A HISTORY OF THE INDIAN MUTINY
A HISTORY
OF
THE INDIAN MUTINY
AND OF
THE DISTURBANCES WHICH ACCOMPANIED IT
AMONG THE CIVIL POPULATION
BY
T. RICE HOLMES
FIFTH EDITION
REVISED THROUGHOUT AND SLIGHTLY ENLARGED
WITH FIVE MAPS AND SIX PLANS
ILontiou
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1904
All rights reserved
VMS
First four editions published elsewhere.
Fifth edition (revised) printed for MacmiUan & Co., 189S.
Reprinted 1904.
PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION
About two years ago Messrs. Macmillan agreed, at my
request, to take over the publication of this history ; and it
appeared to me that the time had come for thoroughly
revising the whole book. In June, 1896, before the re-
vision had proceeded far, the fourth edition was exhausted :
but, altliough it was certain that a considerable time must
elapse before the work could be finished, the publishers
thought that it would be unwise to print any more copies
from the old plates ; and indeed it would have been
hardly fair to offer intending purchasers a reprint while I
was trying to make the book better worth buying. The
structure of the work remains unchanged ; and only such
alterations have been made as appeared necessary. Wher-
ever I could detect an inaccuracy, I have corrected it :
wherever the narrative of military operations was deficient
in lucidity, I have tried to amend it. I have struck out a
few superfluous sentences, have added what, to my appre-
hension, was wanting, and have modified judgements which,
on reconsideration, appeared misleading or unfair. Among
the more important alterations and additions are those
which relate to the Afghan war, the battle of Sacheta and
the events which led up to it, the battle of Chinhat, the
defence of the Lucknow Eesidency, Havelock's campaign.
Lord Canning's Oudh proclamation and the vexed question
of Sir Colin Campbell's responsibility for the protraction of
the war. On the whole, the text is enlarged by about
PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION
twenty pages ; and several new appendices have also been
written.
I am sincerely grateful to Sir Henry Havelock-Allan,
Sir William Olpherts, General McLeod Innes, Colonel de
Kantzow, and many other officers who, in response to my
queries, have given me valuable information. Lord Roberts
kindly lent me, through the medium of Sir Alfred Lyall,
the revised proof-sheets of the first volume of his Forty-one
Years in India ; and Colonel Vibart, with equal kindness,
allowed me to read the revised sheets of his new volume,
Richard Baird Smith.
11 DouRO Place,
Kensington, W.
November 4, 1897.
Note. — With reference to the statement on page 101, that
the Treasury Guard at Meerut " remained faithful to their
trust" (which is virtually identical with a statement in Kaye's
History of the Sepoy War, vol. ii., 4th ed., 1880, p. 61), I have
been informed by Mrs. Muter that her husband, Captain (now
Colonel) Muter, of the 60th Rifles, "hearing of the mutiny of
the sepoys, instantly on his own responsibility despatched a
company of the Rifles to preserve the treasury and the records,
who arrived just as the native guard had turned out, irresolute
what course to take. Lieutenant Austin, halting his com-
pany in their front, ordered them to ground arms, and locked
them up."
Decemler 6, 1903.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
Those who may open this book will not, I think, complain
that it is wanting in detail or in that element of personal
adventure which could not properly be excluded from a
History of the Indian Mutiny. But it does not profess to
give a minute account of what took place at every station
and in every district in India during the struggle. A
narrative minute enough, in most of its chapters, to satisfy
the most curious reader has already been given to the
world by Sir John Kaye and Colonel Malleson; and there
is nothing to justify any one in undertaking to write another
book on the subject on the same scale as that which they
adopted. The history of the Mutiny, like every other
history, must indeed be told in detail, if it is to hold the
interest of readers : but, while the narrator of recent events
is expected to give a full account of all that are interesting
in themselves, the writer who appears later in the field
ought to reserve his detailed narrative for events of
historical importance. There is, I am sure, room for a
book which, while giving a detailed narrative of the chief
campaigns, of the stirring events that took place at the
various centres of revolt, and of every episode the story of
which can permanently interest the general reader, and a
more summary account of incidents of minor importance,
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
should aim at completing the solution of the real historical
problems connected with the Mutiny. I am only too
conscious how far my performance of this task falls below
the standard which I have set myself. Still, I hope that
my attempt may be of use. The whole truth about any
period of history is never known until many workers have
sought for it ; and it is possible that a writer who has
derived almost all his information from original sources may
succeed in throwing light upon neglected aspects of his
subject, and in gaining the attention of some who have
hitherto known nothing of one of the most interesting
chapters of their national history. Though this book is so
much shorter than those which have preceded it, my object
has not been to write a short history or a popular history,
in the ordinary sense of the term, but simply to write the
best history that I could ; to record everything that was
worthy to be remembered ; to enable readers to understand
what sort of men the chief actors in the struggle were, and
to realise what they and their comrades and opponents did
and suffered ; and to ascertain what were the causes of the
Mutiny, and how the civil population of India bore them-
selves during its progress.
As I have found myself unable to agree, on certain
points, with Sir John Kaye and Colonel Malleson, it is the
more incumbent on me to say that, if their books had never
appeared, the difficulty which I have felt in finding my way
through the tangled maze of my materials would have been
greatly increased. In some cases, I am indebted solely to
those books for information which I might have found it
hard to get elsewhere. To students of military history
Colonel Malleson's work will always be indispensable.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
In the last appendix' I have given a short critical
account of the authorities which I have used.
In conclusion, I desire to express my gratitude to those
who have helped me by answering queries, or by allowing
me to read private letters or manuscripts.
October 8, 188^
Note. — A few slight alterations and additions, based partly
upon notes sent to me by readers who had served in the Mutiny,
were made in the second edition, and are referred to in the
preface to that edition. Some of the few items of information
for which I was indebted to the works of Sir John Kaye and
Colonel Malleson I have since verified from original sources.
Others are contained in letters or memoranda from which they
gave extracts.
GLOSSAKY
[Words explained in the text are not given here. Nor are those which
occur once only in the text, as they aru explained in footnotes. The
words given below have also been explained in footnotes, but are brought
together for the convenience of readers.]
BUEESTY .
Water-carrier.
Baniya .
Grain-dealer or money-lender
Dacoity .
Gang- robbery.
Jamadar .
Native lieutenant.
Lines
Long rows of huts in which
sepoys lived.
Nullah .
A small stream or ditch.
Raj .
Government.
Ry'ot
Peasant-cultivator.
SUBAHDAR
Native captain.
Tahsildar
Native revenue-collector.
TULV^'AR .
Native sword.
Vakil
Agent, or man of business.
LIST OF MAPS AND PLANS
Map of North- Western and Central India . to face, page 1
Battle of Cawnpore (July 16, 1857) . . . ,, 290
Battle of Najafgarh .^ 367
Delhi ••....... ' 382
Battle of Cawnpore (Dec. 6, 1857) . '. . ',', 417
Lttcknow ...... " 44g
Map of North-Eastern India .... " 460
Indoke ' " ^SO
Map of India r;o2
Map of Gwalior and its Environs . '. \ " .537
Map to illustrate the Pursuit of Tantia'topi '' f,4i
iVori'.— As it was necessary to print separate maps of North- Western and
Worth-Eastern India, in order to avoid having a map too large for easy reference
1 have given a small map of the whole of India as well, which illustrates especiallv
chapters .\iii.-xv.
XIV
CONTENTS
PAGE
PAGE
EUenborough's dealings with
Administration of the Punjab
33
Siudhia. ....
29
Lord Dalhousie's annexation
His recall .....
30
policy ....
34
The Sikhs
30
Conquest of Pegu
37
First Sikh war ....
30
Annexation of Oudh .
37
Sir Henry Hardinge tries to
Inani Commission
40
maintain the native govern-
Case of the Nana Sahib
41
ment of the Punjab
31
Dalhousie's civilising measures
41
Henry Lawrence in the Punjab .
31
Review of the efi'ects of the first
Second Sikh war
31
century of British rule .
42
Annexation of the Punjab.
32
CHAPTER II
The Sepoy Army
Origin of the sepoy army .
Qualities of the sepoys tested
Idiosyncrasies of Bengal sepoys .
Golden age of the se^^oy army .
The first mutinies
Numbers of European officers
increased. Powers of native
officers diminished .
The reorganisation of 1796
Vexatious orders issued to the
Madras army ....
The mutiny at Vellore and its
results .....
Advantages enjoyed by the se-
poys
The best officers seduced i'rom
their regiments by the pro-
spect of staff employ
Powers of commandants dimin-
ished
General order of 1824
The tragedy at Barrackpore
47
48
49
49
50
51
52
52
53
53
54
54
Pecuniarj' allowances of officers
reduced .....
Abolition of corporal punishment
Bad effects of the Afghan war .
Deterioration of discipline .
Interference with the sepoys' pay
A succession of mutinies .
Sir Charles Napier's dispute with
Lord Dalhousie
Dalhousie baulked by a native
reginrent ....
Dalhousie and the multitude of
counsellors ....
Radical defects of the Bengal
army .....
The vital question
Disproportion between the num-
bers of European and native
troops
Reforms urged by Dalhousie
The native army on the eve of
Lord Canning's amval .
55
55
55
56
56
56
57
60
60
60
62
63
64
65
CHAPTER III
FiKST Ykar of Lord Canning's Rule — Outbreak of
THE Mutiny
Resignation of Dalhousie. His
character and jilace among
Anglo-Indian rulers . . 66
Lord Canning . . . .67
The Sujtreme Council
Affairs of Oudh .
The Moulvi
Persian war
69
72
72
CONTENTS
XV
Treaties with Dost Mahomed
•General Service Enlistment Act
Grievances of the sepoys .
Rumoured designs of Govern-
ment against caste and
religion ....
The greased cartridge
Action of Government
Colonel Mitchell and the 19th
Native Infantry
General Hearscy and the 34 th
Mungul Pandy .
Disbanding of the 19th
Delay of Canning in punishing
the 34th
How he acted, and how he ought
to have acted
Excitement at Umballa
Incendiarism
The bone-dust fable .
The chapatties .
"* Excitement at Delhi .
Nana Sahila's tour
Henry Lawi'ence tries to heal
discontent in Oudh
Canning hopes that quiet
returning
PAGE
73
76
77
77
79
82
83
84
85
87
87
87
88
89
89
90
90
91
92
Disbandment of the 34th. Com-
ments of the sepoys . . 94
Mutiny at Lucknow . . .94
Opinions of Canning and his
counsellors thereon . . 96
Meerut 96
Delhi 104
Action of Canning . . .112
Action of General Anson, the
Commander-in-Chief . . 113
His difficulties . . . .114
Barnes and Forsyth support him 115
Loyalty of Cis-Sutlej chiefs . 115
Panic at Simla .... 116
Correspondence of Anson with
Canning and John Lawrence . 117
Hodson's ride .... 118
Anson's plan of campaign . .118
His death and character . . 118
General Barnard marches for
Delhi 119
The British at Meerut. Anarcliy
in the districts . . .120
Battles on the Hindan . . 121
Wilson joins Barnard . . 123
Battle of Badli-ki- Serai . . 124
93 I The British encamp before Delhi 125
CHAPTER IV
The North-Westkrn Provinces, Cwalior, and Rajputana
The North-Western Provinces
John Colvin
Agra. ....
Policy of Colvin
Mutinies in the Doiib
Colvin's proclamation
Drummond
Disarming at Agra .
Preparation of the fort for defence
Colvin's efforts to restore order
Muzaffarnagar .
Saharanpur
Rohilkhand
Shahjahanpiu- .
Bareilly ....
Khan Bahadur Khan.
Budaun ....
Moradabad
Rohilkhand under Mahomedan
rule
127
128
128
129
130
131
132
132
132
133
133
134
134
134
135
137
137
137
137
Farukhabad ....
Siege of Fatehgarh .
Character of the mutinies and
disturbances in the North-
Western Provinces.
Gwalior, Sindhia, Dinkar Rao,
and Macpherson
Folly of the Brigadier at Gwalior,
and O)' Colvin
Mutiny at Gwalior .
Macpherson persuades Sindliia to
keep his troops inactive at
Gwalior. ....
Rajputana ....
George Lawrence
His proclamation
Colvin and Lieutenant Carnell
secure Ajmere
Mutinies at Nusseerabad and
Neemuch ....
138
138
141
144
146
147
148
148
149
150
150
151
CONTENTS
Shortcomings of Colvin, His
miseries. He tries to do his
duty ..... 151
He removes the ■women and
children at Agra into the fort 153
The provisional council . .153
Battle of Sacheta . . . 155
The British forced to retire into
the fort . , . . . 156
Life in the fort .... 158
Corres])ondence of Macpherson
with Sindhia .... 159
Exploits of Dunlop . . .160
Death of Colviu . . . 161
CHAPTER V
Canning's Policy : Events at Calcutta
Canniugfails to realise thegravity \
of the crisis . . . . 162 j
He rejects the offers of the Cal-
cutta volunteers, and refuses to ;
disarm the sepoys at Barrack- |
pore and Dinapore. . .163
He plays fast and loose with
Jang Bahadur . . .166
Offers of the volunteers accepted 167
The Gagging Act . . .168
Disarming at Barrackpore, Cal-
cutta, and Dum-Dum . . 170
Panic Sunday .... 170
Arrest of the King of Oudh . 171
Sir Patrick Grant . . .172
Gloomy announcements . . 173
The Clemency Order . . .173
The Arms Act . . . . 174
Canning refuses to establish
martial law in Bengal . .174
Arrival of Outram, Peel, and Sir
Colin Campbell . . .175
Review of the first year and a half
of Canning's administration . 175
CHAPTER VI
Bengal and Western Behar
Macdonald at Rohni . . .177
Halliday and Tayler . . . 177
Dangerous situation of the Patna
Division . . . .179
Resources of Tayler . . .179
His early measures . . .180
Patna 180
The 7th of June at Patna . .181
Affairs in the districts . .181
Halliday will not believe that
Patna is in danger . . . 182
Tayler in vain urges General
Lloyd to disann . . .182
His measures for the preserva-
tion of order . . . .182
Conspiracy and sedition . . 184
The nativeswho .supported Tayler 185
Red tape 186
Major Holmes . . , .186
Sliall the Dinapore sepoys be
disarmed? . . . .187
JIutiny at Dinapore . . .189
Kunwar Singh .... 190
Siege of Arrali .... 191
Dunbar's expedition for the relief
ofArrah . . . .192
The garrison of Arrah still holds
out 194
Vincent Eyre . . . .195
He resolves to relieve Arrah . 196
Battle of Gujrajganj . . . 197
Arrah relieved . . . .198
Eyre follows -ap his success . 198
Dangers which encomj)assed
Tayler after Dunbar's failure . 200
His withdrawal order . . 201
How Lautoiu- and Jloney acted
upon it . . . . . 201
CONTENTS
xvii
PAGE
Review of Tayler's conduct . 203
Halliday dismisses Tayler . . 203
Subsequent conduct of Halliday 204
Nemesis ....
Tayler's struggle for redress
PAGE
205
206
CHAPTER VII
Benares and Allahabad
The line between Calcut
ta and
Delhi .
. 208
Benares
. 208
Frederic Gubbius
. 210
Tucker
. 210
Mutiny at Azamgarh
. 210
James Neill
. 211
How he dealt with the railway
officials at Calcutta
. 211
He arrives at Benares
. 212
The crisis 212
Mutiny at Jaunpur. Anarchy
in the districts . . .214
Allahabad .... 215
The mutiny and its consequences 217
Brasyer saves the fort . .218
Neill arrives and restores order . 219
The cholera . . . .221
AVhat Neill had done, and what
he hoped to do . . . 221
CHAPTER Vm
Cawnpore
Cavvnpore ..... 223
Sir Hugh Wheeler . . . 224
His selection of a place of refuge 225
Reinforcements arrive . . 225
The treasury placed under the
charge of the Nana Sahib . 226
The agony of suspense . . 226
The mutiny . . . .227
The siege 229
The capitulation . . . 236
The massacre on the Ganges . 237
Pursuit of the fugitives . . 238
The Nana proclaimed Peshwa . 240
The Beebeegurh . . .241
Last act of the tragedy of Cawn-
pore 242
CHAPTER IX
LUCKNOW AND THE OUDH DISTRICTS HaVELOCk's CAMPAIGN
Anxiety of Canning for Oudh . 244
Henry Lawrence . , . 244
How he dealt with the population
and the sepoys . . . 246
The news from Meerut and Delhi
arrives ..... 248
Lucknow ..... 248
Arrangement of the garrison . 249
The Residency and the Machi
Bhawan .... 250
Behaviour of the people of Luck-
now and the sepoys . . 252
Telegram from Cawnpore . . 252
Unselfish exertions of Lawrence 252
Martin Gubbins . . .253
He advises the disarming of the
sepoys. Lawrence rejects the
advice ..... 253
Mutiny of May 30 . . . 254
Condition of Oudli , . . 256
Story of the fugitives from Sita-
pur 257
Mutinies in the districts . . 259
Behaviour of the population . 260
XVlll
CONTENTS
Affairs at Lucknow .
Failing health of Lawrence
The provisional council
The pensioners ....
Mutinies of the military police .
Suggestions of Gubbins
Battle of Chinhat
Commencement of the siege
Death of Lawrence .
Brigadier Inglis
The position which he had to
defend . . . . .
The besieged and the besiegers .
The siege .....
Henry Havelock
He is chosen to command a
column for the relief of Cawn-
pore and Lucknow.
His preparations at Allahabad .
Composition of his column
He marches from Allahabad
Battle of Fatehpur .
Battle of Aung ....
Battle of the Pandu Naddi
Battle of Cawnpore .
Havelock at Cawnpore
]5attle of Undo ....
Battle of Bashiratganj
Havelock obliged to retreat
PAOE
260
261
261
262
262
263
263
267
268
270
270
271
272
279
281
282
283
283
284
285
286
286
290
292
293
294
His correspondence with Neill .
Second battle of Bashiratganj .
Havelock again obliged to retreat
Neill appeals to him for help
Havelock advances again, and
fights another battle
His retreat to Cawnpore and its
effect .....
Battle of Bithiir
Havelock superseded by Outram
Character of Outram .
He goes to join Havelock .
He leaves to Havelock the glory
of relieving Lucknow
Composition of Havelock's aug-
mented army
The passage of the Ganges
Final advance towards Lucknow
Battle of Mangalwar .
Battle of the Alambagh
Havelock's plans for eti'ecting a
junction with thegarrison over-
ruled by Outram .
Feelings of the garrison
Morning of 25th of September .
Advance of the column
Excitement of the garrison
Street-iighting . . . .
The welcome . . . .
PAGE
294
295
296
296
297
297
297
298
299
300
302
302
303
303
303
304
304
305
306
306
307
308
309
CHAPTER X
The Punjab and Delhi
State of the Punjab .
Tne Punjab officers .
John Lawrence
News of the seizure of Delhi
reaches Lahore
The ball at Meean-meer
The disarming parade
Montgomery's circular letter
Measures taken for the safety
of Aniritsar, Pliillaur, and
Kangra
Mutiny at Ferozepore
Achievements of the Punjab
officers on May 13 and 14 . .
Peshawar . . . . .
Herbert Edwardes
311
312
312
313
314
314
315
315
316
317
317
318
Sydney Cotton. General Reed.
Neville Chamberlain . . 318
Council at Peshawar . . . 319
John Nicholson . . .319
Resolutions of the council . . 321
State of the Peshawar Division . 323
Startling revelations . . 323
Measures of Nicholson . . 324
The crisis at Peshawar . . 325
Colonel Spottiswoode . . 326
The story of the 55th . . 326
Ajun Khan and the garrison of
Abazai 328
Policy of Edwardes and Cotton . 328
JuUundur and Ludhiana . . 330
Disarming at Mooltan . . 333
CONTENTS
XIX
General policy of the Punjab
Government .... 333
Behaviour of the people . . 335
The Gis-Sutlej States . . 337
Lawrence's imperial policy . 338
March of the Guides for Delhi . 339
British position before Delhi . 339
Barnard's situation . . . 340
The proposed coup-de-mrdn , 341
Encounters with the enemy . 344
Arrival of Neville Chamberlain
and Baird Smith . . . 345
The British communications en-
dangered .... 346
Disappointments of Barnard . 346
His character .... 347
His death 348
The question of assault reopened 348
Wilson 348
Deeds and sufferings of the
army ..... 349
State of affairs inside Delhi . 352
The Peshawar versus Delhi con-
troversy . . . .354
State of the Punjab . , .358
Jhelum and Sialkot . . . 359
Measures of Montgomery . . 359
Nicholson in command of the
Moveable Column . . . 359
Battles at the Trimmu Ghat . 360
Nicholson marches for Delhi . 361
Cooper and the mutineers of the
26th 362
Edwardes and the capitalists of
Peshawar .... 363
PAOB
Troubles on the border . . 364
Mutiny at Peshawar . . . 364
Syad Amir and the Mohmands . 365
The agony of suspense
Nicholson at Delhi .
Battle of Najafgarh .
When shall the assault be de-
livered ? . . . .
Wilson's address to the army .
Failure of the mutineers to con-
centrate in sufficient strength
upon Delhi ....
The siege .....
Plan of assault ....
Examination of the breaches
Preparations for the assault
Advance of the columns .
Operations of the first and second
columns ....
Of the fourth column and the
cavalry brigade
Attack on the Lahore bastion .
The Kashmir gate
Operations of the third colimin
and the reserve
Results of the day's fighting
The debauch of Sept. 15 .
The exodus ....
Conduct of the British soldiers .
Capture of Delhi completed
Movements of the King
Hodson .....
Hodson and the King
Hodson and the King's sons
Death of Nicholson .
366
366
367
368
369
369
370
372
373
374
374
375
376
378
379
380
380
381
381
381
382
382
382
384
385
388
CHAPTER XI
Later Events in the Punjab — ■ Operations consequent on
THE Fall of Delhi — First Two Campaigns of Sir Colin
Campbell
Insurrection in Murree
Insurrection in Gugera
Greathed's march through the
Doab .....
Battle of Agra ....
Hope Grant appointed to com-
mand Greathed's column
Operations of Van Cortlandt and
Showers ....
390
Retrospect of affairs in Ri'ijpu-
390
tana . . . . .
395
Battle of Narniil
397
391
Affairs at Delhi after its recap-
393
ture . . . . .
397
Results of the fall of Delhi
399
394
Sir Colin Campbell .
Blockade of the Lucknow garri-
400
395
son . . . . .
401
XXIV
CONTENTS
L. Did John Lawrence send the Moveable Column to Delhi
UNDER pressure FROM HIS MILITARY SECRETARY ?
M. The Assault of Delhi
N. HoDSON of Hodson's Horse
0. Brigadier Greathed and the Battle of Agra
P. Was Holkar Loyal during the Indian Mutiny- ? .
Q. Did Sir Robert Hamilton direct Sir Hugh Rose to ' proceed
with the Operations against Jhansi ' ? .
R. General Innes on Sir Hugh Rose
S. The Behaa^our of the Talukdars of Oudh during the
Mutiny
T. Sir Colin Campbell and his Critics ....
U. Alleged Causes of the Mutiny
V. The Authorities on which this Book is based .
W. Discussion on certain Statements challenged by Critics
OF the First Edition and on others which conflict
with the Statements of later "Writers . . . .
588
591
617
619
622
623
624
627
630
632
634
INDEX
639
CHAPTER P
GENERAL SKETCH OF ANGLO-INDIAN HISTORY TO THE END OF
LORD DALHOUSIE'S ADMINISTRATION
Three centuries ago, when the East India Company was still
unformed, a great part of India submitted to the
sway of a Mahomedan prince. This ruler, whose Empire""'
name was Akbar, was the most renowned of the ^^ob.
descendants of Baber, who, early in the sixteenth
century, had swept down from the north-west upon Hindustan,
and founded the Mogul Empire. Unlike Mahomedan con-
querors in the rest of the world, the Moguls respected the
religion of their subjects, and established a government which,
with all its faults, was contentedly accepted by the mass of
^ As I only profess to give in this chapter such an introductory sketch as may
help readers to understand the phenomena of the Indian Mutiny, I have not
tliought it necessary to give specific references to authorities except in a few cases,
where it seemed possible that my statements might be questioned, and for the
much-controverted adudnistration of Dalhousie. The chapter, with the exception
of the part which deals with Dalhousie's adnanistration, is the result of a study,
extending over several years, of the ordinary and some of the less known works
on Anglo-Indian history, and nearly completed before I had conceived the idea of
writing tins book. Those wlio wish to know more about India and Indian history
than this sketcli can tell them, will do well to build up the skeleton of their know-
ledge by studying Hunter's India, its Ilistorij, People, and Products ; and after-
wards to clothe the skeleton with flesh and blood by reading a few good liiographies.
Many articles in the Calcutta Review, the Cormvallis Correspondence, Wellesley's
Dispatches, Malcolm's Political History, Sir John Strachey's India, and Sir
Alfred Lyall's Asiatic Studies, might also be read with profit by those who have
time to spare. What prevents so many people from reading Anglo-Indian history
with interest is that they start in complete ignorance of the way in which tlie
Government was carried on, and of the characteristics of Indian life. Such books
as I have recommended would help to supply the requisite knowledge.
15 B
AXGLO-INDIAN HISTORY TO THE END
tlie governed, and won for the person of the emperor, or
perhaps more truly for the imperial idea, a superstitions
A^eneratiou Avhich had not perished when the Indian Mutiny
broke out. The emperors governed their dominions through
the agency of viceroys, whose provinces were larger than many
European kingdoms, and who, in their turn, gave the law to
inferior rulers. Gradually the boundaries of the empire were
extended until, under Aurano-zeb, it attained its
1658-170". . . . "-' .
farthest limits. Yet it was from his accession
that its decline dated ; for, by a religious bigotry which he had
not learned from his somewhat lax predecessors, he did his
best to alienate his Hindu subjects. The Rajputs rebelled
against the rule to which they had never wholly submitted,
even Avhen it had humoured their religious prejudices. The
Marathas, a race of Hindu freebooters, poured down under
their great leader, Sivaji, from their fastnesses in the western
mountains, and, by the swift and sudden inroads of guerilla
warriors, sapped the strength of the central power. The vice-
roys saw the growing weakness of the successors of Aurang-
zeb, and bastened to secure their independence. The degene-
rate inhabitants of Delhi bowed beneath the
1739
tyranny of the Persian invader, Nadir Shah. The
decline and fall of an earlier and greater empire was re-enacted
in India ; and there too, after the long agony of the night, a
brighter day was to dawn upon the afflicted nations. If the
stor^T- of an empire's decay is full of pathos, even when it has
deserved its fate, the fall of the Mogul, who had ruled more
unselfishly than any other Eastern power, may well claim our
sympathy. Yet he too had sinned ; and his sins had found
him out. Mogul civilisation had been only a splendid mockery ;
and, while the viceroys were emancipating themselves from
control, their own want of union Avas paving the way for the
rise of a people who were to conquer the often -conquered
nations of India once more, but to conquer them for their own
good.
For a century and a half the agents of the East India Com-
pany, which had arisen under Elizabeth, had been
mere traders ; and, now that they were about to
become conquerors, they had no thoughts of the destiny which
lay before them. All unconsciously they began to work c:it the
magnificent idea of foimding a European empire in Asia.
I OF LORD DALHOUSIE'S ADMINISTRATION 3
It was the genius of a Frenchman that had originated this
idea. Dupleix, the Governor of the French settle-
ment of Pondicherry, saw that the disturbed condition tenlpts^o^jbuu.!
of the native pov/ers held out a chance of agfirandise- ^i European em-
■■^ ^Y P^^ "1 India.
ment to a European statesman who would have the
tact to interfere as an ally, and not as a principal ; while he
knew the strength of the instrument which the superior coui'age
and discipline of European troops placed in his hands. In 1748
Nizam-ul-Mulk,^ Viceroy of the Deccan, one of the under kings
who had profited most by the decay of the imperial power, died ;
and rival claimants appeared for the vacant throne. About the
same time a competitor stood forward to dispute the title of the
Nawab of the Carnatic, who had looked up to the late Nizam as
his over-lord. Dupleix saw his opportunity. While he seemed
to be supporting the cause of one pair of pretenders, about whose
rights he did not trouble himself, he easily defeated the feeble
elForts which the English made in self-defence to
uphold their rivals, and made himself master of the
Deccan. Some years before, when the hostilities between France
and England in the war of the Austrian succession had spread to
their settlements in India, Labourdonnais, an unrecognised hero,
had captured the English settlement of Madras, and
impressed the natives of India with a firm belief in '
the military superiority of the French over ourselves. The
successes of Dupleix were strengthening this opinion, when a
young Englishman accomplished a feat of arms which established
his own fame as a commander, and the character of his country-
men as warriors. Tiichinopoly, the only fortress in the Carnatic
that remained in the possession of the Nawab whom the English
supported, was closely invested by the enemy, when Kobert
Clive conceived the plan of diverting their attention
by the seizure of Arcot, which he held for fifty days ^^^^•
with a handful of men against all the forces that cnye thwarts
they could bring against him. Thenceforth the
power of the English in Southern India increased, while that
of the French diminished, though Bussy, the most capable of
Dupleix's lieutenants, exercised a commanding influence in the
Deccan, and though, ten years later, the unfortunate Lally strove
^ His real name was Chin Kilich Khan. Nizani-ul-Mulk was a title, meaning
"regulator of the state." Chin Kilich Khan's successors were always known as
the Nizams.
ANOLO-IXDIAX HISTORY TO THE END
to restore his country's fortunes in the Carnatic. A succession
of victories added to Olive's fame ; and Duplcix returned, with
ruined fortune and shattered hopes, to France, where an un-
grateful people withheld the honours which might have solaced
him, and treated his services with contempt.
It was not in the south, however, that the decisive battle for
the mastery of India was fought. In 1756 Clive,
of cakutta^°'^ who had but lately returned to Madras from a
visit to England, was summoned northwards by
the news that Suraj-ud-dowlah, the effeminate Viceroy of
Bengal, had captured the English settlement of Fort William,
and suffered nearly all his captives to perish in the Black Hole
of Calcutta. The instant recovery of Calcutta
and the capture of the French settlement at
Chandernagore, to which the Viceroy had looked for help, failed
to teach him the wisdom of submitting to the English ; but
the hatred and contempt with which he was regarded by his
subjects facilitated the development of a plot by Avhich his
General, Mir Jafar, aided by Clive, was to seize
p"assey.' ^""' ^^^ throne. The victory of Plassey, which gave
the conspirators success, has been rightly seized
upon by popular instinct as the date of the foundation of the
British Empire in India ; for it gave the throne of Bengal to a
man who owed everything to the English, and whom their sup-
port cou.ld alone sustain in power. The designs of Dupleix
had been realised, — but by Clive.
Clive, however, had more victories to Avin, before he could
seek rest again at home. At Patna he shattered
ce"ses'*o7ciive. ^^^ hopes of the Mogul's eldest son, who had set
out to conquer the upstart Viceroy : he humbled
the pride of the Dutch, who, trusting to the friendship of the
fickle Mir Jafar, had sailed from Java, to share in the spoils
of India, and to balance the overgrown power of the English ;
and he struck the French power in its most \dtal part by send-
ing an army southwards under Colonel Forde, Avho won back
some factories in the Northern Circars which Bussy had seized,
and expelled the French from that part of India. Meanwhile
Lally was maintaining in the south a struggle for the restora-
tion of the French power : but it was a hysterical
effort, and doomed to failure. 'Eyre Coote's victory
at Wandewash sounded the knell of the French power in India.
I OF LORD DALHOUSIE'S ADMINISTRATIOX 5
When the pressure of Olive's firm and just rule had been
removed, the servants of the Company seized the
opportunity of amassing wealth by illicit means. Corrnptiou of
They set up and pulled down viceroys, and extorted during ciives
large presents from each new puppet. They claimed England!"
for themselves unfair advantages in commerce, by
Avhich the Viceroy's subjects suffered. But, corrupt and grasp-
ing as they Avere, they were not wholly inexcusable ; for their
salaries were miserably insufficient. Their rapacity was emu-
lated by the officers of the army, who were beginning to show
a spirit of insubordination which could only be checked by the
hand of the man who had led them to victory. Such an un-
natural state of things could not be suffered to continue. At
last Clive was sent out again to deal with the mass
of evil Avhich had accumulated ; and, if he could not cuve's return,
destroy it, he at least held it in check while he
remained in the country. But, besides waging war against
corruption, he had to solve a difficult political problem. He
saw that the English power, having advanced so far, could not,
in the nature of things, remain stationary. Nevertheless, he
desired to put a drag upon its onward course, to
abstain, as far as he safely covild, from all interfer-
ence with native politics, and, while erecting a substantial fabric
of government, and placing it upon a solid foundation, to give
it a modest outward form, lest it should provoke the envy of his
rivals. His idea was that the Company should take the govern-
ment of Bengal into their own hands, but should do so not as a
sovereign power, but as the nominal deputy of the puppet
Mogul Emperor. He accoi^dingly proceeded to Allahabad, and
there, in an interview with the Emperor and the Vizier of Oudh,
fixed the destinies of India. In the preceding year
the Vizier, taking the unwilling Emperor with him,
had invaded Behar,but had been signally defeated by Hector Munro
at Buxar. This battle had given to the English the rich province
of Oudh, the power of disposing of the Mogul, and the prestige of
being the first power in India. Clive noAv turned these advantages
to account. He rcstoi-ed Oudh to the Vizier, exacting from him as
an equivalent an indemnity of five hundred thousand pounds, and
induced the Mogul to invest the Company, in return for an annual
tribute of three hundi'ed thousand, with the office of Diwan ^ t)f
^ Minister of Fiuauue. Till 1772 the Company were only uomiually Diwau.
6 ANGLO-INDIAN HISTORY TO THE END chap.
Bengal, Behar, and Orissa. The pi-actical result of this arrange-
ment was that the English received the revenues, and made them-
selves responsible for the defence of the territory, while the civil
administration remained for a time in the hands of a native
minister.^
Clive was not a great statesman like Hastings ; for, though
he knew how to find expedients for overcoming
His place in difficulties wheu there was no time for hesitation,
Anglo-Indian ,r ,i i. .... -r.i
history. he louuded no lastmg political system. But he
will live in history as the Founder of our Indian
Empire. Not only was he the fii"st of the builders of three
generations who laboured at the imperial fabric, like the families
of workmen who, from father to son, reared the cathedrals of the
Middle Age ; but he was in some sort its architect also. Here
too the analogy holds good. There were more architects than
one ; and all did not follow the same style. But Clive, though
he would only lay the foundation himself, forecast in his mind
the nature of the pile. He foresaw that, with or against their
will, his successors would have to extend its dimensions. ^
The years that followed Olive's departure v,^ere years of
misery for the people of Bengal, and of shame for
Failure of the English. The system of divided government
of government, established by Clive had no vitality. The native
administrators oppressed the peasants, and embezzled
the revenues : the servants of the Company found it profitable
to connive at these abuses, and neglected the in-
^"'^"'" terests of their masters. At last the Directors
Hastings. appointed Warren Hastings Governor of Bengal,
and appealed to him to rescue their affairs from
destruction.
Hastings soon justified the confidence which had been reposed
ill him. He snapped the rotten chain that bound his masters in
mock allegiance to the Mogul Emperor, and proclaimed them to
be, what they really were, independent lords of Bengal. He
transferred the internal administration from a native
meas^ures. minister to the servants of the Company. He
created a system of police, justice, and revenue,
which it is easy for doctrinaires to revile, but Avhich was the
best that could have been devised under the circumstances of
^ Sir G. Aitchisou's Treaties, EjKjar/evients, and Sunnuds, vol. i. pp. CO-69.
^ Sir J. Malcolm's Political History of India, vol. ii. pp. 16-20.
I OF LORD DALHOUSIE'S ADMINISTRATION 7
the time. By hiring out the Company's battalions to the Vizier
of Oudh for the suppression of the turbulent Afghans who
tyrannised over Rohilkhand, he crippled a dangerous ^^^^^
neighbour, and placed four hundred thousand pounds
to the credit of his employers. Suddenly, however, the work in
which he took such pride was rudely interrupted. The abuses
which he had begun to remedy had roused the attention of
English statesmen to Indian affairs ; and the Regulating Act of
1773, which placed the Government of British
India in the hands of a Governor-General and a tiugAcI"'*
Council of four, Avith power over the other Presi-
dencies of Bombay and Madras, and established a supreme court
of judicature at Calcutta, independent of the Council, was the
fruit of their labours. Hastings was the first Governor-General.
The new constitution, while it left the entire load of responsi-
bility upon his shoulders, gave him no more power than any of his
colleagues.^ This radical defect became apparent when Clavering,
Monson, and Francis, the three Councillors who had been sent
out from home, arrived ; for they at once began a career of
factious opposition to their chief. This notorious
triumvirate threw the affairs of the other Fresi- ^^^artedby
dencies into confusion by their rash interference, ciavering,
, ,, . -^ , . ,. . Jlonson, and
postj)oned all nnportant business to a malicious Francis,
investigation into the past acts of the Governor-
General, and encouraged the natives to bring accusations against
him, and despise his authority. The people of Bengal had come
to regard his cause as lost, when, by the bold stroke of bringing
a counter-charge against the infamous Brahmin, Nuncomar, the
foremost of these unscrupulous accusers, he recovered his position,
and discomfited his colleagues. Nuncomar was executed ]:»y the
sentence of the Chief Justice, Impey. At the sight of hia
ignominious death, every Hindu trembled, and began to regard
Hastings as a man to whom all must bow. So long, indeed, as
Hastings was outvoted at the council-table, he could carry into
effect none of those great measures for the benefit of India and
the estaljlishment of British power Avhich he had long contem-
plated : Imt, strong in the love and trust of the English com-
munit}', he could and did do something to check the rash folly
^ Hastings, as he himself explains iu his Memoirs relative to the state of India ^
pp. 154-7, in some measure remedied this defect by disobeying his instructions
when he thought it requisite, whatever his personal risk might be.
AXGLO-INDIAN HISTORY TO THE END
of his colleagues ; and he waited for his triumph with a patience
which was thrown into stronger relief by his burning enthusiasm
for the public service. His triumph came at last.
1776. fpj^g death of Monson left him supreme. And,
Hg r8cov6rs ■*■
power. though Fraiicis had poisoned the minds of the
ministers against him, and the Directors, Avho had
supported him in his earlier measures, had withdra"\vn their
favour, there was a crisis at hand which forbade them to super-
sede him. They recognised the genius of the man whom they
had persecuted, and allowed him to save them.
At that time the fame of England had sunk to its nadir.
Twenty years before it had risen to its zenith. Let philosophical
historians search as deep as they will for the general causes
which had wrought this change. To plain understandings the
explanation is clear enough. Pitt had ruled in 1758; but in
1778 Lord North was the chief of a Government that could not
rule. America and half Europe Avere banded against England ;
but India was the rock against which the storm broke in vain ;
for Lidia was ruled by a man who joined to the fiery zeal of a
Pitt the calmness of a Marlborough.
Two great dangers the Governor-General saw and repelled.
Hearing that the French were about to league
the^mpire. themselvcs with the Marathas for the overthrow
of our empire, he showed his knowledge of the
temper of Asiatics by striking the first bloAV, sending an army
,„„„ across India through unknown country to humble
the Mardtha poAver. And, Avhen Hyder, the
usurping ruler of Mysore, carried his arms to the environs of
Madras, and the feeble Presidency trembled before the power
Avhich its rashness had provoked, he lost not a
moment in despatching reinforcements under Eyre
Coote, Avho rescued Southern India l)y the victory of Porto
Novo,
But even Hastings could not save an empire without money ;
and the Company's treasury Avas nearly emjity. To I'eplenish
it, he demanded a contribution from Chait Singh, the so-called
Raja of Benares, a tributary of the Comiiany, foUoAving a custom
which superior poAvers in India had ever observed. Chait Singh,
hoAvever, showed no alacrity to come to the aid of his o\"er-lord ;
and, to punish him for his delay and CA'asion, Hastings Avent in
person to Benares, to exact from him a heavy fine. But the
I OF LORD DALHOUSIE'S ADMINISTRATION 9
few English soldiers whom he took with him were unprovided
with ammunition, and badly commanded. For a time Hastings
was checked by insurrection : but it was speedily repressed by
the English troops who, in their enthusiastic love for him,
hastened up from the nearest posts to his rescue, and was pun-
ished by the deposition of the Eaja and an increase
of the tribute due from his successor. Still, more
money was sorely needed ; and Hastings, in his extremity, looked
to Oudh, the Vizier of which province, squandering his revenues
upon his own pleasures, had long neglected to pay an English
brigade which protected him. The money was ^^^^
obtained by confiscating the hoarded treasures of the
late Vizier, which the Begams of Oudh, the mother and grand-
mother of the reigning prince, had unlaAvfully retained.
These dealings of Hastings Avith the Eaja of Benares and
the Begams of Oudh formed the subject of two
of the charges brought against him at the famous a^^^jij^ him.
trial in Westminster Hall. It would be impossible
in a chapter like this to enter into a detailed examination of
the justice of those charges, or the general moi'ality of his
administration. It will be enough to say that no other than
that policy which Burke held up to execration could have
saved the empire in the most momentous crisis through which
it has ever passed ; and that those who condemn the morality
of that policy must not shrink from the inevitable conclusion
that the empire which has been charged with the mission of
civilising India, and which gives England her great title to
respect among the nations of Europe, Avas erected, could only
have been erected upon a basis of iniquity. But men are
slowly beginning to see that the vieAvs of Hastings's policy
which Burke, in bitter but honest hatred, and Francis, in the
malice of disappointed rage, disseminated, are untrue. The
genius of Clarendon taught four generations of Englishmen to
detest the name of the hero who had saved their liberties.
The fate of Hastings has been similar. But the day will come
when, in the light of a more extended knoAvledge of the history
of British India, his political morality will be vindicated.^
^ It has been vindicated since the first edition of this book was jniLlislied.
See Sir J. Stephen's The Ston/ of Nuncovxar and the Inipeachment of Sir Jilijah
Impey, Sir J. Stracliey's Hastings and the Rohilla War, and Mr. G. W. Forrest'.s
Selections from the Letters, Despatches, and other State I'apers preserved in the
Forei'jn Department of the Government of India, 1772-1785.
10 ANGLO-INDIAN HISTORY TO THE END chap.
The resignation of Hastings marks the close of the third act
in the drama of Anglo-Indian history. Clive had
been forced by the quarrel thrust upon him to
realise Dupleix's imperial visions. He had founded an empire.
It was left to Hastings to create a government, and to organise
and set on foot its numerous branches. He had conceived, more-
over, and had begun to carry out the idea of grouping the
native states in alliance round the power of England, which
had practically taken the place of the effete Mogul empire,
and was therefore bound to take upon itself the duties, and
yield the protection expected by all natives from the Paramount
Power.
But this great idea was destined to be forgotten for a time.
The malignant influence of Francis had borne its fruit. At
home men cried out against the policy of Hastings ]
waiiii. °^" f'-nd Lord Cornwallis ^ was sent out to inaugurate a
reign of peace and non-intervention, and armed
with that power of acting on his own responsibility, even against
the judgement of his Council, which Hastings had sought for in
vain. He tried to carry out the wishes of his masters : but,
though he was a man of peace, he was not a man to look on
tamely while a new enemy arose to threaten our
Tippoo. power. The great Hyder had left a son Tippoo,
who inherited some of his father's ability, and all
his love of aggrandisement and hatred of the English. Pro-
voked by an attack which he had made on an ally of the
British Government, Cornwallis resolved to punish him, and,
after an unlucky campaign conducted by his
1791^2. genei^als, went in person to the seat of war, fought
his way to the gates of Seringapatam, and there
dictated terms of peace.
Influenced by public opinion and by that strong disinclination
to all extension of territory which the Directors had already
begun to show,^ he only crippled the Sultan when he should
have destroyed him. Such a half-hearted policy bore its natural
^ After till' ri'sigiiation of Hastings, Maeplicrson seived .is Jocum tenens until
tlie arrival of Cornwallis. There were several otliei- instances in which, owing to
an interval between the departure of one Governor-General and the arrival of his
successor, a Company's servant was obliged to hold the reins of government
temporarily ; but 1 have not thought it necessary to allude to them in the text.
^ The Cormvallis Cm-respondence, vol. ii. pp. 144, 158 ; M. Wilks's Hisi. of
Mysoor, vol. iii. pp. 251-2.
r OF LORD DALHOUSIE'S ADMINISTRATION 11
fruit. The evil day Avas only put off; for a few years later
Welleeley was forced to annihilate Tippoo's power at a cost of
blood and treasure which would have been saved if he had been
disarmed in time. But the Directors shrank from becoming
emperors ; for they feared that, by so doing, they would suffer
as merchants.
The aim of Cornwallis's policy was to maintain the peace
of India by the old-fashioned European plan of preserving a
balance of power among the chief states. The
theory of the balance of power, however, takes po^TT?°°^
for granted in individual states, if not unselfishness,
at least some sort of fellow-feeling suitable to the members of a
family of nations, some serious desire to keep the bonds of peace
intact. But among the powers of India these conditions were
wholly wanting. Their political education was not sufficiently
advanced for them to understand that, even for nations, pure
selfishness cannot be expedient. Cornwallis saAV clearly enough
that the English Government ought to stand in the place of the
father of this family of nations : but it was reserved for a
greater ruler to see that the family must, for some time and for
their own good, be treated not as intelligent adults, but as dis-
orderly and deceitful children.
The war with Tippoo was the central event of Cornwallis's
foreign policy. His reign is equally remembered
for the judicial and fiscal reforms which he carried ^tUraieut"^"*
out. The English had hitherto been content to
follow the old Mogul system for the collection of the land-
revenue of Bengal. Under that system, the privilege of collect-
ing the revenue had been from time to time put up to auction
to native collectors, who Avere known as Zamindars : but no
attempt had been made to ascertain and definitely fix the
amount which the cultivators might fairly be called upon to pay.
As, however, under this system, the revenue was collected in a
very irregular and unsatisfactory manner, the Directors instructed
Cornwallis to introduce some reform. The result was the
famous Permanent Settlement, by which the Zamindars Avere
raised to the position of landlords, and engaged i"f>3.
in return to pay a fixed annual rent-charge to the Govern-
ment.
The Permanent Settlement Avas a sad blunder. CoruAvallis
had indeed tried to learn something: about the landed interests
12 ANGLO-INDIAN HISTORY TO THE END chap.
with which he had to deal : but he did not realise the vast
extent and intricacy of the subject. Preoccupied by English
ideas of land tenure, his mind was too narrow and too destitute
of sympathetic force to seize the notion that a different set of
ideas might prevail in India ; and he therefore naturally leaped
to the conclusion that, as the Zamindars Avere the highest class
connected with land, they either were, or ought to be con-
stituted landed proprietors.^ The result of his action may be
told in a few words. The inferior tenants derived from it no
benefit whatever. The Zamindars again and again failed to pay
their rent-charges ; and their estates were sold for the benefit of
the Government.
Though Cornwallis was not a ruler of the first rank, in one
respect at least he left his mark upon the Indian
comwanls'.'^ scrvice. He Avould not countenance jobbery, even
when Royal petitioners asked favours of him ; and
he tried to remove the temptations to corruption to which the
Company's servants were exposed, and to raise their standard
of efficiency, by endeavouring to procure for them adequate
salaries.
Cornwallis was succeeded by Sir John Shore, a conscientious
Sir John Shore Painstaking official, who had worked his way, step
Non-iiiterven- by Step, to the head of the Government, but whose
dread of responsibility made him unfit to rule. The
great political event of his administration was a Avar betAveen the
Marathas and the Nizam. The Marathas were the aggressors :
the Nizam was an ally of the British, and importunately
pressed them for the assistance to Avhich he Avas morally entitled :
but Shore Avas afraid to depart a hair's-breadth from the policy
of neutrality Avhich his masters had prescribed. The result
was that the Nizam AA^as completely beaten, and lost all con-
fidence in the English, Avhose alliance had proved to be a
sham ; Avhile the poAver of the Marathas Avas unduly exalted,
' " Accoi-diug to English ideas someone must be proprietor, and with him a
settlement should most properly be made ; but we did not for a long time sec
that different parties may have difl'erent degrees of interest without altogether
excluding others, and hence the long discussions on the question who were the
actual pro))rii'tors, when in fact the contending parties had difterent but con-
sistent interests in the same laud — Government as rent receivers. Zemindars as
delegates of Government, and the communities as having possession and entire
management of the soil." — Sir George Campbell's Mvtleni India ami its Oovern-
7nenf, pp. 301-2. See also 0. Itaikes'.s yotea on (he North -Western Provinces
of India, pp. 41-64.
OF LORD DALHOUSIE'S ADMINISTRATION
and for years their turbulence and greed caused anxiety to the
Paramount Power.
In 1798 Shore was succeeded by Lord Mornington, better
known by his later title of Marquess Wellesley,
a young Irish peer who had already distinguished weiiesiey.
himself by an elaborate speech in which he had
thundered against the French Revolution, and pleaded for the
continued prosecution of the anti-Gallican crusade. The appoint-
ment was made not a moment too soon ; for another great
crisis in Anglo-Indian history was at hand, and, if Shore had
remained in office much longer, the empire might have been
lost.
The European war was at its height. Napoleon was in the
full tide of success, and had extended his views of
conquest to Asia. If he had triumphed in Egypt, the^empfre.^*' °^
and pushed on into India, the leading native states
would probably have welcomed his arrival. Our allies, the
Xizam and the Nawab of the Carnatic, were not to be depended
upon. The one, as has Ijcen shown, had become esti'anged from
us, and now put his trust in a strong force, officered by French-
men, which he kept in his pay. The other Avas unable to govern
his own country, and, so far from helping us, was continually
asking for our aid. Tippoo was intriguing against us with
every prince who would listen to hira. Hating us with all the
force of Mahomedan bigotry, inherited enmity, and the thirst of
vengeance, he was only waiting an opportunity to attack us.
The Marathas Avould have been not less dangerous if they had
not been disunited : but, as it was, their foremost chief, Daulat
Rdo Sindhia, was gaining power every day, and, like the Nizam,
had an army, officered by Frenchmen, in his service. These
very French adventurers were a separate soui-ce of danger.
They had the disgrace of old defeats to wipe out, and visions of
conquest to gratify. Dupleix, Bussy, and Lally had been
frustrated in their open endeavours to create a Franco-Indian
empire : but there was a lurking danger not less formidable in
the presence of General Perron at the head of Sindhia's
battalions.
Wellesley saw the danger, and faced it. The conduct of
Tippoo, who rashly allowed it to be known that overthrow
he had sent an embassy to Mauritius to ask for of Tippoo.
French aid, gave him the opportunity of striking the first
14 ANGLO-INDIAN HISTORY TO THE END chap.
blow. He instantly demanded guarantees for the preservation
of peace. Eager to gain time, Tippoo evaded the
demand until Wellesley's patience was worn out.
Converting the nominal alliance of the Nizam into an efFectiA^e
reality by disarming his French contingent and substituting for
it a British force, Wellesley directed the ai'mies of Bombay and
Madras, strengthened by a native contingent furnished by the
Nizam, to converge upon Seringapatam. After a short and
uniformly successful campaign, the Sultan's capital
was won ; and he himself fell in the assault. His
sons were pensioned off, and kept in honourable confinement,
while the representative of the old Hindu dynasty, which Hyder
had displaced, was proclaimed as Raja of a portion of the con-
quered country. The remainder was divided between the
British Grovernment and the Nizam, whose share was afterwards
appropriated to the payment of an additional subsidiary force
which was to be kept in his service. Finally, the government
of the restored dynasty of Mysore was placed under the friendly
supervision of an English Resident.
The overthrow of Tippoo, which re-established British prestige,
gave a blow to the hopes of the French, and struck
wfe^iey. terror into the minds of aggressive native princes,
wa,s the key-stone of Wellesley's policy. The aim
of that policy may be described as the establishment of the
supremacy of the British power for the joint benefit of the
British and of the people of India. The native powers were to
be grouped in alliance round the central power of the British
Government, which was to defend them at their own cost, and,
in some cases, to administer their civil affairs or those of a part
of their territories as well, in others merely to reserve the right
of interference. In other words, Wellesley, strengthened by the
authority and resources which had been denied to Hastings, set
himself to develop the far-reaching conception which the latter
had originated. The grand idea of pressing this consolidated
Anglo-Indian Empire into the service of the British Empire
itself, and forcing it to take its part in the overthrow of
Napoleon, was Wellesley's own.
Let us see how he worked it out. A treaty which he had
^ , , „„ concluded with the Nizam had bound him to
October, 1800. i ^ , , . . , i r i
defend triat pnnce aganist the attacks of the
Mardthas. With the view of taming this restless people.
I OF LORD DALHOUSIE'S ADMINISTRATION 15
Weliesley tried to draw their nominal head, the Peshwa, Baji
Rao, within the circle of subsidiary alliance.^ The reluctance
of this prince to surrender his independence was at last over-
come by his fear of Jeswant Rao Holkar, a rising Maratha
chieftain, whose family name is so often mentioned
in connexion with that of Sindhia. The treaty of
Bassein marked the change in the Peshwa's condition. But
Sindhia and the Maratha Raja of Berar, who
feared that they too would have subsidiaiy BasseL"'^
alliances forced upon them, and no longer be
allowed to prey upon their weaker neighbours, resented the
treatment of their nominal head, and compelled ,. .,,
, ' - ^^ Maratha war.
the Governor-General to conquer them. it was
in the war by which this conquest was achieved that the
name of his brother, Arthur Weliesley, first
became famous.
Holkar, who held aloof from his brother chiefs, might have
escaped, if his invincible love of plunder had not brought upon
him the wrath of Weliesley : but the campaign for
his reduction was chequered by more than one
disaster ; and he was not finally subdued till after Weliesley
had left India.
Thus one power after another was drawn into the number
of dependent states. Unhappily, however, Wel-
iesley had neglected one rare opportunity Avhich •'1'"'^^^"®"*°^
the foi'tune of war had thrown in his way. in Emperor,
the campaign against Sindhia, Delhi had fallen into
our hands ; and AYellesley had been called upon to decide the
Emperor's fate. Though the power of the Great Mogid had
long faded away, his title still attracted the superstitious
veneration of the natives ; and fifty years later it was the spell
that drew successive armies of mutineers to the focus of Delhi.
If, instead of perpetuating this phantom dynasty, Weliesley had
boldly proclaimed that his Government had succeeded to its rights,
an element which was to give strength and a show of dignity to the
Indian Mutiny might have been destroyed. The native states were
ready enough to claim the protection of our Paramount Power.
They would have repaid it for this protection by their attach-
^ For .some remai-k.s on the subsidiary alliance system see my article on
" Welle.slcy," in the Westminster Review of April, 1880.
16 ANGLO-INDIAN HISTORY TO THE END chap.
ment, if it had not shrunk from avowing itself to be what it
was.^
Three years before, Wellesley had applied the same principle
that inspired his Maratha policy to his dealings
oudiu"' '""' with Oudh. That country lay directly in the path
of any invader who might meditate an attack on
the British possessions from the north-west ; and a conqueror
might have easily overrun it "on his march, for its Government
was powerless, and its army was a rabble. Wellesley converted
it from a source of weakness into a bulwark of the British
^ ^ provinces by his favourite method. The Vizier
was obliged to accept an English subsidiary force,
and to cede a large portion of his territory for its support.
But one great evil sprang from this arrangement. The govern-
ment of Oudh Avas even then the worst in India. The Vizier
wasted part of his revenues in shameful self-indulgence, and
hoarded the rest. The farmers of the revenue extorted from
the peasantry all that they could ; and the latter toiled on,
barely supporting life on the remnant of their earnings which
the policy, not the humanity of their masters allowed them.
Wellesley, however, shrank from interfering in the internal
administration. The Vizier's officers were therefore supported
in their exactions by British bayonets. Wellesley's excuse is
that, distrusted as he was by the Directors, he did not feel him-
self strong enough to assume the government of the countr}^, which
was the only way of remedying its unhappy condition. He doubt-
less expected that his successors would soon be forced to take this
final step. For more than fifty years, however, it was not taken.
The Nawabs of Tan j ore, of Surat, and of the Carnatic were
obliged to transfer the administration of their
1799 1800 1801
Tanjore Surat territories to the British Government, and to con-
and the'car- ' tent themselves with liberal pensions and high-
sounding titles.
While the consolidation of the English power in India went
on apace, Wellesley carried out his idea of making it a living
^gQ^ element of the British Empire by sending aii
Red Sea <!xpe- expeditionary force up the Red Sea to co-operate
in the expulsion of the French from Egypt.
If the force did nothing else, it at least shoAved how a
1 See an interesting lecture liy Mr. S. J. Owen, cntitlcil "Anglo-Indian Paile
historically consideretl." [But sec also App. W.]
^
I OF LORD DALHOUSIE'S ADMINISTRATION 17
strong ruler had been able to develop the resoiu'ces of India,
and how he could turn them to account.
Such was Wellesley's external policy. The same imperial
spirit which had animated it breathed through
every part of his administration. For the bene- views and
volence with which he regarded the natives of India weii'esiey.
did not lead him to contemplate the possibility of
granting them self-government. His ideal was that they should
be ruled for their own good by an all-powerful despot, and that
the despot should take him for his model. Nor were they to be
governed solely for their own good. They were to repay the
care of their rulers by communicating to them the benefit of
their commercial I'esources. Fondly hoping that he could infuse
something of his own enthusiasm into his employers, Wellesley
urged them to develop these resources by the encouragement of
private trade, and to recede, if only a few steps, from the selfish
position of monopolists. But it was in vain for this enthusiastic
Governor to expect a trading company to sympathise with his
far-reaching views. The anomaly which sufl'ered India to be ruled
from Leadenhall Street was already evident.
It was the sagacity which enabled Wellesley to foresee the
direction which imperial progress must take, and the energy Avith
which he hastened that progress, that gave a special character to
his reign. He saw that endless disturbances must be looked for
until the English should become supreme : it is his merit that
he did not adopt the half-measiu-es which would have pleased
his masters, but boldly and inicompromisingly carried oi\t his
views to their logical conclusion. No ruler was ever better
served ; but few rulers have had in the same degree the
enthusiasm which inspires others, and the charm which wins
their personal devotion. Generals like Arthur Wellesley, and
Lake, and Harris, diplomatists like Malcolm and Barry Close
worked out his designs ; and all worked for the love of him
whom they served.
When he had gone, however, the great work which he had
taken up was again interrupted ; for his successor could only see
its momentary disadvantages, and lacked the foresight which
could wait for its final triumph. The Directors were tired of
costly victories, and looked about for a ruler who would spare
their army, and replenish their treasury. In an evil hour for
his reputation, the aged Cornwallis, broken as he was by toil
C
18 ANGLO-INDIAN HISTORY TO THE END chap.
and disease, was jDersuaded to go out once more. As far as
he could, he reversed Wellesley's policy, and
Second admin- meditated the withdrawal of the British protection
istiat.ioii of from thosc states to which Wellesley had extended
Comwalhs. . tt i- i u i • • i ■ • c i
it. rle did all this in the purest spirit oi humanity ;
for he believed that AVellesley's interference had been unjust.
But, happily for India and for himself, he died little more than
two months after his arrival.
His successor, Sir George Barlovr, carried out his views.
He aimed at extricating his employers, at any cost,
Bariow.'^"^ from the temporary financial emlDarrassment into
which the policy of Wellesley had plunged them,
and complacently declared his conviction that he would best
promote the security of the British Government by leaving the
rajas free to quarrel among themselves. This ignoble policy
bore its inevitable fruit when the strong began to prey upon
the weak, and when the natives of India cried out that the
Paramount Power, which was bound to keep the peace, was
shirking its responsibilities. Still more appalling examples,
however, were needed to convince the home authorities of the
weakness of this policy. In 1807 they sent out
Lord Minto to succeed Barlow, and to walk in his
footsteps. When, however, the new Governor-General came to
survey the political prospect from Calcutta, he began gradually
to unlearn the opinions which he had held so confidently at
home. Without being a ruler of the first order, he was a
sensible and firm, though moderate statesman, who had not
indeed the high courage and the rare fearlessness of responsi-
bility which can initiate a great policy, and execute it in spite
of the remonstrances of a timid or ignorant directory, but who
might be trusted to fall into no Aveakness which would compro-
mise the dignity of his government ; and, though his reign was
undistinguished by any event that serves as a land-mark in Anglo-
Indian history, it %vitnessed some useful measures for the mainten-
ance of internal peace and for the repression of French ambition,
and is interesting as the transition period which preceded the
final ]-ealisation of Wellesley's views by the Marquess of Hastings.
Immediately after his arrival, he was struck by the anarch}^
which Barlow's inaction had encouraged among
the freebooting chiefs of Bundelkhand, a part of
which country the Peshwa had ceded to Wellesley for the sup-
I OF LORD DALHOUSIE'S ADMINISTRATION 19
port of his subsidiary force. He instantly sent an army to
punish their insolence ; and, having thus done something to
restore internal order to India, he prepared to meet a danger
which threatened it from without. The famous Ranjit Singh,
who had already crushed down the Sikhs of the Punjab,
was eager to extend his power by subjugating
their brethi-en on our side of the Sutlej. The '^"'^' "''^°^'
Governor-General saw the danger : but his task in meeting it
was a complicated one ; for, while repressing Ranjit's thirst
for aggrandisement, he had also to persuade him to refuse a
passage through his territories to the French, who were believed
to be still meditating an invasion of India. His choice of an
ambassador revealed the same knowledge of character that had
shown itself in Wellesley's advancement of Malcolm. For it was
Charles Metcalfe who curbed the ambition of Ranjit Singh.
Minto's dealings with the Afghan freebooter, Amir Khan,
showed how his awaking zeal for imperialism was
moderated by his fear of the Directors' displeasure. , '
This man, who had been a companion of Holkar in
his plundering raids, had attacked the Raja of Nagpur ; ^ and,
when Minto interfered for the protection of his ally, he apologised
to his masters for this display of energy by representing it as a
necessary step for the prevention of a dangerous alliance between
two Mahomedan rulers like the Amir and the Nizam. When,
however, the baffled Amir invaded Rdjputana to give his predatory
followers the plunder without which they could not live, Minto
dared not interfere ; and more victims were sacrificed to the idol
of non-intervention.
Outside India, however, the Governor-General found a field
for his energy in which he might move secure of
the Directors' approval ; for here the object was. Conquest of
not to spend money on the protection of distressed anTjava!"
dependents, but to protect the Company's commerce
from the French privateers which infested the Indian Ocean.
By the capture of Mauritius, which had served as a depot for
the plunder they had thus acquired, and by the igio.
conquest of Java, which they had wrested from ^^^i-
the Dutch, Minto completed his scheme of defence against
Napoleon.
' Bj' this title the former Raja of Berar had been known since his subjection
by Wellesley.
20 ANGLO-INDIAN HISTORY TO THE END
He was succeeded by a statesman "who, like liiin, came to
India strongly j^i'^j^icliced against the policy of
Lord Ha^s'tings. Wellesley, but, when he found out his mistake,
threw himself, in a more daring spirit, into the
task of developing that policy. It was the discovery of the
evil wrought by the Pindaris that caused this sudden change
in Lord Hastings's views. These notorious marauders had, in
formei" days, often followed in the train of the Marathas ; and
now, roving about the country in armed bands, plundered,
destroyed, and massacred on their own account. The Directors,
who could not, like Lord Hastings, see for themselves what the
state of India was, refused to listen to him when he insisted
that the evil must be rooted out. But Lord Hastings found
another way of serving the impracticable court. Some twelve
years before, Wellesley had made a commercial treaty with the
Gurkhas of Nepal, but, finding it impossible to keep at peace
with them, had broken oif all relations in 1804. Since then
the Gurkhas had been steadily encroaching upon British
territory along the line of frontier north of Hindustan, in
defiance, or rather in contempt of the mild remonstrances of
Barlow and his successor. At last, however, even Minto had
been provoked to send an ultimatum ; and Hastings promptly
followed it up by another. If it had been sent in time, the
war which followed might have been averted ; for, even after
the long experience Avhich they had had of oiir meek forbearance,
there was not unanimity in the Gurkha council
* '^^'^ ^^^ ^^'^^' which decided to fight. Lord Hastings had to
wait long for his triumph ; for of four generals whom he sent
at the head of separate columns to invade Nepal all but one
failed, and the Gurkhas were enemies to be respected. But
the veteran Ochterlony, who had studied wur under Eyre Coote,
atoned for the failures of his colleagues. Fortress after fortress
fell before him as he climbed the Himalayas ; and at last the
capture of the crowning stronghold of Malaun decided the war.
The Gurkhas sued for peace, and were obliged to
surrender the districts of which they had robbed us,
and to cede some valuable mountain territory.
Meanwhile the vuichecked insolence of the Pindaris had
Subjection of I'eachod its height. Fresh from his triumph in the
tiiePimUris north, Lord Hastings resolved to chastise them.
Mardtiias. In the firmucss of his righteous resolve he would
I OF LORD DALHOUSIE'S ADMINISTRATION 21
have risked any official displeasure : but in fact lie was not
forced to disobey his instiuctions ; for the stories of pillage
and murder which had reached home caused a reaction of feeling
which called for the destruction of the predatory hordes. An
unexpected difficulty, however, presented itself. The Marathas
sympathised with the Pindaris ; and they had still some power
for evil. The treaty of Bassein had not crushed the Peshwa's
restless ambition, or destroyed the irregular but mischievous
attachment of his feudatories. He was discovered to be conspir-
ing with the Pindaris, with Sindhia, and with Holkar for the
restoration of his supremacy, and the subversion of our power.
There is no more intricate page in Indian history than that
which describes his intrigues and the measures by which they
were baffled. Fortunately Elphinstone, the Resident at his
Court, was a man who could thread the most confused mazes
of Maratha treachery. A^vare of what was passing in the
Peshwa's mind, he sought to checkmate him by a
1S17
treaty which bound him to cede territory and for-
bear from all communication with any Power but our own.
Sindhia and Amir Khan, to each of whom the Pindaris looked
for help, were likewise bound over to keep the peace ; and the
robbers themselves were hunted down by our soldiers,
1817-18
while those who escaped the British bayonets were
massacred by the exasperated villagers whom they had perse-
cuted. Meanwhile, Sindhia and Amir Khan had adhered to
their engagements : but the Peshwa and Holkar had turned
traitors ; and the Raja of Nagpur had joined them. One after
another the treacherous princes were punished.
Defeated at Sitabaldi, the Raja of Nagpur fled ; and
his territories passed under the nominal rule of a boy Raja, in
whose name an English Resident established a wise administra-
tion. The army of Holkar, for he himself was only its tool,
was beaten by Malcolm on the field of Mehidpur ; and Holkar
was obliged to receive a subsidiary force, while his administra-
tion was left to his ministers, who were to act under the advice
of a British Resident. But it would have been madness to treat
the Peshwa with such leniency. While he retained a vestige of
authoi'ity, there would have been a constant temptation to the
Maratha chieftains to lally round him. His lands
were therefore annexed, and his suzerainty was
annihilated : but he himself received from the British Govern-
22 ANGLO-INDIAN HISTORY TO THE END chap.
ment that generous liberality which has done so much to
reconcile their fallen foes to the inevitable loss of jDOwer.
Thus, by the final overthrow of that Hydra-headed Empire,
which, for more than a century and a half, had
Lord Hastings' disturbed the peace of India, Lord Hastings had
completed the development of Wellesley's policy,
and had proclaimed by his deeds to the people of India that
the Paramount Power, from which they expected protection,
was able to aftbrd it. He had done more than this. Despising
the vulgar cry that the ignorance of the natives was the best
security of our rule, for he knew that no justification could be
pleaded for a rule supported by such means, he had promoted
the establishment of native schools and native journals, and thus
encouraged the people to take advantage of the peace which he
had given them.
This able man was succeeded by a Governor of another
stamp. Lord Amherst's reign is remembered as
Lord Amherst. ^^® cpocli of the first Burmese war : but he himself
First Burmese is almost forgottcu. This war, like that with the
Gurkhas, was caused by the aggression of a barbar-
ous people, which, encouraged by years of tame endurance,
culminated in an invasion of British territory : but here the
resemblance ended. The Gurkhas had been the most formid-
able warriors that we had ever encountered : the Burmese were
the most contemptible. Nothing but the unhealthiness of their
climate and the military strength of their territory made their
reduction difficult. But these obstacles were overcome by the
force which was sent to Rangoon, and which, after
1S26. ^ ^'^0 years' campaign, fought its way to Ava, the
Burmese capital, and dictated a peace which seciured
the cession of Assam, Arakan, and Tenasserim.
The one other important event of this administration revealed
the weakness of Amherst, and gave a fresh illus-
oditeriony.'^ tratiou of the impracticability of non-intervention.
The Raja of Bhurtpore, a state which Wellesley had
brought under British protection, died, and left his throne to an
infant son. But it was rare indeed in those days for a helpless
heir to be allowed to enter peaceably upon his
rights. A cousin of the young Raja seized the
Government. Ochterlony, who was then Resident at Delhi,
saw in this act of violence the seeds of a war which might con-
I OF LORD DALHOUSIES ADMINISTRATION 23
vulse Central India, and took npon himself the responsibility of
ordering a force to proceed towards Bhurtpore. Amherst
countermanded its advance, and reprimanded the old general
for his undue assumption of authority. It was not to be ex-
pected that a soldier-statesman of fifty years' standing should
submit to such an affront as this. Ochterlony resigned his post.
But Amherst presently repented of his error ; and
the capture of Bhurtpore put an end to a general Bhurtpore.
uneasiness amongst the native princes, who were
not yet habituated to our supremacy, and had been excited by
the strange news that a British army was waging war upon the
opposite side of the Bay of Bengal.
After this there was a hollow peace in the land for twelve
years ; for the principle of non-intervention was
in the ascendant, and the English Eesidents at vention.^""'
native courts were forbidden to interfere with the
princes at the very stage in their political progress when they
most needed wise counsel and restraining discipline.
Lord William Bentinck, who succeeded Amherst in seutiMk!'^'*^
1828, was the very man to carry out the theories
of Indian government that prevailed in England, and give a last
convincing proof of their falseness. A pattern Liberal states-
man of the nineteenth centurj'', overflowing with benevolence
towards the natives, he was taught by the bitter lessons of seven
years that, in dealing with Asiatics, humanitarianism is not
humanity. A series of dispu.ted successions, the curse of that
era of Indian history, called for British interference : but Ben-
tinck invariably refused to interfere until his inaction had pro-
duced its inevitable results, anarchy and massacre. We might
wonder that he was so slow to learn from experience, if we did
not know how hard it is to wrench oneself free from the in-
fluence of a cherished theory. Two instances in which his
reluctant interference wrought a political change call for special
mention.
In Mysore, the boy Eaja whom Wellesley had set up after
the overthrow of Tippoo, had been allowed to take the govern-
ment into his own hands after twelve years of tolerably suc-
cessful rule by his native minister under the friendly
supervision of an English Eesident. The Eaja's ^Jo'rg."^"'^
government was intolerable ; and, after the Eesident
had warned him again and again without effect, his subjects took
24 ANGLO-IXDIAN HISTOEY TO THE END chap.
the remedy into their own hands, and revolted. But these
miserable rebels were repressed by our arms, be-
1830 X t/ '^
cause, forsooth, the Raja Avas a protected prince.
Bentinck talked of perjsetuating the Hindu Government with
more eftectuai restrictions on the Raja's powei", but ended by
doing nothing ; and the people suffered without redress until in
1833 the English Resident became a Commissioner, and the
country became virtually a British province. The Raja of
Coorg, the nephew of a prince who had been a cordial ally of
the English in their wars with Tippoo, made himself notorious
by the savage cruelty with which he treated his subjects. Even
Bentinck's theories were not proof against this test : but, while
he desired to relieve the people, he Avas still anxious that they
should remain under the rule of a native Raja, and Avas only
persuaded to annex their country by their unani-
mous and loudly-expressed desire to be transferred
to the Company's Government.
Even the briefest account of Bentinck's administration could
Settlement of '^'^^ afford to leave unnoticed that great measure,
the North- knoAvn as the Settlement of the North- Western Pro-
AA'^esteni Pro- . i-i i •!•• i it
viuces. vinces, Avhich Avas begun in his time, and completed
1833-42. ^ fg^ years after his departure. When that portion
of the country came luider British rule, the settlement officers
did their Avork in a very lax and haphazard fashion. They tried
to do justice to all j)arties : but they kncAV little of the usages
Avhich had governed the tenure of land and the payment of the
land revenue under native government : their ignorance was
freely traded upon by interested nati\'es, Avho, in many cases,
contrived to get themselves registered as the proprietors of
villages Avhich did not belong to them ; and therefore many of
their decisions caused dissatisfaction. It Avas understood, hoAv-
ever, that the settlements Avhich they made might be superseded
when the time for a more detailed inA'estigation should arrive.
The first step toAvards such an investigation AA-^as taken in 1822,
when a Regulation Avas published, setting forth the principles in
accordance Avith Avhich a lasting settlement Avas to be made : but
circumstances prevented further serious action from being taken
till 1833. The officers to Avhom the Avork of the settlement was
entrusted, laboured Avith the utmost zeal and perseverance to
acquire such a full and accurate store of knowledge for a founda-
tion as Avould enable them to avoid the false conclusions of their
J
I OF LORD DALHOUSIES ADMINISTRATION 25
predecessors : but the interests which they had to examine were
so numerous and complicated that they often went astray. More-
over, they started with the theory that the settlement ought to
be made, village by village, with the actual proprietors of the
soil, and not Avith middle-men. They saw that the propi"ietary
right generally belonged to single families, or to the village com-
munities, which had survived here in far gi^eater perfection than
in Bengal. But there was another important class whose rights
had also to be considered, and whose generic name of Talukddrs
is perhaps familiar to all who take an interest in Indian afifairs.
It Avas through the medium of these men that the native Govern-
ment had collected the revenue ; and, though they Avei'e techni-
cally only hereditary revenue-contractors, they were to all intents
and purposes the territorial aristocracy. The settlement officers,
however, inspired by the famous Eobert ]\Iertins Bird, Avere full
of the idea of promoting the greatest happiness of the greatest
number : they branded the talukdars as a set of worthless
drones ; and they determined accordingly to deprive them of
the privilege of settling for every foot of land to which they
could not show a proprietai'y title precise enough to satisfy an
English laAvyer. A feAV thoughtful men did indeed urge that
these sweeping measures Avould destroy the attachment of the
aristocracy to oui* rule, and that, if they ever turned against us,
Ave should find the villagers, Avhom Ave had thought to conciliate,
impelled by the force of old ties and old associations to side
with their natural leadei's. These Avarnings, hoAvever, were un-
heeded, and their authors ridiculed as alarmists. The mere fact
that the settlement ai^oused discontent does not indeed prove
that the principles upon Avhich it Avas based were false. But
perhaps its authors Avould have succeeded better if they had
reflected that the proprietary light Avas not the only right con-
nected Avith the soil, and, Avhile taking care to provide valid
guarantees for the immunity of the village proprietors from ex-
tortion, had recognised the existing riglits of the talukdars to
contract for the collection of the revenue.^
■^ See remarks of H. St. G. Tucker, quoted on pp. 76-7 (note), of P. Caruegy'a
Notes on the Land Tenures and Revenue Assessments of Upper India; and The Land-
Systems of British India, by B. H. Baden-Powell. Mr. C. Raikes (Notes on tlie
North- West Provinces of India, pp. 67-75), while admitting tliatthe settlement caused
discontent among the talukdars, maintains that they were treated with perfect
fairness. "We might well wonder," he says, "that the enfranchisement of the
village communities was unpopular unless we happened to know what Indian
26 ANGLO-INDIAN HISTORY TO THE END chap.
Another class, known as the holders of rent-free tenures,
escaped the grasp of the settlement oflficers only
to fall under an investigation as searching as theirs.
These teniu"es, relics of the days of native administration, were
of various origins, and many of them had been fraudulently
acquired, while others, having been granted for services which
had long ceased to be performed, had become mere sinecures.
If the English Government had had the inclination or the
leisure to examine them when it had first established its rule,
many of them Avould of course have been abolished : but un-
fortunately action had been so long delayed that the holders
had learned to regard their lands as secured to their families for
ever. The ncAV school of officials, however, Avas indignant at
the thought that so much land-revenue was lost to the state, and
squandered by an unprofitable class. The holders were accord-
ingly called upon to prove the original validity of their titles.
Many of them asserted Avith truth that they had acquired their
estates honestly, but could produce no documents in support of
their Avord.^ Whatever opinions may be held as to the justice
or the policy of this wholesale Resumption, it is certain that it
aAvoke serious discontent and even disaifection.
Much bitter feeling Avas also aroused by the operation of the
Sale LaAv, under Avhich the estates of numerous
The Sale Law. it, . , i , , i •
landed proprietors were yearly put up to sale m
satisfaction of debts, and boiight generally by rich speculators
or native Government officials. This particular grievance Avas
one of long standing. The neAV-comers could never succeed in
gaining the slightest hold upon the feelings of their tenants,
Avho persisted in regarding their former landlords AAdth unabated
affection, and Avould at any moment haA^e been ready, if called
upon, to take doAA^n their spears and matchlocks, and help them
to Avin back what they had lost.
It Avould be unjust, hoAvever, to hold Bentinck specially
,„ , ., responsible for the evil results of measures which
The strong side ,^,., .. , i-tt -i
ofBentinck^s he did iiot Originate; and, as his dealings Avith
a minis ra jon. j^^^j^-^g states have been severely criticised in these
popularity means. The vox popull . . . has little or nothing to do with it, for
that voice is not yet heard. Spurious jiopularity in the east may be cheaply
obtained by following Sir Robert Walpole's maxim, Quieta mm viovere."
^ See Extract from Board's Report to Government, dated 19th Sept. 1856,
on the " Revenue Administration of the Rohilcund Division for 1856." Enclosures
io Secret Letters from India, Feb. 1S5S, pp. 191-6.
I OF LORD DALHOUSIE'S ADMINISTRATION 27
pages, it is a duty to do honour to the strong side of his ad-
ministration. No Governor-General of India, no ruler known
to history, ever laboured for the good of his people with a
more single-minded devotion than he. Among his reforms the
best known is the abolition of the atrocious rite of suttee,^
which only a man of the highest moral courage would have
dared to carry out against the mass of religious prejudice
which it stirred up. But he made his good influence felt in
every department of civil government. It was he who gave
the first great impetus to the material progress of the country.
Thus it was that he won the unique place which he holds in
the history of British India; for the evil which he had unwit-
tingly done has perished, but the good will remain and fructify
for all time.
With the accession of Lord Auckland, Bentinck's successor,
began a new era in Anglo-Indian history, in which
the long - sown seeds of fresh political complica- Lord Aiick-
tions, which even now seem as far from solution to'war(£°^"^^
as ever, began to put forth fruit. All danger ^^.''f '^'^irf
from irench ambition had passed away : but
Kussian intrigue was busy against us. We had brought the
danger on ourselves. False to an alliance with Persia, which
dated from the beginning of the century, we had turned a deaf
ear to her entreaties for help against Kussian aggression, and
had allowed her to fall under the power of her tyrant, who
thenceforth vised her as an instrument of his amljition. The
result of our selfish indifference appeared in 1837, when Persia,
acting under Russian influence, laid siege to Herat, which was
then under Afghan rule. After a long series of revolutions.
Dost Mahomed, the representative of the famous tribe of
Bdrakzais, had established himself upon the throne, with the
warm approval of the majority of the people ; while Shah Shuja,
the leader of the rival Saddozais, was an exile. The ruling
prince did not wait for Auckland to seek his friendship. The
Tsar sent an agent to Kabul, and offered him money and protec-
tion against Persia. He treated the Russian advances with
contempt, and desired nothing better than to be an ally of the
English. All he asked was that they should protect him
against Persian aggression, and induce Ranjit Singh to allow
him and his brother Sultan Mahomed to hold PeshaAvar as
^ The custom of burning widows on the funeral piles of their husbands.
28 ANGLO-INDIAN HISTORY TO THE END chap.
vassals and tributaries. Auckland was urged by Alexander
Burnes, the agent whom he had sent to Kdbul, to seize the
opportunity. It was in his power to deal Russia a crushing
blow, and to avert those troubles which are even noAV harassing
British statesmen. If it was impolitic for him to attempt to
influence Ban jit Singh, he might at least have promised Dost
Mahomed the protection which he desired, and thus proved to
him that his friendly professions were not a sham. But his
tone was so frigid that the Amir lost all faith in him ; and the
agent was recalled. As the Amir's secretary remarked, " It
was not the adjustment of the Peshawar afliair that dissipated
the Amir's hopes, but the indifterence to his suff"erings Avhich it
was clear that the English felt." Having flung away the friend-
ship of Dost Mahomed, Auckland saw that he must do some-
thing to checkmate Russian intrigue. If Herat were to fall, the
Barakzais Avould be prostrate at the feet of the Shah ; and the
Russians would establish a permanent influence in Afghanistan.
In the summer of 1838 Auckland entered into the
famous Tripartite Treaty with Ranjit Singh and
Shah Shuja, the aim of which was to depose Dost Mahomed and
elevate the exile to the throne.
But Auckland was to have an opportunity of retrieving his
error. While Herat was still holding out, the Shah was at last
threatened Avith war, and raised the siege. Russian
^ ' ' intrigue had failed ; and the danger which had
menaced British India had disappeared. The motive of the
Tripartite Treaty was gone. Even now Dost Mahomed hankered
after the friendship of the English. Auckland did not let slip the
opportunity : he flung it from him, and clutched at a policy
that was to bring misery to thousands of families in England, in
India, and in Afghanistan, and to prove disastrous to the poli-
tical interests of all three countries. He asserted that it Avas
his duty to provide against future troubles in Afghanistan, for
he could point to no existing ones ; and he attempted to do this
by dethroning a prince Avho had shown him nothing but good
Avill, and hy raising up in his stead the rival whom the bulk of
the population distrusted as a man foredoomed to misfortune.^
1 Pari. Papers, vol. xxv. (1 Sess. 2) 1859, pp. 43, 100. 132, 160, 172-4, 187,
228-9, 231, 238, 275, etc. ; A. Burhes's Cabool, p. 270 ; Kaye's Lives of Indian
Officers, ii. 37, note ; Kaye's Jlist. of the War in Afghanistan, '2nd ed. pp. 199-
385. See App. A.
OF LORD DALHOUSIE'S ADMINISTRATION 29
For a time ;ill appeared to go well ; and the English Avere lulled
into a fatal security. So long as the chiefs and the mountain
tribes were propitiated by British subsidies, the British army
which remained at Kabul to protect Shah Shuja against his own
subjects was in no danger. But, when economy necessitated the
withdrawal of the subsidies, the factitious attachment of the
people to our rule died away. There is no need to dwell upon
the tragedies of 1841 and 1842. Those who are least interested
in Indian history are not likely to forget how the Afghan mob
murdered the British Envoy and his associates ; how the British
commander, putting faith in the chiefs of a people whom no
treaties can bind, began that retreat from which but one man
escaped to tell how sixteen thousand had perished ; how poor
Auckland, unmanned by the disaster, lacked the energy to retrieve
it ; how the heroic Sale ^ held out at Jelalabad till Pollock re-
lieved him ; how Auckland's successor. Lord Ellenborough,
dreading fresh disasters, hesitated to alloAA'' his generals to act
till, yielding to their indignant zeal, he threw upon
them the responsibility of that advance to Kabul
which retrieved the lost prestige of oui' arms. Thus closed the
first act of a still unfinished drama.
After celebrating the triumph of the victorious army, Ellen-
borough sent Charles Napier to punish the Amirs
of Sind, who, emboldened by the retreat from shiJ{^"'^** '^'^
Kdbul, had violated a treaty which they had con-
cluded with the British Government. The result of the war
was the annexation of the country : but the glories
" o 1S43
of Miani and of Hyderabad were overclouded by
the dispute on the question of the guilt of the Amirs between
Napier and James Outram.-
Less talked of at the time, but historically more important
was Ellenborough's reconstitution of the British
relations with the Sindhia of the day. Political Biienborough's
distu.rbances had for some time agitated that prince's sindhla.
court, while his army had swollen to a dangerous
size, and, like the Sikh army since Eanjit Singh's death, which
had taken place a few years before, had passed beyond the con-
trol of the civil power. In these two armies Ellenliorough saw
a danger which might disturb the peace of Hindustan. He fore-
^ The leading spirit iu the defence of Jelalabad was Captain Broadfoot.
^ See the biography of Napier iu my Four Fuvwvs Holdiers.
30 ANGLO-INDIA^^ HISTORY TO THE END chap.
saw that tlie Sikh soldiers, released from the stern discipline of
Ranjit Singh, would soon force a government which they despised
to let them cross the Sutlej in quest of plunder. Two years
later his character as a prophet was A'indicated ; and, if he had
not now, in anticipation of the invasion which then took place,
disbanded the greater part of Sindhia's army, and overawed the
remainder by a native contingent under the command of British
officers, the Sikhs would probably have joined their forces with
the Marathas. It is impossible to estimate the magnitude of the
danger which would then have threatened our power ; and, when
Ellenborough heard of the unexpected resistance which the Sikhs
had opposed to his successor, he may well have thought that he
had helped to secure the empire against the advent of a great
crisis. But the Directors took a different view of their Governor-
General's conduct of affairs. In June, 1844, all India was
astonished by the news that Ellenborough had been
His recall. . .
recalled. He had helped to bring about his own
downfall, for in the controversies with his masters in which he,
like some of the ablest of his predecessors, had found himself
involved, he had shown an unfortunate Avant of discretion : but,
though by bombastic proclamations and a theatrical love of display
he had sometimes exposed himself to ridicule, many of his subor-
dinates felt that in him they had lost a vigorous and able ruler.
Sir Henry Hardinge, who was raised to the peerage before
the close of his administration, succeeded to the office of
Governor-General, and waited anxiously for the breaking of the
storm which his predecessor had seen gathering. The Sikhs,
the Puritans of India, who Avere not strictly speak-
The Sikhs . . . J r
ing a nation, but a religious brotherhood of warriors
called the Khalsa, Avere animated by tAvo passions equally
dangerous to the peace of those around them, a fierce enthusiasm,
half military, half religious, for the glory of their order, and an
insatiable desire for plunder. By giA^ing them full scope for the
indulgence of these passions, and by punishing all disobedience
with merciless severity, Eanjit Singh had governed his tui-bulent
subjects for forty years : but, AA-hen he died, they broke loose
from all control ; and the Aveak GoA^ernment of Lahore found
that they coi;ld only save their own capital from
First ^jlki'i war. l^eiug plundered by the Khalsa army by sending it
to seek plunder in British territory. Thus began
the first Sikh Avar. The British soldiers Avho marched to defend
I OF LORD DALHOUSIE'S ADMINISTRATION 31
the line of the Sutlej found to their astonishment that the Sikhs
were as formidable enemies as the Gurkhas ; and
iS4i;
they had already fought three desperate battles
v\hen the dearly bought victory of Sobraon decided the war in
their favour.
Hardinge was not a weak ruler : but he lacked the foresight
which gave additional value to Wellesley's decision
in the use of victory. Though many of the Sikh dlnge tries to'^'
magnates declared that nothing less than the jJfth-e*govem-
annexation of the Punjab would deter the Khdlsa meiitofthe
army from striking another blow for supremacy, he
resolved to give the people a chance of settling down quietly
under their native rulers.^ He received one emphatic warning
against the unsoundness of this policy ; for, when he was about
to withdraw the British army from the Punjab, the Government
of Lahore assured him that such a measure would be the signal
for the rise of the Khdlsa against themselves. At last he com-
promised the matter by consenting that Henry Lawrence, as
British Eesident, should have the guidance of the native Council
of Regency to which the administration was to be committed.
Many of the Sikh soldiers were disbanded : there were but few
outward signs of discontent; and, in 1848, Hardinge handed
over the government to Lord Dalhousie with the cheering
thought that he had bestowed upon India the blessing of a
lasting peace.
The peace lasted just three months after his departure.
Surrounded by a staff of officers who all trusted in _.
•^ , . Henry Law-
their chief, who have all left their mark upon renceinthe
Indian history, and of whom more than one will find """''^ '
mention in the story of the Mutiny, Henry Lawrence had
laboured on at the reform of the administration, but had never
deluded himself into the belief that English rule, however
beneficent, would be acceptable to a proud and only half-
subdued nation. But, in the midst of his labours, he had been
forced to return to England for his health ; and the
insurrection for which he had been prepared broke out ^^'^°^^ ^''^''
war.
^ It was afterwards asserted by Henry and John Lawrence that Hardinge had
not had the means of annexing the Punjab. On the other hand, Charles Napier
and Havelock strongly recommended annexation ; and such good .soldiers v/ould
hardly have recommended a military impossibility. Life of Sir C Xajner, vol.
iii. pp. 430, 458 ; J. C. Marshman's Memoirs of Sir H. Havelock, p. 160.
32 ANGLO-INDIAN HISTORY TO THE END chap,
under his successor. Its first aspect was that of a mere
local disturbauce. Moolraj, the native viceroy of Mooltan,
had long evaded payment of a succession duty which the Govern-
ment of Lahore had demanded from him before the outbreak of
the first Sikh war. Finding, however, that the British Resident
would not hear of the delay to which the impotent
Lahore Durbar ^ had submitted, he petulantly resigned
his post : the British officers who came to install his successor were
murdered ; and he instantly adopted the deed as his own, and
called upon the people of all creeds to rise against the British.
It soon became clear that this was no isolated act of treachery.
The Khalsa sympathised with Moolraj. Moreover, his crime
was not punished with that promptitude which could alone have
overawed the disaffected nation ; for Lord Gough, the Com-
mander-in-chief, feared to expose his army to the effects of a
summer campaign. But the inaction of the Commander-in-chief
was put to shame by the vigour of a subaltern. On his own
responsibility, Herbert Edwardes, a young lieutenant of infantry,
marched against Moolraj, defeated him, and forced him to retire
behind the walls of Mooltan. This act of resolution, however,
was not so successful as it deserved to be. Mooltan was obstin-
ately defended against the reinforcements which were sent to
co-operate with Edwardes. Then Dalhousie ordered the general
advance of the British troops which he had postponed in defer-
ence to Gough's judgement. The cruel kindness of Hardinge had
brought the miseries of a second conquest upon the Khalsa.
His successor resolved that the work should now be done once
for all.
It was so done, but at a heavy cost. There are many still
living Avho remember the fierce burst of indignation Avhich sent
out Charles Napier to avenge the terrible slaughter of Chilian-
wdla. But, before Napier could arrive, Gough had atoned for
the errors of his doulitful victory by the decisive battle of
Gujrdt. Dalhousie turned his conquest to account by bringing
the Punjab under British dominion. It Avas the
one step in his remorseless career of annexation
that needed no apology. One interruption alone marred
Annexation of ^^c smoothncss of the administrative progress
the Punjab, which made the Punjab the model province
of the empire.
^ Ruling council.
I OF LORD DALHOUSIE'S ADMINISTRATION 33
Dalhousie began by entrusting the govei'nnient to a Board
of three, Henry Lawrence, John Lawrence, and
Charles Mansel, who was succeeded, in 1850, by ^f'SunSb!"
Robert Montgomery. The rapidity with which the
province advanced towards ciinllisation justified the j)artiality
Avith which Dalhousie always regarded it. Under a picked body
of administrators who threw their whole heart into their work,
and lived in camp for eight months of the year with their tents
open to the humblest petitioners, the pressure of the taxes which
Ranjit Singh had imposed was lightened ; the people were
forced to give up their arms, and to live peaceably with each
other ; ^ a strong and trustworthy police force was organised ;
dacoity ^ was almost entirely stamped out ; a system of criminal
law suitable to the character of the people was de\ased ; slavery,
infanticide, and the countless evils of a barbarous rule were
suppressed ; canals, bridges, and a network of great roads were
constructed ; and new regiments were organised for the protec-
tion of the country against the lawless hill - tril^es. It was
because the Sikhs, as a conquered people, were prepared to
accept the measures of their conquerors with submission, while
the simplicity of Ranjit Singh's despotism, unencumbered by the
mass of forms which thwarted the benevolent efforts of English
officials in other provinces, had left the ground clear for the
erection of an entirely new fabric of government, that the
success of our rule in the Punjab was so swift, and so complete.
But there was not unanimity in the counsels of the famous
trio who composed the Board. Henry Lawrence, always a
friend of the fallen, caused dissatisfaction to the Governor-
General by the pertinacity with which he fought the battles of
the Sikh Sirdars, the aristocracy of the Punjab, whose past
unfaithfulness he was unwilling to punish too severely. Dal-
housie finally resolved to give John Lawrence, whose views
harmonised Avith his own, the undivided control of the province.
But there is no doubt that the character of John's administration
AA'as modified by Henry's counsels ; and, when old Punjabis talk
of the glorious history of their province in 1857, they love to
^ "The Trans-Indus and Huzara population was exempted . . . inasmuch as
without arms they would be at the mercy of plundering hordes." — General
Report 071 the Adviinistraiion of the Punjab for the years 1849-50, and 1850-51,
p. 37, par. 182.
- Gang-robbery.
D
34 ANGLO-INDIAN HISTORY TO THE END chap.
dwell upon the fact that it was Henry who, by his noble charac-
ter and unresting energy, bequeathed to their administration the
spirit to which that history was partly due.
The acquisition of the Punjab, like almost every accession of
territory which the empire had hitherto received,
housie'^ bad been the result of conquest forced upon a
policy^*'"" reluctant Government. But Dalhousie's other acquisi-
tions were for the most part of a different kind, and
excited in his own time and after his death controversies more
violent than those which had been excited by the acts of any
Governor-General except Warren Hastings. The passions, how-
ever, which fanned these controversies into flame are now well-
nigh extinct : the direction in which opinion is setting is clearly
defined : the evidence upon which a final judgement may be
based is ample and open to eveiy enquirer ; and the time has
therefore come when such a judgement may be confidently pro-
nounced. Like Bentinck, Dalhousie belonged to the school of
modern Liberalism : but, while the milder political creed of the
former bade him maintain the right of all dependent native
states to govern themselves even to their own destruction, the
ardent proselytism of the latter would have brought the same
states under the uniform sway of a paternal government. There
is not indeed any reason to suppose that Dalhousie set out for
India with the resolve of entering upon a career of annexation :
but, as opportunities for annexation arose which he regarded as
lawful, he believed that he would be wanting in his duty to his
country and to the people of India, if he failed to take advantage
of them. It then became the aim of his policy to consolidate the
Anglo-Indian Empire by the absorption of the native states that
interrupted its continuity ; to eradicate every remnant of native
barbarism which he could reach ; and upon the ground thus
cleared to erect a brand-new fabric of Western civilisation, " I
take this fitting occasion," he wrote, in a minute on the famous
Satara cpxestion, " of recording my strong and deliberate opinion,
that, in the exercise of a wise and sound policy, the British
Government is bound not to put aside or neglect such rightful
opportunities of acquiring territory or revenue as may from
time to time present themselves ; whether they arise from the
lapse of subordinate states by the failure of all heii's of every
description whatsoever, or from the failure of heirs natural,
where the succession can be sustained only by the sanction of
I OF LORD DALHOUSIE'S ADMINISTRATION 35
the Government being given to tlie ceremony of adoption accord-
ing to Hindu law. The Government is bound in duty, as well
as policy, to act on every such occasion with the purest integrity,
and in the most scrupulous observance of good faith. Whenever
a shadow of doubt can be shown, the claim should at once be
abandoned. But, where the right to territory by lapse is clear,
the Government is bound to take that which is justly and legally
its due, and to extend to that territory the benefits of our
sovereignty, present and prospective. In like manner, while I
would not seek to lay down any inflexible rule with respect to
adoption, I hold that, on all occasions, where heirs natural shall
fail, the territory should be made to lapse, and adoption should
not be permitted, excepting in those cases in which some strong
political reason may render it expedient to depart from this
general rule."
