ; that the news of the Meerut and Delhi atrocities in May greatly alarmed the Cal- cutta inhabitants ; and. that many addresses of loyalty and sympathy with the government were thenceforth presented. During the first half of June, the European residents looked with a sort of suspicious watchfulness at everything that was occurring around them, prepared to find the native troops treacherous, yet hoping for better things. The reliable forces in Calcutta at that time comprised H.M. 53d foot, nine hundred strong, and five hundred of H.M. 37th. A company of the 3d battalion Madras artillery; No. 2 horse field- battery ; forty men of the royal artillery, recently arrived from Ceylon ; and a Aving of H.M. 35th foot, were at Barrackpore. The 78th Highlanders were at Chinsura. On the 13th of June, Calcutta was thrown into great agitation. A messenger was captured by the authorities, and confessed that the sepoys at Barrackpore and Calcutta had agreed to mutiny on that very night. Arrangements were immediately made for defending the city by the aid chiefly of volunteers, who had before then begun to organise themselves. The civilians took arms, marshalled themselves into companies and corps, and paraded the streets in the English part of the city. During the two following nights, this patrolling Avas conducted very vigilantly ; and every native met in the streets Avas required to give an account of his movements. On one occa- sion, Lady Canning, accompanied by the gover- nor-general, the commander-in-chief, Generals Windham and Beatson, and a glittering staff) Avent to the parade-ground ; Avhere, the volunteers being all drawn up in full array, her ladyship presented them Avith colours, and made a complimentary address; to which Major Turnbull replied, as commandant of the ' Calcutta Volunteer Guards.' The military proceedings on this occasion were as folloAv. Before light on Sunday morning the 14th, in consequence of a message received from head-quarters, a body of the 78th Highlanders Avas sent oft' hastily from Chinsura to Barrackpore, to disarm the native troops there; while five hun- dred of her Majesty's 37th foot, landed from Ceylon only the day before, Avere marched off to a point about midway between Calcutta and Barrackpore, to command the road during the disarming. About midnight an order arrived that some of the 37th should return instantly to the capital. It had been discovered that the deposed King of Oude, residing in a handsome house at Garden Reach, Avas engaged in some machinations with a prince of the Delhi family, inimical to the interests of the Europeans. A military force marched to his house at four o'clock on the morn- ing of the 15th, surrounded the grounds, entered, and seized the king and his prime minister, together with a large quantity of papers. Arrangements Avere immediately made for the safe custody of the two Oudians, until the papers could be fully examined. A document came to light, containing a Mohammedan sketch-map of Calcutta, dividing the city into sections ; together Avith the plan for a general rising of natiA'es on the centenary day of the battle of Plassy, the murder of all the Ferin- ghees, and the establishment of a native ' raj ' or dynasty on the ruins of that of the Company. It Avas deemed proper to adopt prompt measures on BENGAL AND THE LOWER GANGES: JUNE. 149 this occasion; all the native troops in Calcutta were disarmed as a precautionary measure, in- cluding the Calcutta militia, but excluding the governor-general's body-guard. The sepoys, who made no demur whatever, were disarmed in parties wherever they happened to be at the Government House guard, the treasury, the mint, the bank, and the fort. Each party was con- fronted by a party of Europeans, and gave up arms on behig so commanded ; the arms and ammunition were then taken away by the Euro- pean soldiers, nothing being left with the sepoys but their ramrods, with which to 'shoulder arms.' It was explained to them that the disarming was only a temporary precautionary measure ; that they would receive pay and perform sentinel-duty U l.elure ; and that the arms would be restored to them as soon as public tranquillity was insured. The inhabitants of Calcutta long continued to bear well in remembrance the 14th of June. For nearly a month the civilians had been in the habit of taking revolvers with them to church, balls, and parties ; but on this day, such were the vague terrors of slaughter whispered from mouth to mouth, that the excitement rose to a height of panic. One who was there at the time said : ' The infection of tenor raged through all classes. Chow- ringhee and Garden Reach were abandoned for the fort and the vessels in the river. The shipping was crowded with fugitives; and in houses which were selected U being least likely to be attacked, hundreds of people gladly huddled together, to share the peculiar comfort which the presence of crowds imparts on such occasions. The hotels were fortified ; bands of sailors marched through the thoroughfares, happy in the expectation of possible fighting and the certainty of grog. Every group of natives was scanned with suspicion. The churches and the course were abandoned for that evening. A rising, either of Hindoos or of Mussul- mans, or perhaps of both, was looked upon as certain to happen in the course of the night. From Chandemagore the whole body of European and East Indian inhabitants emigrated to Calcutta ; the personnel of government, the staff of the army, all in short who had anything to lose, preferred to come away and run the risk of losing it, rather than encounter the* unknown danger.' A some- what unworthy timidity seems, at first sight, to mark all this ; but the civilians and private families of Calcutta, utterly unused to war, had been so horror-stricken by the accounts of murders of officers, violations of women, mutilations of little children, burnings of sick and wounded, and other atrocities perpetrated in Upper India, as to become in a certain sense paralysed. After the decisive measures adopted by the government on the 14th and next following day, the inhabitants of the capital gradually recovered their equanimity ; and the month closed peacefully. :y in June, the sepoys cantoned at Barrack- pore made the same kind of demonstration as at an earlier date that is, they professed fidelity, and asked to be furnished with the new Enfield ritie. In the 43d regiment B.N. I., there was a general application made to Major Matthews, by native officers as well as sepoys, to this effect ; accompanied by the expression of a desire to be sent to fight against the rebels at Delhi. The 70th B. N. I., almost to a man, came forward on the 5th of the month, and presented a petition to Colonel Kennedy, with a similar prayer. The petition began somewhat boastfully ' From the day on which his lordship the governor-general condescended to come in person to answer our petition, on which occasion General Hearsey translated to us his address, and which was fully explained to us by our colonel, interpreter, adjutant, and all the other officers of the regiment, our honour and name have been raised amongst our countrymen ;' and it ended with an abundant profession of loyalty towards the government. The 34th regiment B. N. I., or such of the men as were at 'Barrackpore, imitated the example of their fellow-soldiers ; they sent a petition to Lieutenant colonel AVheler on the 9th of June, expressive of their loyalty, and requesting that the new rifle might be served out to them. The government, in reply to all these petitions and demonstrations, stated that the supply of Enfield rilles received from England was too small to permit the granting of the request ; but that the request itself was received with much gratification by the governor-general, ' proving as it does that the men of these regiments consider there is nothing objectionable either in the rifles or in the cartridges to their caste or religion.' Little was it suspected in how short a time all theso complimentary exchanges of good words would be brought to nought. On the evening of the 13th came to light those plottings or suspicions of plottings which led to an imperative order for the disarming of the sepoys. In a private letter on this subject, the major-general said: 'Some villains in the corps were trying to incite the good men and true to mutiny ; these good men ought to have given the villains up to justice ;' but as they did not, he thought it a safe plan to disarm them all. "When this determination was made known by the authorities, many of the English officers of the native regiments felt much vexed and hurt ; they still relied on their men, and deemed it a humiliation to themselves that such a course should be deemed necessary. Captain Greene, of the 70th N. I., wrote to Major-general Hearsey, on the Sunday morning : ' Is it of any use my interceding with you on behalf of my old corps, which, for nigh twenty -five years, has been my pride and my home ? I cannot express to you the pain with which I have just heard that they are this evening to be subjected to the indignity of being disarmed. Had the men misbehaved, I should have felt no sympathy for them ; but they have not committed themselves in any way ; and surely after the governor-general's laudatory order and expression of confidence, it would not 150 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. be too much to expect that a fair trial of their sincerity should be afforded.' Captain Greene proceeded to say that he knew the men thoroughly, and had the most firm and undoubted reliance on their fidelity. The authorities were not affected by this appeal. At four o'clock in the afternoon, the 35th and 78th British regiments were marched to the parade-ground at Barrackpore, with loaded muskets, and supported by six 12-pounders loaded with grape-shot. The native troops were then summoned to the parade, and ordered at once to surrender their arms ; this they did quietly and promptly, for even if disposed to resist, the force against them was too formidable. In little more than an hour, the muskets of the disarmed regi- ments were on the way to Calcutta. The sepoys bore the trial quietly, but with many expressions of mortification. Captain Greene, in the postscript to a letter written on the following day to the major-general, mentioned certain facts which ought to have opened his eyes to the possibility of deceit and danger. A Mussulman sepoy of the 70th regiment came to him on the 9 th of the month, and after conversation on some contemplated movements of the captain, said : ' Whatever you do, do not take your lady with you.' He gave as a reason : ' Because the minds of the native soldiers are now in a state of inquietude ; and it would be better to let the lady remain here till everything is settled in the country, as there is no knowing what might happen.' On being asked whether he had reason to doubt the regiment, he exclaimed : ' Who can tell the heai-ts of a thousand men!' He implied that a few evil men were endeavouring to corrupt the rest. This communicative sepoy went on to observe, that the cartridge grievance, although founded on a misconception in the first instance, was afterwards used as a means of imposing on the ignorant. There were men who went about saying that the English endeavoured to destroy the caste and religion of the people; that the government ought to be uprooted ; aud that as the Company had been driven out of Cabool, so might it be driven out of the whole of India, if the people acted resolutely and with one accord. Another sepoy, a Hindoo, in the same regiment, told Captain Greene that the Mussulmans generally in all regiments were in the habit of talking to the effect that their ' raj ' or supremacy was coming round again. Many others spoke indistinctly to him about dangers, and promised to protect him if peril arose. It may not be improbable that most of the men in that regiment were really disposed to be faithful, and that the danger arose from a smaller number of malcontents. Captain Gi-eene went to see his men in the lines after the disarming ; it was a painful interview to them all. 'I have been for upwards of an hour,' he wrote, J endeavouring to allay the excited feelings of our men, who were in such a state of depression, that many were crying bitterly, and none could cook their food. Some, too, had sold their cooking utensils for a mero trifle in the bazaar.' The regiment had not been disbanded as if in disgrace, only disarmed as if for precaution ; but the men nevertheless regarded it as a degradation. Some budmashes (scoundrels) had been amongst them in the night, and had urged them to desert, telling them that handcuffs and manacles had been sent for. The captain earnestly implored that their arms should be given back to them : ' Unless something be speedily done to reassure them, the influence of their European officers will cease to exist, and a good regiment will crumble away before hopelessness and deser- tion. All of us, black and white, would be so thankful to you if you would get us back our arms, and sent away from here at once.' This request was not acceded to. Within ten days after the disarming, a hundred and thirty-three men of the disarmed regiments (2d, 34th, 43d, and 70th) deserted from Barrack- pore and Calcutta, nearly all belonging to the 43d. The magistrates and military authorities in many parts of Bengal were troubled with the arrival of these deserters, who came two or three at a time, and endeavoured to excite disaffection against a government which, as they alleged, had disgraced them without a cause. A reward of fifty rupees was offered for the apprehension of every deserter. Departing from Calcutta and Barrackpore as centres, it may be well now to sketch the state of the surrounding districts during the month of June. Towards the northeast, many towns, especially Jessorc, were thrown occasionally into excitement by occurrences which would have been regarded as trivial if happening at any other time, but which required watchful attention on the part of the authorities in the peculiarly sen- sitive state of the native mind. In the Din age- pore district, near the Bhotan frontier, several moulvies spread reports of the intention of the government forcibly to convert* native children to Christianity : these reports caused many of the children in the vernacular school at Muthoorapore to be withdrawn by their parents ; and on an examination of the moulvies being ordered by the authorities, it was found that the fakeers and other religious mendicants were accustomed to carry treasonable letters and concealed corre- spondence within the bamboo sticks with which most of them were provided. North and west of the Anglo-Indian capital, a similar state of public affairs was presented ; a succession of troublous symptoms that required attention, but without entailing serious consequences. In some instances disarmed sepoys were detected exciting disaffec- tion ; in others, seditious placards were posted up in the towns. In the country around Ramgurh a few circumstances transpired to produce tem- porary disquietude. The Ramgurh battalion was believed to be stanch ; but as some discontent had spread among the troops in relation to-the cartridge grievance, and as two or three petty chieftains exhibited symptoms of disloyalty, BENGAL AND THE LOWER GANGES : JUNE. 151 judicious and early precautions were taken against disaster especially at Hazarebagh, where the treasury contained a lac of rupees, and where the jail, containing nine hundred prisoners, was guarded solely by two companies of a native regiment : a kind of guard which had proved very perilous at Meerut a few weeks earlier. At Midnapore, a sepoy of the jail-guard, detected in an attempt to excite mutiny among the men of the Shekhawuttie battalion, was tried, found guilty, and hanged. The most serious event in the districts around Calcutta, perhaps, was one that occurred in the Sonthal Pergunnahs ; in which the 5th irregular cavalry displayed a tendency, fatal on a small scale, and likely to have become much more disastrous if not speedily checked. Lieutenant Sir N. R. Leslie was adjutant of that regiment at Rohnee. On the 12th of June, this officer, Major Macdonald, and Assistant-surgeon Grant, while sitting in Sir Norman Leslie's compound, in the dusk of the evening, were suddenly attacked by three men armed with swords. Major Mac- donald received a blow which laid his head open, and rendered him insensible for many hours ; Mr Grant received sword-wounds on the arm and the leg; while Sir Norman was so severely wounded that he expired within half an hour. The miscreants escaped after this ferocious attack, without immediate detection.* At first it was hoped and believed that the regiment had not been dishonoured by the presence of these murderers on the muster-roll; Mr Grant was of this opinion; but Major Macdonald, commandant of the regiment, took a less favourable view. The offenders, it soon appeared, belonged to the regiment ; a chase was ordered ; two of the men were found after a time, with their clothes smeared with blood ; while the third, when taken, candidly owned that it was his sword that had given the death-stroke to Leslie. The murderers were speedily executed, but without giving any information touching the The following Is an extract of a letter written by Major Macdonald, after the attack upon him and his brother-officers : Two clays after, my native officer said he had found out the mur- derers, and that they were three men of my own regiment. I bad them in irons in a crack, held a drumhead court-martial, convicted, and sentenced them to he hanged the next morning. I took on my own shoulders the responsibility of hanging them first, and asking leave to do so afterwards. That day was an awful one of suspense and anxiety. One of the prisoners was of very high caste and influence, and this man I determined to treat with the greatest Ignominy, by getting the lowest caste man to hang him. To tell truth, I never for a moment expected to leave the hanging cene alive ; but I was determined to do my duty, and well knew the effect that pluck and decision had on the natives. The regiment I ; wounded cruelly as I was, I bad to see everything done r to the adjusting of the ropes, and saw them looped to run easy. Two of the culprits were paralysed with Mtr nishment, never dreaming that I should dare to hang them without an order from government. The third said lie would not br hanged, and called on the Trophet and on his comrade* I him. This was an awful moment; an instant's hesitation on my part, and probably I 'should have had a dozen of balls throngh me; so I seized a pistol, clapped it to the man's car, and said, wi: there was no mistake about: "Another word out of your mouth, and nut brains shall be scattered on the ground." lie trembled, and held his tongue. The elephant came up, he was put on his btick, the rope adjusted, the elephant moved, and he was left dangling. I then had the others up, and oft in the same way. And after some time, when I had dismUscd the men of the regi- ment to their lines, and still found my head on my shoulders, I really could scarcely beliere it.' motives that led to their crime. Three sowars of the regiment, Ennus Khan, Kurreem Shere Khan, and Gamda Khan, received encomiums and rewards for the alacrity with which they had pursued the reckless men who had thus brought discredit on their corps. The official dispatches relating to this affair comprised two letters written by Major Macdonald to Captain Watson, an officer commanding a squadron of the same regiment at Bhagulpore ; they afford curious illustration of the cheerful, daring, care-for-naught spirit in which the British officers were often accustomed to meet their difficulties during those" exciting scenes : I am as fairly cut and neatly scalped as any Red Indian could do it. I got three cracks in succession on the head before I knew I was attacked. I then seized my chair by the arms, and defended myself successfully from two of them on mo at once ; I guarded and struck the best way I could ; and at last Grant and self drove the cowards off the field. This is against my poor head, writing; but you will be anxious to know how matters really were ; I expect to be in high fever to-morrow, as I have got a bad gash into the skull besides being scalped.' This was written on the day after the murderous attack ; and three days later the major wrote: 'My dear fellow, I have had a sad time of it, and am but little able to go through such scenes, for I am very badly wounded ; but, thank God, my spirits and pluck never left me for a moment. When you see my poor old head, you will wonder I could hold it up at all. I have preserved my scalp in spirits of wine such a jolly specimen !' In Cuttack, bounding the northwest corner of the Bay of Bengal, many Mohammedans were detected in the attempt to sap the loyalty of the Shekhawuttie battalion. Lieutenant-colonel Forster, with the head-quarters of that corps at Midnapore, succeeded by his personal influence in keeping the men from anything beyond slight acts of insubordination ; but he had many proofs, in that town and in the Cuttack district, that the Company's ' raj ' or rule was being preached against by many emissaries of rebellion. This rapid sketch will have shewn that the eastern divisions of Bengal were not disturbed by any very serious tumults during the month of June. Incipient proofs of disaffection were, it is true, manifested in many places ; but they were either unimportant in extent, or were checked before they could rise to perilous magnitude. In the western divisions, however, the troubles were more serious ; the towns were further from Calcutta, nearer to the turbulent region of Oude ; and these conditions of locality greatly affected the steadiness and honesty of the native troops. During the earlier days of the month, con- siderable excitement prevailed in the districts of which Patna and Dinapoor arc the chief towns ; in consequence of the general spread of a belief, inculcated by the deserters from Barrackpore, that the government contemplated an active 152 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. interference with the religion of the people. A similar delusion, it was speedily remembered, had existed in the same parts about two years earlier ; the government had adopted such measures as, it was hoped, would remove the prejudice ; but the events of 1857 shewed that the healing policy of 1855 had not been effective for the purpose in view. Until the 13th of June, the disaffection was manifested only by sullen com- plainings and indistinct threats ; but on that day matters presented a more serious aspect. The various magistrates throughout the Patna division reported to the lieutenant-governor of Bengal, that although no acts of violence had been committed, the continuance of tranquillity would mainly depend on the fidelity of the native troops at Dinapoor, the most important military station in that part of India. Dinapoor may, in fact, be regarded as the military post belonging to the great city of Patna, which is about ten miles distant.* The magistrates also reported, as one result of their inquiries, that the Mohammedans in that division were thoroughly disaffected ; and that if any disturbance occurred at head-quarters (Dinapoor), a rapid extension of the revolt would be almost inevitable. When these facts and feelings became known, such precautionary measures were adopted as seemed best calculated to avert the impending evils. An increase was made in the police force at Behar ; the ghats or landing-places were carefully watched and regulated ; the frontiers of the neighbouring- disaffected districts were watched ; a portion of the Company's treasure at Arrah and Chupra was sent off to Calcutta, and the rest removed to Patna for safe custody under a guard of Sikhs ; a volunteer guard was formed in that city ; measures were taken to defend the collectorate and the opium factories ; six companies of the Sikh police battalion were marched from Soorie to Patna ; and places of rendezvous for European residents were appointed at many of the stations, to facili- tate a combined plan of action in the event of mutinous symptoms appearing among the native troops. The Rajahs of Bettiah and Hutwah addressed letters expressive of loyalty and affec- tion towards the government, and placed men and elephants at the disposal of the local authorities, to assist in the maintenance of tranquillity. Towards the middle of the month, an alarm prevailed at Chupra and Arrah, consequent on the mutinous proceedings in certain towns further to the west, presently to be noticed. Large works were under construction near those places in con- nection with the East India Railway ; and the Europeans engaged in those operations, as well as others resident in the two towns, made a hasty retreat, and sought for refuge at Dinapoor. The * Dinapoor is remarkable for the fine barracks built by the Company for the accommodation of troops for the officers, the European troops, and the native troops ; most of the officers have commodious bungalows in the vicinity; and the markets or bazaars, for the supply of Europeans as well as natives, are unusually large and well supplied. magistrates and most of the civil officers remained at their posts, and by their firmness prevented the alarm from degenerating into a panic. At Gayah or Gya, a town between Patna and the great trunk- road celebrated for its Bhuddist and Hindoo temples, and the great resort of pilgrims of hoth religions considerable apprehension prevailed, on account of the unprotected state of a large amount of Company's treasure in the collectorate ; an apprehension increased by the presence of many desperate characters at that time in the jail, and by the guard of the jail being wholly com- posed of natives who would remain steady only so long as those at Dinapoor were ' faithful to their salt.' Fortunately, the authorities were enabled to obtain a guard of European soldiers, chiefly from her majesty's G4th regiment ; and thus the ruffians, more to be dreaded than even the rebellious sepoys, were overawed. It is impossible to avoid seeing, in the course of events throughout India, how much importance ought to be attached to the matter just adverted to the instrumentality of robbers and released prisoners in producing the dreadful scenes pre- sented. India swarms with depredators who war on the peaceful and industrious inhabitants not merely individual thieves, but robber-tribes who infest certain provinces, directing their move- ments by the chances of war or of plunder. Instead of extirpating these ill-doers, as Asiatic sovereigns have sometimes attempted to do, the East India Company has been accustomed to capture and imprison them. Hence the jails are always full. At every important station we have several hundred, sometimes two or three thousand, such prisoners. The mutiny set loose these mischievous elements. The release of crowds of murderers and robbers from prison, the flocking of others from the villages, and the stimulus given to latent rogues by the prospect of plunder, would account for a large amount of the outrage com- mitted in India outrage which popular speech in England attaches to the sepoys alone. On the 13th of June, the first indications of a conspiracy at Patna were detected. A nujeeb of the Behar station guards was discovered in an attempt to tamper with the Sikhs of the police corps, and to excite them to mutiny : he was tried, convicted, sentenced to death, and hanged ; while three Sikhs, who had been instrumental in his appre- hension, were publicly rewarded with fifty rupees each. In singular contrast to this, three other nujeebs of the same force, on the same day, placed in the commissioner's hands a letter received from sepoys at Dinapoor, urging the Behar guards to mutiny, and to seize the treasure at Patna before the Sikhs could arrive to the rescue : this, as a valuable service rendered at a critical period, was rewarded by donations of two hundred rupees to each of the three men. The next symptoms were exhibited by certain members of the Wahabeo sect of Mohammedans at Patna. The fanatical devotion of these Mussulmans to their spiritual BENGAL AND THE LOWER GANGES : JUNE. 153 leaders, their abnegation of self, and their mode of confidential communication with each" other without written documents, render it at all times difficult to produce legal proof of any machinations among them ; while their mutual fidelity enables them to resist all temptation to betrayal. The commissioner of Patna, having suspicions of the proceedings of the Wahabees in that city, deemed it politic to detain four of their number as ho for the sect generally a sect formidable for its organisation, and peculiarly hostile to Christians. They were placed in a sort of honourable confine- ment, while a general disarming of the inhabitants took place. On another occasion a police jemadar, Waris Ali, was ascertained to be in possession of a large amount of treasonable correspondence ; he was known to be in some way related to the royal family of Delhi; and the letters found in his boose threw suspicion on more than one native official in the service of the Company. The most serious affair at Patna, however, occurred about file close of the period to which this chapter more particularly relates. At about eight o'clock in the evening of the 3d of July, a body of Mohammedans, variously estimated from eighty to two hundred, assembled at the house of one of their number, one Peer Ali Khan, a book- seller, and proceeded thence to the Roman Catholic church and mission-honse in Patna, with two large given flags, a drum beating, and cries of ' Ali ! Ali!' The priest, whom they probably intended to murder, fortunately escaped. They emerged into the street, reiterated their cries, and called on the populace to join them. Dr Lyell, principal int to the opium agent, immediately went to the spot, accompanied by nine Sikh--. He rode ahead of his support, was shot down by the rioters, and his body mangled and mutilated before the Sikhs could come up. A force of Sikhs and nujeebs speedily recovered the unfortunate gentle- man's body, killed some of the insurgents, and put the re hi This appeared at first to be a religious demonstration : a Mohammedan fanatic war-cry was shouted, and the property of the Catholic mission was destroyed, but without any plunder or removal. Thirty-six of the insurgents were afterwards captured and tried ; sixteen of the number, including l'eer Ali Khan, who was believed to be the murderer of Dr Lyell, were condemned to death; eighteen, including a jema- dar, were sentenced to various terms of imprison- ment ; and two were acquitted. All the facts of this temporary outbreak were full of significance ; for It soon became evident that something more than mere religious hostility had been intended. Ali Khan was offered a reprieve if he would divulge the nature of the conspiracy ; but, like a bold, consistent fanatic, he remained defiant to the last, and nothing could be got out of him. It was afterwards ascertained that he had been in secret communication with an influential native at Cawnpore ever since the annexation of Oude, and that the details of some widely-spread plot had been concerted between them. The capture of the thirty-six rioters had been effected by the disclosures of one of the band, who was wounded in the struggle ; he declared that a plot had been in existence for many months, and that men were regularly paid to excite the people to fight for the Padishah of Delhi. Letters found in Peer Ali's house disclosed an organised Mussulman con- spiracy to re-establish Mohammedan supremacy on the ruins of British power ; and besides the correspondence with Cawnpore and Delhi, a clue was obtained to the complicity of an influential Mohammedan at Lucknow. Patna was sufficiently well watched and guarded to prevent the occurrence of anything of more serious import. Nevertheless, the European inha- bitants were kept in great anxiety, knowing how nuieh their safety depended on the conduct of the sepoys at Dinapoor. The commissioner at the one place, and the military commandant at the other, were naturally rejoiced to receive any demonstra- tions of fidelity on the part of the native troops, even if the sincerity of those demonstrations were not quite free from doubt. On the 3d of June, Colonel Templer assembled the 7th regiment 15. N. I. on the military parade at Dinapoor, to read to them the flattering address which Viscount Canning had made to the 70th regiment at Par rack pore, on the manifestation of loyalty by that corps. On the conclusion of this ceremony, the native commissioned officers came up to the colonel, and presented to him a petition, signed by two subadars and five jemadars on the part of the whole regiment. The petition is worth trans* ciibing,* to shew in what glowing language the native troops could express their grateful allegiance but whether sincere or insincere, no European could at that time truly tell. Colonel Templer desired that all the men who acknowledged the petition to contain an expression of their real sentiments and wishes, would shoulder their arms in token thereof; on which every one present * At present the men of bad character in gome regiments, and other people in the direction of Mecrut and Delhi, have turned from their allegiance to the bountiful government, and created a seditious disturbance, and have made choice of the ways of ingrati- tude, and thrown away the character of sepoys true to'ihur salt. ' At present it is well known that some European regiments liavo started to punish and coerce these rebels; we trust that by the favour of the bountiful government, we also may be sent to punish the enemies of government, wherever they are ; for If we cann >t be of use to government at this lime, how will it be manifest ami known to the state that we are true to our salt? Have wo not been entertained in the army for days like the present t la addition to this, government shall see what their faithful sepoys arc like, and we will work with heart and soul to do our duty to the state that give* us cur salt. * Let the enemies of g >vernment be who they may, we are ready to fight them, and to laerlflw our lives in the cause. ' We have said as much as is proper ; may the sun of your wealth and prosperity ever shine. ' The petition of your servants : Hf.era Si so, Subadar, Kt.i.auei: Kuan, Subadar, BaoWAWT Sing, Jemadar, IffWBOOV Sing, Jemadar, IIikha Siko, Jemadar, laaaxu Tandy, Jemadar, Muudan Sing, Jemadar, of the Hurra Crawford's, or 7th regiment, native infantry, and of every non-commissioned officer and sepoy in the lines. Presented on the 3.1 J,m W,;.' 154 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. shouldered arms. The native officers afterwards assured the colonel, with apparent earnestness, that it was the eager wish of the whole regiment to be afforded an opportunity of removing even a suspicion of their disaffection. When Colonel Tern pier repeated this to Major-general Lloyd, the military commander of the Dinapoor division, and when Lloyd forwarded the communication to Calcutta, the regiment of course received thanks for the demonstration, and were assured that ' their good conduct will be kept in remembrance by the governor-general in council.' It was not until a later month that the small value of these protestations was clearly shewn ; nevertheless the Europeans at Dinapoor continued throughout June to be very uneasy. Almost every one lived in the square; the guns were kept ready loaded with grape; the few European troops were on the alert ; and pickets were posted all round the station. A motley assemblage planters, soldiers, civilians, railway men, and others was added to the ordinary residents, driven in from the sur- rounding districts for protection. The officers gave up their mess-house to the ladies, who completely filled it. In Tirhoot, a district north of Patna, on the other side of the Ganges, the planters and others were thrown into great excitement during the month of June, by the events occurring around them. About the middle of the month, planters left their estates and civilians their homes, to go for refuge to the Company's station at Mozufferpoor. Eighty gentlemen, thirty ladies, and forty children, were all crowded into two houses ; the ladies and children shut up at night, while the men slept in verandahs, or in tents, or took turns in patrolling. The nujeebs, stationed at that place, were suspected of being in sympathy with the mutineers ; one of the Company's servants, disguised as a native, went to their quarters one night, and overheard them conversing about murdering the Europeans, looting the treasury (which contained seven lacs of rupees), and liberating the prisoners. This was the alarm that led to the assembling of the Euro- peans at the station for mutual protection ; and there can be little doubt that the protection Avould have been needed had Dinapoor fallen. One of the Mohammedan inhabitants was seized at Mozuffer- poor, with a quantity of treasonable correspondence in his possession ; and the commandant at Segowlie condemned to the gallows with very little scruple several suspicious characters in various parts of the district. Advancing up the Ganges, we come to Ghazee- pore, on its northern or left bank. This town, containing forty thousand inhabitants, is rendered somewhat famous by a palace once belonging to the Nawab of Oude, but now in a very ruinous state ; also by the beautiful Grecian tomb erected to the Marquis of Cornwallis ; and by the rose- gardens in its vicinity, where rose-leaves are gathered for making the celebrated otto or attar. The bungalows of the Company's civil servants are situated west of the town ; and beyond them is the military cautonment. During the early part of the month of June, the 65th native infantry, stationed at Ghazeepore, was sorely tempted by the mutinying of so many other regiments at stations within forty or fifty miles; but they remained stanch fcr some time longer. Not so the sepoys at Azimghur, a town north- west of Ghazeepore, containing twelve or fourteen thousand inhabitants, and a military station. At this place the 17th regiment Bengal native in- fantry was posted at the beginning of June. On the 3d of the month an escort of thirty troopers of the 13th irregular cavalry brought in seven lacs of rupees from Goruckpore, en route to Benares. At six o'clock in the evening the treasure was started again on its journey ; and in three hours afterwards the 17th mutinied, influenced appar- ently rather by the hope of loot than by any political or religious motives. During several days previously the authorities had been employed in throwing up a breastwork around the cutchery or government offices ; but this was not finished. The sepoys killed their quartermaster, and wounded the quartermaster-sergeant and two or three others. The officer on guard at the fort of the cutchery sent out a picket to the lines, and ordered the native artillerymen to load their guns : this they refused to do ; and hence the infantry were left to follow out their plan of spoliation. The officers were at mess when the mutiny began ; seeing the danger, they placed the ladies on the roof of the cutchery. When the sepoys came up, they formed a square round the officers, and swore to protect them ; but stated that, as some men of the regi- ment were very hostile, it would be better for all the officers to depart. The men bx*ought carriages for them, and escorted them ten miles on the road to Ghazeepore. Many of the civilians hurried away to the same town, reaching that place in terrible plight. The marauders from the neigh- bouring villages did not fail in their usual course ; they plundered the bungalows of the Europeans at Azimghur, or such of them as were left unprotected. Far more serious were the events at Benares, than at any city or station eastward of it, during the month of June. It would in all probability have been still more deplorable, had not European troops arrived just at that time. Lieutenant- colonel Neill reached Benares on the 3d of June, with sixty men and three officers of the 1st Madras Fusiliers (Europeans), of which regiment five more companies were in the rear, expecting to reach that city in a few days. The regiment had been despatched in great haste by Viscount Canning, in the hope that it would appear before Cawnpore in time to relieve Sir Hugh Wheeler and his unfortunate companions. Neill intended, after a day's repose, to have started from Benares for Cawnpore on the 4th ; but he received timely notice from Lieutenant Palliser that the 17th B. N. I. had mutinied at Azimghur ; and that BENGAL AND THE LOWER GANGES : JUNE. 155 the treasure, passing through Azimghur in its Wy from Goruckpore to Benares (mentioned in the last paragraph), had heen plundered by the mutinous sepoys. Brigadier Ponsonby, the com- mandant at Benares, at once consulted with Colonel Neill concerning the propriety of disarming the 37th regiment Bengal infantry, stationed at that city. Neill recommended this to be done, and done at once. It was then arranged that Neill should make his appearance on parade at live o'clock that same afternoon, accompanied by a hundred and fifty of II. M. 10th foot, sixty of the Madras Fusiliers, and three guns of No. 12 field- battery, with thirty artillerymen. They were to be joined on parade by the Sikh regiment, in which Lieutenant-colonel Gordon placed full con- fidence, and about seventy of the 13th fan cavalry. The 37th, suspecting what was Intended, ran to the bells of arms, seized and loaded their muskets, and fired upon the Europeans; several men fell wounded, and the brigadier was rcn- a sun stroke. Thereupon Colonel Neill, assuming the command, made rt dash on the native lines. What was now the perplexity of the colonel, and the mortitication of Gordon, at seeing the Sikhs halt, waver, turn round, wound several of their officer*, fire at the Europeans, and disperse ! It was one of those inexplicable movei; rrequentlj bited by the native troops. Neill, now distrusting all save the Ruropi led an effective fire with his three guns, expelled the 37th from their burnt the huts, and then secured his own men and guns in the barrack for the night, i on the morning of the 5th he sent out parties, and brought in such of the arms and accoutremc: the 37th as had been left behind ; he also told oft* a strong body to bring the Company's treasure from the civil offices to the barracks. Colonel Neill fully believed that if he had delayed his bold proceeding twelve hours, the ill-protected treasury would have been seized by the 37th, and that the numerous European families in the cantonment would have been placed in great peril before he could reach them. The barracks were between intonment and the city ; and near them was a building called the mint. Into this mint, before <>n parade on the 4th. he had arranged that all the families should go for refuge in the event of any disturbance taking place. A few of the Sikhs and of the irregular cavalry remained faithful ; and Colonel Neill, with his two hundred and forty Europeans* and these fragments of native regi- ments, contrived to protect the city, the barracks, the mint, and the cantonment a trying task, to defend so large an area from mutinous sepoys and * The exact components of thi* gallant little band appear to hare been as follow : Cum. M Artillery, . 1 3U n' tronp, . . o ia Fusilier*, I 3 7 240 I ^tive of the officers belonging to the mutinous regiments. troopers, and predatory budmashes. lie had to record the deaths of Captain Guise, an army- surgeon, and two privates ; and the wounding of about double this number casualties surprising for their lightness, considering that there Avere nearly two thousand enemies to contend against altogether. Of the insurgents, not less than two hundred were killed or wounded. It was at once determined to strengthen the neighbouring fort of Chunar or Chunargur; for which duty a small detachment of Europeans was drafted off. Such were the military operations of the 4th and 5th of June, as told in the brief professional language "of Colonel Neill. Various officers and civilians afterwards dwelt more fully on the detailed incidents of those two days. The 13th irregular cavalry and the Sikhs (Loodianah regi- ment) had been relied on as faithful ; and the 37th had greatly distinguished itself in former years in the Punjaub and Afghanistan. This infantry regiment, however, exhibited signs of insubordi- nation on the 1st of the month; and on the 3d, Lieutenant-colonel Gordon, second in command under Ponsonby, told the brigadier that the men of the 37th were plotting with the ruffians of the city. The brigadier, Mr Tucker the commissioner, and Mr dubbins the judge, thereupon conferred; and it was almost fully determined, even before Colonel Neill's arrival, and before the receipt of disastrous news from Azimghur, that the disband- nient of the regiment would be a necessary mea- sure of precaution. The irregular cavalry were stationed at Sultanporc and Benares, and were called in to aid the Europeans and Sikhs in the disarming. A few of the officers, unlike their brethren, distrusted these troopers; and the dis- trust proved to be well founded. The Sikhs, at the hour of need, fell away as soon as the 37th had seized their arms ; and the irregulars were not slow to follow their example; so that, in effect, the insurgents Avere to the Europeans in the ratio of eight or ten to one. One of the English officers of the 37th has placed upon record a few facts shewing how strangely unexpected was this among many of the Indian outbreaks, by the very men whose position and experience would naturally lead them (one might suppose) to have watched for symptoms. In the first instance, Major Barrett, indignant at the slight which he believed to have been put upon the good and faithful sepoys of the 37th, by the order for disarming, went openly towards the regiment during the struggle at the bells of arms, to shew his confidence in them ; but when he saw some of his men firing at him, and others approach him with fixed bayonets, he felt pain- fully that he must both change his opinions and effect a retreat. Some of the 37th did, however, remain 'true to their salt;' and these, under the major, who had escaped the shots aimed at him, were among the troops sent to guard Chunar Fort. As a second instance : after Captain Guise, of the 13th irregulars, had been shot down by men of the 37th, the brigadier appointed Captain Dodgson 156 TUB REVOLT IN INDIA -.1857. to supply his place ; but tlie irregulars, instead of obeying him, flashed their swords, muttered some indistinct observations, fired at him, and at once joined the rebels whom they had been employed and expected to oppose. A third instance, in relation to the Sikhs, shall be given in the words of the officer above adverted to : ' Just as the irregulars were flashing their swords in reply to Captain Dodgson's short address, I was horrified by noticing about a dozen of the Sikhs fire straight forward upon the European soldiers, who were still kneeling and firing into the 37th. The next moment some half-dozen of their muskets were staring me in the face, and a whole tem- pest of bullets came whizzing towards me. Two passed through my forage-cap, and set my hair on fire ; three passed through my trousers, one just grazing my right thigh. I rushed head- long at one of the fellows whom I had noticed more especially aiming at me, but had scarcely advanced three paces when a second volley of bullets saluted me.' This volley brought the officer low ; he lay among the wounded, unrecognised for many hours, but was fortunate enough to obtain surgical aid in time to avert a fatal result. Many circumstances afterwards came to light, tending to shew that, had not Neill and Ponsonby taken the initiative when they did, the native troops would probably have risen that same night, and perhaps imitated the Meerut outrages. One of the missionaries at Benares, who escaped to Chunar as soon as the outbreak occurred, said in a letter : ' Some of the 37th have confessed to their officers that they had been told out in bands for our several bungalows, to murder all the Europeans at ten o'clock that night ; and that, too, at the time they were volunteering to go to Delhi, and Colonel Spottiswoode was walking about among them in plain clothes with the most implicit confidence.' The fighting, during this exciting day at Benares, was practically over as soon as the rebels began to retreat ; but then the perils of the civilians commenced. More correctly, however, it might be said that the wild confusion began earlier ; for while the brief but fierce military struggle was still in progress on the parade-ground, the native guards of the 37th at the treasury, the hospital, the mess-house, the bazaar, and other buildings, broke from their duty, and proceeded to molest the Europeans, with evident hopes of plunder. A Sikh, one Soorut Singh, has been credited with an act which saved many lives and much treasure. He was among the Sikhs of the treasury-guard ; and when the rising began, talked to his comrades, and prevented them from rising in mutiny ; many civilians, with their families, who had taken refuge in the collector's cutcherry, were saved through this friendly agency ; while the treasure was held intact till the following morning, when European troops convoyed it to a place of safety. The Rev. Mr Kennedy, a resident in Benares at that time, states that the faithfulness of these Sikhs, about seventy in number, was deemed so remarkable under the circumstances, that 1000 was given to them as a reward for their safe guardianship of the 60,000 in the treasury. After the discomfiture on the parade- ground, the rebels, maddened by defeat and thirsting for blood, streamed through many of the compounds in the cantonment as they retreated, and fired as they passed, but happily so much at random that little danger was done. Several of the Europeans took refuge in stables and outhouses. Others climbed to the roofs of their houses, and hid behind the parapets. At the house of the commissioner, Mr Tucker, many ladies and chil- dren found concealment under straw on the flat roof ; while the gentlemen stood by to defend them if danger should approach. Three or four families took boat, and rowed out into the middle of the Ganges, there to remain until news of returning tranquillity should reach them ; much booming of cannon and rattling of musketry, much appearance of fire and smoke hovering over city and cantonment, kept the occupants of the boats in constant anxiety ; but when victory had declared for the British, and these boat-parties had returned to land, escorts arrived to convey the non-com- batants and some of the officers to the mint, in accordance with the arrangement already made. They arrived at that building about midnight. Mr Kennedy described in a letter the scene pre- sented at the mint when he and his family reached it : ' What a scene of confusion and tumult was there. All in front, bands of English soldiers, ready to act at a moment's notice ; men, women, and children, high and low, huddled together, wonder- ing at meeting at such a time and in such a place, not knowing where they were to throw themselves down for the night, and altogether looking quite bewildered.' A young officer, throwing into his narrative that light-heartedness which so often bore up men of his class during the troubles of the period, gave a little more detail of the first night and day at the place of refuge : ' I found every- body at the mint, which several had only reached after many adventures. We bivouacked in the large rooms, and slept on the roof ladies, children, ayahs, and punkah-coolies ; officers lying down dressed, and their wives sitting up fanning them. In the compound or enclosure below, there was a little handful of Europeans, perhaps a hundred and fifty in all ; others were at the barracks half a mile off. There was a pickuicking, gipsifying look about the whole affair, which prevented one from realising that the small congregation were there making a stand for a huge empire, and that their lives were upon the toss-up of the next events.' During a considerable portion of the month of June, the Europeans made the mint their chief place of residence, the men going out in the day- time to their respective duties, and the ladies and children remaining in their place of refuge. On the 5th, few ventured out of the building, unless heavily armed or strongly escorted. The mint BENGAL AND THE LOWER GANGES : JUNE. 157 had a most warlike appearance, bristling with arms, and soon became almost insupportably hot to the numerous persons congregated within it. The hot winds of Benares at that time, nearly midsummer, were terrible for Europeans to bear. On the 7th, which was Sunday, Mr Kennedy performed divine service at the mint, and a church- missionary at the barracks. Gradually, on subse- quent days, whole families would venture out for a few hours at a time, to take a hasty glance at homes which they had so suddenly been called upon to cpuit ; but the mint continued for two or three weeks to be the refuge to which they all looked. As European troops, however, were arriv- ing at Benares every day, on the way to the upper provinces, it soon became practicable, under the energetic Neill, to insure tranquillity in and near that city with a very small number of these so much-valued Queen's troops. The capture and execution of insurgents, under the combined orders of Neill, Tucker, and Gubbins, respectively the commandant, commissioner, and judge, were conducted with such stern prompt- ness as struck terror into the hearts of evildoers. It may be instructive to see in what light Mr Kennedy, as a clergyman, regarded these terrible j^^^m^^j^.. Mess-house of the Officers of the 6th Native Infantry at Allahabad. execution?, which arc admitted to have been very numerous: ' Tlie gibbet is. I must acknowledge, a tainting institution among us at present. Then it stands, immediately in front of the flagstaff, with three ropes always attached to it, so that three may be executed at one time. Scarcely a day passes without some poor wretches being hurled into eternity. It is horrible, very horrible ! To think of it is enough to make one's blood run cold ; but such is the state of things here, that even fine delicate ladies may be heard eipwssing their joy at the rigour with which the miscreants are treated. The swiftness with which crime is followed by the severest punishment strikes the people with astonishment; it is so utterly foreign to all our modes of procedure, as known to them. Hitherto the process lias been very slow, encum- bered with forms, and such cases have always been carried to the Supremo Court for final decision ; but now, the commissioner of Benares may give commissions to any he chooses (the city being under martial law), to try, decide, and execute on the spot, without any delay and without any reference.' Jounpoor or Juanpoor, a town about thirty miles northwest of Benares, was one of those which shared with that city the troubles of the month of June. A detachment of the Loodianah Sikh regiment, under Lieutenant Mara, stationed at that place, mutinied most suddenly and unex- pectedly on the 5th, within less than an hour after they had shaken hands with some of the European residents as a token of friendly feeling. The men revolted through some impulse that the English in vain endeavoured to understand at the time ; but it was afterwards ascertained that 108 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. some of the mutinous 37th from Benares had been tampering with them. In the first whirl of the tumult, the lieutenant and a civilian were shot down, and the rest of the Europeans sought safety by flight. Information reached Benares, after some days, that the fugitives were in hiding ; and a small detachment was at once despatched for their relief. It was now found, as in many other instances, that amid all the brutality and recklessness of the mutineers and budmashes, there were not wanting humane natives in the country villages, ready to succour the distressed ; one such, named Hingun Lall, had sheltered and fed the whole of the fugitives from Jounpoor for five days. There were many stations at which the number of insurgent troops was greater ; there were many occasions on which the Europeans suffered more general and prolonged miseries ; there were many struggles of moi'e exciting chai*acter between the dark-skinned soldiers and the light but there was not perhaps, throughout the whole history of the Indian mutinies, an outbreak which excited more astonishment than that at Allahabad in the early part of June. It was totally unexpected by the authorities, who had been blinded by protestations of loyalty on the part of the troops. This place (see p. 107) occupies a very important position in relation to Upper India generally ; being at the point where the Jumna and Ganges join, where the Benares region ends and the Oude region begins, where the Doab and Bundel- cund commence, where the river-traffic and the road-traffic branch out in various directions, and whore the great railway will one day have a central station. As stated in a former page, the 6th Bengal Native Infantry, stationed at Allahabad, voluntai'ily came forward and offered their services to march against the Delhi muti- neers. For this demonstration they were thanked by their officers, who felt gratified that, amid so much desertion, fidelity should make itself apparent in this quarter. Rather from a vague undefined uneasiness, than from any suspicion of this particular regiment, the Europeans at Allahabad had for some time been in uneasiness ; there had been panics in the city ; there had been much patrolling and watching ; and the ladies had been looking anxiously to the fort as a place of refuge, whither most of them had taken up their abode at night, returning to their homes in the cantonment or the city in the day- time. From Benares, Lucknow, or other places, they apprehended danger but not from within. It was on the 5th of June that Colonel Simpson, of the 6th regiment, received Viscount Canning's instructions to thank his men for their loyal offer to march and fight against the rebels at Delhi ; and it was on the same day that news reached Allahabad, probably by telegraph, of the occur- rences at Benares on the previous day, and of the possible arrival of some of the insui'gents from that place. The officers still continued to trust the 6th regiment, not only in virtue of the recent protestation of fidelity by the men, but on account of their general good conduct; indeed, this was one of the most trusted regi- ments in the whole native army. Nevertheless, instructions were given to arm the civilians as well as the military, and to prepare for making a good stand at the fort. Many civilians, formed into a militia, under the commandant of the garrison, slept in the fort that night, or relieved each other as sentinels at the ramparts. There were at that time in the fort, besides the women and children, about thirty invalid artillerymen, under Captain Hazelwood ; a few commissariat and magazine sergeants ; about a hundred volunteer civilians ; four hundred Sikhs, of the Ferozpore regiment, under Lieutenant Brasyer ; and eighty men of the 6th regiment, guarding the main gate. Several Europeans with their families, thinking no danger nigh, slept outside the fort that night. Two companies of the native regiment under three English officers, and two guns under Captain Harward, were sent to guard the bridge of boats across the Ganges in the direction of Benares. Captain Alexander, with two squadrons of the 3d regiment Oude irregular cavalry, was posted in the Alopee Bagh, a camping-ground commanding the roads to the station. The main body of the 6th remained in their lines, three miles from the fort. All proceeded quietly until about nine o'clock on the evening of the 6th of June ; when, to the inexpressible astonishment and dismay of the officers, the native regiment rose in revolt. The two guns were seized by them at the bridge-head, and Harward had to run for his life. In the can- tonment the officers were at mess, full of confidence in their trusted troops, when the sepoys sounded the alarm bugle, as if to bring them on parade ; those who rushed out were at once aimed at, and nearly all shot dead ; while no fewer than nine young ensigns, mere boys who had just entered on the career of soldiering, Avere bayoneted in the mess-room itself. It was a cruel and bloody deed, for the poor youths had but recently arrived, and were in hostility'with none. Captain Alexander, when he heard of the rising, hastened off to the lines with a few of his troopers ; but he was caught in an ambush by a body of the sepoys, and at once shot down. The sepoys, joined by released prisoners and habitual plunderers, then com- menced a scene of murder and devastation in all directions ; Europeans were shot Avherever they could be seen ; the few English women who had not been so fortunate as to seek refuge in the fort, were grossly outraged before being put to death ; the telegraph wires were cut; the boats on the river were seized ; the treasury was plundered ; the houses of native bankers, as Avell as those of European residents, were pillaged ; and wild . licence reigned everywhere. Terrible were the deeds recorded a whole family roasted alive ; persons killed by the slow process of cutting off in succession ears, nose, fingers, feet, &c. ; others BENGAL AND THE LOWER GANGES : JUNE. ]59 chopped to pieces ; children tossed on bayonets before their mother's eyi An affecting incident is related of one of the unfortunate young officers so ruthlessly attacked at the mess-house. An ensign, only sixteen years of age, who was left for dead among the rest, pod in the darkness to a neighbouring raviue. Here he found a stream, the waters of which sustained his life for four days and nights. Although desperately wounded, he contrived to raise himself into a tree at night-time, for protec- tion from wild beasts. On the fifth day he was discovered, and dragged by the brutal insurgents before one of their leaders. There he found another prisoner, a Christian catechist, formerly a Mohammedan, whom the sepoys were endeavour- ing to terrify and torment into a renunciation of Christianity. The firmness of the native was giving way as be knelt before his persecutors ; but the boy-officer, after anxiously watching him for a short time said : ' Oh, my friend, come what may, do not deny the Lord Jesus :' ,Ji:-t at this moment the arrival of Colonel Neill and the Madias Fusiliers (presently to be noticed) at Allahabad was announced ; the ruffians made off; the poor catechist's life was saved; but the gentle- spirited young e ak under the wounds and privations he had endured. When this incident became known through the medium of the public journals, the father of the young officer, town- clerk of Evesham, told how brief had been the ; thus cut short. Arthur Marcus Hill Cheek had left England so recently as the 20th of March preceding, to commence the life of ;i soldier; he arrived at Calontta in May, was appointed to the Gth native regiment* reached Allahabad on the 19th of the same month, and was shot down by . n men eighteen days afterwards. The inmates of the fort naturally suffered an agony of suspense on the night of the Gth. When they heard the bugle, and the subsequent tiring, they believed the mutineers had arrived from Benares ; and as the intensity of the sound varied from time to time, so did they picture in imagina- tion the varying fortune! of the two hypothetical opposing forces the supposed insurgents from the east, and the soppoeed loyal 6th regiment .Soon were they startled by a revelation of the real truth that the firing came from their own trusted sepoys. The Europeans in the fort, recovering from their wonder and dismay, were fortunately enabled to disarm the eighty sepoys at the gate through the energy of Lieutenant I3rasyer ; and it was then found that these fellows had loaded and capped their muskets, ready to turn out. Five officers succeeded in entering during the night, three of them naked, having had to swim the twelve days did the Europeans ti within the fort, not daring to emerge for many hours at a time, lest the four hundred Sikhs should prove faithless in the hour of greatest need. ta of the city are about half a mile from the fort ; and during several days and nights troops of rioters were to be seen rushing from place to place, plundering and burning. Day and night the civilians manned the ramparts, succeed- ing each other in regular watches now nearly struck down by the hot blazing sun ; now pouring forth shot and shell upon such of the insurgents as were within reach. The civilians or volunteers formed themselves into three corps ; one of which, called the Flagstaff Division, was joined by about twenty railway men sturdy fellows who had suffered bike the rest, and were not slow to avenge themselves on the mutineers whenever opportu- nity offered. After a time, the volunteers sallied forth into the city with the Sikhs, and had several skirmishes in the streets with the insurgents delighted at the privilege of quitting for a few hours the hot crowded fort, even to fight. It was by degrees ascertained that conspiracy had been going on in the city before the actual out- break occurred. The standard of insurrection was unfurled by a native unknown to the Euro- peans : some supposed him to be a moulvie, or Mohammedan religious teacher ; but whatever may have been his former position, he now announced himself as viceroy of the King of Delhi. He quickly collected about him three or four thousand rebels, sepoys and others, and displayed the green Sag that constitutes the Moslem symbol. The head-quarters of this self-appointed chieftain were in the higher part of the city, at the old Mohammedan gardens of Sultan Khoosroo ; there the prisoners taken by the mutineers were con- lined among whom were the native Christian teachers belonging to the Rev. Mr Hay's mission. The movements of Colonel Neill must now be traced. No sooner did this gallant and energetic officer hear of the occurrences at Allahabad, than he proceeded to effect at that place what he had already done at Benares re-establish English authority by a prompt, firm, and stern course of action. The distance between the two cities being about seventy-live miles, he quickly made the necessary travelling arrangements. He left Benares on the evening of the 9th, accompanied by one officer and forty-three men of the Madras Fusiliers. The horses being nearly all taken off the road, he found much difficulty in bringing in the dak-carriages containing the men ; but this and all other obstacles he surmounted. He found the country between Mirzapore and Allahabad infested with bands of plunderers, the villages ed, and none of the authorities remaining. Major Stephenson, with a hundred more men, set out from Benares on the same evening as Neill ; but his bollock-Tana were still more slow in progress; and his men suffered much from exposure to heat during the journey. Neill reached Allahabad on the afternoon of the 11th. He found the fort almost completely invested ; the bridge of boats over the Ganges in the hands of a mob, and partly broken ; and the neighbouring villages swarming with insurgents. By cautious manoeuvring at the end of the Benares road, he succeeded in obtaining 1G0 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. boats which conveyed him and his handful of men over to the fort. He at once assumed command, and arranged that on the following morning the enemy should be driven out of the villages, and the bridge of boats recaptured. Accordingly, on the morning of the 12th he opened fire with several round-shot, and then attacked the rebels in the village of Deeragunge with a detachment of Fusiliers and Sikhs : this was effectively accom- plished, and a safe road opened for the approach of Major Stephenson's detachment on the evening of that day. On the 13th the insurgents were driven out of the village of Kydgunge. Weill had now a strange enemy to combat within the fort itself drunkenness and relaxed discipline. The Sikhs, during their sallies into the city before his arrival, had gained entrance into some of the deserted warehouses of wine-merchants and others in the town, had brought away large quantities of beverage, and had sold these to the European soldiers within the fort at four annas (sixpence) per bottle for wine, spirits, or beer indiscriminately ; drunkenness and disorganisation followed, requiring determined measures on the part of the commandant. He bought all the remaining liquors obtainable, for commissariat use; and kept a watchful eye on the stores still remaining in the warehouses in the town. Neill saw reason for distrusting the Sikhs ; they had remained faithful up to that time, but nevertheless exhibited symptoms which required attention. As soon as possible, he got them out of the fort altogether, and placed them at various posts in the city where they might still render service if they chose to remain faithful. His opinion of the native troops was sufficiently expressed in this passage in one of his dispatches : ' I felt that Allahabad was really safe when every native soldier and sentry was out of the fort ; and as long as I command I shall not allow one to be on duty in it.' Nothing can be more striking than the difference of views held by Indian officers on this point ; some distrusted the natives from the first, while others maintained faith in them to a very disastrous extent. From the time when Neill obtained the upper- hand in Allahabad, he was incessantly engaged in chastising the insurgents in the neighbourhood. He sent a steamer up the Jumna on the 15th, with a howitzer under Captain Harward, and twenty fusiliers under Lieutenant Arnold ; and these worked much execution among the rebels on the banks. A combined body of fusiliers, Sikhs, and irregular cavalry made an attack on the villages of Kydgunge and Mootingunge, on the banks of the Jumna, driving out the insurgents harboured there, and mowing them down in considerable numbers. On subsequent days, wherever Neill heard of the presence of insurgents in any of the surrounding villages, he at once attacked them ; and great terror seized the hearts of the malcon- tents in the city at the celerity with which guns and gibbets were set to work. On the 18th he sent eighty fusiliers and a hundred Sikhs up the river in a steamer, to destroy the Patan village of Durriabad, and the Meewattie villages of Sydabad and Russelpore. It was not merely in the villages that these active operations were necessary ; a large number of the mutinous sepoys went off towards Delhi on the day after the outbreak, leav- ing the self-elected chief to manage his rabble- army as he liked ; and it was against this rabble that many of the expeditions were planned. The city suffered terribly from this double infliction ; for after the spoliation and burning effected by the marauders, the English employed cannon-balls and musketry to drive those marauders out of the streets and houses ; and Allahabad thus became little other than a mass of blackened ruins. Colonel Neill organised a body of irregular cavalry by joining Captain Palliser s detachment of the 13th irregulars with the few men of Captain Alexander's corps still remaining true to their salt. A force of about a hundred and sixty Madras Fusiliers started from Benares on the 13th, under Captain Fraser ; he was joined on the road by Captain Palliser's detachment of troopers, just adverted to, of about eighty men, and the two officers then proceeded towards Allahabad. They found the road almost wholly in the hands of rebels and plunderers; but by fighting, hanging, and burning, they cleared a path for themselves, struck terror into the evildoers, and recovered much of the Company's treasure that had fallen into hostile hands. It is sad to read of six villages being reduced to ashes during this one march ; but stringent measures were absolutely necessary to a restoration of order and obedience. Fraser and Palliser reached Allahabad on the 18th, and their arrival enabled Neill to prosecute two objects which he had at heart the securing of Allahabad, and the gradual collection of a force that might march to the relief of poor Sir Hugh Wheeler and the other beleaguered Europeans at Cawnpore. During these varied operations, the officers and men were often exposed during the daytime to a heat so tremendous that nothing but an intense interest in their work could have kept them up. ' If I can keep from fever,' wrote one of them, ' I sha'nt care ; for excitement enables one to stand the sun and fatigue wonderfully. At any other time the sun would have knocked us down like dogs ; but all this month we have been out in the middle of the day, toiling like coolies, yet I have never been better in my life such an appetite ! ' To meet temporary exigencies, the church, the government offices, the barracks, the bungalows all were placed at the disposal of the English troops, as fast as they arrived up from Calcutta. These reinforcements, during the second half of the month, consisted chiefly of detachments of her Majesty's 64th, 78th, and 84th foot. The peaceful inhabitants began to return to the half-ruined city, shattered houses were hastily rebuilt or repaired, trade gradually revived, bullocks and carriages arrived in considerable number, supplies were laid BENGAL AND THE LOWER GANGES : JUNE. 161 in, the weather became cooler, the cholera abated, and Colonel Neill found himself enabled to look forward with much confidence to the future. The fort, during almost the whole of the month, had been very much crowded, insomuch that the inmates suffered greatly from heat and cholera. Two steam-boat loads of women and children were therefore sent down the river towards Calcutta ; and all the non-combatants left the fort, to reoccupy such of their residences as had escaped demoli- tion. Some of the European soldiers were tented on the glacis ; others took up quarters in a tope of trees near the dak-bungalow ; lastly, a hospital was fitted up for the cholera patients. "With the end of June came tranquillity both to Benares and to Allahabad, chiefly through the determined measures adopted by Colonel Neill ; and then he planned an expedition, the best in his power, for Cawnpore the fortunes of which will come under our notice in duo time. ^lotrs. The Oude Royal Fam U>i. 'When the news rea ' that the deposed King of Onde had 1 Leutta, in the way described in the ] re) I t chapter, on suspicion of complicity with the mul relations, who had pre- I t<> London I annexation of Oude n filled with protesta- tions of innocence, on his part ami on their own. The ; he House of Lords by Lord Campbell, though not formally received owing to some A memorial to Queen Victoria was couched in similar form. The petition and memorial ran as foil 'The jetition of the undersigned Jenabi Auliah Tajara , the < of Oude; Mirza liohummud Hamid Allie, eldest son and ! ;;t of his M i Mirza liohummud Jowaad Allie ler Hnahmnt Bahadoor, next brother of his Majesty the King of Oude, 'Tli trd with sincere regret bed the British kingdom of Wng among the native troops in India ; and that t! earliest opportunity, I public expression to that which they some \'. lity and attachment to fjreat Britain which iyal family of Oude continues unchanged and unaffected bj these deplorable events, and that they remain, aa Lord Dalhousie, the late governor- general of India, cniphatieally declared them, "a royal Eaithfol and true to their friendship with the i nation." 'That in the midst of this great public calamity, your 1 their OH I rrow in the which has reached them, through the pull the King of Oude has been sab] traint at Calcutta, ami deprived of the means of eoormunicating even with your lers, his mother, son, and I: 1 That your petitioner- | ui vocally and solemnly sty and your lordships, that if his U the King of Oude I nspected of any complicity in the recent disastrous occurrences, such suspicion is not only wholly and absolutely unfounded, but is din one, the whole tenor of whose lit"'', character, and conduct aives all strdi imputations, Your petitioners D of your lordships the facts relating at of the King of Oude, as set forth in ated to ih<- House of Commons by Sir FHsroy Kelly on the 26th of May last, that when resistance might made, and was ev.n anticipated by the British general, the King of Oude directed his guards and ) lay aid.' their arms, and that, when it was announced to him that the territories of Oude were to t ever in the Honourable K mpany, the 1. I of offering resistance to the British after civing vent to his feelings in a hurst of grief, descended from liis throne, declaring his deter- mination to seek for justice at her Majesty's throne, and from the parliament of England. 'That since their resort to this country, in obedience to jesty's commands, your petitioners have received communications from his Majesty which set forth the hopes and aspirations of his heart; that those communications not only negative all supposition of his Majesty's personal Complicity in any intrigues, bat till the minds of your ten with tic- profound conviction that his Majesty would feel, with your petitioners, the greatest grief and pais at the events which have occurred. And your peti- tioners desire to declare to your lordships, and to assure the British nation, that although suffering, in common with his heart-broken family, from tin- wrongs inflicted on them, from the humiliations of a state of exile, and loss of Lome, authority, and country, the King of Oude relies only on the justice of his can throne and to the parliament of Qreat Britain, and disdains to use the arm of the rebel and the traitor to maintain the right he seeks to vindicate. 1 Your petitioners therefore pray of your lordships that, in the your authority, you will cause justice to be done to his .Man ty the King of Oude, and that it may be forthwith explicitly made known to his Majesty and to your petitioners wherewith he is charged, and by whom, and on what authority, so that the King of Oude may have full opportunity of refuting and disproving the unjust sus- picions and calumnies of which he is now the helpless victim. And your petitioners further pray that the King of Oude may be permitted freely to correspond with your petitioners in this country, so that they may also have opportunity of vindicating here the character and conduct of their sovereign and relative, of establishing his innocence of any offence against the crown of England, or the British government or people, and of shewing that, under every varying phase of circumstance, the royal family of Oude utinued steadfast and true to their friendship with the British nation. 'And your petitioners will ever pray, &e.' Some time after the presentation of this petition and memorial, a curious proof was afforded of the complexity and intrigue connected with the family affairs of the princes of India. A statement having gone abroad to the effect that a son of the King of Oude had escaped from Lucknow during the troubles of the Revolt, a native repre- unily in London sought to set the public mind right on the matter. He stated that the king had had only three legitimate sons ; that one of these, being an idiot, was confined to the zenana or harem at Lucknow ; that the second died of small-pox when twelve years of age ; that the third was the prince who had come to London with the quo n-mother ; and that if any son of the king had really I from Lucknow, he must have been illegitimate, a boy about ten years old. This communication was by Mahmoud Huseehooddeen, residing at Paddington, and 162 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. designating himself ' Accredited Agent to his Majesty the King of Oude.' Two days afterwards the same journal contained a letter from Colonel B. Ouseley, also residing in the metropolis, asserting that he was 'Agent in Chief to the King of Oude,' and that Museehooddeen had assumed a title to which he had no right. Castes and Creeds in the Indian Army. The Indian officers being much divided in opinion concerning the relative insubordination of Mohammedans and Hindoos in the native regiments, it may be useful to record here the actual components of one Bengal infantry regiment, so far as concerns creed and caste. The information is obtained from an official document relating to the cartridge grievance, before the actual Bevolt began. The 34th regiment Bengal native infantry, just before its disbandment at Barrackpore in April, comprised 1089 men, distributed as follows : Brahmin Caste, Lower Castes, . Christians, . Mussulmans, . Sikhs, . 1 co i 1 'I a fa e Q g. CO 1 1 2 5 2 4 5 1 24 25 12 10 2G 24 i 10 8 294 406 2 153 74 335 468 12 200 74 1 9 10 61 60 19 929 1089 The portion of this regiment present at Barrackpore the rest being at Chittagong when the mutinous pro- ceedings took place, numbered 584, thus classified under four headings: 1! to a .0 3 CO I 9 =5 1 ft a s a V CO Brahmin Caste, 1 2 1 12 5 175 196 Lower Castes, . 1 4 13 14 i 193 22G Mussulmans, 1 7 14 4 85 111 51 51 1 4 5 32 33 5 504 584 When 414 of these men were dismissed from the Com- pany's service, their reHgions appeared as follows : Brahmin Caste, Lower Castes, Mussulmans, . Sikhs, Commis- sioned Officers. Non-com- missioned Officers. Sepoys. Total. 2. 4 12 19 14 135 150 49 29 149 173 63 29 6 45 363 414 It is not clearly stated how many Bajpoots, or men of the military caste, were included in the Hindoos who were not Brahmins. If the regiment thus tabulated had been cavalry, instead of infantry, the preponderance, as implied in Chapter I., would have been wholly on the side of the Mussulmans. Sikh Cavalry. CHAPTER X. OUDE, ROHILCUND, AND THE DOAB: JUNE. HE course of events now brings us again to that turbulent country, Oude, which proved itself to be hostile to the British in a degree not expected by the authorities at Calcutta. They were aware, it is true, that Oude had long furnished the chief materials for the Bengal native army ; but they could not have anticipated, or at least did not, how close would be the sympathy between those troops and the Oude irregulars in the hour of tumult. Only seven months beforo the beginning of the Revolt, and about the same space of time after the formal annex- ation, a remarkable article on Indian Army Reform appeared in the Calcutta Review, attributed twrcnee ; in which he commented freely on the government proceedings connected with the army of Oude. He pointed out how great was the number of daring reckless men in that country ; how large had been the army of the king before his deposition ; how numerous were the small forts held by zemindars and petty chieftains, warded by nearly sixty thousand men ; how perilous it was to raise a new British-Oudian army, even though a small one, solely from the men of the king's disbanded regiments ; how serious was the fact that nearly a hundred and disbanded warlike natives were left without employment ; how prudent it would have been to send Oudians into the Punjaub, and runjaubees into Oude ; and how necessary was an increase in the number of British troops. The truth of these comments was not appre- ciated until Sir Henry himself was ranked among those who felt the full consequence of the state of things to which the comments referred. Oude was full of z.emindars, possessing consider- able resources of various kinds, having their retainers, their mud -forts, their arsenals, their ires. These zemindars, aggrieved not so much by the annexation of their country, as by the manner in which territorial law-proceedings wcro made to affect the tenuro of their estates, shewed sympathy with the mutineers almost from the first. The remarks of Mr Edwards, collector at Boodayoun, on this point, have already been adverted to (p. 115). The zemindars did not, as a class, display the sanguinary and vindictive passions so terribly evident in the reckless soldiery; still they held to a belief that a successful revolt might restore to them their former position and influence as landowners ; and hence the formid- able difficulties opposed by them to the military movements of the British. Sir Henry Lawrence, as chief authority both military and civil in Oude, found himself very awkwardly imperiled at Lucknow in tho early days of June. Just as the previous month closed, nearly all the native troops raised tho standard of rebellion (see p. 96) ; the 13th, 48th, and 71st infantry, and the 7th cavalry, all betrayed the infection, though in different degrees ; and of the hundred men of those four regiments who still remained faithful, he did not know how many he could trust even for a single day. The treasury received his anxious attention, and misgivings arose in his mind concerning the various districts around the capital, with their five millions of inhabitants. Soon he had the bitterness of learning that his rebellious troops, who had fled towards Seetapoor, had excited their brethren at that place to revolt. The Calcutta authorities were from that day very ill informed of the proceedings at Lucknow ; for the telegraph wires were cut, and the insurgents stopped all daks and messengers on the road. About the middle of the month, Colonel Ncill, at Allahabad, received a private letter from Lawrence, sent by some secret agency, announcing that Seetapoor and Shahjehanpoor were in the hands of the rebels ; that Secrora, Beraytch, and Fyzabad, were in like condition ; and that mutin- ous regiments from all those places, as well as from Benares and Jounpoor, appeared to be approach- ing Lucknow on some combined plan of operations. He was strengthening his position at tho Resi- dency, but looked most anxiously for aid, which Neill was quite unable to afford him. Again, it became known to tho authorities at Benares that Lawrence, on the 19th, still held his position at Lucknow ; that ho had had eight deaths by 164 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. cholera ; and that he was considering whether, aid from Cawnpore or Allahabad being unattainable, he could obtain a few reinforcements by steamer up the Gogra from Dinapoor. Another letter, but without date, reached the chief-magistrate of Benares, to the effect that Lawrence had got rid of most of the remaining native troops, by paying them their due, and giving them leave of absence for three months ; he evidently felt disquietude at the presence even of the apparently faithful sepoys in his place of refuge, so bitterly had he expe- rienced the hollowness of all protestations on their part. He had been very ill, and a provisional council had been appointed in case his health should further give way. Although the Residency was the stronghold, the city and cantonment also were still under British control : a fort called the Muchee Bhowan, about three-quarters of a mile from the Residency, and consisting of a strong, turreted, castellated building, was held by two hundred and twenty-five Europeans with three guns. The cantonment was northeast of the Residency, on the opposite side of the river, over which were two bridges of approach. Sir Henry had already lessened from eight to four the number of buildings or posts where the troops were stationed namely, the Residency, the Muchee Bhowan, a strong post between these two, and the dak-bungalow between the Residency and the cantonment ; but after the mutiny, he depended chiefly on the Residency and the Muchee Bhowan. News, somewhat more definite in char- acter, was conveyed in a letter written by Sir Henry on the 20th of June. So completely were the roads Avatched, that he had not received a word of information from Cawnpore, Allahabad, Benares, or any other important place through- out the whole month down to that date ; he knew not what progress was being made by the rebels, beyond the region of which Lucknow was more immediately the centre ; he still held the fort, city, Residency, and cantonment, but was terribly threatened on all sides by large bodies of mutineers. On the 27th he wrote another letter to the authorities at Allahabad, one of the very few (out of a large number despatched) that suc- ceeded in reaching their destination. This letter was still full of heart, for he told of the Residency and the Muchee Bhowan being still held by him in force ; of cholera being on the decrease ; of his supplies being adequate for two months and a half ; and of his power to ' hold his own.' On the other hand, he felt assured that at that moment Lucknow was the only place throughout the whole of Oude where British influence was paramount; and that he dared not leave the city for twenty- four hours without danger of losing all his advantages. His sanguine, hopeful spirit shone out in the midst of all his trials ; he declared that with one additional European regiment, and a hundred artillerymen, he could re-establish British supremacy in Oude ; and he added, in a sportive tone, which shewed what estimate he formed of some, at least, of the contingent corps, ' a thousand Europeans, a thousand Goorkhas, and a thousand Sikhs, with eight or ten guns, will thrash any- thing.' The Sikhs Avere irregulars raised in the Punjaub; and throughout the contests arising out of the Revolt, their fidelity tOAvards the government Avas seldom placed in doubt. The last day of June Avas a day of sad omen to the English in LucknoAv. On the evening of the 29th, information arrived that a rebel force of six or seven thousand men Avas encamped eight miles distant on the Fyzabad road, near the Kookra Canal. Lawrence thereupon determined to attack them on the following day. He started at six o'clock on the morning of the 30th, with about seven hundred men and eleven guns."* Misled, either by accident or design, by informants on the road, he suddenly fell into an ambush of the enemy, assembled in considerable force near Chinhut. Manfully struggling against supe- rior numbers, Lawrence looked forward confidently to victory ; but just at the most critical moment, the Oude artillerymen proved traitors overturn- ing their six guns into ditches, cutting the traces of the horses, and then going over to the enemy. Completely outflanked, exposed to a terrible fire on all sides, Aveakened by the defection, having noAv few guns to use, and being almost Avithout ammunition, Sir Henry saw that retreat Avas imperative. A disastrous retreat it Avas, or rather a complete rout ; the heat Avas fearful, the con- fusion was dire; and the officers and men fell rapidly, to rise no more. Colonel Case, of H.M. 32d, receiving a mortal wound, was immediately succeeded by Captain Steevens ; he in like manner soon fell, and Avas succeeded by Captain Mansfield, A\ r ho escaped the day's perils, but afterwards died of cholera. Sir Henry LaAvrcnce iioav found himself in a grave difficulty. The English position at Lucknow needed all the strengthening he could impart to it. He had held, as already explained, not only the Residency, but the fort of Muchee BhoAvan and other posts. The calamity of the 30th, hoAvever, having Aveakened him too much to garrison all, or even more than one, he removed the troops, and then bleAv up the Muchee Bhowan, at midnight on the 1st of July, sending 240 barrels of gun- powder and 3,000,000 ball-cartridges into the air. From that hour the Avhole of the English made the Residency their stronghold. Later facts rendered it almost certain that, if this abandonment and explosion had not taken place, scarcely a European would have lived to tell the tale of the subsequent miseries at Lucknow. By incessant exertions, he collected in the Residency six months' food for a thousand persons. The last hour of the gallant man Avas, hoAvever, approaching. A shell, sent by the insurgents, penetrated into his room on this * Artillery: 4 guns, horse light field-battery; 6 guns, Oude field- battery; and 1 8-inch howitzer. Cavalry: 120 troopers of 1st, 2d, and 3d Oude irregular cavalry ; and 40 volunteer cavalry, under Captain Radcliffe. Infantry: 300 of H.M. 83d foot; 150 of 13th native infantry; 60 of the 4Sth native infantry; and 20 of the 71st. OUDE, ROHILCUND, AND THE DOAB : JUNE. 165 day ; his officers advised him to remove to another spot, hut he declined the advice ; and on the next day, the 2d of July, another shell, entering and banting within the same room, gave him a mortal wound. Knowing his last- hour was approaching, Sir Henry appointed Brigadier Inglia his successor in military matters, and Major Banks his successor as chief-commissioner of Oude. Grief, deep and earnest, took possession of every breast in the Residency, when, on the 4th of July, it was announced that the good and great Sir Henry Lawrence had breathed his last. He was a man of whom no one doubted ; like his gifted brother, Sir John, he had the rare power of draw- ing to himself the r espe ct and Live of those by whom he was surrounded, almost without excep- tion. 'Few men,' said Brigadier Inglis, at a later date, 'have ever possessed to the same extent the power which he enjoyed of winning the hearts of all those with whom he came in contact, and thus insuring the wannest and* most zealous devotion for himself and the government which he served. All ranks possessed such confidence in his judg- ment and his fertility of resource, that the news of his fall was received throughout the garrison with feelings of consternation only second to the grief which was inspired in the hearts of all by the of a public benefactor and a warm personal friend I trust the government of India will pardon me for having attempted, however imperfectly, to portray this great and good man. In him every good and deserving soldier lost a friend and a chief capable of discriminating, and evir on the alert to reward merit, no matter how humble the sphere in which it was exhibited.' Such was the soldier whom all men delighted to honour,* ami to whom the graceful compliment was once paid, that "Sir Henry Lawrence enjoyed the rare felicity of transcending all rivalry except that of his illustrious brother.' How the overcrowded Residency at Lucknow 'Every boy has read, and many living men still remember, how the death" of Nelson was felt by all as a deep personal affliction. Sir Henry Lawrence was less widely known, and his deeds were in truth of less magnitude ttian those of the great sea-captain ; but never probably was a public man within the sphere of his reputa- tion more ardently beloved. Sir Henry Lawrence had that rare and happy faculty (which a man in almost every other respect unlike him, Sir Charles Kapier, Is said also to have possessed) of attaching to himself every one with whom he came in contact. He had that gift which is never acquired, a gracious, winning, noble manner; rough and ready as he was in the field, his manner in private life bad an indescribable charm of frankness, grace, n courtly dignity. He had that virtue which Englishmen instinctively anil characteristically love a lion-like courage. He had that fault which Englishmen so readily forgive, and when mixed with what arc felt to le its naturally concomitant good qualities, they almost admire a hot and impetuous temper; he had in overflowing measure that Godlike grace which even the base revere and the good acknowledge as the crown of virtue the grace of charity. No young officer ever sat at Sir Henry's table without learning to think more kindly of the natives ; no one, young or old, man or woman, ever heard Sir Henry speak of the European soldier, or ever visited the Lawrence Asylum, without being excited to nobler and truer appreciation of the real extent of his duty towards his neighbour. He was one of the few dis- tinguished Anglo-Indians who had attained to something like an . reputation in his lifetime. In a few years, his name will be familiar to every reader of Indian history; but for the present India that his memory will be most deeply cherished; it is by Anglo Indians that any eulogy on him will be best appreciated, it is by them that the institutions which he founded and maintained will bo fostered as a monument to his memory.' Fraser't Magazine, N bore all the attacks directed against it ; how the inmates, under the brave and energetic Inglis, held on against heat, disease, cannon-balls, thirst, hunger, and fatigue; how and by whom they were liberated will come for notice in proper course. The other districts of Oude fell one by one into the hands of the insurgents. The narratives sub- sequently given by such English officers as were fortunate enough to escape the perils of those evil days, bore a general resemblance one to another ; inasmuch as they told of faith in native troops being rudely broken, irresolute loyalty dissolving into confirmed hostility, treasuries of Company's rupees tempting those who might otherwise pos- sibly have been true to their salt, military officers and their wives obliged to flee for succour to Nynee Tal or some other peaceful station, the families of civilians suddenly thrown homeless upon the world, and blood and plunder marking the footsteps of the marauders who followed the example set by the rebellious sepoys and troopers. A few example! will suffice to illustrate the general character of these outbreaks. The mutiny at Fyzabad, besides being attended with a sad loss of life, was note-worthy for certain peculiarities in the tactics of the insurgents a kind of cool audacity not always exhibited in other instances. A brief description will shew the posi- tion and character of this city. In a former chapter (p. 83) it was explained that Oude or Ayodha, tbe city that gave name to the province, is very ancient as a Hindoo capital, but has become pooff and ruinous in recent times ; and that the fragment! of many of its old structures were employed in building Fyzabad, the Mohammedan Ayodha, nearly adjoining it on the southwest. It was scarcely more than a hundred and thirty years ago that the foundation of Fyzabad was established, by Saadut Ali Khan, the first nawab-vizier of Oude ; its advance in prosperity was rapid ; but since the selection of Lucknow as the capital in 1775, Fyzabad has fallen in dignity ; the chief merchants and bankers have migrated to Lucknow, and the remaining inhabitants arc mostly poor. On the 3d of June, rumours circulated in Fyzabad that the mutinous 17th regiment B. N. I. was approaching from Azimghur. Colonel Lennox, the military commandant, at once conferred with the other officers, and formed a plan for defending the place. The immediate alarm died away. On the 7th, however, renewed information led the colonel to propose an advance to Surooj-khoond, a place about five miles away, to repel the mutineers before they could reach Fyzabad. The native troops objected to go out, on the plea of disinclin- ation to leave their families and property behind ; but they promised to fight valiantly in the canton- ment if necessary, and many of them shook hands with him in token of fidelity. The evening of the 8th revealed the hypocrisy of this display. The native troops, cavalry, infantry, and artillery, joined in a demonstration which rendered all 166 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. the officers powerless ; every officer was, in effect, made a prisoner, and placed under armed guard for the night ; two tried to escape, hut were fired at and Drought back. The leader of the mutiny, Dhuleep Singh, subadar-major of the 22d regiment, came to Colonel Lennox in the morn- ing, and told him plainly that he and the other officers must yield to the course of circumstances ; that boats would be provided to take them down the river Gogra towards Dinapoor, but that he would not guarantee their safety after once they had embarked. There was a cool impudence about the proceeding, unlike the wild confusion exhibited at many of the scenes of outbreak. A moulvie, who had been imprisoned in the quarter-guard for a disturbance created in the city, and who had just been liberated by the mutineers, sent the sub- assistant surgeon to Colonel Lennox with a mes- sage ; thanking him for kindnesses received during the imprisonment, and requesting that the colonel's full-dress regimentals might be sent to the moulvie. The native surgeon begged pardon for his change of allegiance ; urging that times were altered, and that he must now obey the mutineers. There was something more than mere effrontery, how- ever, in the proceedings of these insurgents;* there was a subordination amid insubordination. ' The men,' said one of the narrators, 'guarded their officers and their bungalows after mutinying, placed sentries over the magazines and all public property, and sent out pickets to prevent the towns-people and servants from looting. They held a council of war, in which the cavalry pro- posed to kill the officers ; but the 22d, objecting to this, informed their officers that they would be allowed to leave, and might take with them their private arms and property, but no public property as that all belonged to the King of Oude.' Let us briefly trace the course of some of the European fugitives. Colonel Lennox, powerless to resist, gave up his regimentals, and prepared for a melancholy boat-departure with his wife and daughter. They were escorted to the banks of the Gogra, and pushed off on their voyage. From two in the afternoon on the 8th of June, until nearly midnight, their boat descended the stream often in peril from sentries and scouts on shore, but befriended by two sepoys who had been sent to protect them for a short distance. Much care and manoeuvring were required to effect a safe passage near the spot where the mutinous 17th regiment was encamped ; for it now became manifest that the 22d had in effect sold the fugitives to the other corps. Early on the following morning, infor- mation received on shore rendering evident the danger of a further boat-voyage, the houseless * The troops stationed at that time at Fyzahad comprised the 22d regiment native infantry ; the 6th regiment irregular Oude infantry ; the 5th troop of the 15th regiment irregular cavalry; No. 5 company of the 7th battalion of artillery ; and No. 13 horse-battery. The chief officers were Colonels Lennox and O'Brien; Major Mill; Captain Morgan ; Lieutenants Fowle, English, Bright, Lindesaj', Thomas, Ouseley, Cautley, Gordon, Parsons, Percival, and Currie ; and Ensigns Anderson and Ritchie. Colonel Goldney held a civil appointment as commissioner. wanderers, leaving in the boat the few fragments of property they had brought away from Pyzabad, set out on foot towards Goruckpore. With nothing but the clothes on their backs, the family began their weary flight. After stopping under trees and by the side of wells to rest occasionally, they walked until the heat of day rendered necessary a longer pause. By a narrow chance they avoided being dragged to the camp of the 17th regiment, by a trooper who professed to have been offered two hundred rupees for the head of each member of the family. A friendly chieftain, one Meer Mohammed Hossein Khan, came to their rescue just at the moment of greatest peril. One of the retainers of this man, however, more disposed for enmity than amity, spoke to the colonel with great bitterness and fierceness of manner, shewing that the prevalent rumours had made a deep impres- sion in Oude ; he expressed a longing to shoot the English, ' who had come to take away their caste, and make them Christians.' Meer Mohammed rebuked this man for saying that a stable would do to shelter the refugees, for that he was prepared 1 to kill them like dogs.' The fugitives were taken to a small fort, one of the numerous class lately adverted to, where the zemindars and petty chieftains maintained a kind of feudal or clannish independence. On the second day, the danger to sheltered Europeans becoming apparent, Colonel Lennox, his wife, and daughter, put on native dresses, and remained nine days concealed in a reed-hut behind the zenana, treated very kindly and considerately by their protector. Meer Mohammed went once or twice to Fyzabad, to learn if possible the plans of the mutineers ; he was told that they meant to attack Lucknow, and then depart for Delhi. On the 10th day of the hiding, when news arrived that the fort was likely to be attacked, the ladies went for shelter into the zenana, while the colonel was hid in a dark wood- shed. Happily, however, it turned out that the suspected strangers were a party sent by the col- lector of Goruckpore for the rescue of the family. Danger was now nearly over. The fugitives reached Amorah, Bustee, Goruckpore, Azimghur, and Ghazeepore, at which place they took steamer down to Calcutta. This fortunate escape from great peril was almost wholly due to ' the noble and considerate' Meer Mohammed, as Colonel Lennox very properly characterises him. Far more calamitous were the boat-adventures of the main body of Fyzabad officers, of which an account was afterwards written, for the informa- tion of government, by Farrier-sergeant Bushcr, of the light field-battery. On the morning of the 8th, the wives and families of many civilians, and of five non-commissioned European officers, had been sent by Captain Orr to a place called Sheergunge, under the protection of a friendly native, Rajah Maun Singh, to be free from peril if tumult should arise. Early on the 9th, while Colonel Lennox was still at the station, all or nearly all the other English were sent off by the mutineers in four OUDE, ROHILCUND, AND THE DOAB : JUNE. 167 boats. One of these boats (mere dinghees, in which little more than a bundle for each person could be put) contained eight persons, one six, one five, and the remaining boat three. Only one female was of the party, Mrs Hollum, wife of Sergeant- major Hollum of the 22d native regiment. The first and second boats got ahead of the other two, and proceeded about twenty miles down the river without molestation ; but then were seen troopers and sepoys approaching the banks, with an evi- dently hostile intent. The firing soon became so severe that the occupants of the first boat struck in for the off-shore, and seven of them took to their heels the eighth being unequal to that physical exertion. They ran on till checked by a broad stream; and while deliberating how to cross, persons approached who were thought to be sepoys; the alarm proved false, but not before Lieutenants Currie and Parsons had been drowned in an attempt to escape by swimming. The other five, running on till quite exhausted, were fortu- nate enough to meet with a friendly native, who sheltered them for several hours, and supplied them with food. At midnight they started flin taking the road to Amorah, which they were enabled to reach safely through the influence of their kind protector although once in great peril from a gang of freebooters. They were glad to meet at Amorah the three occupants of the fourth boat, who, like themselves, had escaped the dangers of the voyage by running across fields and fording streams. At seven in the morning of the 10th, the fugitives, now eight in company, recommenced their anxious flight aided occasionally by friendly natives, but at length betrayed by one whose friendship was only a mask. They had to cross a nullah or stream knee-deep, under pursuit by a body of armed men ; here Lieutenant Lindcsay fell, literally cut to pieces ; and when the other seven had passed to the opposite bank, five were speedily hewn to the ground and butchered Lieutenants Ritchie, Thomas, and English, and two English sergeants. The two survivors ran at their topmost speed, pursued by a gang of ruffians ; Lieutenant Cautley was speedily overtaken, and killed ; and then only Sergeant Busher remained alive. He, outunning his pursuers, reached a Brahmin village, where a bowl of sherbet was given to him. After a little rest, he ran on again, until one Baboo Bully Singh was found to be on the scent after him ; he endeavoured to hide under some straw in a hut ; but was' discovered and ed out by the hair of the head. From village to village he was then carried as an exhibition to be jeered and scoffed at by the rabble ; the Baboo evidently intended the cruel sport to be followed by murder ; but this intention under- went a change, probably from dread of some future retribution. He kept his prisoner near him for ten days, but did not further ill treat him. On the eleventh day, Busher was liberated ; he over- took Colonel Lennox and his family ; and safely reached Ghazeepore seventeen days after his departure from Fyzabad. The boat containing Colonel O'Brien, Lieutenants Percival and Gordon, Ensign Anderson, and Assistant-surgeon Collinson, pursued its voyage the whole way down to Dina- poor ; but it was a voyage full of vicissitudes to the fugitives. At many places they were obliged to lie flat in the boat to prevent recognition from tho shore ; at others they had to compel the native boatmen, on peril of sabring, to continue their tugging at the oars; on one occasion they narrowly escaped shooting by a herd of villagers who followed the boat. For three days they had nothing to cat but a little flour and water ; but happening to meet with a friendly rajah at Gola, they obtained aid which enabled them to reach Dinapoor on the 17th. The occupants of the remaining boat, the civilians, and the ladies and children who had not been able to effect a safo retreat to Nynee Tal, suffered terribly ; many lives were lost ; and those who escaped to Goruckpore or Dinapoor arrived in distressing plight especially a party of women and children who had been robbed of everything while on the way, and who had been almost starved to death during a week's imprisonment in a fort by the river-side. When it is stated that, among a group of women and children who reached a place of safety after infinite hardships, an infant was born on the road, the reader will easily com- prehend how far the sufferings must have exceeded anything likely to appear in print. Many per- sons were shot, many drowned, while the fate of others remained doubtful for weeks or even months. Colonel Goldney and Major Mill were among the slain. The wanderings of Mrs Mill and her three children were perhaps among the most affecting incidents of this mutiny. Amid the dire haste of departure, she became separated from her husband, and was the last English- woman left in Fyzabad. How she escaped and how she fared, was more than she herself could clearly narrate ; for the whole appeared afterwards as a dreadful dream, in which every kind of misery was confusedly mixed. During two or three weeks, she was wandering up and down the country, living in the jungle when man refused her shelter, and searching the fields for food when none was obtainable elsewhere. Her poor infant, eight months old, died for want of its proper nourishment; but the other two children, seven and three years old, survived all the privations to which they were exposed. On one occasion, seeing some troopers approaching, and. being utterly hopeless, she passionately besought them, if their intentions were hostile, to kill her children without torturing them, and then to kill her. The appeal touched the hearts of the rude men ; they took her to a village and gave her a little succour; and this facilitated their conveyance by a friendly native to Goruckpore, where danger was over. Sultanporc was another station at which mutiny and murder occurred. On the 8th of June, a wing of the 15th irregular cavalry entered that place 168 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. from Seetapoor, in a state of evident excitement. Lieutenant Tucker, who was a favourite with them, endeavoured to allay their mutinous spirit, and succeeded for a few hours ; but on the fol- lowing morning they rose in tumult, murdered Colonel Fisher, Captain Gubbings, and two other Europeans, and urged the lieutenant to escape, which he did. After much jungle-wanderings, and concealment in a friendly native's house, he safely arrived at Benares, as did likewise four or five other officers, and all the European women and children at the station. In this as in other instances, the revolt of the troops was followed by marauding and incendiarism on the part of the rabble of Sultanpore ; in this, too, as in other instances, the mutineers had a little affection for some one or more among their officers, whom they endeavoured to save. The station of Pershadeepore experienced its day of trouble on the 10th of June. The 1st regiment Oude irregular infantry was there stationed, under Captain Thompson. He prided himself on the fidelity of his men ; inasmuch as they seemed to turn a deaf ear to the rumours and suspicions circulating elsewhere; and he had detected the falsity of a mischief-maker, who had secretly caused ground bones to be mixed with the attah (coarse flour with which chupattics are made) sold in the bazaar, as the foundation for a report that the government intended to take away the caste of the people. This pleasant delusion lasted until the 9th ; when a troop of the 3d Oude irregular cavalry arrived from Pertabghur, followed soon afterwards by news of the rising at Sultanpore. The fidelity of the infantry now gave way, under the temptations and representations made to them by other troops. When Captain Thompson rose on the morning of the 10th, he found his regiment all dressed, and in orderly mutiny (if such an expression may be used). He tried with an aching heart to separate the good men from the bad, and to induce the former to retire with him to Allahabad ; but the temptation of the treasure was more than they could resist ; they all joined in the spoliation, and then felt that allegiance was at an end. At four in the after- noon all the Europeans left the station, with- out a shot or an .angry word from the men ; they were escorted to the fort of Dharoopoor, belonging to a chieftain named Rajah Hunnewaut Singh, who treated them courteously, and after some days forwarded them safely to Allahabad. There was not throughout India a mutiny con- ducted with, more quietness on both sides than this at Pershadeepore ; the sepoys had evidently no angry feeling towards their officers. Captain Thompson remained of opinion that his men had been led away by rumours and insinuations brought by stragglers from other stations, to the effect that any Oude regiment which did not mutiny would be in peril from those that had ; and that, even under this fear, they would have remained faithful had there been no treasure to tempt their cupidity. It is curious to note Colonel Neill's comment on this incident, in his official dispatch ; his reliance on the native troops was of the smallest possible amount ; and in reference to the captain's honest faith, he said : ' This is absurd ; they were as deeply in the plot as the rest of the army ; the only credit due to them is that they did not murder their officers.' Seetapoor, about fifty miles north of Lucknow, was the place towards which the insurgent troops from that city bent their steps at the close of May. Whether those regiments kept together, and how far they proceeded on the next few days, are points not clearly made out ; but it is certain that the native troops stationed at Seetapoor comprising the 41st Bengal infantry, the 9th and 10th Oude irregular infantry, and the 2d Oude military police, in all about three thousand men rose in mutiny on the 3d of June. The 41st began the movement. A sepoy came to one of the officers in the morning, announced that the rising was about to take place, declared that neither he nor his companions wished to draw blood, and suggested that all the officers should retreat from the station. The regiment was in two wings, one in the town and one in the can- tonment ; the plundering of the treasury was begun by the first-named party ; the other wing, obedient at first, broke forth when they suspected they might be deprived of a share in the plunder. After the 41st had thus set the example, the 9th revolted ; then the military police ; and then the 10th. Lieutenant Burnes, of the last-named regiment, entreated his men earnestly to remain faithful, but to no effect. Seeing that many officers had been struck down, the remainder hastily retired to the house of Mr Christian the commissioner ; and when all were assembled,- with the civilians, the ladies, and the children, it was at once resolved to quit the burning bungalows and ruthless soldiers and seek refuge at Lucknow. Some made their exit without any preparation ; among whom was Lieutenant Burnes roaming through jungles for days, and aiding Avomen and children as best they could, suffering all those miseries which have so often been depicted. The great body of Europeans, however, left the station in buggies and other vehicles ; and as the high roads were perilous, the fugitives drove over hills, hollows, and ploughed fields, where perhaps vehicles had never been driven before. Fortunately, twenty troopers re- mained faithful to them, and escorted them all the way to Lucknow, which place they reached on the night of the third day reft of everything they possessed, like many other fugitives in those days. Many of the Europeans did not succeed in quitting Seetapoor in time ; and among these the Avork of death Avas ruthlessly carried on the sepoys being either unwilling or unable to check these scenes of barbarity. As at Lucknow, Fyzabad, Sultanpore, Per- shadeepore, Seetapoor ; so at Secrora, Durriabad, Bcraytch, Gouda, and other places in Oude Avhercver there was a native regiment stationed, OUDE, ROHILCUND, AND THE DOAB : JUNE. 1G9 or a treasury of the Company established, there, in almost every instance, were exhibited scenes of violence attended by murder and plunder. The lamented Lawrence, in the five weeks preceding his death, was, as has been lately pointed out, placed in an extraordinary position. Responsible to the supreme government both for the political and the military management of Oude, and know- ing that almost every station in the province was a focus of treachery and mutiny, he was notwith- standing powerless to restore tranquillity. So far from Cawnpore assisting him, he yearned to assist Cawnpore ; Rohilcund was in a blaze, and could send him only mutineers who had thrown off all allegiance; Meerut, after sending troops to Delhi, was doing little but defending itself; Agra, with a mere handful of European troops, was too doubtful of its Gwaliof neighbours to do anything for Lucknow and Oude; Allahabad and Benares were too recently rescued, by the gallant Neill, from imminent peril, to be in a position to send present Henry ; and the Nepaul sovereign, Jung Bahadoor, had not yet been made an ally of the Knglish in such a way as might possibly have saved 2 initiated a state of affairs which soon enabled Nepaul to throw off Chinese supremacy. Conven- tions, subsidies, border encroachments, and family intrigues, checkered Nepanlese affairs until 1812; when the Company made formal war on the ground of a long catalogue of injuries and insults such a catalogue as can easily be concocted by a Stronger . it a weaker. The war was so badly conducted, that nothing but the military tact of Sir David Ochterlony, who held one-fourth of a command which seems to have had no head or general commander, saved the British from ignom- inious defeat. Broken engagements led to another war in 1S10, which terminated in a treaty never since ruptured ; the Nepauleso court has been a focus of intrigue, but the intrigues have not been of such a character as to disturb the relations of amity with the British. Jung Bahadoor a name well known in England a few years ago, as that of a Nepaulese ambassador who made a sensation by his jewelled splendour WSJ the nephew of a man who became by successive steps prime minister to the king. Instigated by the queen, and by his own unscrupulous ambition, Jung Bahadoor caused his uncle to be put to death, and became com- mander-in-chief under a new ministry. Many Scenes of truly oriental slaughter followed that is, slaughter to clear the pathway to power. Jung Bahadoor treated kings and queens somewhat as the Company was accustomed to do in the last century ; setting up a son against a father, and treating all alike as puppets At a period sub- sequent to his return from England, he caused a marriage to be concluded between his daughter, six years old, and the heir-apparent to the Nepaulese throne, then in his ninth year. Whether king or not, he was virtually chief of Nepaul at the time when the Revolt broke out ; and had managed, by astuteness in his diplomacy, to remain on friendly terms with the authorities at Calcutta : indeed he took every opportunity, after his English visit, to display his leaning towards his neighbours. I. ike Nena Sahib, he had English pianos and English carpets in his house, and prided himself in understanding English manners and the English language; and it is unquestionable that both those men were favourites among such of the English as visited the one at Bithoor or the other at Khatmandoo. It has been mentioned in a former chapter (p. 115) that Goorkha troops assisted to defend Nynee Tal when that place became filled with refugees ; and Goorkha regiments have been adverted to in many other parts of the narrative. Jung Bahadoor permitted the Nepaulese of this tribe to enlist thus in the Company's service ; and he also offered the aid of a contingent, the non-employment of which brought many strictures upon the policy of the Calcutta government. At a later date, as we shah see, this contingent was ciccepted ; and it rendered us good service at Juanporc and Azimghur by protecting Benares from the advance of Oude mutineers. About the middle of June, fifteen Europeans (seven gentle- men, three ladies, and five children) escaped from the Oude mutineers into the jungle region of Nepaul, and sought refuge in a post-station or serai about ten days' journey from Goruckpore and eighteen from Khatmandoo. The officer at that place wrote to Jung Bahadoor for instruction in the matter ; to which he received a speedy reply 'Treat them with every kindness, give them 170 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. elephants, &c, and escort them to Goruckpore.' Major Ramsey, the Company's representative at Khatmandoo, sent them numerous supplies in tin cases; and all the English were naturally disposed to bless the Nepaulese chieftain as a friend in the hour of greatest need, without inquiring very closely by what means he had gained his power. The course of the narrative now takes us from Oude northwestward into the province of Rohil- cund ; the districts of which, named after the towns of Bareilly, Mooradabad, Shahjehanpoor, Boodayoun, and Bijnour, felt the full force of the mutinous proceedings among the native troops. The Rohillas were originally Mussulman Afghans, who conquered this part of India, gradually settled down among the Hindoo natives, and imparted to them a daring reckless character, which rendered Rohilcund a nursery for irregular cavalry and afterwards for mutineers. Brigadier Sibbald was commandant of Bareilly, one of the towns of Rohilcund in which troops were stationed. These troops were entirely native, comprising the 18th and 68th Bengal native infantry, the 8th irregular cavalry, and a battery of native artillery not an English soldier among them except the officers. The brigadier, although these troops appeared towards the close of the month of May to be in an agitated state, never- theless heard that all was well at Mooradabad, Shahjehanpoor, Almora, and other stations in Rohilcund, and. looked forward with some con- fidence to the continuance of tranquillity aided by his second in command, Colonel Troup, and the commissioner, Mr Alexander. As a pre- caution, however, the ladies and children were sent for safety to Nynee Tal ; and the gentlemen kept their horses saddled, ready for any emer- gency. Bareilly being a city of a hundred thou- sand inhabitants, the temper of the natives was very anxiously watched. Scarcely had the month closed, before the hopes of Brigadier Sibbald received a dismal check, and his life a violent end. We have already briefly mentioned (p. 114) that on Sunday the 31st, Bareilly became a scene of violence and rapine; the brigadier himself being shot by a trooper, the treasure seized, the bungalows plundered and burned, and the Europeans either murdered or impelled to escape for their lives. When Colonel Troup, who com- manded the 68th native infantry, and who became chief military authority after the death of Sibbald, found himself safe at Nynee Tal, he wrote an official account of the whole proceeding, corro- borating the chief facts noted by the brigadier, and adding others known more especially to himself. From this dispatch it appears that the colonel commanded at Bareilly from the 6th to the 19th of May, while the brigadier was making a tour of inspection through his district ; that from the 19th to the 29th, Sibbald himself resumed the command; and that during those twenty- three days nothing occurred to shew disaffection among the troops, further than a certain troubled and agitated state. On that day, however, the Europeans received information, from two native officers, that the men of the 18th and 68th native regiments had, while bathing in the river, concerted a plan of mutiny for that same afternoon. Most of the officers were quickly on the alert; and, whether or not through this evidence of prepared- ness, no 6meute took place on that day. On the 30th, Colonel Troup, who had relied on the fidelity of the 8th irregular cavalry, received information that those sowars had sworn not to act against the native infantry and artillery if the latter should rise, although they would refrain from molesting their own officers. After