The principles of adoption and of lapse, to which he here
refers, require a brief explanation. No article in the Hindu
creed is held more tenaciously than that which teaches that a
man can only escape punishment hereafter by leaving a son to
offer sacrifice to his soul. The childless man therefore naturally
cherished the right of adopting a son who would perform for
him this sacred duty. But the custom of adoption had a
political side as well. Childless princes adopted sons with the
view not only of securing salvation, but of perpetuating their
dynasties. No one could interfere with the right of a son so
adopted to inherit his father's private property, or to perform
for him the duties of religion. But it had always been clearly
understood, and was admitted even by the most zealous sup-
porters of the rights of native dynasties, that he could not
succeed to the principality without the sanction of the Para-
mount Power. The rulers who preceded Dalhousie had gene-
rally been ready to grant their sanction : but in more than one
instance they had for special reasons withheld it ; and in con-
sequence certain minor principalities had lapsed to the British
Government. It was by the exercise of this right of lapse that
Dalhousie annexed Satara, Nagpur, JhAnsi, and several minor
principalities. He did not create the right : he simply exercised
it on a scale of unprecedented magnitude, because he believed
it to be valuable, and possessed the rare courage that dares to
push an opinion to its logical conclusion.
It remains to be considered whether his opinion AA^as right.
36 ANGLO-INDIAN HISTORY TO THE END chap.
In his despatches he expended mi;ch eloquence r.iid argument
to show that his proceedings were technically justifiable ; and
there can be no doubt that he proved his point. But the
verdict of history on great political questions differs from legal
verdicts in that it is not affected by technicalities. If Dal-
housie's annexations injured the interests of the people of the
annexed states and of the British Government, it is useless to
argue that they were technicall}'- valid. If, on the other hand,
they promoted those interests, they are independent of justifica-
tion based upon technical grounds. Had they been technicall}^
invalid, such invalidity would only require notice if it had given
offence to native critics. The only questions then that call for
discussion are these : did the annexations promote the interests
of the Bi'itish Government and of the people of the annexed
states, and did they produce a disturbing effect upon native
opinion ? These questions may be easily and certainly answered.
The annexations consolidated the empire, strengthened its
military communications, and added to its material resources.
Moreover, no well-informed man can doubt that, although they
gave great offence to royal families and courtiers, they conferred
lasting benefits upon millions of people, a large proportion of
whom had suffered grievously from native misgovernment. But
it is not less certain that they aroused a feeling of uneasiness
among many of those natives who were capable of obseivation
and reflection. Such a result, however, was unavoidable, and
furnished no argument against Dalhousie's policy. Just as a
child often cannot understand the motives of those who are
responsible for his education, so the natives could not under-
stand the motives that dictated the policy of annexation. The
unswerving regularity with which it was carried out, the absence
of that provocation on their part, which had seemed to justify
the annexations of former rulers, cx'eated in the minds of many
of them an impression that the British Government was abandon-
ing those principles of good [faith which had raised it above
earlier conquerors, and entering upon a new career of unscrupu-
lous aggrandisement.^
^ Sir R. Temple's Men and Events of my Time in India, pp. 107, 109, 111,
113 ; W. Lee-Warner's Tlie Protected Princes of India, pp. 126, 144-47 ; E.
Arnold's Dalhousie's Administration of British India, vol. ii. pp. 164-5 ;
Calcutta Review, vol. xlii. p. 183, vol. xxxiii., vol. xxii. ; Sir C. Jackson's
Vindication of the Marquis of Dalhousie's Indian Administration, pp.
9, 10, 12, 19, 20 ; Meadows Taylor's Story of my Life, pp. 294, 357 ; Purl.
J
1 OF LORD DALHOUSIES ADMINISTRATION 37
Two other annexations remain to be recorded. The successor
of Amherst had tried hard to preserve friendly
relations with the Burmese Court, but in vain ; pegu^^**' °^
and, in 1840, the obstinate insolence of the Bur-
mese King drove Auckland to give up the attempt to maintain
a British Resident at his capital. Though, however, repeated
acts of petty tyranny to Europeans would have justified retri-
bution, no further action was taken till after Hardinge's
departure ; for the costliness of the first Burmese war and the
deadliness of the Burmese climate had not been
forgotten. At last Dalhousie felt himself obliged
to vindicate British honour, and, after a rapid conquest, annexed
Pegu.
The annexation of Oudh, the crowning act of Dalhousie's
administration, differed widely in regard to the
motives which dictated it and the manner in which oi"uudh.'°"
it was carried out, from the annexations that have
already been mentioned. The reader may remember that
Wellesley had prophesied that the Company's Government
would sooner or later find itself obliged to assume the adminis-
tration of that unhappy country. Since his time one ruler
after another had mourned over its wrongs, but had shrunk
from taking the one decisive step that Avould have redressed
them. Remonstrances and warnings had been tried in vain.
But, when Colonel Sleeman, the British Resident at Lucknow,
after making a tour of inspection through the kingdom, reported
the results of his observations, such a mass of wickedness was
brought to light that a humane ruler could no longer shrink
from fulfilling the threats which weaker men had been content
to repeat in vain. The Mahomedans and the Rajputs of Oudh
were naturally neither better nor worse than other men ; but the
system under which they found themselves was hopelessly
demoralising. If the king had been a despot, he might at least
have controlled his barons, and kept the right of plundering in
his own hands : but his selfish indifference was worse than any
tyranny. No regular Government existed. The nazims and
chakladdrs, who nominally governed the various districts, were
in fact collectors of revenue, who had to pay so much to the
Pajxrs, vol. xxxix. (1849), p. 227, par. 25-S, vol. xl. (18ril-5.'">), p. 70, par. 5.
I have also consulted a large iiiiuiljer of Looks aud painplilets writteu iii a
spirit of hostility to Dalhousie.
38 ANGLO-INDIAN HISTORY TO THE END chap.
king, and reimbursed themselves as best they could. The
revenue was collected by armed force. No talukdar ever
dreamed of paying unless he should be compelled. The strong
gathered their clansmen around them, shut themselves up in
their forts, and received the nazim and his army Avith a dis-
charge of artillery. The Aveak were mercilessly plundered,
sometimes killed, and sometimes forced to take to brigandage
for a living. The soldiers of the nazim Avere let loose upon the
country to realise their pay. Peasants and small traders never felt
secure for a single night ; and some two thousand men were slain
annually by brigands or in civil strife. Talukdars themselves
robbed small proprietors of their holdings and plundered traders
and capitalists. The inferior castes were oppressed, beaten and
abused by all. No pen could faithfully describe the sins of the
oppressors or the miseries of the oppressed ; and, if the picture
could be painted, no humane man would suffer himself to look
upon it. For the worst of Roman proconsuls would have
blushed at the iniquities wrought by the nazims and the chak-
ladars of Oudh.
The one remedy for such wrongs as these was for the British
Government to assume the administration of the country ; and,
if the determination to do this had needed further justification,
it would have been supplied by the unanimity vnth. which Sleeman
and Henry LaAvrence, the sympathetic champions of the rights of
native rulers, pleaded for the measure.^ Dalhousie knew as well
as any man that interference was called for ; and, if he had
shrunk from acting upon his knowledge, the admonitions of the
Home Government would have forced him to be up and doing.
But he also knew that the Government of India was in great part
responsible for the evils which its feebleness had for more than
fifty years suffered to accumulate : he remembered that the princes
of Oudh had always been faithful allies of his countrymen ; and
it is probable that these considerations so far unnerved him that
he was unwilling to act with the inexorable resolution Avhich had
characterised his dealings with other native states. The course
which he personally "wished to adopt was, not to annex the
■' Oudh G'arxtteer,\o\. i. pp. xlvi, xlviii, li-lii. ; vol. ii. p. 43 ; Maj.-Geii. Sir W. II.
Sleemau's A Journeii tki-oiujh Uie Kingdom of Oudh in 1849-.''»0, i. 6'J, 100, 135-0,
210-13, 335, 3C8-9,'378, 382, 387, 392, 422 ; ii. 210-13. H. C. Irwin's Garden
of India, pp. 133-4, 141-3, 148-9, 151, 153, 1(50 ; Sir R. Montgomery's Report
(Hotise of Lords I'a.2)crs, 74 Sess. 2, 1859) pars. 83, 85, 87-90, 94, 99, 101-4 j G.
Hutchinson's Narratice of the Mutinies in Oudh, pp. 2, 24.
I OF LORD DALHOUSIE'S ADMINISTRATION 39
country, not even to insist upon assuming the administration,
but, declaring that the treaty of 1801 ^ had been rendered null
and void by the failure of the Government of Oudh to fulfil its
conditions, to withdraw the British troops by whose support the
king was alone maintained iipon his throne, and thus reduce him
to the necessity of accepting a new treaty. But the English
Cabinet, the Board of Control, and the Court of Directors, like
almost every Anglo-Indian statesman whose opinion carried
weight, felt that such a delicate mode of proceeding was uncalled
for ; and Dalhousie was accordingly authorised " to assume
authoritatively the powers necessaiy for good government
throughout the country." He loyally accepted the issue. "I
resolved," he wrote, " to forego my own preferences, and, in
dealing with Oudh, to adopt the more peremptory course which
had been advocated by my colleagues, and which was manifestly
more acceptable to the Honourable Company." Accordingly, on
the 4th of February, 1856, Colonel James Outram, the British
Resident at Lucknow, presented a new treaty to the king, at the
same time courteously warning him that, unless he accepted it,
the royal title and the ample revenue, which the British Govern-
ment was ready to guarantee to himself and his heirs, would be
forfeited. Bursting into tears, the king declared that the British
had robbed him of his all, and that it was useless for him to sign
the treaty. Outram exhausted every argument to induce him
to change his mind, but in vain. Three days afterwards there-
fore it was i)roclaimed " that the government of the territories
of Oudh is henceforth vested exclusively and for ever in the
Honourable East India Company."
It remains to be seen what lines were to be laid do\vn for the
administration of the new province. Sleeman and Henry Law-
rence had earnestly recommended that the revenues should be
exclusively appropriated to the benefit of the people and of the
royal family. If Dalhousie had taken this advice, he would have
given to the natives of India a convincing proof that his policy
had been inspired, not by any thirst for aggrandisement, but by
a single-minded devotion to their welfare, and might have I'epelled
the imputation of 1)ad faith which his past annexations had
brought upon him. But he decided that the British Government
might fairly recompense itself for the labour which it was
^ See p. 16 aupra.
40 ANGLO-INDIAN HISTORY TO THE END chap.
voluntarily undertaking on behalf of an oppressed people.^ It
was inevitable that the natives should put the most invidious
interpretation upon his decision, and assume that, endeavouring
to disguise his rapacity by a hypocritical profession of benevolence,
he had simply clutched at iia opportunity for extending the terri-
tory and swelling the revenue of the British Eaj."'
If, however, Dalhousie erred in rejecting the counsel of Slee-
man and of LaAvrence, the instructions which he laid down for
the guidance of the officers who were intrusted with the adminis-
tration of Oudh were conceived in the purest spirit of humanity.
His object was to gi'ant redress to the actual occupants of the
soil, whom the talukdars had in many cases fraudulently or
violently deprived of their rights. He ordered therefore that a
summary settlement of the land revenue should be formed with
the occupants. This settlement, however, was to last for three
years only, after which it was to be superseded by a permanent
arrangement based upon a detailed investigation of the claims of
all parties.^ But in those three years irreparable mischief might
be done. Dalhousie, in his eagerness to do justice to the oppressed,
forgot that the talukdars had rights as well as the tenants. The
talukdars, in spite of their misdeeds, were, in the eyes of their
dependents, the aristocracy of the country ; and if, notwithstanding
long jDossession, their claims were ignored, it was certain that they
would seize the first opportunity of recovering what they regarded
as their own.
The dangerous results which have been spoken of as flowing
from the Settlement of the North- Western Provinces
Conmiission. ^^^'^ the Sale Law were in full current in Dalhousie's
time : but, whatever judgement may he pronounced
upon those measures, he was not responsible for them. At the
same time it must be mentioned that an Act was passed in the
fifth year of his rule, which directed what was known as the
Indm Commission to enquire into the titles of landowners. More
^ Mr. Irwin points out (Garde)i of India, p. 167) that Dalhoiisie referred the
question to the Directors, but that they "maintained a discreet and significant
silence."
- Government.
^ Sir .J. Strachey's India, pp. 250, 312-1 4; Sir R. Montgomery's lieport,
pars. 157-8 ; J. G. W. Sykes's (Jotiipendiiim <>/' the Lani speciaUy relating to the
Taluqdars of Oudh, p. 14; Jackson, pp. 136, 139, 140, 144-7; H. C. Irwin '.<?
Garden of India, p. 179 ; Duke of Argyll's India undi'r iJalhoitsie mid Canninr/,
p. 22 ; Pari. Papers, vol. xliv. (1857-'58), Part 4, pp. 1125, 1126.
I OF LORD DALHOUSIE'S ADMINISTRATION 41
than twenty thousand estates were confiscated by the com-
missioners in the five years preceding the Mutiny ; and in the
Southern Manitha country especially its decisions added seriously
to the sum of agrarian discontent.
The famous case of the Nana Sahib deserves a short notice.
When the ex-Poshwa died, the son whom he had
adopted, that Nana Sahib who, a few years later, S^^fJ^°l*lJ*•t
was to win for himself an imperishable infamy, isss.
demanded, as his right, that his father's pension
should be continued to him. His claim was rejected. The
rejection was based upon the terms of the original agreement
with the Peshwa ; and to pronounce an ex post facto condemna-
tion on its justice or its policy on the ground that the individual
who suffered from it wreaked a base revenge upon the power
which had disappointed him, would l>e preposterous. ^
Meanwhile, Dalhousie was carrying out another set of measures
which, though they reflected the greatest credit upon
his administration, and were productive of immense Daihousie's
benefit to the country, awakened distrust among the measures.
aristocracy of religion. The Hindu priesthood had
ever been the sole depositaries not only of sacred, but also of
secular instruction. The recent introduction of the literature and
science of Europe into India had done little to shake the blind
trust of the masses in Brahmin infallibility. The outworks of
the stronghold of superstition were indeed shaken when the
clever young students who had studied Shakespeare, and Bacon,
and Newton at the Government Colleges grew up to manhood,
and communicated their knowledge to their families. But, when
the ignorant natives saw trains rushing past at twice the speed
of the swiftest Maratha horsemen, on the rails which Dalhousie
had laid down, and learned that messages could be transmitted
instantaneously from end to end of the empire, along those lines
of wire which they gazed at with Avondering awe, it was felt that
the stronghold itself was in danger. The movement for the
education of native women, the contemplated law for permitting
Hindu widows to marry again, the inexoral)le suppression of the
barbarous usages which scandalised Dalhousie, were supported by
a few intelligent natives, but gave deep offence to the Hindu
Pundits, the Mnhomedau Moulvis, and the orthodox millions who
^ Jacksou, pp. 54, 61.
42 ANGLO-INDIAN HISTORY TO THE END chap.
still venerated their teaching.^ There was no outward sign of
discontent to offend the self-satisfaction with which this strong,
austere, laborious man, surveyed his work upon the eve of his
departure. Everywhere there was a great calm. But it was the
calm that precedes a storm.
Let us pause for a moment to review the effects of a century
of British rule. Few Englishmen cai-e to learn how
effeets^of the^ ^ handful of their countrymen established that rule,
British ruler °^ ^^^ Steadily widened the sphere of its operation ;
for they do not know that they are refusing to look
upon a unique historical drama, full of picturesque incident, and
diversified by the conflict of characters of whom some would have
been strange to Shakespeare's imagination, — gorgeous poten-
tates, intriguing courtiers, subtle diplomatists, ambitious queens
hatching plots in the recesses of their palaces, clan -chieftains
founding empires, daring upstarts forcing their way by craft and
violence to the command of armies and the conquest of kingdoms,
cunning priests inspiring awe alike in king and noble, soldier and
statesman, zamindar and ryot,^ merchant and artisan ; Avhile
suddenly the strong figure of the White Man appears in the midst,
dominates all, evolves order out of chaos, bids the contending rulers
hush their quarrels, and holds out hope to the suflering millions.
But, though each successive page of the drama contains fresh reve-
lations of the dauntless courage, the adventurous generalship, the
far-seeing statesmanship of the Englishman, it would have only
a tragic interest if it did not bear witness also to his righteous-
ness of pui'pose. It had been with this purpose before him that
he had given order, peace, and justice to the country Avhich he
had found a scene of anarchy, intestine war, and injustice ; that
he had disabled the monster, Famine, and looked forward to
destroying it ; that he had reclaimed vast tracts from the ravages
of Avild beasts, repressed crime, stimulated industry, and developed
commerce. Yet his rule had been no unmixed benefit. Some-
times the very energy of his benevolence had intensified the evil
which his ignorance had wrought. At other times the faults of
his character had led him astray. A.n eminent Frenchman has
^ Arnold, vol. ii. p. 241 ; Evidence taken before the Court appointed for the
Trial of the King of Delhi, p. 220 {Pari. Fcqjers, vol. xviii. 1859) ; Letters of
Indojjhilvs (Sir C. Trevelyan) to the Times (3rd edition), p. 32.
"^ Peasant-cultivator.
OF LORD DALHOUSIE'S ADMINISTRATION 43
characterised his government as "just, but not amiable." That
terse criticism exposes its weak side. While the ruler had
laboured for the material well-being of his subjects, he had too
often failed to reach their hearts ; and, in his calm sense of superi-
ority, he had forgotten that his intrusive reforms might not always
be appreciated. It was not that the natives resented the thorough-
ness with which he exemplified the maxim, "Everything for the
people, nothing by the people." They were accustomed to
depend for their happiness upon the favour of their rulers ; and
they could appreciate the benefits of a strong and just rule.
They might boast idly of their own superiority : but they were
persuaded in their inmost hearts that the Europeans were their
superiors. It was only necessary for the master-race openly to
assert its supremacy, to manifest the single-minded benevolence
of its intentions ; and it would have secured a Avilling obedience.
But unhappily, while it had sometimes shrunk from avowing and
righteously exercising the supremacy which it in fact possessed,
it had too often provoked an unmerited distrust of its benevolence.
Its land legislation had, as has been pointed out, roused the ill-
will of a class whom it was important to conciliate, and who
complained that, having made use of their influence over the
lower classes to conquer the country, it no longer cared to treat
them with common civility. It had heedlessly thrown a host of
native oflicials out of employment l^y filling up their places, after
each new conquest, with men of its own choice. By occasional
acts of indiscretion, it had shaken the old confidence in its
tolerance. It had once been hailed by the victims of tyrannical
princes as their deliverer. But a new generation had arisen who
felt no gratitude for the deliverance of their fathers from a
tyranny which they had never suffered, and who, moreover, saw
in the traditional deliverers actual conquerors.
The reader who wishes to understand the feelings with which
the rulers of India were regarded by the natives, must bear in
mind, first of all, that the latter were marked off by boundaries
of race, religion, government, or status into numerous groups,
the respective characteristics of which Avere quite as dissimilar
as those which distinguish the several peoples of Europe. He
will perceive therefore that it is impossible to descrilje their feel-
ings by any comprehensive generalisation. To present as truthful
a description as the available evidence will admit of, it will be
necessary to approach the subject from different points of view.
44 ANGLO-INDIAN HISTORY TO THE END chap.
It is certain that, with the exception of those who had been
affected by the agitating influences which have lately been
mentioned, the Hindus were not antagonistic to the English
on the score of religion. So long as they had no fear lest
their own religion would be interfered with, they would be too
apathetic to harbour any enmity against Christianity. Of the
Mahomedans, on the other hand, some did no doubt bitterly
resent the deprivation of the political supremacy which their
fathers had enjoyed, and longed to pull down the aliens who
had seized that supremacy, and to destroy them as enemies of
Islam. But that these feelings were very far from being
general, is proved by the records of the Mutiny. The bulk of
mankind are not logical in their daily practice ; and with many
of the Mahomedans the dictates of a proselytising religion were
set aside by motives of self-interest, of honour, or of respect for
strong and Avisely exercised authority, motives vv^hich made them,
if not loyal, at least submissive to British rule.^
Putting aside the question of religion, we may conclude that
the mercantile and shop-keeping classes, all, in fact, who knew
that their position and prosperity were staked upon the con-
tinuance of orderly rule, and would be liable to ruin amid the
anarchy which Avould be sure to follow upon its subversion,
were steady, if not loyal supporters of the GoAxrnment, and
were prepared to remain so just so long as it suited their con-
venience, in other words, so long as the Government was able
^ In a pamphlet entitled A71 Account of the Loyal Mahomedans in India
(Part II.) by Syad Ahmad Khan, the object of which is to show that no learned
or respectable Mahomedans took part in the Mutiny, it is stated that many of
those who called themselves Moulvis in 1857 and 1858 were impostors ; that
Christians are the only sect upon earth with whom Mahomedans may live iu
friendship ; and that, when a Mahomedan enjoys protection under the rule of a
I^eople not of his own faith, he is bound to obey them. [Sir W. Hunter (The
Indian Mnsalmans, 3rd ed., 1876) states that the Shias and the Sunnis, by the
decisions of their law-doctors, " are not bound by the first principles of religion
to rebel against the Queen" ; but that Wahabi preachers urge that "the first
duty of a ]\Iiisalman is Religious Rebellion." Syad Ahmad Khan, however, in a
review of this worlv, while admitting that "there are some bigoted and super-
stitious Wahabis," affirms that Sir W. Hunter's assertion that "The Wahabis
. . . deduce from the fact of India being technically a country of the enemy the
obligation towage war against its rulers," is "a perfectly groundless charge
against the sect." See Review on Dr. Ilunters Indian Mnsfalmatis, pp. 32, 39,
42-3, and App. p. ix. ; also, for an interesting criticism of Sir W. Hunter's work,
and a study of the subject of " Ishxm in India," Sir Alfred Lyall's Asiatic Sti'dies,
pj). 228-71. Sir Alfred hits the nail on the head wlitii he remarks (p. 241) that
"no one risks his life on a text unless it fits in gentnally with his owu views and
calculations."]
I OF LORD DALHOUSIE'S ADMINISTRATION 45
to keep the upper hand, and protect them in the enjoyment of
their gains. In some parts of the country, such as the Punjab,
Rajputana, and Coorg, the people generally, with the exception
of the criminal classes, were thoroughly aware that they had
profited by British rule, and would be likely to lose by its
subversion. The countless millions who lived by tilling the
soil were for the most part ignorant of the meaning of the
word loyalty : they did not in the least care what Government
might be in power, so long as it protected them, and did not
tax them too heavily. But, though they had only the haziest
notions about the British Government, yet in some parts of the
country, and especially in Bengal, they had sufrered so much
from the cruelty and venality of the police, and of the harpies
who infested the British courts of justice, that they were ill
disposed towards it. Incapable of understanding and allowing
for the difficulties which impeded its well-meant efforts, they
regarded it as responsible for the hardships which they endured.
The feelings of that large and influential class who had lost
their lands in consequence of British legislation have already
been described. There were many natives who still regarded
the King of Delhi as their lawful sovereign, and others who,
while admitting the de facto supremacy of the British Govern-
ment, were not, strictly speaking, its subjects, and would at
any time have followed the lead of their immediate superiors in
opposing it. There were numerous rajas and petty chiefs, who,
without having any substantial grievances to brood over, were
always fretting against the restraints of a Government which,
even though it might have treated them with forbearance and
generosity, would not allow them to gratify their martial
passions, and the mere existence of Avhich was always reminding
them of the humiliating fact that they belonged to a conquered
people. Although the people of Oudh had themselves submitted
peaceably to their new masters, native princes who had lands to
lose were offended and alarmed by an act of annexation which,
as it seemed to them, the King had done nothing to provoke.
Roaming over the hills, and through the vast forests and jungles
of the country, were myriads of savages, who seldom thought
about the British Government, but who, if they ever heard that
it was driven to bay, would be likely to think how they might
fatten upon its misfortunes. Again, there was another large
class, the Gujars or hereditary thieves of India, who, though
46 ANGLO-INDIAN HISTORY chap, i
they had been for fifty years restrained by the curb of a civilis-
ing power, were still straining to plunge back into the violent
delights of an Ishmaelitish life. Lastly, in all the towns, as in
those of the rest of the world, there were swarms of worthless
vagabonds, known by the generic name of budmashes, who, like
the Gujars, detested the Government, precisely because it was
a good and law-enforcing Government, and would not allow them
to commit the villainies for which they were always ready.
Two or three generalisations respecting the feelings of these
heterogeneous masses may be safely made. First, though the
differences which have been noted would prevent them from
combining with harmony, resolution, and singleness of aim
against the Feringhees, the differences of colour, of religion, of
custom and of sympathies, which separated them all from the
Feringhees, were not less pronounced. It is true that the more
thoughtful of them were ready to acknowledge that the British
Government was juster, more merciful, and more efficient than
any that had preceded it : but still many of them secretly longed
for a return of the good old times, when, if there had been less
peace, there had been more stir, more excitement, and a wider
field for adventure ; when, if there had been less security for life
and property, there had been more opportunities for gratifying
personal animosities, and amassing illicit gains ; when, if taxation
had been heavier, there had been some possibility of evading it ;
when, if justice had been more uncertain, there had been more
room for chicanery and intrigue. Finally, among all these
millions there was no real loyalty towards the alien Government
which had been forced to impose itself upon them, though the
examples of men like Henry Lawrence, and John Nicholson, and
Meadows Taylor prove that individual Englishmen who knew
how to work for, to sympathise ■with, and above all, to master
the people committed to their charge, could win from them the
truest loyalty and the most passionate devotion.^
While discontent was thus seething, another class of men, more
formidable than insulted talukdars or dispossessed landholders,
pundits or moulvis, were brooding over their separate wrongs.
1 The Indian Rebellion, by Dr. A. DufT, pp. 170-81, 193-4, 198, 279-80,
284-5 ; Meadows Taylor, pp. 365-72 ; S. Cotton's Nine Years on tlie North-
western Frontier of India, \). 285 ; Calcutta Review, vol. i. pp. 189-217, vol. iii.
pj). 183-4 ; Raikes's Notes on the Revolt of the North- West Provinces, p. 159 ;
Pari. Papers, vol. .xliv. (1857-58), Part 4, p. 1125. See also numerous uotes
scattered through the succeeding chapters.
CHAPTEE II
THE SEPOY ARMY
As the idea of founding a European Empire in India, which
Clive realised, had heen originated by Dupleix,
so the instrument of conquest which the English ^spoy^rmy?
wielded had l^een already grasped by their more
quick-sighted rivals. The French were the first to perceive that
the most warlike of the natives were capable of learning the
mysteries of European discipline, and to see what a powerful
lever for effecting the conquest of India the possession of a
native army so disciplined would put into European hands.
Still, the experiment was a dangerous one. A handful of
British soldiers under a leader like Clive might for a time hold
a portion of India in check : but who would have believed that
these intruders would one day conquer the greater part of the
entire continent, and hold it in subjection by the aid of a force
far outnumbering their own, and severed from them by the
antipathies of race and of religious bigotry ? The story of the
formation of the sepoy army, its achievements, and its decline
will show how these antipathies were at first held in check by
human sympathy and professional pride ; how they were after-
wards irritated by official indiscretion ; and how they culmin-
ated in a death -grapple between the native and European
forces, which had won a hundred victories by their united
prowess.
The first sepoy regiments were raised in Southern India, ^
' It was at Bombay that the very first native corps were disciplined by the
English. Quarterly Review, vol. xviii., Article on the "Origin and State of the
Indian Army," p. 402. The writer was Sir John Malcolm.
THE SEPOY ARMY
the scene of the Company's earliest struggles. The defence of
Arcot showed that, nnder the eyes of Europeans,
Epoystested.'" ^^^Y could successfully encounter native forces
of far superior numbers.^ With this example
before him, Clive did not hesitate to raise the battalion -which
fought under him at Plassey, and which formed the nucleus of
the Bengal army. In the constitution of the corps thus raised
Avere contained the germs of those striking pecu-
idiosyiicrasies liarities which afterwards distinguished that army
sepoys? from those of the other Presidencies.^ Recruited
almost exclusively from the warlike population of
the north-west, for the effeminate Bengali shrank from enteiing
its ranks, it was mainly composed of high-caste men, who Avere
ready to face any danger, but who disdained the humbler duties
of the soldier ; Avhile the regiments of Madras and Bombay, in
which men of different races and castes met and fraternised,
were more generally useful and more amenable to control.^
But with this difference the three armies had certain common
features. The early English rulers believed that
GoMen Age d^qj would sccure the attachment as well as the
army. obedience of their mercenaries by inducing natives
of good family to enter their service as officers, and
giving them the ample authority which their birth and habits of
command fitted them to wield. The native commandant was
indeed placed under the supervision of an English officer ; but
he was occasionally sent in command of a detachment of which
European soldiers formed a part, to undertake the responsibility
n.nd to Avin the glory of some distant enterprise.'* Three English
officers were thought sufficient for each battalion, and treated
their Indian comrades with a sympathetic consideration which
Avas repaid by respectful confidence. While English and native
' lu the Times of Sept. 3, 1858, p. 7, col. 5, Dr. Russell Avrote : "The
general relation of the European to the native soldier is adniu'ably expressed in a
metaphor suggested, I believe, by Sir Colin Camjibell himself . . . 'Take a
bamboo and cast it against a tree, the shaft will rebound and fall harmless ; tip
it Avitli steel and it becomes a spear which will jjierce deep and kill.' The
bamboo is the Asiatic — the steel point is the European."
- A. Broome's History of the Rise <uid Progress of the Bengal Army, p. 93.
•' The oldest Madras legiments were mainly composed of Mahomedans and
Hindus of high caste, but a change soon took place. Qicarterly Revieiv, vol. xviii,
pp. 389, 397.
■* R. Orme's History of the Military Transactions of the Bntish Nation in
Indostan, vol. i. p. 384, vol. iii. p. 495.
THE SEPOY ARMY 49
gentlemen were attracted to the Company's service by the high
pay and the honourable position of an officer, their self-resi)ect,
their mutual admiration, and their pride in their profession
were increased by a succession of victories. Native officers and
native privates looked up with filial reverence and love to the
European who invited them to share in his triumphs, and forgot
their natural aversion to the out-caste Christian when they
found that he respected their caste feelings, and tolerated their
religion. And, while each battalion was bound by personal
devotion to its own officers, the whole army was attached by the
ties of gratitude to the service of the great Company, whose salt
it had eaten, and whose star it worshipped with superstitious
veneration.^
But even in the Golden Age of the sepoy army its cordial
relations with its masters were more than once
broken. Seven years after the battle of Plassey, naitim'es
the Bengal sepoys complained with justice that
they did not receive their fair share of prize-money ; and five
battalions showed symptoms of mutiny. Their
claims were conceded : but they had been allowed
to learn their own strength ; and, a few months later, the oldest
battalion in the service broke forth in unprovoked
rebellion.'^ The terrible fate of the ringleaders,
who were blown away from gxins in the presence of their com-
rades, taught the army a wholesome lesson ; and two years later
its loyal support enabled Clive to overawe the
mutinovis Eiu'opean officers whose discontent has
been noticed in the previous chapter. But the very successes
which the sepoys helped their masters to gain paved the way
for their own depression. As soon as the English
ventured to acknowledge to themselves the fact of European"'
their supremacy, the same self-assertion which led 9*'^cers
to the substitution of their own for native ad- Powers of
ministration in Bengal, showed itself in their grow- dfm?nished!'^"^
ing tendency to add to the number of their officers
with each battalion, and to concentrate all real power in their
1 The article in the Quarterly Review already quoted contains several
interesting anecdotes illustrative of the sympathy which bound together the
European officers and the se^Doys of the old native army, and showing what
absolute devotion a real leader of men, though a European and a Christian, can
win from the natives of India. See esp. pp. 399, 400.
^ Broome, pp. 457-9.
E
50 THE SEPOY ARMY
hands. Fortunately, the command of a native battalion was
still coveted ; and the English officers Avho thus superseded the
natives were picked men who knew how to maintain their
authority. But in 1796 a further change took place. The
veteran European officers had long complained
^tionomao. ^^i^t t'^sy were passed over by younger men in
the royal regiments which were from time to time
sent out to reinforce the Company's army. To appease their
discontent, a complete reorganisation was effected. Two sepoy
battalions were amalgamated into one regiment, to which the
same number of officers was assigned as to a regiment in the
King's service, while all took rank according to the dates of
their commissions. The system of promotion by seniority in-
troduced by this arrangement often threw the commands which
had hitherto been always held by tried men into the hands of
those who were unfit to exercise authority ; while the increase
in the number of European officers still further lowered the
already fallen position of their native comrades. Thenceforward
there was nothing to stimulate the ambition of a sepoy. Though
he might give signs of the military genius of a Hyder, he knew
that he could never attain the pay of an English suljaltern,^ and
that the rank to which he might attain, after some thirty years
of faithful service, Avould not protect him from the insolent
dictation of an ensign fresh from England. But for a few years
nothing occurred to show the authors of these changes how
disastrous they were to prove. Though the service had lost its
charms, the sepoy continued to do his duty faithfully through
the successive campaigns of Wellesley's administration ; and the
assault of Seringapatam, and the charge which won the battle
of Assaye proved that he could fight as well as his more
fortunate ancestors who had conquered under Clive. It was
not until the excitement of conquest, which had diverted his
mind, subsided, that he began to brood over his grievances.
Unfortunately, the military authorities chose this very time for
disquieting him still further by the introduction of a set of
vexatious regulations. It was not enough for them that he had
^ The highest pay attainable by a subahdar of infantry was 174 rupees a
month. Malcolm's Pol. llist. of jndia, vol. ii. p. 233. That of an ensign was
180. J. H. Stocqueler's Handbook of India, p. 57. ["Yes !" says Mr. H. G.
Keene, "but the subahdar could save nine-tenths of his pay, while the ensign
could barely live upon the whole." See, however, the remarks in Malcolm's
work, to which I have referred, and also Gubbius's Mutinies in Oudh, pp. 97-9.]
THE SEPOY ARMY 51
ever shown himself worthj^ to fight by the side of the British
soldier. Believing that di^ess makes the man, the martinets
Avho governed the Madras army, and who flattered themselves
that they might safely practise theii' pet theories upon troops
whose caste prejudices were weaker than those of
the haughty Brahmins of Bengal, forbade their , ^^'"';^
men to wear the marks of caste upon their fore- orders issued
\
heads ; despoiled them of their cherished earrings ; army!* '^^ ^^
ordered them to shave off their venerated beards ;
issized minute instructions respecting the length of their
moustaches, and compelled them to exchange their old turbans
for new ones with leather cockades.^ These absurd measures
aroused the most dangerous suspicions of the sepoys. They
fancied that they detected in the new turbans a resemblance to
the hats worn by the Christians ; ^ and the leather cockades,
made of the skins of hogs or cows, were abominable to Hindus
and Mahomedans alike. Hitherto they had had no cause to
fear that the Christians would insult their religions. But now,
with minds already depressed by a load of real if inevitable
grievances, and irritated by needless innovations, they were in
a mood to believe any story against their rulers. Ignorant,
credulous, and excitable, the sepoys at every station in southern
India gave a ready ear to the travelling fakirs and busybodies
of every kind who told them lying tales of the intolerant pros-
elytism of the English. The General in Ceylon, so one of these
malicious fables ran, had marched his whole corps to church-
parade. The head-centre of disaffection was Vellore, where the
sons and daughters of Tippoo were leading the luxurious lives of
state prisoners, and cherishing visions of the restoration of their
humbled dynasty. They and their crowd of dependents eagerly
clutched at the opportunity of turning the discontent of the
sepoys to account,^ ridiculed their Anglicised appearance, and
gravely assured them that they would soon be converted to
Christianity. Maddened by these taunts, the men plotted to
murder their officers and the European troops in the dead of
night, seize the fortress of Vellore, and hold it while their
brethren at the other stations in the south of the peninsula were
following their example. If the reorganisation of 1796 had not
blasted the hopes of the sepoys and deadened their interest in
^ Report of tlie Vellore Mutiny Commission, Pari. Papers, vol. xlii. (18G0),
p. 690. 2 7j_ s jfj_
52 THE SEPOY ARMY
their profession, if the new generation of English officers had
treated their men with the sympathy which their jjredecessors
had ever shown, there would have been a faithful few amono-
the garrison to give warning of the impending danger, if indeed
such a danger coidd then have arisen.^ But, as it was, when
the storm burst, the English were taken whollj^ by
The mutiny at surprise. Some were shot down at their posts :
Vellore, and its ^ t i • , • t i in
results. others were murdered in their beds ; and all must
have been overpowered if there had not been a
solitary officer outside the fort who heard the tumult, and
hurried to Arcot for help. Fortunately Colonel Gillespie, the
commandant of that station, was a man equal to any emergency.
In less than a quarter of an hour after he had heard the news,
he was galloping at the head of a squadi-on of English dragoons
towards the scene of mutiny. The rest of the regiment, a
squadron of native cavalry, and some galloper guns soon
followed. Finding the gate closed against his force, Gillespie
had himself drawn up alone by a rope over the walls, assumed
command of the remnant of the gariison, and kept the mutineers
at bay until his men forced their way in, completed the rescue,
and took terrible vengeance upon all the delinquents, except
those who escaped, or who were reserved for more formal
punishment. But, though the authorities, terrified by the
results of their own folly, lost no time in rescinding the ob-
noxious regulations, the evil had not yet spent itself. At
Hyderabad, at Nundydroog, and at Palamkotta symptoms of
mutiny appeared. It was not until Lord AVilliam Bentinck, who
was then Governor of Madras, had issued a proclamation, assur-
ing the army that the Government had no thought of interfering
with their religion, that the sepoys began to recover their
equanimity. For a long time the minds of high officials were
exercised by an enquiry into the causes of the mutiny ; but the
Directors settled the question in a plainly-worded minute, in
which, with unusual insight, they laid the blame upon the new
generation of commanding officers, who had neglected to earn
the confidence of their men.
The lessons of the mutiny and the rebuke of the
Advantages Court Were uot throwu away. A favourable re-
the sepoys. action sct in ; and, under the rule of Minto and
Hastings, English colonels were still proud to command native
^ See Quarterly Review, vol, xnii. p. 391.
11 THE SEPOY ARMY 53
regiments, and learned to treat their men with the paternal
kindness which had won their hearts in the days of Clive.
And, though the era of the sei^oys* greatness had passed away,
the advantages of the service were still enough to tempt
men to enter it. In his own family the sepoy was still a great
man : he received "his pay with a regularity to which the sepoys
of the native states were strangers : he had a comfortable pension
to look forward to ; and, when he went to law, as he often did,
for the natives of India are nearly as fond of litigation as their
Eiu'opean masters, he had the right of being heard in our courts
before all other suitors. While he enjoyed these material
advantages, his nobler feelings were aroused Avhen he thought
of the succession of victories which he had helped the great
Company to gain, and proudly identified his fortunes with those
of the conquering race. And, when his active career was over,
he had stories to tell of the great commanders under whom he
had fought, which inspired his children and his fellow-villagers
to follow in his footsteps. The high officials who held his
destiny in their hands might have attached him for ever to
their service ; for he was no mere mercenary soldier. But
every change Avhich they made in his condition, or in his rela-
tions with his officers, v/as a change for the worse. And yet
they were not wholly to blame ; for these changes were partly
the resvilt of the growing power of the English and the intro-
duction of English civilisation. As the Company's territory
expanded, there was a constantly increasing demand
for able men to survey land, raise irregular regi- seduced ivom
ments, or act as political officers ; and, when the by'^oirpros^"*^
ambitious subaltern saw the wider field for his pect of staff
powers which these lucrative posts offered, it was
not to be expected that he should elect to remain with his corps.
Thus, year by year, the best officers were seduced from their regi-
ments by the prospect of staff employ. Conscious of inferiority,
jealous of their comrades' good fortune, those who remained lost
all interest in their duties ; and the men soon per-
ceived that their hearts were far from them.^ More- TOmmMidMits
over, the authorities began to deprive commanding diminished,
officers of the powers which had once made them absolute
^ Both Sir John Malcolm and Lord Metcalfe were of opinion tliat from the
moment when the command of a native regiment became less sought for than
other employment we might date the commeuceuieut of our downfall. J. Jacob's
Views and Opinions, Preface p. xviii.
54 THE SEPOY ARMY
rulers over their regiments, and which they had used Avith
the discretion of loving parents. The growing centralisa-
tion of military authority at headquarters deprived the
colonel of his power to promote, to reward, or to punish ;
and, when he ventured to pronounce a decision- it was as likely
as not that it would be appealed against and reversed. Finally,
as if to destroy the more friendly relations which, after the crisis
of 1806, had sprung up again between officers and
orderofis24. "^^u, a General Order was issued in 1824, by which
the two battalions of each regiment were formed
into two separate regiments, and the officers of the original body
re-distributed among its otf-shoots without regard to the associa-
tions which they had contracted with their old companies.
The evil result of all these changes showed itself when the
first Burmese war broTce out. Even if the Bengal
BarrackpoH!.'**^ scpoy had had no previous cause for discontent,
such a war Avould have been distasteful to him.
He shrank from going to a foreign land of which he knew
nothing, and which his imagination pictured as an abode of
horrors. Moreover, other unfoieseen circumstances arose, which,
acting upon minds already brooding over real grievances, and
now irritated by a demand for an unwelcome service, produced
open insubordination. The sepoys at Barrackpore heard with
dismay an exaggerated version of a disaster which the British
troops already engaged in Burma had suffered : they imagined
that they foresaw the approaching doom of the Company's Eaj ;
and, to croAvn all, they heard it rumoured that Government,
unable to provide them with carriage, had resolved, in defiance
of their caste feelings, to transport them to the seat of war by
sea. Believing the lying report, they refused to march. But
the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Edward Paget, was an officer who
required to be obeyed when he gave orders. Knowing that
leniency shown to mutineers is simply a weak form of cruelty,
he went down to Barrackpore with a strong European force,
and paraded the regiments. An attempt was made to disabuse
their minds of the delusion which had fastened upon them.
They were then offered the alternative of consenting to march,
or grounding their arms. They refused to do either. Instantly
a shower of grape fell upon them ; and they fled in panic, leaving
a number of dead upon the ground. The surviving ringleaders
were hanged ; and the 47 th, the regiment that had been most
THE SEPOY ARMY 56
guilty, was disbanded, and its name erased from the Army List.
The punishment so promptly dealt out struck terror into the
native army ; and open mutiny was postponed for many years.^
The return of peace, however, brought fresh dangers.
Wri thins: under the constant demands which war
had made upon their Treasury, the Directors re-
solved to retrench, and deprived the English anowaS
officers of a portion of their pecuniary allowances, "eji^ed'^^
A few years before, such a step would have been
followed by mutiny : but these officers contented themselves
with a temperate and ineffectual statement of their grievances.
Their men noted the futility of their resistance, and learned to
despise their already weakened authority still more.^ But, as
if he had feared that the sepoys might still retain some littla
respect for their nominal commanders, Lord William Bentinck
thought fit, a few years later, to weaken the power
of the latter still further by abolishing corporal Abolition of
punishment. What was the fruit of his weak punisiiment.
humanitarianism ? The sepoy ceased altogether
to fear his officer ; and it is hard for an officer to win the love
even of the honest, unless he can strike terror into the base.^
The disastrous effects of impaired discipline were aggravated
by the circumstances of the Afghan war. Com-
pelled, while in Afghanistan, to eat impure food aw^fhlHwar.
and to drink impure water, the sepoys lost caste ;
and the survivors, who were obliged, on returning to India,
to pay for readmission, complained that the Government had
broken faith with them.* Their imaginations too were deeply
^ Kaye {Hist, of the Sejioy War, vol. i. pp. 268-71) condemns Paget's action.
When troops, under the influence of a delusion, show symptoms of mutiny, the
duty of their commander, as I understand it, is to explain to them how they are
in error, to warn them that, if, after explanation given, they persist in disobedience,
they will be punished, and, if they persist, to punish them. Paget did not warn
the sepoys that he was prepared to fire upon them. But his conduct was approved
by two high authorities, Havelock and Sydney Cotton.
" See Sir Thomas Seaton's From Cadet to Colonel, vol. i. pp. 85-6.
^ "The proposed abolition," writes Seaton (lb. p. 64), "was universally
condemned. The native officers, who had all risen from the ranks . . . were
vehemently against it. When the letter reached my commanding officer, he
assembled all the most intelligent native oflficers, and asked their opinion on the
subject. They expressed themselves very freely and strongly . . . saying, ' We
hope the hazoor . . . will not abolish flogging ; we don't care about it, only the
budmashes are flogged, if they deserve it. . . . If you abolish flogging, the army
ivill no longer fear, and there will be a mutiny.' " The italics are mine.
^ MS. Correspondence : Pari. Papers, vol. xliv. (1857-58), Part 4, pp. 1123-4.
56 THE SEPOY ARMY
affected by the appalling calamities which had overtaken the
Feringhees ; and their traditional belief in the in\'incibility of
the great Company Avas overthrown.
VictorjT^, however, soon returned to the British arms. The
Afglian Avar Avas folloAved by the sAvift conquest of Sind, in
Avhich the sepoys earned the praise of a commander AA'ho kneAV,
better than any man, how to gauge a soldier's qualities. And,
Avithin the next five years, the native army covered itself afresh
Avith glory in the two wai's against its hereditary enemies, the
formidable AA^arriors of the Khalsa. But the ex-
of^disc^piiue" citemcnt of conquest, which flattered the sepoy's
pride, and prevented him from brooding over his
gricA^ances, could not last for ever. Moreover, though he
fought gallantly, the insubordination Avhich had resulted from
the Aveakening of his officer's poAvers showed itself even in the
heat of camiDaigning. William Hodson, Avho learned his earliest
military lessons in the first Sikh Avar, and Avho Avas destined
to prove in the great Mutiny itself that Asiatics are as sus-
ceptible as Europeans of a perfect discipline, has recorded, his
amazement at the disorderly conduct of the Bengal regiments
Avith his column. Again, as each new conquest lessened the
chances of future war, and thus diminished the
Interference sepoy's self -importance, it imposed upon him the
sepoy's pay. uuAvelcome duty of leaving his OAvn country and
his OAVTi relations to garrison a distant and often
unhealthy land. To this inevitable trial the parsimony of his
rulers added another. To encourage him to fight its battles on
strange soil, the Government gave him an increase of pay : but,
as soon as his A^alour had added the foreign country to its
dominions, it rcAvarded him by AAdthdraAving his alloAvances, and
tried to justify its meanness by the ungenerous quibble that he
Avas now once more on British territory. A succes-
^f'mutiiiies." ^^^^ o^ mutinies punished the authors of this policy,
but did not convince them or their successors of its
costliness. Four Bengal regiments, AA^arned for service in Sind
after its annexation, refused to march until their
extra alloAvances Avere restored to them. A Madras
corps, Avhich the Governor of the Madras Presidency sent to the
aid of the Sind Government, promising, on his OAvn responsibility,
that they should receive their higher pay, Avere told, Avhcn they
reached Bombay, that the Supreme GoAcrnment had refused to
THE SEPOY ARMY 57
confirm the promise, and revenged themselves for their disap-
pointment by creating a disturbance on parade. Nor were the
sepoys who were sent to newly-annexed territories the only
sufferers from the niggardliness of the Government. A regi-
ment of Madras cavalry, after marching northward nearly a
thousand miles, to garrison a station for which the Government
could spare no troops, on the faith of a promise
that their services would only be needed for a
time, found that they were to remain as a permanent garrison,
that their pay was to be reduced to a lower rate, and that, out
of this pittance, they would have to pay for the conveyance of
their families from the south, and support them on their arrival.
They could not defray these charges without running into debt.
They could not leave their families in the south ; for, unlike the
Bengal regiments, they were always accompanied en their wander-
ings by their wives and children. What wonder then that, after
loyally performing an unwelcome duty, and finding that the
promises which had been made to them were to be broken,
they should have resented such a cynical breach of faith by
mutiny 1 ^
Fortunately these isolated acts of insubordination did not
ripen into a general revolt : but, though they Avere checked at
the time, partly by concession, partly by the punishment of the
ringleaders, no decided steps were taken to make their recurrence
impossible. Nothing but a radical reform of the relations between
officer and sepoy, an unmistakeable resolve to treat the latter
both firmly and generously, could have healed his discontent.
But the authorities wei'e satisfied with applying a palliative
Avhen they should have wrought a cure ; and they could have
felt no satisfaction in punishing offenders whom their own injustice
had provoked to sin.
How deeply seated was the evil, became manifest after the
second Sikh war. Charles Napier had been sent
out to wipe away the disgrace which our arms had Na,Ii'M^s d'L
suffered at Chilian wala : but, though Gough had R"^^ with Lord
, , . . T ' " V 1 Dalhousie.
anticipated nis triumph as a conqueror by the
victory of Gujrat, he was to gain another triumph over the
conquering army itself. He had only just reached
Simla when he heard that two regiments at Eawal- " ^'
pindi, which formed part of the army of occupation distributed
^ Kaye, vol. i. pp. 276-302. See also Calcutta licvieio, vol. xli. jip. 96-7.
58 THE SEPOY ARMY
over the newly-conquered Punjab, had refused to receive their
pay unless the extra allowances Avere granted them. It seemed
likely that other regiments would follow their example. Dis-
regarding the advice of a member of his staff, who mistook
indiscriminate severity for vigour, to disband the insubordinate
regiments at once, Napier sent instructions to Sir Colin Campbell,
who commanded at Rawalpindi, to reason quietly with the men,
but at the same time to hold a European force in readiness to
awe them into obedience if persuasion should fail. Before
Campbell received these orders, the immediate danger passed ;
for the insubordinate regiments saw that it would be madness
to persist in the presence of armed Europeans, and silently
resolved to bide their time. But there was danger in other
quarters. Proceeding on a tour of inspection through the
northern provinces, Napier collected evidence which, in his
judgement, proved that twenty-four regiments were
only waiting for an opportunity to rise. An incipient
mutiny at Wazirabad was only repressed by the tact of Colonel
John Hearsey. Still Napier believed that the worst had not
yet come. Making Peshawar his headquarters, he held himself
in readiness to swoop down upon any point at which mutiny
might appear. When, however, the crisis came, he was not
called upon to face it in person ; for it was met by the faithful
courage of a sepoy regiment. The 66th Native Infantry
mutinied at Govindgarh ; and the 1st Native Cavalry crushed
them. Napier disbanded the mutinous corps, transferred its
colours to a regiment of Gurkhas, and boasted that by this stroke
he had taught the Brahmins that, whenever they showed a sign
of discontent, a more warlike people would always be ready to
supplant them.^ But, while he punished mutiny, he pitied the
mutineers, for he believed that native disloyalty was the result
of British injustice ; and in this spirit of sympathy he directed
that an old regulation, which had granted compensation to the
sepoys for dearness of provisions at a rate higher than that
sanctioned by the one then in force, should be restored, and
observed until the Governor-General, who was then absent from
the seat of Government, should pronounce his decision upon
the case.
But Dalhousie could not forgive the man who had dared to
act "without waiting for his commands. For some time past he
^ See Sir W, Hunter's Life, of Brian Howjhtoiv Jlodt/suii, p. 110.
THE SEPOY ARMY 59
had been irritated by what he regarded as the insolence of
Napier's bearing ; and he resolved to teach him that the Governor-
General was his master. He therefore publicly reprimanded the
Commander-in-Chief for assuming an authority that did not
belong to him, and held up to the natives the unedifying
spectacle of disunion among their rulers. The old soldier re-
sented this i-ebuke as a personal affront ; and a keen controversy
arose between the two. But of the munerous questions upon
which they disputed, two only are of vital interest : first, were
the forty thousand sepoys in the Punjab really infected with a
mutinous spirit or not ? Secondly, was the Commander-in-Chief
justified in putting forward the claim to act, in real or supposed
emergencies, upon his own discretion ? The former of these
points cannot, for want of sufficient evidence, be positively
determined : but it is prol^able that Napier over-estimated the
danger, and that the measure by Avhich he tried to avert it was
uncalled for. The other question is one which men will answer
according to their individual temperaments. Assuming that
Napier was right in his estimate of the danger, he would
certainly have been unworthy of his high office if, for fear of
incurring an ofiicial rebuke, he had shrunk from dealing with it
promptly. But while we may admire, as the highest and most
valuable form of courage, the readiness with which a Nelson
assumes responsibility upon occasion, we must admit that he
should be very careful to make sure that the occasion is real.
Right or wrong, however, Napier was determined that he
would no longer be subject to Dalhousie.^ Stung by Avhat he
regarded as the unjust and ungenerous conduct of his chief, and
resolved not to be a powerless spectator of the evils which he
predicted, he resigned his post, and spent the rest of his life in
composing a solemn warning of the fatal results that would surely
flow from Indian misgovernment."^
^ See Papei.s relating to the Resigiiatiou by Sir Charles Napier of the office of
Coniraaiuler-iii-Chief in India {Pari. Papers, vol. xlvii. [1854]) ; Life, of Sir Q.
Napier, vol. iv. ; and an article by Sir H. Lawrence entitled " Sir Charles Napier's
Posthumous Work" {Calcutta Review, vol. xxii. ).
- It has often been said that Napier never wrote anything that could be fairly
interpreted as a warnuig against or a prophecy of a sepoy mutiny. But I find
these words among his published writings : — "he (the sepoy) is devoted to us as
yet, but we take no pains to preserve his attacliment. It is no concern of mine, I
shall be dead before what 1 foresee will take place, but it will take jjlace." Again,
"high caste, — that is to say mutiny — is encouraged." — Times, July 24, 1857,
p. 5, col. 1, and Aug. 17, p. 9, col. 4. The italics are mine. See also p. 91,
60 THE SEPOY ARMY chap.
The sepoys themselves gave one more practical warning ; but
it was lost upon the Governor-General. In 1852
teuikedby lie invited the 38th Bengal Native Infantry to
a native volimtcer for service in Biu-ma. Regarding the
invitation as an encroachment upon their nghts,
for the Bengal sepoy enlisted on the understanding that he should
not be required to cross the sea, the men flatly refused to march.
Besides the proofs of the rottenness of our military system
which occasional mutinies had supplied, there had
Daihousie and been uo lack of Warnings fi'om men whose experience
of counsellors, gave them a right to speak. Thomas Munro and
John Malcolm had earnestly insisted upon the
necessity of attaching the sepoy to the service by making the
prizes which it held out to his ambition more valuable ; and
Charles Napier had added his testimony to theirs as to the fatal
results which would ensue from so lowering the position of the
English commandant as to deter all able ofiicers from aspiring to
it.i But Dalhousie's predecessors, or the authorities who had
chosen them, had neglected to profit by these warnings; and,
when he assumed office, he was so bewildered by the conflicting
opinions which a multitude of counsellors thrust upon him, that
he resolved, perhaps in despair, pei-haps in easy confidence, to
leave the system as he found it.
Still, though it was hard to choose between the opposite
Radical defects theories ou the cfTects of giving preference _ to
of the Bengal high-caste candidates for enlistment, of mixing
men of different races in the same regiment,-
of promoting by seniority, and of adding to the number of
note 1, infra. It is quite true that lie olteu spoke in liigli terms of the discipline
of the native trooj^s. But, iu the iirst jilace, he expressly excepted the Bengal
army from this praise. (See Tivies, July 24, 1857.) And, in the second place,
the fact that he bestowed the praise is quite consistent with his having foreseen
that the objects of it would sooner or later mutiny. As far as I can see, all tliat
he meant to say was that the sepoys were by natm-e far more tractable than British
soldiers. He foresaw that, if tliey ^vere encouraged by continued relaxation of
discipline to mutiny, and thought that it would be their interest to do so, they
would, being hiiman, yield to the temptalion.
^ JMany officers who were aware of the laxity of discipline in sepoy regiments
were afraid to speak out. See W. H. Eussell's JJiari/ iu India, vol. i. p. 267.
^ Mr. H. D. Robertson [District Duties durivg the Revolt, Yfp- 191-209) dwells
ou the "vital error" wliicli "was formerly conmiitted in not recruiting according
to nationalities. " John Lawrence, when raising new levies in 1857, took care to
form each regiment of companies differing from one another iu race. — Life of Lord
Luwience, vol. ii. pp. 111-12. See, however, Kaye, vol. i. pp. 332-3.
THE SEPOY ARMY 61
European officers with each regiment, there were certain
undeniable facts Avhich miglit have shown Dalhousie that the
opinions of the opponents of the Bengal system Avere sounder
than the equally plausible opinions of its supporters. It needs
a man of genius to reconstruct a long-established system, and
push aside the dead weight of prejudice which defends it. But,
though Dalhousie is not to be blamed for having lacked the
force to achieve so great a task his acquiescence in the defects
of the existing system is inexcusable. It was impossible to
explain away the fact that in Bengal, where a low-caste subahdar ^
might often be seen off parade crouching in abject submission
before the Brahmin recruit whom he was supposed to command,
the predominance of high-caste men, or, at least, the deference
that was yielded to their caste prejudices, was fatal to discipline.
It was certainly true that native opinion in the Bombay and
Madras Presidencies allowed a high-caste sepoy to perform duties
which would have shocked Brahminical prejudice in Bengal, just
as, to choose a familiar illustration, nine English Protestants out
of ten no longer find themselves troubled by scruples about the
observance of the Sabbath when they go abroad. But this
consideration ought not to have led the Government to truckle
to caste prejudices, but rather to reject all recruits who allowed
those prejudices to interfere with their military duties, and to
enlist in their stead the thousands of better men who would have
been only too glad to take their places.^ Had this been done,
the Brahmin's self-interest would have soon got the better of his
prejudices ; for, even in Bengal, he kept his caste in the back-
ground Avhen his officer dared to show that he pitied it, and only
obtruded it because he found that he could generally use it as
an instrument for the coercion of his commanders.^ Again,
though Dalhousie may well have been perplexed when Napier
insisted that the Bengal system of promotion by seniority kept
the army contented by holding out to every man a sure prospect
of ultimate advancement, while John Jacob asserted with equal
truth that the sepoys who became officers under that system
^ Native captain.
- See letters from Lewis Pelly and .John Jacob to the Times, .Jan. 19, 1858,
p. 7, col. 2, and Jan. 23, p. 7, col. 5.
•* " It is a mistake to suppose them (the Madras sepoys) free from caste
prejudices. There are plenty of these, but they have not been given in to." —
Calcutta Preview, vol. xxxiii., Article — "The Madras Native Army," p. 134. See
also p. 145.
62 THE SEPOY ARMY
were worn-out imbeciles unfit for command, _yet the fact that in
the Bombay army, where promotion went by merit, the native
oificers were the bulwarks of discipline, might have been accepted
as a proof of the inferiority of the Bengal system.^ Finally,
Dalhousie should have remembered that not Jacob only, but
some of the ablest officers of the Bengal army itself had lifted up
their voices against the system under which they had been
Ijrought up. It A\^as a fact, and one of which many of those
officers were uneasily conscious, that for thirty years past the
Bengal army had been in a state of quasi-mutiny, and that
several actual mutinies, besides those which were too flagrant to
be concealed, had been hushed up by the authorities at head-
quarters.^
The disputed points that have just been noticed were, how-
e^er, of small importance compared with one vital
question. qucstion, ou the answer to which depended the
loyalty of the sepoy army and the stability of the
Indian empire. Were commanding officers to be once more
entrusted with that rightful authority of which the jealousy
or the red-tapeism of headquarters had robbed them? This
question was absolutely neglected. The sepoy was taught to
regard, not his colonel, but the head of the army as his com-
manding officer ; and the head of the army was to him no more
than a dim idea. Knowing the impotence of his officers, he
amused himself by bringing frivolous complaints against them
at every half-yearly inspection. Yet the men who did this Avere
as capable of reverencing authority as the veteran who salaamed
the picture of Eyre Coote, his dead commander. Much has
been written about the sepoy's impulsiveness, his credulity in
accepting a delusion, his childish obstinacy in clinging to it.
But, though these qualities did belong to him, they would
never of themselves have led him to rebel. He was by nature
less insubordinate than the British soldier. Najoier could see
nothing to fear in him so long as he was properly dealt with.
For, with all his faults, he had the quality, which is inborn in
all men, of respecting authority when exercised by a strong and
just superior. He entered our army with no idea of claiming
any rights for himself. But, when he found that his colonel,
whom he was ready to obey as his absolute king, and to rever-
1 See also Purl. Papers, vol. xliv. (1857-58), Part 4, p. 1127.
'^ Ocerland Bombay Times, 1857, p. 184. Times, July 19, 1857.
THE SEPOY ARMY 63
ence as his father, was powerless to punish or reward him ; when
he listened to the Articles of War, which seemed to imply that
his officers expected him to disol)ey them ; a new light flashed
across his mind.^ It was only necessary to rule him according
to his genius, to teach him that he must obey unhesitatingly,
and that he would in return be treated generously, and he would
have been a loyal soldier for life. It was not the inconsistency
of their character that drove the same sepoys who had risked
their lives on the field of battle to protect their officers, and had
watched by their bedsides when they were wounded, to murder
them when the Mutiny broke out : it was the inconsistency with
which they were treated.
It is, however, possible that, even if all the reforms in detail
which had been suggested had been carried out,
the spirit of mutiny might not have been wholly Disproportion
■1^ JO J between the
overcome, unless the disproportion that existed be- numbers of
tween the numbers of the Native and the European Natfye^troops.
troops had been remedied. It may be said that for
this disproportion the Cabinets, the Boards of Control, the
Courts of Directors, the Governors -General, the Anglo-Indian
officers, and the English people of three generations were jointly
responsible.^ At the close of Dalhousie's administration the
Native troops amounted to two hundred and thirty-three thou-
sand men ; while, to watch this gigantic army, there ■were only
forty-five thousand three hundred and twenty-two European
soldiers of all arms.^ Moreover the latter were located on such
false principles that their controlling power was seriously im-
paired.^ Yet there had never been a time when that power was
more needed. It cannot be too emphatically stated that the
natives of India, with the exception of a very few men of rare
powers of reflection, or rare opportunities of acquiring informa-
tion, had not the least idea of the real resources of England.
1 See Jacob, pp. 1-3, 108-12, 121, 125, 221, 426-8. Also Malcolm's Pol.
Hist, of Indui, vol. ii. pp. 225-45.
2 See Temple, p. 115.
2 Duke of Argyll's India under Dcdhousie and Canning, pp. 51, 63. Im-
mediately before the Mutiny the native troops amounted to 232,224, the Europeans
to 45,522 — 6170 officers and 39,352 non-commissioned officers and men. These
figures, however, do not give a fair idea of the weakness of the European troops.
"In Bombay," writes Montgomery Martin on the authority of Pari. Papers,
" the relative strength of European to Native Infantry was as 1 to 9§ ; in Madras,
as 1 to 16| ; and in Bengal, as 1 to 24|." — Tlie Indian Empire, vol. ii. p. 125.
See also Pari. Papers, vol. xxxvii. (1858), pp. 249-65. * Argyll, p. 62.
64 THE SEPOY ARMY
They drew their conclusions merely from what they saw. In-
credible as it may aj^pear, it was a common belief among them
that the population of the British Isles Avas not much more than
a hundred thousand souls. ^ As if to confirm them in this
delusion, the Home Government had recently "withdrawn two
regiments from India to strengthen the army in the Crimea.
It is not to be Avondered at that soon afterwards it began to be
rumoured in the bazaars and the sejDoy lines that Russia had
conquered and annexed England.
Dalhousie devoted much anxious consideration to the ques-
tion of increasing the numbers of the European
Reforms troops, and improving their distribution, and stated
Dalhousie. his arguments and conclusions with his usual clear-
ness and emphasis in a series of minutes, which he
ordered to be ti'ansmitted to the Directors. He pointed out that
the Crimean war had given birth to monstrous rumours injurious
to our prestige : he dwelt upon the fact that, notA\athstanding
the vast increase of our territories by the conquests and annexa-
tions of his administration, there had been hardly any correspond-
ing increase in our military strength ; and he insisted on the
necessity of maintaining an eflfective and constant control over
the immense alien population of our Indian possessions, and of
guarding against possible attacks from the ambitious princes-
who dwelt outside our frontier. But it is a curious fact that
there is no evidence to show that he had the faintest suspicion of
the far more serious danger to which the European troops were
exposed from their native auxiliaries. This fact, however,
does not affect the value of the practical suggestions which he
offered. He proposed to reduce the number of sepoys in
each regiment to eight hundred men, to disband four regi-
ments of native cavalry and four of native infantry, to raise the
strength of the European infantry from thirty-one^ to thirty-
five or, if possible, thirty-seven battalions, and to increase the
numbers of the European companies of artillery.* But these
^ See Trevelyan's Caicnpure, p. 27 ; aud Pari. Papers, vol. xliv. (1357-58),
Part 4, p. 1126.
- The rulers of Afghanistan, Nepal, and Burma.
^ The nominal strength at the time was thirty-throe. Two, however, had
been temporarily withdrawn for service iu Europe.
* Argyll; Jackson, pp. 160-70; Prtr?. Pwjjers, vol. xlii. (1858), pp. 517-35. Dal-
housie also proposed to raise two new European cavalry rcgiuR-uts, Init, says Sir C.
Jackson, " as Lord Dalhousie suggested the withdrawal of the two Royal regiments
of cavalry in Bengal, this proposal would not have increased the European force."
THE SEPOY ARMY 65
suggestions were not adopted ; ^ and the sepoys, inflated by a
sense of their OAvn importance, naturally looked forward to a
time Avhen they might use their strength to overturn the Govern-
ment, and establish their own supremacy.'
On the eve of Lord Canning's arrival, the native army was a
heterogeneous body, as in race, caste, and religion, The native
so also in quality. There were a few superb ir- annyouth.-
(^V6 of Lorti
regular regiments, commanded by a handful of picked canning's
European officers. There were the useful troops of ^mvai.
Bombay and Madras. There was the Bengal army, composed of
stalwart men of martial aspect, who had been perhaps better
endowed by nature with soldierly qualities than the men of the
other Presidencies, but who had, under a corrupt system, been
suffered to become a dangerous mob. It was no wonder that
these regiments, in which the sentries relieved each other when
and how they pleased, in which it was a common occurrence for
men to quit their ranks without leave, and scour the country in
quest of plunder,^ were ripe for mutiny. The marvel is that they
had so long preserved the semblance of an army. Yet so great
is the force of habit that, while the ablest men in India kept
repeating the solemn warning that it was in the force on which
the safety of the empire depended that its greatest danger lay,'*
the Bengal officers regarded the insubordination which they
could not v/holly ignore as inseparable from the constitution of
a native army. They were deaf to the rumbling of the volcano ;
for they did not know that it lay beneath them until its eruption
startled them out of their fatal slumber.
1 Up to Feb. 3, 1858, they had not even been brought under the notice of
the- Directors.
^ This is the opinion of Sir R. Temple, and was that of Lord Lawrence.
Temple, p. 115. Sir Sydney Cotton mentions in his book, Nine Years 071 the.
North-Western Frontier of India, p. 157, that, many months before the Mutiny,
his native servants wished to leave him on the ground that "there was about to
be a general rising in the country, in which the sepoy army was to take the lead."
See also Evidence taken before the Court appointed for the Trial of the King of
Delhi, p. 267, Pari. Papers, vol. xviii. (1859).
» Jacob, pp. 107-8, 115-17. See App. W.
^ Jacob, p. 229.
CHAPTER III
FIRST YEAR OF LORD CANNING'S RULE — OUTBREAK OF
THE MUTINY
On the 29th of February, 1856, Lord Dalhousie resigned the
,„,, Government of India. As he drove down the
1856.
Eesignation Of banks of the Hooghly towards the vessel on which
character and he was to embark, the multitudes who had
^gfo^indian assembled to witness his departure, lifted up
rulers. their voices, and cheered him loudly and long.^
Though he was not above the middle height, and his frame
was emaciated by disease, yet there Avas such majesty in his
bearing, such command in his features, such a fire in the
glance of his eyes, that he looked every inch a king.^ And it
was with the loyalty due to a king of men that those enthu-
siastic onlookers regarded him. For, if he lacked that
sympathetic knowledge of men's hearts, that charm of manner,
that open enthusiasm which had made the despotism of Hastings
and of Wellesley so attractive, if, in spite of his genuine con-
sideration for his subordinates, he had been regarded by them
rather with awe than with affection, yet, not more b}'^ his
success than by the devotion with which he had given the
flower of his manhood to the service of the state, he had
conquered the heart-felt respect and admiration of all men. He
had served India so well that he had no strength left for further
service in the field of statesmanship ; and now, while still a
young man, he was going home to England to die. But the
work which he had already done had been such as to entitle
him to rank with Wellesley and Hastings, although below
them, in the first class of Governors-General. Below them
^ Overland Bmiibay Times, 1857, p. 42 ; Calcutta Review, vol. xxxiii. p. 397.
- Temple, p. 124.
1856 FIRST YEAR OF LORD CANNING'S RULE 67
because, whatever his powers may have been, he had never been
brought face to face with political trials as crucial as those
which had assayed and proved the metal of their statesman-
ship. With them because, believing that his countrymen had
no right to be in India unless they were there as the apostles
of Western civilisation, believing with an enthusiastic faith that
the introduction of such civilisation would galvanise the Avhole
organism of Indian society, and make its healthy growth
possible, he set a-going at the highest pressure all the machinery
that could contribute to the attainment of his object.
His successor was a man of a difterent stamp. Not only in
India, but in England also the appointment of
Lord Canning caused more wonder than satis- annmg.
faction. An elegant scholar, a warm-hearted, generous man,
shy and reserved, but a true friend to those who loved him, he
had had much experience of affairs, and had proved himself a
creditable administrator : but he had needed persuasion to
enter public life at all ; and, though he had never shirked its
duties, he had never pressed forward to undertake its responsi-
bilities, or to win its prizes. Lord Ellenborough had offered to
take him to India as his private secretary : but he had preferred
the chances of office at home, and thus lost the opportunity of
acquiring a knowledge of Indian affairs under a clever states-
man. When he was chosen to succeed Dalhousie, he was holding
the office of Postmaster-General ; and the conscientious assiduity
with which he had mastered the unattractive details of his
work had won for him a seat in the Cabinet. But the high
place to which he was now called needed greater qualities. It
is hardly necessary to say that he approached his work with
a deep sense of its importance : indeed, he had a presentiment
that his tenure of office Avould be marked by some great crisis,
to combat which his faculties would be strained to the utmost.
" We must not forget," he said, at a banquet given by the East
India Company a few months before his departure, " that in the
sky of India, serene as it is, a small cloud may arise, at first no
bigger than a man's hand, but which, growing larger and
larger, may at last threaten to burst and overwhelm us with
ruin." 1 But Avith all his high sense of responsibility he had
one grave defect as a ruler. His conscientiousness was apt to
degenerate into scrupulousness. He never could bring himself
^ Kaye, vol. i. p. 378.
68 FIRST YEAR OF LORD CANNING'S RULE chap, m
to proiionnce a judgement even upon the most urgent questions,
until he had investigated every tittle of evidence. Such a habit
of mind is an admirable one in itself : but it is one Avhich a
statesman must learn to hold in restraint. This Canning never
learned to do. When he should have struck the guilty, he
wasted precious moments in taking elaborate precautions against
striking the innocent.^ He Avas not a weak man ; he knew
how to confront danger calmly ; but he had not the insight
that could at once discern its form and gauge its dimensions,
the self-reliance that could overrule the counsellors who under-
rated it, the force that could master it.
It would have been fortunate for the new Governor-General
if his advisers had been practical statesmen like
couifcir™'^ Outram, or Edwardes, or Nicholson. The judge-
ment of these men had been ripened, and their
political courage brought to the finest temper by hard, dangerous
Avork among the people of the country : they had firmly gi^asped
the principle that no amount of kindness could win either the
affection or the respect of those people, unless it Avere supported
by a masterful Avill. But the members of the Supreme Council
were men of a softer fibre. Only one of them. General Loav,
had an adequate knoAvledge of the natives ; and he had long
passed his prime. The others were John Dorin, John Peter
Grant, Barnes Peacock, and George Anson, the Commander-in-
Chief. The last-named will be spoken of hereafter. Grant AA'as
unquestionably a very able man. His recorded minutes show
that his judgement was thoroughly independent, and that he had
the courage of his convictions. But his training had not been
such as to foster a healthy development of his poAvers. He Avas
^ I find this passage in Russell's Diary: — "lu this and subsequent con-
versations that night on the subject of the mutinies . . . the Governor-General
evinced a remarkable analytical power, an ability of investigation, a habit of
appreciating and weighing evidence, a spirit of justice and moderation, and a
judicial turn of mind which made a deep impression upon me. His opinions
once formed seemed ' inebranlables ' ; and his mode of investigation, abhorrent
from all intuitive impulses, and dreadhif/ above all things quick decision, is to
pursue the forms of the strictest analysis, to pick up every little thorn on the
path, to weigh it, to consider it, and then to cast it asi<le, or to pile it up with
its fellows ; to go from stone to stone, strike them and sound them, and at last
on the highest point of the road to fix a sort of granite pedestal, declaring that
the height is so and so, and the view is so and so, — so firm and strong that all
the storm and tempest of the world may beat against it and find it immovable.
But man's life is not equal to the execution of many tasks like these." Vol. i.
p. 116. The italics are mine. See also Temple, p. 182.
1856 FIRST YEAR OF LORD CANNING'S RULE 69
a clever bureaucrat, not a statesman. It is unnecessary to
attempt to analyse the characters of the other two. It is enough
to say that they, as well as Grant, had either failed to notice
the symptoms that indicated the existence of a mutinous spirit
in the Bengal army, or did not realise what appalling conse-
quences must follow, if that spirit were not instantly and
sternly crushed as soon as it should manifest itself in overt acts.
Canning had hardly entered upon his duties before his
troubles began. Outram Avas anxious to return to
England, to recruit his shattered health, and, Avish- ou^ik °^
ing to leave his work in good hands, lu-ged Canning
to appoint Henry Ricketts, an able Bengal civilian, as his suc-
cessor. Canning would have acted upon this advice ; but the
Board of Control interposed. Ricketts was preparing a report
uj)on the most effectual mode of diminishing the salaries of the
Company's servants. It Avas the old story. Imperial considera-
tions Avere set at nought then, as in the days of Wellesley, Avhen-
ever they imperilled the chance of some sordid and petty gain.
Men fit to rule a province were not so plentiful that they should
have been forced to Avaste their energies in pettifogging calcula-
tions. But the folly of the home authorities might have been
harmless, if an unfortunate accident had not deprived Oudh for
a time of a yet abler master than Ricketts would have been.
Henry Lawrence, whose chivalrous heart yearned to protect the
people of the newly annexed province from the unsympathetic
rule of the modern civilian, and to smooth the Avay for their
transition from barbarous usage to civilised law, offered to serve
in Outram's place : but, before his letter reached the Governor-
General, Coverley Jackson, a smart revenue officer from the
North-Western Provinces, had been appointed officiating Chief
Commissioner of Oudh. No more unfortunate selection could
have been made. Jackson Avas best known for the violence of
his temper ; but Canning thought that this defect ought not to
be allowed to Aveigh against his undoubted abilities, and imagined
that he could cure it by a gentle Avarning. Only a man of the
greatest tact and firmness could have reconciled the classes AA^ho
had thriA'cn under the corrupt native government to the rigorous
purity of British rule : but Jackson had no tact ; and his firm-
ness showed itself chiefly in a series of contentions, Avhich he
kept up during the whole of his administration, with the Finan-
cial Commissioner, Martin Gubbins, a man whose injudicious
70 FIRST YEAR OF LORD CANNING S RULE chap, hi
self-assertion Avas as great as his OAvn.^ Rather than bate a jot
of their miserable pretensions, this pair of officials spent the
time which they should have devoted to the public service in
undignified wrangling. Canning contented himself with exhort-
ing them to be at peace, and only superseded Jackson when his
pertinacity had outraged all patience, and when it seemed too
late even for Lawrence to repair the mischief which he had done.
For the deposed King of Oudh was complaining bitterly of the
unmanly cruelty with which the English were ti'eating his
family, even the delicate ladies of his harem ; and, if these com-
plaints Avere unfounded,- there Avere others, pi-oceeding from the
people, Avhich, though in many cases unreasonable, Avere natural
enough. The settlement of the land revenue AA'^as directed by
officers who Avere prejudiced against the talukdars ; and by their
orders men of lower degree Avere persuaded to put forward their
claims. The talukdars were being summarily deprived of every
foot of land to which they could not establish a legal title ;^ and,
^ In fairness to Jackson it ought to be mentioned that he repeatedly warned
Government, but in vain, that plots and conspiracies were rife in Oudh. Col.
Ramsay's Recollections of Military Service and Society, vol. i. p. 183.
^ Pari. Papers, vol. xlvi. p. 416, par. 7. The King's complaints about the
treatment of his family were " very greatly exaggerated . . . But there was a
true foundation for the complaint, in the fact that . . . C. Jackson . . . had
taken possession of . . . one of the palaces set apart for the royal family."
^ Sir G. Campbell's Memoirs of my Imiian Career, ii. 12-13 ; Sir R. Mont-
gomery's Rejwrt, pars. 157-8 ; Sykes's Compeiulium of the Laws sjiecially relat-
ing to the Taluqdars of Oudh, pp. 28, 91. The extent to which the talukdars
suffered has, however, been greatly exaggerated by Kaye (vol. iii. p. 422), and
other writers. As a matter of fact, " out of 23, 543 villages included in taluqas
at the close of native nile, 13,640, paying a revenue of Rs. 35,06,519 were settled
with taluqdars in 1856, while 9903 villages, paying Rs. 32,08,319 were settled
with persons other than taluqdars." Irwin, p. 180 ; Pari. Papers, vol. xlvi.
(1861), p. 439, par. 7. General Innes says (Luchiow and Onde in tlie Mutiny,
p. 64), " The irritation among the Rajjioot community, chiefs and peasants alike,
grew apace, owing to tlie increasing violation . . . of the p)romises respecting the
hmd revenue. Besides the matter of unduly high assessments, the bias shown in
deciding on the parties to Iju dealt with as being in actual possession gave the
most serious offence. For the officers usually put forward the villagers themselves
and ignored the Talookdars." But General Innes ignores the fact that Dalhousie,
in his letter of instructions to Outram, dated 13th Feb. 1858, wrote, "It must be
borne in mind, as a leading principle, that the desire and intention of the Govern-
ment is to deal with the actual occupants of the soil, that is, with village Zemin-
dars or with the proprietary coparcenaries, who are believed to exist in Oudh, and
not to suffer the intetposition of iniddlcmen, as Talookdars . . . and such like.
The claims of these, if they have any tenable claims, may be more conveniently
considered at a future period." The italics are mine. " These orders of the
Supreme Government," wrote Sir R. ]\Iontgomery (House of Lords Papers, 74
Sess. 2, 1859, pars. 157-8), " were implicitly obeyed."
1857 FIRST YEAR OF LORD CANNING'S RULE 71
although in all but a fe\y instances their pretensions were ex-
amined with scrupulous fairness, they nevertheless bitterly-
resented the decisions which compelled them to surrender those
villages which they had acquired by fraud or violence. More-
over they Avrithed under the yoke of a civilising government,
which cut away their arbiti'ary powers, and would not permit
them to tyrannise, as they had formerly done, over their weaker
neighbours. The zamindars and the peasants indeed gained by
the settlement : but it is not likely that they felt any gratitude
towards the British Government ; for they were wholly incapable
of appreciating the benevolent motives by which it was actuated.^
The numerous dependents of the late court and the traders who
had ministered to its luxury, were suddenly thrown out of em-
ployment:' the disbandment of the King's army had thrown a
vast horde of desperadoes upon the world with but scanty means
of subsistence :^ the imposition of a heavy tax upon opium had
inflamed the discontent of the poorer population, who languished
without the drug which they could no longer afford to buy ;
while men with whom lawlessness was a tradition, suddenly
found themselves judged by tribunals which aimed at dispensing
equal justice to high and low, but which allowed no circum-
^ "I remember," says Irwin, "on one occasion discussing the subject of the
annexation witli a well-to-do zamindar, a man perfectly well affected towards
British rule. 'Why,' he asked, 'had the Sircar deposed Nawab Wajid Ali ? He
was a poor weak creature, a humlile servant of the British Government. What
had he done to be so summarily wiped out ? ' And it appeared to be quite a new
light to him to be tohl that the misrule ... of Oudh had become more than the
British Government would tolerate. If this is the point of view of one who was
a severe sufferer by the ex-King's administration, and who gained immensely by
its subversion, it is to be feared that the judgment of those who suflered and
gahied less . . . will hardly be more favourable." Pp. 174-5.
- " On the whole a very fair share of patronage was reserved for the native
officials below the rank of uazim, or independent local authority ; but their habits
were utterly unfitted for our service. Arduous and responsible labours were im-
posed on the officers, and they were compelled to choose the fittest instruments to
aid in them. None got pensions ; but those who were not public servants had
no claim to any."— Par/. Papers, voL xlvi. p. 411, par. 13. Much of the dis-
content that was aroused was unavoidable. It would have been madness to
employ the grasping nazims and chakladar=, who had so abused their trust under
the native governmeut ; and the inferior officials, who accepted the employment
that was offered them, accustomed to a lax and corrupt system, failed to adapt
themselves to their altered conditions, and soon were dismissed or resigned. But
it is not less true that the Chief Commissioner showed great lack of judgement.
"* Canning asserted that the disbanded troops had been liberally treated, and
had, with few exceptions, independent meaus of subsistence as cultivators. lb.
p. 418, par. 1'2. The fact, however, remains that they lost heavily by the annex-
ation.
72 FIRST YEAR OF LORD CANNING S RULE niAP. in
stances to weigh in mitigation of their sentences, and, in civil
cases, exasperated plaintiff and defendant alike by an inflexible
adherence to forms and precepts of Avhich they knew nothing.^
It was thus that the advice of Sleenian and Henry Lawrence to
assume the administration of Oudh in the interests of its in-
habitants had been followed. However judiciously carried out,
the change of government, imperatively demanded though it
was by every principle of right, must have given sore offence
to the most influential classes of the population ; but, carried
out as it was, it gave offence to many Avho might easily have
been conciliated.
Such were the perils which Henry Lawrence was called upon
to confront when Canning asked him to undertake the adminis-
ti'ation of Oudh. In the interval between his
Jan. 19, isoi. .^ppQint,ment and his arrival at Lucknow, a still
rrJ^^^V "?■ ■ more formidable danger arose. A Moulvi, who
The Moulvi. . o .....
had for some time past been travelnng from city
to city, and preaching a holy Avar against the infidels, appeared
in Fyzabad, and began to sow sedition in the minds
of the people.^ He was seized and imprisoned :
but the English, never dreaming that their poAver could be
shaken, were too unsuspicious to appreciate his power for mis-
chief; and it Avas not until some months afterAvards that he Avas
recognised as the chief of a host of conspirators who had stirred
up their co-religionists to rebel against British rule.
Early in the preceding year the politics of Central Asia had
is5r, begun to engage the Governor-General's attention.
So far back as 1853, the British Ambassador at
Teheran had been obliged to interfere for the pro-
tection of Herat against a Persian army which had been sent
to reduce it. But, though the Shah had agreed to desist from
his enterprise, it was known that he secretly resented British
interference ; and the Indian Government anxiously aAvaited the
inevitable rupture. Underrating the British success in the
Crimea, the Persians resolved to rid themselves of an alliance
from Avhich they expected no adA'antage, and, by a succession of
,_. insults, drove the British Ambassador to leave their
capital. MeauAvhile a revolt had arisen against the
ruler of Herat, Avhich the Shah had perhaps instigated, and
^ Hutcliiiisou's Narrative of the 2ruti)des in, Oiule, p. 27.
^ Ihid. p. 35.
1854-57 FIRST YEAR OF LORD CANNING'S RULE 73
certainly resolved to turn to account. Falsely asserting that
the Amir, Dost Mahomed, was bent upon the annexation of that
city, he pretended that the duty of self-preservation compelled
him to anticipate his rival, and equipped a fresh army, in viola-
tion of the promise which he had given to the British ambas-
sador. Canning was unwilling to send another force into the
dreaded regions beyond the north-west frontier : but the Home
Government decreed that the Shah's perfidy must be punished,
and ordered an expedition to be despatched to the Persian Gulf.
The Bombay Government, which provided the bulk of the troops,
was allowed to nominate their commander, and sent General
Stalker at the head of the first expeditionary force. But, when
Outram heard that there was to be war, his enfeebled energies
were reinvigorated by the thought that there was work for him
to do ; and, undertaking to perform both the political and the
military duties of the expedition, he sailed towards the end of
1856 for Bombay.
It is needless to detail the operations which he so success-
fully superintended ; for the Persian war only affected the course
of the Mutiny by affording an opportunity for securing the
friendship of Dost Mahomed, the inveterate enemy of Persia.
In order to make it clear how this opportunity had arisen,
and how it was used, it will be necessary to review
the relations that had subsisted for some years pre- Do?t^Mahomed.
viously between the British Government and Dost
Mahomed. In 1853 Colonel Mackeson, the Commissioner of
Peshawar, was assassinated. It was conjectured that the assassin
had been instigated by a fanatical mulla ^ of Kabul ; and the
conjecture was supported by the fact that the bitter feelings
created by the policy of Aiickland in the hearts of the Afghans
were still alive. No one understood those feelings better, or
deplored them more than the officer Avho was appointed as
Mackeson's successor, Herbert Edwardes, the hero of Mooltan.
Resolving to heal them, and seeing that he could only do so by
effecting a radical change in the British policy towards Afghani-
stan, he wrote to Dalhousie, asking for permission to negotiate
a treaty with Dost Mahomed, on the principle that bygones
should be bygones. Dalhousie, in reply, gave him full liberty
to act as he might think best, remarking that such a treaty,
though difficult of attainment, was most desirable. But John
^ Priest.
74 FIRST YEAR OF LORD CANNING'S RULE chap, hi
Lawrence, the Chief Commissioner of the Punjab, thought differ-
ently. Again and again he told Edwardes that Dost Mahomed
would never agree to a treaty, and would not observe it if he
did ; and exerted all his influence to convince Dalhousie of the
futility of the idea. Dalhousie, however, was not to be seduced
from his opinion;^ and the tact and transparent sincerity of
Edwardes completely won the confidence of Dost Mahomed.
When all the preliminaries had been arranged, Edwardes received
a letter from Dalhousie, Avritten in terms of the most cordial
approval, and empowering him, inasmuch as he had alone con-
ceived and worked out the idea of the treaty, to act as the sole
signatory. But Edwardes was one of those rare characters to
whom the public good is dearer than the gratification of personal
ambition. He wrote to Dalhousie in reply, ui'ging that the
stability of the treaty would be increased if the highest authority
in the Punjab were to affix his signature to it. Dalhousie recog-
nised the wisdom of this advice;- and in March, 1855, John
Lawrence on the one side, and Hyder Ali Khan, the eldest son
of Dost Mahomed, on the other, signed a treaty which bound
the Afghans to be friends of our friends and enemies of our
enemies.^ When the Persian war broke out, Edwardes saw that
a further development of his policy was required. On the
ground that he had cleared he desired to erect a bulwark which
should defend the British and the Afghans against the assaults
of their common enemies. He therefore urged Canning to secure
the friendship of Dost Mahomed by granting him substantial aid
against the Persians. Lawrence again opposed the suggestion of
his lieutenant : * but it was impossible to overlook the import-
1 Dalhousie wrote demi-officially to Edwardes, asking him to correspond with
him directly, not through the medium of the Punjab Government. The request
was perfectly natural ; for, owing to the geographical position of Peshawar, the
Commissioner of that Division ranked higher than Commissioners in general. He
was, in fact, practically the Governor-General's Agent on the Frontier. Edwardes,
however, from a feeling of delicacy towards his immediate superior, persuaded
Dalhousie to allow him to continue forwarding his coiTespondence through Lahore.
'■* "I am exceedingly vexed," wrote Dalhousie to Edwardes (Jan. 30, 1855),
" that you should not have had, a.^ I intended you .should, the crowning credit of
bringing lo a close the negotiations you have conducted so well and so successfully
to their present point." Lawrence himself wrote to Edwardes, " I so far agree with
the Governor-General that I think all the merit of the affair, wliatever it may be,
is yours." The italics are mine.
* Aitchisou's Treaties, Engagements, and Simnnds, vol. ii. pp. 430-1.
^ Lawrence afterwards admitted that, " as matters lia<l turned out in Himlostau,
the late arrangements with the Ameer were very fortun.ate." Enclosures to Secret
Letters from, India, 23rd July 1858, p. 151.
1856 FIRST YEAR OF LORD CANNING'S RULE 75
ance of making use of the Amir's enmity to Persia ; and accord-
ingly Canning, though, remembering the events of 1841, he
would not send a British force to co-operate with the Afghans,
declared himself ready to subsidise any Afghan force which
should march against the Shah. The Amir was invited to a
conference; and in January, 1857, he met Lawrence and Ed-
wardes at the entrance of the Khyber Pass, and discussed with
them the terms of a treaty which both parties equally desired.
After repeated communications with the Calcutta Government,
it was agreed that the British should furnish the Amir with
four thousand stand of arms, and a subsidy of a lac of rupees a
month, and that, in return, the Amir should maintain an army
of eighteen thousand men to act against Persia, and allow a
British Mission to enter his country, to watch over the expendi-
ture of the subsidy.^ "I have made an alliance," said Dost
Mahomed, " with the British Government, and, come what may,
I will keep it till death."
A later chapter of this history will show how triumphantly
the policy that had led to the conclusion of this treaty was
vindicated. The credit of that policy belonged, of right, to
Herbert Edwardes alone. But years passed away ; and the act
to which he looked back with just pride as the most valuable
service that he had been permitted to render to his covmtry was
not declared to be his. John Lawrence had then the oppor-
tunity of making a noble return for the self-abnegation which
his lieutenant had practised towards him. It was for him to
place the facts in their true light ; and, standing boldly f or-
Avard, to point to the man who would not utter a word to exalt
himself at the cost of another, and to say, " Honour to him to
whom honour is due." Had he done so, he might indeed have
lost some portion of his reputation for statesmanship : but he
would have earned a glory as pure and imperishable as that
which illuminates the self-sacrifice of Outram. But he pre-
ferred to claim for himself the credit of a policy which he had
not only not originated, but had persistently opposed ; and
history, while acknowledging that part of his fame was indeed
honestly won, is forced to expose the rottenness of the founda-
tion upon which the other part was based.^
^ Aitchison, vol. ii. pp. 431-3.
^ " It is hardly necessary to say," writes Mr. Bosworth Smith {Life of Lord
Lawrence, vol. i. p. 462), " that, in his communications with tlie Governor-General
76 FIRST YEAR OF LORD CANNING'S RULE chap, hi
Before the conclusion of the second treaty, a measure had
been passed which filled up the sum of the sepoy's purely pro-
fessional grievances, and made him still more
iniStmrarict. disposed to cast about for others. Of the six Ben-
gal regiments that were alone liable for general
service, three were in 1856 doing duty in Pegu; and two of
these were entitled to be relieved within a few months. None
of the other three was available for their relief. But, although
it was thus impossible to send a single Bengal regiment by sea
to the Burmese coast, there would have been no breach of faith
towards the army in sending the required number by land.
Unfortunately, however, a part of the road was impassable ; and
the difficulty of clearing it in time presented an almost insuper-
able obstacle to the use of the overland route. Canning, in his
perplexity, bethought him of the Madras army, which was en-
listed for general service : but the Southern Presidency was
naturally unwilling to rouse discontent among its own troops hy
calling upon them to furnish a permanent garrison to a country
which lay properly within the sphere of the Bengal army.
Nothing l)ut a radical reform could help the Governor-General
out of his difficulty. Exasperated at the absui'dity of the pre-
judices that had involved him in it, and had been the soiu'cc of
constantly increasing trouble to the State, he resolved that
thenceforth he would be the master of his own army, and on
the 25th of July issued a General Order which decreed that no
recruit should for the future l^e accepted who Avould not under-
take to march whithei'soever his services might be required.
" There is no fear," he Avrote a iew months later, " of feelings of
caste being excited by the new enlistment regiila-
tions in the Bengal army." He deceived himself ;
for, while he was writing, recruiting officers were complaining
John Lawreuce dwelt with s)iecial emphasis on Edwardes's services in connection
with the treaty." It is all the more necessary, then, to say, as I have said, that,
in his communications with the public, he did not dwell upon them at all. After
Edwardes's death, some of his friends determined to erect a tablet to his memory
in the chapel of King's College, London. An inscription, which was to be placed
on the tablet, was submitted to Lawrence for perusal. It contained the statement
that Edwardes had made the treaties. Replying to the gentleman who had sent
it to him, Lawrence asserted that he, not Edwardes, had made them. In un
official sense, he undoubtedly spoke the truth. But one would like to know
whether, at the time when he wrote this reply, it occurred to him that he had
formerly written to Edwardes, — " I think all the iiierit of tlie affair, wliatever it
may be, is yours."
1856 FIRST YEAR OF LORD CANNING'S RULE 77
that high -caste men had begun to shrink from entering the
service, which their brethren had once needed no persuasion to
join ; and old sepoys were whispering to each other their fears
that the oaths of the new recruits were binding upon themselves
also. About the same time that the General Service Enlistment
Act had been passed, an ill-judged parsimony had
dictated another measure, namely, that sepoys de- ^"'l^eToys °^
clared unfit for foreign service should no longer be
allowed to retire on invalid pensions, but be utilised for the per-
formance of cantonment duty ; ^ and shortly before, it had been
decreed that all sepoys withoiit exception should thenceforth pay
the regular postage for their letters instead of sending them
under the frank of their commandant.^ These apparently trifling
changes seriously added to the existing irritation. The sepoys
were now in a mood to believe any lie that reflected discredit
upon the Government. Seeing that the warlike Sikhs were
favoured by the recruiting sergeant, they persuaded themselves
that an entire Sikh army of thirty thousand men was to be raised
to supersede them. They listened to the suggestions of clever
agitators, who assured them that the Queen had „ ■,
lie xiz-N • c Kumourcd
herself sent out Lord Cjinmng for the express pur- designs of
pose of converting them, and that the General ag'aJnst'caste
Service Enlistment Act Avas only the first step in °'^'^ leii-ion.
his career of persecution. They saw in the rumoured support
of missionary societies by Lord Canning, in the rumoured zeal
of Lady Canning for the conversion of native women, evidences
of the same spirit of proselytism. As a matter of fact, neither
^ Gubbins's Midinies in Oudh, pp. 94-5.
^ I do not feel certain of the correctness of the statement in the text as to
the irritation caused by the postal regulation. It is true that under the old
system the sepoys had been allowed to send their letters free ; but they had been
obliged to pay a shilling for those they received. Under the new system, intro-
duced by Dalhousie, a uniform single rate of postage of half an anna (f d. ) was
established for letters carried within the limits of India. Dalhousie's Farewell
Minute, p. 18, par. 72 {Pari. Pa2)ers, vol. xlv., 1856) ; A Few Remarks anent
the Red Pamphlet, p. 13. Sir H. Lawrence, however, in a letter to Canning,
dated May, 1857, wrote : — -"The new post-office rules are bitter grievances ; in-
deed the native community generally siiffers by them, but the sepoy, having here
special privileges, feels the deprivation in addition to the general uncertainty as
to letters ; nay, rather the positive certainty of not getting them." — Life of Sir
H. Lawrence by Sir H. Edwardes and H. Merivale. New York edition, p. 570.
[The correctness of the statement in the text is confirmed by a well-informed
critic, — formerly an officer in a sepoy regiment. See Vanity Fair, 5th July
1884.]
78 FIRST YEAR OF LORD CANNING'S RULE chap, hi
the Governor-General nor his wife had done more than those
who had gone before them. But it was not imnatnral that they
should be suspected of having done so. For, little more than a
year before, the missionaries had published a manifesto which
went to prove that the railways and steamships of the European,
by facilitating the material union of all races of men, were to be
the indirect instruments for accomplishing their spiritual union
under one faith. Eegarded as a plain invitation by Government
to join the Christian religion, this paper caused great excitement
amongst the natives of Bengal ; and William Tayler, the Com-
missioner of Patna, reported upon the especially dangerous feel-
ings which it had awakened amongst the bigoted Mahomedans
of his Division. A reassuring proclamation, which the Lieu-
tenant-Governor of Bengal issued in consequence of this warning,
did not lessen the general alarm ; for the people believed that a
Government which could meditate their conversion would be
quite capable of making a false statement to lull their suspicions. ^
Nor were the professed ministers of the Gospel the only mission-
aries. Certain earnest -minded officers, of whom a Colonel
Wheler was the most prominent, preached to their men with the
enthusiasm of Cromwell's captains, and brought down upon
themselves the displeasure of Government by their zeal.^ And,
though Canning was himself guiltless of the proselytism with
which he was charged, he innocently incurred obloquy by giving
formal sanction to the Bill prepared by Dalhousie for the re-
moval of all legal obstacles to the marriage of Hindu widows.
The excitement and alarm which this combination of causes
produced were not confined to the sepoys ; for these men had
friends or relations in every village, and were especially con-
nected by the ties of kinship with the population of Oudh and
the North- Western Provinces, Avhere our rule had provoked the
most bitter animosities. But ^vhy should they think that the
Government wished to convert them ? Their imaginations sup-
plied a plausible answer. The white man was bent upon taking
away their caste and making them Chinstians, in order that, no
longer hesitating to eat his strengthening food, or to embark in
his ships, they might be able to go forth at his bidding, as
1 See Syad Ahmad Khan's The Causes of the Indian Revolt, pp. 18, 22, and
Kaye, vol. i. pp. 472-3.
2 Wlieler's preaching may possibly, owing to other circumstances, have been
harmful, but would not have been so in itself.
1857 FIRST YEAR OF LORD CANNING'S RULE 79
warriors endowed with nsAV vigour, to gratify his insatiable
ambition by fresh conquests. This, if they could help it, they
were resolved that they would never do. They had served the
effete Feringhees for scanty Avages long enough. Their own day
was coming now. Vague ambitions arose in their hearts. Sooner
or later, they would vindicate the honour of religion ; they would
enrich themselves by plunder ; they would collect the revenues ;
they would drive the Avhite upstarts into the sea. And now,
as if to give confidence to the disaffected, and to shake the loyalty
of the faithful, an old Hindu prophecy was raked up, which said
that in the year 1857, the hundredth since its foundation by
the victory of Plassey, the Company's Eaj was to be destroyed.^
Infuriated by leal grievances, haunted by groundless fears,
tossed about by idle rumours, the enemies of British rule were
still afraid to strike, when the arch -agitators lighted by an
accident upon the spell, the potency of which was to liberate
the pent-up passions of their dupes, and nerve them to revolt.^
A few idle words betrayed the existence of this engine of
rebellion. One day in January, 1857, a Lascar,
attached to the magazine at Dum-Dum near Cal- ^rtrwglj!^'^
cutta, asked a sepoy of the garrison to give him a
drink of water from his lotah. ^ Nettled by the haughty reply
that the vessel would be contaminated by the lips of a low-caste
man, the Lascar retorted that the sepoy would soon be deprived of
his caste altogether ; for the Government was busy manufacturing
cartridges greased with the fat of cows or swine, and the sepoys
would have to bite the forbidden substance before loading.
It is hard to convey to the mind of an English reader an
adequate idea of the force of the shock beneath which the
imagination of that Brahmin must have reeled when he heard
these words. It was all true, then, he must have felt. The
Government were really bent upon ruining him. They had
devised an expedient which, under the specious pretext of put-
ting a better weapon into his hands, was to destroy his caste,
his honour, his social position, everything that made life worth
having, and to pave the way for his perversion to Christianity.
^ The evidence for tlie facts recorded in this paragraph is to be found in the
Pari. Papers, Enclosures to Secret Letters from India, newspapers published iu
India, Gubbins's Mutinies in Oudh, etc.
2 See Evidence taken before the Court appointed for the Trial of the King of
Delhi, pp. 267-8.
^ A brass drinking-vessel.
80 FIRST YEAR OF LORD CANNING'S RULE chap, hi
It must be remembered that not faith, not righteousness, but
ritual was the essence of his religion. For him to be told that
he was to touch with his lips the fat of the cow was as appal-
ling as it would have been to a mediaeval Catholic to listen to
the sentence of excommunication.^
Yet it was all a delusion. There was some foundation for
what the Lascar said ; that was all. The manufacture of
greased cartridges to be used with the new Enfield rifle, had long
been going on ; and the grease contained tallow of doubtful
origin : ^ but no cartridges greased with the fat of cows or swine
were destined to be issued to the sepoys.^ Greased cartridges
were no novelty. They had first been sent out to India
in 1853. Colonel Tucker, who was then Adjutant-General of
the Bengal army, at once foreseeing the alarm which they
might cause, had warned his superiors against issuing them to
the native troops until it should have been distinctly ascer-
tained that the grease was inoffensive : but his letter had gone
no further than to the Board which was at that time vested
with military authority at Calcutta. Colonel Birch, the Mili-
tary Secretary, who had fallen under the ban of Charles Napier,
was accused by the old general's admirers of having neglected
^ I make the comparison to excommunication advisedly. Just as excom-
munication could be remedied by penance, so could loss of caste. Many loose
statements have been made about the effect which the story of the greased cart-
ridges must have had upon the imaginations of the sepoys. For instance, the
aiithor of the Red Pamjjhlet gave great point and emphasis to his narrative by
asserting that the cow was regarded by Hindus as an inoarnation of Deity. I
have taken great pains to investigate the point. Mill states that the cow is wor-
shipped in India. Hist, of Brit. India, vol. i. p. 297. His editor, H. H.
Wilson, corrects him, remarking that " the worship of the cow by the Hindus
is a popular error." Ih. note 2. Talboys Wheeler says " the bull and the cow
are worshipped all over India." Short Hist, of India, pp. 64-5. Bewildered by
these conflicting authorities, I wrote to Professor Max Miiller, asking for his
opinion. "I do not think," he replied, "that a cow is anywhere in India
considered as an incarnation of ,the Deity." Since then the kindness of Dr.
Rost, who referred me to an article on " Beef in Ancient India " by Baba
R/ijendralala Mitra, has enabled me to ascertain the truth. The writer points
out that beef was at one time actually eaten by the Hindus, and that cattle
were sacrificed to Vishnu, Indra, and other deities. " When, " he concludes,
" the Brahmans had Ho contend against Buddhism, which . . . denounced all
sacrifices, they found the doctrine of respect for animal life too strong . . . to be
overcome, and therefore gradually and imperceptibly adopted it in such a
manner as to make it appear a part of their S'dstra." — Journal Asiatic Society
of Bengal, vol. xli. part 1, pp. 17-1, 196.
2 Kaye asserts, probably with truth, that it contained beef-fat : but this is
not proved. See App. W.
* This has been denied ; but it is absolutely true. See Ajip. W.
1857 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY 81
Tuckei''s solemn warning.^ But, in fact, he never received that
Avarning. It was the Military Board that neglected it ; and on
the Board the chief blame must lie.'
At the time, however, the neglect produced no evil results.
The cartridges were issued to certain sepoy regiments, not for
practice, but to test the effect of the climate upon the grease,
and were received without a murmur. In 1856 similar cartridges
began to be actually manufactured in India ; and at Meerut
Brahmin factory-boys handled the grease without a thought of
its affecting their caste. It was not till the Lascar blurted out
his taunt that the note of alarm was struck.
The terrified Brahmin rushed off to tell his comrades ; and
from them the report flew in all directions with the lightning-
like rapidity Avith which news, and especially bad news, travels
in India. The agitators who were preaching sedition in secret,
hailed the story with delight, and, as they retailed it to their
disciples, clothed it with new terrors. The Brahmins of the
Dharma Sabha, a religious institution in Calcutta, turned it to
account for the excitement of the caste prejudices of the Hindu
population. The agents of the King of Oudh, who was living in
the suburb of Garden Reach, used it to increase the odium of those
who had deprived him of his throne. It was by such means that
this crowning professional grievance of the sepoys was twisted
into a grievance affecting their co-religionists of every condition.
The effects were instantly manifest. General Hearsey, who
commanded the Presidency Division, reported on the 28th of
January that there was ill-feeling among his men. At Bar-
rackpore and at Raniganj, where was stationed a wing of the
2nd Bengal Grenadiers, a Barrackpore regiment, the sepoys
nightly vented their rage by setting fire to public buildings
and their officers' bungalows. There was hardly a man of the
four regiments at these two stations who did not see in the
manufacture of the greased cartridges a foul plot for the de-
struction of his religion. But official routine hindered the
prompt action which might possibly have nipped the evil in the
bud. Lieutenant Wright, who commanded the detachment to
which the Brahmin belonged, reported the story of the Lascar
on the 22nd of January. The new cartridges were to be issued
' Red Pamphlet, p. 15.
- Colonel Tucker, in a letter to the Times (Oct. 1, 1857 ; p. 8, col. 3) wrote
tliat, even if his remonstrance had been addressed to the Military Board, Biixh
\vas to blame for not having e.vamined the records of the Board.
G
82 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY
to the sepoys of the Rifle Depot at Dum-Dum, but not, for some
time to come, to the regiments at Barrackpore or elsewhere.
General Hcarsey, through whom Wright's report passed, ap-
pended to it a recommendation that the sepoys at Dum-Dum
should be allowed to grease their own cartridges as they jDleased :
but the report had to pass through a series of offices before it
reached the Government; and it was not till the 28th that
Hearsey heard of the approval of his suggestion. It was too late.
The day before, a native officer at Barrackpore, as if unwilling to
believe in the Avicked intentions which were imputed to his rulers,
had asked Avhether any orders had l)een received about the
cartridges ; and his commanding officer could only answer. No.
Meanwhile, the Military Secretary had begun to ask for that
information about the cartridges which he ought
Goverament ^*^"& before to havc obtained. Finding that none
had yet been issued to the native army, he tele-
graphed to the Adjutant-General to see that all cartridges
issued from the factory at Meerut were free from
grease, and leave the men to use whatever mate-
rial they liked best ; and Avarned the commandants of the Rifle
Depots at Umballa and Sialkot not to alloAV any greased
cartridges that might have been issued to be used. These orders
had of course the sanction of the Governor-General. At the
same time the Secretary recommended that the Commander-in-
Chief should be directed to pi-oclaim to the army that no greased
cartridges were to be issued to them, and that they might use
whatever material they thought proper. But Canning alloAved
himself to be persuaded by the Adjutant-General to countei-
mand the telegram on the ground that, as those sepoys Avho
were armed AAath Mini6 rifles had long been in the habit of
using mutton -fat for their cartridges,^ the ncAv instructions,
by suggesting to their minds the idea of an objectionable
grease, might set them thinking that the grease which they had
hitherto used involved some off"ence to their caste. He therefore
decided that greased cartridges might be issued at the Depots,
if the grease Avas composed only of mutton-fat and Avax.-
He should have reflected that, as the fear of the ncAv cartridges
must anyhow soon reach the sepoys of every regiment in the
Bengal Army, the Secretary's instructions and the suggested
^ See, however, Kaye, vol. i. p. 516, note, and pp. 655-6.
- At Umballu, liowever, the sepoys greased their own cartridges. See App. W.
1857 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY 83
proclamation could do no harm, and might do good. But
perhaps the incident was only important as showing how easily
the Governor-General could be led by his advisers; for the
fruitlessness of the proclamation that had been intended to
soothe the fears which had been aroused by the missionary
manifesto of 1856 had shown how difficult it was to eradicate
a delusion once firmly fixed in the mind of a native.
Proof was soon forthcoming that the delusion of the greased
cartridges had taken root. While common-sense dictated the
necessity of early isolating all tainted regiments,
military routine allowed tAvo detachments of the AntcheUand
34 th Native Infantry to march on special duty ^^^^.J^^^ ^^*'^'®
from Barrackpore to Berhampore. On arriving
there, they were anxiously questioned about the truth of the
cartridge story by the men of the 19th, who had caught the
alarm some three weeks before, but had been for the moment
tranquillised by the explanations of their commandant. What
they heard from the 34th reawakened their fears.
On the evening of the next day their command-
ant, Colonel Mitchell, was informed that they had refused to
receive their percussion caps for the folloAving morning's
parade, on the ground that they were suspicious of the cart-
ridges. A judicious officer would have at least tried the effect
of quietly explaining to the men the imreasonableness of their
fears. Mitchell, however, hastened in hot passion to the lines,
and spoke so angrily to the sepoys that they felt sure their
fears Avere well founded. They could not believe that their
colonel would allow himself to threaten them so savagely if he
were not uneasily conscious of the injustice of his cause. They
therefore remained where they were, sullen and fearful, while
Mitchell returned to his quarters, harassed by the thought of
coming danger, and not knowing how he could meet it without
a single company of British soldiers to aid him. He was not
kept long in suspense. Just after he had lain down, he heard
the sound of drums and angry voices coming from the lines.
He knew that mutiny was upon him. What was he to do 1
He must either try single-handed to pacify a regiment of muti-
neers, or attempt the hazardous experiment of coercing his
native infantry with his native cavalry and artillery. He chose
the latter course. Hastily dressing, he summoned his officers,
ordered the cavalry and artillery to the lines, and, going thither
84 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY chap, hi
himself, found the 19th drawn up, trembling with fear. The
sight of their comrades, ready, as they imagined, to fire upon
them, increased their agitation. Then, for the second time, the
colonel began to threaten fiercely his panic-stricken soldiers,
who, like beasts maddened with fear, might at any moment
turn upon those whom they believed to be seeking their liA'es.
Seeing what a dreadful effect his words were producing, the
native officers- pressed forward, and implored him to calm the
men's fears by withdrawing the force which had been brought
up to overawe them. If once they saw that they were not to
be compelled by violence to use the dreaded cartridges, they
would lay down their arms without demur. Mitchell saw that
he had placed himself in a false position. He could not act
upon the advice of the officers without yielding a moral victory
to his men. He could not disregard that advice without pro-
voking a mutiny. And then, what if the cavalry and artillery
should sympathise with the mutineers instead of acting against
them ? Clutching at a compromise, he said that he would
withdraw his supporting force, but would certainly hold a
parade of all arms in the morning. But, when the native
officers again interposed, warning him that he Avould thus only
defer the outbreak, he saAv that he must yield altogethei-.
Then he departed, and left his men at leisiire to reflect on
what they had done. They had taken the lead in mutiny : but,
when they reassembled in the morning, there was depression
rather than exultation in their demeanour. They seemed
ashamed of themselves ; and, though they continued to show
in various Avays that they were still haimted by suspicion, they
discharged their duties thenceforth with obedience and pimctu-
ality. It was impossible to overlook their conduct : but it was
equally impossible to punish it with due promptitude ; for no
European troops could be spared to coerce them. The falseness
of the economy that had Aveakened the surest support of British
supremacy Avas now too clear. All that Canning could do Avas
to send for the 84th Regiment from Eangoon.^
Before the regiments at Barrackpore handed on the torch to
General Hearsay their brethren at Bcrhampore, they had Avorked them-
and the 3itii. gclvcs iuto a statc of f cverish excitement. Sooner or
1 Pari. Papers, vol. xxx. (1857), pp. 38-9, 12-1, 47, 54-5, 59-62, 69-72,
76-7, 81-5, 95, 297-325, 327-31, 333-5 ; Forrest's Selectiuns from State Papers,
vol. i.. Introduction, p. 9 ; Kaye, vol. i. pp. 506-7.
1857 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY 85
later it would be their turn to use the neM' cartridges. When
they were assured that they would be allowed to use their own
lubricant, their diseased fancy suggested that the shining
cartridge jjaper must contain grease. The paper was analysed
and reported harmless ; but still they refused to be comforted.
At last Hearsey, who spoke their language like
themselves, and knew them better than they
knew themselves, paraded them, and tried to convince them
that they had nothing to fear. His attempt ought to have
made it clear to the Government that the madness of their
army was not to be cured by any soothing remedy ; for,
though his speech could not have been improved upon,
its good effects were only transient. When the 34th,
with whose fears there was far more of ill-feeling mixed than
with those of the Berhampore regiment, heard what the latter
had done, their surliness increased ; and, marvelling that their
comrades went unpunished, they began to dread that, under
the mask of leniency. Government was preparing for the whole
brigade some terrible doom. But the Governor-General had
no desire to be hard upon them. He sympathised with their
doubts and scruples, and was only anxious to remove them as
gently as he could. Accordingly he accepted a suggestion that
the sepoys should be allowed to pinch off the ends of their
cartridges instead of biting them, and so avoid the taste of the
paper.i The concession Avas, as might have been expected,
useless. Habit, the sepoys objected, would make them use
their teeth instead of their fingers. Meanwhile, Hearsey had
resolved to try the effect of another speech.
■ • llarch 17
Again he assured his men that there was no design
against their caste or their religion, and that, as they had not been
convicted of any crime, they need fear no punishment. That
was to be kept for those who had deserved it, the mutinoiis 19th.
This was the part of Hearsey's address that had most effect
upon his hearers. Thinking over the fate that
was in store for their comrades, they paid no heed Paudy'^
to the assvu'ance that they need have no fear for
themselves. Twelve days later Sergeant-Major Hewson was in
his bungalow when a native officer came running in to
March ''O
report that a sepoy named Mungul Pandy had come
out of the lines with his musket loaded. Hewson sent to Avarn the
^ Tlie suggestion was made on March 2. — Pari. Papers, vol. xxx. (1857), p. 7.
OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY
adjutant, Lieutenant Baugh,and walked to the pai'ade-ground. The
sepoy was marching up and down in front of the quarter-guard,
calling upon his comrades to aid him and strike a blow for their
religion. Catching sight of the Englishman, he fired at him,
but without effect. Presently the adjutant rode up and cried,
" Where is he ! where is he ! " " Ride to the right, sir, for your
life ! " shouted Hewson, " the sepoy will fire at you ! " The words
were hardly uttered when the mutineer fired at the adjutant
from behind the shelter of the station gun, and brought his
horse to the ground. Baugh sprang unhurt to his feet,
advanced on the mutineer, and fired at him, but missed.
Then began a desperate hand-to-hand encounter. The
mutineer drew his tulwar,^ and slashed the adjutant across
his left hand and neck. Hewson rushed to support his
officer ; but the sepoy was a match for them both. Hard by
stood the guai'd of twenty sepoys looking on unconcerned ;
while their jamadar^ made no attempt to bring them for-
ward, and even suffered them to strike their helpless officers
with the butt - ends of their muskets. One man only, a
Mahomedan named Shaikh Paltu, came to help the struggling
Europeans, and held the mutineer while they escaped. Mean-
while, other Eurojjean officers Avere hurrying to the spot. One
of them, Colonel Wheler of the 34 th, ordered the guard to seize
the mutineer : but no one obeyed him. Then Grant, the
brigadier of the station, interposed his supei'ior authority : but
still the guard paid no heed. The solitary but successful
mutineer was still taunting his comrades for allowing him to
fight their battles unaided ; the British officers, their authority
despised, were still looking helplessly on ; Avhen their chief with
his two sons rode up at a gallop to the gi'ound. Indignantly he
asked his officers why they had not arrested the mutineer. They
answered that the guard would not obey orders. " We'll see
that," said Hearsey, and descrying the mutineer, he rode to-
wards the quarter-guard. " His musket is loaded," cried an
officer. " Damn his musket," answered Hearsey ; and then
turning to the jamadar, and significantly shaking his revolver,
he said, " Listen to me : the first man who refuses to march when
I give the word is a dead man. Quick, march ! " Sullenly the
guard submitted, and followed their master to arrest Mungul
Pandy ; but he too saw that the day was lost, and in despair
1 Native swonl. - Native lieuteuant.
1857 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY 87
turned his musket against himself. He fell wounded ; but he
did not save himself from a felon's death.^
The general had suppressed open mutiny ; but he could
not hinder secret mischief. Next day the 19th, jjisbandin^T
who had marched quietly and penitently down of th" i^ti^-
from Berhampore, knowing that, when they arc i so.
reached their goal, they were to be disbanded, were met at
Barasat by some emissaries from the 34th, who urged them to
join that regiment in slaughtering the European officers. But
the 19 th atoned for their past sins by resisting the tempters,
and marched on sadly to Barrackpore. There, on the last day
of March, confronted by two field batteries and all the European
and native troops that could be mustered, they listened to
their sentence, piled their arms in obedience to the order which
it conveyed, and received their last issue of pay. Then, with
Hearsey's kind farewell ringing in their ears, they went their
way, cheering their old general ; for they knew that, Avhile he
punished, he forgave them.^
Very different was the treatment of the sullen 34th. Mun-
gul Pandy was indeed tried and sentenced on the
6th of April, and executed two days later. But cantnili,' in
though the jamadar who had forbidden his men |:]j"3®][j"^
to aid their officers was sentenced on the 11th, liis
execution was delayed till the 21st, owing to a difliculty which
routine threw in the way. Worse still, the men themselves, who
had struck their defenceless officers, were suffered to go absolutely
unpunished, because the Governor - General feared that any
hasty act of retribution would confirm instead of allaying the
evil temper of the army.^ He did not know that the army
attributed his leniency not to humanity but to fear.
The records of the proceedings of Government during these
months are indee I a melancholy, though not un-
edifying collection. While the Governor-General ^rhovv'^he"'''
ought to have been acting, he was wasting his ought to have
time in trying to solve casuistical puzzles, writing
elegant minutes, and devising elaborate expedients for coaxing
^ Letter in Calcutta Englishvum, April 4, 1857 ; Pari. Papers, vol. xxx.
(1857), pp. 126, 135-7 ; Cave-Browne's The Punjab and Delhi in 1857, vol. i.
p. 20 ; Forrest, pp. 109-31, 178-207.
" Forrest, pp. 97-102 ; Kaye, vol. i. p. 544.
3 Cave-Browne, vol. i. pp. 20, 21 ; Pad. Papers, vol. xxx. (1857), p. 145 ;
pp. 20, 21 ; Forrest, lutroduction, p. 15, and pp. 107, 207, 211.
88 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY chap, hi
the sepoys into accepting the cartridges. The cartridges would
have offered no terrors to troops who were under a strict
discipline, and who had an affectionate confidence in their
officers. John Jacob's irregulars laughed at the idea that any
sensible man could possibly object to them. Such a healthy
state of mind was not indeed to be expected from the Bengal
sepoys ; but they were not beyond the reach of a drastic
remedy. When a number of men are possessed by a delusion,
to endeavour to reason away each successive development of
their morbid fancies is the surest way to encoui'age the fertility
of the latter. Even if the cartridges had been altogether with-
drawn, matters would not have been mended : the sepoys would
simply have felt that the Government Avas afraid of them. If
Canning had understood their characters, he Avould have seen
that it was his duty to give one clear and patient explanation
of the harmless character of the cartridges that were being
issued ; then peremptorily to insist on their being accepted and
used ; and to punish with terrific severity the first man, if
necessary the first regiment, that disobeyed.
Long before this the infection had spread beyond the furthest
limits of the North-Western Provinces. In the
umbi™^''^ middle of March the Commander-in-Chief, who,
escorted by the 36th Native Infantry, was engaged
on a tour of inspection, had arrived at Umballa. Two non-
commissioned officers belonging to a detachment of the 36th,
which was already at the station, ran out to welcome their com-
rades ; but, instead of receiving the cheery greeting which they
expected, were railed at as perverts to Christianity, handlers of
the accursed cartridges. The miserable men ran to the musketry
instructor of the Depot, Lieutenant Martineau, and told him
Avhat had befallen them. He saw at once the terrible significance
of their story, and promptly took pains to ascertain the feelings
of the troops, by whom he was thoroughly trusted. Next day
he reported, as the result of his enquiries, to the
Assistant Adjutant-General that the whole Bengal
army was labouring under a dread of conversion, and had resolved
to treat as outcastes any men who should degrade themselves by
using the cartridges. The Commander-in-Chief tried himself to
soothe the men of the Depot ; but, unable to address them
except through an interpreter, he was not likely to succeed Avhen
Ilearsey had failed. The native officers listened respectfully to
1857 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY 89
his arguments, but privately told Martineau that, though their
own fears and those of their men had been removed, the
general fears of the army remained. Must they obey the
order to use the cartridges, they piteously asked, when obedience
Avould cast them out from the society of their comrades, and
even of their own families. Anson was sorely perplexed. He
Avas unwilling to discontinue rifle practice at the Depot, in
deference to prejudices which his best native officers admitted
to be groundless ; but, Avhen those officers told him that, unless
they yielded to the groundless prejudices, their lives would be
made a burden to them, he was loth to be severe.
At last, however, the Governor-General put an end to
his difficulties by deciding that concession would be weakness.
As soon as this decision had been made known to the men,
fires began to break out in the Government build-
ings and the officers' bungalows. The authorities, ^"rptJ'Yr!'"'
who had not yet learned that incendiarism Avas the
regular symjjtom of coming mutiny, were long unable to find a
clue to the origin of these outrages. Courts of enquiry were held ;
but no one would come forward to give evidence. . ., ^,
'-' April 22.
Later on, however, a hut belonging to a sepoy
attached to the musketry school was set on fire. On the folloAving
night five huts belonging to men of the 60th Native . .
Infantry, were burned down. The former outrage
was clearly an expression of the hatred felt toAvards the musketry
school sepoys for submitting to use the cartridges. The latter
Avas an act of retaliation. Probably, then, the earlier fires had also
been the Avork of sepoys. Towards the end of April this conjecture
was confirmed by the evidence of a Sikh attached to the school,
Avho said that the men had SAVorn to burn doAvn every bungaloAv
in the station, in revenge for the order to use the cartridges.^
Thus, within three months after the Lascar had told his
story, it had become an article of faith Avith nine-
tenths of the sepoys in Northern India. Mean- ^abie^"''""'^'''*
Avhile another delusion had fixed itself in their
minds. Persuaded that Government had concocted this hellish
plot for the destruction of their caste, they could easily believe
that, if it could not force its unclean cartridges upon them, it
Avould find some other engine of pollution. The neAv fable said
that the officers were mixing dust ground from the bones of
^ Cave-Browne, vol. i. pp. 42-50.
90 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY
cows with the flour for their men's use, and throwing it into
the wells. There had been like stories at earlier periods of
Anglo-Indian history; but the times had never before been so
favourable for their circulation. That the present belief was
no sham was proved by the conduct of the men at Cawnpore,
who, though the flour sold there had risen far above its usual
price, refused to touch a cheap supply sent specially down from
Meerut, because they feared that it had been adulterated. And,
while this new lie was adding to the perplexities of the English,
they were asking each other what could be the
meaning oi a mj'sterious phenomenon which had
startled them a few weeks before. In Januaiy a strange sym-
bol, the flat cake or chapatty which forms the staple food of
the Indian people, began to pass from village to village through
the length and breadth of the North-Western Provinces, like
the fiery cross that summoned the clansmen of Roderick to
battle. Here and there a magistrate tried in vain to stop the
distribution. The meaning of the portent has never been posi-
tively discovered : but it is certain that many of the natives
regarded it as a warning that Government Avas plotting the
overthrow of their religion.^ Whether or not the authors of
the distribution intended to create this belief, the belief itself
had its share in unsettling men's minds.
Meanwhile at Delhi, where Bahadur Shah, the aged repre-
sentative of the house of Timour, was still suflered
S^Demi™'' *o '^old his court, the news of the gathering dis-
loyalty of the sepoys had begun to stir the smoulder-
ing embers of Mahomedan fanaticism into flame. It was of the
last importance to the English to keep a fii-m hold upon that
city ; for it contained a vast magazine stored with munitions of
war which were practically inexhaustible. Yet they had per-
mitted the palace, which dominated the magazine, to remain in
^ See Kaye, vol. i. pp. 632-9, and Evidence taken before tlic Court appointed
for the Trial of the King of Delhi, p. 268. On the otlier hand, Major G. W.
Williams in his Memo, an the Mutiny of Meerut wrote, "The circulation of
chapatties so shortly before the outbreak, though appearing to us most mysterious
and suspicious, yet, if we may credit the statements of those 1 have questioned en
the subject . . . was not regarded by them as an ill omen, hut supposed to lla^•e
originated in some vow," p. 4. See also Syad Ahmad Khan's Hie Causes of the
Indian Remit, p. 3. The truth evidently is tliat the chapatties were regarded
differently in different districts.
[Mr. ]\I. Thornhill {Adventures dvrinq the Indian Mntinjf, p. 3) says that a
similar distribution of chapatties precedeil the Mutiny at V'ellore in 1S06.]
1857 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY 91
the hands of a Mahomedan prince, and, with incredible folly,
had neglected to post a single company of British soldiers to
keep a check upon the native garrison.^ And now the hearts of
the Mahomedans were beating fast in the expectation of great
political changes by which their city was again to become the
imperial city of India. It was universally believed that a vast
Russian army was soon coming to expel the English. A native
journal announced that Dost Mahomed, the pretended ally of
the Governor-General, Avas secretly encouraging Persia to resist
him. The courtiers in the recesses of the palace talked of a
general mutiny of the sepoy army as an event sure to happen
soon, and believed that it would restore the King to the position
of his ancestors, and advance their own fortunes. The King,
though for his part he never believed that the sepoys would
rally round one so poor and so fallen as himself, fancied that, if
the British Government were to be overthrown, a new dominant
power would arise, which would treat him more respectfully and
considerately than its predecessor had done.^
In this gloomy spring of 1857, while the hearts of a turbulent
soldiery were failing them for fear, yet vibrating
with ambition, while officers and civilians, blind Sn^^^'^"
to what was passing around them, were dining, and
dancing, and marrying, and giving in marriage, there was one
man who, wandering from place to place, and observing the
^ Kaye (vol. ii. p. 17, note) says that Sir Charles Napier, when Commander-
in-Chief, did not lay any stress upon the fact that no European troops were
posted in Delhi. He may not have done so in his official correspondence ; but in
a private letter he wrote " Men from all parts of Asia meet in Delhi, and some day
or other much mischief will be hatched within those walls, and no European troops
at hand. I have no confidence in the allegiance of your high-caste mercenaries. "
— History of the Siege of Delhi, by an Officer who served there, p. 10, note.
2 Evidence taken before the Court appointed for the Trial of the King of
Delhi, pp. 225, 230, 231, 267. This seems the right place to speak of a pro-
clamation, purporting to come from the Shah of Persia, which was posted up on
the walls of the Jamma Masjid in Delhi in March, 1857. This proclamation
stated that a Persian army was coming to expel the English from India, and called
upon all true Mahomedans to put on their armour, and join the invaders. — Kaye
(vol. i. p. 483) appears to regard it as genuine ; but Sir Theophilus Metcalfe and
other witnesses examined at the trial of the king, spoke of it as the work of an
impostor, and said that it attracted scarcely any attention. Evidence, &c. pp.
180, 190. The Shah afterwards admitted that he had fomented disaffection in
Upper India during the Persian war, and had intended to invade India ; but in
Oct. 1857 he offered to lend 30,000 men to the British Government. — Enclosures
to Secret Letters from India, Nov. 24, 1857, p. 455. [John La-WTence pointed out
(Pari. Papers, vol. xxv. Sess. 2, p. 332), that there was no evidence of any connexion
between the intrigues of the King of Delhi with the Shah and the Mutiny itself.]
92 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY chap, hi
signs of the times, considered how he might make his profit out
of them, but did not yet imagine the grim details of the part
that destiny had reserved for him. It Avas not strange that, as
the Nana Sahib passed on his way from Bithur through Kalpi,
Delhi, and Lucknow, the English saw nothing
remarkable in such unwonted activity on the part
of a native nobleman. Never doubting the justice of the deci-
sion which had refused to him the continuance of his adoptive
father's pension, they did not know the al^iding resentment
which it had stirred up in his soul. Thus he went his way ;
and none can tell what foul treasons he was even then hatching.
But there is reason to suspect that he had long been trying to
stir up native chieftains against the English, and that, at first
indifferent, they lent a ready ear to his suggestions after the
annexation of Oudh had aroused their alarm. ^
All this time Henry Lawrence was striving with holy zeal at
once to redress the grievances of the afflicted people
reuce tries to of Oudh, and to disarm their resentment. The
iu oudii°°°*^''"^ officials had hushed their quarrels at his coming, and
had united in devotion to his will. He had won
the affection of Jackson, though he had not hesitated to reprove
his follies ; and he had gained the confidence and sympathy of
Gubbins. He Avas able to write, a few weeks after his arrival,
that all his subordinates were loyally supporting him.'^ But he
had to complain too of the blind haste with Avhich they had
forced their improvements on the people, and of the bitter
resentment Avhich they had evoked by demolishing houses, seizing
religious buildings as Government property, and fixing an ex-
cessive rate of revenue in their anxiety to show the profitable-
ness of annexation.'^ Nor had the seditious utterances of the
Moulvi been the only dangerous symptoms of discontent. An
angry townsman had thrown a clod at LaAvrence himself, Avhile
he Avas driving through the streets. But by the seizure and
impi'isonment of the Moulvi, the prompt payment of the pensions
Avhich had been promised to the royal family and their depend-
' Kaye, vol. i. p. 579 and uote, App. pp. 64G-8.
- Life of Sir H. La^orence, pp. 555-7, 564.
•'' Gubbins, the Financial Commissioner, himself admitted that the rate of
revenue had, in some instances, been tixed too high. — Mutinies in Oudh, p. 9.
Still, the total amount raised by the British Government was only Rs. 10-1,89,755,
whereas the ex-king had exacted Rs. 138,03,731. — Anniuil lie2J0rt 0)h the Ad-
ministration of the Province of Oudh for 1858-9, p. 32.
1857 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY 93
ents, the issue of orders for the readmission of the displaced
native otFicials and disbanded native soldiers to employment, and
the promise of restitution to the dispossessed landholders, Law-
rence quickly restored order, and re-established content among
the great mass of the civil population. It was from the sepoy
regiments alone that he looked for danger.
While Lawrence was waiting quietly for the storm which he
hoped that he would be strong enough to weather,^ cannino- hopes
Canning, observing a general lull, deceived himself that quiet is
with the belief that it presaged a lasting calm. Nor
was he alone in his want of foresight. It does not appear that
a single official of rank in India, except Sir Henry Lawrence, was
seriously troubled by forebodings. On the 4:th of May John
Lawrence wrote that the sepoys at the Sialkot Depot were
charmed with the new rifle. Their officers confirmed his opinion.
General Barnard warmly praised the patient zeal of the men at
Umballa in extinguishing the fires which, though he would not
believe it, some of their own number had caused. The Com-
mander-in-Chief was so little impressed by the symptoms of
mutiny which obtruded themselves upon his attention, that he
did not think it worth while to make a single representation
about them to the home authorities.'- It was not extraordinary
then that the Governor-General, who knew little of India, and
who had no genius to supply the lack of experience, should have
failed to perceive that a general mutiny was at hand. It was no
wonder that he laboured at his ordinary round of business as
calmly as if no danger-signals had appeared, and thought that
there was no further need for the presence of the regiment which
he had fetched from Rangoon.^ He could not foresee that in a
few days he would have cause to rejoice that there had been no
vessel to convey it back to Bui^ma when he had ordered its return.
Still he could not ignore the misconduct of the 34th, or mis-
understand the reports of their daily increasing insolence and
untrustworthiness. Yet, whereas he should have long since
severely punished these sullen soldiers, and executed the guard
who had dared to strike their adjutant, he tortured himself with
doubts as to the justice of even disbanding the remaining com-
^ Life of Sir H. Laivre7ice, pp. 504-5, 568.
" Letters of Ltulophilus to the Times, p. 25.
•^ R. Montgomery Martin's The Indian Rm-pire, vol. ii. p. 135 ; H. Mead's
Se^poy Revolt, p. 59.
94 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY chap, hi
panies, — those companies of which not a single man had stirred
to arrest their mutinous comrade, — and wasted precious days in
wearisome discussion, until the remonstrances of Hearsey and
Anson roused him to action. Even then he spent four more days
in examining with microscopic accuracy the claims of individuals
to indulgence, so that his decision was not made known until the
4th of May, five weeks after the commission of the crime. The
delay in punishing, however, was less fatal than the choice of
punishment. The disbanded sepoys, stripped of their uniforms,
but suffered to retain the Kilmarnock caps which
Disbandment , i ■, ■, • i r j.i ^ i. ^ i
of the 34th: they had paid tor themselves, contemptuously
th™eDoy^s°^ trampled under foot these only remaining tokens
of their former allegiance to the Company,^ and,
welcoming their so-called punishment as a happy release from
bondage, went off with light hearts to sAvell the number of
our enemies. Discontented Europeans muttered against the
lenity of the Governor-General ; uncompromising journalists
openly attacked it ; ^ and Avorst of all, when the order for dis-
bandment Avas read out at the military stations throughout the
country, and the sepoys, after listening to its solemn denuncia-
tions of the terrible crime which their comrades had committed,
and expecting to hear that a terrible punishment had been in-
flicted upon them, learned at last that they had been sentenced
not to death but to disbandment, they did not care to conceal
their contempt for rulers Avhom they now believed to be afraid
to punish them.^ Henry Lawrence, who understood Avhat an
effect the order must have upon the minds of the sepoys, would
not allow it to be published at LucknoAv.* He had lately proved
that he Avas as able to suppress mutiny himself as he Avas
sagacious in detecting the failure of his superiors to suppress it.
The finest sepoy corps at LucknoAv, the 48th Native Infantry,
was the first to manifest a mutinous spirit. Early
Luckuow* ii^ April Dr. Wells, the surgeon of the regiment,
feeling unAvell, went into the hospital for a bottle of
medicine, and raised it to his lips, forgetting that he had thus
hopelessly polluted it in the eyes of his Hindu patients. The
1 Eed Pamphlet, pp. 33-4.
- Friend of India, May 14, 1857, p. 459 ; Overland Bombay Times, 1857,
p. 81 ; Mead, pp. 58-9 ; Knc/lishvum, Ap. 8, 1857.
•* I. Prichard's Mufinie.s in Rajpootana, jjp. 24-5.
amphlet, p. 34.
" 1. rncnara s luuiinit
* Red Famphlet, p. 34.
1857 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY 95
sepoys soon heard what he had done, and raised an outcry for
their caste. Their colonel had the bottle broken in their presence,
and severely reprimanded the oftender ; but the matter did not
end there. A few days later Wells's bungalow was burned down ;
and it was soon known that the regiment was thoroughly dis-
affected. Still no overt act of mutiny took place. But May
brought a change. On the 1st of that month the recruits of the
7th Oudh Irregular Infantry refused to accept their cartridges,
on the ground that their seniors had warned them that the
obnoxious grease had been applied to the ends. The officers
laboured, apparently with some success, to explain to their men
that the cartridges Avere precisely the same that they had been
in the habit of using. But the day after this explanation had been
given, not the recruits only but the whole regiment ^
refused to touch them. Then Lawrence ordered the
Brigadier to hold a parade, and try the effect of a conciliatory
speech. It was of no use. The men said that they must do as
the rest of the army did. Even of the well-intentioned sepoys
only the most resolutely faithful could stand against the opinion
of their public. Let Englishmen think whether they could have
resisted the terrors of social ostracism and religious excommunica-
tion before they condemn poor ignorant Asiatics. But this
particidar legiment was not well-intentioned. On Sunday, the
3rd of May, they were drifting from passive towards active
mutiny. When Lawrence heard that they had threatened to
murder their officers, he saw that he must act promptly ; and,
taking Avith him his whole available foi'ce, he marched against
the mutineers. It was late in the evening when he confronted
them. By the uncertain light of the moon the mutineers saw
an irresistible force before them, and Avere anxiously expecting
its movement, Avhen suddenly a port-fire Avas incautiously lighted
by one of LaAvrence's artillerymen, and seemed to their guilty
imaginations to be the signal for their destruction. First a
sepoy here and there stole away : then great gaps appeared
in their ranks ; and soon all but a hundred and twenty had
fled. The rest laid doAvn their arms at Lawrence's order ;
and before tAvo in the morning the troops had returned to
their lines.^
When Canning heard of this fresh outbreak, he bethought
1 Gubbins, pp. 3, 10-13 ; Life, of Sir IL Lam-ence, pp. 562-3, 571 ; Pari.
Ptqjers, vol. XXX. (1857), pp. 247-8.
96 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY chap, in
him of his old i-emedy, dishandment ; 1:)ut Dorin was beginning
to discern the signs of the times, and demanded a
caiininiaii.i Severer punishment.^ The multitude of counsellors
thereon.''*''^^"'^'' ^®^'® ^^^^^ busily recording theii' opinions in elaborate
minutes, when a telegram was passed from one to
another, containing the first dim tidings of a disaster which all
felt to be the heaviest that had yet befallen them.
At the great military station of Meerut wei'e quartered the
11th and 20th regiments of Native Infantry and
the 3rd Native Cavalry. The station covered a
great extent of ground, and was split into two parts by a deep
ditch. On the northern side were scattered a number of officers'
bungalows. Beyond them stretched the European barracks. The
church stood between the barracks of the infantry and those of
the cavalry. A long Avay off, on the opposite side of the ditch,
Avere the native lines. The intei'vening space was covered by a
wilderness of bazaars, extending southwards in the direction of
the town.^ The radical fault in the plan of the station was the
great distance that sejDarated the quarters of the European from
those of the native troops.
The Lascar's story had caused even more excitement at
Meerut than elsewhere. It was afterwards ascertained that some
of the sepoys had made a compact Avith their comrades at Delhi,
promising, in case the cartridges were pressed upon them, to join
the regiments there. The English I'esidents, however, feared
nothing ; for they were guarded by a dragoon regiment, a
battalion of the 60th Eifles, and bodies of horse and foot
artillery, forming altogether the strongest European force at any
post in the North- Western Provinces. Still the officers, confident
though they were, did not neglect the usual conciliatory assurances
to their men. But the excitement was not abated. At length
Colonel Smyth, who commanded the 3rd Native Cavalry, a hard
' It is fair to say that on the 12th of May Canning recorded a miniite, con-
curred in by Dorin as well as the other niemlx-rs of Council, in which he sai<l " I
did not conceive, that . . . all graver punishments would be swallowed up in
disbandment." Dorin's original minute, however, was conceived iu a far more
vigorous spirit than that of Canning. "The sooner," he wrote, "this epidemic of
mutiny is put a stop to the better. Mild measures won't do it. A severe
example is wanted ... I would try the whole of the men concerned for mutiny,
and punish them with the utmost rigour of military law." — Ih. p. 249, inc. 4 iu
No. 14, pp. 2.^^2-3, inc. 8 in No. 14.
"^ Cave-Browne, vol. i. p. 51 ; Thornton's Ga::eUec.i\ vol. iii. p. 449 ; sketch-plan
drawn for me by an officer who was once quartered at Meerut.
1857 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY 97
and unpopular officer,^ but one of the few Europeans that had
discerned symptoms of disease in the sepoy army, resolved to
take advantage of the order; for tearing off the ends of the car-
tridges instead of biting them, to give a final explanation to his
troopers. Accordingly, on the 23rd of April, he ordered a parade
of the skirmishers of his regiment for the following morning. The
cartridges that were to be issued were of the old kind, which
the men had long been in the habit of using. A rumour ran
through the station that the skirmishers would refuse them ; and
a fire which broke out in the evening boded disaster. In the
coiuse of the night the colonel was informed that the men desired
the postponement of the parade : but, as he had heard that the
whole army was going to mutiny, he felt that to yield to such re-
monstrances would be a sin. Early next morning ninety men met
him on the parade-ground ; but, though he pointed out to them
how the new regulation had been drawn up out of consideration
for their scruples, five only would even touch the cartridges.^ He
could only break up the parade, and order a court of enquiry to
assemble. The court elicited the fact that, as at Umballa, not
genuine fear of the cartridges, but fear of public opinion had
influenced the mutineers.^ A report of the proceedings was sent
to the Commander-in-Chief; and his orders were awaited. All
this time nightly fires told of the evil passions which were work-
ing in the sepoys' hearts ; but few heeded the warning. Early
in May a message came from the Commander-in-Chief, ordering
the mutineers to be tried by a native coixrt-martial. They had
virtually nothing to say in defence of their conduct. The court
sentenced them to ten years' imprisonment ; and General Hewitt,
the commander of the Division, approved of the sentence for all,
except eleven of the younger offenders, half of whose punishment
he remitted. On the morning of the 9th of May, beneath a
sunless sky darkened by rolling storm-clouds, the whole brigade
was assembled to see the culprits disgraced. Stripped of their
uniforms, these miserable felons were handed over to the smiths,
who riveted fetters on their arms and legs. In vain they entreated
their general to have mercy upon them. As they were being led
away, they yelled out curses at their colonel.* Their brethren,
choking with suppressed indignation, longed to strike a blow in
1 See App. W.
- Pamphlet by Col. Smyth, printed for private circulation ; Forrest, vol. i.
pp. 227-45. '^ Pari. Papers, vol. xliv. (1857-58), Part 4, p. 178.
* Montgomery Martin, vol. ii. p. 146.
H
98 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY chap, hi
their behalf ; but fear was stronger than tlie thirst for vengeance.
After gazing passively at the removal of the prisoners to the gaol,
they dispersed. There was an unnatural stillness in the lines for
the rest of that day ; an unwonted respectfulness in the manner
of the sepoys towards their officers.^ But none could interpret
the omen. The lines of the sepoys were too far distant from the
dwellings of the Europeans for the latter to hear what Mussulman
and Hindu were saying of them. In the afternoon a native officer
of the disgraced regiment told Lieutenant Hugh Gough, who was
temporarily commanding the troop to which he belonged, that
the men had determined to rescue their imprisoned comrades.
Gough at once went to Colonel Smyth and reported what he had
heard : but the colonel ridiculed the story ; and Brigadier Arch-
dale Wilson, the commandant of the station, was equally sceptical.-
Ofl&cers jested at mess ; civilians talked over the work of the day ;
ladies chatted gaily in their verandahs. On the
^^ ■ Sunday morning the church held its usual congrega-
tion ; and, when the worshippers returned to their homes, they
hardly noticed the unusual absence of their native servants.
Here, as elsewhere, the self-satisfied Englishman knew nothing
of the inner life of the despised races around him ; and he was
punished for his neglect by the moral blindness which would not
let him guard against their vengeance. Unknown to him, the
sepoys were moving to and fro all that Sunday afternoon with
war in their hearts ; the courtesans Avere taunting the troopers
who had looked on at the humiliation of their comrades, and
calling upon them to prove their courage if they dared ; the
children were wondering at the strange commotion around them ;
and the budmashes, like foul harpies, were emerging from their
haunts, to profit by the troubles which they foresaw. In the
hearts of the sepoys a vague but irresistible fear mingled with
hatred and the thirst for vengeance, and impelled them to antici-
pate the doom which they imagined the English to be preparing
for them ; while stronger than all their passions was the sense
of a brotherhood linking them with the rest of the army, and
joining -with religious fanaticism to hurl them as martyrs against
the British battalions, whose power they knew to be stronger
than their own.
Towards sunset the Christian residents j^repared, as usual, for
^ Cave-Browne, vol. i. p. 53.
- Lord Roberts's Forty-one Years in liidiu, vol. i. p. 88.
1857 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY 99
church. One of the chaplain's female servants begged him to
stay at home, assuring him that there was going to be a fight.
Disregarding her warning, he drove off. But, as he approached
the church, his ears caught the sharp reports of volleying
musketry ; and, looking up, he saw clouds of smoke ascending
from burning houses into the air.^ The woman had told the
truth. It was the dread with which the sepoys regarded the
movements of the Rifles, whose assemblage for church parade
they interpreted as the signal for their own imprisonment, that
precipitated the outbreak.^ Suddenly a cry was raised, "The
Rifles and Artillery are coming to disarm all the native regi-
ments " ; and the sepoys who were lounging in the bazaars started
^ Tlis Chaplain's Narrative of the Siege of Delhi, by the Rev. J. E. W.
Rotton, p. 4.
^ I have been convinced of this by the arguments of Colonel G. W. Williams,
who collected a vast amount of evidence on the subject of the rising at Meerut,
and prefaced it by an invaluable little essay, entitled Alemoranduin on the Mutiny
and Outbreak at Meerut in 1857. He points out on p. 3 that Nos. 22 to 26 of
the Depositions taken under his direction prove that "the mutineers fled as a
disorganised mob . . . many towards Dehlie, but others in totally opposite
quarters," which they would not have been likely to do, if they had acted upon a
prearranged plan. The following extracts from the Depositions strongly support
the argument. P. 7. " Q. — Did the regiments preconcert the rebellion ? A. —
The said regiments did not plot anything beforehand. Had they done so, they
would not have kept their wives and children with them as they did. Q. — How
then (if there was no preconcerted plan) did the detached guards at some distance
from the lines at once join the mutineers ? A. — The uproar and confusion was
very great, and immediately it reached the guards, they joined their regiments."
Other witnesses gave similar replies. — See pp. 10-14. Moreover the native
residents in the Bazaar susi^ected nothing ; for " their shops were all open and
goods unprotected ; men were passing to and fro, paying, realising, and carrying
about . . . money ; vendors of goods hawking about their wares as usual ; and
travellers journeying unarmed both to and from the city and district." — Memo.
p. 6. A gild in the town was indeed told at 2 p.m. on the 10th that there was
going to be a mutiny that day ; but her informant was probably only repeating
some vague utterances of the sepoys ; and the incident does not prove more than
that the idea of mutiny was " in the air." [Still there is evidence that some sowars
of the 3ril Cavalry determined on the 9th to mutiny on the follo\ving day. Sir
Hugh Gough says {Old Memories, pp. 21-2) that the native officer who spoke to
him on the 9th warned him that there would be a mutiny on the morrow ; and
Mr. P. V. Luke shows in Macmillan's Magazine, Oct. 1897, p. 403, that the
telegraph wire between Meerut and Delhi was cut soon after 4 P.M. on the 10th.
(See also Depositions, pp. 37, 41.) This evidence, however, is not irreconcileable
with the depositions which Major Williams collected. The native officer doubt-
less heard some of the sowars threaten to mutiny on the Sunday : but his state-
ment does not prove the existence of a general plot ; and there is no evidence that
the sowars who cut the wire acted in pursuance of a generally understood plan.
It is indeed probable that even if the panic which precipitated the outbreak had
not arisen, and only a few men had mutinied, the rest of the sepoys, though not
forewarued, would have followed them : but whoever studies the depositions will,
100 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY chap, hi
up, and, followed by a mob of townsmen, rushed wildly to
their respective lines.
The 3rd Cavalry took the lead. Some hundreds of the
troopers dashed otf at a gallop towards the gaol, to the terror of
the quiet citizens whom they passed, ^vrenehed out the bars that
guarded the windows, and struck the fetters off their comrades.
Not all, however, were swept away by the tide of mutiny. Colonel
Smyth indeed never went near his regiment from the moment
that he heard of their uprising ; but two of his officers. Captain
Craigie and Lieutenant Melville Clarke, handling their own troop
as though mutiny were a thing unknown, brought it to the parade-
ground in perfect order.^ Meanwhile the infantry regiments
were surging tumultuously in their lines. Hearing the uproar,
the officers hastened thithei-, and began to remonstrate with their
men. The latter were quietly submitting, when suddenly a
trooper galloped past, and shouted out that the Eiu-opean troops
were coming to disarm them. The 20th at once ran to seize
their muskets : but the 11th, who had all along shown the least
obstinate spirit, wavered. Colonel Finnis, their commanding
officer, was imploring them to be faithful, when some men of the
other regiment fired upon him ; and he fell riddled with bullets,
the first victim of the Indian Mutiny. Seeing the fate of their
commandant, and feeling sure that they would never be forgiven,
the 11th no longer hesitated to throw in their lot with his
murderers.-
The thirst of the mutineers for the blood of Christians was
only stimulated by the slaughter of Finnis. The convicts, let
I think, arrive at the conchision that the bulk of the mutineers acted on the spur
of the moment, and that no definite plot for a general mutiny had been prearranged.
See also Gazetteer of the N.W.P., vol. iii. p. 340.]
There is, however, evidence that the sepoys at Delhi expected that those at
Meerut would sooner or later mutiny and come to join tliem. At the trial of the
King of Delhi a news- writer named Jat Mall deposed, "I heard a few days before
the outbreak, from some of the sepoys of the gate of the palace, that it had been
an-anged in case greased cartridges were pressed upon them, that the Meerut troops
were to come here, where they would be joined by the Delhi troops."— Evidence
taken before the Court appointed for the Trial of the King of Delhi, p. 182. The
king's confidential physician, a highly trustworthy witness, deposed that the 38tli
N.I. " said, that before the breaking out of the muttnj'', they had leagued with the
troops at Meerut, and that the latter had corresponded with the troops in all
other places." lb. p. 158. [On the jther hand, the Judge Advocate-General
had no authority for saying, in his review of the evidence, that " the sepoy guards
at the gate of the palace on Sunday evening . . . spoke openly ... of wliat
they expected to occur on the morrtno." They did not mention any date. Ih.
p. 185.] 1 See App. W. - Depositions, pp. 3, 10-12. 14, 25.
1857 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY 101
loose from the gaols, and fraternising with the native police and
the increasing swarm of budmashes, joined in the bloody work.
Gangs of these marauders, armed with swords and clubs, roamed
alDout the station, hurled showers of bricks upon every stray
Eiu'opean who crossed their path, burst into peaceful dwellings,
murdered the inmates, and poured forth again laden with
plunder ; and the terrified witnesses of this dreadful scene heard
mingling with the roar of the flames that leaped up from the
fired houses the savage voices of Mahomedans shouting, "Ali,
Ali." ^ Soon, however, the sepoys had had enough of pillage :
they were sure that the white troops must be coming : " Quick,
brother, quick ! " was their cry, " Delhi, Delhi " ; and the bud-
mashes were left alone. ^ A staff-officer rode to the telegraph
office, in the hope of sending a message of warning. He was
disappointed. The signaller had already attempted to com-
municate with Delhi : but there was no reply ; and he realised
that the wire had been cut.^ Meamvhile, incredible as it may
appear, the Treasury Guard, though beset by extraordinary
temptations, remained faithful to their trust.'^ And, even when
the rioters were doing their worst, their intended victims never
doubted that the white regiments would soon come to rescue
and avenge them.
It was not the fault of the British soldier, but of his com-
mander, still more of the system which had given him such a
commander, that this hope was unfulfilled. General Hewitt,
an infirm old man who had long outlived whatever military
capacity he might once have possessed, was almost too inert to
be even bewildered by the crisis, and remained simply passive.
But Archdale Wilson did make some attempt to grapple with
the danger. On receiving the news of the outbreak, he mounted
^ Williams's Memo., ]ip. 1, 7.
^ Letter from Colonel MoUerus Le Champion (the Lieut. Moller mentioned in
the text), who was an eye-witness of the scene.
•^ Information from Capt. R. H. Peal, late of the Telegraph Department. See
also Depositions, pp. 37. 41, and Pioneer, April 1, 1897.
* The following is one of several instances recorded by Colonel Williams of
the inconsistency so often remarked in the conduct of the native soldiers during
the Mutiny : — "A few days after the outbreak at Meerut, a small guard of the
8th Irregular Cavalry ... of their own accord and for greater safety, escorted
the Office records and Treasure-chest in their charge from Meerut to Agra, fighting
their way down, and, when attacked by insurgent villagers, beating them off with
heavy loss. They were well rewarded for their fidelity ; yet, in less than two
months after, deserted almost to a man."
102 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY chap, hi
his horse, ordered the British artillery to join him on the parade-
ground of the Rifles, galloped thither himself, and directed the
colonel to dismiss his men from church-parade, and reassemble
them for action.^ But there was delay in supplying the Kifles
with ammunition, and the Dragoons were nowhere to be seen ;
for, as they Avere on their way to grapple with the sepoys,
Wilson had turned them back, and sent them on a bootless
errand to the gaol.^ At last Hewitt appeared on the parade-
ground, and, though too helpless to take the initiative himself,
suffered Wilson to act for him. Placing himself at the head of
the Artillery, and some companies of the Kifles, Wilson marched
for the Infantry lines. But the sepoys had not failed to take
advantage of the incompetence of their officers. Only a few
stray troopers remained near the lines ; and even these easily
found refuge in a wood, concealed in which they laughed at the
efforts of the artillerymen to destroy them. Then the British
began a hunt in the dark for the mutineer's. Marching in
breathless haste to their own quarter of the station, they found
only a few unarmed plunderers on whom to wreak their
vengeance. By that time great numbers of the mutineers were
far on their way to Delhi. Many of them had at first not
known their own minds. Hardly had they got outside the
station when the leaders of the cavalry stopped to consider what
they should do next. The majority were for taking refuge in
Rohilkhand ; but one pointed out that the best course would be
to make a dash for Delhi ; and his counsel prevailed.^ Marvelling
to find that they had escaped all reprisals, the mutineers never
doubted, as they pressed on by the light of the moon, that
the White Man, rousing himself from his lethargy, was pursuing,
and would soon overwhelm them.*
But they were never for a moment in danger. Asserting
that it was his duty to provide for the safety of the station of
which he was Brigadier, Wilson left Delhi to perish because he
dared not leave Meerut exposed to the attacks of the escaped
^ G. W. Forrest's Selections from State Papers, vol. i. pp. 260-62.
^ I have not seen it anywhere positively stated that Wilson gave this order ;
but Colonel Le Champion has written to nie, " I have always heard it was
Brigadier Wilson" ; and, as Hewitt expressly said to Le Champion, "I give no
orders without Wilson's permission," I am sure that the statement in the text is
true. See also letters from Colonel Custance and Colonel Le Champion, quoted
by Kaye, vol. ii. pp. 687-91.
2 Pari. Papers, vol. xviii. 1859, p. 335, par. 15 ; Depositions, p. 8.
^ Forrest, pp. 261-2 ; Annals of the Indian Rebellion, p. 101.
1857 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY 103
convicts and the budmashes. He forgot that one half of his
British soldiers was sufficient for the permanent protection of
the station, now freed from its most dangerous enemies ; and
that the other half, led by able officers, of whom there were
some even at Meerut, would have been able to punish the
mutineers, and to reinforce their destined victims.^ But there
were at least two men who felt indignant that one of the
strongest garrisons in India should take no thought for the
safety of any station but its own. Captain Rosser of the
Dragoons offered to arrest the flight of the mutineers, if but
one squadron of his regiment and a few guns were allowed to
accompany him. Lieutenant Moller of the 11th entreated
Hewitt to allow him to ride to Delhi, and warn the authorities
of their danger."^ These brave men were not suffered to retrieve
the errors of their superiors.
The baffled Europeans bivouacked on their parade-ground,
but did nothing to help the suffering people for whose protection
they had been retained, though the sullen roar of a thousand
fires lighting up the darkness of the night might have warned
them to be up and doing. It was not to them but to a few
faithful natives that those who were saved owed their lives.
Greathed, the Commissioner, and his wife had fled to the roof
of their house on the first sound of tumult ; but their furniture
was set on fire by a band of ruffians,^ and they must soon have
perished but for the devotion of one of their servants, Golab
Khan. While they expected every moment to be destroyed by
the flames, this man, pretending that he could point out their
hiding-place, decoyed away their enemies, and thus gave them
time to escape.* Not less heroic was the self-sacrifice of Craigie's
1 See App. B.
^ "Dr. O'Callaglian," says Mr. H. G. Keene, "mentions Rosser's offer (contra-
dicted by Kaye), and has since informed me that ... he was only fifteen feet
from the Brigadier when Rosser spoke, who then came over, reined up his horse
by O'Callaghan's side, and repeated to him what he had said." Moller made his
offer before the mutineers left Meerut.
^ H. Greathed's Letters ivritte7i during the Siege of Delhi, App. ii. p. 291.
* An Afghan pensioner, named Syad Mir Khan, also risked his life in
endeavouring to repel a mob which had collected round the Commissioner's
house. His account of his own exploits is so exquisitely comic that I cannot
resist the pleasure of quoting from it. " The mob appearing," he deposed, " I
attacked them with great ferocity like a terrible lion ... By the favour of God
I fought many actions with the mutineers . . . The above is but a short account
of my doings, if I were to detail them it would be immensu. " — Depositions, etc.,
pp. 17-18.
104 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY
troopers, who, posting themselves outside his bungalow, protected
his wife from the attacks of a savage mob. But when daylight
revealed the grim charred skeletons of what had been neat
bungalows, the heaps of property wantonly destroyed, and the
mutilated corpses, the soldiers, though they burned to be
avenged upon the ruffians who had ^v^ought this destruction,
were forbidden by their officers to stir. Not all, hoAvever, were
paralysed by this effeminate weakness. Lieutenant Moller,
resolving to execute justice xipon the murderer of a brother
officer's wife, sought and obtained evidence of his identity ;
tracked, arrested, and carried him back to cantonments single-
handed ; and then delivered him over to the judgement of a drum-
head court-martial, by whose sentence he was summarily hanged.
Thus even Mcerut had its heroes. The negligence which
had permitted the great disaster, the apathy which had made no
effort to retrieve it, were half redeemed by the promptitude of
Clarke and Craigie, the daring of Rosser, the gallant self-sacrifice
of Golab Khan, the chivalrous courage of the faithful troopers of
the 3rd, the swift vengeance of Lieutenant Moller.
On the morning of the 11th the sun which exposed the
. nakedness and desolation of the wrecked station of
Meerut was shining gloriously upon the gorgeous
mosques and palaces of Delhi. The great city wore its usual
aspect. The traders were chaffering with their voluble customers.
The civil authorities were patiently listening to suitors, or trying
prisoners in cutcherry. The officers were preparing for breakfast
after morning parade, in happy ignorance of what had passed
the night before. Even the sepoys, though emissaries from
Meerut had come among them on the previous afternoon, masked
their feelings so cleverly that only a few penetrating eyes could
see anything unusual in their demeanour. Suddenly the civil
authorities were startled at their work by messengers who
reported that a line of horsemen had been seen galloping along
the high road from Meerut. Not at once realising the whole
import of the news, they nevertheless lost no time in acting
upon it. The magistrate galloped to the cantonments, and put
Graves, the Brigadier, upon his guard, Avhile another civilian
hurried ofi" to warn Lieutenant "Willoughby, the chief officer of
the great magazine, to look to the safety of his charge. Mean-
while, however, the rebel horsemen, followed by some of the
infantry, had made good their enti'ance into Delhi. Some, after
1857 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY 105
fording the Jumna a little below the city, had burst open the
gaol, and released the prisoners. The foremost of the main
body rode straight for the palace, and, surging round its walls,
clamoured fiercely for admittance, boasting that they had already
slaughtered the English at Meerut, and crying, " Help, O King !
we pray for assistance in our fight for the faith." In vain
Captain Douglas, the commandant of the palace guards, came
out upon the balcony, and called down to them that their King
desired them to depart. Unable to force an entrance where
they were, they made for the Rajghat gate, which was thrown
open to them by a Mahomedan rabble, and then, with these new
allies in their train, rushed back towards the point from which
they had started, firing every European dwelling, and murdering
every European inhabitant upon their route ; while the citizens
shut up their shops in terror, and trembled as they thought of
the retribution which the English would exact for such wicked-
ness.^ On returning to the palace, the mutineers were joined
by the guai'ds and the King's dependents, to whose loyalty
Douglas and Eraser, the Commissioner, were fruitlessly appealing,
their once dreaded voices drowned by the insolent shouts of the
multitude. Falling back before the advancing crowd, Douglas
leaped into the moat, and, wounded cruelly by his fall, was
carried by some natives into the palace ; but Eraser reached the
Lahore gate ^ unhurt, and, while his injured friend was being
taken up to his apartments, remained himself in the court below,
and made a last effort to control the furious mob who were
pressing into it. While he was speaking, a lapidary cut him
down : some of the guards despatched him ; and the rest, rushing
upstairs, smashed open the door, and massacred the collector, the
chaplain, his daughter and a lady who was staying with him, and
the helpless Douglas. Soon the rest of the Meerut infantry
arrived, and joined the mui'derers ; while another party of
troopers, who had just come up, finding what their comrades
had achieved, and eager to rival their exploits, went off to the
Darya Ganj, to work their will upon the Eurasian ^ Christians
and poorer Europeans Avho lived in that quarter of the city."*
Some were slaughtered on the spot ; others, who had barricaded
' Kaye, vol. ii. p. 77. - Of the palace, not the city.
^ Eurasian — a person born of a European father and an Indian mother, or any
person of mixed European and Indian origin.
■* Cave-Browne, vol. i. pp. 58-61, 63, 65-6 ; Evidence taken before the Court
106 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY chap, hi
themselves in houses, or fled to the river side, were soon over-
powered, and thrown into a room beneath the palace. After
being confined for five days in this dark and pestilential dungeon,
ill-fed and constantly insulted, but defying their tormentors to
the last, they were dragged out to execution,^ and
their bodies flung into the river.
Meanwhile another gang of mutineers had chosen for their
operations the portion of the city in which the
chief public buildings were situated. Here the
teachers in the Government colleges were slain in the midst of
their work : ^ the manager of the bank was cut down with his
wife after a gallant defence in which she had supported him :
the missionaries, European and native, were murdered without
distinction ; and the compositors at the Delhi Press, who had
just finished printing special editions of the Gazette, announcing
the crisis of which they were themselves to be the victims, fell
at their posts. Here too the chm-ch was foully desecrated. In
the telegraph office outside the city a young signaller named
Brendish was standing, with his hand upon the signalling apparatus.
Beside him was his fellow signaller, Pilkington ; and Mrs. Todd,
the widow of their chief, who had been miirdered a few hours be-
fore, was there too with her child. They heard the uproar and
the rattle of musketry ; and native messengers brought news of
the atrocities that were being enacted in the city. Flashed up
the wires to Umballa, to Lahore, to Rawalpindi and to Peshawar,
this message warned the authorities of the Punjab, " We must
leave office. All the bungalows are on fire, burning down by
the sepoys from Meerut. They came in this morning. We are
oflf." More fortunate than their countrymen in the city, the
boys, with their helpless charge, were in time to escape the
fate which, in the performance of their duty, they had dared.
Before these things took place, the Brigadier had acted upon
the information which he had received, feeling sure that the
English regiments from Meerut would soon come to his support.
The cantonments, in Avhich the bulk of his force was posted,
appointed for the Trial of the King of Delhi, pp. 183, 186, 189, 199, 202 ; see
also Kaye, vol. ii. p. 79, note.
^ A Mrs. Aldwell and her three children .saved their lives by pretending to be
Mahomedans. — Evidence taken before the Court appointed for the lYial of the
King of Delhi, p. 203.
- Cave- Browne, vol. i. p. G7 ; Pionenr Mail, March 4, 1897 ; Macmillan's
Magazine, Oct. 1897, pp. 404-5. See App. W.
1857 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY 107
were situated upon a high ridge, about two miles north-west of
the city. Colonel Kipley of the 54th, leaving a portion of his
regiment to escort two guns which were to follow him under
Captain de Teissier, marched with the remainder towards the
Kashmir gate, the nearest entrance to the city. He had just
reached the main-guard near the gate, where a detachment of
the 38 th under Captain Wallace was on duty, when he found
his progress disputed by the troopers of the 3rd cavalry.
Wallace ordered his men to fire upon the mutineers ; but they
insolently refused. The troopers fired their pistols at the
officers of the 54th, six of whom fell dead. The 54th did in-
deed fire at the word of command, but only into the air, and
then, bayoneting their own colonel, joined the 38th and the
cavalry. When the murderers heard that de Teissier's guns
were coming down, they turned and fled. The guns, on their
arrival, were placed at the main-guard ; while Wallace, who had
galloped back to hasten their advance, rode on, after he had met
them, to beg for further succours. A few companies of the 38th,
the 74th, and a handful of artillerymen formed the whole of the
Brigadier's force. Not a man of the 38th responded to Wallace's
appeal : but, when Major Abbott, who commanded the 74th,
called upon his men to prove their loyalty, they came forward
in a body, and demanded to be led against the mutineers.^
Taking them at their Avord, he marched them down with two
more guns to strengthen the main guard. He and his country-
men whom he had left behind at cantonments had still an after-
noon of terrible anxiety to live through. The Brigadier and
his officers, wondering why no succours came from Meerut,
laboured manfully to keep their mutinous men in check, and
placed the women and children and their servants for safety in
a building known as the Flagstaff Tower. There, huddled to-
gether in a room smaller than the Black Hole of Calcutta, was
collected a great company of every age and class, frightened
children crying and clinging to their not less frightened ayahs,
women bewailing the deaths of their husbands or brothers,
others bravely bearing up against heat, and discomfort, and
anxiety, and busily unfastening cartridges for the men. At
last, when the agony of waiting for help became insupportable,
a young Englishman offered to ride to Meerut for reinforcements ;
' i.e. all who were present, about 240. The rest were distributed in detach-
meuts over cautoumeuts.
108 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY chai'. hi
but lie had only gone a little way when he was shot by the men
of the 38 th on guard at the powder magazine. Then Dr.
Batson of the Tith started on the same errand, disguised as a
native ; but he too was fired upon, and escaped, only to be
robbed and stripped by the villagers.^ There is no reason to
suppose, however, that, even if these brave men had succeeded
in reaching Meerut, their devotion would have shamed the
authorities into action.
Meanwhile the officers at the main-guard were keeping watch
over their men, knowing nothing of what was passing else-
where, except Avhat they could gather from the stray fugitives
Avho from time to time joined them. Only the distant roar in
the great city suggested to their imaginations the horrors that
were being wrought within its walls.
While the two parties at the main-guard and at cantonments
were in this suspense, both were startled by the sound of a
tremendous explosion, and, looking tOAvards the city, saw a
cloud of white smoke, followed by a coronal of red dust, rising
into the air.^ They knew that the great magazine had been
blown up. Was it accident or design 1 Presently two artillery
subalterns came into the main-guard, and told the story.
Warned of the approach of the mutineers. Lieutenant
Willoughby had lost no time in sending to the Brigadier for
help. The young oihcer Avell knew that the possession of his
magazine, Avith its vast stores of ammunition, would be eagei'ly
coveted by the mutineers, and that, standing as it did close to
the palace, it must be an early object of attack. He could not
trust his native guards, and he had only eight Europeans^ to
support him ; but he could depend upon these for any sacrifice,
and he could depend upon himself. For, though chance acquaint-
ances saw in him only a shy, refined, boyish-looking subaltern,
his friends knew that, in the cause of duty, he would face any
danger.^ No help came in answer to his appeal : the suffering
and the glory of that day were for him and his gallant eight
alone. His dispositions were soon made. Barricading the outer
gates of the magazine, he placed guns inside them, and assigned
1 Cave-Browne, vol. i. pp. 68-9, 71, 73-1 ; Tivies, Aug. 18, 1857, p. 3,
cols. 4, 5.
- Cave- Browne, vol. i. p. 83.
^ Lieutenants Forrest and Raynor, Conductors Buckley, Sliaw, and fcjcully ;
Sul)- Conductor Crow, and Sergeants Edwards and Stewart.
■* jRed I'ampJdet, p. 41.
1857 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY 109
to each man his post. But what if defence should fail ? He had
another plan in reserve. A train was laid from the powder
store to a tree standing in the yard of the magazine. Here stood
Conductor Scully, who had volunteered to fire the train when-
ever his chief should give the signal. If the enemy broke into
the stronghold, they should find death, not plunder within. For
a time, however, the enemy seemed to hesitate. It was because
they and their King feared the vengeance of the white troops
from Meerut. But at last the King's scouts told him that no
white troops were coming.^ Then he gathered confidence to
demand the surrender of the magazine. The garrison did not
even answer the summons ; and, when the multitude no longer
hesitated to advance, opened fire upon them from every gun.
The most daring of the assailants planted ladders against the
walls, and came swarming in ; but the guns, served with in-
credible swiftness, though the gunners were exposed to a fearful
musketry fire, poured round after round of grape into their
midst. Yet so great were their numbers that the survivors,
strengthened by the native guards, who had treacherously
joined them, must soon have overpowered the little band of
Englishmen. Still Willoughby hoped on. He had defended
his magazine for three hours, and he would still defend it against
any odds if only reinforcements were coming. Running to the
river bastion, he bent over for a last look towards Meerut. No
English were to be seen. Then, resolving that, though his
countrymen had failed him, he would be true to himself, he
gave the fatal order to Conductor Buckley : Buckley raised his
hat as a signal ; and Scully fired the train. In a
moment some hundreds of rebels were destroyed,
while many more without were struck down by flying splinters
of shot and shell. Lieutenants Forrest and Raynor, Conductors
Buckley and Shaw, and Sergeant Stewart lived to wear the
Victoria Cross : but Scully died where he fell, too cruell}'-
wounded to escape ; and Willoughby only survived to be
murdered on his way to Meerut.-
^ Cave-Browne, vol. i. p. 77 ; Rotton, p. 20 ; Hist, of the Siege of Delhi, hy
an Officer who served there, p. 39.
^ G. W. Forrest's Selections from State Pajiers, vol. i. p. 264 ; Cave-Browne,
vol. i. pp. 75-9. Evidence taken before the Court ajipointed for the Trial of
the King of Delhi, pp. 186-7. It is stated in the History of the Siege of
Delhi, by an Officer who served there (p. 38), that "Scully . . was killed, when
trying to escape, by a sowar."
110 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY chap, in
At the sound of the explosion the mutinous sepoys flung off
every remnant of disguise. The natives of all classes believed
that the King had turned against the English ; and his followers,
assured that the day had come for the restoration of the Mogul
Empire and the revived supremacy of Islam, were burning with
the lust of plunder and the more terrible passion of religious
fanaticism. Suddenly the 38th at the main-guard fired a volley
at their officers. Three fell dead. Two of the siirvivors rushed
up to the bastion of the main-guard, and jumped down thirty
feet into the ditch below. The rest were following, when hear-
ing the shrieks of women in the guard-room, they ran back
under a storm of bullets to rescue them. The women were
shuddering as they looked down the steep bank, and asking
each other whether it would be possible to descend, when a
round shot, whizzing over their heads, warned them not to
hesitate. Fastening their belts and handkerchiefs together, the
officers let themselves down, and then, having helped the women
to follow, carried them with desperate struggles up the opposite
side.^ Meanwhile at the Flagstaff" Tower, though the men of
the 74th who had remained behind continued respectful, those
of the 38th were becoming every minute more insolent. At
last an officer suggested that it was time to retreat. The
Brigadier was indignant. He could not abandon his post, he
said. But the sun was fast sinking ; there was no prospect of
succour ; and there was nothing to be gained by remaining. At
last the Brigadier gave way. Accordingly the
women and children and a few of the officers got
into their carriages and drove down the hill towards canton-
ments. The sepoys marched obediently for a few minutes ; but
once in cantonments, they began to disperse, hinting to their
officers that they had better make haste if they wanted to save
themselves. The fugitives could see their deserted bungalows
already on fire.^ Then began that piteous flight, the first of
many such incidents which hardened the hearts of the British
to inflict a terrible revenge, not more for the physical sufferings
of their kindred than for their humiliation by an inferior race.
Driven to hide in jungles or morasses from despicable vagrants,
robbed and scourged and mocked by villagers who had en-
^ Cave-Bro\viie, vol. i. p. 80 ; Evidence takon heforc the Court appointed for
the Trial of tlie Kinj? of Delhi, p. 205.
- Narrative of Mr. Le Bas in Franers Magazine, Feb. 1858, pp. 18G-8.
1857 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY 111
trapped them with i3romises of help, scorched by the blazing
sun, blistered by burning winds, half-drowned in rivers which
they had to ford or s^vim across, naked, weary, and starving,
they wandered on ; while some fell dead by the wayside, and
others, unable to move further, were abandoned by their sorrow-
ing friends to die on the road.^ But some, who reached at last
a haven of refuge, had to tell of genuine acts of kindness shown
to them in their distress by the subject-people.^
The outbreak at Meerut was soon seized upon by an unerring
instinct as the real starting point of the Indian Mutiny ; for the
weakness of Hewitt and of Wilson allowed the mutineers to
seize the imperial city of India with its inexhaustible munitions
of war, and to enlist the influence of the Mogul's name on their
side, and thus yielded to them an immense moral and material
advantage at the very outset of their operations. Now that
they had proved their strength, they could confidently appeal
to the discontented who had hitherto longed but feared to rebel.
It is impossible to do more than conjecture whether, if the out-
break at Meerut had been crushed, the Indian Mutiny would
have been nipped in the bud. Perhaps, if there had been a
Nicholson at Meerut to annihilate the mutinous regiments, the
whole Bengal army might have taken warning by their fate.
But it may be that their passions, having been so long allowed
to gather strength, could not at that late hour haA^e been at once
extinguished, but would have only smouldered on for a time, to
burst forth thereafter with still more awful fury. It may even
be that nothing short of a mutiny could have awakened the rulers
to a sense of their shortcomings.
On the 12th of May Canning, perhaps uneasily conscious of
the popular verdict upon his treatment of mutineers, declared in
a minute that that treatment had not been too mild.^ On the
very same day a telegram from Agra announced the outbreak
at Meerut. Dorin tried at first to disbelieve a report which
suggested so rude a comment upon the policy in which he had
^ Letter from an officer of the 38tli N. I. to the Times, Aug. G, 1857, p. 7, col. 4.
See also numerous other letters and pamphlets written by survivors. [Many of
these narratives will be found in Annals of the Indian RebeUion.']
- " Tlie Mahometan villagers distinguished themselves by their cruelty . . .
Some were protected and kindly treated for weeks by Hindoo villagers." —
History of the Siege if Delhi, by an Officer who served there, p. 40. See also
Dr. Batson's narrative. Times, Aug. 18, 1857, p. 3, cols. 4, 5.
^ Purl. Papers, vol. xxx. (1857), p. 253, inc. 8 in No. 14.
112 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY chap, ill
concurred. But further details kept coining in ; and the main
facts of the risings at Meerut and Delhi were known on the 1 4th.
Like the lightning-flash, which makes itself seen even by closed
eyes, the great disaster penetrated the mental blindness of the
Government. Men looked anxiously to see how they would act
upon their knowledge, and tried to combat their distrust of the
ruler to whom they felt that loyalty was due.
When Canning heard the news, he thought of what Gillespie
had done with his dragoons at Vellore, and asked
Canniu°^ indignantly why the powerful European force at
Meerut had tamely suffered such a disaster.^ For,
though he had not yet learned to spurn the feeble counsels of
his advisers, his spirit was never for a moment cowed by the
bloAV. Yet, though he might fairly complain of the false economy
that had weakened the strength of the British force in India, it
was his own fault that so few British regiments were immediately
available. If he had formed an accurate diagnosis of the events
which had passed at Berhampore, at Barrackpore, and at Umballa,
he would long ago have summoned to his aid the regiments
whose tardy arrival he was now forced to await. Even those
who would not blame him for having lacked a foresight which
only a great statesman would have displayed, will hardly defend
him if it can be shown that he neglected to aA^ail himself of
the resources that lay ready to his hand. Of this neglect he was
guilty. He allowed the Sith to remain inactive at Barrackpore
for eight days after he heard of the outbreak at Meerut, though
ever since the 6 th of May it had been disengaged. Nor was
this all. On the l7th he received a telegram from Lord
Elphinstone, the Governor of Bombay, containing an offer to
send a fast steamer with despatches to England : but he saw no
reason for authorising such irregular energy. Fortunately, how-
ever, the successful conclusion of the Persian war had set free a
considerable body of troops who were now on their way back to
Bombay. These he ordered to be sent on instantly to Calcutta.
At the same time he ordered the 43rd, and the
^^ ' IstMadi^asFusiliers to be kept ready for embarkation
at the southern Presidency ; despatched a steamer to fetch the
35th from Pegu ; telegraphed to Cohan, the
' *^ ' Lieutenant-Governor of the North - Western Pro-
vinces, to order John Lawrence to send down every available
1 Kaye, vol. i. p. 597.
ISfj? OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY 113
Sikh and European soldiei' from the Punjab to Delhi ; begged
the Governor of Ceylon to send him as many men
as he could spare ; and took upon himself the
responsibility of diverting from its course an army which was
then on its way to punish the insolence of the Chinese Govern-
ment.^ Contemporary journalists and pamphleteers Avere loud
in asserting that he ought not to have the sole credit, which
Avas surely not very great, of the idea of sending for reinforce-
ments ; but the suggestions of others had nothing to do with
his determination. He gave his two most trusted lieutenants,
Henry and John Lawrence, full authority to act as they might
think best in Gudh and the Punjab. Finally, to supplement
his material resources by a moral stimulus, he empowered
commanding officers to reward on the spot native soldiers who
might perform distinguished acts of loyalty, and
at last issued that reassuring order to the sepoy
army on the subject of its religion and its caste which Birch
had long ago recommended, but against which the Adjutant-
General had successfully pleaded. But the order was issued
too late. Had it been published before, and preceded by the
condign punishment of the Barrackpore mutineers, it might have
done some good. The effect which it actually produced upon
those whom it was meant to conciliate was shown by a proclama-
tion which the King of Delhi in his turn issued towards the end
of May : "If the infidels now become mild," said he, " it is merely
an expedient to save their lives." ^
On the same day on which the Governoi'-General heard the
first vague rumour of the great disaster, a clear
though incomplete statement of the main facts May 12.
reached the Commander-in-Chief at Simla. He osnei""'
Avas in poor health at the time, and was looking Anson the
■'■ . . -i-iMi Commander-
forward to a shooting excursion m the hills. inChier.
Naturally, therefore, he could not at first bring
himself to believe the whole truth of the announcement. Still
he could not entirely ignore it. At first he contented himself
with sending an order to Kasauli for the 70th Regiment to march
thence to Umballa, and to the Company's European
regiments at Subathu and Dagshai to hold themselves
in readiness to march. Next day, however, becoming more alive
' Enclosures to Secret Letters from India, 4tli Julv, 1857, p. 662.
- Jlead, p. 108.
114 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY chap, hi
to the magnitude of the danger, he directed the last-named
regiments actually to put themselves in motion, and the Sirmiir
battalion of Gurkhas to move down from Dehra to Meerut.
Seeing the paramount necessity of securing the great magazines
in the Punjab, he warned the commandants of those at
Ferozepore, Govindgarh, and Phillaur to be on their guard.
Finally, he ordered a siege-traia to be made ready at Phillaur,
and directed the Nasiri battalion of Gurkhas and a detachment
of the 9 th Irregular Cavalry to prepare to escort it to Umballa.
But he did not himself stir from Simla till the following day.
From Umballa, which he reached on the 15th, he wrote to
the Governor-General, complaining of the insiir-
mountable obstacles which the want of transport,
of ammunition, and of siege-artillery threw in his way. And
in truth he hardly overrated his difficulties. He had had
little more than a year's experience of Indian life when he was
called upon to face a crisis far greater than that which, eight
years before, had tested the mettle of a Napier. Blind,
like his fellows, to every sign of disaffection, he had made
no preparations for coming trouble. His departmental officers,
unable to extricate themselves from the clogging processes
of routine in which they had been educated, gave him no
support. With provoking unanimity the Quarter - master-
General, the Adjutant-General, the Commissary -General, and the
head of the Medical Department told him that the tasks which
he had set them were impossible. Dalhousie had, from motives
of economy, abolished the permanent transport service ; ^ and
the Commissary-General, who had no authority to draw upon
the resources of the country, was at the mercy of native
contractors. While Anson could thus get small encouragement
from those around him, he saw no cheering signs in the distant
outlook. He could not hope for aid from the native regiments
in the Punjab. He might, however, at least have disarmed the
native regiments at Umballa, and thus have set himself free for
an immediate march on Delhi. John Lawrence implored him to
take this obvious step. But he listened to the remonstrances of
the Umballa officers, who told him that they had guaranteed
their men against the shame of being disarmed, and would not
^ Pari. Papers, vol. xlv. 1856 (Dalhousie'.s Farewell Minute, par. 160) ;
letter from Canning, quoted by Kaye, vol. ii. pp. 167-8 ; information from Mr.
H. G. Keena
1857 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY 115
hearken to the counsels of the Chief Commissioner. It was in
vain that the latter pointed out to him that the sepoys' repeated
acts of disobedience had absolved him from the duty of observ-
ing their officers' pledges. He resolved to trust men who had
shown themselves unworthy of trust, and thoueht to
, . May 19
bind them to loyalty by proclaiming the resolve
of Government to respect their religion. It was no time for
proclamations.^
There wei-e two men, however, whose unconquerable energy
was all this time supporting the Commander -in- _ ,
<^i-c 1- r-i r-i I- ^ Bames and
Chief, and making up for the failures of the Fors>-th sup-
Departments. No sooner had Forsyth, the ^^°^ ™'
Deputy - Commissioner at Umballa, received the news from
Delhi than he despatched a message to warn his
Chief, George Barnes, the Commissioner of the
Cis-Sutlej States, who was then at Kasauli, and hastened to
make all necessary arrangements in his absence. First he
organised a body of Sikh police to protect Umballa. Then he
proceeded to organise a system for the defence of the whole of
the Cis-Sutlej States. Fortunately the means of defence were
independent of the sluggish motions of department-governed
battalions. In the wide district between the Sutlej and the
Jumna were a number of Sikh chieftains, whose
ancestors many years before had sought and obtained Loyalty of
the protection of the English against the encroach- chiefs,
ments of Ranjit Sing. In anticipation of the
Commissioner's sanction, Forsyth applied for help to the Rajas
of Patiala and of Jhind. The Raja of Patiala promptly sent a
body of troops to Thaneswar, to keep open the road to Karnal,
where the troops from Umballa were to assemble ; while the
Raja of Jhind, who, on hearing the news from Delhi, had
voluntarily sent to Umballa to ask for instructions, hastened,
at Barnes's request, to Karnal, to protect that station, and thus
presei've an unbroken communication between Umballa and
Meerut.2 The Nawab of Karndl had already paved the way
for the coming of the Raja by exerting his influence in the cause
1 Cave-Browne, vol. i. pp. 189, 193-4, 203, 208, 377-9 ; Enclosures to Secret
Letters from India, May, 1857 ; Pari. Papers, vol. xliv., Part 3, pp. 200-1 ; Kaye,
vol. ii. pp. 138-41, 167-8 ; G. W. Forrest's Selections from State Papers, vol. i.
pp. 277-82.
^ Cave-Browne, vol. i. pp. 190-1 ; Punjab Mutiny Report, p. 85, par. 7, p. 97,
par. 9. This document is to be found in Pari. Papers, vol. xviii. (1859).
116 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY chap, hi
of order. Presenting himself before the chief civil authority at
Karnal, he had said, " Sir, I have spent a sleepless night in
meditating on the state of affairs. I have decided to throw in
my lot Avith yours. My sword, my purse, and my followers are
at your disposal." Thus early the more sagacious of the natives
foresaw the ultimate triumph of the British.
Meanwhile Barnes himself, who had reached Umballa on the
night of the 1 3th, was actively suppressing the disaffection which
had followed swiftly upon the events at Meerut and Delhi, posting
guards at the fords of the Jumna, and sending out the contingents
of the native rajas and jagirdars to maintain order in the
districts. When the success of these precautionary measures
was apparent, he and his lieutenant began to collect carriage and
stores for Anson's troops, to make up for the shortcomings of the
commissariat. Their energy carried all before it, though the
natives of every class, bankers, tradesmen, contractors, and coolies,
tried to keep aloof, fearing the downfall of the English Raj.^
While, however, the labours of the ciAdlians were removing
most of his difficulties, Anson was suddenly dis-
sfmia ^^ quieted afresh by the news that the Nasfri Gurkhas,
complaining that, Avhile they had been ordered to
undertake a distant service, their pay had been alloAved to fall
into arrear and no provision had been made for the safety of
their families, had mutinied near Simla. The Deputj'^-Commis-
sioner Lord William Hay and the officers of the regiment re-
mained at their posts ; but the English inhabitants, dreading the
same fate that had befallen their brethren at Meerut
■ ' and Delhi, fled headlong from the station, women
screaming to their servants to carry their children faster out of
danger, men offering bribes to the bearers to carry their baggage
and leave the women to shift for themselves.^ The Gurkhas,
hoAvever, were simply out of temper with the English, and had
no thought of touching a hair of their heads. Anson entrusted
Captain Briggs, an officer who thoroughly knew the temper of
the hill -tribes, Avith the work of bringing the mutineers to
reason. Feeling that it Avas necessaxy to conciliate them at all
costs, as, Avhile their defection lasted, the siege-train must remain
idle at Phillaur, he restored them to good-humour by granting
1 Cave-Browue, vol. i. pp. 192-3 ; Punjab Mutiny Report, pp. SG-7. pars. 12-3,
p. 97, par. 15.
>■ Kobertsou, pp. 81-2 ; Cave-Browne, vol. i. pp. 196-202.
1857 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY 117
their demands and offering a free pardon to all. Then, ashamed
of their groundless panic, the fugitives returned to their homes.
While his forces were moving down, Anson was discussing
the plan of his campaign with John Lawrence.
He tried to convince him of the imprudence of Conespond-
risking an advance against Delhi with so small withCannhig
a force as he could command. His idea was to con- ?:"'^ "^°^"
, Lawrence.
centrate his whole force between the Sutlej and the May ir.
Jumna, and, permitting the fire of rebellion to
burn itself out within these limits, to wait until the arrival of
reinforcements should enable him to quench it once for all.^
But the sagacity of Lawrence discerned the paramount necessity
of striking a swift and staggering blow at Delhi. The instinct
of the mutineers had seized upon the imperial city as the head-
centre of revolt, the possession of which would give a national
dignity to their cause. The instincts of the Governor-General
and of the Chief Commissioner told them that the one counter-
stroke that could restore the shattered dignity of their rule
would be the recovery of this stronghold. They were prepared
to sacrifice everything to this grand object. It was only natural
that, in their eagerness and their ignorance of military affairs,
they should underrate the difficulties which the Commander-in-
Chief complained of. Lawrence said bluntly but
good-humouredly that he could see nothing in the
organisation of the Departments to prevent their working
effectively ; but that, at the worst, the army might surely march
for so great a stake with three or four clays' provisions in their
knapsacks, and trust for further supplies to the people of the
country. Cannins; even went so far as to demand that
May 31
Anson should take Delhi with a part of his force,
and detach the remainder to overawe the districts between Delhi
and CaAvnpore.
Overruled by the commands of his chief, but sorely doubting
his ability to fulfil them, Anson had already made up his mind
to march against Delhi. Weakened though he was by sickness,
tortured by anxiety, he strove, like a good and faithful servant
of the State, to push forward his preparations.^ But, before he
^ Extract from an unpublished memoir hy Colonel Baird Smith, quoted by
Kaye, vol. ii. p. 149, note. See also Boswortli Smith's Life of Lord Lmorcnce,
vol. ii. p. 28.
^ See an article by Sir Henry Norman in the Fortnirjhtlij Review for April
1883, pp. 542-3.
118 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY chap, hi
could begin his march, it was necessary that he should communi-
cate with the general at Meerut ; and it was believed that the
road from Karnal to Meerut was in possession of mutineers.
In this extremity, William Hodson, a lieutenant of
the Company's 1st Fusiliers, begged to be allowed
to open a passage to the distant station. Anson consented ;
and, on the 20th of May, Hodson, escorted by a corps of Jhind
Horse, started from Karnal with a message for Hewitt. " Hodson
is at Umballa, I know," said an officer at Meerut, " and I'll bet
he will force his way through and open communications with the
Commander-in-Chief and oiirselves." The officer knew his man.
In seventy-two hours, having ridden a hundred and fifty-two
miles through an enemy's country, delivered his message, and
obtained all the required information, Hodson returned to
Karnal. Hurrying on in the mail-cart, he presented himself
within another four hours before his chief at Umballa.^ But
he had been anticii^ated. On the road to Meerut, he met
Captain Sanford, who, escorted by only twenty-five loyal men
of the 3rd Light Cavalry, was himself carrying despatches from
Hewitt, which he had volunteered to deliver to Anson. '^ Now
, that he had acquired the information for which he
of campaign, had Waited, Anson drew up his plan of campaign,
"^^ ' ■ and recorded it in a despatch which he wrote for
the instruction of General Hewitt. He intended, he said, to
assemble his army at Karnal ; to march thence on the 1st of
June ; to enter Bagpat on the 5th ; to await there the arrival
of Hewitt Anth his contingent from Meerut ; and then to ad-
vance to the attack of Delhi. But he was not suffered to
execute even the first stage of his design. Sending on the
main body of his troops before him, he followed
iiis death. '^^'ith the last batch on the 25th of May. Two days
later he was lying dead of cholera at Karnal.
General Sir Henry Barnard, who succeeded him in the com-
mand of the Delhi force, made a generous eifort
His ciiaracter. , t- i , <. . i • i
to refute the charge of incompetence which men
had begun to bring against him : but he only half succeeded ;
for the late Commander-in-Chief had lived long enough to set
his mark upon Indian history, and he had left no mark. He
* Tivdi-e Years of a Soldier's Life in India, liy the Kev. G. H. Ilodsou,
pp. 187-9 ; Cave- Browne, vol. i. p. 220. See App. N.
^ Col. A. K. D. Mackenzie's Mutiny Memoirs, pp. 52-5.
1857 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY 119
had indeed many of the qualities that go to make a general.
But his warmest panegyrists have not been able to convince
Englishmen that he was one of the heroes of the Mutiny ; for
they felt that neither his heart nor his head were great enough
for the crisis ; and they knew that there were one or two giants
in India who would have made head even against the obstacles
that beset his path.^
Resolved that at least he would not incur the charge of
delay, which had been the great crime of his predecessor in the
eyes of the Government, Barnard made up his ^
. , -, . . iTi-., . IP General Barnard
mma to march at once to ]oin Wilson, instead of marches tor
waiting for the siege-train ; and then, after making ^ "'
his communications with Meerut and the Punjab sure, to con-
centrate his whole force under the walls of Delhi. His men
at least never doubted that, within a few hours of their
arrival at most, they would establish themselves within
those walls. Strong in this assurance they marched on,
bearing up resolutely against the lassitude engendered by
the fierce May sun. But even contempt for their enemies
sustained them less powerfully than the furious desire to
be avenged upon the murderers of the women and children
of their nation. Many cruel deeds were wrought upon that
' "It is the feeling of all here," wrote Robert Montgomer)- to Secretary
Ednionstone, " that it would be a good thing were he (Anson) in Calcutta. A
man like Chamberlain, Edwardes, or Nicholson wouhl have been in Delhi a week
ago." In another letter he wrote, " Why the force does not move on is not
apparent. Private letters from officers at Kurnal express great indignation at
the delay." — Enclosures to Secret Letters from India, May, 1857. [Mont-
gomery would have modified these remarks if he had known all the facts.]
In the Fortnightlij Review for April, 1883, pp. 541-4, Sir Henry Norman
argues that Anson did the best that could have been done under the circum-
stances ; but, in my judgement, he only succeeds in proving what no one has
ever denied, viz. that Anson did his best. Three definite charges may be
brought c'lgainst him. No one will contend that, in refusing to disarm the
mutinous sepoys at Umballa, he did not commit a grievous error ; he had, in
May 185C, disregarded Outram's entreaty to garrison Allahabad — a post of vital
importance — with European troops ; and, judging after the event, we may say
that he made a mistake in waiting so long as he did for the siege-train. See
Lord Canning's letter, quoted by Kaye, vol. i. pp. 167-8. [General M'Leod
Inues (Lucknovj and Oude in the Mutiny, p. 15) says, "the Commander-in-
Chief . . . was paralysed by the absolute want of transport of any kind —
the result of his own blindness to the disaffection that was raging, and his own
neglect of the precautions and preparations that might consequently be required."