a day and night of violent excitement throughout the whole station, the morning of Sunday the 31st (again Sunday !) ushered in a day of bloodshed and rapine. Mes- sages were despatched to all the officers, warning them of some intended outbreak ; but the bearers, sent by Troup, failed in their duty, insomuch that many of the officers remained ignorant of the danger until too late to avert it. Major Pearson, of the 18th, believed his men to be stanch ; Captain Kirby, of the artillery (6th company, 6th battalion), in like manner trusted his corps ; and Captain Brownlow, the brigade major, disbelieved the approach of mutiny at the very time that Colonel Troup was impressing on all his conviction that the sinister rumours were well founded. At eleven o'clock, the truth appeared in fatal colours ; the roar of cannon, the rattle of musketry, and the yells of men, told plainly that the revolt had begun, and that the artillery had joined in it. The 8th irregular cavalry, under Captain Mac- kenzie, were ordered or invited by him to proceed against the lines of the insurgent infantry and artillery ; but the result was so disastrous, that all the Europeans, military as well as civilians, found their only safety would be in flight. Ruktawar Khan, subadar of artillery, assumed the rank of general, and paraded about in the carriage of the brigadier, attended by a numerous string of followers as a 'staff.' Colonel Troup, writing on the 10th of June, had to report the deaths of Brigadier Sibbald and three or four other officers, together with that of many of the civil servants. About twenty-five military officers escaped ; but the list of ' missing' was large, and many of those included in it were afterwards known to have been brutally murdered. Captain Mackenzie, who clung to his troopers in the earnest hope that they would remain faithful, found only nineteen men who did so, and who escorted their officers all the way to Nynee Tal. A despicable hoary traitor, Khan Bahadoor Khan, appears to have headed this movement. He had for many years been in receipt of a double pension from the Indian government as the living representative of one of the early Rohilla chieftains, and as a retired judge of one of the native courts. He was an old, venerable-looking, insinuating man ; he was thoroughly relied on by OUDE, ROHILCUND, AND THE DOAB : JUNE. 171 the civil authorities at Bareilly ; he had loudly proclaimed his indignation against the Delhi muti- neers ; and yet he became ringleader of those at Bareilly deepening his damning atrocities by the massacre of such of the unfortunate Europeans as did not succeed in making their escape. It was by his orders, as self-elected chief of Rohilcund, that a rigorous search was made for all Europeans who remained in Bareilly ; and that Judge Robertson, and four or five other European gentlemen, ware hung in the Kotwal square, after a mock-trial. During the month of June, Bareilly remained entirely in the hands of the rebels; nut an Englishman, probably, was alive in the place; and the Mussulmans and Hindoos were left to contend for supremacy over the spoil. Of Boodayoun it will be unnecessary to say more here; Mr Edwards's narrative of an eventful escape (pp. 115, 11(5), pointed to the 1st of June as the day when the Europeans deemed it i sary to ilee from that station not because there were any native troops at Boodayoun, but because the mutineers from Bareilly were approaching, and joyfully expected by all the scoundrels in the place, who looked forward to a harvest of plunder natural result. Mooradabad, which began its season of anarchy ami violence on the 3d of June, stands on the riirht bank of the Kamgumra, an affluent of the a point about midway between Mccrut and Bareilly. it la a town of nearly (50,000 inha- bitants having a civil station, with its cutcherry and bungalows ; a cantonment west of the town ; a spae far the accommodation of travel- lers; and an enormous jail sufficiently large to contain nearly two thousand prisoners. In this, Bl in many other towns of India, the Company's 9 were wont to I led rather as guardian* of the jail and its inmates, than for any active military duties. ISo early as the 19th of May, nine days after the mutineers of Meerut had set the example, the 29th regiment native infantry proceeded to the jail at Mooradabad, and released all the prisoners. Although Mr Saunders, collector and magistrate, wrote full accounts to Agra of the proceedings of that and the following days, the daks were so completely stopped on the road that Mr Corrin n mained almost in ignorance of the state of affairs ; and on that account dera could obtain no assistance from any quarter. The released prisoners, joined by preda- : andfl of Goojurs, Mcewatties, and Jats, com- d a system of plunder and rapine, which Bnropean authorities were ill able to check. The 29th, however, had not openly mutinied ; and it still remained possible to hold control within the town and the surrounding district ; several native sappers and miners were stopped and captured on their way from Meerut, and several of the mutinous 20th regiment on the way from Mo/.uf- fernngger. "When, however, news of the Bareilly outbreak on the 31st reached Mooradabad, the effect on the men of the 29th regiment, and of a native artillery detachment, became very evident. On the 3d of June, the sepoys in guard of the treasury displayed so evident an intention of appropriating the money, that Mr Saunders felt compelled to leave it (about seventy thousand rupees) together with much plate and opium in their hands being powerless to prevent the spoli- ation. The troops manifested much irritation at the smallness of the treasure, and were only pre- vented from wreaking their vengeance on the officials by an oath they had previously taken. To remain longer in the town was deemed a useless risk, as bad passions were rising on every side. The civil officers of the Company, with their wives and families, succeeded in making retreat to Meerut; while Captain "VVhish, Captain Faddy, and other officers of the 29th, with the few remaining Europeans, laid their plans for a journey to Nynee Tal. All shared an opinion that if the Bareilly regiments had not mutinied, the 29th would have remained faithful a poor solace, such as had been sought for by many other officials similarly placed. Mr Colvin afterwards accepted Mr Saunders's motives and conduct in leaving the station, as justifiable under the trying circumstances. Rohilcund contained three military stations, Bareilly, Mooradabad, and Shahjehanpoor Booda- youn and the other places named being merely civil stations. As at Bareilly and Mooradabad, so at Shahjehanpoor ; the native troops at the station in mutiny. On Sunday the 31st of May a day marked by so many atrocities in India the 28th native infantry rose, surrounded the Christian residents as they were engaged in divine worship in church, and murdered nearly the whole of them, including the Rev. Mr M'Callum in the sacred edifice itself. The few who escaped were exposed to an accumulation of miseries; first they sought shelter at Mohammerah in Oude ; then they met the 41st regiment, after the mutiny at Scetapoor, who shot and cut them down without mercy ; and scarcely any lived to tell the dismal tale to English cars. Thus then it appears that, in Rohilcund, the 18th, 68th, 28th, and 29th regiments native infantry, together with the 8th irregular cavalry and a battery of native artillery, rose in revolt at the three military stations, and murdered or drove out nearly the whole of the Europeans from the entire province European troops there were none ; only officers and civilians. They plundered all the treasuries, containing more than a quarter of a million sterling, and marched off towards Delhi, five thousand strong unmolested by the general who commanded at Meerut. Nynee Tal became more crowded than ever with refugees from Oude and Rohilcund. Under the energetic command of Captain Ramsey, this hill-station remained in quiet during the month of May (p. 115) ; but it was not so easily defended in June. Some of the native artillery at Almora, not far distant, gave rise to uneasiness towards 172 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. the close of the month ; yet as the ill-doers were promptly put into prison, and as the Goorkhas remained stanch, confidence was partially restored. The sepoys from the rebel regiments dreaded a march in this direction, on account of the deadly character of the Terai, a strip of swampy forest, thirty miles broad, which interposes between the plains and the hills; but that jungle-land itself contained many marauders, who were only prevented by fear of the Goorkhas from going up to Nynee Tal. At the end of June, there were five times as many women and children as men among the Europeans at that place; hence the anxious eye with which the proceedings in surrounding districts were regarded. The third region to which this chapter is appro- priated the Doab now calls for attention. Like Oude and Rohilcund, it was the scene of terrible anarchy and bloodshed in the month of June. In its two parts the Lower Doab, from Allahabad to a little above Furruckabad ; and the Upper Doab, from the last-named city up to the hill-country it was nearly surrounded by mutineers, who apparently acted in concert with those in the Doab itself. Of Allahabad and Cawnpore, the two chief places in the Lower Doab, sufficient has been said in Chapters VIII. and IX. to trace the course of events during the month of June. About midway between the two is Futtehpoor, a small civil station in the centre of a group of Mohammedan villages ; it contained, at the beginning of June, about a dozen civil servants of the Company, and a small detachment of the 6th native regiment from Allahabad. The residents, as a precaution- ary measure, had sent their wives and children to that stronghold, and had also arranged a plan for assembling at the house of the magistrate, if danger should appear. On the 5th of the month, disastrous news arriving from Lucknow and Cawnpore, the residents took up their abode for the night on the flat roof of the magistrate's house, with their weapons by their sides ; and on the following day they hauled up a supply of tents, provisions, water, and ammunition a singular citadel being thus extemporised in the absence of better. On the 7th, their small detachment aided in repelling a body of troopers who had just arrived from Cawnpore on a plundering expedition; and the residents congratulated themselves on the fidelity of this small band. Their reliance Avas, however, of short duration ; for, on the receipt of news of the Allahabad outbreak, the native officials in the collector's office gave waj-, like the natives all around them, and Futtehpoor soon became a perilous spot for Europeans. On the 9th, the residents held a council on their roof, and resolved to quit the station. A few troopers befriended them ; and they succeeded, after many perils and sufferings, in reaching Banda, a town southward of the Jumna. Not all of them, however. Mr Robert Tucker, the judge, resisting entreaty, determined to remain at his post to the last. He rode all over the town, promising rewards to those natives who would be faithful ; he endeavoured to shame others by his heroic bearing ; he appealed to the gratitude and good feeling of many of the poorer natives, who had been benefited by him in more peaceful times. But all in vain. The jail was broken open, the prisoners libei'ated, and the treasury plundei'ed ; and Mr Tucker, flying to the roof of the cutcherry, there bravely defended himself until a storm of bullets laid him low. Robert Tucker was one of those civilians of whom the Company had reason to be proud. Advancing to the northwest, we come to a string of towns and stations Etawah, Minpooree, Allygurh, Futteghur, Muttra, Bolundshuhur, Mozuftcrnugger, &c. which shared with Oude and Rohilcund the wild disorders of the month of June. The mutmy at Futteghur has already engaged our notice (p. 133), in connection with the miserable fugitives who swelled the numbers put to death by Nena Sahib at Bithoor and Cawnpore. It needs little further mention here. The 10th native infantry, and a small body of artillery, long resisted the temptation held out by muti- neers elsewhere ; but, on the appearance of the insurgent regiments from Seetapoor, their fidelity gave way. Four companies went off with the treasure ; the remainder joined the other mutinous regiments in besieging the fort to which so many Europeans had fled for refuge, and from which so disastrous a boat-voyage Avas made doAvn the Ganges. Mr Cohdn, at Agra, kneAV of the perilous state of things at Futteghur; he knew that a native naAvab had been chosen by the mutineers as a sort of sovereign ; but, as we shall presently see, he Avas too Aveak in reliable troops to afford any assist- ance Avhatever. Thus it happened that the two boat-expeditions, of June and July, ended so deplorably to the Europeans, and left Futteghur so wholly in the hands of the rebels. It Avas a great loss to the British in many Avays ; for most of the Company's gun-carriages were made, or at least stored, at Futteghur ; and the agency-yard Avas surrounded by Avarehouses containing a large supply of material belonging to the artillery service. Indeed it was this court-yard of the gun-carriage agency that constituted the fort, as soon as a feAv defensive arrangements had been made. Many circumstances had drawn rather a large English population to Futteghur ; and hence the terrible severity of the tragedy. There Avere officers of the 10th regiment ; other military officers on leave ; gun-carriage agents ; civil ser- vants ; merchants and dealers ; a few tent-makers and other artisans ; indigo-planters from the neigh- bouring estates ; and many native Christians under the care of the American Presbyterian mission. We have already seen (pp. 112, 113) by hoAv small a number of native troops several stations Avere set in commotion in May. The 9th regiment Bengal native infantry was separated into four portions, Avhich Avere stationed at Allygurh, Bolund- OUDE, ROII1LCUND, AND THE DOAB : JUNE. 173 shuhur, Etawab, and Minpoorce, respectively; and all mutinied nearly at the same time. The fortune of war, if Avar it can he called, at these stations during the month of June, may he traced in a very few words. It was on the 20th of May that the four companies at Allygurh mutinied ; and on the 24th that one-half of Lieutenant Cockburn's Gwalior troopers, instead of assisting lum to retain or regain the station, rose in mutiny and galloped oft' to join the insurgents elsewhere. There were, however, about a hundred who remained faithful to him ; and these, with fifty volunteers, made an advance to Allygurh, retook it, drove out the detachment of the 9th native regiment, released a few Europeans who had been in hiding there, captured one Rao Bhopal Singh, and hanged him as a petty chieftain who had con- tinued the rapine begun by the sepoys. Through- out the month of June this station was maintained in British hands not so much for its value in a military sense, as for its utility in keeping open the roads to Agra and Mcerut; but, in the direction Simla, the summer residence of the Governor-general of India. of Delhi, the volunteers could obtain very little news, the daks being all cut oft by the Qoojon and other predatory bands. At Ifinpooree the three companies of the 9th checked, it will be remem- bered, by the undaunted courage and tact of Lieutenant de Kantzow, departed to join the insurgents elsewhere ; but Minpoorce remained in British hands. The remaining companies mutinied at Etawab and Bolundshuhur without much violence. Agra, when the narrative last left it (p. Ill), had passed through the month of May without any serious disturbances, The troops consisted of the 41th and 67th regimeuts Bengal native infantry, the 3d Europeans, and a few artillery. After two companies of these native troops had mutinied while engaged in bringing treasure from Muttra to Agra, Mr (,'olvin deemed it necessary to disarm all the other companies; and this was quietly and successfully effected on the 1st of June, by the 3d Europeans and Captain D'Oyley's field-battery. Many facts afterward came to light, tending to shew that if this disarming had not taken place, the 44th and 67th would have stained their hands with the same bloody deeds as the sepoys were doing elsewhere. The native lines had been more than once set on fire during the later days of May in the hope, as afterwards appears, that the handful of Europeans, by rushing out unarmed to extinguish the flames, would afford the native troops a favourable opportunity to master the defences of the city, aud the six guns of the field-battery. A curious proof was supplied of the little knowledge possessed by the Europeans of the native character, and the secret springs that worked unseen as moving powers for their actions. There had long seemed to be an angry feeling between the 44th and the G7th ; and Mr Colvin, 174 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. or the brigadier acting with him, selected one company from each regiment for the mission to Muttra, in the belief that each would act as a jealous check upon the other; instead of which, the two companies joined in revolt, murdered many of their officers, and carried off their treasure towards Delhi. After the very necessary disarming of the two regiments, the defence of this important city was left to the 3d European Fusiliers, Captain D'Oyley's field-battery of six guns, and a corps of volunteer European cavalry under Lieutenant Greathed. Most of the disarmed men deserted, and swelled the ranks of the desperadoes that wrought so much ruin in the surrounding districts a result that led many military officers to doubt whether disarming without imprisonment was a judicious course under such circumstances ; for the men naturally felt exasperated at their humbled posi- tion, whether deserved or not ; and their loyalty, as soldiers out of work, was not likely to be in any way increased. Whether or not this opinion be correct, the Europeans in Agra felt their only reliance to be in each other. During the early days of June, most of the ladies resorted at night to certain places of refuge allotted by the governor, such as the fort, the post-office, the office of the Mofitssilitc newspaper, and behind "the artillery lines ; while the gentlemen patrolled the streets, or maintained a defensive attitude at appointed places. Trade was continued, British supremacy was asserted, bloodshed was kept away from the city, and the Europeans maintained a steady if not cheerful demeanour. Nevertheless Mr Colvin was full of anxieties ; he was responsible to the Calcutta government, not only for Agra, but for the whole of the Northwest Provinces ; yet he found himself equally unable to send aid to other stations, and receive aid from them. Agra was troubled on the night of the 23d of June by the desertion of the jail-guard, to whom had been intrusted the custody of the large central prison. A guard from the 3d Europeans Avas thereupon placed on the outside ; while the inside was guarded by another force under Dr "Walker the superintendent. So far as concerned military disturbances within the city, Mr Colvin was not at that time under much apprehension; but he knew that certain regiments from Neemuch the mutiny of which will be described in the next chapter had approached by the end of the month to a point on the high road between Agra and Jeypoor, very near the first-named city; and he heard that they contemplated an attack. He estimated their strength at two regiments of infantry, four or five hundred cavalry, and eight guns ; but as the whole of the civil and military authorities at Agra were on the alert, he did not regard this approaching force with much alarm. To strengthen his position, and maintain public confidence, he organised a European militia of horse and foot, among the clerks, railway men, &c, to which it was expected and desired that nearly all civilians should belong. This militia, placed under the management of Captains Pren- dergast and Lamb, Lieutenants Rawlins and Oldfield, and Ensign Noble, who had belonged to the disarmed native regiments, was divided into two corps, to which the defence of the different parts of the station was intrusted. How the Europeans, both military and civilians, became cooped up in the fort during July, we shall see in a future chapter. Meerut, during June, remained in the hands of the British ; but there was much inactivity on the part of the general commanding there, in relation to the districts around that town. On the 10th of May, when the mutiny began (p. 50), there were a thousand men of the 60th Rifles, six hundred of the Carabiniers, a troop of horse-artillery, and five hundred artillery recruits constituting a force unusually large, in relation to the general distri- bution of English troops in India. Yet these fine soldiers were not so handled as to draw from them the greatest amount of service. They were not sent after the three mutinous regiments who escaped to Delhi ; and during the urgent and critical need of Lawrence, Colvin, and Wheeler, Major-general Hewett kept his Europeans almost constantly in or near Meerut. It is true that he, and others who have defended him, asserted that the maintenance of the position at Meerut, a very important consideration, could not have been insured if he had marched out to intercept rebels going from various quarters towards Delhi ; but this argument was not deemed satisfactory at Calcutta ; Major-general Hewett was superseded, and another commander appointed in his place. It was not until June that daks were re-estab- lished between Meerut and Agra on the one hand, and Meerut and Kurnaul on the other. Some of the Europeans were sent off to join the besieging army before Delhi ; while a portion of the remainder were occasionally occupied in putting down bands of Goojurs and other pre- datory robbers around Meerut. The town of Sirdhana, where the Catholic nuns and children had been placed in such peril (p. 57), was too near Meerut to be held by the rebels. Early in June, one Wallee Dad Khan set himself up as subadar or captain-general of Meerut, under the King of Delhi ; raised a rabble force of Goojurs ; held the fort of Malagurh with six guns ; and seized the district of Bolundshuhur. News arriving that he was advancing with his force towards Meerut, about a hundred European troops, Rifles and Carabiniers, with a few civilians and two guns, started off to intercept him. They had little work to do, however, except to burn villages held by the insurgents ; for the robber Goojurs having quarrelled with the robber Juts about plunder, the latter compelled Wallee Dud Khan and his general, Ismail Khan, to effect a retreat before the English came up. In the last week of the month the force at Meerut, chiefly in consequence of the number sent off to Delhi, was reduced to about eight hundred ; these were kept OUDB, ROHILCUND, AND THE DOAB : JUNE. 175 so well on the alert, and the whole town and cantonment so well guarded, that the Europeans felt little alarm ; although vexed that they could afford no further assistance to the hesiegers of Delhi, nor even chastise a portion of the 4th irregular cavalry, who mutinied at Mozuffernugger. All the English, civilians and their families as well as military officers, lived at Mcerut either in bar- racks or tents none venturing to sleep beyond the immediate spot where the military were placed. Simla, during these varied operations, continued to bo a place where, as at Nynee Tal, ladies and children, as well as some of the officers and civilians, took refuge after being despoiled by mutineers. A militia was formed after the hasty departure of General Anson; Simla was divided into four districts under separate officers; and the gentlemen aided by a few English troops, defended those districts, throughout June. The people at tho bazaar, and all the native servants of the place, were disarmed, and the arms taken for safe custody to Kussowlie. ' Delhi a place repeatedly mentioned in every chapter of this narrative continued to be the centre towards which the attention of all India was anxiously directed. Fast as the native regiments mutinied in Bengal, Oude, Rohilcund, the Doab, Bundelcund, and elsewhere, so did they either flee to Delhi, or shape their course in dependence on the military operations going on there ; and fast as the British troops could be despatched to that spot, so did they take rank among the besiegei-s. But in truth this latter augmentation came almost wholly from the Punjaub and other western dis- tricts. Lloyd, Neill, Wheeler, Lawrence, Hewett, Sibbald, were so closely engaged in attending to the districts around Dinapoor, Benares, Allahabad, Cawnpore, Lucknow, Meerut, and Bareilly, that they could not send aid to the besiegers of Delhi, during several weeks of siege operations. These operations will be noticed in systematic order, when the other threads of tho narrative have been traced to the proper points. Meanwhile the reader will bear in mind that the siege of Delhi was in progress from the middle of June to an advanced period in the summer. Tomb at Futtehpore SikrI. CHAPTER XL CENTRAL REGIONS OF INDIA: JUNE. N the political and territorial arrangements of the East India Company, the name of Central India is somewhat vaguely em- ployed to designate a portion of the region lying between the Jumna and Bundelcund on the northeast, and le Nizam's territory and Gujcrat on the southwest ; a designation convenient general reading, without possessing any precise acceptation. In the present chapter, we shall change the expression and enlarge the meaning so as to designate a belt of country that really forms Central India in a geographical sense, extending from Lower Bengal to Rajpootana, and separating Northern India frorh the southern or peninsular portion of the empire. This will carry the narrative into regions very little mentioned in fomier chapters such as Nagpoor, the Saugor and Nerbudda terri- tories, Bundelcund and Row ah, the Mahratta states and the Rajpoot states regions that will be briefly described, so far as to render the proceed- ings of the native troops intelligible. We begin with Nagpoor, a country now belong- ing to the British government, and considerably larger than England and "Wales. This province was acquired, not so much by conquest, as by one of those intricate arrangements concerning dynasty which have brought so many native states under British rule. It is in general an elevated country, containing many offshoots from the Vindhya range of mountains. Some parts of it, towards the southeast, have never been explored by Europeans, but are believed to be hilly, wooded, and full of jungles, inhabited by the semi-barbarous tribe of Ghonds. The remainder is better known and better cultivated ; and being on the high road from Calcutta to Bombay, possesses much political importance. The popula- tion exceeds four millions and a half. Early in the last centuiy, one of the Mahratta chieftains conquered Nagpoor from the rajahs who had before governed it ; and he and his descendants, or other ambitious members of the Mahratta family, continued to hold it as Rajahs of Nagpoor or Berar. Although constantly fighting one with another, these Mahrattas were on fair terms with the East India Company until 1803, when, unluckily for the continuance of his rule, the native rajah joined Scindia in the war against the British. As a consequence, when peace was restored in 1804, he was forced to yield Cuttack and other provinces to the conquerors. In 1817, another Rajah of Nagpoor joined the Pcishwa of the Mahrattas in hostilities against the British a course which led to his expulsion from the raj, and to a further increase of British influence. Then followed a period during which one rajah was imbecile, another under age, and many un- scrupulous chieftains sought to gain an ascendency one over another. This was precisely the state of things which rendered the British resident more and more powerful, setting up and putting down rajahs, and allowing the competitors to weaken the whole native rule by weakening each other. The history of British India may be almost told in such words as these. At length, in 1853, the last rajah, Ilagojee, died not only without heirs, but without any male relations who could support a legitimate claim to the raj. Thereupon, the governor- general quietly annexed this large country to the Company's dominions. It will be remembered (p. 4) that the Marquis of Dalhousie, in his minute, despatched this subject in a very few lines ; not asserting that the British had actually any right to the country ; but ' wisely incorporated it,' as no one else could put in a legitimate claim for it, and as it would have been imprudent 'to bestow the territory in free gift upon a stranger.' The Nagpoor territory was placed under the management of a commis- sioner, who was immediately subordinate to the governor -general in council; seeing that the Bengal Presidency was already too large to have this considerable country attached to it for govern- mental purposes. At and soon after the time of the outbreak, there were the 1st regiment irregular infantry, the Kamptee irregulars, an irregular horse-battery, and a body of European gunners, stationed in the city of Nagpoor, or in Kamptee, eleven miles distant ; the 2d infantry and a detachment of the 1st were at Chandah; a detachment of the 1st at Bhandara; CENTRAL REGIONS OF INDIA : JUNE. 177 the chief portion of the 3d at Raj poor ; and the remainder of the same regiment at Bilaspoor. The arsenal, containing guns, arms, ammunition, and military stores of every description ; and the treasury of the province, with a large amount of Company's funds were close to the city. Mr Plowden filled the office of commissioner at that period. With a mere handful of Europeans in the midst of a very extensive territory, he often trembled in thought for the safety of his position, and of British interests generally, in the region placed under his keeping. He had numerous native troops with him, and a large city under his control; if anything sinister should arise, he was far away from any extraneous aid being nearly six hundred miles distant from Madras, and still further from Calcutta. But, whatever were his anxieties (and they were many), he put on a calm bearing towards the natives of fragpoor. This city, the capital of the territory bearing the same name, is a dirty, irregular, straggling place, nearly miles in circumference. Most of the houses air mud-built ; and even the palaco of the late rajah is little more than a clumsy pile of unfinished masonry. The city has become rather famous for its banking business, and for its manufactures of cottons, chintzes, turbans, silk-, brocades, woollens, blankets, tent-cloths, and other textile goods. The population exceeds a hundred thousand. There is nothing of a military appearance about the city ; but whoever commands thr Beetabuldee, com- mand itself. This Seetabuldec is a hilly ridgo close to the city on the west, having two summits, the northern the higher, the southern the larger, but every part overlooking the city, and fortified. Such being the topographical position of it of government, Mr l'lowden proceeded to disarm such of his troops as excited disquietude in his mind, and to strengthen the Seetabuldec. A corps of irregular cavalry shewed symptoms of disloyalty; and indeed rumours were afloat that on a particular day the ascent of a balloon was to be d for the revolt of the troops. Under these circun, Sir riowden arranged with Colonel Comberlege, the commandant, to disarm them on the morning of the 23d of June the colonel bar- ing the 4th regiment of Madras cavalry, on whom he fully relied, to enforce the order for disbanding. The irregulars were paraded, mounted and fully armed, to shew that the authorities were not afraid of them. Mr l'lowden having addressed them, they quietly gave up their arms ami their saddles, which were taken in carts to the arsenal ; and thus six hundred and fifty troopers were left with nothing but their bare horses, ami ropes to picket them. Some of the men and of the native officers were arrested, and put on their trial for an attempt to excite mutiny. The roll was called over every four hours, and every native soldier absent, or found outside the lines without a pass, was treated as a deserter. The 1st regiment irregular infantry I in the disarming of the troopers. Follow- ing up the measures thus promptly taken, the commissioner strengthened the defences on the Seetabuldee hill, as a last refuge for the Euro- peans at Nagpoor in the event of any actual mutiny at that place. The Residency became a barrack at night for all the civil and military officers ; and a watchful eye was kept on the natives generally. At present, all was safe in Nagpoor. Another province, and another commissioner in charge of it, now come for notice. This province, bearing the rather lengthened name of the Saugor and Nerbudda Territories, is about half the size of England, and is bounded by the various provinces or regions of Nagpoor, Mirzapore, Allahabad, Banda, Bundelcund, Gwalior, Bhopal, and the Nizam's state of Hyderabad. It corresponds more nearly with the exact centre of India than any other portion of territory. One half of its namo is derived from the town of Saugor, the other half from the river Nerbudda. To describe the scraps and patches of which it consists, and the means by which they were acquired, would be neither easy nor necessary. Within its limits is the small independent state of Rewah, the rajah of which was bound to the British govern- ment by a treaty of alliance. Four other petty slates Kotee, Myhir, Oocheyra, and Sohawul were in the hands of native chieftains, mere feudatories of the Company, under whose grants they held their possessions ; allowed to govern their small sovereignties, but subject at any moment to the supervision and interference of the paramount power. The larger portion, now entirely British, is marked by the towns and dis- tricts of Saugor, Jubbulpoor, Hosungabad, Seuni, Nur-ingpore, Baitool, Sohagpoor, and others of less importance. There are still many aboriginal Ghonds in the province, as in Nagpoor, lurking in the gloomiest recesses of dense forests, and subsist- ing for the most part on wild roots and fruits. There are other half-savage tribes of Koles, Palis, and Panwars ; while the more civilised popula- tion comprises a singular mixture of Brahmins, Bundelas, Rajpoots, Mahrattas, and Patans. The Mahrattas at one time claimed this region, on the same plea as those east and west of it the right of conquest ; and the British obtained it from the Mahrattas, about forty years ago, by cession after a course of hostilities. Major Erskine was commissioner of the Saugor and Nerbudda territories during the early weeks of the mutiny ; responsible, not immediately to the governor-general at Calcutta, but to the lieu- tenant-governor of the Northwest Provinces at Agra. Like Mr Plowden at Nagpoor, he felt how imperiled he and his fellow-Europeans would be if the native troops were to rebel. At Jhansi and at Nuseerabad, as we shall presently see, revolt and massacre marked the first week in June; and Major Erskine sought earnestly for means to pre- vent his own Saugor troops from being tempted to a similar course. He was with the 52d native infantry at Jubbulpoor. He wrote on the 9th of 178 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. June to Brigadier Prior at Kamptee, praying him while keeping that station and Seuni intact to prevent, if possible, all news of the mutineers from passing to Jubbulpoor by that route; he feared lest his 52d should yield to the influence of pernicious example. Seuni was a small civil station, nearly midway between Jubbulpoor and Nagpoor, and about eighty miles distant from each ; while Kamptee was a cantonment of Madras regulars, eleven miles north of Nagpoor. The four places named, in fact, stand nearly in a line north and south, and interpose between the Mahratta states and Lower Bengal. Mr Plowden at Nagpoor, Major Erskine at Jubbulpoor, and Brigadier Prior at Kamptee, thereupon concerted measures for preserving, so far as they could, that region of India from disturbance ; they all three agreed that 'tranquillity will be most effectu- ally secured by crushing disaffection before it approaches too near to agitate men's minds dangerously.' One consequence of this arrange- ment was, that a force was sent on the 13th to Seuni, under Major Baker; consisting of the 32d native infantry, a squadron of the 4th light cavalry, a squadron of irregular cavalry, and three field-guns. The Europeans at Jubbulpoor were not allowed to pass through the month of June without many doubts and anxieties. The native troops, though not actually in mutiny, were seized with a mingled feeling of fear and exasperation when European troops were mentioned ; they were in perpetual apprehension, from the countless rumours at that time circulating throughout India, that Europeans were about to approach and disarm them, as degraded and distrusted men. Jubbulpoor is a large thriving town, which at the time of the mutiny contained a small cantonment for native troops, and a political agency subsidiary to that at Saugor. On one occasion, this report of the approach of European troops seized so forcibly on the minds of the sepoys, that the subadar-major, a trusted and influential man, lost all control over them ; and they were not satisfied until their Eng- lish colonel allowed two or three from each com- pany to go out and scour the country, to satisfy themselves and the rest whether the rumour were true or false. On another occasion, one of the sepoys rose with a shout of 'Death to the Feringhees,' and endeavoured to bayonet the adjutant ; but his companions did not aid him ; and the authorities deemed it prudent to treat him as a madman, to be confined and not shot. When troops were marched from Kamptee to Seuni, in accordance with the arrangements mentioned in the last paragraph, the sepoys at Jubbulpoor were at once told of it, lest their excited minds should be again aroused on the subject of Europeans. Some of the English officei's felt the humiliation involved in this kind of petting and pampering; but danger was around them, and they were obliged to temporise. A few ladies had been sent to Kamptee ; all else remained with their husbands, seldom taking off their clothes at night, and holding themselves ready to flee at an hour's warning. Such a state of affairs, though less perilous, was almost as mentally distressing as actual mutiny. As the month drew to a close, and the perpetual anxiety and expectation were becoming wearisome to all, the Europeans resolved to fortify the Residency. This they did, and moreover stored it with six months' provision for about sixty persons, in- cluding thirty ladies and children ; and for several civilians, who had also to be provided for. Saugor was placed in some such predicament as Jubbulpoor ; its European officers had much to plan, much to execute, to enable them to pass safely through the perils of the month of June. This town, the capital of the province in political matters, possessed a military cantonment on the borders of a lake on which the town stands ; a large fort, which had been converted into an ordnance depot ; and a population of fifty thou- sand souls, chiefly Mahrattas. At the time of the outbreak, Brigadier Sage commanded the Saugor district force, and had under him the 31st and 42d native infantry regiments, a regiment of native cavalry, and about seventy European gunners. The fort, the magazine, and the battering- train were at one end of the cantonment; an eminence, called the Artillery Hill, was at the other end, three miles off; and the brigadier felt that if mutiny should occur, he would hardly be able to hold both positions. During many minor transactions in the district, requiring the presence of small detachments from Saugor, the temper of the troops was made sufficiently manifest ; some- times the 31st shewed bad symptoms, sometimes the 42d ; two or three men were detected in plans for murdering their officers ; and petty rajahs in the district offered the sepoys higher pay if they would change their allegiance. The European inhabitants of Saugor becoming very uneasy, the brigadier cleared out the fort, converted it into a place of refuge for women and children, supplied it with useful furniture and other articles, and succeeded in supplanting sepoys by Europeans in guard of the fort, the magazine, and the treasury. The fort being provisioned for six months, and the guns secured, Brigadier Sage felt himself in a position to adopt a resolute tone towards the native troops, without compromising the safety of the numerous persons congregated within it comprising a hundred and thirty officers and civilians, and a hundred and sixty women and children, all the Europeans of the place. Thus ended June. It may simply be added here, that during the early part of the following month, the 31st and 42d regiments had a desperate fight, the former willing to be faithful, and the latter to mutiny. The brigadier, not feeling quite sure even of the 3lst, would not place either his officers or his guns at their mercy, but he sent out of the fort a few men to aid them. The irregular cavalry joined the 42d ; but both corps were ultimately CENTRAL REGIONS OF INDIA : JUNE. 179 beaten off by the 31st to carry wild disorder into other towns and districts.* "Without dwelling on minor mutinies at Dumoh and other places in the Saugor province, we will transfer our attention northward to Bundelcund ; where Jhansi was the scene of a terrible catas- trophe, and where riot and plunder were in the ascendant throughout the month of June. Bun- delcund, the country of the Bundelas, affords a curious example of the mode in which a region became in past times cut up into a number of petty states, and then fell in great part into British hands. It is a strip of country, about half the size of Scotland, lying south or southwest of the Jumna, and separated by that river from the Doab. The country was in the hands of the Rajpoots until the close of the fourteenth century; when mother tribe, the Bundelas, began system of predatory incursions which led to their ultimate poss> of the whole tract. Early in the last century there was a chief of Western Bundelcund tributary to the Great Mogul, and another in Eastern Bundel- cund supported by the Mahrattas against that sovereign. How one chief rose against another, and how each obtained a patch of territory for himself, need not be told ; it was only an exem- plification of a process to which Asiatics have been accustomed from tho earliest ages. About the close of the century, the East India Company began to obtain possession here, by conqm by treaty; and in 1817, after a war with the Mahrattas, a largo increase was made in this ownership. These are matters needful to be borne in mind here ; for, though tho country is but small, it now contains live or six districts belong- ing to the British, and nine native princedoms or rsjahshipi numerous petty jaghires or domains that may in some senso be compared to the smallest states of the Germanic confederation. At the time of the mutiny, the British districts were managed under the lieutenant-governor of the Northwest Provinces ; while the ' political superintendence,' as it was called, of the native states was in the hands of an agent appointed by, and directly responsible to, the governor-general. With the principal native states, of which Jhansi was one, the British government had engagements, varying on minor points according to circum- stances, but all recognising its supremacy, and binding the dependent state to the relinquishment A curious example was afforded, in relation to tho affairs of Saugor, of the circuitous manner in which public affairs were conducted in lnili;i, when different officials were residing in at parts of that vast empire. The brigadier commanding the Saugor district adopted a certain course, in a time of peril, concerning the management of the troops under his command. Information of th-.-c proceedings to Neil] at Allahabad (riOO miles). NelU forwarded the information to Calcutta (500 miles). The military secretary to tho government at Calcutta sent a dispatch to the adjutant-general of the army outside Delhi (900 miles), requesting him to ' move' the commander-in-chief to send a military message to Saugor (400 miles), calling upon the officer of that station to explain the motives for his conduct in the matter at issue. The explanation, so given, was to bo sent 400 miles to Delhi, and then 900 miles to Calcutta ; and btatly, if the t were not approved, a message to that effect would bo that happened to he open for dak, from Calcutta to Saugor. of all political relations except with the superior power. Some were tributary ; some exempt from that obligation. The chief towns in the portion of Bundelcund belonging to the British are Jhansi, Banda, and Jaloun. Bundelcund, we have said, was the scene of much outrage, especially at Jhansi. This town, lying on the main route from Agra to Saugor, was much frequented in the last century by caravans of merchants who traded between the Doab and the Deccau ; and it is still a prosperous commercial place, rendered conspicuous by the castellated residence of the former rajahs. The Jhansi mutiny was not followed by so many adventures and wanderings as that at other places for a very mournful reason ; nearly all the Euro- peans were at once put to death. A fort in the town had been previously supplied with food and ammunition, and had been agreed on as a place of refuge in time of danger. Major Skene and Captain Gordon, civil officers of the Company, received information which tended to shew that a petty chieftain near Jhansi was tampering with the troops ; and Captain Dunlop, in command there, made what defensive preparations he could. Besides the fort in the town, there was one called the Star Fort in the cantonment, containing tho guns and the treasure. The native troops por- tions of the 12th infantry and of the 14th irregu- lar cavalry, and a few artillery rose on tire afternoon of the 4th of June, seized the Star Fort, and shot at all the officers in the cantonment ; many were killed, and the rest ran to the Town Fort, which they barricaded as well as they were able. The little garrison of Europeans then pre- pared for a siege; but it could be only of short duration, as the place was too weak to contend against the rebel besiegers. Musketry and sword- cuts (for the garrison often met their assailants hand to hand at the gates) brought down many ; and some of the civilians, who tried to escape disguised as natives, were caught by the insurgents and killed. At last, when Captains Dunlop and Gordon, and many other officers had fallen, and when the remaining Europeans had become dis- heartened, by the scarcity of ammunition and of food, Major Skene accepted terms offered to him, on oath that the whole of the garrison should be spared if he opened the gate and surrendered. The blood-thirsty villains soon shewed the value of the oath they had taken. They seized all men, women, and children and bound them in two rows to ropes, the men in one row and the women and children in the other. The whole were then deliberately put to death ; the poor ladies stood with their infants in their arms, and their elder children clinging to their gowns ; and when the husbands and fathers had been slaughtered, then came the other half of the tragedy. It is even said that the innocent children were cut in halves before their mothers' eyes. One relief, and one only, marked the scene ; there was not, so far as is known, torture and violation of women as 180 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. precursors of death. The death-list was a sad one. Skene, Dunlop, Gordon, Ryves, Taylor, Camphell, Burgess, Turabull all were military officers in the Company's service, emploj r ed either on military or civil duties ; and all were killed. Twenty-four civil servants and non-commissioned officers likewise met with their death ; and most painful of all, nineteen ladies and twenty-three children were butchered by the treacherous miscreants. Mr Thornton, the collector for a district between Jhansi and Cawnpore, was afterwards in a position to inform the government that the mutinous troops intended to have left Jhansi after they had cap- tured the treasure ; that a Bundelcund chieftain ess, the Ranee of Jhansi, Avishing to regain power in the district, bribed them with large presents to take the fort and put all the Europeans to death before they finally departed for Delhi ; and that it Avas thus to a woman that was due the inhuman slaughtering of more than forty European ladies and children. One account, that reached the ears of officers at other stations, was to the effect that when Major Skene became aware of the miscreant treachery, he kissed his wife, shot her, and then shot himself, to avert apprehended atrocities worse than death ; while another narrative or rumour represented the murderers as having chopped off the heads of the victims, instead of merely shooting them ; but, in truth, the destruction was so com- plete that scarcely one was left to tell the tale except natives, who contradicted each other in some of the particulars. Jhansi of course soon became a prey to lawless marauders ; while the mutineers marched off to Delhi or elsewhere. Lieutenant Osborne, at Rewah, was placed in a difficult position at that time. Rewah is a small Rajpoot state, ruled by a native rajah, who is bound by treaties with the British government, and who has a British agent as resident at his court. Rewah was nearly sur- rounded by mutinous districts, such as Benares, Allahabad, Futtehpoor, Jhansi, Saugor, and Jub- bulpoor; and it became a difficult problem for Lieutenant Osborne, the British agent, how to keep wild disorder away from that place. On the 8th of June, by an energetic use of his influence, he was able to announce that the Maharajah of Rewah had placed his troops at the disposal of the government ; that the offer had been accepted ; and that eight hundred of those troops, with two guns, had been sent off to Ummapatan, a place which commanded the roads to Jubbulpoor, Nagode, and Saugor ready to oppose insurgents from any of those towns, and to intercept com- munication with other mutinous towns on the Jumna. He also sent eleven hundred of the Maharajah's troops, with five guns, to Kuttra Pass : a spot whence a rapid advance could be made to Benares, Chunar, or Mirzapore, according as military exigencies might render desirable. A week later, he obtained permission from the Maha- rajah to send seven hundred troops to Banda ; and at the same time to issue a proclamation, promising rewards to any of his soldiers who should distinguish themselves by their gallantry and fidelity. With no higher military rank than that of lieutenant did this active officer thus lay plans, not only for the peace of the Rewah terri- tory itself, but also in aid of the Company's officers all around him. His position at a later date was very perilous. If the destruction of life Avas less at Nowgong than at Jhansi, the proceedings of mutinous troops Avere folloAved by much more adventure and varied interest. NoAvgong or NoAvgaon is situated about a hundred miles southeast of the last-named town, but, like it, in the Bundelcund territory. At the beginning of June there Avere stationed at that place about four hundred men of the 12th native infantry, and rather over tAvo hundred of the 14th irregular caA r alry Avings of the same tAvo regiments as at Jhansi ; together Avith a company of the 9th battalion of artillery, and a light field bullock-battery. Major Kirke, com- manding the station, had in earlier Aveeks often discussed the cartridge question with his men, and believed he had removed from their minds all misgivings on that unfortunate subject. Never- theless, as June approached, the major deemed the appearance of affairs so suspicious, that he made such precautionary arrangements as were practicable to resist an outbreak. Bungalows Avero iioav and then discovered to be in flames, Avithout any means of detecting the incen- diaries. When the atrocities at Meerut and elsc- Avhere became known, the troops stationed at NoAvgong made ardent demonstrations of loyalty so ardent, that Kirke almost upbraided himself for his momentary distrust of them ; the infantry embraced their colours, the artillery embraced their guns, and all asserted their burning desire to chastise the rebels Avho had proved faithless to the Company Bahadoor. So late as the 6th of June, eA 7 en while whisperings and ominous signs Avere passing betAveen them, these unreliable men sent in a grandiloquent petition, in Avhich they said : ' As it is necessary to avenge the government on those cowardly rascals avIio noAV, in Delhi and other places, are exciting rebellion, and for Avhich pui-pose many European regiments are being despatched ; Ave, hearing of this, are exceedingly desirous that Ave be sent as volunteers to chastise these scoundrels. And that Ave may sheAV from our hearts our faithfulness, Ave are ready to go Avherever sent' and more to the same purpose. This petition or address was presented to Major Kirke by the wing of the 12th regiment. On that same day news arrived that the other wing of the same regiment had mutinied at Jhansi; and the Neemuch men, cither with childish indecision or Avith profound duplicity, sent off a letter to them, reproving them for their insubordination ! On the 10th, a petition Avas presented by the commandant of the artillery (4th company, 9th battalion), couched in similar language ; demanding that the artillery might be sent against the rebels ; ' in CENTRAL REGIONS OF INDIA: JUNE. 181 order,' .is the petition averred, ' that we may fulfil the wish of our hearts by shewing our bravery and loyalty.' Never were words uttered more hollow and treacherous. By nightfall on that same loth of June, the native troops at Nowgong were nearly all rebels, and the Europeans nearly all fugitives. A few hours sufficed to shew the English officers that they were powerless to contend against their opponents. Flight commenced. The officers and civilians, with their families, and Europeans of humbler station, all took their departure from Nowgong some in buggies, some on horseback, and some on foot ; but all equally reft of their worldly property. Were it not that this Chronicle has already contained examples, mournfully numerous, of similar wanderings OTer the scorch- ing roads and through the thick jungle of India, the fate of the Nowgong party might afford materials for a very exciting narrative ; but with the reader's experience on this matter, a few lines of description will suffice. The party was a one It comprised Major Kirke, Captain Scot, Lieutenants Townshend, Jackson, Reming- ton, Ewart, Franks, and Barber, about forty other Europeans of both sexes and all age-;, and about ninety sepoys of the mutinous infantry, who had not joined their brethren. The fugitives lessened In number every day ; some or other of them sankunder the heat and fatigue; while the Mpojl when they approached towns where insurgents were in the ascendant. Either collectively or separately the wanderers found themselves on different days iutterpore, at Logassee, at Churkaree, at Mahoba, at Callingnrh, at Kabrai, at Banda places mostly belonging to petty rajahs of Bundel- cund. The principal survivors of the party were about ten or twelve days on the roads and fields, before they reached friendly quarters at Banda. On one occasion they were attacked by a band of marauders, and had to buy security with rupees ; on another, their sepoys were seized with a panic, and ran oil* in large numbers; on a third, a body of matchlock-men suddenly confronted them, and shot down Lieutenant Townshend. On one part of the journey, Captain Scot found himself in the midst of a distressing group of women and chil- dren : having poor Townshend's horse with him, he loaded both horses with as many as he could carry ; but it made him heart-sick to see the others fall away one by one, utterly broken down by fatigue, and with insufficient men to help them tbr the flight appears to have been wanting in every semblance of organisation. A bandsman's wife dropped dead through a sunstroke ; then an artillery sergeant, worn out, went into a hut to die. Captain Scot came up with a lady and her child, reeling along the road as if delirious ; he readjusted his horse-load, took up the fugitives, and the lady very speedily died in his arms. Shortly after this a line hale sergeant-major sank, no more ; Major Kirke died through a sun- stroke ; and others dropped off in a similar way. Dr Mawe died from illness and fatigue ; and then his wife, while laving her blistered feet in a pool, was set upon by ruffians and robbed of the little she had about her. Captain Scot, after many changes in his horse-load, took up Dr Mawe's child ; aud ' little Lotty,' of two years' old, seemed to him a blessing rather than a burden ; for on the few occasions when he met friendly natives, their friendship was generally gained for him by the sight of the little girl, whose head he endeavoured to shield from the burning sun by a portion of his shirt the only resource for one who had lost both hat and coat, and whose own head was nearly driven wild by the intense solar heat. It is pleasant to know that the captain and ' little Lotty ' were among the few who reached a place of safety. Banda was another of the stations affected ; but the details of its troubles need not be traced here. Suffice it to say that, on the 14th of June, there was a mutiny of a detachment of native infantry, and a few troops belonging to the Nawab of Banda a titular prince, possessing no political power, but enjoying a pension from the Company, and having a sort of honorary body-guard of native The officers and their families were at first in great peril ; but the nawab aided them in making a safe retreat to Nagode. On the 16 th of June, Major Ellis had to announce to the govern- ment that his station at Nagode was beginning to be filled with anxious fugitives from Banda, Futtehpoor, Ilumeerpoor, and Amecrpoor ; com- pri tag military officers, magistrates, salt-agents, re- venue servants, rail way officials, and ] irivate persons. Twenty-eight of these fugitives arrived on one day. He sent to many petty chieftains of Bundelcund, who were pensioners under the Company or had treaties with it, to exert themselves to the utmost in recovering all property seized during the events of the preceding two or three days in the Banda district. Major Ellis at Nagode, and Mr Mayne at Banda, applied earnestly to Calcutta for military assistance ; but they were told plainly that none could be sent to them, every European soldier being needed in the Ganges and Jumna regions. It now becomes necessary, on removing the scene further to the west, to know something concerning the Mahrattas, their relations to the two great families of Scindia and Holkar, the conventions existing between those two families and the British government, and the military arrangements of the Mahratta territories at the time of the outbreak. These matters can be rendered intelligible without any very lengthened historical narrative. After the death of the Emperor Aurungzebe, a century and a half ago, India was distracted and impoverished by the contentions of his sons and descendants ; each of whom, in claiming the throne, secured the partisanship of powerful nobles, and the military aid of fighting-men in the pay of those nobles. A civil war of terrible kind was the natural result ; and equally natural was it that other chieftains, in nowise related to the 182 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. imperial family, should take advantage of the anarchy to found dynasties for themselves. One such chieftain was Sevajee, a Mahratta in the service of the King of Bejapore, in the southern part of India. The Mahrattas were (and are) a peculiar tribe of Hindoos, more fierce and preda- tory than most of their fellow-countrymen. Long before Europeans settled in India, the Mahrattas were the chief tribe in the region north, south, and east of the present city of Bombay. After many struggles against the competitors for the throne of Delhi, the Mahrattas were left in possession of a sovereign state, of which Satara and Poonah were the chief cities. From 1707 till 1818, the nominal sovereign or rajah of the Mahrattas had no real power ; he was a sort of state . or honorary pi'isoner, confined in the hill-fortress of Satara ; while the government was administered by the Peishwa or prime minister, whose office became hereditary in a particular family, and whose seat of government was at Poonah. After many Peishwas had held this singular kind of sovereignty at the one city the nominal rajah being all the time powerless at the other circumstances occur- red which led to an intermeddling of the East India Company with Mahratta politics, followed by the usual results. Narrain Rao Peishwa was murdered in 1773; many relations of the murdered man competed for the succession ; and as the Company greatly desired to possess the island of Salsette and the town of Bassein, at that time belonging to the Mahrattas, it was soon seen that this wish might be gratified by aiding one competitor against another. Battles and intrigues followed, ending in the possession of the two coveted places by the British, and in the appointment of a British resident at the Peishwa's court at Poonah. Thus matters remained until 1817, when the Peishwa engaged in intrigues with other Mahratta chiefs against the British ; a course that led to his total overthrow after a few fierce contests in the field. The Mahratta sovereignty at Poonah was entirely put an end to, except a small principality assigned to the Rajah of Satara, the almost forgotten representative of the founder of the Mahratta rule. The British took all the remaining territory, pensioning off" the Peishwa ; and as to Satara, after several rajahs had reigned, under the close control of the British resident at that city, the principality 'lapsed' in 1848, in default of legitimate male heirs a lapse that led to the preparation of many ponderous blue books concerning the grievances and complaints of a certain adopted son of the last rajah. Thus much for the south Mahratta countiy, having Poonah and Satara for its chief cities ; but the British have had fully as much to do with the northern portion of the Mahratta region, repre- sented by the two cities of Gwalior and Indore, and held by the two great Mahratta families of Scindia and Holkar. As the Peishwas in past years cared little for the nominal head of the Mahrattas at Satara, so did the Scindias and Holkars care little for the Peishwas. Each chief- tain endeavoured to become an independent sove- reign. The Scindia family is traceable up to the year 1720, when Ranojee Scindia was one of the dependents of the Peishwa. Prom that year, by predatory expeditions and by intrigues, the successive heads of the Scindia family became more and more powerful contending in turn against the Mogul, the Rajpoots, the Peishwa, and the British ; until at length, in 1784, Madhajee Scindia was recognised as an inde- pendent sovereign prince, with the hill-fortress of Gwalior as his stronghold and seat of government. In 1794, when Madhajee died, the Scindia domi- nions extended from beyond Delhi on the north to near Bombay on the south, and from the Ganges to Gujerat a vast region, held and acquired by means as atrocious as any recorded in the history of India. Early in the present century, the power of the Scindia family received a severe check. Hostilities having broken out with the British, Sir Arthur Wellesley (after- wards Duke of Wellington) defeated Dowlut Rao Scindia at Assaye in 1803, while Lord Lake drove the Mahrattas from the whole of the Doab. Many desperate wars occurred in later years, ending, in 1844, by a treaty which left Bajerut Rao Scindia king or rajah of a state barely equalling England in area, with Gwalior as his capital. A contin- gent or body of troops was to be supplied by him for the service of the British, beyond which he was permitted to have an independent army of nine thousand men ; and there were numerous minor details which gave much influence to the British resident at Gwalior. Of the family of Holkar, almost the same account may be given as of that of Scindia; inas- much as it has sprung from a Mahratta leader who acquired power a century and a half ago. The city of Indore has always been the centre of dominion belonging to this family a dominion extending over a very wide region at some periods, but greatly contracted in recent times. The ruler of the Indore territory at the time of the mutiny was one Mulkerjee Holkai", who had been ap- pointed by the Calcutta government at a time of disputed succession, in such a way as to imply that the territory might pass into British hands whenever the Company chose. Holkar's territory is now much smaller than Scindia's, scarcely exceeding Wales in area. It will suffice, then, to bear in mind that the southern Mahratta power, that of the courts of Poonah and Satara, had wholly fallen into British hands before the time of the mutiny ; and that the northern power, held by the courts of Gwalior and Indore, extended over a country no larger than England and Wales united. Nevertheless, considering that that portion of central India is bounded by Bundelcund, the Doab, Rajpootana, Gujerat, the Nizam's dominions, and the Saugor and Nerbudda territories, it was of much import- ance to the British that Scindia and Holkar should CENTRAL REGIONS OF INDIA : JUNE. 183 remain faithful to their alliances at a critical period. Although Nuseerabad is properly in Rajpootana, of which a few words of description will be given shortly, the mutiny at that place may con- veniently he treated here ; because it was a link- in a chain which successively affected Neemuch, Indore, Mhow, and Gwalior. Nuseerabad is near Ajmeer, the chief town of a British district surrounded by the dominions of independent or semi-independent rajahs. Ajmeer, though far smaller than most of the principal cities in India, is an ancient and important place, about two hundred and sixty miles southwest of Delhi ; at the time of the mutiny, it was the seat of a British political agency ; and in a ruined palace of the Emperor Akbar, converted into an arsenal, was a powder-magazine. Nuseerabad, fifteen miles from Ajmeer, may be regarded as the military station for that city, and for the neigh- bouring British districts ; it had an extensive and well-laid-out cantonment, and was the head- quarters of the corps known as the Rajpootana Field-force. Nuseerabad had been nearly drained of troops early in the year, on account of the Persian expedition ; but this gap was afterwards partially filled up. In the month of May there wore at the station the 1st regiment Bombay lancers, the 15th and 90th Bengal native infantry, and the 2d company of the 7th battalion of Bengal native artillery. An instructive fact was made manifest ; the Bombay troops remained faithful, while those of the Bengal army became first rest- less, then mutinous, then murderous. I'd fortu- nately, the good were not strong enough to coerce the bad ; the Bombay lancers numbered only two hundred and fifty sabres. The month of May had not closed when the disturbances at Nuseer- abad began. The officers had been nightly in the habit of sleeping with revolvers and swords near at hand ; while the Bombay lancers patrolled the cantonment so suspicious were the symptoms observed. On the evening of the 28th a servant rushed into the bungalow of one of the lieutenants of the 15th infantry, announcing that the regiment had risen. The officers hastened to the lines, and there found the regiment drawn up in companies the martial array being maintained in mutiny as it had been in regular drill. The men looked sternly at their officers ; and soon worse news arrived. The native artillerymen who worked the six guns joined the revolters not actually firing on the officers, but ready to do so. The hmen connected with the two regiments were a mere handful ; they were powerless, for none of the sepoys would aid them against the Colonel Penny, in command of the Bombay lancers, instantly hastened down, armed and mounted his troopers, and drew them up into position. Galloping to the artillery lines, and finding the guns pointed against him, he imme- diately ordered a charge for capturing them, each troop charging in succession. Captain Spottis- woode began, and soon fell mortally wounded ; other officers led subsequent charges, but the guns could not be taken. Penny then felt obliged to relinquish this attempt, and to hold himself in readiness to check the mutineers in other ways ; but as the two regiments of native infantry refused to listen to their officers, nothing was left but flight. Cornet Newberry, as well as Captain Spottiswoode, fell while charging ; Colonel Penny became suddenly ill and died in a few hours ; while two or three other officer's were wounded. How perilous were those cavalry-charges against the six guns' may be judged from a letter written by one of the officers : ' I galloped towards the guns, and must have been eighty or a hundred yards from them when I began to experience the un- pleasant sensation of bullets whizzing past my head, and saw a lot of sepoys taking shots at me as I came along. I immediately turned my pony's head, and endeavoured to retreat under cover of a wall which ran in front of the artillery lines. Here I saw more men running up with the kind intention of having a crack at me ; so I had to keep along the parade-ground right in the line of fire, and had one or two men popping at me from over the wall on my right. My tat (pony) went as fast as ever he could go, and, thanks be to God, carried me back in perfect safety Off we started towards the cavalry lines amid showers of bullets. I dodged round the first bell of arms ; and as I passed the bells, saw three or four men behind each, who deliberately shot at us as we pawed.' The ladies had been sent off from the station just in time. The surviving officers joined them beyond the cantonment about nightfall, and then all hastened away. They rode forty miles during the night, on roads and fields and rocky hills, and reached a place of safety, Beaur or Beawur, towards noon hungry, tired, and reft of everything but the clothes on their backs. As this small body of Bombay native cavalry remained stanch when the Bengal troops were faithless all around them, it was deemed right to make some public acknowledgment of the fact. Lord Elphinstone, as president or governor of Bombay, issued a general order on the subject, thanking the troopers, and passing lightly over the fact that a few of them afterwards disgraced themselves.* The commander-in-chief afterwards ordered the report of the transaction by Captain * 'To mark tho approbation with which he has received this report, the Right Honourable the Governor in Council will direct the immediate promotion to higher grades of such of the native officers and men as his Excellency the Commander-in-chief may be pleased to name as having most distinguished themselves on this occasion, and thereby earned this special reward; and the Governor will take care that liberal compensation is awarded for the loss of property abandoned in the cantonment and subse- quently destroyed, when the Lancers, in obedience to orders, marched out to protect the families of the European officers, leaving their own unguarded in cantonment. ' By a later report the Governor in Council has learned with regret that eleven men of the Lancers basely deserted their comrades and their standards, and joined the mutineers; but tho Governor in Council will not suffer the disgrace of these unworthy members of the corps to sully the display of loyalty, discipline, and gallantry which the conduct of this fine regiment has eminently exhibited.' 184 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. Hardy, who took the control of the lancers when Colonel Penny died, to be translated into the Hindustani and Mahratta languages, and read to all the regiments of the Bombay native army, as an encouragement to them in the path of duty. After the English officers and their families had escaped to Beaur, the mutinous troops made off towards Delhi. Nuseerabad being considered an important station in regard to the control of the surrounding districts, a force was sent to reoccupy it towards the end of June ; comprising a detach- ment of H.M. 83d foot, another of the 20th Bombay native infantry, another of the Jhodpore legion, and a squadron of the 2d Bombay cavalry Nuseerabad being sufficiently near Bombay to derive advantages not possessed by stations further east. The usual consequences of the revolt of native regiments followed. Nuseerabad furnished a bad example to Neemuch. As a village, Neemuch is of small consequence ; as a military station, its importance is considerable. During some of the negotiations with Scindia in past years, it was agreed that the British should have a cantonment at this spot, which is on the confines of Malwah and Mewar, about three hundred miles south-west of Agra; a force in British pay was to be stationed there, by virtue of certain terms in a treaty, and a small district, with the village in the centre, was made over to the Company for this purpose. The cantonment thereupon built was two 'or three miles long by a mile in width, and comprised the usual native infantry lines, cavalry lines, artillery lines, head- quarters, offices, bungalows, bazaar, pai'ade-ground, &c. There was also a small fort or fortified square built, as a place of refuge for the families of the military when called to a distance on duty. In the early part of June, the troops stationed at Neemuch comprised the 72d Bengal N. I., the 7th regiment of Gwalior infantry, two troops of the 1st Bengal light cavalry, and a troop of horse- artillery. Every effort had been made in the early weeks of the mutiny to insure the confidence of these troops, and prevent them from joining the standard of rebellion. Colonel Abbott, and most of the officers of the 72d, as well even as some of their families, slept within the sepoy lines, to win the good-will of the men by a generous confidence. One wing (three companies) of the Gwalior troops held the fortified square and treasury ; while the other wing (five companies), now quartered in a. vacant hospital, about a quarter of a mile distant, was encamped just outside the walls; Captain Macdonald, the chief officer, residing with the first- named wing. Colonel Abbott, who commanded the station generally, as well as the 72d regiment in particular, became convinced, on the morning of the 2d of June, that all the hopeful expectations of himself and brother-officers were likely to be dashed ; for the troops at Neemuch had heard of the mutiny at Nuseerabad, and could be restrained no longer. While the superintendent, Captain Lloyd, hastened to secure somo of the Company's records and accounts, and to open a line of retreat for fugitives along the Odeypore road, Colonel Abbott made such military arrangements as were practicable on the spur of the moment. The colonel brought his native officers together, and talked to them so earnestly, that he induced them to swear, ' on the Koran and on Ganges water,' that they would be true to their salt ; while he, at their request, swore to his confidence in their faithful intentions. This singular compact, in which Mohammedans, Hindoos, and a Christian swore according to the things most solemn to them respectively, remained unbroken for twenty-four hours ; who broke it, after that interval, will at once be guessed. During many preceding days, a panic had prevailed in the Sudder Bazaar ; incen- diary fires occurred at night ; great numbers of persons had removed with their property ; the wildest reports were set afloat by designing knaves to increase the distrust ; and the commonest occurrences were distorted into phantoms of evil intended against the troops. At last, on the night of the 3d, the troops threw off their oath and their allegiance at once. The artillery, disregarding Lieutenant Walker's entreaties and expostulations, fired off two guns ; the cavalry, on hearing this signal, rushed out to join them ; and the 72d broke from their lines immediately afterwards. Captain Macdonald instantly ordered into the fort the one wing of the Gwalior regiment which had been encamped outside, under Lieutenants Rose and Gurdon ; and then prepared for defence. A bold and singular expedient had just before been adopted by the civil superintendent ; he authorised Macdonald to promise to the Gwalior troops, if they faithfully defended the fort during any mutiny outside, a reward of a hundred rupees to each sepoy or private, three hundred to each naik or corporal, five hundred to each havildar or sergeant, higher sums to the jemadars and suhadars, and five thousand rupees to the senior native officer, or to the one who should most distinguish himself in preserving the loyalty of the regiment. These are large sums to the natives of India ; and the superintendent must have considered long and fully before he promised the Company's money in such a manner. All was, however, in vain. The Gwalior troops remained faithful under the temptation of this promise for a short time ; but at length, headed by a subadar named Heera Singh, they demanded that the gates of the fort should be opened, and requested that the officers would make arrangements for their own safety. Macdonald, Rose, Gurdon, and other officers of the Gwalior regiment, expostulated with their men ; but entreaty was now of no avail ; the troops foi'cibly opened the gates, and the officers took their departure when the last vestige of hope had been destroyed. Of the flight, little need be said; it was such a flight as almost every province in Northern India exhibited in those sad days. Some of the ladies CENTRAL REGIONS OF INDIA : JUNE. 185 and children had been sent oft" a few hours earlier, hurried away with no preparations for their com- fort or even their sustenance ; while others waited to accompany their husbands or fathers. Very few had either horses or vehicles ; they laboured on re to Baree, to Chota Sadree, to Burra Sadree, to Doogla straggling parties meeting and separat- ing according as their strength remained or failed, and all dependent on the villagers for food. At Doogla, where they arrived on the third night, the officers strengthened a sort of mud-fort about forty yards square, within which forty persons were huddled. After being much straitened, they were relieved by Brigadier Showers on the 9th. The fugitive party now broke up ; some returned to Ncemuch, which the mutineers had abandoned; but the greater number went to Odeypore, the rana of which place gave them a hospitable recep- tion ; some of them afterwards went further west to Mount Aboo or Aboo Gurh a celebrated place of Hindoo pilgrimage to a sacred temple, and a sanatarium for the Europeans stationed at the Fort of Miiow. cantonment of Deesa, about forty miles distant. Those of the party who returned to Ncemuch, found everything devastated, the bungalows and offices burnt, and the villagers stripped of their stores by the mutineers, who hail afterwards started off for Agra, The officer! and their fami- ne literally beggars ; they had lost their all. Europeans were killed save the wife and three children of a sergeant, who could not leave nuch in time. Thus were lost to the British about fourteen hundred men and six guns at Nuseerabad, and sixteen hundred men and six guns at Neemuch, all of which went to swell the iusurgent forces inside Delhi or outside Agra, The stations of Indorc and Mhow must now a little of our attention situated nearly south of Neemuch, and about four hundred miles from Agra, Indore, as has already been stated, is the capital of Holkar'l Mahratta dominions. It is an ill-built place, standing on the small river Kutki, and is less than a century old : the original Indore, or Jemnah, being on the opposite side of the river. Holkar's palace is a building possessing few attractions ; and the like may be said of the other native structures. The relation existing at that time between Indorc and Mhow was this that Indore was the residence of the British poli- tical agent at the court of Holkar ; whereas Mhow, thirteen miles distant, was the military station or cantonment. The house of the British agent, and those of the other Europeans, were on the eastern side of the town. The agent, at the time of the m-.tiny, had an escort of cavalry and infantry at his disposal ; but it was simply an escort, not a regular military force. The agent, in addition to his duties connected with Holkar's court, was the immediate representative of the British govern- ment in relation to various petty states under its protection, but in other points differing greatly in their circumstances. The Indorc agent in May and June was Colonel 186 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. Durand. All was peaceful at that place, although much agitation was visible, until the 1st of July ; on which day mutiny occurred. Holkar's troops rose against the English, without, as it afterwards appeared, the privity or the wish of the Maharajah himself. Two companies, set apart for the protec- tion of the Residency in the bazaar square, brought two guns to bear upon the building ; and the Europeans were horror-stricken at finding them- selves suddenly exposed to cannon and musketry. Fortunately a few men of the Bhopal Contingent under Colonel Travers, were on duty at the Residency ; and a few of these remained faithful long enough to allow the colonel and the other European officers, with their families, to escape. Not so the civilians, however ; many of the civil servants, and of the clerks in the telegraph department, with their wives and children, were butchered in cold blood. As soon as Holkar heard of the outbreak, he ordered some of his own Mahratta troops to hasten to the Residency and aid Colonel Durand ; but they told him it was a matter of deen (religion), and that they could not act against their brethren. During the next three days Holkar was almost a prisoner in his own palace ; his troops rose in revolt, and were speedily joined by those from Mhow, pre- sently to be mentioned ; they plundered the treasury, the Residency, and many parts of the town; but as he would not countenance their proceedings, they at length marched off towards Gwalior. This affair at Indore led to the flight of many European families, amid great misery. They collected hastily a few ammunition-wagons, two or three bullock-carts, an elephant, and some horses, and started off towards Sehore and Hosungabad ; escorted by a portion of the Bhopal Contingent from several small stations in that part of India. An important question arose how was Mhow affected by the mutinous proceedings 1 As the news of the Nuseerabad mutiny had thrown the troops at Neemuch into agitation, so did the sub- sequent events at Neemuch immediately affect the sowars and sepoys at Mhow* Mhow contained a squadron of the same cavalry regiment, the 1st B. N. C, two troops of which had mutinied at Neemuch; and in addition to these was the 23d regiment native infantry, and a company of European artillery. Mhow presented much the appearance of an English town ; having a steepled church on an eminence, a spacious lecture-room, a well-furnished library, and a theatre ; the can- tonment was large and well appointed ; and a force was maintained there in virtue of one of the treaties made with Holkar. This relates to the station or British part of the town ; the small native town of Mhow is a mile and a half distant. The excitement caused at this station by the news from Neemuch was visible in the conduct of the * It is well to observe, for the aid of those consulting maps, that there are five or six towns and villages of this name in India. The Mhow here indicated is nearly in lat. 22J , long. 76". troops throughout the whole of the month of June. Colonel Piatt and the other officers, how- ever, kept a vigilant watch on them, and by combined firmness and kindness hoped to sur- mount the difficulty. Captain Hungerford after- wards stated that such had been the excessive confidence of some of the officers in their respec- tive regiments, that he could not induce them to strengthen the fort or fortified square, by occupy- ing it with their artillery, until almost the last hour before the Revolt. The fortified square had for some time, however, been a rendezvous for all the ladies and children, who slept within it; the officers remaining in the lines. Thus matters passed until the 1st of July, when Colonel Piatt received a pencil-note from Colonel Durand, announcing that the Residency at Indore had been attacked by Holkar's soldiers, and that aid was urgently needed. A troop of cavalry and a few guns were immediately despatched from Mhow ; but when they had reached within four miles of Indore, news arrived that the Europeans yet living at that station were about to effect a retreat ; upon which the small force returned to Mhow. This duty the troops performed, but it was the last they rendered. The colonel, fearing the arrival of mutinous sepoys from Indore, but not suspecting his own men, made such arrangements as seemed to him befitting, bringing a European battery of artillery into the fort. Soon did the crisis arrive. At eleven o'clock on that same night the plans and hopes were cruelly disappointed ; that terrible yell was heard Avhich so often struck dismay into the hearts of the Europeans at the various military stations : the yell of native troops rising in mutiny. Lieutenant Martin, adjutant of the cavalry, while quietly conversing with one of the troopers, became the victim of that dastardly fellow ; the war-cry arose, and the trooper turned round and shot the unfortunate officer without a moment's warning. The other officers, hearing the report, but not suspecting the real truth, thought that Holkar's Mahrattas had arrived ; they rushed forward to head their respective companies and troops, but sepoys and sowars alike opened fire on them. The officers, now rendered painfully aware of their critical position, ran swiftly across the parade towards the fort, having no time to mount their horses ; and it is a marvel that only one of the number, Major Harris, commandant of the cavalry, was shot by the heavy fire poured on them during this run. Colonel Piatt, who was in the fort, was almost incredulous when the breathless officers rushed in ; he could with difficulty believe the truth now presented to his notice so fully had he relied on the fidelity of the men. Colonel Piatt and Captain Fagan rode down to the lines of the 23d, to which regiment they both belonged, to ascertain the real facts and to exhort the men ; but they were never seen alive again by their brethren in arms; they fell, riddled with bullets and gashed with sword-cuts. Captain Hungerford, of the artillery, brought two guns to bear on CENTRAL REGIONS OF INDIA : JUNE. 187 the mutineers, which gradually drove them from the lines, but not before they had fired the regimental mess-house and several bungalows ; and during the darkness of night, plunderers carried off everything that was valuable. Ilunger- fbfd would have followed the mutineers with his guns ; but the roads were too dark for the pursuit, and the Europeans too unprotected to be left. The remaining English officers, having now no troops to command, acted as a cavalry guard in support of the European battery in the fortified square, under Captain Hungerford. As all the civilians, women, and children were in this place ; as the square itself was quite unfitted for a long defence ; and as only five native soldiers out of the whole number remained with the officers the prospect was pre- carious enough : nevertheless all did their best ; Bfangerford collected in a few days a largo store of provisions, and routed many of the insurgents in neighbouring villages. The impulses that guided the actions of the sepoys were strangely incon- sistent ; for two of the men saved the life of Lieutenant Simpson, who had been on outpost- duty on the fatal nightj and brought him safely into the fort ; and yet, though offered promotion fur their fidelity, they absconded on the follow- ing morning to join their mutinous companions. The Europeans, about eighty in number, main- tained their position at Mhow, until a force from Bombay arrived to reoeeupy all that region. The everywhere, strove to lessen rather than increase the anxieties of their male com- panions. One of the officers thus shut up in the extemporised stronghold said in a letter: ' Tin out all this I cannot express the admiration i at the way the ladies have behaved cheerful, and ing in every way in their power, l'oor things, without servants or quarters, huddled together; they have had to do everything for themselves,. and employ all their time in sewing bags for powder for the guns, well knowing the awful fate that awaits them if the place is taken. There has not been a sign of fear ; they bring us tea or any little thing they can, and would even like to keep watch on the bastions if we would let them You should see the state we are in men making up canister, ladies sewing powder-bags, people bringing plunder recovered, artillery mounting guns ; all of us dirty and tired with night-watch- we mount sentry-duty to take the weight of it off the artillerymen, and snatch sleep and food as we can.' Many other stations in that part of India were disturbed in June and July by the mutinies of wingl and detachments of regiments too small in amount to need notice here. At one place, Asseerghur, Colonel Le Mesurier warded off mutiny by a prompt and dexterous manoeuvre, for which he received the marked thanks of the government. lior now comes under notice, in relation to a mutiny of troops at that place, and to the conduct of Scindia, the most important of the Mahratta chieftains. Considered as a city or town (about sixty-five miles south of Agra), Gwalior is not very important or interesting, being irregularly built and deplorably dirty, and possessing few public buildings of any note. It is for its hill-fortress that Gwalior is so famed. The rock on which the fortress stands is an elongated mass, a mile and a half long by a quarter of a mile in width, and reaching in some places to a height of about three hundred and fifty feet. It is entirely isolated from other hills ; and partly from the natural stratifi- cation of the sandstone, partly from artificial con- struction is in many parts quite perpendicular. A rampart runs round the upper edge, conforming to the outline of the summit. The entrance to the enclosure within the rampart is near the north end of the east side ; in the lower part by a steep road, and in the upper part by steps cut in the rock, wide enough to permit elephants to make the ascent. A high and massive stone-wall pro- tects the outer side of this huge staircase; seven gateways are placed at intervals along its ascent ; and guns at the top command the whole of it. Within the enclosure of the rampart is a citadel of striking appearance, an antique palace surmounted by kiosks, six lofty round towers or bastions, curtains or walls of great thickness to connect thoso towers, and several spacious tanks. It is considered that fifteen thousand men would be required to garrison this fortress completely. So striking is this rock, so tempting to a chieftain who desires a stronghold, that Gwalior is believed to have been a fortress during more than a thou- sand years. It has been captured and recaptured nearly a dozen times, by contending Hindoos and Mohammedans, in the course of centuries. The last celebrated contest there was in 1779, when the Company's forces captured it through a clever and unexpected use of ladders and ropes during a dark night. In the next sixty-five years it was possessed successively by the British, the Jats, the Mahrattas, the British again, the Mahrattas again, and finally by the British, according to the intricacies of treaties and exchanges. Since 1844, Gwalior has been the head-quarters of a corps called the Gwalior Contingent, commanded by British officers ; and thus the hill-fortress has virtually been placed within the power of the British government. Besides this famous stronghold, there is at Gwalior a place called the Lashkar. This, in former times, was the stationary camp of the Maharajah Scindia a dirty collection of rude buildings, extending to a great distance from the southwest foot of the rock ; but the great reduction in the number of troops allowed to be held independently by Scindia has materially lessened the importance of the Lashkar. The loyalty of Scindia became a question of very anxious importance at the time of the mutinies. Holkar was possessor of a much smaller territory than Scindia ; and yet, when a rumour spread that the rising at Indore on the 1st of July- had the sanction of the first-named sovereign, 188 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. numerous petty chieftains in that part of India rose against the British, and prepared to cut off all retreat for Europeans. It was not until Holkar had given undoubted evidence of his hostility to the mutineers, that these movements were checked. Much more was this rendered manifest in Scindia's dominions. If Scindia had failed us, the mutineers from Nccmuch, Nuseer- abad, and Jhansi, by concentrating at Gwalior, might have rendered that hill-fortress a second Delhi to the British. Scindia and Holkar both remained steady ; it was the Contingents that failed. These contingents were bodies of native troops, paid by the native princes of the states or countries whose name they bore, but organised and officered by the British, in the same way as the ordinary battalions of the sepoy army. If the native princes, for whose defence ostensibly, and at whose expense really, these contingents were maintained, wished and were permitted to have any independent military force of their own, that could only be done additionally to the contingent which they were bound to furnish. As a conse- quence of this curious system, a distinction must be drawn between the contingent troops and the prince's troops. At Indoro, Holkar's little army as well as Holkar's contingent proved hostile to the British. Scindia was in like manner paymaster for a double force; and the British often anxiously pondered whether one or both of these might prove faithless at Gwalior, with or without the consent of Scindia himself. The Gwalior Contingent, though connected with a Mahratta state, consisted chiefly of Hindustanis, like the sepoys of the Bengal army ; the Mahrattas formed quite a minority of the number. The contingent consisted of all three arms of the service infantry, cavalry, and artillery and formed a compact army. The disasters at Gwalior began on Sunday the 14th of June as usual, on Sunday. It will be remembered (p. 112) that Scindia, three or four weeks earlier, had offered the aid of his own body- guard, which had been accepted by Mr Colvin at Agra ; that a portion of the Gwalior Contingent (cavalry) was also sent ; that this contingent, under Lieutenant Cockburn, was actively engaged against the insurgents in the region between Agra and Allygurh ; and that about one-half of the troopers composing it revolted on the 28th of May, placing that gallant officer in a very embarrassing position. They were portions of the same con- tingent that mutinied at Ncemuch and one or two other places ; and on this account the European inhabitants at Gwalior were subject to much anxiety knowing that that station was the head- quarters ; and that, although the contingent was paid for by the Maharajah, the troops had been raised mostly in Oude, and, being disciplined and officered by the British, were likely to share the same sentiments as the Oudians and other Hindustanis of the Bengal army elsewhere. The Maharajah had little or no influence over them ; for neither were they his countrymen, nor had he any control over their discipline or movements. During fourteen years, as boy, youth, and man, he had been in great measure a pupil under the British resident at Gwalior; and if he remained an obedient pupil, this was nearly all that could be expected from him shorn, as the Mahratta court was, of so much of its former influence. Dr Winlow Kirk, superintending surgeon of the con- tingent, placed upon l-ecord, ten days befoi'e the bloody deed which deprived him of life, a few facts relating to the position of the Europeans at Gwalior in the latter part of May and the begin- ning of June. The resident received information which led him to believe that the contingent seven regiments of infantry, two of cavalry, and four batteries of artillery was thoroughly dis- affected, both the main body at Gwalior and the detachments elsewhere. The brigadier command- ant shared this opinion with the resident ; and, as a precautionary measure, all the ladies were sent from the station to the Residency, a distance of six miles, on the 28th of Ma}-. Dr Kirk, and most of the military officers, dissented from this opinion ; they thought the troops were behaving in a respectful manner, and they offered to sleep among the men's lines to shew their confidence in them. On the 29th and 30th, the ladies returned to cantonment, much to the apparent delight of the sepoys at the generous reliance thus placed in them. Bitter was the disappointment and grief in store for those who had trusted these miscreants. It was on the 14th of June, we have said, that the uprising at Gwalior began. The Europeans had long wished for the presence of a few English troops ; but as none were to be had, they watched each day's proceedings rather anxiously. At nine o'clock in the evening of the disastrous Sunday, the alarm was given at the cantonment ; all rushed out of their respective bungalows, and each family found others in a similar state of alarm. Shots were heard ; officers were galloping or running past ; horses were wildly rushing with empty saddles ; and no one could give a precise account of the details of the outbreak. Then occurred the sudden and mournful disruption of family ties ; husbands became separated from their wives ; ladies and children sought to hide in gardens and grass, on house-tops and in huts. Then arose flames from the burning bungalows; and then came bands of reckless sepoys, hunting out the poor homeless English who were in hiding. On the morning of that day, Dr Kirk, although he had not shared the resident's alarm seventeen days before, nevertheless thought with some anxiety of the ladies and children, and asked what arrangements had been made for their safety in the event of an outbreak ; but the officers of the regiments, most of whom relied fully on their men, would not admit that there was any serious need for precautionary measures. Two of these unfortunate officers, Major Blake and Major Hawkins, were especially trustful ; and these were two among the number who fell by the hands of CENTRAL REGIONS OF INDIA : JUNE. 189 their own men that very night. Captain Stewart, with his wife and child, were killed, as also Major Sheriff. Brigadier Ramsey, and several others, whose bungalows were on the banks of a small river, escaped by fording. Dr Kirk was one of those who, less fortunate, were furtbest from the river. With Bill Kirk and his child, he hid in the garden all night ; in the morning they were discovered; Mrs Kirk was robbed without being otherwise ill treated; but her husband was shot dead before her eves. Thus fell an amiable and skilful man, who for nearly twenty years had been a medical officer of the Company first with the Bundelcund legion in Binds j then as a medical adriser to Sir Charles Napier on matters connected with the health of troopi in that sandy region ; then with the Bengal troopi at Barcilly ; then witli the European artillery at Peroapore ; and lastly, at superintending Htrgeon to the troops of the Qwalior Contingent^ who shewed their grati- tude for his medical aid by potting him to death. After this, miserable tight, .Mis Kirk begged the murderers to put an end to her also ; but they replied : ' No, we have killed you already ' pointing t<> the tlead body of her husband. The rest of tin's story need not be told in detail. was the place of refuge sought by those who had now to Beoj and it is some small alleviation of the crimes of the mutineers that they allowed the ladies and children to depart with their lives, but with little else. How the poor things suil'ercd during five days of weary journeyin/, they could themselves hardly have told ; banger, thirst, heat, illne.-s, (atigoe, and anxiety of mind accumulated on them. Many arrived at Agra without she stocking-; and all were beggared of their worldly -ions when they reached that city. When, shortly afterwards, lieutenant Oockbnrn wrote to private friends of this event, he had to tell, not only of his own mortification as the officer of a disloyal corps, but of the wreck suffered by the British station at Qwalior. 'I fear there is no chance of my ever recovering any of your por- traits; for the ruffians invariably de-troy all they cannot convert into silver or gold. All our beautiful garden at Qwalior, on which I spent a good deal of money and rare, has been dug up ; our houses have been turned into cattle sheds ; there is not a pane of glass in the station ; our beautiful church has been gutted, the monuments \ ed, the organ broken up, the stained-glass windows smashed, and the lovely floor of encaustic tiles torn up. The desecration of the tombs is still more horrible; in many places the remains of our countrymen have been torn from the earth, and consigned to the flames !' The position of Seindia was sufficiently cmbar- Dg at that time. As soon as the troops of the contingent had murdered or driven away their officers, they went to him, placed their services at his disposal, and demanded that he would lead them against the British at Agra. There were eight or ten thousand men in the contingent altogether, and his own Mahratta army was little less numerous ; it was therefore a matter of critical importance to the English that'ho remained steady and faithful. He not only refused to sanction the proceedings of the mutineers, but endeavoured to prevent them from marching towards Agra. In this he succeeded until an advauced period of the autumn ; for the troops that troubled Agra at the end of June and the beginning of July were those from Mhow and Necmuch, not the larger body from Gwalior. These mutineers proceeded towards Agra by way of Futtehporo or Futhepore Sikri a town famed for the vast expanse of ruined buildings, erected by Akbar and destroyed by the lfahrattas ; for the great mosque, with its noble gateway and flight of steps ; and for the sump- tuous white marble tomb, constructed by Akbar in memory of a renowned Mussulman ascetic, Sheik Selim Cheestce.* The battle that ensued, and the considerations that induced Mr Colvin to shut up himself and all the British in the fort at Agra, will be better treated in a later page. Many of the events treated in this chapter occurred in, or on the frontiers of, the region known as Rajpootana or Rajasthan concerning which a few words may be desirable. The name denotes the land of the Rajpoots. These Hindoos arc a widely spread sept of the Kshetrigas or mili- tary caste ; but when or where they obtained a separate name ami character is not now known. Some of the legends point to Mount Aboo as the original home of the Rajpoots. They were in their greatest power seven hundred years ago, when Rajpoot princes ruled in Delhi, in Ajmeer, in (iujerat, and in other provinces ; but the Mohammedan conquerors drove them out of those places ; and during many centuries the region mainly belonging to the Rajpoots has been nearly identical with that exhibited at the pre- sent time. This region, situated between Central India and Sindc, is about twice as large as England and Wales. Warlike as the Rajpoots have ever been, and possessing many strongholds and numerous forces, they were no match for the Mahrattas in the last century ; indeed it was this inequality that led to the interference of the British, who began to be the ' protector' of the Rajpoot princes early in the present century. This protection, insured by various treaties, seems to have been beneficial to the Rajpoots, whose country has advanced in industry and prosperity during a long continuance of peace. The chief Rajpoot states at present are Odeypore or Mcwar, Jeypoor, Jhodpore or Joudpore, Jhallawar, Kotah, Boondcc, Alwur, Bikanecr, Jeysulmcer, Kishengurh, Banswarra, Pcrtabghur, Dongurpore, Kerowlec, and Sirohi. The treaties with these several states, at the time of the mutiny, were curiously complicated and diverse : Odeypore paid tribute, and shared with the Company the expense of maintaining a Bhcel corps; Jeypoor, Sec page 17*' 190 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. though under a rajah, was virtually governed by a British resident; Jhodpore, under a sort of feudal rule, paid tribute, and maintained a Jhodpore legion besides a force belonging to the feudatories ; Kotah bore the expense of a corps called the Kotah Contingent, organised and officered by the British; Jeysulmeer gave alle- giance in return for protection, and so did Kishengurh and many other of the states included in the above list. Most of the Rajpoot states had a feudal organisation for internal affairs ; and most of them maintained small native corps, in addition to the contingents furnished by three or four under arrangements with the British. For the whole of the Rajpoot states collectively an agent was appointed by the governor-general to represent British interests, under whom were the civil officers at various towns and stations ; while the military formed a Rajpootana Field-force, with head-quarters at Nuseerabad. At the extreme north of Rajpootana is a small Bi'itish district named Hurrianah, of which the chief towns are Hansi and Hissar. A military corps, called the Hurrianah Light Infantry Bat- talion, mutinied a few weeks after the Meerut outbreak, killing Lieutenant Barwell and other Europeans ; the men acted in conjunction with a part of the 4th regiment irregular cavalry, and, after a scene of murder and pillage, marched off towards Delhi. At Bhurtpore, on the northeast frontier of Rajpootana, a similar scene was exhibited on a smaller scale; a corps called the Bhui'tpore Levies revolted against Captain Nixon and other officers, compelling them to flee for their lives : the mutineers, as in so many other instances, marching off at once towards Delhi. There were other mutinies of small detachments of native troops, at minor stations in the Mahratta and Rajpoot countries, which need not be traced in detail. The vast region in the centre of India has thus passed rapidly under review. We have seen Hindustanis, Bundelas, Jats, Mahrattas, Bheels, Rajpoots, and other tribes of India revolting against English authority ; we have seen native princes and chiefs perplexed how to act between the suzerain power on the one hand, and the turbulent soldiery on the other ; we have seen that soldiery, and the attendant rabble of marauders, influenced quite as much by love of plunder as by hate of the Company's raj ; we have seen British officers sorely wounded at heart by finding those men to be traitors wbom they had trusted almost to the last hour ; we have seen ladies and children driven from their bungalows, and hunted like wild beasts from road to river, from jungle to forest; and lastly, in this vast region, we have tracked over considerably more than a thousand miles of country in length Avithout meeting with a single regiment of British troops. The centre of India was defended from natives by natives ; and the result shewed itself in deplorable cdfours. Girls at the Ganges. Akiili of the Sikhs. CHAPTER XII. EVENTS IN THE PUNJAUB AND SINDE. VERY important and interesting region in Northern India has scarcely yet been mentioned in this narrative ; that, namely, which comprises the Punjanb and Siude the Punjaub with its ofiahoot Cash- mere, and Sinde with the delta of the Indus. It will now be necessary, how- ever, to obtain a few general notions on the following points the geographical position of the Funjaub ; the national character of the Sikhs as the chief inhabitants ; the transactions which rendered the British masters of that country ; and the circumstances that enabled Sir John Lawrence at once to hold the Punjaub intact and to aid the besiegers of Delhi. Of Sinde, a still shorter account will suffice. The name Punjaub is Persian ; it signifies 'five waters;' and was given in early days to the region between the five rivers Indus, Jelum, Chenab, Ravee, and Sutlej. The Punjaub is somewhat triangular in shape, extending from the Himalaya and Cashmere as a northern base to an apex where the five rivers have all coalesced into one. It is about equal in area to England and Scotland without Wales. The 192 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. northern part is rugged and mountainous ; the southern almost without a hill, comprising the several ' Doabs ' between the rivers. The natural facilities for inland navigation and for irrigation are great ; and these, aided by artificial channels, render the Punjaub one of the most promising regions in India. If the Bcas, an affluent of the Sutlej, be added to the five rivers above named, then there are five Doabs or tongues of land between the six rivers, named severally the Doabs of Jullundur, Baree, Rechna, Jetch, and Sindc Sagur, in their order from east to west. The Baree Doab, between the rivers Beas and Ravee, is the most populous and important, containing as it does the three cities of Lahore, Umritsir, and Moultan. The population of this country is a very mixed one ; the Punjaub having been a battle-ground whereon Hindoos from the east and Mohammedans from the west have often met ; and as the conquerors all partially settled on their conquests, many races are found in juxtaposition, though each prevailing in one or other of the Doabs. For instance, the Afghans arc mostly west of the Indus ; the Sikhs, in the Baree Doab ; and so on. The inhabitants exceed ten millions in number ; nearly two-thirds of them are Mohammedans a very unusual ratio in India.- The Sikhs, how- ever, are the most interesting constituent in this population. They are a kind of Hindoo dissenters, differing from other Hindoos chiefly in these three points the renunciation of caste, the admission of proselytes, and the practice of the military art by nearly all the males. They trace their origin to one Nanac, who was born in 1469 in a village about sixty miles from Lahore ; he founded a new religion, or a new modification of Brahminism ; and his followers gave him the designation of Guru or ' spiritual pastor,' while they took to themselves that of Sikhs or 'disciples.' After many contests with the Mohammedans of the Punjaub, the Sikhs ceased to have a spiritual leader, but acquired temporal power some assum- ing the general surname or tribe-name of Singh or ' lion,' to denote their military prowess ; while the rest became Khalasas, adherents to the more peace- ful and religious doctrines of Nanac. Some of the Singhs are Akalis, a sort of warlike priests. The Sikhs are more robust than the generality of Hindoos, and more enterprising ; but they are more illiterate, and speak a jargon composed of scraps from a multitude of languages. Such being the country, and such the inhabit- ants, we have next to see how the British gained influence in that quarter. From the eleventh cen- tury until the year 1768 the Mohammedans Afghans, Gorians, Moguls, and other tribes ruled in the Punjaub ; but in that year the Sikhs, who had gradually been growing in power, gained the ascendency in the region eastward of the Jelum. At the close of the last century an adventurer, named Runjeet Singh, a Sikh of the J at tribe, became ruler of the district around the city of Lahore ; and from that time the Sikh power was in the ascendant. The Sikhs constituted a turbu- lent and irregular republic; holding, in cases of emergency, a parliament called the Guru-mata at Umritsir ; but at other times engaged in petty warfare against each other. Runjeet Singh was ambitious of putting down these competitors for power. He built at Umritsir the great fort of Govindgurh, ostensibly to protect, but actually to overawe and control some of the chieftains. In 1809 he crossed the Sutlej, and waged war against some of the Sikh chieftains of Sirhind who had obtained British protection. This led, not to a Avar, but to a treaty; by which Runjeet agreed to keep to the west of the Sutlej, and the British not to molest him there. This treaty, with a constancy rare in Asia, the chief of Lahore respected through- out the whole of his long career : maintaining a friendly intercourse with the British. In other directions, however, he Avaged ruthless Avar. He conquered Moultan, then Peshawar, then the Derajat, then Cashmere, then Middle Tibet, then Little Tibet, and finally became Maharajah of the Sikhs. In 1831 an interview, conducted with gorgeous splendour, took place between Runjeet Singh and Lord Auckland, in which the governor-general strengthened the ties of amity Avith the great Sikh. Runjeet died in 1839, and his son and grandson in 1840. From that year a total change of affairs ensued ; competitors for the throne appeared ; then followed Avarlike contests ; and then a period of such excessive anarchy and laAvlessness that British as Avell as Sikh territory became spoliated by various chieftains. War Avas declared in 1845, during which it required all the daring and skill of the victors at Moodkee, Ferozshah, Aliwal, and Sobraon, to subdue the fierce and Avarlike Sikhs. This Avas ended by a treaty, signed in March 1846 ; but the treaty Avas so frequently broken by the chieftains, that another Avar broke out in 1848, marked by the battles of Moultan, ChillianAvalla, and Gujerat. Then ended the Sikh poAver. The British took the Punjaub in full sovereignty, dated from the 29th of March 1849. Commissioners were appointed, to organise a thoroughly neAv system of govern- ment ; and it Avas herein that Sir Henry LaAvrence so greatly distinguished himself. In less than three years from that date, the progress made towards peaceful government Avas so great, that the court of directors enumerated them in a eulogistic dispatch to the gOA r ernor in council. The progress Avas one of uninterrupted im- provement from 1849 to 1857; and it Avill ever remain a bright page in the East India Com- pany's records that, finding the Punjaub a prey to wild licence and devastating intrigues, the Company converted it into a peaceful and pros- perous country. The reAvard for this Avas received when the rest of Northern India Avas in a mutinous state. It may here be stated that, when the Punjaub Avas annexed, a distinct arrangement Avas made Avith Cashmere. This interesting country, EVENTS IN THE PUNJAUB AND SINDE. 193 almost buried among the Himalaya and its off- shoots, is one of the few regions in India which have suffered more from natural calamities than from the ravages of man ; its population has been diminished from eight hundred thousand to two hundred thousand in the course of thirty years, by a distressing succession of pestilences, earthquakes, and famines. It was governed by Mohammedans during about five centuries ; and was then held by the Sikhs from 1819 till the end of their power. Circumstances connected with the annexation of the Punjaub led to the assign- ment of Cashmere as a rajahship to Gholab Singh, one of the Sikh chieftains ; he was to be an inde- pendent prince, subsidiary to the British so far as concerned a contingent of troops. The two Tibets were abandoned by the Sikhs before the date when British sovereignty crossed the Sutlej. For administrative purposes, the Punjaub has been separated into eight divisions Lahore, Jelum, Moultan, Leia, Peshawur, Jullundur, Hoshyapoor, and Kangra ; of which the Lahore Sib John Lawrence. division alone contains three millions and a half of souls. Each division comprises several revenue and judicial districts. For military purposes, the divisions are only two, those of Lahore and iwur, each under a general commandant. In the middle of May 1857, wlicn the mutinies began, Sir John Lawrence, who had been knighted for his eminent services while with his brother Sir Henry, and had succeeded him as chief- commissioner in the Punjaub, was absent from the capital of that country. He was at ltawul Pindee, a station between Lahore and Peshawur; but happily he had left behind him men who had learned and worked with his brother and himself, and who acted with a promptness and vigour worthy of all praise. To understand what was done, we must attend to the city and cantonment of Lahore. This famous capital of the Punjaub is 194 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. situated about a mile east of the river Ravee. It contains many large and handsome buildings such as the Padshah Mosque, said to have been built by Aurungzebe, but converted into a bar- rack by Runjeet Singh, who cared little about mosques ; the Vizier Khan Mosque, once celebrated for its lofty minarets, but afterwards desecrated by the Sikhs in being used as stables for horses and shambles for swine ; the Sonara Mosque ; and many other Mohammedan mosques and Hindoo temples. Beyond the limits of the city are the large and once-magnificent tomb of the Emperor Jehanghire ; the tomb of Anarkalli ; and the exquisite garden of Shahjehan, the Shalimar or 'House of Joy' at one time the pride of the Mussulmans of Lahore, with its three marble terraces and its four hundred marble fountains, but afterwards ruthlessly despoiled of its marble by Runjeet Singh, to adorn Umritsir. Lahore pre- sents every trace of having been a much larger city before the time of the Sikh domination ; for the ruins of palaces, serais, and mosques spread over a great area. The city now contains about a hundred thousand inhabitants, a great declension from its population in former days. Considered in a military sense, Lahore is surrounded by a brick wall, formerly twenty-five feet high, but recently lowered. Runjeet Singh ran a trench round the wall, constructed a line of works, mounted the woi'ks with many cannon, and cleared away many ruins. This line of fortification exceeds seven miles in circuit ; and within the northwest angle is a fort or citadel, containing extensive magazines and manufactories of warlike stores. From evidence educed at different times, it appears certain that many of the native troops in the Punjaub were cognizant of a conspiracy among the ' Poorbeahs,' by which name the sepoys of the eastern regions arc known to the inhabitants of the Punjaub ; and that they held themselves ready to join in any mutiny arising out of such conspiracy. How the authorities checked this conspiracy, was strikingly shewn by the pi'occcd- ings at different stations immediately after news arrived of disaster in the eastern provinces. We will rapidly glance in succession at Lahore, Umritsir, Ferozpore, Jullundur, and rhillour ; and will then proceed to the Peshawur region. The British military cantonment for the city of Lahore was six miles distant, at a place called Meean Meer; where were stationed three native infantry regiments, and one of cavalry, the Queen's 81st foot, two troops of horse-artillery, and four reserve companies of foot-artillery. In the fort, within the city-walls, were half a native infantry regiment, a company of Europeans, and a company of foot-artillery. The plot, so far as con- cerned the Punjaub, is believed to have been this.* On a particular day, when one wing of a native regiment at the fort was to be exchanged for * The events of the mutiny relating to the Punjaub have been ably set forth in a series of papers in Blackwood's Magazine, written by an officer on the spot. another, there would, at a particular moment, be about eleven hundred sepoys present ; they were to rise suddenly, murder their officers, and seize the gates ; take possession of the citadel, the magazine, and the treasury ; overpower the Euro- peans and artillery, only a hundred and fifty men in all ; and kindle a huge bonfire as a signal to Meean Meer. All the native troops in cantonment were then to rise, seize the guns, force the central jail, liberate two thousand prisoners, and then commence an indiscriminate massacre of Euro- pean military and civilians. The other great stations in that part of the Punjaub Umritsir, Ferozpore, Jullundur, Phillour were all in the plot, and the native troops at these places were to rise in mutiny about the 15th of May. There were many proofs, in the Punjaub and elsewhere, that the plotters at Meerut began a little too eai'ly for their own object ; the scheme was not quite ripe at other places, else the English might have been almost entirely annihilated throughout the northern half of India. The authorities at Lahore knew nothing of this plot as a whole, though they possibly observed symptoms of restlessness among the native troops. When the crisis arrived, however, they proved themselves equal to the difficulties of their posi- tion. On the 10th of May, the outbreak at Meerut occurred ; on the 11th an obscure telegram reached Lahore, telling of some disaster ; on the 12th the real nature of the affair became known. Sir John Lawrence being at Rawul Pindee, the other autho- rities Mr Montgomery, Mr M'Leod, Mr Roberts, Colonel Macpherson, Colonel Lawrence (another member of this distinguished family), Major Ommancy, and Captain Hutchinson instantly formed a sort of council of war ; at which they agreed on a plan, which was assented to by Briga- dier Corbett, commandant of the station at Meean Meer. This plan was to consist in depriving the native troops of their ammunition and percussion- caps, and placing more Europeans within the fort A native officer in the Sikh police corps, however, revealed to the authorities the outlines of a con- spiracy which had come to his knowledge ; and the brigadier then resolved on the complete dis- arming of the native regiments a bold step where he had so few Europeans to assist him, but carried out with admirable promptitude and success. It so happened that a ball was to be given that night (the 12th) by the military officers at Meean Meer; the ball was given, but preparations of a kind very different from festive were at the same time quietly made, wholly unknown to the sepoys. Early on the morning of the 13th, the whole of the troops, native and European, were ordered on parade, avowedly to hear the governor-general's order relating to the affairs at Barrackpore, but really that the Europeans might disarm the natives. After this reading, a little manoeuvring was ordered, whereby the whole of the native regi- mentsthe 16th, 26th, and 49th Bengal infantry, and the 8th Bengal cavalry were confronted by EVENTS IN THE PUNJAUB AND SINDE. 195 the guns and by five companies of the Queen's 81st. At a given signal, the sepoys were ordered to pile arms, and the sowars to unbuckle sabres ; they hesitated ; but grape-shot and port-fires were ready they knew it, and they yielded. Thus were disarmed two thousand five hundred native troops, by only six hundred British soldiers. Meanwhile the fort was not forgotten. Major Spencer, who commanded the wing of the 26th stationed there, had the men drawn up on parade on the morning of that same day; three companies of the 81st entered the fort under Captain Smith ; and these three hundred British, or thereabouts, found it no difficult task to disarm tho five or six hundred sepoys. This done, the 81st and the artillery were quickly placed at such posts as they might most usefully strengthen in the lines of the 81st, on the artillery parade-ground, and in an open space in the centre of tho cantonment, where the brigadier and his staff slept every night. The ladies and children were accommodated in the barracks ; while the regimental officers wero ordered to sleep in certain selected houses in the lines of their own regiments regiments disarmed but not disbanded; and professedly disarmed only as a matter of temporary expediency. Thus was Lahore saved. Umritsir is the next station to which atten- tion must be directed relatively to the Punjaub. It was an important place to hold in due subordi- nation, not only on account of its size and popula- tion, but for a certain religious character that it ii the eyes of the Sikhs. Uinritsir or Amritsir km had a career of less than three centuries. In 1581, Ham Das, the fourth Omm or spiritual pastor of the Sikhs, ordered a reservoir or fountain to be formed at a particular spot, and named it Amrita Saras, or ' Fount of Immortality.' This Amrita Saras or Uinritsir at once became a place of pilgrimage, and around it gradually grew up a considerable city. One of the Mohammedan sovereigns, Ahmad Shah, uneasy at the increasing power of the Sikhs, sought to terrify and suppress them by an act of sacrilege at Uinritsir ; he blew up a sacred shrine, filled up the sacred pool, and caused the site to be desecrated by slaughter- ing kino upon it. But he miscalculated. It was this very act which led to the supremacy of the Sikhs over the Mohammedans in the Pun- jaub; they purified and refilled the pool, rebuilt the shrine, and vowed unceasing hostility to the Mu- ulmans. At present, the holy place at Umritsir is a very large square basin, in which Sikhs bathe as other Hindoos would do in the GangM ; and in the centre, on a small inland, is a richly adorned temple, attended by five hundred A kalis or armed priests. Considered as a city, I niritsir is large, populous, industrial, and com- mercial. The most striking object in it is the (iovindgurh, the fortress which Runject Singh constructed in 1809, professedly to protect the pilgrims at the sacred pool, but really to increase his power over the Sikhs generally. Its great height and heavy batteries, rising one above another, give it a very imposing appearance ; and it has been still further strengthened since British occupation began. Directly the unfavourable news from Mcerut was received at Lahore, or rather immediately after the disarming at the last-named place had been effected a company of H.M. 81st foot, under Lieutenant Chichester, was sent off in eckas to Umritsir, to strengthen the garrison at Govindgurh. It was known that this fort was regarded almost in a religious light in the Pun- jaub ; and that if the Poorbeahs or rebellious sepoys should seize it, the British would be lowered in the eyes of the Sikhs generally. In the fort, and in the cantonment near the town, were two companies of artillery, one European and one native ; together with the 59th B. N. I.