This is true ; but it is judging Anson by the very highest standard : other men,
who did good work in the Mutiny, were equally blind. Mr. Forrest, on the
other hand (Selections from State Papers, vol. i. p. 39), holds that the publica-
tion of his (Anson's) diary [Ih, pp. 277-82) must dispel the charge of . . . want
120 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY chap, in
march on villagers suspected of complicity in the ill-usage of
the fugitives from Delhi. Officers, as they went to sit on courts-
martial, swore that they would hang their prisoners, guilty or
innocent ; and, if any one dared to lift up his voice against
such indiscriminate vengeance, he was instantly silenced by the
clamours of his angry comrades. Prisoners, condemned to
death after a hasty trial, were mocked and tortured by ignorant
privates before their execution, Avhile educated officers looked
on and approved.^
Though nearly three weeks had passed away since the out-
l^reak at Meerut, the force that was marching
^Meerut'^ thcncc to joiu Barnard had only just shaken itself
tii'^d°^ifi"t ^^^^ from inaction. Yet the most strenuous action
had been required. The released convicts, pour-
ing from Meerut into the surrounding country, had told the
story of the outbreak as they passed from village to village.
The villagers, hearing that the sepoy regiments had mutinied,
and believing that on those regiments the power of the Ferin-
ghees depended, relapsed into the anarchy which had prevailed
in the good old times. The Gujars, though they had lived from
their j^outh up under a Government that enforced obedience to
the law, robbed and outraged everyone upon whom they could
lay their hands, with an aptitude which could only be explained
on the theory that with them the propensity to crime was an
inherited quality. Villagers took down their matchlocks, swords,
and sjDcars, and fought ^vith one another about landmarks Avhich
had been defined at the beginning of the century.^ Murder,
rapine, and wanton destruction went unpunished. Highwaymen
robbed travellers, and plundered the mail-bags. Then came the
news from Delhi to increase the exultation of the evil-doers and
the terror of the English. Still, Hewitt made no attempt to
of promptitude that has been brought against liiai." See also Life of Lard
Lawrence, 6th ed., vol. i. pp. 480-500 ; Sir G. Campbell's Memoirs of my
Indian Career, vol. i. pp. 378-9 ; Lord Canuiug's letter, quoted by Kaye, vol. i.
pp. 167-8 ; and Lord Roberts's Forty-one Years in India, vol. i. p. 105.
The truth I take to be this. A Napoleon, if he had been placed in Anson's
position on the 12th of May, could not have satisfied John Lawrence. Anson,
from want of foresight, had placed himself in a position of extreme difficiilty.
Being in it, he accjuitted himself with credit, but failed to do the best that could
have been done.]
1 History of the Sieijc of Delld, by an Officer who served there, pp. 59, 60.
"^ History of the Hicge of Delhi, by an Ollicer who served there, p. 63 ;
Williams's Memo., p. 8 ; Depositions, p. 11.
1857 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY 121
re-establish his authority, or to support the district officers. He
did indeed rouse himself so far as to join with Greathed in
proclaiming martial law ; but, as there was no Neill at Meerut
to make the law dreaded, the proclamation remained a dead
letter. It was not till the 24th of May, just a fortnight after
the great outbreak, that a few dragoons were sent out to chastise
plunderers. It is true that there was no light cavalry for the
work of scouring the country in such heat as then prevailed. -"^
But there were commanders in India who did not shrink from
requiring even infantry to make forced marches for the destruc-
tion of mutineers, under the fiercest suns of that Indian summer ;
and the soldiers of Hewitt dreaded hardship as little as the soldiers
of Havelock or of Nicholson. The historian, however, has no
need to rebuke the feebleness of the authorities at Meerut.
The most scathing comment upon their inaction was the fact
that, till those dragoons emerged from their seclusion, the
natives had believed that not a single Englishman remained
alive in Meerut. Yet more than a thousand soldiers were there,
ready to go anywhere and do anything for their country. There
was wanting only a general to command them.
The time, however, was at hand when their mettle was to be
tested under the only general whose services were available.
The letter which Anson had written to Hewitt gave the signal
for their dejjarture from Meei'ut. Chafing under their enforced
inaction, they had long impatiently expected that signal ; and
on the 27th of May, the day of their Commander-
in-Chief's death, they set out in high spirits for ^fg^'iiindan.
Delhi, with Brigadier Wilson at their head.
Three days afterwards they arrived at the village of Ghazi-ud-din
Nagar. About a mile in front of it ran the river
Hindan, which was here spanned by an iron sus- ' "^^ '^^'
pension bridge. On a high ridge on the opposite bank of the
river the mutineers, who had advanced confidently from Delhi
to dispute the progress of their assailants, were observed strongly
posted. At four o'clock in the afternoon they opened fire from
their heavy guns. Wilson lost no time in sending a company
of the Rifles to hold the bridge, which formed the key of his
^ Pari. Papers, vol. xxx. (1857), p. 350, par. 14. It was the fault of Hewitt
that there was not. Lieutcuant Furuell, of the Mounted Police, had offered to
lead out thirty-six volunteers, whom he had persuaded to serve as cavalry : but
the offer, gladly accepted at first, was afterwards coldly declined. — Williams's
Memo., p. 19
122 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY chap, in
position. Lieutenant Light and his men replied "vagorously with
their eighteen-pounders to the enemy's challenge. Meanwhile
Colonel Mackenzie and Major Tombs advanced with their horse
artillery along the hank of the river, dashed down its rugged
banks, crossed it, regardless of the quicksands that lay concealed
in its bed, and turned the enemy's left flank. The mutineers,
who had served a long apprenticeship under British artillerymen,
worked their guns with admirable precision until their fire was
silenced hy Tombs's troop. Then, as they were beginning to
give way, the Rifles were let loose upon them, and drove them
in utter rout from their position ; while Colonel distance pursued
them with his dragoons.
The British encamped that night upon the field which they
had won. The next morning was Whitsunday.
Hardly Avas the burial-service for those who had
fallen on the previous day completed, when the mutineers, who,
on their return to Delhi, had been bitterly taunted for their
defeat, and sent out with reinforcements to try their luck once
more, appeared on the opposite bank of the river, and opened
fire from the distance of about a mile on Wilson's advanced
piquet, which was posted in front of the bridge. The Rifles
were instantly sent to secure this important position ; while the
horse artillery under Tombs, supported by a squadron of dragoons,
advanced to return the enemy's fire, and again won the admira-
tion of all who saw them. Their gallant leader had two horses
shot under him ; and of his fifty men thirteen were killed or
wounded ; but not for a moment did the troop cease its action ;
and, supported by Light, it gradually forced the enemy to slacken
his fire. Then a general advance of all arms routed the waver-
ing foe : but he was able to carry ofT all his guns, and almost all
his ammunition to Delhi ; for the British soldiers, parched with
thirst, and fainting after the toil of a battle fought under a
burning sun, were physically unable to follow up their victory.^
Still the victory was decisive. Wilson had done something to
retrieve his tarnished reputation ; ^ and he and his men had
fairly earned the right to share in the attack upon Delhi.
1 Greatli.jd, pp. 12-14 ; Pari. raper,-<, vol. xxx. (1857), pp. 612-16.
" It should be lueiitioned, liowever, that Nicholson wrote in a letter to John
Lawrence, " By all acconnts he (Wilson) was driven into fighting at the Hindnii,
and could not help himself. "^ — Boswortli Sniith'.s Life of Lord Lajoroice, vol. ii.
p. 207.
1857 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY 123
On the day after the second battle the conquerors were re-
inforced by Eeid's Sirmuri Gurkhas, who had pushed j^^^^^ ^
their way southwards to Bulandshahr, contributed wiison joins
to the tranquillisation of the country by inflicting a ^'*™^^'*-
signal punishment upon the insurgent population of that village,
and thence hastened on to overtake Wilson. The army remained
upon the field of Ghazi-ucl-din Nagar, waiting for instructions
from Barnard, till the 4th of June, when an order came to mai-cli
to Alipur. Thither Barnard ari'ived upon the 5th, and there,
two days later, Wilson joined him. The siege- j^^^ ►.
train had come in safely the day before from
Phillaur, after many hair -breadth escapes. On
the night of its arrival, Barnard's staff" were anxiously del)ating
as to the position which the mutineers might have taken up to
make their final stand. Unless the point could be ascertained,
the General would have nothing to guide him in making his
preparations for an attack. In this emergency Hodson sallied
forth with a few sowars, and, riding right up to the Delhi race-
course, made a careful reconnaissance, returned to
camp at day-break, and presented his report.^ The
mutineers were strongly posted about five miles north-west of
Delhi at Badli-ki- Serai, a group of buildings protected on the
I'ight by an impassable water- course, and on the left by the
Najafgarh jheel canal.^ Thus secure from an attack on either
side, they had posted guns to defend the front of their position,
Seeing the impossibility of making a flank attack upon his
enemy, Barnard resolved to send his infantry and light field-
pieces along either side of the main road to attack the serai,
while the heavy guns were to advance for their support upon
the road itself. Colonel Hope Grant, with the cavalry and two
troops of horse-artillery, was to move across the canal, between
Badli-ki -Serai and Delhi, and then, recrossing, hurl his force
upon the left rear of the mutineers.
In the evening of that day it was known in the camp that a
battle was to be fought on the morrow. The hearts of the soldiers,
as they passed the news from one to another, were almost con-
sumed by the rising fire of their passions. Even the sick rose
painfully from their beds, and swore that they would remain in
hospital no longer."^
^ Cave-Browne, vol. i. pp. 316-17. ^ Cave-Browne, vol. i. p. 318.
^ History of tlie Siege of Delhi, by an OlUcer who served there, p. 73.
124 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY chap, iii
Before daybreak, Hope Grant led out liis brigade ; while the
Junes ^^^° infantry brigades under Colonel Showers and
Battle of Badii- Brigadier Graves marched straight for Badli-ki-
ki-Serai. Serai. Day was just dawning when Showers's men,
who had advanced on the right to within a short distance of the
serai, were startled by a sudden fire from the enemy's guns. The
British field-pieces swiftly replied : but Graves's column, impeded
by a mass of baggage-carts, which had been allowed to l^lock up
the way, was still two miles in the rear ; and the mutineers,
working their heavy guns with precision, began to oveipower
their opponents. Then Barnard, seeing that the batteries must
be taken at any cost, ordered the 75th to charge. Shouting
fiercely, the soldiers rushed up to the serai, while the 1st Bengal
Fusiliers hastened to their support: but the mutineers, unappalled,
fought bravely for their guns, and fell beside them, asking for no
quarter. By this time the men of the other column had come
up, and, splashing through water which reached up to their
knees, forced the left of the position. The rebels, unable to
hold their ground, were reti-eating steadily towards Delhi, when
Hope Grant, suddenly appearing, hui'led his lancers upon them ;
the horse -artillery assailed them with a terrible flanking fire ;
and their orderly retreat was changed into a precipitate rout.
The victors were fearfully exhausted, but still eager for more
blood ; and Barnard resolved to follow up his success, lest the
enemy should have time to rally and stop his advance. About
half a mile beyond the serai the main road split into two
Ijranches. Along the left branch, leading to the cantonments,
Barnard and Graves marched with part of the force ; while the
remainder, under Wilson, was sent along the other towards the
city. The mutineers were soon discovered, strongly posted on
the Kidge. The entire British army was too small to make a
front attack upon the whole length of their position ; but it
was intended that the two divisions, falling upon either flank,
should reunite in the centre, while Reid with his Gurkhas was
attacking in front. The left column was harassed in its advance
by a heavy fire from a battery which the enemy had established
at the Flagstaff Tower, the extreme end of his position : but it
held on resolutely ; and now Graves was triumjjhantly leading
his men into the cantonments from Avhich, just four weeks before,
he had been expelled l>y his own troops. Presently Wilson's
column came up, having fought its way under a still more galling
1857 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY 125
fire directed against it from the cover of Avails and gardens along
its route. Then the exhausted troops lay down to rest and eat
a mouthful of food ; but the tents were not yet pitched when
the enemy, emerging from the city, opened a fresh fire. The
Gurkhas, the Eifles, the Fusiliers, and some of the 75th had to
rouse themselves to repel the attack; and it was not till five
o'clock, after sixteen hours' marching and fighting, that the
victorious army laid its weapons aside. ^
The British loss had been severe : but the victory was worth
the price paid for it ; for the enemy had sustained the third and
bloodiest of their defeats ; they had been forced to surrender to
their conqueror a commanding position from which he could
attack them to the greatest advantage while keeping open his
communications with the sources of his supplies and expected
reinforcements ; and they had been driven ignominiously by a
force far smaller than their own to take refuge within the walls
of the city from which they had but lately expelled every
Christian inhabitant whom they had not destroyed.
The sun was still high above the west horizon : but the
fierce heat of the day had spent itself; and the xhe British
soldiers, as they stood upon the Ridge, had leisure encamp before
to look down upon a scene of glorious beauty.
Right in front of them lay the imperial city of India. The
long line of wall that fenced it in was broken at intervals
by massive gates and bastions half-hidden by clumps of trees.
Straight across the city within ran the broad Chandni Chauk,
fringed by rows of trees ; and here and there, above the labyrinth
of streets and lanes on either side, stately houses and graceful
mosques gleamed in the sun. On the left, in the midst of a fair
garden, rose the lofty red walls and round towers of the palace
which Shah Jahan had reared ; and on an island to the north of
it, the old towers of Selimgarh frowned down upon the blue
sparkling waters of the Jumna. In the centre of the city, high
above all, soared the swelling white marble domes and tall
minarets of the Jamma Masjid ; and far away to the south, in
the midst of a vast sandy waste strewn with the ruins of old
Delhi, rose the gigantic Minar of Kutab.^
^ Blackwood's Magazine, Jan. 185S — Article, The First Bengal European
Fusiliers in the Delhi Campaign, pp. 123-4 ; Pari. Papers, vol. xxx. (1857),
pp. 618-20 ; Cave-Browne, vol. i. p. 321.
- History of the Siege of Delhi, by an Officer who served there, pp. 81-2 :
126 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY chap, hi
Exhausted though they were, the British lay down to rest
with light hearts ; for they did not know how many weary
weeks they were to spend outside the walls which they had
boasted that they would overpass on the day of their arrival.
J. Medley's A Year's Campaigning in India, pp. 43, 45 ; Turnbull's Sketches of
Delhi ; Forrest's Picturesque Tour along (he Rivers Gauges and Jumna : Roberts's
Hindostan, vol. i. pp. 68, 72, 86.
CHAPTEE IV
THE NORTH-WESTERN PROVINCES, GWALIOR AND RAJPUTANA ^
Before the glad tidings of the victory at Badli-ki-Serai had been
despatched from the British camp, the eftects of the ^^^^
outbreak at Meerut had begun to develop themselves western
through the length and breadth of the North-
Vv^estern Provinces. The peasant population of this extensive
region, who had suffered grievously under the consuming
tyraiuiy of the Mar^thas, had gone on steadily prospering
since the introduction of British rule ; but the great landowners
had been humiliated and exasperated by the levelling action of
the modern revenue system. Moreover, even the poorer classes,
though their material welfare had been so improved, disliked
and suspected the educational measures of their new masters ;
abused their civil procedure ; complained that the native magis-
trates and police whom they appointed were unfit to be trusted
with power ; and bitterly resented their protection of the hate-
ful jjaniya ^ in his extortion. High and low alike were irritated
by the interference of the Government with their customs, and
groaned under the steady pressure of its taxation.^ Thus, when
^ The Saugor aud Nerbudda Territories, though subject to the Lieutenant-
Governor of the North-Western Provinces, are not referred to in this chapter, as
the plan of the work requires that they should be dealt with later on. Similarly
Meerut and Delhi, Benares and Allahabad, and Cawnpore are treated of in separate
chapters.
- Grain-dealer or money-lender.
" Raikes's A\itcs on the Revolt, p. 7 ; Beport on the Administration of Public
Affairs in the N. W. P. for 1857-58, pp. 6, 7, par. 32 ; H. D. Robertson's
District Duties during the Revolt, pp. 132-7 ; M. Thornbill's Adventures of a
Magistrate during the Indian Mutiny, pp. 87, 114-5 ; G. W. Williams's Narrative
of Events connected with the Outbreak in 1857, p. 0.
128 THE NORTH-WESTERN PROVINCES chap, iv
the storm hroke, sagacious administrators feared that the strain
would be too great for the loyalty of the people. Their anxiety
must have been increased when they reflected that a single
regiment and battery at Agra, and the dishonoured troops at
Meerut formed the only European force whose aid they could
command. In that crisis, however, the personal character of a
ruler was a graver consideration than the number of troops at
his disposal.
The ruler of the North- Western Pro^•inces was Lieutenant-
Governor John Colvin. With a mind that could
master the minutest administrative details,^ he was
esteemed as an able civil officer, a kind friend, a conscientious,
brave. Christian gentleman. Yet, Avith all his gifts of intellect
and graces of character, he lacked that robust self-reliance, that
unswerving decision, which enabled many men far inferior to
him in other respects to pass triimiphantly through the ordeal
of the Indian Mutiny. Many said that his faith in his own
judgement had been shattered when the great disaster of 1841
had exposed the hollo wness of the policy which, as Lord Auck-
land's triTsted secretary, he was believed to have advised. Be
this, however, as it may, it is certain that some of those who
best loved John Colvin regarded him as unfit for the responsible
post which he held in 1857.^
The headquarters of the Government of the North- Western
Provinces were at Agra. This city, which is situ-
ated on the right bank of the Jumna, a hundred
and thirty-nine miles from Delhi, Avas perhaps the richest of all
the cities of India in specimens of the noble architecture of the
Moguls. In the midst of a desolate expanse near the left bank
was a mausoleum, which the beautiful Empress, Niir Mahal,
erected over the body of her father. It was from the minarets
of this edifice that the most comprehensive view of the city
might be obtained. The blue, rippling waters of the river, over
which bright-plumaged birds hovered and skimmed, flowed past
over smooth sands. On the opposite bank, close to the water's
edge, stood the marble palace of Shah Jahan, its pinnacles and
turrets glittering in the sun, and reflected in the clear stream :
the three white domes and the gilded spires of the Pearl Mosque
peeped out aliove the grim, red walls of the fort : the bastioned
' Letters if Indophitiis to the Times (3rd edu.), i>p. ri3-4.
- See A pp. A, and A pp. C.
1857 GWALIOR AND RAJPUTANA 129
walls and gateways of the city were partly hidden by the foliage
of many trees ; and the eye, as it wandered over the various
features of the panorama, was riveted at last by the domes and
minarets of the Taj Mahdl. On the landward side of the fort
stretched the cantonments and, about three miles further north-
ward, the civil station, between which and the river lay the
native town.^
The news from Meerut reached Colvin on the 11 th of May.
Alarmed by a false report, which said that the f r i •
mutineers were on their way from Delhi to Agra,
he summoned a representative council of the civil and military
officers, clergymen, and Europeans of every class, to discuss the
state of affairs. The council met on the 13th. Colvin's own
idea, he said, was to abandon the station, and retire within the
fort. This proposal was met by a burst of remonstrances ; and
it soon became clear that the Lieutenant-Governor had no real
power over his multitude of counsellors. The meeting was as
stormy as that of a French Assembly. Some officers actually
rushed uninvited into the room, to ask for instructions, or offer
advice. Everyone had his own theory as to the way in which
the crisis should be met. At last it was agreed that the best
policy would be to secure the fort without betraying any fear,
raise a corps of volunteers, and appoint a parade of the troops
for the following morning. The parade was accordingly held ;
and Colvin himself came down to address the men. Turning
first to the English soldiers, he begged them not to distrust their
native comrades, but added with unhappy impulsiveness, "The
rascals at Delhi have killed a clergyman's daughter, and, if you
have to meet them in the field, you will not forget this." The
men looked as if they would like to fire a volley at the sepoys
there and then. Passing to the latter, Colvin assured them of
his sincere confidence in their loyalty, and offered to listen to
any complaints which they might wish to make. Prompted by
their officers to cheer, they uttered a yell, and looked with a
devilish scowl at the Europeans.
Colvin was deaf to that threatening yell, and blind to that
devilish scowl. Since the meeting of the previous day, he had
suffered himself to be persuaded that there was no real danger ;
and in the third week of May he sent a series of telegrams to
^ E. Roberts's Hindostan, its Landscajjes, etc., vol. ii. pp. 25-6 ; Sir W. Hunter'.s
I'Mpericd Gazetteer, vol. i. pp. 53-4 ; H. G. Keene's HuTidbook to Agra, 1874, p. 11.
K
130 THE NORTH-WESTERN PROVINCES
Canning, assuring him that the worst would soon be over. Still
he knew that, though it might be easy to weather the stoi-ni,
the pilot could not afford to be wholly inactive. He therefore
resolved to apply to Sindhia and the Raja of Bhurtpore for the
help of their Maratha and Jdt troops, believing that the mutiny
had been set on foot by the Court of Delhi, and would be
effectually opposed by the two races who were the hereditary
enemies of the Mogul. Both princes made haste to
prove their loyalty ; and Colvin, cheered by Can-
ning's hearty assurances of support, and strengthened by his
bestowal of full powers, looked confidently forward to the
restoration of order.^
Soon, however, news arrived from Aligarh, which disturbed
^ his serenity. For a week, indeed, after the story
Mutinies "in of the Mecrut Outbreak had reached them, the
detachment of the 9th Native Infantry which
garrisoned that station showed no signs of disloyalty, and even
delivered up to justice a Brahmin who had formed a plot for
the murder of the British officers. But on the evening of the
20th, when the conspirator had just been hanged in the
presence of the paraded troops, a sepoy pointed to the quivering
body, and exclaimed to his comrades, " Behold a martyr to our
religion." The appeal at once kindled their smouldering
passions into flame. They did not indeed lay ^^olent hands
upon their officers ; but they drove them away, and went them-
selves to join the rebels at Delhi. The result of this mutiny
was not simply the loss of an important station. It stopped
the communication between Meerut and Agra, and set an
example which was speedily followed by other detachments of
■^ qg the 9th at Bulandshahr, EtAwah, and Mainpuri.
Meanwhile a panic had arisen at Agra. Carts
loaded with women, children, furniture, beds, and bedding
were to be seen rattling into the fort ; carriages and foot
passengers swarming along the roads to a large building which
had been appointed as a place of refuge ; timid citizens running
for their lives to their houses, screaming, as they went, that the
mutineers were crossing the bridge. Every Englishman carried
a sword or a revolver. One civilian was observed to turn
ghastly pale, and was overheard warning his underlings to save
their lives as best they could. The only unclouded faces were
1 Pari. Papers, vol. xxx. (1857), pp. 220-1, 228, 236 ; Raikes, pp. 1, 9-12.
1857 GWALIOR AND RAJPUTANA 131
those of the young officers, who bathed, and rode, and played
billiards as merrily as ever. It was obviously necessary to take
some steps for the protection of the non-combatants. Edward
Reade, the senior civilian, prepared r. scheme, by which they
were to rally, in case of danger, at the principal public buildings,
which were to be protected by a cordon of advanced posts : but
the effectiveness of the plan Avas marred by want of unanimity
and discipline. The Lieutenant-Governor, persuaded that the
great majority of the Bengal army would return to their duty,
if once they were assured that they would be leniently dealt
with, took upon himself the responsibility of issuing a pro-
clamation, which he intended to be understood as coivin's pro-
offering forgiveness to all who would give up their ciamation.
... Mav 25
arms, except those who had maliciously instigated
revolt, or taken part in the murder of Europeans. The English
translation, however, was so loosely worded that Canning, who
knew nothing of the original, and feared that the proclamation
might open a door of escape to many who deserved punishment,
ordered his lieutenant to rescind it, and publish in its place a
more explicit document which he had himself drawn up. But,
though the incident gave rise to much controversy at the time,
it is of slight historical importance ; for neither proclamation
had the smallest effect in restoring order. The sepoys would
not have appreciated clemency until they had been taught to
fear punishment. This was clearly demonstrated only five days
after the issue of Coivin's proclamation. The magistrate of
Muttra had begged permission to send the Government treasure
into Agra, in order to remove temptation from the sepoys who
guarded it ; but Colvin replied that he was convinced of their
loyalty. On the 30th of May tAvo companies arrived in due
course to relieve them. The former guard was to convey the
treasure to Agra. Reinforced by the new-comers, they im-
mediately rose ; and on the following morning the detachment
which the Raja of Bhiutpore had sent in answer to Coivin's
appeal, and by the aid of which it had been intended to inter-
cept them on their way to Delhi, followed their example and
drove their officers away.^
^ Kaye, vol. iii. pp. 227-8 ; E. A. Reade's Narrative, p. 43 ; Pari. Papers,
vol. XXX. (1857), pp. 370-3, 475-8 ; Raikes, pp. 14-15 ; Thomhill, pp. 10, 36-8j;
Sir A. Coivin's John Russell Colmn, pp. 184-6. A company of British soldiers
might have lieen sent front Agra to fetch the treasure.
182 THE NORTH-WESTEHT?" raOVmOES chap, iv
Oil the preceding uight the news of the mutiny at Muttra
had reached the ears of Robert Drummond, the
Dnimmoiid Magistrate of Agra. This officer had gained a
decided ascendency over the mind of the Lieu-
tenant-Govei^nor, whose proposal to withdraAV within the fort he
had strenuously combated, while insisting upon the necessity
of showing confidence in the loyalty of the sepoys. Since he
had given this advice, however, a series of mutinies had proved
it worthless. Moreover, though Agra itself had remained com-
paratively quiet, nightly fires and secret meetings proved that
there, as elsewhere, the poison was working in the sepoys'
minds. The English had been living in the misery of suspense.
Day after day the judges had been forced to take their seats
upon the bench, and listen, with distracted attention, to tedious
arguments, which, they had good cause to fear, would soon be
settled by violence rather than law. All meanwhile had begun
to see in the weak impulsiveness with which their chief gave
orders only to countermand them, evidences of an instability of
character Avhich disqualified him to rule in troublous times.
Drummond therefore hastened to rouse him from his sleep,
and, after telling his story, urged that the time had come for
Mav 31 disarming the native regiments at Agra. At first
Disanningat Colviu hcsitatecl : but he soon yielded to the
Agra. firmness of his subordinate. In the morning a
general parade was held, and the sepoys were deprived of their
arms. The English at Agra could breathe freely once more.^
But the safety of the women and children was not yet
Preparation ^'Ssurcd. The jDosition which they occupied was of
of the fort great extent and wholly indefensible : sooner or
later Agra Avould prol:»ably be attacked ; and none
could tell when the assailants would appear. Colonel Eraser,
the chief engineer, implored Colvin to remove the non-combat-
ants into the fort, and to secure the property of the Govern-
ment and of private individuals within its walls while there
was yet time. But the fort, notwithstanding its imposing
appearance, was incapable of standing a siege : it was not
provisioned ; and on sanitary grounds it would have been
unwise to allow the large non-combatant jDopulation to flock
precipitately within its walls. Colvin had made up his mind to
reject Eraser's advice ; and in spite of insolent remonstrances
1 Raikes, pp. 18-9, 38-9.
1857 GWALIOR AND RAJPUTANA 133
from various quarters, he adhered to his resolve. As early as
the 14th of May, however, he had issued orders for provisioning
the fort and making it defensible. But at Agra there was no
real head. Disputes and altercations were incessant. Drummond
set his face against all measures of precaution. His idea was
simply that the British should overawe the natives by a fearless
and confident bearing. By untiring vigilance and severe re-
pression, he did indeed maintain order for a time in the city and
the Agra district ; but his interference went far to render his
chief's orders for the preparation of the fort nugatory. Supplies
came in slowly : the work of strengthening the defences was left
half undone ; and sanitary precautions were Avholly neglected.^
Meanwhile Colvin had been trying to recover his hold upon
the stations which he had lost. If he had dis- „ , . , „ .
. . ■ F ^ n Colvin s efforts
armed the sepoys m time, a wnig of the European to restore
regiment might, without endangering the safety of
Agra, have saved much treasure and prevented much disorder :
but unhappily it was suffered to remain inactive. Several
detachments of the Glwalior Contingent went forth to pacify the
country : but, though they did good service for a time, the sight
of the villagers rising in revolt and every sign of British authority
fading away throughout the districts which they traversed, was
a test too strong for their loyalty ; and soon one after another
rose in rebellion. Moreover, though a corps of July 1-2.
mounted volunteers performed enough to show
that some vitality was left in the British power, they were not
numerous enough to hold the villagers in check ; and, after the
mutiny of the Gwalior Contingent, even the most resolute of
them were obliged to fall back on the capital.
Far more sad, however, than the tales of mutiny and rebellion
which grieved the Lieutenant-Governor was the report that, at
a distant station, a British officer had turned his back upon the
subject people. Some distance to the north of Meerut lay the
station of Muzaffarnaerar, where a few sepoys,
lVTn7T.ft'n'iia*^tir
belonging to one of the regiments that had mutinied
at ]\Ieerut, were posted for the protection of the treasury. It
was hardly to be expected that they would remain quiet a
moment after the news from Meerut should reach them. They
^ E. A. Reade's Narraiice, pp. 42, 47 ; Selection of Papers from the, Ojjice of
<Jiimmissioncr of Finance (E. A. Eeade\ p. 11 ; Thornhill, pp. 173-4, 178-9,
181-2 ; Colviu, pp. 190-1, 194-5.
134 THE NORTH-WESTERN PROVINCES chav. iV
did so, however, until the civil population set them an example
of rebellion. And that the civil population rebelled Avas directly
owing to the cowardice of the magistrate, Berford, who, not
content with closing the public offices as soon as he heard of the
mutiny at INIeerut, and thus practically confessing the overthrow
of British authority, actually withdrew the sepoys whose duty it
was to guard the gaol, for the protection of his own life. It is
not improbable that those shrewd judges of character felt that
their new charge was less valuable than the one from which they
had just been withdrawn. Anyhow they, as well as the towns-
people and the villagers, showed their agreement
^ ^^ ' with the magistrate's estimate of his own power
of rule by entering upon a coui'se of indiscriminate plunder.
But at the more northerly station of Sahai'anpur there were
worthier representatives of the British power. There
a aranpur. ^-^^ magistrate, Spankie, and his colleague, Dundas
Robertson, though they had only a few hundred sepoys and
policemen of doubtful loyalty to control a notoriously disaffected
population of nearly a million, and though the rising which
Berford's pusillanimity had encouraged increased their difficulties,
resolved never to acknowledge that their authority could be
overthrown. Knowing that the existence of the empii'e hung,
in a manner, upon their conduct, for with the safety
of Saharanpur was bound up that of the neighbouring dis-
trict of Roorkee, from which alone could be drawn a large
portion of the siege material indispensable for the reduc-
tion of Delhi, they set out into the district to collect the
revenue as calmly as in the most peaceful times, led their
half-hearted sepoys against the insurgent villagers, and, when
June 2. mutiny at last l)roke out, still continued with the
Junes. aid of a body of Gurkhas, who had been sent to
their assistance, to assert their supremacy.^
Meanwhile the Lieutenant-Governor had hardly begun to
congratulate himself upon the relief which the
disarming of the native regiments had given to
Agra before ominous news reached him from Rohilkhand. At
Shahjahanpur the sepoys, after remaining com-
laijaianpur. p.j^j.,^^jyg|y q^jj^t. for a fortnight after the news
from IMeerut had icached them, rose on the 31st of Mny. Some
of the English Avere slaughtered. Others, escaping through the
^ Robertson ; Gazetteer of tlie S.W.P., vol. iii. pp. G2J-G.
1857 GWALIOR AND RAJPUTANA 135
disunion of the mutineers, fled to Pawayan, and besought the
Raja of that place to shelter them. He received them for the
night, but, fearing that he would be unable to protect them, sent
them away in the morning. Baffled and Aveary, l)ut still clinging
to the hope of life, the fugitives went on their way, and, after
tramping for ten miles with naked feet, reached
Mohamdi in Oudh. There they found another
party of Europeans. Three days afterwards the ^^^
whole body set out for Aurangabad, trusting to the solemn oaths
of the native troops belonging to the station which they had
just left, that they would not injure them. In
mingled hope and fear they pressed on till they
were close to their goal. Looking round, they saw the troops
following close behind. Still they pushed on, fearing treachery,
but not giving up hope till, when they were within half a mile
of Aurangabad, their pursuers rushed forward and began to fire.
The fugitives, four of whom were little children, collected under
a tree, and the ladies, descending from a buggy in which they
were travelling, calmly joined in prayer. That last service was
soon over ; for the mui^derers fell upon them, and in ten minutes all
but two were lying dead, stripped of everything that they had on.^
It was at Bareilly, however, that the progress of affairs was
most anxiously awaited ; for this town was not
only the capital of Rohilkhand, but also the seat
of the Commissioner and the headquarters of three native
regiments. Long before the outbreak at Meerut, the story of
the lascar of Dum-Dum had found its way thither and caused
excitement among the sepoys : but, even as late as the close of
the third week in May, the Brigadier wrote to Colvin, expressing
his belief in their loyalty. His second in command. Colonel
Colin Troup, shared his confidence. Till the 29th all went well.
On the morning of that day Troup heard that the two infantry
regiments were going to rise within a few hours. The remaining
regiment, the 8th Irregular Cavalry, was accordingly ordered to
get under arms. The men obeyed the order Avith the utmost
apparent zeal ; but no mutiny took place after all. That very
evening, however, Troup heard that even in the ranks of the
Irregulars there v/ere traitors. But their commandant. Captain
Mackenzie, would not listen to a word in their disparagement.
He had done his duty towards them for years Avith heart and
^ Giibbius, pp. 123-5 ; Annals of the Indian Rebellion, pp. 359-00.
136 THE NORTH-WESTERN PROVINCES
soul : he was justly pi^oud of their noble appearance and their
proved efficiency ; and he could appeal to the readiness with which
they had volunteered to go on service to Pegu in 1852, and to
their splendid conduct during the campaign, as an irrefragable
proof of their loyalty. His confidence was soon to be tested.
On the morning of the 31st of May he was informed by one of
his native officers that the infantry regiments were going to rise
at once. Only half believing the report, he nevertheless resolved
to be on his guard. He and his officers had hardly put on theii-
uniforms, when the brigade-major came rushing ^^p to tell them
that the mutiny had already begun. The words were only just
spoken when the roar of artillery and the reports of musketry
were heard confirming their truth. Mackenzie instantly rode
down to the lines to turn out his men. The right wing obeyed
at once ; but Mackenzie, noticing that the troopers of the left
wing were less prompt, went among them in person, and was
busy forming them up, when suddenly he saw the right wing
moving off. Galloping after them, he asked what the movement
meant. A native officer replied that Colonel Troup had ordered
it. The answer was quite true. The Brigadier had been slain ;
and Troup, as the senior officer, had resolved to retreat. He
knew that there were traitors among the Irregulars ; but it
was not improbable that the rest might have obeyed Mac-
kenzie, if Troup had not interfered. As it was, when
Mackenzie asked leave to take the men back, and attempt
the recovery of the guns, Troup replied, " It is no use ;
but do as you like." Before Mackenzie had finished talk-
ing, the senior natiA^e officer had ridden off the ground
with the left wing. Perceiving their absence, but not at
first understanding its cause, Mackenzie told the right wing
that he was going to take them to recover the guns. Riding at
their head to the parade ground, he there found the left wing
drawn up side by side Avith the mutinous infantry ; rode up to
them alone to try to win them back; and Avas apparently just
going to succeed Avhen some of the infantrj^, who had been
looking on intently at the struggle of inclinations, as a last
resource, summoned the troopers in the name of their religion
to join them. The appeal Avas as magical in its eftect as that
of the Brahmin sepoy at Aligarh. The left Aving yielded
to the temptation: the right wing followed their example;
and Mackenzie, seeing that the day was lost, rode off Avith
1857 GWALIOR AND RAJPUTANA 137
twenty-three faithful troopers, and, overtaking Troup, Avho had
retreated with a few of the surviving Eui'opeans, escaped with
him to Naini Tal.
In Bareilly a pensioner of the British Government, named
Khan Bahadur Khan, was proclaimed Viceroy, and
began his reign by ordering all the English upon |^,an.^''^"''^"'
whom he could lay his hands to be executed. But
he could not kill their dauntless spirit. One of them, dragged
into his presence before he was taken to execution, proudly
defied him to do his worst, and warned him that the worst he
could do would not be able to hinder the British from over-
throwing his usurped dominion.^
The loss of Bareilly soon made itself felt. On the very next
day the sepoys at Budaun mutinied ; and William
Edwards, the magistrate, who, without a single
white man to bear him company, had held his
ground so long as it had been possible to maintain even a show
of authority over the disaffected population which surrounded
him, was forced to fly for his life. At Moradabad indeed, the
bulk of the Native Infantry regiment, influenced by
the master-spirit of the judge, Cracroft Wilson,
whose strength of character was reluctantly acknowledged by
the worst enemies of British rule, not only remained quiet during
the fortnight that succeeded the outbreak at Meerut, but, on
three distinct occasions, showed the most loyal zeal ,, ,„,„„„
, , . 1 -, r ■ r ^1 May 18, 10, 23.
m checking the attacks ot mutineers from otner
stations. Before long, however, they too succumbed to the
contagion of rebellion in the surrounding countiy and the
irresistible influence of the news that the regiments at Bareilly
had risen. On the 3rd of June they rose ; and the English
officials, after looking helplessl}^ on at the plunder of the
Government property, reluctantly withdrew from the station
which they had so hopefully and so valiantly defended. ^
With the loss of Moradabad, the downfall of British rule in
Rohilkhand was complete. Anarchy took its place; Rowikiiand
for the rule of Khan Bahadur Khan was never jinder Ma-
111 ~tT-n 1 1 homedan rule.
universally acknowledged. Villagers attacked -
sepoys whenever they had a chance of success. \Hindus
^ Pari. Papers, vol. xxx. (1857), pp. 559-60, 633-6 ; Annals of fRc Indian
Rebellion, pp. 307-21 ; Malleson's Indian MiUinij, vol. i. pp. 305-%-^12-l7.
2 Narrative of the Escape of W. Edwards from Budaon to Caivnj^ore, pp. 1-6 ;
Sarrative of the MiUiny at Muradahad.
138 THE NORTH-WESTERTs^ PROVINCES cuap. iv
were robbed and murdered by Mahomedans. The Viceroy him-
self, though he could not keep the peace, was strong enough to
repress the Hindu barons who disputed his power, and punished
their disobedience with merciless cruelty. Even in a proclama-
tion which he issued immediately after his usurpation, to gain
over the Hindus to his cause, he could not help betraying the
innate Mahomedan spirit of persecution, by threatening to.
slaughter the kine of all who would not join him in exterminating
the Christians. Such a rule could not Ixit be execrated by all
who were unable to protect themselves. For plunder, confisca-
tion, mutilation, and murder were everywhere rife : everywhere
the strong preyed upon the weak ; and all who cared for peace
and security sighed for the restoration of the British power.
The district of Farukhabad still remains to be considered.
^, , , , , Though belonging to the Agra Division, it was
Farukhabad. o o o o '
peopled by a race closely akin to the fierce Pathans
of Rohilkhand. The Mahomedans were numerically a small
minority ; but in no district of the North- Western Provinces
were they more turbulent or more antagonistic to law and order
as such. Many of them were of good family, and, mindful of
the past glories of their ancestors, too proud to work and too poor
not to welcome any opportunity of acquiring riches. Though,
however, before the end of May the district was surging in
rebellion, the 10th Native Infantry at the capital, Fatehgarh,
without being wholly obedient, remained quiet longer than any
other corps in the Division. On the 16th of Jiuie, indeed, they
informed their commanding officer. Colonel Smith, that they had
been called upon by the 41st, who had lately risen at Sitapur in
Oudh, to murder their officers, and promised to fight for the
Company, which had so long cared for them, against the
mutineers. Yet, only two days later, they told the
Colonel that they would obey him no longer, and
warned him to retire within the fort.
He lost no time in following their advice. A fortnight befoBe,
he had sent off about a hundred and seventy of his
Fatehgarh. uou-combatants to Cawnpore, to be out of the reach
of danger. Forty of these, however, had since
returned, and now with some thirty others who were unable to
bear arms, and only thirty-three fighting men, took refuge in the
asylum pointed out by the sepoys. They had so little ammuni-
tion that they wove obliged to collect screws, nuts, and bolts for
1857 GWALIOR AND RAJPUTANA 139
grape. Still the sepoys showed no signs of advancing to the
attack. They had acknowledged the Nawab of Farukhabad as
their rnler, but had refused to give him the Government treasure,
which had fallen into their hands; and, when the 41st, who had
arrived from Sitapur, demanded a share in the plunder, they too
met with a rebuff. Violent dissensions then broke out between
the two regiments. Most of the 10th escaped with their ill-
gotten gains across the Ganges into Oudh, and dispersed to their
homes. The rest were attacked by the 41st. After many had
fallen on both sides, the survivors agreed to join in an attack on
the fort. It was not, however, till the morning of the 27th of
June, that they opened fire. For several days their ^ ,^ „^,„
' i -T r 1 June 27 or 28?
efforts were of no avail ; for, as they were weaker
than the garrison in artillery, they contented themselves with
discharging their muskets from behind trees and bushes, and
ever and anon bringing up ladders, which, in the face of the un-
eri'ing fire directed against them, they were never able to plant
against the walls. On the fifth day, however, finding all their
efibrts at escalade useless, they occupied a number of houses
surrounding the fort, and from their roofs poured a deadly fire
into its interior. Still the garrison, though they now began to
lose men fast, continued night and day to maintain a noble
defence. The women prayed without ceasing for their defenders.
Prominent among the men was the chaplain, Fisher, whose frank
and manly nature endeared him to all, and who, like Walker of
Londonderry, only relaxed his eflforts to solace and encourage
his people with the words of Christ, that he might join with
them in repelling the enemy. Yet even the unsurpassed courage
of the garrison could only protract the unequal struggle. The
enemy succeeded in exploding a mine under the fort ; and,
though they were twice hurled back from the breach which it
had opened in the walls, they persevered and began to sink
another shaft. Then Colonel Smith, seeing no hope of succour,
and reflecting that his ammunition was fast failing, that many
of his best men had fallen, and that the survivors were worn out by
the sleepless labour of the defence, resolved to attempt an escape.
Three boats lay moored beneath the walls of the fort. Into
these the garrison descended on the night of the 3rd ^ , . „
^ . c5 _ July 4, 2 A.M.
of July. By tAvo o'clock all were in their places ;
and the boats, commanded respectively by Colonel Smith, Colonel
Goldie, and Major Robertson, began to drop down the river.
140 THE NORTH-WESTERN PROVINCES
But there was already light enough for the sepoys to see that
their prey was escaping ; and, with fierce yells, they started in
pursuit. The current, however, carried the fugitives so swiftly
away that their pursuers, stumbling along the uneven bank,
could not gain upon them : but presently Goldie's boat ran
aground ; and, Avhile its occupants were being transferred to one
of the others, the sepoys came hurrying up and opened fire.
Meanwhile the two remaining boats had been again set in
motion, and drifted on, pursued bx;t still untouched, as far as
the village of Singerdmpur. There Robertson's boat also
grounded ; and the villagers, taking advantage of the accident,
swarmed down to join in the attack. Then Major Munro,
Captain Vibart, and Lieutenants Eckford, Henderson, and
Sweetenham sprang ashore, charged up the bank and drove the
mob away. Returning to the river, they found that every
effort to push ofi' Robertson's boat had failed, Avhile the other
had drifted far down the stream. The poor people who were
left behind were still wondering what was to become of them,
when they saw two boats coming down the stream, full of
sepoys who, as soon as they had got within range, poured a
dreadful fire into their midst. Then Robertson besought the
ladies to leap into the river with their children, rather than fall
into the hands of their inhuman enemies. Most of them did
so ; and now their last agony began. Some were shot down by
the sepoys or the swarms of rebel villagers. Others were taken
prisoners, brought back to the Nawab, and blown away from his
guns. Others were carried away by the swdft river. Robertson
saw his wife torn from his grasp, and drowned, and only escaped
himself to die two months afterwards of the wounds Avhich he
had received. The gallant Fisher too saAv his Avife and child
drowned in his arms. He and one other survivor, named Jones,
alone succeeded in reaching Smith's boat. Jones, who had been
cruelly wounded, remained with some friendly villagers who
offered him food and shelter. The remainder found their last
resting-place in the city of CaAvnpore.^
Meanwhile the Nawab had persuaded most of the native
officials to take service under him, and had murdered every
Christian upon whom he could lay his hands.
^ Times, Nov. 3, 1857, p. 7, cols. 1 and 2 ; W. Edwards's Personal Adventures
during the Indian Rebellion, pp. 134-5 ; Pari. Paper.^, vol. .\liv, (1857-58), Part 1,
p. 2S6.
1857 GWALIOR AND RAJPUTANA 141
The mutiny at Fatehgarh sounded the knell of British rule
in the Doab, the country between the Ganges and
Character of
the Jumna. The history of the Mutiny in that the mutinies
country and in Kohilkhand is specially interesting, aiicesYn"ti!e
not only because it describes some of the most North-westem
•^ . , 1 • T 1 1 • Provinces.
tragic scenes oi that sad time, but also because it
furnishes the most complete and important body of evidence for
determining the nature of the purely military and the various
other factors of the rising. The hesitating demeanour of many
of the mutineers, notably of the Irregulars at Bareilly, in the
very midst of the crisis, the practical loyalty of others up to
the very day of mutiny, a loyalty which cannot be satisfactorily
accounted for on the theory of accomplished dissimulation, the
fact that fcAV detachments mutinied until the news that neigh-
bouring detachments had committed themselves, or the infection
of civil rebellion overcame their fidelity, and that sometimes a
mere accident, like the exclamation of the fanatical sepoy at
Aligarh, occasioned the outbreak, prove that, however skilful
and elaborate may have been the attempts of the ringleaders to
secure concerted action among their dupes, there was nothing
like perfect organisation among the various sections of the
mutineers even up to the time of mutiny, that is, even up to
the completion of the first step only towards the attainment
of their objects. It is more than likely that, if we take into
account as well the natural tendency of men thrown together in
large masses to fling oft" the restraints of law and order when
once the example of successful contempt of authority has been
set, the theory advanced by an intelligent Brahmin sepoy, in
conversation with that able officer, Julius Medley of the Bengal
Engineers, is the true one : — " Sir, there is one knave, and nine
fools ; the knave compromises the others, and then tells them it
is too late to draw back." ^
From the point of view of the historian, however, it is more
important to learn how the civil population felt and acted
during the Mutiny than to analyse the phenomena of the
Mutiny itself. It is hard for a reader unacquainted with the
characteristics of Indian society to picture to himself the head-
long violence with which the floods of anarchy swept over the
North-Western Provinces when once mutiny had let them loose.
Neither the Hindus nor the Mahomedans generally regarded
^ See also General M'Leod lunes's Lucknuiu and Oiule in the. Mutiny, pp. 22-3, 48.
142 THE NORTH-WESTERN PROVINCES
the English with any particular dislike : they acknowledged,
notwithstanding all their grievances, the comparative justice and
efficacy and the absolute benevolence of English rule : but they
were too ignorant to perceive that it was their interest to support
it ; they knew nothing of the reserve force that was available to
rescue it in case of danger ; and therefore, when the defection of
the sepoy army seemed to threaten it with destruction, they
naturally relapsed into the turbulent habits of their ancestors,
and prepared to make their profit out of the new order of
things. Bands of mutineers and hordes of escaped convicts
roamed over the country, and incited the villagers to turn upon
the Feringhees. Eajas emerged from their seclusion, gathered
their retainers around them, and proclaimed their resolve to
establish their authority, as vassals of the King of Delhi. INIobs
of Mahomedan fanatics unfurled their green flags, and shouted
for the revival of the supremacy of Islam. Eajputs and Jats
renewed old feuds, and fought Avith one another to the death.
SAvarms of Gujai^s, starting up on every side, and girding on their
swords and bucklers, and shouldering their matchlocks, robbed the
mail-carts, plundered peaceful villages, and murdered the villagers.
Mobs of budmashes set fire to tahsils, and drove out the
tahsildars.^ The native police, who had generally been recruited
from the dangerous classes, and whom interest, not loyalty, had
hitherto kept on the side of authority, felt that there was
nothing to be gained by endeavouring to prop up a doomed
government, and threw in their lot with the CAal- doers. Dis-
possessed landowners, clutching at the opportunity for which
they had long waited, gathered their old tenants together,
hunted out the purse-proud upstarts who had bought up their
estates, and triumphantly re-established themselves in their
ancestral homes. Insolvent debtors mobbed and slaughtered
-without pity the effeminate baniyas, whose extortion they
would have punished long before, but for their dread of the
strong arm of the law. Even the Hindu villagers, who, AA-ith
the exception of those with, whom robbery Avas a hereditary
calling, remained quietly in their homes, were not sorry to hear
of the overthrow of a Government which they regarded merely
as an irresistible engine for the collection of taxes. Suttee
and other barbarous customs which benevolent rulers had
abolished, were re-established. The mass of the people enjoyed
* Tahsililar — the head native revenue oflicer of a pargana or "hundred."
1857 GWALIOR AND RAJPUTANA 143
the excitement and the freedom of the time ; and the English
officials sadly confessed that their rule, notwithstanding all the
good that it had effected, had taken no hold of popular
sentiment. In Rohilkhand indeed and in Saharanpur they
reported that the bulk of the Mahomedans displayed an animosity
against the British Government, which would have been more
formidable if they had not been distracted by racial and religious
feuds. How disastrous was the collapse of authority will
be understood from the fact that public works, except those
undertaken for military purposes, absolutely ceased ; that
surveys had to be suspended ; that civil justice could only be
administered in a few isolated and favoured spots ; that educa-
tion was either stopped, or frequently interrupted ; and that in
fact, with the exception of the administration of criminal justice
and a partial collection of the revenue, the organism of Govern-
ment was paralysed.
On the other hand, many of those who committed themselves
to the cause of rebellion, Avere actuated not by inclination, but
by fear. Most of the talukddrs were shrewd enough to per-
ceive that it would not answer their purpose to join the rebels ;
and though of the whole body of influential landoAvners some
unquestionably took an active part against us, a considerable
number were passively loyal, and some few manfully threw
themselves into the breach, and exerted their influence to stem
the rush of insurrection. More than one moulvi had the courage
to proclaim that rebellion was a sin ; and if some Mahomedan
notables staked their all upon the success of revolt, others did
their utmost to support the Power which protected all creeds.
A fair proportion of native officials stood gallantly at their
posts, some of them even giving their lives for the alien
Government which paid them. Those natives who had
l)een taught English were generally, and those who had
been converted to Christianity invariably loyal. Finally,
with the exception of the hardened criminals, the professional
robbers, and those who knew that the mercy of a long-suffering
Government could never be extended to them, even the in-
surgents themselves learned at last by bitter experience that
the evils of anarchy outweighed its advantages, and hailed the
British officers who came to re-establish authority, as deliverers.^
^ Major Williams's Narrative of Events connected with the Outbreak in 1857,
pp. 6-9, 14 ; Robertson, pp. 31, 48, 108, 189 ; Dunlop's Service and Adventure
144 THE NORTH-WESTERN PROVINCES chap, iv
While day after day heart-breaking tales of mutiny and
massacre were reaching the ears of the Lieutenant-
Gwaiior, Governor, he was anxiously asking himself what
DinkarRao, couTSB the native allies of the JBntish would
son. '*'^^^"' pursue. Was it certain that Sindhia's troops
would not follow the example of the Bengal
army ? Was it even certain that Sindhia would not himself stir
them up to follow it ? Had the Paramount Power done any-
thing to attach him to its rule ; or had it treated him with the
insolence of a foreign conqueror? At the time when Ellen-
borough had been obliged to interfere in the affairs of Gwalior,
Sindhia had been too young to take his part in governing ; but
in 1852 the British Government declared his minority at an
end, and appointed as his Diwan, or Prime Minister, a young
pundit named Dinkar Eao, who was afterwards pronounced by
the Political Agent to be the ablest and best of the natives of
India. The Diwan indeed soon proved himself worthy of this
high praise. Within a few years he raised the people, by a
series of great reforms, from the abject poverty to which a
corrupt system of farming the taxes had reduced them, to a
prosperity not inferior to that of the most flourishing districts
under British rule. For a time, however, his tenure of power
was uncertain. The young Maharaja was surrounded by a
group of unprincipled coui'tiers, who hated Dinkar Rao for
having deprived them of the corrupt sources of wealth which
had lain open to them under the old system of revenue. Yield-
ing to their insidious whispers, Sindhia dismissed his faithful
minister, snatched up the reins of government with his weak
and untrained hands, and within two years undid all the good
that had been done, and threw all the affairs of State into the
utmost confusion. At last, however, it dawned upon him that
he had made a mistake ; and, of his own accord, he restored
Dinkar Rao to office. Meanwhile a new Political Agent, Major
with the Khakee Ressalah, pp. 69, 71 ; Raikes, pp. 93, 139, 157-60, 162-3, 175,
note ; Report on the Administration of Public A fairs in, the N.W.P. for 1857-
58, pp. 5, par. 23, 16, pars. 64-6 ; Pari. Papers, vol. xliv. (1857-58), Part 3, pp.
305, par. 11, 509 ; H. G. Keene's Fifty-seven, pp. 41, 50, 86, 88, 115 ; Thorn-
hill, pp. 87, 114-5, 323-4 ; Hunter's Impe'rial Gazetteer, passim ; F. C. Maude
and J. W. Sherer's Memories of the Mutiny, vol. i. pp. 160-61, 194 ; E. A.
Reade's Narrative, p. 39 ; Gazetteer of tlie X. W.'P., vol. ii. pp. 116-17, 254-6, 503-4 ;
vol. iii. pp. 331-2, 626 ; vol. v. pp. 120, 132, 503 ; vol. viii. (Mnttra), p. 169 ;
vol. ix, (Moradabad), p. 163.
1857 GWALIOR AND RAJPUTANA 146
Charters Macpherson, had come to his court. Macpherson was
one of the noblest of those many noble officers who have led
lives of hardship and danger, and courted premature death, in
the cause of Indian civilisation, knowing all the M'hile that their
countrymen at home felt no interest in their doings or their
suflerings. He had laboured for years in a pestilential climate
to persuade the hill-men of the Khond country to abandon the
hideous rite of human sacrifice, and had at last succeeded. And
now he entered upon his new duties in the same devoted spirit.
Deeply sympathising with the natives of India, tolerant of, but
never acquiescing in their sins, he was just the man to watch
over the uncertain efToi'ts of a native government to work out
a sound administrative system for itself. He wisely resolved
not to interfere obtrusively, but, while ever holding himself
ready with suggestion and advice, to encourage Sindhia and the
Minister to regard themselves as the responsible rulers. With
Dinkar Rao his task was easy. The Englishman and the
Mardtha soon learned to know each other's worth ; and there
grew up between them the familiar intercourse that may subsist
between able and high-minded men, however diverse their
national characteristics may be. But, while the Agent could
regard the Diwan as a friend, towards the Maharaja he felt
himself in the position of an anxious father ; for he soon dis-
cerned that the yoiuig prince, though intelligent and well-
intentioned, was unstable and impulsive. Gradually, hoAvever,
Macpherson's tact and firmness prevailed over the influence of
the coiu-tiers ; and, by the time that the Mutinj^ broke out, he
had established his ascendency. It chanced, moreover, that, a
few weeks before, Sindhia had paid a visit to Calcutta ; and,
while he was strongly impressed by the evidences of British
power which he saw there, he was gratified by Canning's
assurance that the British Grovernment would always continue
to respect the independence of his dynasty.^
When, therefore, the storm broke, Sindhia, though he could
discern the signs of the times well enough to foretell that the
hold of the British upon India would be strained to the utmost,
never doubted that they would eventually triumph, never
hesitated to declare that his loyalty to them was unshaken.
Macpherson saw that it Avoidd be his task to keep him steady to
' S. C. Macpherson's Memorials of Service, in India, pp. 299, -301, 304, 307,
311.
146 THE NORTH-WESTERN PROVINCES
this resolve, and prevent the courtiers from working on his
well-known love of military display by reminding him of the
martial glories of his ancestors and tempting him to assert his
family right to the championship of the Maratha people against
the British intruders. There was, indeed, cause to fear that
Sindhia might listen to their suggestions. For almost the entire
mass of his subjects were convinced that the knell of British
supremacy had sounded. Presently, however, it became clear that
the Agent's influence was gaining the da}^ ; for, while promptly re-
sponding to Colvin's request for the aid of the detachments from
the Contingent, Sindhia also sent the flower of his own army,
his cherished body-guard, to protect Colvin's person. But that
which most strongly impressed his people with the belief that he
had resolved to side with the Paramount Power was his evident
determination to be guided by the counsels of his Minister,
whom all kneM^ to be a resolute opponent of the rebellion.^
Unfortunately, however, not everyone at Gwalior who wished
as well to the British cause as the Minister saw
Brigadier at ^o clcarly how to scrvc it. Among the first
^f^c^i°-™'^ questions which had to be decided was how to
provide for the safety of the women and children.
They were then living in cantonments at the mercy of the
Contingent, of whose determination to mutiny Sindhia, Dinkar
Rao, and Macpherson were alike convinced. Sindhia earnestly
begged that they should be removed to the protection of the
Eesidency ; and, on the 28th of May, Brigadier Ramsay, the
Commander of the Contingent, hearing that the troops in canton-
ments intended to rise that night, actually did remove them.
In tlie course of the night they were transferred from the
Residency to Sindhia's palace. The Brigadier was annoyed on
hearing of this;'' and listening to the remonstrances of his
^ Macpherson's Memwials of Service in India, pp. 310-12.
- Enclosures to Secret Letters from India, 20 to 29 July 1857, pp. 208,
211. Major Meade thought that it was unwise to send the ladies and children to
Sindhia's palace, because the palace was in the heart of the native town. But, as
the Brigadier had refused to do the right thing and send them to Agra, the
question is whether it would have been wiser to keep them in the cantonments
or to entrust them to Sindhia's protection. Now it was certain, though the
Brigadier, like other confiding officers, did not think so, that the troops in
cantonments would mutiny : so long as Sindhia remained loyal, the ladies would
be safe with him ; and Macpherson had, as the event proved, good reason to
feel absolutely confident that Sindhia would be staunch. Moreover, eight Eng-
lish women, who, after the outbreak, went through the town to the palace, were
not molested. See Mrs. Coopland's ^1 Lady's Escape from Owalior, p. 130.
1857 GWALIOR AND RAJPUTANA 147
native officers, who declared the original removal to be an insult
to them and their men, and paying no heed to the warnings of
those wiser than himself, ordered their return. He was thus,
though he knew it not, signing the death-warrant of many for
whose lives he was responsible.
Then began a period of intolerable suspense for these un-
happy people. They might perceive, but thej^ could not remedy
the insane credulity which had subjected them to a mental
agony worse than that of a condemned criminal, for fear of
wounding the sensitive honour of intending murderers. One
of them afterwards recorded this solemn recollection of the
agony she had gone through : — " the words, ' 0 death in life,
the days that are no more,' kept recurring to my memory like
a dirge." At last they were allowed to hope that they might
be sent to Agra. But the ray of comfort had hardly shone out
before it was overclouded. The Lieutenant-Governor telegraphed
that they must remain at Gwalior until mutiny
June 1*''
should break out there.^ On the 14th of June
they heard the sickening details of a massacre at Jhansi,
To many of them the news sounded like a prophecy. That
night the prophecy was fulfilled. The nine o'clock gun had
just been fired when a bugle sounded ; and the
sepoys poured out of their huts, and seized their owaiwr.^*
muskets. The officers hurried down to the lines :
l)ut they could do nothing to restore order ; and four of them
were shot dead on the spot. Warned by the reports of musketry,
the crackling of flames, the shrill blasts of bugles, and the
shriller shrieks that dinned upon their ears, the inmates of
every European dwelling fled. The chaplain, with his Avife and
another lady, hid themselves in a garden. Presently they heard
loud shouts of brutal laughter : a number of bayonets, gleaming
in the moonlight, thrust aside the bushes behind which they
lay concealed ; and a mob of sepoys passed within arm's length
of them. They were still marvelling at their escape, when a
faithful Mahomedan servant discovered them, and took them to
a hut close by. There they lay cowering all night. Day had
dawned brightly, and the birds were singing, when a number of
sepoys rushed up, climbed on to the roof, and, tearing off the
beams, fired down at them. Choosing rather to die in the open
air, they rushed outside. Instantly the sepoys descended and
* See App. W.
148 THE XORTH- WESTERN PROVINCES chap, iv
suiTOunded them, and, when the ladies, with clasped hands,
cried out for mercy, replied, " We will not kill the mem-sahil)s,
only the sahib." Then the chaplain was hurried off: his
wretched wife was dragged, with two other ladies, into another
hut close by ; and in a few moments the sound of volley fol-
lowing volley told her that all was over. But the Mahomedan
who had rescued her from the first outburst of the sejDoys' fury
watched over her, and escorted her to Agra, where, after endur-
ing grievous hardships and cruel insults from the people of the
country, she and the rest of the survivors found a refuge at last.^
Among those survivors was Macpherson. He, however, had
not left Gwalior until he had achieved a political
persuades°" triumph without which India could hardly have
his troops iu-*^"^ been saved. Narrowly escaping an attack from a
active at stray party of Mahomedan fanatics, he had made
his way to the Maharaja's palace, and, before he
left him, had persuaded him to use all his influence to detain
the mutinous Contingent and his own army -within the limits of
Gwalior. It was a signal illustration of the irresistible influence
which an English gentleman of strong and elevated character
can establish over the mind of a native. For not only was it
obviously for Sindhia's immediate interest to rid himself of the
rebellious soldiery ; but he might fairly think that he had long
ago done enough to prove his loyalty, and was now free to follow
his own inclination. Yet Macpherson was able to persuade him
to undertake a task full of anxiety as well as of positive danger
to himself, for the sole object of rendering harmless two powerful
armies which must otherwise have gone to sAvell the numbers of
the enemies of the British power. In other words, he so wrought
upon Sindhia as to induce him to interpose his own person and
power to parry a thrust aimed at the power which professed to
protect him. Yet the man who performed this transcendent
service for his country was suffered to die without receiving any
reward beyond a few words of official commendation.-
Hitherto, in the North -Western Provinces, the course of
events had signally falsified the confident anticipa-
'■^ ' ' ' tions as to the speedy termination of the revolt
which Colvin had expressed to Canning in the middle of May.
There was one territory, however, not included within those
^ ,1 LaiJy.i Escape from Gwalior, by R. M. (Mrs.) Cooplaiul, pp. 107,
131-44. " '^ Macphursoii, pp. 320-21.
1857 GWALIOR AND KAJPUTANA 149
provinces, but yet subject to his supervision, for the tnmquillity
of which he might reasonal^ly have hoped. This was the country
of Rajputana, comprising a number of native states, six of which
were supervised by British political officers,^ while all alike
acknowledged the general control of an Agent appointed by the
Governor-General. The flat, uncultivated, and desolate expanse
of this vast region was here and there relieved by spots of
romantic beauty ; and almost every hill was crowned by an old
ruined castle, glorified by traditions of some gallant feat of arms
performed against the Mahomedan invaders of a past age, who
had never been able to reduce the high-spirited Rajputs to com-
jjlete subjection.'^ In 1857 the descendants of these patriots
had for nearly forty years been under British protection, and
were the better able to appreciate the blessings which it had
conferred upon them, because they had not yet forgotten what
their fathers had suffered at the hands of the Mussulman, the
Maratha, and the Pindari. On the other hand, some of the
Rajas were on such bad terms with their nobles, the thakurs,
that they Avere not in a position to render efficient support to
the Paramount Power in case of need. These very thakurs too
hated and feared the Paramount Power because, in its character
of guardian of the public peace, it had restrained them from
bullying their Rajas ; and it seemed certain that, if mutiny
were to break out in the army which formed the chief strength
of the Government, and compel it to relax the grip of its re-
straining hand, their hatred would prove stronger than their fear.^
The Governor-General's Agent was Colonel George St. Patrick
Lawrence, a gallant, straight-forward, hard-headed
cavalry officer, who, in the course of a most adventur- Lawence.
ous service of thirty-six years, during the latter part
of which he filled a succession of responsible political offices, had
given evidence of a strong good sense and a solid ability which
had raised him, like his more gifted younger brothers, to the head-
ship of a great province. He was living at the summer station
of Mount Abu when the news of the outbreak at
Meerut reached him. He took in the whole political
situation, so far as it affected him, at a glance. He was respon-
sible for the safety of a country more than a hundred and
thirty thousand square miles in extent ; and, though the rela-
^ Pritchard, p. 6. 2 //_,_ pp_ g, 9.
■* Enclosures to Secret Letters from India.
150 THE NORTH-WESTERN" PROVINCES chap, iv
tioiis of its inhabitants with the British had not been such as to
predispose them to revolt, there was danger in the presence
among them of five thousand sepoys, whose inevitable disloyalty
there were no British soldiers to check.^
Lawrence lost no time in proving to the native princes that
he did not despair of the safety of the common-
ciamaUon. Wealth. FouT days after the neAvs from Meerut
. reached him, he issued a proclamation, calling upon
them to keep the jjeace Avithin their respective
territories, and to hold their troops in readiness to assist the
British Government. His lieutenants ably seconded his efforts
by inspiring the princes with the belief that it was their interest
to support the power which protected them ; and though the
troops which they offered to furnish were as little to be trusted
as the men of the Gwalior Contingent, the knowledge that they
were themselves loyal had a reassuring influence upon the minds
of their people.^
Meanwhile Lawrence himself had another serious object in
view. In the heart of Rajputana was an important
Lteuteiumt stronghold called Ajmere, belonging to the British.
Ajmere '^^'^^"^ This town was to Rajputana what Delhi was to
North-Western India. It possessed a well-stored
arsenal and a full treasury : it was a venerated resort both for
Mahomedan and for Hindu pilgrims ; and within its walls was
concentrated most of the wealth of the native merchants and
bankers of Rajputana. Lawrence foresaw that, if it were to fall
into rebel hands, it would become a rallying point for all the
enemies of order throughout the country. Yet at that time its sole
garrison consisted of two companies of native infantry. Fortun-
ately, however, there was stationed at Beawar, thirty-seven miles
south-west of Ajmere, a regiment of Mairs, who, being hill-men
and of low caste, had no sympathy with the sepoys. Colvin
sent an order to Colonel Dixon, the Commissioner of Ajmere, to
send for two companies of the Mairs, who were to displace the
sepoys. This delicate operation was entrusted to Lieutenant
Carnell, who, making a forced night-march from Beawar, relieved
the sepoys before they had time to mature any plans of resistance
^ Hunter's Imperial Gazetteer, vol. vii. p. TiOS ; Lawrence's Remuiisi-ences
of Fortif- three Years in India, i)p. 278-9. MS. uoIls sunt to lue by Sir A.
Lyall, k.C.B.
^ Lawruuce, ]ip. 279, o02-3.
1857 GWALIOK, AND RAJPUTANA 151
which they may have formed.^ Thus Ajmere was saved, and
with it the whole of Rajputana.
It was not, however, to be expected that there would be no
isolated outbreaks. Within a few days after the
reinforcement of Ajmere, the troops at Nusseerabad Nusseerabad
and Neemuch, the two chief military stations under ^"'^ Neemuch.
British occupation, mutinied, and, setting their faces June's.'
towards Delhi, plundered villages, destroyed bunga-
lows, and threw everything into confusion. l"he Parsecs and
shop-keepers of Neemuch fell into an agony of alarm. But the
stations were almost immediately reoccuj)ied by a mixed detach-
ment of Europeans and Bombay sepoys, whom Lawrence had
promptly summoned from Deesa. Moreover, the Eaja of Jodh-
pur placed at the disposal of Lawrence a body of troops, about
two thousand of whom were sent in pursuit of the mutineers.
Lawrence himself, on hearing of the mutiny at Nusseerabad, had
moved from Abu to the more central position of Beawar. He
had noticed on his journey that the country was comparatively
quiet ; and, on his ariival, he did much to strengthen the con-
fidence of the people in the vitality of the British power by
assuming the office left vacant by the recent death of the
Commissioner, Colonel Dixon, and carrying on judicial business
in open court as calmly as in a time of profound peace. ^
Thus, in a most critical period of the Mutiny, the Agent and
his officers had, with utterly inadequate resources, upheld the
authority of their Government, in spite of mutiny, over the vast
territory of Eajputana. But, before the end of the month, the
mutineers whose malice they had disappointed Avere on their
way to threaten Agra, and throw in their lot with the rebels
who were harassing its distracted ruler.
Though the history of the Mutiny in the countries under
Colvin's direction is brightened by many individual shortcoinings of
. J? Tj_- 1 J II," Colvin : his uiis-
mstances oi political courage and personal heroism, gries : he tries
yet, on the whole, it is a dismal record of failure, todoiusduiy.
^ Lawrence, pp. 279-80 ; information from Major -General W. Caruell.
Lawrence's account of this episode is inaccurate.
'■^ Ibid. pp. 281-3 ; Enclosures to Secret Letters from India, Aug. 1857,
p. 1025, 8 to 22 Oct. 1857, pp. 591-2, 24 Dec. 1857, pp. 178, 343. It must not
be supposed that the people were universally well affected. Captain Hardcastle,
who accompanied the Jodhpur troops, wrote, " At every station (in Jeypore)
through which we passed, the inhabitants cursed and abused us as English." — •
Enclosures to Secret Letters from India, Aug. 1857, pp. 1082-3.
152 THE NORTH-WESTERN PROVINCES chap, iv
For this failure Colvin was in part responsible. It is true that,
owing to the paucity of British troops and the evil effects of
British legislation, his position was one of unexampled difficulty.
It is also true that, owing to the selfishness and faint-
heartedness of Hewitt and of AVilson, the powerful force at
Meerut did absolutely nothing to support him ; and that his
lieutenants did not all display the strong self-reliance which
enabled Spankie and Dundas Robertson to maintain their hold
Tipon a large and turbulent district. But, on the other hand,
there were some high officials at that time Avho, though they
were no better served than Colvin, yet, far from allowing them-
selves to be disheartened by the failure of erring subordinates,
only laboured the more earnestly to inspire them with their own
high courage and vigorous resolve, and made \ip for their Avant
of material resources by acting as though they possessed them.
It is impossible indeed to affirm that the most resolute and clear-
sighted of Indian statesmen could, if he had been placed in
Colvin's position, have preserved entire tranquillity over the
North- Western Provinces : but it may confidently be affirmed
that to Colvin's feebleness and political blindness was due the
unprecedented anarchy which actually prevailed. The truth
was that from the outset his burden had been too heavy
for him, and that, while he had grown weaker, it had grown
heavier. Day after day messages poured in upon him, tell-
ing how officers of high rank had been hunted out of their
stations, and had fled into jungles, to save themselves from
being murdered by men from whom they had been accustomed
to receive the most servile obeisance : how ladies and little
children had been put to a cruel death, or had escaped only to
endure sufferings worse than death.^ He could not conceal from
himself that all over the country the fabric of his Government
Avas falling to pieces ; and he bitterly complained that the
result of years of conscientious labour had been undone within
a few weeks by the very people for whose benefit it had been
undergone. But to a man of his kindly nature it was more
bitter still to know that his countrymen Avere crying out for
help, and that he could not help them. Yet, though he ac-
knoAvledged that the misery which their suflierings caused him
and the load of his responsibility Avere greater than he could
bear, he continued resolutely to Avatch every detail of public
' See Kobertsou, pp. 181-2.
1857 GWALIOR AND RAJPUTANA 153
lousiness. He would have served his country better by sparing
himself this labour, and leaving room in his mind for larger
views of state policy. While Agi-a itself was noAv almost the
only stronghold not submerged by the flood of insurrection, he
continued, Avith unfortunate credulity, to entrust a share
in its defence to the native police. It was pointed out to
him in vain that these pretended guards were in league
with all the rebels in the district. Drummond believed in
their fidelity ; and he had given himself up to Drummond's
guidance.^
Towards the end of June, however, he heard a report which
would have startled the most apathetic of rulers
... ,. tj • 1 .,1 i ii j_- He loinoves the
into Vigorous action, it was said that the muti- women and cwi-
neers from Eajputana, iuAated by the native police, fnto the^ort
were in full march upon Agra. The mutineers
from Jhansi were in the neighbourhood of Etdwah, and
might come to their aid. Hitherto Colvin had refused to
listen to the most urgent entreaties for the removal of the
women and children into the fort ; although the fort had, for
at least a fortnight, been ready for their reception,^ and their
removal would have released the adult males for the work of
defence. Now, of com-se, he could refuse no longer. Yet even
now he forbade anyone to take into the fort more than a few
indispensable articles of personal use, thus exposing much valu-
able property to the risk of being plundered and destroyed by
the mutineers.^
Meanwhile it was necessary to consider what measures ought
to be taken to repel the expected onslaught. Be-
sides the European troops, there were available for ^^^n.^'""°"^^
defence a contingent furnished by the Rajput Raja
of Kotah and a small force raised by a native official named
Saifulla Khan. It was decided on the 2nd of July to post the
Kotah Contingent for the protection of the cantonments, and
to send out Saifulla Khan's levies, as a corps of observation,
to the western suburb of Shahganj. The day after these
1 Thornhill, pp. 179-81, 183 ; Raikes, pp. 52-3, 56 ; Gazetteer of the X.W.F.
vol. vii. p. 649. See App. C.
^ As nearly ready, to speak with strict accuracy, as it was when they were
actually admitted. The native Christians, it shoiild be noted, were refused
admission till the 4th of July. See Reade, pp. 47, 49, and Nineteenth Century,
April 1897, p. 562.
* Raikes, pp. 52-4 ; Reade, p. 49.
154 THE NORTH-WESTERN PROVINCES cuAr. iv
arrangements had been made, Colvin's health Ijroke down
so completely that he was obliged to make over the Govern-
ment to a pro\dsional council. The members were Brigadier
Polwhele, the military chief, Reade and Major Macleod.
Next day the council ordered a pontoon bridge over the
Jumna, by which mutineers from the Doab might have entered
the town, to be disconnected. On another question, how-
ever, a difficulty arose. The loyalty of the Kotah Contingent
was suspected. The mutineers from Rajputana had halted
at Fatehpiu' Sikri, about twenty miles from Agra. Polwhele had
resolved, in the event of their approaching the station, to march
out and oj^pose them. He agreed to allow the horse and foot
of the Kotah Contingent to accom}!any the British force ; and
with this object they were ordered to take up a position on the
road leading to Fatehpur Sikri. Separated from their artillery,
they fancied that the British intended to destroy them, and
hastened to join the mutineers, who had moved nearer in. Thus
reinforced, and encouraged by promises from the police, the
mutineers advanced to a village called Sacheta, situated not more
than five miles from the cantonments. Further they would not
go ; for they doubted whether there was much treasure to be
got at Agra, and were not really inclined to risk an attack upon
the British troops. The same night Saifulla Khan reported
that his men were not to be trusted. He was therefore ordered
to withdraw them out of harm's way to the neighbouring village
of Kerauli. Before sunrise on the following morn-
" ^ ' ing Colonel Fraser and other senior officers called
upon Polwhele, and begged him to bring matters to a crisis by
marching out, and attacking the rebel army. Polwhele decidedly
refused. His duty was simply to defend Agra. His cavalry
Avere so few that even if he were to gain a victory, he would be
unable to follow it up. He had less than a thousand men all
told, many of whom were volunteers ; and the European regi-
ment, which numbered little more than six hundred, was
composed of young soldiers, who had never seen a shot
fired in anger. The mutineers outnumbered his force by
five to one ; and a large proportion of them were seasoned
troops, who had fought at SobrAon and at Mooltan. He
believed that if they were left to their own devices, they
would go on to Delhi without attacking Agra ; and he was
determined not to leave Agra at the mercy of the police, the
1857 GWALIOR AND RAJPUTANA 155
budmashcs and the five thousand criminals who were lodged
in the gaol. At seven o'clock a young ensign galloped into
Agi^a in great excitement and announced that he had seen the
mutineers moving into Shahganj. The report rapidly spread.
Presently a score of officers, civil and military, went to Polwhele,
and vehemently urged him to go out and fight. He took no
steps to test the truth of the report. Two courses, it seemed,
lay open to him. He might, in the spirit of his declared inten-
tion, keep his troops ready to repel the mutineers, in case they
should venture to brave the heavy guns of the fort ; or he might
march out and attack them, on the bare chance of success, and
with the certainty that the convicts and budmashes would take
advantage of his absence to rise. For a time he clung to his
resolve ; and the more experienced of his officers tried hard to
keep him firm : but the clamour of the forward party pre-
vailed. He allowed his judgement to be overborne, and issued
oi'ders for an immediate advance.^
Early in the afternoon the little army quitted the parade-
ground. Near Shahganj Polwhele halted and found that, after
all, it was not occupied. The youthful ensign had deceived
himself. What he saw was only an advanced piquet, which was
now falling back, to warn the main body. As it seemed evident
that the mutineers had, after all, no intention of attacking Agra,
the Brigadier wished to return. But Captain D'Oyly, who com-
manded his artillery, assured him that he could drive the
mutineers from their position. The army again advanced.
After a march of about half-a-mile it came in sight
of the enemy, who were posted in and behind the sa^^lfta/
village of Sacheta, their guns, which had been
placed in front and on either flank, being protected by rising
ground and clumps of trees. Presently their left battery
opened fire. Polwhele, who had already formed up his line,
ordered the infantry to lie down, and directed the artillery, which
was divided into two half-batteries, placed, like that of the enemy,
on either flank, to reply to the challenge. The officers fought
their guns like heroes : but the mutineers, sheltered as they
were by natiu-al breastworks, were too strong for them.
While the British infantry were suffering from the fire of rifle-
^ March Phillipps's report {Annals of tlie Indian Rebellion, pp. 7(31 -:2) ;
Thornliill, pp. 177-90; Reade, pp. 19-20, 52; printed (but unpublished)
papers by Col. de Kantzow. See App. D.
156 THE NORTH-WESTERN PROVINCES chap, iv
men perched in the trees and on the tops of honses, the enemy's
gunners were leisurely finding the range. A tumbril was blown
up ; and one of the guns on the left was dismounted. The officers,
finding that their ammunition was running short, implored Pol-
whele to order a general advance. There were the infantry,
chafing under their enforced inaction, eager to lie allowed to rise
and hurl themselves upon the rebels. But Polwhele saw that the
artillery had not yet done its work ; and he shrank from diminish-
ing the scanty numbers of the defenders of Agra. The mutineers
held a strong position ; and if the infantry failed to dislodge
them, his retreat might be cut oft', and then Agra would be lost.
He continued to bombard the village until a second tumbril ex-
ploded. The brigade might now have fallen back upon Shahganj,
and waited for fresh ammunition: but, as there was nothing
to be gained by prolonging the battle, the wiser course would
have been to retreat. Polwhele adojoted neither alternative.
Though his artillery ammunition Avas completely exhausted,
though the enemy's cavaliy had actuall}^ charged the left half-
battery, he sent his infantry, in two small columns, to the attack.
It was too late, — or too soon. The infantry did indeed penetrate
the front part of the village : but the enemy still swarmed
beyond a lane which bisected it, and behind the wall of a planta-
tion on its right; the British soldiers, after a fierce struggle,
were seen streaming back ; and Polwhele, perceiving that the
contest was hopeless, reluctantly gave the order to retreat. The
retreat was conducted Avith such coolness and skill that the
enemy believed that he was only returning to procure fresh
ammunition and renew the combat. Their infantry indeed, which
had suft"ered heavily from the fire of his guns, did not attempt to
pursue.^
Meamvhile the w^omen in the fort had been anxiously wait-
ing for the issue of the battle upon which they
forced to*" believed their safety to depend. The distress of
thefort.**^ those whosc hus])ands were in action was terrible.
For three long hours they listened to the roar of
' Time.i, Sept. 2, 1857, p. 5, col. 6 : Sept. 1, p. 8, col. 5 ; Colouel White's
Indian Reminiscences, pp. 117-21 ; Tlioriihill, pp. 191-4 ; ncconut of Mr. March
Phillipps, who fought in the volunteer cavalry (printed in Keene's Handbook to
Agra, 1874, pp. 57-9) ; printed papers Ijy and personal information from Col. de
Kantzow. See App. D.
One company of the mxitineers was armed witli Enfield rifles ; while the
British had only muskets.
18r.7 GWALIOR AXD RA.TPUTANA 157
the contending artillery. At last some of them, unable to bear
the strain of suspense any longer, hurried to the flag-staff on the
Delhi gate, from which they knew that they would be able to
discern the movements of the two armies. Then their suspense
was terminated indeed, but by despair ; for they could plainly
see their countrymen retreating, hotly pursued by the enemy's
cavalry. Presently a mob of soldiers, covered with dust and
dripping with blood, came rushing into the fort, clamouring for
drink. Now that they knew the worst, the women forgot their
own sorrows. Some of them went about ministering to the
needs of the thirsty soldiers. Others watched over the bed-
sides of the wounded and the dying. And among the objects of
their tender devotion was one whose dying moments Florence
Nightingale herself might have been proud to soothe, — Captain
D'Oyly of the Artillery, whose last spoken words were,
"Put a stone over my grave, and say that I died fighting my
guns." ^
All this time the budmashes of Agra, joined by the convicts,
who had escaped from prison, and by those of the police who had
not dispersed, were burning the houses in cantonments, destroying
the property which Colvin's fatuity had left in their way, and
mmxlering every Christian who still lingered in the city. Cluster-
ing on a large plateau within the fort, the refugees were forced
to listen to the hellish din, and looked on helplessly at the swift
ruin that was overtaking their houses, from which the flames,
leaping upAvard, shed their glow over the maze of streets, over
the broad expanse of the river, and upon the snowy wonder of
the Tdj. No precaution was taken to repel an attack : there
was no order and no head : loose horses were galloping about
and fighting : w^ounded gun-bullocks were lying on the ground ;
and drunken soldiers bivouacking in the rain. For two days
after the first outburst in the town had subsided, disorder Avent
on unchecked ; foi- the English were too dispirited by their
late disaster to march out and reassert their authority. On
the 8th of July, however, Drummond, having heard from
a friendly native that there was no serious opposition to
be expected, sallied forth with a small escort, and paraded the
streets. The ral>ble instantly dispersed. Thenceforward,
although anarchy was rampant in the district, Agra itself was
at peace.
^ CooplaiKl, pp. 181-2 ; Raikes, p. 62.
158 THE NORTH- WESTERN PROYINCES chap, iv
The fort, within which nearly six thousand human beings
Lfe • ti f rt "^^"^''® ^^^"^ gathered together, looking forward to a
captivity of indefinite duration, was a huge, massive
erection of red sandstone, commanding the town and the river.
Inside its walls were grouped a vast collection of edifices — plain
Government buildings, lofty marble halls, gracefid mosques,
pavilions, towers, kiosks, and splendid palaces. Within these
the captive people had now to find what accommodation they
could. In the corridor running round the noble palace of Akbar
ladies might have been seen busily trying to impart a look of
comfort to the little improvised huts which had been assigned as
their temporary homes. Among the fugitives were to be found
representatives of many different races, creeds, and professions,
— soldiers, civilians, English ladies and their children, Eurasians,
native servants, monks, nuns, and even rope-dancers and circus-
riders belonging to a travelling French company. At first there
was necessarily confusion among such a motley assemblage,
huddled together in the narrowest quarters. Signs of defective
preparation were everywhere manifest. Heaps of filth lay
putrefying in the sun, and emitted sickening smells. But order
was soon established by the exertions of those in command.
Dirt and confusion gave way to cleanliness and arrangement.
Every room, hut, shed, and cell was carefully numbered. Nor
were regular official duties suspended. The chief power was
practically in the hands of the military authorities, of Avhom
Colonel Cotton was soon appointed the head. Under their
vigorous rule measures were promptly taken for the victual-
ling of the garrison and the strengthening of the fort ; and all
gradually resigned themselves to make the best of their new
life.i
In that life there was more of dull monotony than of tragic
interest. The civil and military officers indeed were occupied
from morning till night with their respective duties ; and many
of the ladies forgot the weariness of captivity in ministering to
the wounded, or teaching the young ; but some of the inmates
found the time hang heavy upon their hands. No one indeed
was exposed to any risk of starvation : no one was oliliged to
crouch within doors for fear of being struck doM'n by shot or
1 Pari. Papers, vol. xliv. (1857-58), Part 1, p. 190 ; Thoniliill, pp. 193-4,
198, 207 ; C. C. Seymour's Ho7r I icon the. Mutini/ Medal, p. 99 ; Coopland,
p. 183 ; Enclosures to Secret Letters from India, 24 Sept. 1857, p. GSO.
1857 GWALIOE AND RAJPUT AN A 159
shell ; there were no worse hardships to be endured than those
which were inseparable from the conditions of over-crowding
and want of ventilation. But, as time passed, and the hoped-
for news of the fall of Delhi never came, the inmates of the fort
became seriously anxious for their own safety. Indeed, though
there were many true heroes among them, they were afterwards
taunted by some of their countrymen with having displayed a
very unheroic spirit. It is true that they more than once had
good reason to believe that they were in imminent danger of
being attacked by overwhelming numbers : but still there was
something ludicrous in the idea of some hundreds of able-bodied
men subjecting themselves to all the inconveniences and suffer-
ing all the terrors of a besieged garrison, while they were never
really besieged at all. It seems at last to have dawned upon
them that it was discreditable to remain shut up in a fort instead
of l)oldly marching out, and trying to re-establish their authoritj^
in the surrounding country ; for, towards the end of August, a
small force was actually despatched to Aligarh, defeated there a
band of rebels whose chief had set up a government of his own,
and thus did something to weaken the general belief that British
authority had collapsed.^
That the garrison were in fact spared the miseries of a siege
was due to the exertions of Macpherson, who, ^ ,
during the whole period of his captmty, corre- of Macpherson
sponded unceasingly with Sindhia and Dinkar Rao.^
If he had not thus inspired them with his counsel, and cheered
them by his support, they could never have succeeded, as they
did, in carrying out his instructions. Though the reverses which
the English everywhere suffered in July and August seemed to
warn Sindhia to desert a hojieless cause while there was yet
time, his confidence in Macpherson was such that he submitted
for four months to the insults, and resisted the entreaties of his
troops, and, in turns, defying, flattering, deceiving, and sowing
dissensions among them, baffled their evil purposes, and kept
them inactive at Gwalior, at the very crisis at which their help
might have turned the scale in favour of the rebels. With all
his loyal intentions, he would never have been able to do this if
1 ParL Pcqxrs, vol. xliv., Part 3, pp. 157-9; Coopland, pp. 1.59, 162-6,
170-5, 184-213.
- Colonel de Kantzow thinks that it was also due to the fact that in July,
after the battle of Sacheta, the Chamlml was in fnll'flood.
160 THE NORTH-WESTERN PROVINCES chap, iv
it had not been for the marvellous influence which, even from a
distance, Macpherson exercised over him,^
In other districts besides Aligarh the civil officers were trying
manfully to re-establish their authority. It was of
Duniop^ °^ course impossible for them to achieve anything like
complete success Avhile the natives could point to
the glaring failure of the English to reconquer Delhi. Still,
something was done. The credit of striking the first effective
blow for the restoration of British prestige and of orderly rule
belonged to the magistrate and collector of Meerut, Robert
Dunlop. This officer was enjoying a well-earned holiday in the
Himalayas, when he heard of the massacres at
Meerut and Delhi. Instantly he rode down to
Simla, and thence drove on to Delhi. Thence again, in obedience
to the orders of his Commissioner, Hervey Greathed, he rode to
Meerut. The authorities at that station Avere, as has been
pointed out already, absolutely helpless. Since the outbreak
not a rupee of revenue had been collected. Dunlop, however,
soon showed what one resolute and cleai'-headed man could do
to repair and start again the machinery of Government. He
appealed to all loyal men to enlist as mounted volunteers for the
restoration of order in the districts. Unemployed officers, high
civilians, merchants, clerks, and Sikhs eagerly gave in their
names : Major AVilliams, the supei'intendent of police, was
appointed commandant ; and so zealously did the adjutant pro-
ceed with the work of drilling, mounting, and arming the volun-
teers, that in three days one troop was ready for service. From
the dust-coloured uniform which it adopted, the corps received
the name of Khaki Risala. All the men who composed it could
ride : many of them were good shots and practised swordsmen ;
and the Europeans at least were aflame with a fierce indignation
against the ruffians who had outraged and massacred their kins-
folk, that would more than make up for the paucity of their
numl^ers. On the first expedition which the corps undertook,
accompanied by two guns and a few dragoons, it burned three
villages, which had been occupied by Gujars, killed several of
these rebels, and took forty prisoners, of whom thirty-four M^ere
promptly hanged. The very next day the collection of the
' Macpherson, pp. 320-3 ; Simlhia's chief thakurs and zamindars were
wrought upon by Dinkar Rao to support him. — Enclosures to Secret Letters from,
India, 8 to 22 Oct, 1857, p. 774.
1857 GWALIOE AND RAJPUTANA 161
reveiiue began. But Dunlop and his comrades did not on that
account relax their exertions. Supported, as occasion required,
by any guns they could procure, and a few policemen, native
Christians, armed musicians, dragoons, and riflemen, they swept
over the districts ; encouraged the friendly portion of the popula-
tion ; rescued terror - stricken baniyas ; burned j^j _g^ ^^
numerous villages ; destroyed hundreds of Gujars ;
slew two formidable chiefs, who, not content with plundering,
had actually raised the standard of insurrection ; and by these
measures taught the astonished natives that there was still some
vitality left in the British Government. ^
All this time the Lieutenant-Governor had to live in the
bitter consciousness that he could achieve nothing
worthy of the high place which he filled. Besides cofvki.°^
all his other trials, he was called upon to endure
cold looks, and to read savagely insulting letters from many
who ought to have supported him.^ Gradually his health be-
came more and more feeble : but, though the doctors told him
that his life would be sacrificed if he did not rest, he continued to
serve his country to the best of his ability. On the 9th of Sep-
tember he died. Only a few days before, conscious that his days
were numbered, he had quoted to his secretary the pathetic words,
"Nee milii jam patriam antiquam spes ulla videndi."^
He was not one of the world's heroes. Yet the most brilliant
achievements recorded in the history of the Indian Mutiny do
not awaken a truer interest than the heroic failure of this man,
who continued, faithful to the end, to face a responsibility which,
as he knew all along, was too great for him. And, so long as
England continues to honour a man who tries to do his duty,
there will be some who will cherish the remembrance of his dying-
words : — " I have not shrunk from bearing the burden which
God has called upon me to sustain ; I have striven to have
always a conscience void of ofTence towards God and man."^
^ Enclosures to Secret Letters from India, 24 Sept. 1857, p. 435 ; Major
Williams's Narrative, pp. 11-12, 14 : Dunlop.
^ Not long before his death, he received from Calcutta a despatch, containing
a reprimand for delay in sending in the administration report of the preceding
year, and an elaborate form, to be filled up and returned, regarding the un-
answered letters for the past six months. "What manner of men," remarked
Thomhill's brother, " must they be in Calcutta, who, at a time like this, when
they ought to be straining every nerve to save the Empire, are thinking only of
unanswered letters ? " — Thornhill, pp. 272-3.
^ Virg. /En., ii. 137. ■* Kaye, vol. iii. pp. 415-6.
M
CHAPTER V
canning's POLICY: EVENTS AT CALCUTTA
It is now necessary to relate the events that had taken place,
during the past few months, at the seat of the
Supreme Government.
For some days after the seizure of Delhi, Canning allowed
himself to be buoyed up by delusive hopes. Men whose infor-
mation and authority he was not strong enough to disregard,
kept assuring him that the worst would soon be over. On the
16th of May Colvin telegi'aphed, "The worst of the storm is
past, and the aspect of affairs is fast brightening ; " and on the
20th he telegraphed again, quoting the words of Commissioner
Greathed, " A very few days will now see an end of this daring
mutiny." ^ But Canning ought not to have allowed these com-
fortable anticipations to put him off his guard. It was high
time for him to arise, and show that he Avas indeed
to^reaiife the Govemor-Gcneral of India. Though, however, he
ttie^crfsis^ sct an example of personal courage and manly
calmness when some of the English residents of
Calcutta were unmanned by the direful news from the North-
West, he yet left on the minds of those who were most anxious
to believe in him, the impression that he Avas not equal to the
occasion. In the face of new announcements of mutiny and
murder, he Avould not believe that the whole army was infected
with the spirit of disaffection, or at least ready to be swayed
into mutiny against its inmost convictions. He did indeed hurry
up the reinforcements, as they arrived in Calcutta, towards the
North- West, and passed an Act on the 6th of June, giving
1 Pari. Papers, vol. xx.x. (1857), pp. 228, 345. On the 25tli Cauiiitig himself
recorded a similar opiniou, p. 19.
1857 EVENTS AT CALCUTTA 163
extraordinary powers to civil and military officers for the
summary trial and punishment of all disturbers of the peace : ^
but he took no steps to provide for the safety of Bengal itself,
or even of the capital. Not only the English, but the Christians
of every class and nation at Calcutta saw the danger. In the
third and fourth weeks of May the Trades' Association, the
Masonic Fraternity, the Armenians, and the French residents,
vying with each other in the loyalty of their addresses, offered
their services for the protection of the city. The Government,
however, refused their offers. Cecil Beadon, the Home Secretary,
replying on the 25th of May to the offer of the French residents,
wrote in a tone of confidence which even the recent telegrams of
Colvin ought not to have encouraged. "Everything," he said,
" is quiet within six hundred miles of the capital. The mischief
caused by a passing and groundless panic has already been
arrested," ^ This letter was very bitterly criticised by many of
the loyal inhabitants of the city. They asserted „ ,
Hg rciGcts tri6
that, if Canning had availed himself of the services offers of the
of the volunteers, an entire regiment could have teers^^and^"^""
been set free to act against mutineers ; and that, if refuses to cUs-
o _' _ ' arm the sepoys
he had promptly disbanded the native regiments at Barrackpore
still remaining at Barrackpore and those at Dinapore, ^^ mapore.
the Europeans who were detained for the unproductive duty of
watching over these disaffected troops could have been spared to
march for the relief of Cawnpore. But Canning did not believe
that the volunteers would be efficient soldiers. In this belief,
as was afterwards proved, he was wrong. Again, he would not
disarm the native regiments at Barrackpore and Dinapore, because
he feared that such a measure would exasperate the sepoys at
other stations where there were no white soldiers to protect the
Christians from their vengeance ; and also because he trusted
the professions of loyalty which several of the regiments in
question were careful to make. The former of these reasons
was plausible, but it was not sound. Canning
. . June 13.
afterwards found himself obliged to consent to the
disarming of the Barrackpore sepoys ; and none of the evils
which he had dreaded followed the measure. On the other
hand, the fact that the sepoys at Dinapore were allowed to
retain theii' arms did actually produce evils, the magnitude of
1 Pari. Papers, vol. xxx. (1857), pp, 408-9, 438-40.
2 lb. pp. 20-3.
164 canning's policy
which it would be difficult to exaggerate. In his willingness to
trust the sepoys' professions of loyalty Canning was not alone.
The commandants of sepoy regiments, almost -without exception,
believed in the fidelity of their men. As they had lived Avith
them for years, interested themselves in their pursuits, received
many tokens of their gratitude, and in some cases the most
touching proofs of disinterested fidelity, shared Avith them the
hardships of many campaigns, led them to many Adctories, and
sustained their drooping spirits under defeat, it was not strange
that only a few officers of rare insight should have discerned
the premonitory sjmiptoms of a mutinous spirit. But that
experienced colonels, who heard by every post that regiments
around them had risen against their officers, and sometimes
added murder to mutiny, should have obstinately clung to the
delusion that their own particular corps would remain faithful,
and often only surrendered their faith when the bullets of their
babalogue^ had lodged in their breasts, is one of the most
extraordinary phenomena in the history of the Indian Mutiny.
If there is one more extraordinary, it is that Canning, Avho was
unbiassed by the associations which had led the officers to repose
confidence in their men, shoidd yet have shared that confidence.