-, and a light field-battery. The wing of the Queen's 81st, despatched from Lahore on the evening of the 13th of May, reached Umritsir on the following morning ; and a company of foot-artillery, under Lieutenaut Hildebrand, intended for Phillour, was detained at Umritsir until the authorities should feel sure of their position. The officers of the 59th had, some time previously, discussed frankly with their men the subject of the greased cartridges, and had encouraged them to hold a committee of inquiry among themselves ; the result of which was a distinct avowal of their disbelief in the rumours on that unfortunate subject. It is only just towards the regimental officers to say that the highest authorities were as unable as themselves to account for the pertinacious belief of the sepoys in the greased- cart ridge theory ; Sir John Law- rcuce spoke of it as a ' mania,' which was to him inexplicable. "With the miscellaneous forces now at hand, the authorities made no attempt to disarm the native regiment, but kept a watchful eye on the course of events. On the night of the 14th, an alarm spread that the native troops at Lahore had mutinied, and were advancing on Umritsir; the ladies and children were at once sent into the fort, and a small force was sent out on the Lahore road, to check the expected insurgents; but the alarm proved to be false, and the troop3 returned to their quarters. Peace was secured at Uinritsir by the exercise of great sagacity. The Mohammedans were strong in the city, but the Sikhs were stronger ; and Mr Cooper, the deputy- commissioner, succeeded in preventing either reli- gious body from joining the other against the British a task requiring much knowledge of the springs of action among the natives in general. It was not the first time in the history of India that the British authorities had deemed it expe- dient to play off the two religions against each other. Ferozporc was not so happily managed as Lahore and Umritsir in this exciting and perilous week ; either because the materials were less suit- able to work upon, or because the mode of treat- ment was not so well adapted to the circumstances. 196 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. Ferozpore is not actually in the Punjaub; it is one of the towns in Sirhind, or the Cis-Sutlej states small in size and somewhat mean in appearance, but important through its position near the west bank of the Sutlej, and the large fort it comprises. In the middle of May, this station contained II. M. 61st foot, the 45th and 57th Bengal native infantry, the 10th Bengal native cavalry, about 150 European artillery, and one light-horse field-battery, with six field-guns a large force, not required for Ferozpore itself, but to control the district of which it was the centre. Ferozpore had been the frontier British station before the annexation of the Punjaub, and had continued to be supplied with an extensive maga- zine of military stores. When Brigadier Innes heard on the 12th of May of the mutiny at Meerut, he ordered all the native troops on parade, that he and his officers might, if possible, judge of their loyalty by their demeanour. The examination was in great part, though not wholly, satisfactory. At noon on the 13th the disastrous news from Delhi arrived. The intrenched magazine within the fort was at that time guarded by a company of the 57th ; and the brigadier, rendered some- what uneasy on this matter, planned a new dis- position of the troops. There had been many 'cartridge' meetings held among the men, and symptoms appeared that a revolt was intended. The relative positions of all the military were as follows : In the middle of the fort was the intrenched magazine, guarded as just stated ; outside the fort, on the west, were the officers' bungalows and the official buildings ; still further to the Avest w r ere the sepoy lines of the 45th and 57th ; northward of these lines were the artillery barracks ; still further north were the lines of the cavalry; south of the fort were the barracks of the European regiment ; on the north of the fort w r as the Sudder Bazaar ; while eastward of it was an open place or maldan. The brigadier sought to avert danger by separating the two native regiments ; but the Queen's 61st, by the general arrangements of the cantonment, were too far distant to render the proper service at the proper moment. The 45th were to be removed to an open spot northeast of the cantonment, and the 57th to another open space on the south, two miles distant ; the native cavalry were to take up a position near their own lines ; the 61st were to encamp near the south wall of the fort ; while one company, with artillery and guns, Avas to be placed within the fort. After a parade of the whole force, on the afternoon of the 13th, each corps was ordered to the camping-ground allotted for it. The 57th obeyed at once, but some com- panies of the 45th, while marching through the bazaar, refused to go any further, stopped, loaded their muskets, and prepared for resistance ; they ran towards the fort, clambered over a dilapidated part of the ramparts, and advanced towards the magazine, where scaling-ladders were thrown over to them by a company of the 57th who had been on guard inside. This clearly shewed complicity to exist. A short but severe conflict ensued. Captain Lewis and Major Redmond had only a few Eui'opeans with them, but they promptly attacked the mutineers, drove out the 45th, and made prisoners the treacherous guard of the 57th. All was now right in the fort and magazine, but not in the cantonment. About two hundred men of the 45th commenced a system of burning and looting ; officers' bungalows, mess-houses, hospitals, the church all were fired. Many isolated acts of heroism were performed by individual Europeans, but no corps was sent against the ruffians. Fortu- nately, a powder-magazine beyond the cavalry lines, containing the enormous quantity of three hundred thousand pounds of gunpowder, did not fall into the hands of the rebels ; it might have done so, for no preparations had been made to defend it. All this time the Queen's ti'oops chafed at their enforced inaction ; their camping-ground had been so badly chosen that they dared not in a body attack the 45th lest the 57th should in the meantime surprise them in the rear ; and there is no evidence that they were ordered to do what any English regiment would cheerfully have under- taken divide into two wings, each to confront a whole regiment of sepoys. During the night and the following morning nearly all the sepoys decamped, some with arms and some without. Ferozpore Avas saved for the present ; but mutinous proceedings Avere encouraged at Julhmdur, Jelum, and Sealkote, by the escape of the 45th and 57th ; and the brigadier fell into disgrace for his mis- management of this affair. He had only just arrived to take command of that station, and it may be that he was on this account less able to judge correctly the merits or demerits of the forces placed at his disposal. Jullundur, which gives name to the Jullundur Doab betAveen the Sutlej and the Beas, is another of this group of stations. It is situated on the high road from Umballa and Umritsir to Lahore ; and was formerly the capital of an Afghan dynasty in the Punjaub. Although shorn of much of its former greatness, it is still an im- portant and flourishing toAvn, Avith forty thousand inhabitants. Jullundur received the news from Meerut on the 11th of May, and immediately precautionary measures Avere taken. Brigadier- general Johnstone, the commandant, being absent at the time, a plan Avas at once formed by Colonel Hartley of H.M. 8th foot, and Captain Farrington, the deputy-commissioner, and agreed to by all the other officers. The station at that time contained H.M. 8th foot, the 6th light cavalry, the 36th and 61st native infantry, and one troop of horse- artillery. The chief officers in command Avere Colonels Longfield and Hartley, Majors Barton, Innes, and Olpherts, and Captain Faddy. When the telegraph of the 12th of May confirmed the Meerut iicavs of the 11th, it was resolved at once to control the native troops at Jullundur, and to disarm them if mutinous symptoms should appear. EVENTS IX THE PUXJAUB AND SINDE. 197 Part of the Queen's troops were marched into the artillery lines ; the guns were pointed at the lines of the native regiments in such a way as to render the sepoys and sowars somewhat uneasy; two field- guns were kept with horses ready harnessed for movement ; careful patrolling was maintained during the night ; and the ladies and children were safely if not comfortably placed in barracks and rooms guarded by their own countrymen. Captain Farriugton was placed in charge of the civil lines, the public buildings, and the town generally ; and most fortunate was it for him, and the English generally, that the native Rajah of Jullutidur, Kundheer Singh Alloowalla, remained friendly. This prince had been deprived of part of his territory at the period of the annexation of the Punjaub, but the deprivation had not rendered him hostile to his powerful superiors; he promptly aided Farrington with guns and men, instead of throwing in his lot with the mutineers. Jullundur, Lahore, Umritsir, and Feroapore, was saved for the present Phillour, the fifth station in this remarkable group, was in one sense more perilously placed than any of the others, owing to its nearer proximity to the mutineers of Mcerut and Delhi. It stands on the right bank of the Sutlej, on the great high road from Umballa and Loodianah to Umritair and Lahore. Phillour is of no account U a town, but of great importance as a military station on the frontier of the Punjaub, and as com- manding the I of the grand trunk-road the Sutlej. At the time of the mutiny it had a magazine containing a vast supply of war- like material, without any European troops what- ever. The adjoining cantonment contained cue native regiment, of which one company guarded the fort and magazine. The military authorities all over the Punjaub and Birhind well knew that Phillour contained munitions of war that would be most perilous in the hands of mutineers, Lieutenant Ilildebrand, as was lately stated, was sent from Lahore with a company of artillery to Phillour ; but he stopped on the way to aid the operations at I'mritsir. "When the news from Meerut arrived, Colonel Butler made such pre- cautionary arrangements as he could at the lines, while Lieutenant Griffith looked watchfully alter the fort ami arsenal. Securing the telegraph, in Older that the sepoys of the 3d native infantry might not tamper with it, they communicated with Jullundur, and were rejoiced to find that a small force was about to be despatched from that place for their relief. As soon as the authorities at the last named station became aware of the insurgent lings, they determined, besides attending to the safety of their own station, to aid Phillour; they sent a telegraphic officer to make such arrangements as would keep the wire in working order ; they sent a nit sage to Loodianah, to warn the deputy- commissioner to guard the bridge of boats across the Sutlej ; and they sent a small but compact force to Phillour. This force consisted of a detach- ment of the Queen's 8th foot, two horse-artillery guns, spare men and horses for the artillery, and a small detachment of the 2d Punjaub cavalry. Knowing that this welcome force was on the road, Colonel Butler and Lieutenant Griffith sought to maintain tranquillity in Phillour during the night ; they closed the fort-gate at sunset ; they placed a loaded light field-piece just within the gate, with port-fires kept burning ; and the little band of Europeans remained on watch all night. At day- break their succour arrived ; the force from Jullundur, commanded by Major Baines and Lieutenants Sankey, Dobbin, and Probyn, marched the twenty-four miles of distance without a single halt. The guns and cavalry, being intended only as an escort on the road, and to aid in recovering the fort in the event of its having been captured by the sepoys during the night, returned to Jullundur, together with fifty of the infanhy. The actual rein- forcement, therefore, was about a hundred of II.M. 8th foot, and a few gunners to work the fort-guns if necessary. The little garrison opened the fort- gates to admit this reinforcement much to the dismay of the sepoys in the cantonment ; for, as was afterwards ascertained, a plot had been formed whereby the fort was to be quietly taken possession of on the 15th of the month, and used as a rendezvous for the sepoy regiments in the Punjaub, when they had risen in mutiny, and formed a system of tactics in reference to the great of rebellion at Delhi. Thus were the days from the 11th to the Pith of May days of critical importance in the eastern part of the Punjaub, Evidence almost conclusive was obtained that the 15th was intended to have been a day of grand mutiny among the Bengal sepoys stationed in that region : the regimental officers knew nothing of this ; some of them would not believe it, even at the time of the disarming; but the current of belief tended in that direction after- wards. There is very little doubt, as already implied, that the Meerut outbreak occurred before the plans were ready elsewhere ; that event seemed to the British, and rightly so, a dreadful one ; but, if delayed five days, it would probably have been followed by the shedding of an amount of European blood frightful to contemplate. Having noticed the prompt measures taken at Lahore, Umritsir, Ferozpore, Jullundur, and Phillour, shortly before the middle of May ; it will be useful, before tracing the course of subsequent revolt in some of the eastern Punjaub stations, to attend to the state of affairs in the western division, of which Peshawar was the chief city. Peshawur was beyond the limits of British India until the annexation of the Punjaub. Situated as it is on the main road from the Indus at Attock to the Indian Caucasus range at the Khyber Pass, it has for ages been regarded as an important military position, commanding one of the gates of India. The Afghans and other Moham- medan tribes generally made their irruptions into India by this route. During the complexities of 198 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. Indian politics and warfare, Peshawur passed from the hands of the Afghans to those of the Sikhs, and then to the British, who proceeded to make it the head-quarters of a military division. Peshawur had been so ruthlessly treated by Runjeet Singh, after his capture of that place in 1818, that its fine Moslem buildings were mostly destroyed, its commerce damaged, and its population dimin- ished. At present, its inhabitants are believed to be about sixty thousand in number. The fort is very strong; it consists of lofty walls, round towers at the angles, semicircular ravelins in front, faussebraies of substantial towers and walls, a wet ditch, and one only gateway guarded by towers ; within the enclosure are capacious magazines and storehouses. When the mutiny began, the Peshawur division contained about fourteen thousand troops of all arms. A peculiar military system was found necessary in this division, owing to the large proportion of semi-civilised marauders among the inhabitants. The western frontier is hilly throughout, being formed of the Indian Caucasus and the Suliman Range, and being pierced by only a few roads, of which the Khyber Pass and the Bolan Pass are the most famous. These passes and roads are for the most part under the control of hardy mountaineers, who care very little for any regular governments, whether Afghan, Sikh, or British, and who require constant watching. Many of these men had been induced to accept British pay as irregular horsemen ; and Colonel (formerly Major) Edwardes acquired great distinc- tion for his admirable management of these rough materials. The fourteen thousand troops in the Peshawur division of the Punjaub comprised about three thousand European infantry and artillery, eight thousand Bengal native infantry, three thou- sand Bengal native cavalry and artillery, and a fewPunjaubees and hill-men. These were stationed at Peshawur, Nowsherah, Hoti Murdan, and the frontier forts at the foot of the hills. Major-general Reid was chief military authority at Peshawur. On the 13th of May he received telegraphic news of the mutiny at Meerut and of the disarming at Lahore, and immediately held a council of war, attended by himself, Brigadiers Cotton and Neville Chamberlain, Colonels Edwardes and Nicholson. Edwardes was chief-commissioner and superin- tendent of the Peshawur division, besides being a military officer. It was resolved that, as senior military officer in the Punjaub, General Reid should assume chief command, and that his head-quarters should be with those of the Pun- jaub civil government, at Lahore or elsewhere; while Cotton should command in the Pesha- wur division. The council also agreed that, besides providing as far as was possible for the safety of each station individually, a 'movable column' should be formed at Jelum, a station on the great road about midway between Lahore and PeshaAvur ready to move on any point in the Punjaub where mutinous symptoms might appear. This force, it will be seen,* was made up of a singular variety of troops, comprising all arms of the service, irregulars as well as regulars, Europeans as well as natives ; but the Oudian or ' Poorbeah ' element was almost wholly absent, and by this absence was the efficiency of the column really estimated. Various arrangements were at the same time made for so distributing the Euro- pean troops as to afford them the best control over the sepoy regiments. At Peshawur itself, the Company's treasure was sent into the fort for safety, and the Residency was made the head- quarters of the military authorities. On the 21st of May, news reached Peshawur that the 55th Bengal native infantry encour- aged probably by the withdrawal of the 27th foot from Nowsherah to aid in forming the movable column had mutinied at Murdan on the preceding day, keeping their officers under strict surveillance, but not molesting them ; and that Colonel Spottiswoode, their commander, had put an end to his existence through grief and mortification at this act. The crisis being perilous, it was at once resolved to disarm the native troops at Peshawur, or so much of them as excited most suspicion. This was successfully accomplished on the morning of the 22d much to the chagrin of the officers of the disbanded regiments, who, here as elsewhere, were among the last to admit the probability of insubordin- ation among their own troops. The 24th, 27th, and 5lst regiments of Bengal native infantry, and the 5th of light cavalry, were on this occasion de- prived of their arms ; and a subadar-major of the 51st was hanged in presence of all his companions in arms. The disarming was effected by a clever distribution of the reliable forces ; small parties of European artillery and cavalry being confronted with each regiment, in such way as to prevent aid being furnished by one to another. The men were disarmed, but not allowed to desert, on pain of instant death if caught making the attempt ; and they were kept constantly watched by a small force of Europeans, and by a body of irregular troopers who had no sympathy whatever with Hindustanis. This done, a relieving force was at once sent off to Murdan ; a step which would have been dangerous while sepoy troops still remained so strong at Peshawm*. The small force of Europeans and irregulars was found to be suffi- cient for this duty ; it arrived at Murdan, attacked the mutinous 55th, killed or captured two hundred, and drove the rest away. These misguided insur- gents ill calculated the fate in store for them. Knowing that Mohammedan hill-tribes were near * This column was made up as follows : 1. H.M. 27th foot, from Nowsherah. 2. H.M. 24th foot, from Rawul Pindee. 3. One troop European horse-artillery, from Peshawur. 4. One light field-battery, from Jelum. 5. The Guide Corps, from Murdan. 6. The 16th irregular cavalry, from Rawul Pindee. 7. The 1st Punjaub infantry, from Bunnoo. 8. The Kumaon battalion, from Rawul Pindee. 9. A wing of the 2d Punjaub cavalry, from Kohat. 10. A half company of Sappers, from Attock. EVENTS IN THE PUNJAUB AND SINDE. 199 at hand, and that those tribes had often been hostile to the English, they counted on sympathy and support, but met with defeat and death. The chivalrous Edwardes, who had so distinguished himself in the Punjaub war, had gained a powerful influence among the half-trained mountaineers on the Afghan border. While the detachment from Peshawur was pursuing and cutting down many of the mutineers, the hill-men were at that very time coming to Edwardes to ask for military employment. These hill-men hated the Brahmins, and had something like contempt for* traitors ; when, therefore, Edwardes sent them against the mutineers, the latter soon found out their fatal error. 'The petted sepoy,' says one who was in the Punjaub at the time, ' whose every whim had been too much consulted for forty years who Lad been ready to murder his officer, to dishonour his officer's wife, and rip in pieces his officer's child, sooner than bite the end of a cartridge which he well knew had not been defiled was now made to eat the bread and drink the water of affliction : to submit at the hazard of his wretched life, which he still tenaciously clung to, to ceremonies the least of which was more damning to his caste than the mastication of a million of fat cartridges.' Even this was not the end; for the sepoys were brought back to the British cantonment, in fives and tens, and there instantly put to death ; no quarter was given to men who shewed neither justice nor mercy to others. There were other forts in the Peshawur Valley similar to that at Murdan, places held by native regiments, in which little or no reliance could be placed. There were four native regiments altogether in these minor forts; and it became I ary to disarm these before the safety of the British could be injured. Peshawur contained its full Asiatic proportion of desperate scoundrels, who would have begun to loot at any symptom of mfiture of the paramount power. When this disarming of the native troops at the surrounding forts had been effected, the authorities at Peshawur continued to look sharply after the native troops at this important station. The dis- armed 5th irregular cavalry, having refused to go * the .".-jth at Murdan, were at once and suc- cessfully disbanded. By a dexterous manoeuvre, the troopers were deprived of horses, weapons, coats, and boots, while the mouths of cannon were gaping at them ; they were then sent off in boats down the Indus, with a hint to depart as far as possible from any military stations. The author- in the Punjaub, like Neill at Benares and Allahabad, believed that mercy to the sepoys would be cruelty to all besides at such a time; they shot, hanged, or blew away from guns with terrible promptness, all who were found to be concerned in mutinous proceedings. On one occasion a letter intercepted, revealing the fact that three natives of high rank (giving names) were to sit in council on the morrow to decide what to do against the British ; a telegraphic message was sent off to Sir John Lawrence, for advice how to act; a message was returned: 'Let a spy attend and report ; ' this was done, and a plot discovered ; another question brought back another telegram : 1 Hang them all three ; ' and in a quarter of an hour the hanging was completed. The importance of retaining artillery in European hands was strongly felt at Peshawur j to effect this, after many guns had been sent away to strengthen the moving column, a hundred and sixty European volunteers from the infantry were quickly trained to the work, and placed in charge of a horse-battery of six guns, half the number on horseback, and the other half sitting on the guns and wagons all actively put in training day after day to learn their new duties. Fearful work the European gunners had sometimes to perform. Forty men of the 55th regiment were 'blown from guns' in three days. An officer present on the occasion says : ' Three sides of a square were formed, ten guns pointed outwards, the sentence of tho court read, a prisoner bound to each gun, the signal given, and the salvo fired. Such a scene I hope never again to witness human trunks, heads, arms, legs flying about in all directions. All met their fate with firmness but two ; so to save time they were dropped to the ground, and their brains blown out by musketry.' It sounds strangely to English ears that such a terrible death should occasionally be mentioned as a concession or matter of favour ; yet such was the case. Mr Montgomery, judicial commissioner of the Pun- jaub, issued an address to one of the native regiments, two sepoys of which had been blown away from guns for mutinous conduct. He exhorted them to fidelity, threatened them with the consequences of insubordination, and added : ' You have just seen two men of your regiment blown from guns. This is the punishment I will inflict on all traitors and mutineers ; and your consciences will tell you what punishment they may expect hereafter. These men have been blown from guns, and not hanged, because they were Brahmins, and because I wished to save them from the pollution of the hangman's touch ; and thus prove to you that the British government does not wish to injure your caste and religion.' The treachery and cruelty of the mutinous sepoys soon dried up all this tenderness as to the mode in which they would prefer to be put to death. We have seen Neill at Cawnpore, after the revela- tion of the horrors in the slaughter-room, com- pelling the Brahmin rebels to pollute themselves by wiping up the gore they had assisted to shed, as a means of striking horror into the hearts of miscreant Brahmins elsewhere. In addition to the severe measures for preserving obedience, other precautions were taken involving no shedding of blood. A new levy of Punjaubee troopers was obtained by Edwardes from the Moultan region ; the disarmed sepoys were removed from their lines, and made to encamp in a spot where they could be constantly watched ; a land- 200 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. transport train was organised, for the conveyance of European troops from place to place ; the fort was strengthened, provisioned, and guarded against all surprises ; the artillery pai*k was defended by an earthwork ; and trusty officers were sent out in various directions to obtain recruits for local irregular corps enlisting men rough in bearing and unscrupulous in morals, but who knew when they were well commanded, and who had no kind of affection for Hindustanis. Thus did Cotton, Edwardes, Nicholson, and the other officers, ener- getically carry out plans that kept Peshawur at peace, and enabled Sir John Lawrence to send off troops in aid of the force besieging Delhi. Colonel Edwardes, it may here be stated, had been in Calcutta in the month of March ; and had there heard that Sikhs in some of the Bengal regiments were taking their discharge, as if foreseeing some plot then in preparation ; this confirmed his pre- dilection for Punjaub troops over ' Poorbeahs.' The activity in raising troops in the remotest north- west corner of India appears to have been a double benefit to the British ; for it provided a serviceable body of hardy troops, and it gratified the natives of the Peshawur Valley. This matter was adverted to in a letter written by Edwardes. ' This post (Peshawur), so far from being more arduous in future, will be more secure. Events here have taken a wonderful turn. During peace, Peshawur was an incessant anxiety ; now it is the strongest point in India. We have struck two great blows we have disarmed our own troops, and have raised levies of all the people of the country. The troops (sepoys) are confounded ; they calculated on being backed by the people. The people are delighted, and a better feeling has sprung up between them and us in this enlistment than has ever been obtained before. I have also called on my old country, the Derajat, and it is quite delightful to see how the call is answered. Two thousand horsemen, formerly in my army at Moultan, are now moving on different points, according to order, to help us in this difficulty ; and every post brings me remonstrances from chiefs as to why they have been forgotten. This is really gratifying.' It may be here stated that Sir John Lawrence, about the end of May, suggested to Viscount Canning by telegraph the expediency of allowing Bengal sepoys to retire from the army and receive their pay, if they preferred so doing, and if they had not been engaged in mutinous proceedings as a means of sifting the good from the bad ; but Canning thought this would be dangerous east of the Sutlej ; and it does not appear to have been acted on anywhere. These exertions were materially aided by the existence of a remarkable police system in the Punjaub one of the benefits which the Lawrences and their associates introduced. The Punjaub police was of three kinds. First was the military police, consisting of two corps of irregular infantry, seven battalions of foot, one regiment cavalry, and twenty-seven troops of horse amounting alto- gether to about thirteen thousand men. These men were thoroughly disciplined, and were ready at all times to encounter the marauding tribes from the mountains. Then came the civil police, com- prising about nine thousand men, and distributed over nearly three hundred thannahs or subordinate jurisdictions, to protect thirty thousand villages and small places : the men were armed with swords and carbines. Lastly were the constabulary, thirteen hundred men in the cities, and thirty thousand in the rural districts ; these were a sort of watchmen, dressed in a plain drab uniform, and carrying only a staff and a spear. This large police army of more than fifty thousand men was not only efficient, when well officered, in maintain- ing tranquillity, but furnished excellent recruits for regiments of Sikh and Punjaubee soldiers. Sir John Lawrence issued a vigorous proclama- tion, encouraging the native troops to remain faithful, and threatening them with dire conse- quences if they revolted ; but from the first he relied very little on such appeals to the Bengal troops. Leaving this subject, however, and direct- ing attention to those events only which bore with any weight on the progress of the mutiny, we shall now rapidly glance at Punjaub affairs in the summer mouths. Many struggles took place, too slight to require much notice. One was the disarming of a native regiment at Noorpore. Another, on June 13th, was the execution of twelve men at Ferozpore, belonging to the 45lh N. I., for mutiny after being disarmed. It was early in June that the station at Jullun- dur became a prey to insurgent violence. On the 3d of the month, a fire broke out in the lines of the 61st native infantry a bad symptom wher- ever it occurred in those days. On the following night a hospital was burned. On the 6th, the 4th regiment Sikh infantry marched into the station, as well as a native troop of horse-artillery ; but, owing to some uneasiness displayed by the Bengal troops, the Sikh regiment was removed to another station as if the brigadier in command were desirous not to offend or irritate the petted regiments from the east. At eleven o'clock at night on the 7th, the close of a quiet Sunday again Sunday! a sudden alarm of fire was given, and a lurid glare was seen over the lines of the 36th native infantry. The officers rushed to their respective places ; and then it was found that the 6th native cavalry, wavering for a time, had at last given way to the mutinous impulse that guided the 36th and 61st infantry, and that all three regiments were threatening the officers. The old sad story might again be told ; the story of some of the officers being shot as they spoke and appealed to the fidelity of their men ; of others being shot at or sabred as they ran or rode across the parade-ground; of ladies and children being affrighted at the artillery barracks, where they had been wont to sleep for greater security. The mutineers had evidently expected the native artillery to join them ; but fortunately EVENTS IN THE PUNJAUB AND SINDE. 201 those latter were so dove-tailed with the European artillery, and were so well looked after by a com- pany of the 8th foot, that they could not mutiny if they would. All the Europeans who fled to the artillery barracks and lines were safe ; the guns protected them. The mutineers, after an hour or two of the usual mischief, made off*. About one half the cavalry regiment mutinied, but as all confidence was lost in them, the rest were deprived of hones and arms, and the regiment virtually ceased to exist. The officers were overwhelmed with astonishment and mortification ; some of them had gone to rest on that evening in perfect reliance on their men. One of the cavalry officers afterwards said : Some of our best men have proved the most active in this miserable business. A rough rider in my troop, who had been riding my charger in the morning, ami had played with my little child, was on,- of the men who charged the guns.' This officer, like many others, had no other theory to ofier than that his troopers mutinied in a ' panic, 1 arising from the sinister rumours that ran like wildfire through the lines and bazaars of the native troops, shaking the fidelity of those who had not previously taken part in any conspiracy. It was the only theory which their bitterness of heart allowed them to contemplate with any oafaniMBl ; for few military men could admit without deep mortification that they had been ignorant of, ami deceived by, their OWa soldiers down to the very bat moment. While a portion of the GlIi cavalry remained, disarmed ami unhorsed but not actually dis- banded, at Jullundur, the two regiments and a half of mutineers marched off towards l'hillour, a< if bound for Delhi. At the instant the mutiny i, a telegraphic had been sent from Jullundur to Phillour, to break the bridge of boats over the Sutlej, and thereby prevent the rebels from crossing from the Punjaub into Sirhind. Unfortunately, the telegraphic message failed to reach the officer to whom it was sent. The 3d ,. nt Bengal native cavalry, at Phillour, might, as the commanding officer at that time thought, have been maintained in discipline if the Jullun- dur mutineers had not disturbed them; but when the 3Gth and Gist native infantry, and the Gth cavalry were approaching; all control was found to be lost. The telegraphic wires being cut, no news could reach Phillour, and thus the insurgents from Jullundur made their appearance wholly unexpected by the Europeans, if not by the troopers. The ladies and families were at once hastened oft' from the cantonment to the fort, which had just before been garrisoned by a hundred men of II. II. 8th foot. The officers then went on parade, where they found themselves unable to bring the 3d regiment to a sense of their duty; the men promised to keep their hands dear Of murder, but they would not fight against the approaching rebels from Jullundur. The officers then returned to the fort powerless; for the handful of Europeans there, though sufficient to defend the fort, were unable to encounter four mutiuous regiments in the cantonment. In a day or two, all the ladies and children were sent off safely fo the hills ; and the cavalry officers were left without immediate duties. The tactics of the brigadier at Jullundur were at that crisis somewhat severely criticised. It was considered that he ought to have made such arrangements as would have prevented the mutineers from crossing the Sutlej. He followed them, with such a force as he could spare or collect ; but while he was planning to cut off the bridge of boats that spanned the Sutlej between Phillour and Loodianah, they avoided that spot altogether; they crossed the river six miles further up, and proceeded on their march towards Delhi attacked at certain places by Europeans and by Sikhs, but not in sufficient force to frustrate their purpose. Although belonging to a region east of the Punjaub, it may be well here to notice another of the June mutinies nearer the focus of dis- affection. One of the regiments that took its officers by surprise in mutinying was the 60th U. N. I. ; of which the head-quarters had been at Umballa, but which was at Bhotuck, only three marches from Delhi, when the fidelity of the men gave way. One fit the English officers, expressing his utter astonishment at this result, said : ' All gone ! The men that we so trusted ; my own men, with whom I have shot, played cricket, jumped, entered into all their sports, and treated so kindly!' He thought it almost cruel to subject that regiment to such temptation as would be afforded by close neighbourhood with the mutineers at Delhi. But, right or wrong, the temptation was afforded, and proved too strong to be resisted. It afterwards became known that the Goth received numerous letters and messages from within Delhi, entreating them to join the national cause against the Kaffir Feringhees. On the 11th of June, the sepoys suddenly rose, and fired a volley at a tent within which many of the officers were at mess, but fortunately without fatal results. Many of the officers at once galloped off to the camp outside Delhi, feeling they might be more useful there than with a mutinous regiment ; while others stayed a while, in the vain hope of bringing the men back to a sense of their duty. After plundering the mess of the silver- plate and the wine, and securing the treasure- chest, the mutineers made off' for Delhi. Here, however, a warm reception was in store for them ; their officers had given the alarm ; and II. M. 9th Lancers cut the mutineers up terribly on the road leading to the Lahore Gate. Of those who entered the city, most fell in a sortie shortly afterwards. At the place where this regiment had been stationed, Umballa, another death-fiend cholera was at work. ' We have had that terrible scourge the cholera. It has been raging here with frightful violence for two months (May to July) ; but, thank God, has now left us without harming the Sahibs. It seemed a judgment on the 202 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. natives. They were reeling about and falling dead in the streets, and no one to remove them. It is the only time we have looked on it as an ally ; though it has cai'ried off many soldiers, two native officers, and six policemen, who were guarding prisoners ; all fell dead at the same place ; as one dropped, another stepped forward and took his place ; and so on the whole lot.' It was one of the grievous results of the Indian mutiny that English officers, in very bitterness of heart, often expressed satisfaction at the calam- ities which fell on the natives, even townsmen unconnected with the soldiery. Jelum, which was the scene of a brief but very fierce contest in July, is a considerable town on the right bank of the river of the same name ; it is situated on the great line of road from Lahore to Peshawur ; and plans have for some time been under consideration for the establish- ment of river-steamers thence down through Moultan to Kurachee. Like many other places on the great high road, it was a station for troops ; and like many other stations, it was thrown into uneasiness by doubts of the fidelity of the sepoys. The 14th regiment Bengal native infantry, about three-fourths of which were stationed at Jelum, having excited suspicions towards the end of June, it was resolved to disarm them; but as no force was at hand to effect this, three companies of H.M. 24th foot, under Colonel Ellice, with a few horse-artillery, were ordered down from Rawul Pindee. On the 7th of July the English troops arrived, and found the native regiment drawn up on parade. Whether exasperated at the frustration of a proposed plan of mutiny, or encouraged by their strength being thrice that of the English, is not well known ; but the 14th attacked the English with musketry directly they approached.. This of course brought on an immediate battle. The sepoys had fortified their huts, loopholed their Avails, and secured a defen- sive position in a neighbouring village. The English officers of the native regiment, deserted and fired at by their men, hastened to join the 24th ; and a very severe exchange of musketry soon took place. The sepoys fought so boldly, and disputed every inch so resolutely, that it was found necessary to bring the three guns into requisition to drive them out of their covered positions. At last they were expelled, and escaped into the country; where the British, having no cavalry, were unable to follow them. It was an affair altogether out of the usual order in India at that time : instead of being a massacre or a chasing of treacherously be- trayed individuals, it was a fight in which the native troops met the British with more than their usual resolution. The loss in this brief conflict was severe. Colonel Ellice was terribly wounded in the chest and the thigh ; Captain Spring was killed ; Lieutenants Streathfield and Chichester were wounded, one in both legs, and the other in the arm ; two sergeants and twenty- three men were killed ; four corporals and forty- three men wounded. Thus, out of this small force, seventy-six were either killed or wounded. The government authorities at Jelum immediately offered a reward of thirty rupees a head for every fugitive sepoy captured. This led to the capture of about seventy in the next two days, and to a fearful scene of shooting and blowing away from guns. On the same day, July 7th, when three com- panies of H.M. 24th were thus engaged at Jelum, the other companies of the same regiment were engaged at Rawul Pindee in disarming the 58th native infantry and two companies of the 14th. The sepoys hesitated for a time, but seeing a small force of horse-artillery confronted to them, yielded ; some fled, but the rest gave up their arms. Two hundred of their muskets were found to be loaded, a significant indication of some murderous intent. The mutiny at Sealkote, less fatal than that at Jelum in reference to the conflict of troops in fair fight, was more adventurous, more marked by 'hair-breadth 'scapes' among the officers and their families. Sealkote is a town of about twenty thousand inhabitants, in the Doab between the Chenab and the Ravee, on the left bank of the first-named river, and about sixty miles distant from Lahore. At the time of the mutiny there was a rifle-practice depot at this place. The sepoys stationed at Sealkote had often been in conversa- tion with their European officers concerning the cartridge-question, and had expressed themselves satisfied with the explanations offered. During the active operations for forming movable columns in the Punjaub, either to protect the various stations or to form a Delhi siege-army, all the European troops at Sealkote were taken away, as well as some of the native regiments ; leaving at that place only the 46th Bengal native infantry, and a wing of the 9th native cavalry, in canton- ment, while within the fort were about a hundred and fifty men of the new Sikh levies. The brigadier commandant was rendered very uneasy by this removal of his best troops ; some of his officers had already recommended the disarming of the sepoys before the last of the Queen's troops were gone; but he was scrupulous of shewing any distrust of the native army ; he felt and acted in this matter more like a Bengal officer than a Punjaub officer relying on the honour and fidelity of the 'Poorbeah' troops. His anxieties greatly increased when he heard that the 14th native infantry, after revolting at Jelum, were approaching Sealkote. Many of them, it is true, had been cut up by a few companies of the Queen's 24th ; but still the remainder might very easily tempt his own sepoys and troopers. Never- theless, to the last day, almost to the last hour, many of the regimental officers fully trusted the men ; and even their ladies slept near the lines, for safety. The troops appear to have laid a plan on the evening of the 8th of July, for a mutiny on the EVENTS IN THE PUNJAUB AND SINDE. 203 following morning. At four o'clock on the 9th, sounds of musketry and cries of distress were heard, rousing all the Europeans from their slum- hers. An officer on night-picket duty near the cavalry lines observed a few troopers going towards the infantry lines. It was afterwards discovered that these troopers went to the sepoys, told them 'the letters' had come, and urged them to revolt at once implying complicity with mutineers else- where ; but the officer could not know this at the time : lie simply thought the movement suspicious, and endeavoured to keep his own sepoy guards from contact with the troopers. In this, ho he failed ; the sepoys soon left him, and went over to the troopers. He hurried to his bungalow, told his wife to hasten in a buggy to the fort, and then went himself towards the lines of his regiment. This was a type of what occurred generally. The officers sought to send their wives and families from their various bungalows into the fort, and then hastened to their dttl 6 duties brought them into the presence of murderous troops at the tental lines ; troops who fired on the very officers that to the last had trusted them. Espe- cially was the mortification great among the Kuropeans connected with the 46th ; for when they begged thi to fire upon the mutinous troopers, the sepoys fired at them instead. A captain, two surgeons, a D, ami his wife and child, were killed almost at the very beginning of the outbreak ; while Brigadier Blind and other officers were wounded, There were no wandering! over burning mads and through thick jungles to record in this case; but a few isolated adventures may be briefly noticed. Two or three roads from the lines and bungalows to the fort became sperdily marked by Kuropeans officei nd children in vehicles, on horseback, and ou foot all trying to leach the fort, and all attacked or pursued by the treacherous villains. Dr Graham, the superintend- ing surgeon, on the alarm being raised, drove quickly with his daughter towards the fort; a r rode up and shot him dead ; his bereaved daughter seized the reins, and, with the corpse of her parent on her lap, drove into the nearest com- pound, screaming for help. A young lieutenant of the 9th cavalry, when it came to his turn to flee, had to dash past several troopers, who fired many shots, one only of which hit him. He galloped thirty miles to "Wuzccrabad, wounded as he was ; and, all his property being left behind him only to be ruthlessly destroyed, he had, to use his own words, to look forward to begin the world again, 'with a sword, and a jacket cut Dp the back.' Three officers galloped forty miles to Gujeranwalla, swimming or wading the rivers that crossed their path. One of the captains of the 4Gth, who was ually much liked by the sepoys of his own Company, was startled by receiving from them an offer of a thousand rupees per month if he would 1 like them, and still remain their captain! What .answer he gave to this strange offer may easily be conceived ; but his company remained kind to him, for they saw him safely escorted to the fort. In one of the bungalows fourteen persons, of whom only three were men, sought refuge from the murderous sepoys and troopers. The women and children all congregated in a small lumber-room ; the three gentlemen remained in the drawing-room, pistols in hand. Then ensued a brisk scene of firing and counter- firing; during which, however, only one life appears to have been lost : the love of plunder in this case overpowered the love of murder ; for the insurgents, compelling the gentlemen to retreat to their poor companions in the lumber-room, and there besieging them for a time, turned their attention to loot or plunder. After ten hours sojourn of fourteen persons in a small room in a sultry July day, the Europeans, finding that the mutineers were wandering in other directions, contrived to make a safe and hasty run to the fort, a distance of upwards of a mile. Some of the Europeans at the station, as we have said, were killed ; some escaped by a brisk gallop ; while the rest were shut up for a fortnight in the fort, in great discomfort, until the mutineers went away. There being no European soldiers at Sealkote, the sepoys and sowars acted as they pleased ; they pillaged the bungalows, exploded the magazine, let loose the prisoners in the jail, and then started off, like other mutineers, in the direction of Delhi. One of tlic most touching incidents at Sealkote bore relation to a nunnery, a convent of nuns belonging to the order of Jesus Marie of Lyon, Ban Catholic establishment analogous to that at Birdhana near Mcerut, already brought under notice (p. 57). The superior at Lyon, many weeks afterwards, received- a letter from one of the -.* giving an affecting account of the way in which the quiet religieuscs were hunted about by the mutineers. ' Very Dear and Good Mother On the 8th of the present month the native soldiers heard they were to be disarmed the following day. They became furious, and secretly planned a They carried their plans into execution at an early hour on the following morning. We were Immediately apprised of it, and I hastened to awake our poor children, and all of us, h:ilf-clad, prayed for shelter at a Hindoo habitation. Some vehicles had been prepared for us to escape, when the servants desired us to conceal ourselves, as the sepoys were coming into the garden. We returned to our hiding-place; the soldiers arrived; they took away our carriages, and a shot was fired into the house where we were concealed. The ball passed close to where our chaplain was sitting, and slightly wounded a child in the tog*. At the same moment three soldiers, well armed, presented themselves at the door. The good father, holding the holy sacrament, which he never quitted, advanced to meet them. Several of us accom- panied him. " We have orders to hill you," said the sepoys ; " but we will spare you if you give us money. Go out, all, that we may see there are no men concealed here." Having searched and found nothing, one of the soldiers raised his sabre over the chaplain, and cried out : " You shall die." " Mercy, in the name of God I " ex- claimed I. " I will open every press to shew you that there is no money concealed here." He followed me, and having satisfied f that there was no money, the soldiers went away We then broke a hole in the wall of our garden, and fled into the jungle. We had scarcely escaped when thirty more sepoys entered the house; but the Almighty preserved us from this danger. We were crossing the country, when a faithful servant brought us to a house where several Europeans had taken refuge. We breathed freely there for a moment, but the government treasure was depo- sited there, and the house was soon attacked by the mutinous sepoys. We believed that our last hour was at hand; but the savages were too much occupied with pillage to notice us, and the 204 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. When the Sealkote mutineers had taken their departure towards Delhi, a force was organised at Jelum as quickly as possible to pursue them. This force, under Colonel Brown, comprised three companies of H.M. 24th foot, two hundred Sikhs, a hundred irregular horse, and three horse-artil- lery guns. The energetic Brigadier Nicholson, in command of a flying column destined for Delhi, comprising the 52d light infantry, the 6th Punjaub cavalry, and other troops, made arrange- ments at the same time for intercepting the mutineers. It thus happened that on the 12th of July, the insurgent 46th and 9th regiments when they reached the Ravee from Sealkote, found themselves hemmed in ; and after an exciting contest on an island in the river, they were almost entirely cut up. About the close of July, the disarmed 26th native infantry mutinied at Lahore, killed Major Spencer and two native officers, and fled up the left bank of the Ravee ; but the police, the new levies, and the villagers pursued them so closely and harassed them so continuously, that hardly a man remained alive. In August, something of the same kind occurred at other places in the Punjaub ; native Bengal regiments still were there, disarmed but not disbanded ; and it could not be otherwise than that the men felt chafed and discontented with such a state of things. If faithful, they felt the degradation of being dis- armed ; if hollow in their professed fidelity, they felt the irksomeness of being closely watched in cantonment. At Ferozpore, on the 19th of August, a portion of the 10th native cavalry, that had before been disarmed, mutinied, and endea- voured to capture the guns of Captain Wood- cock's battery ; they rushed at the guns while the artillerymen were at dinner, and killed the veterinary surgeon and one or two other persons ; but a corps of Bombay Fusiliers, in the station at that time, repulsed and dispersed them. At Peshawur, where it was found frequently neces- sary to search the huts and tents of the disarmed sepoys, for concealed weapons, the 51st native infantry resisted this search on the 28th of the month ; they beat their officers with cudgels, and endeavoured to seize the arms of a Sikh corps while those men were at dinner. They were foiled, and fled towards the hills ; but a disastrous flight was it for them ; more than a hundred were shot before they could get out of the lines, a hundred and fifty ' more were cut down during an immediate pursuit, nearly four hundred were brought in prisoners, to be quickly tried and shot, and some of the rest were made slaves by the mountaineers of the Khyber Pass, who would by no means 'fraternise' with them. Thus the Europeans escaped. At this moment a Catholic soldier offered to guide us to the fort, where we arrived at twelve o'clock. We do not know how long we shall remain in the fort. The English officers have treated us with the greatest kindness and attention, and have supplied us with provisions both for ourse'.ves and our pupils. We trust we shall one day make our way to Bombay ; but that will depend on the orders we receive from the govern- ment.' regiment was in effect annihilated. There were then three disarmed native regiments left in Peshawur, which were kept so encamped that loaded guns in trusty hands might always point towards them. The course of events in the Punjaub need not be traced further in any connected form. From first to last the plan adopted was pretty uniform in character. When the troubles began, there were about twenty regiments of the Bengal native army in the Punjaub ; and these regiments were at once and everywhere distrusted by Sir John Lawrence and his chief officers. If hope and con- fidence were felt, it was rather by the regimental officers, to whom disloyalty in their respective corps was naturally mortifying and humiliating. All the sepoys were disarmed and the sowars dis- mounted, as soon as suspicious symptoms appeared ; some regiments remained at the stations, disarmed, throughout the whole of the summer and autumn ; some mutinied, before or after disarming ; but very few indeed lived to reach the scene of rebel supremacy at Delhi ; for they were cut up by the Europeans, Sikhs, Punjaubces, or hill-men which the Punjaub afforded. Gladly as every one, whether civilian or military, acknowledged the eminent ser- vices of Sir John Lawrence ; there were, it must be admitted, certain advantages available to him which were utterly denied to Mr Colvin, the responsible chief of the Northwest Provinces, in which the mutiny raged more fiercely than anywhere else. When the troubles began, the Punjaub was better furnished with regiments of the Queen's army than any other part of India ; while the native Sikhs, Punjaubee Mohammedans, and hill-men, were either indifferent or hostile to the sepoys of Hindostan proper. The consequences of this state of things were two : the native troops were more easily disarmed ; and those who mutinied were more in danger of annihilation before they could get east of the Sutlej. In the Northwest Provinces the circumstances were far more disastrous ; the British troops were relatively few r er ; and the people Avcre more nearly in accord with the sepoys, in so far as concerned national and religious sympathies. In the Meerut military division, when the mutiny had fairly commenced, besides those at Meerut station, there was only one European regiment (at Agra), against ten native regiments, irrespective of those which mutinied at Meerut and Delhi. In the Cawnpore military division, comprising the great stations of Lucknow, Allahabad, Cawnpore, and the whole of Oude, there was scarcely more than one complete European regiment, against thirty native Bengal and Oude regiments, regular and irregular. In the Dina- poor military division, comprising Benares, Patna, Ghazeepore, and other large cities, together with much government wealth in the form of treasure and opium, there was in like manner only one British regiment, against sixteen native corps. There was at the same time this additional difficulty ; that no such materials were at hand as EVENTS IN THE PUNJAUB AND SINDE. 205 in the Punjaub, for raising regiments of horse and foot among tribes who would sympathise but little with the mutineers. Sir John Lawrence was at first in some doubt what course to follow in relation to the liberty of the press. The Calcutta authorities, as we shall sec in the next chapter, thought it proper to curtail that liberty in Bengal and the Northwest Provinces. Sir John, unwilling on the one hand to place the Europeans in the Punjaub in the tormenting condition of seclusion (Yum all sources of news, and unwilling on the other to leave the news -readers at the mercy of inaccurate or unscrupulous news-writers at such a critical time, adopted a medium course. lie caused the Lahore Chronicle to be made the medium of conveying official news of all that was occurring in India, so far as rapid outlines were concerned. The government secretary at that place sent every day to the editor of the newspaper an epitome of the most important public news. This epitome was printed on small quarter-sheets of paper, and despatched by each day's post to all the stations in the Punjaub. The effect was that false rumours and sinister reports were much less prevalent in the Punjaub than in Bengal ; men were not thrown into mystery by a suppression of journalism ; but were candidly told how events proceeded, so far as information had reached that remote part of India. The high character of the chief-commissioner was universally held as a guarantee that the news given in the epitome, whether little or much in quantity, would be honestly rendered ; the scheme would have been a failure under a chief who did not command respect and win confidence. As the summer advanced, and daks aud wires were interrupted, the news obtainable became very scanty. The Camel ami Hider. English in the Punjaub were placed in a most tantalising position. Aware that matters were wrong at Delhi and Agra, at Lucknow and Cawnpore, they did not know how wrong ; for communication was well-nigh cut off As the cities just named lie between the Punjaub anil Calcutta, all direct communication with the si nment was still more completely cut off. The results of this were singularly trying. 'Gradually,' says an officer writing from the Punjaub, ' papers and letters reached us from Calcutta fid Bombay, not the least striking illustration of the com- plete revolution that has occurred in India, that the news from the Gangetic valley say from Allahabad and Cawnpore was known in London sooner than at Lahore. We had been accustomed to receive our daily letters and newspapers from every part of the empire with the same unfailing regularity as in England. Suddenly we found ourselves separated from Calcutta for two months of time. Painfully must a letter travel from the :i capital to the western pott from Calcutta to Bombay ; painfully must it toil up the unsettled provinces of the western coast ; slowly must it jog along on mule- back across the sands of Sinde ; many queer twists and unwonted turns must that letter take, many enemies must it baffle and elude, before, much bestamped, much stained with travel for Indian letter-bags are not water-proof it is delivered to its owner at Lahore Slowly, very slowly, the real truth dragged its way up the country. It is only this very 29th of September that this writer in the Punjaub has read anything like a connected account of the fearful tragedy at Cawnpore, which, once read or heard, no Englishman can ever forget.' Attention must now for a brief space be directed to the country of Sinde or Scinde ; not so much for the purpose of narrating the progress of mutiny there, as to shew how it happened that there were few materials out of which mutiny could arise. Sinde is the region which bounds the lower course of the river Indus, also called Sinde. The name is supposed to have had the same origin as Sindhi or Hindi, connected with the great Hindoo race. .When the Indus has passed out of the 206 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. Punjaub at its lower apex, it enters Sinde, through which it flows to the ocean, which bounds Sinde on the south ; east is Rajpootana, and west Beloochis- tan. The area of Sinde is about equal to that of England without Wales. The coast is washed by the Indian Ocean for a distance of about a hundred and fifty miles ; being, with very few exceptions, little other than a series of mud-banks deposited by the Indus, or low sand-hills blown in from the sea-beach. So low is most of the shore, that a wide expanse of country is overflowed at each high tide ; it is' a dreary swamp, scarcely observ- able from shipboard three or four miles out at sea. The mouths of the Indus are numerous, but so shallow that only one of them admits ships of any considerable burden ; and even that one is subject to so many fluctuations in depth and in weather, that sea-going vessels scarcely enter it at all. Kurachee, the only port in Sinde, is a considerable distance west of all these mouths; and the mercantile world looks forward with much solicitude to the time when a railway will be formed from this port to Hydrabad, a city placed at the head of the delta of the Indus. This delta, in natural features, resembles that of the Nile rather than that of the Ganges, being nearly destitute of timber. On each side of the Indus, for a breadth varying from two to twelve miles, is a flat alluvial tract, in most places extremely fertile. Many parts of Sinde are little better than desert ; such as the Pat, between Shikarpore and the Bolan Pass, and the Thur, nearer to the river. In general, it may be said that no part of Sinde is fertile except where the Indus irrigates it; for there is little either of rain or dew, and the climate is intensely hot. Camels are largely reared in Sinde ; and the Sindians have abundant reason to value this animal. It is to him a beast of burden ; its milk is a favourite article of diet ; its hair is woven into coarse cloth ; and it renders him service in many other ways. The Sindians are an interesting race, both in themselves and in their political relations. They are a mixture of Jats and Beloochees, among whom the distinction between Hindoo and Mus- sulman has a good deal broken down. The Beloochees are daring, warlike Mohammedans ; the Jats are Hindoos less rigorous in matters of faith and caste than those of Hindostan ; while the Jats who have become Mohammedans arc a peaceful agricultural race, somewhat despised by both the others. The Sindians collectively are a dark, handsome, well-limbed race ; and it was a fa- vourite opinion of Sir William Jones, that they were the original of the gipsies. The languages spoken are a mixture of Hindi, Beloochee, and Persian. The chain of events which brought Sinde under British rule may be traced in a few sentences. About thirteen centuries ago the country was invaded by the Persians, who ravaged it without making a permanent settlement. The califs at a later date conquered Sinde ; from them it was taken by the Afghans of Ghiznee ; and in the time of Baber it fell into the hands of the chief of Candahar. It was then, for a century and a half, a dependency of the Mogul Empire. For a few years Nadir Shah held it ; next the Moguls retook it ; and in 1756 Sinde fell under the rule of the Cabool khans, which was maintained nearly to the time when the British seized the sovereign power. Although subject to Cabool, Sinde was really governed by eight or ten native princes, called Ameers, who had among them three distinct territories marked by the cities of Hydrabad, Khyrpore, and Meerpoor. Under these ameers the government was a sort of military despotism, each ameer having a power of life and death ; but in warlike affairs they were dependent on feudal chieftains, each of whom held an estate on condition of supplying a certain number of soldiers. The British had various trading treaties with the ameers ; one of which, in 1832, opened the roads and rivers of Sinde to the commerce of the Company. When, in 1838, the eyes of the governor-general were directed anxiously towards Afghanistan, Sinde became involved in diplomatic conferences, in Avhich the British, the Afghans, the Sindians, and Runjeet Singh were all concerned. These conferences led to quarrels, to treaties, to accusa- tions of breach of faith, which we need not trace : suffice it to say that Sir Charles James Napier, with powers of the pen and of the sword intrusted to him, settled the Sinde difficulty once for all, in 1848, by fighting battles which led to the annexation of that country to the Company's dominions. The former government was entirely put an end to ; and the ameers were pensioned off with sums amounting in the aggregate to about fifty thousand pounds per annum. Some of these Ameers, like other princes of India, after- wards came to England in the hope of obtainiug better terais from Queen Victoria than had been obtainable from the Company Bahadoor. When Sinde became a British province, it was separated into three collectorates or districts Shikarpore, Hydrabad, and Kurachee ; a new system of revenue administration was introduced ; annual fairs were established at Kurachee and Sukur ; and peaceful commerce was everywhere so successfully established, that the country im- proved rapidly, greatly to the content of the mass of the people, who had formerly been ground down by the ameers' government. For military purposes, Sinde was made a division, under the Bombay presidency. Sinde, at the commencement of the mutiny, contained about seven thousand troops of all arms, native and European. The military arrange- ments had brought much distinction to Colonel (afterwards Brigadier-general) John Jacob, whose ' Sinde Irregular Horse' formed a corps much talked of in India. It consisted of about sixteen hundred men, in two regiments of eight hundred each, carefully drilled, and armed and equipped in the European manner, yet having only five EVENTS IN THE PUNJAUB AND SINDE. 207 European officers ; the squadron and troop comman- ders were native officers. The brigadier uniformly contended that it was the best cavalry corps in India ; and that the efficiency of such a regiment did not depend so much on the number of European officers, as on the manner in which they fulfilled their duties, and the kind of discipline which they maintained among the men. On these points he was frequently at issue with the Bengal officers; for he never failed to point out the superiority of the system in the Bombay army, whero men enlisted irrespective of caste, and where there were better means of rewarding individual merit. * Nationally speaking, they were not Sindians at all ; being drawn from other parts of India, in the ratio of three-fourths Moham- medans to one-fourth Hindoos. When the mutiny began in the regions further ten or twelve permanent outposts on the Sinde frontier were held by detachments of the Sinde Irregular Horse, of forty to a hundred ami twenty men each, wholly commanded by native officers. These men, and the head-quarters at Jacobabad (a camp named after the gallant dier), remained faithful, though sometimes tempted by sepoys and troopers of the 1! army. A curious correspondence took place later in the year, through the medium of the 1 papers, between Brigadier Jacob and Major Telly on the one tide, and Colonel Bykes on the other. The colonel had heard that Jacob ridiculed the greased cartridge affair, as a matter that would never be allowed to tremble Me cone; and he i to shew that it w. t for laughter : idier John Jacob knows full well that if ho were to order his Mohammedan soldiers (though they may venerate him) to bite a cartrid ad with pigs' fat, or his high- cute troopers to bite a cartridge greased with cows' fat, both the one and the other would promptly refuse obedience, and in case ho endea- voured to enforce it, they would shoot him down.' Jacob and Telly at once disputed this ; they both ted that the Mohammedans and Hindoos in the Snide Horso would never be mutinous on such a point, unless other sources of di.~ at is faction existed, and unless they believed it was pu, done to insult their faith. ' If it were really ncccssary,' said the brigadier, 'in the performance * The brigadier's confidence in his men was conditional on (heir implicit obedience ; nnd ho was wont to affirm that his ilan' were as 'regular' in conduct and discipline as ! Ie would allow no religious scruple* to interfere v ith their military efficiency. On one occa- >;.m, during the Mi humim or Mohammedan religions festival in 1834) there was great uproar and noise among ten thousand Mussulmans assembled in and ne.ir his camp of Jacobabad to cele- ieir religious festival. He issued a general order : ' The commanding officer has nothing to do with religious ceremonies. All men may worship God as they please, and may act nnd believe as they choose, in matters of religion ; but no men have a right to annoy their neighbours, or to nclect their doty, on pretence of serving God. The officers and men of the Sindc havo the name of, and are supposed to be, < . and not mad fakeers lie therefore now informs the Sinde Irregular Horse, that in future n , nor any disorderly dlpUy whatever, under prctenre of religion or any- ill ever be allowed in, or in neighbourhood of, any camp of the Sindc Irregular Horse.' of our ordinary military duty, to use swine's fat or cows' fat, or anything else whatever, not a word or a thought would pass about the matter among any members of the Horse, and the nature of the substances made use of would not be thought of or discussed at all, except with reference to the fitness for the purpose to which they were to be applied.' The controversialists did not succeed in convincing each other ; they continued to hold diametrically opposite opinions on a question inti- mately connected with the early stages of the mutiny thereby adding to the perplexities of those wishing to solve the important problem: ' What was the cause of the mutiny V Owing partly to the great distance from the disturbed provinces of Hindostan, partly to the vicinity of the well-disposed Bombay army, and partly to the activity and good organisation of Jacob's Irregular Horse, Sinde was affected with few insurgent proceedings during the year. At one time a body of fanatical Mohammedans would unfurl the green flag, and call upon each other to fight for the Trophet. At another time, gangs of robbers and hill-men, of which India has in all agea bad an abundant supply, would take advant- age of the troubled stato of public feeling to rush forth on marauding expeditions, caring much for plunder and little for faith of any kind. At another, alarms would be given which induced European ladies and families to take refuge in the forts or other defensive positions at Kuraehee, Hydrabad, Shikarpore, Jacobabad, d T c, where English officers wero stationed. At another, regiments of the ! army would try to tamper with the fidelity of other troops in Sinde. But of these varied incidents, few were so serious in results as to need record here. One, interesting in many particulars, arose out of the following circumstance : "When some of the Sinde forces were sent to Tersia, the Cth Bengal irregular cavalry arrived to supply their place. These troopers, when the mutiny was at least four months old, endeavoured to form a plan with some Beloochee Mohammedans for the murder of the British officers at the camp of Jacobabad. A particular hour on the 21st of August was named for this outrage, in which various bands of Beloochccs were invited to assist. The plot was revealed to Captain Merewether, who immediately confided in the two senior native officers of the Sinde Irregular Horse. Orders were issued that the day's proceedings should be as usual, but that the men should hold themselves in readiness. Many of the border chiefs afterwards sent notice to Merewether of Avhat had been planned, announcing their own disapproval of the conspiracy. At a given hour, the leading con- spirator was seized, and correspondence found upon him tending to shew that the Bengal regi- ment having failed in other attempts to seduce the Sindc troops from their allegiance, had deter- mined to murder the European officers as the chief obstacles to their scheme. The authorities at Jacobabad wished Sir John Lawrence to take this 208 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. Bengal regiment off' their hands ; but the experi- enced chief in the Punjaub would not have the dan- gerous present ; he thought it less likely to mutiny where it was than in a region nearer to Delhi. The troops in the province of Sindc about the middle of August were nearly as follows : At Kurachce the 14th and 21st Bombay native infantry ; the 2d European infantry ; the depot of the 1st Bombay Fusiliers ; and the 3d troop of horse artillery. At Hydrabad the 13th Bombay native infantry ; and a company of the 4th batta- lion of artillery. At Jacobabad the 2d Sinde irre- gular horse ; and the 6th Bengal irregular cavalry. At Shikarporc and Sukur, the 16th Bombay native infantry ; and a company of the 4th battalion of artillery. The whole comprised about five thousand native troops, and twelve hundred Europeans. At a later period, when thanks were awarded by parliament to those who had rendered good service in India, the name of Mr Frere, commis- sioner for Sinde, was mentioned, as one who ' has reconciled the people of that province to British rule, and by his pnidence and wisdom con- firmed the conquest which had been achieved by the gallant Napier. He was thereby enabled to furnish aid wherever it was needed, at the same time constantly maintaining the peace and order of the province.' ttflies. This will be a suitable place in which to introduce two tabular statements concerning the military condition of India at the commencement of the mutiny. All the occur- rences narrated hitherto are those in which the authorities at Calcutta were compelled to encounter difficulties without any reinforcements from England, the time elapsed having been too short for the arrival of such reinforcements. Military Divisions of India. At the period of the outbreak, and for some time afterwards, India was marked out for military purposes into divisions, each under the command of a general, brigadier, or other officer, responsible for all the troops, European and native, within his division. The names and localities of these divisions are here given ; on the authority of a military map of India, engraved at the Topographical Depot under the direction of Captain Elphinstone of the Royal Engineers, and published by the War Department. Each division was regarded as belonging to, or under the control of, one of the three presidencies. We shall therefore group them under the names of the three presidential cities, and shall append a few words to denote locality : UNDER CALCUTTA GOVERNMENT. Name. Presidency Division, . Dinapoor Division, . Cawnpore Division, . Saugor Division, . . Gwalior Division, . . Meerut Division, . . Slrhind Division, . . Lahore Division, . . Peshaww Division, . Limits. (Calcutta and its vicinity, and the cast \ and northeast of Bengal. '(From the Ncpaul frontier, southwest \ towards Nagpoor. (Including Oude, the Lower Doab, and 1 part of Bundelcund. (On both sides of the Ncrbudda river, "} south of Bundelcund. i Scindia's Dominions, bordering on 1 liajpootana. JRohilcund, from the Himalaya down ( to Agra and the Jumna. (The Cis-Sutlej and Hill states, north- t west of Delhi. (Eastern part of Punjaub, from Cash- ( mere down to Sinde. (Western part of Punjaub, on the *( Afghan frontier. UNDER BOMBAY GOVERNMENT. Sinde Division, . . Rajpooiana Field-force, Northern Division, . Poonah Division, . . Southern Division, Xagpoor Subsidi-ary Force, North Division, . . . Centre Divi.-ion, . . . (On the Beloochee frontier, both sides "^ of the Dower Indus. (East of Sinde, and west of Scindia's 1 Gwalior dominions. ( From Cutch nearly to Bombay, includ- 1 ing Gujerat. (Around Bombay, and the South "( Mahratta country near it. (Southernmost pari of the Bombay \ Presidency. UNDER MADRAS GOVERNMENT. (The recently acquired Nagpoor tcrri- t tory, near Nizam's states. (Northern part of Madras Presidency, "( on sea-coast. (Madras city, and the coast-region \ north and south of it. Ceded Districts, UNDER MADRAS GOVERNMENT. Continued. Name. Limit*. (Northwest of Madras city, towards } Bombav. Mysore Division, . . . (Seringapatam, and the country once * ' ( belonging to Tippoo Saib. Southern Division, . . .[Southernmost part of the Indian ' ( peninsula, towards Ceylon. It may be useful to remark that these military divisions are not necessarily identical in area or boundaries with the political provinces or collectorates, the two kinds of territorial limits being based on different considerations. Armies of India, at the Commencement of the Mutiny. During the progress of the military operations, it was frequently wished in England that materials were afforded for shewing the exact number of troops in India when the troubles began. The Company, to respond to this wish, caused an elaborate return to be prepared, from which a few entries are here selected. The names and limits of the military divisions correspond nearly, but not exactly, to those in the above list. BENGAL ARMY, MAY 10, 1837. Military Divisions. Europeans. Natives. Total. Presidency, . . 1,214 13,976 15,190 Dinapoor, . . 1,597 15,063 16,660 Cawnpore, . 277 5,725 6,002 Oude, 093 11,319 12,312 Saugor, . . 327 10,627 10,954 Meerut, . 3,096 18,357 21,453 Sirhind, . . . 4,790 ,11,019 15,839 Lahore, . 4,018 15,939 19,957 Peshawar, . 4,613 15,916 20,529 Pegu, . 1,763 632 2,455 22,698 118,663 141,361 The Europeans in this list include all grades of officers as well as rank and file ; and among the officers are included those connected with the native regiments. The natives, in like manner, include all grades, from subadars down to sepoys and sowars. The Punjaub, it will be seen, alone contained 40,000 troops. The troops were stationed at 160 cantonments, garrisons, or other places. As shewing gradations of rank, the Europeans comprised 2271 commis- sioned officers, 1602 non-commissioned officers, and 18,815 rank and file ; the natives comprised 2325 commissioned officers, 5821 non-commissioned officers, and 110,517 rank and file. The stations which contained the largest numbers were the following : Peshawur, . . . 9500 Sealkote, . . 3500 Lahore, . 5300 Benares, . 3200 Meerut, . 5000 Rawul Pindec, . . 3200 Lucknow, 5000 Bareillv, . 3000 Jullundur, . . 4000 Moultan, . 3000 Dinapoor, 4000 Saugor, . 2S00 Tjmballa, . 3800 Agra, . . 2700 Cawnpore, 3700 Nowsherah, . 2600 Delhi, . . 3600 Jelum, . 2400 Barrackpore, . 3500 Allahabad, 2300 EVENTS IX THE PUNJAUB AND SINDE. 209 JO principal stations thus averaged 3800 troops each, or nearly 80,000 altogether. MADBAS ARMY, MAT 10, 1 Military Dlviiioni. Europeans. Natires. Total. Centre, . . 1 6,430 s.oin MvKore, . 1,088 4,504 5,5"2 3,117 Northern, >u 6,169 Southern, . . 5,7 IS 6,444 Ceded District-, . US J,51l Smith Mabratta, M (fafpoor, 369 H.S74 Nizam's, . 1 6,.it9 Penung and Malacca, 49 J. 11! Pegu, .... . 2,880 1(1,104 10,194 49,737 09,931 This list was more fully made out than that for the Bengal , since it gave the numbers separately of the dra cavalry, horse-artillery, foot-artillery, sappers and infantry, native infantry, ami veterans. Moopswas rather higher in the Madras army (about 20 per cent.) than in that of ! d!t per a fully made out in some parti* . it was less instructive in others; the Madras list 1 out the location of all the detachments of each regiment, whereas the B -o actual numbers : i station, without mentioning the partieula incuts of which they were composed. Hence the materials for comparison are not such as they might have been had the lists been prep a red on one uniform plan. There were about 36 stations for these troops, bat the places which they occupied in small detachment the total to a much higher number. Although Pegu is considered to belong to the Bei Bioetij served by Madras troops, Besides the forces above enumerated, there were nearly 2000 Madras troops out of India altogether, on service in Persia and China. BOMBAY ARMY, MAY 10, 1857. Military Diviiiorn. Bombay Garrison, . Southern, . Poonah, . Northern, . Asseerghur Fortress, Sinde, Hajpootana, . Europeans, Natives. SM 38a 1,838 1,154 2 1,087 50 5,109 3,394 5,108 6,817 6,452 440 6,072 3,312 Total. 4,089 5,391 8,(5.55 7,606 448 7,159 3,362 31,601 36,710 The Bombay army was so dislocated at that period, by the departure of nearly 14,000 troops to Persia and Aden, that the value of this table for purposes of comparison becomes much lessened. Nevertheless, it affords means of knowing how many troops were actually in India at the time when their services were most needed. On the other hand, about .1000 of the troops in the Bombay presidency belonged to the Bengal and Madras armies. The different kinds of troops were classified as in the Madras army. The regular military stations where troops took up their head-quarters, were about 20 in number; but the small stations where mere detachments were placed nearly trebled this number. The Europeans were to the native troops only as 16 to 100. summary, then, we lind that India contained, on the day when tin- mutinies began, troops to the number in the service of the Company, of whom natives 19 Euro- to 100 natives. An opportunity will occur in a future page for enumerating the regiments of which these uere composed. Catholic Church, Sirdhana. Built by Begum Suniroo (Sec p. 57). Sib Colin Campbell. CHAPTER XIII. PREPARATIONS: CALCUTTA AND LONDON. ^/: pk EFORE entering on a narra- k ^ tive of the great military oper- ations connected with the siege of 'Delhi, and with Havelock's brilliant advance from Allahabad to Cawnpore and Lucknow, it will be necessary to glance rapidly at the means adopted by the authorities to meet the difficulties arising out of the mutiny by the Indian govern- ment at Calcutta, and by the imperial govern- ment in London. For, it must be remembered that however meritorious and indispensable may have been the services of those who arrived in later months the crisis had passed before a single additional regiment from England reached the scene of action. There was, as we have seen in the note appended to the preceding chapter, a certain definite amount of European military force in India when the mutiny began ; there were also certain regiments of the Queen's army known to be at different spots in the region lying between the Cape of Good Hope on the west and Singa- pore on the east ; and it depended on the mode of managing those materials whether India should or should not be lost to the English. There will therefore be an advantage in tracing the manner in which the Calcutta government brought into use the resources immediately or proximately available ; and the plans adopted by the home government to increase those resources. It is not intended in this place to discuss the numerous questions which have arisen in connec- tion with the moral and political condition of the natives of India, or the relative fitness of different forms of government for the development of their welfare. Certain matters only will be treated, which immediately affected the proceedings of those intrusted with this grave responsibility at so perilous a time. Three such at once present themselves for notice, in relation to the Calcutta government namely, the military measures taken to confront the mutineers ; the judicial treatment meted out to them when conquered or captured ; and the precautions taken in reference to freedom of public discussion on subjects likely to foster discontent. PREPARATIONS : CALCUTTA AND LONDON. 211 First, in relation to military matters. England, by a singular coincidence, was engaged in two Asiatic wars at the time when the Meerut out- break marked the commencement of a formidable mutiny. Or, more strictly, one army was return- ing after the close of a war with Persia ; while another was going out to begin a war with China. It will ever remain a problem of deep significance what would have become of our Indian empire had not those warlike armaments, small as they were, been on the Indian seas at the time. The responsible servants of the Company in India did not fail to recognise the importance of this problem as will be seen from a brief notice of the plans laid during the earlier weeks of the mutiny. On the 13th of May. three days after the troubles began at Meerut, Mr Colvin, lieutenant-governor of the Northwest Provinces, telegraphed to Cal- cutta, suggesting that the returning force from Persia should bo ordered round to Calcutta, in order to be sent inland to strengthen the few English regiments by which alono the Revolt could be put down. On the next day, Viscount Canning, knowing that the Queen's 43d foot and the 1st Madras Fusiliers were at Madras, tele- graphed orders for those two regiments to be forwarded to Calcutta seeing that the Bengal presidency was more likely than that of Madras to be troubled by mutinous sepoys. On the same day orders were sent to Pegu to bring the depdt of the Queen's 81th foot to Calcutta, the bulk of the ment being already in or near that city. On the 16th, a message was sent to Lord Elphinstone at Bombay, re qu est in g him to send found to Calcutta two of the English regiments about to return from Persia ; another message was sent to Pegu, sum- moning every available soldier of the Queen's 35th foot from Rangoon and Moulmein ; and orders were issued that all government river-steamers and flats in India should be held ready for army On the 17th, Lord Harris at Madras tele- graphed to Canning, recommending him to stop the army going to China under Lord Elgin and General Ashburnham, and to render it immediately available for Indian wants. It was on this day, too, that Sir John Lawrence announced his inten- tion of disarming the Bengal sepoys in the Pun- jaub, and of raising new Punjaub regiments in their stead ; and that Mr Frere, commissioner of Sinde, was ordered by Lord Elphinstone to send the 1st Bombay Europeans from Kurachee up the Indus to Moultan, and thence to Ferozporc. On the Canning telegraphed to Elphinstone, naming the two regiments the Queen's 78th foot and the 2d Europeans which were to be sent round to Calcutta, together with artillery ; on the same day Elphinstone telegraphed to Canning that he would be able to send the Queen's 64th as well as 78th foot ; and on the same day the authorities at Sinde arranged for sending a Beloochee regiment up from Hydrabad to Ferozpore. On the 19th, the Madras Fusiliers started for Calcutta ; and on the day Sir Henry Lawrence, to strengthen his military command in Oude, was raised from the rank of colonel to that of brigadier-general. With- out dwelling, day by day, on the proceedings adopted, it will suffice to say that," during the remaining period of May, the Madras Fusiliers, which were destined to render such good service under the gallant Neill, arrived at Calcutta ; that the Queen's 64th and 78th made their voyage from Bombay to Calcutta ; and that steamers were sent to Ceylon to bring as many royal troops as could be spared from that island. When June arrived, the same earnest endeavours were made to bring troops to bear upon the plague-spots of mutiny. Orders were sent to transfer a wing of the Queen's 29th foot from Pegu, the 12th Lancers from Bombay, and cavalry horses from Bushire and elsewhere, to Calcutta. Later in the month, messages were transmitted to Madras, commanding the sending to Calcutta of everything that had been prepared there for tho service of the expedition to China ; such as tents, clothing, harness, and necessaries ; but it was at tho same time known that the regiments on that service available for India could be very few for a considerable time to come the only certain news being of the 6th Fusiliers, which left Mauritius on the 23d of May, and the 90th foot, which left England on the 18th of April. Towards the close of the month, an arrangement was made for accepting the aid of an army of Nepaulese from Jung Bahadoor, to advance from Khat- mandoo through Coruckpore towards Oude a matter on which Lord Canning was much criti- cised, by those who thought the arrangement ought to have been mado earlier. As soon as reached Calcutta of the death of General Anson, Sir Patrick Grant, commander-in-chief of the Madras army, was summoned from Madras to hold the office of commander-in-chief of the army of Bengal, subject to sanction from the home authorities. When he had accepted this pro- visional appointment, and had arrived at Calcutta, Sir Patrick wrote a 'memorandum,' expressing his views of his own position towards the supreme government. It was to the effect that seeing that there was in fact no native army to rely upon ; that the European army was very small ; and that this army had to operate on many different points, in portions each under its own commandant it would be . better for the commander-in-chief to remain for a while at Calcutta, than to move about from station to station. If near the seat of government, he would be in daily personal communication with the members of the supreme council ; he would learn their views in relation to the innumerable questions likely to arise ; and he would be in early receipt of the mass of intelligence forwarded every day to Calcutta from all parts of India. On these grounds, Sir Patrick proposed to make Calcutta his head-quarters. All the members of the council Canning, Dorin, Low, J. P. Grant, and Peacock assenled at once to these views; the 212 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. governor-general added : ' I am of opinion, how- ever, that as soon as the course of events shall tend to allay the general disquiet, and to shew to what points our force should be mainly directed, with the view of crushing the heart of the rebellion, it will be proper that his excellency should consider anew the question of his move- ments.' As it was difficult in those days of interrupted daks and severed wires to communicate intelli- gence between Calcutta and Lahore, the general officers in the Punjaub and Sirhind made the best readjustment of offices they could on hearing of Anson's death ; but when orders could be given from Calcutta, Sir Henry Barnard, of the Sirhind division, was made commander of the force against Delhi ; General Penny, from Simla, replaced General Hewett at Meerut ; General Eeid, of the Peshawur division, became temporary commander in the west until other arrangements could be made ; and Brigadier Cotton was ap- pointed to the command at Peshawur, with Colonel Edwardes as commissioner. Later in the month, when Henry Lawrence was hemmed in at Luck- now, Wheeler beleaguered at CaAvnpore, and Lloyd absorbed with the affairs of Dinapoor brigade, com- mands were given to Neill and Havelock, the one from Madras and the other from the Persian expe- dition ; while Outram, who had been commander of that expedition, also returned to assume an important post in India. Several colonels of individual regiments received the appointment of brigadier-general, in command of corps of two or more regiments ; and in that capacity became better known to the public than as simple commandants of regiments. When the month of July arrived, the British troops in India, though lamentably few for the stern work to be done, were nevertheless increas- ing in number ; but it is doubtful whether, at the end of the month, the number was as large as at the beginning ; for many desperate conflicts had taken place, which terribly thinned the European ranks. The actual reinforcements which arrived at Calcutta during eight months, irrespective of any plans laid in England arising out of news of the mutiny, consisted of about twenty regiments, besides artillery. Some of these had been on the way from England before the mutiny began ; the 84th foot arrived in March from Rangoon ; none arrived in April ; in May arrived the 1st Madras Fusiliers ; in June, the 35th, 37th, 64th, and 78th Queen's regiments, together with artillery belong- ing to all the three presidential armies ; in July, the 5th Fusiliers, the 90th foot, and a wing of the 29th; in August, the 59th foot, a military train, a naval brigade from Hong Kong, and royal marines from the same place ; in September, the 23d Welsh Fusiliers, 93d Highlanders, four regiments of Madras native infantry (5th, 17th, 27th, and 36th), and detachments of artillery and engineers ; in October, the 82d foot, the 48th Madras native infantry, and recruits for the East India Company's service all these, be it again remarked, Avere troops which reached Calcutta without any reference to the plans laid by the home government to quell the mutiny ; those which came from England started before the news was known ; the rest came from Rangoon, Moul- mein, Madras, Bombay, Ceylon, Mauritius, Hong Kong, Cape of Good Hope, &c. A few observations may be made in connection with the above list that some of these regiments were native Madras troops, on whom reliance was placed to fight manfully against the Bengal sepoys ; that some of the Madras companies advanced inland to Bengal, without taking the sea-voyage to Calcutta ; that no cavalry whatever were included in the list ; and that the list does not include the regiments which advanced from Bombay or Kurachee towards the disturbed districts. Cavalry, just adverted to, was the arm of the service in which the Indian government was throughout the year most deficient. During a long period of peace the stud-establishments had been somewhat neglected ; and as a consequence, there were more soldiers able and willing to ride, than horses ready to receive them. In the artillery and baggage departments, also, the supply of horses was very deficient. When news of this fact reached Australia, the colonists bestirred themselves to ascertain how far they could assist in remedying the deficiency. The whole of New South Wales was divided into eight districts, and committees voluntarily undertook the duty of ascertaining how many available horses fit for cavalry were obtain- able in each district. Colonel Robbins was sent from Calcutta to make purchases ; and he was enabled to obtain several hundred good strong horses at prices satisfactory both to the stock- farmers and to the government. The good effected by the committees consisted in bringing together the possible sellers and the willing buyer. By what means the troops, as they arrived at Calcutta from various quarters, were despatched to the scene of action in the upper provinces, and by what difficulties of every kind this duty was hampered need not be treated here ; sufficient has been said on this subject in former pages. We pass to the second of the three subjects marked out, in reference to the proceedings at Calcutta for notice the arrangements for prevent- ing the mutiny of native troops, or for punishing those who had already mutinied : a very important and anxious part of the governor-general's duty. Unfortunately for all classes in India, there was a hostile feeling toAvards the governor-general, entertained by many of the European inhabitants unconnected Avith the Company ; they accused him of favouring the natives at the expense of the English. There Avas also a sentiment of deep hatred excited against the natives, owing to the barbarous atrocities perpetrated by the mutinous sepoys and the rabble budmashes on the unfortunate persons at the various military and civil stations of the Company during the PREPARATIONS : CALCUTTA AND LONDON. 213 coarse of the Revolt. There was at the same time a certain jealousy existing between the military and civil officers in India. These various feelings conspired to render the supreme government at Calcutta, and especially Viscount Canning as its head, the butt for incessant ridicule and the object of incessant vituperation. When the mutiny was many months old, the Calcutta government gave a full reply to insinuations which it would have been undignified to rebut at the time when made, and which, indeed, would have fallen with little force on the public mind while convulsed with passion at the unparalleled news from India. It was repeatedly urged upon the governor- general to proclaim martial law wherever the Europeans found or fancied themselves in peril; to encounter the natives with muskets and cannon instead of courts of justice ; and to adopt these summary proceedings all over India. In reply, .nt Canning states that this was actually done wherever it was necessary, and as soon as it could answer any good purpose. Martial law was proclaimed in the Delhi province in May; in the Mecri.it province about tin- same time ; in Rohilcund on the 28th of the same month ; in the Agra province in May and the early part of dune ; in the Ajineer district on the L2th of June; in Allahahad and Benares about the SfJM date; in Neemnch also at the same time . in the Patna district on the 30th of June; and afterwards in Nagpoor. In the Punjanb ami Oude, governed by special regulations, it was nol that martial law should be proclaimed, but the two Lawrences acted as if it was. Martial law, where adopted, was made even more Stringent than in European countries ; for there only military men take part in courts-martial ; whereas in India, the military officers at the disposal of the govern- ment being too few for the performance of such duties at such a time, an act of the Calcutta legislature was passed directly after the news from Meerut arrived, authorising military officers to establish courts-martial for the trial of mutineers and others, and empowering them to obtain the aid at such courts, not only of the Company's civil servants, but of indigo-planters and other Europeans of intelligence and of independent position. On the 30th of May, to meet the case of a rebellious populace as well as a mutinous soldiery, another act was passed authorising all the local executive governments to i.-.-ue special commissions for the summary trial of delinquents, with power of life and death in addition to that of forfeiture of property without any tedious refer- ence to the ordinary procedures of the law-courts. < >u the Gth of June a third act was passed, intended eh those who, without actually mutinying or rebelling, should attempt to excite disaffection in the native army, or should harbour persons guilty of that offence ; general officers were empowered to appoint courts-martial, and executive bodies point special commissions, to try all such offenders at once and on the spot, and to inflict varying degrees of punishment according to the offence. Some time afterwards a fourth act gave an extended application of these stringent measures to India generally. In all these instances Euro- peans were specially exempted from the operation of the statutes. The enormous powers thus given were largely executed ; and they were rendered still more formidable by another statute, enabling police-officers to arrest without warrant persons suspected of being mutineers or deserters, and rendering zemindars punishable if they failed to give early information of the presence of suspicious :is on their respective estates. 'Not only therefore,' says the governor-general in council, ' is it not the case that martial law was not proclaimed in districts in which there was a -ity for it; but the measures taken for the arrest, summary trial, and punishment of heinous offenders of every class, civil as well as military, were far more widely spread and certainly not less stringent than any that could have resulted from martial law.' The outcry against Viscount Canning became so excessively violent in connection with two sub- : hut the Court of Directors sought for expla- nations from him thereon, superadded to the dispatches forwarded in the regular course. The one referred to the state of Calcutta; the other to the proceedings of special commissioners in the Allahabad district. A petition was presented from about two hundred and fifty inhabitants of Calcutta, praying that martial law should at once be proclaimed throughout the whole of the d presidency ; on the ground that the whole native population was in a disaffected state, that the native police were as untrustworthy as the native soldiery, and that the Company's civil authorities were wholly unable to cope with an evil of so great magnitude. The governor-general in council declined to accede to this request. He urged in reply that there was no evidence of the native population of Bengal being in so disaffected a state as to render martial law necessary ; that such law had already been enforced in the north- west provinces, where the mutineers were chiefly congregated ; that in Bengal the native police, aided by the European civilians, would probably be strong enough to quell ordinary disturbances ; that, as all his European troops were wanted to confront the mutinous sepoys, he had none to spare for ordinary police duties ; and that in Calcutta especially, where a zealous volunteer guard had been organised, the peace might easily be preserved by ordinary watchfulness on the part of the European inhabitants. This reply was in many quarters interpreted into a declaration that the natives would be petted and favoured more than the Europeans. The second charge, as stated above, related to the proceedings in the Allahabad district. When the power of appointing special commissions for trying the natives was given, the civiliaus in that region entered on the duty in a more stern manner 214 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. than anywhere else. In about forty days a hundred and seventy natives were tried, of whom a hundred were put to death. When a detailed report of the proceedings reached Calcutta, grave doubts were entertained whether the offences generally were proportionate to the punishment. Many persons had been put to death for having plundered property in their possession, without being accused of having actually been engaged in mutiny; some were put to death for obtaining by threats salary that was not due to them from the revenue establishments ; several others for 'robbing their masters,' and some for 'plundering salt ;' six were condemned to death in one day for having in their possession more rupees than they could or would account for. The question forced itself on Lord Canning's attention, whether such offences and such punishments as these were intended to be met by the extraordinary tribunals established in time of danger. The culprits might have been and probably were rogues ; but it did not follow that they deserved death at the hands of civilians, irrespective of military proceedings. The Calcutta authorities considered, from all the information that reached them, that these large powers 'had been in some cases unjustly and reck- lessly used ; that the indiscriminate hanging, not only of persons of all shades of guilt, but of those whose guilt was at the least very doubtful, and the general burning and plunder of villages, whereby the innocent as well as the guilty, without regard to age or sex, were indiscriminately punished, and in some instances sacrificed,' were unjustifiable. It further became manifest that 'the proceedings of the officers of government had given colour to the rumour, which was industriously spread and credulously received in all parts of the country, that the government meditated a general bloody prosecution of Mohammedans and Hindoos in revenge for the crimes of the sepoys, and only awaited the arrival of European troops to put this design into execution.' This led the governor- general to issue a resolution on the 31st of July, containing detailed instructions for the guidance of civil officers in the apprehension, trial, and punishment of natives charged with or suspected of offences. This resolution was interpreted by the opponents of Viscount Canning as a check upon all the heroes who were fighting the battles of the British against the mutinous natives ; but it was afterwards clearly shewn that the resolu- tion applied, and was intended to apply, only to the civil servants, among whom such vast powers were novel and often susceptible of abuse; it did not cramp the energies of generals or military commanders who might feel that martial law was necessary to the successful performance of their duties. So obstructive, however, was the bitter hostility felt in many quarters against the supreme government at Calcutta, that it led to a ready belief in charges which were afterwards shewn to be wholly untrue. When the Northwest Provinces had fallen into such utter anarchy by the mutiny, that the rule of the lieutenant-governor Avas little better than a name, a new government was formed called the Central Provinces, comprising the regions of Goruckpore, Benares, Allahabad, the Lower Doab, Bundelcund, and Saugor, and placed under the lieutenant-governorship of Mr Grant, who had until that time been one of the members of the supreme council. A rumour reached London, and was there credited three months before Viscount Canning knew aught con- cerning it, that 'Mr Grant had liberated a hundred and fifty mutineers or rebels placed in confinement by Brigadier-general Neill.' As a consequence of this rumour, it was often asserted in London that Mr Grant was more friendly to the native mutineers than to the British soldiery. Knowing the gross improbability of such a story, Viscount Canning at once appealed to the best authority on the subject Mr Grant himself. It then appeared that the lieutenant-governor had never pardoned or released a single person seized by Neill or any other military authority ; that he had never com- muted or altered a single sentence passed by such authorities ; that he had never written to or even seen Neill ; that he had neither found fault with, nor commented upon, any of that general's pro- ceedings in short, the charge was an unmitigated, unrelieved falsehood from beginning to end. As a mere canard, the governor-general would not have noticed it ; but the calumny assumed historical importance when it affected public opinion in England during a period of several months. We now arrive at the third subject marked out the attitude of the Indian government towards the European population. It has been shewn in former chapters that, when the mutinies began, addresses were presented from various classes of persons at Calcutta, some expressing alarm, but all declaratory of loyalty. Similar declarations were made at Madras and Bombay two cities of which we have said little, because they were happily exempt from insurgent difficulties. A few lines will suffice to shew the relation between these two cities and Calcutta, as seats of presidential govern- ment. Madras is situated on the east coast, far down towards Ceylon perhaps the worst port in the world for the arrival and departure of shipping, on account of the peculiar surf that rages near the shore. Fort St George, the original settlement, is the nucleus around which have collected the houses and buildings which now constitute Madras. As Calcutta is called ' Fort William ' in official docu- ments, so is Madras designated 'Fort St George.' The principal streets out of the fort constitute 'Black Town.' Bombay, on the opposite coast, boasts of a splendid harbour that often excites the envy of the Madras inhabitants. The city is built on two or three islands, which are so connected by causeways and other constructions as to enclose a magnificent harbour. Nevertheless Madras has the larger population, the numbers being seven hundred and twenty thousand against five hundred and sixty thousand. So far as this PREPARATIONS : CALCUTTA AND LONDON. 215 Chronicle is concerned, both cities may pass with- out further description. Each was a metropolis, in all that concerned military, judicial, and civil proceedings ; and each remained in peace during the mutiny, chiefly owing to the native armies of Madras and Bombay being formed of more man- ageable materials than that of Bengal. Lord Harris at the one city, and Lord Elphinstone at the other, received numerous declarations of loyalty from the natives; and were enabled to render military service to the governor-general, rather than seek aid from him. In Calcutta, there was more difficulty than in Madras and Bombay. The government had to defend itself against Europeans as well as natives. It has already been stated that great hostility was shewn towards this government by resident Euro- peans not belonging to the Company's service. On tbe one side, the Company was accused of regarding India as a golden egg belonging to its own servants ; on the other, the Company sometimes complained that missionaries and newspapers encouraged dis- affection among the natives. This had been a standing quarrel long before the mutiny broke out. As ministers of religion, missionaries of various Christian denominations were allowed to pursue their labours, but without direct encouragement. They naturally sympathised with the natives; but, however pure may have been their motive, it be admitted that the missionaries often employed language that tended to place the Company and the natives in the antagonistic position of the injurers and the injured. In September 1850 certain missionaries in the iency presented a memorial, setting forth in strong terms the deplorable social condition of the natives enumerating a series of abuses and defects in the Indian government ; and recommending the appointment of a commission of inquiry, to com- prise men of independent minds," unbiassed by official or local prejudices. The alleged abuses bore relation to the police and judicial systems, gang-robberies, disputes about unsettled bound- aries, the use of torture to extort confession, the zemindary system, and many others. The memorialists asserted that if remedies were not speedily applied to those abuses, the result would be disastrous, as ' the discontent of the rural population is daily increasing, and a bitter feeling of hatred towards their rulers is being engendered in their minds.' Mr Halliday, lieutenant-governor of Bengal, in reply to the memorial, pointed out the singular omission of the missionaries to make any even the most brief mention of the numerous mea- sures undertaken by the government to remove the very evils complained of; thereby exhibiting a one sided tendency inimical to the ends of justice. He declined to accede to the appointment of a commission on these grounds \ That without denying the existence of great social evils, 'the government is in possession of full information ling them ; that measures are under con- sideration, or in actual progress, for applying remedies to such of them as are remediable by the direct executive or legislative action of the govern- ment ; while the cure of others must of necessity be left to the more tardy progress of national advancement in the scale of civilisation and social improvement.' He expressed his ' absolute dissent from the statement made, doubtless in perfect good faith, that the people exhibit a spirit of sullen discontent, on account of the miseries ascribed to them ; and that there exists amongst them that bitter hatred to the government which has filled the memorialists, as they declare, Avith alarm as well as sorrow.' The British Indian Asso- . ciation, consisting of planters, landed proprietors, and others, supported the petition for the appoint- ment of a commission, evidently with the view of fighting the missionaries with their own weapons, by shewing that the missionaries were exciting the natives to disaffection. Mr Halliday declined to rouse up these elements of discord; Viscount Canning and the supremo council supported him; and the Court of Directors approved of the course pursued. In the earlier weeks of the mutiny, or rather before the mutiny had actually begun, the colonel of a regiment at Barrackpore, as has already been idicwn, brought censure upon himself by taking the duties of a missionary or Christian religious teacher among his own troops. Whatever judg- ment may be parsed on this officer, or on those who condemned him, it is at least important to bear in mind that, throughout the whole duration of the mutiny and the battles consequent on it, <>ne class of theorists persisted in asserting that the well-meant exertions of pious Christians had alarmed the prejudices of the native soldiers, and had led to the Revolt. Right or wrong, this theory, and the line of conduct that had led to it, greatly increased the embarrassments of the governor-general, and rendered it impossible for him to pursue a line of conduct that would please all parties. Much more hostile, however, was the feeling raised against him in relation to an important measure concerning newspapers turning against him the bitter pens of ready writers who resented any check placed upon their licence of expression. On the 13th of June, the legislative council of Calcutta, on the motion of the governor-general, passed an act whereby the liberty of the press in India was restricted for one year. The effect of this law was to replace the Indian press, for a time, very much in the position it occupied before Sir Charles Metcalfe's government gave it liberty in 1835. Sir Thomas Munro and other expe- rienced persons had, long before this last-named date, protested against any analogy between England and India, in reference to the freedom of the press. Sir Thomas was connected with the Madras government; but his observations were intended to apply to the whole of British India. In 1822 he said : ' I cannot view the question of a free press in this country Avithout feeling that 216 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. the tenure by -which we hold our power never has been and never can be the liberties of the people. Were the people all our own countrymen, I would prefer the utmost freedom of the press ; but as they are, nothing could be more dangerous than such freedom. In place of spreading useful knowledge among the people and tending to their better government, it would generate insubordi- nation, insurrection, and anarchy A free press and the dominion of strangers are things which are incompatible, and which cannot long exist together. For what is the first duty of a , free press ? It is to deliver the country from a foreign yoke, and to sacrifice to this one great object every meaner consideration; and if we make the press really free to the natives as well as to Europeans, it must inevitably lead to this result.' Munro boldly, whether wisely or not, adopted the theory of India being a conquered country, and of the natives being more likely to write against than for their English rulers, if alloAved unfettered freedom of the press. He pointed out that the restrictions on this freedom were really very few ; extending only to attacks on the character of government and its officers, and on the religion of the natives. In reply General View of Madras. From a Drawing by Thomas Daniell. to a suggestion that the native press might be placed under restriction, without affecting the Indo-British newspapers read by Europeans, he said : ' We cannot have a monopoly of the freedom of the press ; we cannot confine it to Europeans only. There is no device or contrivance by which this can be done.' In fine, he declared his opinion that if the native press were made free, ' it must in time produce nearly the same consequences here which it does everywhere else ; it must spread among the people the principles of liberty, and stimulate them to expel the strangers who rule over them, and to establish a national govern- ment.' When the liberty of the press was made free and full in 1835, the Court of Directors severely censured Sir Charles Metcalfe's government for having taken that step without permission from London, and directed that the subject should be reconsidered ; but Lord Auckland, who succeeded Sir Charles as governor-general, pointed out what appeared to him the difficulty of rescinding the liberty when once granted ; and the directors yielded, though very unwillingly. The minute, in which the alteration of the law was made in 1835, was from the pen of Mr (afterwards Lord) Macaulay ; but this eminent person at the same time admitted that the governor-general had, and ought to have, a power suddenly to check this liberty of the press in perilous times. The mem- bers of the supreme council at Calcutta, in their minutes on this subject, asserted the power and right of the government to use the check in periods of exigency. Viscount Canning, conceiving that all his pre- decessors had recognised the possible necessity of curbing the liberty of the press, considered whether the exigency for so doing had arrived. He found that it would be of little use to control the native press unless that of the English were controlled also ; because he wished to avoid invidious distinctions ; and because some of the newspapers, though printed in the English lan- guage, were written, owned, and published by natives, almost exclusively for circulation among PREPARATIONS : CALCUTTA AND LONDON. 217 native readers. The natives, it -was found, -were in the habit of procuring English newspapers, not only those published in India, but others pub- lished in England, and of causing the political news relating to their own country to be translated and read to them. This might not be amiss If the government were made responsible for such articles only as emanated from it ; but the natives were often greatly alarmed at articles and speeches directed against them, or against their usages and religion, in the Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay newspapen not by the government, but by indi- vidual writers. The newspaper press in India, whether English or native, has generally been distinguished by great violence in the mode of opposing the government ; this violence, in times of peace, was disregarded by those against whom it was directed ; but at a time when a hundred thousand native troops were more or less in mutiny, and when Mohammedan leaders were endeavouring to enlarge this military revolt into a national rebellion, Viscount Canning and his colleagues deemed it right to place a restriction on the liberty of the press, during the disturbed state of India. Very little has hitherto been known in England concerning the native newspapers of India ; for few exoept the Company's servants have come in Bovbat. From a View in the Library of the East India Company. contact with them. Their number is considerable, but the copies printed of each are exceedingly limited. In the Agra government alone, a few years ago, there were thirty-four native papers, of which the aggregate circulation did not reach tao thousand. Of less than sixty cadi on an average. Some appeared weekly, some twice a week. Borne printed in Persian, others in Oordoo, others in Hindee. About twenty more were published in various towns in the northwest regions of India. A few were sensible, many more trivial, but nearly all abusive of the government As estimated by an English standard, the extremely small circula- tion would have rendered them wholly innocuous; but such was not the case in the actual state of affairs. The miserably written and badly litho- graphed little sheets of news had, each, its group of men scatedSfXrand a fluent reader, and listening to the contents; one single copy sufficed for a whole regiment of sepoys ; and it was observed, during a year or two before the Revolt, that the sepoys listened with unwonted eagerness to the reading of articles grossly vituperative of the government. The postal reform, effected by the Marquis of Dalhousie, exceeding in liberality even that of England itself, is believed to have led to an unexpected evil connected with the dissemina- tion of seditious intelligence in India. To save expense, he placed natives instead of Europeans in most of the offices connected with this service ; and it appears probable, from facts elicited during the mutiny, that Hindoo and Mohammedan post- masters were far too well acquainted with the substance of many of the letters which passed through their hands. It may be well here to state that Lord Harris, governor of the presidency of Madras, dwelt on the unfair tone of the British press in India, before the actual commencement of the mutiny at Meerut. On the 2d of May he made a minute commencing thus : ' I have now been three years in India, and during that period have made a 218 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. point of keeping myself acquainted with the tenor of the larger portion of the British press, through- out the country ; and I have no hesitation in asserting my impression to be that it is, more particularly in this presidency, disloyal in tone, un-English in spirit, and wanting in principle seeking every opportunity, whether rightly or wrongly, of holding up the government to oppro- brium.' He denied that any analogy could be furnished from the harmlessness of such attacks in the home country ; because, in England, ' every man is certain of Laving an opportunity of bring- ing his case before the public, either by means of rival newspapers or in parliament.' This facility is not afforded in India ; and thus the newspaper articles are 1 left to work their effects uncompen- sated. 'I do not see how it is possible for the natives, in the towns more especially, with the accusations, misrepresentations, and calumnies which are constantly brought before them, to come to any other conclusion than that the government of their country is carried on by imbecile and dishonest men.' The legislative statute of the 13th of June may be described in a few words. All printing-presses, types, and printing-machinery throughout British India were, by virtue of this act, to be registered, and not used without licence from the government. Magistrates were empowered to order a search of suspected buildings, and a seizure of all unregistered printing -apparatus and printed paper found therein. All applications for a printing-licence were to be made on oath of the proprietor, with full particulars on certain specified matters. The licence might be refused or granted ; and, if granted, might be at any time revoked. A copy of every paper, sheet, or book was required to be sent to the authorities, immediately on being printed. The government, by notice in the govern- ment gazette, might prohibit the publication of the whole or any part of any book or paper, either in the whole or any part of India ; and this was equally applicable whether the book or paper were printed in India or any other country. The penalty for using unlicensed printing-machinery, or for publishing in defiance of a gazette order was a fine of 5000 rupees (500), or two years' imprisonment, or both. This punishment was so rigorous, that the instances were very few in which the press disobeyed the new law ; it produced great exasperation in some quarters ; but the proprietors of newspapers generally placed such a check upon editors and writers as to prevent the insertion of such articles as would induce the government to withdraw the printing-licence. So alien are such restrictions to the genius of the English people, that nothing but dire necessity could have driven the Calcutta government to make them. They must be judged by an Indian, not an English standard. It is well to remark, however, as shewing the connection of events, that this statute was one cause of the violent attacks made against Lord Canning in London ; the freedom, checked in India, appeared in stronger form than ever when several of the writers came over to England, or sent for printing in England books or pamphlets written in India. When one of these editors arrived in London, he brought with him a petition or memorial, signed, by some of the Europeans at Calcutta not connected with the government, praying for the removal of Viscount Canning from the office held by him. Having thus passed in review three courses of proceeding adopted by the Indian government consequent on the outbreak in reference to mili- tary operations, to judicial punishments, and to public opinion we Avill now notice in a similarly rapid way the line of policy adopted by the home government to stem the mutiny, and by the British nation to succour those who had suffered or were suffering by it. It was on the 27th of June that the government, the parliament, and the people of England were startled with the news that five or six native regi- ments had revolted at Meerut and Delhi, and that the ancient seat of the Mogul Empire was in the hands of mutineers and rebels. During some weeks previously, observations had occasionally been made in parliament, relating to the cartridge troubles at Barrackpore and Berhampore ; but the ministers always averred that those troubles were slight in character. The Earl of Ellenborough, who had been governor-general from 1842 to 1844, and who possessed extensive knowledge of Indian affairs generally, had also drawn attention occasionally to the state of the Indian armies. While India was in commotion, but six or seven weeks before England was aware of that fact, the earl asked the ministers (on May 19th) what arrangements had been made for reinforcing the British army in India. Lord Panmure, as war-minister, replied that certain regiments intended for India had been diverted from that service and sent to China ; but that four other regiments would be ready to depart from England about the middle of June, to relieve regiments long stationed in the East Indies; irrespective of four thousand recruits for the Company's service. On the 9 th of June Lord Ellenborough expressed suspicions that a mutinous feeling was being engendered among the sepoys, by a fear on their part that their religion was about to be tampered with ; this expression of opinion led to various countei'-views in both Houses of parliament. Two or three paragraphs may here be usefully given, to shew to how great an extent the number and distribution of European troops in India had been a subject of consideration among the governing authorities, both at Calcutta and in London. Towards the close of 1848 the Marquis of Dalhousie drew attention to the propriety, or even necessity, of increasing the European element in the Indian armies ; and, to this end, he sug- gested that an application should be made to the crown for three additional regiments of the royal army. This was attended to ; three regiments PREPARATIONS : CALCUTTA AND LONDON. 219 being promptly sent. In March 1849, consequent on the operations in the Punjaub, application was made for two more Queen's regiments ; which was in like manner quickly responded to. All these additions, be it observed, were to be fully paid for by the Company. These five regiments, despatched during the early months of 1849, com- prised 220 commissioned officers, and 5335 non- commissioned, rank and file. In 1853, after the annexation of Pegu, the marquis wrote home to announce that that newly-acquired province could not be securely held with a less force than three European regiments, eight native regiments, and a proportionate park of artillery ; and he asked i ' Whence is this force to be derived ?' The British empire in India was growing ; the European military element, he urged, must grow with it ; and he demanded three new regiments from Eng- land to occupy Pegu, seeing that those already in India were required in the older provinces and presidencies. There were at that time five regi- ments of European cavalry in India, all belong- ing to the Queen's army ; and thirty regiments of European infantry, of which twenty-four were Queen's, and the remaining six belonging to the Company. As the crown retained the power of drawing away the royal regiments from India at any time of emergency, the marquis deemed it pru- dent that the three additional regiments required should belong to the Company, one to each | dential army, and not to the royal forces. The Company, by virtue of the act passed that year (1853), obtained permission to increase the number of European troops belonging absolutely to it in India ; and, that permission being obtained, three additional regiments were planned in the year, to comprise about 27GO officers and men. Only two out of the three, however, were really organised. When the war with Russia broke out in 1854, a sudden demand was made for the services of several of the Queen's regiments in India namely, the -JiM. 88th, 9Gth, and foot, and the 10th Hussars ; at the same time, as only the 27th and 35th foot were ordered out to India, the royal troops at the disposal of the governor-general were lessened by three regiments. This step the Marquis of Dalhousic, and his colleagues at Calcutta, most earnestly deprecated. A promise was made that two more regiments, the 82d and 90th foot, should be sent out early in 1858 ; but the marquis objected to the weakening of the Indian army even by a single English soldier. In a long dispatch, he dwelt upon the insufficiency of this army for the constantly increasing area of the British army in India. The European army in India, the Queen's and the Company's together, was in effect only two battalions stronger in September 1854 than it had been in January 1847 ; although in that interval of nearly eight years the Punjaub, Pegu, and Nagpoor, had been added to British India. The army was so scattered over this immense area, that there was only one European battalion between Calcutta and Agra, a distance of nearly eight hundred miles. The marquis earnestly entreated the imperial government not to lessen his number, already too small, of European troops not only because the area to be defended had greatly increased ; but because many of the princes of India were at that time looking with a strange interest at the war with Russia, as if ready to side with the stronger power, which- ever that might be. There were symptoms of this kind in Pegu, in Nepaul, and elsewhere, which he thought ought not to be disregarded. No document penned by the marquis throughout his eight years' career in India was more ener- getic, distinct, or positive than this ; he protested respectfully but earnestly against any further weakening of the European element in his forces. The home government, however, had engaged in a war with a great power which needed all its resources ; the withdrawal of the regiments was insisted on ; and the governor-general was forced to yield. The year 1855 presented nothing worthy of comment in relation to the Indian armies ; but in February 1856, just on surrendering the reins of government to Viscount Canning, the Marquis of Dalhousie drew up a minute bearing on this subject. At that time, fifteen months before the commencement of the mutiny at Meerut, there ihirty-thrco regiments of European infantry in India* The marquis sketched a plan for so redistributing the forces as to provide for the principal stations during peace, and also for a field-army in ease of outbreak in Cabool,. Cash- nictv, N( '. -aul, Ava, or other adjacent states; he required two additional regiments to effect this, and shewed how the whole thirty-five might most usefully be apportioned between the three presi- dencies^ He suggested that this number of 24 Queen's regiments of foot should be a minimum, not at any time reducible by the imperial govern- ment without consent of the Indian authorities ; he remembered the Crimean war, and dreaded the consequence of any possible future war in depriving India of royal troops. These were suggestions, made by the Marquis of Dalhousie when about to leave India ; they possessed no other authority than as suggestions > and do not appear to have been taken officially into consideration l'rciidenery. Queen'! Company"! Rcgimcnti. Regiment!. TotaL Bengal, . . Madras, . . Bombay, . 16 4 4 3 :: 3 l'J 7 7 24 9 33 | Prciidency. Queen'! Company'! H< ^uu.'tits. Total.' Bengal, . . Madras, . . Bombay, . . 16 5 4 4 4 3 19 !) 35 24 11 220 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. until the mutiny threw everything into con- fusion. During the later months of 1856, Viscount Canning, the new governor-general, drew the attention of the Court of Directors to the fact that the English officers in the native regiments had hecome far too few in number ; some were appointed to irregular corps, others to civil duties, until at length the regiments were left very much under-officered. As a means of partially meeting this want, the directors authorised in September that every regular native infantry or cavalry regiment should have two additional officers, one captain and one lieutenant ; and that each European regiment in the Company's service should have double this amount of addition. In the same month it was announced by the mili- tary authorities in London that the two royal regiments, 25th and 89th, borrowed from India for the Russian war in 1854, should be replaced by two others early in 1857; and that at the same time two additional regiments of Queen's foot should be sent out, to relieve the 10th and 29th, which had been in India ever since 1842. The year of the mutiny, 1857, witnessed the completion of the military arrangement planned in 1856, and the organisation of others arising out of the complicated state of affairs in Persia, China, and India. About the middle of February, the second division of the army intended for the Persian expedition left Bombay, making, with the first division, a force of about 12,000 men under the command of Sir James Outram. About 4000 of that number were European troops* Viscount Canning, speculating on the probability that a third division would be needed, pointed out that India could not possibly supply it ; and that it would be necessary that the home government shoidd send out, not only the four regiments already agreed on, but three others in addition, and that the 10th and 29th regiments should not return to Europe so early as had been planned. There was another complication, arising out of the Chinese war ; the 82d and 90th foot, intended to replace the two regiments withdrawn from India during the Crimean war, were now despatched to the Chinese seas instead of to India ; and the directors had to make application for two others. Early in May, before any troubles in India were known to the authorities in London, it was arranged that the plan of 1856 should be renewed two Queen's regiments to be sent out to replace those withdrawn for the Crimean war ; and two others to relieve the 10th and 29th bringing the royal infantry in India to the usual number of twenty-four regiments. Of these four regiments, * First Division, under Major-general Stalker- Natives, . . . . ssso Europeans, ..... 2270 Second Divisioti, under Brigadier-general Ilavelock Natives 4370 Europeans, ..... 1770 CH0 two were to proceed to Calcutta, one to Madras, and one to Kurachec. They were to consist of the 7th Fusiliers, the 88th and 90th foot, and the 3d battalion of the Rifle Brigade. It was also planned that the 2d and 3d Dragoons should go out to India to relieve the 9th Lancers aud 14th Dragoons. Furthermore, it was arranged that these six regiments should take their departure from England in June and July, so as to arrive in India at a favourable season of the year ; and that with them should go out drafts from Chatham, in number sufficient to complete the regiments already in India up to their regular established strength. So far as concerned Persia, the pro- posed third division was not necessary ; the Shah assented to terms which fortunately for British India not only rendered this increased force unnecessary, but set free the two divisions already sent. Such was the state of the European element in the Indian army at, and some time before, the commencement of the mutiny. It was on the 27th of June, we have said, that the bad news from Meerut reached London. Two days after- wards, the Court of Directors ordered officers at home on furlough or sick-leave to return to their regiments forthwith, so far as health would permit. They also made a requisition to the government for four full regiments of infantry, in addition to those already decided on ; to be returned, or replaced by other four, when the mutiny should be ended. On the 1st of July shewing thereby the importance attached to the subject the govern- ment announced, not only its acquiescence in the demand, but the numbers or designations of the regiments marked out namely, the 19th, 38th, and 79th foot, and the 1st battalion of the 1st foot. It was also agreed to that the four regiments intended to have been relieved namely, the 10th and 29th foot, and the 9th and 14th Dragoons should not be relieved at present, but that, on the contrary, drafts should go out to reinforce them. Another mail arrived, making known further disasters ; whereupon the directors on the 14th of July made another application to government for six more regiments of infantry, and eight com- panies of royal artillery the artillerymen to be sent out from England, the horses from the Cape of Good Hope, and the guns and ammunition to be provided in India itself. Two days afterwards so urgent did the necessity appear the government named the six regiments which should be sent out in compliance with this requisition namely, the 20th, 34th, 42d, 54th, and 97th foot, and the 2d battalion of the Rifle Brigade ; together with two troops of horse-artillery, and six companies of royal (foot) artillery. Summing up all these arrangements, therefore, we find the following result : Two regiments of royal infantry 7th Fusiliei's and 88th foot were to go to India, to replace two borrowed or with- drawn from the Company in 1854 ; two others the 90th foot and the 3d battalion of the Rifle PREPARATIONS : CALCUTTA AND LONDON. 221 Brigade to relieve the 10th ami 29th foot, and two regiments of cavalry the 2d and 3d Dragoons to relieve the 9th Lancers and 14th Dragoons, but the four relieved regiments not to return till the mutiny should be quelled ; four regiments of infantry the 19th, 38th, and 79th foot, and the 1st battalion of the 1st foot to go out in consequence of the bad news received from India at the end of June ; six: regiment* of infantry the 20th, 34th, iSd, o4th, 97th, and 2d battalion of the Rifle Brigade together with several troops and com- panies of artillery, were to go out in consequence of the still more disastrous news received in the middle of July; drafts wen to go out to bring up to the full strength the whole of the Queen's regiments in India; and, lastly, recruits were to go out, to bring up to the full complement the whole of the European regiments belonging to the Company. These various augmentations to the strength of armed Buropeani in India amounted . to little less than twenty-four thousand men, all placed under orders by the middle of July. Various as bearing on the military arrangements for India, took place in the two - of parliament. Lord Ellenborough fre- quently recommended the embodiment of the militia and the calling out of the yeomanry, in order that England might not be left defen by sending a very strong royal army to India. The Karl of Hardwiekc 1 that all the troops at Aldershott camp, about sixteen thousand in Bomber, should at once be sent off to India. and other members of both I on the perilous position of India; whereas the ministers, in their speeches if not in their pro- ceedin i the mutiny as of no very serious importance. Differences of opinion existed to a most remarkable extent ; but the president of the Board of Control, Mr Vernon Smith, subjected himself at a later period to very severe criticism, on account of the boldness of the assertions made, or the extent of the ignorance displayed, in the earlier i the mutiny. When the news from Ifeerut and Delhi arrived, he said in the House of Commons : ' I hope that the House will not be carried away by any notion that avc exag- gerate the danger because we have determined upon sending out these troops. It is a measure of security .alone with respect to the danger to be apprehended. I cannot agree with the right honourable gentlemen (Mr Disraeli) that our Indian empire is imperiled by the present dis- aster. I say that our Indian empire is not imperiled; and I hope that in a short time the disaster, dismal as it is. will be effectually sup- pressed by the j> '/ in that country Luckily the outrage has taken place .at Delhi ; is notorious that that place may he easily 'tided; so that if we could not reduce it by force, avc could by famine Unfor- tunately, the mail left on the 28th of May ; and I cannot, therefore, apprise; the House that the fort of Delhi has been razed to the ground ; but I hope that ample retribution has by this time been inflicted on the mutineers.' That other persons, military as well as civil, felt the mutiny to be a wdiolly unexpected phenomenon, is true ; but this minister obviously erred by his posi- tive assertions ; his idea of ' easily surrounding' a walled city seven miles in circuit was prepos- terous ; and there was displayed an unpardonable ignorance of the state of the armies in that country in the further assertion that ' there are troops in India equal to any emergency.' A question of singular interest and of great importance arose how should the reinforcements of troops be sent to India ? But before entering on this, it will be well to notice the arrangements made for providing a commander for them wdien they should reach their destination. As soon as it was known in London, early in July, that General Anson was dead, the government appointed Sir Colin Campbell as his successor. The provisional appointment of Sir Patrick Grant as commander of the forces in India was approved as a judicious step on the part of the Calcutta government ; but, rightly or wrongly, the permanent appointment to that high office had come to be considered a ministerial privilege in London; and thus Sir Colin was sent out to supersede Sir Patrick. For- tunately, the general selected carried with him the trust and admiration of all parties. For a time, it is true, there was a disposition to foster a Campbell party and a Grant party among newspaper writers. One would contend that Sir Colin, though a brave and good soldier, and without a superior in com- mand of a brigade, had nevertheless been without opport u nity of shewing those powers of combina- tion necessary for the suppression of a wide-spread mutiny, perhaps the rcconquest of an immense empire ; whereas Sir Patrick was just the man for the occasion, possessing the very experience, temper, and other qualities for dealing with the native soldiers. On the other hand, it was con- tended that Campbell was something more than a mere general of brigade, having successfully commanded masses of troops equal in extent to armies during the Punjaub war; whereas Grant, being by professional education and military sympathies a Bengal officer although afterwards commander at Madras had imbibed that general leaning towards the sepoys which rendered such officers unfit to deal sternly with them in time of disaffection. Happily, this controversy soon came to an end; Sir Colin was pronounced by the public verdict to be the right man, without any dis- paragement to Sir Patrick ; and it was judiciously suL r _ r ested by the Earl of Ellenborough that the last-named general might, with great advantage to the state, be made a military member of the supreme council at Calcutta, to advise the gover- nor-general on army and military subjects. The nation recognised in Sir Colin the soldierly promptness which had distinguished Wellington and Napier, and which he illustrated in the fol- lowing way: On the morning of Saturday the 11th 222 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. of July, the news of General Anson's death reached London ; at two o'clock on the same day a cabinet council was held; immediately after the council an interview took place between the minister of war and the commander of the forces ; consequent on this interview, Sir Colin Campbell was offered the post of commander-in-chief in India ; he accepted it ; he was asked how soon he could take his departure ; his reply was ' To-morrow ;' and, true to his word, he left England on the Sunday evening taking very little with him but the clothes on his back. Men felt that there would be no unnecessary amount of ' circumlocution ' in the proceedings of such a general a veteran who had been an officer in the army forty-nine years ; and who, during that long period, had served in the Walcheren expedition ; then in the Peninsular battles and sieges of Vimieira, Corunna, Barossa, Vitoria, San Sebastian, and Bidassoa ; then in North America ; then in the West Indies ; then in the first Chinese war ; then in the second Sikh war ; and lastly in the Crimea. Sir Colin Campbell, as a passenger remarkably free from luggage and baggage of every kind, was able to take advantage of the quickest route to India by rail to Folkestone, steam to Boulogne, rail to Marseille, steam to Alexandria, rail and other means to Suez, and thence steam to Cal- cutta. Whether the troops could take advantage of this or any other kind of swift conveyance, was a question whereon public authorities and public advisers soon found themselves at variance. There were four projects to proceed through France to Alexandria and Suez; to reach Alexandria by sea from Southampton ; to steam from England to Calcutta round the Cape of Good Hope ; and to take this last-named route by sailing-ships instead of steamers. A few words may usefully be said on each of these four plans. As the overland route through France is the quickest, some advisers urged that it would there- fore be the best ; but this was by no means a necessary inference. It would require an immense amount of changing and shifting. Thrice would the men of the various regiments have to enter railway-trains at London or some other English station, at Boulogne, and at Alexandria perhaps also a fourth time at Paris; thrice would they have to leave railway-trains at Folkestone, at Marseille, and at Cairo or some other place in Egypt ; thrice would they have to embark in steamers at Folkestone, at Marseille, and at Suez ; and thrice would they have to disembark at Boulogne, at Alexandria, and at Calcutta. The difficulties incidental to these many changes would be very great, although of course not insuperable. There would, in addition, be involved a delicate international question touching the passage of large bodies of troops through the territories of another sovereign. The Emperor of France, at a time of friendly alliance, -would possibly have given the requisite permission ; but other considerations would also have weight ; and it is, on the whole, not surprising that the route through France was left unattempted. It does not follow, however, from difficulties in the French route, that the sea-route to Alexandria would be unavailable ; on the contrary, that mode of transit found many advocates. The distance from Southampton to Alexandria is about three thousand miles ; and this distance could obviously be traversed, in a number of days easy of esti- mate, by a steamer requiring no transhipment of cargo. Another steamer would make the voyage from Suez to Calcutta; and an overland passage through Egypt would complete the route. This is a much shorter route to Calcutta than that vid the Cape of Good Hope, in the ratio of about eight thousand miles to twelve thousand ; it is adopted for the heavy portion of the India mail ; and many persons thought it might well be adopted also for the transmission of troops. The ministers in parliament, however, explained their reasons for [objecting to this route. These objections referred principally to steamers and coal, of which there were no more in the Indian seas than were necessary for the mail service. The matter was argued thus : The first mail from England, after the news of the mutiny, left on the 10th of July ; it would reach Bombay about the 10th of August ; a return mail would start from Bombay on the 16th of August, describing the arrangements made for receiving at Suez any troops sent by the Egyptian route ; that letter would reach London about the 16th of September ; and if troops were sent off immediately, with everything prepared, they could not have reached India till towards the end of October four months after the receipt of the first disastrous news from Meerut. A vessel by the Cape route, if sent off at once, would reach as soon. This argument depended Avholly on the assumption that it would be necessary to spend three months in sending and receiving messages, before the troops could safely be started off from Southampton to Alexandria. Some of those who differed from the government on this point admitted that only a small number of troops could be conveyed by this route, owing to the unfinished state of the land-conveyance from Alexandria to Suez.* The thirty miles of sandy desert to be traversed, either by marching or in vehicles, would necessarily entail much difficulty and confusion if the number of troops were large, especially as neither the isthmus nor its railway belonged to England. Then, again, there are questions concerning calms, storms, monsoons, trade-winds, shoals, and coral reefs, which were warmly discussed by the advocates of different systems ; some of whom contended that the Red Sea cannot safely be depended on by ship-loads * In August 1857, of the whole railway distance marked out from Alexandria through Cairo to Suez, 205 miles in length, about 175 miles were finished namely, from Alexandria to the crossing of the Nile, 65 miles ; from the crossing of the Nile to Cairo, 65 miles ; from Cairo towards Suez, 45 miles. The remainder of the journey consisted of 30 miles of sandy desert, not at that timo provided with a railway, hut traversed by omnibuses or vans. PREPARATIONS : CALCUTTA AND LONDON. 223 of troops during the second half of the year ; while others argued that the dangers of the route are very slight. On the one side, it was represented that, by adopting the Suez route, there would be many changes in the modes of travel, many sources of confusion wherever those changes were made, many uncertainties whether there would be steamers ready at Suez, many doubts about the supply of coal at Aden and elsewhere, many perils of wreck in and near the Red Sea, much deterioration of health to the troops during the hot weather in that region, and much embar- ent felt by Viscount Canning if the t: came to him faster than he could transfer them up the country. Certain of these government doubts were afterwards admitted to be well founded ; others were shewn to be erroneous ; and though a few regiments were sent by the Suez route later in the year, it became pretty generally admitted, that if only one or two regiments had taken that route earfy the benefit to India would have been very great, and the diffi- culties not more than might have been easily conquered. H ext for consideration was the Cape route. Those who admitted that the overland journey was suited only for a small body of troops, and not for an army of thirty thousand men, had yet to settle whether sailing-ships or steamers were best fitted for this service. Iu some quarters it was urged : ' Employ our screw war-steamers; we are at peace in Europe, and can send our soldiers quickly by this means to India, without the expense of charter- ing steamers belonging to companies or private is. If sufficient bounties are offered, in one week we could obtain seamen enough to man twenty war-steamers. Take the main and lower- deck guns out of the ships ; place fifteen hundred troops in each of the large screw line-of-battle ships ; and man each ship with half the war complement, the soldiers themselves serving as marines.' To this it was replied that line-of-battle ships would be dearer rather than cheaper than chartered vessels, because they could not lessen the e by back-cargoes. Sir Charles Napier con- 1, moreover, that screw war-steamers could not be fitted out as troop-ships in less than three months after the order was given ; and that great difficulty would be found in raising men for them. The government was influenced by these or similar lerations ; for no troops were sent out in war- Is possibly owing to a prudential wish to keep all war-ships ready for warlike exigent There remained, lastly, the question whether, the Cape route being adopted, it would be better to hire steam-ships or Failing-ships for conveying l to India. Eager inquiries on this question made in parliament soon after the news of the outbreak arrived. The ministers, in reference to the superiority of steamers over sailing-ships, i that, from the difficulty in procuring steamers of the requisite kind, and the delay caused by the number of intermediate points at which they would have to touch for coal, steamers would probably not reach the Indian ports more quickly than sailing-ships. Lord Ellenborough admitted that, when he was in India, sailing-vessels were found better than steamers for India voyages in the autumnal half of the year; but this left untouched the important improvements effected in steam-navigation during the intervening period of fourteen years. The battle was much contested. Sir Charles "Wood, First Lord of the Admiralty, pointed out that fast sailing-ships often went from England to Calcutta in 90 to 100 days; that auxiliary screws had been known to take from 90 to 120 days ; and therefore that Ave were not certain of quicker voyages by steam than by sail, even (which was doubtful) if coal enough were procurable at the Cape. This roused the advocates of steaming, Avho complained that the minister had compared quick sailing-ships with slow steamers. Mr Lindsey asserted that the average duration of twenty-two sail- voyages was 132 days; and that the steam-average would not exceed 94 days. Another authority averred that the average of ninety-eight sail-voyages was 130 days; and that of seven screw-steam voyages, 93 days. Such were a few of the points brought under consideration, in connection with the schemes for sending troops to India. We mention them here, because they bore intimately on the mutiny and its htetorj. A compromise between the various schemes was effected by the government, in this way : The ten thousand troops intended to be sent out, as reinforcements, reliefs, and recruits, be/ore the news of the disasters reached England, despatched as originally intended, in ordin- ary sailing-vessels ; the four thousand additional troops, immediately applied for by the Company, were despatched, half in screw-steamers, and half in fast-sailing clippers; while the six thousand supplied on a still later requisition were sent almost wholly in steamers. It was not xmtil late in the year, when the slowness of most of the voyages had been made manifest, that the supe- riority of steaming became unquestionable pro- vided the various coal-depots could be kept well applied. Setting aside all further controversy as to the best mode of transit, the activity of the movements was unquestionable. In May and June few of the regiments and ships were ready, and therefore few only were despatched ; but after that the rapidity was something remark- able. In July more than thirty troop-laden ships departed from our shores, carrying numbers varying from 131 to 438 soldiers each. August was a still more busy month, in relation both to the number of ships and the average freight of each ; there being forty troop-laden ships, carrying from 208 to 1057 soldiers each. In July not a single steam-ship was included in the number ; but in August nearly half were steamers. The most remarkable shipments were those in the James Baines clipper sailing-ship (1037 men of the 42d and 92d foot), the Champion of the Seas 224 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. clipper (1032 men of the 42d and 20th foot) and the Great Britain screw-steamer (1057 men of the 8th Hussars and 17th Lancers. In these three splendid ships the troops were conveyed with a degree of comfort rarely if ever before attained in such service. While the necessary arrangements were in progress for shipping off the twenty-four thousand men chosen by the middle of July, other plans were being organised for despatching further regiments; insomuch that, by the end of the year, very nearly forty thousand men had been sent off to the scene of mutiny. In what order and at what times these troops reached their destination, may usefully be noted in a later page. Towards the close of the year the Suez route was adopted for a few regiments ; and the rapidity of passage was such as to lead to much expression of regret that that route had not been adopted earlier although an opinion continued to prevail on the part of the government and the Company that it would not have been practicable to send the bulk of the army by that means. Another important question arose during the year, how these troops ought to be clothed, and their health secured. English soldiers complain of their tightly buttoned and buckled garments in hot weather, even in an English climate; but in an Indian summer the oppression of such clothing is very grievous ; and much anxiety was manifested, when it became known that thirty or forty thou- sand troops were to set out for the East, as to the dress to be adopted. The War-office issued a memorandum on the subject, chiefly with the view of allaying public anxiety;* but it became afterwards known that, owing to blunders and accidents similar to those which so disastrously affected the Crimean army, the light clothing, even if sufficient in quantity, was not in the right place at the right time ; and our gallant men were only kept from complaining by their excitement at the work to be done. It must at the same time be admitted that, owing to the slowness of the voyages, the majority of the reinforcements did not land in India till the intense heat of summer had passed. In reference to the important question of the health of the troops, Dr James Harrison, of the Com- * ' According to existing regulations of some years' standing, every soldier on his arrival in India is provided with the following articles of clothing, in addition to those which compose his kit in this country : ' Mounted Men. 4 white jackets, 6 pair of white overalls, 2 pair of Settringee overalls, 6 shirts, 4 pair of cotton socks, 1 pair of white braces. 'Foot-soldiers. 4 white jackets, 1 pair of English summer trousers, 5 pair of white trousers, 5 white shirts, 2 check shirts, 1 pair of white braces. These articles are not supplied in this country, but form a part of the soldier's necessaries on his arrival in India, and are com- posed of materials made on the spot, and best suited to the climate. 'During his stay in India, China, Ceylon, and at other hot stations, he is provided with a tunic and shell-jacket in alternate years; and in the year in which the tunic is not issued, the differ- ence in the value of the two articles is paid to the soldier, to be expended (by the officer commanding) for his benefit in any articles suited to the climate of the station. ' The force recently sent out to China and India has been provided with white cotton helmet and forage-cap covers. 'Any quantity of light clothing for troops can be procured on the spot in India at the shortest notice.' pony's service, drew up a series of rules or sugges- tions, for the use of officers in the management of their troops. These rules, which received the approval of Sir Colin Campbell, bore relation to the hours of marching ; the length of each march ; the kind of beverage best for the soldier before starting ; the marching-dress in hot weather ; the precautions against sitting or lying in wet clothes ; the necessity for bathing ; the best choice of food and the best mode of cooking ; the stimulants and beverages, er of troops, European and native, in nil the military is of India, on the day when the mutiny commenced : tit. It will 1 convenient to present here a second tabulation on a wholly different basis giving the designa- tions of the regiments instead of the numbers of men, and a which they were cantoned or barracked. Tins will ho useful tor pur- poses of reference, in relation to the gradual annihilation of tani army. The former table applied to resent will apply to a date as near this as I dia Register will permit namely, while the royal troops in India will be for the 1st of May a ; proximation for the present purpose. A sources of error may usefully be pointed out .c or other of the Imli were at all times on to station ; and these movements may w cases render it doubtful whether a particular corps had not left a particular station on the day named. 2. The station named is that of the head-qrarters and the bulk of I d : detachments may hare been at The Persian and Chinese wars disturbed the distribution of troops belonging to the respective pre- sidencies. 4. The disarming and disbanding at Karrackpore and Berhampore are not taken into account ; for they were not known iu London at the time of compiling the official list. 5. Tl n enumeration of royal uts in India, did not always note correctly the stations nt a particular time. These sources of error, however, will not be considerable in amount. AMI STATIONS OK HKSUAI. ADMY HAY 1857. l.it.u. Axsos, Commander-in-chief. European Cavalry. 6th Carabinier.- Queen's) 9th Lancers -riinent, 2d M 4th 5th . Native Regular Cavalry. Mhow. Cawnporc. Umballa. Peshawur. 6th Regiment, 7th nth . Kith . Mccrut. Umballa. Nowgon:?. Lucknow. I Bcalkote. Fcrezporc. Irregular and Loral Caralry. al Ir. C , .fclnm. I M H.ngal Ir. C, 2d r Goordasporc. | 4th Ilausi. Irregular and Local 5th Bengal Ir. C, Sonthal. 6th Moultan. 7th Peshawur. Uth Sultanporc. Mk ' Hosheapore. K'th Goordaspore. 11 th Berhampore. 1st Gwalior Contingent Cavalry, 2d t jaub Cavalry, 2d ... 3d 4th . . 5th 1st Oudc Irregular Cavalry, M t " 3d * ' a Nagpoor Irregular Cavalry, Cavalry. Continued. 12th Bengal Ir. C, Segowlie. 13th Htli l.'.th Kith 17th 18th European Infantry. 8th Ft. (Qun.'s), Cawnporc. loth 24 th 27th 29th 32d 35th 52d Wuzeerabad. Sealkotc. i Thayet Mhow. Kussowlie. Calcutta. Lucknow. 1st Europeans (East India Company's), 2d 3d 53d Ft. (Qun.'s), Goth 61st 70th 75th 81st * 87th Barcilly. .Ihausi. Oude. Sewn! Pindee. Bhum ihibte Pe-hawur. Gwalior. Augur. Dera Ismael. * Bunnoo. Kohat. Asnce. Secrora. Lucknow. Ptrtabghur. Taklee. Pugshai. Jullundur. Wuzeerabad. Ferocpore. itawul Pindee. Lahore. Peshawur. Dngfhai Umballa. Agra. 1st Kegimcnt 2d* 3d 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th 11th 12th ' 13th 14th 15th 16th* i 17th 18th Native Regular Infantry. Cawnporc. Barrackporc. Phillour. Noorpore. Umballa. Allahabad. Dinapoor. Allygurh. Futtegliur. Allahabad. {Nowgong and .Ihansi. Lucknow. Moultan. Meerut. Mcean Mccr. Goruckpore. Barcilly. 20th * Mccrut. 21st a Peshawur. 22d Fyzahad. 2.'id Mhow. 24th * Peshawur. 25th ii Thayet Mhow. ma n Mcean Mecr. 27th 1 Peshawur. JHth 9 Shahjehanpoor mk V Jullundur. II A qra. 31st Barrackpore. 32d f Sonthal. 33d Hosheapore. 34 th f Barrackpore. sets Sealkote. 36th t f .lullundur. 37th t Benares. Grenadiers. + Volunteers. 228 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. Native Regular Infantry. Continued. 38th* 39th* 40th* 41st 42d 43d 44th 45th 46th 47th* 48th 49 th 50 th 51st 52d 53d 54th 55th 56 th Regiment, Delhi. Jelum. Dinapoor. Seetapoor. Saugor. Barrackpoi-e. Agra. Ferozpore. Sealkote. Prome. Lucknow. Meean Meer. Nagode. Peshawur. Jubbulpoor. Cawnpore. Delhi. Nowsherah. Cawnpore. 57th Regiment, 58th 59th 60th Gist n 62d n 63d n 64th n 65th" a 66th t 67th* n 68th a 69th 70th a 71st 72d 73d 74th Irregular and Local Infantry. 1st Oude Irregular Infantry, 2d a i> it .... 3d it it ii ... 4th n ii a .... 5th ii ii a . . 6th ii ii a 7th // ii ii 8th ;/ ii ii 9th it ii a 10th ii ii ii 1st Gwalior Contingent Infantry, 2d it n a . 3d // it a 4th * it a 5th n n it 6th ii it n . 7th it a it . . 1st Punjaub Infantry, 2d it it .... 3d it it ... 4th it it .... fith // it ... 6th a it .... 1st Sikh Infantry, .... 2d ii it 3d ii it .... 4th n ii Ferozpore. Rawul Pindec. Umritsir. Umballa. Jullundur. Moultan. Barrackporc. Peshawur. Dinapoor. Alinora. i Etawah. | Minpooree. Bareilly. Moultan. Barrackporc. Lucknow. Agra. Jumalpore. Cawnpore. Persadpore. Secrora. Gonda. Lucknow. Durriabad. Fyzabad. Lucknow. Sultanpore. Seetapoor. Mullaong. 1st Nagpoor Irregular Infantry, 2d it ,n a 3d it ii n Regiment of Guides (foot and horse), ii of Kelat-i-Ghilzi, n of Loodianah (Sikhs), . it of Ferozpore (Sikhs), Ramgurh Light Infantry, Hill Rangers, .... Nusserree Rifles, .... Pegu Light Infantry, . . Sirmoor Rifles, .... Kumaon Battalion, . . . . Assam Light Infantry, 1st, . it it ii , 2d, Mhairwarra Battalion, . Aracan Battalion, . . . Hurrianah Light Infantry, . Silhet Light Infantry, Malwah Bheel Corps, . Mewar Bheel Corps, . Sebundee Corps, .... Gwalior. Seepree. Lullutporc. Augur. Kohat. Dera Ghazi. Bunnoo. Dera Ismael. Hazara. Kangra. Khan. Umballa. Seetabuldee. Chandah. Raypoor. Peshawur. Shubkuddur. Benares. Mirzapore. Dorunda. Bhagulpore. Simla. Myari Owng. Almora. Deyra. Debroogurh. Gowhatti. Be war. Akyab. Hansi. Cberrah. Sirdarpore. Khairwarah. DarjeeUng. Artillery, Engineers, Sappers and Miners. Horse-artillery, 1st Brigade : 3 European Troops. 2 Native Troops. it ii 2d Brigade : 3 European Troops. 1 Native Troop. // it 3d Brigade : 3 European Troops. 1 Native Troop. Foot-artillery, . . 6 European Battalions. (4 Companies each.) n it 3 Native Battalions. (6 Companies each.) Engineers, Sappers and Miners, 8 Companies ,!- Head -quarters : Mecrut. Jullundur. Peshawur. Umballa. Cawnpore. Sealkote. Dumdum. Head-quarter.: Roorkee. Mixed Corps Cavalry, Infantry, and Artillery. Shekhawuttie Battalion, Midnapore. Jhodpore Legion, Erinpoora. Malwah Contingent, Mehidpore. Bhopal ii Sehore. Kotah it ...... Kurrowlee. REGIMENTS AND STATIONS OF MADRAS ARMY MAY 1857. Sir Patrick Gram', Commander-in-chief. European Cavalry. 12th Lancers (Queen's), Madras. Native Cavalry. 1st Madras Light Cavalry, Trichinopoly. 2d it it ii Sholapore. 3d it it it .... Bangalore. 4th a n ii Kamptee. 5th a it it .... Bellary. 6th it a a Jaulnah. 7th a a it .... Secunderabad. 8th n a it Bangalore. European Infantry. 74th Foot (Queen's), . . Madras. 84th it Burmah.* 1st Europeans (East India Company's), . . [Persia]. 2d it it it it ... Burmah. 3d it it it it . . Secunderabad. Native I if an try. 1st Regiment,! Secunderabad. 27th Regiment, Vellore. 2d ii Quilon. 28th it Hosungabad. 3d it Cananore. 29th it Penang. 4th it Burmah. 30th it Cuddapah. 5th f it Berhampore. 31st it Vizianagram. 6th it Burmah. 32d it Kamptee. 7th it Moulmein. 33d it it 8th it Rangoon. 34th it Trichinopoly. 9th it Samulcottah. 35th it Hurryhur. 10th it Rangoon. 36th t it Madras. 11th it Cananore. 37 th J it Burmah. 12th it Madras. 38tht it Singapore. 13th it Moulmein. 39th Madras. 14th it Singapore. 40th it Cuttack. 15th it Burmah. 41st it Secunderabad 16th | a Man galore. 42d it it 17th it Madras. 43d it Vizagapatam. 18lh it a 44th it Burmah. 19th it Bangalore. 45th it Rangoon. 20th it French Rocks. 46th it Henzana. 21st it Paulghaut. 47th ' it Bellary. 22d it Secunderabad. 48th it Moulmein. 23d it Russelcondah. 49tht it Secunderabad 24tht it Secunderabad. 50th it Bangalore 25th it Trichinopoly. 51st it Pallamcottau. 26th f it Kamptee. 52d a Mercara. Artillery, Engineers, Sappers and Miners. Horse-artillery, 4 European Troops. ) a " 2 Native Troops. Head-quarters : Foot-artillery, 4 European Battalions, i St Thomas's Mount, (4 Companies each.) f Bangalore, Kamptee, it a 1 Native Battalion. I Saugor, Secunderabad. (6 Companies.) J Engineers, .... Head-quarters : Fort St George. Sappers and Miners, . . Head-quarters: Dowlaishwci am. REGIMENTS AND STATIONS OF BOMBAY ARMY MAY 1857. Sir Henry Somerset, Commander-in-chief. European Cavalry. 11th Light Dragoons (Queen's) Kiikee. Native Regular Cavalry. 1st Lancers, Nuseerabad. 2d Light Cavalry Hajeote. 3d ii a [Persia.] Nalive Irregular Cavalry. 1st Sinde Irregular Horse Jacobabad. 2d it it a .... . Jacobabad. Poonah Irregular Horse, [Persia.] Gujerat Irregular Horse Ahmcdahad. South Mahratta Irregular Horse, .... [Persia.] Cutch Irregular Horse Bhooj. * Volunteers. t Goorkhas. Removed to Calcutta. + Rifles. X Grenadiers. PREPARATIONS : CALCUTTA AND LONDON. 229 European Infantry. 64th Foot (Queen's) "Sth u n 86th it . 1st Fusiliers (East India Company's), . 2d Light Infantry (East India Company's), 3d ii ii it i' . 1st Regiment,* Baroda. Kative Regular Infantry. 2d 3d 4thf Sth Gth 7th Sth 9th 10th 11th 12th IStl. 14th nth Ahmedabad. Sholapore. [Persia.] Bombay. Poonab*. Baroda. Surat. Nusecrabad. Bombay. Dmm, liydrabad. Kiirachee. Bombay. 16th Itegimcnt, 17th 18th " 19th 20th 21st Itt 23d 24th ttta Mtk '.'7tli " Mtb . [Persia.] Poonah. . Kurachce. Kurachee. . [Persia.] Poonah. Shikarpore. Bhooj. [Aden.] Mulligaum. [ Persia. 1 Neemucn. S.itara. [Persia.] Ahmednuggnr. Ahmedabad. i lVisi.i. >re. Doarvar. Belgaum. Native Irregular Infantry. 1st Belooch Battalion Kurachee. 2d a I Persia.] Khandeish Bheel Corps, ...,', Dhurrungaum. Rutnagherry Rangers Rutnaglierry. Sawunt Waree Corps, Sawunt Waree. Satara Local Corps Satara. Kolapore Infantry Corps Kolapore. Artillery, Engineers, Sappers and Miners. Horse-artillery, 1 European Brigade. "\ (4 Troops.) * Foot-artillery, 2 European Battalions. I (4 Companies each.' " 2 Native Battalions. (6 Companies each.) as. '' 1. J Head-quarters : Bombay. Ahmedabad. Ahmednuggur. Engineers, Sappers and Miners, Head-quarters : Bombay, Head-quarters : Poonah and Aden. 1 Rifles. * The first troop of horse-artillery was called Leslie's Troop. Jumma Musjid, Agra. Mosque built by Shah Jehan in 1C06. CHAPTER XIV. THE SIEGE OF DELHI: JUNE AND JULY. jHILE these varied scenes were being presented ; while sepoy regiments were revolting throughout the whole breadth of Northern India, and a handful of British troops was painfully toiling to. control them ; while Henry Lawrence was struggling, and struggling even to death, to main- tain his position in Oude ; while John Lawrence was sagaciously managing the half- wild Punjaub at a troublous time ; while "Wheeler at Cawnpore, and Colvin at Agra, were beset in the very thick of the mutineers ; while Neill and Havelock were advancing up the Jumna; while Canning was doing his best at Calcutta, Harris and Elphinstone at Madras and Bombay, and the impei'ial government at home, to meet the trying- difficulties with a determined front while all this was doing, Delhi was the scene of a continuous series of operations. Every eye was turned towards that place. The British felt that there was no security for their power in India till Delhi was retaken ; the insurgents knew that they had a rally- ing-point for all their disaffected countrymen, so long as the Mogul city was theirs ; and hence bands of armed men were attracted thither by antag- onistic motives. Although the real siege did not commence till many weary weeks had passed, the plan and preparations for it must be dated from the very day when the startling news spread over India that Delhi had been seized by rebel- lious sepoj's, under the auspices of the decrepit, dethroned, debauched representative of the Moguls. It was, as we have already seen (p. 70), on the morning of Monday the 11th of May, that the 11th and 20th regiments Bengal native infantry, and the 3d Bengal cavalry, arrived at Delhi after a night-march from Meerut, where they had mutinied on the preceding evening. At Delhi, we have also seen, those mutineers were joined by the 38th, 54th, and 74th native infantry. It was on that same 11th of May that evening saw the six mutinous regiments masters of the imperial city ; and the English officers and residents, their wives and children, wanderers through jungles and over streams and rivers. What occurred within Delhi on the subsequent days is imperfectly known ; the few Europeans who could not or did not escape were in hiding ; and scanty notices only have ever come to light from those or other sources. A Lahore newspaper, three or four months after- wards, gave a narrative prepared by a native, who was within Delhi from the 21st of May to the 23d of June. Arriving ten days after the mutiny, he found the six regiments occupying the Selimgurh and Mohtabagh, but free to roam over the city ; where the sepoys and sowars, aided by the rabble of the place, plundered the better houses and shops, stole horses from those who possessed them, ' looted ' the passengers who crossed the Jumna by the bridge of boats, and fought with each other for the property which the fleeing British families had left behind them. After a few days, something like order Avas restored, by leaders who assumed command in the name of the King of Delhi. This was all the more necessary when new arrivals of insurgent troops took place, from Allygurh, Minpooree, Agra, Muttra, Hansi, Hissar, Umballa, Jullundur, Nuseerabad, and other places. The mutineers did not, at any time, afford proof that they were really well commanded; but still there toas command, and the defence of the city was arranged on a definite plan. As at Sebastopol, so at Delhi ; the longer the besiegers delayed their operations, the greater became the number of defenders within the place, and the stronger the defence-works. It must be remembered, in tracing the history of the siege of Delhi, that every soldier necessary for forming the siege-army had to be brought from distant spots. The cantonment outside the city Avas wholly in the hands of the rebels; and not a British soldier remained in arms in or near the place. Mr Colvin at Agra speedily heard the news, but he had no troops to send for the recapture. General Hewett had a British force at Meerut unskilfully handled, as many persons thought and still think; and it remained to be seen what arrangements the commander-in-chief could make to render this and other forces THE SIEGE OF DELHI : JUNE AND JULY. 231 available for the reconquest of the important city. Major-general Sir Henry Barnard was the medium of communication on this occasion. Being stationed at Umballa, in command of the Sirhind military division, he received telegraphic messages on the 11th of May from Meerut and Delhi, announcing the disasters at those places. lie immediately despatched his aid-de-camp to Simla, to point out the urgent need for General Anson's presence on the plains instead of among the hills. Anson, hearing this news on the 1 2th, first thought about his troops, and then about his own movements. Knowing well the extreme paucity of European regiments in the Delhi and Agra districts, and in all the region thence east- ward to Calcutta, he saw that any available force to recover possession of Delhi must come chiefly from Sirhind and the Funjaub. Many regiments were at the time at the hill-stations of Simla, Dngshai, Knssowlie, Deyrah Dhoon, Subathoo, where the\' were posted during a time of peace in a healthy temperate region ; but now they had to descend from their sanitaria to take part in stern operations in the plains. The commander-in-chief sent instant orders to trans- fer the Queen's 75th foot from Kussowlie to Umballa, the 1st and 2d Bengal Europeans from Dngshai to Umballa, the Sirmoor battalion from Deyrah Dhoon to Meerut, two companies of the Queen's 8th foot from Jullundur to Fhillour, and two companies of the Queen's 81st foot, together with one company of European artillery, from Lahore to Umntsir. These orders given, General Anson himself left Simla on the even- ing of the 14th, and arrived at Umballa early on the 16th. Before he started, he issued the proclamation already adverted to, announcing to the troops of the native army generally that no cartridges would be brought into use against the conscientious wishes of the soldiery ; aud after he arrived at Umballa, fearing that his proclamation had not been strong enough, ho issued another, to the effect that no new cartridges whatever should rved out thereby, as he hoped, putting an end to all fear concerning objectionable lubricating substances being used ; for he was not aware how largely hypocrisy was mixed up with sincerity in the native scruples on this point. Anson and Barnard, when together at Umballa, had to measure well the forces available to them. The Umballa magazines were nearly empty of stores' and ammunition ; the artillery wagons were in the depot at Fhillour ; the medical officers dreaded the heat for troops to move in such a season ; and the commissariat was ill supplied with vehicles and beasts of burden and draught. The only effectual course was found to be, that of bringing small detachments from many different stations ; and this system was in active progress daring the week following Anson's arrival at Umballa. On the lGth, troops came into that place from Phillour and Subathoo. On the 17th arrived three European regiments from the Hills,* which were shortly to be strengthened by artillery from Fhillour. The prospect was not altogether a cheering one, for two of the regiments at the station were Bengal native troops (the 5th and 60th), on whose fidelity only slight reliance could be placed at such a critical period. In order that no time might be lost in forming the nucleus of a force for Delhi, some of the troops were despatched that same night ; comprising one wing of a Euro- pean regiment, a few horse, and two guns. On successive days, other troops took their departure as rapidly as the necessary arrangements could be made ; but Anson was greatly embarrassed by the distance between Umballa and the station where the siege-guns were parked ; he knew that a besieging army would be of no use without those essential adjuncts ; and it was on that account that he was unable to respond to Viscount Canning's urgent request that ho would push on rapidly towards Delhi. On the 23d of May, Anson sketched a plan of operations, which he communicated to the briga- diers whose services were more immediately at his disposal. Leaving Sir Henry Barnard in com- mand at Umballa, he proposed to head the siege- army himself. It was to consistf of three brigades ono from Umballa, under Brigadier Halifax ; a second from the same place, under Brigadier Jones ; and a third from Meerut, under Brigadier Wilson. He proposed to send off' the two brigades from Umballa on various days, so that all the corps should reach Kurnaul, fifty miles nearer to Delhi, by the 30th. Then, by starting on the 1st of June, he expected to reach Bhagput on the 5th, with all his Umballa force except the siege-train, which might possibly arrive on the 6th. Meanwhile Major- general llewett was to organise a brigade at Meerut, and send it to Bhagput, where it would form a junc- tion with tho other two brigades. Ghazeeoodeen Nuggur being a somewhat important post, as a key to the Upper Doab, it was proposed that Brigadier Wilson should leave a small force there consist- ing of a part of the Sirmoor battalion, a part of the * The troops at Umballa on the 17th comprised: Queen's 7">th foot. ) . . . . . M Bengal European Fusiliers. J ^SiXS. 6th Bengal native infantry. 60th a a ii Queen's 9th Lancers. 4th Bengal cavalry. Two troops European horse-artillery. f 1st Umballa Brigade. Brigadier Halifax. 2d Umballa Brigade. Brigadier Jones. Meerut Brigade. Brigadier Wilson. ' Queen's 75th foot. I 1st Bengal Europeans. | Two squadrons 9th Lancers. [ One troop horse-arlillcry. f2d Bengal Europeans. Oi th native infantry. , Two squadrons 9th Lancers. One squadron 4th Bengal Lancers. LOne troop horse-artillery. (One wing Queen's 60th Rifles. Two squadrons Carabiniers. One light flcld-battery. One troop horse-artillery. Native Sappers (if reliable). 120 artillerymen. 232 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. Rampore horse, and a few guns while he advanced with the rest of his brigade to Bhagput. Lastly, it was supposed that the Meerut brigade, by start- ing on the 1st or 2d of June, could reach the ren- dezvous on the 5th, and that then all could advance together towards Delhi. Such was General Anson's plan a plan that he was not destined to put in execution himself. It will be convenient to trace the course of pro- ceeding in the following mode to describe the advance of the Meerut brigade to Bhagput, with its adventures on the way ; then to notice in a similar way the march of the main body from Umballa to Bhagput ; next the progress of the collected siege-army from the last-named town to the crest or ridge bounding Delhi on the north ; and, lastly, the commencement of the siege-operations themselves opei'ations lament- ably retarded by the Avant of a sufficient force of siege-guns. Major-general Ilcwett, at Meerut, proceeded to organise a brigade in accordance with the plan Sir Henry Barnard. laid down by General Anson : retaining at his head-quarters a force sufficient to protect Meerut and its neighbourhood. It was on the 27 th of May that this brigade was ready, and that Colonel Archdall Wilson was placed in command of it a gallant officer afterwards better known as Brigadier or General Wilson. The brigade was very small ; comprising less than 500 of the 60th Rifles, 200 of the Carabiniers, one battery and a troop of artillery. They started on the evening of the 27th; and after marching during the cooler hours of the 28th and 29th, encamped on the morning of the 30th at Ghazeeoodeen Nuggur (Ghazee-u-deen Nuggur, Guznee de Nuggur). This was a small town or village on the left bank of the river Hindoun, eighteen miles east of Delhi, important as commanding one of the passages over that river from Meerut, the passage being by a suspension-bridge. On that same day, the 30th of May, Brigadier Wilson was attacked by the insurgents, who had sallied forth from Delhi for this purpose, and who were doubtless anxious to prevent a junction of the Meerut force with that from Kurnaul. The enemy appeared in force on the opposite side of the river, with five guns in position. Wilson at once sent a THE SIEGE OF DELHI : JUNE AND JULY. 233 body of Rifles to command the suspension-bridge ; while few Carabiniers were despatched along the river-bank to a place where they were able to ford. The insurgents opened fire with their five heavy guns ; whereupon the brigadier sent off to the attacked points all his force except sufficient to guard his camp ; and then the contest became very brisk. The Rifles, under Colonel Jones, were ordered to charge the enemy's guns ; they rushed forward, disregarding grape and canister shot, and advanced towards the guns. When they saw a shell about to burst, they threw themselves down on their faces to avoid the danger, then jumped up, and off again. They readied the guns, drove away the gunneis. and effected a capture. The cuemy, beaten away from the defences of the bridge, retreated to a large walled tillage, when they had the courage to stand a hand-to hand contest for a time a struggle which no native troops could long continue against the British Rifles, As evening came on, the enemy fled with speed to Delhi, leaving behind them five trims, ammunition, and Colonel Coustanco followed them some distance with the Carabiniers ; but it was not deemed prudent to continue the pursuit after nightfall. In this smart all'air 11 were killed, 21 wounded or missing. Captain Andrews, with four of hit riflemen, while taking possession of two heavy pieces of ordnance on the causeway, does to the toll house of the bridge, were blown up by the explosion of an ammunition-wagon, fired by one of the sepoy gunn< The mutineers did not allow Brigadier Wilson to remain many hours quiet lie saw parties of their horse reconnoitring his position all the morning of the 31st; and he kept, therefore, well on the alert. At one o'clock the enemy, supposed to be five thousand in number, took up a position a mile in length, on a ridge on the opposite side of the llindoun, ami about a mile distant from Wilson's advanced picket. Horse-artillery and two Impounders were at once sent forward to reply to this lire, with a party of Carabiniers to support; while another party, of Rifles, Carabiniers, and went to support the picket at the bridge. l'ur nearly two hours the contest was one of artillery alone, the British guns being repeatedly and vainly charged by the enemy's cavalry; the enemy's fire then slackening, and the Rifles having cleared a village on the left of the toll-bar, the brigadier ordered a general advance. The result was M on the preceding day ; the mutineers were driven back. The British all regretted they could not follow, and cut up the enemy in the retreat; but the brigadier, seeing that many of his poor fellows fell sun-stricken, was forced to call them back into camp when the action was over. This victory was not so complete as that on the preced- ing day; for the mutineers were able to carry off all their guns, two heavy and five light. The killed and wounded on the side of the English were 24 in number, of whom 10 were stricken down by the heat of the sun a cause of death that shews how terrible must have been the ordeal passed through by all on such a day. Among the officers, Lieu- tenant Perkins was killed, and Captain Johnson and Ensign Napier wounded. After the struggle of the 31st of May, the enemy did not molest Wilson in his temporary camp at Ghazeeoodeen Nuggur. He provided for his wounded, refitted his brigade, and waited for reinforcements. On the morning of the 3d of June he was joined by another hundred of the 00th Rifles from Meerut, and by a Goorkha regi- ment, the Sirmoor battalion, from Deyrah Dhoon ; and then lost no time in marching to the rendez- vous. The route taken was very circuitous, hilly, and rugged ; and the brigade did not reach the rendezvous head-quarters at Bhagput till the morning of the 6th. We have now to trace the fortunes of the Umballa force. It was on the 23d of May, as has been shewn, that General Anson put forth the scheme for an advance towards Delhi, in which the brigade from Meerut was to take part. He left Umballa on the 24th, and reached Kurnaul on the 25th. All the proposed regi- ments and detachments from Umballa had by that time come in to Kurnaul except two troops of horse-artillery ; but as the siege-train was far in arrear, Anson telegraphed to Calcutta that he would not be in a position to advance from Kurnaul towards Delhi until the 31st of the month. On the 26th, the commander-in-chief's plans were ended by the ending of his life; an attack of cholera carried him off in a few hours. He hastily summoned Sir Henry Barnard from Umballa; and his last words were to place the Delhi force under the command of that officer. At that time news aud orders travelled slowly between Calcutta and the northwest ; for daks were interrupted and telegraph wires cut; and it was therefore necessary that the command should at once be given to some one, without waiting for sanction from the governor-general. Viscount Canning heard the news on the 3d of June, and immediately confirmed the appoint- ment of Sir Henry to the command of the siege- army ; but that confirmation was not known to the besiegers till long afterwards. Major-general Reed, by the death of Anson, became provisional commander-in-chief; and he left Rawul Pindee on the 28th of May to join the head-quarters of the siege-army, but without superseding Barnard. It was a terrible time for all these generals: Anson and Halifax had both succumbed to cholera ; Reed was so thoroughly broken down by illness that he could not command in person ; and Barnard was summoned from a sick-bed by the dying commander-in-chief. Sir Henry Barnard did not feel justified in advancing from Kurnaul until heavier guns than those he possessed could arrive from the Punjaub. On the 31st, a 9-pounder battery those already at hand being only G-pounders came into camp ; and the march from Kurnaul to Paniput 234 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. commenced on that evening. Sir Henry expected to have met Brigadier Wilson at Race, where there was a bridge of boats over the Jumna; but through some misconstruction or countermanding of orders, Wilson had taken a much more cir- cuitous route by Ghazeeoodeen Nuggur, and could not join the Umballa brigade at the place or on the day expected. Barnard, after a brief sojourn and a slight change of plan, sent out elephants to aid in bringing forward the Meerut brigade, and advanced with the greater portion of his own force to Alipore (or Aleepore), where he arrived on the morning of the 5th of June. The chief artillery force being with the Meerut brigade, Sir Henry waited for Wilson, who effected a junction with him on the 6th ; and on the 7th, the united forces were reorganised, at a point so near Delhi that the troops looked forward eagerly to a speedy encounter with the enemy. Many of the soldiers who thus assembled at a place distant only a few miles from the famous city, which they all hoped soon to retake from the hands of the enemy, had marched great distances. Among the number was the corps of Guides, whose march was one of those deter- mined exploits of which soldiers always feel proud, and to which they point as proof that they shrink not from fatigue and heat when a post of duty is assigned to them. This remarkable corps was raised on the conclusion of the Sutlej campaign, to act either as regular troops 1 or as guides and spies, according as the exigencies of the service might require. The men were chosen for their sagacity and intelligence, as well as for their courage and hardihood. They were inhabitants of the Punjaub, but belonged to no one selected race or creed ; for among them were to be found mountaineers, borderers, men of the plains, and half-wild warriors. Among them nearly all the dialects of Northern India were more or less known ; and they were as familiar with hill- fighting as with service on the plains. They were often employed as intelligencers, and in recon- noitring an enemy's position. They were the best of all troops to act against the robber hill-tribes, with whom India is so greatly infested. Among the many useful pieces of Indian service effected by Sir Henry Lawrence, was the suggestion of this corps; and Lord Hardinge, when com- mander-in-chief, acted on it in 1846. The corps was at first limited to one troop of cavalry and two companies of artillery, less than three hun- dred men in all; but the Marquis of Dalhousie afterwards raised it to three troops and six companies, about eight hundred and fifty men, commanded by four European officers and a surgeon. The men were dressed in a plain serviceable drab uniform. Their pay was eight rupees per month for a foot-soldier, and twenty- four for a trooper. These, then, were the Guides of Avhom English newspaper-readers heard so much but knew so little. They were stationed at a remote post in the Punjaub, not far from the Afghan frontier, when orders reached them to march to Delhi, a distance of no less than 750 miles. They set off, horse and foot together, and accomplished the distance in twenty-eight days a really great achievement in the heat of an Indian summer ; they suffered much, of course ; but all took pride in their work, and obtained high praise from the commander-in-chief. One of the English officers afterwards declared that he had never before experienced the necessity of 'roughing' it as on this occasion. Captain Daly commanded the whole corps, while Captain Quintin Battye had special control of that portion of it which consisted of troopers. The Guides, as has just been shewn, were an exceptional corps, raised among the natives for a peculiar service. But the siege-army contained gallant regiments of ordinary troops, whose march- ing was little less severe. One of these was the 1st Bengal European Fusiliers ; a British regiment wholly belonging to the Company, and one which in old times was known as Lord Lake's ' dear old dirty shirts.' On the 13th of May it was at Dugshai, a sanatarium and hill-station not far from Simla. Major Jacob rode in hastily from Simla, announced that Meerut and Delhi were in revolt, and brought an order for the regiment to march down to Umballa forthwith, to await further orders. At five o'clock that same day the men marched forth, with sixty rounds in "pouch, and food in haversack. After a twenty-four miles' walk they refreshed on the ground, supping and sleeping as best they could. At an hour after midnight they renewed their march, taking advant- age as troops in India are wont to do of the cool hours of the night ; they marched till six or seven, and then rested during the heat of the day at Chundeegurh. From five till ten in the evening they again advanced, and then had supper and three hours' rest at Mobarrackpore. Then, after a seven hours' march during the night of the 14th-15th, they reached Umballa having accomplished sixty miles in thirty-eight hours. Here they were com- pelled to remain some days until the arrangements of the general in other directions were completed ; and during this detention many of their number were carried off by cholera. At length four com- panies were sent on towards Kurnaul on the 17th, under Captain Dennis ; while the other companies did not start till the 21st. The two wings of the regiments afterwards effected a junction, and marched by Paniput, Soomalka, and Sursowlie, to Raee, where they arrived on the 31st of May. Under a scorching sun every clay, the troops were well-nigh beaten down ; but the hope of ' thrash- ing the rebels at Delhi' cheered them on. One officer speaks of the glee with which he and his companions came in sight of a field of onions, ' all green above and white below,' and of the delight- ful relish they enjoyed during a temporary rest. The regiment, after remaining at Raee till the morning of the 5th of June, was then joined by its commandant, Colonel Welchman. Forming now THE SIEGE OF DELHI: JUNE AND JULY. 235 part of Brigadier Showers' brigade, the 1st Euro- peans marched to Alipore, where its fortunes were mixed up with those of the other troops in the besieging army. Many at Calcutta wondered why Barnard did not make a more rapid advance from Paniput and Race to Alipore ; and many at Kaee wondered why Wilson did not come in more quickly from Gha/.eeoodeen Nuggur. The brigadier was said to have had his plans somewhat changed by suggestions from one of the Greatheds (Mr II. II. Greathed was agent, and Lieutenant W. -II. Greathed, aid-de-camp, for the lieutenant-governor of the Northwest Provinces in the camp of the siege-army); while Sir Henry was anxious both to secure Wilson's co-operation as soon as he started, and to preserve the health of his men during the trying season of heat. It is greatly to the credit of him ind all the officers, that the various regiments, notwithstanding their long marches and fierce ire to heat, reached Delhi in admirable health leaving cholera many miles behind them. Having been joined l>y a siege-train on the 6th of June, and by Brigadier Wilson's forces on the 7th, Barnard began at once to organise hit plans for an advance. The reinforcements brought by Wilson were very miscellaneous; 11 bui tiny had fought well on the banks of the Ilindoun, and were an indispensable aid to the general. Major-general arrived from Raws! Pindee at midnight, not to take the command from Barnard, but to sanction the line of proceedings as temporary commander-in-chief. It was at one o'clock on the morning of the 8th of June that the siege-army set out from Alipore, to march the ten miles which separate that village from Delhi. Some of the reinforcements, such as the Guides, had not Vet arrived; but the troops which formed the army of march on this morning, according to Sir Benry's official dispatch, were as noted below. t They advanced to a village. Hie name of which is variously spelt in the dispatches, letters, and maps as Badulla Serai, Bardul-ki- Badulee-ke-Scrai, Bardeleeke Serai, Budlee- kfl Suraee, &c, about four miles from Delhi. Here the fighting began ; here the besiegers came in contact with the enemy who had been so long sought. When within a short distance of the village, the sepoy watch-fires were seen (for day * Four guns of Major Tombs' horse-attillery. tt's horse field-battery. Two 18-poundcrs, under Lieutenant I Two squadrons of Ourabiniers. Six companies of Goth Uilics. 400 Birmoor Goorkhas. t Head-quarters and six companies of II It. Otb Kitle*. " and nl of II. M. 7*H> foot. 1st Bengal European Fusiliers. 2d // a a head-qurs. and sis companies. Sirmoor battalion (Goorkha* , a winir. Head-quarters detachment Sapp n and Miners. 11. M. ft li Lancers. (ah Dragoon-guards (Carabinicrs'i, t\\ o squadrons. Horse-artillery, one troop of 1st brigade. " , two troops of 3d brigade. Foot-artlllcry, two companies, and No. 14 horse-battery. Artillery recruits, detachment. had scarcely yet broken). Suddenly a report was heard, and a shot and shell came roaring down the road to the advancing British force ; and then it became necessary to plan a mode of dealing with the enemy, who were several thousands in number, in a strongly intrenched position, with artillery well served. Sir Henry Barnard intrusted Briga- diers Showers, Graves, and Grant with distinct duties the first to advance with his brigade on the right of the main trunk-road ; the second to take the left of the same road ; and the third to cross the canal, advance quietly, and recross in the rear of the enemy's position at such a time as a signal should direct them to effect a surprise. The guns were placed in and on both sides of the road. When the hostile forces met, the enemy opened a severe fire a fire so severe, indeed, that the general resolved to stop it by capturing the battery itself. This was effected in a gallant manner by the 75th foot and the 1st Europeans ; it was perilous work, for the troops had to pass over open ground, with very little shelter or cover. Several officers were struck down at this point; but the most serious loss was produced by a cannon-shot which killed Colonel Chester, adjutant-general of the army. The battery was charged so deter- minedly that the artillerymen were forced to flee, leaving their guns behind them; while the advance of the other two brigades compelled them to a general flight. Colonel Welchmau, of the 1st Fusiliers, in his eagerness galloped after three of the mutineers and cut one of them down ; but the act would have cost him his own life, had not a private of his regiment come opportunely to his aid. A question now arose, whether to halt for a while, or push on towards Delhi. It was between five and six o'clock on a summer morning ; and Barnard decided that it would be advisable not to allow the enemy time to reassemble in or near the village. The men were much exhausted ; but after a hasty taste of rum and biscuit, they resumed their march. Advancing in two columns, Brigadiers Wilson and Showers fought their Avay along the main trunk-road ; while Barnard and Graves turned off at A/adpore by the road which led through the cantonment of Delhi a canton- ment lately in the hands of the British authorities, but now deserted. This advance was a continuous fight the whole way : the rebels disputing the passage inch by inch. It then became perceptible that a rocky ridge which bounds Delhi on the north was bristling with bayonets and cannon, and that the conquest of this ridge would be a neces- sary preliminary to an approach to Delhi. Barnard determined on a rapid flank-movement to turn the right of the enemy's position. With a force consisting of the GOth Rifles under Colonel Jones, the 2d Europeans under Captain Boyd, and a troop of horse-artillery under Captain Money, Sir Henry rapidly advanced, ascended the ridge, took the enemy in flank, compelled them to flee, and swept the whole length of the ridge the enemy 236 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. abandoning twenty-six guns, with ammunition and camp-equipage. The Rifles rendered signal service in this movement ; taking advantage of every slight cover, advancing closer to the enemy's guns than other infantry could safely do, and picking off" the gunners. Brigadier Wilson and his companions were enabled to advance by the main road ; and he and Barnard met on the ridge. From that hour the besieging army took up its position before Delhi never to leave it till months of hard fighting had made them masters of the place. During the struggle on the ridge, two incidents greatly exasperated the troops : one was the discovery that a captured cart, which they supposed to contain ammunition, was full of the mangled limbs and trunks of their murdered fellow-Christiaus ; the other was that two or three Europeans were found fighting for and with the rebels probably soldiers of fortune, ready to sell their services to the highest bidders. Every European and it was supposed that Delhi con- tained others of the kind so caught was sure to be cut to pieces by the enraged soldiery, with a far more deadly hatred than sepoys themselves could have inspired. This day's work was not effected without serious loss. Colonel Chester, we have said, was killed ; as were Captains Dclamain and Russell, and Lieutenant Harrison. The wounded comprised Colonel Herbert ; Captains Dawson and Greville ; Lieutenants Light, Hunter, Davidson, Hare, Fitzgerald, Barter, Rivers, and Ellis ; and Ensign Pym. In all, officers and privates, there were 51 killed and 133 wounded. Nearly 50 horses were either killed or wounded. Here, then, in the afternoon of the 8th of June, were the British posted before Delhi. It will be necessary to have a clear notion of the relative positions of the besiegers and the besieged, to understand the narrative which is to follow. Of Delhi itself an account is given elsewhere, with a brief notice of the defence- works ; * but the gates and bastions must here be enumerated somewhat more minutely, as the plan of the siege mainly depended on them. A small branch or nullah of the Jumna is separated from the main stream by a sand-bank which forms an island ; the junction or rejoining of the two takes place where the Jumna is crossed bjr a bridge of boats, and where the old fort called the Selimgurh was built. Beginning at this point, we trace the circuit of the wall and its fortifications. From the Selimgurh the wall borders or rather bordered (for it will be well to speak in the past tense) the nullah for about three-quarters of a mile, in a northwest direction, marked by the Calcutta Gate, a martello tower, the Kaila Gate, the Nuseergunje Bastion, and the Moree or Moira Bastion. The wall then turned sharply to the west, or slightly southwest ; and during a length of about three-quarters of a mile presented the Moree Bastion just named, the Cashmere Gate, the Moree Gate, and the Shah Chapter iv., pp. G3-65. Bastion. To this succeeded a portion about a mile in length, running nearly north and south, and marked by the Cabool Gate, a martello tower, Burn Bastion, the Lahore Gate, and the Gurstin Bastion. Then, an irregular polygonal line of two miles in length carried the wall round to the bank of the Jumna, by a course bending more and more to the east ; here were presented the Turushkana Gate, a martello tower, the Ajmeer Gate, the Akbar Bastion, another martello tower, the Ochterlony Bastion, the Turcoman Gate, a third and a fourth martello towers, and the Delhi Gate. Lastly, along the bank of the river for a mile and a half, and separated from the water at most times by a narrow sandy strip, was a continuation of the wall, broken by the "Wellesley and Nawab Bastions, the Duryagunje Gate, a martello tower, the Rajghat Gate, the wall of the imperial palace, and the defence-wall entirely surrounding the Selimgurh. Such were the numerous gates, bastions, and towers at that period ; many parts of the Avail and bastions were formed of masonry twelve feet thick, and the whole had been further strengthened by the rebels during four weeks of occupation. Outside the defences was a broad ditch twenty feet deep from the ground, or thirty-five from the top of the wall. The position taken up by the besiegers may be thus briefly described. The camp was pitched on the former parade-ground of the deserted encamp- ment, at a spot about a mile and a half from the northern wall of the city, with a rocky ridge acting as a screen between it and the city. This ridge was commanded by the rebels until the afternoon of the 8th; but from that time it was in the hands of the besiegers. Tbe British line on this ridge rested on the left on an old tower used as a signal- post, often called the Flagstaff Tower; at its centre, upon an old mosque ; and at its right, upon a house with enclosures strongly placed at the point where the ridge begins to slope down towards the plain. This house, formerly occupied by a Mahratta chief named Hindoo Rao, was generally known as Hindoo Rao's house. Owing to the ridge being very oblique in reference to the position of the city, the right of the line was of necessity thrown much forward, and hence Hindoo Rao's house became the most important post in the line. Near this house, owing to its commanding position, the British planted three batteries ; and to protect these batteries, Rifles, Guides, and Sirmoor Goorkhas were posted within convenient distance. Luckily for the British, Hindoo Rao's house was ' pucka- built,' that is, a substantial brick structure, and bore up well against the storm of shot aimed at it by the rebels. When the British had effected a permanent lodgment on the ridge, with the camp pitched in the old cantonment behind the ridge as a screen, the time had arrived when the detailed plan for the siege was to be determined, if it had not been determined already. Some military critics averred that Sir Henry Barnard, only acquainted in a THE SIEGE OF DELHI : JUNE AND JULY. 237 Blight degree with that part of India, displayed indecision, giving and countermanding orders repeatedly, and leaving his subordinates in doubt concerning the real plan of the siege. Others contended that the sudden assumption of command on the death of General Anson, the small number of troops, and the want of large siege-guns, were enough to render necessary great caution in the mode of procedure. The truth appears to be, that the rebels were found stronger in Delhi, than was suspected before the siege-army approached close to the place ; moreover, they had contested the advance from Alipore more obstinately than had been expected shewing that, though not equal to British soldiers, it would not be safe to despise their prowess. The plan of attack would obviously depend upon the real or supposed defensive measures of the besieged. If the rebels risked a battle outside the walls, they might very likely be defeated and followed into the city and palace ; but then would come a disastrous street-fighting against enemies screened behind loopholed walls, - **:w Hindoo Rao's Uou30 Battery in front. and firing upon besiegers much less numerous than themselves. Or the half-crumbled walls might be scaled by active troops; but as these troops would be a mere handful against large numbers, their suecess would be very doubtful. A third plan, suggested by some among the many advisers of that period, was to make an attack by water, or on the river-side. The Jumna is at certain times so shallow at Delhi as to be almost fordable, and leaving a strip of sand on which batteries might be planted; these batteries might breach the river-wall of the palace, and so disturb the garrison as to permit a large body of the ers to enter under cover of the firing; but a rise in the river would fatally affect this enterprise. A fourth plan suggested was to attack near the Cashmere Gate, on the north side of the city ; the siege-army would in this case be protected on its left flank by the river, and might employ all its force in breaching the wall between the gate and the river ; the guns would render the maiuguard untenable ; when the assault was made, it would be on a part where there is much vacant ground in the interior ; and the besieging troops would have a better chance than if at once entangled among the intricacies of loopholed houses. Any project for starving out the garrison, if it ever entered the mind of any soldier, was soon abandoned ; the boundary was too extensive, the gates too many, and the besiegers too few, to effect this. During the early days after the arrival of the British, indications appeared of an intention to blow open the Cashmere Gate, and effect a forcible entry into the city at once ; but these indications soon ceased ; and the besiegers found themselves compelled rather to resist attacks than to make them ; for the enemy, strong in numbers, made repeated sorties from the various gates of the city, and endeavoured to dislodge the British. One such 238 TUB REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. sortie was made about noon on the 9 th, within twenty-four hours after the arrival of the besiegers; the enemy were, however, easily repulsed, and driven in again. The corps of Guides met with a loss on this day which occasioned much regret. Among those who accompanied the hardy men all the way from the Afghan frontier was Captain Quintin Battye, a young officer much beloved as commandant of the cavalry portion of the corps. They arrived on the 8 th ; and on the next day poor Battye Avas shot through the body ; he lived twenty-four hours in great agony, and then sank. The Guides had a large share in this day's work ; many of them fell, in dislodging the enemy from a rocky position which they temporarily occupied. On the 10th a little skirmishing took place, but not so serious as on the preceding day ; it was found, however, that the white shirts of the men were a little too conspicuous ; and they underwent an extemporaneous process of dyeing to deepen the colour. On the 12th, early in the morning, the enemy made a sudden attack on both flanks ; but all points were speedily defended. They were first driven back on the left ; then, after a repulse on the right, they advanced a second time under the cover of thickly Avooded gardens near the Subzee Mundee a suburb of Delhi about a mile and a quarter northwest of the Cabool Gate. Major Jacob was then sent against them with some of the Bengal Europeans; he beat them back till they got beyond the suburb, and then returned to the camp. This morning's affair was supposed to have cost the enemy 250 men ; the British loss Avas very small. On this day, the British had the mortification of seeing two regiments of Rohilcund mutineers, the 60th native infantry and the 4th native cavalry, enter Delhi with bands playing and colours flying ; the defiant manner was quite as serious an affair as the augmentation of the strength of the garrison. On the 13th a large enclosure in advance of the British left, known as Metcalfe House, was occupied by them, and the erection of a battery of heavy guns and mortars commenced. Not a day passed Avithout some such struggles as have just been adverted to. The besieging of the city had not really commenced, for the British had not yet a force of artillery sufficient for that purpose ; indeed, they Avero now the besieged rather than the besiegers ; for the enemy came out of the city horse, foot, and guns and attempted to effect a surprise on one part or other of the position on the ridge. Against the battery at Metcalfe House a sortie Avas made on the 15th, and another Avas made on the same day at the right of the line. On the 17th an exciting encounter took place. A shot from the city struck the corner of Hindoo Rao's house, and glancing off, killed Lieutenant "Whcatley of the Goorkhas. It was then suspected that the enemy, besides their attacks on this house in front, Avere throAv- ing up a battery outside the Avestern gates of the toAvn, at a large building known as the Eedghah, formerly used as a serai. Thereupon a force was immediately organised, consisting of horse-artillery, cavalry, Goorkhas, and Rifles, to drive them away from that position. They passed through the Subzee Mundee to the Eedghah, drove out the enemy, and captured the only gun Avhich had yet been placed there. One of the officers on this duty had a finger shot off, a bullet through the wrist, another through the cheek, and another which broke the collar-bone ; yet he recovered, to fight again. On the 19th of June it came to the knowledge of Brigadier Grant that the enemy intended to attack the camp in the rear ; and as the safety of the camp had been placed under his keeping, he made instant preparations to frustrate the insur- gents. These troops are believed to have been augmentations of the insurgent forces, consisting of the 15th and 30th native regiments from Nuseer- abad.- The brigadier advanced with six guns and a squadron of lancers to reconnoitre, and found the enemy in position half a mile in rear of the Ochterlony Gardens, nortliAvest of the camp. Troops quickly arrived, and a rapid exchange of fire began, the enemy being strong in artillery as avcII as in infantry. Just as the dusk of the evening came on, the enemy, by a series of skilful and vigorous attacks, aided by av ell-served artillery, very nearly succeeded in turning the flank of the British, and in capturing two guns ; but both these disasters Avere frustrated. The dusk deepened into darkness ; but the brigadier felt that it would not do to alloAV the enemy to occupy that position during the night. A charge was made with great impetuosity by horse and foot, with so much success, that the enemy were driven back quite into the town. The brigadier had to regret the loss of Colonel Yule of the 9th Lancers, who was knocked off his horse, and not found again by his men till next morning ; Avhen they were shocked to see him dead and mangled, with both thighs broken, a ball through the head just over the eyes, his throat cut, and his hands much gashed. He had been on leaA'e of absence in Cashmere, but directly he heard of the work to be done, travelled night and day till he reached his regiment just before its arrival at Delhi. Lieutenant Alexander was also among the killed. Captain Daly of the Guides, and six other officers, were wounded. All the officers of the Guides, but one, received Avounds. Altogether, the day's fighting resulted to the British in the loss of 19 killed and 77 wounded ; and it A\ r as a soui'ce of much regret that a few of these fell by the hands of their OAvn comrades, Avhile fighting in some confusion as darkness approached. No less than sixty horses fell. The brigadier did not fail to mention the names of three private soldiers Thomas Hancock, John Purcell, and Roopur Khan Avho behaved Avith great gallantry at a critical moment. Sir Henry Barnard, for very cogent reasons, Avatched every movement on the part of the mutineers Avho sallied forth from Delhi. On the THE SIEGE OF DELHI : JUNE AND JULY. 239 22d, he saw a body of them come out of the city ; and as they were not seen to return at night, he suspected a masked attack. At six in the evening, he sent out a party of infantry, Guides, and Sappers, to demolish two bridges which carried the great road across a canal westward of the camp, and over which the enemy were in the habit of taking their artillery and columns when they wished to attack the camp in the rear ; this was a work of six hours, warmly contested but successfully accom- plished. On the 23d, Sir Henry, expecting a valuable convoy from the Punjaub, adopted prompt measures for its protection. He sent out a strong escort, which safely brought the convoy into camp. Scarcely had this been effected, when his attention was drawn to the right of his position, near Hindoo Rao's house. It was afterwards ascer- tained that the enemy, remembering the 23d of June as the centenary of the battle of Plassy, had resolved to attempt a great victory over the British on that day ; incited, moreover, by the circum- stance that two festival-;, one Mussulman and the other Hindoo, happened to occur on that day ; and they t nun the city in vast force to effect this. They commenced their attack on the Subzee Mundee side, having a strong position in a village and among garden-walls. Here a combat was maintained during the whole of the day. for the rebels continued their attacks with much pertinacity ; they lodged themselves in loopholed , a serai, ami a mosque, whence they could not be dislodged till they had wrought much mis- chief by musketry. At length, however, they were driven back into the city. The value of the pre- caution taken on the evening, in destroy- ing the bridges, was mado fully evident ; for the rebels were unable to cross the canal to get to the rear of the camp. The 1st Europeans had a desperate contest in the- Subzee Mundee, where street fighting, and firing from windows and house-tops, continued for many hours. The British troops suffered terribly from the heat of tho midsummer sun, to which they were exposed from sunrise to sunset. Many officers were brought away sun -struck and powerless. The Guides fought for fifteen hours uninterruptedly, with no food, and only a little water. At one o'clock, when the enemy were strengthened by large reinforcements from the city, the Guides found themselves without ammunition, and had to send back to the camp for more ; but as great delay occurred, they were in imminent peril of annihilation. Fortunately a corps of Sikhs, who had arrived at camp that morning, rushed forward at a critical moment, and aided the Guides in driving back the enemy. One of the incidents of the day has been thus narrated, shewing how little scruple a Goorkha felt when he met a sepoy: ' In the intense heat, a soldier of the 2d Europeans and a Goorkha sought the shade and protection of a house near the Subzee Mundee, a window of which looked into a lane where they were seated. Not long had they rested when, from the open window, was seen to project the head of a sepoy. Now all Hindoos have what ladies at home call " back-hair," and this is usually turned up into a knot ; by this the unlucky wretch was at once seized, and before he could even think of resistance, his head was at a stroke severed from his body by the sharp curved knife of the Goorkha!' This day's work was m every way very severe, and shewed the besiegers that the rebels were in great strength. Lieutenant Jackson was killed ; Colonel Welchman, Captain Jones, and Lieutenant Murray, wounded. The total loss of the day was 39 killed and 121 wounded. The enemy's loss was very much larger; indeed, one of the estimates raised the number up to a thousand. The loss appears to have somewhat dispirited the mutineers, for they made very few attacks on the following three days. But although there was a temporary cessation, Sir Henry Barnard, in his official dispatches, shewed that he was much embarrassed by this condition of affairs. His forces were few; those of the enemy were very large ; and the attacks were rendered more harassing by the uncertainty of the point on which they would be made, and tho impossibility of judging whether they were about to be made on more points than one. The onslaughts could only be successfully repulsed by the untiring and unflinching gallantry of a small body of men. The enemy, instead of being belea- guered within Delhi, were free to emerge from the fifty and attack the besiegers' position. The British did not complain : it was not their wont; but they suffered greatly from this harassing kind of war- fare. Reinforcements were slowly coming in ; in the last week of June the Europeans numbered about three thousand ; and they Avere well satis- fied with the native corps who fought by their side the Guides, the Goorkhas, and the Sikhs all of whom joined very heartily in opposing the rebel sepoys. The siege-material at this time con- sisted of five batteries, mounting about fifteen guns and mortars, placed on various points of the ridge; the bombardment of the city by these guns was not very effective, for the distance averaged nearly a mile, and the guns were not of large calibre. The interval from the 23d to the 30th of June passed much in the same way as the two preceding weeks ; the British siege-guns brought very little mischief to the city ; while the enemy occasionally sallied forth to attack cither the camp or the works on the ridge. It was often asserted, and facts seemed to corroborate the statement, that when mutinous regiments from other places appeared before Delhi, they were not afforded reception and shelter until they had earned it by making an attack on the British position ; and thus it hap- pened that the besiegers were opposed by a con- stantly increasing number of the enemy. The defenders of the garrison fitted up a large battery on the left of the Cashmere Gate, one at the gate itself, one at the Morec Gate, one at the Ajmcer Gate, and one directly opposite Hindoo Rao's 240 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. house ; against these five batteries, for a long time, the British had only three ; so that the besieged were stronger than the besiegers in every way. The gunners, too, within Delhi, were fully equal to those of the siege-army in accuracy of aim ; their balls and shells fell near Hindoo Rao's house so thickly as to render that post a very perilous one to hold. One shell entered the gateway, and killed eight or nine officers and men Avho were seeking shelter from the mid-day heat. It was pretty well ascertained, before June was half over, that Delhi was not to be taken by a coup de main; and when Sir John Lawrence became aware of that fact, he sent reinforcements down from the Punjaub as rapidly as they could be collected. Every sepoy regiment that was either disbanded or disarmed lessened his own danger, for he trusted well in his Sikhs, Punjaubees, and Guides ; and on that account he was able to send Europeans and artillery. The reserve and depot companies of the regiments already serving before Delhi were sent down from the hills to join their companions. A wing of H.M. 61st foot, a portion of the 8th, artillery from Jullundur, and artillery- men from Lahore, followed the Guides and Sikhs, and gradually increased the besieging force. Then The General and his Staff at the Mo?que Picket before Delhi. came Punjaub rifles and Punjaub light horse ; and there were still a few Hindustani cavalry aud horse-artillery in whom their officers placed such unabated confidence that they were permitted to take part in the siege-operations, on the ground that there were Europeans enough to overawe them if they became unruly. These reinforce- ments of course came in by degrees : we mention them all in one paragraph, but many weeks elapsed before they could reach the Delhi camp. Fortunately, supplies were plentiful ; the country between Delhi and the Sutlej was kept pretty free from the enemy; and the villagers were glad to find good customers for the commodities they had to sell. It hence arose that, during the later days of June, the British were well able to render nuga- tory all sallies made by the enemy ; they had food and beverages in good store ; and they were free from pestilential diseases. On the other hand, they suffered intensely from the heat ; and were much dissatisfied at the small progress made towards the conquest of the city. Some expressed their dis- satisfaction by adverse criticisms on the general's tactics ; while others admitted that a storming of Delhi would not be prudent without further rein- forcements. As to the heat, the troops wrote of it in all their letters, spoke of it in all their narra- tions. One officer, who had seventy-two hours of outpost-duty on a plain Avithout the slightest shelter, described his sensation in the daytime as if ' a hot iron had been going into his head.' On a certain day, when some additional troops arrived at camp after a twenty-two miles' march, they had scarcely lain down to rest when they were ordered out to repel an attack by the enemy : they went, and gallantly did the work cut out for THE SIEGE OF DELHI: JUNE AND JULY. 241 them ; but some of them ' were so exhausted that they sank down on the road, even wider fire, and went off to sleep.' July arrived. Brigadier Chamberlain had recently joined the camp, and reinforcements were coming in ; but on the other hand the rebels were increasing their strength more rapidly than the British. The enemy began the month by an attack which tried the prowess of the Guides and Punjaubces, in a manner that brought great praise to those corps. In the afternoon of the 1st, Major Ileid, who was established with the head- quarters of the Sirmoor battalion at Hindoo Rao's house, observed the mutineers turning out in great force from the Ajmeer and Turcoman Gates, and assembling on the open plain outside. Then, look- ing round on his rear right, he saw a large force, which was supposed to have come out of Delhi on the previous day ; comprising thirteen guns and mortars, besides cavalry and infantry. The two forces joined about a mile from the Ecdghah Serai. At sunset 5000 or 0000 infantry advanced, passed through the Pahareepore and Kissengunje suburbs, and approached towards the British lines, taking cover of the buildings as they passed. The extreme right of the line was attacked at the da picket, which was held only by 160 Punjaubces and Guides, under Captain Travcrs. Major Reid sent him a message to reserve his fire till the enemy approached near, in order to hus- band his resources; while 15o British were being collected to send to his aid. Throughout the whole night did this little band of 300 men resist a large force of infantry and artillery, never yielding an inch, but defending the few works which had been constructed in that quarter. At daybreak, the enemy renewed the attacks with further ti but Reid brought a few more of his gallant fellows to repel them. Evening, night, morning, noon, all passed in this way ; and it was not until the con- test had continued twenty-two hours that the enemy finally retired into the city. There may have been sufficient military reasons why larger reinforcements were not sent to Major Reid from the camp behind the ridge ; but let the reasons have been what they may, the handful of troops fought in the ratio of hundreds against thousands, and never for an instant flinched during this hard day's work. Major Reid had the command of all the pickets and defence-works from Hindoo Rao's house to the Subzcc Mundee. During the first twenty-eight days of the siege, his positions were attacked no fewer than twenty-four times; yet his singular medley of troops Rifles, Guides, Sikhs, Punjaubees, Goorkhas, 6c. fought as if for one common cause, without reference to differences of religion or of nation. The officers, in these and similar encounters, often passed through an ordeal which renders their survival almost inconceivable. An artillery officer, in command of two horse- artillery guns, on one occasion was surprised by f the enemy's cavalry ; he had no support, and could not apply his artillery because his guns were limbered up. He fired four barrels of his revolver and killed two men ; and then knocked a third off his horse by throwing his empty pistol at him. Two horsemen thereupon charged full tilt, and rolled him and his horse over. He got up, and seeing a man on foot coming at him to cut him down, rushed at him, got inside his sword, and hit him full in the face with his fist. At that moment he was cut down from behind ; and was only saved from slaughter by a brother-officer, who rode up, shot one sowar and sabred another, and then carried him off, bleeding but safe. On the 2d, the Bareilly mutineers or rather Rohileund mutineers from Bareilly, Moradabad, and Shahjehanpoor, consisting of five regiments and a battery of artillery crossed the Jumna and marched into Delhi, with bands playing and colours flying a sight sufficiently mortifying to the besiegers, who were powerless to prevent it ; for any advance in that direction would have left the rear of their camp exposed. It afterwards became known that the Bareilly leader was appointed general within Delhi. The emergence of a large body of the enemy from the city on the night of the 3d of July, induced Sir Henry Barnard to send Major Coke to oppose them ; with a force made up of portions of the Carabiniers, 9th Lancers, Gist foot, Guides, Punjaubces, horse and foot artillery. Coke started at two in the morning of the 4th. He went to Azadpore, the spot where the great road and the road from the cantonment met. He found that the enemy had planned an expedition to seize the British depot of stores at Alipore, and to cut off a convoy expected to arrive from the Punjaub. When the major came up with them near the Rohtuk road, he at once attacked them. During many hours, his troops wero confronted with numbers greatly exceeding their own ; and what with the sun above and swamps below, the major's men became thoroughly exhausted by the time they returned to camp. The rebels, it was true, were driven back; but they got safely with their guns into Delhi ; and thus was one more added to the list of contests in which the besiegers suffered without effecting anything towards the real object of the siege. The enemy's infantry on this occasion seem to have comprised the Bareilly men. An officer of the Engineers, writing concerning this day's work, said: 'Tho Bareilly rascals had the impudence to come round to our rear, and our only regret is that one of them ever got back. I was out with the force sent against them, and cannot say that I felt much pity for the red-coated villains with "18," "28," and "68" on their buttons.' This officer gives expres- sion to the bitter feeling that prevailed generally in the British camp against the 'Bandies'* or mutinous sepoys, for their treachery, black ingrati- tude, and cruelty. ' This is a war in its very worst phase, for generosity enters into no one's mind. After the execution of Munsal Pamly at Barrackporc on the 8th of April, for mutiny, the rebel Bipoys acquired the soubriquet of * Pondies 'especially thoso belonging to the Brahmin caste. 242 THE REVOLT IN INDIA -.1857. Mercy seems to have fled from us ; and if ever there was such a thing as war to the knife, we certainly have it here. If any one owes these sepoys a grudge, I think I have some claim to one ; but I must say that I cannot bring myself to put my sword through a wounded man. I can- not say that I grieve much when I see it done, as it invariably is ; but grieve or not as you please he is a clever man who can now keep back a European from driving his bayonet through a sepoy, even in the agonies of death.' These were the motives and feelings that rendered the Indian mutiny much more terrible than an ordinary war. In allusion to sentiments at home, that the British soldiers were becoming cruel and bloodthirsty, the same officer wrote to a friend : ' If you hear any such sentiments, by all means ship off their pro- pounder to this country at once. Let him see one half of what we have seen, and compare our brutality with that of the rebels ; then send him home again, and I think you will find him pretty quiet on the subject for the rest of his life.' A new engineer officer, Colonel Baird Smith, arrived to supersede another whose operations had not met with approval. The colonel took into consideration, with his commander, a plan for blowing in the Moree and Cashmere Gates, and escalading the Moree and Cashmere Bastions ; but the plan was abandoned on account of the weakness of the siege-army. The 5th of July was marked by the death of Major-general Sir Henry Barnard, who had held practical command of the Delhi field-foi'ce during about five weeks, and had during that time borne much anxiety and suffering. He knew that his countrymen at Calcutta as well as in England would be continually propounding the question, 'Why is Delhi not yet taken?' and the varied responsibilities connected with his position neces- sarily gave him much disquietude. During the fierce heat of the 4th he was on horseback nearly all day, directing the operations against the Bareilly mutineers. Early on the following morning he sent for Colonel Baird Smith, and explained his views concerning the mode in which he thought the siege-operations should be carried on ; immediately afterwards he sent for medical aid; and before many hours had passed, he was a corpse. Many of his friends after- wards complained that scant justice was done to the memory of Sir Henry Barnard ; in the halo that was destined to surround the name of Wilson, men forgot that it was his predecessor who had borne all the burden of collecting the siege-force, of conducting it to the ridge outside Delhi, and of maintaining a continued series of conflicts almost every day for five or six weeks. Major-general Reed, invalid as he was, imme- diately took the command of the force after Barnard's death ; leaving, however, the active direction mainly to Brigadier Chamberlain. It became every day more and more apparent that, notwithstanding reinforcements, the British artil- lery was too weak to cope with that of the enemy whose artillerymen, taught by those whom they now opposed, had become very skilful ; and whose guns were of heavier metal. The besiegers' bat- teries were still nearly a mile from the walls, for any nearer position could not be taken up without terrible loss. To effect a breach with a few 18- pounders at this distance was out of the question ; and although the field-guns were twenty or thirty in number, they were nearly useless for battering down defences. The attacks from the enemy continued much as before, but resistance to them became complicated by a new difficulty. There were two regiments of Bengal irregular cavalry among the troops in the siege-army, and there were a few ' Poorbeahs' or Hindustanis in the Punjaub regiments. These men were carefully watched from the first; and it became by degrees apparent that they were a danger instead of an aid to the British. Early in the month a Brahmin subadar in a Punjaubee regiment was detected inciting his companions-in- arms to murder their officers, and go over to Delhi, saying it was God's will the Feringhee ' raj ' should cease. One of the Punjaubees immediately revealed this plot to the officers, and the incendiary was put to death that same evening. The other Poorbeahs in the regiment were at once paid up, and dis- charged from the camp doubtless swelling the number of insurgents who entered Delhi. Again, on the 9th, a party of the enemy's cavalry, while attempting an attack on the camp, was joined by some of the 9th irregulars belonging to the siege- army, and with them tried to tempt the men of the native horse-artillery. They were beaten back ; and the afternoon of the same day, the 9th of July, was marked by one of the many struggles in the Subzee Mundee, all of which ended by the enemy being driven into Delhi. If the rebel infantry had fought as well as the artillery, it might have gone hard with the besiegers, for the sallies were generT ally made in very great force. The rebels counted much on the value of the Subzee Mundee ; as a suburb, it had been rendered a mass of ruins by repeated conflicts, and these ruins precisely suited the sepoy mode of fighting. The sepoys found shelter in narrow streets and old houses, and behind garden-walls, besides being protected by heavy guns from the city. In this kind of skir- mishing they were not far inferior to their oppon- ents ; but in the open field, and especially under a charge with the bayonet, they were invariably beaten, let the disparity of numbers be what it might. All the officers, in their letters, spoke of the terrible efficacy of the British bayonet; the sepoys became paralysed with terror when this mode of attack was resorted to. On one occasion they were constructing a defensive post at the Eedghah ; the British attacked it and drove in the entrance ; there was no exit on the other side, and the defenders were all bayoneted in the prison-house which they had thus unwittingly constructed for themselves. THE SIEGE OF DELHI : JUNE AND JULY. 243 On the morning of the 14th 3 the mutineers poured out in great numbers, and attacked the batteries at Hindoo Rao's house, and the picket in the Subzee Mundee. The troops stationed at those places remained on the defensive till three o'clock in the afternoon, struggling against a force consisting of many regiments of insurgent infantry, a large body of cavalry, and several field-pieces. It was indeed a most determined attack, supported, moreover, by a fire of heavy artillery from the walls. Why it was that so many hours elapsed before succour was sent forth, is not very clear ; but the troops who had to bear the brunt of this onslaught com- prised only detachments of the 60th and 75th foot, with the Goorkhas of the Sirmoor battalion and the infantry of the Guides. A column was formed, however, at the house above named, under Brigadier Showers, consisting of the 1st Punjaub infantry, the 1st Europeans, and six horse-artillery guns. Then commenced a double contest ; Showers attacking the enemy at the picket-house, and Major Reid at Hindoo Rao's house. After a fierce strugglo the enemy were driven back into the city, and narrowly escaped losing some of their guns. It was a day's work that could not be accomplished without a serious loss. None of the officers, it is true, were killed in the field ; but the list of wounded was very large, comprising Brigadier Chamberlain (at that time adjutant-general of the army), and Lieutenants Roberts, Thompson, Walker, Geneste, Carnegie, Rivers, Faithful, Daniell, Ross, Tulloch, Chester, Shebbeare, Hawes, Debrett, and Pollock. The wounding of so many subalterns shews how actively different companies of troops must have been engaged. Altogether, the oper- ations of this day brought down 15 men killed and 193 officers and men wounded. The heat was by this time somewhat alleviated by rains, which, however, brought sickness and other discomforts with them. Men fell ill after remaining many hours in damp clothes; and it was found that the fierce heat was, after all, not so detrimental to health. Many young officers, it is true, lately arrived from England, and not yet acclim- atised, were smitten down by sun-stroke, and a few died of apoplexy ; but it is nevertheless true that the army was surprisingly healthy during the hot weather. One of the Carabiniers, writing in the rainy season, said ; ' The last three days have been exceedingly wet ; notwithstanding which we are constantly in the saddle ; no sooner has one alarm subsided than we are turned out to meet the mutineers in another quarter.' An officer of Sappers, employed in blowing up a bridge, said: ' We started about two p. m., and returned about twelve at night drenched through and thoroughly miserable, it having rained the whole time.' The state of affairs in the middle of July was peculiar. It seemed to the nation at home that the army of Delhi ought to be strong enough to retake the city, especially when a goodly proportion of the number were Europeans. Yet that this was not the case, was the opinion both of Reed and of Wilson ; although many daring spirits in the army longed to breach the walls and take the place by storm. Twelve hundred wounded and sick men had to be tended ; all the others were kept fully employed in repelling the sallies of the enemy. Major-general Reed, who ought never to have assumed the command at all so broken-down was he in health gave in altogether on the 17th, after the wounding of Chamberlain ; he named Brigadier Wilson, who had brought forward the Meerut brigade, as his successor. The new commander immediately wrote to Sir John Lawrence a letter (in French, as if distrusting spies), in which he candidly announced that it would be dangerous and disastrous to attempt a storm of the city ; that the enemy were in great force, well armed, strong in position, and constantly reinforced by accessions of insurgent regiments ; that they daily attacked the British, who could do little more than repel the attacks ; that his army was gradually dimin- ishing by these daily losses ; that it would be impossible to take Delhi without at least one more European regiment and two more Sikh regiments from the Punjaub ; and that if those additions did not speedily reach him, he would be obliged to raise tho 6iege, retreat to Kurnaul, and leave the country all around Delhi to be ravaged by the mutineers. This letter shewed the gravity with which Brigadier Wilson regarded the state of matters at that critical time. Lawrence fully recognised the importance of tho issue, for he redoubled his exertions to send 900 European Fusiliers and 1600 Punjaubees to the camp. General Reed's resignation was twofold. He resigned the provisional command-in-chicf of the Bengal army as soon as he was officially informed of the assumption of that office by Sir Patrick Grant ; and he resigned the command of the Delhi field-force to Brigadier Wilson, because his health was too far broken to permit him to take part in active duties. It was the virtual ending of his part in the wars of the mutiny ; he went to the hills, in search of that health which he could never have recovered in the plains. Among the many contests in the second half of the month was one near Ludlow Castle, a name given to the residence of Mr Fraser, the commis- sioner of Delhi, one of those foully murdered on the 11th of May. This house was within half a mile of the Cashmere Gate, near the river ; the enemy were found to be occupying it ; but their works were attacked and destroyed by a force under Brigadier Showers ; while Sir T. Metcalfe's house, further northward, was taken and strengthened as a defensive post by the British. Mr Colvin, writing from Agra to Havclock on the 22d of July, giving an account of such pro- ceedings at Delhi as had come to his knowledge, made the following observations on the character which the struggle had assumed: 'The spirit by which both Hindoos and Mohammedans act together at Delhi is very remarkable. You would 244 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. well understand a gathering of Mohammedan fanatical feeling at that place ; but what is locally, I find, known by the name of "Pandyism," is just as strong. Pandies are, among the Hindoos, all Brahmins. What absurd, distorted suspicions of our intentions (which have been so perfectly innocent towards them) may have been first worked upon, it is scarcely possible to say; but the thing has now got beyond this, and it is a struggle for mastery, not a question of mistrust or discontent. Mohammedans seem to be actively misleading Hindoos for their own purposes. Sir Patrick Grant will not know the Bengal army again. The Goorkhas, Sikhs, and Punjaubee Mohammedans have remained quite faithful, and done their duty nobly at Delhi; the bad spirit is wholly with the Poorbeahs.' Mr Greathed, Colvin's commissioner with the siege-army, made every attempt to ascertain, by means of spies and deserters, what were the alleged and what the real motives for the stubborn resistance of the mutineers to British rule. He wrote on this General Wilson. subject : ' The result of all questionings of sepoys who have fallen into our hands, regarding the cause of the mutiny, is the same. They invariably cite the " cartouche " (cartridge) as the origin ; no other cause of complaint has been alluded to. His majesty of Delhi has composed a couplet, to the effect that the English, who boast of having vanquished rods of iron, have been overthrown in Hindostan by a single cartridge. A consciousness of power had grown up in the army, which could only be exercised by mutiny. The cry of the cartridges brought the latent spirit of revolt into action.' Mr Muir of Agra, commenting on these remarks, said : ' I fully believe this to be the case with the main body of the sepoys. There were ringleaders, no doubt, who had selfish views, and possibly held correspondence with the Delhi family, &c. ; but they made use of the cartridge as their argument to gain over the mass of the army to the belief that their caste was threatened,' It will be unnecessary to trace day by day the struggles outside Delhi. They continued as before ; but the frequency was somewhat lessened, and the danger also, for the defence-works on the ridge had been much strengthened. Every bridge over the canal was blown up, except that on the main road to Kurnaul and Umballa ; and thus the enemy could not easily attack the camp in the rear. It was not yet really a siege, for the British poured very few shot or shell into the city or against the walls. It was not an investment ; for the British could not send a single regiment to the southw r est, south, or east of the city. It was little more than a process of waiting till further reinforcements could arrive. At the close of July, Brigadier Wilson for- warded to the government a very exact account of the state of his army, shewing what were his resources for maintaining the siege on the one hand, and repelling attacks by the enemy on the J THE SIEGE OF DELHI : JUNE AND JULY. 245 other. We present the chief particulars in a foot- note, in an altered and more condensed form* It appears that out of this army of something more than 8000 men, above 1100 were rendered non-effective by sickness or wounds ; that of the whole number of effectives, just about one- half were Europeans, belonging either to the Queen's or to the Company's army ; and that no European corps, except perhaps the Lancers, comprised more than a fractional percentage of a full regiment. A return sent in about the middle of the month had comprised 300 men of the 4th and 17th Bengal irregular cavalry ; but the omission of this element at the end of the month shewed that those dangerous companions had been got rid of. The corps of Guides and Goorkhas Engineer Officers in Battery before Delhi. had in a fortnight diminished from an aggregate number of 923 to 571 so rapidly had those gallant men been brought down by balls, bullets, and cholera. Ranked among the artillery and engineers Infantry II. M. 8th foot, bead-quarters, II. M. 61st foot, II. M. 75th foot, u II. M. COth Rifles, m M European Bengal Fusiliers, 2J mm Guide Infantry, Mratoor battalion, Goorkhas, 1st Funjaub Infantry, 4th Sikh Infantry, Caralry H.M. Carabinlers, . II. M. 9th Lancen, . Guide Cavalrv, 1st Funjaub Caralry, 2d 5th (at Alipore), OIHn nd Mtu. IN . 2'J6 613 . 299 520 . S5G 275 . 206 133 . 345 = 4023 . 153 428 . 338 143 . 