While those who condemned him for refusing to disarm the
sepoys, and rejecting the offers of the volunteers, took no account
of the considerations which influenced him, his advocates, on the
other hand, did not see that the necessity of allowing for those
considerations proved that at best he erred in company with
some respectable statesmen. A well-known historian, who
defended his rejection of the offers of the volunteers by the
argument that, in the hour of danger, nine out of ten of them
would have stayed at home to protect their families and posses-
sions, instead of joining their companies, was forced to admit
that when, later on, it became necessary to accept their offer,
they rendered excellent service to the State.- The same
historian, complaining of the unfairness of condemning Canning's
early policy after the event had proved it wrong, forgot that
there were other statesmen in India who, from the first, adopted
a policy which, as they foresaw would be the case, the event
proved right. Canning argued that it was unnecessaiy to disarm
' Children — a term of cudcarmeut often used by commanding oflicers towards
their sepoys.
- Kaye, vol. ii. p. 125, vol. iii. pp. 12, 42.
1357 EVENTS AT CALCUTTA 165
his regiments, because they had professed themselves loyal.
John Lawrence argued that it was necessary to disarm
his regiments because no sej^oy's profession of loyalty could be
trusted. If it was unfair to blame Canning after the event had
proved him wrong, it was unfair to praise La^vrence after the
event had proved him right. Canning had not yet grasped the
great truth that a handful of Englishmen could only hold millions
of disaffected Asiatics in check by boldly talcing the initiative
against them, and trusting that they would be too terrified to
perceive the absence of a material force sufficient to support
the uncompromising assertion of authority. Many reasonable
excuses have been made for his failure : but history refuses him
the title of a great statesman, because others, who had fewer
resources than he, needed no excuses.
It was from no lack of sympathy with the Christians at
unprotected stations that he did not send them more succoiu's.
He spoke from the depths of his heart when he lamented his
inability to help them. Rightly believing that his duty to the
empire was more urgent than his duty to suffering indiAdduals,
he sent all the troops whom he believed that he could spare to
the rescue of the posts the preservation of which was, in a
political and military sense, most important. If, however, he
had consented in time to the enrolment of the Calcutta volun-
teers and the disarming of the sepoys at Barrackpore and
Dinapore, he would not have had to resist the promptings of
compassion : we might never have heard of the well of
Cawnpore.^
^ I am aware that the Governor-General in Council wrote, " If all the garrison
of Fort William could have been spared, there were no means of sending one more
man to Ca'wupore in time for its relief." — Pcn-I. Papers, vol. xliii. (1857-58), p.
98. But he himself supplied the means of disproving this assertion. On May 24
he telegraphed to Henry Lawrence, "The bullock-train can take 100 men a day
at the rate of 30 miles a day." — lb. vol. xxx. (1857), p. 353. The distance from
Calcutta to Cawnpore is 639 miles. The capitulation of the Cawnpore garrison
did not take place till Juue 26. It is clear then that, if the means of trausi^ort
were forthcoming along the whole line of road, there was ample time to send
troops to their relief. But, it may be iirged, after tlie mutiny at Allahabad on
June 6, it was impossible for some days to collect cattle for the journey of more
than 120 miles from that station to Cawnpore. This objection is plausible ; but
it may easily be answered. To say nothing of the fact that the mutiny of June 6
was due to Canning's want of foresight in not garrisoning Allahabad with
European troops, as Outram advised him to do, he ought to have sent the 84th
up country on the 6th of May instead of on the 20th. Had he done so, the
mutiny at Allahabad, if it had occurred at all, would not have iuterfered with the
passage of the troops. This accumulation of proofs will probably be considered
166 canning's policy
The citizens of Calcutta were not the only friends whose
^ , . . offers of assistance he set at nousht. The kinedom
He Dlavs fast
and loose -with of NepAl was at that time virtually ruled by the
Jang Bahadur, fg^j^^^^g Jang Bahadur, a very unscrupulous but very
sagacious minister, who had visited England eight years before,
and had carried back with him to India a firm faith in the
resources of the British poAver. Though, however, from the
moment when the mutiny broke out, he never doubted that the
English would, in the end, re-establish their supremacy, he was
far too clear-sighted to be deceived by the momentary lull in the
middle of May Avhich deluded the Governor-General. He there-
fore made an offer to Major Ramsay, the Resident
at Khatmandu, to lend a body of Gurkhas to the
British Government. Ramsay took a feAV days to think over
the proposal. It had come to his knowledge that the Governor-
General had authorised Henry Lawrence to avail himself of the
aid of a Gui'kha force, in case it should be offered to him.
Accordingly he decided to take upon himself the
responsibility of accepting the offer, and wrote to
Lawrence and General Lloyd, the commander of
the Dinapore Division, informing them that he was prepared to
send detachments to their aid. On the 15th of June the first
detachment, a thousand strong, marched from Khatmandu. Only
two days later, however, the Resident received an
express from the Foreign Secretary, George Edmon-
stone, ordering him to recall the Gurkhas, if they had not passed
the frontier. Ramsay obeyed. In recrossing the pestilential
belt of jungle which stretched along the base of their hills, they
suffered grievously from sickness : but the -s-acillation of Canning
condemned them to undergo the same trial again ; for hardly
had they reached Khatmandu when he ordered the Resident to
ask Jang Bahadvir for three thousand men to be
sent to the aid of Lawrence. It is true that the
Kufficient. But there is another. On May 26 Henry Lawrence urged l)y
telegraph that ekkas (or native pony-carts) slioukl be collected for the more rapid
transport of the troops. Jb. p. 360. This suggestion was not accepted, apparently
because ekkas were not thought suitable for Europeans. lb. p. 358. But John
Nicholson used them with the best results. [Sir Hugh Wheeler stated on June 18
that a reinforcement of 200 men would suffice to raise the siege (Gubbins's
Mutinies in Ouclh, p. 443), and his opinion was contirmed by trustworthy native
testimony. See Nanakchaud's Diary, p. xvi., and Anmds of the Indian Rebellion,
pp. 678-9.]
1857 EVENTS AT CALCUTTA 167
accounts of these transactions published by Canning's opponents^
were grossly distorted. But the story, told, as it has been here,
in strict accordance with the facts, carries with it a fresh proof
of his deficiency in statesmanship.-
Like Jang Bahadur, the loyal citizens of Calcutta had the
grim satisfaction of being solicited to renew the offers of the
offers of help which, when they were first made, volunteers
had been contemptuously rejected. From the time ^^'^^^
when Secretary Beadon retiu-ned his memorable reply to the
address of the French residents, the English newspapers per-
sistently urged Canning to retract his refusal of the offers of the
volunteers. But he remained immoveable until John Grant,
pointing out, with unofficial directness of language, the dangers
to which the capital was exposed from the Mahomedan popula-
tion, the budmashes, the armed retainers of the King of Oudli,
the disaffected native regiments within its precincts or at neigh-
bouring stations, the weakness of the loyal troops, and the un-
trustworthiness of the native police, and declaring his conviction
that the effects of even a street-riot at the capital would be felt
not only throughout Bengal, but to the very extremities of India,
at length overcame his objections.^ Accordingly, while he pro-
tested that his opinion as to the Avorthlessness of the volunteers
was unshaken, he consented to sanction their enrol-
ment. If they had l^een hurt by his rejection of their
original offer, many of them rose above the littleness of resenting
his want of confidence by want of loyalty. Sacrificing all private
considerations to the good of the State, heedless of scorching
suns and drenching rains, they voluntarily submitted to the
laboiu" of drill and discipline, and formed themselves under the
able guidance of Orfeur Cavenagh, the Town-Major, into a power-
ful brigade ; and, as they ultimately earned the hearty com-
mendation of Sir Colin Campbell, they could afford to forgive
the scepticism of Canning.
Though it had been given with an ill grace, the Governor-
General's consent to the formation of the volunteer corps might
have established a more cordial feeling between himself and the
European residents of Calcutta if he had not, on the very next
^ e.g. Mead, who was, in 1857, editor of the Friend of India.
^ Life of Sir H. Lmvrence, p. 575 ; Enclosures to Secret Letters from India.
July 4, 1857, pp. 5, 15, 17, 29, 33 ; 24 Nov. 1857, pp. 704, 706-8 ; Mead, pp.
6-7 ; Sir W. Hunter's Life of Brian Houghton Hodgson, pp. 255-6.
^ Kayc, vol. iii. p. 10, note.
168 CANNING'S POLICY
day, passed another measui'e which was sui'e to provoke a fresh
outburst of ill-will against him. He had for some
Act.^*°^'°^ time observed with uneasiness a growing inclination
on the part of the native journals to advocate the
cause of the mutineers. The English journalists were giving
him even more uneasiness in another way. From the very outset
of the Mutiny they had, with a keener discernment than the
Government, advocated a policy of vigorous repression : but they
had fallen into the habit of publishing unguarded statements
which, it was feared, might give a perilous advantage to the
disaffected ; and, though they had at first striven to give Canning
credit for the power of dealing with the crisis, they had through-
out uncompromisingly denounced his advisers, to whose influence
they ascribed the feebleness of his policy.^ It was natural that
members of Council should resent this treatment. They had
not learned, like English statesmen at home, to bear the most
stinging invectives with equanimity : they had often before
smarted under the blows of the Press ; and perhaps they now
saw in the recklessness of its comments on the political situation
a pretext for silencing its attacks upon themselves. They found
Canning ready to listen to their arguments, although, only a few
days before, he had refused to put the native editors under re-
straint, on the plea that the remedy would be worse than the
disease. On the 13th of June he went down to the Council
Chamber, and there, in a sitting of forty minutes,'^ proposed and
carried an Act requiring every printer to obtain a license from
Government, and empowering the executive to suppress any
publication, without warning, whenever it might see fit.^ Never,
since the days when Prynue had his nose slit and his ears ciit
off for publishing the Histriomastix, had any act of an English
statesman been i-eceived with a greater burst of indignation than
that which greeted the announcement of this measure. Con-
temporary writers did indeed exaggerate the extent of the feel-
ing, for the general opinion of the lawyers of Calcutta supported
the Governor-General : but its depth was revealed unmistakeably
by the furious invectives which journalists and pamphleteers of
every profession heaped upon the Act. What specially exasper-
1 Friend of India, May 21, 28, June 4, 1857, pp. 482, 506, 531 ; Galmtta
EmjlishinoM, Feb. 21, April 1, May 16, 18, 19, 25, June 5.
'^ Red Pamphlet, p. 103.
^ Pari. Pa;pers, vol. xxi.\. (1857), pp. 164-5.
1857 EVENTS AT CALCUTTA 169
ated tliem was that they, the representatives of the free and
enhghtened Press of England, should be put on a level with
treasonable native scribblers. They refused to believe that the
Government was sincere in its denunciations of the mischief
which their recklessness had produced. They did not hesitate
to say that Canning and his advisers, conscious that they had
committed great errors of policy, were resolved to prevent
information of those errors from being transmitted to Eng-
land.^
The Gagging Act, as this measure was petulantly called, may
be criticised from two points of view. As a matter of policy,
the worst that can be said of it is that it was unnecessary. It
is true that Henry Lawrence, who knew the natives well, told
Canning that the disloyal native press was less dangerous than
the loyal but headstrong English journalists : but it is not likely
that, if the latter had been left unfettered, their leading articles
and sensational paragraphs would have seriously increased such
disaffection as prevailed.^ Such a danger, supposing it to have
existed, might have been averted if the Governor-General, while
thanking the Press for their zealous co-operation, had given them
a friendly warning against using their power indiscreetly. On
the other hand, it would be absurd to contend that the unpopu-
larity which the Act brought upon the Government weakened in
the slightest degree the hands of any one Avho was concerned in
the suppression of the Mutiny.
Again, it would not be true to say that the Act was a blunder
simply because it aroused the indignation of the Press. The
evil was more deeply seated. If Canning's previous measures
had been such as to inspire the Press with confidence, if he had
shown a hearty sympathy with the loyal inhabitants of the city,
a readiness to work with as well as for them, he might have
passed the Act with comparative impunity. If Wellesley had
1>een Governor-General at the time of the Mutiny, he would not
have thought twice about gagging the Press if he had believed
that it was doing harm ; and the Press would have submitted to
his will Avithout a muimur. But Wellesley knew the secret of
ruling men's hearts.
^ Friend of India, June 18, 1857, pp. 579-80, 583 ; Overland Bombay Times,
1857, p. 235 ; Jinglishman, June 15, 24, 30 ; Mead, Red Pamphlet, etc.
2 See Mead, pp. 187-98 ; Pad. Pa-pers, vol. xxix. (1857), pp. 159-76 ; Life of
air H. Laiorencc, p. 566, and Enclosures to Secret Letters from India, July 4,
1857, p. 487.
170 canning's policy chap, v
It has been pointed out that one of Canning's reasons for
refusing to disarm the sepoys at Barrackpore and Dinapore had
been his trust in the professions of loyalty which they had been
careful to make. On the 8th of June Hearsey had forwarded
to Calcutta a petition, expressing the wish of the 43rd and 70th
regiments to be allowed to use the Enfield rifie.^ It may be
imagined then with what amazement and disappointment Can-
ning read on the 13th a letter from Hearsey, informing him that
the Barrackpore regiments intended to rise that very night, and
urging that they should be instantly disarmed. He consented
sadly. For he still clung to the belief that to disarm was un-
necessary ; and his consent looked like an admission that when,
in his generous eagerness to catch at any sign of repentance and
good feeling on the part of the native army, he had thanked the
Barrackpore sepoys for their address, he had shown
Barrackpore, a dangerous credulity.'' On the 14th, Hearsey
Diim^Dum"'^ telegraphed that the disarming had been success-
fully performed.^ At the same time the detach-
ments at the Presidency and at Dum-Dum were deprived of
their power to do mischief.
That day had been a memorable one in the annals of the
Mutiny. A rumour of the intentions of the Bar-
rackpore sepoys had reached Calcutta ; and many
believed that they designed, when they should have murdered
their own officers, to march down upon the capital, and, rein-
forced by the armed retainers of the King of Oudh, to finish
their bloody work by the slaughter of the Christian population.
The merchants and traders of Calcutta closed their ears against
these rumours, and set an example of steadfast courage. But
their example Avas not generally followed. Members of Council
and Government secretaries, Avho, so long as their own persons
were safe, had scoff'ed at the idea of rebellion, and censured brave
officers for alloA\ang their men to mutiny, l^arricaded their doors,
or abandoned their homes in terror, to take refuge on board the
ships in the river.* Inferior oflicials, scampering wildly across
^ Pari. Papers, vol. xxx. (1857), p. 468, inc. 86.
^ Colonel Ramsay tells us that, when the 70th volunteered, "Lord Canning
was much pleased, and said it was the first ray of sunshine he had felt." — Recol-
lections of Military Service and Society, vol. i. p. 242.
3 Pari. Papers, vol. xxx. (1857), p. 481, inc. 113.
•* Kaye (vol. iii. p. 34) refuses to accept the charges of cowardice made against
high ofBcials by contemporary ^vriters as proved ; but Malleson, on whose
1857 EVENTS AT CALCUTTA 171
the plain fi'om Chowringhee to the Fort, besieged the command-
ant with demands for admittance. Eurasians rushed out of their
houses in the suburbs to seek refuge from an imaginary foe.
The streets were thronged with the carriages and palanquins of
the fugitives, while their deserted homes lay at the mercy of the
budmashes ; but no thieves came to disturb the silence of the
forsaken houses ; for the natives themselves, not less terrified
than the Europeans, lay cowering in their dwellings, expecting
every moment to be searched out and cut down by the white
soldiers of whose coming they had heard. Thus passed the
morning and afternoon of Panic Sunday : but towards evening
the terror began to subside : the fugitives sneaked back to their
houses : the night set in and passed off quietly ; and in the
morning the city once more wore its accustomed aspect.
Before the close of Monday, however, another memor-
able event occurred. The Barrackpore sepoys, j
whose designs had excited such dread, had indeed Arrest of tiie
been disarmed ; but it was still probable that the "^ °
King of Oudh's men would work mischief. The Government
had in their hands proofs that some of the King's dependents
had tried to corrupt the fidelity of the native sentries at the
Fort ; and it was impossible to say that their machinations had
not spread much further. Canning, therefore, acting on Grant's
advice, sent Edmonstone to secure the person of the King and
his chief advisers. Starting on his mission in the early morn-
ing, Edmonstone entered the palace after posting a strong
detachment of soldiers round the walls, to cut off the King's
escape. When he had arrested the Prime Minister and the
chief courtiers, he sought for admittance to the presence of the
King himself. After some delay he was ushered into the royal
apartments, and courteously informed the King that the
Governor-Genei-al, having heard that plots were being carried
on in his name, desired to remove him, by way of precaution,
to Government House. The King, protesting his innocence
with unwonted energy of manner, suffered himself to be led off.
For a while he bore himself firmly ; but on the way to Fort
William he burst into tears, and, contrasting the misery of his
authority I have made the statement in the text {Red PavqMct, p. 105), says
that " he was prepared then, as he i.s now prepared, to name, had he been called
upon, the individuals to whom he referred." — Mist, of the Indian Mutiny, vol. i.
p. 24.
172 CANNING'S POLICY
own lot with the glory of his ancestors, exclaimed that, if
General Outram had been there, he would have borne witness
to the submission with which he had obeyed the British Govern-
ment. Edmonstone, however, could only carry out his orders ;
and the King and the ministers who had made him their tool
were handed over to the custody of Colonel Cavenagh. Thus
deprived of their leaders, the Oudh plotters were rendered
powerless.^
Two days later Sir Patrick Grant, the Commander-in-Chief
J ^ ^ at Madras, came to Calcutta, to assume temporary
Sir Patrick command of the Bengal army. His career had
been one of smooth and unbroken success ; but,
though he had proved himself a cool-headed soldier in the
bloody combats with the Sikhs, Charles Napier had said of him
that he was only fit to command a division. ^ He was now
called upon to command an army, and to suppress a rebellion.
But he declined the honour which was thrust upon him. If he
had believed that he was not the fittest man that could be found
to command the army in the field, and had on that account
resolved to remain in Calcutta, his resolve would have been
worthy of all honour. But there is no evidence to show that
he thought so humbly of his own powers. No doubt he acted
up to his lights : but the reasons which he gave for his action
Avere unsound, if not frivolous. While Delhi was still in the
hands of triumphant mutineers, while from a hundred stations
his countrywomen were uttering a despairing cry for help, he
declared that he could best serve his country by taking up his
abode in Government House, and there directing on paper the
movements of the troops whose glory he refused to share. He
would not take the field in person, he said, because, as Com-
mander-in-Chief, he would require a numerous staff and exten-
sive office establishment, with an entire regiment to escort them,
an entire regiment of those British soldiers, of whom the whole
force then in India, by the expenditure of all their energies,
could not yet hold revolt in check. Above all, he had a great
work to perform, to which even the suppression of the Mutiny
must be postponed. Others might have ability enough for
crushing the rebellion of the native army : he had to meditate
^ Rc(l Pamphlet, pp. 106-7.
^ Life of Sir O. Napier, vol, iv. p, 282.
1857 EVENTS AT CALCUTTA 173
on its reorganisation and regeneration. ^ But, in declining to
take the field, he performed a service which his countrymen
appreciated more than his designs for the direction of the
campaign or the reorganisation of the army. For the officer
whom he selected to act against the rebels and mutineers was
Brigadier-General Henry Havelock.
On the day after Grant's arrival, it was reported in Calcutta
that Delhi had fallen : but the joy which this
Til T J"ii^ 18,
announcement created was succeeded by disap- Gloomy
• , , 1 i.! J.- ■ £ J.- announcements.
pointment when authentic information was re-
ceived that only the cantonments on the Ridge had fallen into
Barnard's hands. A succession of gloomy messages, only varied
by the occasional announcement of an isolated success, poured in
upon the Governor-General ; and early in July he heard the
first rumours of an awful tragedy at Cawnpore. But with all
these troubles coming upon him, and a load of personal odium
to oppress him, he bated not a jot of heart or hope. While
waiting for the coming of the China regiments, he had been
labouring to supply the lack of military material Avhich had
been so apparent when the first attempts at retrieval had been
made, sending to Madras for supplies of clothing and camp
equipage, collecting horses for the cavalry and artillery, and
preparing the means of carriage for the sick and wounded.^
Yet he had to suffer the bitter punishment of the ruler, who,
having once lost the confidence of his people, finds
that even his good measures are ignored or con- or^er!^™^"^^
demned. The news of the sufferings of their
countrymen had excited in the hearts of the Europeans at
Calcutta a savage desire for indiscriminate revenge. Canning
was determined not to listen to their clamours. Among his
many noble qualities were a calm love of justice, a scrupulous
respect for the rights of others, which were only misunderstood
by his contemporaries because they were not balanced by
decisiveness. On the 31st of July he passed a Resolution pro-
viding that no native soldier belonging to a regiment that had
not mutinied, should be punished, unless he were taken with
arms in his hands, but should simply be handed over to the
military authorities, or imprisoned until the orders of Govern-
^ Pari. Papers, vol. xxx. (1857), p. 528 ; see also Malleson, vol. i. pp.
29-32.
^ Pari. Pa.2Jers, vol. xxx. (1S57), pp. 527-8.
174 canning's policy
ment respecting him should be declared ; that mutineers or
deserters belonging to regiments that had mutinied, but had not
murdered theii' officers, should, when taken without arms in
their hands, be dealt with by the military authorities ; and
lastly, that mutineers or deserters belonging to regiments that
had committed any outrage on Europeans, should be judged by
the civil power, but not punished until the Government had
decided upon any extenuating circumstances connected with
their offences.^ Though the Kesolution offered no mercy to
those who did not deserve it, though Canning had insisted as
sternly as any one on the duty of inflicting condign punishment
on the murderers of Europeans, the public would listen to no
defence of the measure ; for in their eyes Canning could do
nothing right. Nor was the distrust in his statesmanship con-
fined to India. Even in England the press and the public alike
condemned the Resolution, and nicknamed its author " Clemency
Canning. "
Another bill, drafted at the same time as the Clemency
Resolution, but not finally sanctioned until the
■ 11 th of September, intensified the popular indigna-
tion. Struck by the danger of allowing the vast mixed popula-
tion of the capital to go about armed at such a time, the
Governor-General resolved to take away from them the right of
carrying arms without a license.^ Here, muttered the British
residents, was the blunder of the Gagging Act repeated in
another form. They refused to listen to the argument that the
necessary license would not be refused to them if they asked
for it ; for their hatred of the Government was now too firmly
fixed to be shaken by any argument.
Not less unpopular than this Act was the refusal of the
Governor-General to agree to a memorial signed by a number
of influential residents of Calcutta, praying for the establish-
ment of martial law throughout Bensral.^ The
Canning re- clamours which his refusal stiiTcd up were not the
cstabHsh ^^^^ ^^ud bccause he justified it by the argument
pa^iaHaw that ample powers had already been granted to the
executive authorities for the punishment of offenders,
and that, even if it were desirable to establish martial law, it
would be impossible to spare the European troops whom tha
1 Pari. Papers, vol. xliv. (1857-58), Part 1, pp. 8-10.
2 lb. Part 3, pp. 544-8. » lb. Part 1, pp. 7, 8.
1857 EVENTS AT CALCUTTA 175
memorialists desired for its enforcement. So bitterly indeed
did the European community hate him that, before the close of
the year, they actually petitioned the Queen for his recall.^
But, in the midst of his troubles, he was not altogether
without consolation. On the 1st of August Outram
appeared in Calcutta, fresh from his Persian outram°Peei,
triumphs, and ready to render the State any cam^beii"^™
service in his power. A few days later another ^ug. s.
officer arrived, who was destined to win a lasting
fame in the suppression of the revolt, Captain William Peel,
with his Naval Brigade. On the 13th of August Sir Colin
Campbell, with his Crimean honours thick upon him, came and
took up the office of Commander-in-Chief, with the warm
approval of the army, who knew him as " the war-bred Sir
Colin," Charles Napier's lieutenant and friend. Moreover, re-
inforcements were now fast flowing in ; and, as the transports
steamed up the river, the people on the course stood up in
their carriages, and, taking off their hats, cheered and cheered
again the soldiers who were coming to save them.-
Nearly a year and a half of Canning's administration had
passed away ; and in the last six months of that period he had
had such an opportunity of winning distinction as Review of the
had fallen to the lot of no other Indian statesman, first year and
He had indeed been severely tried ; but, if he had canning's
endured the trial, his glory would have been pro- administration,
portionately dazzling. But he had made it evident to all
men that he was not strong enough for the work that he
had to do. No ruler could indeed have shown a more calm and
dignified courage, a more conscientious devotion to the State.
When, five years afterwards, he lay upon his death-bed, worn
out in his prime by the incessant labour and the galling anxieties
of this baleful summer, he might have told himself, if his
humility had not been equal to his self-sacrifice, that he was
dying for his country as honourably as the bravest soldier who
had perished on the field of battle. But these qualities were
not sufficient to make a Governor-General of India. Nor is it
possible to draw a strict line of demarcation between the moral
qualities of a statesman and the qualities that constitute fitness
for rule. None can tell how far Canning's indecision, his morbid
1 Pari. Papers, vol. xliii. (1857-58), pp. 94-103.
- Mead, p. 85.
176 CANNING'S POLICY chap, v
scrupulousness, his excessive deference to the opinions of his
advisers were congenital qualities, how far they were due to
failures of his own in building up his character in earlier years.
Men judge each other by results ; and, if the method is a rough
one, it generally leads to as correct a conclusion as a more subtle
analysis. The English at Calcutta judged Canning hardly ;
but they erred less in the direction in Avhich they drew their
conclusions than in the extent to which they pushed them. At
bottom, it is not true that what roused their anger against him
was his clemency : fear and wounded pride had made many of
them savage, but not dead to the feelings of humanity. If a
Hastings or a Wellesley had i-uled them in those days, he
would have forced them to realise the dignity of mercy : for he
would have made it very clear to them that he could afford to
be merciful because he was strong. Those who justified Can-
ning on the ground that he was biassed by the erroneous advice
of his counsellors, forgot that they were thus denying his title
to the chief glory of the statesman, the power of penetrating
through the mists of prejudice and error which siu-round him.
When the storm biu-st upon his vessel, he never left the helm,
though the seas dashed over him : but, when his crew saw that
he gave the \\Tong words of command, and that he had no firm
hold upon the wheel, the ablest of his lieutenants pressed
forward to support his feeble grasp, and made their voices
heard above liis.
CHAPTER VI
BENGAL AND WESTERN BEHAR
While Canning had been laboiuing on, and striving to bear
up against the news of calamity in Uppei' India ..^
and the undisguised hatred and contempt of the Macdonaw
English inhabitants of Calcutta, events had oc- ^ ° ^^'
curred in Bengal itself which pronounced a pitiless condemna-
tion on his policy. On the evening of the 12th of June, Major
Macdonald, who commanded the 5th Irregular Cavalry at
Rohni, and, like his comrades at other stations, had never
doubted the loyalty of his men, was surprised, with two of his
brother officers, by three troopers, and cruelly wounded. At
first he would not believe that the traitors belonged to his own
regiment ; but, when a few days afterwards he discovered his
mistake, he arrested them ; had them tried ; assumed the re-
sponsibility of carrying out their sentence Avithout orders from
Government ; came out, though still suffering acutely from his
wound, to superintend their execution himself in presence of
the whole regiment ; silenced a cry for rescue which one of
them made to his comrades, by threatening to blow out his
brains ; and, standing his ground alone till all three were
swinging lifeless from the gallows, proved by his splendid de-
cision that the unaided moral force of a single Englishman
could subdue the brute strength of a thousand mutineers.^
The presence, however, of an able officer at an isolated station
was not enough to secure the safety of the vast Presidency of
Bengal. The danger to which that Presidency was exposed
was very diff"erently estimated by the two civilians
upon whom lay the chief burden of providing for jayien '^ '^^'^
its security. These were Frederick Halliday, the
Lieutenant-Grovernor of Bengal, and one of his local represen-
^ Pari. Papers, vol, xxx. (1857), pp. 519. 521.
N
178 BENGAL AND WESTERN BEHAR chap, vi
tatives, William Tayler, the Commissioner of Patna.^ The
former, who had already gained a strong influence over Can-
ning, was a hard-working administrator and a very able man of
business. But, though his outward appearance impressed many
with the idea that he was a born leader of men, he was not
universally respected even by the members of his own order.
Some of them complained that he had treated them with
Oriental duplicity ; and Dalhousie's private secretary had
openly accused him of falsehood without eliciting any repudia-
tion of the charge.^ No doubt he had his good points : but
the part which he played in the suppression of the Mutiny was
too insignificant to make it worth Avhile to attempt any elaborate
analysis of his character.
William Tayler was a man of culture, keen sense of humour,
and wide sympathies. His spirits were marvellously buoyant
and elastic for his years ; and withal he was by nature so com-
bative that he could not always bring himself to work submis-
sively under a superior whom he could not respect. This
temper, however, though it was injurious to his prospects of
official success, did not weaken his efficiency as a public officer.
Deploring the want of sympathy which prevented the average
English official, in spite of the conscientious industry with
which he fulfilled his duties, from becoming familiar \vath the
habits of thought of the natives and their real feelings towards
British rule, he had not contented himself with working for the
material prosperity of his people, but had tried, like Henry
Lawrence, to reach their hearts as well. But the tenderness
which moved him to make allowance for their weaknesses, was
balanced by a stern resolution which would never allow them
to dispute his supremacy. He was not a man of iron, however,
but a man of tempered steel. The sympathy and the kindli-
^ The authorities that I have consulted for my account of Tayler's administra-
tion are Pari. Papers, vol. xliv. (1857-58), Parts 1 and 2 ; Tayler's Memorial
presented to the Duke of Argyll, Th. vol. Iv. (1878-79) ; Halliday's Minute
presented to Parliament in 1879, lb. ; Tayler's Reply to Halliday's Minute, Ih.
vol. lii. (1880) ; Papers connected icith tlie Removal of Mr. W. Tayler from the
G&mmissionership of Patna ; Calcutta Englishman ; Papers regarding ilie Patiia
Industrial Institution ; Tayler's Patna Crisis ; Dr. Duff's Letters to Dr. Tweedie
on tlve Indian Rebellion ; and the following pamphlets by Tayler, — The Injustice
of 1857, Veritas Victrix, Fact v. Falsehood, What is Truth ? Further Disclosures,
A Narrative of Events comiccted with ')ny Removal from the Patna Commissioner-
ship, etc.
- Mr. Halliday and Mr. Courtenay (Copies of eorrespondenee ]inblished in
the Calcutta Englishman).
1857 BENGAL AND WESTERN BEHAR 179
ness of his nature were allied with a keen sensitiveness. He
felt that the duty which l^y befoi-e him was a grave one, that
his responsibility was appalling.
The districts under his charge contained about twenty-four
thousand square miles, and a population of more
than ten millions. These numbers, however, give ^tuaUon^of
only a faint idea of the stake which depended tiiePatna
, , Division.
upon his power of dealing with the crisis. Great
mercantile interests were in his keeping ; for within his Divi-
sion lay many of the estates of the wealthy indigo-planters of
Bengal; and at Patna itself a well -stored opium godown
tempted the avarice of the enemies of order. Still more impor-
tant and no less exposed to danger were the political interests
over Avhich he had to watch ; for the city of Patna, with its
hundred and fifty thousand ^ inhabitants, was a hot-bed of
Mahomedan intrigue ; and the memory of a great conspiracy
which had been discovered some ten years before, remained to
warn the English that they were surrounded by a population
among whom there were many restless spirits, secretly longing
to overthrow their power, and re-establish a Mahomedan
dynasty. When the first symptoms of revolt appeared, there
was hardly a man in Behar who did not look to Patna as the
head-centre of disloyalty.^
To meet these appalling dangers, Tayler had few resources
but the strength of his own character. At the outlying station
of Segauli, indeed, was quartered the 12th Irregular
Cavalry, under Major James Holmes, an ofilcer ^^Tayier
upon whom he knew that he could depend for
enthusiastic support. But he had not a single European soldier
in Patna itself ; he could not rely confidently upon his native
police ; and the British soldiers at Dinapore, condemned by the
Government to the unprofitable task of watching the sepoy
regiments, could give him no help. To crown all, he knew that
he would have neither encouragement nor support from the
^ In the Patna Crisis, p. 21, it is stated that the population "is estimated
at 400,000." According to the census of 1872 the number was oul}' 158,900.
Hunter's Imperial Gazetteer of India, vol. vii. pp. 330-1. The population of the
Patna Division in 1881 was 15,063,944 ; according to the census of 1872, the
estimate of which was rather too low, 13,120,817. Jb. 2ud ed., vol. xi. p. 91.
2 Patna Crisis, pp. 21-2, 24 ; Dr. Duft's Letters, p. 10 ; Letters in What
is Truth? and Fact v. Falsehood. Pari. Papers, vol. xliv. (1857-58), Part 1,
pp. 5G2-3 ; Part 2, p. 92.
180 BENGAL AND WESTERN BEHAR
Lieutenant-Governor. A dispute had lately arisen between
them on a question of educational reform. The general opinion
was that Tayler had been in the right, and that the Lieutenant-
Governor had treated him badly. Moreover, it was notorious
at Calcutta that the Lieutenant-Governor, fearing perhaps lest
unpleasant revelations might be made, if Tayler were suffered to
continue the controversy, had resolved to put an end to it by seiz-
ing the first plausible pretext for transferring him to another post.-^
^^^len, therefore, the news of the mutiny at Meerut revealed
to Tayler the extent of the danger which threatened him, he
knew that he would have to meet it alone. And he did meet
May^o ^^- Spiurning the timid suggestions of the judge,
His early who tried to persuadc him that it was best to flee
from Patna, he at once proceeded to make arrange-
ments for protecting the lives of the people under his charge,
and securing the Government property.- Before going on to
see how he succeeded, the reader must pause for a moment, and
survey the city of Patna.
Patna is situated on the right bank of the Ganges, three
hundred and eighty miles north-west of Calcutta,
and ten miles east of Dinapore. It was a busy and
thriving centre of commerce, but possessed none of those archi-
tectural glories which lent such interest to the chief cities of the
North -Western provinces. One street, rimning the whole
length of the city from the eastern to the western gate, was
tolerably wide ; but the others were merely narrow, crooked,
filthy alleys, lined wdth mean houses, most of which were built
of mud. Viewed from the river, however, the cit}^ had a more
attractive appearance. The houses of the wealthier citizens,
with their flat roofs and carved balustrades, lined the bank, and,
with scattered trees, turrets and spires, and old gateways of
dark red stone, were mirrored in the water. Emerging from
the western gate, the traveller found himself approaching the
European houses, which were scattered along the banks of the
river. The Commissioner's house stood by itself in spacious
grounds close to the south-western corner of the race-course,
which lay south of the line of houses on the right bank.^
1 See App. E.
^ Correspondence connected imth the Removed of Mr. W. Tayler frmn tlw
Qommissionership of Patna, pp. 5, 6, 33-5.
* Roberts's Scenes and Characteristics if Illmlostan, vol. i. p. 171 ; Hunter's
Imperial Gazetteer, vol. vii. pp. 325, 33'2 ; Patna Crisis, pp. 19-20.
1857 BENGAL AND WESTERN BEHAR 181
On the evening of the 7th of June, while driving on the
race-course, Tayler was informed that the Dinapore
regiments were expected to rise that night. He at ^ pJtna?^ "^'^'^
once drove to the nearest European houses, warned
the inmates, and offered them the shelter of his house, sending
messengers at the same time to warn those of the Europeans
who lived farther off. In less than an hour all except a few
who had found a refuge elsewhere came hurrying up to avail
themselves of his offer. Soon afterwards, while he was busy
making arrangements for their accommodation, he was called
out of doors. It appeared that one of the native police had
just shown his commanding officer two letters, which he had
received from the Dinapore sepoys, announcing that they were
going to rise at once, and wished the police to seize the treasury
at Patna, and then march out to meet them. The officer handed
the letters to Tayler. Tayler saw at a glance that, however
loyal the individual policeman might be, the letters proved the
existence of a previous understanding between the force generally
and the sepoys. But he had absolutely no instruments for the
preservation of order, except these very police and a few of
Holmes's Irregulars. In this extremity his heart did not fail
him. All night long, weighed down but not crushed by the
biu-den of his anxieties, he kept watch over the safety of his
guests, while his wife ministered to their comfort, and a body of
the suspected police and some of the irregulars mounted guard
outside. In the morning, however, instead of the
expected mutineers, who had postponed their rising,^
there arrived a reinforcement of Sikhs, under an officer named
Rattray, whom Tayler had lately summoned to his assistance.
Then the fugitives returned, with lightened hearts, to their
homes ; but they knew that, so long as the crisis lasted, the
shelter of the Commissioner's house would he open to them.-
While, however, the arrival of the Sikhs removed Tayler's
immediate anxiety, it added another. For Rattray ^^vjij-g j^j ^^e
reported that his men had been constantly insulted <iistricts.
^ Fortunately the letters had been ignorantly delivered to a man for whom
they had not been intended ; and the sepoys who had brought them from Dina-
pore, on discovering the mistake which they had made, hurried away with all
speed from the station. To this mistake was probably due the postponement of
the rising. — MS. Correspondence.
^ Patna Crisis, pp. 27-31 ; Corrcs2)ondcnce connected with the Removal of
Mr. W. Tayler from the Commissionershi2) of Patna, p. 6.
182 BENGAL AND WESTERN BEHAR
on their march by the population. ]\Iost of the zamindars
indeed were believed to be well disposed : but the magistrates
generally expressed a conviction that the Mahomedan portion
of tlie population was thoroughly disaffected, and that, if any
disturbance occurred at Patna, the infection would probably
spread throughout the province. Moreover the fear that pre-
vailed at Patna natux'ally communicated itself to the surround-
ing districts. Everyone laboured under a vague but oppressive
sense of danger. Some of the Europeans so far yielded to their
fears as to desert their posts : but Tayler vehemently exhorted
them to return. On the day following the alarm
June S .
at Patna, he had sent Halliday a full report of the
dangers which threatened that city. The reply which he re-
ceived a few days later Avas in itself enough to stamp the
Lieutenant-Governor as unfit for his post. For, in the face of
the evidence which Tayler's letter contained, he Avrote that " he
could not satisfy himself that Patna was in any
June 13. danger," and that "the mutiny of the Dinapore
Halhday will » ' . • t i >> -r. m i > • •
not believe sepoy s was mconceivable. JBut i ayler s opinions
that Patna is j. ^ i i i i j.-l j.j. r i •
in danger. Were uot to be shaken by the utterances oi his
chief, notwithstanding the air of infallibility with
which they were delivered. He knew precisely the extent of
the danger and the conditions upon which it depended. He
believed that he could hold Patna in check so long as the
Dinapore sepoys remained quiet ; but he knew that the sejjoys
Avould mutiny unless they were disarmed. He
i^rges Genera" therefore strongly urged General Lloyd to disarm
Lloyd to dis- them. Lloyd replied that he could keep them
down without disarming them. Tayler, whose in-
sight detected tlie timidity which lay behind this assumed air of
confidence, could now only do his best to avert the probable
results of Lloyd's v/eakness. And he saw that the only possi-
bility of doing this lay in resolutely repressing the Mahomedans
of Patna, and in preventing all communication between them
and the Dinapore sepoys.^
To effect the former of these objects, he devised an exjjedient
of which Warren Hastings might have felt proud
foT^ttie^p™^'^ to be the author. The most dangerous inhabitants
servation of ^f Patna Were the Wahabis, the Puritans of Islam,
order. ...
whose close organisation, widely extended com-
1 Patna Crisis, pp. 35-7, 42-4 ; Pari. Papers, vol. xliv. (1857-58), Part 1,
1857 BENGAL AND WESTERN BEHAR 183
munications, and Jesuit- like submission to their rulers gave
them a formidable power. Tayler knew that, if he could secure
the persons of the three Moulvis who directed the Patna branch
of the sect, he would obtain a certain pledge for the good
behaviour of their disciples ; for no Wahabi would venture to
commit any act that could endanger the safety of his venerated
leaders. 1 He therefore determined to arrest the Moulvis ; but,
as he knew that Halliday had long ago resolved to believe that
the Wahabis were mere harmless enthusiasts, in spite of the
clearest proofs of their disloyalty, he did not inform him of his
design. This was one of the very few occasions on which he
did not send his chief full reports of his circumstances and of
his intentions ; ^ and, if he had not made these exceptions to his
rule, if he had shrunk from acting on his own responsibility, he
would not have been allowed to save Patna. Reflecting that
any attempt to effect the arrests by ordinary means would only
cause a riot and perhaps loss of life, he felt obliged to resort to
stratagem. Accordingly, on the 18th of June, he invited the
Moulvis and a few of the most respectable native citizens to his
house to discuss the political situation. Next
morning all were assembled in his dining-room,^
and took their seats round the table. Presently the Commis-
sioner, accompanied by Rattray, a few other Englishmen, and a
native officer, entered the room. Two of the Moulvis looked
very uncomfortable when Rattray, with his SAVord clanking, sat
pp. 5, 6, pars. 6-10 ; Part 2, p. 102 ; Corresjjondence connected vnth the Removal
of Mr. W. Tayler from the Commissionership of Patna, p. 2, pars. 6-8, p. 10.
^ Patna Crisis, pp. 45-7, 51. "The dangers," wrote General Le G. Jacob to
Tayler, "that you so admirably nipped in the Ijud were not confined to your
quarter of the world . . . they were part of a network of conspiracy, spread over
the length and breadth of India." Colonel Colin Mackenzie wrote : " When you
laid bare the conspiracy of the Wahabees, the ramifications of which extended
throughout nearly all India, and when you arrested their chiefs, you cut the tap
root of that upas tree." — Selection of Letters from distinguished Indian States-
men. See also Punjab Midiny Report, p. 61, par. 40, which proves that a
treasonable correspondence went on between the Mahomedans of Patna and
those of Peshawar.
" Proof of this will be found in Pari. Pa.pers, vol. xliv. Part 2, in Mr. Tayler's
pamphlet Further Disclosures, in the copy of his Memorial to the Secretary of
State for India, pp. 25-9, and in his reply to Halliday's Minute, pp. 48-9, 66-8.
The other measures which Tayler carried out without informing the Government
beforehand — though he reported them fully after their accomplishment — were
those recorded in the next paragraph.
■* It ought to be mentioned that the dining-room was used at the time as an
otfice.
184 BENGAL AND WESTERN BEHAR chap, vi
down beside them : but their leader, Moulvi Ahmad Ulla, soon
began to take part in the conversation, and made some sensible
suggestions for the defence of the city. At length the confer-
ence was over ; and all the native guests, except the Moulvis,
were told that they might go. Turning to the Moulvis, Tayler
informed them that he was obliged to detain them as hostages
for the good behaviour of their followers, and handed them over
to the custody of Rattray. " Great is your Excellency's kind-
ness," said Ahmad Ulla, joining his palms, "great your wisdom :
what you order is the best for your slaves ; so shall our enemies
be unable to bring false charges against us." "What is pleasing
to you," smilingly replied Tayler, "is agreeable to me." Just
as the three were about to be led away, he said significantly to
Ahmad Ulla, " Remember, I have not arrested your father ; but
his life is in your hands, yours in his." The Moulvi looked as
if he understood the hint.^
Now that he had checkmated his most formidable enemies,
Tayler felt that he was master of the situation,
Next day he followed up his victory by the arrest
of the patrolling darogah," who, he knew, would use his power
to prevent investigation of the designs of the disaffected if, as
seemed probable, he was himself a sharer in them.
Finally, he required the citizens to surrender their
arms, and to remain indoors after nine o'clock at night.^ The
obedience that was paid to these orders was a striking illustra-
tion of the homage Avhich mankind yield to moral force. In
Calcutta men asked each other in amazement how it was that,
while from other stations news of massacre and rebellion was
constantly arriving, from Patna came week after week the news
that tranquillity was maintained and British prestige vindicated.*
Perhaps even Halliday could have answered. Because Patna is
ruled by William Tayler.
Tayler's success was not, however, wholly unbroken. On the
23rd of June Waris Ali, a native police-officer, was
amu^'c^Uou. arrested, and found to be in possession of letters
which convicted Ali Karim, a wealthy Mahomedan
who lived near Patna, of treasonable intentions. The magistrate
' Patna Crisis, pp. 44-51.
- Native Superintendent of Police.
3 Patna Crisis, pp. 53-4. Correspondence, etc., pp. 20, 44, 58-9.
■* Red Pamphlet, p. 174.
1857 BENGAL AND WESTERN BEHAR 185
of Patna was sent to seize the criminal, but, after a long and
wearisome chase, returned unsuccessful. On the 3rd of July a
riot broke out in Patna itself. As, however, the bulk of the
malcontents had been too thoroughly frightened by Tayler's
measures to join in it, it was easily suppressed by the Sikhs,
while the ringleaders were seized and brought to trial. Chief
among them was a Mahomedan bookseller named Pir Ali. A
number of letters inviting various persons to join in organising
an anti-Christian crusade were found in this man's house. From
the fact that these letters, having all been found in the house of
a single man, were evidently a mere sample of others, that Pir
Ali would never have kept men in his pay except for a regular
plot, and that Waris Ali had been ready to give up his lucrative
situation in order to join Ali Karim's enterprise, Tayler argued
the existence of an extensive conspiracy which his own antici-
patory measures had alone prevented from issuing in an appalling
calamity. Pir Ali himself bore the most emphatic testimony to
Tayler's vigilance by confessing that his strong measures had
forced the conspirators to strike before they were ready. They
and twenty-one of their associates, convicted of having taken part
in the riot, were summarily hanged.^
But Tayler would not have been able to procure the evidence
which he required against these men, if he had not ^j^^ natives
been helped by three loyal natives, Syad Wilayat who supported
Ali Khan, Moula Bakhsh, the deputy magistrate, and '^^ '^'^'
Hidayat Ali, the subahddr of the Sikh corps. Throughout the
crisis these men laboured day and night to support him, helping
him to patrol the city, and furnishing him with all kinds of
valuable information, which only a native could obtain, though
their loyalty exposed them to the hatred and ridicule of their
fellow-citizens. Aided by their investigations, he was able to
discriminate between the countless accusations against influential
Mahomedans which were put into his hands, so that he could
afterwards assert that he had never moved against a soul, except
in the way of precaution, till suspicion had been corroborated by
many concurrent circumstances. -
^ Pari. Papers, vol. xliv. Part 2, pp. 6-13, 15-23 ; Patna Crisis, pp. 65-72.
It is important to notice that this was not a Wahabi plot. The Wahabis were now
powerless. Pir Ali was a native of Lucknow, and had been corresponding treason-
ably with one Museeh-oos-Zuman of Lucknow ever since the annexoMon of Oudh.
' lb. pp. 57, 65, 72-3.
186 BENGAL AND WESTERN BEHAR chap, vi
While Tayler was working with heart and soul for the safety
of his Division and his people's lives, Halliday was
Red tape. . ^ ,. i -i- ■ j.
carping at his measures and warning him against
doing anything illegal or irregular. The littleness of the man's
mind appeared in such words as these : — " It is impossible that
you should have anything to do of greater importance than
keeping the Government informed of your proceedings." ^ No
indeed ! The saving of a province was a trifling matter compared
with the sacred duty of writing dettiiled official reports. How
different was the spirit in which John Lawrence directed his
subordinates !
It was not only within the limits of Patna that Tayler's
example made itself felt. As soon as danger began
Major^Hoiines. ^^ threaten Behar, his friend and ardent admii'er,
Major Holmes, wrote to Canning, expressing with
great freedom and plainness, the view that stern and instant
repression was the only policy for the times. Canning told him
in reply that he was entirely wrong, and that his
May 30 J O'
" bloody, off-hand measures" were not the cure for the
disease. But Holmes cared nothing for the rebuke. " I am deter-
mined," he rejoined, " to keep order in these districts,
and I'll do it ^vith a strong hand." - His method was
simple, but very effective. On his own responsibility, he actually
placed the whole country between Patna and Gorakhpur under
martial law.^ His only instrument for enforcing it was his single
native regiment : but he thoroughly trusted his men ; and, if
they were not loyal to him in their hearts, they were so carried
^ Oorrespnndencc, etc., p. 14.
" Kaye, vol. iii. pp. 7, 104.
^ On July 29, Halliday, in a rebuke which he administered to Tayler for taking
upon himself to praise this unauthorised act, remarked, ' ' At the time when Major
Holmes declared martial law in Behar, nothing whatever had occurred to justifj'
that step, and the moment it was known by Government, his act was set aside and
cancelled." On the very next day Halliday himself proclaimed martial law in the
districts of Shahabad, Patna, Behar, Saran, Champarau, and Tirhut. Pari. Papers,
vol. xliv. (1857-58), Part 2, p. 145, par. 3, p. 146.
It is quite true that, in the view of a purblind statesman, nothing whatever
had occurred to justify Holmes in declaring martial law when he did. But Holmes
was a man of clear mental vision. The principle upon which he acted was one
that never failed in the Mutiny, the principle of taking the bull by the horns while
it was hesitating whether it should lower its head or not ; in other words, of acting
against men who were known to be disart'ected before, they had time to commit
overt acts of disaffection. Halliday, on the other hand, put otf declaring martial
law until nfter the Diuapore mutiny, which he had declared "inconceivable," had
broken out.
1857 BENGAL AND WESTERN BEHAR 187
along by his daring spirit that they could not choose but do his
bidding. Sending out parties of them to seize evil-doers and
protect the civil stations, and declaring that he would visit Avith
instant death anyone who showed the slightest sign of disaffection,
he soon established such a terror of his name that none dared to
stir a finger in the cause of rebellion. Canning had ai'gued
in his letter that the sepoys who had not yet rebelled
were mad with fear : but Holmes knew that fear might well
hurry men in their position, like frightened beasts, to turn upon
their masters, and that, until they were thoroughly cowed into
submission, it would be useless to attempt to reason with their
fears.
In spite, however, of all that Holmes and his irregulars could
do, it was impossible for Tayler to guarantee the safety of his
Division, so long as there was danger of a mutiny at Dinapore.
During the thiee weeks that had elapsed since he had tried in
vain to persuade Lloyd to disarm, he had indeed
still maintained order ; but he knew that, if Lloyd Dinapore
persisted in neglecting his advice, the rising must sepoys be^
sooner or later take place, and, by letting loose an
army of mutineers through Behar, undo all the good which he
had done. At last the English merchants resolved to try Avhether
their arguments could not induce the Government to order the
General to take the step which he dared not take on his own
responsibility. A favourable opportunity for stating their views
had just presented itself. Canning had originally excused himself
for refusing to disarm the Dinapore sepoys on the ground that
the reinforcements Avhich would give him the power to do so had
not yet come. Now, howevei', they had arrived, and had been
ordered to call at Dinapore on their way up the Ganges. By his
own confession, the Governor-General now had the game in his
own hands. But, while many of his lieutenants were assuming
the responsibility of executing great measures without consulting
him, he shifted the responsibility which naturally belonged to
himself on to the weak shoulders of the poor old General at
Dinapore. Well knowing that Lloyd had only promised that his
men would remain quiet if "some great temptation " did not assail
them, well knowing that a great temptation was even then strongly
assailing them, well knowing that Lloyd would never have the
courage to use his own discretion, he yet left it to him to decide
whether he would employ the newly-arrived leinforcements to
188 BENGAL AND WESTERN BEHAR chap, vi
deprive his regiments of the power of doing mischief.^ The
merchants, to Avhom this decision was privately made known, saw
its imbecility, and resolved to make a last eftbrt to induce Canning
to change it. Accordingly, on the 20th of July, they sent a
deputation to implore him to consider what vast commercial
interests were imperilled by the threatening attitude of the
regiments at Dinapore, and to urge him to seciu-e the safety of
those interests once for all, and restore public confidence by com-
manding Lloyd to disarm. He curtly refused their request.
The natiu-al results of his blind obstinacy followed. On the
22nd of July a body of the 5th Fusiliers reached Dinapore,
Lloyd shrank from using his authority to detain them, and let
them go by. Of course he regretted his decision. But he was
still to have another chance of setting himself right. Two days
later two companies of the 37 th touched at Dina-
pore, awaiting his commands. His remorse was
strong enough to make him order their disembarkation ; but it
Avas too weak to make him turn them to good account. If it is
true that Nemo repente fuit turpissimus, it is equally true that a
weak man cannot suddenly become strong. Lloyd writhed
under the responsibility so cruelly cast upon him. Afraid to
crush the nettle in his grasp, afraid to leave it alone, he just
touched it ; and, Avhen it stung him, he cast the blame on others.
As he could not brace himself to disarm his men, he thought he
would take away their percussion-caps instead. Next morning
accordingly the European troops were drawn up, by
way of precaution, in the barrack-square, close to
the native lines ; and the caps were carted away from the
magazine. Many of the sepoys showed great indignation when
they saw the carts moving towards the barracks ; but they
feared, Avith the British soldiers close at hand, to give full vent
to their feelings. Lloyd, hoAvever, Avas not content Avith the
success of his half-measure. He ordered his officers to hold a
second parade of the sepoys in the afternoon, while the European
troops would be busy eating their dinners, and then require
them to surrender the contents of the cap-cases Avhich they
carried on their persons. It is difficult to gauge the depths of
the folly which prompted his resolve. For the measure Avhich
he now ordered Avould exasperate the sepoys far more than that
^ The Commander-iu-Cliief s letter to Lloyd, written at Cauuiug's request, will
be found in Pari. PajJcrs, vol. xliii. (1857-58), p. 103.
1857 BENGAL AND WESTERN BEHAR 189
which had been with difficulty carried out in the morning ; and
the absence of the British troops would deprive the officers of
the only means of crushing the mutiny which seemed certain to
follow. An attempt was made, however, to obey the order.
The parade was held. The sej^oys were ordered to empty their
pouches. They answered the demand by firing on
their officers. The noise warned the European DiDapore*
soldiers and the General that mutiny had broken
out. The General, having given certain vague instructions to
his officers how to act in case of a difficulty, did not think it
necessary to do more than go on board a steamer in the river,
from which he hoped to be able to shoot a few stray mutineers.^
The soldiers tiu"ned out and formed up on the parade ground ;
but their officers, who could not have understood the instructions
which they had received, dared not assume the responsibility of
acting in the General's absence ; and not till two staff-officers
hurried up from the steamer, bringing his orders for an advance,
was any attempt made to retrieve the fortunes of the day. It
was then too late. Only a few sepoys, who rashly attempted to
cross the river, were destroyed by the guns of the steamer, or
drowned. The rest, after re-possessing themselves of the caps
that had been taken from the magazine, went off in the direction
of the river Soane. As that river was then greatly swollen by
the rains, Lloyd had only to lead his Europeans in pursuit, in
order to overtake and desti'oy them before they could effect a
passage. He afterwards recorded in his own defence the extra-
ordinary opinion that such a step would have been of little use.
But it is not extraordinary that he did not attempt it. A
general who had shown such feebleness in the morning was not
likely to prove an able commander in the evening. The wonder
is that next morning it did occur to him to send
a party oi riflemen m a steamer "^ up the river, to
intercept the passage of the mutineers. But his attempt failed ;
for the steamer, after running a short distance, stuck fast on a
sand-bank. Even before it had returned, howevei-, he received
a startling piece of news, which led him to resolve to entrench
his position at Dinapore, and leave the surrounding country to
the fate which he had brought upon it, thus imitating with the
^ See his letter to the Daily News, referred to on p. 190.
^ It should be mentioued that, when travelling by river in India, passengers
wei'e generally carried in what is called a flat, towed by a steam tug.
190 BENGAL AND WESTERN BEHAR chap, vi
closest fidelity the line of conduct which Hewitt had followed
after the mutiny of the 10th of May. In many respects, indeed,
this shameful story of the mutiny at Dinapore resembles the
story of the mutiny at Meerut. The strength of the British
foi-ce at hand to crush resistance, the imbecility of the General,
the dread of responsibility manifested by the officers, and the
amazement of the mutineers at their own success, were all points
common to the two disasters. And for the weakness of Lloyd,
as for the weakness of Hewitt, the only excuse that can be
pleaded is the infirmity of old age.^
There was a man, however, in Behar, who, though several
. <?• <tTi y^^^^ older than Lloyd, still retained the vigour of
" " his youth, and was resolved to use it to effect his
own aggrandisement, and complete the humiliation of the English.
This man was a Rajput noble, named Kunwar Singh, who,
formerly a staunch adherent of the English power, had lately
cooled in his friendship from resentment at the hard usage
which he, in common with many other great landowners, had
received from the Revenue Board of Bengal. As, however, he
had a strong personal friendship for Tayler, he might even now
have thrown in his lot with the English, if he had not heard at
the critical moment that an important law-suit in which he was
engaged had gone against him. Tayler had earnestly interceded
for him with Halliday, but in vain.^ The result Avas, that
Kunwar Singh determined to join the Dinapore mutineers with
his retainers, and regain his lost wealth by the sword. This
was the news that made Lloyd resolve to shut himself up in
Dinapore. Biit, more fortunate than HeAvitt, he had a strong
and wise adviser at hand, who would not let him do so cowardly
an act. As soon as he had heard of the mutiny, the Commis-
sioner, true to himself still Avhen others were false to him and to
themselves, had sent out a body of Sikhs, volunteers, and police,
to cut off the retreat of the stragglers ; but on the next morning
he heard of an event which, letting loose a fresh multitude of
^ I am not aware that Lloyd has ever had auy defender but himself. Anyone
who wishes to read his defence will lind it in the Daily News, Oct. 30, 1857, pp.
4,5. He "thought," he say. s, "that the men would feel it quite madness to
attempt resistance with only fifteen caps per man." Tliere was method in their
madness.
- CJm-resjmndence, etc., pp. 243-5, pars. 51-7 (letter from Mr. Samuells). Letter
from Tayler to Secretary to Government of Bengal (April 5, 1858), pars. 34-52 ;
Pad. Pajjers, vol. Iv. (1878-79).
1857 BENGAL AND WESTERN BEHAE 191
enemies against him, forced him to recall this little force for the
protection of Patna. The 12th Irregulars, catch-
ing the infection of disloyalty from the Dinapore " ^ """'
mutineers, had murdered his dear friend and strong supporter.
Major James Holmes. Still his counsel might effect
something. Accordingly he wrote to the General, ** ^ - •
imploring him even then, at the eleventh hour, to go in pursuit
of the mutineers. Suddenly the alarming news
arrived that they had already crossed the Soane, ">-'•
and were actually besieging Arrah.^ Lloyd had now no choice
but to accept Tayler's advice.
Arrah, the chief town of the most turbulent district in the
Division, was situated twenty -five miles west of
Dinapore. The European residents had been duly '*""
warned of their danger. The warning, however, would have
availed them little if Tayler, with rare foresight, had not already
sent fifty of Rattray's Sikhs to help them in case of an attack.
Even with this reinforcement, the whole garrison were only
sixty-eight in number ; and their fortress was nothing but a
small building, originally intended for a billiard-room, belonging
to Vicars Boyle, the railway engineer, who, regardless of the jeers
of his friends, had fortified and provisioned it to resist the
attack which he had all along deemed possible. His dwelling-
house was about seventy yards off ; and, to deprive the enemy of
the cover which it would have afforded, he had demolished its
front parapet. On the evening of the 26th the Europeans, after
writing letters to their friends, went into the billiard-room, and
bricked themselves up. Boyle, whose foresight had rescued the
others from instant destruction, was naturally one of the leading
spirits in the crisis ; and associated with him was Herwald Wake,
the magistrate, who assumed command of the Sikhs. Next
morning the sixty-eight were standing at their posts behind their
improAased defences ; and, when the mutineers, after
releasing the prisoners in the gaol, and plundering ^""'
the treasury, advanced to the attack, as to an assured victory,
they were hurled back in astonishment and discomfiture by a
well-directed fire. From this moment they only ventured to
discharge their muskets from behind the cover of the walls and
trees that surrounded the house ; and anyone who ventured into
the open was sure to be struck down by a bullet from the garrison,
^ Patna Crisis, pp. 76-8 ; Correspondence, etc., pp. 110, 112.
192 BENGAL AND WESTERN BEHAR chap, vi
who aimed securely from beliind the sand-bags which they had
thrown up on the roof. Baffled in fair fight, the assailants began
to try a succession of foul stratagems for the destruction of their
foe. They strove to corrupt the fidelity of the Sdkhs by threats,
by appeals to their religious feelings, and by offers of a share in
the plunder. But the Sikhs, confident in the resources of their
commandant, were proof even against this last argument. Then
the rebels tried to suffocate the garrison by setting on fire a heap
of chillies outside the walls : but a favoui'able wind
arose and blew the stifling smoke away. The same
wind caiTied off the disgusting stench arising from the rotting
carcases of the horses belonging to the garrison, which the rebels
had killed and purposely piled up around the house. Finally,
Kunwar Singh unearthed two guns, which he had kept hidden
ready for emergencies, and prepared to batter down the little
fortress. If he had had a good supply of ammunition, he might
have forced the garrison to attempt to cut their way out ; but,
having no round shot at first, he was obliged to use the brass
castors belonging to the pianos and sofas in Boyle's house, as
projectiles.^ Yet Wake and his little band knew that, if help
did not come soon, time must conquer them ; for their provisions
were beginning to run short. At midnight on the 29th they
heard the sound of distant firing in the direction of the Soane.
Could it be that their relief was at hand ? ^ They were not kept
long in suspense.
Influenced by the alarming news that Arrah was being be-
sieged, Lloyd had yielded to Tayler's entreaties,
dition^forthr and scut off a forcc of Europeans and Sikhs to
'^''^jiu°^4™^' *^® rescue. But the steamer that carried them
ran aground in the darkness of the night ; and
Lloyd, overwhelmed by this fresh disaster, would have recalled
the detachment and left the garrison to their fate, if Tayler had
not once more shamed him into action. Another steamer had
opportunely come up ; and in it a hundred and fifty men of the
10th, with a few volunteers, were sent, under Captain Dunbar,
to reinforce the stranded detachment. On the afternoon of the
29th the united force, amounting to four hundred and fifteen
1 Afterwards he procured some 41b. shot for one of the guns. V. Boyle'."?
Brief I^arraiire of the Defence of the Arrah Garrison, pp. 13-14.
2 Ihid. ; J. J. Hall's Tn-o Mouths ia Arrah in IS^'i ; Pari. Papers, vol. xliv.
(1857-58), Part 2, pp. 333-4.
1857 BENGAL AND WESTERN BEHAR 193
officers and men, disembarked. A small party was sent on to
procure boats for the passage of a stream which crossed the road
to Arrah. Soon afterwards the main body, who were cooking
dinner, heard the rattle of musketry. They at once fell into
their ranks, and, after a few minutes' march, saw their comrades
firing at a number of sepoys on the opposite bank of the stream.
Two or three hours were spent in getting the boats ; and it was
seven o'clock before the whole force had crossed. Tired and
hungry, but eager to rescue their beleaguered countrymen, they
immediately began their march. About an hour before midnight
the moon went down, and Dunbar was urged to halt for the
night ; but, trusting to a report that the mutineers had raised
the siege, he insisted on going on.^ A few minutes later the
advanced guard was entering the suburbs of Arrah, when a
blaze of light flashed forth from a dense mango grove on the
right of the road, and a fearful discharge of musketry ploughed
through the whole length of the column. A second volley
followed, and a third. The enemy could only be momentarily
discerned by the flash of their muskets : but the British soldiers,
conspicuous in their white summer dresses, were falling fast ;
Dunbar himself was slain ; and the survivors, bewildered and
losing all discipline, fired helplessly into space, or into each other.
At last a bugler, running to a field close by, sounded the assembly,
and thus gathered his comrades round him. Presently they
found a tank in which they could take shelter ; but they foolishly
continued to discharge their muskets, and revealed their position
to the enemy, who, invisible themselves, assailed them, as they
lay crouching in the tank, with continual volleys. In this
desperate situation the officers held a council of war, and resolved
to attempt a retreat to the Soane at day-break. The day broke ;
but no joy followed the heaviness which had endured throughout
the night. Wearied and famished as they were, the soldiers had
a march of fifteen miles before them ; and for every foot of the
way they had to run the gauntlet of an enemy who had cleverly
availed himself of the cover afforded by the woods and jungles
that lined the road. Sharp reports echoed : puffs of smoke
curled up through the trees ; and man after man dropped down.
Ever and anon some of the survivors, infuriated at the loss of their
comrades, charged aimlessly right and left : but the mutineers,
safe in ambush, laughed at their impotent rage. Among the
^ Hall says that Dunbar sent out no scouts, though the night was dark, p. 47.
O
194 BENGAL AND WESTERN BEHAR chap, vi
British there was little order or discipline ; but there was much
heroism. Two privates of the 10th carried a wounded officer of
their regiment the last five miles of the road ; and young Eoss
Mangles of the Civil Service, with none to help him, rescued a
wounded private in the same way. When at last the poor beaten
force reached the river, they found nearly all the boats stranded ;
but many still retained their presence of mind, and, pushing the
boats into the stream, would not enter them themselves till they
had helped their weaker brethren on board. One of the boats,
under a freight of thirty-five men, was drifting helplessly down
the stream with its rudder tied up and useless, when a volunteer,
McDonell of the Civil Service, climbed on to the roof, and cut
the lashings under a hail of bullets. Many, however, as they
strove to cross the stream, fell under the enemy's fire : others,
who had plunged into the water to escape the bullets, were
drowned ; and few indeed reached the steamer that was waiting
to carry the detachment back in triumph to Dinapore. But
worse than all the sufferings that the enemy had inflicted upon
them must have been the misery and the shame of that poor
remnant, as they approached the landing-place at Dinapore, and
saw their countrymen standing upon it, waiting to congratulate
them on their victory, and knew how soon they Avould be
undeceived. As the steamer hove in sight, the crowd grew
breathless with excitement : they looked in vain for some sign
of triumph on her deck : their hearts sickened as they saw her
run past her moorings and make for the hospital ; and, as she
eased up and blew off her steam, the soldiers' wives rushed down,
beating their breasts and tearing their hair, to the water's edge,
and screamed out curses against the General who had brought
this calamity upon them.^
But there were stout hearts still beating in the province of
„ Behar. The little garrison of Arrah, listening
The gamson ip i pp-r.i>i i
of Arrah stiu eagerly from the roof of Boyle s house to the
° ^°^- sound of firing on the night of the 29 th, soon
heard it die away, and knew that no help had yet come. But
they could still help themselves. Their provisions were nearly
gone ; but, when the besiegers were asleep, they sallied forth,
and brought in four sheep as the reward of their daring. Thirst
^ Pari. Papers, vol. xliv. (1857-58), Part 1, pp. 185-9 ; Times, Sept. 21,
1857, p. 6, col. 1 ; Nov. 7, p. 7, col. 6 ; Patna Crisis, pp. 82-3 ; Hall,
pp. 88-94,
1857 BENGAL AND WESTERN BEHAR 195
began to afflict them ; but the Sikhs dug a well, and procured
an abundance of good water. Ammunition threatened to fail ;
but Boyle had laid in a supply of lead, and new bullets were
cast. Mining was repelled by countermining. Every expedient
that the ingenuity of the besiegers could contrive was baffled by
the ingenuity, but still more by the resolution of the besieged.
Thus four more days passed away. On the morning of the
2nd of August the sound of distant firing once more threw the
garrison into suspense.^ And this time too the suspense did not
last long.
Among those whose sympathies had been roused by the story
of the leaguer of Arrah was a major of the Bengal
artillery, named Vincent Eyre. This officer had ^^^'^^ ^^'
been in the army for nearly thirty years ; but, though he had
seen much hard service, and had made many efforts to smooth the
rugged lot, and elevate the moral condition of his men, whom
he had honourably refused to forsake for the lucrative arena of
civil employ, he had not yet found an opportunity of showing
what he could accomplish as a leader in the field. Fifteen years
before, however, in the disastrous winter of 1841, he had found
and used a more glorious opportunity. The Afghan chiefs had
demanded four British officers with their wives and children as
hostages ; and the British commander had asked for volunteers
to undertake the cruel risk. Every officer refused to expose
his family to danger except Eyre, who, in the words of Lady
Sale, "said, if it was to be productive of great good, he
would stay with his wife and child." ^ He who reads this record
of heroism will not ask for any further comment on Eyre's
character.
On the 1 0th of July he started with his battery from Calcutta,
under orders to join the British force at Allahabad. Touching
at Dinapore on the 25th, he of course heard of the mutiny which
had just taken place. Re-embarking next morning, he reached
Buxar on the 28th. There he was informed that the Dinapore
mutineers were besieging Arrah. Hearing later in the day that
some of them were marching up the country to destroy the Govern-
ment stud property at Buxar, he detained the steamer for the
night. Next morning, as there appeared to be no imminent danger,
1 Hall, Boyle.
^ See an article on Eyre in Colonel Malleson's Recreations of an Indian Official,
p. 276.
196 BENGAL AND WESTERN BEHAR chap, ti
he pushed on towards Ghdzipur, intending, if he should find that
station safe, to return to Buxar, and thence march
Heresojves to ^^^ ^he relief of Arrah. Finding that Ghazipur,
though still quiet, was not out of danger, he landed
two of his guns for its defence, and took in exchange twenty-five
Highlanders of the 78th, to aid him in his projected expedition.
Returning to Buxar in the evening, he was rejoiced to find that
one hundred and sixty men of the 5th Fusiliers had just arrived
from Calcutta ; and, as he felt that, with their aid, he would be
strong enough to begin his march for Arrah at once, he asked
their commander. Captain L'Estrange, to join him. L'Estrange
promptly agreed, bargaining only that Eyre should take upon
himself the entire responsibility of the expedition. That Eyre
did this for L'Estrange as unhesitatingly as he had done it already
for himself, is his great title to the honourable mention of history.
Many officers would have gone cheerfully with two hundred men
to attack five thousand : but few would have turned aside from
the instructions of their Government, and risked dismissal from
the service, to do so. Fifteen years before, however. Eyre had
dared to risk even the safety of his wife and child in his country's
service; and he was not likely now to shrink from risking his
commission. He therefore sent back the Highlanders to
Ghdzipur, which had now greater need of them, and, appoint-
ing as his staff officer. Captain Hastings, the superintendent of
the Buxar stud, by whose energy and enthusiasm
July 30 .
the needful supplies were collected within a single
day, started to relieve Arrah in the spirit of Montrose's
favourite verses :
He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
That dares not put it to the touch,
To gain or lose it all.
All through the long summer evening and the night the
force marched on, not halting till day-break ; for
" ^ ■ but slow progress could be made along heavy roads,
and with bullocks unused to the labour of dragging artillery.
But at his next encamping ground Eyre heard for
"^' ■ the first time the news of Dunbar's disaster, and,
burning to efiace it, pressed on till, on the evening of the 1st of
August, he reached the village of Gujrajganj, close to Arrah.
1857 BENGAL AND WESTERN BEHAR 197
Hardly had he broken up his encampment on the following
morning, when bugles were heard sounding the * „ o
assembly a short distance ahead. Evidently the Battfe of
enemy had come out from Arrah to dispute his "Jiajganj.
advance. They were soon discerned lining a large wood which
extended in front of the British force and on both its flanks.
Seeing that he was in danger of being surrounded, Eyre caused
his guns to open fire on their front and flanks. Presently they
took shelter behind some broken ground in front of the wood
and opened a heavy fire of musketry. Soon, however, unable to
stand against the accurate discharges of the skirmishers whom
Eyre had sent against them, they fell back to the wood. Eyre,
rapidly following up his advantage, brought all his guns to bear
upon their centre : they scattered to right and left ; and the
British, keeping up an incessant fire of musketry, hurried over
the vacant space, and plunged into the wood. The rebels were
momentarily baffled ; for the British, moving out of the further
side of the wood, were protected from attack by inundated rice
fields which surrounded the road along which they marched.
But, two miles further down, the road was intercepted by a river,
on the opposite side of which lay a village called Bibiganj ; and
the rebels now hastened to seize this point, hoping thus to render
Eyre's further advance impossible ; for they had broken down the
bridge, and thrown up breastworks to command the approaches.
Unable to find a ford, Eyre began a flank march to the right,
towards a railway embankment, along which a road ran direct to
Arrah, and, to mask this movement, caused his artillery at the
same time to play upon the village. Close to the embankment,
however, there Avas another wood ; and the rebels now hastened
to occupy it, in the hope of intercepting Eyre before he could
gain the road. Then began a desperate race between the two
armies. The rebels won, and, when Eyre's force came up, opened
fire upon it from behind the shelter of the trees. Thus attacked
in front, the British were sorely harassed by a simultaneous
fire which Kunwar Singh's levies poured into their rear. Eyre
must now carry the Avood, or be vanquished. His fire could
make no impression upon the enemy. Twice Avithin an hour
they rushed up to the muzzles of his guns ; and by the end of
that time they were clearly forcing his infantry to retire. But
Eyre had still one resource left, a resource Avhich has often saved
British soldiers from imminent defeat at the hands of a superior
198 BENGAL AND WESTERN BEHAR chap, vi
force. He ordered his infantry to charge with the bayonet.
Forming rapidly, the little company of Fusiliers sent up a glorious
cheer, and, bounding across the stream, which, though still deep,
was here pent up within a narrow space, drove their four thousand
enemies before them in utter rout, and did not pause until the
guns, opening on the fugitives, had made the victory complete.
Meanwhile the garrison of Arrah had been listening anxiously
to the sound of the battle. In the afternoon they
saw the beaten rebels come hurrying up, collect their
property, and go away. They knew now that their deliverance
had been Avrought at last : but there was a still
"^' ■ greater joy in store for them. For, when the morning
came, they saw and welcomed their deliverers.
Eyre had no thought, however, of resting on his laurels.
He had baulked the mutineers of their prey : but
hi^'succesr "^ ^e had not yet deprived them of all power to do
mischief ; and other stations in Behar still lay at
their mercy. He resolved, therefore, to follow up his victory
by striking a decisive blow at Jagdispur, a village belonging to
Kunwar Singh, to which the rebels had retreated. The old chief's
asylum was very strongly placed, and the roads which led to
it Avere difficult : but Eyre knew that his men would now follow
him on any enterprise, and "what he had already achieved had
fairly entitled him to ask for reinforcements. While he was
waiting for them, he occupied himself in restoring order in the
neighbourhood. Martial law was proclaimed ; and thirty wounded
sepoys who were brought in, as well as a number of native
officials who had entered Kunwar Singh's ser\ace, were hanged.
On the 8th and 9 th of August the expected reinforcements
arrived, two hundred men of the 10th and a hundred of Rattray's
Sikhs. Strengthened by these and by some of the defenders of
Arrah, Eyre set out on the 11th for Jagdispiu-.
About half-past ten on the following day he caught
sight of the faces of the enemy peeping through a dense belt of
jungle on the ofjposite side of a stream which crossed the road.
The position which Kunwar Singh had chosen was, in all respects
but one, faultless. His stronghold lay sheltered behind the
jungle, the mazes of which, familiar to him and his men, were
unknown to his opponents : the stream protected his front ; and
in his centre stood a "vallage, which he had fortified. But he had
made the fatal mistake of weakening his force by sending a
1857 BENGAL AND WESTERN BEHAR 199
detachment to occupy anotlier village on the opposite side of the
stream.^ The British skirmishers began the battle by dislodging
this detachment, and dri^^ng it across the stream. The rest of
the enemy lay concealed in the jungle, until the continued
advance of the skirmishers provoked them to fire. Then Eyre,
at last detecting their exact position, brought his artillery to
bear upon them, and forced them to huddle in confusion further
to the right. Now was the time to decide the battle by a
bayonet rush. The men of the 10th, seeing the enemy waver-
ing, were almost breaking loose from control in their burning
desire to avenge their comrades who had fallen ^^^th Dunbar ;
and, before their leader. Captain Patterson, had finished speaking
the word of command, they answered him by a ringing cheer, and
dashed forwai"d to the attack. Nothing could have resisted that
avenging charge : but the 10th were cheated of half their desire ;
for, as at Bibiganj, the enemy dared not look at the British
bayonets, but fled headlong into the jungle. Meanwhile, Kunwar
Singh's irregulars on the left had fought a gallant battle with the
Fusiliers, the Sikhs, and the volunteers : but at last a howitzer
was brought up against them ; and then they too fled. Driv-
ing the enemy before him. Eyre entered Jagdispur early
in the afternoon. It was not till the following
day, however, that he could learn in what direction
Kunwar Singh had retreated. Then L'Estrange, ^^^' ^^'
and afterwards Eyre himself, went in pursuit : but the old chief
was never caught. He had evidently looked forward to a
victorious campaign ; for in his stronghold was discovered an
abundance of ammunition, and enough grain to feed an army of
twenty thousand men for six months, to obtain which he had
mercilessly robbed the peasantry in the neighboiu-hood. But
the re-establishment of the British power brought relief to the
sufferers ; for Eyre allowed them to carry off" the grain.^
Finally, after blowing up all the principal buildings in Jagdispur,
he started on the 20th of August for Allahabad. In his cam-
paign of three weeks he had effected far more than the original
object of his expedition. Not only had he relieved the be-
1 Malleson, vol. i. pp. 128-9.
^ Recreations of mi Indian Official, pp. 30-1-17 ; Account of tlie Relief of
Arrali dictated by Major Eyre, printed in Gubbins's Mutinies in Oudh, App. No.
10, pp. 474-84 ; Pad. Painrs, vol. xliv. (1857-58), Part 1, pp. 127-8, 130-1,
143-7. The British loss in the first action was two killed and fifteen wounded, in
the second six wounded.
200 BENGAL AND WESTERN BEHAR chap, vi
leaguered garrison of Arrah. He had quelled the insurrection
which had threatened to spread from Behar throughout the
whole of Bengal ; and he had restored the safety of river
communication between Calcutta and the North- Western Pro-
vinces. In other words, he, a simple major of artillery, had
prevented the achievements of Tayler from being neutralised by
the weakness of the Government and the incompetence of Lloyd.
Before, however, this result was attained, the character of
the Patna Commissioner had been subjected to a
Dangers which trial more severe than any which it had yet endured.
encompassed . pi t-v. tit
Tayler after The mutmy of the sepoys at Dmapore had been
faiim-r^ l)ad enough: but the defeat which Dunbar had
sustained at their hands was far worse. For it
now seemed absolutely certain that Arrah must soon fall ; and
then the besiegers would be free to overrun the Avhole province
of Behar vrith fire and sword. Many of the ^^llagers of
Shahabad, the district of which Arrah was the capital, were in
open revolt. Kunwar Singh's success would be sure to encourage
others to follow his example : in fact the Eaja of Dumraon was
said to have already joined the rebels. The mutiny of the 12th
Irregulars aggravated the danger. Moreover, the native police
and even the Sikhs would not be likely to remain loyal when
they saw that their masters could no longer hold their ground.
The Europeans scattered at the stations under Tayler's control,
who had been secure under his protection till his policy had
been endangered by the weakness of Lloyd, were almost destitute
of the means of resistance.'^ For their lives and for the Govern-
ment treasure under their care he was responsible. And he had
to bear this grievous burden of responsibility by his own unaided
strength : for his Government had never sympathised with him ;
Lloyd was an encumbrance rather than a help ; and the gallant
Holmes was dead. But Tayler met the crisis without flinching.
He sent off the European ladies and children to Dinapore : and,
feeling that now, when things were at their worst, it behoved
him to be most stern and uncompromising in asserting his
supremacy, he had the gallows shifted from the gaol to the
middle of the race-course, where it would be in full view of all
who meditated rebellion, and sent another batch of conspirators
to execution. This, however, was not enough. He knew that
to save the lives of the Europeans at the out-stations, prudence
^ Patna Crisis, p. 85 ; Corres^iondence, etc., pp. 115, 119-20, 140-3, etc
2857 BENGAL AND WESTERN BEHAR 201
was needed as well as boldness. Accordingly, after a few hours
of earnest consideration, he issued an order directing ^^^^ ^^
the district officers at Gaya and MuzafFarpur^ to Hiswith-
come in to Patna, and to bring their treasure Avith
them, unless their personal safety should be endangered by the
attempt to remove it. No measure of his administration had
been more sagacious than this. For, though he knew that Eyre
intended to attempt the relief of Arrah, he could not prophesy that
Eja-e, with a force only half as large as that with which Dunbar
had been disastrously beaten, would show the moral strength
and the military skill that could alone achieve success in so
hazardous an enterprise : he knew that, if Eyre should fail, the
province must be lost ; and he therefore resolved to sacrifice the
out-stations for a time to the great object of saving his people's
lives, holding Patna, and securing his treasure, rather than risk
the loss of the whole by clinging vainly to a part.- Far more
admirable, however, than the statesmanship which dictated this
measure was the moral courage Avhich dared to carry it out in spite
of the probable disapprobation of an unfriendly Government.
Lautour, the magistrate at MuzafFarpur, acted at once upon
Tayler's order, and, as he had no troops to escort „ ^ .
1 • 1 !• • 1 1 • 1 -r. • H°^^ Lautour
his treasure, left it behind. But the magistrate at and Money
Gaya, Alonzo JMoney, unlike Lautour, had forty-five '^'^ '^ upom .
Europeans, a hundred Sikhs, and a body of police to rely upon,
besides a detachment of the 64th, stationed a few miles off,
which he could summon to his aid. It is true that he was
exposed to danger from the Dinapore mutineers : but this
danger, though serious enough to vindicate the withdrawal
order, and to justify him in taking measures for obeying it,
was not sufficiently imminent to justify him in abandoning his
treasure. Only three days before, he had written to Tayler,
saying that he had nothing to apprehend from the
townspeople, and that, if not more than three hundred
or three hundred and fifty mutineers attacked him, he had " no
doubt of giving them a good thrashing." His courage, however,
had since oozed out ; for, a few hours after he
received the order, he hurried away from the station
^ The officers belonging to Cliapra and Motihari had already come in. The
remaining station was Arrah. It is unnecessary to mention the sub-divisional
stations.
2 Correspondence, etc., pp. 11-1-16 ; Patna Crisis, jjp. 85-7.
202 BENGAL AND WESTERN BEHAR chap, vi
under an escort, accompanied by the other Christian residents,
leaving eighty thousand pounds in the treasury at the mercy of
the enemies of Government.^ He thus flatly disobeyed the
orders of the Commissioner ; for, as his own letter proved, his
personal safety would not have been endangered by removing
his treasure. When, however, he had proceeded a iew miles,
one of his companions, Hollings, of the Opium Agency, came up
to him, and said that he could not endure the remorse Avhich he
felt at having been a party to the abandonment of the Govern-
ment property. Money listened, and resolved to go back and
repair the wrong which he had done. But, instead of taking
his companions and his escort -with him, as common sense would
have suggested, he impulsively bade them continue their journey,
and went back alone with Hollings. Soon after
Aug. 2. his return, he called in the detachment of the 64th,
Aug. 4. and, when it arrived, removed the treasure under
its escort, having already done his best to arouse the
enmity of the native officials by openly burning the Government
stamped paper, an act which they could only regard as implying
a suspicion that they meditated plunder. After quitting the
station he would naturally have taken the road to Patna, if he
had not been misled by false reports which said that a body of
the Dinapore mutineers was advancing to dispute his passage.
As it was, he resolved to take the longer but safer road to
Calcutta instead. On his way, he received letters from the
Governor -General and the Lieutenant-Governor. When he
opened them, he was probably somewhat astonished to find him-
self congratulated as a hero. That Canning should have ac-
cepted Halliday's view of Money's conduct was natural enough :
but that Halliday, acquainted as he was with the terms of the
withdrawal order and with the Avay in which Money had carried
it out, should have praised the latter as he did, might well
startle those who were ignorant of the circumstances that had
tended to warp his judgement. Nor did he content himself with
bestowing empty praise upon Money. The man who had fled
' Ho excused himself for not removing tlie tre.isure by saying " The treasure
could not 1)6 carried away ; I had neither carts nor elephants. " Pari. Papers,
vol. xliv. (1857-58), Part 2, p. 227. He omitted, however, to add that there had
been nothing to prevent him from remaining to collect carts, as he was urged to
do by some of the English residents. Moreover, his brain must have been extra-
ordinarily confused, if he did not see the glaring inconsistency between his apology
and his own subsequent conduct.
1857 BENGAL AND WESTERN BEHAR 203
in panic from his post was rewarded by promotion to a more
lucrative appointment.^ Of Money himself it is not necessary
to speak so severely. Though his whole conduct from the time
that he received the withdrawal order had been a series of mis-
takes, yet it is impossible not to feel sympathy for a man who,
when his conscience told him that he had done wrong, tried,
however awkwardly, to amend his fault.
As, however. Money had been substantially rewarded for the
defective discharge of an easy duty, surely Tayler r ^ y f
might reasonably look forward at least to the Tayiers
approbation of his Government. If some great
disturbance had broken out in Patna, and he had suppressed it,
his praises would have been sung as loudly as those of anyone
else : but, as he simply prevented disaffection from breaking
out at all in one of the most disaffected cities of India, there
was too little of the sensational in his achievements to excite
general enthusiasm. The English inhabitants of his province,
indeed, and the natives who remained loyal to his Government,
respected and trusted him absolutely.^ But Halliday had an
old grudge against him. Halliday had repaid his services by a
withdrawal of the support which each one of his subordinates
had a right to claim : he had vouchsafed not a word of praise
to encourage him in his labours : he had once before suggested
a frivolous pretext for removing him from his post ; and now,
eagerly clutching at the withdrawal order as an excuse for
carrying out his resolve, without waiting for explanation or
defence, he stigmatised this last and noblest measure of his
lieutenant as an act of disgraceful cowardice, and summarily
removed him from his post, thus depriving his
country of the services of the ablest, the most ^^'ses^Taykr.
successful, and the most trusted civil officer in
Bengal, and blasting all his hopes, his aspirations, and his
ambitions. Nothing could exceed the sympathy which the
loyal inhabitants of Behar showed to him in his trouble.
"When," wrote the non-official Christian residents of Patna,
" the whole of Patna was nearly shipwrecked, at the moment
when the rebels rose at Dinapore, and before that, when the
1 Pari. Papers, vol. xliv. (1857-58), Part 2, pp. 154-6, 227-32, 327-8, 412 ;
Currespondence, etc., pp. 119, 122, 137-8.
2 Except a "small clique" mentioned by Dr. Duff. See numerous lertters in
What is Truth ? Also letters in the FMcjlishman, July 4, 10, 11, 17, Aug. 8,
Sept, 8, 9, 12, 14, 16, 21, 30, Oct. 1, 2, 8, 12.
204 BENGAL AND WESTERN BEHAR chap, vi
mischievous machinations of Pi'r Ali and his accomplices had
endangered not only our own city, but nearly the whole pro-
vince, who opposed and braved the storm 1 Whose were those
wise, far-seeing, and statesmanlike plans which saved us then ?
and who so kindly and considerately threw open his house to
receive the Christian populace at the hour of the greatest peril ?
With one voice we answer it was you ; and were it not for you,
and for your exertions, which cost you many an anxious day
and sleepless night, . . . Behar would ere this have become a
scene of anarchy and confusion." ^
It was not, however, to be expected that public opinion
Subsequent would induce Halliday to admit that he had been
conduct of in the wrong. He had already misrepresented the
purport of the withdrawal order to the Governor-
General and Council, who, on garbled and one-sided evidence,
were led to record a censure upon Tayler.^ In a Blue Book
which he published upon the case, he suppressed a letter written
on the 8th of June, 1857, in which Tayler had given him full
information of the danger to which Patna was exposed from the
intended mutiny of the Dinapore sepoys, and another written
by himself in reply, in which he had declared, in the face of
' See What is Truth ? If Halliday bad not been in such a burry to get rid
of Tayler, be might have reflected on the inconsistency of condemning him for
issuing the withdrawal order, and praising Money for the way in which he bad
acted upon it. If the order proved cowardice on Tayler's part, it was equally
cowardly of Money to run away from his station as precipitately as he did. If
the danger to which Money was exposed was so great as to justify him in running
away without his treasure, the existence of that danger furnished an unanswerable
proof of the wisdom of Tayler's order.
For the benefit of anyone who wishes to investigate independently the questioi.
of the withdrawal order, I give the following reference : Correspondence, etc., i^p.
114-26, 128-50, 154-5, 162-8, 186-9 : Tayler's Memorial, pp. 4, 5, 9-16 ; and
his Reply to Halliday's Minute, pp. 31-5. I may mention that the majority of
the district officials, including McDonell, whom Halliday would hardly have
accused of cowardice, were grateful i'or the order. The gist of Halliday's
arguments was that there bad been no immediate probability of an attack upon
Gaya an<l Muzaffarpur. He forgot that it had been probable that the attack
would take place as early as the apparently imminent fall of Arrah would allow.
The whole question lies in a nut-shell. If Eyre had failed to relieve Arrah, even
Halliday would not have ventured to question the wisdom of the order. And
did Halliilay venture to say that Tayler would have been justified in staking his
people's lives and the Government property on the bare chance, as it seemed, of
Eyre's succeeding ? No, — for he never attempted seriously to grapple with
Tayler's arguments.
2 Gorres2)ondence, etc., pp. 123-7 ; Nan-ative of Events, pp. 200-18 ; Tayler's
Memorial, pp. 33-5.
1857 BENGAL AND WESTERN BEHAR 205
this information, that Patna was in no danger, and that the
mutiny of the Dinapore sepoys was inconceivable. Lastly, in
a minute which he despatched to the Directors in 1858, he
implicitly denied that Tayler had ever sent him the information
which the letter of the 8th of June contained.^
Though, however, for the moment he had gained a triumph
condemned by every honest man in India who
knew the facts of the case,^ there was a Nemesis
in store for him. Time gave judgement between him and his
victim. For a few years the latter could only submit with
what patience he could command to the cruel injustice which he
had suffered. The differences between himself and his Govern-
ment remained as yet within the sphere of opinion. Long ago,
indeed, the Dinapore mutiny, which Halliday had pronounced
" inconceivable," had taken place : but he could still plausibly
assert that Tayler was absurdly wrong in maintaining that there
1 Tliese are grave charges. They will be found fully substantiated in Tayler's
Eeply to Halliday's Minute, pp. 25-9, 48-9, 66-8, in his Memorial, pp. 17-20,
and in Halliday's Minute, pp. 29-31 (821-3). Anyone who wishes for further
proof need only compare the special Blue Book already quoted, entitled
Correspondence, etc., with the Pari. Pa2Krs. Among the letters omitted from
the special Blue Book was one written on the 28th of May to Tayler by Halliday,
in which he said, " As soon as the telegraph is open I request you will send me
a daily message, brief, just to say 'All's well,' till further notice." In accordance
with the desire thus expressed, Tayler sent short demi-official and official letters
and telegrams for some weeks. About the 30th of June he received an order
(dated the 25th) to write official letters regularly. He obeyed. But the letters
in the special Blue Book are arranged with such marvellous ingenuity, such
convenient disregard for the sequence of dates, as to make it appear to any but
the most careful reader that he contumaciously persisted for some time in writing
demi-officially.
It is not my business to describe the various measures by which Halliday
completed his victory. It ought, however, to be mentioned that, after Tayler
had refuted the charge on which he had been ostensibly removed from his post,
Halliday sent a long list of ex-post-facto charges against him, without allowing
him to see them, to the Directors. Although their minds were prejudiced by the
concealment of evidence mentioned in the text, and still more by the fact that
Tayler had not been allowed the opportunity of defending himself, they acquitted
him of all the charges but two, and expressed their cordial approval of his general
administration. Halliday published the unfavourable and suppressed the favour-
able portion of their despatch. The two remaining charges were refuted by
Tayler : but Halliday secretly withheld his reftitation, on the plea that it was
contumacious, until it was too late to send it. See Halliday's Minute, Narrative
of tyoents, and Tayler's Memorial.
2 See letters from General Le Grand Jacob, Sir Arthur Cotton, General Colin
Mackenzie, Dr. Duff, Hon. E. Drummoud, R. Vicars Boyle, General Sir Sydney
Cotton, Sir Vincent Eyre, etc., and extracts from articles from Indian news-
papers, published in Tayler's pamphlets.
206 BENGAL AND WESTERN BEHAR chap, vi
had been danger at Patna ; for had not Patna remained quiet
when every other station was disturbed ? The very perfection
of Tayler's administration gave Halliday a handle against him.
But in 1864 and 1865 an extraordinary series of events occurred,
which proved indisputably the sagacity of Tayler and the blind-
ness of Halliday. In 1863 a frontier war broke out, which was
generally considered the result of a secret anti-Christian crusade
preached by the Wahabis of Patna. An elaborate trial, held at
Umballa in the following year, proved the justice
of the suspicion ; and three of the prisoners were
sentenced to death. But this was not all. In 1865 the
notorious Ahmad Ulla, the chief of the three Wahdbis whom
Tayler had arrested in 1857, was brought to trial at Patna on
the same charge, and convicted. The arch-traitor, whom Tayler's
successor, with Halliday's approval, had called an innocent and
inoflfensive " bookman," against whom there was no cause of sus-
picion, and whom Halliday himself had openly petted and made
much of, was sent to the Andaman Islands as a convicted felon.^
Now that at last he had the evidence of hard facts to
Ta ler's support him, Tayler began a struggle for redress,
struggle for Avhich successive disappointments only made him
more resolute to maintain. In 1878 his loyal
supporter, Syad Wilayat Ali Khan, who, like him, had been
visited with Halliday's displeasure, was decorated with the Order
of the Indian Empire.^ He might fairly hope that now justice
would be at last done him. For not only had the Court of
Directors cordially praised him ; not only had the Press
unanimously supported him ; not only had two successive
historians of the Indian Mutiny warmly eulogised his ad-
ministration ; not only had a great company of Indian officers
and civilians declared to him their conviction that his resolute
statesmanship had saved Behar ; but two ex-members of
Canning's Council had written to him, in generous repentance,
to retract the censure Avhich they had joined in passing upon
him, and to add their testimony to the value of his services.^
^ There is good reason to believe that he solaced himself in his captivity by
contriving the plot to which Lord Mayo fell a victim. Fact v. Falselwod, pp.
32-6.
^ Army and Navy Jfagazine, vol. viii., 1884, p. 232.
3 The letter from Sir John Low is to be found in the Selection of Letters from
Distinguished Indian Statesmen ; an extract from the one from Dorin in ^Vhat is
Truth ? p. 46.
1857 BENGAL AND WESTERN BEHAR 207
But lie underrated the forces of officialism, of misrepresentation,
and of intrigue. So long as life and strength remained, he
persevered ; and when at last it became apparent that victory-
was hopeless,^ he still had a strong consolation of Avhich no
injustice could rob him. For he knew he had saved Behar.
^ On June 15, 1888, Sir Roper Lethbridge moved in the House of Commons
that a Select Committee should be appointed to enquire into Mr. Tayler's case.
The motion was defeated, owing to a most serious mis-statement by Sir John
Gorst, which was refuted by me in a letter to the Times (June 25, 1888, p. 5,
col. 5), and in a pamphlet, written, I believe, by Mr. Tayler's son, the late Mr.
Skipwith Tayler, and entitled Sir J. Gorst's Statement in the House of Com-
mons of June 22, 1888, refuted. [The date June 22 in the title of the pamphlet
should be June 15.] See also Times, Aug. 15, 1888, p. 3, col, 3.
CHAPTER VII
BENARES AND ALLAHABAD
While Canning, in the days that followed the outbreak at
The line be- Meerut, was preparing to strike the great blow
tween Calcutta at Delhi which, he believed, would instantly
paralyse the revolt, he could not but feel anxious
for the safety of the vast tract of country that lay between
that city and Calcutta. For, while dense masses of sepoys were
crowded at the stations along the Ganges and the Jumna, a
single British regiment at Agra, another at Dinapore, which the
irresolution of the Government condemned to inaction, and a
few invalided soldiers were the only force available to hold
them in check. If the sepoys had known how to use their
opportunity, they might have prevented the passage of the
reinforcements destined to succour Cawnpore and Lucknow :
nay, they might have swept down the valley of the Ganges,
seized Allahabad, Benares, and Patna, and, gathering strength
on their way till their numbers had become irresistible,
destroyed every trace of European civilisation, and massacred
every European till they had reached the frontiers of Eastern
Bengal. But, during the three precious weeks that followed
the 10th of May, they remained absolutely passive. Perhaps,
as has been suggested,^ the outbreak at Meerut frustrated a
carefully matured plot for a simultaneous rising on the 31st of
May, and thus disconcerted them. Perhaps they simply lacked
the sagacity or the resolution to strike in time.