110 110 Artillery and Engineers Artillery, European and Native, Bengal Sappers and Miners, Punjaub = 1293 1129 209 2t = 1G02 Bmides these effectives, there were as non-effectives, 7G5 sick + 851 wounded as 1118. were many hundred syces and bildars, natives who merely aided In certain labouring opera- tions; and among the Sappers and Miners the Punjaubecs were only just learning their trade. The casualty list of officers was a very serious one. From the time when Brigadier Wilson encountered the enemy at Ghazeeoodeen Nuggur at the end of May, till he made up his report at the end of July, the officers who were killed or wounded were 101 in number. Anson, Barnard, Reed, Chamberlain, Halifax, Graves nearly all the general officers except Wilson and Showers, were either dead or in some way disabled ; and these frequent changes in command doubtless affected the organisation and movements of the army. Brigadier Wilson made every attempt, while doing the best he could with his own forces, to ascertain the number and components of those possessed by the enemy. Military commanders always aim at the acquisition of such knowledge, effected by a species of espionage which, however opposed to general feeling at other times, is deemed quite fair in war. From the 11th of May, when 246 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. the troubles began in Delhi, to the end of July, there arrived in the city mutinous regiments from Meerut, Hansi, Muttra, Lucknow, Nuseerabad, Jullundur, Ferozpore, Bareilly, Jhansi, Gwalior, Neemuch, Allygurh, Agra, Rohtuk, Jhuggur, and Allahabad. The list given in a note * is taken from the official dispatch, which was itself a record of information obtained from various native sources ; but after making allowance for the fact that portions only of many of the regiments had entered Delhi, and that the numbers had been considerably lessened by the thirty or more encounters which had taken place outside the walls, the military authorities brought down the supposed number to a much lower limit than had before been named namely, 4000 disciplined cavalry, and 12,000 infantry, besides 3000 undis- ciplined levies. The rebels retained the formid- able defensive artillery which they found in Delhi, and brought thirty field-guns also Avith them ; but these guns were lessened in number one-half by successive seizures made by the British. The condition and proceedings of the rebels within the city could, of course, be known only imperfectly. The old king was looked up to by all as the centre of authority, but it is probable that his real power was small. Where regiments had arrived from so many different quarters, we may supposo that the apportionment of military command was no easy matter ; and indeed there was, throughout, little evidence that the rebel force had one head, one leader whose plans were obeyed by all. The Lahore Chronicle some * Bengal native infantry: 3d, 9th, 11th, 12th, 15th, 20th, 28th, 29th, 30th, 36ih, 38th, 44th, 45th, 54th, 67th, 60th, 61st, 67th, 68th, 72,1, 74th, 78th. Other native infantry : 5th and 7th Gwalior Contingent, Kotah Contingent, Hurrianah battalion; together with 2600 miscel- laneous infantry. Native cavalry : Portions of five or 6is regiments, besides others of the Gwalior and Mai wah Contingents. time afterwards printed a narrative by a native, of a residence in Delhi from the ] 3th to the 30th of July. Such narratives can seldom be relied on ; but so far as it went, this revelation spoke of great discord among the leaders ; great discon- tent among the troops because their pay was in arrear ; great perplexity on the part of the old king because he had not funds enough to pay so large an army ; and great plundering of the citizens by the rude soldiery, who deemed them- selves masters of the situation. ' When the sepoys,' said this native, ' find out a rich house in the city, they accuse the owner after the following manner, in order to plunder his property. They take a loaf of bread and a bottle of grog with them, and make a noise at the door and break it in pieces, get into the house, take possession of the cash and valuables, and beat the poor householder, saying : " Where is the Englishman you have been keeping in your house ?" When he denies having done so, they just shew him the bread and the bottle, and say : " How is it that we happened to find these in your house ] We are quite sure there was an Englishman accommodated here, whom you quietly sent elsewhere before our arrival." Soon after, the talk is over, and the poor man is dis- gracefully put into custody, where there is no inquiry made to prove whether he is innocent or guilty ; he cannot get his release unless he bribes the general.' The known attributes of oriental cunning give a strong probability to this curious story. Here, for the present, we take leave of the siege of Delhi, and of the stage at which it had arrived by the end of July. Much has to be narrated, in reference to other places, other generals, other operations, before the final capture of the imperial city will call for description. Bullock-wagon. Sift Henry Havelock. CHAPTEE XV. HAVELOCK'S CAMPAIGN: ALLAHABAD TO LtJCOOW. F there be one name that stands v out in brighter colours than >any other connected with the mutiny in India, perhaps it is 'that of Henry Ilavelock. There are peculiar reasons for this. He came like a brilliant meteor at a KJs^^ time when all else was gloomy and ^P* overshadowed. Anson had died on the {&) way to Delhi ; Barnard had died in the - camp before that city ; Reed had retired, broken down by age and sickness ; Wilson had not yet shewn whether he could work out victory at the great Mogul capital; "Wheeler was falling, or had fallen, a miserable victim to the treachery of Nena Sahib ; Henry Lawrence was no more ; Hewett and Lloyd were under a cloud, for mis- management as military commanders all this had rendered the British nation grieved and irritated; and men fiercely demanded 'Who's to blame?' as if it were necessary to seek relief by wreaking vengeance on some persons or other. It was a crisis that pressed heavily on Viscount Canning ; but it was at the same time a crisis that 248 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. insured fervid gratitude to any general who could achieve victories with small means. Such a general was Havelock. The English public knew little of him, although he was well known in India. Commencing his career as a soldier in 1816, Henry Havelock had borne his full share in all a soldier's varied fortune. He went to India in 1823 ; engaged in the Burmese war in 1824 ; took part in a mission to the court of Siam in 1826 ; was pro- moted from lieutenant to captain in 1838 ; took an active share in the stirring scenes of the Afghan campaign, which brought him a brevet majority, and the order of C. B. ; acted as Persian interpreter to generals Elphinstone, Pollock, and Gough ; fought at Gwalior in 1843 ; became brevet lieu- tenant-colonel in 1844 ; fought with the bravest in 1845 at Moodkee, Ferozshah, and Sobraon ; and in 1846 received the appointment of deputy adjutant-general of the Queen's troops at Bombay. An Indian climate during so many years having told in its customary sad way on his constitu- tion, Henry Havelock returned for a sojourn in England. Returning to Bombay in 1851, he became brevet colonel ; and in after years he was appointed quarter-master-general, and then adjut- ant-general, of the whole of the Queen's troops in India. When the Avar with Persia broke out, he took command of one of the divisions .in 1857 ; and when that war was ended, he returned to Bombay. All this was known to official persons in India, but very few of the particulars were familiar to the general public in the home-country ; hence, when Havelock's victories were announced, the public were surprised as if by the sudden appearance of a great genius. That he bore so heavy a responsibility, or suffered such intense mental anxiety, as Wheeler at Cawnpore, Inglis at Lucknow, or Colvin at Agra, is not probable ; for he had not hundreds of helpless women and children under his charge" ; but the astonishing victories he achieved with a mere handful of men, and the moral influence he thereby acquired for the British name throughout the whole of the Doab, well entitled him to the outburst of grateful feeling which the nation was not slow to exhibit. The only danger was, lest this hero- worship should render the nation blind for a time to the merits of other generals. Neill and Havelock, who worked so energetic- ally together in planning the relief of Lucknow, were brought from other regions of India to take part in the operations on the Ganges. Neill, as colonel of the 1st Madras European Fusiliers, accompanied that regiment to Calcutta, and thence proceeded up the country to Benares, where his contest with the rebels first began. Havelock, landing at Bombay from Persia, set off by steam to go to Calcutta ; he was wrecked on the way near Ceylon, and experienced much perilous adventure before he could proceed on his journey. At Calcutta where lie arrived, in the same steamer which brought Sir Patrick Grant, on the 17th of June he received the appointment of brigadier-general,* to command such a force as could be hastily collected for the relief, first of the Europeans at Cawnpore, and then of those at Lucknow ; and it was towards the close of June that he made his appearance at Allahabad. Sufficient has been stated in former chapters to shew what was the state of affairs at that time. Lucknow, Cawnpore, Agra, and Delhi were either in the hands of the rebels, or were so beset by them that no British commander was able to assist his brother-officers. Oude, the Doab, and Rohilcund were in deplorable anarchy ; and it depended either upon Viscount Canning at Calcutta, or Sir John Lawrence at Lahore, to send aid to the disturbed districts. Lawrence, as we have seen, and as we shall see again in a future chapter, with admirable energy and perseverance, scut such assistance as enabled Wilson to conquer Delhi ; while Canning, under enormous difficulty, sent up troops to Allahabad by scores and fifties at a time, as rapidly as he could collect them at Calcutta. Brigadier Neill preceded Havelock in the oper- ations connected with the repression of the mutiny in the Doab and adjacent regions. His own regi- ment, the 1st Madras European Fusiliers, had been ordered to proceed to Persia in the spring, but had received counter-orders in consequence of the sudden termination of the war in that county. While at Bombay, uncertain whether commands might be received to proceed to China, the regi- ment heard the news of a revolt among the Bengal troops ; and very speedily, both. Persia and China were forgotten in matters of much greater exigency and importance. After making the voyage back from Bombay to Madras, the regiment proceeded to Calcutta, and the men were then sent up the country as rapidly as possible to Benares, some by road and the rest by steamers. Neill himself reached that city on the 3d of June, and was immediately engaged, as we have already seen (p. 154), in disarming a mutinous regiment, and in maintaining order in the vicinity. After six days of incessant work at Benares, the brigadier, hearing of the mutiny at Allahabad, started off on the 9th to render service in that region. With what a powerful hand he put down the rebels ; with what stern and prompt firmness he retained possession of that important city, the ' key to Upper India' has already been briefly shewn.t The various corps of the Madras Fusiliers reached * It may be useful to note, for readers unfamiliar with military matters, the meaning of the words brevet and brigadier. A brevet is a commission, conferring on an officer a degree of rank next above that which he holds in his particular regiment; without, however, conveying the power of receiving the corresponding pay. Besides being honorary as a mark of distinction, it qualifies the pfflcer to succeed to the full possession of the higher rank on a vacancy occurring, in preference to one not holding a brevet. In the British army brevet rank only applies to captains, majors, and lieutenant-colonels. A brigadier is a colonel or other officer of a regiment who is made temporarily a general officer for a special service, in command of a brigade, or more than one regiment. It is not a permanent rank, but is considered as a stepping-stone to the office of major-general. Many Indian officers who were colonels when the Indian mutiny began, such as Henry Lawrence and Neill, were appointed brigadier-generals for a special service, and rose to higher rank before the mutiny was ended. + Chapter is., pp. 159-161. HAVELOCK'S CAMPAIGN : ALLAHABAD TO LUCKNOW. 2-19 Benares and Allahabad by degrees ; and fragments of other European regiments were sent up as fast as possible, as the nucleus of a little army forming at Allahabad. The 1st of July may be taken as the day that marked the commencement of General Havelock's career in relation to the Indian Revolt. He and his staff arrived at Allahabad on that day, after a rapid journey from Calcutta. A few hours before his arrival, the first relieving column had been sent off by Neill towards Cawnpore: consisting of 200 Madras Fusiliers, 200 of the Slth foot, 300 Sikhs, and 120 irregular cavalry, under Major Rcnaud ; and a second, of larger proportions, was to follow in a week or ten days' time. The imme- diate object held in view, in the march of both columns, was to liberate Sir Hugh "Wheeler and his hapless companions at Cawnpore ; and. if this were accomplished, the second work to be done was to advance and relieve Sir Henry Lawrence and the British at Lucknow. It was not at that time known that, before the second column could start from Allahabad, both "Wheeler and Lawrence had been numbered with the dead. Neill super- seded the otBcer previously in command at Allahabad ; Ilavelock superseded Neill in com- mand of the relieving force ; we shall have to speak of Outram superseding Ilavelock ; and we have already spoken of Patrick Grant superseding Reed, and of Colin Campbell superseding Grant. All these supersessions were in virtue of military routine, depending either on seniority, or on the exercise ot a right to make appointments. If these various officers had been unsuccessful, the system of fapenemon would have been attacked by adverse judges as the cause of the failure; but there was so much nobility of mind displayed by four or five of the gallant men here named, that the vexation often caused by supersession was much alleviated ; while the nation at large had ample reason to admire and be thankful for the deeds of arms that accompanied generosity of feeling. On the 3d, an auxiliary force under Captain Spurgin, left Allahabad for Cawnpore, irrespective of the two columns. It consisted only of 100 Madias Europeans armed with rifles, 12 artillery- men, and two G-poundcr guns ; it went by steamer up the Ganges, partly in order to control the mutineers on the banks, but in part also on account of the paucity of means for land-convey- ance. No steamer had had much success in that part of the Ganges; and hence great interest was felt in the voyage- of the Brahmaputra. As a first difficulty, the engineers, having no coals, were obliged to forage for wood every day on shore. On the second day of the trip, this foraging had to be protected by half the force, against a body of 500 insurgents on the Oudc bank, provided with a large piece of ordnance ; the wood was not obtained without a regular battle, in which 60 English ' thrashed' to use a very favourite term among the soldiers just ten times their number of rebels, and captured their gun. On they went, struggling against the rapid stream of the Ganges, and never making more than two miles an hour. The enemy hovered on the banks, and sent several round shot into the little iron steamer a sort of irritation that kept the crew and soldiers well on the alert. Day after day passed in this way, Captain Spurgin timing his movements so as to accord with the march of the land-columns. The steamer reached Cawnpore on the 17th, just a fortnight after the departure from Allahabad a degree of slowness not altogether dependent on the difficulty of the navigation, but partly due to the necessity of not advancing more rapidly than the columns could fight their way on shore. The dismal news gradually reached Allahabad that some dreadful calamity had occurred at Cawnpore. This information led Ilavelock to modify his plans and quicken his movements ; and, full of heart, he transmitted to Calcutta the telegram already quoted, to the effect that '1000 Europeans, 1000 Goorkhas, and 1000 Sikhs, with 8 or 10 guns, will thrash everything.' Among the troops he collected was a handful of volun- teer cavalry, consisting chiefly of officers who had been left without command by the mutiny of their respective native regiments, or had narrowly escaped massacre ; the number amounted only to a score ; but it comprised just the sort of men who would be ready for any enterprise at such a time. Major Renaud had every reason to be satisfied with the gallantry of the Madras Fusiliers to which corps he belonged and of the other troops who aided in forming his small column, in various minor operations during the first nine days of the march from Allahabad. He everywhere pacified the country by punishing the ringleaders in mutiny and rebellion wherever and whenever they fell into his hands. Suddenly, however, he found him- self placed in an awkward position en the 10th. Cawnpore had fallen ; the British at that station had either been killed or thrown into prison ; and the rebel force thus freed from occupation had rapidly pushed down to the vicinity of Futtehpoor a town which had been in the hands of the rebels since the 9th of June (see p. 172). That force was at least 3500 strong, with 12 guns; whereas Renaud had at that time only 820 men and 2 guns. General Ilavelock, becoming aware of this state of things, saw that his force ought to join that of Renaud as quickly as possible. He marched twenty miles on the llth, under a fright- ful sun, to Synee ; then, after resting a few hours, he and his troops resumed their march at eleven o'clock in the evening, overtook Renaud during the night, and marched with him by moonlight to Khaga, five miles short of Futtehpoor. His little army consisted of about 2000 men, made up of a curious collection of fragments from various regi- ments ; and as it was destined to achieve great results with limited resources, it may be interest- ing to tabulate the component elements of this 250 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. admirable little band* Havelock's information proved to be better than that of the enemy, for when he sent forward Colonel Tytler with a reconnais- sance, the enemy supposed they had only Renaud's small force to contend with ; they fired on the colonel and his escort, and pushed forward tAVo guns and a force of infantry and cavalry. When the enemy began to cannonade his front and threaten his right and left, Havelock saw that the time was come to undeceive them : he would have preferred to give his worn-out soldiers a few hours' rest; but this was not now to be thought of, as, to use his own words, 'it would have injured the morale of the troops to permit them thus to be bearded.' The work before him was sufficiently formidable ; for there was only the main trunk-road by which to approach Futtehpoor easily ; the fields on either side were covered with a depth of two or three feet of water ; there were many enclosures of great strength, with high walls ; and in front of the city were many villages, hillocks, and mango-groves which the enemy occupied in force. Havelock placed his eight guns on and near the main road, protected by 100 riflemen of the 64th; the infantry came up at deploying distance, covered by rifle- skirmishers ; and the cavalry moved forward on the flanks. The struggle was literally decided in ten minutes. The enemy saw a few riflemen approach ; but they knew little of the Enfield rifle ; and were panic-stricken with the length and accu- racy of its range ; they shrank back in astonish- ment ; and then Captain Maude, who had dashed over the swamps with his artillery, poured into them a fire so rapid and accurate as to complete their discomfiture. Three guns were abandoned at once, and Havelock steadily advanced, with the 64th Commanding the centre, the 78th the right, the 84th and the Sikhs the left. He drove the enemy before him at every point, capturing their guns one by one ; the garden enclosures, the barri- cades on the road, the city wall, the streets of Futtehpoor, all were gained in turn. The enemy retreated right through the city, till they reached a mile beyond it ; but they then attempted to make a stand. This attempt gave Havelock some trouble, because his infantry were almost utterly exhausted by fatigue, and because the few irregular horse shewed symptoms of a tendency to go over to the enemy unless narrowly watched. Again the guns and rifles came to the front, and again they attacked * British Troops : H.M. 64th foot (from Persia), H.M. 78th Highlanders (from Persia), H.M. 84th foot (from Pegu), 1st Madras Fusiliers (from Madras), . Voluntary cavalry (from Allahabad), Royal artillery (from Ceylon), Native Troops: Regiment of Ferozpore (Sikhs), 13th Irr. Cav., and 3d Oude Cav., Artillery, .... 435 men; Major Stirling. 284 ,i Col. Hamilton. 190 n Lieut Ayrton. 376 * Major Renaud. 20 a Capt. Barrow. 98 n Capt. Maude. 1403 448 men ; Capt. Brasyer. 95 a Lieut. Palliser. Colonel Tytler and Captain Beatson officiated as quarter .master- general and adjutant-general of the force, irrespective of particular regiments. in a manner so irresistible as to put the enemy effec- tively to flight. Havelock thus became master of Futtehpoor, and parked 12 captured guns. It was with a justifiable pride that the general, in sending his list of ' casualties,' remarked that it was ' per- haps the lightest that ever accompanied the announcement of such success. Twelve British sol- diers were struck down by the sun, and never rose again f but not one was either killed or wounded in the action ; his casualties, 6 killed and 3 wounded, were among his native troops. The truth seems to be, that the enemy were dismayed, first by find- ing that Havelock had joined Renaud, and then by the wonderful range of the Enfield rifles. ' Our fight was fought neither with musket, nor bayonet, nor sabre, but with Enfield rifles and cannon ; so we took no prisoners. The enemy's fire scarcely reached us ; ours, for four hours, allowed him no repose.' It was with good cause that he thanked and congratulated his troops on the following day, in a ' morning order,' short but pithy* While encamped at Kullenpore or Kullianpore, on the 14th, to which he had marched after a sojourn at Futtehpoor sufficient to afford his troops that rest which had become absolutely necessary, Havelock sent off a brief telegram, announcing that his capture of artillery at Futtehpoor would enable him to substitute nine excellent field-guns for six of lighter calibre, and also to bring into action two light 6-pounders. This, then, was the brigadier-general's first victory over the rebels ; it elated his own troops, and checked the audacity of those to whom he was opposed. Neill, meanwhile, was anxiously watching at Allahabad. He had worked hard to organise and send off the first portion of the force under Renaud, the second under Spurgin, and the third under Havelock. He had received from Renaud, on the 4th of the month, information which rendered only too probable the rumour that an act of black treachery on the part of Nena Sahib at Cawnpore had been followed by a whole- sale destruction of hapless fugitives in boats on the Ganges. Neill was thus especially anxious that Renaud should advance at once with the first column, and Spurgin with the detachment up the river; but Havelock saw reason why those officers should somewhat delay their advance until he could come up to them, in order that all might if possible enter Cawnpore together. Havelock, after marching and resting on the 13th and 14th, came up again with the enemy on the 15th. When approaching the small stream * * Brigadier-general Havelock thanks his soldiers for their arduous exertion of yesterday, which produced, in four hours, the strange result of a whole army driven from a strong position, eleven guns captured, and their whole force scattered to the winds, without the loss of a single British soldier! * To what is this astonishing effect to be attributed ? To the fire of the British artillery, exceeding in rapidity and pre- cision all that the brigadier-general has ever witnessed in his not short career; to the power of the Enfield rifle in British hands; to British pluck, that good quality that has survived the revolution of the hour ; and to the blessing of Almighty God on a most righteous cause the cause of justice, humanity, truth, and good government in India.' HAVELOCK'S CAMPAIGN: ALLAHABAD TO LUCKNOW. 251 called the Pandoo Nuddee, it became important to him to ascertain what wjis the state of the bridge which carried the high road over that river, at a spot about twenty miles from Cawnpore. The stream was too deep to be fordable at that season : hence the importance of obtaining command of the bridge. His intelligencers ascertained that the enemy intended to dispute his passage at the village of Aong, four miles short of the Nuddee ; by means of two guns commanding the high road, skirmishers on the right and left of those guns, and cavalry to hover on the flanks of any advancing force. This information being obtained, Havelock sent forward his skirmishers on the right and left of the road ; then his volunteer cavalry on the road itself; then the ten guns in line, mostly on the left of the road ; and then the infantry in line the G4th and 84th on the right flank ; the 78th, Fusiliers, and Sikhs, on the left. The struggle ahead was not a severe one, for the enemy receded as the British under Colonel Tytler advanced ; but Havelock was much harassed by the attempts of the hostile cavalry to get into his rear and plunder his baggage : attempts that required much exertion from his infantry to resist, seeing that the thickly wooded country interfered with the effect of cannon and musketry. The enemy after a time abandoned guns, tents, ammunition, and other materials of war, and made a hasty retreat through the village. This difficulty over, Havelock prepared for another struggle at the Pandoo Xuddee, which it was necessary for him to cross as speedily as possible. lie retted and refreshed his troops for a few hours, and advanced t afternoon, on a fiercely hot July day. The enemy had do! destroyed the bridge, but had placed two guns in e*paulement to command it at the opposite side of the stream. Captain Maude disposed his artillery so as to bring a converging fire upon the two guns of the enemy ; while the Madras Fusiliers com- menced a fire with Enfield rifles to pick off the gunners. The two guns were fired directly down the road at the advancing British column ; but after Maude had somewhat checked this fire, the Fusiliers gallantly closed, rushed upon the bridge, and captured both guns an exploit iu which Major Renaud was wounded. The mutineers precipitately retreated. Thus did the brigadier- general achieve two victories in one day those of Aong and Pandoo Nuddee. True, the victories were not great in a military sense ; but they were effected over a numerous force by a mere handful of troops, who fought after wearying marches under a solar heat such as residents in England can with difficulty imagine. Havelock had only 1 man killed during these two actions ; 25 were wounded. The loss of the enemy was at least ten times greater ; but the chief result of the battles was the dismay into which Xena Sahib was thrown. General Havelock, like other commanders at that critical time, found the native Bengal troops in his force not to be trusted. Their conduct in presence of the enemy on the 12th excited his suspicion ; it was, indeed, worse than doubtful ; and on the 14th he found it necessary to disarm and dismount his sowars of the 13th Irregulars and 3d Oude Irregulars at the same time threatening with instant death any one of their number who should attempt to escape. One of the officers at Allahabad who joined the volun- teer cavalry, and had opportunity of observing the conduct of the irregulars at the battle of Futtehpoor, wrote thus concerning it : 'On seeing the enemy, Palliser called to the men to charge, and dashed on ; but the scoundrels scarcely altered their speed, and met the enemy at the same pace that they came down towards us. Their design was evident ; they came waving their swortis to our men, and riding round our party, making signs to them to go over to their side. When our men thus hung back, a dash out would certainly have ended in our being cut up.' During a subsequent skirmish, ' our rear-men turned tail and left us, galloping back as hard as their horses could go ; and we were forced to commence a regular race for our necks I write this with shame and grief ; but it was no fault of Palliscr's or ours.' Havelock saw the necessity of disarming and dismounting such fellows. The sceno of operations now approaches Cawn- pore, that city of Unutterable horrors ! It was a desperate struggle that Nena Sahib made to retain the supremacy he had obtained at Cawnpore. Ho probably cared little for kings of Delhi or for greased cartridges, provided he could maintain a hold of sovereign power. When he had broken faith with Sir Hugh Wheeler, and had carried his treachery to the extent of indiscriminate slaughter in the Ganges boats, he naturally hoped to become leader of the rebellious sepoys. In this object, however, ho did not wholly succeed ; he and his immediate followers were Mahrattas ; the mutin- eers were mostly Hindustanis ; and the latter made little account of the Nona's claim to sove- reignty. Had the issue depended upon the infantry sepoys, who were in chief part Hindoos, and who chiefly looked for plunder, his projects might speedily have come to an end ; but the cavalry sepoys, being mostly Mohammedans, and exhibit- ing a more deadly hatred towards the British, more readily joined him in a combined plan of operations, and drew the sepoys to act with them. Leaving Delhi to be held by the large body of mutineers, Nena Sahib took upon himself the office of crushing any British force that might make its appearance from Allahabad. When he heard that Renaud had started with his little band, he got together a force of sowars, sepoys, Mahrattas, artillery, and rabble; having motives of fear as well as of self-interest to induce him to prevent the advance of his opponent. Not knowing that Renaud had been joined by Havelock, the Mah- ratta chieftain sent bodies of troops sufficient, as he believed, to check the advance ; but when the gallant general swept everything before him, the 252 THE REVOLT IN INDIA: 1857. arch-fiend of Bithoor saw that the matter was becoming serious. He had had experience of the indomitable resistance, under accumulated suffer- ing, of the hapless Sir Hugh Wheeler and his companions ; but now a British general had to be encountered in the open field. So far as is known, it appears that as soon as he heard of the passage of the Pandoo Nuddee by Havelock, Nena Sahib ordered the slaughter of all the captives yet remaining alive at Cawnpore in order either that the dead might tell no tales, or that he might wreak vengeance on the innocent for the frustra- tion of his plans. Having committed this bloody deed, he went out with an army, and took up a position at Aherwa, the point at which the road to the cantonment branches out from the main trunk-road to Cawnpore city. Nena Sahib com- manded five villages, with numerous intrench- ments, armed with seven guns ; and in the rear was his infantry. Havelock, after advancing IMP HAL* A WILE HVtNW II am cun taksn iv G4'.".4'" SCALE Plan of action near Cawnpore, July 16, 1857, sixteen miles from the Pandoo Nuddee to Aherwa during the night of the 15th, and after measuring the strength of this force, saw that his troops would be shot down in alarming numbers before the guns could be silenced and the intrenchments carried ; he resolved, therefore, on a flank-move- ment on the enemy's left. As a preliminary, he left his camp and baggage under proper escort at Maharajpoor, a few miles in the rear ; and gave his sunburnt and exhausted troops two or three hours' rest in a mango-grove during mid-day of the 16th, until the fierce heat should have some- what abated. The hour of struggle having arrived, Havelock quietly wheeled his force round to the left flank of the enemy's position, behind a screen of clumps of mango. When the enemy detected this manoeuvre, great sensation was displayed ; a body of horse was soon sent to the left, and cannon opened fire in that direction. Then came a series of operations in which the superb qualities of British infantry were strikingly displayed. Vil- lages were attacked and captured one after another, by fragments of regiments so small that one marvels how the enemy could have yielded before them. One such exploit is thus narrated in Havelock's own language : ' The opportunity had arrived, for which I have long anxiously waited, of developing the prowess of the 78th Highlanders. Three guns of the enemy were strongly posted behind a lofty hamlet, well intrenched. I directed this regiment to advance ; and never have I wit- nessed conduct more admirable. They were led by Colonel Hamilton, and followed him with surpassing steadiness and gallantry under a heavy HAVELOCK'S CAMPAIGN: ALLAHABAD TO LUCKNOW. 253 fire. As they approached the village, they cheered aud charged with the bayonet, the pipes sounding the pibroch. Need I add that the enemy fled, the village was taken, and the guns captured V After three or four villages had thus changed hands, the enemy planted a 24-pounder gun on the canton- ment road in such a position as to work much mischief upon llavelock, whose artillery cattle were so worn out with heat and fatigue that they could not drag the guns onward to a desired posi- tion. The Nona appearing to have in project a renewed attack, llavelock resolved to anticipate him ; he cheered on his infantry to a capture of the 24-pounder ; they rushed along the road amid a storm of grape-shot from the enemy, and never slackened till they had reached the gun and captured it. Especially was the 64th, led by Major Stirling, conspicuous in this bold enterprise. The enemy lost all heart ; they retreated, blew up the magazine of Cawnpore on their way, and then went on to Bithoor. Thus was fought the battle of Cawnpore, the con- quest of which place had for so many weeks been anxiously looked forward to by the British. True, they had heard, and under too great a variety of detail to warrant disbelief, that Sir Hugh "Wheeler and his gallant companions had been most treach- erously murdered by the ruthless chieftain of Bithoor ; but yet a hope clung to them that some of their compatriots at least might be alive at Cawnpore. On this Kith of July, llavelock's small foiv. -encd by the loss of 6 killed and 08 wounded or mis-dug a loss wonderfully slight under the circumstance?, but serious to him. Captain Currie of the 84th received a wound so desperate that he sank under it in a few hours ; Major Stirling was slightly wounded ; Captain Beatson, attacked with cholera on the morning of the fight, held up with heroic bearing during the whole day, but died soon afterwards. The enemy lost seven guns on this day, of which three were ^l-]oundcrs. Some of the Europeans bore an almost incredible amount of hard labour on this day of fierce July heat. One, a youth of eighteen who had joined the volunteer cavalry, had been on picket all the preceding night, with no refreshment save biscuit and water ; he then marched with the rest sixteen miles during the forenoon ; then stood sentry for an hour with the enemy hovering around him ; then fought during the whole afternoon ; then lay down supperlcss to rest at nightfall, holding his horse's bridle the while ; then mounted night-guard from nine till eleven o'clock ; and then had his midnight sleep broken by an alarm from the enemy. It was on this occasion, too, that Lieutenant Marshman llavelock, son of the general, to whom he acted as aid-de-camp, performed a perilous duty in such a way as to earn for himself the Victoria Cross a badge of honour established in 185(5 for acts of personal heroism. The general thus narrated the incident, in one of his dispatches : ' The 64th regiment had been much under artillery-fire, from which it had severely suffered. The whole of the infantry were lying down in line, when, perceiving that the enemy had brought out the last reserved grin, a 24-pounder, and were rallying round it, I called up the regiment to rise and advance. "With- out any other word from me, Lieutenant llavelock placed himself on his horse, in front of the centre of the 64th, opposite the muzzle of the gun. Major Stirling, commanding the regiment, was in front, dismounted ; but the lieutenant continued to move steadily on in front of the regiment at a foot-pace, on his horse. The gun discharged shot until the troops were within a short distance, when it fired grape. In went the corps, led by the lieutenant, who still steered steadily on the gun's muzzle until it was mastered by a rush of the 64th.' It is difficult for civilians adequately to comprehend the cool courage required in an act like this; where a soldier walks his horse directly up in front of a large piece of cannon which is loaded and fired at him and his comrades as rapidly as possible. What the British troops saw when they entered Cawnpore, has already engaged our attention (pp. 142-145). None could ever forget it to their dying day. It was on the 17th of July that Havelock, after a night's rest for his exhausted troops, entered the city, and learned the hideous revela- tions of the slaughter-room and the well. What steps were immediately taken in Cawnpore, has been noticed in the chapter just cited ; and the dismal story need not be repeated. The general could not wait to attend to those matters at that time ; he had still to learn what were the move- ments of Nena Sahib after the battle of the preceding day whether the Mahratta intended or not to make a stand in his palace at Bithoor. Sending forward part of his troops therefore on the afternoon of the 17th, he found the enemy in a very strong position. Their force consisted of the insurgent 31st and 42d Bengal infantry from Saugor, the 17th from Fyzabad, sepoys from various other regiments, troops of the cavalry regi- ments, and a portion of Nena Sahib's Mahrattas about 4000 men in all. The plain in front of Bithoor, diversified by thickets and villages, had two streams flowing through it, not fordable, and only to be crossed by two narrow bridges. The enemy held both bridges, and defended them well. The streams prevented llavelock from turning the enemy's Banks ; and when his infantry assaulted the position, they were received with heavy rifle and musketry fire. After an hour of very severe struggle, he effected a crossing, drove them back, captured their guns, and chased them towards Sorajporc. He had no cavalry to main- tain a pursuit indeed the want of cavalry was felt sadly by him in every one of his battles. This contest cost the enemy about 250 men, the British about one-fifth of the number ; in this last-named list was included only one officer, Captain Mackenzie of the 78th Highlanders, who was slightly wounded. 254 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. Here, then, was one part of the enterprise accomplished. Oawnporc had been recaptured, and the road cleared of rebels between that place and Allahabad. It was on the 30th of June that Renaud had left the last-named place with the first division, and on the 3d of July that Spurgin had set off with the detachment by steamer. It was on the 7th that Havelock had placed himself at the head of the second division, and marched forth to overtake the two others carrying with him the recollection of a scowl from many of the Mussulman inhabitants of the city. He had seen, as he went along, evidences of Renaud's stern energy, in the number of rebellious sepoys hanging from gibbets and trees by the roadside. He and his troops had made oi'dinary Indian marches the first three or four days, in alternate rain and fierce heat, and within sight of destro3 r ed bungalows and devastated home- steads ; but when the news from Renaud arrived, forced marches were made. Then came the battle of Futtehpoor on the 12th, that of Aong on the morning of the 14th, that of Pundoo Nuddee on the afternoon of the same day, that of Cawnpore on the 16th, and that of Bithoor on the 17th five victories in six days, spreading the fame of Havelock far and wide throughout the surround- ing districts. The future tactics had then to be resolved upon. Cawnpore had been recovered, although the garrison could not be saved ; but there was another British garrison, another group of suffering British women and children, to be thought of at Lucknow. The general well knew how desperate was the work before him, with the reduced and sickened force at his command ; but he was not the man to shrink from making an attempt, at least, to relieve Brigadier Inglis and his companions. Feeling the urgent need of more troops, and the imperative necessity of holding Cawnpore safely while he himself advanced into Oude, Havelock had already sent to Allahabad, requesting Neill to come if possible in person to Cawnpore, and to bring reinforcements with him. It was easier for Neill to respond to the first of these two appeals than to the second ; he would have gone anywhere, borne any amount of fatigue, to share in the good woi'k ; but he found himself already reduced to so few troops at Allahabad as to be barely able to maintain that place. Never- theless, after counting heads and measuring strength, he ventured to draft off 227 men of the 84th foot from his little force ; he started them forth on the 15th, partly by bullock-trains, to reach Cawnpore on the 20th. He himself set out on the 16th the day of the battle of Cawnpore leaving Allahabad under the command of Captain Drummond Hay of the 78th Highlanders, until Colonel O'Brien could arrive. After a rapid journey, Neill reached Cawnpore, took military command of that place and its neighbourhood, and assisted Havelock in the preparations neces- sary for crossing the Ganges into Oude. One great necessity was perceived on the instant by both generals ; English soldiers, with all their good qualities, are prone to drink ; and Havelock soon found, to use his own words, that ' half his men would be needed to keep the other half from getting drunk' if they had easy access to liquor ; he therefore bought up all spare bevei-ages in Cawnpore, and placed them in the hands of the commissariat. A calamity much grieved the little army at this time. Major Renaud, who had so successfully brought forward the first column from Allahabad, sank under the effects of a wound he had received. A bullet had hit him above the knee, forcing part of the scabbard of his sword into the wound, and causing much suffering ; amputation seemed to afford some relief, but only for a time ; he died soon after the arrival of Neill, who had highly valued him as a trusty officer in Ms own Madras Fusiliers. Glancing at a map, we see that the high road from Cawnpore to Lucknow is broken at its very commencement by the river Ganges, which, at this point, varies from five hundred to two thousand yards in width. There is, of course, no bridge here ; and as the stream is usually very rapid, the transport of troops necessarily becomes slow, difficult, and dangerous work. Havelock began to cross on the 20th of July, but many days elapsed before the task was completed. The Brahmaputra steamer, which brought Spurgin's detachment to Cawnpore on the 17th, was, with a few open boats, the only available resource for this work. By the 23d, about 1100 of his troops had crossed over into Oude every boat-load having to battle against a broad and swift current. All possible baggage was left behind, each man taking with him a very small supply of clothing and food. On the 20th, Havelock sent a short telegram to the commander-in-chief announcing that Nena Sahib's followers appeared to be deserting him ; that he had fled from Bithoor; that the British had re-entered that place on the 19th ; and that the palace had been reduced to ashes, and 13 guns captured. On the next day a further communi- cation was sent to the effect that three more guns, and a number of animals, had been brought along from Bithoor, and that the magazine had been blown up. Subsequent events proved that the Nena, though forced to flee, still retained a body of troops under his command. When the brigadier general, on the 23d of July, had so far succeeded in transporting his gallant little army over the majestic Ganges ; and when his sanguine hopes had led him to believe that he could conquer Lucknow in two or three days, then arose in his mind the important strategic question What next 1 Should he remain in Oude after the capture of Lucknow, and effect the thorough reconquest of that province ; or should he hastily recross the Ganges, march to Agra, liberate Colvin and the other Europeans in the fort, pick up any available force there, and advance to aid in the siege of Delhi ? Sir Patrick Grant, who was commander-in-chief at that time, was solicited by HAVELOCK'S CAMPAIGN : ALLAHABAD TO LUCKNOW. 255 telegram for an answer to this query. He strenuously recommended that Havelock, once in Oude, should remain there if possible. ' If he merely relieves the beleaguered garrison of Lucknow, and, after accomplishing that object, instantly recrosses the Ganges into our own provinces, it will be thought and believed throughout India that he had signally failed to reconquer Oude, and that he was driven out of the province by force of arms. The insurgents, though beaten before Lucknow, would assuredly collect again, and follow up the retiring army, prevent supplies from coming into camp, and reduce our troops to great straits and hazards when recrossing the Ganges the passage of which, even when wholly unopposed, the brigadier-general describes as having been a very difficult and tedious operation.' This exactly coincided with Havelock's own view ; and he therefore turned a deaf ear to all applications for aid made to him by the commanders at Agra and Delhi. It was not until the 25th that Havelock, after seeing his army safely across the river, mado the passage himself from the Doab into Oude. Neill, with a very small number of troops, prepared to hold Cawnpore safely during Havelock's absence. He re-established British power throughout the place ; offered government rewards for bringing in captured rebels and public property ; appointed Captain Bruce to the post of superintendent of the police and intelligence departments ; purchased troop-horses in the neighbouring districts ; and made arrangements for keeping the road open and unmolested between Cawnpore and Allahabad. All this he did, besides taking care of Havelock's sick and wounded, with a force of only 300 men such was the result of tho bravery of a soldier ami tho skill of a commander, when combined in the same person. "When Havelock had advanced six miles from the Ganges, at a place called Mungulwar, he was y a messenger who had succeeded in eluding the vigilance of the insurgents at Lucknow, and hal brought a plan of that city prepared by Major Anderson, together with some brief but valuable information from Brigadier Inglis. The details were partly written in Greek character, as a measure of precaution. Havelock now saw the full import- ance and difficulty of the work before him. His own little band was reduced to 1500 men, sup- ported by 10 badly equipped and manned guns. On the other hand, he learned that the enemy had intrenched and covered with guns the long bridge across the Sye (Saee) at Bunnee, and had made preparations for destroying it if the passage were forced. Nor was his rear less imperiled than his front ; for Nena Sahib had collected 3000 men and several guns, with which he intended to get between Havelock and the Ganges, to cut off his retreat. Nothing but the anxious dangers and difficulties of the Europeans at Lucknow would have induced the gallant man to advance under such perilous odds. He said in one of his dis- patches to the government on the 28th : ' The communications convince me of the extreme delicacy and difficulty of any operation to relievo Inglis ; it shall be attempted, however, at every risk.' Could he have known how anxiously the beleaguered British in tho Residency at Lucknow was looking for him, his heart would have bled for them ; Major Anderson had sent him a mili- tary plan, but the messenger was too much imperiled to bring any lengthened narrative. The battle of Onao or Oonao was one of the most surprising of the series in which Havelock was engaged. His passage towards Lucknow was disputed on the 29th by the enemy, who had taken up a strong position. Their right was protected by a swamp which could neither bo forced nor turned; their advanced corps was in a garden enclosure which assumed tho form of a bastion ; and the rest of their force was posted in and behind a village, the houses of which were loopholed and defended by 15 guns. The passage between the village and the town of Onao was very narrow ; but along this passage the attack had to be made because tho swamp precluded an advance on the one flank, while tho flooded state of the country equally rendered the other impassable. Tho attack was commenced by tho 78th Highlanders and the 1st Fusiliers, who, with two guns, soon drove the enemy out of tho bastioned enclosure ; but when they approached tho village, they were exposed to a hot fire from tho loopholed houses. A party of the 84th foot advanced in aid ; and then a deter- mined struggle ensued ; the village was set on fire, but still the enemy resisted with a bravery worthy of a better cause. At length the passage between tho town and the village was forced ; and then the enemy were seen drawn up in great strength in an open plain infantry, cavalry, and artillery, thcless Havelock attacked them, captured their guns, and put the horse and foot to flight. During all this time a largo detachment of Nena Sahib's troops, under Jupah Singh, threatened the left flank of tho British, in the not unreasonable hope of being able to annihilate such a handful of men. No sooner had Havelock given his troops two or three hours' rest, than he advanced from Onao to Busherutgunje. This was a walled town, with wet ditches, a gate defended by a round tower, four pieces of cannon on and near tho tower, loopholed and strengthened buildings within the walls, and a broad and deep pond or lake beyond the town. Havelock sent the Highlanders and Fusiliers, under cover of the guns, to capture the earthworks and enter the town ; while the 84th made a flank movement on tho left, and cut off the communication from the town by a chaussee and bridge over the lake. His few horse could do nothing for want of open ground on which to manoeuvre; but his guns and his infantry soon captured the place and drove the enemy before them. In these two battles on one day, he had 12 killed and 76 wounded ; while the enemy is supposed to have lost half as many men as Havelock's whole force. He also captured 19 guns, 256 THE REVOLT IN INDIA: 1857. but as he had no gunners to work them, or horses to draw them, they were destroyed two by spik- ing, and seventeen by shot. In a dispatch relating to this day's hard work, the general, after describ- ing the brief but desperate contest among the loop- holed houses, said : ' Here some daring feats of bravery were performed. Private Patrick Cavanagh, of the 64th, was cut literally in pieces by the enemy, while setting an example of distinguished gallantry. Had he lived I should have deemed him worthy of the Victoria Cross ; it could never have glittered on a more gallant breast.' This mode of noticing the merit of private soldiers endeared Havelock to his troops. Cavanagh had been the first to leap over a wall from behind which it was necessary to drive the enemy ; he found himself confronted by at least a dozen troopers, two or three of whom he killed ; but he was cut to pieces by the rest before his comrades could come to his aid. It must have been with a pang of deep regret that the general, hitherto successful in every encounter, found it necessary, on the 31st of July, to make his first retrograde movement. He never scrupled to attack thousands of the enemy with hundreds of his own troops, in open battle ; the odds, whether five to one or ten to one, did not deter him ; but when his whole force, his miniature army of operations, became reduced to little more than the number for one full regi- ment, the question arose whether any men would be left at all, after fighting the whole distance to Lucknow. He had no means for crossing the Sye river or the great canal, as the enemy had taken care either to destroy or to guard all the bridges; and in every military requirement except courage his force was becoming daily weaker. Besides officers and men who had been killed or wounded in fair fight, numbers had been struck down by the sun ; while others, through exposure to swamps and marshes, had been seized with cholera, diarrhoea, and dysentery; insomuch that Havelock was losing at the rate of fifty men a day. In addition to all this, as he could leave no men behind him to keep open the communication with Cawnpore, he was obliged to take all his sick and wounded with him. His little band being now reduced by battle and disease to 1364 men, he determined on receding two short marches, to Avait until reinforcements of some kind could reach him. Colonel Tytler, his quartermaster-general, strongly confirmed the necessity of this retreat. He saw no possibility of more than 600 men reaching Lucknow alive and in fighting condition ; and they would then have had two miles of street-fighting before reaching the Residency. He recommended a retreat from Busherutgunje to Mungulwar; and this retreat was made under the earnest hope that aid would arrive soon enough to permit an advance to Lucknow within a week aid most urgently needed, seeing that the garrison at that place was becoming very short of provisions. The troops, of course, were a little disheartened by this retrograde movement. They rested in Busherut- gunje from the early morning of the 30th to the afternoon, when they received the order to retreat. It was not till after the reasons were explained to them, that his gallant companions in arms could at all reconcile themselves to this order from the general. They marched back that evening to Onao, and the following morning to Mungulwar. The month of August began under dispiriting circumstances to Havelock. His chance of reaching Lucknow was smaller than ever ; although greater than ever was the need of the garrison at that place for his assistance. He sent back his sick and wounded from Mungulwar to Cawnpore, across the Ganges, and committed them to Neill's keeping. He explained to that general the reasons for his retreat, and asked for further reinforcements if such were by any means obtainable. Neill was able simply to send a few dozens of men, bringing Havelock' s effective number up to about 1400. With these he set about reorgan- ising his little band during the first three days of the month counting each man as if he had been a gem above price. Every native had been got rid of; all his troops were British ; and therefore, few as they were, he felt entire reliance on them. On the 4th he sent out his handful of volunteer cavalry to reconnoitre the Lucknow road, to see what had become of the enemy. The troopers dashed through Onao without interruption ; but on approaching Busherutgunje they saw ample evi- dence that the enemy were endeavouring to block up the line of communication, by occupying in force a series of hamlets between the town and the lake beyond it. The cavalry, having thus obtained news critically important to the general, galloped back the same evening to Onao, where they were joined by Havelock and his force from Mungulwar. After a night's bivouac at Onao, the British marched forth in early morn, and met their old enemy for a second time at Busherut- gunje. Havelock, after a reconnaissance, resolved to deceive the enemy by a show of cavalry in front, while he sent round guns and infantry to turn their flanks. This manoeuvre completely succeeded ; the enemy were surprised, shelled out of the town, and pursued by the bayonet and the rifle through the whole of the hamlets to an open plain beyond. They suffered much, but safely drew oft' all their guns except two. Though a victory for Havelock, shewing the high qualities of his men, it was not one that cheered him much. The enemy were still between him and Lucknow, and he would have to encounter them again and again, with probably great reinforcements on their side, ere he could succeed in the object he had at heart. The morning of the 6th of August rose gloomily to him ; for he was forced to a con- clusion that an attack on Lucknow was wholly beyond his force. He returned from Busherutgunje through Onao to his old quarters at Mungulwar ; HAVELOCK'S CAMPAIGN: ALLAHABAD TO LUCKNOW. 257 and when encamped there, -wrote or telegraphed to the commander-in-chief that he must abandon his long-chcrishcd enterprise until strengthened. All his staff-officers joined in the opinion that to advance now to Lucknow -would be \ to court annihilation/ and would, moreover, seal the doom of the heroic Inglis in that city seeing that that officer could not possibly hold out without the hopeful expectation, sooner or later, of relief from Cawnpore. 'I will remain,' added Havclock in his notification, till the last moment in this position (Mungulwar), strengthening it, and hourly improving my bridge-communication with Cawnpore, in the hope that some error of the enemy may enable me to strike a blow against them, and give the garrison an opportunity of t motnct ntntctettdj ART -L < I B I T H O O R 1UHTH KtZtUr.T ' 1. VILLI Hii) ft ( rinn of action near Bithoor, August 16, 1857. blowing up their works and cutling their way out.' Ilavelock's army now only just exceeded effective men a number absurd to designate as an .army, were it not for its brilliant achieve- ments. Between Mungulwar and Lucknow it was known that there were three strong posts, defended by 50 guns and 30,000 men. livery village on the too (this being, in the turbulent province of Oude), was found to be occupied by zemindars deadly hostile to the British. Neill had only 500 reliable troops at Cawnpore, of whom one-half were on the sick-list. Who can wonder, then, that even a Havclock shrank from an advance to Lucknow at such a time 1 From the evening of the Gth to the morning of the 11th was the small overworked column encamped at Mungulwar fighting against cholera as a more dreaded opponent than rebellious sepoys, and keeping a guarded watch on the distrusted Oudians around. On the 11th, however, this sojourn was disturbed ; and the British found themselves called upon to meet the enemy for the third time at the town of Busherutgunje. Early in the morning Havclock received infor- mation that 4000 rebels, with some guns, had advanced from Nawabgungc to that place. It did not suit his views to have such a hostile force in position within a few hours' march of him ; he therefore put his column in motion. His advanced guard drove the enemy's parties out of Onao ; but 258 THE REVOLT IN INDfA : 1857. when he marched onward to the vicinity of Bush- erutgunje, he found the enemy far more numerous than he had expected spread out to a great distance right and left, and strongly intrenched in the centre. Havelock saw reasons for post- poning his attack till the following day. He returned to Onao, where his troops bivouacked on the wet ground amid much discomfort, and after a very scanty supper. Such men, however, were not likely to make the worst of their troubles; they rose on the 12th, ready to van- quish the enemy in their usual style. In the two former battles of Busherutgunje, the enemy had depended chiefly on defences in and behind the town ; but in this instance they had adopted the plan of intrenching the village of Boursekee Chowkee, in advance of the town. Havelock was much retarded in bringing his battery and sup- porting troops across the deep and wide morasses which protected the enemy's front, during which operation the enemy's shot and shell caused him some loss ; but when these obstacles were sur- mounted, and his artillery brought into play, the 78th Highlanders, without firing a shot, rushed with a cheer upon the principal redoubt, and captured two out of the three horse-battery guns with which it was armed. The enemy's extreme left being also turned, they were soon in full retreat. But here, as before, the victory was little more than a manifestation of British supe- riority in the field of battle; the enemy lost six to one of the British, but still they remained on or near the Lucknow road. The brigadier, just alike to his humble soldiers and to his brother- officers, did not fail to mention the names of those who particularly distinguished themselves. On one occasion it was his own son Lieutenant Havelock ; on another it was Patrick Cavanagh the private; and now it was Lieutenant Crowe of the 78th Highlanders, who, on this 12th of August, had been the first man to climb into the enemy's redoubt at Boursekee Chowkee an achievement which afterwards brought him the Victoria cross. The conqueror for the third time retreated from Busherutgunje to Mungulwar, of course a little weaker in men than in the morning. Havelock's object, in this third retreat, was not merely to reach Mungulwar, but to recross the Ganges to Cawnpore, there to wait for reinforcements before making another attempt to relieve Lucknow. The advance of the 4000 rebels on the 11th had been mainly with the view of cutting off the little band of heroes during this embarkation ; but the battle of the 12th frustrated this ; and by evening of the 13th the whole of the British had crossed the Ganges from the Oude bank to the Cawnpore bank, by a bridge of boats and a boat-equipage which Colonel Tytler and Captain Crommelin had used indefatigable exertions to prepare. There can be no question that this retreat was regarded by the insurgents as a concession to their superior strength, as an admission that even a Havelock could not penetrate to Lucknow at that time ; it elated them, and for the same reason it depressed the little band who had achieved so much and suffered so severely. The general himself was deeply grieved, for the prestige of the British name, but more immediately for the safety of Brigadier Inglis and his companions. But though grieved, he was too good a soldier to despond : he looked at his difficulties manfully. Those difficul- ties were indeed great. While he was fighting in Oude, bravely but vainly striving to advance to Lucknow, Nena Sahib had been collecting a motley assemblage of troops near Bithoor, for the purpose of re-establishing his power in that region. A whole month had been available to him for this purpose, from the middle of July to the middle of August ; and during this time there had been assembled the 31st and 42d native infantry from Saugor, the 17th from Fyzabad, portions of the 34th disbanded at Barrackpore, troops of three mutinied cavalry regiments, and odds and ends of Mahrattas. The Nena had imitated Havelock in crossing into Oude, but had afterwards recrossed into the Doab, with the evident intention of attacking NehTs weak force at Cawnpore. Bithoor he re-occupied without difficulty, for Neill had no troops to station at that place, but now he planned an advance to Cawn- pore itself. As soon as Havelock had brought his column across the Ganges on the 13th, the two generals concerted a plan ; they resolved to rest the troops on the 14th, attack Nena Sahib's left wing on the 15th, and march to Bithoor on the 16th. Weill, with a mere handful of men, went out of his intrenchment, surprised the enemy's left, and drove them with precipitation from the vicinity of Cawnpore. This done, Havelock laid his plan for a third visit to Bithoor on the 16th. He marched out with about 1300 men nearly all that he and Neill possessed between them and came up to the enemy about mid-day. They had established a position in front of Bithoor, which Havelock characterised as one of the strongest he had ever seen. They had two guns and an earthen redoubt in and near a plantation of sugar and castor-oil plants, intrenched quad- rangles filled with troops, and two villages with loopholed houses and walls. Havelock, after surveying the position, sent his artillery along the main road ; consisting of Maude's battery, which had already rendered such good service, and Olphert's battery, recently forwarded from Allahabad under Lieutenant Smithett. While the guns proceeded along the main road, the infantry advanced in two wings on the right and left. After a brief exchange of artillery-fire, the 78th Highlanders and the Madras Fusiliers advanced in that fearless way which struck such astonishment and panic into the mutineers ; they captured and burned a village, then forced their way through a sugar-plantation, then took the redoubt, then captured two guns placed in a battery, and drove the rebels before them at every HAVELOCK'S CAMPAIGN: ALLAHABAD TO LUCKNOW. 259 point. The battery, redoubt, quadrangles, villages, and plantations having been thus conquered, the British crossed a bridge over a narrow but unford- ablo stream, and pursued the enemy into and right through the town of Bithoor. Beyond this it was impossible to pursue them, for Havelock had now scarcely a dozen troopers, and his infantry were utterly exhausted by marching and fighting during a fiercely hot day. The C4th and 84th foot, with the Ferozpore Sikhs, were disabled from taking a full share in the day's operations, by a bend or branch of the unfordable stream which intercepted their intended line of march ; the chief glory of the day rested with the 7Sth Highlanders and the Madras Fusiliers. Havelock, in his dis- patch relating to this battle, said : ' I must do the mutineers the justice to pronounce that they fought obstinately ; otherwise they could not for a whole hour have held their own, eveu with such advant- ages of ground, against my powerful artillery- fire.' Worn out with fatigue, the British troops bivouacked that night near Bithoor; and on the 17th they returned to Cawnpore. They had been fighting for six or seven weeks under an Indian sun, almost from the day of their leaving Allahabad. ' Rest they must have,' said Neil], in one of his pithy telegrams. Captain Mackenzie, of the Highlanders, was among those who received wounds on this day. This may be regarded as terminating the Have- lock campaign in the strict sense of tho term ; is, the campaigu in which he was undisputed chief. He was destined, before the hand of death struck him down, to fight again against the rebel- lious sepoys, but under curious relations towards a brother-officer relations strikingly honourable to both, as will presently be explained. A wonderful campaign it must indeed be called. Between the 12th of July and the 17th of August, Have- lock had fought and won three battles in the Doab east of Cawnpore, three in the vicinity of Cawnpore and Bithoor, and four, in Oude ten battles in thirty-seven days ; and this against an .enemy manifold superior in numbers, and with an army which naturally became weaker by each battle, until at length its fighting power was almost extinguished. Precarious, indeed, was the state to which Havclock's little force was reduced. Shells, balls, bullets, sabres, heat, fatigue, and disease, laid his poor fellows low ; while his coustant cry for reinforcements was not unheeded, certainly but left unsatisfied. The cry was everywhere the same 'Send us troops;' and the reply varied but little: 'We have none to send.' On the 19th of it, he had 17 officers and 466 men sick at Cawnpore ; while tho^c who were not sick were so exhausted as to be scarcely fit for active service. Havelock and Ncill thirsted to encourage their handful of men by some brilliant achievement ; but the one essential would be the relief of Luck- now, and for this they were not strong enough. The rebels, encouraged by this state of affairs, assembled in great force on the Oude side of the Ganges ; they threatened to cross at Cawnpore, at a spot twelve miles lower down, and at Futteh- poor ; while, on the other side, the Gwalior Contingent threatened the small British force from Calpee. Havelock telegraphed to the commander- in-chief: 'I could bring into the field 8 good guns, but the enemy are reported to have 29 or 30; these are great odds, and my 900 soldiers may be opposed to 5000 organised troops. The loss of a battle would ruin everything in this part of India.' After deducting his sick and wounded, and two detachments to guard the cantonment and the road to it, he had only 700 men ready for the field perhaps the smallest 'army' that modern warfare has exhibited. Every day the general became more earuest and urgent in the language of his telegrams ; he was quite willing to ' fight anything, and at any odds ;' but his failure of victory would be ruinous at such a critical time. There were 5000 Gwalior troops threatening his rear on tho Jumna; there were 20,000 Oudians watching him from the other side of the Ganges; there were 12,000 of tho enemy on his left at Furruckabad ; and to oppose these 37,000 armed and disciplined soldiers, he had only 700 effective men ! The contrast would have been ridiculous, but for tho moral grandeur which gave almost a sublimity to the devotedness of this" little band. On tho 21st, he announced that uuless reinforce- ments arrived soon, ho would be compelled to abandon all his hopes and plans, and return to Allahabad, whence he had started on his career of conquest seven weeks before. He endeavoured, meanwhile, to strengthen his position at Cawnpore, and to send off sick and wounded to Allahabad, as a temporary relief. It would not be easy to decide who was beset by most anxiety towards the close of August Havelock or Inglis. The former, after his vain attempt to reach Lucknow, wrote a note on the 4th which happily reached Inglis; telling him of what had occurred, and adding, 'You must aid us in every way, even to cutting your way out, if we can't force our way in. We have only a small force.' This note reached Inglis on the 15th ; he wrote a reply on the 16th, which after the messenger had been exposed to seven days of great peril Havelock received on tho 23d. This reply told how terrible was the position of the Lucknow garrison 120 sick and wounded ; 220 women, and 230 children ; food and all necessaries scanty; disease and filth all about them ; officers toiling like common labourers from morning till night ; soldiers and civilians nearly worn out with fatigue ; enemy attacking every day, and forming mines to blow up the feeble intrenchments ; and no means of carriage even if the garrison succeeded in quitting the place. The remaining days of the month were spent by Havelock inactively but hopefully. True, he was becoming almost invested by the rebels at Cawnpore, who saw that his handful of 260 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. men could do little against them; but, on the other hand, telegraphic communication was well kept up with Allahabad, Benares, and Calcutta. He learned that Canning, Campbell, and Outram were busily engaged in sending up every possible reinforcement to him ; and he wrote again and again to Inglis, urging him to remain firm to the last, in the cheerful trust that aid Avould come before the last act of despair a surrender to the insurgents at Lucknow. There was mention of nearly 2000 men being either on their way or about to start from Calcutta, belonging to the 5 th, 64th, 78th, 84th, and 90th regiments, the Madras Fusiliers, and the artillery ; and there were con- fident hopes expressed of great service being rendered by the Naval Brigade, 500 'bluejackets,' under Captain Peel, who left Calcutta by steamer on the 20th. The governor-general knew that Brigadier Inglis had a quarter of a million ster- ling of government money under his charge in the Residency of Lucknow ; and he sent telegrams to Havelock and Neill, urging them, if possible, to convey instructions to Inglis not to care about the money, but rather to use it in any way that might best contribute to the liberation of his heroic and suffering companions. New names now appear upon the scene those of Outram and Campbell. Major-general Sir James Outram, after successfully bringing the Persian Avar to an end, had been appointed by the governor-general to the military command of the Diuapoor and Cawnpore divisions; succeeding Wheeler, who was killed at Cawnpore, and Lloyd, who had fallen into disgrace at Dinapoor. This was a very important trust, seeing that it placed under his control all the British officers engaged in the various struggles at Lucknow, Cawnpore, Allahabad, Benares, Diuapoor, &c. He arrived at Dinapoor to .assume this command on the 18th of August, two days after the date when Havelock had ended his series of ten battles. It happened, too, that Sir Colin Campbell arrived in India about the same time, to fill the office of com- mander-in-chief of all the armies of the crown and the Company in India. For a period of two months, Sir Patrick Grant had superintended military matters, remaining in consultation with Viscount Canning at Calcutta, and corresponding with the generals in the various provinces and divisions. Now, however, Sir Patrick returned to his former post at Madras, and Sir Colin assumed military command in his stead remain- ing, like him, many weeks at Calcutta, where he could better organise an army than in the upper provinces. Campbell and Outram, the one at Calcutta and the other at Dinapoor, speedily settled by telegram that every possible exertion should be made to send up reinforcements to Havelock and Neill at Cawnpore ; and that those gallant men should be encouraged to hold on, and not retreat from their important position. Outram had formed a plan entirely distinct from that in which Havelock was concerned namely, to advance from Beuai'es direct to Lucknow via Jounpoor, a route altogether northeast of the Ganges and the Doab ; and to relieve Brigadier Inglis and the devoted garrison of that city. When, however, it became known that Inglis could not cut his way out of Lucknow without powerful assistance, and that Havelock himself was in danger at Cawnpore, Sir Colin Campbell suggested to Sir James Outram a reconsideration of his plan ; pointing out that an advance of a hundred and fifty miles from Benares to Lucknow, through a country mostly in the hands of the enemy, would under any circum- stances be very perilous; and submitting that a march by Allahabad to Cawnpore might probably be better. The great problem in effect was how could Outram best assist Havelock and Neill, and how could all three best liberate Inglis from his difficulties 1 To solve this problem, the few remaining days of August, and the month of September, were looked forward to with anxiety. The plan of operations once agreed upon, Sir James Outram engaged in it as quickly as pos- sible. On the 1st of September, having made the necessary military arrangements for the safety of the Dinapoor region, he arrived at Allahabad, making a brief sojourn at Benares on his Avay. He took with him 90 men of H.M. 90th foot a small instalment of the forces with Avhich he hoped to strengthen Havelock's little band. Three days afterwards, GOO men of the same regiment reached Allahabad by steamers a slow and sure way Avhich the government Avas forced to adopt owing to the miserable deficiency in means of land-transport. No time Avas lost in making these valuable troops available. Reckoning up the various fragments of regiments which had arrived at Allahabad since Havelock took his departure from that place two months before, Outram found them to amount to something over 1700 men ; he set off' himself on the 5th Avith a first column of 673 men ; Major Simmonds started on the same day with a second column of 674 ; about 90 more folloAved on the 6th ; and 300 remained to guard Allahabad, and to form the nucleus for further reinforcements. On the 7th, Outram Avas at Hissa, pi'ogressing at a rate that would probably carry him to Cawnpore by the 15th all his men eagerly hoping to have a brush Avith the ' Pandics,' and to aid in augmenting the gallant little band under Havelock. While Sir James Avas on his march, he received information that a party of insurgents from Oude were about to cross the Ganges into Doab, at a place called Koondun Puttee, between Allahabad and Futtehpoor, and about twenty miles from the last-named town. Seeing the importance of frustrating this movement, he made arrangements accordingly. Being at Thureedon on the 9th of September, he placed a small force under the charge of Major Vincent Eyre, Avho had lately much distinguished himself at Arrah; consisting of 100 of H.M. 5th, and 50 of the 64th regiments, mounted on elephants, with two guns, tents, two HAVELOClv'S CAMPAIGN: ALLAHABAD TO LUCKNOW. 261 days' cooked provisions, and supplies for three days more. These troops, not sorry at being selected fur such a novel enterprise, started off and reached Ilutgong by dusk on the 10th, where they were joined by 40 troopers of the 12th Irregular Horse under Captain Johnson. Eyre, alter rating his men, made a moonlight march to Koondun Puttee, where he arrived at daybreak. The enemy, in surprise, rushed hastily to their . with a view of recrossing tho Ganges into Oude; but this escape was not allowed to them. The sword, musket, rifle, and cannon brought them down in such numbers that hardly any saw Oude again. The number of tho enemy was about 300 ; a number not large, but likely to prove very disastrous if they had obtained command of the road between Allahabad and Cawnpore. Havelock evidently attached much importance to this service, for he said in his dispatch : ' I now con- sider my communications secure, which otherwise must have been entirely cut off during our op ora- tions in Oude ; and a general insurrection, I am Bbical-iek-ue.ebal Null. !, would have followed throughout the Doab had the enemy not been destroyed they being but tho advanced-guard of more formidable invaders.' This work achieved, the different columns continued their march, until at length they safely reached Cawnpore. The three generals Outram, Havelock, and Neill met on the 15th of September at Cawnpore. delighted at being able to reinforce each other for the hard work yet to bo done. And now came a manifestation of noble self-denial, a chivalrous sacrifice of mere personal inclination to a higher sense of justice. Outram was higher in rank as a military officer, and held a higher command in t'nat part of India ; he might have claimed, and officially Mas entitled to claim, the command of the forthcoming expedition ; but he, like others, had gloried in the deeds of Havelock, and was determined not to rob him of the honour of re- lieving Lucknow. On the lGth, Sir James Outram 262 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. issued an order,* in which, among other things, he announced that Havelock had been raised from brigadier-general to major-general ; that that noble soldier should have the opportunity of finishing what he had so well begun ; that Outram would accompany him as chief-commissioner of Oude, and would fight under him as a volunteer, without interfering with his command ; and that Havelock should not be superseded in the com- mand by Outram until the relief of Lucknow should have been achieved. It was a worthy deed, marking, as Havelock well expressed it, 'characteristic generosity of feeling;' he announced it to his troops by an order on the same day, and ' expressed his hope that they would, by their exemplary and gallant conduct in the field, strive to justify the confidence thus reposed in them.' The two generals wished at once to ascertain from Calcutta what were the views of Viscount Canning and Sir Colin Campbell concerning any ulterior proceedings at Lucknow. Outram sent a telegram to Canning to inquire whether, if Luck- now were recaptured, it should be held at all hazards, as a matter of success and prestige. The governor-general at once sent back a reply : ' Save the garrison ; never mind our prestige just now, provided you liberate Inglis ; we will recover prestige afterwards. I cannot just now send you any more troops. Save the British in the Resi- dency, and act afterwards as your strength will permit.' The two generals proceeded to act on these instructions. Just two months had elapsed since Havelock had made his appearance at Cawnpore as a victor ; and it was with great pain and anxiety that he had been forced to allow those two months to pass away without sending one single soldier, one single ration of food, to the forlorn band who so wonderfully stood tjieir ground in the Residency at Lucknow. Now, however, he looked forward with brighter hopes ; Outram was with him, under relations most friendly and honourable ; and both generals were fully determined to suffer any sacrifice rather than leave Inglis and his companions unrelieved. Outram himself planned the organisation of the new force for operations in Oude ; but he placed Havelock at the head of it, and took care that Neill should have a share in the glory.f It * ' The important duty of first relieving the garrison of Lucknow has hecn intrusted to Major-general Havelock, C.B.; and Major- general Outram feels that it is due to this distinguished officer, and to the strenuous and noble exertions which he has already made to effect that object, that to him should accrue the honour of the achievement. ' Major-general Outram is confident that the great end for which General Havelock and his brave troops have so long and so gloriously fought will now, under the blessing of Providence, be accomplished. 'The major-general, therefore, in gratitude for and admiration of the brilliant deeds in arms achieved by General Havelock and his gallant troops, will cheerfully waive his rank on the occasion, and will accompany the force to Lucknow in his civil capacity as chief-commissioner of Oude, tendering his military services to General Havelock as a volunteer. ' On the relief of Lucknow, the major-general will resume his position at the head of the forces.' + ' FIRST INFANTRY BRIGADE. ' The 5th Fusiliers ; 84th regiment ; detachments 64th foot and consisted of two brigades of infantry, one of cavalry, one of artillery, and an engineer depart- ment. It was on the 19th of September that the two generals crossed with this army into Oude, making use for that purpose of a bridge of boats over the Ganges, most laboriously constructed by Captain Crommelin. The enemy, assembled near the banks, retired after a nominal resistance to Mungulwar. The heavy guus and the baggage were crossed over on the 20th. On the 21st the British again came up with the enemy, turned their right flank, drove them from their position, inflicted on them a severe loss, and captured four guns. With the heroism of a true soldier, Sir James Outram headed one of the charges that brought about this victory ; serving as a volunteer under Havelock, The enemy were not permitted to destroy the Bunnee bridge over the Sye ; and thus the victors were enabled to pursue their route tow r ards Lucknow. On the 23d, Havelock again found himself in presence of the enemy, who had taken up a strong position ; their left posted in the enclosure of the Alum Bagh a place destined to world-wide notoriety and their centre and right on low hills. Alum Bagh is so near Lucknow that firing in the city could be distinctly heard; and Havelock therefore gave a volley with his largest guns, to tell the beleaguered garrison that aid w r as near. The British, in order to encounter the enemy, had to pass straight along the high road between morasses, during which they sufFercd much from artillery; but when once enabled to deploy to the right and left, they gradually gained an advantage, and added another to the list of their victories driving the enemy before them, but at the same time suffering severely from the large numbers and the heavy firing of those to whom they were opposed. They had been marching three days under a perfect deluge of rain, irregularly fed, and badly housed in villages. Havelock determined, therefore, to pitch camp, and to give his exhausted troops one whole day's rest on the 24th. At last came the eventful day, the 25th of September, when the beleaguered garrison at Lucknow were to experience the joy of seeing those whose arrival had been yearned for during 1st Madras Fusiliers: Brigadier-general Neill commanding, and nominating his own brigade staff. 'second infantry brigade. 'Her Majesty's 78th Highlanders; her Majesty's 90th Light Infantry; and the Sikh regiment of Ferozpore : Brigadier Hamilton commanding, and nominating his own brigade staff. 'third (artillery) brigade. 'Captain Maude's battery; Captain Olphert's battery; Brevet- Major Eyre's battery : Major Cope to command, and to appoint his own staff, ' CAVALRY. ' Volunteer cavalry to the left ; Irregular cavalry to the right : Captain Barrow to command. ' engineer Department. ' Chief- engineer, Captain Crommelin; assistant - engineers, Lieutenants Leonard and Judge. 'Major-general II. Havelock, C.B., to command the force.' HAVELOCK'S CAMPAIGN: ALLAHABAD TO LUCKNOW. 263 so long and anxious a period. Early on that morning, after depositing his baggage and tents under an escort in the Alum Bagh, Havelock pur- sued his march. The 1st brigade, with Outram attached to it as a volunteer, drove the enemy from a succession of gardens and walled enclo- sures ; while the other brigades supported it. From the bridge of the Char Bagh over the canal, to the Residency at Lucknow, was a distance in a straight line of about two miles ; and this interval was cut by trenches, crossed by palisades, and inter- sected by loopholed houses. Progress in this direction being so much obstructed, Havelock resolved to deploy along a narrow road that skirted the left bank of the canal. On they went, until they came opposite the palace of Kaiser or Kissurah Bagh, where two guns and a body of insurgents were placed ; and here the fire poured out on them was so tremendous that, to use the Ll of the general, 'nothing could live under it;' his troops had to pass a bridge partly under the influence of this fire ; but immediately after- wards they received the shelter of buildings adjacent to the palace of Pureed Buksh. Darkm- 1 now coming on, it was at one time proposed that the force should halt for the night in and near the court of this palace ; but Havelock could not bear the idea of leaving the Residency for another night in the hands of the enemy ; he therefore ordered his tn: i little I rusty Sikhs, to take the lead in the tremend- ous ordeal of a street-fight through the large city of Lucknow. It 1 -perate struggle, but it was for a great purpose and it succeeded. On that night, within the British Residency, Havelock and Outram clasped hands with Inglis, and listened to the outpourings of full hearts all around them. ick and the wounded, the broken-down and the emaciated, the military and the civilians, the officers and the soldiers, the women and the children all within the Residency had passed a day of agonised suspense, unable to help in their own deliverance ; but when at length Havelock's advanced column could be seen in a street visible from the buildings of the Residency then broke forth such a cheer as none can know but those placed in similar circumstances. When General Havelock penned a hasty dispatch narrating the events of this day, ho said: 'To form a notion of the obstacles over- come, a reference must be made to the events that arc known to have occurred at Buenos Ay res and Saragossa. Our advance was through streets of flat-roofed and loopholed houses, each : aratc fortress. I am filled with surprise at the success of operations which demanded the efforts of 10,000 good troops.' The advantage cost him dearly. Sir James Outram received a flesh-wound in the arm early in the day, but nothing could subdue his spirit; though faint from loss of blood, he continued till the end of the operations to sit on his horse, from which he only dismounted at the gate of the Residency. Greatest loss of all was that of the gallant and energetic Brigadier-general Neill, who from the 3d of June to the 25th of Sep- tember had been almost incessantly engaged in conflicts with the enemy, in and between the cities of Benares, Allahabad, Cawnpore, and Lucknow. He fell, to fight no more. From the time when he left his native home in Ayrshire, a stripling sixteen years of age, he had passed thirty years of his life in service, and had been a trusty and trusted officer* But although the loss of Neill was the most deplored, on account of .the peculiar services which he had rendered, Havelock had to lament the melan- choly list of gallant officers who had equally desired to shew themselves as true soldiers on this day.t No less than ten officers were cither killed or wounded in the 78th Highlanders alone shewing how terrible must have been the work in which that heroic regiment led. The wholo list of casualties comprised 119 officers and men killed, 339 wounded, and 77 missing. Of these last Havelock said : ' I much fear that, some or all, they have fallen into the hands of a merciless foe.' Thus was the force reduced by more than five hundred men in one day. On the evening of this day, the 25th of September, Major-general Havelock, within the Residency at Lucknow, gave back to Sir James Outram tho charge which had so generously been intrusted to him. He became second in command to one who had all day fought chival- rously under him as a volunteer. Here, then, this chapter may end. It was the last day of Havelock's campaign as an independent com- mander. What else he did before disease ended his valuable life ; what the Lucknow garrison had effected to maintain their perilous position during so many weary weeks ; what were the circumstances that rendered necessary many more weeks of detention In the Residency ; by whom and at what time they were really and finally relieved are subjects that will engage our attention in future pages. * The Queen afterwards gave to the brigadier-general's wife the title which she would have acquired In the regular way if her gallant husband had lived a few weeks longer that of Lady Neill. t Officers A"i//L. Brigadier- general Neill; Brigade -major Cooper; Lieutenant-colonel Bazely; Captain rakenham; Lieu- tenants Crump, Warren, Batcman, Webster, Kirby, Poole, and Moultrie. Officers Wounded. Major-general Sir J. Outram; Lieutenant- colonel Tyt'.er; Captains Becher, Orr, Hodgson, Crommelin, OlphSrt, L'Estrangc, Johnson, Lockhart, Hastings, and "Willis ; Lieutenants Sitwell, Havelock, Lynch, I'ulliser, Swanston, Birch, Crowe, Swanson, Grant, Jolly, Macphcrson, Barry, Oakley, Woolhouse, Knight, Preston, Arnold, and Bailey. Some of the wounded officers afterwards died of their wounds. CHAPTER XVI. THE DINAPOOR MUTINY, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 'FTER the first startling outbreak | at Meerut, there was no instance 'of mutiny that threw consterna- | tion over a more widely spreading range of country than that at Dinapoor. This military station in the midst of the thickly popu- lated province of Behar, between Bengal and Oude; a province rich in opium, rice, and indigo plantations, and 'inhabited chiefly by a class of Hindoos less warlike than those towards the west. The Dinapoor mutiny was the one great event in the eastern half of Northern India during July and August; and on this account it may conveniently be treated as the central nucleus around which all the minor events grouped themselves. In the regions surrounding the lower course of the Ganges, and its branch the Hoogly, the disturb- ances were of minor character ; but along both sides of the great trunk-road there was much more agitation, especially after the mutiny at the station above named. Nevertheless, it will be desirable to take a bird's-eye glance at Bengal and Behar generally in this chapter, in relation to the events of July and August keeping steadily in mind the 25th of July, as the day on which the occurrences at Dinapoor agitated all the natives, paralysed many of the Europeans, and led to a train of truly remarkable proceedings in and near the town of Arrah. First, then, for Calcutta, the Anglo-Indian capital. This city was not afflicted by a mutiny, in the usual meaning of the term, at any time during the year. Many reasons might be assigned for this exemption. There were on all occasions more Europeans at Calcutta than in any other city in India, who could have presented a formidable defence-corps if they chose to combine for that purpose. There was the majesty of a vice- regal court at Calcutta, not without its effect on the impressionable minds of Asiatics. There were the head-quarters of all authority in the city, insuring the promptest measures if exigency should demand them. And lastly, Calcutta being the landing-place for most of the English troops, rebel sepoys could never hope for much chance of success in that capital. Mutiny there was not, but panic unques- tionably appeared panic among the Europeans who did not belong to the Company's service, and whose imaginations were excited by the terrible narratives brought in from the northwest, and highly coloured during their transmission. It was an unfortunate circumstance that many of these persons were hostile to tho government of Viscount Canning; and this hostility Avas especially displayed by those connected with the press, on account of the restrictions already adverted to. Whatever may be the varieties of opinion on the matters at issue, it is unquestionable that difficul- ties were thrown in the way of the executive by this want of accord. India has for a long period been rich in coteries and parties. Among military men, the Queen's officers and the Company's officers have had a little emulative pique ; among non-military men, there has been an envy by the non-officials of the civil servants of the Company ; and the military and the civilians have had their own grounds for antagonism. Calcutta, above all other places, has been marked by these sources of discord. Towards the close of July the government deemed it prudent to ascertain what was the state of affairs in Calcutta with reference to the posses- sion, sale, or concealment of arms. The Europeans in the city, in a state of perpetual alarm, kept up by unauthenticated paragraphs in the newspapers, had indulged a belief that the natives had lately made large purchases of arms, as if plotting mis- chief. Especially was this suspicion entertained when news arrived from Havelock and Neill that all the Europeans at Cawnpore had been mur- dered ; almost wild with excitement, rage, and terror, the Calcutta community set no bounds to their apprehensions ; they would fain have shot all the natives around them, in vague dread of some diabolical plot. Mr Wauchope, commissioner of police, was ordered to make strict inquiry con- cerning the possession of arms. He found that the sale of weapons had been very large during three THE DINAPOOR MUTINY, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 265 months, but that nearly all the purchases had been made by Europeans, and that hardly a house in Calcutta, inhabited by Christians, was without one or mure muskets or pistols. Many arms also had been purchased in Calcutta, and taken into the provinces fur the use of indigo-planters, zemindars, and others, who naturally wished to have near them a few weapons at such a turbulent period. Of any considerable purchases of arms by the native population of Calcutta there was no proof, and the superintendent disbelieved the rumour. This was the third time in two months that the Anglo- Indian capital had been thrown into a paroxysm of terror on this subject ; and although the panic was shewn to be groundless, the authorities never- theless believed it to be expedient to cause all firearms in the city to be registered. No small part of the agitation at Calcutta arose JlAJOU VlSCE.NT EVSE. from the .-hackles on the press, already adverted to. Men of extreme opinions, and men of excited feelings longing to poor out their thoughts on paper, found themselves ten able so to do than in times gone by ; there was the seizure of their printing apparatus, the infliction of a heavy line, confront- ing them, and checking the movement of their Sufficient transpired, however, to render manifest these two facts that the European com- munity at Calcutta violently hated the natives generally, and violently opposed Viscount Canning Dally. There was a very general acquiescence In some such code of rules as the following, for dealing with the natives that every mutineer who had taken up arms or quitted his ranks should be put to death ; that every native, not a soldier, who aided the mutineers, should in like manner be put to death ; that in every village in which a European had been murdered, a telegraph wire cut, or a dak stolen, a swift tribunal should exercise summary justice ; that every village in which a European fugitive had been insulted or refused aid should be heavily fined ; and that vengeance, burning vengeance, was the only adequate measure to deal out to all who had offended. The distressing tales brought by the fugitives had much effect in keep- ing up the feeling denoted by such suggestions as these. It was under the influence of the same disturbed state of the public mind, that an address or petition was got up, condemnatory alike uf Viscount Canning and of the East India Com- pany; it was intended to work a considerable effect in England; but the obviously one-sided line of argument vitiated its force and damaged its reception. As the month of July advanced, and fugitives came in from the disturbed provinces, arrange- ments were made fur accommodating them at 266 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. Calcutta, and as we have seen for alleviating their -wants. It became also a point of much importance to provide barracks or temporary homes of some kind for the troops expected to arrive by sea from various regions. Among build- ings set apart for this latter purpose were the Town Hall, the Free School, the Pleaders' Cham- bers in the Sudder Court, and the Lower Orphan School at Kidderpore. Many months would necessarily elapse before troops in large numbers could arrive ; but even a single regiment would require considerable space to house it before it could be sent up the country. In what way, during July and August, the English ti'oops were sent to the seats of disturbance, has already been sufficiently noticed ; some were despatched by steamers up the Ganges to Patna, Benares, and Allahabad ; while the rest mostly went from Calcutta to Raneegunge by railway, and thence pursued their land -journey by any vehicles obtainable. It may here be remarked, that when Sir Colin Campbell arrived at Calcutta, an immense amount of labour presented itself to his notice. Before he could decide whether to advance northwest to the scat of war, or to remain at the capital, he had carefully to examine the military condition of India. The records of the war department were at Simla, while the centre of authority was at Calcutta. The principal officers were scattered throughout the disturbed districts; the desultory and isolated struggles had relaxed the bond of military obedience ; the reinforcements as they arrived had to be fitted into their places; the detached forces had to be brought into subordina- tion to some general plan ; and the different branches of the service had to be brought into harmony one with another. Hence Calcutta was for several weeks the head-quarters of the veteran commander-in-chief, while these all-important details of military organisation were in progress. In the wide belt of country forming the eastern margin of India, from the Himalaya in the north to Pegu in the south, there was no mutiny properly so called during July and August. All the disturb- ances were limited to threatening symptoms which, if not attended to, might have proved dangerous. The nature of these symptoms may be illustrated by a few examples. At Jclpigoree, early in July, two men were detected tampering with the sepoys of the 73d N.I. ; and a trooper of the 11th irre- gular cavalry was found guilty of insubordination. At Dinagepore the moulvies or Mussulman reli- gious teachei'S began to spread seditious rumours. At Jessore, similar Mussulman tendencies were manifested. In the third week of July tranquillity prevailed throughout the divisions of Aracan, Chittagong, Dacca, Assam, and Darjeeling, com- prising the belt above adverted to ; and if agitation were more observable towards the close of the month, it was traceable to news of the Dinapoor mutiny, presently to be noticed. Early in August the Jclpigoree native troops were found to be in a very unsettled state, ready to mutiny at any time ; and on the 15th a plot was discovered for murder- ing the officers and decamping towards the west. In consequence of this, orders were sent to Assam and Darjeeling to aid the Jelpigoree officers in case of need. During the remainder of August, a close watch was kept on the 73d N. I., the chief native regiment in that part of India, sufficient to prevent actual outbreaks ; and native servants were dis- armed during the Mohurrum or Mohammedan festival, to guard against the effects of fanaticism. Perhaps, however, the tranquillity of this eastern belt was more efficiently secured by the near neighbourhood of half-civilised border tribes, who had but little sympathy with the real Hin- dustanis, and were willing to enter into the Company's service as irregular troops and armed police. Passing westward, to the line of route along the Hoogly to the Canges, and the country near it, we find traces of a little more turbulency, owing to the presence of a greater number of native troops. About the middle of July, the Barrackpore authorities asked for permission to disarm the vil- lages near at hand, in order to render more effectual the pi*evious disarming of native troops at Barrack- pore itself treated in a former chapter. Early in August the behaviour of the troops at Berhampore became suspicious; they had heard of the mutiny of the 8th N. I. at places further west, and were with difficulty kept from imitating the pernicious example. In the middle of the month, the com- missioner of Bhagulpore deemed it necessary to detain two detachments of H.M. 5th Fusiliers, on their way up the Ganges, at Bbagulpore and Monghir ; for the 32d native infantry, and the 5th irregular cavalry, exhibited symptoms not to be neglected. After the occurrences at Dinapoor, the region around Berhampore and Moorshedabad could no longer be kept in peace while the native troops retained their arms ; it was determined there- fore, by Mr Spencer the commissioner, and Colonel Macgregor the commandant, to adopt decisive measures while there was yet time. On the 1st of August, having the aid of H.M. 90th foot, they disarmed the 63d native infantry and the 11th irregular cavalry at Berhampore ; and on the following day they similarly disarmed all the inhabitants of that place and of Moorshedabad. Colonel Campbell, of the 90th, who had brought that regiment from England in splendid condition in the Himalaya steamer, and who was on his way up the Ganges to the disturbed districts, was the officer who practically effected this disarming at Berhampore; he spoke of the 11th irregular cavalry as one of the most superb regiments he had ever seen, in men, horses, and equipments ; they were rendered almost savage by the skill with which the colonel managed his delicate task ; and they reproached the sepoys of the 63d for having submitted so quietly to the disarming. A little further up the country, at Bhagulpore, about 200 troopers of the 5th irregular cavalry mutinied THE* DINAPOOR MUTINY, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 2G7 on the 14th of August, taking the road towards Bowsce, but banning none of their officers; on the 15th they passed through Bowsee to Rownee ; and on the 18th left Rownee for Gayah bound for the disturbed regions in the west. At Monghir, still higher up the Ganges, a terrible commotion was produced by this occurrence ; the civil commis- sioner shut himself up in a fort, with a few of II. M. 5th Fusiliers, and left the city to its fate ; but fortunately Sir James Outram was at the time parsing up the Ganges in a steamer ; be rebuked this pusillanimity, and recommended the officials to shew a bolder front. Arriving now at the Patna and Diuapoor district, we must trace the progress of affairs more in detail, to shew how the authorities were placed before, and how after, the mutiny which it is the chief object of this chapter to narrate. Patna is I and important city, the centre of an industrious :i ; while Dinapoor, in the immediate vicinity, is the I ilitary station between Barrackpore and Allahabad. Mr Tayler, civil commissioner, was the chief authority at the one place ; Major-general i was military commandant at the other; and it was essentially necessary, for the preservation of peace in all that region, that these two officials should act in harmony. We have already seen (pp. 151-154) that, about the middle of June, the Patna district became much agitated by the news of disturbances in other quarters ; that the police force was thereupon strengthened, and the gl landing-places watched ; that some of the Corn- 's treasure was removed to other stations; that places of rendezvous were agreed upon in of emergency ; that conspiracies among the M inhabitants were more than once discovered, in concert with other conspirators at Lucknow and Cawnpore ; and that on the 3d of July some of the fanatics murdered Dr Lyell, principal assistant to the opium agent. "We have also seen, in the same chapter, that Diuapoor reposed upon a sort of moral volcano throughout June ; that although the native troops made loud professions of loyalty, the Europeans were nevertheless in a very anxious position all living near together, all on the alert, and most of them believing that the fidelity of the sepoys was not worth many days' purchase. Being thus on their guard, a mutiny ought not to have occurred at their station ; but it did occur, and brought disgrace to the general who was respon- sible for military affairs in that division. As intelligent clue to this whole series of trans- actions will be obtained by tracing first, the Dinapoor mutiny itself; then the mingled disasters and successes, blunders and heroism, at Arrah ; then the effect of the mutiny on the districts of Behar north of the Ganges ; and, lastly, the effects on the wide-spreading region south of that river. The distan.ee between the two cities is about ten The barracks of the European troops at Dinapoor were situated in a large square westward of the native town; beyond this were the native lines ; and most western of all, by a very injudi- cious arrangement, was the magazine in which the percussion-caps were stored a matter apparently small in itself, but serious in its consequences, as we shall presently see. Major-general Lloyd, com- mander of the station, and of a vast military region called the Dinapoor Division, had for some weeks been an object of almost as much anxiety to the Europeans at the station as the sepoys themselves. He was advanced in years, infirm, and irresolute. Unable to mount his horse without assistance, and dreading to give orders that would have the effect of sending any European troops away from Dinapoor, he was singularly unfitted to cope with the difficulties of those time3. It points to some great defect in military routine, when one who had been a gallant officer in his better days was thus left in possession of a command he was no longer fitted to wield. Towards the close of July there were three regiments of Bengal native infantry at that station, the 7th, 8th, and 40th. There was also the greater portion of H.M. 10th foot, together with two companies of the 37th, and two troops of artillery. Not a British officer, except the major- general, doubted that these Europeans could have disarmed and controlled the sepoys, had the attempt been made at the proper time. The Calcutta inhabitants had petitioned the governor- general to disarm the native regiments at Dina- poor, and the officers of the Queen's regiments at that station had all along advocated a similar measure ; but General Lloyd, like many other Company's officers, was proud of the sepoys, and trusted them to the last ; and Viscount Canning placed reliance on his experience, to determine whether and when to effect this disarming. This reliance ended in unfortunate results. On the 25th of July, the appearance of affairs led the major-general to exhibit less than his former confidence in the native troops; he shrank, it is true, from disarming them ; but he sought to render their arms less dangerous by quietly remov- ing the percussion-caps from the magazine. Now these caps had to be brought in front of the whole length of the sepoy lines on the way from the magazine to the English barracks. Early in the morning he sent the 10th and the artillery to the grand square, ready to be moved towards the sepoy lines if disturbance should occur. Two hackeries went down to the magazine under charge of an officer ; the caps were placed in them ; and the vehicles were drawn some distance towards the English lines. There then arose a shout among the sepoys: ' Kill the sahibs ; don't let the caps be taken away!' The caps were taken, however, and safely conveyed to the officers' mess-room. The 10th were kept idle in the square or in barracks all the forenoon ; while the native officers were ordered to go to the native lines, and ask the sepoys to give up the caps already issued to them. Some of the sepoys obeyed this strange demand- strange, because backed by no display of power ; while some fired their muskets and threatened to shoot the officers. At the sound of these shots the 2G8 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. 10th were ordered hastily to advance ; they did so, .but only to see the rebel sepoys run off as fast as their legs could carry them. Inexpressible was the mortification of the officers at this sight ; three entire regiments escaped across fields, with their arms and accoutrements, to swell the ranks of the mutineers elsewhere ; and so stupid had been the orders given, that there was no force at hand to stop them. The 10th, two companies of the 37th, and the artillery, all Avere burning to castigate these men ; yet was the escape so quickly and completely effected that very few of the sepoys fell. The English destroyed the sepoy lines, but did not pursue the mutineers, for their perplexed commander would not permit them to leave him in danger. A surgeon of the 10th, on seeing the officers threatened by the sepoys, brought his hospital-guards to confront them ; and even some of his patients got upon the flat roof of the hospital, and fired at the rehels. He then galloped off, and brought all the ladies and children to the barracks for safety. Every man of the 10th regiment was vexed and irritated by this day's work; complaints against the general were loud, deep, and many ; and all the officers' letters told plainly of the general feeling among them. The regiment numbered little more than four hundred bayonets; for many men Avere sick in hospital, and a detach- ment Avas at Benares; but the four hundred, highly disciplined men, Avould not haA'e hesitated an instant to disarm, to fight, to pursue, the three thousand rebels, had they been properly instructed and permitted so to do. During eight or ten AA^ecks the officers of that regiment had urged the disarming of the sepoys ; but their recommendations had not been listened to, and noAV it AA'as too late. The general himself, on the forenoon of the 25th, Avent on board a steamer in the Ganges : ' I had no horse in cantonment,' he said. ' My stable Avas two miles distant ; and being unable at the time to walk far or much, I thought I should be most useful on board the steamer Avith guns and riflemen.' It is deeply to be regretted that an old soldier should have been so placed as to find such an explanation necessary. As a consequence of this retreat to a place of shelter, the officers remained without commands and Avithout a commander. Some of the mutineers embarked in boats, Avith the intention of going down the Ganges to Patna, or of crossing the river ; but the detachment of the 37th, on shore and in the steamer, killed most of them by rifle- shots. The steamer did its Avork, unquestionably; but it Avas not the place for a military commander at such a time. The question at once presented itself to the minds of all whither had the rebels gone 1 Evi- dence AA'as soon afforded that the direction taken Avas that of Arrah, a toAvn twenty-four miles from Dinapoor, and separated from it by the river Sonc. Arrah, as a town, was not of great importance ; but it Avas the chief place in the district of Shah- abad, and Avas surrounded by a country whence much revenue Avas obtained by the East India Company. During the troubles arising out of the mutiny, the chief authority at Arrah Avas the magistrate, Mr Wake a man Avho, by his energy and public spirit, proved to be eminently fitted to hold poAver in perilous times. During the Avhole of June and July he had watched the progress of events with an anxious eye. Very soon after the mutiny commenced, he Avrote to the authorities at Calcutta, describing the contents of certain native newspapers published about that time, and sug- gesting the propriety of curbing the licence of those productions. On the 10th of June he announced with something like contempt in his manner that most of the Europeans employed on the railway-works near Arrah had hurried away frightened by reports of mutinous symptoms at Ghazeepore and Buxar ; and he dwelt on the pernicious effects of the example afforded by this timidity. About a Aveek aftcrAvards he induced them all to return. From time to time he applied to Dinapoor, Patna, and Calcutta, for a small detachment of troops to protect Arrah ; but none could be afforded. He suspected some of the chieftains aud zemindars near at hand, and more than suspected numerous disbanded sepoys avIio Avere seen in the district ; to detect plots, he detained and opened letters at the post-office ; but this course met with disapproval, as commencing a system liable to great abuse. There Avere tAvo influential men in the neighbourhood Baboo Koer Singh, and the Rajah of Doomraon Avhose conduct Mr Wake scrutinised very closely ; they professed friendship and loyalty to the govern- ment, but he doubted them. On the 11th of July, Arrah had become surrounded by so many dis- banded sepoys, and natives ready for any mischief, that he applied to Patna for a party of Captain Rattray's Sikh police, Avhich Avas furnished to him. Thus matters proceeded until the 25th of July, Avhen rumours of something disastrous at Dina- poor arrived. Arrah Avas hoav about to become suddenly famous. The ' Defence of Arrah' Avas to be narrated in dispatches and letters, in pamphlets and books, and Avas to cheer up many avIio had been humiliated by blunders committed elscAvhere. True, it Avas only a house defended, not a toAvn ; it Avas less than a score of Europeans saved, not a Avhole community ; yet did it bring Avell-deservcd praise to those concerned in it, and encouragement to a spirited line of conduct on the part of the Company's civil servants elsewhere. On the evening of the day just named, Mr Wake received express ncAvs that the native troops at Dinapoor had actually mutinied, or shcAved symptoms of so doing Avithin a few hours. On the morning of the 26th, he heard that some of the mutineers Avere crossing the river Sone, at a point sixteen miles from Dinapoor, and advancing upon Arrah. His Hindustani local police speedily ran away; but he and a trusty band of civilians resolved to remain at their posts. They selected the bungaloAV of one of their THE DINAPOOR MUTINY, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 269 number, Mr Boyle, an engineer of the main trunk railway, and made that their fortress. Or, more correctly, it waa a building which Mr Boyle had selected for some such purpose as this many days or even weeks before, when the state of aftairs began to look gloomy ; it was a detached two-storied house, about fifty feet square, standing within the same compound as the bungalow inha- bited by Mr Boyle; he fortified it with stones and timber, and always kept some provisions in it. "When the other civilians learned this, some of them smiled ; but the smile became one of gratitude on the 26th of July. The Europeans "who now took up their abode in this fortified house were Messrs Wake, Boyle, Littlcdale, Combe, Colvin, Halls, Field, Anderson, Godfrey, Cock, Tait, Hoyle, Delpeiron, De Songa, and Dacosta ; and a Mohammedan deputy-collector, Syud Azimoodecn all employed in various civil duties in or near Arrah : not a military man among them. With them were 50 Sikhs of Captain Rattray's police battalion. The ladies and children had been sent Mr Boyle's house nt Arrob, defended for seven days ngainst 3001 rebels. away to a place of safety. All that the defenders could bring into the house was meat and grain for a few days' short allowance for the Euro- peans, with a very scanty supply of food for the Sikhs. As to weapon^ meat of the Europeans, vulvers and hog-spears, had two double- barrelled guns each, or a gun and a rifle ; they had abundance of ammunition, and wherewithal to make cartridges by thousand I. Early in the morn- ing of the 27th, nearly the whole of the Dinapoor mutineers marched into Arrah, released the pri- soners in the jail, about four hundred in number, rushed to the collectorate, and looted the tri of eighty thousand rupees. They then advanced to s house, aud kept up a calling fire against it during the whole day, finding shelter behind trees and adjacent buildings. And now did Baboo Kocr Singh shew himself in his true colours; he threw off" the mask of friendliness, and boldly headed the mutineers. It was afterwards ascer- ! that this man, supposed to be in league with Nona Sahib, had openly become a rebel instantly on hearing of the mutiny at Dinapoor : it was he who had procured the boats in which they crossed the Sone; and he formed a plan for joining the Oude insurgents after plundering the treasury of Arrah. When in front of Mr Boyle's house, Kocr Singh and his myrmidons endeavoured to bribe the Sikhs to desert; but these stanch fellows remained true to their salt. On the 88th the insurgents having brought two small cannon, the hastily defended house had then to bear a torrent of cannon-balls as well as of musket-bullets. Thus the siege continued day after day. The rebels even dragged one of the cannon up to the roof of Mr Boyle's bungalow, about sixfy yards off, whence they could fire into the defended house. 'Nothing,' said Mr Wake in his dispatch, 'but the cowardice, ignorance, and want of unanimity of our enemies, prevented our fortification from being brought down abcAit our As fast as the strength of the attack was increased, so fast did the garrison 270 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. increase their defences ; to oppose a new battery, a new barricade was raised; to defeat a mine, a counter-mine was run out. The Sikhs worked untiringly, and seemed to glory in the gallant defence they were making. When provisions began to run low, they made a sally one night, and brought in four sheep a precious treasure to them at such a time. Seven whole days and nights did this continue three thousand men besieging seventy. On the last two days the cowards offered 'terms,' which were con- temptuously rejected. On the 2d of August the mutineers marched off to the west of Arrah to fight Major Vincent Eyre ; how they fared, we shall see presently ; but the battle brought about the liberation of Mr Wake and his companions. Wonderful to relate, only one member of the garrison, a Sikh policeman, received a dangerous wound; all the rest escaped with mere bruises and scratches. The Sikhs were justly proud of their share in the work. During the siege, when water ran short, they dug a well underneath the house, and continued their labour till they came to a spring; when all was happily ended, they requested that the well might be built into a permanent one, as a memento of their services; and that the house itself should receive the inscrip- tion of 'Futtehgurh' or 'stronghold of victory' requests with which Mr Boyle was not at all unwilling to comply. We must now direct attention again to Fatna and Dinapoor, and notice the measures taken to check if possible the triumph of the mutineers. Mr Tayler at the one place had civil control, and General Lloyd at the other had military control, over Arrah as well as all other toAvns in the neigh- bourhood ; and both felt that that station was placed in peril as soon as the mutineers moved west- ward from Dinapoor. Some weeks earlier, when the railway officials had hurried away from Arrah to Dinapoor in affright, Mr Tayler rebuked them, saying that, ' this is a crisis when every English- man should feel that his individual example is of an importance which it is difficult to calculate. It is of great consequence that Europeans should exhibit neither alarm nor panic ; and that, when- ever it is practicable, they should band together for mutual defence and protection.' This rebuke aided Mr Wake's advice in bringing the railway people back to Arrah. It may here be remarked that Mr Tayler himself was, during the early part of July, in a state of discord, not only with the natives, but with many of the Europeans at Patna. He had an unseemly wrangle with Mr Lowis the magis- trate ; and was himself frequently reprimanded by the lieutenant-governor of Bengal. This anarchy appears to have arisen from the fact that, at a time of much difficulty, different views Avere entertained concerning the best policy to be pursued views, advocated in a way that much obstructed public business. It was about one o'clock on the 25th that the authorities at Patna heard alarming intelligence from Dinapoor. Mr Tayler at once summoned all the Europeans resident in the city to his house, where measures of defence were planned in case of an attack. At three o'clock a distant firing announced that the mutiny had taken place ; and within an hour or two came the news that the mutin- ous regiments had marched off towards the west. Mr Tayler made up an expeditionary force of about 100 persons Sikhs, Nujeebs, recruits, and volun- teers and sent it off that same night towards Arrah, to watch the movements of the rebels. At dawn on the following morning, however, unfavourable news came in from many country stations ; and the commissioner, uneasy about Patna and its neighbourhood, recalled the corps. Tayler and Lloyd did not work well together at that crisis. The commissioner wrote to the general on the day after the mutiny, urging him to send 50 European ti-oops either to Chupra or to Mozuf- ferpoor, or both, to protect those places from an attack threatened by insurgents. To this applica- tion Lloyd returned a somewhat querulous answer that he had only 600 Europeans at Dinapoor; that he was afraid of treachery on the part of Koer Singh ; that he had already been blamed by the Calcutta authorities for listening to applica- tions for troops to defend Patna, instead of sending them on to Allahabad ; and that he could render no aid for the purposes required. Mr Tayler renewed the subject by announcing that he would send 50 Sikhs to the two places named ; and he strongly urged the general to send 200 men to rout the mutineers who bad gone to Arrah proposing, at the same time, the establishment of a corps of volunteer cavalry among the officers and gentlemen of Patna and Dinapoor. In most of these matters Mr Tayler appears to have judged more soundly than General Lloyd; but in one point he was fatally in error he believed that Baboo Koer Singh of Jugdispore would remain faithful to the British government. If the 'defence of Arrah' has acquired notoriety, so has the ' disaster ' at that place to which we must now direct attention. This disaster was peculiarly mortifying to the British, as giving a temporary triumph to the mutineers, and as involving a positive loss of many English soldiers at a critical period. The revolt at Dinapoor having occurred on Saturday the 25th of July, General Lloyd made no effort until Monday the 27th to look after the sepoys ; but on that day- he sent a party of the 37th foot from Dinapoor towards Arrah, for the purpose of dispersing the mutineers assembled at that place, and for rescuing the European community hemmed in there. The troops went in the Horungotta steamer ; but this unfortunately went aground after three hours' steaming, and the plan was frustrated. On the evening of Tuesday the 28th, another expedition was organised ; and it was to this that the dis- astrous loss occurred. The steamer Bombay hap- pening to arrive at Dinapoor in her downward passage on the Ganges, Lloyd detained it, and TUB DINAPOOR MUTINY, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 271 arrauged to send a detachment on board. The Bombay was to take a certain number of troops, steam up to the spot where the Horungotta bad run aground, take in tow the detachment from that steamer, and proceed up the river Sone to a landing-place as near as possible to Arrah. Tbis river enters tbe Ganges at a point a few miles west of Dinapoor. Early in the morning of Wednesday the 29tb, the steamer started, and after picking up the other detachment, tbe whole disembarked in tbe afternoon at Bebarce Gbat over 400 men in all, under Captain Dunbar.* Tbe landing having been safely effected on the left or west bauk of the Sone, tbe troops marched to a nullah wbicb it was necessary to cross by means of boats. When, after a considerable delay, tbis was accomplished, they resumed tbeir march, with a blight moon above them, a rough road beneath them, and a very few of the enemy in sight ; and the evening was far advanced wben they reached a bridge about a mile and a half short of Arrah. Here Captain Harrison of the 37th suggested that they should halt until daylight, and not incur the danger of entering the town by night ; but Captain Dunbar, of the 10th, who commanded the force, overruled this suggestion, under an unfortunate impression that there would be little or no opposi- tion. This was the fatal mistake that wrecked the whole enterprise. The troops arrived at Arrah at eleven at night, in black darkness, for the moon had set; then passed through the outskirts of the town the 10th leading, then the Sikhs, then the 37th. Suddenly, while passing by a large tope of mango-trees, a dreadful niusketry-fire l! out of the gloom; the enemy, it now appeared, bad 1 ' in ambush awaiting the arrival of the nm force. Mr Wake and bis iitlcd by the sound of this musketry, audible enough in their beleaguered but well-defended house ; they at once inferred that something wrong had occurred to British troops, and in this inference they were only too correct. The suddenness of the attack, and the blackness of the night, seem to have overwhelmed the detachment ; tbe men lost their officers, the officers their men : some ran off the road to fire into the tope, others to obtain shelter ; Dunbar fell dead ; and Harrison had to assume the com- mand of men whom, at midnight and in utter darkness, he could not see. The main body succeeded in reassembling in a field about four hundred yards from the tope ; and there they remained until daylight being joined at various periods of the night by stragglers, some wounded and some unhurt, and being fired at almost continually by tbe mutineers. It was a wretched humiliating night to the British. At daybreak they counted heads, and then found how severe H.M. 10th foot, . H.M . 