The first important point on the line of the Ganges beyond
the Bengal frontier, was Benares. The troops who
were being conveyed up the river from Calcutta to
grapple vnth. mutiny and rebellion Avere in no mood to look out
^ See Appendix F.
1857 BENARES AND ALLAHABAD 209
for the beauties of the scenery : but even their grim thoughts
must have been distracted for a moment by the first sight of
the Holy City. Shooting past a little promontory, the steamer
entered a broad crescent-shaped reach, which, sparkling in the
sunlight, washed the curved shore like a miniature bay. For
two miles along the left bank a succession of broad flights of
steps descended into the water ; and upon them swarmed
multitudes of preachers, pilgrims, worshippers, loungers, and
bathers clad in dresses of many colours. The mellow music of
a hundred bells resounded above the hum of human voices.
From the steps rose, tier above tier, pagodas, mosques, round towers
and arches covered with fantastic decorations, long pillared arcades,
balustraded terraces, noble mansions with carved balconies, and
gardens rich with the dark green foliage of tamarinds and
banians ; and high above the highest, perpetuating the humilia-
tion which their founder had inflicted upon the idolatrous city,
soared the two stately minarets of the mosque of Aurangzeb.^
Although the dynasty of the persecuting Emperor had been
humiliated in its turn, the Hindus of the city were as ready as
they had ever been to resent the slightest rumour of an insult
against the sanctity of their religion. The influence of an army
of priests made Benares as dangerous a stronghold of Brahminical
as Patna was of Mahomedan fanaticism. Moreover, a rise in
the price of corn unfortunately occurred at this very time to
exasperate the habitual discontent of its inhabitants ; and it
was to be feared that the state prisoners of every nation who
had been condemned to pass their lives within its walls would
seize the first opportunity to sow sedition against the English.
While, therefore, the geographical position of the city, its wealth,
and the fact that it was the capital of a large Division, caused
general anxiety to be felt for its safety, it was seen that no
place was more exposed to danger. The military force, which
was quartered at the cantonment, about three miles from the
city inland, consisted of a mere handful of English artillerymen,
and three native regiments, the 37th Native Infantry, the
Ludhidna Sikhs, and the 13th Irregular Cavalry. The native
infantry were of course distrusted : but the Sikhs were believed
to be staunch ; and here, as elsewhere, it was hoped that the
irregulars, better disciplined and officered than the rest of the
army, would remain true to their salt.
' I. Prinsep's Benares Illustrated ; Roberts's Hindostan, vol. ii. pp. 54, 56.
P
210 BENARES AND ALLAHABAD chap, vn
Among the English officials there Avas fortunately a man
who had an extraordinary power of dealing with
GubWas. Asiatics. This was the Judge, Frederic Gubbins.
Entering upon his office six years before, he had
rapidly introduced a new system of draining and lighting the
squalid streets, in spite of the prejudices of the priest-ridden
inhabitants, who feared that his measures portended an attack
upon their religion.^ By thus successfully accomplishing what
other officers had attempted in vain, Gubbins had established
once for all such a dread of his power in the minds of the people
that he was able now to attempt conciliatory measures which,
coming from a weaker man, would have been attributed to fear.
Noting the discontent which the high price of provisions was
arousing, he exerted himself to convince the merchants that it
would be their interest to avoid a riot by selling corn at as low
a rate as possible. He succeeded so •weW that a reduction of
fifteen per cent was soon effected. Henry Tucker,
the Commissioner, was a man of a different stamp.
His strength lay rather in passive fortitude than in aggressive
activity. With a perversion of that reliance upon a Higher
Power which supported the noblest heroes of the Mutiny, he
seemed to suspect a want of faith in the active precautions
which ordinary political wisdom suggested to others.- It was
not in this spirit that Havelock offered up his prayers to the
God of battles. But, if Tucker forgot the maxim, Aide toi et le
del t'aidera, he did not forget to aid his brethren in misfortune.
With a noble self-sacrifice in which his colleagues cheerfully
supported him, he sent on every detachment of British troops
which the Government had destined for the relief of Benares, to
reinforce the garrison of Cawnpore. Moreover, he hoped that,
by refusing to avail himself of these succours, he would impress
the people of Benares with the belief that he felt confident in
the sufficiency of his existing resources. And for a time, indeed,
his hope seemed likely to be realised. For three weeks after
the news of the outbreak at Meerut reached him, he was able to
report that all was quiet in his Division. On the
^"*i"L^h. 4th of June, however, he learned that the Sepoy
regiment at Azamgarh, sixty miles to the north,
iad mutinied, and that the civil officers of the station had
confessed by their precipitate retreat that they were unable to
1 Red PcmphleU pp. 86-7. "^ Kaye, vol. ii. pp. 209-10.
1857 BENARES AND ALLAHABAD 211
uphold British authority.^ But by this time an officer had
come to his support who knew that the Indian Mutiny could
only be quelled by the most stern and instant action.
Among those who arrived in Calcutta towards the end of
May in answer to Canning's appeal, was Colonel
James Neill of the 1st Madras Fusiliers. In a ^^^^
military career of thirty years, most of which had been spent
in India, this officer had given many proofs that he was a born
ruler of men. Serving against Russia with the Anglo-Turkish
Contingent, he had shown that it was possible to rough-hew
savage Bashi - Bazouks into disciplined soldiers ^j and the
splendid regiment which he now brought with him to Calcutta
owed its efficiency to his devotion. Canning recognised him at
once as a man for the crisis, and entrusted him with the work
of seciu-ing Benares and Allahabad, and relieving Cawnpore.
Indeed it required no sulitle power of analysis to understand
the nature of Colonel Neill. Tender and loving to those dear
to him, merciful to the weak, and ever ready to sacrifice his
own comfort for the well-being of his soldiers, he was a staunch
friend, but a terrible enemy. No responsibility could appall
him. No obstacle could stop him. No perplexities could
dazzle the clear mental vision with which he instantly discerned
the true bearings of every question of immediate action. AVhen,
in his quarters at Madras, he heard of the first beginnings of
mutiny, and thought that God might call him to take his part
in its suppression, he startled a brother officer by saying that he
" felt fully equal to any extent of professional employment or
responsibility which could ever devolve upon him." But, when
his friend looked up into his eyes, and saw the quiet but earnest
expression of his stern face, he knew that there was no
arrogance, but well-founded self-reliance in the words which he
had heard. ^
Their truth was signally proved, even before Neill had left
Calcutta. It was arranged that a detachment of
the Fusiliers should proceed up the Ganges by wiTh the nfii-
steamer, while Neill himself should follow with the ^^caiSitta^
rest by train. Arriving at the station with a few
1 Pari. Papers, vol. xviii. (1859), p. 25 ; vol. xxx. (1857), pp. 344-6, 348,
352, 354, 357, 359, 362, 365, 368, 380, 385, 392, 395 ; Times, Aug. 6, 1857.
^ Kaye's Lives of Indian Officers, vol. ii. pp. 361-3.
3 lb. vol. ii. pp. 366-7.
212 BENARES AND ALLAHABAD chap, vii
of his men some mimites before the main hocly, which h.id been
unavoidably detained, he was told by the station-master that
the train was already late, and would be started at once without
waiting for the absentees ; and, when he remonstrated, a crowd
of other officials came up, and did their best to silence him.
But he soon showed them what manner of man they had to deal
"with. Putting the station-master, the engineer, and the stoker
under arrest, he waited till all the Fusiliers had arrived, and
did not release his prisoners until he had seen every man safe
in his place.^ This single incident satisfied the Christians whom
Neill was hastening to succoui-. They knew that the right man
had come at last.
On the 3rd of June jSTeill arrived in Benares with a detach-
ment of his regiment. About sixty more, and a
iemres''."'^^ hundred and fifty of the 10th from Dinapore had
preceded him. On the following day the news
of the Azamgarh mutiny arrived ; and, as it was certain that
the sepoys at Benares would catch the infection.
Brigadier Ponsonby, who commanded the station,
went to Neill's quarters, to consult him on the expediency of
disarming the 37th. Fifteen years before, Pon-
The crisis, ^ . .
sonby had won his spurs in the wonderful on-
slaught on Dost Mahomed's cavalry at Parwan-darra. It is
easier, however, to lead even a Balaclava charge than to quell
a mutiny. Ponsonby wished to put off the business of dis-
arming till the morrow. But delay was an abomination to
Neill. He persuaded Ponsonby that the thing ought to be
done that very evening. Accordingly Colonel Spottiswoode,
who commanded the 37th, proceeded to turn out his men, and
ordered them to lay down their arms. They were quietly
obeying when suddenly the European troops were seen coming
on to the ground, and a panic seized the whole regiment.
Those who had laid down their muskets ran to take them up
again, and, with the others, began to fire upon the British.
Some men of the 1 0th fell : but the rest returned the fire ;
and the artillery, under Captain William Olpherts, poured in a
shower of grape among the mutineers. And now, as Ponsonby,
who had throughoxit been suff'ering grievously from the fierce
heat of the sun, appeared to be losing all power of mind and
body, Neill went up to him and said, "General, I assume
^ Kaye's Lives of Indian Ojficers, vol. ii. pp. 366-7.
1857 BENARES AND ALLAHABAD 213
command." At this moment the Sikhs, who were reluctantly
advancing from behind to support the Europeans, were startled
by the noise of firing in their rear. One of the Irregulars had
fired at his commanding officer ; and the Sikhs, some of whom
were positively disloyal, while the rest were confused and
apprehensive of treachery, rushed wildly against the artillery-
men. Olpherts had but just time to wheel his guns round, and
fire. His swift action saved Benares ; for the Sikhs, stagger-
ing under a fearful discharge of grape, broke and fled after
the 37th; and Neill, promptly pursuing them, completed the
victory.^
The din of battle, resounding from the parade - ground,
warned the Christian residents that mutiny had broken out,
Most of the missionaries fled. A motley throng of civilians,
women, and children took refuge on the roof of the Collector's
cutcherry. Even after the mutiny had been suppressed,
danger was still to be apprehended from the townspeople and
from the revengeful fury of a detachment of Sikhs, who had
been placed as a guard over the Government treasure. That
^ Kave's Lives of hidian Officers, pp. 368-70 ; Pari. Papers, vol. xxx.
(1857) pp. 479-80 ; vol. xviii. (1859) p. 32 ; Times, Aug. 18, 25, 1857, p. 6,
col. 4 ; MS. correspondence. Tiicker informed the Governor-General that the
disarming had been very badly managed ; and some of the officers of the 37th
complained that their men had been foully used. Montgomery - Martin goes
further, and maintains that to disarm at all was a mistake. The disarming was
certainly mismanaged, probably because it was xmdertaken without due prepara-
tion ; and, as Ponsonby asserted in a letter to the Times (Aug. 18, 1857), that he
conducted the whole liusiness, he miist bear the blame. But those who were
best qualified to judge believed that, if the regiment had not been disarmed,
it would have mutinied on the night of June 4. It is to be regretted, of course,
that well-intentioned sepoys were slaughtered ; but, when once they had thrown
in their lot with their comrades, their slaughter was inevitable. See Montgomery-
Martin, vol. ii. pp. 233-5 ; Kaye, vol. ii. pp. 226-8 ; Pari. Papers, vol. xviii.
(1859), p. 32.
[It has been asserted that the Sikhs were provoked to mutiny by Olpherts's open-
ing fire on them without provocation. On this poiut the testimony of General Sir
D. S. Dodgson, K.C.B., and of Major-General W. Tweedie, C.S.I., who were both
present, is conclusive. " I am most positive," wrote Dodgson in an unpublished
letter to Olpherts, " you did not open fire on the Loodianah Regiment until they
had fired on your men and on the infantry (European), and had fired on their own
commanding officer and adjutant, and had actually mortally wounded Ensign
Hayter, and most severely wounded Ensigns Chapman and Tweedie. I saw them
shot down by the Sikhs ... I know a good many of the Sikhs were loyal, but a
great many were disloyal . . . Gordon had evidently the greatest difficulty in
getting the Loodianah Regiment to move up in front of the 37th ; else why should
Ponsonby have ordered me twice to go and urge him to come up at once ? And
when he did get the regiment to move, it wavered and stopped more than once
during the advance."]
214 BENARES AND ALLAHABAD chap, vii
this danger was averted was partly due to the active loyalty of
a knot of influential natives. Foremost among these was a Sikh
sirdar, Surat Singh, who, during a long residence as a state
prisoner in Benares, had learned to appreciate the character
of Gubbins, and now, accompanying him to the cutcherry,
which was in danger of being burned by the infuriated Sikhs,
not only quieted them by explaining that the attack on their
comrades had been unpremeditated, but even won them over to
a loyal discharge of their duties. Not less faithful to Gubbins
were his Nazir,^ Pundit Gokal-Chand, a rich Hindu noble
named Deonarain Singh, and the titular Kaja of Benares him-
self, who all did good service in allaying the excitement of
the populace, and rescuing Christians from their fury. About
two o'clock in the morning, the party at the cut^
June 5 o' X ./ _
cherry was removed under an escort to the Mint,
which was better fitted for defence. Huddling together on the
roof, they fell asleep at last from sheer exhaustion. The first
sight that met their eyes when they awoke was a row of gallows,
on which Neill was busily hanging batches of mutineers as fast
as they were brought in.'^ Soon afterwards he I'eceived a
message from the Government, ordering him to hurry on to
Allahabad. Instantly he telegraphed back — " Can't move :
wanted here." ^ But though he could not stir himself, he sent on
one of his subalterns with fifty of the Fusiliers. By the 6th he
was able to report that the cantonments were safe.* Thus
within Benares itself order was re-established and maintained.
Tucker, who knew that he at least had contributed nothing to
this result, ascribed it to miracle : but the baffled rebels would
have told him that it was due to the \agour of Neill and
Gubbins, and the \oyix\ co-operation of four native gentlemen.
Anyhow, no miracle was vouchsafed to keep the country popula-
tion quiet. The story of the slaughter at Benares di'ove another
detachment of the Sikhs at Jaunpur to rebel on the follo^ving
day, and stimulated the villagers to fling off and trample under
Mutiny at ^oot every vestige of British authority. Then
Jaunpur. _^^ Tucker bestirred himself to ask Canning for leave
the districts, to give his chicf civil officers power of life and
^ An official wlio issues pi-ocesses, keeps the roll' of witnesses and announces
their arrival, makes out lists of unclaimed property and stray cattle, and carries
out public sales by the Court's order, just outside the cutcherry.
- Times, Aug. 25, 1857, p. 6, col. 4.
3 Mead. -^ Farl. Pcqxrs, vol. xxx. (1857), p. 480.
1857 BENARES AND ALLAHABAD 215
death. The Governor-General, however, had already issued an
order placing the Division of Benares under martial
law. Some of the officers used their power with in- ™
discriminate ferocity. Lads who had been guilty of nothing
worse than waving rebel colours and beating tom-toms, were
summarily executed. Gentlemen volunteered to serve as
hangmen, and gloried in the skill with Avhich they dis-
posed of their victims. But mere executions, however severe,
were not enough to restore British authority. Landholders
plundered each other and robbed travellers on the roads : bands
of dacoits began to infest the country ; and parties of dispersed
sepoys continued to attack isolated posts.
On the 9th of June ^ Neill found himself able to push on for
Allahabad. Standing at the south-eastern point
of the Doab, where the sparkling stream of the
Jumna loses itself in the turbid waters of the Ganges, that city
commanded both the river and road communication between
the upper and lower provinces of Northern India ; while its
grand, massive fort, stored with ammunition, and bristling
with guns, offered an invaluable prize to the daring of the
mutineers. Moreover, its natiu-al importance had of late been
greatly increased by the annexation of Oudh, to the southern
frontier of which it served as a protection. Thus it is not too
much to say that the safety of the entire North-West hung upon
the preservation of Allahabad. Ellenborough and Charles
Napier, recognising its importance, had always kept it strongly
garrisoned by Europeans : but their successors had neglected
it; and, though Outram had warned Canning to provide for
its safety, there was not a single British soldier within its walls
at the outset of the Mutiny.- It was not till the Christian
inhabitants had been roused by the outbreak at Meerut to
point out the defencelessness of their position that sixty invalid
artillerymen were sent from Chunar to reinforce them.^ The
news which startled the English residents stirred up the latent
disaflfection of the discontented Mahomedan population, many
of whom were fallen nobles who cursed the Government which
^ Pari. Pa2)ers, vol. xxx. (1857), p. 455.
^ "Had the precautions I proposed been adopted," A\Tote Outram, "a
European regiment must have been retained at Cawnpore to supply the
Allahabad garrison, and General Wlieeler's party would have been saved." — Sir
F. J. Goldsmid's Life of Outram, vol. ii. p. 123.
=* Eed Panqohlet, pp. 93-4.
216 BENARES AND ALLAHABAD chap, vii
had brought them to the dust.^ Here, as elsewhere, there were
rumours of treacherous designs of the Government against
the religion of their subjects. Yet here too, as elsewhere,
the native troops were trusted by their commanders. One
regiment especially, the 6th Native Infantry, was the pride
and delight of the colonel and his officers, who had ever shown
an affectionate interest in all that concerned the welfare of
their men. And now the men in their turn seemed eager to
show themselves worthy of their officers. On the 19th of
May the entire regiment volunteered to march against Delhi.
Meanwhile the excitement of the populace, though it became
May "5 ^^ore intense after the great Mahomedan festival
of the Eed, had not developed into insurrection.
Yet all this time the chief civilians felt ill at ease ; for they
knew that the populace would rise at once if the sepoys should
mutiny, and they could not regard the sepoys with that con-
fidence which old associations had fostered in the hearts of the
officers.^
On the 4th of June the telegraph brought the news of the
events that had just passed at Benares. Feeling sure that
the mutineers whom Neill had driven out of that station must
be marching against Allahabad, the magistrate begged Colonel
Simpson of the 6 th to send a company of his regiment with
two guns to guard the bridge by which the rebels would have
to cross the Ganges. Simpson consented, and at the same
time detached a party of irregular cavalry to defend the
cantonments. The magistrate, who had never trusted the
native troops, may have only advised the former measure as a
forlorn hope : but even now, with the story of the Benares
mutiny before him, Simpson retained his faith in his own
regiment. Nay two days later, he paid no heed to a warning
which he received from a non - commissioned officer of his
regiment, telling him that the news from Benares had dangerously
excited the men. At sunset on that day he
paraded the troops in order to read them a letter
from the Governor -General, thanking the Gth for their offer
' "The existence of a Maliomedan conspiracy to exterminate the English
was now (May 31) a matter of notoriety." — Calcutta Review, July to Dec. 1858.
Article, "A District during a Rebellion," p. 59.
2 Calcutta Review, July to Dec. 1858. Article, "A District during a
Rehellion," p. 59 ; Pari. Pajiers, vol. xxx. (1857), p. 306.
1857 BENARES AND ALLAHABAD 217
to march against Delhi. The sepoys listened with apparent
satisfaction, and cheered like British soldiers. More than ever
convinced of the loyalty of their model regiment, Simpson and
his officers rode off the parade-ground to mess. But the men
did not feel that their day's work was over. An order had just
been issued foi- the removal of the guns stationed at the bridge
to the fort, where they might be more needed ; and, when Lieu-
tenant Harward, the officer on duty, was preparing to move
them, the sepoys chosen to form their escort de- The mutiny
fiantly asserted their resolve to take them to can- and its con-
tonments instead. Harward hastened to warn
Lieutenant Alexander of the Oudh Irregulars to intercept the
mutineers on their way to cantonments. Alexander led out his
men. As soon as he saw his enemy, he called upon them to
follow him and recover the guns : but only three rode to the
attack : the rest went over to the sepoys ; and the gallant
Alexander fell, shot through the heart. Then the sepoys marched
Avith their new friends to the lines; and, when the deluded
officers hurried up to recall their men to obedience, they were
answered by a volley of musketry, beneath which five fell.
Among the other victims of the model regiment were seven
young cadets, who had only just arrived from England. Night
had now set in ; and the mutineers sallied out into the city, to
seek new fields of crime. Fii*st they broke open the gaol, and
let loose a swarm of miscreants to aid them in their work. And
now the magistrate's fears were realised. The populace followed
the example of the sepoys ; and mutiny was merged in sedition.
Every Christian who had not found refuge in the fort was mur-
dered : every Christian home was plundered and burned : the
timid Bengali pilgrims, who had come to worship at the famous
shrine of the Prayag, were robbed and threatened by the Ma-
homedans, to whom they were scarcely less odious than the
Christians themselves : the shops and the warehouses were
rifled : the railway works were destroyed : the telegraph wires
were torn down ; and the locomotive engines, which the ignorant
rebels feared to approach, were bombarded. Worst of all, six-
teen hundred bullocks, which the Commissariat had collected for
the transport service of the column destined for the relief of Cawn-
pore, were driven off. Within a few hours the authority of the
English in Allahabad was overthrown ; and a green flag, waving
over the Kotwali, proclaimed the restored supremacy of Islam.
218 BENARES AND ALLAHABAD chap. VII
But the fort still sheltered a few Europeans, and told the
Mahomedans that their authority was not univer-
ttiefort/^^^^ sally recognised. Yet even the fort must have
fallen, if it had not been for the great qualities of
an infantry captain who had once been a private soldier. The
garrison consisted of the invalid artillerymen, about a hundred
European volunteers, a company of the sepoy regiment which
had just mutinied, and a detachment of Sikhs who had lately
heard of the slaughter of their countrymen at Benares. It
seemed almost certain that the sepoys and the Sikhs would now
unite and turn upon their masters. In this extremity Captain
Brasyer of the Sikhs forced his men to supj)ort him in disarm-
ing the sepoys ; while the artillerymen, port-fires in hand, stood
at the guns, ready to destroy the first man who disobeyed orders.
The sepoys saw that they must give way, and, piling their
arms at Brasyer's order, trooped out of the fort to join their
comrades.^
All night long the English, standing on the ramparts of the
fort, were forced to listen to the yells of the budmashes, who
were making havoc of their possessions, and watch the flames
and lurid smoke ascending from their ruined homes. Next day
they were cheered by the arrival of the detachment
of Fusiliers, whom Neill had sent on in advance.
Even with this reinforcement, however, they were still too Aveak
to re-establish their authority in the town. And now the ex-
ample of the townspeople was being followed by the people of the
surrounding country. The infection of mutiny and rebellion
travelled westward to the station of Fatehpur; and Robert
Tucker, the judge, standing his ground alone after every other
European had fled, refusing to purchase life by apostatising to
Mahomedanism, was murdered on the roof of the cutcherry after
he had himself slain some fourteen of his assailants. On the
western bank of the Jumna, indeed, a few influential rajas
found their interest in keeping the people submissive to British
rule : "^ but the villagers on the eastern side of the Ganges, and
the Brahmins and Mahomedan landowners of the Doab openly
^ Marshman's Memoirs of Sir H. Havdock, p. 270 ; Times, Aug. 25, 1857,
p. 6, col. 3 ; Aug. 26, p. 7, col. 2 ; Mead, pp. 131-3 ; Calcutta Review, July to
Dec. 1858, p. 60 ; Annals of tlie Indian Rebellion, pp. 401-28.
2 ' ' They were wise enougli to see that a servile war, an uprising of the lower
against the higher classes . . . would uot answer their purpose." — Calcutta
Review, July to Dec. 1858, p. 64.
1857 BENARES AND ALLAHABAD 219
flung off the yoke. The state of things was much the same as
that which has been described as prevalent in the districts round
Agra and Meerut, and in Rohilkhand. Every man did that
which was right in his own eyes. Old grudges were avenged.
Boundary marks were removed. E-ich capitalists were driven
out of the estates which they had bought under the Sale Law.
Villagers impartially robbed each other and the Government.
Internecine war raged. Meanwhile in Allahabad itself a Ma-
homedan, who had presented himself to the people as a prophet
endowed by heaven with miraculous powers, was keeping alive
the awakened hatred of the English name. Even in the fort the
demon of disorder was rampant. The Sikhs found abundant
stores of wine, brandy, rum, and beer in the cellars of the mer-
chants, and sold all that they could not drink themselves to the
Europeans. Men supposed to be on duty were to be seen stagger-
ing on the ramparts, so drunk that they could not hold their
muskets. Many of the volunteers soon became as demoralised
as the Sikhs, and joined them in plundering the houses of
inoffensive traders, and smashing their furniture. But the reign
of anarchy was doomed. For Neill was fast hiu-rying up from
Benares; and on the 11th of June he entered the fort with
forty of his men. " Thank God, Sir," said the sentry who ad-
mitted him, "you'll save us yet."-*^
The sentry was right. " On assuming command," wrote
Neill a few days later, " I at once determined to T^^eiii arrives
drive the enemy away, and open up some communi- and restores
cation with the country." Accordingly, on the
morning of the 12th, he bombarded the suburban village of
Daraoganj, expelled the mob of insurgents who occiipied it,
burned part of it to the gi'ound, and won back the
. . . . June 13
bridge, which the rebels had seized. The Fusiliers
were so exhausted by their rapid journey from Benares and the
intense heat that they could hardly walk : but the force of their
passions sustained them ; and, with reckless ferocity, they de-
stroyed every native whom they could catch. Reinforced on
the following day by a fresh detachment, a hundred
strong, Neill resolved to put a stop to the disoi'der
in the fort. Directly after his arrival, he had paraded the
^ Calcuttii Eevietv, July to Pen. 1858, pp. 63-4 ; J::iidosures to Secret Letters
from India, July 4, 1857, pp. 569-70 ; Twies, Aug. 25, 1857, p. 6, col. 3 ; Lives
of Indian Officers, vol. ii. p. 373 ; Montgomery- Jlartin, vol. ii. pp. 296-7, 316.
220 BENARES AND ALLAHABAD chap, vii
volunteers, and, severely reprimanding them for their disgraceful
misconduct, had threatened to eject from the fort the first who
should offend again. He now proceeded to buy up all the
plundered liquor, and destroyed the rest. He found it less easy
to dispose of the Sikhs, who had passed entirely beyond the con-
trol of their officers : but Brasyer, who knew the ruling passion
of his men, with great tact persuaded them that, by taking up
their quarters outside the fort, they would be in a better position
for plundering the rebel zaminddrs.
Now that order had been restored within the fort, Neill had
a secure base for his operations against the city and the sm-round-
ing country. Causing the fort guns to open fire on the suburban
villages, he sent out parties of Fusiliers, Sikhs, and
Irregulars, who swept over the country, and scat-
tered rebels and mutineers in all directions. A detachment of
Fusiliers went up the river in a steamer, throAnng shot right
and left, and firing every village that they passed. A portion
of the native town was set on fire ; and volleys of grape and
canister were showered into the inhabitants, as they ran from
the flames. Meanwhile another detachment had started from
Benares to reopen the line of communication, and was burning
rebel villages, and hanging rebel zamindars as it pursued its
way. By the 1 8th the districts were absolutely mastered. The
work of retribution, however, was not over ; and some of those
who took part in it, maddened by the outrages which had been
inflicted upon their countrymen, recked little whom they slew,
so long as they could slay someone. Volunteers and Sikhs
sallied out of the fort into the streets, and slaughtered every
native who crossed their path. A civilian boasted that a com-
mission of which he was chief had hung eight or ten men a day,
and wrote home a graphic account of the disgusting details of
their execution.^ The system of burning villages, right and
politic when pursued with discrimination, was in many instances
fearfully abused. Old men who had done us no harm, helpless
women Avith sucking infants at their breasts, felt the weight of
our vengeance no less than the vilest malefactors ; and, as they
' Abundant proof of all that I have said in the text about the nature of our
reprisals is to be found in letters to English and Indian newspapers WTitten b}'
raen who acted in or witnessed the scenes which they described, in the Pari.
Papers, and in the pages of Montgomery-Martin, who devoted special attention
to the subject.
1857 BENARES AND ALLAHABAD 221
wandered forth from their blazing huts, they must have cursed
us as bitterly as we cursed the murderers of Cawnpore. But to
the honour of Neill let it be recorded that to him the infliction
of punishment was not a delight, but an awful duty. "God
grant," he wrote on the 17th, "I may have acted with justice.
I know I have with severity, but under all the circumstances I
trust for forgiveness." ^ On the same day the magistrate re-
turned to the Kotwali. Not a finger was raised against him.
In fact, Neill had inspired the populace with such terror that a
rumour arose that the English were going to bombard the city ;
and many of the citizens fled with their families into the
country.^ At no epoch of history has individual character
achieved more extraordinary results than in the coui-se of the
Indian Mutiny.
By this time, however, toil and privation, incessant excite-
ment, bad and scanty food, and intemperate drink-
ing, had told upon the health of the British soldiers. ^^ ^ ^° '^^'
On the 18th cholera broke out among them. There were no
means of mitigating its horrors. Punkahs and medicines were
almost entirely wanting. Eight men were buried before mid-
night. Twenty more died next day. The shrieks of the
sufferers were so appalling that two ladies in a room over the
hospital died of fright.^
Still, the first of the great objects for which Neill had left
Calcutta had been gained. Within a few days he ™ ^ ^^ .„ ^ ^
.=> ,.. ■^- What NeiU had
had paralysed the insurgent population of a crowded done, and what
city and a wide district, and had rebuilt the ^ °^^^'
shattered fabric of British authority. He had done this while
laboiu:ing under a physical weakness that would have prostrated
many energetic men. But nothing could overcome the resolute
heart of Neill. When he arrived in Allahabad, after a week of
ceaseless activity and anxiety at Benares, he had felt almost
dying from complete exhaustion; but "yet," he wrote to his
wife, " I kept up heart." Unable to move, barely able to
sustain consciousness by taking repeated draughts of cham-
pagne and water, he had had himself carried into the bat-
teries, and there, lying on his back, had directed every opera-
^ Kaye, vol. ii. p. 269, note.
- lb. p. 298 ; Dailp News, Aug. 25, 1857 ; Times, Aug. 25, 1857, p. 6, col.
3 ; Pari. Papers, vol. xxx. (1857), pp. 545-6, 583.
2 Ih. pp. 544, 555 ; Times, Aug. 26, 1857, p. 6, col. 6.
222 BENARES AND ALLAHABAD chap, vii
tion.^ And now he felt that his work was only begun. For
he knew that Lucknow was even then threatened by a mutinous
soldiery, and that Cawnpore was hard pressed by the army
of the Nana Sahib.
^ Lives of Indian Officers, vol, ii. pp. 373-4.
CHAPTER Tm
CAWNPORE
Ever since the news of the seizure of Delhi had reached him,
Canning had felt specially anxious for the safety of
Cawnpore. That city was the headquarters of a
Division ; and, though its importance as a military station had
been diminished by the annexation of the Punjab, it was still a
position of considerable value. Four native regiments, the 2nd
Cavalry, and the 1st, 53rd, and 56 th Infantry, were assembled
within its lines. Yet the entire British force consisted of only
fifty-nine artillerymen and a few invalids belonging to the 32nd
Queen's Regiment. To add to the difficulties of the position,
the station was crowded by an unusually large non-combatant
population.
Cawnpore was situated forty-two miles south-west of Luck-
now, on the southern bank of the Ganges. The native town,
with its dilapidated houses and narrow twisting streets swarm-
ing with busy traders and artisans and roving budraashes, lay
about a mile from the river. Around it stretched a dull, sandy
plain. South-east of the town, and separated from it by a
canal, were the native lines, Tong rows of mud hovels, thatched
with straw. Here, after morning parade, dusky warriors were
to be seen loafing about in groups and gossiping ; while others,
squatting on the ground in the cool linen drawers which they
had put on after flinging off their tight, uncomfortable uniforms,
were placidly eating their rice. Moving on, and skirting the
north-eastern quarter of the town, the traveller would have
come to the theatre, near which, on rising ground, stood the
assembly rooms and the church with its white tower soaring
9,bove a clump of trees. Looking down the strip of country
224 CAWNPORE chap, viii
that lay between the river and the town, and stretched for some
miles beyond the latter, he would have seen the cantonments, a
long, straggling line of brick houses coated Avith white paint,
each standing in its own compound, a sort of paddock some three
or four acres in extent, shut in by an untidy, crumbling mound
and ditch. The country was broken by ravines ; and here and
there among the bungalows native temples peeped out above
clumps of trees. The treasury, the gaol, and the magazine
stood near the further extremity of the line. Pinnaces with
light, taper masts, and unwieldy country boats, looking like
floating hay-stacks, lay moored close to the landing-steps on the
sacred river ; and across the bridge of boats which spanned its
broad flood, travellers were continually passing on their way to
or from Lucknow.^
In the spring of 1857 the English residents were leading
the ordinary life of an Anglo-Indian community. Morning
rides, work in cutcherry or on parade, novel-reading, racquets,
dinners, balls filled up the time. Pretty women laughed and
flirted, as they listened to the music of the band in the cool of
the evening, and talked perhaps of the delightful balls which
the Nana had given in his palace up the river, before he had
started on that inexplicable tour. Suddenly the news of the
great disasters at Meerut and Delhi arrived ; and the life of the
little society was violently wrenched into a new channel.^
The commander of the Division was General Sir Hugh
Wheeler. When the mutiny broke out, it was
wh^ie? generally believed that, whoever else might fail, he
would be equal to the occasion ; for, though he was
an old man, he had not lost his bodily vigour or his activity of
mind ; he had proved himself on many hard-fought fields to be
a brave and determined soldier ; and he was known to be
acquainted with the character and to possess the confidence of
the sepoys in an especial degree.^ And in one respect at least
he did stand out from the great mass of British officers. He
was not long beguiled by the pleasing fancy that his men would
remain faithful, though all around them should prove traitors.
On the contrary, soon after he received the news of the outbreak
^ Mowbray Thomson's Story of Caionpore, pp. 18-23 ; Hunter's Impericd
Qazetteer, vol. ^^. p. 81 ; Russell's Diary in India, vol. i. p. 179 ; Miss Roberts's
Hindnsfan, vol. ii. p. 44 ; G. 0. Trevelyan's Caionpore, pp. 5, 11-16, 65.
2 lb. pp. 13, 65, 74-5.
^ Mowbray Thomson, pp. 140-1 : Red PavqMct, pp. 123-4.
1857 CAWNPORE 225
at Meerut, he saw that his regiments, though they did not
slacken in the performance of their duty, were becoming possessed
by an insane fear of the monstrous designs which the prevalent
fables ascribed to the English, and might sooner or later be
driven by sheer panic to revolt. He therefore determined to
lose no time in securing a place of refuge for those ^j^ selection
under his charge. The most natural position to of a place of
. . . refuse
select was the magazine, a strong, roomy building,
which, being surrounded by bullet-proof walls, and protected on
one side by the river, was well fitted for defence. Wheeler
decided against it, however, on the gi-ound that, before occupy-
ing it, he would be obliged to withdraw its sepoy guard, and
thus inevitably precipitate a rising. Moreover, though he
feared that the native regiments would eventually mutiny, he
had good reason to believe that they would hasten at once to
join their comrades at Delhi. Thinking, then, that he would
only have to repel the possible attacks of a mob of undisciplined
budmashes imtil succour should reach him, he contented himself
with throwing up a weak entrenchment close to the native lines.
If, however, he had waited for the reinforcements which he was
soon to receive, he might have seized the magazine with small
loss, perhaps Avith none at all ; for numberless examples have
shown that the sepoy always bows down before the man who
has the courage to take the initiative against him. On the
other hand, his apparently well-founded belief that, after the
first outbreak of mutiny, the sepoys would hasten to Delhi as
the focus of rebellion, instead of waiting to attack him, was a
strong argument in favour of the course which he pursued.
Not many Anglo-Indian generals would have shown more judge-
ment than this gallant veteran.^
While making these preparations for defence, he applied for
reinforcements from Lucknow; and Henry Lawrence, Reinforcements
though he himself had no superfluity of European anive.
troops, generously sent fifty men of the 32nd and a May 21.
half battery of guns under Lieutenant Ashe.^ Unhappily, about
^ Trevelyan, pp. 74-5, 115-6; Ccttvnjjore Massacre, by W. J. Shepherd (cue
of the garrison), pp. 8, 9 ; Pari. Pajiers, vol. xxx. (1857), p. 348 ; Hed Pamphlet,
pp. 123-4. The question is fully discussed in App. G. See Plan facing p. 417.
- Mowbray Thomson, p. 30 ; Gubbins, p. 28 ; Trevelyan, p. 68. Kaye (vol.
ii. p. 29) says that 84 men of the 32nd were sent, but mentions in a note that
Lawi-ence's military secretary set the number down at 50. So did Lawrence him-
self in a telegram dated May 23. — Enclosures to Secret Letters from India.
Q
226 CAWNPORE chap, viii
the same time Wheeler stooped to court the good offices of
another and less trustworthy ally. The Government treasure
at the suburb of Nawabganj was at the mercy of a guard of
sepoys whom he distrusted, but who, he felt sure, would resist
any attemj^t to withdraw it from their keeping. He therefore
resolved to ask the Nana to lend a body of his retainers for the
protection of the treasiu-y. In A^ain was he warned
piaced^under by Lawrencc and Martin Gubbins that it would be
the Nfuia Sahib. ^^® height of f olly to put any trust in one whose
recent movements had laid him open to such gi-ave
suspicion. He might, indeed, have retorted with some show of
reason. For he had been led to believe that it would be possible
to win the cordial support of the Nana by offering to procure
for him that pension Avhich had been so long Anthheld. Besides,
had not the Nana always lived on the most friendly terms vnth
the English residents at Cawnpore ? Had he not invited British
officers to his table, played billiards with them, chatted Avith
them, smoked with them ? What reason then was there to
regard him with suspicion ? Might it not even be judicious to
entrust the women of the garrison to his care ? This last idea
was not carried out ; but on the 22nd the treasury was placed
under his protection.^
On the same day there was a general migration of non-com-
batants from the English quarter to the enirench-
suspense.^° mcut. The coufusiou and alarm which prevailed
among them " were enough to suggest the idea of
mutiny to men so quick to perceive and so ready to take advan-
tage of any sign of fear as sepoys have always shown themselves
to be. On the 23rd, Wheeler telegraphed to Lawi-ence : — "It
is almost certain that the troops will rise to-night."
May 24 i o
When, however, the Eed had passed by without an
outbreak, he began to feel that the danger was over, and, in the
warmth of his gratitude, even repaid the generosity of Lawrence
by sending on to him a portion of the reinforce-
ments which he had received from Benares. The
danger was not over. There was sore anxiety in the hearts of
the Christians. Ladies whose husbands were required to sleep
in the lines, hardly dared to hope, as they said good-bye to them
at night, that they Avould ever see them again. The letters
1 GuLbins, p. 31 ; Mowbray Thomson, pp. 32-3.
- Kaye, vol. ii. pj). 300-1.
1857 CAWNPORE 227
that were sent off towards the end of the month to catch the
homeward mail, were full of dark foiebodings.^ Outwardly the
sepoys remained comparatively quiet ; but they were secretly
plotting among themselves, and intriguing through the medium
of their leaders with the Nana. Nothing but the procrastination
of the infantry, who were less eager, or at any rate less im-
petuous than the cavalry, delayed the crisis so long.^ At last,
on the night of the 4th of June, it came.
The cavalry rose first, and galloped to Nawabganj. The 1st
Infantry soon hurried after them. Then the two
regiments, making common cause with the Nana's
retainers, burst open the gaol, destroyed the public offices, rifled
the treasury, and made themselves masters of the contents of
the magazine. In the midst of their revels, however, they won-
dered why they had not been joined by the other two infantry
regiments. The sequel proved that the latter could have had
no fixed purpose of rising, if they were not actually loyal in
intention. All through the night they remained
quiet. At two o'clock in the morning they went
on parade. When the parade was over, they were dismissed to
their lines, and proceeded to cook their breakfasts. Soon after-
wards messengers from the mutineers rode up and urged them
to come and take their part in the di%dsion of the plunder.
The 56th yielded to the temptation. The bulk of the 53rd
were still standing their ground when, with unhappy want of
judgement, Wheeler ordered Ashe to open fire upon them.
Then all broke and fled, except some eighty men, who remained
jaersistently faithful to their salt."'^
Meanwhile, the mutineers had sent a deputation of their
officers to sound the intentions of the Nana. Introduced into
his presence, the spokesman addressed him in these words,
" Maharaja, a kingdom awaits you if you join our enterprise,
but death if you side with our enemies." " What have I to do
^ Mowbray Thomson, pp. 33-7 ; Letter of May 28 to the Times, Oct. 22,
1857, p. 7, col. 1.
- " The 53rd and 56th N. I. showed great lukewarmness until the mutinj'
actually broke out. The 1st N. I. and 2nd Cavalry were the instigators."
Depositions taken at Caionpore under the direction of Lieut.-Col. 6. W. Williams,
p. 75.
^ Depositions, pp. 30, 32 ; Trevelyan, pp. 95-8 ; Mowbray Thomson, pp. 39-
41 ; Gazetteer of the N.W.P., vol. vi. p. 169, note 1. Besides the 80 men, the
native oflBcers of the 53rd remained faithful, having been already called into the
entrenchment.
228 CAWNPORE chap, viii
with the British ? " replied the Nana ; "I am altogether yours."
The officers went on to ask him whether he would lead them to
Delhi. He assented, and then, laying his hands upon the head
of each, swore that he would oljserve his promise. The dele-
gates returned to their comrades ; and next morning the four
regiments marched as far as Kalianpur, on the road
to Delhi. But the idea of going to Delhi was by
no means pleasing to the advisers of the Nana. Chief among
them was a crafty young Mahomedan, named Azimulla, who
had gone to London, as his agent, to lay his petition before the
Court of Directors, and had consoled him for its rejection "with
the tale that England had fallen from her high place among the
nations of Europe. This man exerted all his eloquence to dis-
suade his master from yielding to the wishes of the sepoys. The
Nana was easily convinced. Why should he, a Brahmin, place
himself under the orders of a Mahomedan king ? Why should
he commit political suicide by going to a place where he would
be lost among a crowd of greater men ? Why should he not
return to Cawnpore with his new allies, overpower that handful
of Englishmen collected in their miserable entrenchment, and
establish, by the right of conquest, the claim so unjustly denied
by their detested Government ? There was no time to be lost.
Eiding with all speed to Kalianpur, he m-ged the sepoys to give
up the idea of marching on Delhi, and held out to them high
hopes of the glory and the plunder Avhich they might acquire by
going back with him to attack the English. The sepoys listened,
and were persuaded. At sunrise on the 6th the whole brigade
was marching down the Delhi road towards Cawnpore. Early
in the morning Wheeler received a letter from the Nana, warn-
ing him to expect an attack. The news was indeed a cruel dis-
appointment to all his people. They had been spared the horrors
which accompanied mutiny at so many other stations ; they had
been allowed to hope that they would soon be relieved, and be
free, some perhaps to do good service against the enemies of
their country, others to rejoin their friends, to wait in some
secure abode for the restoration of peace, or to return to their
own land. And now their hopes were shattered. Not all, how-
ever. There, within those miserable defences, they could still
bear themselves in a manner worthy of their motherland. Sadly
then, but resolutely they waited for the threatened attack. For
a time there was no sign of its coming ; for the rebels were busy
1857 CAWNPORE 229
gorging themselves with the plunder of the city, insulting re-
spectable natives, and murdering the stray Europeans who had
not put themselves under Wheeler's protection. But towards
ten o'clock flames were seen rising here and there above the
nearest quarter of the city : presently the crack of musketry was
heard, and now again more plainly : armed men were descried
hurrying confusedly over the canal bridge : nearer and nearer
they came, and now they were pouring into the lines : a puff of
smoke arose; a round shot came crashing into the entrenchment;
the garrison were swift to answer the challenge ; the bugle
sounded ; the defenders fell in at their appointed posts ; and the
cries of terrified women and startled children, mingling Avith the
roar of the contending artillery, proclaimed that the siege of
Cawnpore had begun. ^
It was indeed a tragic moment in the world's history ; for
never, since wars began, had a besieged garrison .
been called upon to do or to suffer greater things
than were appointed for the garrison of Cawnpore. The be-
sieging army numbered some three thousand trained soldiers,
well fed, well lodged, well armed, and supplied with all muni-
tions of war, aided by the retainers of their newly-elected chief,
and supported by the sympathies of a large portion of the civil
population. The besieged were few in number, and had to
contend against almost every disadvantage that could conceiv-
ably have been arrayed against them. Besides a few civilians
and a small band of faithful sepoys, they could only muster
about four hundred English fighting men, more than seventy of
whom were invalids.^ Wholly insufficient in itself, this small
1 Mowbray Thomson, p. 65 ; Depositions, pp. 34, 40, 51, 54, 62, 65, 67, 76 ;
Trevelyan, pp. 103-7, 114, 120, 123-4; Diary of Nanakchand, p. vii. ; Shepherd,
pp. 20-1.
"^ Shepherd gives the following statement of the numbers : —
European soldiers . . . . . . .210
Native musicians (belonging to native regiments) . 44
Officers, aboiit ....... 100
Non-military, about 100
Loyal native officers and sepoys, about ... 20
Servants, about ....... 50
Women and children, about ..... 376
Total, about . . .900
Most of the faithful sepoys were ordered to occupy a hospital, about six hundred
yards east of the entrenchment. They defended it until June 9 or 10, when it
was set on fire.
230 CAWNPORE chap, viir
force was encumbered by the chai'ge of a helpless throng of
women and children. Combatants and non-combatants alike
experienced now for the first time the unmitigated fierceness of
a tropical summer. Men who, with every appliance at hand for
counteracting the depressing effects of the climate, had been
wont to regard a morning parade at that season of the year as a
hardship, had now to fight all day beneath the scorching rays of
an Indian summer sun. Women who had felt it an intolerable
grievance to have to pass the long summer days in luxurious
rooms artificially cooled, with delicious iced drinks to slake their
thirst, and exciting novels to distract their thoughts, were now
huddled together, without the most ordinary comforts, in two
stifling barracks, which offered the only shelter to be found
within the precincts of the entrenchment. In comparison with
the entrenchment itself, the defences of Londondeiry, which
appeared so contemptible to LcAvis's lieutenants, might have
been called formidable. It was in fact merely a weak mud wall,
about four feet in height, and constructed of earth so dry and
friable as to be unable to resist the shock even of a iDuUet.
Perhaps even the heroes of the Cawnpore garrison might have
despaired of defending so frail a barrier against the overwhelm-
ing numbers of their enemy, if they had had to trust to it alone.
There was, however, one element of strength in their position.
Close to the western corner of the entrenchment lay a row of
barracks, two of which they had contrived to occupy. One of
these, known as No. 2 barrack, they regarded as the key of
their position.^ Yet even this advantage was not wholly their
own ; for the enemy took care to avail themselves of the cover
Avhich the unoccupied buildings offered. Such were the desperate
odds against which the doomed garrison now steeled their hearts
to contend.^
From the moment when the crash of that first shot gave the
signal, the struggle was maintained, almost without a pause, by
day and night.^ Day and night the enemy hurled a continuous
shower of shot, and shell, and bullets into the entrenchment :
day and night the defenders, with ever lessened numbers, sent
back a feebler discharge. Soldiers, civilians, and loyal sepoys
^ Mowbray Thomson, pji. C9, 70.
'^ Nauakcliaud, pp. i.x. xii. xiv. xv. -xviii. ; Trevelyan, pp. 117-20, 135, 143-6.
^ Deposiiions, p. 34 ; Diary of an Opiuiii Gomaslita at Cawnpore (Enclosures
to Secret Letters from India, Aug. 1857, pp. 643-54) ; Shepherd, p. 25.
1857 CAWNPORE 231
stood side by side ; and, while the artillerymen replied, as best
they could, to the crushing fire of the Nana's heavy batteries,
the infantry, each man with a pile of loaded muskets before him,
astonished the rebels by the swiftness and acciu-acy of their fire.
Meanwhile the barracks, compassed about by a swarm of enemies,
were defended with desperate tenacity by a handful of men, who
had as stern a battle to maintain and as heavy a load of weari-
ness to endure as their comrades in the trenches, though, more
fortunate than those, they were spared the agony of beholding
the suff"erings of their women and children. Day and night all
fought on alike ; for there was no rest for any but those to whom
the sleep of death was vouchsafed ; or, if a man sank down ex-
hausted under the heel of his giui or the shelter of the wall, he
Avas soon roused by the noise of musketry, and awoke from
dreams of home or of coming relief to a life-in-death within the
entrenchment of Cawnpore. The number of those who thus
awoke grew smaller day after day. Within the first week fifty-
nine artillerymen, all that the garrison could muster, were killed
or wounded at their posts. Women as well as men fell victims
to the enemy's fire. A private was walking with his wife, when
a single bullet killed him, broke both her arms, and wounded an
infant whom she was carrying. An officer was talking with a
comrade at the main-guard, when a musket-ball struck him ; and,
as he was limping painfully towards the barracks to have his
wound dressed, Lieutenant Mowbray Thomson of the 56th, who
was supporting him, was struck also ; and both fell helplessly to
the ground. Presently, as Thomson lay Avoefully sick of his
wound, another officer came up to condole with him ; and he too
received a wound from which he died before the end of the siege.
Young Godfrey Wheeler, a son of the General, was lying wounded
in one of the barracks, Avhen a round shot crashed through the
wall of the room, and carried off his head in the sight of his
mother and sisters. Little children, straggling outside the barracks,
were deliberately shot down.^ The record of these horrors is
only a page torn from a volume of tragedy. Yet not a murmur
was heard. The acutest sufferings were patiently, and by some
even cheerfully endured.
The siege had barely lasted a week when an event occurred
which the garrison had long regarded as inevitable, june ii.
' Life of Sir H. Lawrence, p. 596 ; Mowljray Thomson, pp. 64-71, 84-5, 136,
140.
232 C AWN PORE chap, vni
and which warned them to prepare for sufferings far heavier
than any they had yet endured. A red-hot shot struck
the thatched roof of one of the barracks, within which the
women and children, the sick and wounded were lying ; and
in a few minutes the entire building was enveloped in flames.
Then ensued the most awful, yet, for some who took part
in it, the most glorious scene of this dreadful siege, — the
fire illuminating the darkness of the night ; the helpless
sufferers within the burning building mingling their shrieks
for help with the ceaseless boom of the artillery and the con-
tinuous swift roar of the flames ; the soldiers running from
their posts, and, though girt about by two deadly perils, on
the one side the infernal fire from the enemy's batteries and
musketry, on the other the downward crash of glowing masses
of masonry and burning rafters, yet striving to extinguish the
flames, and rescuing their friends from an agonising death ;
Avhile, outside the entrenchment, the unrelenting rebels, taking
full advantage of the distraction of the garrison^ worked their
guns Avith feverish energy, as though they hoped, with the aid
of the conflagration, at one stroke to complete the ruin of their
victims. When the flames had subsided, the men of the 32 nd,
regardless of the fire which their enemies continued to direct
against them, began diligently to rake the ashes in search of
their lost medals.^ It was a bright example of the romantic
sensibility of the British soldier.
During the earlier days of the siege the enemy, conscious of
their moral inferiority to the men Avhom they had driven to
bay, and relying on the strength of their artillery, contented
themselves mainly with the safe process of bombardment : but
on the 12th of June, thinking perhaps that they had by this
time broken the spirit of their opponents, they mustered courage
to attempt a general assault on the British position. They
could see their handful of victims within ; they had but to make
one i^esolute charge, and in a few minutes they might have
borne down every man by the crushing weight of their numbers.
At first they moved confidently forward ; but they could not
nerve themselves to face the stern resistance which they
encountered ; and soon the survivors, terrified by the sight of
their falling comrades, turned and fled.- They knew that they
1 Mowbray Thomson, pp. 92-5.
- Jb, p. 93 ; Nanakchand, p. xii. ; A nnals of the Indian Rebellion, p. 677.
1857 CAWNPORE 233
liad failed, and confessed their failure by returning to their old
tactics.
The most trying period of the siege had now begun. There
was so little food left that the daily ration of each person had
to be reduced to a handful of flour and a handful of split peas.
If the enemy were afraid to assault, their firing was as incessant
as ever. Round shot plumped and bounded over the open
ground, hurled down masses of timber from the remaining
barrack, and sent bricks flying in all directions ; bullets pattered
like hail against the walls, and broke the windows to atoms.
On the 14th a chosen band sallied forth, spiked several guns,
and inflicted heavy loss upon their astounded persecutors : but
more guns were soon brought to bear upon the devoted garrison.
They were far less able to reply than they had been at the
beginning; for one of their guns had lost its muzzle, two
had had their sides battered in, and a fourth had been knocked
off" its carriage. While fresh hosts of rebels and mutineers were
daily swarming up to swell the ranks of their enemies, their
own numbers were greatly diminished. Some were struck down
by the sun, or wasted by fever ; others pined away from exposure,
from hunger, or from thirst ; others went mad under the burden
of their suff"erings. More wretched still was the fate of the
wounded; for the fire had destroyed the surgical instruments
and the medical stores ; and death, which came too slowly, was
their only healer. But most to be pitied of all were those
women who still survived. The destruction of the barrack had
robbed them even of the wretched shelter which they had had
before ; and now their only resting-place was the hard earth,
their only protection the crumbling mud wall beneath which
they lay. They were begrimed with dirt ; their dresses were
in rags ; their cheeks were pinched and haggard, and their
brows ploughed with furrows. There were some even who,
while stunned by horrid sounds, and sickened by foul or ghastly
sights, had to suffer the pains of labour, and gave birth to
infants for whose future they could not dare to hope. A
skilful pen might describe the acuteness of their bodily suffer-
ings : but who can imagine the intensity of their mental tortures ?
They lacked the grim consolation of fighting an unyielding
battle against desperate odds, which may even then have
sustained the heart of the soldier. Yet they never despaired.
They gave the artillerymen their stockings for grape-cases ; they
234 CAWNPORE chap, viii
handed round ammunition to the infantry ; and they cheered all
alike by their uncomplaining spirit and their tender, gracious
kindness. The return which the men made for their devotion
was the most acceptable service that they could have performed.
They saw little children around them dying of thirst ; and they
resolved to relieve them. There was only one well within the
entrenchment ; and, to reach it, they had to pass over the most
exposed part of the position. But they could not bear to hear
the children's piteous cries ; and, at the cost of many heroic
lives, the labour of love was performed.^
About the middle of the siege the gi'im irony of fortune sent
a solitary stranger to reinforce the enfeebled garrison. The
men were standing, as usual, at their posts, when they were
amazed to see an English officer galloping towards the entrench-
ment, and presently leaping over the barrier which had defied
every attack of the enemy. It was a young lieutenant of the
7 th Cavalry, named Bolton, who had been sent out on district
duty from Lucknow, and who, turned adrift by the mutiny of
his men, was fain to share even the desperate fortunes of the
garrison of Cawnpore.^ His was the only aid that Wheeler ever
received. Two hundred men, he knew, would suffice to raise
the siege ; for the mutineers were greatly dispirited ; and most
of them had more zest for plunder than for fight. On the 14th
he wrote urgently to Lawrence for help ; and sometimes the
men, hearing a sound of distant cannonading, brightened
up for a moment in the hope that relief was coming; but
presently the old look of care would steal back again over
their faces.^ At last a letter came, which La^wrence
June 16. had written Avith a breaking heart, saying that it
was impossible for him to spare a detachment from the weak
force which was all he had for the protection of his own people.
The garrison received the news with manly resignation. Captain
Moore of the 32 nd, a man to whom common consent has
June IS assigned the first place among the defenders of
Cawnpore, wrote, in the name of his chief and of
his comrades, that, since no help could be afforded them, it was
the fixed resolution of all to hold the position to the last.*
1 Mowbray Thomson, pp. 78-84, 99, 100, 101, 113-4, 13G-7 ; Shepherd, pp.
45, 52-3.
^ Mowbray Thoni.son, p. 120. •' lb. p. 114.
•* Life, of Sir H. Lawrence, p. 593 ; Gubbiii.s, ji. 443.
1857 CAWNPORE 235
From the beginning lie had cheered on the men by his hopeful
face and gallant example, and consoled the women by his
courteous, tender sympathy ; he had illuminated even the
glorious record of the 32nd by his surpassing valour; and now,
when hope had all but vanished, he Avas still, though enfeebled
by a wound, the life and soul of the defence. Under him
fought the survivors of a band of officers, each one of whom was
a hero, besides those private soldiers who, though their names
find no mention here, are not forgotten by the army, or by the
people of England. Not less brave than they, though by pro-
fession a man of peace, was Moncrieff, the chaplain, whom all
loved for his constancy and self-denial, and who, going from post
to post, spoke words of hope and consolation, which Avere all the
more solemn and impressive because none of those who heard
them could tell whether he would be spared to listen to another
service. No wonder that the hosts of the enemy could not
prevail against men like these. No wonder that when, on the
23rd of June, they came on, fortified by solemn oaths, and
stimulated by malignant hatred, to attempt another assault,
they were hiu'led back, as before, in ignominious rout. But the
end was not far off. Two more attempts were made to obtain
relief. On the 24th a Eurasian soldier left the entrenchment in
disguise, hoping to procure reinforcements from Allahabad, but
returned unsuccessful. On the same day a commissariat official
named Shepherd, went out, disguised as a native cook, but was
soon taken prisoner. Next day a woman came into the en-
trenchment, with a letter from the Nana, offering a ^^^^ ^,_
safe passage to Allahabad to every member of
the garrison who had not been "connected with the acts
of Lord Dalhousie." The offer was vehemently resisted by
the younger officers, who could not bear the thought of
surrendering the position Avhich had been so nobly defended ;
and even Wheeler, suspicious of the Nana's sincerity, was
inclined to return a refusal, until Moore, whose jealousy
for the honour of his country and of his profession could
not be questioned, pointed out that, as succour could
not possibly arrive in time, an honourable capitulation held
out the only chance of saving the lives of the women
and children. An armistice was accordingly arranged. An
hour after dusk the Nana gathered together in his tent
five or six of his advisers, and arranged with them a
236 CAWNPORE chap, viii
plan the execution of which will be presently described. Next
June ''6 morning the representatives of the besieged and of
Thecapituia- the besiegers met to discuss terms of surrender.
faoii- It was proposed that the garrison should give up
their position, their guns, and their treasure ; and that in return
they should be allowed to march out with their arms and a
certain proportion of ammunition, and be provided with boats
and provisions for the voyage to Allahabad. One hitch occurred.
The Nana required that the position should be evacuated that
night. Wheeler replied that he could not possibly march out
until the following morning. Then the Nana threatened to
renew the bombardment, and boasted that in a few days he
would put eveiy one of the garrison to death. He was told in
reply that he might fulfil his threats if he could, but that there
was enough powder still left in the magazine to blow him and
the two armies together into the air. The bare suggestion was
enough to bring him to his senses. The treaty was forthwith
signed : the guns were delivered over to the enemy ; and the
garrison lay down for their last sleep within the entrenchment
of Cawnpore.-'-
Early in the morning they marched out, and looked for the
last time on that battered and crumblins: wall of
JuiiG 27. •
clay, which they had defended for nearly three
Aveelvs against the assaults of an enemy ten times as numerous
as themselves. Some of them may have felt a vague foreboding
of coming danger ; for it was whispered that one of the dele-
gates, who had gone to see whether the boats were ready, had
overheard the sepoys pronounce the ominous word "massacre."
But even the most anxious must have ventured to look forward
to a time when, sitting over the fireside in their English homes,
they would tell to awe-struck listeners the story of the great
siege. Even now some were found to sympathise with them in
what they had done and suffered. As the wan and ragged
column filed along the road, the women and children in bullock-
carriages or on elephants, the wounded in palanquins, the fight-
ing men on foot, sepoys came clustering up round the officers
whom they had betrayed, and talked, in wonder and admiration,
of the surpassing heroism of the defence. About three-quarters
of a mile from the entrenchment a ravine, spanned by a wooden
1 Mowbray Thomson, pp. 105-6, 126-8, 130-2, 141-2, 148-56; Nanakchand,
p. xviii.
1857 CAWITPORE 237
bridge, ran, at right angles to the road, toAvards the river. Ar-
riving at the bridge, the procession turned aside, and began to
thread its way down the ravine. And now the banks of the
Ganges were close at hand. The unwieldy boats, with their
thatched roofs, were seen drawn up close to the water s edge ;
and a great crowd of natives of every class was waiting to look
on at the embarkation. There were some too who had not
come merely to look on. More than a thousand infantry sepoys
and several squadrons of cavalry were posted behind cover on
the banks ; and Tantia Topi, a favoured counsellor of the Nana,
who was destined to play a conspicuous part in the rebellion,
was there to execute his master's orders for the management of
the embarkation.
What those orders were, presently appeared. Those troops
had not come to serve as a guard of honour. They had come to
be the instruments for executing that plan which the Nana and
his counsellors had devised. No mud wall separated them now
from the men and the women who had defied them. Their
numbers and their artillery must surely be irresistible now.
Now, therefore, was the moment to take the time-honoured
vengeance of a besieging army upon an obstinate
garrison. Hardly had the embarkation begun, when ^^ the^crn^es.
a bugle sounded. Immediately afterwards a host of
sepoys, leaping up from behind the bushes and the houses on
either bank, lifted their muskets to their shoulders ; and a hail
of bullets fell upon the dense crowd of passengers, as they were
clambering on board. Cannon roared out, and grape-shot raked
the boats from stem to stern. Almost at the same instant the
thatched roofs, which had been purposely strewed beforehand
with glowing cinders, burst into flame. Then the sick and the
wounded, who had survived the destruction of the barrack and
the horrors of the siege, were suffocated or burned to death.
The able-bodied men sprang overboard, and strove with might
and main to push off the boats into deep water : but all save
three stuck fast. Ashe, and Bolton, and Moore were shot down
as they stood in the water. Women and children bent down
under the sides of the boats, trying to escape the bullets. Some
ten or twelve men swam for dear life after the nearest boat :
but one soon sank exhausted : others, struck by grape or bullets,
gasped, and beat the bloody surf, and turned over dead ; and
three only reached the boat. Now the troopers rode with drawn
238 CAWNPORE chap, viii
sabres into the river, and slashed the cowering women to death.
Little infants were dragged from their mothers' arms, and torn
to pieces. Suddenly, however, a messenger came from the
Nana, saying that no more Avomen or children were to be put
to death. The slaughter therefore ceased ; and the trembling
survivors, a hundred and twentj^-five in number, their clothes
drenched, and torn, and mud-stained, and dripping with blood,
were dragged back to Cawnpore.^
Meanwhile the army of murderers at the river-side had still
work to do ; for it was the Nana's will that every
Srves?^*''^ Christian man should be destroyed. Of the boats
that had been floated into mid-stream, one only
escaped. The other two drifted to the Oudh bank, Avhere they
were assailed by a new fire. One, struck by a round shot, was
rapidly sinking, when those on board scrambled on to the un-
injured boat. But even its occupants soon found that their
sufferings had only begun. They had no oars, no rudder,
and no food. The water of the Ganges was all that passed
their lips, save prayers, and shrieks, and groans.^ Their
numbers were rapidly diminished ; for their enemies crowded
along the banks and fired upon them whenever an opportunity
arose ; and, though soon after noon they drifted beyond
the reach of the guns, the sepoys still kept up with them,
and harassed them by repeated volleys of musketry. It
seemed to their jaded imaginations that that dreadful day
would never come to an end. Late in the afternoon the boat
stuck fast on a sandbank ; and, before they succeeded in forcing
it oflF, darkness had come on. As the night dragged slowly by,
they stranded again and again ; and every time the men had to
get out of the boat, and push it off into the stream. Day broke ;
and, seeing no sepoys, they began to hope that they were to be
left unmolested. But about two o'clock the boat
June 28. again got aground ; and the rebels presently appear-
' Mowbray Thomson, pp. 156-7, 166-70 ; Depositions, pp. 21, 87, 96-7, 99-
100, 102-3, 112 ; Annals of the Indian Rehellion, pp. 685-6. Speaking of the
preparations for the massacre, Nanakchaml observes, " The troopers of the Rissala
remonstrated with the Nana, and observed that it was more honourable to fight
the Europeans openly. . . . The Nana assured them that . . . according to his
creed, it was quite allowable to take false oaths at siich junctures, and that when
the object was to annihilate an enemy, he would not hesitate to take an oath
... on the Ganges, or adopt any one of a hundred other artifices," pp. xix xx.
^ These are the very words of Mowbray Thomson, p. 172.
1857 CAWNPORE 239
ing, opened fire and killed or wounded five more. All the after-
noon rain fell in torrents. At sunset a boat was seen bearing
down in pursuit with fifty or sixty armed men on board. But
the pursuers did not yet know the full measure of their op-
ponents' courage. Without waiting to be attacked, some twenty
of our men leaped out of their boat, fell upon the enemy, whose
boat had also run aground, and put nearly every man of them
to the sword. Utterly worn out, the fugitives fell asleep. A
hurricane arose in the night, and once more the
boat floated: but, when day ])roke, those who were
still alive thought that the end was come at last ; for they had
drifted into a side-current of the main stream, and they saw a
body of sepoys, supported by a multitude of villagers, standing
on the liank, ready to overwhelm them. But there were still
eleven British soldiers and a sergeant in the boat, who, though
tired almost to death, and nearly starved, were as keen as ever
to be led against the enemy : there were still two officers to
cheer them on, Mowbray Thomson of the 56th, and Delafosse of
the 53rd, who had covered themselves with glory in the siege ;
there was still a commander. Major Vibart of the 2nd Cavalry,
to send them forth, though he was too sorely wounded to lead
them to victory. Leaping ashore, these men charged right
through the dense masses of the enemy, and, before the awe
and astonishment which their courage had inspired could subside,
fought their way back to the place where they had landed. But
the boat had drifted far away. They ran down the bank to
overtake it ; but they never saw it again. The enemy were fast
closing in upon them ; and, weary and panting as they were,
they had to run barefooted on and on over the rugged bank,
and under the burning sun. At last they saw a Hindu temple
a little distance ahead. To this stronghold they rushed, and
prepared to make their last stand. The sergeant was shot as
he was entering. Four of the privates crouched down, by
Mowbray Thomson's command, in the doorway ; and on their
bayonets the foremost of the enemy, hurrying up in the blind
eagerness of pursuit, perished miserably. Those behind, unable
to force their way in, tried to set the temple on fire, and, when
the wind blew the flames away, threw bags of powder upon the
glowing ashes. Then the thirteen rushed over the blazing wood,
jumped down, and, firing a last volley, hurled themselves with
fixed bayonets into the tumultuous crowd which surrounded
240 CAWNPORE chap, viii
them. Six fell ; but the rest, gaining the bank, threw their
muskets into the water, plunged in themselves, and swam for
their lives. The swarm of blacks ran yelling down the bank,
and fired volley after volley at the bobbing heads. Tavo of the
seven were soon struck, and sank. A thiid, too tired to battle
for his life, made for the shore and was beaten to death as soon
as he landed. The remaining four, Mowbray Thomson, Dela-
fosse, and privates Murphy and Sullivan, after swimming with-
out a moment's pause for six miles, found rest at last within
the house of a friendly raja of Oudh.^ These men had passed
triumphantly through an ordeal as terrible as any that ever
tested human courage and endurance ; yet to none of them was
awarded that prize of valour which is the dearest object of the
British soldier's ambition. But many who have worn the
Victoria Cross upon their breasts might have envied the surviv-
ing defenders of Cawnpore the honourable scars which were
their ineffaceable decoration.
The whole of the story of Cawnpore has not yet been told.
After drifting beyond the reach of Mowbray Thomson and his
companions, the boat was overtaken by the enemy; and its
defenceless crew of eighty souls, wounded men, and Avomen, and
children, were brought back to the city. There, by the orders
of the Nana, the men were put to death ; and the
women and children were confined in a building
called the Savdda House, along with the hundred and tAventy-
five Avhom, three days before, he had rescued, for his OAvn
purposes, from the hands of the destroyer.
Then the conqueror prepared to reap the fruits of his victory.
„, ^, Returning to his palace at Bithur, he caused himself
The Nana or '
proclaimed to be proclaimed Peshwa with all the rites and
Pes wa. ceremonies of an hereditary ruler. But the noise
of the salute which Avas fired in honour of his acces-
sion had scarcely died away before the troubles of a usurper
began to croAvd upon him. The tradesmen, groan-
ing under the rapacity and insolent cruelty of the
mutineers, execrated him as the author of their sufferings. It
Avas rumoured that a Mahomedan riA^al Avas to be set up against
him ; and the sepoys Avere angrily complaining of the niggardli-
ness with Avhich he had rewarded their serArices. Their leaders
swore that, if he did not soon show himself in their midst, they
' Mowbray Thomson, pp. 170-86.
1857 CAWNPORE 241
would go and fetch him; and on the 5th of July they actually put
their threat into execution. After a Aveek of luxurious seclusion,
he re-entered the city. There he found a deep gloom prevailing :
many of the inhabitants had abandoned their homes, and fled j
for it was rumoured that an avenging army was advancing, by
forced marches, from the south-east, and hanging every native
who crossed its path. It was clearly necessary that he should
do something to shov*^ that he was indeed the successor of Baji
Edo. He therefore called upon his lieutenants to go out and
attack the approaching force, and tried to restore the confidence
of his subjects by proclaiming that everywhere the infidels had
been overwhelmed, and had been sent to hell.^
Meanwhile, the number of his own victims had been in-
creased. The u.nhappy fugitives from Fatehgarh,^ unconscious of
the worse fate that was in store for them, had come to seek an
asylum in Cawnpore. Those who had left Fatehgarh
June 12
in June, had been butchered by order of the Nana
immediately after their arrival. Of those who followed, all the
men but three were murdered in his presence. The
asylum that he appointed for the survivors was a
small house called the Beebeegurh, to which he had ^^ Beebeegurh.
lately transferred the captives of the Savada. In this new
prison, which had belonged to a poor Eurasian clerk, five men
and two hundred and six women and children were confined.
Save that they were no longer exposed to the fire of the enemy,
these poor captives were worse off now than they had been in
the entrenchment of Cawnpore, or the fort of Fatehgarh.
English ladies, the wives of the defenders and the rulers of
British India, were forced, like slaves, to grind corn for the
murderer of their husbands. They themselves were fed on a
scanty allowance of the coarsest food. Those were happiest
among them who perished from the diseases which this food
engendered. All this time the Nana himself, in a sumptuous
building, which overlooked their prison, was living in a round
of feasts, and revels, and debaucheries. But on the 15th of July,
in the midst of his unholy mirth, an alarming announcement
came upon him. That avenging army of whose coming he had
1 Nanakchand, pp. xxii. xxiii. ; Depositions, p. 88. The proclamations are
to be found in the Jindosures to Secret Letters frovi India, and in Kaye, vol. ii.
App. pp. 670-6.
- See pp. 138, 140, siqyra.
R
242 CAWNPORE chap, viii
heard was -svithin a day's march of the city ; and the force
which he had sent out to check its advance had suffered a
crushing defeat.^
Then ensued the last act of the tragedy of Cawnpore. It
Last act of ^^^ pointed out to the Nana that, if he were again
the tragedy defeated, the captives in the Beebeegurh would supply
awnpore. ^^^ English General with damning evidence against
all who had taken part in the massacres : that, on the other
hand, if they were put out of the way, the General would feel
that there was nothing to he gained by continuing
his march. The Nana eagerly accepted the hint.
First of all, the five men Avho had been suffered to live thus far
were brought out, and killed in his presence. Then a number
of sepoys were selected, and told to go and shoot the women
and children through the windows of the house. They went ;
but they could not harden their hearts to obey the rest of their
instructions. They belonged to that regiment which had
murdered the boy ensigns at Allahabad; but they were not
prepared to murder women and children. They contented
themselves therefore with firing at the ceiling instead. But
such effeminate sensibility was disgusting to the Nana. At
his bidding, then, two Mahomedan butchers, an Afghan, and
two Hindus, armed with long knives, went into the house,
and hacked their victims to pieces. All through the night
the bodies lay neglected in the room ; and moans were
distinctly heard proceeding from it by those without. Next
morning a heap of corpses, a heap of wounded,
and a number of children who had escaped the
knives of the assassins were dragged out, and thrown, the living
and the dead together, into a well hard by.^
The fiery trial was over at last. It is hard for even the most
sympathetic imagination actually to realise, not merely to believe
the fact that English men, and women, and children, did indeed
pass through that trial not five-and-twenty years ago.^ But all
Avas now past. Forgetting the agonising siege, the horrid
carnage at the river side, the bitter imprisonment, the pitiless
massacre, they slept in the well of CaAvnpore as calmly as we
^ IJejJositions, pp. 12, 16, 35, 39, 57.
- Jb. pp. 8, 58, 107-14 ; Nanakchaiul, p. xxv. A valuable synopsis by Col.
Williams of the evidence contained in the Depositions will be found in Aniiids
of the Indian JiebeUiun, pp. 668-705. See App. G.
=• Written in 1881.
1857 CAWNPORE 243
shall sleep, if such be our lot, beneath the green English turf.
Only for their destroyer all was not over. He had had his
revenge, and won his triumph. He had ordered salutes to be
fired in honour of his glorious victory. He had caused himself
to be proclaimed Peshwa. But the voice of the blood which he
had shed was crying out, not in vain, to God for vengeance.
The murderer who had shut his ears to the piteous cries of
tender women and innocent children, was soon to hear, on the
open battle-field, the appalling shout of the British soldier, and
the roar of Havelock's guns.
CHAPTER IX
LUCKNOW AND THE OUDH DISTRICTS — HAVELOCK'S
CAMPAIGN
It will be remembered that, just before the announcement of
the rising at Meerut reached him, Canning was
Anxiety of anxiously considering the significance of a mutiny
oudh"^^°'^ which had lately occurred at Lucknow. It was
natural then that, after he had received that
announcement, he should feel seriously alarmed for the safety
of the province of which Lucknow was the capital. In common,
however, with every Englishman in India, he drew comfort
from the reflection that its Chief Commissioner was Henry
Lawrence.
Henry Lawrence began his Indian career as a lieutenant in
the Bengal Artillery ; but, like many other ambi-
Lawrence. tious subaltcrns, he soon found his way into the
wider arena of civil employment. The happiest
years of his life were spent in the comradeship of a wife whose
character must be known and honoured by all who would know
and honour his. With her to share his sympathies and his
aspirations, he laboured on year after year in different districts
and at different occupations, but always with a single-minded
desire to promote the welfare of the people among whom his
lot was cast, and to do his part towards realising his high ideal
of the duties of the imperial race. In these labours, as Avell as
in the formation of his opinions regarding the problems of Anglo-
Indian life, he allowed himself to be guided by sentiment as much
as by reason ; for his temperament was emotional, imaginative,
and actively responsive to poetical influences. But that which
gave its special character to his benevolent toil was the passionate
religious enthusiasm which inspired it. He was continually
1857 LUCKNOW AND THE OUDH DISTRICTS 245
inflamed with a fervent desire to grow better every day. His
religion was the religion of a plain Christian man, knowing
nothing of doctrinal subtleties, but solving his simple doubts by
a living faith in God. It was in the strength of this faith that
he laboured to subdue his roughness of manner, his violent
temper, his impatience of incompetent authority, his mor])id
sensitiveness to real or fancied slights, and trained and chastened
almost to saintly perfection the many noble qualities with which
his nature had been endowed. But no mere enumei-ation of
virtues would give a just idea of the strength and the beauty
of his character. To understand it aright, the reader must
follow him through the toils, the triumphs, and the disappoint-
ments of his life. He must picture him as a schoolboy, ever
ready to acknowledge his faults, ever ready to stand up for the
weak, and to do battle, when called upon, with the strong. He
must follow him on his first campaign, and see him cheering on
his gunners, and sharing their hardships. He must accompany
him on his surveying expeditions through the jungles, and note
the thoroughness with Avhich he does his work. He must watch
him striving to bring the blessings of civilisation into the Punjab,
and labouring, not in vain, to inspire that little knot of disciples
who owed everything to him with his lofty conceptions of duty.
He must listen to him pleading the cause of the fallen Sirdars
with his colleagues at Lahore. He must read his loving letters
to his wife and children, and not shut his eyes to his cold and
querulous letters to Dalhousie. He must think of him as he
knelt with his wife at his bedside, pouring out his whole soul in
prayer to God on behalf of the brother who had been preferred
to him, and the people whose destinies had been removed from
his control.^ He must think of him when, a few years later, he
had lost the helpmeet of his life, and was nerving himself again
by prayer to endure to the end of his pilgrimage. From that
moment, though he could not wholly banish the bitterness of
disappointed ambition, though he could never hope to banish the
sense of desolation, the most glorious epoch of his life began.
He was dead to the world now, though he never ceased to work
for it. Thus, when we behold him in the last scene of his life,
we feel that a Christian hero indeed stands before us. He was
only fifty years old when he came to Lucknow : but he looked
^ Letter from Herbert Edwardes to John Nicholson, printed in Kaye's Lims
of Indian Officers, vol. ii. p. 472.
246 LUCKNOW AND THE OUDH DISTRICTS chap, ix
an old man ; for his face bore the traces of many years of toil
beneath an Indian sun and the still deeper marks of a never-
ending conflict with self. His eyes, overhung by massive, craggy
brows, looked out with an expression in which melancholy was
strangely blended with humour : his thin, wasted cheeks were
scored down their whole length by deep lines ; and a long,
ragged beard added to his look of age. Yet the raw Addiscombe
cadet was easily recognisable in the matured soldier-statesman.
The characteristics that the friends of his manhood so lovingly
noted had been strongly marked even in his boyhood ; nor had he
ever lost those peculiarities of temper Avhich had been so familiar
to his schoolfellows. Day by day, however, his character was
becoming more and more ripe. He Avas still the fearless
champion of the oppressed, the stern reprover of evil-doers ; but
he was more gentle and more forgiving than he had once been.
His humility was such that he would have said of himself in the
words of the Imitation, " Oh, that I had spent but one day in
this world thoroughly well " : but few have gone nearer to the
fulfilment of that fundamental precept of Thomas a Kempis,
" That leaving all a man forsake himself, and go wholly from
himself, and retain nothing of self-love."
It was indeed the deep sympathy of Henry Lawrence's
nature, his immense love for his fellow men that
w»;hthe'popu- fitted him so peculiarly for the Avork he was now
lation and the doing. Others might have been better qualified
than he for the stern duty of grappling with fully
developed rebellion ; but it is probable that no other Englishman
in India could have succeeded so thoroughly in the preliminary
task of heahng the great mass of discontent that prevailed in
Oudh before the outbreak of rebellion, and thus laying a solid
foundation, so to speak, upon which to erect a fortress capable
of resisting the inevitable shock. He had done this not merely
by devising conciliatory measures, but also by impressing the
chief sufferers with the belief that he personally felt for their
sufferings. " I have struck up a friendship," he wrote to Cann-
ing, "with two of the best and wealthiest of the chiefs, and
am on good terms with all."^ These Avords give a better idea of
the secret of his success than the most detailed account of the
acts of his government could give. The sepoys, on the other
hand, Avere, he feared, too deeply infected AArith the taint of dis-
^ Li/e of Sir U. Lamnnce, p. 571.
1857 LUCKNOW AND THE OUDH DISTRICTS 247
loyalty to be reached by any cure. For him personally indeed
they felt the deepest respect.^ They believed that he had their
welfare at heart. But they did not believe the same of the
Government which he served. A Brahmin jamadar of the Oudh
artillery, who had been recommended to him as a man of re-
markable intelligence and good character, told him that he was
convinced that for ten years past the Government had been
plotting the fraudulent conversion of all the natives. Lawrence
tried to reason with him, but in vain. The man obstinately
maintained his own opinion, and supported it with the words,
" I tell you what everybody says." ^ Still Lawrence was hope-
ful enough to believe that it might be possible to do something
to eradicate even a widespread and deep-rooted delusion like this.
Accordingly he summoned the native officers and about fifty
privates from each native regiment to meet him at a great
Durbar to be held in his private garden. The Durbar was fixed
for the 12th of May. The sepoys arrived at the appointed hour.
The officers seated themselves upon the chairs which had been
provided for them ; while the men clustered about in groups
behind. At sunset the Chief Commissioner himself appeared,
attended by the principal military and civil officers and some of
the influential natives of Lucknow. He looked indeed like one
who would speak straight home to the hearts of his hearers ;
for upon his face were stamped the unmistakeable signs of a
chastened enthusiasm, a holy sincerity, and an all-embracing
charity. Then, while every eye was bent upon him, and every
ear was strained to hear him, he stood up to address a last
appeal to the good sense and the loyalty of the representatives
of the native army. He asked them to contrast the tyranny
and the persecution of the Mogul Emperors at Delhi and of the
Hindu rulers at Lahore with the beneficence and the tolerance
of the British Government. He urged them not to listen to the
lying tales of interested agitators. He reminded them of the
proved ability of his countrymen to punish those who resisted
their just authority. Finally, he besought them to remember
that they were soldiers, decorated, like himself, for honourable
service against the enemies of England, and adjured them to
refrain from tarnishing the glorious record of the Bengal army.^
' Life of Sir H. Lawrence, p. 561 ; Pari. Papers, vol. xxx. (1857), p. 349.
^ Life of Sir H. Lawrence, p. 673.
'^ lb. p. 564 ; Gubbins, p. 14 ; L. E. R. Rees's Siege of Lucknoir, ]ip. 8, 9.
248 LUCKNOW AND THE OUDH DISTRICTS chap, ix
Then, calling to his side certain natives who had lately given
practical proofs of their fidelity, he presented them with dresses
of honour and purses of money, and held them up as an example
to their comrades. It seemed that his words would bear good
fruit. Nothing could have been more becoming than the con-
duct of his hearers. Most of the officers zealously declared their
attachment to the Government. But not long afterwards it was
ascertained that they had attributed the whole proceeding to
fear of themselves.^
It was on the day after the holding of the Durbar that the
Tiie news from ^^^^ ^^ ^^^® Outbreak at Meerut was telegraphed to
iMeerutand Lawrcnce. On the 14th he received the further
news of the seizure of Delhi.- To enable the reader
to understand the defensive measures which he adopted and the
various military operations Avhich followed, it will be necessary
to give a short description of the city and its environs.
In jDopulation, in extent, and in the number and character of
its principal buildings, Lucknow Avas one of the fore-
most cities of India. The town itself, a vast maze
of long, narrow, filthy streets, above the mean, squalid houses of
which rose here and there mansions surrounded by trees, lay to
the south of the river Giimti, and was separated from it by an
irregular space crowded by a collection of splendid palaces and
mosques, many of which were destined to become famous in the
history of the Mutiny. Chief among these were the Fari'd
Bakhsh, the Chattar Manzil, the Shah Najif, the Sikandar Bagh,
the Tara Kothi, the Imambara, the Begam Kothi, and the Kaisar
Bagh. The Residency, an imposing three-storied building, with
its roof surrounded by an Italian balustrade, stood on a plateau
terminating on the north in a steep bank, beloAV which the ground
sloped gently towards the river. Near the Residency the river
was spanned by an iron bridge, and a few hundred, yards further
up by one of stone. The southern and eastern portions of the
city were bounded by a canal, Avhich entered the river, and was
itself crossed by the road leading to Cawnpore. Beyond the
right bank of this canal were scattered a number of posts, all of
which were, in a military sense, important, — the Alambagh, a
large garden siu:rounded by a wall, on the Cawnpore road, about
^ This statement is made solely on the authority of Gubbins (p. 15) ; but all
who are familiar with Indian history will acknowledge that it is perfectly credible
in itself. - lb. pp. 15-16.
1857 LUCKNOW AND THE OUDH DISTRICTS 249
two miles from Lucknow, the Charbagh, an enclosure command-
ing the junction of the same road with the canal, the Dilkusha,
a palace standing in a park not far south of the point where the
canal flowed into the river, and the Martiniere college, quite close
to that point. Such were the prominent features of Lucknow.
It was from the roof of the Residency that its surpassing beauty •■•
was best discerned. Standing there on a clear summer evening,
one might have seen the distant chaos of the vast city gradually
taking shape in narrow streets and tmsting lanes, and nearer
still in cupolas, columns, terraced roofs, gilded domes, and
slender minarets, which, flooded in the yellow glow, rose in
picturesque confusion above the rich foliage of the surrounding
groves and gardens ; while on the right stood the huge frowning
pile of the Machi Bhawan ; and behind, the Gumti, recalling
some tranquil English stream, meandered through the fertile
plain, and past the bright corn-fields, the mango-topes, and the
scattered hamlets of the Garden of India. ^
The existing arrangement of the garrison was strikingly de-
fective. The native regiments were stationed in
various quarters within the city itself and on either ^thel^arr^on.
side of the river; while the 32nd Foot, the only
European regiment, was massed in a barrack just outside the
city and about a mile and a half to the east of the Residency.
Thus, if the sepoys chose to mutiny, they would have plenty of
time to mui'der their officers before the British troops could come
to the rescue. Even the Residency, surrounded though it was
by Government buildings, offices, and bungalows, was at the
mercy of a native guard. To remedy this obvious
defect, Gubbins vehemently urged upon his chief
the necessity of moving up a party of European troops for its
protection. But, though Lawrence had long felt that he must
sooner or later make an improved disposition of the troops, he
opposed the suggestions of Gubbins, on the ground that they
might have the effect of precipitating a mutiny. It was the
same theory that deluded Sir Hugh Wheeler, the same theory
that was put into practice so often and with such disastrous
' These words do not apply to the details of the Lucknow architecture, which
are generally detestable. See some remarks of Mr. J. Fergusson, quoted in the
Oiulh Gazetteer, vol. ii. p. 363.
^ Russell's Diary in India, vol. i. ; Forrest's Picturesqiie Tour along tlic
Rivers Ganges and Jumna; R. B. Miutum's New York to Delhi, pp. 169-189;
Gubbius.
250 LUCKNOW AND THE OUDH DISTRICTS chai-. ix
results in the summer of 1857. As, however, the chief military
authorities agreed in supporting Gubbins's views,
Lawrence gave way. But even then he would have
allowed two days to elapse before bringing up the European
troops, if Gubbins had not roused him to instant action by point-
ing out that the sight of the preparations which were being made
at the Eesidency for their reception might inflame the sepoys to
^^ rise if they were not instantly overawed. The
women, children, and invalids belonging to the
32nd were likewise brought up to the Residency. The remain-
ing portion of the 32nd was sent to keep watch over the native
regiments at Mariaon, a cantonment situated on the north side
of the river, about three miles from the Residency. At the same
time the Machi Bhawan was occupied by a detachment of Euro-
peans and picked sepoys.^
It is probable that the conflict of opinion which had arisen
between Lawrence and Gubbins suggested to the former the
reflection that it would be impossible for him to carry out the
measures which he might think most conducive to the interests
of the State, so long as his authority Avas confined to civil
matters. Anyhow, on the 16th, he telegraphed to the Governor-
General, " Give me plenary military power in Oudh : I will not
use it unnecessarily." Soon afterwards he received the follow-
ing reply : — " You have full military powers. The Governor-
General will support you in everything that you
think necessary." Armed -wdth this authority, he
assumed command of the troops in Oudh, Avith the rank of
Brigadier-General.^
Of the three military posts which had been brought under
The Residency effective control he had already selected the Re-
an.i the Machi sidencv and the Machi Bhawan as strongholds to
be fortified in view of an attack. The Machi
^ Life of Sir H. Lawrence, p. 574 ; Gubbins, pp. 5-8, 16-19. In the Calcutta
Revieiu, .Jan.-June, 1859, p. 198, General (then Major) M'Leod limes saj's,
" We believe that Sir Henry's real opinion of the c;ise was this. The movement
of Europeans to the Residency must not be isolated ; it must be one of the series
of combinations by which the Cantonments, the Bridges, the Residency, and the
Mutchi Bhawn are to be secured. They cannot be done till to-morrow night.
The sepoys must be kept quiet till then." But the General's belief is inconsistent
with Gubbins's account of what passed between him and Sir Henry ; and, rightly
or wrongly, Sir Henry did yield to Gubbins's impoi-tunity.
^ Life of Sir IL Lawrence, p. 619 ; I'arL Papers, vol. xxx. (1857),
p. 225.
1857 LUCKNOW AND THE OUDH DISTRICTS 251
Bhawan, though it had once been a place of great strength, had
been suflfered to fall into such decay that it was doubtful whether
it could be made strong enough to resist a cannonade. As, on
the other hand, it was believed by the natives to be almost im-
pregnable, a useful moral effect might obviously be produced by-
maintaining the show of preparing it for defence. Even if it
could not withstand an organised attack, it would overawe the
city, deter any rebellious spirits who might contemplate an out-
break, and afford a temporary refuge in case of need.^ Lawrence
therefore caused supplies to be stored within it, took measiu-es
for strengthening its walls, and mounted upon its ramparts all
the effective artillery that could be spared, as well
as a vast collection of native cannon, which, if they ^^MayT?!"
were not likely to do much harm to a besieging
army, would at least create an impression of strength. On the
23rd of May, when the defences at the Machi Bhawan were suffi-
ciently advanced, he took in hand the preparation of the Resi-
dency and the surrounding posts, in which the Europeans were to
make their final stand. He traced the outline of the position,
proceeded to erect defensive works, stored guns, ammunition,
and supplies of every kind within, and, though with much
compunction of heart, began to demolish the surrounding houses,
which might have afforded cover to a besieging army. When,
however, his advisers urged him to destroy the adjoining mosques
as well, he replied with characteristic tenderness for native
feeling, " Spare the holy places."
^ General Innes {Lucknoio and Oude in the Mutiny, pp. 74, 79-80, 93, 170-
71) has finally and authoritatively settled this point. Giibbins indeed says
(p. 145) that "on the 8th of June Lawrence proposed to remove thither" — that
is to say, to the Machi Bhawan — " all the Europeans and their families. The
measure being much opposed, a council of war was called . . . (Fulton) strongly
urged the abandonment of the Machi Bhawan." But General Inues tells me
that Gubbins must have misunderstood both Lawrence and Fulton. Lawrence
may have proposed to remove the Europeans temporarily to the Machi Bhawan,
in consequence of the recent mutinies in the districts ; and Fulton could only
have meant that the Machi Bhawan should be ultimately abandoned. Lawrence
himself wrote on the 12th of June, "We ought to have only one position. I put
this question to some sixteen officers five days ago, but all stood out for the two
positions. I am convinced they were wrong, and the best of them now think so,
but we are agreed that, on the whole, the Residency is the point to hold." — Life
of Sir 11. Lawrence, pp. 592-3. Again, on the 11th of June he wrote to Brigadier
Inglis, "I am decidedly of opinion that we ought to have only one position, and
that though we must hold all three " — the Residency, the cantonments, and the
Machi Bhawan — "as long as we can, all arrangements should be made with
reference to a sudden concentration at the Residency." — Inues, p. 93.
252 LUCKNOW AND THE OUDH DISTRICTS chap, ix
While these preparations were going on, there were many
Behaviour of signs that the budmashes of Lucknow were ripe for
Lucknow'and Sedition. Papers, in which the Mahomedans were
the sepoys. called upon to rise and destroy the Feringhees,
were constantly posted up in the town. English ladies Avho
were still bold enough to drive or walk through the streets were
often greeted by defiant scowls. Still, the worst symptoms that
could be discerned indicated nothing like general disaffection.
Thanks to La^vrence's benevolent exertions, many of the influ-
ential native residents had become actively loyal : the moneyed
classes were naturally interested in the maintenance of order ;
and, with the exception of the irreconcileable religious mal-
contents and the sufferers whose grievances it had been im-
possible to redress, the bulk of the population were, if not
positively well-disposed, at least not actively hostile. The
sepoys, however, Avere still restless and excitable. The un-
mistakeable symptom of constantly recurring fires proved that
they were bent on mischief; and Lawrence avowed that he
would gladly rid himself of two of the regiments if he could. ^
The news from other stations was not such as to cheer him.
On the night of the 23rd of May a telegram from
Cawnpore!^^""^ Cawnpore announced that a mutiny was momentarily
expected there. As it was feared that the infection
would communicate itself to Lucknow, the ladies were warned
to take refuge at once within the Residency and
the surrounding houses.'^ Yet throughout the worst
period of suspense the most desponding trusted in Lawrence's
judgement, and leaned upon his strong and tender support.
Worn as he was by bodily suffering, bowed down by the burden
Unselfish °^ ^^^ responsibilities, harassed by the criticisms
exertions of of those who disseutcd from his policy, he forgot
himself in his efforts to allay the anxieties and to
encourage the hopes of all around him. Though clouds of melan-
choly often passed over him, there were moments even then
when his manner and conversation were lighted up by the fascin-
ating vivacity of an Irish gentleman. He insisted that his staff
should dine at his own table ; he tried to promote gaiety and
cheerful conversation among the other guests whom he from
^ Red Pamplild, p. 76 ; Gubbins, pp. 32, 40-41 ; Life of Sir H. Laturence,
pp. 568-9, 574 ; Lady luglis's Journal.
^Ib.iA Lttdi/'s Diary of the Siege of Lucknow, p. 20 ; Gubbius, pp. 31-2.
1857 LUCKNOW AND THE OUDH DISTRICTS 253
time to time gathered round him ; he busied himself in provid-
ing for the personal comfort of those who had been obliged to
leave their pleasant homes for the inhospitable protection of the
Eesidency ;^ and he laboured night and day to hasten the com-
pletion of the preparations which he had devised for the security
of all his people. Towards the end of May, however, a daring
plan was suggested to him, the adoption of which might have at
once destroyed one of the most fruitful sources of his anxieties.
The author of this plan was Martin Gubbins.
Gubbins was one of the most remarkable characters whose
powers the opportunities of the Mutiny revealed.
He was a man of immense personal courage and Gubbins
vehement force of will : but he was liable to be
carried away by a favourite theory ; and his daring was apt to
degenerate into rashness. When his opinions were most valu-
able, he urged them so recklessly and with such undisguised
contempt for the judgement of those who differed from him,
that he offended instead of convincing. He had too genuine an
affection and respect for Lawrence to quarrel with him as he
had quarrelled with Coverley Jackson :^ but the same faults of
temper which had brought him into violent collision with the
one, prevented him from acquiring that influence in the councils
of the other which his genius might otherwise have secured for
him. And indeed it is doubtful whether the most tactful of
advisers could have persuaded Lawrence to adopt the plan which
Gubbins recommended.
That plan was to disarm the native regiments at Lucknow.
Lawrence reiected it on the ground that, as he was
. . He advises
Chief Commissioner not of Lucknow only but of the disarming
the whole of Oudh, he would not be justified in ^J^rluT^"'
taking a step that would probably have the effect rejects the
of driving the regiments at the out stations to
revolt.^ He admitted indeed that it was quite possible to
disarm the regiments at Lucknow ; and it is by no means certain
that the consequences which he dreaded would have followed
such a course. Wherever the number of loyal troops was not
so small as to be obviously powerless, the repressive force which
they exei-ted was the stronger the more boldly their commander
took the initiative against the malcontents.^ It was mutiny that
1 Gubbins, pp. 31-2. 2 jj, pp_ 2, 3, 198-9. '■^ lb. p. 45.
•* As an instance of this, it is sufficient to refer to the achievements of
254 LUCKNOW AND THE OUDH DISTRICTS chap, ix
begat mutiny in those days : there was no instance in which the
successful disarming of a regiment or regiments proA^oked others
to rebel. Sooner or later the sepoys at the out stations would
surely rise ; and within a few weeks they did rise without ex-
ception. By his refusal to disarm then Lawrence probably
gained nothing ; whereas by the opposite course he would have
rendered the Lucknow regiments powerless for mischief. There
would have been no need for him to include all the sepoys with-
out exception in the measure. He might have excerpted those
whom he believed to be faithful ; and formed them into a
separate brigade for the support of the Europeans.^ On the
other hand, the risk doubtless appeared disproportionate to the
advantage which was to be gained. He feared that by disarm-
ing he might alienate loyal men : he knew that it was of vital
importance to gain time ; and he would not take any step which
might precipitate mutiny in the province and endanger his pre-
parations for defence.