87th foot, Sikhs of police battalion, Sikhs of mutinied regiment-, 153 officers and men. Ifl7 a io 416 had been their loss. Captain Harrison at once collecting the survivors into a body, marched them back ten or eleven miles to the steamer. The men had fasted so long (twenty-four hours), through some mismanagement, that they were too weak to act as skirmishers ; they defended themselves as long as their ammunition lasted, but kept in column, pursued the whole way by a large body of the enemy, who picked off the poor fellows with fatal certainty. Arrived at the banks of the nullah, all organisation ceased ; the men rushed to the boats in disorder ; some were run aground, some drowned, some swam over, some were shot by sepoys and villagers on shore. How the rest reached the steamer, they hardly knew ; but tbis they did know that they had left many of their Avounded comrades on shore, with the certain fate of being butchered and mutilated by the enemy. It was a mournful boat-load that the Bombay carried back to Dinapoor on the evening of the 30th of July. Captain Dunbar, Lieutenants Bagnall and Ingilby, Ensigns Erskine, Sale, Birkett, and Anderson, and Messrs Cooper and Piatt (gentlemen-volunteers) were killed ; Lieutenant Sandwith, Ensign Venour, and Messrs Garstin and Macdonell (gentlemen-volunteers) were wounded. Out of fifteen officers, twelve were killed or wounded. The dismal list enumerated 170 officers and men killed, and 120 wounded 200 out of 41") | Ilavelock w0 English soldiers, none of whom could safely be spared to go out and confront the rebels. The civil lines at Benares comprised that portion of the British station which contained the jails, the courts of justice, and the residences of the commis- sioner, judge, surgeon, &C. ; it lay on the north of the Burnah River, while the military lines were on the south, the two being connected by a bridge. The civil station was thus peculiarly open to attack ; and all that the authorities could do for it was to post a party of soldiers and two guns on the bridge ; the prisoners were removed to the other side of the river, the courts were abandoned, and all valuable property was taken from the civil station to that of the European military in the cantonment. The Rev. James Kennedy, chaplain of the station, has in a letter mentioned a fact which shews in how agitated a state the English community at Benares were at that time ;* illus- trating in a striking way as was more than once ' In the evening there wu a fearful (hough causeless panic at Raj-ghc.- intrenchment is being bmm f arose: "The enemy are coming." The workmen, 3000 in number, rushed down the hill as for their lives. Prisoners who irk tried to make their escape, and were with difliculty i Centic- men ran for their rifles; the soldiers got under armi ; the gunners {ant; and altogether, there was indescribable con- ; or. All this was the result of a succession of peals of thunder, which were mistaken for the firing of artillery !' shewn during those turmoils in India that the panic arising from an apprehended danger was often worse than the reality, paralysing the exer- tions of those who would have rendered good service had actual fighting with an open enemy com- menced. No sooner had the dread of the Segowlie mutineers passed away, than an approach of those from Dinapoor was threatened. Colonel Gordon, seeing the mischief that would accrue from such a step, resolved to prevent it : he sent out his hand- ful of English soldiers, not merely to check the approach of the rebels, but to drive them from the district altogether. Koer Singh and his rabble army did not wait for this conflict ; they gave Benares a 'wide offing,' and bent their steps towards Mirzapore. Whilo the few English soldiers were engaged on this duty, the sentinels left behind were aided by the residents, headed by the judge all keeping watch and ward in turn, for the common safety. Mirzapore, from its large sizo and great import- ance as a commercial city, and its position on the banks of the Ganges between Benares and Allahabad, was often placed in considerable peril. No mutiny actually occurred there, but the city was repeatedly threatened by mutineers from other quarters, who, if successful, would certainly have been aided by all the budmashes of the place, and by many Mussulmans higher in station than mere rabble. The European residents were perpetually on the watch. "Wheu a battery of artillery came up the Ganges en route to Allahabad, they earnestly entreated to be allowed to retain it for their own protection ; but Neill, the presiding genius at that time, would not listen to this ; Allahabad and Cawnpore must be thought of, and Mirzapore must shift for itself. When the affairs at Segowlie and Dinapoor became known, measures were taken for making some kind of stronghold at Mirzapore. The Europeans intrenched the largest and strongest house belonging to them, barricaded the streets, buried much property, placed other property in guarded boats on the river, and pre- pared for service four small guns and five hundred rounds of ammunition. On numbering heads, they found 135 persons, all of whom had separate duties or posts assigned to them in the hour of need ; they also secured provision for a month. This judicious line of policy answered the desired purpose : the Dinapoor mutineers did not enter or molest Mirzapore. Those marauders passed west- ward along a line of route further removed from the Ganges, plundering as they went, and com- mitting great devastation. On the 19th of August, a small force set out from Mirzapore to check those acts of violence; but the Dinapoor men generally managed to keep beyond the reach of pursuers. A little later, when other regiments had mutinied in the Saugor division, it was deemed prudent by the Calcutta authorities to send a portion of a Madras regiment, with two guns, to aid in the protection of Mirzapore. It may here be remarked, that along the line 280 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. of country immediately adjacent to the eastern frontier of Oude, the influence of that turbulent province was made abundantly manifest during the period now under notice. There were many zemindars near the border who maintained bodies of armed men on foot. A rebel chief of Sultan- pore, one Mehudee Hussein, appeared to direct the movements in that region ; he was one among many who received direct commissions from the rebel authorities at Lucknow, as chieftains expected to bring all their forces to bear against the British. This fact alone suffices to shew how completely Oude was at that time in the hands of the enemy. Mr Grant, as lieutenant-governor of the Central Provinces, was called upon to exercise authority in the districts of Allahabad, Futtehpoor, Cawn- pore, Banda, and Humeerpoor, as well as in those of Goruckpore, Ghazeepore, Jounpoor, Benares, and Mirzapore. When he settled down at Benares as his head- quarters, towards the close of August, he found that no civil business of the Company was carried on throughout the Doab, from Allahabad to Cawnpore, except at Allahabad itself. Neill and Havelock, by the gallant operations already described, obtained military control of the great line of road ; but their troops being lamentably small in number, they were nearly powerless beyond a few miles' distance on either side of that road; while the judges and magistrates, the commis- sioners and collectors, had in only a few instances been able to resume their duties as civil servants of the Company. A large portion of the popula- tion, driven from their villages either by the rebel sepoys or by the British, had not yet returned ; and the fertile Doab had become, for a time, almost a desert. Banda and Humeerpoor, British districts immediately south of the Doab, were temporarily but completely given up ; scarcely an Englishman remained within them, unless at hide- and-seek. Some of the petty chiefs, including the rajahs of Mundah and Churkarree, remained faithful. For a time, police in the service of the Company were able to retain command in that part of the Allahabad division which lay north of the Ganges ; but the Oudians, as August advanced, crossed the frontier, and gradually drove them away, thus further narrowing the belt of country within which the Company's ' raj ' was respected. Koer Singh, whose name has so often been men- tioned, was ruler for a time south of the Jumna, with his Dinapoor mutineers ; it was supposed that he had* offered his services to Nona Sahib and to the King of Delhi, in hopes of some substantial authority or advantages as a reward for his co-operation. This unsettled state of the region south of tbe Jumna placed Lieutenant Osborne in an extraordinary position. He was, as we have already seen (p. 180), British representative at the court of the Rajah of Rewah, a place south-west of Allahabad unimportant in itself, but surrounded by districts every one of which was in a state of anarchy. Although the young rajah was friendly to the English, and aided the lieutenant in his military plans for checking the mutineers, it was at all times uncertain how far the Rewah troops themselves could be depended on. At a somewhat later date than that to which this chapter relates, Osborne was living in a tent at Rewah, with no Englishman of any grade near him, and uncertain whether he could rely for an hour on the fidelity of the native troops belonging to the rajah defended by little else than his own indomitable force of character. Koer Singh and the Dinapoor mutineers had asked the rajah either to join them, or to allow them to pass through his territory ; he opposed it ; his troops wished it ; and thus the rajah and the lieutenant were thrown into antagonism with the Rewah troops. Another region or division placed under Mr Grant's lieutenant-governorship, Saugor, had wit- nessed very great disturbance during the month of June, as has" already been shewn ; * and he found the effects of that disturbance mani- fested in various ways throughout July and August. Rewah, Nowgong, Jhansi, Saugor, Jub- bulpoor, Hosungabad all had suffered, either from the mutiny of troops at those towns, or by the arrival of mutineers from other stations. Nagpoor was under a different government or control; but it would not on that account have escaped the perils of those evil days, had it not been that the troops distributed over that province belonged to the Madras rather than to the Bengal army a most important difference, as we have had many opportunities of seemg. Mr Plowden, commissioner of Nagpoor, found it com- paratively easy to maintain his own territory in peace, for the reason just stated ; and he used all possible exertion to bring up troops from Madras, and send them on to the Saugor province. His advice to Major Erskine was, to disarm his Bengal troops at all the stations as soon as he could obtain Madras troops ; but the numbers of these latter were not sufficient to permit the carrying out of such a plan. The Saugor territory, in having the peaceful part of Bengal on the east, and Nagpoor territory on the south, was pretty safe from disturb- ance on those frontiers; but having the Jumna region on the north, and the Mahratta dominions on the west, it had many sources of disturbance in those directions. In the town and military station of Saugor, the state of affairs was very remarkable. Brigadier Sage, in the month of June (p. 178), had converted a large fort into a place of refuge for the ladies and families of the officers, provisioned it for six months, placed the guns in position, and guarded the whole by a body of European gunners. This he did, not because the native regiments at the station (31st and 42d B. N. I., and 3d irregular cavalry) had mutinied, but because they appeared very unsettled, and received tempting offers from scheming chieftains in the vicinity. The Calcutta authorities called upon the brigadier for an * Chapter xl., pp. 177-181. MINOR MUTINIES : JULY AND AUGUST. 281 explanation of the grounds on which he had shut up all the Europeans at Saugor, three hundred in number, in the fort, without any actual mutiny at that place ; but on account of interrupted daks and telegraphs, many weeks elapsed before the various official communications could take place, and during those weeks the brigadier was responsible for the safety of the residents. The remarkable feature in all this was, not that the native troops should mutiny, or that the Europeans should live in a fortified residence, but that one regiment should remain faithful when others at the same spot repudiated allegiance. Early in July the 49d and the cavalry endeavoured to iucite the 31st to mutiny ; but not only did the latter remain true to their salt they attacked and beat off the rebels. On the 7th of the month a regular battle ensued ; the 31st and some of the irregular cavalry attacking the 12d and the rest of the irregulars, and expel- ling them altogether from the station. ' Well said Major Erskine, when news of this event reached Jubbulpoor. It was not merely that two infantry regiments were in antagonism ; but two wings of one cavalry regiment were also at open war with each other. So delighted were the English officers of the 31st at the conduct of their men, that they were eager to join in the fray ; but the brigadier would not allow this j he distrusted all these regiments alike, and would not allow the officers to place themselves in peril. Many at Saugor thought that an excess of caution was herein exhibited. The other chief place in the province, Jubbulpoor, as shewn in a former chapter (p. 178), had bean thrown into much perplexity in the month of June by the news of mutiny at Jhan>i and Xuseerabad ; and Major Brskine, oommisi ioner of the province, sought how he might best prevent the pestilence from spreading southeastward. He was at Jub- bulpoor with the B8d 15. N. I. By a system of constant watchfulness he passed through that month without an outbreak. It was, however, a month of anxiety ; for such of the ladies as did not retire to Kamptee for shelter, remained in con- tinual dread near their husbands at Jubbulpoor. seldom taking off their clothes at night, and holding ready to flee at an hour's warning a state of suspense entailing almost as much suffering as mutiny itself. Early in July the Europeans fortified the Residency, and stored it with half a year's provisions for thirty officers, thirty ladies and children, and several civilians ; this was done on receipt of news that the 42d native infantry and the 3d irregular cavalry had mutinied at r. The Residency was made very strong, being converted from a house into a fort ; three officers were made garrison engineers, two acted as "commissariat officers, and all the rest took specific duties. It became not only the stronghold, but the home, night and day, for nearly seventy ns. One of the officers who had the best means of knowing the temper of the troops, while ing the 52d for still remaining faithful under 282 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. so many temptations from mutineers elsewhere, and while promising them extra pay for their fidelity, nevertheless acknowledged in a private letter that the regiment was a hroken reed to rest upon. ' To tell the truth, I doubt the regiment being much better than any other. Circumstances alone keep the sepoys quiet. There is no treasure ; we merely collect enough to pay ourselves and them. If they plundered the country, they could not take away the property ; as the Bundelas would loot and murder them.' Speaking of the domestic economy of his brother-officers and their families in the fortified Residency, he said: ' The 52d mess manage everything in the Khanapeena line (eating and drinking). Ladies and gentlemen all dine together a strange scene, quite a barrack-life. In the evening a few of us drive out ; others ride and walk. We cannot afford above six or eight to leave the garrison together.' July passed over in safety in Jubbulpoor. Early in August a relieving force arrived from the Nagpoor territory, which, nearly tranquil itself, was able to forward trusty Madras troops to regions troubled by the faithless sepoys of the Bengal army. This force consisted of the 33d Madras native infantry, a squadron of the 4th Madras cavalry, 75 European artillerymen, and six guns. Major Erskine, thus reinforced, set forth to restore order at Dumoh, and to proceed thence to Saugor ; to which place a Bombay column was expected to come, via Indore and Bhopal. This was a part of the policy determined on by the government at that time. Calcutta could supply no troops except for the Cawnpore and Lucknow region ; the Punjaub could furnish reinforcements only for the siege of Delhi ; and therefore it was determined that columns should start from the Madras and Bombay presidencies, comprising no Bengal native troops, and should work their way inwards and upwards to the disturbed provinces, sweeping away mutineers wherever they encountered them. It was not until the latter part of August that the Madras movable column could safely leave the vicinity of Jubbulpoor for Dumoh and other dis- turbed stations, and even then Major Erskine found it necessary to retain a portion of the troops. How long the 52d remained faithful at Jubbul- poor we shall see in a future page ; but it may here be remarked that the English officers of the native regiments were at that time placed in a position of difficulty hardly to be comprehended by others. They either trusted their sepoys, or felt a kind of shame in expressing distrust : if not in actual peril, they were at least mortified and vexed ; for they felt their own honour touched when their regiments proved faithless. The Bengal troops at Nagode appear to have remained untouched by mutiny until the 25th of August. On that day the 50th native infantry shewed symptoms which caused some anxiety to the officers; two days afterwards disturbances took place, and at a period somewhat beyond the limit to which this chapter is confined the bulk of the regiment mutinied, and marched off to join mutineers elsewhere. About 250 of the sepoys remained true to their colours ; they escorted their officers, and all the ladies and children, safely from Nagode to Mirzapore. These diver- gences among the men of the same regiment greatly complicate any attempts to elucidate the causes of the Indian mutiny generally. That the sepoys were often excited by temporary and exceptional impulses, is quite certain; and such impulses were wholly beyond the power of the Europeans correctly to estimate. There was one station at which a portion of a native regiment mutinied and shot an officer ; the sepoys of his company threw themselves upon his body and wept, and then joined the mutineers! We pass from the Saugor province to those which were nominally under the control of Mr Colvin as lieutenant-governor of the Northwest Provinces nominally, for, being himself shut up in Agra, he exercised scarcely any control beyond the walls of the fort. Of the Doab, sufficient has already been narrated to shew in what condition that fertile region was placed during the months of July and August. Where Havelock and Neill pitched their tents, there was British supremacy maintained ; but beyond the three cities of Alla- habad, Futtehpoor, and Cawnpore, and the high road connecting; them, British power was little more than a name. Higher up the Doab, at Etawah, Minpooree, Furruckabad, Futteghur, Ally- gurh, Bolundshuhur, &c, anarchy was paramount. Crossing the Ganges into Oude, the cessation of British rule was still more complete. Scarcely an Englishman remained alive throughout the whole of Oude, except in Lucknow ; all who had not been killed had precipitately escaped. Almost every landowner had become a petty chieftain, with his fort, his guns, and his band of retainers. In no part of India, at no time during the mutiny, was the hostility of the villagers more strikingly shewn than in Oude : in other provinces the inhabitants of the villages often aided the British troops on the march; but when Havelock, Neill, and Outram were in Oude, every village on the road had to be conquered, as if held by an avowed enemy. It has been often said that the Indian outbreak was a revolt of soldiery, not a rebellion of a people ; but in Oude the contest was unquestionably with something more than the militaiy only. Whether their love for their deposed king was sincere or only professed, the Oudians exhibited much animosity against the British. What the beleaguered garrison of Luck- now were doing, we shall see in the proper place. Of Agra city, and the fort or residency in which the Europeans were for safety assembled, it will be remembered (p. 173) that after peaceably but anxiously passing through the month of May, Mr Colvin, on the 1st of June, found it necessary or expedient to disarm the 44th and 67th Bengal native infantry because two companies of those regiments had just mutinied near Muttra, and MINOR MUTINIES : JULY AND AUGUST. 283 because the bulk of the regiments exhibited unmistakable signs of disaffection. This great and important city was then left under the charge of the 3d European Fusiliers, a corps of volunteer European cavalry under Lieutenant Greathed, and Captain D'Oyley's field-battery of six guns. Most of the disarmed native troops deserted, to swell the insurgent ranks elsewhere ; and in the course of the month the jail-guard desert ed also. Thus June came to its end the European residents still remaining at large, but making certain precautions for their common safety at night. "When July arrived, however, the state of affairs became much more serious. The Europeans were forced into a battle, which ended in a necessity for their shutting themselves up in the fort. The force was very weak. The 3d Euro- peans only numbered about 600 men, the militia and volunteers 200, and a few artillerymen belonging to the guns. Among the officers present several who had belonged to the Gwalior Contingent, the various regiments and detachments of which had mutinied at Hattrass, Neemuch, Augur, Lullutpore, and Gwalior, on various days between the 2Sth of May and the 3d of July ; these officers, having now no commands, were glad to render aid in any available way towards the defence of Agra. Just at this critical time, when the approach of a hostile force was immi- nent, the Europeans wore further troubled by the sudden mutiny of the Kotah Contingent. This force consisting of infantry, cavalry, and artil- lery, about 700 men in all having been di loyal and trustworthy, had been brought about a month previously to Agra from the southwest, and had during that time remained true collect- venue, burning disaffected villages, capturing and hanging rebels and mutineers. They were brought in from the vicinity towards the close of June, to aid if necessary against the Neemuch mutineers, and were encamped half-way between the barracks and government-house. Suddenly and unexpectedly, on the evening of the 4th, the cavalry portion of the Contingent rose in revolt, find at their officers, killed their sergeant-major, and then marched off, followed by the infantry and the artillery all but a few gunners, who enabled the British to retain the two guns belong- i the Contingent. This revolt startled the authorities, and necessitated a change of plan, for it had been intended to attack the Neemuch force that very evening ; nay, matters were even still worse, for the Kotah villains at once joined those from Neemuch. On the morning of Sunday the .Oth of July (again Sunday !), an army of mutineers being known to be near at hand, a reconnoitring party was sent out to examine their position. The enemy were found to consist of about 4000 infantry and 1000 cavalry, with ten or twelve guns ; they comprised the 72d B. N. I., the 7th Gwalior Con- tingent infantry, the 1st Bengal native cavalry, the Malwah Contingent cavalry which had joined the Neemuch men at Mehidpore and fragments of other mutinied regiments, together with a very efficient artillery corps. The arrival of the Neemuch mutineers had for some time been expected ; and as soon as it was known, on the 3d, that the enemy had reached Futtehpore Sikri, about twenty miles from Agra, the ladies and children, as well as many of the civilians and traders, had as a measure of precaution abandoned their houses in the city, and gone into the fort, which had been cleaned out, made as habitable as possible, and largely supplied with provisions. The reconnoitring party returned to announce that the enemy wero at Shahgunje, a village close to the lieutenant-governor's house, three miles from the cantonment and four from the fort. The authori- ties at Agra resolved at once to go out and fight the enemy in open field; seeing that the native citizens had begun to think slightingly of their British masters, and that it was necessary to remove any suspicion of fear or timidity. The brigadier made up a force equal to about one- eighth of the enemy's numbers ; it consisted of very weak companies of the 3d European Fusiliers, the militia and volunteers, and a battery of artillery. The infantry were placed under Colonel Biddell, and the artillery under Captain D'Oyley. As to the volunteer cavalry, it was made up of a curious medley of unemployed military officers, civilians, merchants, and writers all willing to share the common danger for the common good ; but with untrained horses, and without regular cavalry drill, they laboured under many disadvantages. About 200 men of the 3d Europeans remained behind to guard the fort. At noon, the opposing forces met. The enemy occupied a strong position behind Shahgunje, with their guns flanking the village, and the cavalry flanking the guns. The British advanced in line, with their guns on each flank, the infantry in the middle, and the mounted militia and volunteers in the rear. When about six hundred yards from the enemy, the infantry were ordered to lie down, to allow the guns to do their work against the village, from behind the houses and walls of which the enemy's riflemen opened a very destructive fire. It was a bad omen that women were seen in the village loading the rifles and muskets and handing them to the mutineers to fire. For two hours an exchange of artillery-fire was kept up extremely fierce ; shrapnel shells, round-shot, and grape-shot, filling the air. A tumbril belonging to D'Oyley's battery now blew up, disabling one of the guns ; the enemy's cavalry took advantage of this to gallop forward and charge ; but the 3d Europeans, jumping up, let fly a volley which effectually deterred them. Most of the officers and soldiers had wished during these two hours for a bolder courso of action a capture of the enemy's guns by a direct charge of infantry. Then followed a rapid musketry -fire, and a chasing of the enemy 284 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. out of the village by most of the infantry the rest guarding the guns. Unfortunately another tumbril blew up, disabling another gun ; and, moreover, D'Oyley had used up all the ammunition which had been supplied to him. Upon this the order was given for retreat to the city ; and the retreat was made much to the mortification of the troops, for they had really won a victory. The rebels, it was afterwards known, were themselves out of ammunition, and were just about to retreat when they saw the retreat of the British ; their infantry marched off towards Muttra, but their cavalry and one gun hai'assed the British during their return to the city. The artillery-fire of the mutineers during the battle was spoken of with admiration even by those who were every minute suffering from it ; the native artillerymen had learned to use effectively against .us those guns which they had been paid and fed to use in our defence. If the cavalry had been equally effective, the British would probably have been cut off to a man. This battle of Agra was a severe one to the British, for one-fourth of the small force were killed or wounded. The officers suffered much : Majors Prendergast and Thomas, Captains D'Oyley, Lamb, and Alexander, Lieutenants Pond, Fellowes, Cockburn, Williams, and Bramley, were wounded, as well as many gentlemen belonging to the volunteer horse. The loss of Captain D'Oyley was very much deplored, for he was a great favourite. While managing his guns, a shot struck him ; he sat on the carnage, giving orders, in spite of his wound ; but at last he fell, saying : ' Ah, they have done for me now ! Put a stone over my grave, and say I died at my guns.' He sank the next day. The British returned to Agra not to the city, but to the fort ; for three or four thousand prisoners had got loose during the day, and had begun to fire all the European buildings in the city. Officers and privates, civilians and ladies, all who wrote of the events at Agra at that time, told of the wild licence of that day and night. One eye-witness said : ' Hardly a house has escaped destruction ; and such houses and their contents as were not consumed by fire have been completely gutted and destroyed by other means. In fact, even if we were to leave the fort to-morrow, there are not four houses in the place with roofs remaining under which we could obtain shelter ; and as for household property and other things left outside, there is not a single article in existence in service- able order. The very doors and windows are removed, and every bit of wood torn out, so that nothing remains but the bare brick walls. Things are strewed about the roads and streets in every direction ; and wherever you move you see broken chairs and tables, carriages in fragments, crockery, books, and every kind of property wan- tonly destroyed.' An officer of the 3d Europeans, after describing the battle, and the return of the little force to the fort, said : ' Immediately afterwards the work of destruction commenced, the budmashes began to plunder, bungalows on every side were set on fire one continued blaze the whole night. I went out the next morning. 'Twas a dreadful sight indeed ; Agra was destroyed ; churches, colleges, dwelling -houses, barracks, everything burned.' But they had something more to think of than the devastation in Agra city ; they had to contemplate their own situation in Agra Fort. Among the number of Europeans, some had already borne strange adversities. One officer had escaped, with his wife, in extraordinary guise, from Gwalior at the time of the mutiny of the Contingent at that place. He had been obliged to quit his wife at their bungalow in the midst of great danger, to hasten down to his regiment in the lines ; and when he found his influence with his men had come to naught, and that shots were aimed at him, three sepoys resolved to save him. They took off his hat, boots, and trousers, wrapped him in a horse- cloth, huddled him between them, and passed him off as a woman. They left him on the bank of a stream, and went to fetch his wife from a position of great peril. She being too weak to walk, they made up a horse-cloth into a sort of bag, tied it to a musket, put her into it, shouldered the musket horizontally, and carried her seven miles her husband walking by her side, barefoot over sharp stones. After meeting with further assistance, they reached Agra somewhat more in comfort. Another officer, who had likewise served in the Gwalior Contingent, and who had seen much hard service before the mutiny of his corps compelled him to flee to Agra, counted up the wreck of his property after the battle of the 5th of July, and found it to consist of 'a coat, a shirt, the greater portion of a pair of breeches, a pair of jack-boots, one sock, a right good sword' and a cannon-ball through his leg ; yet, recog- nising the useful truth that grumbling and com- plaining are but poor medicines in a time of trouble, he bore up cheerfully, and even cheered up Mr Colvin, who was at that time nearly worn to the grave by sickness and anxiety. An officer of the 3d Europeans said in a letter : ' I lost everything in the world The enemy Avent quietly off; but here we are; avc can't get out no place to go to nothing to do but to wait for assistance.' And a few days afterwards he added : ' Here we are like rats in a trap ; there are from four to five thousand people in this fort, military and civil, Eurasians, half-castes, &c. ; and when we shall get out, is a thing to be guessed at.' A surgeon of the recently mutinied G walior Contin- gent thus spoke of what he saw around him : ' The scene in the fort for the first few days was a trying one. All the native servants ran off. I had eleven in the morning, and at night not one. Ladies were seen cooking their own food, officers drawing and carrying water from the wells, &c. Many people were ruined, having escaped with only their clothes on their backs. We are now MINOR MUTINIES : JULY AND AUGUST. 285 shut up here, five hundred fighting-men with ammunition, and ahout four or five thousand altogether, eagerly awaiting the arrival of European troops.' A commissariat officer said : ' Here we are all living in gun-sheds and casemates. The appearance of the interior is amusing, and the streets (of the fort) are named ; we have Regent and Oxford Streets, the Quadrant, Burlington and Lowther Arcades, and Trafalgar Square.' The wife of one of the officers described her strange home: 'We are leading a very unsettled ship like life. No one is allowed to leave the fort, except bodies of armed men. We arc living in a place they call Palace Yard ; it is a square, with a gal- lery round it, having open arches ; every married couple are allowed two arches It is no easy matter to keep our arches clean and tidy.' As all the Europeans in Agra went to live in the fort, the number included the staff of the Mofussilitc ('Provincial European') newspaper, one of the journals which had for some time been pub- ! in that city ; the issue for the 3d of July had been printed at the usual office of the paper; but none other appeared for twelve days, when a Mofussilitc was printed within the fort itself. There was no exaggeration in the accounts of the number of persons thus strangely incarcerate 1. So completely were the Europeans and their native servants at Agra shut up within the fort, and so much was that [lace regarded as a refuge for those who had been forced to flee from other stations, that it gradually became crowded to an extraordinary d I 'n the 2Gth of July Mr Colvin determined -to take a census of all the persona who slept within the fort on that night ; he did so, and found them to amount to no less a number than 5845* all of whom had to be supplied with their daily food under military or garrison arrangements. More than 2000 of the number were children, who could render little or no return for the services so anxiously demanded by and for them. Provided, however, the supply of food and other necessaries were sufficient, the danger of the position was not at all comparable to that of Sir Hugh Wheeler at Cawnporc or of Her Inglis at Luc-know. The fort at Agra (see wood-cut, p. 109) was a very large structure, a sort of triangle whose sides extended from three to five eighths of a mile each ; it contained numerous large buildings within the walls, of which the chief were the palace of Shahjehan, the Hall of Audience built by the same emperor, and the Moti Musjid or Pearl Mosque. All the buildings were at once appropriated, in various ways, to the wants of the enormous number of persons who sought shelter therein. The defences * F.nroponns, . Indians . Native Christian?, Hindoo-*, . Mohammedan!), . Men. Ml 2C7 942 244 177 49 10 429 1G2 42 Girll. C39 4 3 IM-.t. IMI 1157 299 2961 850 1188 848 tHS of the place, too, were greatly strengthened ; sixty guns cf heavy calibre were mounted on the bastions ; thirteen large mortars were placed in position ; the powder-magazines were secured from accidental explosion ; the external defences were improved by the levelling of many houses in the city which approached too near the fort ; and preparations were completed for blowing up the superb Jumma Musjid (p. 229) if any attempt were made by a hostile force to occupy it, seeiug that its upper ranees commanded the interior of the fort. The only insurgent force at that time in possession of guns and mortars powerful enough to breach strong walls was the Gwalior Contingent; and even if Scindia lost all hold over that force, Agra was provisioned for ten months, and had ammunition enough to stand a whole year's siege. An officer of a mutinied Gwalior regiment, writing from Agra after some weeks' confinement, said : 1 Almost all the roads are closed, and it is only by secret messengers and spies that we can get any intelligence of what is going on in the con- vulsed world around us. My letters from Scotland used to reach me in thirty days ; now if I get one in eighty days I congratulate myself on my good- luck As for this fort, we can hold it against any number for months ; our only fear being for the women and children, who would suffer much, and of whom we have sonic three thousand. The health of the troops, itc, is, thank God, excellent, and the wounded are doing well.' Nevertheless, with all their sense of security, the Europeans within the fort had enough to do to maintain their cheerfulness. On the day and night of the nth of July, property had been burned and de- spoiled in the city to an enormous amount ; and most of this had belonged to the present inmates of the fort. The merchants had been prosperous, their large shops had abounded with the most costly articles of necessity and luxury and now nearly all was gone. The military officers had of course less to lose, but their deprivation was perhaps still more complete. Throughout July and August the state of affairs thus continued at Agra. The danger was small, but the discomforts of course numerous. Mr Colvin sent repeated applications for a relieving force. There was, however, none to aid him. His health failed greatly, and he did not bear up against the anxieties of his position with the cheerful firmness exhibited by many other of the officials at that trying time. Brigadier Polwhele, former military commandant, was superseded by Colonel Cotton when the account of the battle of the 5th of July became known at Calcutta. Occa- sional sallies were made from the fort, to punish isolated bodies of rebels at Futtchporc Sikri, Ilattrass, and Allygurh ; but the European troops were too few to be very effective in this way. The most note-worthy exploit took place during the latter half of August, when Mr Colvin requested Colonel Cotton to organise a small force for driving some mutineers from Allygurh. Major 286 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. Montgomery set forth with this miniature army,* reached Hattrass on the 21st, and there learned that 6000 mutineers, under Ghose Mahomed Khan, naib or lieutenant of the King of Delhi, were prepared to resist him at Allygurh. Montgomery marched from Allygurh to Sarsnee on the 23d, rested for the night in an indigo factory and other buildings, and advanced on the following day to Allygurh. There ensued a sharp conflict of two hours' duration, in gardens and enclosures outside the town ; it ended in the defeat and dispersion of the enemy, who left 300 dead on the field. The battle was a gallant affair, worthy of ranking with those of Havelock ; for Montgomery con- tended against twenty times his own number ; and, moreover, many of the troops among the enemy were Ghazees or fanatic Mussulmans who engaged fiercely in hand-to-hand contests with some of his troops. His detachment of men was too small to enable him to enter and re-occupy Allygurh: he was obliged to leave that place in the hands of the rebels, and to return to Hattrass ; but having replenished his stock of ammunition and supplies, he advanced again to Allygurh, held it for several days, and left a detachment there when he took his departure. Taking leave for the present of Agra, Ave may briefly state that almost every other city and station in that part of India was in the hands of the enemy during the months of July and August. Delhi was still under siege ; but there was scarcely a British soldier in any part of the Delhi division except in the siege-camp before Delhi itself. In the Agra division, as we have just seen, British influence extended very little further than the walls of Agra Fort. In the Meerut division, the station at that town was still held; the military lines were strongly fortified, and supplied with provisions to an extent sufficient to remove immediate anxiety. The region between Delhi and the Sutlej, containing Hansi, Hissar, Sirsa, and other towns, was fortunately kept in some order by a column under General Van Cortlandt, which moved quickly from place to place, and put down a swarm of petty chieftains who were only too ready to take advantage of the mutinies of the native troops. In the Rohilcund division scarcely a town, except up in the hills, remained under British control. "Welcome as was the refuge which the wives and children of officers found at the hill-stations in the Rohilcund and Cis-Sutlej provinces, their tranquil- lity was frequently disturbed by the movements of rebels. Early in August the civil commissioner of Kumaon received intelligence that an attack was contemplated on Nynee Tal by Kalee Khan, one of the myrmidons of Khan Bahadoor Khan of Bareilly, who had 3000 rabble with him ; the plunder and destruction of the station being the * 3d Europeans, . . . . .154 officers and men. Artillery CI // /; Militia, 22 n Jat matchloclc-mcn, ... 70 // Two 9-pounders ; one 24-ponnder howitzer. main objects in view. Captain Ramsey, com- mandant at Nynee Tal, and Colonel M'Causland, commanding the troops in the various stations of Kumaon, at once determined to remove the ladies and children, two hundred in number, from Nynee Tal to Almora, further away from Bareilly : this was done ; and then the colonel prepared to meet the mutineers, and confront them with a detachment of the 66th Goorkhas. Kalee Khan set forth on his mission ; but when he heard that M'Causland was calmly waiting for him, he changed his plan, returned to Bareilly, and avoided a conflict, the probable result of which presented itself very clearly to his mind. At Nynee Tal, at Almora, at Mussouree, at Simla, and at other places among the cool hilly regions, ladies and children were assembled in large numbers, some with their husbands and fathers, but many sent away from scenes of strife in which those dear to them were compelled to engage. It was not all idle hopelessness with them. English- women can always find some useful service to render, and are always ready to render it. A lady, writing from Mussouree on the 9th of August, said: 'We are very busy working flannel clothes for our army before Delhi. They are very badly off for these things ; and being so much exposed at such a season of the year, and in such a proverbially unhealthy locality, and fighting as they have done so nobly, they really deserve to be provided for by us.' After enumerating the sums subscribed towards this object from various quarters, the writer went on to say : ' Mrs and myself are constantly at work ; for, with the exception of our tailors, and one or two others given up to us by ladies, we can get none Wonderful to say, though I never did such a thing in my life before, I have the management of our portion of the business, which keeps me employed from early morning till late at night. We meet, with several other ladies, at 's house every day, with as many tailors as we can collect, and stitch away.' The great and important country of the Punjaub, though not free from disturbance, was kept pretty well under control during July and August, by the energy of Sir John Lawrence and the other officers of the Company. "We have seen * that on the 13th of May the 16th, 26th, and 49th regiments of Bengal native infantry, and the 8th Bengal cavalry, were disarmed at Meean Meer, a canton- ment six miles from the city of Lahore ; that on the same day the 45th and 57th native infantry mutinied at Ferozpore, while the 10th cavahy was disarmed; that during the same week, Umritsir, Jullundur, and Phillour were only saved from mutiny by the promptness and spirit of some of the officers ; that on the 20th, the 55th native infantry mutinied at Murdan in the Pesha- wur Valley ; that consequent upon this, the 24th, 27th, and 51st native infantry, and the 5th native * Chapter xii., pp. 193-205. MINOR MUTINIES : JULY AND AUGUST. 287 cavalry, were on the 22d of the month disarmed in the station of Peshawur itself; that early in June, the 4th native regiment was disarmed at Noorpore; that on the 6th, the' 36th and 61st native infantry, and the 6th native cavalry, mutinied at Julluudur, and marched off towards Phillour ; that the 3d native cavalry, at the last- named station, mutinied on the following day, unable to resist the temptation thrown out to them by those from Jullundur ; that the 14th native infantry mutinied at Jelum on the 7th of July, maintaining a ficrco fight with a British detachment before their departure ; that on the same day the 58th native infantry, and two companies of the 14th, were disarmed at Itawul Findea ; that on the 9th, t,Jie 46th native infantry, and a wing of the Oth native cavalry, mutinied dkote, and decamped towards Delhi ; that towards the close of July, the disarmed 26th mutinied at Mecan Mecr, murdered Major Spencer, and marched off with the intention of strengthening the insurgents at Delhi; that on the 10th of August, a portion of the disarmed LOti) cavalry mutinied at Ferozpore ; and that on the 28th of the same month, the disarmed 51st mutinied at Peshawur, fled to the hills, and were almost annihilated. It thus appears that about a dozen regiments mutinied in the Punjaub between the middle of May and the end of August; that some of these had been previously disarmed ; and that others had been disarmed without having mutinied. A few additional words may be given here relat- ing to the partial mutiny at lf< r. The four native regiments at that station, disarmed on the of May, remained in their lines until the 30th of July, peaceful and without arms. On the last- named (lay, however, it became known to the authorities that the men meditated flight. Major Spencer of the 26th, and two native officers, were killed by the sepoys of that regiment on that day with what weapons does not clearly appear. The murder of the unfortunate English officer deranged the plans of the troops ; all were to have decamped at a given sirnal ; but now only the 2Gth made off, leaving the other three regiments in their lines. The authorities, not well knowing whither the fugitives had gone, sent off three strong parties of mounted police, to Umritsir, Ilurrekee, and Kussoor, the three routes towards the Sutlej. The men, however, had gone northward ; but within a few days they were almost entirely destroyed, for the villagers aided the police in capturing or shooting the miserable fugitives as they marched or ran in field and jungle. Without going over in detail any proceedings already recorded, it may be convenient to condense in a small space a narrative of Brigadier-general Nicholson's operations in the later days of June and the first half of July with a movable column placed under his command by Sir John Lawrence. Having disarmed the 33d and 35th B. N. I., for reasons which appeared to him amply sufficient, he began on the 27th of June to retrace his steps from Phillour, and on the 5th of July he encamped at Umritsir, to overawe the 59th B. N. I.', and to hold a central position whence he might march to any threatened point east or west. On the 7th, hearing of the mutiny of the 14th native infantry at Jelum, and receiving no satisfactory evidence that Colonel Ellico had been able to frustrate or defeat the mutineers, he at once resolved on a measure of precaution. He disarmed the 59th on the follow- ing morning with very great regret ; for he had nothing to censuro in the conduct of the men ; he took that step solely on account of the peril which, at such a time, threatened any station containing Bengal troops without British ; and ho added in his dispatch: 'I beg very strongly to recommend this corps, both as regards officers and men, to the favourable consideration of government.' On the 10th, receiving intelligence that the 46th native infantry, and a wing of the 0th native cavalry, had mutinied at Sealkote, Nicholson at once disarmed the other wing of the same cavalry regiment, which formed part of his column. In the course of the same day he learned that the Sealkote mutineers intended to march eastward, through Goordaspove, Noorpore, Hoshyapoor, and Jullundur, to Delhi endeavouring to tempt to mutiny, on their way, the 2d irregular cavalry at Goordaspore, the 4th native infantry at Noorpore, and the 16th irregular cavalry at Hoshyapoor. The problem thence arose could Nicholson intercept these mutineers before they reached Goordaspore? He found he would have to make a forced march of forty miles in a northeast direction to effect this. He did so, by energetic exertions, in twenty hours. He came up with them at the Trimmoo ford over the Kavee, nine miles from Goordaspore, on the 12th of July his force now consisting of H.M. 52d foot, 184 men of the Punjaub infantry, a company of the police battalion, a few irregular horse, a troop of artillery, and three guns. Nicholson defeated them after a short but sharp conflict on the river's bank ; but his horsemen were not trust- worthy, and he could not pursue the enemy. About 300 mutineers, with one gun, took post on an island in the river ; these, by a well-planned movement, were almost entirely annihilated on the 16th and the 'Sealkote mutineers' disappeared from the scene. It was with justice that the active leader thanked his troops on the following day: 'By a forced march of unusual length, performed at a very trying season of the year, the column has been able to preserve many stations and districts from pillage and plunder, to save more than one regi- ment from the danger of too close a contact with the mutineers ; while the mutineer force itself, 1100 strong, notwithstanding the very desperate character of the resistance offered by it, has been utterly destroyed or dispersed.' Let us now, as in a former chapter, glance at the state of affairs in the vast region of India southward of the Ganges, the Jumna, and the Sutlej passing over Sinde without special mention, 288 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. as being nearly free from disturbing agencies. The reader will remember* that among the various states, provinces, and districts of Nagpoor, Hyderabad, Carnatic, Madras, Bombay, Holkar, Scindia, Rajpootana, &c, some became subject to anarchy in certain instances during the month of June especially the three last-named states ; and we have now to shew that this anarchy continued, and in some cases extended, during July and August; but it wilt also be made manifest that the amount of insurgency bore a very small ratio to that in the stormy districts further north. Of Southwestern Bengal, Orissa, and Nagpoor, it is scarcely necessary here to speak. The native troops were not influenced by a hostility so fierce, a treachery so villainous, as those in Hindostan proper ; there were not so many zemindars and petty chieftains who had been wrought up to irritation by the often questionable appropria- tions and annexations of the Company ; and there was easier access for the troops of the Madras presidency, who, as has already been more than once observed, had small sympathy with the petted sepoys and sowars of the larger presidency. The mutinies or attempts at mutiny, in these provinces, were of slight character during July and August. Mr Plowdcn, commissioner of Nagpoor, was enabled, with troops sent by Lord Harris from Madras, not only to maintain British supremacy throughout that large country (nearly equal in size to England and Scotland com- bined), but also to assist Major Erskine in the much more severely threatened territory of Saugor and Nerbudda, lying between Nagpoor and the Jumna. The Madras presidency remained almost entirely at peace. Not only did the native troops hold their faith with the government that fed and paid them, but they cheerfully volunteered to serve against the mutinous Bengal sepoys in the north. On the 3d of July the governor in council issued a procla- mation, announcing that several regiments had expressed their desire to be employed in the North- west Provinces or wherever else their services might be required ; that thanks would be publicly awarded to the native officers and men of all the regiments who had thus come forward ; and that the favourable attention of the supreme govern- ment towards them would be solicited. The corps that thus proffered their services were the 3d, 11th, 16th, and 27th Madras native infantry, the 3d and 8th Madras native cavalry, a com- pany of native foot-artillery, a troop of native horse-artillery, and a detachment of native sappers and miners. Many of these afterwards rendered good service in the battles which distinguished and we may at the same time add devastated Northern and Central India. Four days after- wards, Lord Harris was able to announce that other regiments the 17th, 30th, 36th, and 47th native infantry, and the 5th native cavalry had in a * Chapter xi., pp. 17G-190. similar way come forward 'to express their abhor- rence of the traitorous conduct of the mutineers of the Bengal army, and their desire to be employed wherever their services may be required.' Besides thus providing faithful soldiers, the governor of Madras was in a position, at various times during July and August, to send large supplies of arms, ammunition, and camp-equipage, from Madras to Calcutta. In the city of Madras itself, and in the various southern provinces and countries of Caruatic, Tanjore, Travancore, Canara, Malabar, and Mysore, the same exemption from mutiny was experienced. There were, it is true, discontents and occasional plottings, but no formidable resist- ance to the British power. Many persons there were who, without being rebels or open mal- contents, thought that the Company had dealt harshly with the native princes, and were on that account deterred from such hearty sympathy with the British as they might otherwise possibly have manifested. An officer in the Madras armj', writing when the mutiny was four months old, stated that in the previous February, when that terrible movement had not yet commenced, he went one day to take a sketch of a mosque, or rather a collection of mosques, in the suburbs of Madras tombs that were the memorials of past Mussulman greatness. His conversation with an old man of that faith* left upon his mind the impression that there was a sentiment of injury borne, rights violated, nationality disregarded, con- veyed in the words of his temporary companion. There was, however, one occurrence in the Madras presidency which gave rise to much uneasiness. The 8th Madras native cavalry was ordered to march from Bangalore to Madras, and there embark for Calcutta. On arriving at a place about twenty-five miles from Madras, on the 17th of August, the men put forward a claim for the rates of pay, batta, and pension which existed before the year 1837, and which were more favour- able than those of subsequent introduction. Such a claim, put forward at such a moment, was very perplexing to the officers; they hastened to Madras, and obtained the consent of the govern- ment to make conciliatory offers to the men. After a further march of thirteen miles to Poonamallee, the troopers again stopped, and * 'We were still looking at the scene and speculating upon the tenants of the tombs, when an old Mussulman came near us with a salam; he accosted us, and I asked him in whose honour the tomb had been erected. His reply struck inc at the time as rather remarkable. " That," said he, pointing to the largest, "is the tomb of the Nawab fllustapha; he reigned about 100 years ago : and that," pointing to a smaller mausoleum near it, "is the tomb of his dewan, and it was he who counselled the nawab thus : ' Beware of the French, for they are soldiers, and will attack and dispossess you of your country; but cherish the Englishman, for ho is a merchant, and will enrich it.' The nawab listened to that advice, and see here ! " The old man was perfectly civil and respectful in his manner, but his tone was sad: it spoke the language of dis- appointment and hostility, if hostility were possible. In this case the man referred to our late assumption of the Carnatie, upon, the death of the last nawab, who died without issue. As a general rule, never was a conquered country so mildly governed as India has been under our rule; but you can scarcely expect that the rulers we dispossessed, even though like ourselves they be foreigners, and only held the country by virtue of conquest, will cede us the precedence without a murmur.' MINOR MUTINIES: JULY AND AUGUST. 2S9 declared they would not go forth ' to war against their countrymen. ' This heing an act of insubor- dination which of course could not be overlooked, two guns and some artillerymen were promptly brought forward; the 8th cavalry were unhorsed and disarmed, and sent to do dismounted duty at Arcot ; while their horses were forthwith shipped to Calcutta, where such accessions were specially valuable. The affair caused great excitement at Madras ; the volunteers were warned that their services were to be available at a moment's notice ; patrols were placed in the streets by day and night; and guns were planted in certain directions. Happily, the prompt disarming of this turbulent regiment prevented the poison from spreading further. Bombay, like its sister presidency Madras, was affected only in a Blight degree by the storms that troubled Bengal and the northwest. The Bombay troops, though, M the sequel shewed, not altogether e> r.'intunments for aid ; and in the meantime the guard, with three guns, went out to attack the insurgents. Captaiu Holmes plied his grape-shot effectively from the three guns ; and when cavalry and horse-artillery arrived from Secunderabad, the Rohillas re< a total discomfiture. This was almost the only approach to a mutiny that occurred in the portion of tho Deccan near tho Carnatic frontier. Aurungabad, on tho Bombay side of the Nizam's dominions, was, in regard to mutinies, less import- ant than Hyderabad, because more easily a sible for European troops ; but more important, in so far as the sepoy regiments of Malwah and Rajpootana were nearer at hand to be affected by evil temptation. The city is about seventy miles distant from Ahmednuggur, and a hundred and seventy from Bombay. Uneasiness prevailed here so early as June. The 1st cavalry and the 2d infantry, of the corps called the Hyderabad Contingent, were stationed at Aurungabad ; and of these, the former shewed signs of disaffection. Captain Abbott, commanding the regiment, found on the morning of the 13th that his men were murmuring and threatening, as if unwilling to act against mutineers elsewhere ; indeed, they had sworn to murder their officers if any attempt were made to employ them in that way. For- tunately, the ressaldars each being a native captain of a troop of cavalry, and there being therefore as many ressaldar3 in a regiment as there were troops or companies remained faith- ful ; and Captain Abbott, with Lieutenant Dowker, were enabled to discuss with these officers the state of the regiment. The ressaldars assured the captain that many of the troopers had begun to talk loudly about the King of Delhi as their rightful ruler. The resident at the court of the Nizam, through the military secretary, Major Briggs, advised Captain Abbott seeing that no aid could be expected from any other quarter to speak in as conciliatory a tone as possible to the men, and to promise them that they should not be required to act against the insurgents at Delhi, provided they would be obedient to other orders. Quiet was in this way restored ; but it being a dangerous precedent thus to allow troops to decide where and against whom they would chooso to fight, Major-general Woodburn, who had been placed in command of a movable column from Bombay, marched through Ahmed- nuggur to Aurungabad. This column consisted of the 28th Bombay native infantry, the 14th dragoons, Captain Woolcombe's battery, and a pontoon train. When Woodburn arrived, he found that the ladies had all left the Aurungabad station, that the officers were living barricaded in the mess-room, and that all the Nizam's troops exhibited unfavourable symptoms. The first native cavalry, when confronted with Woodburn's troops, behaved in a very daring way ; and about a hundred of them made off, owing to the unwillingness of the general to open firo upon them, although Abbott and Woolcombe saw the importance of so doing. In the country north of Bombay, and between it and Malwah, many slight events occurred, suf- ficient to shew that the native troops were in an agitated state, as if oscillating between the oppo- site principles of fidelity and treachery. It was worthy of note, however, that the troops thus fleeted were, in very few instances, those belong- ing to the Company's Bombay army ; they were , generally contingent corps, or Mahrattas, or Raj- poots, or men imbued with the same ideas as the Hindustanis and Oudians. Towards the close of July, a few troopers of the Gujerat Irregular Horse endeavoured to incite their companions to mutiny ; they failed, and then decamped ; but were pursued and captured, and then hung in presence of their own regiment. Still further northward lies the country which, under the various names of Scindia's territory, Holkar's territory, Malwah, and Bhopal, has already been described as the chief seat of the Mahratta power, and which corresponds pretty nearly with the region marked out by the Company's officials as ' Central India.' We have seen in former pages * that Scindia, chief of the Mahratta state of which Gwalior is the capital, offered the aid of his Contingent army to Mr Colvin in May ; that Lieutenant Cockburn, with half a cavalry regiment of this Contingent, ren- dered good service in the region around Agra, until the troopers deserted him ; that the fidelity of Scindia to the British alone prevented his * Chapter vii., p. Ill; chapter St, pp. 181-189. 292 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. troops generally from joining the rebels, for they belonged to the same Hindustani and Oudian families, though serving a Mahratta prince in a Mahratta state ; that after certain detachments had mutinied at Neemuch and elsewhere, the main body rose in revolt at Gwalior on the 14th of June, murdered some of the English officers, drove away the rest with their families, and formally threw off all allegiance to the Company ; and that Maharajah Scindia, under circumstances of great difficulty and peril, managed to keep peace at Gwalior retaining and feeding the troops at that place, and yet discountenancing their mutinous tendencies against the British. If he had not acted with much tact and judgment, the Gwalior Contingent would have marched to Agra in a body, and greatly imperiled the British 'raj.' Not only did he keep those troublesome troops near him during the remaining half of June, but also during July and August. Scindia's Mount Aboo Military Sanitarium in Rajpootana. special army, entirely under his own control, were chiefly Mahrattas, who had little sympathy with the soldiers of the Contingent ; but they were too few in number to put down the latter, and there- fore he was forced to temporise partly by per- suasions and promises, partly by threats. Major Macpherson, the British political agent, and Brigadier Ramsey, the military commandant, ceased to have influence at Gwalior; it was Scindia's good faith alone that stood the British in stead. Holkar's Mahratta territory, with Indore for its chief city, Ave have, in like manner, seen to be troubled with a mutinous spirit in the Contingent troops, partly owing to temptation from other quarters. We have briefly shewn in the chapters lately cited, that on the 28th of May the 15th and 30th Bengal native infantry revolted at Nuseer- abad ; that on the 2d of June, influenced by this pernicious example, the 72d B. N. I., the 7th regiment of Gwalior Contingent infantr} 1 , and the main body of the 1st Bengal native cavalry, mutinied at Neemuch ; that on the 1st of July, a portion of Holkar's Contingent rose against the British at Indore, without his wish or privity, and that he could not get even his own special troops to act against those of the Contingent; that, on the evening of the same day, the 23d Bengal native infantry, and one squadron of the 1st Bengal native cavalry, mutinied at Mhow; and that numerous British officers and their families were thrown into great misery by these several occurrences. It now remains to be stated that, during July and August, Holkar adopted nearly the same course as Scindia ; he remained faithful to the British, and endeavoured to quell the mutinous MINOR MUTINIES : JULY AND AUGUST. 293 spirit among his troops. Holkar possessed, how- ever, less influence than his hrot her- chief tain ; most of the mutineers from Indore and Mhow marched to Gwalior, and were only prevented hy the shrewdness of Scindia from extending their march to Agra. Among the troops in Rajpootana were the Dcesa Field Brigade, commanded towards the close of August by Brigadier Creagh, who had under his control the troops at Deesa, those at the sani- tarium on Mount Ahoo, and those at Erinpoora and other places in the neighbourhood. These places were thrown into confusion during the last two weeks of the month, by the mutiny of the Jhodpore legion, consisting partly of cavalry and partly of infantry. Such of these men as v. tie stationed at Erinpoora, about 560 in number, rose in mutiny on the ttd. They suddenly threw off their allegiance; seized the guns; made prisoners of Lieutenant Conolly and the European Serjeants; plundered the bazaar and some of the native villages; burned all the officers' bungalows, and destroyed or appropriated all that they found therein ; lived in tents on the parade-ground for three days; and then marched off in the direction of Nuseerabad. The cavalry, although forming part of the same legion, and sharing in the movement, protected the Europeans from the infantry. Among the latter, it was only the Hindustani portion which revolted; there were some Bheels in the legion who remained faithful. On the preceding day (Slat), about loo men of the legion had mutinied at Mount A boo; but as there was a detachment of ELM. 88d there, the mutineers did nothing I>ut hastily escai native chieftain, the Bao of Sihori, was prompt to render any aid he could to Captain Hall at Mount Aboo. Another portion of the Jhodpore legion was at Jhodpore itself, where the mutiny placed in great peril Captain Monck Mason, British resident at that native state ; by his energy, he provided an asylum fur many ladies and children who had been driven from other stations ; but he himself fell by the swords of a body of mutinous troopers, under circumstances of mingled cowardice ami brutality. The state of this part of India during July and August may be summed up in a few words. By the revolt of the Contingents of Scindia, Ilolkar, ainl Iihopal, and of the Jhodpore legion, English residents were driven from station to station in much peril and suffering, and English influence became for a time almost a nullity ; but the native chieftains for the most part remained faithful, even though their troops revolted ; and there were hopes of ultimate success from the arrival of relieving columns belonging to the Bombay army. Of that army, a few fragments of regiments occasionally displayed mutinous symptoms, but not to such a degree as to leaven the whole mass. What the officers felt through the treachery of the troops, and what their families suffered during all these strange events, need not again be de- scribed; both phases of the Revolt have received many illustrations in former pages ; but this chapter may fittingly close with two short extracts from letters relating to the mutinies at the stations of Mhow and Indore. Au artillery officer, com- menting on tho ingratitude of the sepoys towards commanders who had always used them well, said : ' I must not forget to mention that Colonel Piatt was like a father to the men ; and that when he had an opportunity of leaving them and joining a European corps last summer, the men petitioned him to stay. lie had been upwards of thirty years with them, and when the mutiny took place he had so much confidence in them that he rode up to their lines before we could get out. When we found him next morning, both cheeks were blown off, his back completely riddled with balls, one through each thigh, his chin smashed into his mouth, and three sabre-cuts between the cheek- bone and temple ; also a cut across the shoulder and the back of the neck.' The following few words are from the letters of a lady who was among those that escaped death by flight from Indore : ' I have already given you an account of our three days and three nights of wandering, with little rest and not much food, no clothes to change, burning sun, and deluges of rain ; but and I, perhaps, could bear these things better than others, and suffered less. When we heard the poor famishing children screaming for food, wo could but thank God that ours were not with us, but safe in England. We found kind friends here, and I am in Mrs 's clothes ; everything we had being gone. The destructive wretches, after we left Iudore, commenced doing all the damage they could cutting up carpets with their tulwars, smashing chandeliers, marble tahles, slabs, chairs, kc ; they even cut out the cloth and lining of our carriages, hacking up the woodwork. The Resi- dency is uninhabitable, and almost .all have lost everything. I might have saved a few things in the hour and a half that elapsed between the outbreak and our retreat ; but I had so relied on some of our defenders, and felt so secure of holding on, that flight never for a moment occurred to me.' Bote. Tlie BritUh nt the Military Stations. The reader will have gathered, from tbfl detail-; gtwa in various chapters, that the stations at which the military servants of the Company resided, in the Mofim'd or country districts, bore a remark- able relation to the Indian towm and cities. They were ki most cases lepsrrted from the towns by distances varying 294 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. from one mile to ten, and. formed small towns in them- selves. Sometimes the civil officers had their bungalows and cutcheries near these military cantonments ; while in other instances they were in or near the city to which the cantonment was a sort of appendage. Such, with more or less variety of detail, was the case at Patna (Dinapoor), Benares (Chunar), Cawnpore, Lucknow, Allahabad, Fur- ruckabad (Futteghur), Agra, Delhi, Gwalior, Lahore (Meean Meer), Nagpoor (Kamptee), Indore (Mhow), Hyderabad (Secunderabad), Moorshedabad (Berhampore), Saugor, &c. The marked separation between the native and the British portions of the military stations has been described in a very animated way, by an able and distin- guished correspondent of the Times, one of whose letters contains the following paragraph : ' For six miles along the banks of the Ganges extend the ruins of the English station of Cawnpore. You observe how distinct they are from the city. The palace of the Victoria Regia at Chatsworth is not more unlike the dirty ditch in which lives the humble duck-weed Belgravia is not more dissimilar to Spitalfields than is the English quarter of an Indian station to the city to which it is attached. The one is generally several miles away from the other. There is no common street, no link to connect the one with the others ; and the one knows nothing of the other. Here are broad roads, lined on each side with trees and walls, or with park-like grounds, inside which you can catch glimpses of gaily-painted one-storied villas, of brick, covered with cement, decorated with Corinthian colonnades, porticoes, and broad verandahs each in its own wide park, with gardens in front, orchards, and out-offices. There are narrow, tortuous, unpaved lanes, hemmed in by tottering, haggard, miserable houses, close and high, and packed as close as they can stand (and only for that they would fall), swarming with a hungry-eyed population. The mosque and the Hindoo temple are near each other, but they both shun the church, just as the station avoids the city In the station there are hotels, ball-rooms, magazines, shops, where all the habits and customs of Europe, sometimes improved and refined by the influence of the East, are to be found ; and when the cool of the evening sets in, out stream the carriages and horses and buggies, for the fashionable drive past the long line of detached villas within their neat enclosures, surrounded by shadowing groves and rich gardens. They pass the lines or barracks of the native infantry a race of whom they know almost less than they do of the people of the town ; and they are satisfied with the respect of action, with the sudden uprising, the stiff attitude of attention, the cold salute, regardless of the insolence and dislike of the eye ; they chat and laugh, marry and are given in marriage, have their horse-races, their balls, their card-parties, their dinners, their plate, their tradesmen's bills, their debts ; in fact, their everything that English society has, and thus they lived till the deluge came upon them. We all know how nobly they stemmed its force, what heroic struggles they made against its fury. But what a surprise when it burst in upon them ! What a blow to all their traditions ! What a rebuke to their blind confidence ! There is at the moment I write these lines a slight explosion close at hand, followed by the ascent of some dark columns of earth and bricks into the air. We are blowing up the Assembly-rooms of Cawnpore in order to clear the ground in front of the guns of our intrenchment, and billiard-rooms and ball- rooms are flying up in fragments to the skies. Is not that a strange end for all Cawnpore society to come to ? Is it not a curious commentary on our rule, and on our position in India?' iW^^&^ Native Musicians at a Sepoy station. Bbioadtbb-oesebal Nicholson. Copied by permission from a Portrait published by Messrs Gambart. CHAPTER XVIII. THE SIEGE OF DELHI: FINAL OPERATIONS. Tw PTER eleven weeks of hostile occupation, after seven weeks of eging, the great city of Delhi 'still remained in the hands of a mingled body of mutineers and 'rebels mutineers who had thrown oft' their soldierly allegiance to their British employers ; and rebels who clustered around the shadowy representative of an extinct Mogul dynasty. Nay, more not only was Delhi still unconquercd at the end of July ; it was relatively stronger than ever. The siege-army had been increased ; but the besiegers had increased in number in a still larger ratio. General Anson * had had thirteen days of command, in reference to the preparations for the reconquest of the city, before his death ; General Barnard, forty, before he likewise died ; General Reed, twelve, before his retirement ; General Wilson, thirteen, by the end of July ; and now the last-named commander was called upon to measure the strength with which he could open the August series of siege- operations. It may be convenient slightly to recapitulate a Chap. Xlv., pp. 230-246. 296 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. few events, and to mention a few elates, connected with the earlier weeks of the siege, as a means of refreshing the memory of the reader concerning the train of operations which, in the present chapter, is to be traced to an end. It will be remembered, then, that as soon as the startling mutinies at Delhi and Meerut became known to the military authorities at the hill- stations, the 75th foot were ordered down from Kussowlie, the 1st Europeans from Dugshai, and the 2d Europeans from Subathoo all to proceed to Umballa, there to form portions of a siege-army for Delhi ; that a siege-train was prepared at Phillour ; that Generals Anson and Barnard, and other officers, held a council of war at Umballa on the 16th of May, and concerted such plans as were practicable on the spur of the moment ; and that troops began at once to march southeastward towards Delhi. We have further seen that Anson was troubled by the presence of Bengal native troops whom he could not trust, and by the scarcity of good artillerymen to accompany his siege-train ; and that his operations were suddenly cut off by a fatal attack of cholera, under which he sank on the 27th. Next we traced twelve days' operations of Sir Henry Barnard, during which he had advanced to Raneeput, Paniput, Rhye, Aliporc, Badulla Serai, and Azadpore, to the ridge north- ward of Delhi, on which he established his siege- camp on the 8th of June ; he had just been joined by General Wilson, who had beaten the enemy at Ghazecoodeen Nuggur, and had crossed the Jumna from Meerut near Bhagput. Then came the diversified siege-operations of the month of June, with a force which began about 3000 strong, aided by 22 field-guns and 17 siege-guns and mortars the arrival on the 9th of the Guide corps, after their surprising march in fiercely hot weather from Peshawur; the bold attack made by the rebels on the same day ; the manifest proofs that the siege-guns were too light, too few, and too distant, to batter the defences of the city ; the commencement on the 13th, but the speedy abandonment as impracticable, of a project for storming the place ; the continual arrival of mutineers to swell the number of defenders within Delhi ; the daily sallies of the enemy ; the daily weakening of the small British force ; and the necessity for "employing one-half of the whole siege-army on picket-duty, to prevent surprises. We have seen how Hindoo Rao's house became a constant target for the enemy's guns, and Metcalfe House for attacks of less frequency ; how Major Reid, with his Goorkhas and Guides, guarded the ridge with indomitable steadiness, and made successful attacks on the Eedghah and Kissengunje suburbs ; and how sedulously Barnard was forced to watch the movements of the enemy in the rear of his camp. Passing from June to July, the details of the former chapter told us that the siege-army became raised to about 6000 men, by various reinforcements early in the last-named month; that an assault of the city was again proposed, and again abandoned; that insurgent troops poured into Delhi more rapidly than ever ; that Sir Henry Barnard died on the 5th, worn down by anxiety and cholera ; that numerous canal-bridges were destroyed, to prevent the enemy from gaining access to the rear of the camp ; that the British were continually thrown on the defensive, instead of actively prosecuting the siege ; that the few remaining Bengal native troops in the siege-army were either sent to the Punjaub, or disarmed and unhorsed, in distrust of their fidelity ; that on the 17th, General Reed gave up the command which had devolved upon him after the death of Barnard, and was succeeded by Brigadier-general Wilson ; and that towards the close of the month the enemy made many desperate attempts to turn the flanks and rear of the siege-camp, requiring all the skill of the British to frustrate them* August ari'ived. The besieged, in every way stronger than the besiegers, continued their attacks on various sides of the heights. They gave annoy- ance, but at the same time excited contempt by the manner in which they avoided open hand-to- hand conflicts. An officer of engineers, commenting on this matter in a private letter, said : ' At Delhi, they are five or six to one against us, and see the miserable attempts they make to turn us out of our position. They swarm up the heights in front of our batteries by thousands ; the ground is so broken and full of ravines and rocks, that they can come up the whole way unseen, or you may depend upon it they would never venture. If they had the pluck of a goose, their numbers might terrify us. It is in the Subzee Mundce that most of the hard fighting goes on ; they get into and on the tops of the houses, and fire into our pickets there ; this goes on until we send a force from camp to turn them out, which Ave invariably do, but not Avithout loss. We have now cleared the ground all around of the trees, walls, and houses ; as a consequence, there is a large clear space around our pickets, and Pandy will not venture out of cover ; so we generally let him pop away from a distance until he is tired.' Early in the month, an attempt was made to destroy the bridge of boats over the Jumna ; the rains had set in, the river was high, the stream strong, and these were deemed favourable conditions. The engineers started three 'infernal machines,' each consisting of a tub containing fifty pounds of powder, a stick protruding from the tub, and a spring connected with an explosive compound ; the theory was, that if the tubs floated down to the bridge, any contact with the stick would explode the contents * Ey comparing two wood-cuts Bird's-eye View of Delhi ' (p. C4), and 'Delhi from Flagstaff Tower' (p. 76) the reader will be assisted in forming an idea of the relative positions of the mutineers within the city, and of the British on the ridge and in the camp behind it. The ' Bird's-eye View ' will be the most useful for this purpose, as combining the characteristics of a view and a plan, and shewing very clearly the river, the bridge of boats, the camp, the ridge, the broken ground in front of it, the Flagstaff Tower, Metcalfe House, the Custom-house, Hindoo Rao's house, the Samee House, the Selimgurh fort, the city, the imperial palace, the Jumma Musjid, the walls and bastions, the western suburbs, &c. THE SIEGE OF DELHI : FINAL OPERATIONS. 297 of the tub, and destroy one or more of the boats of the bridge ; but there is no record of success attending this adventure. The bridge of boats being a mile and a half distant from the batteries on the ridge, it could not be harmed by any guns at that time possessed by the British ; and thus the enemy, throughout the siege, had free and unmolested passage over the Jumna. The supply of ammunition available to the mutineers seemed to be almost inexhaustible; the British collected 450 round shot that had been lired at them from the enemy's guns in one day ; and as the British artillerymen were few in number, they wore worked nearly to exhaustion in keeping up the necessary cannonade to repel the enemy's fire. Although the 'Bandies' avoided contests in the open field, many of their movements were made with much secrecy and skill especially that of the 1st of August, when at Ka< f ",i)00 troops appeared in the vicinity of the British position, by a combined movement from two different quarters, and made an attack which nothing but the courage and skill of Major Reid and his handful of brave fellows could have withstood. In some of these numerous operations, when the rainy season commenced, the amount of fatigue bom by the troops was excessive. It was the pedal duty of the cavalry, not being Immediately available i < r vices, to guard the rear of the camp from surprise ; and to insure this result, they held themselves ready to 'boot and saddle' at a few minutes' notice glad if they could insure only a few hours of sleep in the twenty-four. Many an officer, on picket or reconnoitring duty, i be in the saddle twelve hours together, in torrents of rain, without food or refreshment of any kind. Yet, with all their trials, they poke and wrote cheerfully. An artillery-officer said : 'Our position here is certainly by nature a won- derfully secure one ; and if the l'andies could not have found a better place than Delhi as the head- quarters of their mutiny, with an unlimited n zine at their disposal, I doubt if we could have been so well off anywhere else. Providence has in every way. From the beginning, the weather has been most propitious; and in cantonments I have never seen troops so healthy as they arc here now. Cholera occasionally pays us a visit, but that must always be expected in a imp. The river Jumna completely protects our left flank and front ; while the large jheel (water-course) which runs away to the south- west is at this season quite impassable for miles, preventing any surprise on our right flank; so that a few cavalry are sufficient as a guard for three faces of our position' that is, a few, if constantly on the alert, and never shirking a hard day's work in any weather. The enemy gradually tired of attacks on the rear of the camp, which uniformly failed ; but tiny did not cease to maintain an aggressive attitude. Early in the month, they commenced a series of efforts to drive the British from the Metcalfe post or picket. This Metcalfe House, the peaceful residence of a civil-service officer until the disastrous 11th of May, had become an import- ant post to the besiegers. As early as four days after the arrival of the siege-army on the ridge, the enemy had emerged from the city, concealed themselves in some ravines around Sir T. Met- calfe's house, and thence made a formidable attack on the FlagstalF Tower. To prevent a recurrence of this danger, a large picket was sent to occupy the house, and to form it into a river-side or left flank to the siege-position. This picket was after- wards thrown in advance of the house, and divided into three portions one on a mound near the road leading from the Cashmere Gate to the cantonment Sudder bazaar ; a second in a house midway between this mound and the river ; and a third in a range of stables close to the river. All the portions of this picket were gradually strengthened by the engineers, as reinforcements reached them. The Flagstaff Tower was also well guarded ; and as the night-sentries paced the whole distance between the tower and the Metcalfe pickets, the belt of rugged ground between the ridge and the river was effectually rendered im- 1 Jo for the enemy. These various accessions of strength, however, were made only at intervals, as opportunity offered ; at the time now under notice, they were very imperfectly finished. The enemy plied the Metcalfe picket vigorously with shot and shell, from guns brought out of the nere Cafe and posted a few hundred yards in advance of the city wall ; while a number of infantry skirmishers, many of whom were rifle- men, kept op a nearly incessant fire from the jungle in front. Although the losses at the Met- calfe picket were not numerous, owing to the good cover, the approach to it for reliefs, etc., was ren- dered extremely perilous ; and as this species of attack was in many ways annoying to the British, General Wilson resolved to frustrate it. He placed under the command of Brigadier Showers a force of about 1300 men,* by whom the insurgents wore suddenly surprised on the morning of the 12th, and driven off with great loss. It was a sharp contest, for the brigadier had more than a hundred killed and wounded. Showers himself was in the list of wounded ; as were also Major Coke, Captain Grevillc, Lieutenants Sherriff, James, Lindesay, Maunsell, and Owen. Four guns belonging to the enemy were captured and brought into camp ; but the chief advantage derived from the skirmish was in securing the abandonment of a mode of attack likely to be very annoying to the besiegers. The insurgents, it is true, by placing guns on the opposite side of the Jumna, frequently H.M. 75th foot, 100 men. 1st Bengal Europeans, .... 350 n Coke's l'unjaub ltillcs . . . . -' H.M. 8th foot, 100 /' 2d Bengal Europeans 100 n Knmaon Qoorkba* 100 " 4th Sikh Infantry I" 1 ' " II. M. 9ih Lancers one squadron. Horse artillerv six guns. 298 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. sent a shot or shell across ; but the danger here was lessened by shifting the camp of the 1st Punjaub infantry. That the siege-army was weakened by these perpetual encounters, need hardly be said. Every day witnessed the carrying of many gallant fellows to the camp-hospital or to the grave. At about the middle of August, the force comprised 3571 European officers and men, and 2070 native officers and men, fit for duty ; with 28 horse-artillery guns (6 and 9 pounders) and a small supply of siege- artillery. A detail of the component elements of the force, and of the ratio which the effectives bore to the sick and wounded, will be more usefully given presently in connection with the September operations. Knowing well from dearly-bought experience that he could not successfully assault and capture Delhi with his present force, General Wilson looked anxiously for reinforcements from the Punjaub, which were due about the middle of the month. Indeed, all in camp were prepared to welcome one who, from the daring and energy which characterised nearly all the operations with which he had been intrusted, had earned from some the title of the 'Lion,' from others that of the 'Bayard,' of the Punjaub. This was Brigadier-general Nichol- son, a soldier who had attained to that rank at an unusually early age. About the end of June, Sir John Lawrence had intrusted to him a flying column which had been organised at Wuzeerabad,* but which had undergone many vicissitudes ; for Nicholson had been compelled to disarm all the Bengal native troops who were in his column. As we have seen in former pages, the brigadier struck terror into the mutineers, and swept away bands of rebels in front and on either side of him in the region between the Chenab and the Sutlej. He nearly annihilated the Sealkote mutineers near Goordaspore,t and then cleared the country during a long march, in fearfully hot weather, to Delhi. He himself with a few companions reached the city on the 8 th of August ; but the bulk of his column did not arrive till the 14th. Its composi- tion had undergone some change ; and it now comprised H.M. 52d foot, the remaining wing of the 61st foot, the 2d Punjaub infantry, 200 Moultan horse, and a small force of artillery in all, about 1100 Europeans and 1400 Punjaub troops. Valu- able, however, as was this accession of strength, it could not immediately affect the siege-operations ; seeing that it was necessary to await the arrival of another siege-train, which Sir John Lawrence had caused to be collected at Ferozpore, and which * H.M. 52d light infantry. 35th Bengal native infantry. 2d Punjaub infantry. 9th Bengal native cavalry, one wing. Moultan horse. Dawe's troop of horse-artillery. Smyth's troop of native foot-artillery. Bourchier's light-infantry battery. + During that famous pursuit and defeat of the Sealkote muti- neers, a wing of H.M. 52d foot marched sixty-two miles in forty- eight hours of an Indian summer, besides fighting with an enemy who resisted with more than their usual determination. It was work worthy of a regiment which had marched three thousand miles in four pears. was on its way to Delhi, with great stores of ammunition. As soon as General Wilson found himself aided by the energetic Nicholson, he gave additional efficiency to his army by grouping the infantry into four brigades, thus constituted: First brigade, under Brigadier Showers, H.M. 75th foot, 2d Bengal Europeans, and the Kumaon battalion of Goorkhas ; Second, under Colonel Lenfleld, H.M. 52d foot, H.M. 60th Rifles, and the Sirmoor battalion of Goorkhas ; Third, under Colonel Jones, H.M. 8th foot, H.M. 61st foot, and Rothney's Sikhs; Fourth, under Brigadier Nicholson, 1st Bengal Europeans, 1st Punjaub infantry (Coke's rifles), and 2d Punjaub infantry (Green's Rifles). The Guides were not brigaded, but were left free for service in any quarter. The cavalry was placed under Brigadier Grant, and the artillery under Brigadier Garbett. Nicholson had brought with him a few guns ; nevertheless it was necessary, as just remarked, to wait for a regular siege-train before a bombardment of the city could be attempted. The camp, organised as it now was, although it put on a somewhat more regular appearance than before, was a singular phenomenon, owing to the mode in which European and Asiatic elements were combined in it. An officer who was present through all the operations has given, in a letter which went the round of the newspapers, a graphic account of the camp, with its British and native troops, its varieties of costume, its dealers and servants, its tents and animals, and all the details of a scene picturesque to an observer who could for a moment forget the stern meaning which underlay it.* About the time of Nicholson's arrival, Lieu- tenant Hodson was intrusted by General Wilson with an enterprise small in character but useful in result. It was to watch a party of the enemy who had moved out from Delhi on the Rohtuk road, and to afford support, if necessary, either to Soneeput or to the Jheend rajah, who remained faithful to his alliance with the British. Hodson started on the night of the 14th of August with a detachment of about 350 cavalry, comprising 230 of the irregular horse named after himself, 100 Guide cavalry, and a few Jheend cavalry. The enemy were known * ' What a sight our camp would be even to those who visited Sebastopol! The long lines of tents, the thatched hovels of the native servants, the rows of horses.the parks of artillery, the English soldier in his gray linen coat and trousers (he has fought as bravely as ever without pipeclay), the Sikhs with their red and blue turbans, the Afghans with their red and blue turbans, their wild air, and their gay head-dresses and coloured saddle-cloths, and the little Goorkhas, dressed up to the ugliness of demons in black worsted Kilmarnock hats and woollen coats the truest, bravest soldiers m our pay. There are scarcely any Poorbeahs (Hindustanis) left in our ranks, but of native servants many a score. In the rear are the booths of the native bazaars, and further out on the plain the thousands of camels, bullocks, and horses that carry our baggage. The soldiers are loitering through the lines or in the bazaars. Suddenly the alarm is sounded. Every one rushes to his tent. The infantry soldier seizes his musket and slings on his pouch, the artilleryman gets his guns harnessed, the Afghan rides out to explore ; in a few minutes everybody is in his place. * If we go to the summit of the ridge of hill which separates us from the city, we see the river winding along to the left, the bridge of boats, the towers of the palace, and the high roof and minarets of the great mosque, the roofs and gardens of the doomed city, and the elegant-looking walls, with batteries here and there, the white smoke of which rises slowly up among the green foliage that clusters round the ramparts.' THE SIEGE OP DELHI : FINAL OPERATIONS. 299 to have passed through Samplah on the way to Rohtuk ; and Hodson resolved to anticipate them by a flank-movement. On the 15th, at the village of Khurkowdeh, he captured a large number of mutineer cavalry, by a stratagem at once bold and ingenious. On the lGth the enemy marched to Rohtuk, and Hodson in pursuit of them. On the 17th skirmishes took place near Rohtuk itself; but on the 18th Hodson succeeded in drawing forth the main body of rebels, who suffered a speedy and complete defeat. They were not simply mutineers from Delhi ; they comprised many depredatory bodies that greatly troubled such of the petty rajahs as wished to remain faithful to or in alliance with the British. Lieutenant Hodson, by dispersing them, aided in pacifying the district around the siege-camp a matter of much consideration. A letter from one of the officers of the Guides will aflbrd a good idea of the manner in which all fought in those stirring times, and of the lan- guage in which the deeds were narrated when the formality of official documents was not needed.* For ten days after Nicholson's arrival, little was effected on either side save this skirmish of Ilodson's at Rohtuk. Wilson did not want to begin ; it was not his strategy ; he steadily held his own until the formidable siege-train could arrive. On the other hand, the enemy WIN foiled in every movement; all their attacks had failed. Nicholson was on the alert to render good service ; and the opportunity was not long in iting itself. His energy as a soldier and his skill as a general v.vrr rendered very cuous in his battle of NujutUmr. resembling in its tactics some of those in which Havelock had been engaged. - General Wilson obtained intelli- gence that a force of tho enemy was advancing from Delhi towards liahadoorghur, with the apparent intention of attacking the liege-camp in the rear; the distance between the city and the town being about twenty miles, and the ' Tl, marched to a place called Khurkowdeh, but such a march ! Wc had to go through water for miles up to the horses' girths. We took Khurkowdeh by surprise, and I 'ced men over the gates, and wo went in. Shot one el instanter, cut down another, and took a ressaldar (native officer) and some sowars (troopers) prisoners, and came to a house occupied by fomc more, who would not let us in at all ; at last, wo rushed in and found the rascals had taken to the upper story, and still kept us at bay. There was only one door and a kirkee (window). I shored In my h.-ad through the door, with . in my hand, and got a clip over my turban for my pains; my i o at the man's breast (you must send me a revolver), so I got out of that as fast as I could, and then tried the kirke;' with the other barrel, and very nearly got another cut. Wc tried every means to get in, but could not, so we fired the house, and out they rushed a muck mnoii? M, The first fellow went at , who woumk-d him, be :ipped and fell on his I Raw him fall, and, thinking he 'was hurt, rushed to the uide got a chop at the fellow, and I rave him such a ig back-hander that he fell dead. I then went at another rushing by my left, and sent my sword through him, like butter, and bagged him. I then looked round and saw a sword come crash on the shoulders of a poor youth ; oh, such a cut ; and tip west the sword again, and the next moment the boy would have eternity, bat I ran forward and covered him with my sword and saved Mm. During this it was over with seven men. had shot one with his revolver, and the other four were cut down at Having polished off theso fellows, we held an Impromptu court-martial on those we had taken, and shot them all mur- derers every one, who were justly rewarded for their deeds.* latter being nearly due west of the former. Or, as seems more probable (seeing that all attacks on the rear of the camp had signally failed), the enemy may have intended to cross the Nujuff- ghur jheel or water-course, and intercept the siege-train which they as well as the British knew to be on the way from Ferozpore. One account of the matter is, that Bukhtar Singh, a rebel who had gained unenviable notoriety at Bareilly, had got into disfavour with the King of Delhi for his want of success as one of the military leaders within the city ; that he had offered, if a good force were only placed at his disposal, to wipe oft' the discredit by a crowning victory over the Feringhecs ; and that, in pursuance of this object, he proposed to get in rear of the siege- camp, intercept the expected siege-train, capture it, and cut off all communication between the camp and Umballa. Whatever may have been the main purpose, the expeditionary force was of considerable strength, amounting to 7000 men, and comprising the whole or large portions of six mutinied infantry regiments, three of irre- gular cavalry, and numerous artillery. The general, on receipt of this information, at once placed a column* under the command of Brigadier Nicholson, with instructions to frustrate tho operations of the enemy. The brigadier started at daybreak on the 25th of August, crossed two difficult swamps, and arrived at Nanglooc, a village about midway between Delhi and Bahadoorghur. During a halt and a recon- noitre, it was found that the enemy had crossed a bridge over the Nujuffghur jheel, and would probably encamp in the afternoon near the town of the same name. Nicholson determined to push on against them that same evening. After another ten-mile march, during which his troops had to wade through a sheet of water three feet deep, he came up with the enemy about fiv6 o'clock, and found them posted in a position two miles in length, extending from the bridge to the town : they had thirteen guns, of which four were in a strong position at an old serai on their left centre. The hrigadier, after a brief reconnaissance, resolved first to attack the enemy's left centre, which was their strongest point, and then, 'changing front to the left,' sweep down their line of guns towards the bridge. His guns having fired a few rounds, the critical moment for a charge arrived ; he addressed his men, told them what a bayonet charge had always been in the British army, and snouted 'Advance!' The infantry charged, and drove the enemy out of the II.M. 0th Lancers (Captain Sarrcll), One squadron. Guide cavalry (Captain Sandford), 120 men. 2d l'unjaub cavalry, 80 n Moultan horse. II.M. Gist ! (Colonel Renny), 420 # 1st Bengal Europeans (Major Jacob), 380 n 1st Punjaub infantry (Coke's), 400 2d Punjaub Infantry (Green's), 400 * Sappers and Miners, 30 Horse-artillery (Tombs' and Olphert's), Sixteen guns. Captain (now Major) Olphert being ill, the command of his troop was taken by Captain Remington. 300 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. serai with great impetuosity. He then changed front to the left, and so completely outflanked the enemy that they fled at once from the field, leaving thirteen guns behind them. While this was being done, Lieutenant Lumsden advanced to Nujuffghur, and cleared it of insurgents. A small number of the enemy concealed themselves in the neighbouring village of Nuglee ; and when attacked, in a way that left no loophole for escape, they fought so desperately as to bring down a con- siderable number of Lumsden's party, including the lieutenant himself. The enemy's cavalry effected little or nothing ; while Nicholson's was employed chiefly in guarding baggage and escorting guns. Nicholson passed the night near the bridge, which had been the object of a fierce attack and defence during the evening, and which he succeeded in blowing up about two o'clock in the morning thus cutting off one of the few approaches by which the mutineers from the city could get to the main line of road behind the camp. Nicholson returned to camp on the 26th, after a few hours' rest for his exhausted troops. They had indeed had a hard day's labour on the 25th ; for they marched eighteen miles to the field of battle starting at daybreak, and crossing tw r o difficult swamps before they could arrive at Nanglooe ; and, to use the words of their commander in his dis- patch, 'as it would not have been prudent to take the baggage across the ford at Baprowla, they were obliged, after fourteen hours' marching and fighting, to bivouac on the field without food or covering of any kind.' There seems to have been something wrong here. One of the officers has said : ' Unfortunately, through some mistake, I suppose, the grog for the men had not arrived, nor commissariat rations ; and it is wonderful how they bore up against the privations of a long march, some hard fighting, and no food. A little grumbling was occasionally heard, but good- humour and cheerfulness were the order of the day.' Such of them as had time to sleep at all during the night, slept on the damp ground ; but all these exigencies of a soldier's life were soon forgotten, and the troops returned to camp in high spirits at their success. Nicholson had relied fully on the Punjaubees in the day of battle, and they justified his reliance, for they emulated the courage and soldierly qualities of the European troops who formed the elite of the force. He had to regret the loss of 25 killed, including Lieutenants Lumsden and Gabbett ; and of 70 wounded, including Major Jacob and Lieutenant Elkington. The brigadier's official dispatch contained some curious particulars not always given in such documents. It appears that during the day his men fired off 17,000 musket and rifle charges, and 650 cannon-shot and shells a murderous torrent, that may perhaps convey to the mind of a reader some faint idea of the terrible ordeal of a battle. He captured all the enemy's guns and ammunition ; but a better result was, the frustration of an attack which might have been very annoying, if not dangerous, on the rear of the camp. Of the guns captured, nine were English field-pieces, formerly belonging to the regular Bengal army ; while the other four were native brass guns belonging to the imperial palace at Delhi. The Delhi insurgents, whether well or ill com- manded, manifested no careless inattention to what was occurring outside the city Avails. They were nearly always well informed of the proceedings of the besiegers. They knew that a large siege-train was expected, which they much longed to intercept ; they knew that Brigadier Nicholson had gone out to Nujuffghur on the morning of the 25th ; they knew that he had not returned to camp on the morning of the 26th; and they resolved on another attack on the camp in its then weakened state. All was in vain, however ; in this as in every similar attempt they were beaten. As soon as they made their appearance, General Wilson strengthened his pickets. The enemy commenced by a fire with field-guns from Ludlow Castle against the Mosque picket ; but the attack never became serious; it was steadily met, and the enemy, after suffering severely, retired into the city. During the later days of August, the enemy attempted little more than a series of skirmishing attacks on the pickets. If, once now and then, they appeared in force outside the walls as though about to attack in a body, the intention was speedily abandoned, and they disappeared again within the city. No evidence was afforded that they were headed by any officer possessing unity of command and military ability. There was no Sevajee, no Hyder among them. 'Often,' as an eye-witness observed, ' like an undisciplined mob, at best merely an agglomeration of regiments, the rebels have attacked us again and again, and fiercely enough when under cover, but always with a poverty of conception and want of plan that betrayed the absence of a master-mind. And now that they know strong reinforcements have joined our army, and that the day of retribution is not far distant although they may make an attempt to intercept the siege-train yet by their vacillating and abortive gatherings outside the walls, and by the dissensions and desertions that are rife within, they shew that the huge body of the insur- rection is still without a vigorous and life-giving spirit.' True as this may have been in the particular instance, it is nevertheless impossible not to be struck with the fact that the mutineers maintained a remarkable degree of organisation after they had forsworn their allegiance ; the men of all the corps rallied round the colours belonging to each parti- cular regiment ; and those regiments which had customarily been massed into brigades, long strove to maintain the brigade character. Although the insurrection possessed few elements of unity, although the rebels could not form an army, or operate comprehensively in the field, they sought THE SIEGE OF DELHI : FINAL OPERATIONS. 301 to maintain the organisation which their late British masters had given to them. There had usually been a brigade of two, three, or four native regiments at each of the larger military stations ; from the station the brigade took its name; and when the mutiny was many months "Id, the mutineers were still recognisable as belonging to the brigades which they had once loyally served such as the Barcilly brigade, the Necmuch brigade, the Dinapoor brigade, the Nusecrabad brigade, &c. Although single regi- ments and fragments of regiments entered Delhi, to maintain the standard of rebellion against the English 'raj,' nevertheless the majority were distinguishable as brigaded forces. The Delhi brigade itself, consisting of the 3Sth, 54th, and 74th regiments native infanty, formed the material on which the Mcerut brigade had worked on the 11th of May. This Meerut brigade comprised the 11th aud 20th infantry, and the 3d cavalry. On the 16th of June arrived the Nusecrabad brigade, con- sisting of the 15th and 90tfa infantry, with horse and foot artillery ; on the Iftd, the Jullundnr and Phillour brigades entered, comprising the 3d, 36th, and Gist infantry, and the 6th cavalry; on the 1st and 2d of June came the Barcilly or Kohilcund de, including the 18th, 88th, 29th, and 68th infantry, and the 8th irregular cavalry ; and later in the same month came the Neeniueh and Jhansi brigades. Bvcn when combined within the walls of Delhi, each brigade constituted a sort of family or community, having to a gre at extent a way and a will of its own. The history of a hundred lias shewn that the sepoys always fought well when well commanded ; and their ineffective Bghting as mutineers may hence be attributed in part to the fact that they were not well command It was about this period, the latter half of AagttSt, that an unfortunate English lady unfortunate in being so long in the hands of brutal men escaped from Delhi under circumstances which were nar- rated by the Bombay and Calcutta new-papers as below* She was the wife of one of tho civil officers of the Compa n y engaged at Delhi before the mutiny ; but as the newspaper narratives were ' Mrs . the wife of Mr , made tier r=eape from Delhi on the mornitr; of tho IStb, l'oor creature, she was almost reduced to a skeleton; ns she had been kept in a sort of dungeon while in Delhi. Two chiiprassces, who, it appears, have all along been faithful to her, aided her in making her attempt to escape. They passed through the Ajmcer Gate, but not wholly npobOMTod by the mutineers' sentries, a one of the chupr issccs was shot by tlicin. It being dark at the time, she lay hidden among the Ion ; web- grass until the dawn of day, when she sent the chuprassee to reconnoitre, and as luck would have it, he came across the European picket stationed at Subzsc Mundcc. So soon as he could discover who they were, he went and brought the lady into the picket-house amongst the soldiers, who did all t!ioy could to insure her safety. As soon as she arrived inside the square, she fell down upon her knees, and offered up a prayer to Heaven for deliverance. All she hail round her "body was a dirty piece of cloth, and another piece folded round her head, the was in a terrible condition ; but 1 feel assured that there was not a single European but felt greatly concerned in her behalf; and some even shed tears of pity when they heard the talc of woe that the related. All- r being interrogated by the officers for a short time, Captain llailcy provided a doolie for he-, and sent her under escort safe to camp, where she has been provided with a staff-tent, and every- thing that she requires.' not always correct in matters of identification, the name will not be given here. September arrived, and with it many indications that the siege would soon present new and import- ant features. Little is known of what passed within Delhi during those days; but General Wilson learned from various sources that the mutineers were in a very dissatisfied state at the failure of all their attempts to dislodge the besiegers, or even to disturb in any material degree the plan of the siege. They were without a respon- sible and efficient leader, and were split up into small sections ; they had no united scheme of operations ; nor were they adequately provided with money to meet their daily demands. "With the besiegers, on the other hand, prospects were brightening. The siege-train, when it arrived early in September, made a formidable increase in the ordnance before Delhi. As the name implies, the guns Avcre larger, and carried shot and shell more weighty, than those used in battles and skirmishes ; their main purpose being to make breaches in the defence-works of the city, through which infantry might enter and capture the place. Sir John Lawrence had been able to collect in the l'unjaub, and send to Delhi from Fero/.pore, a train of about thirty heavy pieces of artillery, consisting of guns, howitzers, and mortars of large calibre. The difficulty was not to obtain the guns, but to secure and to forward men to escort them, animals to draw them, ammunition to serve them, carriages to convey the auxiliary stores, food and camp- equipage for the men, fodder for tho animals whether horses, oxen, camels, or elephants. Such was the disturbed slate of India at that time, that Lawrence had not been able to send this rein- forcement until September ; and even then, all his skill, influence, and energy, were required to surmount the numerous difficulties. About the same time there arrived in camp a Bclooch battalion from Kurachec, the 4th Punjaub infantry, the Patan Irregular Horse, and reinforcements to ELM. 8th, 24th, 52d, and COth regiments. The siege-army now reached an aggregate of about 9000 men of all arms, effectives and non-effectives, including gun-lascars, syce-drivers, Punjaubec Sappers and Miners, native infantry recruits, and other men not comprised in regular regiments. There were also near the camp or on their march to it, numerous troops belonging to the Cashmere, Jhecnd, and Putialah Contingents. Out of the total number of troops of all kinds, Wilson hoped to be enabled to find 0000 effective infantry to make an assault on the city after a bombard- ment. To what extent this hope was realised, we shall sec presently. It is important to bear clearly in mind the relative positions of the besiegers and the be- sieged, the siege-camp and the fortified city, at that time. Let it not be forgotten that the British position before Delhi, from the early days of June to those of September, was purely a defensive one. The besiegers could neither invest the city nor 302 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. batter down its walls ; the troops being too few for the first of these enterprises, and the guns too weak for the second; while an assault, though twice intended, was not attempted, because there was no force sufficient to hold the city, even if it were captured. The position on the north of the city, from Metcalfe House to the Subzee Mundee, was the only one which they could successfully maintain. Nevertheless, though limited to that one side, it was invaluable, because it enabled the British to keep open a road of communication with the northwest, whence all supplies must necessarily be obtained. The English public, grieved and irritated by the astounding news from India, often reproached Barnard and Wilson for their delay in 'taking Delhi;' and many of the officers and soldiers on the spot longed for some dashing movement that would restore British prestige, and give them their hour of revenge against the mutineers. Subsequent experience, however, has gone far to prove that the generals were right. The grounds for so thinking have been thus set forth by an artillery-officer whose account of the siege has found a place among the Blue-books : ' Whether the city might or might not have been carried by a conp de main, as was contemplated first in June and afterwards in July, it is needless now to inquire ; but judging from the resistance we afterwards experienced in the actual assault, when we had been greatly rein- forced in men and guns, it appears to me fortunate the attempt was not made. The strength of the place was nev r er supposed to consist in the strength of its actual defences, though these were much undervalued ; but every city, even without forti- fications, is, from its very nature, strongly defen- sible, unless it can be effectually surrounded or bombarded. Moreover, within Delhi, the enemy possessed a magazine containing upwards of two hundred guns, and an almost inexhaustible supply of ammunition ; while their numbers were cer- tainly never less than double those of the besiegers.' But, more than thisJH)elhi was not so weak a place as public opinion in England at that time represented it to be. The numerous bastions presented regular faces and flanks of masonry, with properly cut embrasures. The portions of wall or curtain between the bastions were twenty- four feet high, two-thirds of the height being twelve feet thick, and the remainder near the top being a parapet three feet in thickness. Outside the wall was a broad beam or ledge, screened by a parapet as a place for musketeers ; below the beam was a ditch, sixteen feet deep by twenty feet wide at the bottom, with well-constructed escarp and counterscarp; and a good sloping glacis, descend- ing from the outer edge of the ditch, covered nearly half the height of the wall from all assaults by dis- tant batteries. Captain Norman, who was present during the whole of the siege as assistant adjutant- general, and who wrote a very lucid semi-official account of the siege-operations, fully corroborates this statement of the strength of the position. As a memento of a remarkable event in the military history of India, it may be acceptable to present here a detailed list of all the troops con- stituting the siege-army of Delhi in the second week of September, when the assault was about to be made. The number, it will be seen, was 9866,* besides 'unarmed and undisciplined pioneers,' of whom no enumeration was given. These, it must be remembered, were all efective troops, and did not include those who were disabled by wounds or sickness. It should also be observed, that the Cashmere, Jheend, and Putialah Con- tingents find no place in this list ; they were scarcely mentioned by General Wilson in his dispatches, although from other sources of infor- mation they seem to have reached nearly three thousand in number. Why the general and his staff should have had to make the entry ' strength unknown,' in reference to them, does not clearly appear. Concerning the other or more important elements of the army, many of the regiments were represented only by detachments or wings in the camp, the rest being at other places ; but all that need be noted in the list is the exact number of men. Glancing over this list, it is impossible to avoid being struck with the fact how nearly the Oudian or Hindustani element is excluded from it. There are Europeans, Goorkhas, Sikhs, Punjaubees, Bcloochees, and mountaineers from the Afghan frontier ; but the only entry referring clearly to the Bengal native army is that of 78 men of the 4th irregular cavalry, and these appear in the unsoldicrlike condition, ' disarmed and unhorsed.' The horse-artillery were frequently referred to in dispatches by the names of the officers in command such as Tombs', Turner's, Renny's, and Remington's troops ; while two light field-batteries were named after Scott and Bourchier. There were also several companies of * Artillery, Engineers, .nopean. } H .M. 9th Lancers, 391 (4th irregular cavalry (disarmed and unhorsed), 78 1st Punjaub cavalry, 147 J 2d a u , 114 ] 5th n a 107 | Hodson's Irregular Horse, .... 462 ^ Guide corps, cavalry, 283 Native. Infantry. fH.JI. 8th foot, : I ii 52d a , . I /< COth Rifles, . European.," u 61st foot, . ii 75th foot, 1st Bengal European Fusiliers, .2d n a n , ' Sirmoor battalion, Goorkhas, Kumaon o ii , Guide corps, infantry, Native J 4th Sikh infantr y. ive * "! 1st Punjaub infantry, 2d // n , . 4th 1705 S22 302 G90 402 459 427 370 212 312 302 414 664 650 511 .Belooch battalion 322 6089 THE SIEGE OF DELHI : FINAL OPERATIONS. 303 foot-artillery serving with the siege-guns, which altogether numbered more than sixty heavy pieces of ordnance of various kinds. It has been said above that the list of 9866 excluded sick and wounded ; these latter numbered at that time no less than 3074 ; therefore the total of all ranks and all degrees of efficiency nearly reached 13,000 men, even excluding the unenumcrated pioneers and contingents. In five regiments alone there were 1300 men sick and wounded, almost ecpualling in number those in an effective state; the regiment and the Sirmoor battalion exhibited a greater number on the sick-list than on that of the effectives. Now commenced those operations of [ warfare which depend moro on engineers and artillerymen than on infantry and cavalry the arrangements for bringing near tho city guns numerous and powerful enough to batter the walls. All hands were busy. The engineers and their assistant had made 10,000 fascines, 10,000 gabions, and 100,000 sand-bags; field-magazines, scaling-ladders, and spare platforms had been made in great number. The north sido of the city being that which was to be assaulted, it was ed to maintain the right of the position strongly against the enemy, while the main attack pushed on the left first, because the river would protect the left Hank of the advancing columns ; and, secondly, because the troops would find themselves in comparatively open ground in that part after a successful assault, instead of being cooped up in narrow and fiercely defended streets. One of the subsidiary measures taken was to form a trench to the left of the ml to construct at the end of it a battery for four guns and two This Samee, better known to the soldiers as the Sammy House, was an old temple, situated some way down the slope of the ridge towards the city, and about half a mile distant from the Moree Bastion ; it had for some weeks held by the British. The purpose of this newly constructed Samee Battery was to prevent sorties from the Lahore or Cabool Gates passing round tho city wall to annoy the breaching-batteries, and also to assist in keeping down the fire of the Moree Bastion. The three main works on the north side of the city were the Moree, Cashmere, and Water Bastions all of which had been "liened by the British authorities some years before, when no one dreamed that those strength- enings would be a disaster to the power which ordered them to be effected. It was on the 7th of September that the besiegers began to render visible those works which pertain especially to tho storming of a fortified post. Until then, there had been few or no trenches, parallels, or zigzags, intended to enable the besiegers to approach near the beleaguered city, preparatory to a forcible entry. On that night, however, a working-party was sent out to establish two batteries about seven hundred yards distant from the Moree Bastion. The sappers, attacked by the enemy and defended by infantry, prosecuted their work amid tho peril which always surrounds that species of military labour. One battery, on the left, of four 24-pounders, was intended to hold the Cashmere Bastion partially in check ; while the other, of five 18-pounders and one 8-inch howitzer, was to silence the Moree Bastion, and prevent it interfering with the attack on the left. A trench was made to connect the two batteries, and extending beyond them a littlo to the right and left, so as to communicate with a wide and deep ravine which, extending very nearly up to the left attack, formed a sort of first parallel, affording good cover to the guard of the trenches. All this was completed during the night or by the forenoon of the 8th ; and the two portions, with tho trench connecting them, became known as Brind's Battery, named after tho officer who worked it. At dusk on the evening of the 8th, a second working-party set forth, to construct a battery to be called ' No. 2.' Tho enemy, influenced by an opinion that tho attack would be made on the rights had neglected the ground at and near Ludlow Castle, a house situated barely seven hundred yards from the Cashmere Gate. The British engineers, taking advantage of this neglect, seized the position, occupied it with a strong ment, and employed tho nights of the 9th a: id loth in constructing a battery upon it. The enemy, alarmed at this near approach, kept up a fierce cannonade from the Cashmere and Water Bastions and from the Selimgurh; but the be- siegers had made their approach so carefully, that few of them suffered. This battery, like Brind's, was in two portions ; one, immediately in front of Ludlow Castle, for nine 24-pounders, was intended to breach the wall between the Cashmere and Water Bastions, and to render the parapet unten- able by musketeers; the other, two hundred yards further to the right, for seven 8-inch howitzers and two 18-pounders, was to aid in. attaining the same objects. The ' No. 2 ' Battery, from its magnitude, and the important duty assigned to it, was placed under the control of two officers ; Major Kaye commanded the right position ; while the left was intrusted to Major Campbell, who, being wounded soon afterwards, was succeeded by Captain Johnson. Still further was the powerful machinery for attack carried. On the night of the 10th, Battery No. 3 was commenced, within two hundred yards of the Water Bastion, behind a small ruined house in the custom-house compound ; it was bold and hazardous work to construct a battery in such a spot, for the enemy kept up a destructive fire of musketry the whole time. The object of No. 3, when mounted with six 18-pounders, was to open a second breach in the Water Bastion. Battery No. 4 was in like manner constructed during the nights of the 10th and 11th, at the Koodseebagh near Ludlow Castle ; it was mounted with ten THE SIEGE OF DELHI : FINAL OPERATIONS. 305 heavy mortars, placed under the charge of Major Tombs. Later in the siege a battery of light mor- tars was worked by Captain Blunt from the rear of the custom-house. To enable the whole of the siege-batteries to be armed, most of the heavy guns were withdrawn from the ridge, leaving only a few that were necessary to defend it from any attacks made by the enemy from the Kissengunje and Subzec Mundeo quarters. There being a deficiency of foot-artillerymen to man the heavy guns and mortars, nearly all the officers and men of the horse-artillery quitted the duties to which they more especially belonged, and worked in the batteries during the bombardment ; as did like- wise many volunteers from the British cavalry, who were eager to take part in the fray, the infantry regiments furnished volunteers from among the officers, who practised at the ridge- batteries for many days before the breaching- batteries opened their fire, when they transferred their services to the latter. The newly raised Sikh artillerymen, proud to share the dangers and emulate the courage of the British, were intrusted with the working of two of the great guns, a duty which they afterwards performed to admiration. It thus appears that the works at the newly constructed breaching- batteries bristled with forty-four heavy pieces of ordnance, besides guns of lighter weight and .