It soon appeared that, whatever the sepoys at the out stations
might think of Lawrence's forbearance, those at
May 30.°^ Luckuow wcre resolved to take advantage of it.
On the 30th of May he was dining at the Canton-
ment Residency at Maridon. One of his staff. Captain Wilson,
who was present, speaking from information supplied by a faith-
ful sepoy, had warned him that mutiny would break out at the
firing of the nine o'clock gun. Presently the report of the gun
was heard. Still there was no sign of riot. Tiu-ning to Wilson,
Lawrence remarked -vvith a smile, "Your friends are not punctual."
Hardly had he uttered the words before the crack of musketry
Willoughby Osborne of Rewali, who triumphed over seemingly desperate odds
simply because he had the sagacity and the resolution to act as though he pos-
sessed the amplest resources.
^ As General Cotton did at Peshawar. See Punjab Mutiny RejMvt, pp. 63-
65, pars. 46-53. One of Lawrence's reasons for not disarming was that it would
be necessary to keep as many loyal sepoys as possible to aid in the defence of the
Residency. But according to General Innes (Lucknovj and Oude in the Mutiny,
p. 80) "six companies of Sikhs and other selected native troops" had been
segregated from the sepoy regiments, and jilaced in the Machi Bhawan l)y the 23rd
of May ; and, including eighty pensioners, only seven hundred and twelve native
troops in all took part in the defence {Jb. p. Ill) ; for a considerable number of
those who remained loyal after the mutiuy of the 30th of May were not allowed
to enter the entrenchment. It should appear indeed from Innes's contemporary
article in the Calcutta Review (Jan. 1859, p. 197) that only one company of Sildis
was placed in the Machi Bhdwan before the 23rd of May, and the rest after the
mutiuy of the 30th : but it would have been safe to segregate all the Sikhs before.
1857 LUCKNOW AND THE OUDH DISTRICTS 255
was heard coming from the lines. The guests rose at once with
their host, ordered their horses, and went outside the Residency
door to wait for them. Directly opposite the group the native
guard on duty was standing ranged in line. Their subahddr
had turned them out on hearing the sound of firing, and now,
saluting AVilson, asked whether he was to order his men to load.
AVilson referred the question to his chief. " Oh, yes," replied
Lawrence, "let him load." The men rammed their charges
home, and then, raising their muskets till the tubes pointed
straight at the Englishmen, proceeded to adjust the caps. They
had the life of the Chief Commissioner of Oudh absolutely at
their mercy. But, if they meditated his murder, they were
overawed by his resolute bearing. " I am going," he cried, " to
drive those scoundrels out of cantonments ; take care while I
am away that you all remain at your posts, and allow no one
to do any damage here or enter my house, else when I return
I will hang you." They did remain at their posts ; and the
Residency was almost the only house in the cantonments that
was not either plundered or burned that night.^
Meanwhile the Chief Commissioner had gone to quell the
mutiny. Discerning the paramount importance of preventing
the mutineers from communicating with the disaffected citizens,
he posted a European force to guard the road that led to the
city. For the present, however, the mutineers were too busy
to think of courting the supjiort of the citizens. On first rising,
they had rushed down to one of the mess-houses to murder their
officers ; but, finding the dining-room deserted, they consoled
themselves by setting fire to the building. Nor was their long-
ing for English blood wholly disappointed. They shot their
Brigadier as he was riding up to recall them to obedience. Then,
emboldened by success, they ventured to open fire on the detach-
ment of the 32nd; but, receiving a shower of grape in reply,
they broke and fled. Meanwhile their comrades were swarming
with horrid yells into the officers' bungalows, to plunder and
destroy. The English in the city caught the sound of firing,
and, hurrying up on to the roofs of their bouses, saw a lurid
glare above the distant cantonment, and trembled for the fate of
their countrymen. Towards morning, however, a messenger
arriA^ed with the news that there was no cause for alarm. The
outbreak would have been more formidable if all the native
' Life of Sir H, iMivrence, pp. 580-1 ; Gubbius, p. 106.
256 LUCKNOW AND THE OUDH DISTRICTS chap, ix
regiments had joined in it. But only one, the 7 1st, took an
active part in mutiny ; and even in its ranks not all were traitors.
Many of the other troops, indeed, went over to the mutineers, or
slunk away from their lines before the night was over ; but
between five and six hundred men of the three infantry regi-
ments boldly ranged themselves on the side of the
May 31. Europeans. Next morning Lawrence, hearing that
the mutineers had retreated to the race-course, marched thither
to punish them. They fled after a few discharges from his guns,
but not before they had been joined by the bulk of the 7th
Cavalry, who till then had remained faithful. This defection
rendered an effective pursuit impossible. Only sixty prisoners
were made, of whom Gubbins captured six with his own hand.
On the afternoon of the same day a rising took place in the city.
The standard of the Prophet was raised, and some six thousand
fanatics rallied round it ; but they were easily dispersed by the
efforts of the police.^ The strategy of Lawrence had prevented
the coalescence of mutiny and sedition.
Thus ended the second outbreak at Lucknow. Summing up
its results in a letter to Canning, Lawrence wrote, " We are now
positively better off than we were. We now know our friends
and enemies."^ This was true. But the knowledge had been
purchased at the cost of a mutiny, a street riot, and the lives of
three British officers.
While the events which have just been recorded had been
passing at Lucknow, the country districts of Oudh
Oudh. had remained tranquil. It is true that the district
officers had discerned symptoms of excitement
among their sepoys, and had begun to distrust the loyalty of
the talukdars and the zamindars ; but throughout May the
duties of Government were carried on as usual. While in many
parts of the North-Western Provinces the fabric of Government
was tottering to its fall, in Oudh the courts everywhere remained
open, and the revenue was punctually paid.^ But, after the out-
break at Lucknow, the aspect of affairs suddenly changed. The
sepoys at Sitapur rose in rebellion, and murdered
the Commissioner and another civilian, six officers,
1 Gubbins, pp. 102-13 ; T. F. Wilson's Dicmj of a Staff-Officer, pp. 3-9,
177-9.
'^ Life of Sir 11. Laurence, p. 577.
" Jh. lip. 568, 576 ; Gubbins, pp. 20, 118.
1857 LUCKNOW AND THE OUDH DISTRICTS 257
and several ladies and children. The few who escaped separated
into two parties. One of these consisted of a young civilian,
named Sir Mountstuart Jackson, his sister Madeline, Lieutenant
Burnes, Sergeant-Major Morton, and Sophy Christian, a little
girl only three years old. An authentic narrative story of thi>
of their adventures has been preserved, and forms fugitives from
one of the saddest of the many tales of suffering in
which the history of the Mutiny abounds. The fugitives made
their way to Mithauli, a fort belonging to a raja
named Loni Singh, and begged him to take pity upon
them. When they arrived they were worn out with fatigue,
their clothes were in rags, and their bare feet were lacerated by
the thorns of the jungle through which they had passed. The
raja did not pity them ; but it suited his purpose to take them
under his charge. He therefore lodged them for the night in a
cowshed, and, on the following evening, sent them
to the fort of Katchiani, a desolate unfurnished
building in another part of his estates. There they found
Captain Philip Orr and his wife and child, who had escaped from
the massacre of Aurangabad.^ The raja now said that, as there
were mutineers in the neighbourhood, he could not shelter the
whole party. Next day, therefore, the Orrs were
sent out into the jungle. They had to keep fires
burning at night to scare away the tigers and the wolves ; and
they were continually in dread of being found out by the
mutineers who were roving in the neighbourhood. After a few
days they were told that, as the mutineers had
dispersed, they might return to the fort. There
for some weeks the eight fugitives existed in hopeless misery.
The only news that reached them from the outer world was the
news of the sufferings of their countrymen and the triumphs of
the mutineers. Day after day they sat in solemn silence ; for
the only words that they could have truthfully spoken would
have been words of despair. Early in August the
raja told them that, as another band of mutineers
was coming, they must go forth again and hide in the jungle.
But he did not intend that they should find a hiding-place. His
vakil ^ had told the sepoys at Lucknow where they Averc to be
found ; and tin armed band was sent to destroy them. From
^ See p. 135, supra.
" Agent or man of business.
S
258 LUCKNOW AND THE OUDH DISTRICTS chap, ix
some mysterious cause, indeed, the intending murderers failed
to penetrate the jungle. But the fugitives had little cause to
rejoice over their escape. The rays of the sun beat fiercely upon
their heads ; and the thorny brushwood of the jungle Avas so
low that they could find no shade. Torrents of rain poured
down upon them. Wild beasts howled around them. Inter-
mittent fever attacked them, and deprived them of all strength
to bear up against their other suff"erings. Little Sophy, who did
not know that her mother had been murdered at Sitapur, was
continually torturing them by asking why she had not come
Avith them. At last Orr received a letter, encourag-
Aug. 2G. . . ' &
ing him to hope for an early rescue. He showed
the letter to his companions ; and, as they read and re-read it,
hope, Avhich had been long dead, revived in their hearts. But
weeks passed away ; and the expected escort never came to take
them to Lucknow. At last another and unexpected
escort came. Loni Singh, who had been watching
the course of events, had become convinced that the star of the
British had set for ever, and had sent three hundred of his
retainers to deliver them over to the mutineers. The retainers
seized them, dragged them out of the jungle, and, putting them
into two carts, started with them for Lucknow. The carts
jolted along till they reached a village in which the raja's vakil
was waiting to receive the prisoners. This man owed his
advancement in life to the kindness of Orr ; and he was now in
a position to make a return. He did so. He ordered chains to
be riveted upon the hands and feet of the male prisoners. At
the sight of the fetters Burnes went mad, and Morton fell into a
convulsive fit. Mrs. Orr fell down on her knees, and entreated
the vakil to spare her husband, his benefactor, the bitter shame
of bonds. He answered her with a brutal laugh.
Then the prisoners were sent on their way. Once a day a
scanty dole of nauseous food was thrown to them. They were
allowed hardly any water. At last they reached LucknoAv,
Then the guards told them to get out of the carts, and led them
towards the Kaisar Bagh. A mob collected, and thronged round
them, staring at them, as they staggered along, and making
merry over their shame and distress. When they entered the
room in which they were to be confined, Jackson, who was now
quite overcome, fell down in a swoon. The women, half-
maddened by protracted thirst, shrieked for water. At last it
1857 LUCKNOW AND THE OUDH DISTRICTS 259
was brought to them, but in a vessel so foul that they revolted
from bringing their lips to touch it.
Now began a second imprisonment, as bitter and as hopeless
as that which the captives had endured in the fort of Katchiani.
As day after day dragged by, Jackson became weaker and more
emaciated ; Morton was so sick that he could hardly eat the
scanty food that Avas given to him ; and Burnes was so Aveakened
in mind that he did not know what was going on around him.
But their relief came at last. On the morning of the 16th
of November a number of sepoys burst into the room, and told
the men to get up and come outside. Jackson and Orr pain-
fully dragged themselves to their feet, and bade the women
good-bye. Then, with Burnes and Morton, they submitted to
be pinioned and led outside. Presently a rattle of musketry was
heard. The gaolers told the women not to be alarmed, — some
native prisoners had been executed, that was all. It was not
till after some weeks that Madeline Jackson learned Jan. 7.
that she had lost her brother, and Mrs. Orr her
husband. They had already lost their little Nov. 24.
companion, the orphan Sophy. Two more months passed away.
Then at last a ray of hope lighted up the gloom of their cap-
tivity. There was a man called Wajid Ali, who, ever since their
arrival in the Kaisar Bagh, had, at his own risk, endeavoured to
lighten the burden of their sufferings. He now succeeded in
effecting the removal of Mrs. Orr's child to a place of safety. A
few days later he had Mrs. Orr herself and Madeline „ ^ ,„
J March 19.
Jackson carried to his own house. Soon afterwards
they were restored to their countrymen. -"^
After the outbreak at Sitapur, mutiny became general
throughout the province. Whether influenced
directly or indirectly by the example of the regi- ^le^custricts
ments at Lucknow, or by the pressure of the
mutineers who kept streaming into Oudh from the country be-
yond its eastern frontier,^ every detachment without exception
threw ofl' control. Their resolve was generally more pronounced,
their action less hesitating than that of their comrades in the
North-Western Provinces ; but their treatment of their officers
was as variable. Some simply dismissed them. Others savagely
murdered them. Others dutifully watched over their safety.
^ The Ihiglish Captives in Oucle, edited hy M. Wylie.
"^ Life of Sir II. Laiorence, p. 583.
260 LUCKNOW AND THE OUDH DISTRICTS chap, ix
Others sent them away unharmed, Imt took measures to have
them waylaid and murdered. The fortunes of those Europeans
who succeeded in escaping from their stations were of the most
various kinds. Some fled northwards, and perished from the
deadly climate of the Tarai. Others were tracked down by
bands of mutineers, and shot. Others made their way, unharmed
and unhindered, to Lucknow. Many of those who were saved.
owed their lives to the sympathy, or at least the
tife'popuiaWon. f orbearauce, of the native population. A few tdluk-
dars, indeed, showed hostility or refused shelter to
fugitive parties. A few villagers insulted them in their distress.
But in most cases high and low alike treated the suppliant
Europeans with genuine kindness. Their conduct might have
been very different if Lawrence had not laboured, as he had
done, to repair the wi'ongs which they had suffered at the hands
of his predecessors.
In eveiy instance the mutiny of a regiment was followed by
the loss of the district to which it belonged ; for the civil
officers had no means of maintaining the authority which some
of their brethren in the North-West exercised throughout the
most trying periods of the crisis. Within eleven days after the
mutiny at Lucknow, there was not a single representative of the
British Government to be found at any of the stations in Oudh.
The downfall of authority was followed Ijy its natural results.
The tdlukdars saw their opportunity and used it. Backed by
their retainers, they rose almost to a man, forcibly ejected those
upon whom their ill-gotten estates had been bestowed, plundered
rich and defenceless citizens and wreaked vengeance upon old
antagonists. But, whatever they may have felt, they showed as
yet, Avith very few exceptions, no disposition to aid the mutineers ;
and some of them even sent supplies to Lawrence, to be stored
in the Kesidency.^
Notwithstanding the overthrow of British authority in the
districts, Lucknow itself still remained compara-
Liwknow. tively quiet. A gallows was erected near the Machi
Bhdwan ; and day after day batches of mutineers
were summarily tried and hanged. Plots, it is true, were occa-
sionally discovered : but the seizure of the ringleaders struck
1 Life of Sir II. Lawrence, pp. 569, 586, 593 ; Gubbius, pp. 71-2, 118-43 ;
OvAlh aazeiteer, vol. i. pp. 134-5, 547 ; Wylie, Preface, pp. iv. and v. ; luues,
pp. 92, 96, 292. See App. S.
1857 LUCKNOW AND THE OUDH DISTRICTS 261
terror into their accomplices ; the military police, under their
vigilant commandant, Captain Carnegy, kept the budmashes
quiet ; and the administration of justice went on as usual. The
worst symptom that appeared after the mutiny of the 30th of
May was the slackness of trade. The native merchants and even
the bank no longer carried on business ; and Company's paper
fell from twenty to seventy-five per cent discount. Still the
merchants, though they had lost their confidence in the stability
of British rule, were ready to support it as long as they could
do so with safety. The ladies seldom ventured to stir beyond
the precincts of the Residency : but the chaplains continued to
hold their services regularly ; and even dinner parties Avere still
given and attended by the more sanguine. Henry Lawrence,
however, was an altered man. He had never known
how to take life easily. He had always lived in a ^f^Lawrence^^
state of bodily and mental tension, never satisfied
that he had done enough, and habitually expending more nervous
force than was sufficient to accomplish what he. actually did.
His emaciated figure and haggard face had already begun to
show how anxiety and sleepless labour had told upon his health,
when the heart-breaking announcements that reached him early
in June utterly prostrated him. Feeling that he might break
down at any moment, he telegraphed to Canning on the 4th,
begging that, if anything should happen to himself. Major Banks,
the Commissioner of the Lucknow Division, might be allowed
to succeed him as Chief Commissioner, and Colonel John Inglis
of the 32nd as commander of the troops. " This," he insisted,
"is no time for punctilio as regards seniority. They are the
right men, in fact the only men for the places." Five days
later his exhaustion became so complete that he
was obliged to delegate his authority to a provisional
council, of which Gubbins was appointed President.^ The
council sat for three days only • but that short period was an
epoch in the history of the crisis.
Directly after the mutiny of the 30th of May, Gubbins had
begun to besiege his chief with fresh arguments for
the disarming of the sepoys. Though between five ^ona^ council,
and six hundred ^ only had proved faithful, more
^ Wilson, p. 23; Englishman, June 11, 1857; Gubbins, p. 115, H. S.
Polehampton's Memoirs, pp. 62-3 ; Life of .Sir H. Lawrence, pp. 587-8 ; Rees,
pp. 22, 28 ; Lady Inglis 's Journal.
^ Gubbins (p. 116) says only 437. See, however, Kaye, vol. iii. p. 448, note f.
262 LUCKNOW AND THE OUDH DISTRICTS chap, ix
than twelve hundred still remained in the ranks. Many even
of their officers had lost all confidence in them, and lay down to
sleep at night in the full belief that they might be miu'dered in
their beds. While recommending that the entire body shoiild
be disarmed, Gubbins said that he would not oppose an excep-
tion in favour of those who had at least shown outward loyalty.^
But though Lawrence was more than once on the point of yield-
ing to his arguments, he never actually brought himself to take
the decisive step. Now, however, Gubbins thought that he
would at last get his own way. He so far succeeded that the
other members of the council agreed to allow one company,
which had shown positive signs of disaiiection, to be disarmed ;
but they would not suffer the other troops to be included in the
measure. Then Gubbins resolved to gain his end by a compro-
mise. He persuaded his colleagues that it would be advisable
for the commanding officers to order all their men,
June 12.
except about three hundred and fifty, to go home
until November. On the 12 th of June the resolution was
carried into effect : but Lawrence became so excited on hearing
of it that he resumed his authority, and sent messengers to
recall all the sepoys who might wish to return. About a
hundred and fifty rejoined their colours, and vowed that they
would stand by the Government to the last.-
It was fortunate indeed that the faithful few were suffered to
remain ; for the English soldiers woidd have been far too weak
in numbers to defend the Residenc}'^ in case of a siege. Hoping to
strengthen his little force still further, Lawrence issued a circular,
inviting the pensioned sepoys to rally round their old
flag. In answer to the call, some hundreds of aged
men, many of whom had lost their sight or their limbs in the
service of the Company, came flocking into Lucknow. About
eighty of these were selected for active service. This reinforce-
ment, however, did not make up for a further diminution which
the numbers of the garrison had lately suffered. On the 11th
the cavalry of the military police had risen in revolt,
military i)oiice. and gouc off' to joiu the rebels in the districts; and
on the following morning the infantry had followed
June 12. . o o J
their example. Some hours later a force was sent
1 Gulibins, p. 118. Neither Kaye (vol. iii. p. 498) nor Mallesou (vol. i.
J). 415) does justice to Gubbius ou this poiut.
- See Ai)p. H.
1857 LUCKNOW AND THE OUDH DISTRICTS 263
in pui'suit, which, hoAvever, failed to do more than kill a few
stragglers. Captain Gould Weston, the Superintendent of the
entire corps, on hearing of the departure of the mutineers,
instantly mounted a horse, galloped after them alone, and over-
took them about five miles from the Ilesidency. Their leaders
would not suffer him to speak ; but a few were so fascinated by
his daring that they left their comrades and joined him. One
man, indeed, levelled his musket at Weston ; but his comi'ades
indignantly struck it down, exclaiming, " Who would kill such a
brave man as this 1"^
Meanwhile the work of strengthening and provisioning the
Residency was going on apace. The Machi BhAwan was still
used as a storehouse for supplies ; and Lawrence even
caused new batteries to be constructed there, in
the hope of overawing the mutineers and putting off as long as
possible the investment of the Residency.^ His health was now
much improved ; and henceforth he was able to work without
interruption. He was still, however, harassed by the almost
insubordinate urgency with which Gubbins criti-
cised his measures, and oftered suggestions of his ofWubbii"s!
own.^ The Financial Commissioner vehemently
argued that the British force, instead of remaining inactive at
Lucknow, should march out and attack the rebels who were
collecting in the neighbourhood ; and many of the younger
officers were so impressed by his daring and impetuous character
that they began to regard him as the man for the crisis. At
last Lawrence himself boAved to his will. For it is certain that
it was owing to the influence which the whole tenour of Gubbins's
previous arguments had exerted upon him, though not to any
definite suggestion, that he took the step that immediately
caused the siege of LucknoAv.*
On the 29th of June he Avas informed that a large rebel
army, encouraged by the recent fall of Cawnpore, had collected at
NaAvabganj, about seventeen miles to the north-east,
A\ath the object of advancing to the attack of Luck- cwnhat.^
noAV ; and that their adA^anced guard had moved
^ Rees, pp. 55-6, 61 ; Malleson, vol. i. p. 418 ; Life of Sir H. Lmorence,
p. 590 ; Gubbins, p. 169.
" Wilson, pp. 10, 11 ; Iiiues's Roitgh JSfarrative of tlie Siege of Lucknow, p. 2 ;
Life of Sir H. Lmvrence, p. 590 ; Innes's Luchuno ami Oude in the Mutiny, p. 95.
"* Life of Sir H. Lmm-ence, p. 593.
■* Malleson (vol. i. p. 423) represents Lawrence as having eagerly seized the
264 LUCKNOW AND THE OUDH DISTRICTS ciiap. tx
forward ten miles to the village of Chinhat. Thereupon he
resolved to march out on the following morning as far as the
Kokrail, a rivulet some four miles from the city, intending, if no
enemy should be visible, to return at once, but hoping otherwise
to strike such a blow as would defer for some time the inevitable
siege. The force which he selected consisted of some seven
hundred fighting men of all arms, of whom about half were
Eiu-opeans. He had intended that the march should
June 30. , . ^ i • i ■ i
begin at daybreak: but the sun was high in the
heavens before all the preparations Avere completed ; and the
troops were exhausted by many previous days and nights of
harassing duty. It was remarked by one who saw them start
that they looked more as if they had gone through a hard day's
work than as if they were going to begin one. On reaching
the Kokrail bridge, they halted ; but, contrary to Lawrence's
orders, neither food nor drink was served out to them. He and
his staff had ridden on about a quarter of a mile to reconnoitre.
No enemy was in sight. The expected order to return was
given; and the force countei-marched. Meanwhile, however,
Lawrence had heard that the enemy's scouts had fallen back.
He inferred that they shrank from a fight, and that he would
only have the advanced guard to deal Avith ; and the younger
members of his staff persuaded him to attack them. His aide-de-
camp rode by his orders to the bridge, and asked Inglis if the
men of the 32nd could go on. " Of course they could," replied
Inglis, " if ordered." The answer was significant enough : but
Colonel Case of the 32 nd protested emphatically that the
men were unfit to go into action ; and it would have been
better if Inglis had plainly said the same.^ The aide-de-camp
rode off. Presently, to the amazement of all, a countermand
was issued, and the march was resumed.
The troops, stumbling wearily along a muddy and uneven
road, were approaching a village on its left called Ismjiilganj,
when suddenly a number of round shot came crashing into
their midst, and immediately afterwards they caught sight of
the enemy, who had hitherto concealed themselves behind
groves of trees, which stretched in front of the village of
opportunity of attacking tlie rebels at Cliiiihat. This view is, I think, disproved
liy the evidence contained iu an appen<lix to Kaye's third volume, pp. 609-71.
See also Life of Sir II. Lam'encc, pp. 603, 605, note.
^ One of the surgeons also stated professionally that the men could not go ou
without serious risk. See App. 1.
1857 LUCKNOW AND THE OUDH DISTRICTS 265
Chinhat. The advanced guard, composed of a few men of the
32nd, had already occupied Ismailganj. Lawrence at once
deployed the rest of the regiment into line behind Ismailganj,
ordered them to lie down, and opened fire upon the mutineers
with his guns. The native infantry advanced and seized a
hamlet on the right of the road ; while the cavalry remained
on the same side, to guai'd the right flank, which commanded
the line of retreat to the Residency, For some time an artillery
duel was kept up. Then there was a lull in the firing of the
enemy, which led Lawrence to believe that they were losing
heart ; and presently they fell back into the groves and
disappeared. But Lawrence was soon undeceived. Suddenly
reappearing on the right, the enemy advanced with a steadiness
that extorted the admiration of the British officers. The native
infantry and gunners showed a bold front : but meanwhile the
enemy's right wing, encouraged by the inaction of the 32nd,
had moved round behind the cover of the groves, which extended
close to the left of Ismailganj : the precaution of posting piquets
in the groves had been neglected ; and suddenly emerging from
the trees, they rushed into Ismailganj and expelled the little
band which occupied it. At the critical moment some of
Lawrence's native gunners deserted, and nearly all his native
cavalry fled. The native infantry, unsupported, and harassed
by a cross-fire from Ismdilganj, were compelled to abandon the
hamlet which they had won. The British soldiers attempted
to retake Ismdilganj ; but they Avere too tired and disheartened
to succeed ; their leader. Colonel Case, was mortally wounded ;
and presently they fell back in confusion on the road. Then
Lawrence, seeing that he was in danger of being surrounded,
gave the oi'der to retreat. The retreat soon became a rout,
The enemy's horse-artillery, galloping on either flank of the
fugitives, harassed them with an unremitting dischai'ge of grape.
Many of the 32nd were so exhausted that they deliberately lay
down to die. Those were most fortunate who managed to
clamber on to the gun-carriages, or found a friendly trooper
to let them cling to his stirrups. " My God ! my God ! "
Lawrence was heard to say, " I brought them to this."
At last the Kokrdil bridge was reached. The enemy's
cavalry, however, had hastened to occujDy this point, and now
prepared to dispute the passage. Then a little squadron of
volunteers, who formed the only cavalry left after the desei'tion
266 LUCKNOW AND THE OUDH DISTRICTS chap, ix
of the natives, performed a feat of arms which went far to wipe
away the shame of that disastrous day. With sabres flashing,
they hurled themselves upon the dense masses in their front ;
but such was the terror which their charge inspired that, before
they could strike a blow, the enemy broke and fled, leaving the
bridge free. When the fugitives had crossed, the volunteers
continued to keep the pursuers in check. Still the miseries of
the retreat were not over. The bheesties ^ had deserted ; and
many who had escaped the enemy's fire might have perished
from thirst, if the native women in the suburbs had not taken
pity upon them and offered them water.^
Meanwhile Lawrence himself had ridden on in advance with
two of his staff, to break the news of the disaster to the
Europeans in the Residency. But many of them were already
prepared for the worst. Peering through the windows, they
could plainly see their countrymen retreating before the ovei'-
whelming masses of the sepoys. Soon a helpless mob of British
soldiers came staggering up to the Residency verandah ; and
then ensued a dreadful scene of terror and confusion. Labourers,
who had been busily working at the unfinished defences, flung
away their tools : native servants deserted their masters : women
ran for their lives from the outposts, and huddled, in an agony
of terror, into the rooms of the Residency ; while the foremost
bodies of the victorious rebels, dragging their guns into position,
or swarming into the adjoining buildings, were already beginning
to open fire. For a time indeed the guns on the northern side
of the Residency and at the Machi Bhdwan, which commanded
the bridges, had checked their advance : but large numbers
forded the river below. The sun shone fiercely down upon
Lucknow : but the streets were deserted ; and the hum of the
great city was succeeded by the shrieks of the wounded and
the dying, the roar of artillery, and the ceaseless crack of
musketry. As the afternoon waned, fresh bodies of mutineers
kept coming up to join their comrades : at sunset their horse-
artillery came dashing over the bridge : soon their whole force
had completely invested the British position ; and the blaze of
' Water-carriers.
^ Gubbins, pp. 184-8 ; Captain R. P. Andersou's Personal Journal of the
Siege of Lucknoio, pp. 52-3 ; Rees, pp. 81, 86-90 ; Lady Inglis's The Siege of
Liickiiow, pp. 48, 50 ; Innes, jjp. 97-100 ; Life of Sir H. Lawrence, p. 602 ; Kaye,
vol. iii. p. 503, note. See App. I.
1857 LUCKNOW AND THE OUDH DISTRICTS 267
their watch-fires and the flash of their guns lighted up the darkness
of the night, the first night of the siege of Lucknow.^
At first the women of the garrison, though within the past
few weeks they had begun to learn something of
the horrors of wai^, were thrown into an extremity 0° "h" si'e"'^^'^'^
of terror by the appalling din of the hostile
cannonade, and expected every moment to see the mutineers
come rushing over the feeble defences, and bursting into the
rooms to murder them and their helpless children. But in
their trouble they turned for consolation to that source from
which, in the dark days of 1857, strong men and tender women
alike drew comfort and support. The young wife of an officer
of the garrison was sitting in her little room, trembling and
hardly able to breathe from fear, when a friend, whose husband
had fallen on the field of Chinhat, proposed that they should
join in reading the Litany. Another lady was with them. The
three women knelt down, and prayed fervently. When they
rose to their feet, they were still much alarmed ; but they could
now talk calmly of their danger ; for they felt that they were in
the hands of the God of battles, and that, without His will, not
all the fury of the enemy could harm them.^
While the garrison of the Residency were threatened by
such deadly peril, the Machi Bhawan also was exposed to the
enemy's fire. Lawrence saw that he must, at all hazards, make
the attempt to transfer the troops who occupied it to the
Residency, for the reinforcement of his slender garrison. On
the second day of the sieee three officers went up
. . July 1
to the roof of the Residency, upon which a rude
semaphore had been erected, and, though exposed to a heavy
fire, succeeded in signalling to Colonel Palmer, the commandant
of the Machi Bhawan, to spike his guns, blow up the building,
and bring his force into the entrenchment. The order was
understood ; but great anxiety was felt for the success of the
operation. Fortune, however, favoured the enterprise. The
enemy, suspecting nothing, had dispersed to plunder the cit}'^ :
soon after midnight Palmer's little force marched noiselessly
through the gates of the Residency ; and a few minutes later
a terrific explosion proclaimed that the Machi Bhawan with its
richly- stored magazine had been destroyed.^
1 Rees, p. 91 ; Gubbins, p. 191 ; Kaye, iii. 512, note.
^ Lady Inglis's Joiwnal. * Wilson, pp. 42-5 ; Gubbins, pp. 195-7.
268 LUCKNOW AND THE OUDH DISTRICTS chap, ix
Within the Residency the new-comers found the wildest con-
fusion prevailing. Every one had expected to have to undergo
a siege ; but the siege began before any one was ready for it.
Native servants, tempted by extraordinary rates of pay to
expose themselves to the enemy's fire, were to be seen working
with feverish haste at unfinished bastions. Others took advan-
tage of the general confusion to rob their masters. The chief
of the Commissariat had been wounded at Chinhat ; and, as
his office was in consequence broken up, some of the camp-
followers did not know where to apply for their rations, and
deserted. Thus forsaken by their attendants, the artillery
bullocks wandered heljilessly about in search of food till they
tumbled into wells ; while horses went mad from thirst, and bit
and kicked each other in their agony. No one had time to
relieve the sufferings of the wretched animals : for the whole
available strength of the garrison was barely sufficient to keep
the enemy at bay.i
While affairs were in this state, the garrison were afflicted
by a calamity not less severe than the defeat at
Lawrence Chinhat. On the morning of the 1st of July
Lawrence was working in his own room with his
secretary, when a shell burst at their feet. Neither was injured ;
but Lawrence's staff earnestly begged him to remove to a less
exposed room. At first he refused, remarking with a smile
that the enemy had no artilleryman good enough to throw
another shell into the same spot ; but afterwards he yielded,
and promised to change his quarters on the following day.
Early next morning he went out on a round of inspection,
from which he returned about eight o'clock. When
"^ ■ reminded by Captain Wilson of his promise, he
replied that he was too tired to move then, but would do so
without fail before the end of the morning. Half an hour later
he was lying on his bed, explaining to Wilson some instructions
which he had just given him, Avhen another shell crashed through
the wall and burst. The light of day was gone : but a red
glare lit up the darkness ; and the stunning noise of the report
was followed by the rattle of falling masonry. For a moment
no one spoke. Then Wilson cried out, " Sir Henry, are you
hurt ? " Twice he called : but there was no answer. At last
Lawrence replied in a low tone, " I am killed." When the dust
1 Gubbius, pp. 193-5, 201-2.
1857 LUCKNOW AND THE OUDH DISTRICTS 269
and smoke cleared away, it was seen that the coverlet was
crimson with blood. Presently some soldiers of the 32nd came
in, and, gently lifting their wounded General, carried him to
another house close by. The doctor soon arrived, and, after
examining the wound, saw at once that it was mortal.
All that day and part of the next Lawrence remained per-
fectly sensible. Though opiates were freely administered to
him, he suffered much, and shot and shell dashed unceasingly
against the walls of the house in which he lay : but nothing
could disturb his holy spirit ; for he had long since found that
peace which passeth all understanding. His friends clustered
round his bedside ; and there was hardly one who did not shed
tears. When the dying man spoke of himself, it was with such
humility as touched the hearts of all who heard him. He de-
sired that no epitaph should be inscribed upon his tomb but the
words, " Here lies Henry Lawrence, who tried to do his duty.
May the Lord have mercy on his soul." He spoke most
tenderly and affectionately of his children and his friends, his
native servants, and all with whom he was in any way con-
nected, sending for those to whom he thought he had ever done
wrong or even spoken harshly, to beg their forgiveness, and
expressing a special wish that Government would not allow the
asylum which he had founded and maintained for the children
of British soldiers, to fall into decay. But, so long as he re-
mained conscious, his chief thoughts were for the State which
he had served faithfully for thirty years, and particularly for
the people of Lucknow, Europeans and Asiatics alike, in whose
service he had received his death-wound. Summoning his most
trusted officers around him, he made over the Chief Commis-
sionership to Major Banks, and the command of the troops to
Brigadier Inglis, and then, after giving them his final directions
for the conduct of the defence, besought them, with passionate
earnestness, never to surrender. After the evening of the 2nd,
when he received the sacrament with his friends, he spoke but
little, for he was now fast sinking ; and early on the morning
of the 4th he died. A few soldiers were summoned to carry
his corpse to burial. Before they lifted the couch on which it
lay, one of them raised the coverlet, and, stooping down, kissed
the forehead of his dead General ; and all the rest did the
same. Then they carried him out, and laid him in his rude
grave, side by side with some private soldiers, who also, in their
270 LUCKNOW AND THE OUDH DISTRICTS chap, ix
humbler sphere, had given their lives for their country. A
short prayer was read ; but it was no time to pay the formal
honours of war to the departed.^ Yet there was a salute not
unworthy of the nol)lest hero of the old Bengal Artillery, — the
thunder of the cannon which still bade defiance to the enemies
of England.
Brigadier Inglis, the officer who now commanded the garri-
son of Lucknow, had served with distinction in
ny^?^^'^'^ the second Sikh war. Long before the outbreak
of the Mutiny, he was well known all over the
North- Western Provinces as a good officer and a keen sports-
man.'- There were abler men in the garrison : but his chief
had made no mistake in pointing to him as his successor. A
plain, honourable, Christian gentleman, a tender husband, a
staunch friend, a lover of all that was high and noble, a soldier
of unsurpassable gallantry, respected by those who served under
him, and capable of appreciating the counsels of his officers, he
might be trusted to defend a weak position obstinately to the
last, by sheer dogged fighting, to fulfil the dying adjuration of
Henry Lawrence, Never surrender.
The position which he had to defend was indeed one which
only the most dogged fighting could for a moment
The position J . . oo _ & r> i i •
which he had havc maintained against such an overwhelming
force as now surrounded it. The mention of a
siege suggests the idea of a fortress ; but by no stretch of the
imagination could such a title have been bestowed upon the
place of refuge within which the Lucknow garrison were col-
lected. It is true that Lawrence and his engineers had made
the most of their slender resources, and had utilised every
advantage which circumstances offered them. The line of
defence on the north ran along the high bank, which had been
carefully scarped, and strengthened by a parapet. Overlooking
the river, on this front, which was commanded by the famous
Redan battery, lay the only open space where it was possible
for the besiegers to mass themselves in force for a general
assault, or where they could plant batteries to batter the
defences in breach. On the other three fronts, outlying ruined
buildings made it impossible for storming parties to advance,
1 Skeiche.-: and Incidents of the Siege of Lucknoiv, by C. H. Mecham and
Georjte Couper ; Life of Sir H. Lmorerice, pp. G09-14 ; Wilsoii, pp. 45-6, 49.
2 Russell's Diary in India, vol. ii. p. 406.
1857 LUCKNOW AND THE OUDH DISTRICTS 271
except in small columns, and protected the defences from the
fire of artillery. Their lower stories had been left standing,
with this very object, although it was foreseen that they would
afford shelter to the enemy's musketeers. Certain other build-
ings, however, which could only serve as a coign of vantage to
the besiegers, had unfortunately been left intact. And when
Lawrence had done his utmost, he regarded his work as little
better than a makeshift. The position was thirty-seven acres
in extent ; and its circuit was about a mile. It consisted of a
number of detached dwelling-houses and other buildings, of
which the Residency itself was the most conspicuous, defended
by boundaiy walls of varying height, mud banks and trenches,
and along the weakest parts by palisades, stakes, crow's-feet, and
similar obstacles. Even if there had been full time for the
construction of these improvised works, they would have moved
the laughter of the youngest cadet who was then studying forti-
fication at Woolwich ; but, when the siege began, they were
still unfinished. Only two of the batteries which stood at
intervals along the line of entrenchment were ready for use.
Indeed, according to all recognised principles of military science,
the position was indefensible.^
The conditions of the combat were rendered still more un-
equal by the discrepancy between the numbers of the com-
batants. AVhen the siege began, the assailants mustered at least
six thousand trained soldiers,^ who were supported ,„, ^, .
' -i -l The besieged
by the military police and by a large number of and the
talukdars' retainers. The garrison, on the other ''^''^°'ers.
hand, exclusive of women, children, and other non-combatants,
amounted only to seventeen hundred and twenty souls. ^ More
than seven hundred of these were natives, some of v/hom were
regarded with suspicion, while others were infirm old men.
But the slender force of British soldiers and civilians, backed
by the loyal sepoys, were animated by an unconquerable resolu-
tion to defend themselves and their women to the last. With
the example of Cawnpore before them, they knew what they
might expect in case they should be overcome ; and each man
resolved to act, and did act as though upon his constancy and
^ Gubbius, pp. 154-61 ; Innes, pp. 96, 103-10, 122 ; personal information
from Gen. Innes ; Life of Sir H. Lmvrence, pp. 589-90.
- Gubbins, p. 190.
^ Innes, pp. Ill, 116 ; Gubbins, p. 435, note.
272 LUCK NOW AND THE OUDH DISTRICTS chap, ix
valour alone depended the safety of the garrison, the honour of
his country, the existence of the imperilled empire.
Lawrence had calculated that by great efforts it might be
possible to protract the defence for a fortnight ; ^
''**"'°^' and four days had already elapsed when Inglis
assumed command. During the whole of this time the action
of the enemy had hardly ceased, except when they quitted their
posts to plunder the bazaars in the city. Many of the buildings
which they occupied were within easy pistol-shot of the British
outposts ; and, aiming securely through the loopholes which
they had made in the walls, their marksmen kept up a galling
musketry fire, beneath which many of the garrison had already
fallen. During the first week of the siege from fifteen to twenty
deaths occurred every day ; and, even after experience had
taught the defenders to be less reckless in exposing themselves,
the daily average for some time did not fall below ten.
No place within the entrenchment was absolutely safe. Several
wounded soldiers were killed as they lay on their beds in
hospital. Women, on rising in the morning, sometimes found
bullets lying on the floor within a few inches of their pillows.-^
The besieged, however, on their part, were not idle. Working
parties were engaged all night in completing the defences.
Each house was defended by a separate little garrison under a
responsible commandant ; and, when the staff-officer came round
in the evening to collect reports, the occupants of the several
posts were cheered by the news of what their comrades had
achieved during the day, and were able to recount their own
exploits for the information of the Brigadier.
The fortnight for which Lawrence had hoped that the de-
fence might be prolonged passed away ; and still the position
was resolutely maintained. Fortunately for the besieged, the
besiegers were under feeble control. Their leaders had wasted
the first few days in quarrelling, and intriguing for the chief
command. The only officers who had any knowledge of war
were set aside. At length two courtiers of the late king were
entrusted with joint powers. The mutineers treated their new
chiefs with contempt, selected their own posts, and placed their
guns Avhere they liked. No organised attempt was made to
breach the defences. The guns were fired at random ; and the
^ Life of Sir II. LaAorcnce, p. 602.
'^ Rees, pp. 128-9, 137 ; Pok-hanipton, pp. 354-5. See Iinics, pj). 162-3.
1857 LUCKNOW AND THE OUDH DISTRICTS 273
shot often flew right over the position and lodged in the besiegers'
posts beyond. The only effective practice was that of the
musketeers. Indeed, though the enemy had once or twice
made a show of advancing to the attack, they had not yet dared
to attempt that general assault, which, if it had been delivered
with a resolution to win, might, on the first day of the siege,
have given them the victory. At last, however, they did
summon up courage to make the attempt.
On the night of the 19th of July they suddenly ceased
firing : but on the following mornino; an unusual
. ... July ''0
movement was discernible in their ranks. Warned
by the look-out men to be on the alert, the garrison sprang to
their posts, and stood breathlessly waiting. Even the wounded
left their beds, and, with pale faces and tottering steps, came
down to join in the defence. At ten o'clock, a mine, which
had been sunk in the direction of the Redan, exploded with
terrific force, though fortunately without effect ; and, when
the smoke had cleared away, the rebels opened a heavy
fire of round shot and musketry, under cover of which they
rushed to the assault. But, though they held on till they
were close under the walls, and even attempted to plant their
scaling-ladders ; though the leader of one of their columns,
waving a green standard above his head, leaped with magnificent
audacity right into the ditch in front of a battery, and was
followed by his comrades till he himself was shot dead ; yet the
defenders, Englishmen and Asiatics alike, poured such a con-
centrated fire into their ranks, that, after four hours' fighting,
the whole attacking force fell back, defeated and disheartened.^
The attack had failed because, bravely though the rebels had
fought, they had shrunk from pressing onwards through the
storm of shot and bullets, and into the forest of bayonets, with
one continuous rush, by the force of which, though the ditches
had been filled with the bodies of the slain, the survivors would
have hewn their way at last through the living rock which
opposed them.
The losses of the enemy on this day were very severe ; while,
on the side of the garrison, only four men were killed, and
twelve wounded. But the significance of the action is not to
be estimated by its immediate material results. The besieged
^ Rees, pp. 143-58 ; Wilson, p. 68 ; Giibbins, pp. 221-3, 225 : Innes, pp.
117-8, 121-0.
274 LUCKNOW AND THE OUDH DISTRICTS chap, ix
gained increased self-reliance by their victory. The besiegers,
conscious that their defeat was due to moral inferiority, lost
much of the spirit and enthusiasm with which they had hitherto
fought. On the following day, however, the garrison sustained
a serious loss. Major Banks, while rashly bending
over a wall to watch the operations of the enemy,
was shot through the temples. Gubbins, who, a fortnight before,
had importunately written to him, asserting that the dignity
of Chief Commissioner was lawfully his own, now urged his
right to succeed him : but Inglis, not caring to work with so
troublesome a colleague, refused to admit the claim, and de-
clared that the office should remain in abeyance until the deci-
sion of Government should be made known. It is only fair to
add that Gubbins himself afterwards admitted that there had
been no necessity for the continuance of civil authority.
Notwithstanding their recent successes, it was impossible
that the garrison should not feel anxious when they reflected
on what lay before them. The siege had now lasted three
weeks ; and as yet there had been no sign of coming relief.
But on the night of the 21st of July a pensioner named Ungud
succeeded in passing the enemy's sentries, and making his way
into the entrenchment. A crowd of eager questioners soon
thronged round him. He told them that General Havelock had
defeated the Nana Sahib in three pitched battles, and was at
that moment in possession of Cawnpore. The news was re-
ceived with all the more joy because the garrison had daily
expected to see the army of the Nana march up to reinforce
July 2'' their assailants. On the next day Ungud went
out again with a letter of information for Havelock.
July 25
Three days afterwards he returned with the reply
that in less than a week the relieving army would arrive.^
Meanwhile the enemy, disappointed in their attempt to
storm the position, were striving to overpower its defenders b)''
sheer weight of metal. They were busily erecting new batteries.
But their great resource was mining. The besieged were con-
tinually harassed by the dread of being hurled into the air ;
and in those who garrisoned the outer posts the fear was
reasonable. But the real danger was that an explosion might
tear a breach in the defences, through which the besiegers would
rush in irresistible numbers to the assault. There was, how-
^ Gubbius, pp. 22G-8 ; Hutcliiusou's Mntmies in Qiide, !>. 174.
1857 LUCKNOW AND THE OUDH DISTRICTS 275
ever, an officer within the entrenchment whose skill and un-
tiring activity confounded their devices, Captain Fulton of the
Engineers, a man whom the survivors of the siege singled out
for special honour among the defenders of Lucknow. He caused
retrenchments to be thrown up behind the outer defences ; and
gathering round him a number of old Cornish miners belonging
to the 32nd, he made them sink a countermine wherever the
muffled sounds of pickaxe and crowbar revealed to their
practised ears that the rebels were at work underground.
Though the enemy's mines were skilfully constructed, they
almost all failed : either they were too short, or they were
stopped or destroyed before they had reached their aim.
Fulton himself would often descend into the shaft with a lantern
and a pistol, and, waiting patiently till the enemy's workmen
had burrowed their way up to him, shoot the foremost man
dead.i
Thus day after day passed. Ungud had again left the
entrenchment, taking with him diagrams of the position and
its environs for the guidance of Havelock : but, though the
more sanguine sometimes declared that they could hear the
sound of distant firing, the promised reinforcements did not
come. Many of the natives were greatly disheartened ; and
even the British soldiers began to lose hope, and sometimes
broke out into fits of ill-temper or insubordination. Some, when
rebuked for exposing themselves unnecessarily to the enemy's
fire, answered that it did not matter whether they were killed
then or later. Disease had begun to waste the ranks ; and day
by day men saw their comrades falling round them. But it was
the extraordinary hardships and privations which they endured
that bore most heavily upon them. Even in the first week of
the siege they had been on duty from thirteen to twenty hours
a day ; and now, while their numbers and their strength were
diminishing, their work was steadily increasing. Officers and
men stood sentry without distinction. After remaining at their
posts all day under a burning sun, they were summoned at night
to distribute stores and ammunition, to repair the shattered
defences, or to bury the dead. Their scanty sleep was broken
1 Gubbins, pp. 234-5 ; Mecham and Couper ; Innes, pp. 127-8, 154-5, 165-9,
175-8. Innes says {Calcutta Review, Jan. -June 1859, p. 211) that the enemy
" with their inexhaustible supply of labour ought to have blo^vn up the whole of
the southern front, wthout a chance of successful opposition."
276 LUCKNOW AND THE OUDH DISTRICTS chap, ix
by constant alarms. When the rainy season set in, they were
wetted to the skin as they hiy in the trenches ; and many of
them had no change of clothes. Myriads of flies buzzed round
them when they tried to rest, and swarmed over their food when
they sat down to eat. They had little rum or tobacco ; and
their native allies had none of the condiments Avhich to them
were almost a necessary of life.^ The Brigadier himself had
scarcely any rest. When he came in after a hard day in the
trenches, he was generally so tired that he could hardly speak.
Yet he was always at his post ; his cheery and hopeful spirits
never forsook him ; and, when his labours were most engrossing,
he always found time to visit the hospital, and share his cigars
with his wounded soldiers. ^ And those who served under him,
soldiers and civilians, sepoys and hoary pensioners, bore up
manfully, and worked and fought on with a grim resolve to
endure unto the end, whatever the end might be.
The women had their share of suffering and of toil. Some
spent hours in the stifling hospital, talking to the soldiers and
ministering to their wants. Others, whose families required
all their attention, with a heroism less conspicuous but not less
real, cheerfully performed the menial drudgery which the deser-
tion of their servants threw upon them, endured without a
murmur the hardships of heat, of bad food, and of over-crowding,
and inspired their husbands with new courage. Like the stern
defenders of Londonderry, they and the men who fought for
them sought courage to do and patience to suffer by frequent
religious exercises. Every Sunday service was held in more than
one improvised place of worship. Every day prayers were said
in outposts and inner rooms. ^
So the siege progressed till, on the 10th of August, the
enemy varied the monotony of their ordinary operations by a
second assault. They began, as before, by firing a mine, which
blew down a portion of one of the southern houses, and tore
open a breach fully ten yards in width in the outer defences ;
but, though some of them advanced close up under the walls,
and dared even to seize hold of the muskets of their opponents,
though they renewed their attack again and again throughout
the day, yet, as before, they failed to exhibit that tenacity which
^ Mallesou, vol. i. p. 487.
^ Rees, p. 170 ; Wilsou, pp. 53, 87 ; Anderson, p. 91 ; Lady Inglis's Jmi.rnal.
* lb. ; Gubliins, p. 246,
1857 LUCKNOW AND THE OUDH DISTRICTS 277
would have sustained them in the critical moment, and at night
they were obliged again to confess that they were beaten. The
defences, indeed, weak though they were, served their purpose.
The assailants were invariably checked by the abattis and other
obstacles ; and they had neither the resolution to make the heavy
sacrifice of life which must have been incurred by breaking
through, nor the skill to cover them and render them useless.
On the 18th of August, however, they very nearly succeeded in
wiping out the shame of their defeat. For some days they had
been driving a gallery in the direction of a square on the south,
the progress of which, in spite of the vigilance of the engineers,
had escaped detection. The explosion of the mine, which was,
as usual, the signal for their attack, destroyed a portion of the
wall, blew up an out-house, and hurled two officers and three
sentries into the air. The officers and two of the sentries fell
down inside the square, and picked themselves up almost unhurt :
but the other sentry, falling into the road, was killed by the
enemy ; and seven men were buried alive beneath the ruins.
The smoke floated away : but the rebels stood still, hesitating
to advance. Then one of their leaders dashed forward, sprang
on to the top of the breach, and, waving his sword, shouted to
the men to follow. In a moment a bullet struck him dead :
another officer, who pressed after him, fell as quickly ; and the
storming party were too terrified to attempt to enter the breach.
But another group gained possession of an out-house, at the end
of a lane on the west of the square, under cover of which they
endeavoured to loophole the wall, so as to fire along the inner
side of the breach. Instantly a howitzer opened fire upon them
from the bottom of the lane ; while Inglis, calling out his little
reserve of eighteen men, brought up a gun to enfilade the breach ;
caused boxes, doors, and planks to be piled up as a barricade;
and before night sallied forth and blew up some of the adjoining
houses.^
This success was speedily followed up. On the south the
enemy held a building called Johannes's House, — the only one
in the immediate neighbourhood of the position of which the
upper story had not been destroyed before the siege. It was
from this house that their sharpshooters had fired with the most
deadly effect ; indeed they had practically silenced a battery on
' Wilson, pp. 115-16 ; lunes, pp. 140-41 ; Gubbins, pp. 2S4-5 ; persoual
iuforniation from General Inues.
278 LUCKNOW AND THE OUDH DISTRICTS cuap. ix
its eastern side. Captain Fulton resolved to blow up the house,
and entrusted Lieutenant Innes with the work of preparing the
mine. For sixty-four hours Innes never slept ; and at day-
break on the morning of the 21st the mine was ready. Presently
a shock was felt ; and the house bulged outwards and fell like
a house of cards. In the midst of the confusion that ensued
two parties made sorties on the right and left of the ruins, and,
firing barrels of gunpowder inside the adjoining houses, blew
them into utter wreck.^
On the 5th of September the besiegers made a last attempt
to storm : but, though they advanced with considerable deter-
mination, the garrison gained an almost bloodless victory ; and
carts loaded with dead and wounded rebels were seen crossing
the bridge at evening towards cantonments. ^
The siege had now lasted sixty-seven days ; and within that
time the garrison had repelled three general assaults ; had met
every mine with a countermine ; had made several sorties ; and,
without yielding an inch of the ground which they occupied, had
blown up several of the surrounding houses, captured another,
and driven the enemy from their strongest advanced post. Yet
it was doubtful whether they would be able to hold out till
reinforcements should arrive. They had learned that Have-
lock, after attempting to march to their relief, had been twice
obliged to fall back upon Cawnpore ; and on the 29th of August
Ungud had brought a letter from him, in which he implied
that it would be impossible for him to reach Lucknow before
twenty-five days, and delivered the ominous warning, " Do
not negotiate, but rather perish sword in hand." ^ After this
letter was received, numbers of the natives deserted. Those
who remained were becoming so despondent that it needed all
the arguments and soothing assurances of the British officers
to strengthen their expiring loyalty. About a third of the
European soldiers had perished in the siege ; and the survivors
were dreadfully depressed by the manifold trials which they
had undergone. The Brigadier had not slept with his clothes
off since the 16th of May, and was so exhausted by toil and
anxiety that those about him daily feared he would break down.
Many who escaped the enemy's fire were prostrated by low
^ Innes, pp. 142-3 ; Gubbins, p. 266.
'^ Gnbbins, p. 283 ; Rees, p. 193 ; Brigadier Inglis's Report.
^ Marshman's M&tnoirs of Sir U. Havdock, p. 383.
1857 HAVELOCK'S CAMPAIGN 279
fever : many perished from small-pox or from cholera. Since
the beginning of the siege there had been only two days on
which a funeral had not taken place. The wounded were in evil
plight ; for the want of proper food and ventilation impaired
their chances of recovery, and where amputation was necessary,
it invariably failed. Everyone was sickened by foul smells
exhaled from decaying ofFal or from stagnant water. There
was actually sufficient grain to sustain the garrison for months :
but the chief of the Commissariat was disabled ; and Inglis, who
had neglected to ascertain from the acting official the amount
of the stock, believed that it was nearly exhausted. The rations
had therefore been reduced ; and all provisions not included in
rations were at famine prices. A pound of coarse flour cost a
shilling, a ham four pounds ten shillings, a dozen of beer seven
pounds. There was not a house that was not riddled with shot ;
and some had fallen, burying the inmates under their ruins. Some
of the men had been heard to declare that, if the place were to
fall, they would shoot their wives with their own hands rather
than suffer them to fall into the power of the rebels.^
While the garrison were in this dreadful situation, Ungud,
stimulated by the promise of five thousand rupees
if he should succeed in his mission, was sent out
for the last time with despatches for Havelock.'^
Before the year 1857, Henry Havelock, the one actor in the
Indian Mutiny whose name and achievements are
familiar to every Englishman, had scarcely been HaveLck
heard of outside India. Yet, in the course of the
forty-one years for which he had served the Crown, he had
fought in twenty-two fights in Burma, Afghanistan, Gwalior,
and the Punjab ; he had supported the wavering resolution of
the heroic Sale within the walls of Jeldlabad ; he had inspired
^ Marsliman's Memoirs of Sir H. Ilavelock, p. 3S3 ; Gubbins, pp. 273-5,
277-8, 349, 354 ; Ree.s, pp. 199, 205 ; Mrs. Case's Day hy Day at Lucknow,
p. 178 ; Poleharapton, p. 336 ; Wilson, pp. 116, 129, 135, 149. Lieutenant
Keir, who was in charge of the grain, knew that the stock was ample, but was not
asked for information either by Inglis or by Wilson. James, who was laid up
and irritable from his wound, did not remember how much grain there was. This
I have learned from the lips of General Innes, who served throughout the siege,
and knows more about it than any other survivor. When Sir Colin Campliell
relieved the garrison, the stock of grain amounted to 166,000 lbs. See Innes's
Lucknmo and Oude in the Mutiny, pp. 146-9, 232-4 ; Lady luglis's The Siege of
Lucknow: a Diary, p. 176 ; and Gubbins, p. 261.
2 Gubbins, p. 297.
280 HAVELOCK S CAMPAIGN chap, ix
the counsels that won the victory of Istalif; and Sir Henry
Hardingo had said of him, " If ever India should be in danger,
the Government have only to place Havelock at the head of the
army, and it will be saved." His services, though recognised,
had not been rewarded. But, while he chafed bitterly against
official neglect, he was sustained under all his trials and dis-
appointments by the abiding conviction that God's Providence
was watching over him, and would order the events of his life
for the best. Early in his Indian career he had become a
Baptist. Intense, however, as was his devotion to his adopted
creed, he was too great a man to degenerate into a bigot. He
could sympathise with earnestness of purpose, whatever the
speculative principles that directed it might be. Some of his
warmest friends, men like Archdeacon Hare and George Broad-
foot, differed widely from him on questions of religious belief.
But there were not many whom he admitted to the privilege of
his friendship. It must not indeed be imagined that he was a
gloomy ascetic : he was liked by many wild young officers who
had little in common with him ; ^ but he was generally reserved
and unbending in manner, and had little of the easy geniality
that made Outram so popular. He was not a man of imposing
presence : but a keen observer would have felt, on fii'st seeing
him, that he was a good man, an able man, and one whose
regard was worth winning, but not to be won lightly. Rather
below the middle height, he was of a slender, but well-formed
and erect figure ; his hair had grown white, but still covered
his head; his forehead was high, broad, and square; the
expression of his eyes was strangely piercing and intense, but
quite calm ; he had an aquiline nose ; his lips were tightly
compressed and shaded by a white moustache ; and his sharply
moulded jaw and firm chin were fringed by a beard and
whiskers of the old-fashioned cut. His whole bearing was that
of a man who, having chosen the straight and narrow way,
walked along it with a firm but not with a free tread. By a
patient self-discipline, carried on day after day for long years,
he had come actually to realise that ideal after which many of
us, in our better moments, aspire : no perplexities could make
him hesitate for long, because he was quite sure that there must
be a right path to follow, and that the Spirit of God would
guide him into that path : no dangers could appall him, because
^ Colonel Ramsay's Recollections of Military Service and Society, vol. i. p. 265.
1857 HAVELOCK'S CAMPAIGN 281
he really believed that nothing was to be feared, except falling
into sin. The dominant feature of bis character was a stern,
serious, ever-present sense of duty, vitalised and regulated by
an habitual study of the will of God. It was this sense of duty
that led him, conscious as he was of military genius, to submit
with patience to the galling trial of supersession by his inferiors,
and cheerfully to obey those whom he was by nature qualified
to command : to labour on with punctilious accuracy, at the
minutest details of his jjrofession ; to overcome his natural
timidity until men refused to believe that he knew what fear
was ; ^ to persevere, in spite of the ridicule of his brother
officers, in giving religious instruction to his soldiers. It was
this sense of duty too that enabled him to wait patiently for
the fulfilment of the absorbing ambition of his life, and to resign
that ambition when he believed that there was no longer any
hope of its being fulfilled. For there was one passion which
burned with a more constant flame in Havelock's breast than
even the passion of religious enthusiasm. While he was cam-
paigning in the swamps of Burma, while he was enduring the
weariness of deferred promotion, while he was mastering the
technicalities of the Deputy Adjutant-General's office at Bombay,
perhaps even while he was expounding the Bible to his soldiers,
he cherished in his inmost heart a longing desire to command a
British army in the field. For more than forty years he had
been qualifying himself to fulfil his dream. He was familiar
with every axiom of Vauban and Jomini ; he could describe
from memory every evolution of Marlborough and Wellington,
of Frederic and Napoleon. And now, when he was old and
grey-bearded, looking forward only to repose in a Swiss or
Tyrolese cottage, the opportunity for which he had almost
ceased to hope was suddenly thrown in his path. For, on the
20th of June, just after his return from the Persian
expedition, he was appointed by Sir Patrick Grant tocounuana
to command a movable column, which was to be the'reiief of'
formed at Allahabad, for the relief of Lucknow Cawnporeand
1 /-I TIT • p 11 • Lucknow.
and Cawnpore, and the destruction of all mutineers
and insurgents in North- Western India."^ There were some
critics who, decrying him as a mere closet strategist, and
^ Marshman, p. 449. Marsliiiiau was Havelock's brotlier-iu-law, and knew liiiu
intimately for thirty years.
2 lb. pp. 265-5.
282 HAVELOCK'S CAMPAIGN chap, ix
ignorant of the self-reliance, the boldness, the judgement, and
the coolness which would enable him to turn his theoretical
knowledge to account, ventured to carp at the selection. His
task was indeed a difficult one, his material resources were
inadequate, and the season was unfavourable for campaigning ;
but, overjoyed at the approaching realisation of his hopes, he
was in a temper to overcome every obstacle. Nor did he forget,
in his exaltation, to turn for help to the Power which had
supported him in his depression. " May God give me wisdom,"
he wrote to his wife, " to fulfil the expectations of Government,
and to restore tranquillity to the disturbed districts." ^ On the
25th of June he left Calcutta. Those who noted his emaciated
figure and worn face predicted that, before the end of a week,
he would succumb to the hardships of campaigning.^ They
did not know the strength of the spirit which sustained his
feeble frame.
Early on the 30th of June he reached Allahabad. For some
His prepara- ^^Y^ P^^t Neill had been preparing, in the face of
tionsat difficulties which would have appalled a less de-
termined nature, to despatch a column to the relief
of Cawnpore. Cholera had more than decimated his troops,
and the native contractors, robbed by the insurgents, or dread-
ing to approach the incensed Feringhees, could not be induced
to furnish supplies and carriage. But at last the energy of Neill
had prevailed ; and, on the same day on which Havelock
arrived. Major Renaud of the Madras Fusiliers marched out
at the head of three hundred men of his own regiment, four
hundred of Brasyer's Sikhs, ninety-five irregular cavalry, and
two guns, with instructions to attack and destroy all jDlaces on or
close to his route occupied by the enemy, but to encourage the
inhabitants of all others to return. On the 3rd of July a
steamer was sent up the Ganges, with a hundred Fusiliers on
board under Captain Spurgin, to co-operate with Renaud, and
cover his flank.^ Meanwhile Havelock was busily directing
the organisation of his force, and personally supervising the
execution of the minutest details. Remembering the evils
which Anglo-Indian commanders had often suffered for want
of an efficient Intelligence Department, he had induced the
1 Marshman, p. 279. '^ lb. p. 494.
* lb. p. 283 ; Pari. Papers, vol. xxx. (18.'')7), p. 594 ; F. C. Maude aud J. W.
Sherer's Memories of tlie Mutiny, vol. i. pp. 33-4.
1857 HAVELOCK'S CAMPAIGN 283
Government to entrust him with a liberal sum for the payment
of his spies. While he was in the midst of these preparations,
he received the news of the destruction of Wheeler's force.
His anxiety to be up and doing now became more intense than
ever ; but for some days longer he was imprisoned at Allahabad
by the same obstacles that had hindered Neill. When he was
at last able to move, some of his requirements were still un-
provided. He had asked for a supply of light summer clothing
for his men; but many of them were obliged to wear their
heavy woollen tunics throughout the whole campaign. Nor
were their numbers such as to make up for the deficiencies in
their equipment. Exclusive of Renaud's little column, the
whole force consisted of no more than one thou-
sand British soldiers, drawn from the 64th, the hrcoS."°^
84th, the 78th Highlanders, and the 1st Madras
Fusiliers, a hundred and thirty of Brasyer's Sikhs, twenty
volunteer cavalry, and six guns. The cavalry were composed
of unemployed officers, indigo-planters, and burnt -out shop-
keepers, whom Havelock had himself raised to supply the lack
of regular troopers ; and the guns were almost entirely manned
by invalid artillerymen, and infantry soldiers who had but just
learned the rudiments of gun-drill.^ Such was the army with
which Havelock started, in the height of an Indian summer, to
accomplish the herculean labour which had been set him.
On the afternoon of the 7th of July, under a heavy storm
of rain, the column defiled through the streets of He marches
Allahabad, scowled upon by the townspeople, who from
had clustered in their doorways to watch its
departure.'^ Ploughing through the slush and drenched by the
rain, the soldiers, as they left the city behind, saw in front and
on either side a vast and dreary waste dotted with the charred
ruins of forsaken villages. Not a living man was to be seen ;
only here and there some loathsome swine gnawing the flesh
from a dead body. It seemed as though the destroying angel
had passed over the land. Renaud, not interpreting his instruc-
tions too literally, had put to death every man upon whom a
^ Marshman, pp. 278, 280, 284 ; Pari. Papers, vol. xxx. (1857), p. 631.
There were only 499 Enfield rifles among the whole force. Sir H. Havelock-
AUan's Three Main Military Questions, p. 120, note.
2 Marshman, p. 289. " Most of the Hindoos appeared to be either indifferent
or apprehensive, but wherever a Mahomedan was seen there was a scowl on his
brow." — Saturday Review, Sept. 9, 1857, p. 260.
284 HAVELOCK'S CAMPAIGN chap, ix
shadow of suspicion could be thrown ; and Havelock's soldiers
smiled grimly as they pointed to the dark corpses which hung
from the sign-posts and the trees along the road.^ For the first
three days Havelock advanced leisurely, out of consideration
for his younger soldiers ; but, notwithstanding this precaution,
many of the Fusiliers fell behind, tired and footsore. Learning,
however, from his spies that the insurgents were advancing in
great force from Cawnpore, and fearing that Renaud would fall
into their hands, he resolved, at all hazards, to quicken his pace,
and at one o'clock on the morning of the 12 th overtook his
lieutenant, and marched on with him to within four miles of
Fatehpur. Colonel Tytler, one of the staff-officers, was sent on
with the cavalry to reconnoitre. The rest of the troops were
busily cooking their breakfasts or smoking their pipes, when
suddenly the cavalry were seen returning, and the
Fatehpur. enemy's white-clad troopers emerging from the
distant trees on the edge of the plain, and pressing
after them in hot pursuit. Almost immediately afterwards a
twenty-four-pound shot struck the earth within two hundred
yards of the spot where the General was standing. The soldiers
flung their cooking utensils aside, seized their arms, and fell
into their ranks. Meanwhile, the enemy's cavalry, believing
from the slender appearance of Tytler's escort that they had
only Renaud's small force to deal with, were galloping over the
plain in the assurance of an easy victory, when, seeing the
whole British army drawn up in battle array to meet them, they
reined up their horses like men paralysed by a sudden fear.
The General, wishing to let his tired troops rest, wa,ited to see
whether the ebullition had spent itself. The enemy, drawn
up across the road, occupied some walled enclosures and
mango-groves, which extended in front of the town. En-
couraged by Havelock's inaction, they pushed forward two guns
and began to threaten his flanks. He determined to force on
an action. The infantry advanced, covered by skirmishers,
who, with their Enfield rifles, kept up an incessant fusillade;
Captain Maude, of the Royal Artillery, disabled the enemy's
leading guns, then pushed round his own through a swamp
on the right to within point-blank range, and opened a deadly
fire on their flank ; and the rebels, compelled by his attack and
' Trevelyan's Cawnpore, pp. 323-4 ; Russell, vol. i. p. 159, vol. ii. p. 402 ;
Farl. Pamirs, vol. xliv. (1857-58), Part 1, p. 23, No. 13.
1857 HAVELOCK'S CAMPAIGN 285
by the steady pressure of the infantry to relax their hold upon
the strong position which they had occupied, were driven
through and out of the town of Fatehpur, and, after making
one vain attempt to rally, were put to final and irretrievable
flight. All their guns had been captured, and not a single
British soldier had fallen. ^
Havelock was in an ecstasy of delight over his first victory.
He sent an elaborate despatch to the Deputy Adjutant-General
of the Army. To his wife he wrote hastily, " One of the prayers
oft repeated since my school-days has been answered, and I
have lived to command in a successful action, . . . Among them
was the 56th, the very regiment which I led at Maharajpore.
... I challenged them. ' There's some of you that have be-
held me fighting ; now, try upon yotirselves what you have
seen in me ! ' But away with vain glory ! Thanks be to God
who gave me the victory." ^
The soldiers were suffered to plunder Fatehpui-, in retribu-
tion for the recent rebellion of its inhabitants ; the next day
was given up to repose; and on the 14th, after sending back
a hundred Sikhs, in compliance with an earnest request which
Neill had made for reinforcements, Havelock marched on. The
native cavalry had refused to charge in the action at Fatehpur,
and on this march they attempted to desert ; therefore, Avhen
the column halted for the night, the General disarmed and dis-
mounted them. His entire cavalry now consisted of the
twenty volunteers. Soon after daybreak on the 15th, the
enemy were again discovered, strongly entrenched at the village
of Auno;. Their cavalry, riding forward on both „ ,,, , ,
^ 11 11 Battle of Aung.
Sides of the road, threatened to make a dash upon
Havelock's rear, and seize his baggage. Keeping back two-
thirds of his force to repel them, he sent on the remainder as
skirmishers. The enemy began the battle by advancing to a
hamlet about two hundred yards in front of their position : but
the Madras Fusiliers speedily dislodged them ; and Colonel
Tytler, advancing with the rest of the skirmishers, completed
their defeat. The victory, however, was dearly bought ; for
the gallant Renaud, while leading on his regiment, had fallen
mortally wounded.^
1 Marshmaii, p. 292 ; Saturday Review, Sept. 19, 1857, p. 260 ; J'arl.
Papers, vol. xxx. (1857), pp. 631-3 ; Maude and Sherer, vol. i. p. 43.
- MarslaiKiii, p. 296. 3 /j_ pp, 297, 299, 300.
286 HAVELOCK'S CAMPAIGN chap, ix
Two battles had now been won : but there was no rest for
the victors ; for before noon news was brought
PitnduNaddi ^^^^ ^^^ enemy, strongly reinforced from Cawn-
pore, had rallied at the Pandu Naddi, an unfordable
river six miles distant, and were preparing to blow up the
bridge which spanned it. Knowing that, if they succeeded in
their design, his progress to Cawnpore would be indefinitely
retarded, the General called upon his troops for a fresh effort.
Exhausted by a five hours' march and a severe action, fought
under a nearly vertical sun, they were lying down waiting for
breakfast; but now, full of confidence in their General, and
inspired by his self-denying example, they sprang to their feet
at the word of command, and cheerily pushed on. The road
ran through groves of mango-trees. As the head of the column,
emerging from these, came in sight of the bridge, they saw two
puffs of white smoke rise from a low ridge in their front : two
loud reports followed ; and two twenty-four-pound shot crashed
into their midst, and wounded several. But the enemj^'s posi-
tion was badly chosen. The bridge was at the apex of a bend
in the river, which pointed towards the advancing column ; and
behind the bend they were massed in a dense body. The
British artillery moved steadily down the road, and unlimbered
close to the stream. Then Maude, enveloping the bridge with
a concentric fire, replied effectively to the enemy's challenge :
the Fusiliers with their Enfield rifles lined the bank, and picked
off their gunners ; their mine, which was not ready, exploded in
vain; and presently the right wing of the Fusiliers, noting their be-
wilderment and hesitation, closed up, charged over the bridge, cap-
tured their guns, and forced them to retreat towards Cawnpore.^
The British, now completely exhausted, threw themselves
upon the ground ; and many of them, caring for
Camipore. nothing but rest, rejected the food which was
offered them. Rising only half-refreshed after a
night of intolerable heat, they found their meat already spoiled,
and threw it away in disgust. Day was just breaking when
the regiments formed up : bvit the moon was still bright. It
1 Marshman, pp. 301-2 ; Pari. Papers, vol. xliv. (1857-58), Part 1, pp. 120-1 ;
Saturday Jieview, Sept. 19, 1857, p. 261. " It was iiuiversally remarked," .says
the writer (Liexitenant Crump), "how much closer and fiercer the mutineers fought
that day. . . . The inferior details of their movements were perfect, but the master
mind was wanting." Ilavelock's loss at Aung and the Pandu Naddi was 1 killed
and 25 wounded.
1857 HAVELOCK'S CAMPAIGN 287
was rumoured that more than two hundred English women and
children were still alive at Cawnpore. Towards five o'clock
the troops moved on to the road ; and soon it was broad day.
The rays of the sun smote them with a fierceness which they
had never before experienced even in this fiery campaign : man
after man reeled out of the ranks, and fell down fainting on the
ground ; but Cawnpore was now only a few miles off, and those
whose strength held out, sustained by the hope of rescuing the rem-
nant of their country-women, and inflicting a terrible vengeance
upon the Nana and his accomplices, tramped doggedly on.
After advancing sixteen miles, the General suffered his troops
to rest awhile and breakfast under the shade of some trees.
Presently two sepoys came in, and informed him that the Nana
had marched out of Cawnpore at the head of five thousand men,
to do battle for his throne. The rebel army was drawn up in
the form of a crescent, with its centre and its horns protected
by fortified villages, at each of which guns were posted. About
half a mile in front of the crescent, the road leading to Cawn-
pore branched off to the right from the Grand Trunk Eoad, and
separated the centre from the left ; the Grand Trunk Road,
along which the Nana believed that the British must advance,
ran between the centre and the right ; and his artillery, sup-
ported by the flower of his infantry, was laid so as to check
their progress. Havelock, however, contrived a plan to baffle
his calculations. He saw that his own troops would suffer
heavily by making a front attack, and therefore, after closely
questioning some villagers as to the nature of the country, he
determined, " like old Frederick at Leuthen," as he afterwards
wrote, to attack the rebels on their left flank. About a mile
in front of their position, a line of mango-gi'oves, which would
mask the turning movement, extended on the right of the road.
The volunteer cavalry were to move straight on and occupy
the enemy's attention. The baggage was left behind under a
strong guard with two guns. It was half-past one in the after-
noon : the sun was at its brightest ; and the column had not
advanced five hundred yards before men began to drop. Near
the groves, Havelock, with the infantry and artillery, diverged
to the right. Not a sound was heard save the curses of the
drivers, as they goaded the weary bullocks to their utmost
speed. The troops advanced stealthily behind the groves
till the enemy, catching sight of them through a gap in
288 HAVELOCK'S CAMPAIGN chap, ix
the trees, opened fire upon them. Still they moved steadily
on, controlling their eagerness to reply. Not till the whole
column, having at length cleared the groves, was in the act
of wheeling into line, did the rebels fully understand what
was in store for them. Then too late they hastily endeavoured
to change front. Their artillery, however, at the village on the
left, continued pouring destruction into the British ranks ; and
Havelock, seeing that his light field-pieces could not silence the
hostile fire, ordered the Highlanders to charge. Colonel Hamil-
ton led the way ; and his men, formed in a dense mass, followed
him like a moving wall, without firing a shot, or uttering a
sound, till they were within eighty yards of the guns. Then
the word was given to charge : the pipers blew the pibroch ;
and the Highlanders, raising a shout which thrilled the hearts
of their comrades, and appalled the spirit of the enemy, sprang
forward with fixed bayonets, mastered the gunners, captured
the village, and drove the entire left wing into headlong rout.
Presently a portion of the fugitives, falling back on the centre,
rallied and formed again : but the Highlanders, again appealed
to by their General, and now aided by the 64th, started forward
again, again put them to flight, and captured the village in
which they had rallied ; while the twenty volunteer horsemen,
who had but just come up, seizing the opportunity to show what
they could do, flung themselves upon the disoi-dered masses, and
completed their discomfiture. Meanwhile Maude had silenced
the guns on the right ; and the 64th, 84th, and Sikhs had
driven the right wing from the village and fx^om a railway em-
bankment on its further side. But presently joining the centre,
they fell back upon another village between the two roads,
about a mile behind the point where they met. The British
infantry collected and re-formed ; but the bullocks, worn out by
the length of the march, could hardly move the guns; and
Maude was obliged to halt on the Trunk Eoad. The soldiers
stumbled wearily over ploughed fields, while the enemy's guns
thundered against them. Then Havelock, seeing that they
needed a spur, cried, as he glanced along the ranks, " Come, who'll
take that village, the Highlanders or the 64th 1 " and the two regi-
ments, vying with each other in the swiftness with which they
responded to his challenge, cleared the village with a single rush.
The battle was to all appearance over. The enemy, beaten
at all points, were in full retreat towards Cawnpore. Suddenly,
1857 HAVELOCK'S CAMPAIGN 289
however, they faced about : their band struck up a defiant air :
the Nana was seen riding from point to point along their ranks;
and a reserve gun, planted by his command in the middle of
the road, vomited forth a new fire. The British, lying down in
line to await the arrival of the artiller}'-, sufteied heavily ; the
bullocks were unable to drag the guns to their assistance ; and
the enemy, emboldened by the signs of hesitation which they
perceived, threatened in their turn to assume the off"ensive.
Then the General, seeing that the crisis of the battle had
arrived, gave the order for a final charge. Excited by the
sound of his clear, calm voice to the highest pitch of martial
fury, the men leaped to their feet, and advanced with measured
tread along the road; while young Henry Havelock, the.
General's son and aide-de-camp, who had ridden up in front of
the leading regiment, moving slowly and deliberately at their
head, steered his horse straight for the muzzle of the gun.
The ground in their rear was strewed with wounded men, for
the enemy, still resolutely standing their ground, fired round
after round of grape with astonishing precision ; but at length,
appalled by the deafening cheers and the final onset of the
British, they rushed in headlong flight from the battlefield of
Cawnpore. The Nana spurred through the streets of the town,
and urged on his panting horse towards Bithur ; and thousands
of citizens, terrified by the news that the infuriated British
were coming, poured forth into the surrounding country, and
hid themselves in the villages. i
On the morrow of this, his fourth and greatest victory,
Havelock congratulated his troops in these stirring words ;
" Soldiers, your General is satisfied, and more than satisfied
with you. He has never seen steadier or more devoted troops ;
but your labours are only beginning. Between the 7th and
the 16th you have, under the Indian sun of July, marched a
hundred and twenty-six miles, and fought four actions. But
your comrades at LucknoAV are in peril ; Agra is besieged ;
Delhi is still the focus of mutiny and rebellion. You must
make great sacrifices if you would obtain great results. Three
cities have to be saved ; two strong places to be de-blockaded.
^ Occasional Papers of the R. A . Institution, vol. i. 1860, pp. 18-19 ; Marslinian,
pp. 302-11 ; Saturday Revieiu, Sept. 19, 1857, p. 261 ; Trevelyan, pp. 341-2,
355 ; Shepherd, pp. 122-3, 129 ; Annals of the Indian Rebellion, p. 695.
Havel ock's loss in this action was 6 killed, 86 wounded, and 10 missinfj.
Pari. Papers, vol. xliv, (1857-58), Part 1, p. 124. See App. J.
U
290 HAVELOCK'S CAMPAIGN chap, ix
Your General is confident that he can effect all these things,
and restore this part of India to tranquillity, if you will only
second him with your elTorts, and if your discipline is equal to
your valour." ^
On the morning of the 17th, as the troops were about to
make their victorious entry into Cawnpore, they
awnpore.^*^ wcre told that the women and children whom they
had come to save, the last remnant of the ill-fated
garrison, had been destroyed. AVhen they reached the city,
some of them hurried on to the Beebeegurh, and entered the
room in which the victims had been confined. Clotted blood
lay ankle-deep upon the floor : shreds of clothing and women's
long tresses were scattered about : the walls were dented with
bullet-marks ; the pillars were scored with deep sword-cuts.
Maddened hy the sight, the soldiers hurried out into the court-
yard, and there saw human limbs bristling from a well. As
they stood and looked, these Ironsides, who had endured in
stern silence the weariness of the march from Allahabad, and
in four combats had dashed to pieces the army of the Nana,
lifted up their voices and wept aloud. But their emotions soon
changed. They had come too late to save, but not too late to
avenge.
On the evening of this day, the General and his men, no
longer sustained by the excitement and the hope of the last few
days, haunted by the recollection of the horrors which they had
just witnessed, and now, in the moment of inaction, unable to
forget the loss of their fallen comrades, were oppressed b}^ a
deep gloom. No sound was heard in the encampment save the
melancholy notes of the Highland pipes which accompanied the
interment of the dead. The General, as he sat at dinner with
his son, musing upon the difficulties which lay before him, and
silently anticipating the possible failure of his personal am-
bitions and the doom which might be in store for his soldiers,
seemed to have lost all his old confidence. But his weakness
was of short duration. The exultation of victory was gone :
but the path of duty was still open ; and, though he might not
be suffered to share in the triumph, the cause for which he
fought was just, and must prevail. Turning to his son, he
exclaimed, " If the worst comes to the worst, we can but die
with our swords in our hands." ^
1 Marsliman, ix 314. 2 /j, pp_ 321.2.
Tofacepani!. Z90.
i«^Sy^*«4'^ \y
i-^^ 2 Guns
Here the, Sr^^ish- forces
collect, (xnd-Wpacm^^ans
orvroad^taker^tmning village A ^7*"' ^X-'uii i *rp
NX ~\^/l^'nah^ K
>X * *Positi^ ofGrOLS
^i^,' firtng-apiorvAKerwa,.
ToAlLahabady
BATTLE OF CAWNPORE .
July left 1857.
ScaZe oCboab finches -toJJime.
Sian/ifrd^ Geo^l- Hsinb* ZOTui^m
London MacmiUan t C?L'?
1857 HAVELOCK'S CAMPAIGN 291
In this spirit he resumed his operations. On the following
day he removed the troops to a strong position at Nawabganj,
where they would be able to defeat any attempt
which the Nana might make for the recovery of
the city ; and bought up all the wine and spirits, lest they
should be exposed to the temptation which had so nearly proved
fatal to the garrison of Allahabad. But discipline was already
threatened by another cause. The soldiers, unrestrained and
even encouraged by their officers,^ were revelling in the plunder
of the citizens. The wonder is, not that Havelock was obliged
to threaten with the punishment of death the very men whose
conduct in the field he had just enthusiastically praised, but
that he was able to shield Cawnpore from the atrocities that
had been inflicted upon the citizens of Badajoz. Meanwhile
his reawakened energy had been rewarded and stimulated by
an announcement which contrasted brightly with the dismal
tidings which reached him from other parts of India. Dis-
heartened by their last defeat, the Nana's troops had broken
up ; and the usurper himself, proclaiming to the Bi'ahmins who
surrounded him that he was about to drown himself in the
waters of the Ganges, had fled by night into Oudh.^
On the 20th, Spurgin's little steamer reached Cawnpore.
He and his handful of men had beaten off a rebel force, which
threatened to cross the river and attack Havelock's column in
the rear. On the same day, Neill, who had spent some days
in providing for the safety of Allahabad, arrived with a small
force. Anticipating his arrival, Havelock had already begun
to take measures for placing CaAvnpore in a state of defence,
that he might be able to march as soon as possible to the relief
of Lucknow. As he could not spare more than three hundred
men to garrison the recovered city, it was necessary to establish
them in a position so strong that they would be able to main-
tain it against any attack. With this view he had selected an
elevated plateau close to the river-side, and was busily fortify-
ing it when Neill joined him. As soon as the work was suffi-
ciently advanced, he began to transport his own force to the
Oudh bank of the Ganges. This operation was one of extreme
difficulty and danger. The bridge of boats had been destroyed
by the mutineers. The river, here five times as wide as the
^ Extract from Neill's Journal quoted by Kaye, vol. ii. i^. 406, note.
^ Kaye, vol. ii. p. 390 ; Marshmau, p. 324.
292 ^ HAVELOCK'S CAMPAIGN chap, ix
Thames at London Bridge, and now greatly swollen by the
rains, swept past the city with the swiftness of a torrent. Such
was the terror which Havelock's advance had inspired in the
hearts of the inhaljitants, that skilled boatmen could only be
collected with the greatest difficulty ; and even Avith their aid
each passage occupied eight hours. Fortunately no enemy
opposed the movement ; and at last, by the strenuous exertions
of Colonel Tytler, it was safely accomplished. On the 25th,
Haveloclv, after giving his final instructions to Neill, to whom
he had entrusted the defence of Cawnpore, crossed the river
himself and joined the army.^ At that moment he may well
have felt that he and his gallant men were only beginning
their labours. For he was leaving a wide and rapid river in
his rear : the Nana, he was informed, had again collected a
large force to harass him : a river, a canal, and fortified towns
and villages lay in front of him ; and a mutinous army and a
host of armed rebels were determined to bar his progress. But
the glory of four victories was upon him : the appeal of the
beleaguered garrison was present to his mind ; and, undaunted
by the obstacles which beset his path, he plunged fearlessly
into the heart of Oudh.
On the night of the 26th the troops bivouacked at Mangal-
„ .., „.. . war, a strongly situated village on the Lucknow
Battls of TJiid,o o j o
' road about five miles from the river, and remained
there for two days, while carriage and supplies were being
collected. The cavalry had been strengthened by the addition
of forty-one men, selected from the infantry regiments, Avhom
Havelock had mounted on the horses of the traitorous Irregulars :
but the entire force now numbered only fifteen hundred. At
five o'clock on the morning of the 29th they began their
advance in earnest, and, after a short march, came upon
a large force of sepoys occupying a bastioned enclosure
and a village sepai-ated by a narrow passage in its rear
from the town of Undo. Havelock saw at a glance that
he would be unable to adopt his favourite method of turn-
ing the enemy's position, as it was protected by a swamp on
their right, and flooded meadows on the left. It was neces-
sary therefore at any cost to carry it by a front attack. The
Highlanders and the Fusiliers drove the enemy out of the
enclosure ; but, as they pushed on, they encountered a de-
' Marshmau, pp. 326, 328, 330.
1857 HAVELOCK'S CAMPAIGN 293
structive fire from the loopholed houses of the village. So
obstinate was the resistance of the rebels within, that the
General was obliged to send the 64th to support their com-
rades. Presently the village was set on fire. Still the rebels
held out ; and it was not till all their guns had been captured
that they gave way. At this moment, however, an officer, who
had ridden on alone to reconnoitre, came galloping back with
the news that some six thousand men were hurrying along the
road from Lucknow to their support. Pushing forward rapidly,
Havelock drew up his force on a dry spot just beyond the
town, and awaited their approach. On they came, heedless of
the trap which had been set for them, till, as they rushed con-
fusedly up to the British line, the fire of Maude's guns and the
Enfield rifles, which had hithei'to been held in reserve, tore
through their ranks ; and, floundering helplessly in the morass
as they strove too late to deploy into line, they were beset
by the skirmishers on either side of the road, and finally dis-
comfited.^
After a brief rest the victors resumed their march ; but,
before they had advanced many miles, they found
their progress again disputed by the rebels, who Bash^at^anj.
had posted themselves in a walled town called
Bashiratganj. Scanning their position, Havelock conceived a
plan by which he hoped not merely to defeat, but also to an-
nihilate them. While the Highlanders and Fusiliers, supported
by the artillery, attacked the defences in front, the 64th were
to steal round the town, and prevent the enemy from escaping
through the gate on the further side. Fiercely assailed by the
storming party, and bewildered by the movement on their flank,
the enemy soon abandoned their guns and fled through the
streets : but the 64th had allowed themselves to be delayed,
and failed to cut off" their retreat.^ Still the General had little
cause to be dissatisfied. For the second time in his short cam-
paign he had gained two victories in a single day.
When, however, on the folloAving morning, he deliberately
reviewed his situation, other considerations, which juiyso.
^ Saturday Review, 18.57, p. 391 ; Pari. Paper.%vo\. xliv. (1857-58), Part 1,
p. 116 ; Mavshinau, pp. 323, 332-4 ; W. T. Groom's With Havelock from Allaha-
bad to Luckno'W, p. 46.
^ Marslimaii, pp. 335-6. The British loss in tlie two Tiattles was 88 killed
aud wounded; that of the enemy about 400. Pari. Papers, vol. xliv, (1857-58),
Part 1, pp. 78, lis.
294 HAVELOCK'S CAMPAIGN chap, ix
the joy of victory had kept in the background, presented
themselves to his vision. Cholera, fatigue, exposure, and the
fire of the enemy had made siich sad inroads on his little
army, that he could only place eight hundred and fifty
infantry soldiers in line of battle ; the recent mutiny of the
regiments at Dinapore added to the dangers which encompassed
him ; the Nana's levies were hanging on his rear ; ammunition
was fast failing ; and there was not a single litter to spare for
the conveyance of the hundreds who must still fall before the
Residency could be approached. ^ Convinced, therefore, that for
the present it would be madness to pei'sist in his enterprise, he
sadly gave the order to retreat. There were some of the officers
„ , , who murmured against the order. They argued
obiigedto that the prestige of victory multiplied the fighting
power of the column ; that the men were just then
in great heart ; that the flying sepoys would have spread the
news that British prowess was irresistible ; and that, if the
General had but pushed on rapidly, he might have reached the
outskirts of Lucknow almost unopposed, and then, in con-
junction with the Residency garrison, have so placed his guns
as to shell the whole city. The motto of Danton, "To dare,
and to dare, and to dare again," was on their lips.^ But Have-
lock knew that there were circumstances in which to dare was
to be foolhai'dy. It is true indeed that before he left Cawnpore
he might have foreseen, perhaps did foresee most of the issues
that now induced him to return ; but, if to admit this is to
admit that he committed an error in leaving Cawnpore when he
did, the error was a glorious one. For a man of his daring and
generous nature it would have been impossible to refrain from
at least attempting the relief of his imprisoned countrymen, so
long as there was the faintest hope of success.^
There was another critic, however, outside his camp, in whose
„. judgement he had erred on the side not of rash-
His corre- i ...,. r\ i ^
spondeiici: uess, but of tmiidity. On the last day of July he
returned to Mangalwar, and from thence wrote to
infoi"m Neill that he could do nothing for the relief of Lucknow
until he received a reinforcement of a thousand men and
another battery of guns. Neill read the letter with the deepest
^ Marshinan, pp. ;?37-S ; Iiiiii-.s, j). 198. - t^uturday Review, 1857, p. 392.
" See Marshinan, pp .'531 -'i. He could not foresee the mutiny at Diuaporc
and the consequent detention of his expected reiuforcements.
1857 HAVELOCK'S CAMPAIGN 295
indignation. That a British General should for an instant, for
any consideration, pause in so holy an enterprise as the relief
of the besieged garrison and the condign punishment of the
besiegers, was in his eyes an abomination. He told Havelock
plainly that the natives disbelieved the reports of his
victories, that his retreat had destroyed the prestige of
England, and that, while he was waiting for reinforcements,
Lucknow would be lost, and concluded his letter with perhaps
the most astounding words ever addressed by a subordinate
officer to his commander : " You ought to advance again, and
not halt until you have rescued, if possible, the garrison of
Lucknow. Return here sharp, for there is much to be done
between this and Agra, and Delhi." But he had mistaken the
character of the man with whom he had to deal. " Your letter,"
wrote Havelock, " is the most extraordinary which I have ever
perused. . . . Understand . . . that a consideration of the
obstruction which would arise to the public service at this
moment alone prevents me from placing you under immediate
arrest. You now stand warned. Attempt no further dictation."
Nevertheless Neill had spoken truly when he said that
Havelock would have to wait long for the rein-
forcements which he required. He himself passed of B°ashiratganj
on all that could be spared, namely a half-battery
of guns and a company of the 84th : but Havelock heard from
Calcutta that he must expect no more for two months, as the
90th and the 5th Fusiliers, which he had begged Sir Patrick
Grant to send him, were needed to deal with the mutineers in
Behar. Feeling then that he must relieve the
besieged garrison now or never, he once more set
his face towards Lucknow. On the 5th of August he reached
Bashiratganj, and fought a battle which was almost the exact
counterpart of the one that he had fought a few days before
on the same spot. On this occasion the turning column
executed its movement without delay : but the enemy, cowed
by the fire of the British guns, fled so precipitately through the
town that there was no time to cut off their retreat ; and want
of cavalry prevented Havelock from following up his victory.^
While his troops were halting for food and rest, he began once
^ Kaye's L ices of India ii Ojjiccrs, vol. ii. pp. 385-7; Marsliinau, pp. 341, 344.
The British loss in this action was 2 killed and 23 wounded ; that of the enemy
about 300 killed and wounded. Pad. Fajpers, vol. .xliv. (1857-58), Part 1, p. 135.
296 HAVELOCK'S CAMPAIGN chap, ix
more to meditate on tlie difficulties of his position. He could
not but feel that the reasons which had before compelled him
to retreat were not less cogent now. He could see his men
round him digging graves for their comrades who had perished
from cholera. The Gwalior Contingent had mutinied, and Avas
reported to be within fifty miles of Cawnpore. The zamindars
along the road, encouraged by his former retreat, were arming
their matchlockmen. He knew that, even if his little force suc-
ceeded in reaching Lucknow, it would not be able to fight its
way through the streets, and its destruction might involve the
fall of the Residency. Yet, on the other hand, to desist from
his enterprise might be to abandon the besieged garrison to the
fate that had befallen the garrison of Cawnpore, to expose his own
military reputation to the attacks of malignant critics, perhaps
even to incur the reproaches of his friends. Tortured by these
conflicting anxieties, he tried to consider simply what his duty
to the State required him to do, and then, seeing his way clearly
„ , , . before him, he resolved, with the full concurrence
Havel ock again ^ , i i c i •
obliged to of two of the most trusted members of his
retreat. staff, and in spite of the pleadings of his daring
and impetuous son, to retire again in the direction of Cawn-
pore. He spoke of this as the most painful resolution that
he had ever formed. History will speak of it as the most
noble. ^
Unable to understand why they should retreat before an
enemy whom they had invariably defeated, the troops fell back,
in bitter discontent, on Mangalwar. While there, Havelock
occupied his time in securing the means of communication with
Cawnpore. The river had sunk a little, leaving three islands,
which were still partially submerged ; Avhile the southern
channel Avas Avide and deep. The engineers spanned the lesser
channels with bridges of boats, laid causeAvays over the interven-
ing SAvamps, and constructed a floating platform, Avhich, toAved
by a steamer, Avould convey the troops across the main channel
to the CaAvnpore bank. Cawnpore itself had hitherto remained
safe in the strong hands of Neill. Directly after assuming
command, he had taken decisive steps to stop the plundering
which had hitherto prevailed, and, by a series of organised
raids, had kept at bay the various insurgent bodies Avho
^ Marsliiuau, pp. 341-7, 349; Saturday Review, 1857, p. 393 ; iufornuitiou
from Sir H. Havelock-AUau.
Havelock
ances again,
1857 HAVELOCK'S CAMPAIGN 297
threatened him. Now, however, his position was becoming
seriously imperilled. On the 11th he wrote
urgently to Havelock, informing him that four Sm'fw hdp! *°
thousand rebels had collected at Bithur, and would
swoop down upon Cawnpore unless he came at once to the rescue.
Though unwilling to quit Mangalwar, where his presence acted
as a drag upon the besiegers of Lucknow, Havelock saw the
danger to which his lieutenant was exposed, and
hastened to comply with his request. Lest, how- fax
ever, the Oudh rebels, who had again rallied, '''"'\(!°^^l* ..,
Ill- • 1 1 1 r. . 1 -I 1 ■ another battle.
should imagine that they had frightened him
away, he resolved, as a preliminary step, to inflict upon them
a parting defecU, and, making a rapid march, found
them occupying an entrenched position about a mile "^'*
and a half in front of Bashiratganj. He at first endeavoured
to dislodge them by an artillery -fire ; but, screened by their
earthworks, and serving their guns with effect, they were not
so easily to be overcome ; and it became necessary to call upon
the infantry to charge. Then the Highlanders, responding to
the call, dashed forward with their accustomed gallantry, though
they were reduced to little more than a hundred men, and,
supported by a flank movement of the Fusiliers, bayoneted the
gunners, and turned the captured guns upon the flying enemy.
After this exploit a retreat was once more sounded ; and on the
13th the army re-entered Cawnpore.^
The retreat had a serious political effect. The talukdars of
Oudh, with few exceptions, had hitherto remained „. . ^ .