-mailer calibre at more distant points. The murderous conflict could not much longer be delayed. The besieged knew well the danger impending over them, and made arrangements for a desperate resistance. No er di Opened its fire, and upwards of forty pon- derous pieces of ordnance belched forth ruin and slaughter on the devoted city. All that night, all the next day and night, until the morning of the 1 1th, did this cannonading continue, with scarcely an interval of silence. Soldiers like to be met in soldierly fashion, even if they suffer by it. The British did not fail to give a word of praise to the enemy ; who, though unable to work a gun from any of the three bastions that were so fiercely assailed, stuck to their artillery in the open ground which enfiladed the right attack ; they got a gun to bear through one of the holes breached in the wall ; they sent rockets from one of their martello towers ; and they poured forth a torrent of mus- ketry from their advanced trench and from the city walls. Throughout the warlike operations here and elsewhere, the enemy were more effective in artillery than in infantry, and less in cavalry than in cither of the other two. "When the great day arrived the day with which hopes and fears, anxieties and responsi- bilities, had been so long associated General "Wilson made arrangements for the final assault. The plan of operations was dependent on the state 306 THE REVOLT IN INDIA: 1857. to which the breaching-batteries had brought the defence-works of the city during two or three days' bombarding, by the engineers under Colonel Baird Smith, and the artillery under Major Gaitskell. It was known that the force of shot and shell poured against the place had made breaches near the Cashmere and Water Bastions, destroyed the defences of those bastions, and knocked down the parapets which had afforded shelter to the enemy's musketeers ; but wishing to ascertain the exact state of matters, the general, on the night of the 13 th, sent down Lieutenants Medley and Lang on the dangerous duty of examining the breach made in the city wall near the Cashmere Bastion ; while Lieutenants Greathcd and Home made a similar examination of the breach near the Water Bastion. These officers having announced that both breaches were practicable for the entrance of storming- parties, the general resolved that the next day, the 14th of September, should be signalised by a storming of the great Mogul stronghold. He marshalled his forces into columns,* the exact components of which it will be interesting to record here ; and to each column he prescribed a parti- cular line of duty. The 1st column, of 1000 men, was to assault the main breach, and escalade the face of the Cashmere Bastion, after the heavy siege- guns had finished their destructive work; it was to be covered by a detachment of H.M. 60th Rifles. The 2d column, of 850 men, similarly covered by a body of Rifles, was to advance on the Water Bastion and carry the breach. The 3d column, of 950 men, was to be directed against the Cash- mere Gate, preceded by an explosion-party of engineers under Lieutenants Home and Salkeld, and covered by a party of Rifles. The 4th column (strength unrecorded) was to assail the enemy's strong position in the Kissengunje and Pahareepore suburbs, with a view both of driving in the rebels, and of supporting the main attack by forcing an entrance at the Cabool Gate ; for this * 1st Column, under Brigadier-general Nicholson Bien. H.M. 75th foot (Lieutenant-colonel Herhert), 800 1st Bengal Europeans (Major Jacob), .... 250 2d Punjaub infantry (Captain Green), . . . 450 2d Column, under Brigadier Jones H.M. 8th foot (Lieutenant-colonel Greathetl), 250 2d Bengal Europeans (Captain Boyd), . . . 250 4th Sikh infantry (Captain Rothney), . . 350 3d Column, under Colonel Campbell H.M. 52d foot (Major Vigors), . . , '200 Kumaon Goorkhas (Captain Ramsay), . , . 250 1st Punjaub infantry (Lieutenant Nicholson), . 500 ifh Column, under Major Reid Sirmoor Goorkhas, \ Guide infantry, [Besides Cashmere Contingent, of European pickets, r which strength unknown. 850 Native pickets, J Reserve, under Brigadier Longfield H.M. 61st foot (Lieutenant-colonel Deacon), . 250 4th Punjaub infantry (Captain Wilde), . . . 450 Belooch battalion (Lieutenant-colonel Farquhar), 300 Jheend auxiliaries (Lieutenant-colonel Dunsford), 300 The engineer officers were attached to the several columns as follows : To the 1st column, Lieuts, Medley, Lang, and Bingham. // n 2d ii , ii Greathed, Hovenden, and Pemberton. a n 3d a , a Home, Salkeld, and Tandy. n a 4th n , a Maunsell and Tennant. a a Reserve, u Ward and Thackeray. duty a miscellaneous body of troops, almost wholly native, was told off. In addition to the four columns, there was a reserve of 1300 men, covered by Rifles, which was to await the result of the main attack, and take possession of certain posts as soon as the columns entered the place. No more troops were left at camp than were absolutely necessary for its protection ; a few convalescents of the infantry, and a few troopers and horse- artillery, were all that could be spared for this duty. Nearly all the pickets were handed over to the cavalry to guard. Arrangements were, how- ever, made to send back a force as speedily as possible to the camp to guard the sick, wounded, stores, &c, which naturally became objects of much solicitude to the general at such a time. Brigadier Grant, with the bulk of the cavalry and some horse-artillery, moved down to the vicinity of No. 1 Battery, to check any attempt that might be made by the enemy, after a sortie from the Lahore or Ajmeer Gates, to attack the storming columns in flank. The night which closed in the 13th and opened the 14th of September was not one to be soon forgotten by the soldiers of the siege-army. Few of them, officers or men, slept much ; their thoughts were too intensely directed towards the stern realities of the morrow, which would end the career of so many among their number. At four o'clock on the morning of the 14th, the different columns set forth on their march from the camp to their respective places. The first three columns were, according to the programme just cited, to engage in the actual assault on the northern side of the city ; the heads of those columns were to be kept concealed until the moment for assault had arrived ; and the signal for that crisis was to be, the advance of the Rifles to the front, to act as skirmishers. Brigadier Nicholson took the lead. He gave the signal ; the Rifles rushed to the front with a cheer, and skirmished along through the low jungle which extended to within fifty yards of the ditch. The 1st and 2d columns, under himself and Brigadier Jones, emerged from behind the Koodsce- bagh, and advanced steadily towards the breached portions of the wall. Up to this time the enemy's guns had wrought little mischief on the columns ; but as soon as the latter emerged into the open ground, a perfect storm of bullets met them from the front and both flanks ; officers and men were falling fast on the glacis ; and for several minutes it was impossible to get the ladders placed for a descent into the ditch and an ascent of the escarp. After a fierce struggle, the British bayonet, as usual, won the day ; the troops dashed through and over all obstacles, and entered the city through the breaches which the guns had previously made in the walls. Now within the boundary of the imperial city, the two brigadiers at once turned to the right, proceeded along the ramparts, fought the sepoys inch by inch, over- came all opposition, and captured in succession a THE SIEGE OF DELHI : FINAL OPERATIONS. 307 small battery, a tower between tbe Casbmere ami Moree Bastions, the Moree itself, and tbe Cabool Gate ; but tbe vigorous attempts they made to take the Burn Bastion and the Lahore Gate failed, so determined was the resistance opposed to them, and so terrible the loss they suffered in officers and men. It was in one of tbe many attacks on tbe Lahore Gate, when tbe troops bad to advance along a narrow lane swept by the enemy's grapeshot and musketry, that the bullet was fired which laid low the gallant Nicholson an officer in whom the whole army had reposed a full and deep reliance. As far as the Cabool Gate, the two columns were enabled to maintain their conquests ; and they immediately made preparations for opening fire from tbe bastions inwards upon tbe yet unconquered buildings of the city a sand-bag parapet being constructed across tbe gorge or open rear of each bastion. We bave now to sec wbat was transpiring in another quarter, on tbis morning of heroism and slaughter. While the 1st column was engaged in forcing an entrance through the breach near tbe Cashmere Bftrtioo, and the 2d column ft similar entrance through that near tbe Water Bastion, the 3d directed its operations against the Cashmere Gate through which, it will be remembered, the troops of that column were to rush after an explo- sion-party had blown in the gate itself. If thero bo any sublimity in bloody warfare, it is mani 1 in the self-devotion with which a soldier inarches steadfastly to a position where ho knows that death will be almost certain and immediate. Such self-devotion was shewn by tbe little band of e forming this explosion-party. They had to advance in broad daylight to the gate, amid a storm of bullets from above, from both flanks, and from a wicket in tbe gate itself; they had carefully to lay down and adjust tbe bags of gun- powder close to the gate, to arrange a train or fuse, to fire the bags, and to take their chance of being themselves blown up by the explosion. Tbe gallant men intrusted with this dangerous duty were divided into two parties an advanced and ft firing party. The first consisted of an engineer officer, Lieutenant Home, two non-commissioned officers, Sergeants Smith and Carmichael, and a few native sappers, who carried the powder-bags. The firing-party consisted of Lieutenant Salkeld, Corporal Burgess, and a few native sappers. Owing to some delay, the two parties did not set out for their rendezvous at Ludlow Castle until broad daylight, and then they had to encounter a heavy fire of musketry all the way. When the advanced party reached the gate a heavy wooden structure, flanked by massive walls they found that a part of the drawbridge over tbe ditch had been Dyed ; but, passing across the precarious foot- ing afforded by the remaining beams, they proceeded to lodge therr powder-bags against the gate. The wicket was open, and through it the enemy kept up a heavy fire. Sergeant Carmichael, and a native sapper named Madhoo, were killed while laying the bags ; but Lieutenant Home only received a blow from a stone thrown up by a bullet. The perilous duty of laying tbe bags being completed, the advanced party slipped down into the ditch, to make room for the firing- party, which then advanced. ' Lieutenant Salkeld,' said Colonel Baird Smith, in his report of the engineering operations of the day, 'while endea- vouring to fire the charge, was shot through the arm and leg, and handed over the slow match to Corporal Burgess, who fell mortally wounded just as he had successfully accomplished the onerous duty. Havildar Tilluh Singh, of the Sikhs, was wounded, and Rami oil Sepoy of the same corps, was killed during this part of the operation. The demolition being most successful, Lieutenant Home, happily not wounded, caused the bugler (Haw- thorne) to sound the regimental call of the 52d, as the signal for the advancing columns. Fearing that amid the noise of tbe assault the sounds might not be heard, he had the call repeated three times, when the troops advanced and carried the gate- way with complete success.' Sergeant Smith had I narrow escape from being blown up. Seeing Burgess fall, and not knowing the exact result of the gallant fellow's efforts to fire the train, be ran forward ; but seeing the train alight, he had just time to throw himself into the ditch before tbe explosion took place. The perilous nature of this kind of duty gave rise to a correspondence in the public journals, from which a few lines may not unsuitably be given in a note* Colonel Campbell, with the 3d column, after the heroic explosion-party had forced an entry for him through the Cashmere Gate, marched boldly * One of the writers remarked : The stout rope-mat which forms an efficient screen to the Russian artillerymen while serving their gun, impervious to the Minie ball, which lodges harmlessly in its rough and rugged surface, may surely suggest to our engineers the expediency of some effort to shield the valuable : our men when exposed to the enemy's fire. In ancient warfare, all nations appear to have defended themselves from the deadly arrow by shields, and why the principle of the tcstudo should be ignored in modern times is not obvious. Take the instance before us Lieutenant Salkeld and a few othors undertake the important, but most perilous duty of blowing in the Cashmere Gate, by bags of gunpowder, in broad daylight, and in the face of numerous foes, whose concentrated fire threatens the whole party with certain death. It is accomplished, but at what a loss ! Mar- vellous Indeed was it that one escaped. Now, as a plain man, without any scientific pretensions, I ask, could not, and might not, MOM kind of defensive screen have been furnished for the protec- tion of these few devoted men ? Suppose a light cart or truck on three wheels, having a semicircular framework In front, 1 hich might be lashed a rope-matting, and inside a sufficient number of sacks of wool or hay, propelled by means of a central cross-bar pushed against by four men within the semicircle, the engineers could advance, and on reaching the gate, perform their work through a central orifice in the outer matting, made to open like a Sap. The party would then retire in a similar manner, merely revert- ing the mode of propulsion, until the danger was past.' Another, Mr Kock of Hastings, said : ' In July 1848, I sent a plan for a mov- able shield for attacking barricades, to General Cavaignac, at Paris ; and on the 13th or 14th of July your own columns (the Timet) con- tained descriptions of my machine, and a statement by your raris correspondent that it had been constructed at the Ecole Militaire in that city. Fortunately, it was never used there, but thero seems to me no valid reason why such a contrivance should not he used on occasions like that which recently occurred at Delhi. The truck proposed, with a shield In front, would serve to carry the powder-bags, without incurring the chance of their being dropped owing to the fall of one or two of the men employed on the service, i ho chances of premature ignition would be diminished. These, I think, are advantages tending to insure success which should induce military engineers to use movable cover for their men when possible, even if they despise it as a personal protection.' 308 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. through the city towards the Jumma Musjid a perilous enterprise ; for the distance was upwards of a mile even in a straight line, and many popu- lous streets would need to he traversed. In this march he Avas aided by Sir Theophilus Metcalfe, a member of the Company's civil service, whose house outside Delhi has been so often mentioned, and who had been a valuable adviser to the siege- army during the whole period of its operations on the ridge. He knew Delhi well, and was thus enabled to render Campbell essential service. Conducting the column by a circuitous route, he kept it nearly free from opposition until the fine street, called the Chandnee Chowk, was reached, where they took possession of the Kotwallee. At this point, however, the troops began to fall rapidly under the muskets of the enemy, and it was found to be impracticable to achieve the object fondly hoped the capture of the Jumma Musjid itself. After a gallant struggle, the column fell back to the neighbourhood of the English church near the Cashmere Gate, where it had the support Cokpoeal Bubgess, blown up at Cashmere Gate. of the reserve. The colonel at once placed the 52d regiment in the church, the Kumaon battalion in Skinner's house, and the Punjaub infantry in the houses at the junction of two streets that led from the centre of the city to the open space around the church. Guns, too, were posted at the last-named place, to check the advance of insurgents who had begun to treat Campbell as a fleeing and defeated officer. He was in one sense defeated ; for he had to retreat nearly a mile, and saw his fine troops cut up terribly all around him ; never- theless, before nightfall he had placed himself in a position from which the enemy could not dislodge him, and which enabled him to take a prominent part in the subsequent operations. Rather as a support to Colonel Campbell's 3d column, than as a leading corps, the reserve now comes for notice its position being indeed denoted by its name. This reserve column, under Briga- dier Longfield, had, it will be remembered, the duty of watching the result of the main attack, and of taking possession of certain posts as soon as the other columns had effected an entry into the city. The reserve followed the 3d column through the Cashmere Gate, having previously spared the Belooch battalion to render service near Hindoo Rao's house. Longfield at once cleared the college gardens of insurgents, and then told off his troops so as to obtain efficient hold of the Water Bastion, the Cashmere Gate, Skinner's house, and a large commanding building called Ahmed Ali Khan's house. Skinner's house, or in Indian form, Sikunder's, had at one time been the residence of Major Skinner, commander of a regiment of irregular horse, which had acquired much celebrity; the house was large, and presented many important advantages for a military force. There is yet another portion of the siege-army, whose fortune on this 14th of September has to be noticed namely, that which was placed under the command of Major Reid, for a series of operations in the western suburbs of the city. Everything here was under a cloud of disappointment ; the operations were not attended with that degree of success which the officers and men had fondly hoped. Captain Dwyer, in command of the Cashmere field-force, was intrusted with the management of 400 men of that force, and four guns; and the object he was to endeavour to attain was the safe occupation of the Eedghah Serai, in dangerous proximity to the garrison within the city. Early in the morning he set out from the camp. Finding the road very difficult for artillery, he pulled down a portion of stone- wall to enable his guns to get upon the Rohtuk high road ; the noise unfortunately attracted the enemy, who immediately sent down 2000 men to that point. Dwyer kept up a fire of artillery for THE SIEGE OF DELHI : FINAL OPERATIONS. 309 three quarters of an hour; but finding that the enem}\ instead of being discomfited, were about to outflank him, he resolved on a bold advance on the Eedghah. This resolve he could not carry out; his troops were widely spread in skirmishing order, and could not be collected in column ; the guns could not be properly moved, for the grass- cutters had taken away the horses. In short, the attempt was a total failure, .and the captain was compelled to retire without his guns. The force appears to have been too small, and the Cash- nierian troops scarcely equal in soldierly discipline to the demands of the work intrusted to them. This attack on the Eedghah was to have been part of a larger enterprise intrusted to Major Rcid, having in view the conquest of the whole western suburb of Delhi, and the command of all outlets by the western gates. The major advanced from the Subzce Mundee towards the Kisscngunje suburb ; but he found the enemy so numerous and strongly posted, and he met with such a strenuous opposition, that his progress was soon checked. The gallant Reid himself being struck down wounded, as well as many other officers, Captain Muter of the GOth Rifles, and Captain R. 0. Lawrence, political agent with the Cashmere Con- tingent, felt it necessary promptly to decide on the course best to be pursued. They found the different detachments, of which the column consist' broken and disorganised by the heavy tire of the enemy, that it was impossible to re-form them on broken ground, and under a severe tire the attack on the Kisscngunje could not be renewed ; all they attempted was to keep the enemy in check for an hour, without losing ground. They waited for a reinforcement of artillery, which Rcid had sent for before being wounded ; but these guns, through unexplained cause, failed to arrive. Seeing the enemy increase in force, and fearing for the safety of the batteries below Hindoo Rao's house, the officers gave up the attack and retired, strengthening the batteries and the Subzce Mundee picket. The failure of Captain Dwyer's attack greatly increased the difficulty of the position ; for the enemy was thereby enabled to advance on the right flank of the main column, endanger its rear, and hotly press the Subzce Mundee picket. Rcid, Lawrence, Dwycr, Muter all were mortified at their failure in this suburban operation. Thus ended the 14th of September, a day on which British authority was partially restored in the city of the Moguls,' after an interregnum of eighteen weeks. Partial, indeed, was the rccon- quest; for the portion of the city held bore so small a ratio to the whole, that the troops foresaw a terrible and sanguinary ordeal to be gone through before the British flag would again wave undisputed over the conquered city. The loss was very large, in relation to the strength of the army generally. There fell on this one day, 8 British officers, 1G2 British troops, and 103 native troops, killed ; while the list of wounded comprised 52 British officers, 512 British troops, and 310 native troops a total of 1135. When night closed around the survivors, the 1st and 2d columns held all the towers, bastions, and ramparts from the vicinity of the Cashmere Gate to the Cabool Gate ; the 3d column and the reserve held the Cashmere Gate, the English church, Skinner's house, the Water Bastion, Ahmed Ali Khan's house, the college gardens, and many buildings and open spots in that part of Delhi ; while the 4th column, defeated in the western suburbs, had retreated to the camp or the ridge. Snatching a little occasional repose during the night, the besiegers found themselves at dawn on the 15th, as we have said, masters of a part only of Delhi ; and they prepared for the stern work before them. They dragged several mortars into position, at various points between the Cashmere and Cabool Gates, to shell the heart of the city and the imperial palace. A battery, commanding the Selimgurh and a part of the palace, was also established in the college gardens; and several houses were taken and armed in advance or further to the south. The enemy, meanwhile, kept up a vigorous fire from the Selimgurh and the magazine upon the positions occupied by the British, and skirmishing went on at all the advanced posts. This, be it understood, was within the city itself; the British being in command of a strip of ground and buildings just within the northern wall; while all tbe rest was still in the hands of the rebels. It was in every way a strange position for an army to occupy ; the city was filled with hostile soldiery, who had the command of an immense array of guns and a vast store of ammu- nition, and whose musketry told with fatal effect from loopholed walls and houses in all the streets within reach; while the besiegers themselves were separated by a lofty city wall from their own camp. The lGth was marked by a greater progress than the 15th towards a conquest of the city, because the newly established batteries began to shew signs of work. The guns in the college garden having effected a breach in the magazine defences, that important building was stormed and taken, with a loss comparatively slight, by the 61st, the 4lh Punjaub, and the Beloochecs.* Outside the city, the Kisscngunje suburb was this day evacuated by the enemy, leaving five guns, which were speedily captured by a detachment sent down from Hindoo Rao's house ; it was then found that the enemy's position here had been one of immense strength, and the failure of Major Reid's attack received a ready explanation. Another day dawned, and witnessed the com- mencement of operations which placed a further portion of the city in the hands of the conquerors. The magazine having been captured, it became important to secure the whole line of rampart and * When the magazino was so heroically fired by Lieutenant Willoughby, four months earlier, the destruction caused was very much smaller than had been reported and believed. The stores in the magazine had been available to the rebels during the greater part of the siege. 310 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. forts from that point to the Cabool Gate, com- prising the northeast as well as the north sides of the city. This was begun on the 17th, and com- pleted on the 18th, giving to the British a firm hold of everything behind a straight line extending from the magazine to the Cabool Gate. A bold advance southward could now be made. Columns were sent forth, which captured the Delhi bank, Major Abbott's house, and the house of Khan Mohammed Khan, and made a near approach to the palace and the Chandnee Chowk. The pen can easily record this, but it must leave to the imagination of the reader to conceive how great must have been the peril of soldiers thus advancing inch by inch through a crowded city ; field-artillery was brought to bear against them from almost every street, muskets from almost every house-top and window ; and many a gallant fellow was laid low. One great advantage the besiegers now had, was in the command of mortars brought out from the magazine ; these were placed in selected positions, and employed to shell the palace and the quarters of the town occupied by the enemy. It was now that the insurgents were seen to be gradually escaping from the palace into the southern parts of the city, and thence through the southern gates into open country not yet attacked bj r the British. Over the bridge of boats they could not go, for the guns of the conquerors commanded it. Or, it may more correctly be said, the com- mand of the bridge of boats enabled the conquerors to check that passage if they chose ; but General Wilson did not make war on women and children, or on such males as appeared to be peaceful citi- zens : he allowed them to depart from the city if they wished which nearly all did, for they feared terrible retribution at the hands of the British soldiery. After another night within the imperial city, the conquerors achieved further successes on the 19th. The post called the Burn Bastion, situated on the west side of the city, close to the Lahore Gate, was surprised and captured by a detachment sent from the already conquered Cabool Gate. This swept the enemy from another large extent of wall. On the following morning a detachment of cavalry, going from the ridge by way of the Kissengunje and the Eedghah, found that the enemy had evacu- ated a large and strong camp long occupied by them outside the Delhi Gate. Lieutenant Hodson at once took possession of it ; and a mere glance shewed, by the quantities of clothing, plunder, and ammunition lying around, that the enemy must have made a very precipitate flight. The cavalry, entering the city by the Delhi Gatewhich, together with the Gurstin Bastion, had just been attacked and taken by the infantry, galloped on to the sumptuous Jumma Musjid, of which they took possession, being speedily supported by infantry and guns. While all this Avas going on, the imperial palace was the object of a distinct attack. A column advanced along the Chandnee Chowk, placed powder-bags against the gate, blew it in, and entered the palace. The enormous building was found to be deserted by all but a few fanatics and numerous wounded sepoys. Thus at length was the great city of Delhi recon- quered by its former masters ; thus again did the Feringhee become paramount over the Mogul. Captain Norman, whose semi-official account of the siege has already been adverted to, closed his narrative by saying : ' It is impossible to conclude without alluding to the trials and constancy of the troops employed in this arduous siege. Called on at the hottest season of the year to take the field, imperfectly equipped, and with the extent of diffi- culties to be faced very imperfectly known, all felt that a crisis had arrived, to meet which every man's cheerful, willing, and heartfelt energies must be put forth to the utmost ; and how well this was done, those who were with the army know and can never forget. For the first five weeks every effort was required, not indeed to take Delhi, but even to hold our own position ; and day after day, for hours together, every soldier was under arms under a burning sun, and constantly exposed to fire. Notwithstanding the daily casualties in action, the numerous deaths by cholera, the dis- couraging repoi'ts relative to the fidelity of some of the native portions of our own foi*ce, the distressing accounts from all parts of the country, the constant arrival of large reinforcements of mutineers, and the apparent impossibility of aid ever reaching in sufficient strength to enable us to take the place the courage and confidence of the army never flagged. And, besides enduring a constant and often deadly cannonade, for more than three months, in thirty different combats, our troops invariably were successful, always against long odds, and often opposed to ten times their num- bers, who had all the advantages of ground and superior artillery.' Taking the 30th of May as the date when the first conflict between the besiegers and defenders of Delhi took place, at some distance from Delhi itself, the interval of 113 days between that date and the final capture on the 20th of September was marked by a very large death-list. It could not be otherwise. Where men were exposed during so many days and nights to shells, balls, bullets, swords, heat, swamps, fatigue, and disease, the hand of the destroyer must indeed have been heavy. And, as in all similar instances, the list of wounded was much larger than that of killed. The official list comprised the names of 46 European officers who had either been killed in battle, or died from wounds received; and of 140 others whose wounds had not proved fatal. But the adjutant-general is seldom accustomed to com- prise in his lists those who fall with disease without being wounded ; and thus the Delhi enumeration did not include the names of Generals Anson and Barnard, or of any of the numerous officers, who, though not wounded before Delhi, unquestionably met their death in connection with the preparations for, or conduct of, the siege. THE SIEGE OF DELHI : FINAL OPERATIONS. 311 Distributed under different headings, the killed and wounded amounted altogether to 3807,* to which were added 30 missing. Of the horses there were 186 killed and 378 wounded. Of the number of insurgents who fell during the struggle, no authentic knowledge could be obtained. The official dispatches were nearly silent con- cerning the proceedings, except military, in the interval of six days between the first assault of the city and the 'final subjugation, and during the remaining ten days of September. General Wilson, shortly before the final attack was to be made, issued an address to his soldiers, from which a few sentences are here given in a note ;t and in which, it will be seen, they were instructed to give no quarter to the mutineers that is, make no prisoners, but put all armed rebels to death. This was attended to ; but something more was something darker and ton justifiable. It is not customary for soldiers to stab wounded and sick men in an enemy's army ; but such was done at Delhi. The sense of hatred towards the mutin- ous si so intense, the recollection of the atrocities at Cawnpore was so vivid, that vengeance took place of every other feeling. The troops did that which they would have scorned to do against the Russians in the Crimean war they bayoneted men no longer capable of resistance. They refitted to consider the rules of honourable warfare applicable to black-hearted traitors ; their officers joined them in this refusal ; and their general's address justified them up to a certain point. If the rule laid down by Wilson had been strictly adhered to, there would have been military pre- cedence to sanction it ; but the common soldiers did not discriminate in their passion ; and many a dark- skinned inhabitant of Delhi fell under the bayonet, Europeans Killed. Wounded. . 46 140 .issioucd officer?, 50 113 Rank and flic, . . .470 Natives Officers, .... 14 49 , commissioned officers, 37 104 and file, . . .389 1070 + ' The force assembled before Delhi has had much hardship and fatigue to undergo since its arrival in this camp, all of which id men. The time is encral commanding the force and that they will be rewarded iast exertions and for a cheer- e and exposure The have had, and hitherto; this, nly, and when ordered to the rcl Briti-h pluck and deter- e them, and that the blood- ainst whom they are i tronghold or be exterminated. has bc( irance of still however, wiU bo for a short assault, the m and murdei" will be driven headlong out i troops of the cruel ii : lr officers and comrades, as well ildren, to move them in the deadly struggle. No 'if. mutineer!; at the same time, for the and the honour of the country they belong to, to spare all wo Idren that may come . . It is i it that allowed ; that prize-agents have o all captured j I lected aged ; and that any man found property will he i t all claims to the general prize ; he will over to the provost-marshal, to be 'h.' in morn... i,., ! | 1 this bead fairly against whom no charge of complicity with the mutineers could be proved. The letters written home to friends in England, soon after the battle, and made public, abundantly prove this ; the soldiers were thirsting for vengeance, and they slaked their thirst. Many of the villagers of India, indeed, bore cruel injustice during that extraordi- nary period. Instances frequently came to light, such as the following : A revolted regiment or a predatory band would enter a village, demand and obtain money, food, and other supplies by threats of vengeance if the demand were not complied with, and then depart ; an English corps, entering soon afterwards, would fine and punish the villagers for having aided the enemy. One thing, however, the British soldiers did not do ; they did not murder women and children. This humanity, heroism, justice, or whatever it may best be called, was more than the natives generally expected : the leaders in the revolt had sedulously disseminated a rumour that the British would abuse all the women, and murder them and their children, in all towns aud stations where mutinies had taken place ; and under the influence of this belief, many of the natives put their wives to death rather than expose them to the apprehended indignities. While, at one part of Delhi, the conquerors (if the narrators are to be believed) found Christian women crucified against the walls in the streets ; at another part, nearly twenty native women wore found lying side by side with their throats cut, their husbands having put them to death to prevent them from falling into the hands of the conquerors. What other scenes of wild licence took place within Delhi during those excited days, we may infer from collateral evidence. The mutineers, quite as much in love with plunder as with nationality, had been wont to carry about with them from place to place the loot which they had gathered during the sack of the stations aud towns. As a consequence, Delhi contained temporarily an enormous amount of miscellaneous wealth ; and such of this as the fugitives could not carry away with them, was regarded as spoil by the conquerors. There are certain rules in the English army concerning prizes and prize-money, which the soldiers more or less closely obey ; but the Punjaubee and Goorkha allies, more accustomed to Asiatic notions of warfare, revelled in the unbridled free- dom of their new position, and were with difficulty maintained in discipline. There was a large store of beverage, also, in the city, which the conquerors soon got at ; and as intemperance is one of the weak points of English soldiers, many scenes of drunkenness ensued. But all these are among the exigencies of Avar. The soldiers bore up manfully against their varied trials, fought heroically, and conquered; and it is not by the standards of conduct familiar to quiet persons at home that they should be judged. When General Wilson reported the result of his 312 THE REVOLT IN INDIA. 1857. hard labours, he said in his dispatch : ' Thus has the important duty committed to this force been accomplished, and its object attained. Delhi, the focus of rebellion and insurrection, and the scene of so much horrible cruelty, taken and made desolate ; the king a prisoner in our hands ; and the mutineers, notwithstanding their great nume- rical superiority and their vast resources in ord- nance, and all the munitions and appliances of war, defeated on every occasion of engagement with our troops, are now driven with slaughter in confusion and dismay from their boasted strong- hold Little remains for me to say, but to again express my unqualified approbation of the conduct and spirit of the whole of the troops, not only on this occasion, but during the entire period they have been in the field For four months of the most trying season of the year this force, originally very weak in number, has been exposed to the repeated and determined attacks of an enemy far outnumbering it, and supported by a numerous and powerful artillery. The duties imposed upon all have been laborious, harassing, and incessant, and notwithstanding heavy losses, both in action and from disease, have been at all times zealously and cheerfully pei'formed.' And in similar language, when the news was known at Calcutta, did Viscount Canning acknowledge the heroism of those who had conquered Delhi.* It will be seen above that the governor-general spoke of the 'king a prisoner.' This must now be explained. When all hope of retaining Delhi faded away, the aged king who had in effect been more a puppet in the hands of ambitious leaders than a king, during four months fled from the city, as did nearly all the members and retainers of the once imperial family. It fell to the lot of Captain (afterwards Major) Hodson to capture the king and other royal personages. This officer was assistant quartermaster- general, and intelli- gence-officer on General Wilson's staff. His long acquaintance as a cavalry officer with Sikhs, Punjaubees, and Afghans had given him much knowledge of the native character, and enabled * ' The reports and returns which accompany this dispatch estab- lish the arduous nature of a contest carried on against an enemy vastly superior in numbers, holding a strong position, furnished with unlimited appliances, and aided by the most exhausting and sickly season of the year. ' They set forth the indomitable courage and perseverance, the heroic self-devotion and fortitude, the steady discipline, and stern resolve of English soldiers. ' There is no mistaking the earnestness of purpose with which the struggle has been maintained by Major-general Wilson's army. Every heart was in the cause; and while their numbers were, according to all ordinary rule, fearfully unequal to the task, every man has given his aid, wherever and in whatever manner it could most avail, to hasten retribution upon a treacherous and murderous foe. ' In the name of outraged humanity, in memory of innocent blood ruthlessly shed, and in acknowledgment of the first signal vengeance inflicted upon the foulest treason, the governor-general in council records his gratitude to Major-general Wilson and the brave army of Delhi. He does so in the sure conviction that a like tribute awaits them, not in England only, but wherever within the limits of civilisation the news of their well-earned triumph shall reach.' Some days afterwards, Lord Canning issued a more formal and complete proclamation, of which a few paragraphs may here be given : ' Delhi, the focus of the treason and revolt which for four months have harassed Ilindostan, and the stronghold in which the mutinous army of Bengal has sought to concentrate its power, has been wrested from the rebels. The king i3 a prisoner in the palace. him to obtain remarkably minute information concerning the movements and intentions of the enemy ; to insure this, he was invested with power to reward or punish in proportion to the deserts of those who assisted him. It was known directly the Cashmere Gate was conquered that the exodus of the less warlike inhabitants of Delhi was beginning ; but not then, nor until six days afterwards, could this be stopped, for the southern gates were wholly beyond reach of the conquerors. The imperial palace was captui^ed, and was found nearly empty, on the 20th ; and on the following day Captain Hodson learned that the king and his family had left the city with a largo force by the Ajmeer Gate, and had gone to the Kootub, a suburban palace about nine miles from Delhi. Hodson urged that a detach- ment should be sent in pursuit, but Wilson did not think he could spare troops for this service. While this subject was under consideration, mes- sengers were coming from the king, and among others Zeenat Mahal, a favourite begum, making ridiculous offers on his part, as if he were still the power paramount all of which were of course rejected. As these offers could not be accepted ; as Wilson could not or would not send a detach- ment at once to defeat or capture the mutinous troops who had departed with the king ; and as it was, nevertheless, desirable to have the king's person in safe custody Captain Hodson received permission to promise the aged sovereign his life, and exemption from immediate personal indignity, if he would surrender. Thus armed, Hodson laid his plans. He started with fifty of his own native irregular troopers to Humayoon's Tomb, about three miles from the Kootub. Concealing himself and his men among some old buildings close by the gateway of the tomb, he sent his demand up to the palace. After two hours of anxious suspense, he received a message from the king that he would deliver himself up to Captain Hodson only, and on condition that he repeated with his own lips the pledge of the government for his safety. The captain then went The head-quarters of Major-general Wilson are established in the Dewani Kha3 [the "Elysium" of the Mogul palace-builders, and of Moore's Lai la Rookh], A strong column is In pursuit of the fugitives. ' Whatever may he the motives and passions by which the mutinous soldiery, and those who are leagued with them, have been instigated to faithlessness, rebellion, and crimes at which the heart sickens, it is certain that they have found encouragement in the delusive belief that India was weakly guarded by England, and that before the government could gather together its strength against them, their ends would be gained. ' They are now undeceived. ' Before a single soldier of the many thousands who are hastening from England to uphold the supremacy of the British power has set foot on these shores, the rebel force, where it was strongest and most united, and where it had the command of unbounded military appliances, has been destroyed or scattered by an army collected within the limits of the Northwestern Provinces and the Punjaub alone. 4 The work has been done before the support of those battalions which have been collected in Bengal from the forces of the Queen in China and in her Majesty's eastern colonics could reach Major- general Wilson's army ; and it is by the courage and endurance of that gallant army alone, by the skill, sound judgment, and steady resolution of its brave commander, and by the aid of some native chiefs true to their allegiance, that, under "the blessing of God, the head of the rebellion has been crushed, and the cause of loyalty, humanity, and rightful authority vindicated.' THE SIEGE OF DELHI : FINAL OPERATIONS. 313 out into the middle of the road in front of the gateway, and said lie was ready to receive his captives and renew the promise. ' You may pic- ture to yourself,' said one familiar with the spot, ' the scene before that magnificent gateway, with the milk-white domes of the tomh towering up from within, one white man among a host of natives, yet determined to secure his prison< perish in the attempt.' After a time, a procession hegan to arrive from tho palace. Threats and promises soon did their work ; aud the king, his begum Zeenat Mahal, and her son Jumma Bukht, were escorted to Delhi. It was a striking manifestation of moral power ; for there were hundreds or even thousands of retainers in the procession, any one of whom could by a shot have put an end to Hodson's life ; but he rode at the side of the imperial palanquins, cool and Scone of Capture of the Princes of Delhi Tomb of Emperor Humayoon. undaunted, and they touched him not. As the city was approached, the followers and bystanders slunk away, being unwilling to confront the British troops. The captain rode on a few paces ahead, and ordered the Lahore Gate to be opened. 'Who have you there in the palanquin V asked the officer on duty. 'Only the King of Delhi,' was the reply. The guard were all enraptured, and wanted to greet Hodson with a cheer ; but he said the king would probably take the honour to him- self, which was not desirable. On they went, through the once magnificent but now deserted Chandnee Chowk ; and the daring captor, at the gate of the palace, handed up his royal prisoners to the civil authorities. Captain Hodson's work was not yet finished ; there were other members of the royal family towards whom his attention was directed. Early on the following morning, he started to avail him- self of information he obtained concerning three of the princes, who were known to have been guilty of monstrous deeds which rendered them worthy of instant death. He went with a hundred of his troopers to the Tomb of Humayoon, where the princes were concealed. After accepting 'king's evidence,' bribing, threatening, and manoeuvring, Hodson secured his prisoners, and sent them off with a small escort to the city. Entering the tomb, he found it filled with an enormous number of palace scum and city rabble, mostly armed ; but so thoroughly cowed were they by his fearless demeanour, that they quietly obeyed his order to lay down their arms and depart. The captain and his men then moved warily off* to the city; and at a short distance from the gate, he found the vehicle containing the princes surrounded by a mob, who seemed disposed to resist him. What followed must be given in the words of an officer who was in a position to obtain accurate informa- tion. 'This was no time for hesitation or delay. 314 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. Hodson dashed at once into the midst in few but energetic words explained "that these wei*e the men who had not only rebelled against the govern- ment, but had ordered and witnessed the massacre and shameful exposure of innocent women and children ; and that thus therefore the government punished such traitors, taken in open resistance" shooting them down at the word. The effect was instantaneous and wonderful. Not another hand was raised, not another weapon levelled, and the Mohammedans of the troop and some influential moulvies among the bystanders ex- claimed, as if by simultaneous impulse : " Well and rightly done ! Their crime has met with its just penalty. These were they who gave the signal for the death of helpless women and chil- dren, and outraged decency by the exposure of their persons, and now a righteous judgment has fallen on them. God is great!" The remaining weapons were then laid down, and the crowd slowly and quietly dispersed. The bodies were then carried into the city, and thrown out on the very spot where the blood of their innocent victims still stained the earth. They remained there till the 24th, when, for sanitary reasons, they were removed from the Chibootra in front of the Kotwallee. The effect of this just retribution was as miraculous on the populace as it was deserved by the criminals.' Thus Avere put to death two of the old king's sons, Mirza Mogul Beg, and another whose name is doubtful, together with Mirza's son. What was done to restore order in Delhi after its recapture , who was appointed to command it ; what arrangements were made for bringing to justice the wretched king who was now a prisoner ; and what military plan was formed for pursuing the mutinous regiments which had escaped from the city will moro conveniently be noticed in subsequent pages. The country did not fail to do honour to those who had been concerned in the conquest of the imperial city. The commander of the siege-army was of course the first to be noticed. Although he had no European reputation, Archdale Wilson had served as an artillery officer nearly forty years in India. He was employed at the siege of Bhurtpore in 1824, and in many other active services ; but his chief duties confined him to the artillery depots. It is a curious fact that most of the. guns employed by him at the siege of Delhi, as well as those used by the enemy against him, had been cast by him as superintendent of the gun-foundry at Calcutta many years before, and bore his name as part of the device. He held in succession the offices of adjutant-general of artil- lery and commandant of artillery. At the com- mencement of the mutiny, his regimental rank was that of lieutenant-colonel of the Bengal artil- lery ; but he acted as brigadier at Meerut, and was afterwards promoted to the rank of major-general. The Queen, in November, raised him to the baronetcy, and made him a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath; and thus the artillery officer had risen to the rank of ' Major-general Sir Archdale Wilson, K.C.B.' The East India Com- pany, too, sought to bestow honour or something more solid than honour on the victorious com- mander ; the court of proprietors, on the suggestion of the court of directors, voted a pension of 1000 per annum to Sir Archdale Wilson, to commence from the day when his troops entered Delhi. What honours Brigadier Nicholson would have earned, had his valuable life been spared, it would be useless to surmise. He was an especial favourite among the soldiers in the Indian army more so, perhaps, than some whose names are better known to English readers ; and his death withinside the walls of Delhi was very generally deplored. He had not yet attained his 35th year a very early age at which to obtain brigade command, either in the Company's or the Queen's armies. Nothing but the unbounded confidence of Sir John Lawrence in the military genius of Nicholson would have justified him in making so young a man, a simple regimental captain (brevet-major), brigadier of a column destined^ to fight the rebels all the way from the Punjaub to Delhi ; yet even those seniors who were superseded by this arrangement felt that the duty was intrusted to one equal to its demands. He had seen hard service during the Afghan and Punjaub campaigns, as captain in the 27th Bengal native infantry; and had, instead of idling his time during a furlough visit to England, studied the armies and military organisation of continental Europe. An officer who served with him during the mutiny said : ' He had a constitution of iron. The day we marched to Murdan he was twenty-six hours in the saddle, following up the mutineers.' The Queen granted the posthumous dignity of Knight Commander of the Bath upon Brigadier- general John Nicholson; and as he was unmarried, the East India Company departed from their general rule, by bestowing a special grant of 500 per annum upon his widowed mother, who had in earlier years lost another son in the Company's service. One among many civil servants of the Company who fell during the siege was Hervey Harris Greathed, a member of a family well known in India. After filling various official situations in the Punjaub, Rajpootana, and Meerut, he became chief-commissioner of Delhi, after the foul murder of Mr Simon Fraser on the 11th of May. Serve or remain in Delhi itself he could not, for obvious reasons ; but he was with Wilson's army in the expedition from Meerut to Delhi, and then remained with the siege-army on the heights, where his intimate knowledge of India and the natives was of essential value. He died of cholera just before the conclusion of the siege. His brothers, Robert and George Herbert, had already died in the services of the Company or the crown ; but two others, Edward Harris and William Wilberforce Hai'ris, survived to achieve fame as gallant officers. Another of those who fell on the day of the THE SIEGE OF DELHI : FINAL OPERATIONS. 315 assault was Lieutenant Philip Salkeld, of the Bengal engineers. He was the son of a Dorsetshire clergyman, and went to India in 1850, in his twentieth year, in the corps of Sappers and Miners. He was employed for four years as an engineer in connection with the new works of the grand trunk- road, in Upper India ; and was then transferred to the executive engineers' department in the Delhi division. His first taste of war was in relation to the mutinies ; he was engaged in all the operations of the siege of Delhi, and was struck down while gallantly exploding the Cashmere Gate. He lingered in great pain, and died about the 10th of October. The Rev. S. G. Osborne, in a letter written soon after the news of Salkeld's death reached England, said : ' This young officer has not more distinguished himself in his profession by his devotion to his country's service of his life, than he stands distinguished in the memory of those who knew him for his virtues as a son and brother. His father, a clergyman in Dorsetshire, by a n df fortune some years bintc, was with a family reduced, I may say, to utter poverty. This, his soldier son, supported out of his own profes- sional income one of his brothers at school, helping a sister, obliged to earn her own bread as a gover- to put another brother to school. Just before his death he had saved a sum of 1000, which was in the bank at Delhi, and was therefore lost to him, ami, more than this, it was lost to the honourable purpose to which, as a son and brother, he had devoted it. In his native county it has been deter- mined to erect a monument to his memory by sub- scription. Cadetships having been given to two of his young brothers, it is now wisely resolved that while the memorial which is to hand down his name to posterity in connection with his glorious death shall be all that is necessary for the purpose, every farthing collected beyond the sum necessary for this shall be expended as he would have desired, for the good of these his young brothers.' Lieutenant Duncan Home, another hero of the Cashmere Gate, was not one of the wounded on that perilous occasion ; he lived to receive the approval of his superior in the engineering depart- ment ; but his death occurred even sooner than that of his companion in arms, for he was mortally wounded on the 1st of October while engaged with an expeditionary force in pursuit of the fleeing rebels. It was on that day, a few hours before he received the fatal bullet, that ho wrote a letter to his mother in England ; in which, after describing the opera- tions at the Cashmere Gate, he said : ' I was then continually on duty until the king evacuated the palace. I had never more than four hours' sleep In the twenty-four, and then only by snatcln had also the pleasure of blowing in the gate of the palace ; luckily no one fired at me, there being so few men left in the palace.' Salkeld and Home received the 'Victoria Cross,' a much-coveted honour among the British troops engaged in the Indian war. As did likewise Sergeant Smith, who so boldly risked, yet saved, his life; and also Bugler Hawthorne of the 52d, wIid blew his signal-blast in spite of the shots whistling around him. Poor Sergeant Carmichael and Corporal Burgess did not live to share in this honour ; they fell bullet-pierced. State Talanquln. Sir J. E. W. Inglis, defender of Lucknow. CHAPTER XIX. THE STORY OF THE LUCKNOW RESIDENCY, HERE were events that made a , deeper impression on the minds of the English public ; military exploits more grand and compre- hensive ; episodes more fatal, more harrowing ; trains of operation in which well-known heroic names more frequently found place but there was nothing in the whole history of the Indian mutiny more admirable or worthy of study than the defence of Lucknow by Brigadier Inglis and the British who were shut up with him in the Residency. Such a triumph over difficulties has not often been placed upon record. Nothing but the most resolute determination, the most complete soldierly obedience, the most untiring watchfulness, the most gentle care of those who from sex or age were unable to defend themselves, the most thorough reliance on himself and on those around him, could have enabled that gallant man to bear up against the overwhelming difficulties which pressed upon him throughout the months of July, August, and September. He occupied one corner of an enormous city, every other part of which was swarming with deadly enemies. No companion could leave him, without danger of instant death at the hands of the rebel sepoys and the Lucknow rabble ; no friends could succour him, seeing that anything less than a considerable military force would have been cut off ere it reached, the gates of the Residency ; no food or drink, no medicines or THE STORY OF THE LUCKNOW RESIDENCY. 317 comforts, no clothing, no ammunition, in addition to that which was actually within the place at the beginning of July, could he hrought in. Great hcyond expression were the responsibilities and anxieties of one placed in command during eighty- seven of such days hut there was also a moral grandeur in the situation, never to he forgotten. In former chapters of this work,* much has been said concerning Lucknow, its relations towards the British government on the one hand, and the court of Oude on the other, and the operations which enabled Havelock and Xcill to bring a small reinforcement to its British garrison towards the close of September; but what the garrison did and suffered during the three months before this succour could reach them, has yet to be told. The eventful story may be given conveniently in this place, as one among certain intermediate subjects between the military operations of Sir Henry Havelock and those of Sir <'<>lin Campbell. Let us endeavour, by recapitulating a few facts, to realise in some degree the position of the British at Lucknow when July commenced. The city is a little over fifty miles from Oawnpore exactly fifty to the Alum Bagb, fifty-three to the Residency, and fifty-seven to the cantonment, Most of its principal buildings, including the Residency, were on the right or southwest bank of the river (loomtee. There was a cantonment Residency, ami also a city Residency, at both of which, according to his daily duties, it was the custom of the lamented Sir Henry Lawrence to dwell, before the troubles of the mutiny began ; but it is the city Residency which has acquired a notoriety that will never die. It is also necessary to bear in mind that the mere official mansion called the Residency bore hut a small ratio to the area and the buildings now known to English readers by that name. This ambiguity is not without its inconveniences, for it denot< dency tcithin a Residency. Under- standing the Residency to mean English Lucknow, the part of the city containing the offices and dwellings of most of the official English residents, then it may be described as an irregular quadrangle a few hundred yards squarejuttingoutat the north corner, and indented or contracted at the west Within that limit were numerous residences and other buildings, some military, some political or civil, some private. The word 'garrison' was applied after the defence began, to buildings which had previously been private or official residences ; if, therefore, the reader meets in one map with ' Fayrer's House,' and in another with ' Fayrer's Garrison, 1 he must infer that a private residence was fortified as a stronghold when the troubles i. In this chapter we shall in most instances denominate the whole area as the intrenchment or enclosure, with the Residency itself as one of the buildings ; and we shall furthermore retain the original designation of house, rather than rj'trrison, for each of the minor residences. The northeast l>. vi., pp. 82-96. Chap, x, pp. 10,1-103. Chap, xv., pp. side of the whole enclosure was nearly parallel with the river ; and the north corner was in near proximity to an iron bridge carrying a road over the river to the cantonment. How the British became cooped up within that enclosure, the reader already knows; a few words will bring to recollection the facts fully treated in the chapters lately cited. We have there seen that there were burnings of bungalows, and cartridge troubles, as early as April, in the cantonment of Lucknow ; that on the 3d of May some of the native troops became insubordinate at the Moosa a military post three or four miles northwest of the Residency ; that the 3d Oude infantry was broken into fragments by this mutiny and its consequences ; that Sir Henry Lawrence sought to restore a healthy feeling by munificently rewarding certain native soldiers who had remained faithful under temptation ; that towards the close of the month he attended very sedulously to various magazines and military posts in and near the city ; that he fortified the English quarter by placing defence-works on .and near the walls by which it was already three-fourths surrounded, and by setting up other defences on the remaining fourth side; that he brought all the women and children, and all the sick, of the English communit}', into the space thus enclosed and guarded ; that on the last two days of the month he had the vexation of seeing most of the native troops in Lucknow and at the cantonment, belonging to the 13th, 48th, and 71st infantry, and the 7th cavalry, march off in mutiny towards Scctapoor; and that of the seven hundred who remained behind, he did not know how many he could trust even for _le hour. Xext, under the month of June, we have seen that nearly all the districts of Oude fell one by one into the hands of the insurgents, increasing at every stage the difficulties which beset Sir Henry as civil and military chief of the province; that he knew the mutineers were approaching Lucknow as a hostile army, and that he looked around in vain for reinforcements ; that he paid oft' most of the sepoys still remaining with him, glad to get rid of men whose continu- ance in fidelity could not be relied on ; that he greatly strengthened the Residency, and also the Muchec Bhowan, a castellated structure northwest of it, formerly inhabited by the dependents of the King of Oude ; that all his letters and messages to other places became gradually cut off, leaving him without news of the occurrences in other parts of India; that he stored the Residency with six months' provisions for a thousand persons as a means of preparing for the worst ; and that on the last day of the month he fought a most disastrous battle with the mutineers at Chinhut, seven or eight miles out of Lucknow. Then, when July opened, we have seen the British in a critical and painful situation. Lawrence having lost many of his most valued troops, could no longer garrison the Muchec Bhowan, the can- tonment, the dak bungalow, or any place beyond 318 THE REVOLT IN INDIA: 1857. the Residency. No European was safe except within the Residency enclosure; and how little safety was found there was miserahly shewn on the 2d of the month, when a shell from the insur- gents wounded the great and good Sir Henry Lawrence, causing his death on the 4th, after he had made over the military command of Luck- now to Brigadier Inglis, and the civil command to Major Banks. The Europeans, then, hecome prisoners within the walls of the Residency enclosure at Lucknow officers, soldiers, revenue-collectors, judges, magis- trates, chaplains, merchants, ladies, children. And with them were such native soldiers and native servants as still remained faithful to the British 'raj.' What was the exact number of persons thus thrown into involuntary companionship at the beginning of July appears somewhat uncertain ; but an exact enumeration has been given of those who took up their quarters within the Residency on the 30th of May, when the symptoms of mutiny rendered it no longer safe that the women and children should remain in the city or at the can- tonment. The number Avas 794 * The principal persons belonging to the European community at Lucknow were the following : Sir Henry Lawrence, chief-commissioner; Captain Hayes, military sec- retary; Major Anderson, chief-engineer; Brigadier Inglis, commandant of the garrison; Brigadier Handseomb, commandant of the Oude brigade; Captain Carnegie, provost-marshal ; Captain Simons, chief artillery officer; Colonel Master, 7th native cavalry ; Colonel Case and Major Low, H.M. 32d foot; Major Bruyere, 13th native in- fantry ; Major Apthorp, 41st native infantry ; Colonel Palmer and Major Bird, 48th native infantry ; Colonel Halford, 71st native infantry ; Brigadier Gray, Oude Irregulars ; Mr Gubbins, finance commissioner ; Mr Ommaney, judicial commissioner; Mr Cooper, chief-secretaiy. Some of these died between the 30th of May and the 4th of July, but a few only. When the whole of the Europeans, officers and privates, had been hastily driven by the mutiny from the cantonment to the Residency ; when all the native troops who * General staff, 9 Brigade staff, 5 Artillery, 9 Engineers 3 H.M. 32d foot, 22 it 84th ii 2 7th Bengal native cavalry, 13 13th a a infantry 10 41st a a a .; ... 11 4Sth a a a .... 14 71st a a a 11 Oude brigade, 26 Various officers, 9 Civil service, 9 Surgeons, ...;.... 2 Chaplains, 2 Ladies, 69 , children of, 68 Other women 171 a ii , children of, .... 196 Uncovenanted servants, 125 Martinldre school, 8 794 Another account gave the number 865, including about SO native children in the Martini6re school. remained faithful had been in like manner re- moved to the same place ; and when the Muchee Bhowan and all the other buildings in Lucknow had been abandoned by the British and their adherents the intrenched position at and around the Residency became necessarily the home of a very much larger number of persons ; comprising, in addition to the eight hundred or so just adverted to, many hundred British soldiers, and such of the sepoys as remained ' true to their salt.' In one sense, the Europeans were not taken by surprise. They had watched the energetic exer- tions of Sir Henry during the month of June, in which he exhibited so sagacious a foresight of troubles about to come. They had seen him accumulate a vast store of provisions ; procure tents and firewood for the Residency; arm it gradually with twenty-four guns and ten mortars ; order in vast quantities of shot, shell, and gun- powder, from the Muchee Bhowan and the maga- zines ; make arrangements for blowing up all the warlike materiel which he could not bring in ; bury his barrels of powder beneath the earth in certain open spots in the enclosure ; bury, in like manner, twenty-three lacs of the Company's money, until more peaceful days should arrive ; destroy many outlying buildings which commanded or overtopped the Residency ; organise all the males in the place as component elements in a defensive force ; bring in everything useful from the cantonment ; build up, in front of the chief structures in the enclosure, huge stacks of fire- wood, covered with earth and pierced for guns ; bring the royal jewels and other valuables from the king's palace into the Residency for safety ; and disarm much to their chagrin the servants and dependents of the late royal family. All this the Europeans had seen the gallant Lawrence effect during the five weeks which preceded his death. Of the non-military men suddenly con- verted into soldiers, Captain Andprson says ' Sir Henry Lawrence deemed it expedient to enrol all the European and Eurasian writers in the public offices as volunteers, and he directed arms and ammunition to be served out to them. Some of these men were taken into the volunteer cavalry which also comprised officers civil and military and the remainder were drilled as infantry. At the commencement, when these men were first brought together, to be regularly drilled by sergeants from Her Majesty's 32d regiment, the chance of ever making them act in a body seemed almost hope- less. There were men of all ages, sizes, and figures. Here stood a tall athletic Englishman ; there came a fat and heavy Eurasian, with more width about the waist than across the chest ; next to the Eurasian came another of the same class, who looked like a porter-barrel, short and squat, and the belt round his waist very closely resembled a hoop; not far off you observed an old, bent- double man, who seemed too weak to support the weight of his musket and pouch We must not always judge by appearances. Amongst this THE STORY OF THE LUCKNOW RESIDENCY. 319 awkward-looking body there sprang up, during the siego, bold, intrepid, and daring men ! ' Notwithstanding these preparations, however, the calamity fell upon the inmates too suddenly. The fatal result of the battle of Chinhut compelled every one to take refuge within the Residency enclosure ; even those who had hitherto lived in the city, rushed in, without preparation, many leaving all their property behind them except a few trifling articles. No one was, or ever could be, bitter against Sir Henry Lawrence j yet were there many criticisms, many expressions of regret, at the policy which led to the battle ; and it is unquestionable that much of the misery subsequently borne aroso from the precipitate arrangements rendered inevitable on the 30th of June and the following day. When they saw the rebels march into Lucknow, invest the Residency, set up a howitzer-battery in front of it, and loopholo the walls of houses for musketry, the Europeans could no longer wait to provide for tic and personal comforts, or even conveni- ences: they hastened to their prison-house with such resources as could be hastily provided. Here, then, was a British community thrown most unexpectedly into close companionship, under circumstances trying to all. It is no wonder that some among the number kept diaries of the strango scenes they witnessed, the sad distresses thoy bore ; nor could there ho other than a strong yearning on the part of the English public for a d of such diaries or narratives. Hen publication of several small but deeply inter, volumes relating to the defence of Lucknow one by Mr llecs, a Calcutta merchant, who happened, unluckily for himself, to be at Lucknow when the troubl : another by the wife of one of tho two English chaplains; a third by Captain Anderson ; a fourth by a staff-officer* Such diaries, when used in illustration and correction one of another, are and must ever be the best sources of information concerning the inner life of Lucknow during that extraordinary period. Terrible was the confusion within the Residency enclosure for the first few days. Those who had hastened into the place from other spots were endeavouring to find or make something which they could call 'home;' those who had been wounded at Chinhut were suffering in agony within the walls of a building hastily fitted up for them ; while the military men looked anxiously around at the defences of the place, to sec what could be done to keep the enemy out. When the officers, civil or military, went on the roofs of the houses, they had the mortification of seeing tho mutineers gradually concentrating their forces towards the lency ; they saw, also, that the prisoners had * Pei know, from it* Commence- ment ' ByL. K. Rnutl Ki-cj, one of the Survivors. I the Siege of Lucknow, written for the rcrutal Home. -. J?y Captain R. I*. Anrtci-on, 2.1th 1; > . commanding an outpost. Ung the Daily Event* iege of the European lluidency. By a Staff-officer. escaped from the jails, to join the ranks of those who hated or at any rate opposed the Feringhees. Arrangements had for some time been in pro- gress, and were now hastily completed, to fortify the principal buildings within the enclosure. If we imagine this English Lucknow to be an irre- gular diamond -shaped enclosure, with the acute angles very nearly north and south ; then it may be said that the south angle was the nearest point to the Cawnpore road, and tho north angle the nearest to the iron bridge over the Goomtee towards the cantonment. Near tho south point was the house of Captain Anderson, standing in the middle of a garden or open court surrounded by a wall ; the house was defended by barricades, and loopholed for musketry; while the garden was strengthened by a trench and rows of palisades. Next to this house, and communicating with it by a hole in tho wall, was a newly constructed defence-work that received the name of the Cawn- pore Battery, mounted with guns, and intended to command some of the houses and streets adjacent to the Cawnpore road. Mr Deprat's house had a verandah which, for defensive purposes, was blocked up with a mud- wall six feet high and two feet and a half thick ; this wall was continued in a straight line to that of the next house, and carried up to a height of nine feet, with loopholes for musketry. Next to this was a house occupied as a school for boys of the Martiniere Co!' strengthened by a stockade of beams placed beforo it ; and adjacent was a street or road ded by stockades, barricades, and a trench. Further towards tho western angle of the enclosure was a building formerly known as the Daroo Shuffa or King's Hospital, but now called the ide Mess-house, having a well-protected and lofty terrace which commanded an exterior build- ing called Johannes' house. In its rear was a parallelogram, divided by buildings into two squares or courts, occupied in various ways by officers and their families. Then came groups of low brick buildings around two quadrangles called the Sikh Squares, on the tops of which erections were thrown up to enable the troops to firo out upon the town. Separated from these by a narrow lane was the house of Mr (fobbing, the financial commissioner ; tho lane was barricaded by earth, beams, and brambles; the buildings were strengthened in every way; while the ex- treme western point was a battery formed by Mr * In a former chapter (p. 81), a brief notice is given or Marline, a French adventurer who rose to great wealth and influence at Lucknow, and who lived in a fantastic palace called C:>n-tantia, southeastward of the city. His name will, however, be more favourably held in remembrance as the founder of a college, named by him the Martiniere, for Eurasian or half-caste children. This college was situated near the eastern extremity of the city ; but when the troubles began, the principals and the children removed to a building hastily set apart for them within the Residency enclosure. The authoress of the Lnili/'s Dian/, whose husband was connected as a pastor with the Martiniere, thus speaks of this transfer : 'The Martiniere is abandoned, and I suppose we Bbal] lose all our remaining property, which we have been obliged to leave to its fate, as nothing more can be brought in here. We got our small remnant of clothes; but furniture, harp, books, carriage-horses, Sic, are left at the Martiniere. Tho poor boys are all stowed away in a hot close native building, and it will be a wonder if they don't get ill.' 320 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. Gubbins himself. Then, passing along the north- west side were seen in turn the racket-court, the slaughter-house, the sheep-pen, and the butcher-yard, all near the boundary of the forti- fied position, and separated one from another by wide open spaces; there was a stoi'ehouse for bhoosa (cut chaff for cattle-food), and a guard- house for Europeans; and all the buildings were loopholed for musketry. In the rear of the Bhoosa Intrenchment, as this post was called, was Mr Ommaney's house, guarded by a deep ditch and a cactus-hedge, and provided with two pieces of ordnance. North of the slaughter-house a mortar- battery was formed. The English church was the next important building towards the north ; it was speedily converted into a granary ; and in the church-yard was formed a mortar-battery capable of shelling all the portion of the city between it and the iron bridge. This church -yard was des- tined afterwards to present melancholy proofs of the large number of deaths among the English defenders of the place. Beyond the church-yard was Lieutenant Innes's house, in dangerous prox- imity to many buildings held by the rebels, and bounded on two sides by a garden ; it was a diffi- cult but most important duty to strengthen this house as much as possible. The extreme northern part of the whole enclosure, not five hundred yards from the iron bridge, was scarcely suscept- ible of defence in itself; but it was fully protected by the Redan Battery, constructed by Captain Eulton : this was decidedly the best battery in the whole place, commanding a wide sweep of city and country on both banks of the river. Along the northeast side, connected at one end with the Redan, was a series of earthworks, fascines, and sand-bags, loopholed for musketry, and mounted with guns. A long range of sloping garden-ground was turned into a glacis in front of the line of intrenchment just named. In the centre of the northern half of the whole place was the Residency proper, the official home of the chief-commissioner ; this was a large and beautiful brick building, which was speedily made to accommodate many hundred persons ; and as it was on high ground, the terrace- roof commanded a view of the whole city to whoever would incur the peril of standing there* The hospital, a very large building near the eastern angle of the whole enclosure, had once been the bauqueting-room for the British resident at the King of Oude's court; but it was now occupied as a hospital, a dispensary, officers' quarters, and a laboratory for making fuses and cartridges; it was defended by mortars and guns in various directions. The Bailee or Bailey guard was near the hospital, but on a lower level ; various parts of it were occupied as a store-room, a treasury, and barracks ; the portion really constituting the Bailey * The wood-cut at p. 93 represents a part of the Residency in this limited sense of the term ; the view at p. 82 will convey some notion of the appearance of the city of Lucknow as seen from the terrace-roof of this building. The plan on next page will give an idea of the Residency before siege ; and in the next Part will be given a plan of the Residency under siege, shewing the relation which the enemies' guns bore'to those of the besieged. guard gate, the station of the sepoys formerly guarding the Residency, was unluckily beyond the limits of the enclosure, and was productive of more harm than good to the garrison ; as a means of security, the gateway was blocked up with earth, and defended by guns. Dr Fayrer's house, south of the hospital, had a terrace-roof whence rifles were frequently brought to bear on the insurgents, and near it a gun or two were placed in position. Southward again was the civil dispensary; and near this the post-office, a build- ing which, from its position and construction, was one of the most important in the whole place ; soldiers were barracked in the interior, a shell and fuse room was set apart, the engineers made it their head-quarters, several families resided in it, and guns and mortars were planted in and around it. The financial-office, and the house of Mrs Sago (mistress of a charity-school), were on the southeast side of the enclosure, and were with great difficulty bi'ought into a defensive state. The judicial office, near Sago's house, could only be protected from an open lane by a wall of fascines and earth. The jail, near the Cawnpore Gate, was converted into barracks ; and the native hospital became a tolerably sheltered place. The Begum's Kothee, or 'lady's house' (formerly belonging to a native lady of rank), was in the centre of the whole enclosure ; it comprised many buildings, which were afterwards parcelled off as commissariat store-rooms, cooking -rooms, and dwellings for officers' families. It will thus be seen that the Residency at Luck- now, so often mentioned in connection with the history of the mutiny, was a small town rather than a single building. But it will also be seen that this small town was most dangerously placed, in juxtaposition to a large city full of hostile inha- bitants and revolted sepoys. Before Sir Henry Lawrence took it in hand in June, it could be approached and entered from all sides ; and at the beginning of July only a part of the defence-works above described were completed. The officers had to fight and build, to suffer and work, to watch and fortify, day after day, under privations difficult for others to appreciate. The various houses, more frequently designated garrisons by those engaged in the siege, did really deserve that title in a military sense ; for they were gradually transformed into little forts or strongholds, each placed under one commander, and each defended indomitably against all attacks from the enemy. To give one as an example of many Captain Anderson, who had resided at Lucknow, as assistant-commissioner, ever since the annexation of Oude, made his own house one of these fortified posts ; he had under him eighteen men and one subaltern officer, with whose aid he withstood a five months' siege, not- withstanding the enemy had nine 9-pounder guns playing on his house. The wall of the compound around the house was levelled, and a stockade put in its place ; within the stockade was a ditch, then an earthwork five feet high, and then another ditch HICK HOUSE. v"04 0r . SCALE tabo5 iet iet Plan of Residency and part of the City of Lucknow. 322 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. with pointed bamboos, forming a clievaux-de-frise. It was, in truth, a small citadel, and one very important for the safety of the whole place. The siege began on the 1st of July, the day following the disastrous battle of Chinhut. It was indeed a siege, even more so than that to which Sir Hugh Wheeler had been exposed at Cawnpore ; for there was not only constant firing of musketry, cannon, and mortars, by the mutineers against the Residency ; but there were also subterranean mines or galleries dug from the outer streets under the enclosing wall, to blow up the defenders and their defence-works. At every hour of the day, at every corner of the Residency enclosure, was it necessary to keep strict watch. A telegraph, worked at the top of one of the buildings, gave signals to the officers at the Muchee Bhowan, directing them to blow up that fort, and retire to the Residency with the treasure and the guns. This was a most perilous enterprise, but under the skilful superintendence of Captain Francis and Lieutenant Huxhain it succeeded; 240 barrels of gunpowder, and 600,000 rounds of ammunition, were blown into the air, to prevent them from falling into the hands of the enemy ; and then the few officers and soldiers marched from the Muchee Bhowan to the Residency, where they helped to strengthen the wofully small number of efficient fighting-men* All this was done by midnight on the 1st. On the 2d, while resting on a couch after his exhausting and anxious labours, Sir Henry Lawrence was struck by the shell which took away his valuable life ; for it was a day on which ten thousand rebels were firing shells, balls, and bullets into or at the Residency. Miss Palmer, daughter of Colonel Palmer of the 48th, had her thigh shattered by a ball which entered one of the buildings ; and Mr Ommaney was among the wounded. On the 3d dire confusion was every- where visible ; for all felt that their great leader would die of his wound : none had yet fully realised the appalling difficulties of their position ; yet were they distracted by family anxieties on the one hand, and public duty on the other. On the 4th, Lawrence descended to the grave ; on that day his nephew, Mr G. H. Lawrence, was wounded; and on that day, also, all order or legitimate trade ceased in the city, for marauders and budmashes plundered the shops. No military honours marked the funeral of Sir Henry ; there was neither time nor opportunity for any display ; a hurried prayer was repeated amid the booming of the enemy's * Mr Rees relates a strange anecdote in connection with this retreat from the Muchee Bhowan to the Residency : ' We saved all but one man, who, having been intoxicated, and concealed in some corner, could not be found when the muster-roll was called. The French say, II y a im Dim pour les ivrognes; and the truth of the proverb was never better exemplified than in this man's case. He had been thrown into the air, had returned unhurt to mother- earth, continued his drunken sleep again, had awaked next morning, found the fort to his surprise a mass of deserted ruins, and quietly walked back to the Residency without being molested by a soul; and even bringing with him a pair of bullocks attached to a cart of ammunition. It is very probable that the debris of these extensive buildings must have seriously injured the adjacent houses and many of the rebel army thus giving the fortunate man the means of escaping. cannon, and a few spadefuls of earth speedily covered the mortal remains of one whose good name was not likely soon to die.* On or about the 5th, the enemy seized the building known as Johannes' house, from which they were able to keep up a deadly fire of musketry against Ander- son's house, the jail barracks, the post-office, and the Begum's Kothee ; it was afterwards much regretted that this house had not been included among those demolished by Sir Henry. On the 6th and 7th, the harassing fire continued from various points. Some of the bhoosa, or chopped straw for bullocks' fodder, had been left in an ill- defended place ; it was fired by the enemy, and totally consumed, placing in imminent danger a powder-magazine at no great distance. Major Francis had both his legs cut off by a cannon-ball, while quietly sitting in the mess-room ; Mr Marshall, an opium-merchant, was killed, and the Rev. Mr Polehampton was wounded, about this time. It was a cruel vexation to the garrison to see and feel how much they were suffering through the skilful gunnery which the British had taught to the miscreants now in the insurgent army. The enemy's artillerymen displayed great rapidity, ingenuity, and perseverance, in planting batteries in positions totally unlooked for ; some even on house-tops, and others in spots where the garrison could not respond to their fire. It was more than suspected that Europeans were among them ; indeed one reckless member of an otherwise worthy English family was recognised among the number, bringing discredit upon brothers and cousins who were at that very time gallantly serving the Company elsewhere. Many of the enemy's batteries were not more than fifty or a hundred yards distant from the marginal buildings of the Residency enclosure ; the balls knocked down pillars and verandahs with fearful accuracy. Most of the deaths, however, from ten to twenty a day, were caused by musket-bullets ; the enemy had many good marksmen especially a rebel African, who used his musket with deadly effect from Johannes' house. If Sir Henry Lawrence had been a sterner soldier, if he had not been influenced by such considerate feelings for the opinions and prejudices of others, the British would have lost fewer lives than they did in Luckuow. * The authoress of the Lady's Diary gives an affecting account of the hour that succeeded the wounding of Sir Henry Lawrence. She, with her husband, was at that time in the house of Dr Fayrer, a surgeon who had more than once urged upon Sir Henry the para- mount duty of cherishing his own life as one valuable to others even if slighted by himself. ' He was brought over to this house imme- diately. prayed with him, and administered the Holy Communion to him. He was quite sensible, though his agony was extreme. He spoke for nearly an hour, quite calmly, expressing his last wishes with regard to his children. He sent affectionate messages to them and to each of his brothers and sisters. He particularly mentioned the Lawrence Asylum, and entreated that government might be urged to give it support. He bade farewell to all the gentlemen who were standing round his bed, and said a few words of advice and kindness to each There was not a dry eye there; every one was so deeply affected and grieved at the loss of such a man.' It may here be stated that the Queen afterwards bestowed a baronetcy on Sir Henry's eldest son, Alexander Lawrence ; to whom also the East India Company voted a pension of 1000 per annum. THE STORY OF THE LUCKNOW RESIDENCY. 323 Wo have already said that many of the houses around the Residency were destroyed by orders of Sir Henry, to prevent the enemy from converting them into strongholds ; but it was afterwards known that the military olficers under him urged the necessity fur a still greater demolition. Briga- dier Inglis, when at a later date he made a military report of the siege and the defence, adverted to this point in very decisive language. 'When the blockade commenced,' he said, 'only two of our batteries were completed, part of the defences were yet in an unfinished condition, and the buildings in the immediate vicinity, which gave cover to the enemy, were only very partially cleared away. Indeed, our heaviest losses have been caused by the fire from the enemy's sharpshooters, stationed in the adjoining mosques and houses of the native nobility, to the necessity of destroying which the attention of Sir Henry had been repeatedly drawn by the staff of engineers ; but his invariable reply was: "Spare the holy places, and pi property too, as far as possible;" and we have consequently goffered severely from our very tenderness to the religious prejudices and respect to the rights of our rebellious citizens and soldiery. >n as the enemy had thoroughly completed the investment of the Residency, they occupied these houses, some of which were within easy pi.-tol-shot of our barricades, in immense force, and rapidly made loopholes on those sides which bore on our post, from which they kept up a terrific and lire day and night.' The second week of the siege began, briuging with it an augmentation of the troubles already bitter! One day the Bailey guard would !< fiercely attacked, another day the Oawnpore Battery, demanding incessant watchfulness on the part of the officers and men posted at those out- works. Brigadier Inglis sent off letters and .res to Cawnporc and Allahabad; but none reached their destination, the messengers being all intercepted on the way. He did not know how his missives fared ; he only knew that no aid, no intelligence, reached him, and he measured his resources with an anxious heart. Sometimes a few officers would retire to snatch a little rest just before midnight, and then would bo roused at one or two o'clock in the morning by a I that Gubbins's house or 'garrison,' as most of the houses within the enclosure were now called or the Bailey guard, or some other important post, was closely attacked. Sleep, food, everything was forgotten at such moments, except the one paramount duty of repel- ling the enemy at the attacked point. One day a rebel musketeer pushed forward to such a spot as enabled him to shoot Lieutenant Charlton within side the very door of the church. The enemy sometimes fired logs of wood from their cannon and mortaif, as if deficient in shot and shell ; but they did not slacken from this or any other cause ; they sent shots which set the commissioner's house on fire, causing much danger and difficulty in extinguishing the flames; and it became perilous for any one within the enclosure to be seen for an instant by the enemy so deadly accurate were their marksmen. Once now and then the officers with a few men, longing for a dash that would inspirit them in the midst of their troubles, would astonish the enemy by making a sortie beyond the defences, spiking a gun or two, despatching a few of the rebels, and hastening back to the enclosure. Lives being, however, too valuable to be risked for advantages so small as these, the brigadier sought rather to discourage than encourage such acts of heroism. Mr Bryson and Lieutenant Baxter were among the many who fell at this time. The officers did men's duty, the civilians did military duty ; for there were not hands enough to guard properly the numerous threatened points. One night all spare hands would be called upon to cover with tarpaulin the bhoosa stacks in the racket- court ; on another, civilians who never before did labourers' work were called up to dig earth and to carry sand-bags for batteries or breast-works ; or they would stand sentinels all night in drenching rains. And then, perhaps on returning to their houses or ' garrisons ' in the morning, they would find them untenable by reason of the torrent of balls and bullets to which they had been exposed. Tho pots between the several buildings became gradually more and more dangerous. ' A man could not shew his nose,' says Captain Anderson, 'without hearing the whiz of bullets close to his The shot, too, came from every direction ; and when a poor fellow had nearly jerked his Off his shoulders in making humble saluta- tions to passing bullets, he would have his penance reeably changed into a sudden and severe contortion of the whole body to avoid a round shot or shell. So soon as a man left his post he had no time for meditation ; his only plan was to proceed rapidly. In fact, to walk slow was in some places very, very dangerous; and many a poor fellow was shot, who was too proud to run ; laces where bullets danced on the walls like a handful of pease in a frying-pan.' The third week arrived. Now were the gallant defenders still more distressed and indignant than they had hitherto been ; for the enemy com- menced firing at the Brigade Mess, where large numbers of ladies and children had taken refuge ; attacks Avcre thus made on those who could not defend themselves, and the officers and soldiers found their attention distracted from necessary duties at other points. Anderson's house had by this time become so riddled with shot, that the stores were removed from it ; and Dcprat's house, similarly battered by the enemy, in like manner became uninhabitable. The buildings near the boundary naturally suffered most ; and, as a con- sequence, those nearer the centre became more and more crowded with inmates. Day by day did officers and men work hard to strengthen the defences. Mortars were placed behind the earth- work at the post-office, to jet forth shells upon 324 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. the troublesome Johannes' house ; stockades and traverses were made, to screen the entrance to the Residency, Avithin which so many persons were domiciled. Nevertheless the attack increased in vigour quite as rapidly as the defence ; for the insurgents appear to have received large reinforce- ments. Their custom was to fire all night, so as to afford the garrison no rest, and thus tire them out ; they so pointed a mortar as to send two shells directly into the Residency itself; they commenced a new battery, to bear upon Gubbins's house ; their cannon-balls of which there were indications of a new supply fell upon and into Fayrer's and Gubbins's houses, the post-office and the Brigade Mess ; a shot burst through a room in which many of the principal officers were breakfasting ; a mine was sprung inside the Water Gate, intended to blow up the Redan Battery ; and at the same time vigorous attacks were made with guns and musketry on almost every part of the enclosure, as if to bewilder the garrison Avith crushing onslaughts on every side. The pen cannot describe the state of incessaut anxiety into which these daily proceedings threw the forlorn inmates of the place : no one could look forward to a night of sleep after a harassing day ; for the booming of cannon, and the antici- pated visit of a cannon-ball or a mortar-shell, drove away sleep from most eyelids. It was on the 20th that the specially vigorous attack, just adverted to, was made ; so general and energetic, that it almost partook of the character of a storm- ing or assault of a beleaguered city. Nothing but the most untiring assiduity could have saved the garrison from destruction. Every one who could handle a musket or load a cannon, did so ; others helped to construct stockades and earthen barriers ; and even many of the sick and wounded rose from their pallets, staggered along to the points most attacked, sought to aid in the general cause, and in some instances dropped dead while so doing. Almost every building was the object of a distinct attack. The Redan Battery was for- tunately not blown up, the enemy having mis- calculated the distance of their mine; but the explosion was followed by a desperate struggle on the glacis outside, in which the insurgents were mowed down by grape-shot before they would abandon their attempt to enter at that point. At Innes's house, Lieutenant Loughnan maintained a long and fierce contest against a body of insurgents twentyfold more numerous than the little band who aided him ; before they desisted, no less than a hundred dead and wounded were carried off by the rebels. The financial office and Sago's house, entirely de- fended by non-military men, bore up bravely against the torrent brought against them. The judicial office, under Captain Gcrmon, and Anderson's house, under Captain Anderson, were not only successfully defended, but the handful of troops aided other points where there were no military men. The Brigade Mess, Gubbins's house, the houses near the Cawnpore Battery all were attacked with vigour, but every attack was repelled. When the muste'r-roll was called after these exciting scenes, it was found that many valuable lives had been lost. Yet is it truly remarkable that less than thirty persons of all classes in the garrison were killed or wounded on the 20th. No officer was killed ; among the Avounded were Captains LoAve and Forbes, Lieutenants Edmon- stone and M'Farlane, and Adjutant Smith. Mr Rees asserts that the loss of the enemy, during seven hours of incessant fighting, could hardly have been less than a thousand men. It was the grape-shot poured forth from the garrison that Avorked this terrible destruction. The week had been attended with its usual list of isolated losses Avithin the enclosure. On one day Lieutenant Lester Avas killed ; on another, Lieutenants Bryce and O'Brien Avere Avounded ; and on another, Lieutenant Harmcr Avas laid low. The arrival of the fourth Aveek of the siege found Brigadier Inglis and his companions stout in heart, but yet depressed in spirits ; proud of Avhat they had achieved on the 20th, but fearful that many more such dangers would beset them. The detachment of the 32d foot Avas that on Avhich Inglis most relied in a military point of vieAV, and in that the casualties had been 150 in three Aveeks. He had sent out repeated messengers, but had hitherto obtained not a word of news from any quarter; shut out from the world of India, he knew of nothing but his own cares and respon- sibilities. On the 23d, hoAvever, a gleam of joy shot through the garrison ; a messenger, amid imminent peril, had been to CaAvnpore, and brought back ne\A r s of Havelock's victories in the Doab. Inglis immediately sent him off again, with an urgent request to the gallant general to advance With his column to Lucknow as quickly as possible. The English residents began to count the days that must elapse before Havelock could arrive a hope- ful thing at the time, but bitterly disappointing aftenvards ; for they knew not hoAV or Avhy it Avas that succour did not arrive. Whatever might be the hopes or fears for the future, there Avas an ever-present danger which demanded daily and hourly attention. Although mortified by their late defeat, the enemy did not on that account give up their attacks. On narroAvly Avatching, the engineers detected the enemy forming a mine beneath the ground from Johannes' house to the Sikh Square and the Brigade Mess ; they could hear the miners at their subterraneous Avork, and they did Avhat military engineers are accustomed to in such cases run out a countermine, and destroy the enemy's handiwork by an explosion. Above ground the attack Avas maintained chiefly by artillery, the hurling of balls, shells, shrapnels, and those abominable compounds of pitchy and sulphureous substances which artillerymen call ' stinkpots.' The break fast- table of the officers at the post-office Avas one morning visited by an THE STORY OF THE LUCKNOW RESIDENCY. 323 eight-inch shell, which fell on it without explod- ing. On the 25th a letter arrived from Colonel Tytler at Qawnpore, the first received from any quarter throughout July; for the former messenger had brought rumours concerning Havelock, not a letter or a message. Great was the joy at learning that Havelock intended to advance to Lucknow ; and Inglis at once sent off to him a plan of the city, to aid his proceedings offering the messenger five thousand rupees if he safely brought back an answer. An anxious time indeed was it for all, and well might they look out for succour. Major Banks, the civil commissioner appointed by Sir Henry Lawrence, was shot dead while recon- noitring from the top of an outhouse ; he was an officer who had served nearly thirty years in India, and who, both as a soldier and a linguist, had won a good name. l>r Brydon was wounded ; the Rev. Mr Polelmmpton was killed, as were Lieu- tenants Lewin, Shepherd, and Archer, and many others whose lives were valuable, not only to their families, hut to all in the garrison. The death of Major Banks increased the cares and responsibilities of Brigadier Inglis, who, now that there was no chief-commissioner, felt the necessity of placing the whole community under strict military-garrison rules. J u the official dispatch afterwards prepared bjj Inglis, full justice was done to the ingenuity and verauce of the besiegers. Speaking of the large guns placed in batteries on every side of the enclosure, he said : ' These were planted all round our post at small distances, some being actually within fifty yards of our defences, but in places where our own hea could not reply to them ; while the perseverance and ingenuity of the enemy in erecting barricades in front of ami around their guns, in a very short time rendered all attempts to silence them by musketry entirely unavailing. Neither could they be effectually silenced by shells, by reason of their extreme proximity to our position, and because, moreover, the enemy had recourse to digging very narrow trenches about eight feet in depth in rear of each gun, in which the men lay while our shells were flying, and which so effectually concealed them, while working the gun, that our baffled sharpshooters could only see their hands while in the axt of loading.' And now, the reader may ask, what were the ladies and children doing during this terrible month of July ; and how did the officers and men fare in their domestic and personal matters? It id tale, full of trouble and misery ; and yet it is a heroic tale. No one flinched, no one dreamed for an instant of succumbing to the ly. It must be remembered, as a beginning of all the privations, that the Europeans went into the Residency very scantily supplied with personal necessaries. When the cantonment was burned during the mutiny of the 31st of May, much pro- belonging to the officers was destroyed ; and when every one hurried in for shelter after the disastrous 30th of June, no time was allowed for making purchases in the city, or bringing in pro- perty from bungalows or storehouses outside the official stronghold. Hence every one was driven to make the best of such commodities as had been secured by the last day of June. Even during the greater part of that month the troubles were many ; the enclosure Residency was full of officers and men, all hard at work ; the heat was excessive ; cholera, dysentery, and small-pox were at their deadly work ; the church being full of grain, those who sought religious aid in time of need met for divine service in any available spot ; most of the native servants ran away when the troubles began ; and many of them ended their service by robbing their masters. How July opened for the British, may faintly be imagined. The commissariat chief was ill; no one could promptly organise that office under tho sodden emergency ; the food and draught bullocks, unattended to, roamed about the place ; and many of them were shot, or tumbled into wells. Terrible work was it for the oflicers to bury the killed bullocks, lest their decaying carcasses should taint the air in excessively hot weather. Some of the artillery horses were driven mad for want of food and water. Day after day, after working hard in the trenches, the officers had to employ themselves at night in burying dead bullocks and horses officers, be it understood ; for the men were all employed as sentries or in other duties. It was not until after many days that they could turn out of the enclosure all the spare horses, and secure the As the heat continued, and as the dead bodies of animals increased in number, the stench became overpowering, and was one of the greatest griev- ances to which the garrison were exposed; the temperature at night was often less patiently borne than that by day, ami the officers and men were troubled by painful boils. Even when wet days occurred, matters were not much improved ; for the hot vapours from stagnant pools engendered fever, cholera, dysentery, and diarrhoea. Tho children died rapidly, and the hospital-rooms were always full ; the sick and wounded could not be carried to upper apartments, because the enemy's shot and shell rendered all such places untenable. The officers were put on half-rations early in the month ; and even those rations they in many cases had to cook for themselves, owing to the disappear- ance of the native servants. The English ladies suffered unnumbered privations and inconveniences. The clergyman's wife, in her Diary, told of the very first day of the siege in these words : ' No sooner was the first gun fired, than the ladies and children congregated in large numbers in Dr Eayrers house were all hurried down stairs into an under- ground room called the Tye Khana, damp, dark, and gloomy as a vault, and excessively dirty. Here we sat all day, feeling too miserable, anxious, and terrified to speak, the gentlemen occasionally coming down to reassure us and tell us how things were going on. was nearly all the day in 326 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. the hospital, where the scene was terrible; the place so crowded with wounded and dying men that there was no room to pass between them, and everything in a state of indescribable misery, dis- comfort, and confusion.' In the preceding month it had been a hardship for the ladies to be deprived of the luxuries of Anglo-Indian life ; but they were now driven to measure comforts by a different standard. They were called upon to sweep their own rooms, draw water from the wells, wash their own clothes, and perform all the menial duties of a household; while their husbands or fathers were cramped up in little outhouses or stables, or anywhere that might afford temporary shelter at night. When food became scanty and disease prevalent, these troubles were of course augmented, and difference of rank became almost obliterated where all had to suffer alike. Many families were huddled together in one large room, and all privacy was destroyed. The sick and wounded were, as may be supposed, in sad plight ; for, kind as the rest were, there were too many harassing duties to permit them to help adequately those who were too weak to help themselves. Officers and men were lying about in the hospital rooms, covered with blood and often with vermin ; the dhobces or washermen were too weak-handed for the preservation of cleanliness, and few of the -British had the luxury of a change of linen ; the windows being kept closed and barricaded, to prevent the entrance of shot from without, the pestilential atmosphere carried off almost as many unfortunates as the enemy's missiles. The writer of the Lady's Diary, whose narrative is seldom relieved by one gleam of cheerfulness, departs from her habitual sadness when describing the mode in which eleven ladies and seven children slept on the floor in the Tye Khana or cellar, 'fitting into each other like bits into a puzzle.' Chairs being few in number, most of the ladies sat on the floor, and at meal-times placed their plates on their knees. The cellar being perfectly dark, candles were lighted at meal-times. The reason for keeping so many persons in this subterranean abode was to lessen the chance of their being shot in any upper apartment. Of one torment, the flies, every person complained bitterly who was shut up in the Residency enclosure on those fearfully hot days. Mr Rees says : ' They daily increased to such an extent that we at last began to feel life irksome, more on their account than from any other of our numerous troubles. In the day, flies ; at night, mosquitoes. But the latter were bearable ; the former intoler- able. Lucknow had always been noted for its flies ; but at no time had they been known to be so troublesome. The mass of putrid matter that was allowed to accumulate, the rains, the commis- sariat stores, the hospital, had attracted these insects in incredible numbers. The Egyptians could not possibly have been more molested than we were by this pest. They swarmed in millions, and though we blew daily some hundreds of thou- sands into the air, this seemed to make no diminu- tion in their numbers ; the ground was still black with them, and the tables were literally covered with these cursed flies. "We could not sleep in the day on account of them. We could scarcely eat. Our beef, of which we got a tolerably small quantity every day, was usually studded with them ; and when I ate my miserable boiled lentil- soup and unleavened bread, a number of scamps flew into my mouth, or tumbled into and floated about in my plate.' Let us proceed, and watch the military operations of the month of August. The fifth week of the siege opened with the same scenes as before, deepened in intensity. The enemy, it is true, did not attack with more vigour, but the defenders were gradually weakened in every one of their resources except courage, and the resolution to bear all rather than yield to the enemy. Colonel Tytler's letter had afforded hope that the relieving column under Havelock would arrive at Lucknow before the end of July ; but when the 30th and 31st had passed, and the 1st and 2d of August had passed also, then were their hopes cruelly dashed. It required all the energy of Brigadier Inglis to keep up the spirits of himself and his companions under the disappointment. He did not know, and was destined to remain for some time in ignorance, that Havelock had been forced to return to Cawnpore, owing to the losses suffered by his heroic little band. About the beginning of the month, great numbers of addi- tional rebel sepoys entered Lucknow, increasing the phalanx opposed to the British. They began a new mine near Sago's house, and another near the Brigade Mess, in which many of the ladies and children were sheltered ; and it required all the activity of the officers to frustrate these under- ground enemies. The rebels planted a 24-pounder near the iron bridge, to batter the church and the Residency. On one day a shell burst in a room of the Begum's Kothee, where Lieutenant James and Mr Lawrence were ill in bed, but without injuring them ; and on another a soldier was shot dead by a cannon-ball in the very centre room of the hospital. Inglis tried, but tried in vain, to get any one to take a letter, even so small as to go into a quill, to Havelock ; the enterprise was so perilous, that the offer of a great reward fell powerless. Thus reduced to his own resources, he began anxiously to count up his stores and supplies : he protected the powder-magazine with heavy beams, laden with a great thickness of earth ; and he got the civilians to labour at the earthworks, and to watch the batteries, for nearly all his engineers were ill. One engineer-officer, Captain Fulton, was happily spared from illness longer than most of the others ; and he laboured unremittingly and most skilfully to baffle the enemy's mining by countermining : he organised a body of sappers from among the humbler members of the garrison, and begged every one who did sentry-duty at night to listen for and give information concerning any THE STORY OF THE LUCKNOW RESIDENCY. 327 underground sounds that denoted the driving of galleries or mines by the enemy. One of the ladies, Mrs Dorin, was among the number who this week fell from the shots of the enemy. An event of this kind was peculiarly distressing to all; an officer learns to brave death, but he is inexpressibly saddened when he sees tender women falling near him by bullets. The sixth week arrived. The brigadier, by redoubling his offers, did at length succeed in obtaining the aid of a native, who started on the dangerous duty of conveying a small note to General Havelock at Cawnpore. This dune, he renewed his anxious superintendence of matters within the enclosure. The enemy mounted on the top of Johannes' house, and thence kept up a very annoying fire on t le Mess. They also recommenced mining near the Redan. On the 8th of August the garrison could hear and see much marching and countermarching of troops within the city, without being able to divine its cause ; they loudly hoped, when the booming of guns was heard, that Havelock was approaching. This hope was, however, speedily and bitterly dashed ; for on the following day a great force of rebels was seen to approach from the direction of the cantonment, cross the river, and join the main body of the insurgents within Lucknow. This was a bad omen, for it prefigured an increase in the Qomber, frequency, and varieties of attack. On the loth the enemy succeeded in exploding one of their mines opposite Johannes' house ; it blew up sixty feet of palisades and earthen defences. Under cover of this surprise, and of a tremendous firing of guns, the enemy pushed forward into all the buildings near the Cawn- pore Battery and Johannes' house ; but they encountered so steady and determined a r Bnoe that they were beaten at all points. Near Sago's house, too, they fired another mine, which blew up two soldiers ; but here, in like manner, they were repulsed after a fierce contest. This ion was accompanied or attended by an incident almost as strange as that connected with the soldier at Muchcc Bhowan ; the two men were blown into the air, but both escaped with their one fell within the enclosure, slightly bruised, but not seriously injured ; the other, falling into an open road between the enclosure and the enemy, jumped up when he found himself unhurt, and clambered over a wall or through the breach, untouched by the storm of bullets sent after him. On the same day there were other attacks on Inncs's, Anderson's, and Cubbins's houses or garri- Of the attacks on the Brigade Mess, the Cawnpore Battery, and Anderson's house, Brigadier afterwards thus spoke in his dispatch : 'The enemy sprang a mine close to the Brigade Mess, which entirely destroyed our defences for the space of twenty feet, and blew in a great portion of the outside wall of the house occupied by Mr Schilling's garrison. On the dust clearing away, a breach appeared through which a regiment could have advanced in perfect order, and a few of the enemy came on with the utmost determination ; but they were met with such a withering flank-fire of mus- ketry from the officers and men holding the top of the Brigade Mess, that they beat a speedy retreat, leaving the more adventurous of their numbers lying on the crest of the breach. While this oper- ation was going on, another large body advanced on the Cawnpore Battery, and succeeded in locating themselves for a few minutes in the ditch. They were, however, dislodged by hand-grenades. At Captain Anderson's post, they also came boldly forward with scaling-ladders, which they planted against the wall ; but here, as elsewhere, they were met with the most indomitable resolution ; and the leaders being slain, the rest fled, leaving the ladders, and retreated to their batteries and loopholed defences, whence they kept up for the of the day an unusually heavy cannonade and musketry fire.' All the attacks, it is true, were frustrated, but only by fearful labour on the part of the defenders ; every man was worn down by exhaustion on this terrible day. A message or rather a rumour was received, obscure in its purport, but conveying the im- pression that Havelock had been baffled in his attempt to reach Lucknow : news that produced very great despondency iu the garrison, among those who had become sick at heart as w r ell as in body. When a cannon-ball rushed along and demolished the verandah of the Residency or chief-commissioner's house, it could not do less than add to the trepidation of the numerous families domiciled within the walls of that build- ing, already brought into a state of nervous agita- tion by the incessant noises and dangers. Death and wounds were as rife as ever during this week. A shot broke the leg of Ensign Studdy while breakfasting in the Residency ; Captain Waterman was Avounded ; Lieutenant Bryce died of a wound received some days earlier ; Major Anderson, chief- engineer, died of dysentery and over-fatigue, bring- ing grief to the whole garrison for the loss of a most valuable and intrepid officer. These were the chief names : those of humbler rank who fell to rise no more were too many to be officially recorded ; they were hastily buried in the church- yard, and soon driven from the memories of those who had no time to dwell on the past. Up to the day when the seventh week of the siege opened, there had been twenty letters sent for succour, first by Sir Henry Lawrence, and then by Brigadier Inglis ; and to only one of these had a direct reply been received. Only a few of them, indeed, had reached their destinations ; and of these few, a reply from one alone safely passed through all the perils between Cawnpore and Lucknow. As has been already said, this reply was not such as to comfort the British residents ; they had to rouse themselves to a continuance of the same kind of exertions as before. The enemy did. not give them one day, scarcely one hour, of rest. On the 12th of August so fierce an 323 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. attack was made on the Cawnpore Battery, that all the defenders were forced to shield themselves from the halls and hullcts still remaining at hand, however, in case a closer assault were attempted. It heing found, too, that a mine was heing run hy the enemy in the direction of Sago's house, some of the officers made a daring sortie to examine this mine, much to their own peril. Then commenced, as hefore, a system of countermining, each party of miners heing able to hear the other working in an adjoining gallery ; it became a struggle which should blow the other up ; the British succeeded, and shattered all the works of the enemy at that spot. Nothing in the whole progress of the siege was more extraordinary than this perpetual min- ing and countermining. While the infantry and artillery on both sides were at their usual deadly work in the open air, the Sappers and Miners were converting the gi'ound beneath into a honey- comb of dark galleries and passages the enemy attempting to blow up the defence-works, and the defenders attempting to anticipate this by blow- ing up the enemy. Whenever the firing by the mutineers slackened in any material degree, the defenders took advantage of the opportunity to make new sand-bags for batteries and earthworks, in place of the old ones which had been destroyed. The 15th of August was a white day within the enclosure ; no burial took place. It was also rendered notable by the receipt of a letter from General Havelock a letter telling of inability to afford present succour, and therefore a mournful letter ; but still it was better than none, seeing that it pointed out to all the necessity for con- tinued exertions in the common cause. Now came the time when a great increase of discom- fort was in store for the numerous persons who had been accommodated in the Residency, the official house of the chief-commissioner. The building had been so shaken by shells and halls that it was no longer secure ; and the inmates were removed to other quarters. On the 18th a terrible commotion took place ; the enemy ex- ploded a mine under the Sikh Square or barrack, and made a breach of thirty feet in the defence- boundary of the enclosure. Instantly all hands were set to work ; boxes, planks, doors, beams, were brought from various quarters to stop up the gap ; while muskets and pistols were brought to bear upon the assailants. Not only did the gallant fellows within the enclosure repel the enemy, but they made a sortie, and blew up some of the exterior buildings which were in inconvenient proximity. By the explosion on this day, Captain Orr, Lieutenant Meecham, and other officers and men, were hurled into the air, but with less serious results than might have been expected ; several, however, were suffocated by the debris which fell upon them. By the eighth week the garrison had become in a strange way accustomed to bullets and balls ; that is, though always in misery of some kind or other, the report of firearms had been rendered so thoroughly familiar to them, through every day and night's experience, that it was a matter of coui'se to hear missiles whiz past the ear. Mr Rees, speaking of his daily movements from building to building in the enclosure, says : 'At one time a bullet passed through my hat ; at another I escaped being shot dead by one of the enemy's best riflemen, by an unfortunate Soldier passing unexpectedly before me, and receiving the wound through the temples instead ; at another I moved off from a place where in less than a twinkling of an eye afterwards a musket-bullet stuck in the w r all ; at another, again, I w r as covered with dust and pieces of brick by a round-shot that struck the wall not two inches away from me ; at another, again, a shell burst a couple of yards away from me, killing an old woman, and wounding a native boy and a native cook.' Every day was marked by some vicissitudes. On the 20th, the enemy opened a tremendous cannon- ading, which knocked down a guard-room over the Mess-house, and lessened the number of places from which the garrison could obtain a look-out. The enemy were also on that day detected in the attempt to run new mines under the Cawnpore Battery and the Bailey guard. This led to a brilliant sortie, headed by Captain M'Cabc and Lieutenant Browne, which resulted not only in the spiking of two of the enemy's guns, but also in the blowing up of Johannes' house, which had been such a perpetual source of annoyance to the garrison. It was one of the best day's work yet accomplished, and cheered the poor, hard-worked fellows for a time. Yet they had enough "to trouble them ; the Cawn- pore and Redan batteries were almost knocked to pieces, and needed constant repair ; the judicial office became so riddled with shot that the women and children had to be removed from it ; the enemy's sharpshooters were deadly accurate in their aim ; their miners began new mines as fast as the old ones were destroyed or rendered innoxious ; and Inglis's little band was rapidly thinning. Another week arrived, the last in August, and the ninth of this perilous life in the fortified enclosure. The days exhibited variations in the degree of danger, but not one really bright gleam cheered the hearts of the garrison. An advantage had been gained by the successful mining and blowing up of Johannes' house, once the residence of a merchant of that name ; it had been a post from which an African eunuch belonging to the late king's court had kept up a most fatal and accurate fire into the enclosure, bringing down more Europeans than any other person in the enemy's ranks. An advantage was thus gained, it is certain ; but there were miseries in abund- ance in other quarters. Gubbins's house had become so shot-riddled, that the ladies and chil- dren domiciled there were too much imperiled to remain longer ; they were removed to other buildings, adding to the number of inmates in THE STORY OF THE LUCKNOW RESIDENCY. 329 rooms already sadly overcrowded. Among the natives in the enclosure, desertions frequently took place ; a fact at which no one could reason- ably be surprised, but which nevertheless greatly added to the labours of those on whom devolved the defence of the place. Distressingly severe as those labours had all along been, they were now doubly so ; for the enemy erected a new battery opposite the Bailey guard, and commenced new mines in all directions. As the defenders could seldom venture on a sortie to examine the enemy's works of attack, they were driven to the construction of ' listening-galleries ' underground passages where the sound of the enemy's mining picks and shovels could be heard. And then would be renewed the digging of countermines, English Church and Residency at Lucknow from Officers' Quarters. and a struggle to determine which party should be the first to blow up the other. The Mohurrum or Mohammedan festival commenced this week ; a period in which fanatical Mussulmans arc so fierce against all who dissent from their faith, that the garrison apprehended a new onslaught with more force than ever ; this fear passed away, however, for though there was much 1 tom-tom' processioning and buffalo horn bugling in the city, the attacks on the enclosure did not differ much from their usual character. Another letter was received from Havelock, which gave joy to men who found that they were not wholly ten by friends in the outer world ; but when they heard that a period of at least three weeks longer must elapse before he could possibly reach them, their overcharged hearts sank again, and deep despondency existed for a time among them. During this month of August, the women and children, the sick ami wounded, of course goffered much more terribly than in the previous month of July. Every kind of peril and discomfort had increased in severity ; every means of succour and solace had diminished in quantity. Death struck down many ; disease and wounds laid low a still greater number ; and those who remained were a prey to carking cares, which wore down both mind ami body. Those who, in a Christian country, are accustomed to pay the last token of respect to departed friends by decent funeral ceremonies, were often pained by their disability to do so in the Lucknow enclosure, under the straitened cir- cumstances of their position. The Rev. Mr Pole- hampton, after working day and night in his kindly offices among the sick and wounded, was at length himself struck down by cholera ; and then came the mournful question, whether he could have a coffin and a separate grave. The writer of the Diary, wife of the clergyman who succeeded Mr Polehampton in his duties as a pastor, says that her husband read the funeral- service over the dead body in presence of the 330 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. mourning widow, on the day and in the room where the death took place, hefore removal for instant interment. 'She (the widow) was extremely anxious he should have a coffin, a wish it seemed impossible to gratify ; hut instituted a search, and found one stored away with some old boxes under the staircase in the hospital ; and he also had a separate grave dug for him. Since the siege, the bodies have hitherto always been buried several in the same grave, and sewn up in their bedding, as there are no people and no time to make coffins.' In their troubled state of feeling, vexations affected the different members of the imprisoned community more acutely than would have been the case at other times. The plague of flies can be adverted to in a half-laughing manner by a man in health ; but in the Lucknow enclosure it was a real plague, a source of exquisite misery, against which more complaints were uttered than almost anything else. There were also troublesome and painful boils on the person, brought on by high temperature and insufficient diet and medicines. Whatever might be the amount of care taken, bullocks were frequently killed by the shot of the enemy ; and as animals so dying were not fit for human food, it became necessary to bury the carcasses at once. A frightful duty this was, mostly performed (as has already been stated) at night by officers, whose few hours of possible sleep were cut short by this revolting sort of labour. No one could leave the enclosure, except native servants determined on escape ; not an inch of ground belonged to the British beyond the limits of the intrenched position ; and there- fore whatever had to be put out of sight dead bodies of human beings, carcasses of bullocks and horses, garbage and refuse of every kind could only so be treated by being buried underground in the few open spots between the buildings. And this, too, in the August of an Indian climate, when even the best sanitary arrangements fail to remove offensive odours. The officers, in all their letters and diaries, spoke of this portion of their labours as being most distressing ; while the poor women, cabined by dozens together in single rooms, yearned, but yearned in vain, for the breathing of a little air free from impurities. They dared not move out, for the balls and bullets of the enemy were whizzing across and into every open spot. Sometimes an 18-pounder shot would burst into a room where two or three of them were dressing, or where a larger number were at meals. In some of the houses or ' garrisons,' where many ladies formed one community, they used to take it in turn to keep awake for hourly watches during the night ; one of them said in a letter : ' I don't exactly know what is gained by these night- watchings except that we arc all very nervous, and are expecting some dreadful catastrophe to happen.' The little children died off rapidly, their maladies being more than could be met by the resources at hand ; and those who bore up against the afflictions were much emaciated. The husbands and fathers, worn out with daily fatigue and nightly watching, had little solace to afford their families ; and thus the women and children were left to pass the weary hours as best they could. A few little creatures, 'siege-babies,' as their poor mothers called them, came into the world during this stormy period ; and with them each day was a struggle for life. When the native servants one by one escaped, the discomforts of the English women of course underwent much aggra- vation ; and when the house or bungalow of Mr Gubbins became untenable through shot and bullet, the difficulty was immense of finding shelter elsewhere; every place was already over- crowded. Much additional misery befell the officers and men from this fact that the commissariat quartei", offensive to every sense on account of the organic accumulations inseparable from the slaughtering and cutting up of animals was one of the weakest parts in the whole enclosure, and required to be guarded at all hours by armed men, who loathed the spot for the reason just men- tioned. The chaplain, too, found the church-yard getting into such a horrible state that he dared not go near the graves to read the funeral-service. Mr Rees mentions an instance to illustrate the anxieties of those who, willing to suffer themselves, were almost crushed by witnessing the privations of those dear to them. ' Ho ' (mentioning one of the officers) ' had at first told me of his wife being feverish and quite overcome with the abominable life she had to lead. And then he talked to me of his boy Herbert; how he was attacked with cholera, and feared he was very ill ; and how, instead of being able to watch by his bedside, he had been all night digging at Captain Fulton's mine ; and then how his child next night was convulsed, and what little hope of his darling being spared to them how heart-rending the boy's suffer- ings were to his parents' feelings how even his (the father's) iron constitution was at last giving way how he had neither medicine, nor attend- ance, nor proper food for the child and how the blowing up of the mine so close to his sick child had frightened him. And then to-day he told me, with tears in his eyes, that yesterday the anniver- sary of his birthday his poor child was called away. "God's will be done," said he; "but it is terrible- to think of. At night we dug a hole in the garden, and there, wrapped in a blanket, we laid him.'" This case is not singular ; many another poor parent's heart was thus torn. The provisioning of the garrison was of course a perpetual source of anxiety to Brigadier Inglis and the other officers ; or rather, the distribution of the food already possessed, and rapidly becoming exhausted, without any prospect of replenishing. Fresh meat was in store for the garrison as long as any healthy bullocks remained ; but in other articles of food the deficiency became serious as the month advanced. An immense store of attah the coarse meal from which chupatties or cakes were made had been provided by Sir Henry THE STORY OF THE LUCKNOW RESIDENCY. 331 Lawrence ; but this was now nearly exhausted, and the garrison had to grind corn daily, from the store kept in the impromptu granaries. The women and the elder children were much employed in this corn-grinding, by means of hand-mills. To economise the meal thus laboriously ground, rice and unground wheat were served out to the natives. The animal food was likely to be limited, by the want not of bullocks, but of bhoosa or fodder to feed them ; and the commissariat-officers saw clearly before them the approach of a time when the poor auimals must die for want of food. The tea and sugar were exhausted, except a little store kept for invalids. The tobacco was all gone ; and the soldiers, yearning for a pipe after a hard day's work, smoked dried leaves as the only obtainable substitute. A few casks of porter still remained, to be guarded as a precious treasure. Once now and then, when au officer was struck down to death, an auction would be held of the few trifling comforts which he had been able to bring with him into the enclosure ; and then the prices given by those who possessed means plainly told how eager was the desire for some little change in the poor and insufficient daily food. A few effects left by Sir Henry Lawrence were sold ; among them, 1G was given fur a dozen bottles of brandy, 7 for a dozen of beer, the same amount for a dozen of sherry, 7 for a ham, 4 for a quart bottle of h for two small tins of pre soup, and 3 for a cake of chocolate. Sugar was the luxury for which most craving was exhibited. We juiss on now to another month, September, whose early days ushered in the tenth week of the captivity. New mines were everywhere discovered. The British, officers and nun, attended sedulously to the underground listening-galleries adverted to in a former paragraph, and there obtained unmis- takable evidence that the enemy were running mines towards Sago's house, the Brigade Mess, the Bailey guard, ana other buildings, with the cus- tomary intent of blowing them up, and making a forcible entry iuto the enclosure. Untiring exertions at countermining alone frustrated terrible operations. On one day, the upper part of the Brigade Mess was smashed in by a shot ; on another, a breach was made in the wall of the Martiniere tcmi>orary school, requiring very speedy stockading and barricading to prevent the entrance of the enemy ; on another, a few engineers made a gallant sortie from Inncs's house, and succeeded in blowing up a building from which the enemy had maintained an annoying fire of musketry ; and on another day, an officer had the curiosity to count the cannon-balls, varying from 3 to 24 pounds each, which had fallen on the roof of one building alone, the Brigade Mess they were no i number ! On the 5th of the month, the enemy made a more than usually impetuous . ; there were 5000 of them in sight from the : ncy ; they had formed a battery on the other side of the river ; they exploded two mines near the Bailey guard and the mess-house; they advanced to Gubbins's house and to the Sikh Square, bringing with them long ladders to effect an escalade in short, they seemed determined to carry their point on this occasion. All was in vain, however; the garrison, though worked almost to death, gallantly rushed to every endan- gered spot and repelled the enemy, hastily recon- structing such defence-works as had been destroyed or damaged. Fortunately, the two exploded mines were short of their intended distance : they wrought but little damage. Much marching and countermarching were occasionally visible among the troops in the city : vague rumours reached the Residency that Havelock had a second time vanquished Nona Sahib's troops at Cawnpore or Bithoor; but to what extent these movements and rumours would influence the garrison was left painfully undecided. The nights were more terrible than the days ; for the enemy, as if to destroy all chance of sleep, kept up a torrent of musketry, accompanied by much shouting and screaming. Many of the officers worked with almost superhuman energy at this time. Captain* Fulton and Anderson, Lieutenants Aitken, Clery, Innes, Hutchinson, Tulloch, Birch, Hay, and others, were constantly on the watch for mines, and sedulously digging countermines to foil them. The eleventh week found the garrison more than ever exposed to hourly peril. The officers, driven from place to place for their few hours of repast and repose, had latterly messed in one of the buildings of the Begum's Kothee ; this fact seemed to be well known to the rebels, who were from the first better acquainted with what transpired inside the fort than the garrison were with external affairs ; they directed their shells and balls so thickly on that spot, that ingress and were equally difficult. Two sides of Innes's house were blown in, and the whole structure made little else than a heap of ruins; the Resi- dency, too, became so tottering, that renewed precautions had to be taken in that quarter ; new mines were perpetually discovered, directed to points underneath the various buildings ; and the enemy sought to increase their means of annoy- ance by booming forth shells filled with abomin- able and filthy compositions. Perhaps the most harassing troubles were owing to the uncertainty of the time and place when active services would be needed. The officers could not reckon upon a single minute of peace. ' In the midst of all these miseries,' says Captain Anderson, ' you would hear the cry of" Turn out ; ; ' and you had to seize your musket and rush to your port. Then there was a constant state of anxiety as to whether we were mined or not ; and we were not quite sure, Avhilst we were at a loophole, that we might not suddenly see the ground open, or observe the whole mate- rials of the house fly into the air by the explo- sion of a mine. Shells came smashing into our rooms, and dashed our property to pieces ; then followed round-shot, and down tumbled huge 332 THE REVOLT IN INDIA: 1857. pieces of masonry, while bits of wood and brick flew in all directions. I have seen beds literally blown to atoms, and trunks and boxes completely smashed into little bits.' Nevertheless, there was no flinching in the garrison ; if a mine were discovered, a countermine was run out to frus- trate it ; if a wall or a verandah were knocked down by shot, the debris was instantly used to form a rampart, barricade, or stockade. On the 14th of the month, a loss was incurred which caused grief throughout the garrison. Captain Fulton, whose indomitable energy had won the admiration of all in his duties as engineer, and whose kindness of manner had rendered him a general favourite, was struck by a cannon-ball which took his head completely off. Brigadier Inglis felt this loss sensitively, for Fulton had been to him an invaluable aid in all his trials and difficulties. Fulton, who was especially marked by his skill and promptness in countermining, had succeeded Major Anderson as chief-engineer, and was himself now succeeded by Captain Anderson. The twelfth week, the last which the beleaguered English were destined to suffer before the one which was to bring Hav clock and Neill to Luck- now, found them in great despondency. They had lately lost a number of valuable officers. Lieuten- ant Birch fell ; then M. Dcprat, a merchant who worked and fought most valiantly at the defences ; then Captain Cunliffe ; and then Lieutenant Graham, whose mental firmness gave way under privation, grief, and wounds, leading him to commit suicide. As a natural consequence of these and similar losses, harder work than ever pressed on those who remained alive. Never for a moment was the look-out neglected. At all hours of the day and night, officers were posted on the roofs of the Residency and the post-office, finding such shelter as they could while watching intently the river, the bridges, the roads, and the buildings in and around the city ; every fact they observed, serious in its apparent import, was at once reported to Brigadier Inglis, who made such defensive arrangements as the circumstances made desirable, and as his gradually lessened means rendered possible. What were the sleepless nights thus added to harassing days for the responsible guardian of the forlorn band, may to some extent be conceived. The enemy's batteries were now more numerous than ever. They were constructed near the iron bridge ; in a piece of open ground that formerly comprised the Residency kitchen- garden ; near a mosque by the swampy ground on the river's bank ; in front of a range of buildings called the Cap tan Bazaar ; in the Taree Kothec opposite the Bailey guard ; near the clock-tower opposite the financial office ; in a garden and buildings opposite the judicial office and Ander- son's house ; in numerous buildings that bore upon the Cawnpore Battery and the Brigade Mess ; in fields and buildings that commanded Gubbins's house ; and in positions on the northwest of the enclosure in other words, the whole place was surrounded by batteries bristling with mortars and great guns, some or other of which were almost incessantly firing shot and shell into it. And what, the reader may anxiously ask, was the domestic or personal life of the inmates of the enclosure during these three weeks of Sep- tember ? It was sad indeed beyond the former sadness. If the men toiled and watched in sultry dry weathei 1 , they were nearly overcome by heat and noisome odours ; if they slept in the trenches in damp nights after great heat, they suffered terribly in their limbs and bones, for they had neither tents nor change of clothing. Such was the state to which the whole of the ground was brought, by refuse of every kind, that a pool resulting from a shower of rain soon became an insupportable nuisance ; sanitary cleansings were unattainable by a community who had neither surplus labour nor efficient drains at command. Half the officers were ill at one time, from disease, over-fatigue, and insufficient diet ; and when they were thus laid prostrate, they had neither medicines nor surgeons sufficient for their need. There was not a sound roof in the whole place. On one day a cannon-ball entered at one end of the largest room in the hospital, traversed the whole length, and went out at the other but, singular to relate, it did not hurt one human being in the whole crowded apartment. In the commissariat department, some of the bullocks yet remaining fell sick through privations, others were shot ; thereby lessening the reserve store, and adding to the repulsive night-duties of the officers already adverted to. Of the few native servants still remaining, hardly one now could be retained ; and the saving of their simple food was an inadequate counterbalance for the loss of their assistance in drudgery labours. There were not, however, wanting proofs of a fact abundantly illustrated in many walks of life the moral healthiness of useful employment. One of the ladies, whose early weeks in ttie Residency had been weeks of misery, afterwards wrote thus : ' I now find every hour of the day fully occupied. It is a great comfort to have so much to do, and to feel one's self of some little use ; it helps one to keep up one's spirits much better than would other- wise be possible under the circumstances.' The live- stock, the rum, the porter, were all getting low ; tea, sugar, coffee, and chocolate had long disap- peared from the rations. Such officers and civilians as had money in their pockets, were willing to give almost any prices for the few luxuries still remaining in private hands, in order that they might in some degree alleviate the sufferings of their wives and children. Forty shillings were eagerly given for a bottle of brandy ; thirty-two for a bottle of curacoa ; forty for a small fowl ; sixteen shillings per pound were offered, but offered in vain, for sugar ; two shillings a pound for coarse flour ; ten shillings a pound for a little half-rancid butter or ghee ; tobacco, four shillings a leaf; a bottle of pickles, forty shillings. Mr THE STORY OF THE LUCKNOW RESIDENCY. 333 Rees sold a gold watch to a companion who had money to spare, and with it purchased the luxury of smoking cigars at two shillings each ; but when those bits of rolled tobacco-leaf commanded three rupees or six shillings each, he bade adieu to his hist remaining source of personal enjoyment. What any one^ove, he gave out of kind sympathy to his suffering companion! ; but what he sold, he sold in the usual commercial spirit to the highest bidder. The attire was reduced to the most piteous con- dition. Many of the officers had found much of their clothing burned nearly four months earlier, during the mutiny at the cantonment ; and the trdubles of June had prevented them from making purchases in the city before the arrival of the day when they were all alike to be shut up in the enclosure. As a consequence, their remaining clothes wore away to rags, or something i There was scarcely a vestige of a military uni- form visible throughout the place. Officers worked and fought, dined and slept, in shirt, trousers, and slippers ; one made himself a coat out of a billiard table-clotb ; and another contrived a sort of shirt out of a piece of floor-cloth. When the trifling effects of one of the deceased officers came to be examined and sold, a little under- clothing was sought for with an eagerness which sumptuous garments would not have excited ; four pounds sterling were given for a new ilannel- shirt, and twelve pounds for five others which had already rendered much service. joy beyond expression rang through the enclosure when, on the 21st of September, the rumour ran round that a messenger had arrived with good news. Inglifl hail, a few days before, sent oil' a spy on the often-tried but generally unsuccessful attempt to carry a small note (en- closed in a quill) ; the peril had been great, but the man turned with a small written reply from Haw-lock, announcing that Outram and himself were on the road from Cawnpore, and expected to reach Lucknow in three or four days. Hearts were filled to overflowing with this announcement. Many wept for joy, some laughed and shouted, more sank on their knees in thanks- giving, while the sick and wounded rose from their pallets, as if wondrously strengthened by the glad tidings. All worked hard and vigorously, in their respective ways, to prepare for the struggle inevitable on any attempt of the two generals to penetrate through the streets of the city ; the inmates of the garrison could not, it is true, leave their stronghold to join in the fight, but they might My aid when the forlorn-hope was approach- ing the Bailey guard, the probable place of entrance. The 22d passed over in hopes and fears, expect- ations and preparations. Oil the 23d, musketry was heard on the Cawnpore road, and much agi- tation was visible within the city. On the next day, cannonading and musketry were again heard; and then were the garrison rejoiced at seeing mul- titudes escaping out of the city, and over the bridge to the other side of the river rejoiced, because this movement denoted success on the part of the advancing British. The 25th arrived the day of deliverance ! Pro- digious agitation and alarm had marked the city all night : movements of men and horses, and all the indications of a city in commotion. At noon, the increasing sounds told that street- fighting was going on ; those who went on the top of the Residency for a look-out could sec the smoke of musketry, but nothing else. As the afternoon advanced, the sounds came nearer and nearer ;* then was heard the sharp crack of rifles ; then was gradually perceived tho flash of musketry ; and then the well-known uniforms of a friendly band. Outram and Havelock, when they had fought their way over the canal by the Char Bagh Bridge (bridge of the 'four gardens'), intended to have taken the straight road to the Residency ; but this road had been blocked up by the enemy with guns, palisades, stockades, barricades, con- cealed pits and trenches, and other obstacles. The two generals therefore di verged to the right, marched along a by-road to the eastern part of the city, and there fought their way through a continuous line of streets to the Bailey guard entrance of the Residency enclosure, suffering terribly as they wcnt.t Great was the shout with which they were welcomed, and warm tho grasp with which Inglis thanked his deliverers. ' The immense enthusiasm,' says Mr Rees, ' with which they were greeted defies description. As their hurrah and ours rang in my ears, I was nigh b nr s ti ng with joy "We felt not only happy, happy beyond imagination, and grateful to that God of mercy who, by our noble deliverers, Havelock and Outram, and their gallant troops, had thus snatched us from imminent death ; but we also felt proud of the defence wc had made, and the success with which, with such fearful odds to contend against, wc had preserved, not only our own lives, but the honour and lives of the women and children intrusted to our keeping. As our de- liverers poured in, they continued to greet us with loud hurrahs Wc ran up to them, officers * The Jersey Times of December 10, 1857, contained what pro- fessed to be an extract of a letter from M. de Bannerol, a Trench physician in the service of Mussur Rajah, dated October 8, and published in Le Pays (Paris paper), giving an account of the feel- ings of tho Christian women shut up within Lucknow just before their relief. It went on to state how Jessie Brown, a corporal's wife, cheered the party in the depth of their terrors and despair, by starting up and declaring that, amidst the roar of the artillery, she caught the faint sound of the sl<>!ieellany of clansmen, not to speak of the large admixture of Lowlandcrs. We an a -uicd that the story is looked upon m the best- informed quarters as purely a tale of the imagination. + Sec chap, xv., p. 2C3. 334 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. and men without distinction, and shook them by the hands how cordially, who can describe ? The shrill notes of the Highlanders' bagpipes now pierced our ears. Not the most beautiful music ever was more welcome, more joy-bringing. And these brave men themselves, many of them bloody and exhausted, forgot the loss of their comrades, the pain of their Avounds, the fatigue of overcoming the fearful obstacles they had combated for our sakes, in the pleasure of having accomplished our relief.' What the women felt on this day, the Lady's Diary will tell us. ' Never shall I forget the moment to the latest day I live. It was most overpowering. We had no idea they were so near, and were breathing air in the portico as usual at that hour, speculating when they might be in not expecting they could reach us for several days longer ; when suddenly, just at dark, we heard a very sharp fire of musketry close by, and then a tremendous cheering. An instant after, the sound of bagpipes, then soldiers running up the road, our compound and verandah filled with our delivem*s, and all of us shaking hands frauticly, and exchanging fervent " God bless you's ! " with the gallant men and officers of the 78th Highlanders. Sir James Outram and staff were the next to come in, and the state of joyful confusion and excitement was beyond all descrip- tion. The big, rough-bearded soldiers were seizing the little children out of our arms, kissing them with tears rolling down their cheeks, and thanking God they had come in time to save them from the fate of those at Cawnpore. We were all rushing about to give the poor fellows drinks of water, for they were perfectly exhausted ; and tea was made down in the Tye Khana, of which a large party of tired, thirsty officers partook, without milk or sugar ; we had nothing to give them to eat. Every one's tongue seemed going at once with so much to ask and to tell ; and the faces of utter strangers beamed upon each other like those of dearest friends and brothers.' After a night, in which joy kept many awake whom fatigue would have else sent into a deep sleep, the dawn of the 26th ushered in a day in which there was again to be much severe fighting ; for some of Havelock' s heroic little band had been left in palatial buildings outside the Resi- dency enclosure, which they managed to hold during the night. To succour these comrades, to bring in the guns Which they had guarded, and to obtain firm possession of the buildings, were objects that required great exertion and daring courage. The attempt succeeded. The palaces of Fureed Buksh and Taree Kothee were conquered from the enemy, and formed into new intrenched posi- tions, which greatly relieved the overcrowded Resi- dency. When the further conquest of the Chuttur Munzil palace and other buildings near the river- side had been effected, the position held by the British was thrice as large in area as that which Brigadier Inglis had so long and so gallantly defended. It lay along the river-bank for a considerable distance ; while on the other side it was bounded by a dense mass of the streets con- stituting the main portion of the city. One of the results of Havclock and Outram's advance was the capture of an important outpost. At a spot three or four miles out of Lucknow, near the new road from Cawnpore, was the Alum Bagh, the 'garden of the Lady Alum or beauty of the world.' It comprised several buildings, including a palace, a mosque, and an emambarra or private temple, bounded by a beautiful garden, which was itself in the middle of a park, and the park enclosed in a wall with corner towers. There was abundant space within it for a large military force, and it was susceptible of being made a stronghold if the defences were well maintained. Havelock, on his advance from Cawnpore, found the enemy drawn up in considerable strength, within and without the wall of the Alum Bagh; and it was only after a hot and fierce contest that he could capture the place. He encamped there on the night of the 23d, and had to bear many attacks from the enemy near the same spot on the 24th. On the 25th he advanced to Lucknow, and maintained the sanguin- ary street-fight already noticed. The Alum Bagh was too important a place to be abandoned when once conquered. Havelock left there the baggage, ammunition, sick, and wounded, of his relieving force ; with 300 men to protect them, and an immense array of elephants, camels, horses, camp- followers, and laden carts ; and with four guns to aid in the defence. No one for an instant supposed that that detachment would be left there without further aid. Havelock and his men fully expected, that, Lucknow once conquered, the Alum Bagh would simply be one of the strongholds of his position with which he could communicate when he pleased. Little did he look forward to the state of things actually produced, when the occupants of the Alum Bagh were so completely isolated from the British in the city, that they could not send even a message, unless by good-fortune a kossid or native messenger succeeded in conveying, in a quill or in the sole of his shoe, a brief letter from the one place to the other. This isolated position of the little garrison at Alum Bagh was, moreover, only one among many grave subjects that speedily presented themselves for consideration. After the first outburst of thankfulness at the arrival of the welcome deliverers, the residents in the Lucknow intrench- ment had to ask themselves to what extent it was really a deliverance. Then did they find that, in effect, they were as close prisoners as ever. Have- lock had lost nearly one-third of his small force during the desperate encounters of the past few days ; and those who survived were far too weak for any considerable military operations. The one great, absorbing, sacred, deeply earnest object he had all along held in view, was to save his fellow-countrymen, their wives and children, from horrors such as had been perpetrated at Cawnpore. To his dying day he remained deeply grateful that THE STORY OF THE LUCKNOW RESIDENCY. 335 he had been permitted to effect this ; but what more could he do 1 Could he remain a conqueror in Lucknow, or could he bring away from that city all those who for four months had been exposed to such peril ! He could do neither the one nor the other. The result of the fighting on the 25th and 26th of September had given to him the command of a larger portion of tho city than the Residency enclosure, which had becu so long and so gallantly maintained by Inglis ; but he could neither gain another inch without struggling for it, nor retain the portion already acquired without inccssaut watchfulness and ity. Nor could he make the Residency and the Alum Bagh component parts of one great stronghold, seeing that the British were alike besieged in the one and the other, and could not hold intercommunication. Nor could he send the women and children to Allahabad or any other place of safety; they would all have been cut to pieces on the road, so small was the escort he ooald afford, and so overwhelming tho forco of the enemy, Tho whole of the immediate benefit tted in an increase in the number of British for the defence-works ; but as these hard-working and hard fighting troops brought little or no supplies further than the Alum Bagh, there was an increase rather in tho number of mouths to bo fed than in the means of feeding them. The disappointment of Inglis's garrison, after the first joy had passed, WSJ very severe. Captivity and short commons were still to be their lot. Many councils of war were held, to determine what should be done. A party of volunteer cavalry on one day set out with the intention of cutting their way to the Alum Bagh, and perhaps to Oawnpore, to seek for reinforcements and to give notice of the exact state of affairs ; but they were driven back almost immediately, by a body of rebels too large to be resisted. Sir James Outram Bought to ascertain whether any of the influential natives in the city were disposed, by tempting . to render him and his companions aid in their difficulties; but here in like manner failure resulted. The scene was very miserable until something like order could be restored. The poor fellows who had fallen on the 25th and 26th had been brought into the intrenchment, some to be buried, some to be healed if possible. The authoress of the Lady's Diary said : ' The hospital is so densely crowded, that many have to lie outside in the open air, without bed or shelter. says he never saw such a heart-sickening scene. It is far worse than that after Chinhut amputated arms and legs lying about in heaps all over the hospital, and the crowd and confusion such that little can bo dono to alleviate the intense dis- comfort and pain of the poor sufferers.' It might be interesting to surviving friends, but would be tedious to general readers, to present here a list of all the persons mentioned by name in Brigadier Inglis's dispatch as having distinguished themselves in this most gallant struggle. They amount to about ninety in number. Indeed, it may well be supposed that at such a time every soldier worthy of the name, every civilian with a drop of honest blood in him, would achieve things of which, at another time, he would scarcely deem himself capable. Not only British ; for Captain Anderson mentions two gentlemen of foreign birth, a Frenchman and an Italian, who, shut up like the rest in the intrenchment, fought and worked as untiringly as their companions. In a foot-note we give tho names of officers mentioned by Brigadier Inglis as having died during the siege;* and in another, of those who commanded eleven of the outposts or 4 garrisons,' those fortified houses -which were defended in so extraordinary a way.t Of all these he had a kindly word to say; as well as of the artillery and engineer officers, the infantry officers, the officers of the staff', the surgeons and the chaplains, the commissariat-officers, the gentlemen- volunteers, tho humble rank and file, and tho ladies who became the ' Florence Nightingales' of the garrison. Nothing, perhaps, in the whole course of the siege, was more remarkable than the conduct of the native troops. It will be remem- bered that when three native infantry regiments mutinied at the cantonment on the 30th of May, some of the sepoys in each remained faithful. This select band shared all the labours and sufferings of the British during the siege. With scanty food, little and broken sleep, harassing exertions, daily fightings, they remained steadfast to the last. Though sorely tempted by tho mutineers, who would often converse with them over the palisades of the intrenchment, they never flinched from their duty. What they were on the 30th of May, they were on the 25th of September, soldiers ' true to their salt.' Few things are more embarrassing, in taking an estimate of the causes and progress of the Revolt, than to meet with such anomalies as this. Explain it how we may, it would be gross injustice to withhold from such men a tribute of admiration for their fidelity at so trying a time. May there not have been something of a moral grandeur, a sublimity of heroism, in the conduct of the devoted garrison, that touched the hearts of these sepoys, and appealed to their better nature 1 Viscount Canning did not fail to give an official recognition of the merits of those who had made this glorious defence. In an 'Order in Council,' issued at Calcutta, after adverting to the receipt of a military account of the proceedings from Brigadier Inglis, his lordship said : 'The governor-general in council believes that * Sir Henry Lawrence; Major Ranks; Lieutenant-colonel Case, Captains Steevens, Mansfield, ItadcUfTc, and M'Cabe, 32d foot; Captain Frauds, 13th N. I. ; Lieutenants Shepherd and Archer, 7th native cavalry; Captain Hughes, 57th N. I.; Major Anderson and Captain Fulton, engineers; Captain Simons, artillery. i Colonel Master and Captain Boileau, 7th N.C. ; Major Apthorp and Captain Sanders, 41st N.I. ; Captain Germon and Lieutenant* Aitken and Loughnan, 13th N.L ; Captain Anderson, 2Mh N.L ; Lieutenant Graydon, 44th N.L ; Lieutenant Longmore, 71st N.I. ; Mr Schilling, principal of the Martinierc College. 536 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. never has a tale been told which will so stir the hearts of Englishmen and Englishwomen. . . . There does not stand recorded in the annals of war an achievement more truly heroic than the defence of the Residency at Lucknow. That defence has not only called forth all the energy and daring which belong to Englishmen in the hour of active conflict, but it has exhibited continuously, and in the highest degree, that noble and sustained courage which against enormous odds and fearful disadvantages, against hope deferred, and through increasing toil and wear of body and mind, still holds on day after day, and triumphs. The heavy guns of the assailants, posted almost in security within fifty yards of the intrenchments so near, indeed, that the solicitations, threats, and taunts which the rebels addressed to the native defenders of the garrison were easily heard by those true- hearted men ; the fire of the enemy's musketry, so searching that it penetrated the innermost retreat of the women and children and of the wounded; their desperate attempts, repeatedly made, to force an entry after blowing in the defences ; the perpetual mining of the works ; the weary night-watching for the expected signal of relief ; and the steady waste of precious lives until the number of English gunners was reduced below that of the guns to bo worked all these constitute features in a history which the fellow-countrymen of the heroes of Lucknow will read with swelling hearts, and which will endure for ever as a lesson to those who sball hope, by treachery, numbers, or boldness in their treason, to overcome the indomitable spirit of Englishmen.' The officer who so nobly held the command after Lawrence and Banks had been stricken down by death, well earned the honours which the Queen afterwards conferred upon him. He entered Lucknow as a lieutenant-colonel ; he left it as Major-general Sir John Eardley Wilmot Inglis, K.C.B. Promotion in various ways awaited many of the other officers ; but the immediate recog- nition by the governor-general of the services rendered by the garrison was embodied in the following general order : ' Every officer and soldier, European and native, who has formed part of the garrison of the Residency between the 29th of June and the 25th of September last sball receive six months' batta. Every civilian in the covenanted service of the East India Company who has taken part in the defence of the Residency within the above-named dates shall receive six months' batta, at a rate calculated according to the military rank with which his standing corresponds. Every uncoven anted civil officer or volunteer who has taken a like part shall receive six months' batta, at a rate to be fixed according to the functions and position which may have been assigned to him. Every native commissioned and non-commissioned officer and soldier who has formed part of the garrison shall receive the Order of Merit, Avith the increase of pay attached thereto, and shall be permitted to count three years of additional service. The soldiers of the 13th, 48th, and 71st regiments native infantry, who have been part of the garri- son, shall be formed into a regiment of the line, to be called " the Regiment of Lucknow," the further constitution of which, as regards officers and men, will be notified hereafter.' What was done at Lucknow during October and November must be recorded in a future chapter. While Outram, Havelock, and Inglis were main- taining themselves, by indomitable resolution, in the Residency and the Alum Bagh, Sir Colin Campbell was collecting a force adequate, if not to the actual reconqucst of Lucknow, at least to the rescue of all the British of every class residing in that hateful city. Those two concurrent lines of proceeding will be treated in intimate connection, a few pages on. it k Brigadier Inglitfi Dispateh. In order that the narra- tive contained in the foregoing chapter might not be interrupted by too many extracts from official documents, little has been said of the report which Brigadier Inglis drew up of the siege soon after the arrival of Outram and Havelock. So vividly, however, and in all respects so worthily, did that report or dispatch portray the trying difficulties of the position, and the heroic conduct of the garrison, that it may be well to give a portion of it in this place. ' The right honourable the governor-general in council will feel that it would be impossible to crowd within the limits of a dispatch even the principal events, much less the individual acts of gallantry, which have marked this protracted struggle. But I can conscientiously declare my conviction, that few troops have ever undergone greater hardships, exposed as they have been to a never-ceasing musketry-fire and cannonade. They have also experienced the alternate vicissitudes of extreme wet and of intense heat, and that, too, with very insufficient shelter from either, and in many places without any shelter at all. In addition to having had to repel real attacks, they have been exposed night and day to the hardly less harassing false alarms which the enemy have been constantly raising. The insurgents have frequently fired very heavily, sounded the advance, and shouted for several hours together, though not a man could be seen : with the view, of course, of harassing our small and exhausted force. In this object they succeeded, for no part has been strong enough to allow of a portion only of the garrison being prepared in the event of a false attack being turned into a real one ; all, therefore, had to stand to their arms and to remain at their posts until the demonstration had ceased ; and such attacks were of almost nightly occurrence. The whole of the officers and men have been on duty night and day during the 87 days which the siege had lasted up to the arrival of Sir J. Outram, G.C.B. In addition to this incessant military duty, the force has been nightly employed THE STORY OF THE LUCKiN'OW RESIDENCY. 337 in repairing defences, in moving guns, in burying dead animals, in conveying ammunition and commissariat stores from one place to another, and in other fatigue-duties too numerous and too trivial to enumerate here. I feel, however, that any words of mine will fail to convey any adequate idea of what the fatigue and labours have been labours in which all ranks and all classes, civilians, officers, and soldiers, have all borne an equally noble part. All have together descended into the mine, and have together handled the shovel for the interment of the putrid bullocks ; and all, accoutred with musket and bayonet, have relieved each other on sentry without regard to the distinctions of rank, civil or military. Notwithstanding all these hardships, the garrison has made no leal than live sorties, in which they spiked two of the enemy's heaviest guns, and blew up several of the houses from which they had kept up their most harassing fire. Owing to the extreme paucity of our numbers, each man was taught to feel that on his own individual efforts alone depended in no email measure the safety of the entire position. This conscious- ness in officer, soldier, and man, to defend the 1 to him with such desperate tenacity, and to light for the lives which Providence had intrusted to his care with such di termination, that the enemy, despite their constant attach*, their heavy mines, their overwhelm- ing numbers, and their incessant fire, could never succeed in gaining one single inch of ground within the bounds of og position, which was so feebly fortified, that tee obtained a footing in any of the outposts the whole place must inevitably have fallen. 'If further proof be wanting of i te nature of the struggle which we bare, nnder God's blessing, so long I, I would point to the rootb ruined houses, to the crumbled walls, to the ei] mines, to the open to the shattered and d gaga and d eft nco a, and the long and melancholy 1 officers and men wl: fallen. These silent witnesses bear sad and solemn mony to the way in which this feeble position has been defen ' During the early part of these vicissitudes, wt left without any information whatev og the posture of affairs isional spy did indeed come in with the object of inducing our sepoys and servants to desert ; but the intelligence derived from such sources was, of course, entirely untrustworthy. We sent our me ily calling for aid, and asking for informa- tion, none of returned until the 26th day of the r named Ungod came back with a 1 Harelo informing us that tiny were advancing with a f ot to bear down all '.nil, and would l>e with us in fire or six days. A is immediately despatched, requesting that on the evening of their arrival on the outskirts of the city two rockets might be sent up, in order that we might take the necessary measures for aarifrting them while forcing their way in. The sixth day, however, expired, and they not; but for many evenings after, officers and men watched for the ascension of the expected rockets, with hopes the the heart sick. We knew not then, nor did we learn until the 2Dth of August or 85 days later that the n lieviug force, after having fought most nobly to effect our deliverance, had been obliged to fall menta; and this waa the last communi- cation 1 until two days before the arrival of Sir i, on the 2:3th of September. 4 Besides heavy visitations of cholera and small-pox, -we have al ainst a sickness which has almost universally pervaded the garrison. Commencing with a very painful eruption, it has merged into a low fever, combined with diarrhoea ; and although few or no men have actually died from its effects, it leaves behind a weak- ness and lassitude which, in the absence of all material sustenance, save coarse beef, and still coarser flour, none have been able entirely to get over. The mortality among the women and children, and especially among the latter, from these diseases and from other causes, has been perhaps the most painful characteristic of the siege. The want of native servants has also been a source of much privation. Owing to the suddenness with which we were besieged, many of these people, who might perhaps have otherwise proved faithful to their employers, but who were outside the defences at the time, were altogether excluded. Very many more deserted, and several families were consequently left without the services of a single domestic. Several ladies have had to tend their children, and even to wash their own clothes, as well as to cook their scanty meals, entirely unaided. Combined with the absence of servants, the want of proper accommodation has probably been the cause of much of the disease with which we have been afflicted. ' I cannot refrain from bringing to the prominent notice of his lordship in council the patient endurance and the Christian resignation which have been evinced by the women of this garrison. They have animated us by their example. Many, alas ! have been made widows and their children fatherless in this cruel struggle. But all such seem resigned to the will of Providence ; and many among whom may be mentioned the honoured names of Birch, of Polehampton, of Barber, and of Gall have, after the example of Miss Nightingale, constituted themselves the tender and eolieitoaa nurses of the wounded and dying Boldiers in the hospital.' r enumerating the officers and civilians who had wrought untiringly in the good cause, Brigadier Inglis did ample justice to the humbler combatant*.] ly, I have the pleasure of bringing the splendid ur of the soldiers namely, the men of her t, the small detachment of her Majesty's 84th foot, the B ur o pean and native artillery, the 13th, 4Sth, and 71st regiments of native infantry, and the Sikhs of the respective corps to the notice of the government of India. The losses sustained by hat Majesty's 32d, which is now banly 800 strong, by her Majesty's 84th, and by the European artillery, shew at least that they knew how to die in the cause of their countrymen. Their conduct under the fire, the e x pos u re, and the privations which they have i undergo, has been throughout most admirable and rorthy. 'As another instance of tha desperate character of our defence, and the difficulties we have had to contend with, I may mention that the number of our artillerymen was so 1, that on the occasion of an attack, the gunners, aided as they were by men of her Majesty's 32d foot, and by volunteers of all classes, had to run from one battery to another wherever the fire of the enemy was hottest, there not being nearly enough men to serve half the number of guns at the same time. In short, at last the number of European gunners was only 24, while we had, including mortars, no less than 30 guns in position. 4 With respect to the native troops, I am of opinion that their loyalty has never been surpassed. They were indifferently fed and worse housed. They were exposed, especially the 13th under the gallant Lieutenant Aitken, to a most galling fire of round-shot and musketry, which materially decreased their numbers. They were so near the enemy that conversation could lx; carried on between them ; and every effort, persuasion, promise, and threat, was alternately resorted to in vain to seduce them from their allegiance to the handful of Europeans, who, in all probability, would have been sacrificed by their desertion.' Mr Colvin, Lieutenant-governor of Northwest Provinces. CHAPTER XX. MINOR CONFLICTS: SEPTEMBER AND OCTOBER. EAVING for a while the affairs of Lucknow which by the progress of events had become far more import- ant than those of Delhi or of any j other city in India we may conveniently devote the present chapter to a rapid glance at the general state of affairs during the months of September and October : noticing only such scenes of discord, and such military operations, as arose immediately out of the Revolt. The subject may be treated in the .same style as in Chapter xvii., relating to the months of July and August, but more briefly ; for, in truth, so few Bengal native regiments now remained ' true to their salt,' that the materials for farther mutiny were almost exhausted. Of Calcutta, and the region around it on all sides, little need be said. Mutiny in that neighbour- hood would not have been easy during the autumn months ; for British troops were gradually arriving, who would speedily have put down any rebellious risings. Sometimes alarms agitated the civilians and traders in the city; but nothing really serious MINOR CONFLICTS : SEPTEMBER AND OCTOBER. 3S9 called for notice. The ex-king of Oude continued to be watched carefully at Calcutta. Whatever honeyed phrases may have been used to render his detention more palatable, none of the government officers placed any reliance on his fidelity or peace- fulness. In truth, if he had displayed those qualities, after being compelled to witness the annexation of his country to the British raj, he would have been something more (or less) than oriental. At various times during the summer and autumn months, scrutinising inquiries were made into tho conduct of the king and his retainers. Thus, on the lGth of August, a person who had for some time resided at Calcutta, under the assumed title of Bishop of Bagdad, but whoso real name was Syed Ilossein Shubber, was with five others arrested, for complicity in plots affecting the British government ; and, consequent on papers discov- ered, three retainers of the king were ai . about a week afterwards. The government kept secret tho details of these affairs, pending further inquiry ; but it was apparent enough that mis- chief was fermenting in the minds of the royal prisoner's retainers. Unquestionably many natives sincerely believed the king to have been an ill-used man an opinion shared also by many Europeans and they did not deem it treason to aid him in his misfortunes ii to the vexation of tho government, the district of Assam, little known to Europeans except as a region where tea is experimentally grown, was drawn into tho vortex of trouble early in Septem- ber. Many of I of the 1st Assam native infantry came from tho neighbourhood of Arrah, and were closely related to one regiment (tin of the Dinapoor mutineers; while others were from latcs of Kocr Singh. When, therefore, the news of the Dinapoor mutiny became known, the I thrown into much agitation. There was a rajah in Assam, one Saring Kundcr- pessawar Singh, who secretly engaged in treason- able correspondence, and who received offers of support from tho Arrah men of the Assam regi- ment, if he would openly break with the British. There were also Hindustanis in the 2d Assam native regiment ; while tho artillery companies at Debrooghur were entirely Hindustanis. It was known likewise that many of the neighbouring tribes were in a disaffected state, and that a rcli- mendicant was rapidly moving about with some secret but apparently mischievous purpose. By degrees a ] I -covered. The conspira- ; binned on a given day to murder all the Christians i . and then plunder the stations. Fortnnatoly this project was known in time. The Calcutta government having no soldiers to spare, lised a force of English seamen, trained as gunners, and sent them by a steamer up the Brail* ia to Debrooghur, to be employed as the uthorities might deem advisable. One of the circumstances connected with this movement illus- trates tho antagonism between governing autho- md newspaper writers on military matters an antagonism frequently felt during the Indian Revolt as during the Russian war. A responsible leader wishes to keep his plans of strategy secret from the enemy; a newspaper writer wishes to give as much news as possible on all subjects; and these two modes of procedure do not always flow in harmonious concord. Mr Halliday, lieutenant- governor of Bengal, in reporting on this Assam affair, said : 'The utmost care WSJ taken to despatch the force to Assam with the secrecy necessary to prevent its destination being kuown ; but it is feared that this intention has been frustrated by the ill-judged publication of the departure of the steamer, and notification of its objects, by the Calcutta papers. It is hoped that this injudicious proceeding may not bo attended with the serious results that would ensue from a revolt in the province in its present unprotected state. Such an untoward contingency was feared by the officers in Assam, who pointed but the urgent necessity of extreme care being observed in preventing the promulgation of the transmission, before its arrival, of any European force that might be sent ; lest the knowledge of tho approach of aid should cause a premature oxplosion of the expected revolt,' The force consisted of 100 armed sailors, with two 12-pounder guns; they set out on the 11th of September, under the charge of Lieutenant Davics, in tho steamer Horungotta; and were to be at the disposal of Colonel Jenkins on arriving in Assam. As a curious example of the different light in which different tribes were at this time viewed, it may be stated that all tho men of the 1st Assam infantry who were not Hindustanis Avero called in from the outposts to Debrooghur, as a protection in case tho remainder of tho regiment should mutiny. Captain Lowthcr, commanding a corps of Goorkhas, was sent from another station to capture the rajah ; this he managed admirably, and in so doing, effect- ually crushed tho incipient mutiny. The captain, in a private letter, told in excellent style the story of his expedition ; from which we will extract so much as relates to tho night-scene in the rajah's palace at Debrooghur* * ' I told off my men rapidly, nnd formed them into parties, so as completely to surround and cover every outlet and corner. The main party, consisting mostly of my own particular sharpshooters and bodyguard, watched the front ; another moved towards the town, there to arrest an educated Bengalee, agent to the conspira- tors; another to the rear, to cut off escape towards the town; while my friend the Political crept quictiy past some outhouses with his police, and under the palace walls awaited my signal for opening the ball. 1 Before long the ominous barking of a disturbed cur in the direction of tho party sent after the prime-minister proclaimed that no time was to be lost. Oil' L went towards the guard-shed in front of the palace, my personal sharpshooters following at tho double. The noise, of course, awoke the sleeping guard, and as they started up from their slumbers I caught one firmly by the throat; tho little (ioorkha next mc felled with a but-end blow another of them while they were getting to arms, I having strictly forbidden my men to fire until uxlor, u we rushed in, took to flight, and my eager party wished to fire on them, which I prevented, not considering inch valiant game worth powder and shot. In the darkness and confusion, no means of entrance could at onco be found. My police guide, however, having been often in the palace, knew every room in it, and, thrusting himself in at a door, acted ferret to perfection, and by dint of activity, soon brought mo into the presence of the rajah, who, though young in years, is old in sin: he refused to surrender or admit any one a resolution which cooled instanter on my 340 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. Some weeks afterwards, towards the close of October, Mr Halliday entertained much distrust of the 73d Bengal native infantry, of which two companies were at Dacca, and the main body at Jelpigoree, near the Bhotan frontier. By precau- tionary measures, however, he prevented for a time any actual outbreak of this particular regiment. There were reasons why the towns on the banks of the Lower Ganges remained tolerably free from rebellion during the months now under notice. English regiments, in wings or detachments, were sent up the river in fiats tugged by steamers, from Calcutta towards Upper India ; and the turbulent rabble of the towns were awed into quietness by the vicinity of these red-coats. Berhampore, Moorshedabad, Bajmahal, Bhagulpore, Monghir, Patna, Dinapoor, Buxar, Ghazeepore, Benares, Mirzapore all felt the benefit of this occasional passing of British troops along the Ganges, in the moral effect produced on the natives. True, the arrivals at Calcutta were few and far apart until October was well advanced ; true, many of the troops were sent by land along the main trunk- road, for greater expedition ; true, those who went by water were too urgently needed in the Doab and in Oude to be spared for intermediate service at the towns above named ; but, nevertheless, the mere transit of a few English regiments effected much towards the tranquillising of Bengal. Early in the month of August, Lord Elgin had come to Calcutta, and placed at the disposal of Lord Canning two war-steamers, the Shannon and the Pearl; and from among the resources of these steamers was organised a splendid naval brigade, consisting of 400 able British seamen, and no less than ten of the enormous G8-pounder guns which such seamen know so well how to handle. They started from Calcutta up the Hoogly and the Ganges, under the command of Captain Peel, who had so gallantly managed a naval-battery in the Crimea during the siege of Sebastopol. If such a man could fret, he would have fretted at the slowness of his voyage. Week after week elapsed, without his reaching those districts where his calling my men to set fire to the palace ; he then with a bad grace delivered up to me his state-sword. A shout from the opposite doors proclaimed an entry there. The queen-mother and the rest of the female royalty and attendants were seized while trying to descend on that side. Then came a chorus of shouting and struggling, and bawling for lights and assistance ; at last, a lamp being procured, wc proceeded to examine the palace : we wandered in dark passages and cells, while I mounted a guard at every door. The air being confined and heated within the royal residence, I sat outside until after daybreak, and then proceeded to rummage for papers and letters ; several boxes of these wc appropriated, and counted out his treasure, all in gold vessels and ingots ; we found a quantity of arms, spiked some guns, one of them of French make ; all day we were hard at work, searching and translating papers. The prime-minister was found at his house, fast asleep. In the heat of the afternoon, we went to his residence in" the town, and by dint of keeping fans going over us, carried out a thorough search. We did not get as many of his pnpers as we wanted, he having been told by his correspondents to destroy all letters after reading them. ' At sunset I carried off my prisoners over the same bad ground by which we had so stealthily arrived. We were followed by about 2000 infuriated Mussulman?, crying, praying, and prostrating themselves to the object of their lingering hope of rebellion (the rajah), but we drove them off.' services would be invaluable. Half of August and the whole of September thus passed wearily away in this most tedious voyage. The upward passage is always tardy, against the stream ; and his ponderous artillery rendered slowness still more slow. It was not until the 30th of September that he, with 286 men of his brigade, arrived at Benares. Hastening on, he arrived with 94 men at Allahabad on the 3d of October ; and four days afterwards the rest joined him, with their enormous guns and store of ammunition. A small naval brigade, under Captain Sotheby, was placed at the disposal of the Patna authorities, to be used against certain insurgents in the neigh- bourhood. The portion of Bengal north of the Ganges was almost entirely free from disturbance during these two months; but the parallel portion of Behar was in a very different state. The actual mutinies there had been few in number, for in truth there had not been many native troops quartered in that region; but the rebellious chieftains and zemindars were many, each of whom could command the services of a body of retainers ready for any mischief. Patna, in September, as in earlier months, was disturbed rather by anarchy in other regions than by actual mutinies within the city itself. In what way the Dinapoor troubles affected it, we have seen in an earlier chapter. Its present difficulties lay rather with the districts north and northwest of the city, where the revenue collectors had been driven from place to place by mutinous sepoys, and by petty chieftains who wished to strengthen themselves at the expense of the English ' raj.' The abandon- ment of Goruckpore by the officials, in a moment of fright, had had the effect of exposing the Chupra, Chumparun, and Mozufferpoor districts to the attacks of rebels, especially such as had placed themselves under the banner of the Mus- sulman chieftain Mahomed Hussein Khan, the self- appointed 'ruler in the name and on behalf of the King of Oude.' This man had collected a con- siderable force, and had organised a species of government at Goruckpore. The military power in the hands of the Company's servants in the Chupra and Tirhoot districts consisted chiefly of a few Sikhs of the police battalion, quite unequal to the resistance of an incursion by Mahomed Hussein. The civilians of those districts sent urgent applications to Patna for military aid. But how could this be furnished 7 Troops and artil- lery were so imperatively demanded at Cawnpore, to aid the operations at Lucknow, that none could be detained on their passage up the river; the Dinapoor garrison, reduced by the mutiny and its consequences, could only spare a few troops for Patna itself ; the troops going up the main trunk* road from Calcutta to Upper India could barely afford time and strength to encounter the Ramgurh insurgents, without attempting anything north of the Ganges. There happened, however, to be a Madras regiment passing up by steamer to Alia- MINOR CONFLICTS : SEPTEMBER AND OCTOBER, 341 habad ; and permission was obtained to detain a portion of this regiment for service in the Goruck- pore region ; while the Rajahs of Bcttiah and Hutwah were encouraged to maintain a friendly attitude in support of the British authorities. The rebel or rather rabble forces under Mahomed in were ill armed and worse disciplined ; and it was probable that a few men of the 17th M. N. I., with a few Sikhs, could have beaten them at any time ; but it was felt necessary to reoccupy (Joruckporc at once, to prevent the neighbouring zemindars and thalookdars from joining the malcontents. That Lord Canning accepted an offer of several Goorkha regiments, from Jung Bahadoor of Nepaul, has been stated in a former chapter \ but a very long time fore those hardy little troops wen enabled to render much service. The proiM of collecting them at Khatmandoo and elsewhere occupied several weeks, and it was not until the beginning of September that they reached Jounpoor, a station in the very heart of the disturbed districts. Even then, there was much tardiness in bringing them into active service; for tin- English officers appointed to command them did not at first understand the difference of management required by Hindustani sepoys and Nepaulese Goorkhas. Happily, an opportunity OCCOrred for remedying this defect. . A smart affair on the 2oth of September afforded the Goorkhas an opportunity of shewing their gal- lantry. Colonel Wroughton, military commandant inpoor, having heard that A/.imghur was threatened with an attack by 8000 rehels under Madhoo Singh of Atrowlia, resolved to send a regiment of Goorkhas from Jounpoor to strengthen the force already at Azimghur. They started at once, marched the distance in a day and a half, and reached the threatened city on the evening of the 19th. This was the Shcre regiment of Jung Bahadoor's force, under Colonel Shumshere Singh, a Nepanleee officer, At a very early hour on the morning of the 20th, it was ascertained that a body of rebels had assembled in and near the neighbouring village of Mundoree. A force of men, mostly belonging to three Goorkha regiments, was immediately sent out to disperse them Captain Boflean commanding, Colonel Shumshere Singh heading the Goorkhas, .and Mr Venables (whose proweM had already been dis- played in the same district) taking charge of a small body of local horse. Finding that the rebels were potted in a clump of trees and in a jheel behind the village, Captain Boileau directed Shumshere Singh to advance his Goorkhas at double pace. This was done, despite the fire from several guns ; the little Goorkhas charged, drove the enemy away towards Captangunje, and cap- tured three brass guns and all the camp-equipage. Mr Venables was seen wherever the fighting was thickest ; he was up at the first gun taken, and killed three of the enemy with his own hand. About 200 of the enemy were laid low in this brief encounter, and one-sixth of this number on the part of the victors. This little battle of Mundoree had a moral effect, superadded to the immediate dispersing of a body of rebels. It shewed the soldierly conduct of the Goorkhas, who had marched fifty miles in two days, and then won a battle in a kind of country to which they were unaccustomed. It proved the intrepidity of one of the civil servants of the Company, whose sterling qualities were brought forth at a critical time. Moreover, it dissipated a prejudice against the Goorkhas formed by some of tho British officers. These troops had hitherto remained nearly inactive in the region between Nepaul and the Ganges. Jung Bahadoor had sent them, under a native officer, Colonel Puhlwan Singh, to be employed wherever the authorities deemed best. Colonel "Wroughton, and other British officers, formed an opinion that the Nepaul- ese troops were incapable of rapid movement, and that their native officers dreaded the responsibility of independent action. Mr Grant, lieutenant- governor of the Central Provinces, in an official letter to Colonel Wroughton after the battle of Mun- doree, pointed out that this opinion had been very detrimental to the public service, in discouraging any employment of the Goorkhas. He added: 'It was natural to expect that foreigners, and those foreigners mountaineers, unaccustomed either to the plains or to their inhabitants, should at first MM awkwardness in the new position in which they were placed, with everything strange around them. The sagacity of Jung Bahadoor had already foreseen this difficulty ; and it was at his earnest desire that British officers were attached to the Goorkha force, to encourage the officers and men, and to explain how operations should bo carried on in such a country and such a climate as that in which they now for the first time marched, and against such an enemy as they now for the first time met The lieutenant-governor will now confidently look to you that the Goorkha force is henceforth actively employed in the service for which it was placed at the disposal of the British government by the Nepaulese.' It must be borne in mind, to prevent confusion, that this Goorkha force, lent by Jung Bahadoor, was distinct from the Goorkha battalions of Sirmoor and Kumaon, often mentioned in former chapters ; those bat- talions were part of the Bengal native army, fortunately consisting of Goorkhas instead of ' Pandies;' whereas the new force was a Nepaulese army, lent for a special purpose. Mr Grant, the temporarily appointed lieutenant- governor just mentioned, employed all his energies throughout September and October in promoting the transit of British troops from the lower to the upper provinces, to aid in the operations at Cawn- pore and Lucknow. He could not, however, forget the fact that the eastern frontier of Oudc adjoined the British districts of Goruckporc, Jounpoor, and Azimghur; and that the Oude rebels were con- tinually making demonstrations on that side. He 342 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. longed for British troops, to strengthen and encourage the Goorkhas in his service, and occa- sionally applied for a few ; hut he, as all others, was told that the relief of the residents at Lucknow must precede, and be paramount over, all other military operations whatever. Writing to Lord Canning from Benares on the 15th of October, he said : ' It is a point for consideration, how much longer it will be otherwise than imprudent to continue to send the whole of the daily arrivals of Europeans nearly half-way round the province of Oude, in order to create a pressure upon the rear of the mutineers and insurgents of that province from the direction of Cawnpore and Lucknow, whilst our home districts are left thus open to them in their front.' He expressed a hope that the Punjaub and Delhi regions would be able to supply nearly troops enough for immediate opera- tions at Lucknow ; and that a portion of the British regiments sent up from the lower provinces would be permitted to form the nucleus of a new army at Benares, for operations on the eastern frontier of Oude. Many weeks elapsed, however, before this suggestion could meet with practical attention. Thus it was throughout the districts of Goruck- pore, Jounpoor, Azimghui*, and others eastward of Oude and north of the Gauges. If the British had had to contend only with mutinied sepoys and sowars, victory would more generally and completely have attended their exertions ; but rebellious chieftains were numerous, and these, encouraged by the newly established rebel govern- ment at Lucknow, continually harassed the British officials placed in charge of those districts. The colonels, captains, judges, magistrates, collectors all cried aloud for more European troops; their cries were heeded at Calcutta, but could not be satisfied, for reasons already sufficiently explained. Let us cross the Ganges, and watch the state of affairs in the southwestern districts of Bengal and Behar during the months of September and October. Throughout this wide region, the troubles arose rather from sepoys already rebellious, than from new instances of mutiny. Preceding chapters have shewn that the 8th Bengal native infantry mutinied at Hazarebagh on the 30th of July ; that the infantry of the Ramgurh battalion followed the pernicious example on the next day ; that the 5th irregular cavalry mutinied at Bhagulpore on the 14th of August ; and that the 7th, 8th, and 40th regiments of native infantry which mutinied at Dinapoor on the 25th of July, kept the whole of Western Bengal in agitation throughout August, by render- ing uncertain in which direction they would march, under the rebel chieftain, Koer Singh. The only additional mutiny, in this region, was tha N t of the 32d native infantry, presently to be noticed. The elements of anarchy were, however, already numer- ous and violent enough to plunge the whole district into disorder. Some of the towns were the centres of opium-growing or indigo-producing regions ; many were surrounded simply by rice or cornfields; others, again, were military stations, at which the Company were accustomed to keep troops ; while several were dak or post stations, for the maintenance of communication along the great trunk-road from Calcutta to Benares. But wher- ever and whatever they may have been, these towns were seldom at peace during the months now under notice. The towns-people and the sur- rounding villagers were perpetually affected by rumours that the mutinous 5th cavalry were coming, or the mutinous 8th infantry, or the Ramgurh mutineers, or those from Dinapoor. For, it must be borne in mind, we are now treating of a part of India inhabited chiefly by Bengalees, a race too timid to supply many fighting rebels too fond of quiet industry willingly to belt on the sword or shoulder the matchlock. They may or may not have loved the British ; if not, they would rather intrigue than fight against them. In the contest arising out of the mutiny, these Bengalees suffered greatly. The mutineers, joined by the released vagabonds from the jails, too frequently plundered all alike, Feringhee and native ; and the quiet trader or cultivator had much reason to dread the approach of such workers of mischief. The Europeans, few in number, and oppressed with responsibility, knew not which way to turn for aid. Revenue collectors, with many lacs of the Company's- rupees, feared for the safety of their treasure. Military officers, endeavouring with a handful of troops to check the passage of mutineers, were bewildered by the vague and conflicting intel- ligence which reached them. Officials at the dak- stations, impressed daily by stringent orders from Calcutta to keep open the main line of road for the passage of English troops to Upper India, were in perpetual anxiety lest bands of mutineers should approach and cut off the daks altogether. Every one begged and prayed the Calcutta government to send him a few trusty troops ; every one assured the government that the salvation of that part of India depended on the request being acceded to. Dorunda, sixty miles south of Hazarebagh, was a scene of violence on the 11th of September. The Ramgurh mutineers destroyed the public and private buildings at this place, plundered the town, committed great atrocities on the towns-people, beheaded a native surgeon belonging to the jail, and marched off in the direction of Tikhoo Ghat, taking with them four guns and a large amount of plunder and ammunition. Their apparent inten- tion was to march through the Palamow district, and effect a junction with Koer Singh, with whom they had been in correspondence. Only four men of the Ramgurh irregular cavalry were of the party; all the rest were infantry. The cavalry, remaining faithful as a body, seized the first oppor- tunity of joining their officers at Hazarebagh. This was another instance of divergence between the two parts of one corps, wholly inexplicable to the British officers, Avho could offer no reason why the infantry had lapsed, while the cavalry remained faithful. In this part of India the mutineers were MINOR CONFLICT^ : SEPTEMBER AND OCTOBER. 343 not supported by the zemindars or laudoAvners, as in other districts ; and hence the few British troops were better enabled to lay plans for the frustration of those workers of mischief. Captain Fischer, Captain Dalton, Major English, Captain Oakes, Captain Davies, Captain Rattray, Lieutenant Graham, Lieutenant Birch, and other officers, were in command of small bodies of troops in this region during the greater part of the month ; these troops consisted of Madras natives, Sikhs, and a very few British ; and the numerous trifling but serviceable affairs in which they were engaged bore relation to the regiments which had mutinied at Ramgurh, Bhagulpore, and Dinapoor, and to the chieftains and marauders who joined those 1 soldiers. For the reasons already assigned, however, the British troops were very few in number; while the Madras troops were so urgently needed in the more turbulent Saugor provinces, that they could barely be spared for service in Bengal. Regiments had not at that time begun to arrive very rapidly from England ; the few that did land at Calcutta, wore eagerly caught up for service in the Doab and Oude. In most instances, the aid which was afforded by English troops to the region now under notice, depended on a temporary stoppage of a regiment or detachment on its passage to the upper provinces; in urgent cases, the government ordered or permitted a small British force to diverge from reet line of march, and render aid to a Bengal town or station at a particular juncture. Such was the case with II.M. 53d foot. Major English, with a wing of this regiment, had a contest with the Ramgurh mutineers on the 29th of September. Se marched from Hazarebagh to Sillis Chowk, where he heard news of these insurgents ; and by further active movements he came up with them on the 2d of October, just as they had begun to plunder the town of Chuttra. The mutineers planted two guns so as to play upon the British ; but the latter, in the way which had by this time become quite common with their comrades in India, determined to attack and take the guns by a fearless advance. On they went, through rice- fields, behind rocks and underwood, through lanes and round buildings, running and cheering, until they had captured four goni in succession, together with ammunition, ten elephants, and other warlike appliances, and sent the enemy fleeing. The officers dashed on at the head of their respective parties of men in a way that astonished the enemy ; and the major, viewing these enterprises with the eye of a soldier, said in his dispatch : 'It was splendid to see them rush on the guns.' His li'jwever, considerable; 5 killed and 33 wounded out of three companies only. In addition to military trophies, Major English took fifty thou- sand rupees of the Company's treasure from the mutineers, who, like mutineers elsewhere, regarded the revenue collections as fair booty when once they had thrown off allegiance. During the operations of the 53d in this region one, in many parts of which British soldiers had never been seen an instance was afforded of the dismay into which the civilians were sometimes thrown by the withdrawal of trusty troops ; it was narrated in a letter written by an officer of that regiment* The native regiments were often distributed in detachments at different stations ; and it frequently happened as just adverted to for reasons wholly inexplicable to the authorities, that some of those component elements remained faithful long after others had mutinied. Such was the case in referenco to the 32d B. N. I. Two companies of that regiment, stationed at Deoghur in the Sonthal district, rose in mutiny on the 9th of October, murdered Lieutenant Cooper and the assistant-commissary, looted the bazaar, and then marched off to Rohnee, taking with them Lieutenant 'Rennie as a prisoner. Two other companies of the regiment were at that time en route from Burhait to Sooric, while the head- quarter companies were at Bowsee. The autho- rities at Calcutta at once sought to ascertain what was the feeling among the men at the stations just named ; but, pending these inquiries, orders were given to despatch a wing of H.M. 13th foot from Calcutta to the Sonthal district, to control the mutineers. Major English was at that time going to the upper provinces with a detachment of II.M. 53d foot; but he was now ordered to turn aside for a while, and aid in pacify- ing the district before pursuing his journey to Benares. Although the remaining companies of the native 32d did afterwards take rank among the mutineers, they were ' true to their salt' for some time after tint treachery of their companions had become known. This 32d mutinous regiment succeeded in cross- ing the Sonc river, with the intention of joining Kocr Singh and the Dinapoor mutineers a feat managed in a way that greatly mortified Major English's 53d. On the, 20th of October the wing of this latter regiment proceeded from Sheer- gotty to Gayah, to reassure the uneasy officials at that station ; and on the 22d they started again, to intercept the mutineers. After much hot and wearying marching, they returned to Gayah, without having encountered the mutineers, one portion of ' The ejected civilians from Dorunda had come on ahead and offered our small party breakfast, which we gladly accepted. While waiting until it was ready, the chief-commissioner got an electric- telegraph dispatch from the governor-general, ordering the whole of the 5.3d party under Major English back again to the main trunk-road. You never saw anything like the long faces they all had at this announcement; for the commissioner had just had intelligence on which he thought he could rely, that the mutineers were still kept at bay by the party at the pass, through which they must get through to effect their escape from us ; and they did not think that 250 Madras sepoys with two guns would be sufficient to attack 050 desperate men caught in a trap. Moreover, the retire- ment of the Europeans would run like wildfire through the district; and T heard them all say they would not answer for what might happen." The column did advance to Dorunda, and dispersed the miscreants; but it had to hasten to other regions, and then 'All the residents are very much disgusted at our going back, as the moral efTect of our arrival must be great, the native* here having as much idea of a European soldier as they have of a whale, never having seen cither ; and the fact of their being put as prisoners under a European guard frightens them more than a thousand deaths.' 344 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. whom bad crossed the Sorie. Some days later, news arrived that the second portion of the 32d, that which had not at first mutinied, was, in like manner, marching towards the river. On the 1st of November the 53d started in pursuit, marched thirty miles during the night to Hurwa, rested a while, marched ten miles further to Nowada during the evening, and came up with the mutineers in the night. A skirmish by moonlight took place, greatly to the advantage of the rehels, Avho had a better knowledge of the country than their opponents. The sepoys did not want to fight, they wished to march towards the Sone ; and this they did day after day until the 6th, followed closely all the way by the British. The pursued outstripped the pursuers, and safely crossed the river much to the vexation of the major and his troops. One of the officers present has said : ' This was very provoking ; for if we had but caught them, we should have got as much credit for it as for Chuttra. The country we went through was, for the most part, over swampy rice-fields ; when we gave up the pursuit we had gone 130 miles in 103 hours ; and, on our return to Gayah, we had been 170 miles in exactly one week. After the second day we sent our tents and bedding back; so that we marched as lightly as possible, and were by that means able to give the men an occasional lift on the elephants.' Throughout these miscellaneous and often de- sultory operations in Bengal, if the Sikhs had proved faithless, all would have gone to ruin. It was more easy to obtain a thousand Sikhs than a hundred British, and thus they were made use of as a sort of military police, irrespective of the regular regiments raised in the Punjaub. Few circumstances are more observable throughout the Revolt, than the fidelity of these men. Insubordi- nation there was, certainly, in some instances, but not in sufficient degree to affect the character of the whole. Captain Rattray's Sikhs have often been mentioned. These were a corps of military police, formed for rendering service in any part of Bengal ; and in the rendering of this service they were most admirable. The lieutenant-governor of Bengal, in a paper drawn up early in September, said : ' The commandant of the Sikh Police Bat- talion has pleaded strongly on his own behalf, and on that of his men, for the assembling of the scattered fragments of his corps, to enable them to strike such a blow as to prove the high military spirit and discipline of the regiment. The urgent necessities which caused the separation of Captain Rattray's regiment renders it impossible, in existing circumstances, to call in all detachments to head- quarters ; but its admirable discipline, daring, and devotion at Arrah and Jugdispore, and its good conduct everywhere, have fully established its character for soldierly qualities of the highest order. It would be difficult to exaggerate the value of the services which it has rendered to the 'State since the commencement of the present troubles ; and the trust and confidence everywhere reposed in it, prove that these services are neither underrated nor disregarded. Of the men, all who have distinguished themselves for conspicuous deeds of valour and loyalty, have already been rewarded.' As individuals, too, the Sikhs Avere reliable in a remarkable degree, when Hindu- stanis were falling away on all sides. When the troubles hroke out at Benares, early in the mutinj-, a Sikh chieftain, by name Rajah Soorut Singh, rendered invaluable service to the British residents, which they did not fail gratefully to remember at a later period. A few of the Company's servants, civil and military, at Benares and other towns in that part of India, caused to be manufactured by Mr Westley Richards of Birmingham, for presenta- tion to Soorut Singh, a splendid set of firearms, effective for use as well as superb in appearance. We will now cross the Sone, and trace the progress of affairs in the Bundelcund and Saugor provinces. It will be remembered, from the details given in former chapters, that the native inhabitants of Bundelcund, and other regions south of the Jumna and the Central Ganges, displayed a more turbu- lent tendency than those of Bengal. They had for ages been more addicted to war, and had among them a greater number of chieftains employing retainers in their pay, than the Bcn- galesc; and they were within easier reach of the temptations thrown' out by Nena Sahib, the King of Delhi, Kocr Singh, and the agents of the deposed King of Oude. Lieutenant (now Captain) Osborne, the British resident at Rewah, was one who felt the full force of this state of circum- stances. As he had been in August, so was he now in September, almost the only Englishman within a wide range of country south-west of Allahabad ; the rajah of Rewah was faithful, but his native troops were prone to rebellion ; and it was only by wonderful sagacity and firm- ness that he could protect both the rajah and himself from the vortex. In a wide region eastward of Rewah, the question arose, every day throughout September, where is Koer Singh 1 This treacherous chieftain, who headed the Dinapoor mutineers from the day of their entering Arrah, was continually marching about with his rebel army of something like 3000 men, apparently uncertain of his plans an un- certainty very perplexing to the British officials, who, having a mere handful of troops at their disposal, did not know where that handful might most profitably be employed. On one day Kocr Singh, with his brother Ummer Singh, would be reported at Rotas, on another day at Sasseram ; sometimes there was a rumour of the rebels being about to march to Rewah and Bundelcund ; at others, that they were going to join the Goruckporc insurgents ; and at others, again, that the Dinapoor and Ramgurh mutineers would act in concert. Wherever they went, however, plunder and rapine marked their footsteps. At one of the towns, the heirs of a zemindar, whose estates had been MIXOll CONFLICTS: SEPTEMBER AND OCTOBER. 345 forfeited many years before, levied a thousand men to aid in Mixing the property from the present proprietors. This was one among many proofs afforded dating the mutiny, that chieftains and landowners sought to make the revolt of the native soldiery a means for insuring their own private ends, whether those ends were justifiable or not. The authorities at Patna and elsewhere endeavoured to meet these varied difficulties as best they eould with their limited resources. They sent to Calcutta all the ladies and children from disturbed districts, so far as they possessed means of conveyance. They empowered the indigo- planters to raise small bodies of police force in their respective districts. They obtained the aid of two regiments of Goorkhas in the Chumparun district, by which the restoration of tranquillity might reasonably be expected. They seized the s of Koer Singh and I 'miner Singh at Arrah, as traitors. They imposed heavy lines on villages which had sent men to take active port in the disturbances. Lastly, they used all their energies to protect that part of the main trunk-road which posses near the river Soiie ; seeing that the moron, of Baropeon troops from Calcutta to the upper provinces would be materially affected by any interruption in that quarter. The newly arrived British regiments could not go up as an army, but as small detachments in bullock- wagons, and therefore were not prepared for Ridden encounters with large numbers of the enemy. The 5th irregular cavalry, who had mutinied in tit of India some weeks before, continued a system of plundering, levying contributions, and public property. Every doj that transpired, leaving these darin { atrocities un- checked, weakened Britisfa and encouraged marauders on all sides to imitate the example so fatally set before them. The authorities felt and acknowledged this ; yet, for the reasons already noticed, they could do little to check it. Captain Rattray, at the head of a portion of his Sikh police, encountered the 5.h irregulars on the 8th of the month ; but, as a cavalry force, they were too strong for him ; they beat him in action, out- generalled him in movement, released four hundred prisoner! from one of the jails, and then marched ward the river Bono, The mutinous sowars were subsequently heard of at Tikane, Daood- ;, Baroon, and other places; everywhere committing great depredations. Thai was a large and important region, on cither side of the main trunk-road, ami extending two hundred miles that road, kept in a state of daily agitation. The 6th irregular cavalry in one quarter, Koer i in another, and his brothers Limner Singh and Nishan Singh in a third, were all busily employed in depredation; patriotism or nationality had little hold on their thoughts just then ; for they plundered whomsoever had property to lose, without much regard to race or creed. The government offered large rewards for the capture of these leaders, but without effect : the rebels generally resisted this kind of temptation. Opium- crops to the value of half a million sterling were at that time ripening in the Behar and Arrah districts alone ; and it was feared that all these would be devastated unless aid arrived from Calcutta. Mr Wake, and the other civil servants who had so gallantly defended themselves at Arrah, against an enormous force of the enemy, returned to that station about the middle of September, to resume their duties ; but as it was feared that Ummer Singh and the 5th irregulars would effect a junc- tion, and attempt to reoccupy Jugdispore, those officers were authorised to fall back upon Dinapoor or Buxar, in the event of being attacked; although they themselves expressed a wish rather to re- main at their posts and fortify themselves against the rebels as they had done before. The necessity of making this choice, however, did not arise. The 5th cavalry, after their victory over Rattray's Sikhs, and during their visits to the towns and villages near the Sone, committed, as we have just said, every kind of atrocity plundering houses, levying contributions, breaking open the zenanas of Hindoo houses, abusing the women, and de- stroying property too bulky to be carried away all this they did ; but for some unexplained reason, they avoided the redoubtable little band at Arrah. The Saugor and Nerbudda provinces, of which the chief towns and stations were Banda, Jaloun, Jhansi, Saugor, Jubbulpoor, Nagode, Dumoh, Nowgong, Mundlah, and Ilosungabad, were, as we have seen, iu a very precarious state in the month of August. At Saugor, so early as the month of June, Brigadier Sage had brought all the Europeans into a well-armed and amply pro- visioned fort, guarded by a body of European gunners, and by the still faithful 31st regiment of Bengal infantry ; and there the Europeans re- mained at the close of August, almost cut off from communication with their fellow-countrymen else- where. Jubbulpoor had passed through the summer months without actual mutiny; but the revolt of the 42d infantry and the 3d irregular cavalry, at neighbouring stations, and certain suspicious symptoms afforded by the 52d .at Jubbulpoor itself, led Major Erskine to fortify the Residency, and provision it for six months. Banda, Jhansi, and Jaloun, had long fallen into the hands of the rebels; Mundlah and Ilosungabad were at the mercy of circumstances occurring at other places ; Nagode would be reliable only so long as the 50th native infantry remained true; and Dumoh would be scarcely tenable if Jubbulpoor were in danger. Thus, at the end of August, British supremacy in the Saugor and Nerbudda territories hung by a thread. The Calcutta authorities, unable to supply British troops for Bengal or Behar, were equally debarred from rendering assistance to these terri- tories, September opened very gloomily for the officers intrusted with duties in this quarter. The Punjaub and Calcutta could only furnish trust- 346 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. worthy troops for the Jumna and Doah regions, where the war raged with greatest fierceness; it was from Madras and Bombay alone that aid could be expected. Fortunately, the large regions of Nagpoor and Hyderabad were nearly at peace, and thus a passage could be afforded for troops from the south which would not have been prac- ticable had those countries been plunged in anarchy. Towards the middle of September, Lieutenant Clark, deputy-commissioner of Jubbulpoor, learned a few facts that put him on the track of a con- spiracy. It came out, on inquiry, that Rajah Shunker Shah, and many other chieftains and zemindars in the neighbourhood of Jubbulpoor, acting in concert with some of the sepoys of the 52d B. N. I., intended to attack the canton- ment on the last day of the Mohurrum, murder all the Europeans, burn the cantonments, and plunder the treasury and city. By a bold and prompt movement, the chief conspirators were seized on the 14th. The lieutenant, writing to the commissioner of Nagpoor, announced the result in brief but significant language. ' I have been fortunate enough to get conclusive evidence by means of spies, without the conspirators taking alarm ; and this morning, with a party of sowars and police, bagged thirty, and two rajahs (ring- leaders) among them. Of course they swing. Many of my principal zemindars, and some I wish I knew how many of tjie 52d, are in the plot.' In Rajah Shunker's house, among other treasonable papers, was found a sort of prayer, invoking his deity to aid him in the destruction of all Europeans, the overturning of the govern- ment, and the re-establishment of his own power. The paper was found in a silk bag in which he kept his fan, and was a scrap torn from a govern- ment proclamation issued after the massacre at Meerut. In this instance, therefore, the official expression of horror and wrath at the opening scene of the mutiny, instead of deterring, encour- aged others to walk in the same bloody path. The prayer or invocation was afterwards translated from the Hindee into English, and published among the parliamentary papers.* The execution of the rajah and his son was something more terrible than was implied by the lieutenant's curt announcement, 'of course they swing.' It was one among many examples of that ' blowing away * Shut the mouth of slanderers, bite and Eat up backbiters, trample down the sinners, You, Sulrsingharka. Kill the British, exterminate them, Mat Chundee. Let not the enemy escape, nor the offspring of such, Oh, Singharha. Shew favour to Shunker ! Support your slave ! Listen to the cry of religion, Mathalka. Eat up the unclean 1 Make no delay ! Now devour them, And that quickly, Ghormatkalka. The words in italics are various names of the goddess Devee or Deva, the destroyer.' from guns' to which the records of the mutiny habituated English newspaper readers. An officer stationed at Jubbulpoor at the time, after noticing the complicity of these two guilty men, describes the execution in a brief but painfully vivid way. ' At the head of the conspiracy was Shunker Shah, the Gliond rajah, and his son. Their place of abode is about four miles from Jubbulpoor. In former days this family ruled over all this part of the country ; they can trace their descent for sixty generations. The family had been deprived of everything by the Mahrattas, and were in great poverty when we took possession. Our govern- ment raised them up from this state, and gave them sufficient to support themselves comfortably ; and now they shewed their gratitude by conspiring against us in our time of sore trial. The family have neither much property nor power, but the ancient name and prestige was a point on which to rally On the 18th, at 11 o'clock a.m., our two guns were advanced a few hundred yards in front of the Residency, covered by a company of the 33d and a few troopers, and it became known that the Ghond rajah and his son were about to be blown away from the cannon's mouth. The old man walked up to the guns with a firm stride ; the son appeared more dejected. The old man, with his snow-white hair and firm manner, almost excited compassion ; and one had to remember, before such feelings could be checked, how atrociously he intended to deal with us had his conspiracy succeeded ; the evidence of his guilt was overwhelming. All was over in a few minutes. The scattered remains were pounced upon by kites and vultures, but what could bo collected was handed over to the ranee.' Although Lieutenant Clark was thus enabled, by mingled caution and decision, to frustrate the atrocious plot of which Jubbulpoor was to have been the theatre, he could not prevent the mutiny of the 52d native regiment. That corps revolted, albeit without perpetrating the cruelties and rapine intended. It was on the 18th that this rising took place, the troops at once marching off quietly towards Dumoh. One old subadar they tied on a horse, because he did not wish to join, and because they did not choose to leave him behind. It was supposed that the 52d had gone towards Dumoh, to capture guns there, and then return to plunder Jubbulpoor. Two days before this, namely, on the 16th, the greater part of the 50th regiment Bengal infantry threw off allegiance. Being stationed at Nagode, they suddenly rose, released the prisoners from the jail, burned the bungalows, and rendered the place no longer safe for Europeans. Mr Ellis and the other civilians fled to Paunna, while Colonel Hampton and the other military officers made their escape towards Jokhie leaving every vestige of their property behind, except the clothes on their backs. Two companies of the regiment, remaining faith- ful, accompanied their officers safely to Mirzapore, a journey which occupied them twelve days. MINOR CONFLICTS: SEPTEMBER AND OCTOBER. 547 The Europeans at Dumoh, a civil station on the road from Saugor to Jubbulpoor, were thrown into much tribulation by news of these mutinies at other places. When both the 50th and 52d regiments had ' gone' a term that acquired much significance in India at that time Major oe, chief-commissioner of the Saugor and Nerbudda territories, who happened to be at Dumoh, summoned a council of war on the 20th of September, to consider what was best to be done. It was resolved that Dumoh could not long be held against any considerable body of mutineers ; and that advantago should bo taken of the temporary presence of a column of Madras native troops to employ that column as an escort for the civilians and the Company's treasure from Dumoh to Jubbulpoor. There was a detachment of the still faithful 31st at Dumoh ; and this was sent to join the main body of the regiment at i , to be out of the way of temptation from mutinous sepoys. This convoy of men and money from Dumoh mart military encounter. The Madras movable column which afforded the required protection numbered about 600 men of all arms, under Colonel Miller. Leaving Dumoh on the i2 1st, and being much obstructed in passing the river Nowtah, Colonel Miller reached Sigramporc on the 26th ; where he heard that the main body of the mutineers were at Konee, on the banks of a river which the column would need to cross on its way to .Jubbulpoor. The colonel at onco despatched a force of about 100 men, under Lieutenant Watson, to secure the boats on the river ; but the enemy baffled this officer, who had much difficulty in preferring his men. Miller then advanced with his whole column, met the enemy, and fought a brief but decisive battle, which ended in the utter rout of the rebel sepoys. If it had been a purely military affair, the colonel was strong enough to defeat a more numerous body of the enemy ; but he was hampered by the ice of civilians, treasure, and 120 sepoys of i I. who had been disarmed at Dumoh on news of the revolt of the main body, and whom it was necessary to take with the column. It was, indeed, a strange state of things ; for the disarmed men were of course eager enough to rush over and join their companions of the same regiment. It is not matter for censure if men placed in authority at different stations, in time of peril, tonally differed concerning the relative import- ance of those stations. Thus, when the 50th and iments mutinied, a question arose which principal city, Saugor or Jubbulpoor, should be regarded as a last stronghold in the event of the b being nearly overpowered. Major Erskine, at Jubbulpoor, urged the claims of that city, as having certain facilities for the receipt of reinforce- . should such happily bo afforded ; and as having many European women and children with- in the fort, who could not be removed without danger. Brigadier Sage, on the other hand, urged ' Whatever you do, let me retain Saugor. It is the key to Central India. It has a good fort and magazine. It is provisioned for six or eight months for three hundred men, and has thirty thousand maunds of grain in addition. It has a siege-train, which will fall into the hands of the enemy if we leave the place. It contains 170 women and children, who could not be withdrawn without danger.' In such or similar words was the retention of Saugor advocated. The discussion happily ended by both towns being retained. Those officials of the Company, military or civil, Who resolutely fortified, instead of abandoning their positions, were in most instances rewarded with success unless the enemy were in unusually overwhelming force. Nearly all parts of the Saugor and Nerbudda territories were in wild confusion at the close of September. The Kamptee column of Madras troops had, as we have just seen, broken up the 52d mutineers ; but still those rebels lay concealed in jungles, ready for mischief whenever an oppor- tunity might offer; while- the Madrasses, distracted by many applications from different quarters, had been unable to prevent the mutinous 60th ment, at Nagode, from marching off to join the Dinapoor mutineers near Banda. At Saugor, Brigadier Sage and the British were safe, because they were in a strong and well-provisioned fort, and l)ecauso the 31st native infantry exhibited no signs of disaffection ; nevertheless the whole country around was in the hands of rebellious chieftains. On one occasion he sent out the greater part of his force to attack the Rajah of Bankipore at Nurriowlee, ten miles from Saugor; but the attack was unskilfully made it failed, and greatly lowered British prestige in the neighbourhood. As in September, so in October ; these provinces were held by a very slender tie. Nearly all the chiefs of Bundelcund, on the border, were ready to rise in rebellion at news of any discomfiture of the British. Numerous thakoors had risen, and, with their followers, were plundering the villages in every direction. At Jubbulpoor, Hosungabad, Nursingpore, Jaloun, Jhansi, Saugor, Mundlah, Dumoh, there was scarcely an English soldier; and the presence of a few hundred Madras troops alone stood between the authorities and frightful anarchy. Indeed, Jaloun, Jhansi, and Dumoh were out of British hands altogether. The com- missioner of Nagpoor was unable to send up any more Madrasses from the south ; Mr Grant was unable to send any from Benares ; the independ- ent and half-distrusted state of Rewah lay on one border ; the thoroughly rebellious state of Banda on another and thus Major Erskine looked with gloomy apprehensions on the fate of the provinces under his charge. As the month drew to a close, his accounts were still more dismal. In one letter he said : ' The mass of native chiefs disbelieve in the existence of a British army ; and nothing but the presence of troops among them will convince them of their error.' Again and again were such 348 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. messages and representations sent to Viscount Canning, as chief authority in India ; again and again did he announce that he had no British troops to spare. To Major Erskine's letters he replied that he ' must say broadly and plainly that he would consider the sacrifice of the ganison in Lucknow as a far greater calamity and reproach to the government than an outbreak of the Rewah or Bundelcund states, even if followed by rebellion and temporary loss of our authority in our own territories on the Nerbudda.' At the close of the month, Koer Singh and the Dinapoor mutineers were somewhere between Banda and Calpee ; while Captain Osborne one of the most remark- able men whom the Indian Revolt brought into notice still maintained his extraordinary position at Rewah. We pass now further to the west to the cities and towns on the Jumna river, and to the regions of Central India between that river and Bombay. Here, little need detain us until we come to Agra. Futtehpoor, Cawnpore, and Futteghur, though not in Oude, were on its frontier, and were involved in the fortunes of that province. Captain Peel's movements with his naval brigade, in the Doab, may be left for treatment in connection with the affairs of Lucknow. Agra experienced a loss early in September, in the death of John Russell Colvin, the lieutenant- governor of the Northwest Provinces. He fell from sickness, brought on mainly by the intense anxieties arising out of his position. He was a remarkable man, a true specimen of those civilians developed into usefulness by the unique policy of the East India Company. In England a public man becomes a statesman through a multitude of minor and exceptional causes ; in India, under the Company's 'raj,' statesmen were educated professedly and designedly for their work. In England, we have seen the same statesman trans- ferred from the Exchequer to the India Board, and from thence to the Admiralty, as if the same kind of knowledge were required for all three situations ; in India, the statesman's education bore more close relation to the duties of the offices he was likely to fill. No defects in the Company's government, no evils arising out of ' traditional policy,' no favouritism or nepotism can blot out the fact that the system brought out the best qualities of the men in their service. Well will it be if the imperial government, in future ages, is served so faithfully, skilfully, and ener- getically in India as the Company's government, during the last half-century, has been served by the Malcolms, Metcalfes, Munros, Birds, Thom- asons, Elphins tones, Montgomerys, Outrams, Law- rences, and ColVins most of them civilians, whose apprenticeship to Indian statesmanship began almost from boyhood. Mr Colvin, whose death has suggested the above few remarks, had seen as much political service as almost any man in India. He was born in Calcutta, the son of a merchant engaged in the Calcutta trade. After receiving his education in England, and carrying off high honours at Haileybury, he went to India in the Company's service in 1826 ; and for thirty-one years was seldom free from public duties, mostly special and local. The num- ber of offices he served in succession was remark- ably large. He was assistant to the registrar of the Sudder Court at Calcutta ; assistant to the British resident at Hyderabad ; assistant-secretary in the revenue and judicial department at Calcutta .; secre- tary to the Board of Revenue in the Lower Pro- vinces ; private secretary to Goveraor-general Lord Auckland ; British resident in Nepaul ; commis- sioner of the Tenasserim provinces ; judge of the Sudder Court ; and lastly, lieutenant-governor of the Northwest Provinces ruler over a territory containing as many inhabitants as the United King- dom of Great Britain and Ireland. All these offices he filled in succession, and the first eight qualified him for the onerous duties of the ninth and last. Throughout the mutiny, the only point on which Mr Colvin differed from Viscount Canning was in the policy of the proclamation issued on the 25th of May. It was at the time, and will ever remain, a point fairly open to discussion, whether Colvin's proclamation* was or was not too lenient towards the rebellious sepoys. If Canning's decision par- took more of that of John Lawrence, it is equally certain that Colvin's views were pretty nearly shared by Henry Lawrence, in the early stages of the mutiny. Irrespective of this question of the proclamation, Colvin's position at Agra was one of painful difficulty. He was not so successful as Sir John Lawrence in the Punjaub, and his name has not found a place among the great men whom the mutiny brought into notice ; but it would be unfair to leave unnoticed the circumstances which paralysed the ruler of Agra. A distinguished civilian, who knew both Colvin and Lawrence, and who has written under the assumed name of ' Indophilus,' thus compares the position of the two men : ' Colvin, with a higher official position, had less real command over events than his neighbour in the Punjaub. John Lawrence ruled a people who had for generations cherished a religious and political feud with the people of Hindostan Proper ; and Delhi was, in Sikh estimation, the accursed city drunk with the blood of saints and martyrs. John Colvin's government was itself the focus of the insurrection. Lawrence may be said to have been his own commander-in-chief ; and after a European force had been detached to Delhi immediately on the outbreak, he still had at his disposal seven European regiments, including the one sent from Bombay to Moultan, besides Euro- pean artillery and a local Sikh force of about 20,000 first-rate irregulars of all arms. Colvin was merely the civil governor of the Northwest Provinces ; and as the posts (daks) Avere stopped, he could not even communicate with the commander-in-chief, with whom the entire disposal of the military See p. 111. 350 THE REVOLT IN INDIA : 1857. force rested. Lawrence had three days' exclusive knowledge by telegraph of what had taken place at Meerut and Delhi, during which interval he made his arrangements for disarming the sepoy regiments stationed in the Punjaub. Colvin had no warning ; and the military insurrection had actually broken out within his government, and the mutineers were in possession of Delhi, before he could begin to act ; but he promptly and vigor- ously did what was in his power.' We have seen in former chapters what course Mr Colvin adopted between May and August.* He opened communi- cations with the authorities all around him, as soon as lie knew that the mutiny had begun ; he disarmed the 44th and 67th native infantry on the 1st of June ; he raised a corps of volunteer horse for service in the neighbourhood ; he organ- ised a foot-militia among the civilians and traders, for the protection of the city ; and he kept a close watch on the proceedings of the Gwalior mutineers, In July occurred the mutiny of the troopers of the Kotah Contingent; then the ill-managed battle outside Agra on the 5th ; then tho shutting up of Mr Colvin and six thousand persons within the fort ; and then the passing of two weary months, during which the lieutenant-governor was power- less through his inability to obtain trusty troops from any quarter whatever. His health and spirits failed, and he died on the 9th of September still hemmed within the Avails of the fort at Agra. Mr Reade, the leading civilian, assumed authority until orders could be received from Calcutta ; Colonel Frazer afterwards received tho appoint- ment not of lieutenant-governor of the Northwest Provinces, for that government had by this time disappeared under the force of the mutiny but of chief-commissioner at Agra. Viscount Canning, in a government order, gracefully and properly acknowledged the merits of Mr Colvin.f The Europeans resident in Agra, after Mr Colvin's decease, were still unable to liberate themselves ; for Delhi had not yet fallen, nor had English prestige been yet restored by Have- lock's success at Lucknow. The English officers felt their enforced idleness very irksome. They, * Chap. Til., pp. 109-111. Chap, x., pp. 173, 174. Chap, xvii., pp. 282-286. t 'It is the melancholy duty of tho Right Honourable the Governor-general in Council to announce the death of the Honour- able John Kussell Colvin, the lieutenant-governor of the North- west Provinces. 4 Worn by the unceasing anxieties and labours of his charge, which placed him in the very front of the dangers by which of late India has been threatened, health and strength gave way; and" the Governor-general in Council has to deplore with sincere grief the loss of one of the most distinguished among the servants of the East India Company. ' The death of Mr Colvin has occurred at a time when his ripe experience, his high ability, and his untiring energy would have been more than usually valuable to the state. ' But his career ciid not close before he had won for himself a high reputation in each of the various branches of administration to which he was at different times attached, nor until he had been worthily selected to All the highest position in Northern India; and he leaves a name which not friends alone, but all who have been associated with him in the duties of government, and all who may follow in his path, will delight to honour. ' The Right Honourable the Governor-general in Council directs that the flag shall' be lowered half-mast high, and that 17 minute- guns shall bo fired at the seats of government in India upon the receipt of the present notification.' like all the other Europeans, Avere confined within the fort ; no daring military exploits could be looked forward to hopefully, because there Avere scarcely any troops to command. For three months the Gwalior mutineers had been their bete noir, their object of apprehension, as being powerful and not far distant. They occa- sionally heard news from Gwalior, but of too uncertain a nature to satisfy their doubts. Early in September one of the officers wrote : ' A portion of tho rebel army of Gwalior has marched ; but their intentions are not yet knoAvn. They still say they are coming to turn us out of the fort, and perform all sorts of gallant deeds. Had they come at first, they Avould have given us a good deal of trouble, as Ave Avere not prepared for a siege guns not mounted, magazines not shell-proof, provisions not in sufficient quantity, and (Avorst of all) tAvo thousand Avomen and children without any pro- tection from tho enemy's fire. All this is noAv being rapidly remedied, and iioav we could stand a siege with comfort. One of the greatest Avants is that of tobacco ; the soldiers have none ; and few men knoAv so Avell as they do the comfort of a pipe after a hard day's work, Avhcther under a broiling sun or in drenching rain.' The British officers at Agra Avere embittered by becoming acquainted with tho fact, that many influential natives now in rebellion Avere among those Avho made the most fervent demonstrations of loyalty Avhen the mutiny first began. Of the affairs of Delhi Ave shall speak presently. MeanAvhile, it may be avcII to describe the move- ments of a distinct corps, having its origin in the capture of that city. Although General Wilson seized all the gates and buildings of the imperial city one by one, he could not prevent the escape of the mutineers from the southern gate, the opposite to that Avherc the siege-Avorks had been carried on. By the 21st of September, when the conquest Avas completed, large bodies of the rebels Avero far away, on their march to other scenes of struggle. The chief body marched down the right bank of the Jumna on the Muttra road, Avith the intention of crossing over into the Doab. Brigadier ShoAvers Avas sent with a force to pursue another body of rebels in another direction; but the operations now under notice Avere those of the column under Colonel E. II. Grcathed (of H.M. 8th foot), organised at Delhi on the 23d of September about 3000 strong* Starting on the 24th, Greathed crossed the Jumna, and marched toAvards Bolundshuhur. Here a body of fugitive mutineers Avas encountered on the 28th. A sharp action ensued, which ended in the flight of the enemy, H.M. 8th foot. H.M. 75th foot. 2d Punjaub infantry. 4th n n H.M. 9th Lancers. 1st Punjaub cavalry. 2d ;/ i/ 5th II ir Two troops horse artillery. Light field-battery. Pearson's 9-pounder battery. MINOR CONFLICTS : SEPTEMBER AND OCTOBER, 351 leaving behind them two guns and much ammuni- tion. As a consequence of this defeat, a newly set-up rajah, one "Waladad Khan, abandoned the fort of Malagurh, and fled. It was in the blowing- up of this fort, by order of the colonel, that Lieutenant Home, who had so distinguished him- self at the storming of the Cashmere Gate, was killed. One of his brother-officers said in a letter : ' The loss of poor Homo has thrown a cloud over all our successes. lie was brave among brave men, and an honour to our service.' Greathcd advanced day after day, burning villages which were known to have been nests of insurgents. In ono of those places, Koorjah, he found the skeleton of a European woman, the head cut off, and the hacked and cut. On the 5th of October, the column reached Allygurh, scoured through the town, and cut up a largo body of rebels, taking eleven guns from them. Greathcd was at Akerabad the next day, where Mungal Bingh and his brother had raised the standard of rebellion; but these chieftains were killed, as well as most of their retainers. On the 9th, he reaehed Ilattrass. At this place his movements were suddenly distur bed ; he had intended to march down the Doab to aid Havelock, Outram, and Inglis; but now news from Agra reached him that led to a change of plan. To understand this, attention must be turned to the state of affairs in tho Mahratta ions of Scindia, the northern boundary of which approached very near A From the day when Scindia' s Gwalior Contingent :.i mutiny against British authority, on tho 11th of June, nothing but the personal faithfulness India himself prevented tho mutineers from joining their compatriots at Delhi or elsewhere. Every British officer being driven away from Gwalior, the powerful army forming tho Contin- gent might easily have made itself master of all that part of the Mahratta dominions; but Scindia, by a remarkable exercise of steadiness and shrewd- kept them near him. lie would not make himself personally an enemy to them; neither, on the other hand, would he express approval of their act of mutiny. He still remained their paymaster, and held his power over them partly by keeping their pay in arrear. All through the months of July and August did this singular state of affairs continue. A few detachments of the Contingent had marched off from other stations, but the main body remained quiet. The Indore mutineers from Holkar's Contingent had for some time been encamped near them at Gwalior, much n Sciudia's inclination. Early in September the two boilies disagreed concerning future plans tho Indore men wishing to speed to Delhi, the Gwalior men to Cawnpore. Some of the maha- rajah'l own troops, distinct from the Contingent, were seduced from their allegiance by the Indore men, and marched off with them on the 5th, with seven guns and a good store of ammuni- tion. Some of the budmashes or vagabonds of Gwalior joined them; but tho Gwalior Contingent proper still remained quiet near that city. This quietness, however, did not promise to be of long continuance. On the 7th, the native officers went to Scindia, and demanded from him food and conveyance for a march either to Agra or to Cawnpore. The maharajah's response not being satisfactory to them, they began to seize oxen, buffaloes, mules, horses, camels, and carts from the neighbouring villagers, and a few elephants from the richer men. Some violence against Scindia himself appeared probable; but he found the main body of his own little army disposed to remain faithful, and hence the Contingent had little inducement to attack him. The landowners in the neighbourhood offered to aid him with their retainers, thus lessening the danger to which he might otherwise have been exposed. About tho middlo of the month a fierce struggle seemed imminent ; but Scindia and his supporters continued firm, and the Contingent did not for some time attempt any manoeuvre likely to be serious to the British. "Wo can therefore follow the steps of the other army of mischief-workers. When the miscellaneous body of Indore mutineers, Gwalior traitors, and budmashes left G walior, they proceeded towards the river Chumbul, which they crossed on the 7th of September, and then took possession of the fort of Dholporc, a place about thirty miles from Agra at the point where tho trunk-road from Delhi to Bombay crosses the Chumhul, and therefore a very importaut spot in n to any arrival of reinforcements for the British. In that very week the final bombard- ment of Delhi began; and if the mutineers had marched thither, they might seriously have embar- rassed General V/ilson's operations. They appear,