. ' ■■• ' His retreat to
passive, watching events. One of their number, cawiporeand •
Man Singh, who played a double game with great ^^° ^^ '
craft throughout the struggle, had advised them to have no-
thing to do with the mutineers. But when Havelock withdrew
from the province, they felt that the British Government was
doomed ; and some of them wrote to inform the authorities
at Benares that they had no choice but to send their retainers
to join in the siege of the Residency.'^
Officers and men alike now sorely needed rest. Two regiments
had become greatly dispirited ; and it was re-
presented to Havelock that, at the present rate of buiuu"
1 Marshnian, pp. 347, 352-5 ; Pari. Fupcra, vol. xliv. (1857-58), Part 1,
pp. 142-3 ; Saturday Review, 1857, p. 393.
2 iDues, pii. 204J 334-9. See App. S.
298 HAVELOCK'S CAMPAIGN chap, ix
mortality, the whole force would be annihilated in six weeks.
He replied that, till the rebels were driven from Bithur, re-
pose was out of the question. Accordingly on the morning
of the 16th the troops again left the city, and, after an eight
hours' march under a blazing sun, found themselves face to
face with their opponents. The rebel commander, who is
believed to have been Tantia Topi himself, had drawn up his
men in a plain covered with sugar-cane and castor-oil plants.
In front of Havelock's right wing, and concealed by the planta-
tions, was a fortified village, and beyond it an earth redoubt.
Beyond the redoubt, again, a deep rivulet, spanned by a bridge,
ran round a hill on which stood the town of Bithur. The
bridge was defended by a breastwork and a battery mount-
ing two guns. Havelock made his dispositions. The High-
landers, the Fusiliers, and the Eoyal Artillery deployed on the
right, and advanced to the attack. At a distance of about
a thousand yards from the breastwork, the gunners stopped,
and fired a few rounds. Just as they were limbering up in
order to go closer, a sharp fire was opened from the village.
Two companies of the Fusiliers were sent forward to storm it.
After a desperate struggle, in which one of the native regiments
actually crossed bayonets with the Fusiliers, the rebels were
driven successively from the village and the redoubt ; and the
Fusiliers rejoined the right wing. The artillery, who had re-
newed their fire with effect, gradually advanced to within four
hundred yards of the battery : but, as the rebels still fought
their two guns with resolution, and poured a hail of bullets
from behind their breastwork upon the approaching line,
they were again attacked with the bayonet, and finally driven
across the bridge, and through the streets of Bithur. Mean-
while the left wing had been engaged with the enemy's right,
and, having expelled them from the sugar-cane, had chased
them into the .town. Once more, however, the rebel army
made good its retreat ; for the infantry were too exhausted to
pursue, and the cavalry Avere too few in number to be risked.^
With this victory Havelock's career as an independent com-
HavRiock mander came to a close ; for, on his return to
by '()utr;uii. Cawuporc, he learned that he had been superseded
^ Marshiiiiiii, pp. 357-60 ; Satunlaij Review, ISf)?, pp. 393-4. The British
loss was 49 killutl and wounded ; that of tlie eueniy about 250. I'arl. Vajjers,
vol. xliv. (1857-58), Part 1, p. 201.
1857 HAVELOCK S CAMPAIGN 299
in favour of Sir James Outi'am, superseded by order of
a Government which, having itself failed to accomplish
anything for the suppression of the revolt, required its
officers to perform impossibilities. Not a word of thanks
was vouchsafed to him for his services. No explanation
was oiTered to soothe his wounded feelings. Not even an
official letter accompanied the copy of the Government Gazette
in which he read the announcement of his supersession. Yet,
in the face of unpai-alleled difficulties, he had conducted a
campaign which still remains unsurpassed in the history of
British India ; a campaign Avhich had turned raw recruits into
seasoned veterans ; a campaign performed under a tropical sun
and under tropical storms by an army Avhich, scarcely larger
than an ordinary regiment, sleeping on the hard ground, for
weeks deprived even of the shelter of tents, fasting often for
entire days, had within six weeks traversed an immense tract of
country and stilled a vast population, and, with numbers hourly
diminished by the sword and by pestilence, nine times engaged
and defeated the hosts of Oudh and of Bithur, and the
disciplined battalions of the Bengal army. Pei-haps the con-
sciousness of the injustice with which his Government had
treated him may have inspired that immortal order in which
he bade his soldiers await the verdict of their countrymen : —
"If conquest can now be achieved under the most trying-
circumstances, what will be the triumph and retribution of the
time when the armies from China, from the Cape, and from
England shall sweep through the land 1 Soldiers, in that
moment, your labours, your privations, your suflferings, and
your valour will not be forgotten by a grateful country."
There was one circumstance, however, which must have gone
far to heal his wounded feelings. He had been
superseded indeed, but by the Bayard of India, outlam*'' "^^
It was Charles Napier who had bestowed this
title upon Outram before the misunderstandings arising out
of the Sind controversy had clouded their early friendship.
Yet, felicitous as it was, it only described one side of Outram's
character. In his reverence for holy things, his courage, his
courtesy, his honour, his manliness, he did indeed embody the
old idea of the true and perfect knight : but his sympathy was
untouched by those influences which sapped the humanising
force of mediaeval chivalry. He was ready to espouse the
300 HAVELOCK S CAMPAIGN chap, ix
cause of all who needed championship, without heeding the
distinctions of race, or creed, or class. He Avas as courteous
to the wife of a private soldier as to the highest lady in the
land. He knew how to enter into the interests and encourage
the aspirations of younger men, while always ready to join in
their mirth. He delighted in making children happy. As a
commander, he was so genial in his manner towards his
officers and men, so considerate in providing for their wants,
above all, so hearty in his approbation of their valour, that he
won not merely their confidence, but their enthusiastic devo-
tion. But it was in his dealings with native governments
and native peoples that the chivalry of his nature found the
widest scope. It is difficult for those who have been accus-
tomed to gauge political honesty by European standards to
realise the stainless purity, the unreserved self-devotion of his
political career. No doubt the simpler conditions of public
life in India, the absence of motives for corrupting or truck-
ling to the masses, may have had much to do with the
superior probity of Anglo-Indian statesmen. But it is im-
possible to conceive of any consideration that could have
tempted Outram to stoop to a dirty action. No dread
of official censure, of professional stagnation, or of pecuniary
loss ever deterred him from advocating a righteous cause, how-
ever unpopular, from exposing an injustice, however powerfully
supported. Indeed, though there have been greater men in
Anglo-Indian history, there has never been one more loveable.
On the 6 til of August he left Calcutta. But for the fore-
sight of a civil officer, his passage up the river
i^fn°Haveiock. flight havc been seriously retarded. To the east
of the Patna Division was a large tract of country
officially designated the Bhagalpur Division, and ruled by
Commissioner Yule. After the mutiny at Dinapore, this officer
foresaw that the native troops within his own Division would
inevitably be infected. He therefore detained a hundred and
fifty men of the 5th Fusiliers, who happened to be passing up
the Ganges, and charged them with the duty of watching over
the stations of Bhagalpur and Monghyr. By this measure
he rescued from imminent peril the great high-
Aiig- 17. way of the Ganges. Thus Outram was able to
Aug. 19. reach Dinapore unmolested.^ Havelock himself
i Marslimuu, p. 383 ; Pari. Pa2)er.% vol. xliv. (1857-58), Part 2, pp. 347-8.
1857 HAVELOCK'S CAMrAIGN 301
_
sent a steamer down the river with a hundred and twenty-
men on board, who seized a number of boats in the neigh-
bourhood of Dalamau, and thus paralysed a rebel force which
had threatened to cross to Fatehpur. Before
he heard of this success he telegraphed to the Aug. 21.
Commander-in-Chief that he might be obliged to fall back
on Allahabad if he were not reinforced, so numerous were the
enemies who threatened him, and so diminished the numbers
of his own men. But he had no real intention of retreating.
He was simply determined to ensure the despatch of reinforce-
ments ; and he knew that Sir Colin Campbell would respond
to his appeal.^ His wants indeed had been anticipated.
Though the civil authorities had striven hard to detain a large
jDortion of the reinforcements for the protection of the Bengal
districts, the earnest representations of the Commander-in-Chief
had shamed them out of their selfishness ; and all the troops
that could be collected were already on their way up the river. ^
Outram meanwhile steadily pursued his journey, making ar-
rangements as he went for the protection of the stations through
which he passed. On the 5th of September he was able to
march out of Allahabad. Some days later, hearing that a
number of zamindars had crossed the Ganges from Oudh, and
were threatening to cut off his communications,
he detached a small force under Vincent Eyre, Sept. 10.
which drove them into the river, and thus nipped Sept. 11.
in the bud what had threatened to develop into a serious rising
throughout the Doab. Proceeding on his way without serious
opposition, he entered Cawnpore on the night of the 15th,^
and on the next day issued a Division Order which has no
parallel in military history : —
"The important duty of first relieving the garrison of
1 Personal information from Sir H. Havelock-Allan. See also Innes, pp.
207-8, where Havelock is vindicated from a fooIi.sh and gratuitous charge,
2 See Pari. Papers, vol. xliv. (1857-58), Part 1, pp. 210, 212, 214, 219.
General Innes says (p. 208), "There were altogether at that time between
Allahabad and Calcutta the following regiments : the 5th, 10th, 29th, 35th,
37th, 53rd, and 90th, besides drafts for the 64th, 78th, 84th, and these were all
being kept in those lower districts . . . froni the want of any local authority
recognised as in command. . . . Thus, while Havelock's force could barely
muster 1100 men, some 6000 men, who might have been on their way to the front
. . . were kept pottering in those lower districts. " I cannot ascertain how many
it would have been possible to send on.
^ Marshman, p. 396.
302 HAVELOCK'S CAMPAIGN chap, ix
Lucknow had been entrusted to Brigadier - General Have-
„ , . lock, C.B. : and Major- General Outram feels
He leaves to , . . \ , . •" , . . • ^ -,
Haveiock that it IS due to this distinguished officer, and
relieving ° the streuuous and nol:)le exertions Avhich he has
Lucknow. already made to effect that object, that to him
should accrue the honour of that achievement. Major-General
Outram is confident that the great end for which General
Haveiock 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
Haveiock 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 Oudh, tendering his
military services to General Haveiock as a volunteer."
Deeply as these words stirred the hearts of men at the time,
and often as they have since been quoted, the absolute un-
selfishness of the resolve which they expressed has only lately
been brought to light. It is now certain that Outram was not
merely resigning the glory of relieving Lucknow, and sacrificing
the General's share of the expected prize-money, but, believing
that this campaign would be his last, was also giving up the
chance of obtaining a baronetcy and its accompanying pension,
thus foregoing the only hope of securing a provision for his
declining years. ^ But it is wrong to speak of the act as
unique. It was but the final triumph of a life of self-sacrifice.
The force that was now assembled for the relief of Luck-
now consisted of three thousand one hundred and
Composition , . p ^^ i • i t i
ofHaveiopk's seventy-uine men of all arms, and included,
^^"smented besides the remnant of Havelock's original column
and some additional companies belonging to the
mutilated regiments of which it was composed,^ two batteries
of artillery, a few native irregular cavalry, and the 5th
Fusiliers and 90th Light Infantry. The infantry was divided
into two brigades, commanded resj^ectively by Hamilton and
Neill. Thanks to the diligence with which Haveiock had
employed the period of his enforced inaction, little remained to
be done in order to complete the preparations for an advance.
1 Golilsmid's Life of Outram, vol. ii. pp. 207. note 1, 221-2.
2 Pari. Papers, vol. xliv. (1857-58), Part 1, pp. 213, 223.
1857 HAVELOCK'S CAMPAIGN 303
The floods hud subsided, and left an island in the middle of
the river, separated from the Cawnpore bank by a
deep channel seven hundred yards wide, and from theTGanlel^ *^^
Oudh hy a swampy expanse. Havelock was
ready to throw a floating bridge across the channel, and to
make a causeway over the swamp ; and to cover these opera-
tions, he had intended to send detachments in boats on the
morning of the 16th, to occupy the island and the opposite
bank. Outram, however, believing that the heavy guns on the
Cawnpore bank would deter the enemy from an attack, and that
the men would suffer from exposure on the island, argued that
it would be wiser to hold them back until the bridge was almost
finished, when a detachment could be sent on to the island, to
cover the construction of the causeway. But on the 17th,
when a third of the bridge remained to be completed, the enemy
opened fire upon the working parties ; and it was necessary to
send troops on to the island, and to reinforce them on the fol-
lowing day. On the 19th and 20th the army crossed the
Ganges almost without opposition. Hardly had Havelock
stepped on to the Oudh bank when Ungud came into camp and
delivered Inglis's last letter, in which he said that the besiegers'
fire had never ceased night or day, and that, if he were not relieved
before the end of the month, his people would have no meat left.^
On the morning of the 21st the march was begun. Ap-
proaching the familiar walls of Mangalwar, Have-
lock saw that he Avas to be resisted. Vigorously towards
attacking the position in front, and sending a ^^^'^'^"0^.
detachment to turn it on the right, he so discon- ?f^**')f °^
certed its defenders that they presently gave way ; °
and the cavalry, led by Outram in person, galloped in pursuit,
captured two guns, and sabred a hundred and twenty of the
fugitives. Pausing for a moment's rest at Unao, the British
pushed on to Bashiratganj, bivouacked there, and, resuming
their march under a heavy downpour of rain,
crossed the Sai, the bridge over which had been ^'^
left intact by the flying enemy, and halted for the night in and
about the village of Bani, At six o'clock in the „ . „,
~. Sept. 23.
morning the distant thunder of the artillery at
Lucknow, which had been heard all through the night, died
^ Information from Sir H. Havelock- Allan ; Innes, p. 213 ; Kaye's Lives of
Indian Officers, vol. ii. p. -397 ; Life of Outram, vol. ii. pp. 222-3.
304 HAVELOCK'S CAMPAIGN chap, ix
away ; and it became evident that preparations were being
made to oppose them : but the city was now only a day's march
distant; and, without a thought of failure, they marched on
till they came in sight of the Alambagh. About this strong-
position the enemy were descried, massed in great
AJaraba<^h''*' numbers. Havelock sent on a party of cavalry to
reconnoitre. Presently they returned, and reported
that the enemy's left rested on the Alambagh itself, while their
centre and right were drawn up behind a chain of hillocks.
The country on both sides of the road, up to within a short
distance of their position, was covered Avith water. Havelock
resolved to turn their right flank. The 2nd brigade moved off
the road towards the left front and, as it came within range,
was exposed to a withering fire : but Olpherts and his gunnei's
dashed up at full gallop and forced their struggling horses
through a deep trench filled with water : Eyre with his heavy
guns gained a dry spot on the left of the road ; and their com-
bined fire drove back the enemy's cavalry and artilleiy. Mean-
while the 2nd brigade, marching knee-deep in water, outflanked
their right; Neill with the 1st brigade attacked their retreat-
ing infantry ; and their right and centre had already fled when
the 5th Fusiliers stormed and captured the Alambagh. Then
Outram dashed forward at the head of the cavalry, captured
five guns, and drove the fugitives before him to the canal.
Before long, however, fresh guns were brought down from the
city ; and, as the pursuers were now assailed in their turn, it
became necessary to fall back for the night on the Alambagh.
The ground was ankle-deep in mud, rain was falling in torrents,
and the men had no covering but their greatcoats ; but they
lay down to rest with light hearts ; for Outram had just told
them how their comrades had assaulted and captured Delhi. ^
Next day some annoyance was felt from a distant cannonade :
Sept 24 ^^^^ ^^ serious attempt was made to reply to it ;
iiavoiocks and, while the troops recruited their energies, the
etfecthi^^a Generals consulted as to what plan of attack they
jimctioii with should pursue on the morrow. The direct route
the gaiTisoii ^ , i i i /-^i i i i • i i
overruled by led across the caual by the Oharbagli bridge, and
Outram. theuce along the Cawnpore road to the Kesidency :
but deep trenches had been cut across the road ; and the houses
^ Iiiforinatioii from Sir W. Olpliorts ; Maude and Sherer, vol. ii. pp. 28r>, 531 ;
Marshmau, pp. 403-5 ; Livets of Indian Officers, vol. ii. pp. 400-1.
1857 HAVELOCK S CAMPAIGN 305
on both sides of it were loopholed and swarmed with musketeers.
Havelock had all along intended to seize the Dilkusha, cross
the Giimti, and, gaining the Fyzabad road at the Kokrail
bridge, occupy a building called the Badshah Bagh, recross the
Gumti at the iron bridge, and thence advance to the Eesidency.
By the adoption of this route the relieving force would have
been saved from the perils of street-fighting. The rains, how-
ever, had rendered the country impassable for heavy artillery ;
and, in Outram's judgement, no alternative remained but to
cross the canal at the Charbagh bridge, turn to the right
along the road which led to the Sikandar Bagh, and then to
the left across the plain between the Kaisar Bagh and the
river.^
Havelock was now in a most difficult and painful position.
He was convinced that his view was right ; for he believed
that the whole force, except perhaps the heavy guns, could go
by the route which he recommended ; and the want of the
heavy guns would matter little when weighed against the great
saving of life which the choice of this route would ensure. But
Outram exjDCcted that his advice should be implicitly followed ;
nor did he perceive the injustice of leaving Havelock responsible
for acts of which he did not ai:)prove. He called himself a
volunteer ; and in his generosity he desired that to Havelock
should belong the glory and the reward of relieving the
besieged garrison : but he would not efface himself or forbear
to press the views which seemed to him for his country's good ;
and Havelock, who Avas under so heavy an obligation to him
and who loved him, could not insist upon the rights which he
owed to his generosity. Both wer-e agreed that it would be
madness to wait until the ground hardened ; for they gathered
from Inglis's letter that his force was enfeebled for want of
proper food and in hourly danger from the enemy's mines.
Eeluctantly therefore Havelock acquiesced in Outram's decision. ^
Meanwhile a great change had come over the feelings of the
besieged garrison. For some days after the last
departure of Ungud there had been nothing to Sifganisou
vary the monotony of their life. The death-roll
■^ Lives of Indian Officers, pp. 40G-9 ; Marshman, p. 409 ; Innes, pp. 212, 218-
19 ; MS. and verbal information from Sir H. Havelock-Allan. See App. K.
^ Innes, pp. 212, 218-19 ; information from Sir H. Havelock-Allan. See
App. K.
306 HAVELOCK'S CAMPAICxN chap, ix
grew longer. More natiA'^es deserted. But the besiegers,
dispirited by successive failures, no longer fought with any
heart. At eleven o'clock on the night of the 22nd a man came
into the entrenchment, breathless with excitement, having just
been fired upon by the enemy's sentries. It was Ungud. He
announced that Outram and Havelock had crossed the Ganges,
and might be expected within a few days. The news spread
like wildfire. Next day firing was distinctly
Sept ''3 i/ o •/
heard close to the city. The spirits of all rose to
the highest point ; and the native portion of the garrison were
now at last convinced that relief was really at hand. But on
the 24th the sounds of firing became less frequent, and some
began again to despond.^
The day of trial dawned at last. The morning was beauti-
Morniu" f ^^^^Y ^^^- Havelock rose early, and spent some
the 25th of time in prayer. At eight o'clock the troops were
ep em er. j,,.^^yj^ ^p^ ready to advance.- Their look revealed
what they had done and suffered ; but the expression on their
war-worn faces was that of men going forth to certain victory.^
Many indeed must die before the victory could be won, and it
was hard to die on such a day as this ; but mindful of Have-
lock's words, all were ready to make great sacrifices that those
who survived might obtain great results. The baggage was
left under a guard at the Alambagh : the Generals and their
staff examined together on the map the route which lay before
them ; and between eight and nine the order was given to
advance.'^
The 1st brigade, under Outram, led the way. The country
on either side of the road was covered by high grass, in which
were concealed hundreds of the enemy. Harassed by musketry,
and raked on its right flank and in front by an artillery-fire,
the column pushed steadily on towards the canal.
^[e^coiuniu About scvcn furlougs up the road was a building
called the Yellow House, where the enemy had two
guns. Near this building the column was ordered to halt, as
the rear Avas hardly ready ; and the infantry lay down.
Round shot and grape tore up the road, while bullets
1 Wilson, p. 168 ; GuLbins, pp. 294, 297-8 ; Junes, pp. 151-2.
'^ Marshmau, p. 411.
^ Major North's Journal of an Officer iii India, p. 185.
* Marshmau, p. 412.
1857 HAVELOCK'S CAMPAIGN 307
pattei'ed like hail among the men : Maude soon silenced
the guns : but it was not until after a delay of ten minutes,
during which the column had suffered heavily, that Havelock's
galloper brought the welcome order to advance. About half a
mile beyond the Yellow House, the road turned sharply to the
left, and ran in a straight line two hundred yards to the canal.
The bridge was commanded by innumerable sharpshooters
perched in the rooms of the adjoining houses, and defended by
five guns posted behind a breastwork on the Lucknow side.
The road was so narrow that only two guns could be deployed
to reply. While Outram diverged to the right with the object
of bringing a flanking fire to bear on the enemy from the bank
of the canal, and the skirmishers of the Madras Fusiliers took
post on the left of the bridge, Maude endeavoured to silence
the guns : but his men fell so fast that he had to call again and
again for volunteers from the infantry ; and, the resistance being
obstinately maintained, young Havelock, as a staff-officer, begged
Neill to order the Fusiliers to charge. Neill refused to take
the responsibility. Havelock accepted it without a word. In-
stantly he galloped to the rear, turned the corner in the road,
and waited for a couple of minutes, to save appearances. Pre-
sently he returned, galloped up to Neill, and, saluting him,
cried, " You are to carry the bridge at once, Sir." Neill there-
upon ordered the Fusiliers to advance. The skirmishers and a
few men of the 84th, springing forward before the regiment was
formed up, were struck down in an instant : but young Have-
lock, who had ridden on with them, and a single corporal
wondrously escaped. Bullets whizzed round their heads ; and
still the regiment was not ready. Again and again the corporal
loaded and fired, while Havelock, sitting still in his saddle, kept
waving his sword, and calling upon the rest to advance ; and
now at last, dashing over the bridge before the enemy could
reload, they captured the guns, bayoneted the gunners, and
entered Lucknow. ^
The city was now awfully disquieted. From a high point
within the entrenchment hundreds of the citizens
1 P . 1 n ■ r Excitement of
and even many oi the sepoys were seen nying from the garrison.
the approaching doom, some rushing over the iron
^ Marslimau, pp. 412-14 ; Malleson, vol. i. pp. .536-7 ; Lives of Indian Officers
vol. ii. pp. 405-9 ; Maude aud Sherer, vol. ii. pp. 292, 300, 531-4, 542-3, 561-3;
information from Sir H. Havelock-AUan.
308 HAVELOCK'S CAMPAIGN" cnAP. ix
bridge, others plunging into the river : but the besiegers who
remained redoubled the fury of their attack ; and the women of
the garrison, as they moved nervously about their rooms, unable
to control their excitement, and striving to catch a glimpse of
the movements of their friends, could hear the crash of shot and
shell from the surrounding batteries above the distant roar of
the contending armies.^
The Highlanders, after crossing the canal, held the bridge-
head, to cover the passage of the column. For a
fiEiiTino- ^™® ^^®y were unmolested, and seized the oppor-
tunity to pitch the captured guns into the water :
but presently the enemy came rushing down the Cawnpore
road ; and there for three hours the Highlanders repulsed every
assault. Meanwhile the rest of the army safely crossed the
bridge, and taking the road to the right, encountered little
opposition till they came within three-quarters of a mile of the
Residency, when they were met with a terrific fire from the
Kaisar Bagh, but, replying as best they could, pushed unfalter-
ingly on, and, passing a narrow bridge over a nullah,^ over-
looked by houses filled with musketeers, found shelter at last in
a covirt beneath the walls of the Chattar Manzil. Presently the
Highlanders, who had advanced alone by a shorter road, joined
them, and found themselves at the head of the column. The
enemy had expected that the whole force would march by the
Cawnpore road ; and it was for this reason that the other
regiments had met with comparatively slight opposition. But
now the enemy had found out their mistake and were preparing
to dispute every inch of ground that remained. Lieutenant
Moorsom had been sent on to reconnoitre the Chattar Manzil
buildings and ascertain whether it would be possible to pass
through them in safety. It was now nearly dark. While
soldiers, camels, guns, and doolies bearing wounded men were
thronging into the court, Outram and Havelock were observed
in animated discussion. Outram was on horseback, and Have-
lock, whose horse had been shot under him, was walking by his
side, eagerly pressing his views. Outram proposed to halt for
a few hours, to allow the rear-guard to close up ; and move on
next morning through the successive courts to the Residency.
On this route, he argued, there would be little opposition to
1 Rees, p. 221 ; Gubbins, p. 299.
^ A small stream or ditch. There is nothing exactly like a nullah in England.
1857 HAVELOCK'S campaign 309
fear ; for the enemy would certainly expect the column to
advance along the streets. But Havelock saw that those few
hours would enable the enemy to occupy the courts in full
strength ; he knew that, on the appearance of a check, they
would exult, and the natives in the Residency would despair ;
and sharing in the ardour of his soldiers, who could not bear to
stand still almost in sight of those whom they had so long
striven to reach, and fearing lest the rebels might at the last
moment succeed by a desperate effort in overpowering the
garrison, he strenuously urged Outram to push on. In a few
minutes, though he did not know it, Moorsom would return to
tell that he had found a comparatively sheltered way. The
discussion waxed warm. At length, irritated by opposition,
Outram's temper got the better of him : but he gave way.
" Let us on then," he cried, " in God's name." The Highlanders
were called to the front : the Sikhs followed ; and the Madras
Fusiliers brought up the rear. Leading out of the court to the
right, the road ran in a zigzag course to the Baily Guard gate
of the Residency. The exit from the court was spanned by
an arch, in a room above which some rebels were hiding ;
and here, while directing the movements of his men, in the
moment of the victory which he had done so much to secure,
General Neill fell from his horse, shot through the head. But
there was no time to think of the fallen. Like a lifeboat
ploughing its way through a tempestuous sea to the rescue of
some sinking ship, the column rushed on, now plunging through
deep trenches which had been cut across the road to bar their
progress, now staggering, as they rose, beneath the storm of
bullets which hailed down upon them from the loopholes of the
houses, and the missiles which were flung from the roofs. But
they were now within a few yards of the goal ; they could see
the tattered flag of England, waving on the roof of the Residency ;
and, though men fell fast at every step, the survivors never
paused till Outram and Havelock led them through the gate
into the entrenchment.^
Then the exultation, the sympathy, the loyalty of their
hearts found expression in a burst of deafening „^
'- , o The welcome.
cheers ; the garrison caught up the cry ; and
^ Marslimau, pp. 414-17, 422 ; Lives of Indian Officers, vol. ii. pp. 407-9 ; Life
of Sir James Outram, vol. ii. pp. 232-3 ; Forbes's Havelock, pp. 196-8 ; Innes,
pp. 221-5 ; North, pp. 198-9 ; Swanston's My Journal, p. 44. See App. K.
310 HAVELOCK'S CAMPAIGN chap, ix
from every pit, and trench, and battery, from behind the roof-
less and shattered houses the notes of triumph and welcome
echoed and re-echoed. Women crowded up to shake hands with
the men who had fought twelve battles to save them ; and the
Highlanders, with tears stieaming down their cheeks, caught up
in their arms the wondering children, and passed them from
one to another. Anxious questions were tenderly answered :
kinsmen long separated met once more : old comrades fought
their battles over again ; and the garrison, as they told their
own tale, and learned with pride the admiration which their
struggle had aroused, heard in their turn, with reverent
sympathy, how and at what a cost they had been relieved. -"^
. ^ Marshman, pp. 417-18 ; Rees, p. 223 ; A Lady's Diary of the Siege of
Lucknoio, p. 120. Between July 7 and August 22, 259 men died from cholera
and other diseases, while only 64 were killed in action, though many others died
from their wounds. This estimate takes no account of the Sikhs and other
natives. See Maude and Sherer, vol. i. p. 68. From September 21 to 26, in-
clusive, the entire loss, in killed, wounded and missing, was 535 (Havelock's
despatch, quoted by Marshman, p. 425).
CHAPTER X
THE PUNJAB AND DELHI
However much opinions may differ as to the degree in which
Dalhonsie was responsible for the Indian Mutiny, ^g.^
it will not be denied that, by his Punjab policy, state of the
he prepared an eifective antidote. The extra- ^^^^
ordinary part which that province played in the events of
1857 is explained by the special character of its antecedent
history. Its conquest had been so recent that the inhabitants
had not had time to forget the evils from which that conquest
had set them free, or to unlearn their awe and admiration of
the people by whose might it had been effected. They could
not but acknowledge the justice of British rule, and the material
prosperity which it had conferred upon them. A succession of
abundant harvests had put them into good humour. The
deprivation of their arms had exercised a softening influence
upon their habits. Suspected chiefs had been removed out of
harm's way ; and those who remained, remembering the
tyranny of the Khalsa army, had no desire for the success of a
revolt which threatened to place them at the mercy of an
insolent soldiery. Even if there had been a general spirit of
disaffection, it would have been weakened by the national
antipathy between Sikh and Hindustani, by the religious
antipathy between Sikh and Mahomedan. On the other hand,
although the crusading spirit of the Khalsa slumbered, it was by
no means dead. However peacefully disposed the population of
the plains might be, there was danger to be apprehended from
the turbulent hill- tribes on the border. Dost Mahomed might be
tempted by the knowledge of the straits to which his former
enemies were reduced, to violate the treaty which he had lately
concluded with them. More than ten thousand European
312 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI chap, x
soldiers, indeed, were quartered in the province ; but the bulk
of them were massed in the Peshawar valley and on the Simla
hills, leaving a comparatively weak force to garrison the
immense tract of country between the Sutlej and the Indus.
Of the native troops, indeed, the Punjabi Irregulars, numbering
some thirteen thousand men, were known to be efficient, and
believed to be trustworthy : but, as a set- off, there were
thirtj^-six thousand Poorbeahs, every one of whom might be a
traitor.^
In trying, however, to calculate the strength of the opposing
forces Avhich affected the political equilibrium of
offl^M's.""'^^ the Punjab in 1857, we should fall into a grievous
error if we forgot to consider the competence of
the British officers to whom the administration of the province
had been entrusted. Dalhousie, in his partiality for the
Punjab, had selected the best men whom he could find, to
preside over its destinies ; and the Avonderful rapidity with
which it had advanced towards civilisation bore witness to his
discernment. It would be hard to name any country in which
a proportionately greater number of able military and political
officers has ever been gathered together. But even more
admirable than their ability were the harmony and the mutual
sympathy with which they worked. They had firm faith in
the soundness of the system that had raised their province to
such unexampled prosperity ; they were full of confidence in
themselves, and full of admiration for each other. Above all,
they were fortunate in possessing a chief to whom they Avere
able to look up with confidence and respect.
The Chief Commissioner of the Punjab was Sir John
Lawrence. He was thoroughly familiar with the
' country, and the people with whom he had to
deal. He was a cautious, yet bold politician, a resolute,
sagacious man. The power of originating was wanting to his
mind ; but he knew how to use, and sometimes to improve the
conceptions of others. His broad, powerful frame and massive
features betokened an inexhaustible capacity for work. His
character had plenty of faults ; but in no act of his life was he
ever weak. Nor, though he had much kindness of heart, was
he tolerant of anything like weakness in others. He was out-
vrardly often rough, harsh, and overbearing. Though, when
1 Punjab Mutiny Rcpoi't, pp. 2, 16-18, pais. 8, 46, 48.
1857 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI 313
not actually at work, he could be a cheerful, even jovial com-
panion, he unquestionably lacked that charm, a charm based
upon something deeper than mere felicity of manner, Avhich
endeared his brother Henry to all with whom he came in con-
tact ; and, though he was a religious man, he as certainly left
upon men's minds the impression of a character less free from
worldliness and self-seeking. But, when the worst has been
said of John Lawrence, it still remains true that he Avas not
merely an able man, but a good man. His heart was wholly
in his work ; he laboured as strenuously as his brother, if with
less of charity and sympathy, for the well-being of the natives ;
and, if he did not spare others, he never spared himself. Those
who have had opportunities of observing the sterling manliness
of his character, those who remember the unostentatious
devotion with which, after his final return from India, he gave
himself up to every good work which he could in any Avay for-
ward, will never speak of him without emotion.
When the telegrams announcing the mutiny at Meerut and
the seizure of Delhi reached Lahore, the caj^ital of jsrews of the
the Punjab, John Lawrence was on his way to the seizure of
Murree Hills, whither he had been advised to go for Lahore. ^
the benefit of his health; but he had left behind Mayiiandi2.
him a man who was well fitted to deal with any emergency
that might arise, his countryman and former schoolfellow,
Eobert Montgomery, the Judicial Commissioner. A man of
singularly smooth manner and genial and benevolent aspect,
Montgomery was yet to the full as resolute as his chief, and
more capable of instantly initiating a daring policy in such a
crisis as had now arisen. The full significance of the telegrams
was at once apparent to him. Lidia would be lost if the
Punjab were not at once made secure ; and the security of the
Punjab depended in the first instance on the security of the
great cities and magazines scattered over it. Lahore itself was
naturally his first care. Its population amounted to nearly a
hundred thousand souls, many of whom were restless Sikhs and
Mahomedans, certain to take advantage of the slightest symptom
of weakness on the part of their rulers. The city itself was
garrisoned by a small body of European and native soldiers :
but the bulk of the troops, consisting of one native cavalry
and three native infantry regiments, the 81st Queen's, and
two troops of European horse-artillery, were stationed at the
311 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI chap, x
neighbouring cantonment of Meean-meer. Montgomery learned,
on the best native authority, that the four native regiments
were only waiting for a favourable opportunity to
^^ "' revolt. He therefore assembled the chief civil and
military officers, and asked their opinions as to what ought to
be done. He himself and Colonel Macpherson, the Military
Secretary, urged that the sepoys should be deprived of their
ammunition. Captain Eichard Lawrence, the chief of the
police, thought it better to disarm them altogether. After
some further discussion, Montgomery resolved to drive over
to Meean-meer, and take counsel with Stuart Corbett, the
Brigadier. This officer fully agreed with Montgomery on the
necessity for taking the initiative, and declared himself ready
to deprive the sepoys of their ammunition, though he was not
prej^ared to offend the prejudices of his officers by actually
disarming them. Later in the day, however, he came to the
conclusion that the more decisive measure would be the wiser,
and, writing to inform Macpherson of his change of purpose,
ordered a general parade for the following morning.
It happened that that night there was to have been a ball
at Meean-meer. It might have been thought that,
Meea^f-meer. ^^ ^^® midst of such a crisis as that which now
hung over the empire, the dancers would postpone
their amusement. But it was wisely decided that such a step
would needlessly excite suspicion ; and the guests came as
though nothing had occurred to disturb their security. Hardly
one of those present knew the object of the parade which
was to take place on the morrow : but the few who were
in the secret must have thought of that famous ball at
Brussels, from which Wellington started for the field of Quatre
Bras.
Early in the morning the troops were drawn up on the
Ma 13 parade-ground. The Europeans were on the right,
iiie disannul- the native infantry in the centre, and the native
^^^^^ ^' cavalry on the left. The natives outnumbered the
Europeans by eight to one. First of all, the order of Govern-
ment for the disbandment of the 34th at Barrackpore was read
to each regiment. Then the native regiments were ordered to
change front to the rear. AVhile they were executing this
manoeuvre, the 81st changed front also and faced them; and
the gunners, hidden behind their European comrades, moved
1857 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI 315
round likewise, loading their guns as they went.^ The sepoys
were told that, as so many other regiments had begun to dis-
play a mutinous spirit, it had been thought right to shield them
from temptation by disarming them. The order was given to
"Ground arms." The sepoys, momentarily hesitating, heard a
strong and resolute voice pronounce the words, " Eighty-first,
load," and looking up, as their ears caught the clang of the ram-
rods,^ saw the English gunners in front of them, standing by
their guns, portfires in hand. Perceiving the hopelessness of
resistance, they sullenly laid down their arms. Meanwhile
three companies of the 81st had marched to Lahore. On their
arrival, they disarmed the native portion of the garrison, and
took possession of the fort.^ Never was a more decisive victory
gained. By that morning's work Montgomery and Corbett had
not only saved the capital of the Punjab, — they had saved the
empire.
The work of the day, however, was not over. There were
other cities to be saved, — Ferozepore with its
great magazine; Amritsar, the Mecca of the cirrailr'ietto.
Punjab, to the inhabitants of which the mass
of the Sikh population would look for their example ; Mooltan,
surrounded by nomadic tribes of thievish Mahomedans, and
commanding the only outlet from the Punjab to the Indian
Ocean ; Kdngra, dominating the hill-country ; Phillaur, over-
looking the Grand Trunk road to Delhi, and containing in its
arsenal a large proportion of the siege-material destined for
the recapture of that city. To the civil authorities at these
places,* and to all Commissioners and Deputy-Commissioners
in the province, Montgomery now issued copies
of a circular letter of warning and instruction, ^^
concluding with the words, " I have full reliance on your zeal
and discretion." ^ In almost every instance his
confidence was justified. The Deputy - Commis- takeu for the
sioner of Amritsar, sure of the loyal aid of his sarfphUMu-,"''"
agricultural population, held his own till half a ?j'^ Kangra.
company of the 81st relieved him. Phillaur,
^ See plau and description in F. H. Cooper's Crisis in the Punjab, pp. 4, 5.
2 Times, July 4, 1857, p. 7, col. 5 ; Punjab Mutiny Re2Mrt, p. 37, par. 57.
^ lb. p. 21, par. 2, pp. 36-7, par. 57 ; Cave-Browne, vol. i. pp. 92-102, 136.
■* Except Phillaur, where, as far as I know, there was no civil authority.
^ Enclosures to Secret Letters frani India, May, 1857 ; P. M. R., p. 22, par. 4.
316 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI chap, x
which had been left almost destitute of European troops, was
speedily reinforced from the neighbouring station
w^ 14 °^ Jullundur. Kangra was surprised and oc-
cupied by a party of native jjolice.^ But the
policy of Brigadier Innes, the commandant at Ferozepore,
contrasted unfavourably with these vigorous measures.-
Though Montgomery had informed him of the intention to
disarm the brigade at Meean-meer, though he himself was
stronger in European troops than Corbett, he could not
bring himself to follow the latter's example. Montgomery's
message reached him on the 13th, at noon. His first
thought was for the magazine ; and he sent one hundred
men of the 61st regiment to guard it. But two native in-
fantry regiments had still to be dealt with. Innes himself
proposed to disarm them : but he had only taken com-
mand two days before ; and he lacked the will to overbear
the remonstrances of his officers. The compromise to which
he assented was to separate his two native regiments, and
disarm them on the morrow. The usual success of half
measures rewarded him. One regiment indeed went quietly
to the place that had been assigned to it ; but the
FeroTepore. Other broke loose from control, endeavoured to
May 13, 14. storm the magazine, and, though fortunately re-
pulsed, succeeded, with the aid of the budmashes, in
plundering and burning the European buildings. All night long
the flames raged. The British regiment could only look on in
heljoless indignation ; for Innes, feeling that he must, at any cost,
secure the magazine, had thrown in three more companies to
guard it ; and the rest had enough to do to protect their own
barracks. Next morning the mutineers quitted the station,
and took the road to Delhi. They were pursued indeed, and
dispersed with severe loss ; but some of them succeeded in
reaching their goal.^
1 P. M. R., p. 35, par. 53 ; p. 36, p.ir. 54 ; p. 39, par. 64 ; p. 50, pars. 109-10.
^ To prevent misconception, it should be stated that Innes, not being a civil
officer, was independent of Montgomery.
^ Cave-Browne, vol. i. pp. 106-12 ; Blackwond's Magazine, February, 1858,
p. 240 ; Purl. Papers, vol. xxx. (1S57), pp. 428-30. On pp. 190-1 of the Cal-
cutta Review (Jan.-June, 1359) Innes is defended. "He separated tlie native
corps," writes tlie reviewer (General, tlien Major M'Leod Innes), "and
rendered them incapable of combined action." He goes on to say that " Both
Sir John Lawrence and Mr. Montgomery recorded officially and privately their
sense of his admirable management on that occasion." I only know that Imies's
1857 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI 317
Still even this blot scarcely mars the splendour of the
achievements of the Punjab officers on the 13th
and 14th of May. Within three days from the oni'irrSb
time when the tidings of disaster reached the j" ancn''4'^ ^^^^
capital, all the most important points had been
secured ; and thus the way had been cleared for the develop-
ment of that policy which was to strengthen the hold of the
British upon the province, to quicken the loyalty of the great
bulk of the native population, and to raise up a mighty force
for the reconquest of the imperial city. The credit of that
policy has been generally assigned to John Lawrence ; but he
himself was the first to acknowledge that it was Robert
Montgomery who struck the first blow.^
Meanwhile, at the great frontier-station of Peshawar, a
body of friends and fellow - workers were inde-
pendently discussing the details of a policy which Peshawar,
was to have still more important consequences.
Peshawar stood on a small plain in the valle}^ of the same
name. Not a single building of any dignity relieved the
dulness of its irregular streets and fiat-roofed mud houses.
The town was surrounded by a low mud wall, intended as a
bulwark against robbers, and was completely dominated by a
quadrilateral fortress, the walls of which rose to the height of
ninety feet above its northern face. In striking contrast with
conduct on the 13th and 14th of May was censured in the Punjab Mntiny
RejMTt. Moreover, in a letter to Anson, dated May 21, Lawrence wrote :
"Brigadier Innes seems to me to have missed an excellent opportxmity of
teaching the sepoys a lesson which would have cowed them for hundreds of
miles around." P. M. P., p. 3, par. 8 ; Enclostn-es to Secret Letters from India,
Maj', 1857. General M'Leod Innes also commends the Bricjadier for having
secured the magazine, on the safety of which the recapture of Delhi de2jeu<led
{The Sepoy Revolt, p. 86). Nobody has ever denied that he performed this
service : but if he had jiromptly disarmed the sepoys, he might also have saved
the station. General Innes indeed finds faiilt with the author of the Ped
Pamphlet for having "assumed that all that was to be done was to disarm the
two native infantry corps, and that this was an easy operation." " He forgets,"
continues the General, "that the 10th Light Cavalry was also native, and that
there was no reason to count on their fidelity." But the Brigadier himself
tells us {Pali. Papers, vol. xxx. 1857, p. 428) that he did count on their fidelity ;
and as he was not afraid to show his hand by separating the two sepoy regi-
ments, it is diflScadt to understand whj% with his British regiment, his two com-
panies of British artillery, and his field-battery, he should have shrunk from
disarming them. General Innes answers his own argument by admitting that
the Brigadier did intend to disarm them on the morrow. Why not at once ? I
repeat that relatively he was much stronger in European troops than Corbett.
1 P. M. R., p. 3, par. 7.
318 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI chap, x
the mean appearance of the town was the grandeur of the
surrounding scenery. The valley formed a vast irregular
amphitheatre, sixty miles in length, bounded on the east by
the Indus, and girt in on every other side by hills, some of
which were bare and rocky, others clothed with vegetation.
Conspicuous above all, two hundred miles to the south-west,
rose the snow-capped peak of Takht-i-Suleman, or " Solomon's
Throne." ^
The Commissioner of the Division was Lieutenant-Colonel
Herbert Edwardes. Riper and more circumspect
EdwaTdes. than when, as a young lieutenant of infantry, he
had flung himself into that perilous enterprise
against Mooltan which had made his reputation, he was still
the same gay, imaginative, high-spirited, enthusiastic soul.
Not less sagacious, resolute, and earnest, not less stern, when
sternness was needed, than the greatest of his contemporaries,
he entered along with them upon the struggle Avith a positive
light-heartedness which was all his own. In the most de-
pressing seasons of the crisis, while all his faculties were being
tried to the uttermost, he could not help noticing the elements
of comedy which obtruded themselves into the tragedy that
was being enacted before him ; and, when the worst was over,
he sketched them for his superiors, with a humour and vivid-
ness seldom to be found in official reports. ^ He had, indeed,
rare literary gifts, which he was often to use for the advocacy
of measures of vital importance to the State. Like many other
Anglo-Indian officers of a past generation, he was a man of
strong religious convictions, and an ardent, perhaps a rash
supporter of missionary effort. His memory is still cherished
by the people of the valley.^ And there is a yet higher witness
to his worth than theirs. For he was the beloved disciple of
Henry Lawrence, the familiar friend and counsellor of John
Nicholson.
It was on the night of the 11th that the news from Delhi
reached him. Fortunately he had in Colonel
General ifee™' ^J^ney Cotton, the commander of the Peshawar
Neville brigade, a coadiutor who, like Corbett of Lahore,
Chamberlain. o ' _ J ' _ _ '
was too wise to share in the amiable credulity
^ Iluulei's Ciazettecr, vol. vii. pp. 356-7, 3C3-4 ; J. H. Stocqueler's Handbook
of India, p. 394. MS. Correspondence.
'^ P. M. It., p. 67, par. 06. ^ MS, Correspoudence.
1857 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI 319
of the common run of sepoy officers, and bold enough to act
upon his superior insight. A thorough soldier, uniting the
experience of a veteran of forty-seven years' military standing
to the activity of a subaltern. Cotton was positively overjoyed
at the prospect of hard service which the outbreak of the
Mutiny afforded him. General Reed, the Commander of the
Division, was there also, an easy-going old officer who, while
fully sensible of his own dignity, was easily manageable, and
accommodating enough to let abler men act for him. With the
consent of these two, Edwardes wrote to the station of Kohat
to invite Brigadier Neville Chamberlain, a dashing soldier and
skilful general, who had seen more service than almost any
man of his age in India, and had acquired a great reputation as
the commander of the Punjab Irregulars, to come over and take
part in a council of war. On the morning of the 13th, Cham-
berlain arrived ; and at eleven o'clock the council
met.i Besides the four who have been already Peshawan
mentioned, there was present another whose look
plainly told that his voice would command a respectful hearing
in any assembly, a man of towering form and herculean build,
whose stern, handsome face, set off by a long black beard and
grizzled Avavy hair, told at once of a resistless power of command,
an overwhelming force of character, and an intellect able to
pick a way through the most tangled mazes, or to hew down
the most stubborn obstacles of practical life ; while yet the
lustrous eyes, so thoughtful and so full of pathos, as well as
stern, deep-set beneath a massive, open forehead, suggested the
idea of one who was not less a man of contempla-
tion than a man of action,^ — Colonel John Nichol- Nicholson
son, the Deputy-Commissioner of Peshawar.
It was on the eve of the first Afghan war that Nicholson
had arrived in India. The tragic issues of that
struggle, in which he himself took a part, could
not fail to give a stern cast to a young and enthusiastic soul.
On that sad day in January, 1842, when Ghazni Avas sur-
rendered, he was one of the officers who heard British soldiers
bidden to give up their arms to Asiatics. Three times, in con-
1 P. M. R., pp. 57-8, pars. 14, 18, 21. Part of what I have said about
Cotton and Reed 1 learned from conversation with an old Punjabi who knew them
both well.
^ See A. Wilson's Abode of Snoir, p. 428.
320 THE PUTTJAB ATTD DELHI chap, x
tempt of the order, he alone, a boy of nineteen, led his men to
the attack, and drove the enemy from the walls at the point of
the bayonet; and, when at last he was forced to give ui) his
sword, he burst into tears in an agony of shame and giief.'^
In that glorious act of insubordination, which expressed such a
proud disdain for the victors of the hour, and such a bitter
condemnation of the authority which had permitted surrender,
a close observer might have discerned the promise of a man-
hood in the very faults of which there would be a majesty.
Even now there were faults enough in that heroic character, for
it was still comparatively young and immature ; but they sprang
from the very vigour and luxuriance of its growth. There was
much in it that needed pruning, little that needed forcing.
That burning impetuosity ; that headlong zeal ; that icy reserve
which repelled so many ; that temper which blazed forth at
times like the eruption of a volcano ; that fearless freedom of
speech which gave such offence to official superiors who were
conscious of real inferiority ; that awful sternness which knew
no pity towards evil-doers ; — these qualities needed to be so
disciplined that they should find their due and appointed place
in the character, instead of disturbing its balance, to be tem-
pered by a more genial sympathy with erring and straying men,
a fuller knowledge of the might of Divine compassion. No
man knew these faults better than did Nicholson himself. It
is touching to see the humility with which he, who suffered so
few to know anything of his real character save the massive
and rugged outlines which could not be hid, could write to
Herbert Edwardes, after the death of Henry Lawrence, their
common friend and master, begging for guidance, and pro-
fessing himself so weak that of his own strength he coidd do
nothing good.^ We know enough of his character to be able
to imagine what he would have become, if he had lived. But
already, at the age of thirty-four, he had done enough to win
for himself a place among the foremost heroes of Anglo-Indian
history. Lord Dalhousie had described him as "a tower of
strength." Herbert Edwardes said of him that he was equally
fitted to command an ai'my, or to administer a province. He
had so tamed one of the most lawless and bloodthirsty tribes
on the frontier that, in the last year of his rule, he had not
^ Life of Sir II. Lavn-ence, p. 197, note 2.
^ Kaye's Lives of Indian Officers, vol. ii. p. 474.
1857 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI 321
had to report even a single attempt at crime, and inspired them
with such awe and reverence that, when he had gone from
them, they likened him to the good Mahomedans of their
legendary history. A brotherhood of fakirs in Hazara
actually deified him ; and the repeated floggings with which
he characteristically strove to destroy their idolatry, served but
to strengthen their faith in the omnipotence of the relentless
Nikkal Seyn.^ Indeed, of all the heroic men whom the Indian
Mutiny brought to light, he was the one who bore unmistake-
ably the character of genius. Unversed in military science, he
led armies to victory with the certainty of Havelock. He may
indeed most truly be described not as a general, not as a
statesman, but simply as a man, who, whatever the task set
him, was sure to accomplish it by the sheer force of native
ability. Nor were the sterner features of his character un-
relieved by softer traits. How he loved his aged mother and
his younger brothers, we have learned from those who knew
him best. Those dark eyes of his, which could flash such scorn
upon the base, which could paralyse the resistance of the most
daring, could also light up with a fascinating smile when he
was in the presence of those whom he loved, and express such
a depth of tenderness as only the strongest natures can contain.
Is it to be wondered at that of such a man as this, Herbert
Edwardes should have said to Lord Canning, " If ever there is
a desperate deed to be done in India, John Nicholson is the
man to do it."^
The council rapidly and harmoniously drew up its programme.
It was settled that General Eeed, as the senior officer,
should assume command of the troops in the Punjab, ^''g council'^ °^
and proceed to join the Chief Commissioner atRdwal-
' "Sanguis martyrorum," wrote Edwardes, "est semen Ecclesiae." Raikes's
Notes on the Revolt, p. .31. Sir George Campbell, the only writer who has ever
attempted to belittle Nicholson, says [Memoirs of my Indian Career, vol. i. p. 249),
"the stories about the natives worshipping him are about as authentic as Highland
Jessie." I know nothing about Highland Jessie: but that fakirs did actually
form themselves into a sect for the worship of Nicholson, is as certain as the
Binomial Theorem. See Kaye's Lives of Indian Officers, vol. 11. p. 448, note ;
Raikes's Notes on the Revolt, p. 31 ; and Bosworth Smith's Life of Lord Lawrence,
6th ed. vol. ii. p. 9.
- Perhaps the best portrait of Nicholson is one painted by Mr. John R.
Dicksee, who was helped by the suggestions and criticisms of Sir Herbert
Edwardes. I have been told by one who knew Nicholson well that the portrait,
though it does not do justice to the strength of the lower part of the face, is on
the whole a good likeness.
322 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI chap, x
pindi. Thus the chief civil and military power would be
concentrated in one spot. After Avhat has been said of Reed's
character, it Avill easily be understood that Edwardes con-
gratulated himself upon an arrangement which, by conferring
nominal command upon a man who was neither obstinate nor
impervious to compliment, gave an assurance that the substance
would be left in the hands of those best fitted to exercise it.
It was further resolved that the important fort and ferry of
Attock on the Indus should be at once secured, and that
suspected Hindustdni regiments should be, as far as possible,
isolated.^
Defensive measures, however, were not deemed sufficient.
On first hearing the news from Meerut, Nicholson had proposed
to Edwardes that a moveable column of trustworthy troops
should be immediately organised, and held in readiness to
swoop down upon any point in the Punjab at which mutiny
might show itself. The plan had been communicated by tele-
graph to the Chief Commissioner ; and he had recommended it
to the notice of the Commander-in-Chief ; but Edwardes and
his colleagues felt that there was no time to be wasted in official
formalities, and issued orders for the formation of the column
on their own responsibility.^ To the report of the proceedings
which Edwardes forwarded to the Chief Commissioner he added
a recommendation that the most trusted commandants of the
Punjab Irregulars should be authorised to enlist recruits from
the Punjab and the British frontier, not merely to fill the gaps
made by the mutiny, but also to absorb and utilise the dangerous
elements of the population. He also asked leave to raise levies
among the Mooltanis of the Derajat, Avhom he had learned to
know and trust years before. Lawrence at first curtly refused
his consent; but a few days later, convinced by the fiery eloquence
of Edwardes that it was of vital importance to strengthen Pesha-
war as far as possible, he gave way.^
On the 16th, Edwardes was summoned by the Chief Com-
missioner to attend a council at Rawalpindi.
"^ ■ Returning to his own post on the 21st, he found
1 P. M. R., pp. .^)S-9, par. 23.
^ Ih. p. 58, pars. 18, 22. MS. Correspondence.
* lb. Mr. Bosworth Smith writes {Life of Lord Lawrence, vol. ii. p. 44),
" by John Lawrence's special autliorisation, Edw.ardes and Nicholson . . . called
upon the . . . khans of the Derajat to raise a thousand Mooltanee horse in our
support." He apparently does not know tlr.it the "authorisation" had to be
1857 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI 323
a crisis impending.^ To enable the reader to understand aright
the events which followed, it is necessary to present a general
review of the state of the Peshawar Division before the Mutiny.
At the beginning of May there was perfect peace in the
Peshawar valley, in the districts of Hazara and „, , ..,
T 1 '11 mi State of the
Kohat, and on the mountain borders. The popula- Peshawar
tion of the city itself were apt for treason and
intrigue ; but there was no open opposition to be feared from
them, though they would have been ready enough to aid and
abet bolder traitors in murder and rapine. Beyond the border,
however, the untameable tribes of Afri'dis and Mohmands were
almost all under blockade ^ for murders, highway robberies, and
other crimes. Moreover, while, as has been said, the success of
the recent negotiations with Dost Mahomed could not quiet all
apprehensions of danger from Kabul, the skirmishers of the
Persian army were still hovering on the western frontier of
Kandahdr. About eight thousand native and two thousand
eight hundred European soldiers garrisoned the valley : but of
the native regiments only one was at all trustworthy ; and
another, the 64th, was so notoriously disloyal that, to keep it
out of harm's way, it was broken up into detachments, which
were sent off on the 13th to three of the outposts. Such were
the conditions on which hung the chances of the security of
Peshawar. Of what vital importance it was to maintain that
security, may be gathered from the remark of a sagacious old
Sikh sirdar who, on being asked by a well-known civilian why
he always enquired so anxiously about the safety of Peshawar,
replied by rolling up the end of his scarf, and saying, "If
Peshawar goes, the whole Punjab will be rolled up in rebellion
like this." 3
And indeed, although the officers who were responsible for
the safety of Peshawar never for a moment feared
that it would go, there was evidence enough to reveiaWons.
convince them that all their powers would be
extorted. As Edward Tliorutou said, Johu Lawrence's was ' ' not an originating
mind." Ih. p. 49.
1 P. M. R., pp. 59, 60, pars. 25, 29.
^ " This consists in forbidding an offending tribe to trade with Peshawxir and
imprisoning any member of it caught in the valley till the tribe submits." —
P. M. J?., p. 57, note.
* P. M. R., pp. 57-8. pars. 2, 4, .5, 8, 12, 14, p. 71, par. 94 ; Cave-Browne
vol. i. p. 153.
324 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI chap, x
strained to hold on to it. In the short period of Edwardes's
absence a succession of j^lots had been discovered. Letters
were intercepted from Mahoraedan fanatics, some of whom
belonged to Patna, to sepoys of the ill-famed 64th, glorifying
the atrocities -which had been already committed by the
mutineers in Hindustan, and urging those addressed to go and
do likewise. These letters also proved that a treasonable
correspondence had been carried on, through the medium of the
64th, with certain notorious Hindustani fanatics settled in Swat
and Sitana. Not less important was another letter addressed
by one of the regiments at Peshawar to the 64th, and given up
by the latter to the Brigadier, because their isolation forbade
them to act upon it. This letter contained an invitation to the
64th to come to Peshawar, and throw in their lot with the
senders, and contained allusions to the greased cartridge which,
not being intended for the perusal of Europeans, were unques-
tionably genuine.^ Before these discoveries had been made,
Nicholson had taken every precaution for the security
Nidhoi^on°^ of the ladies and children, and the treasure, and
had set a watch over every ferry on the Indus, to
prevent the passage of intending mutineers. He now tried to
persuade the chiefs of the valley to raise their armed retainers
for the support of the Europeans in the coming striiggle. But
the chiefs, remembering the events of 1841, and knowing that
Delhi had fallen, refused to risk their people's lives in a cause
which they regarded as desperate. " Show us that you are the
stronger," they said, " and there shall be no lack of aid." ^
^ P. M. R., p. 61, pars. 40-2. It may be stated here tliat immense numbers
of seditious letters were discovered by the officials whose duty it was to exercise
supervision over the post-offices of the country. " The treason," ^v^ites the author
of the General Report on the Administration of the Punjab Territories for 1856-7
a/ic? 1857-8, " was generally couched in figurative and enigmatical phrases. . . .
It was abundantly manifest, that the sepoys and others really did believe that we
intended to destroy their caste by various devices, of whicli the impure cartridge
was one ; that the embers of Mahomedau fanaticism had again begun to glow,"
p. 12, par. 25. The document referred to is to be found in the volume which con-
tains the Punjab Mutiny Report.
Again, in a letter to Colvin, Hervey Greathed writes, " The result of all ques-
tioning of sepoys who have fallen into our hands regarding the cause of their
mutiny is the same ; they invariably cite the cartouch as the origin. No other
ground of complaint has ever been alluded to ... a consciousness of power had
grown up in the army which could only be exercised by mutiny, and the cry of
the cartridge brought the latent sph'it of revolt into action, " Enclosures to Secret
Letters from India, Sejjt. 24, 1857, pp. 455-6.
2 P. M. R., pp. 60-1, pars. 31, 44 ; Cooper, p. 69.
1857 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI 325
The proof which they required was soon forthcoming. On
the night of Edwardes's return, he and Nicholson rpj^g ^.^.^^-^ ^^_^
lay down together to rest in their clothes, feeling Peshawar.
sure that there would be troubles before morning. ^^'^^ -^•
Their presentiments were justified. At midnight a messenger
came in to tell them that some companies of the 55th, stationed
at Nowshera, had mutinied, and that the 10th Irregular
Cavalry at the same place might at any moment follow their
example. They saw at once that a crisis was upon them.
Probably by this time the main body of the 55th, which was
stationed at Marddn, would also have risen. Yet it would be
impossible to send a force to reduce them without dangerously
weakening Peshawar. Moreover, the troops at the latter place
could not long be kept in ignorance of what their comrades had
done ; and then they would be sure to do likewise. There was
only one way of grappling with the danger. Before the 55th
could be dealt with, the troops at Peshawar must be disarmed ;
and afterwards the people of the country must be invited to
furnish men to supply their places. The experiment was a
hazardous one ; but the tAvo friends were resolved that it should
succeed. Accordingly they went off at once to the quarters of
Cotton, roused him from his sleep, and told him what they had
heard. He saw as clearly as they the dangers which it por-
tended. All the commanding officers were therefore summoned
to attend a council at the Residency. By daybreak they were
assembled ; and for two hours they remonstrated
with generous indignation against the disgrace with ' ^^ """
which their " children " were threatened. The colonel of one
regiment went so far as to declare that his men would attack
the guns if called on to give up their muskets. After this.
Cotton could hesitate no longer. He decided indeed to spare
one regiment of infantry, without which it would have been
impossible to carry on the work of the station, and two of
irregular cavalry, believing that these corps were free from the
taint of disloyalty, and feeling confident that he could at any
moment disarm them in case of need : but within an hour the
four remaining regiments were paraded, and ordered to lay
down their arms. Taken aback by the suddenness of the
command, and overawed by the presence of the European
troops, they obeyed without demur : and it is said that, as
their muskets and sabres were about to be carted away, some
326 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI chap, x
of their British officers indignantly flung their own spurs and
swords upon the piles. " How little worthy," wrote Edwardes,
" were the men of officers who could thus almost mutiny for
their sakes." But the people of the country took a wiser view
of the conduct of Cotton and his colleagues. A few chiefs had
attended the parade, curious to see which side would prove the
stronger ; but, Avhen all was over, and the Englishmen, having
quietly asserted their supremacy, were riding back to their
quarters, a multitude of natives came swarming up, protesting
the warmth of their attachment, and eagerly offering their ser-
vices. From that day there was no difficulty in raising levies.^
It was now possible to act against the 55th at Mardan, who
had been joined by some of their mutinous com-
Spottfsvvoode. I'a-des from Nowshera. Their commandant, Colonel
Spottiswoode, however, actually wrote to assure
Cotton that he trusted them implicitly, and earnestly begged
him not to send any troops against them : but no notice could
be taken of such insane generosity ; and accordingly, on the
night of the 23rd, a small force started from Peshawar under
Colonel Chute of the 70th Queen's, accompanied by John
Nicholson as political officer. On the night of the 24th the
approach of the force was suspected at Mardan ; and then
followed an incident than which there Avas none more painfully
touching in the whole history of the war. The native officei's
went to ask their colonel for an explanation. They went out
from his presence unsatisfied ; and he, left alone in his room,
and unable to bring himself to witness the disgrace which was
to befall his men, committed suicide.-
But for those who had so abused his confidence destiny had
appointed a more dreadful end. At sunrise on
«i(f55uJ°^ the following morning they discerned the column
winding along towards Mardan ; and then all but
a hundred and twenty, who were restrained by the threats and
persuasions of the officers, broke tumultuously from the fort,
and fled. The column pressed on in pursuit ^ : but the muti-
^ P. M. R., pp. G3-5, pars. 46-53. General Cotton wrote, "Even the
Affredies and other hill tril)es, our enemies continually iu times of peace, against
whose depredations, up to that very moment, measures were being taken, came
forward and tendered their services." Nine. Years on the North- Westent Frontier
uf JiuI'm, p. 170.
- P. M. P., pp. 65-ti, pars. 56, 58-9 ; Cave-Browne, vol. i. ]i. 170, note.
' It was at Nicholson's suggestion that the pursuit was undertaken. Chute
1857 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI 327
neers were far ahead ; the ground was so heavy that the artillery
could not get within range ; and the chase was all in vain until
Nicholson, taking with him a few of his own police sowars,
dashed to the front, and rode into the fugitive masses. Break-
ing before his charge, they scattered themselves over the
country in sections and companies ; but all day long he pur-
sued them, hunted them out of the villages in which they
sought for refuge, drove them over ridges, cut down their
stragglers in ravines, and never rested till, having ridden over
seventy miles, slain a hundred and twenty, and wounded be-
tween three and four hundred of the traitors, taken a hundred
and fifty prisoners, and recovered two hundred stand of arms
and the regimental colours, he was forced by the approach of
night to draw rein, while those who had escaped him fled across
the border into the hills of Swat. Proclaiming themselves re-
ligious martyrs, they persuaded the king to take them into his
service ; and for a moment there seemed a danger that they
might return with renewed strength to menace the Punjab.
The virtual ruler of Swat was an aged priest, known as the
Akhund. Had he espoused their cavise, and, taking them with
him, swept dov/n upon the Peshawar valley, and preached a
holy Avar against the infidels, he might have kindled the
smouldering religious zeal of the population into such a flame
as would have, perhaps, consumed the fabric of British power.
Fortunately, instead of doing this, he expelled them from the
country, only granting them guides to conduct them across the
Indus. Then, in their misery, they resolved to throw them-
selves upon the mercy of the Maharaja of Kashmir. To reach
his country, however, they must either pass through Hazara
or along its borders ; and Major Becher, the Deputy-Com-
missioner, laid his plans to intercept them. Incited by him,
the armed zami'ndars and clansmen occupied all the passes ; and
the mutineers, finding their road eastward disputed, were forced
to turn back and enter the Kohistan. But they little knew
the horrors of that inhospitable land, where the only paths lay
beneath overhanging precipices along ledges which scarcely
afforded foothold to the most practised cragsmen ; they had
little food and little clothing, no cover from the rains and the
night-dews. A jamaddr, unheeded by his comrades, whom he
himself occupied tlie fort with a portion of the force. Enclosures to Secret Ldteis
from India, August 1857, p. 721.
328 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI chap, x
had urged to go back, and rather die fighting like sokliers than
perish like hunted beasts among the rocks, committed suicide.
The rest pushed on : but every man's hand was against them ;
and, after many had been drowned, or stoned, or slain in battle
by the mountaineers whom Becher hounded on against them,
nearly all the rest, now too weary and too tamed by suffering
to resist, laid down their arms, and suffered the penalty of
mutineers. Not quite all, however ; for some few purchased
the right to exist by apostatising from their religion, or sub-
mitting to slavery.^
Meanwhile Nicholson had not been idle. On the day follow-
ing his great exploit against the 55th, he heard
... ^!''' , that a famous outlaw, named Aiun Khan, had
A,] 11 n Khan and ■, ■, r i i -n t ■ -^ ,.■
thegaiTisonof descended from the hills, at the invitation, as
Abazai. ^^^ believed, of a detachment of the 64th, stationed
in the fort of Abazai. It seemed more than probable that he
would take the remnant of the 55th into his service, and, with
Abazai betrayed to him, stir up the whole frontier population
to attack the British power. Nicholson, however, was there to
defy him : Chute's little column was now strongly reinforced :
the frontier tribes could not forget Avhat it had already
accomplished ; and the outlaw, rather than provoke a contest,
discreetly returned to the hills. A few days
later Chute and Nicholson disarmed the treacherous
troops at Abazai ; and Nicholson rode back, in
advance of the column, to Peshawar."^
There, thanks to the wise government of Edwardes and
Cotton, disaffection had not dared to show itself.
Policy of Whenever the necessity had arisen for inflicting
and Cotton, the punishment of death on deserters or mutineers,
Cotton had compelled the native troops to witness
the execution ; and, well knowing that the slightest breach of
discipline would bring down the same fate upon themselves,
they had stood like statues while their comrades were being
hanged or bloAvn away from guns.^ "Even the criminals
' P. M.R., p. 66, par. Gl ; p]). 70-1, par.s. 84-6 ; pp. 136-9, pans. 19-.".l.
2 lb. p. 66, par. 65 ; p. 68, par. 73.
•* " The news of the.se executions, and the mode adopted iu caiTying them into
effect, spread far and wide, and even in the city of C.abul itself, were the suljjeet
of discussion and of astonishment. It was clear to all that discipline was ujiheld
and maintained . . . and the Afghans, keenly watching the turn of events, on
finding that the supremacy of the British Government had prevailed, were
1857 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI 329
themselves," wrote Edwardes, " seemed to take a pride in the
very discipline they had dared, and stood up in line to be shot
with the accuracy and steadiness of machines." But he and
Cotton had too deep a knowledge of the people with whom
they had to deal to trust to repressive measures alone. Their
fearless and defiant bearing had so impressed men's minds that,
if they now showed a desire to conciliate, they need not
apprehend the suspicion of weakness. The mode of conciliation
which they adopted was an appeal to that avarice which they
knew to have more sway over the hearts of the Afghan popula-
tion of the valley than even the passion of religious fanaticism.
A proclamation was issued authorising any one who found a
deserter to kill him, and take possession of his personal
property. A militia was levied, to keep the peace, and to
counterbalance the Hindustani regiments. Unlike the mass of
the Punjabis, the people of the valley had never been disarmed ;
and thus no difficulty was found in collecting sufficient numbers
of armed footmen. To raise cavalry was not so easy, for good
horses were scarce ; but still plenty of candidates for enlistment
came forward. When the crisis was at its worst, Edwardes
was often to be seen in the Eesidency garden, manfully con-
cealing the disappointment which some gloomy telegram had
given him, and listening with a humorous smile to the arguments
with which owners of vicious or unsound horses tried to prove
their perfection. But the quality of the horses was of very
little importance in comparison with the enthusiasm and good
feeling which these scenes aroused among the people. The
very men who would have been ready, at the bidding of the
first eloquent fanatic that appeared, to draw their swords
against us, were converted by the promise of pay, the hope of
plunder, and the skilful management of the Commissioner, into
the chief props of our power, and lost all sympathy with the
mutineers. 1
deterred from an aggressive movement . . . the subsidy, given by the British
Commissioner to . . . Dost Mahomnied ... no doubt had some effect in the mind
of that sordid monarch . . . but the Afghans themselves, ever restless and un-
settled, were throughout meditating an attack on the British frontier, and a rich
harvest in Hindostau ; and were alone deterred from the movement by the im-
posing attitude which had been assumed at Peshawur ; and it came to the
author's knowledge, afterwards, that thirty thousand Afghans had shod their
horses at one time, ready to invade our territory." — Cotton, pp. 174-5. See
also Enclosures to Secret Letters from India, July 23, 1858, pp. 152, 169, 197.
1 P. M. R., pp. 67-8, pars. 66-81 ; p. 71, par. 95 ; pp. 80-1, pars. 143-6.
330 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI chap, x
Meanwhile, in the opj)osite extremity of the province, a
different scene was being enacted. It has been
LudS' """"^ ah-eady mentioned that, Avithin the first few days
after the seizure of Delhi, a body of troops was
sent from Jullundur to reinforce Phillaur. But while taking
this precaution. Brigadier Johnstone, the commandant of the
troops at Jullundur, neglected to disarm his own sepoys,
though every day furnished fresh evidence of their iintrust-
worthiness. On the 7th of June, an hour before midnight,
they rose. It would be needless to do more than barely note
such a natural occurrence but for the fact that the mischief
which it caused was not isolated. The mutineers broke up
into two detachments, the larger of which made for Philla\ir,
Avhere, probably in consequence of a preconcerted plan, they
were joined by the native portion of the garrison. The entire
body Avould now have crossed the Sutlej, if an unexpected
difficulty had not arisen. A young civilian named Thornton,
the Assistant-Commissioner of Ludhiana, had, with commendable
presence of mind, cut away the bridge of boats. The mutineers
were obliged therefore to make for a ferry some three miles
distant ; and thus a rare opportunity was afforded to Johnstone
of repairing his error by pursuing and punishing them. But
such opportunities generally serve only to place the incompe-
tence of those to whom they are offered in a still
Junes. stronger light. Johnstone wasted much valuable
time before starting in pursuit ; he halted, during
the heat of the day, for five hours ; and, when his column at
last reached Phillaur, it was condemned to inaction for want
of a guide to conduct it to the ierry.
But, if the mutineers could afford to despise the weakness
of Johnstone, they had yet to reckon with a man of another
stamp, George Eicketts, the Deputy-Commissioner of Ludhiana.
It was not till ten o'clock on the morning of the 8th that he
heard of the rising at Jullundur. Perceiving the danger to
which his own station was exposed, he resolved not to wait to
be attacked. Fortunately the 4th Sikhs had just arrived at
Ludhiana, on their way to Delhi. Ordering Lieutenant
Williams, the second officer of the regiment, to march for
Phillaur with three companies of his own men, a contingent
furnished by the Raja of Ndbha, and two small guns, he him-
self rode on in advance to ascertain the whereabouts of the
1857 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI 331
mutineers. Finding that they had made for the ferry, he
returned, and, after taking counsel with Williams, resolved to
make an effort to intercept them. Night had already set in
when, after a tedious march, he came in sight of them encamped
on the Ludhiana side of the ferry. Though taken completely
by surprise, they challenged him to come on, and fired a volley.
He sharply ordered the two guns to be brought up ; but the
horses attached to one of them, maddened by the flashes and
reports of the muskets, bolted. Eunning back, he met and
hurried up the other, unlimbered, and sent a round of grape
into the midst of the mutineers. Most of them dispersed ; but
those who remained returned the fire ; and Ricketts found his
little force weakened by the flight of the Nabha troops, who
had not stood to receive a single volley. Still the remaining
gun was admirably served ; and, though the mutineers began
to rally, the handful of Sikhs fought a noble battle until
Ricketts, finding his ammunition exhausted, judged it prudent
to retreat.
About eleven o'clock on the following day the mutineers
entered Ludhiana, and, aided by the native garrison
June 9
and the populace, attacked the houses of Govern-
ment officials, released the prisoners, plundered the native
traders, and finally marched for Delhi. Twice during the day
Ricketts had sent urgent messages to Johnstone, begging for
succour : but, when the succour at last came, it was too late.
Of Johnstone's conduct it is needless to speak. It was
approved at the Horse Guards ; it was condemned in India.
It was justified by Johnstone himself on this ground among
others, that he could not venture to expose his Europeans to
the perils of undertaking a long pursuit under an Indian sun.
But, had he originally disarmed his sepoys, no pursuit would
have been necessary ; and it is fair to assume that British
soldiers, the comrades of the men who, under the burning sun
and the drenching storms of July, August, and September, fought
their way from Allahabad to Cawnpore, and from Cawnpore to
Lucknow, Avould have blushed to hear of the excuse which was
put forward by their commander for his inaction.^
1 /'. Af. R., pp. 33-1, pars. 47-8. Enclosures t'> Secret Letters from India,
4 July 1857, p. 321 ; Aug. 1S.'.7, pp. 125, 804-0; 24 Sept. 1857, pp. 41-62,
75-101. Captain Farriugtou, describing the so-called pursuit, wrote "We
marclied to Phugwarra, wliicli place we reached at 11 o'clock — we baited there
5^ hours. The General observed it was very hot and said he would halt till it
332 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI chap, x
The action of Ricketts, too, speaks for itself. It is true
that he failed to save Ludhiana from attack : but no man
could have accomplished more than he did ; and perhaps it was
partly due to the awe with which his daring had inspired them
that the mutineers made such haste to pursue their march to
Delhi. It is probable that their original intention had been to
occupy Ludhiana, from which they could have fomented in-
surrection through the Cis-Sutlej States, dominated the Grand
Trunk Road, and thus delayed the passage of the troops
destined to aid in the recapture of Delhi. But, in their hurry
to leave Jullundur, they had taken blank instead of balled
ammunition. This accident alone prevented Johnstone from
becoming as notorious as Hewitt and Lloyd.
It is more important, however, to point out what was than
what might have been ; and the actual results of Johnstone's
weakness were bad enough. Though an accident had prevented
the mutineers from making Ludhiana their headquarters, their
mere passage through the district cavised a violent commotion.
Arson, murder, highway robbery, cattle-lifting, and dacoity sud-
denly revived ; and some of the offenders, when apprehended,
naively accounted for their misconduct by confessing that they
had believed the rule of the British to be over. Ricketts, how-
ever, soon restored order by a method as original as it was
effective. It was simply a philosophical application of the old-
fashioned principle of tit for tat. He mercilessly executed all
who had been found guilty of violent crimes, disarmed the city
population because they had not used their arms in defence of
authority, and imposed a heavy fine upon them, to impress
upon their minds that it was their interest to exert themselves
in the maintenance of order. ^
Another noteworthy result of the Jullundur mutiny remains
to be recorded. It had been at first deemed unwise, in the
absence of an adequate European force, to attempt to disarm
the sepoys at Mooltan. Now, however, the Chief Commissioner,
got cooler. Had rations been sent with tlie rum an hour's rest would have been
ample." Major Briud, who had before "had the fullest contidence in the
judgment and energy of the Brigadier," attributed "the paralysing efleet of
his refusing to act, or receive suggestions, to mental depression."
» P. M. J{., p. 34, par. 48 •" p)). 89-91, pars. 20-22, 25 ; p. 112, par. 29 ;
p. 113, ])ars. 34-0 ; pp. 114-16, pais. 40-1, 45. Cooper's Crisis in the Punjab,
pp. 91-2. Eaclosares to Secret Letters from. India, 20 to 29 July, 1857, pp.
80, 82.
1857 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI 333
fearing that they would rise as soon as they heard of the mutiny
at Jullundur, and knowing that the loss of Mooltan would in-
volve the loss of the whole Southern Punjab, and with it of the
road to Bombay, determined that, at all hazards, the attempt
must be made. So delicate, however, was the task that, feeling
no confidence in the ability of the commandant of the station,
he entrusted it to another officer, Major Crawford Disarming
Chamberlain, by whom it was successfully per- atMooUan.
formed. To quote the words of the Chief Com-
missioner, " the disarming at Mooltan was a turning-point in
the Punjab crisis, second only in importance to the disarming
at Lahore and Peshawur." ^
Hitherto the narrative of the Punjab crisis has only dealt
with a few prominent places, at which occurred General policy
events too important to be relegated to the ob- of the Punjab
. '- • n 1 • Government.
scurity 01 a summary review. buch a review,
dealing with the general policy of the Punjab Government and
the demeanour of the native population, it will now be proper
to attempt.
An eye-witness has eloquently described the impression made
upon him by the calm, cheerful bearing of the Chief Com-
missioner, as he met Edwardes and Chamberlain in council at
Rdwalpindi.'^ It is unnecessary to do more than indicate the
most prominent features of the problem which lay before him,
and the principle of solution which he adopted. He could not
yet tell how far the population of his own province would be
disposed to encourage mutiny, or to embark in rebellion. But,
however loyal they might be, there would still be work enough
for him in guarding them from the hostility or the intrigues of
their untameable neighbours beyond the frontier. Another
anxious question presented itself, in connexion with the Pun-
jabi troops, of whom at least a fourth were Hindustanis. Would
the minority succeed in corrupting the majority ? Was it even
certain that the majority had no quarrel of their own to settle 1
Happily on these points suspense was soon at an end. In the
third week of May it became manifest that the Punjabi soldiers
had no sympathy with the Hindustdnis ; and it was therefore at
I P. M. R., pp. 50-1, par. 114 ; pp. 11-12, par. 29. Cave-Browne, vol. i. p. 124.
To speak with strict accuracy, Lawrence induced General Gowan, who was then
commanding in the Punjab, to entrust the task to Chamberlain.
■■* Cave-Browne, vol. i. p. ISO.
334 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI chap, s
once resolved to add to their numbers, in order to compensate
for the losses entailed by mutiny or desertion. Thirty-four
thousand new troops of various races, creeds, and dialects were
thus raised ; and many more would have been forthcoming, if
the Chief Commissioner had not wisely resolved to prevent the
Punjabis from flattering themselves that they were indispens-
able to the British power. ^
The sepoys, as the reader will already have perceived, were
differently treated. At one time, indeed, the Chief Commis-
sioner thought of disarming every regiment in the jjrovince ;
but, finding that it would not in all cases be possible to prevent
the men from deserting afterwards to reinforce their comrades
at Delhi, he gave up his intention, still, however, keeping the
policy of disarming in view, as a remedy for hopeless cases of
insubordination.-
How to provide the sinews of war, was a problem which
soon engaged the attention of the authorities. Towards the
end of May, the Commissioner of the Cis-Sutlej States opened
a six per cent loan, to be repaid within one year ; and this
measure was soon extended to the whole province. The results
were very significant of the state of popular feeling. While
the chiefs, who had already shown themselves ready to help the
Government with their arms, offered liberal subscriptions, the
wealthy bankers and merchants contributed as little as they
dared.^
Special measures were also taken for the preservation of
order among the non-military classes. The police, who from
the first showed an admirable spirit, were strengthened ; and,
to aid them in keeping the peace, the feudatory chiefs were
required to furnish contingents from their retainers. Plun-
derers, when apprehended, were forced to pay for all the pro-
perty which they had stolen or destroyed. Criminals were
punished with a ruthlessness which was amply justified by the
paramount necessity of saving the State ; though severity was
judiciously tempered with mercy as soon as the might of
authority had been sufficiently demonstrated. The ferries and
^ P. M. li., pp. 1, 2, par. 3 ; pp. C, 7, pars. 16-17 ; Enclosures to Secret
Letters from. India, .Sept. to Dec. ISr.S, p]). 102-3.
'■^ P. M. R., p. 8, par. 21 ; pp. 10-11, par. 27.
^ lb. p. 9, par. 22 ; p. 23, par. 9. The amount realised in the whole of the
Punjab between July 1857 and January 1858 was about 41 lakhs, or 4,100,000
rupees. General Report, \>. 27, par. 82.
1857 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI 335
passages of the great rivers were strictly watched ; and no
travellers who could not give a satisfactory account of them-
selves were allowed to pass.^ Arrangements were made for
securing the treasure in the various districts with such success
that, from the beginning to the end of the crisis, not more than
ten thousand pounds were lost. This fact is in itself enough
to show how admirably the Punjab officials did their work.
How heavy the burden of their work was, may be judged from
the fact that, while in most cases they managed to perform
their ordinary duties without falling into arrears, they were
also obliged to exercise constant supervision over the post-office,
to distribute supplies of ammunition, to keep an eye upon the
prisoners in the gaols, to repair bridges, to collect transport-
carriage, to raise new regiments, to provide for the safety of
the ladies and children, and to perform a variety of other
tedious and inglorious, but necessary services too numerous to
be mentioned, besides holding themselves in readiness to accom-
pany detachments of troops into the field, or even to bear arms
in person. 2
The behaviour of the people of the country may next be
noticed. The frontier tribes, of whose conduct
such fears had been entertained, were never really ofe'peopie.°^
dangerous, though often troublesome. The in-
eradicable restlessness and unruliness of the Mahomedans were
naturally excited by the electrical state of the political atmo-
sphere. The Sikhs remained thoroughly loyal so long as they
retained confidence in the vitality of the Government. In nine
cases out of ten, such disturbances as did arise were traced to
the machinations of Hindustanis. So dangerous indeed were
these aliens that the Chief Commissioner caused large numbers
of them to be expelled from the province.^
On the whole, however, the people of the Punjab stood
the strain of the Mutiny so well as to win the emphatic com-
mendation of the Chief Commissioner. It would of course
^ "The five great rivers," observes the author of the General Report,
" eminently favoured the Punjab administration during the crisis. They cut ott'
the Punjab from Hindoostan, and divided the province into so many portions,
almost like the compartments which are constructed in a ship to prevent the rush
of invading water from one part to another," p. 11, par. 22.
2 n. pp. 10-11, par. 20 ; pp. 12-13, par. 28. P. M. R., pp. 7, 8, pars. 18-21 ;
p. 9, par. 24 ; p. 23, pars. 11, 13 ; p. 28, par. 29.
s P. M. R., p. 18, par. 48 ; pp. 23-4, par. 14.
336 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI ciiAr. x
be childish to argue from the fact that their behaviour was
outwardly good, that they cherished a heartfelt loyalty towards
their rulers. But they were naturally disposed to respect the
power that was ; they saw that the British were that power,
and had no idea of abdicating ; and they felt a kind of passive
sentiment in favour of the most merciful, the most just, and
above all the most powerful government under which they had
ever lived. Many of the chiefs rendered valuable services,
the most prominent instances of which have been detailed, to
the State which had protected them,^ Some districts remained
absolutely tranquil throughoiit. Where disturbances did
break out, they were due, not to any reasonable or definite
dislike of British rule, but to a belief in its instability. Thus
thieves, dacoits, and budmashes of every kind thought they
saw a fine opportunity for pursuing their favourite avocations
with impunity. Unquiet spirits, like the Mahomedans of the
Murree Hills, whose only quarrel with our Government was
that it prevented men from cutting each other's throats,
attempted to renew their hereditary feuds. Some chiefs even,
who were at heart thoroughly well disposed, seeing the
apparently desperate straits to which their existing rulers
were reduced, began uneasily to consider how they should
make their peace with the new regime.
But such instances of disloyalty or weakness of faith were
few and far between. During the months that witnessed the
virtual annihilation of British rule in the North - Western
Provinces, there was in the Punjab no great increase in the
number of violent crimes, while minor offences actually
diminished : the civil courts, almost without exception, re-
mained open all through the crisis : the land-revenue was paid
up almost to the last rupee : the excise-taxes positively in-
creased ; and there was but little falling-off in the attendance
at the Government schools. These facts are proof enough of
the firm grasp which the Government maintained throughout
upon the province.^
^ Lawrence, witli great judgement, wrote to all the Sikh chiefs who had
suffered for the rebellion of 1848, and " urged them to retrieve their character
and come down at once with their retainers. ... As soon as they came in,
he organised and sent them off to Delhi." Life of Lord Lawrence, vol. ii.
p. 97.
2 General Repm-t, p. 6, par. 7 ; p. 9, par. 16 ; p. 15, par. 37 ; p. 19, par. 49.
P. M. R., p. 17, par. 47 ; p. 24, par. 17 ; p. 35, par. 52 ; p. 37, par. 58 ;
1857 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI 337
One portion of the territory subject to Sir John Lawrence
has not been glanced at in the above review,
because the part which it played in our history KutUjStates.
was so special and important as to demand a
separate notice. This was the Division known as the Cis-
Sutlej States, lying between the Sutlej and the Jumna, It
was of the last importance to preserve this country intact, not
only because it was traversed by the final stage of the Gi*and
Trunk Eoad to Delhi, but also because, in the absence of any
natural boundary between the Punjab and the North-Western
Provinces, it served, to quote the words of Commissioner
Barnes, " as a kind of breakwater " to repel the strong tide of
mutiny from the east. But the task of its officers was
rendered peculiarly difficult by the fact that the population,
though of mixed races, were more nearly akin to the Hin-
dustanis than to the Punjabis. Naturally therefore the greater
number of them sympathised with the sepoys. How their
worst passions were stimulated by contact with the mutineers
from Jullundur and Phillaur has already been shown ; and
this evil influence spread far beyond the limits of the Ludhiana
district. Mahomedan chiefs were detected in treasonable corre-
spondence : hereditary thieving tribes eagerly clutched at the
opportunity of renewing their depredations : villagers raised
disturbances, and refused to deliver up fugitive mutineers to
justice; and violent crimes alarmingly increased, though, from
the intentness with which the criminal classes were watching
the turns of the rebellion, ordinary misdemeanours almost
entirely ceased.
But Commissioner Barnes and his subordinates were equal
to the occasion. With what energy they forwarded the de-
spatch of the first British force that marched against Delhi,
the reader already knows. And now, with the Sikh portion of
the population, the Rajas of Patiala, Nabha, and Jhind, and
a number of loyal and influential native gentlemen on their
side, they resolutely set themselves to stamp out every
symptom of revolt in their own districts. Their police scoured
the country, and, assured of indemnity, slew every criminal
upon whom they could lay their hands. Highway robbers
p. ."9, par. 64 ; p. 41, par. 75 ; p. 42, par. 78 ; p. 43, par. 82 ; p. 45, pars. 87-8 ;
p. 47, par. 9G ; p. 48, par. 101 ; p. 49, pars. 104-5 ; p. 50, pav. 109 ; p. 51,
par. 114.
33S THE PUNJAB AND DELHI chap, x
and plunderers were, in many cases, hanged on the nearest
trees as soon as they were caught. The revenue was only to
be collected at the point of the bayonet ; but it was collected.
It is needless to say that severity like this proved to be the
truest mercy in the end. By the close of July the Avorst was
over. From that moment the people began to return to their
allegiance ; and the process of tranquillisation was hastened by
the passage of reinforcements on their way to Delhi.^
The mention of these reinforcements naturally introduces
an account of Sir John Lawrence's imperial as
imperia^poiicy. distinguished from his local policy. To him that
hath more shall be given ; and the Chief Com-
missioner was rewarded for the firmness Avith Avhich he kept
the peace in the Punjab by finding himself able to make it
contribute towards the restoration of peace in Hindustan.
While recording the unselfishness with which he weakened his
own resources in order to strengthen those of the empire, it
would be unjust not to mention that for the power to do so
he was partly indebted to the generosity of Bartle Frere, the
Commissioner of Sind, who sent up battalion after battalion
to support him, and laboured throughout in support of the
Punjab administration as heartily as if he had been a Punjab
officer. General Van Cortlandt was sent across the Punjab,
May 31. to reconquer the districts north-west of Delhi.
To provide for the wants of the besieging army,
a system of transport, by canal and waggon trains, was
organised from Kardehi on the western seaboard through the
Punjab. Besides an abundance of stores of every description
and the greater part of the necessary treasure, John Lawrence
contributed in all towards the recapture of Delhi, six battalions
of European infantry, a regiment of European cavalry and a
considerable force of European artillery, seven battalions of
Punjabi infantry, three regiments of Punjabi cavalry, a
Punjabi corps of sappers and miners and a number of Sikh
artillerymen, two siege-trains, and eight thousand auxiliaries
furnished by native chiefs. Of this mighty array of troops,
the Punjabis had been formed by nine years of hard campaign-
ing along a rugged and mountainous frontier into the finest
1 General Report, p. 8, par. 14. P. M. R., p. 26, par. 21 ; p. 27, par. 28 ;
p. 29, par. 82 ; p. 31, par. 42 ; p. 87, pars. 13-14 ; p. 88, par. IG : p. 89, par.
18 ; p. 90, par. 21 ; p. 116, par. 45 : pp. 117-18, pars. 47-52.
1857 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI 339
soldiers, with the single exception of the Gurkhas, whom India
had ever produced. When the seizure of Delhi became known,
many of them were absent on furlough ; but, as soon as they
received the order to return, they set out on foot to rejoin
their regiments, and eagerly demanded to be led against the
rebels.^
One regiment, the first that started from the Punjab, indeed
the first that started at all, to the attack of Delhi,
deserves special mention here. This was the March of the
famous corps of Guides, composed of stalwart De'iiir
frontier-men of all races, men to whom Henry
Lawrence, in the exercise of that foresight which discerned the
premonitory symptoms of the Mutinj^, had pointed as the best
material to regenerate the effete pipe - clayed battalions of
Hindustan, and who, likewise at his suggestion, were allowed
to wear " their own loose, dusky shirts, and sun-proof, sword-
proof turbans," instead of being imprisoned in European
ixniforms. At the time of the outbreak at Meerut, the corps,
consisting of three troops of cavalry and six companies of
infantry, was quartered at Mardan, under the command of
Captain Daly. On the 13th of May, six hours after receiving
their orders, Daly and his men marched out of the station,
reached Attock, thirty miles distant, next morn- Mayi4.
ing, and, on arriving at Rawalpindi, learned jjgy jg
the welcome news that they were to proceed at
once to Delhi. On the 9th of June, after moving at the rate
of twenty-seven miles a day for three weeks, they marched
with a fine swinging stride into camj) at Delhi, and three
hours afterwards went into action with the mutineers. This
march has always ranked among the foremost achievements of
the war.^
It is now time to trace the fortunes of General Barnard
and his army, whom we left encamped before British position
Delhi on the night of the battle of Badli-ki-Serai. ^^^^""^ ^''''^'■
Their camp was protected in front by a line of rocky ground,
known as the Ridge, which extended from the Jumna on the
left to the distance of about two miles, and looked down upon
the northern and part of the western face of the city. The left
^ P. M. R., pp. 4-6, pars. 12-1.5 ; p. 20, pars. 60-1 ; p. 91, par. 24.
Enclosures to Secret Letters from Mdia, Aug. 1857, p. 808.
2 7\ M. R., pp. 59, 60, pars. 27-8 ; Cave-Browne, vol. i. pp. 327-8.
340 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI chap, x
was comparatively secure ; for the Jumna was unf ordable, and its
great width forbade any attempt to enfilade the British position
with field-guns. At intervals along the Kidge stood four build-
ings, specially adapted for defence, the FlagstafJ' Tower, a mosque,
an observatory, and, near the extreme right, a large mansion,
called Hindu Edo's house. At each of these Barnard established
piquets. To the right rear of Hindu Rao's house lay the
suburb of Sabzi-Mandi, and beyond it again a cluster of
villages, which, with it, promised excellent cover to the enemy
in any attacks which they might make upon the camp. More-
over, the space between the city and the Ridge was OA^ergrown
by trees and shrubs, and covered with old mosques, tombs, and
ruins, sheltered by which an attacking force might steal un-
perceived to within a few yards of the camp. "Within this
space were situated two buildings, the Metcalfe house and
Ludlow castle, which seemed likely to become objects of con-
tention between the opposing forces.
The city itself was surrounded by a wall, about seven miles
in extent, and some twenty-four feet in height, strengthened by
a number of bastions, and possessing ten massive gates. Around
the wall ran a dry ditch, about twenty-five feet Avide and rather
less than twenty feet deep. The counterscarp and glacis were
not such as to excite the admiration of the English engineers.
Still, the fortifications, which had been recently repaired, were
too strong to be battered down by such artillery as Barnard
then had at his disposal ; and the city was far too extensive to
be invested by his little force. All that he could do was to
watch the portion, little more than a seventh of the whole, that
faced the Ridge. The enemy, therefore, were free to go in and
out of the city as often as they pleased.^
It will be evident from the above account that the British
General had a hard task before him. Though his position was
Barnard's in itself Commanding enough, its advantages were
situatioa. largely neutralised by the features of the surround-
ing country : his force was small compared Avith that of the
mutineers ; and he would have enough to do to prevent them
from cutting off" his communications with the Punjab, to which
he had to look not only for reinforcements, but also for supplies.
^ Lord Roberts".*! Foriy-one Yearn in India, vol. i. p. 158 ; Forrest's Selec-
tions from Stale Papers, vol. i. ])p. 389-90 ; Col. H. M. Viliiut's Richard Baird
Smith, pp. 24-5.
1857 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI 341
But he knew that his Government and his countrymen, ignorant
or heedless of the difficulties which beset him, expected him to
recapture Delhi without a moment's delay ; he could not bear
to encounter the reproaches which had been heaped upon his
predecessor; and he therefore resolved, not with the calm
resolution of the strong man, but with the desperation of the
gambler, to try any enterprise that offered the remotest chance
of success, though his reputation should be wrecked by failure.
In this temper he lent a ready ear to a bold suggestion Avhich
was pressed upon him by a knot of ambitious subalterns under
his command.
Amongst the younger officers was a clever lieutenant of
Engineers, named Wilberforce Greathed. Feel- The proposed
ing confident that the city could be taken by a '^"^'p-dc-main.
coup-de-main, he argued his point so forcibly, that Barnard
ordered him to draw up a detailed plan of attack in concert
with tAvo other Engineer officers and that Lieutenant Hodson
whose daring ride from Karnal to Meerut, and from Meerut to
Umballa, had brought him prominently into notice. The plan
which they agreed upon was that, at half-past three on the
morning of the 13th of June, two of the gates nearest to the
Ridge should be blown open, and that, immediately after the
explosion, two columns should enter the city, pass along the
ramparts to right and left, take possession of the successive
bastions with their guns, and finally communicate with a third,
which was to advance to the palace.-^ Four sorties on four
successive days had been repulsed ; and Greathed insisted that
the disheartened mutineers would be easily overcome. Barnard
approved the scheme, and issued orders for its execution. But
an accident prevented it from being even attempted. Brigadier
Graves was field-officer of the day, and as such received an
order to move oft' the Europeans on piquet, who were to form
part of the attacking force. As, however, the order was not
given in writing, and as he was unwilling to entrust the
piquet duty to natives, he galloped to Barnard's tent for
further instructions, and, telling him that, although it might
be possible to take the city by surprise, it would be impossible
to hold it with such a small force, then and there persuaded
him to abandon the enterprise. The columns, which had already
^ Cave-Browne, vol. i. p. 375 ; Kaye, vol. ii. pp. 526-7 ; Forrest's Selections
from Slate Papers, vol. i. pp. 293-4.
342 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI chap, x
advanced some distance, were therefore recalled. Hodson was
naturally furious at the interference which had disappointed
his hopes, and spoke of it as flat disobedience of orders ; ^ but
there can be no doubt that Graves was perfectly justified in
availing himself of the informal character of the order which he
had received to go and dissuade his chief from what he regarded
as a hopeless venture.
Greathed, however, was not to be thus baffled. Two days
later he presented to Barnard a revised plan of
attack, to consider which a council of war was
summoned for the 15th. The military officers were almost
unanimous in asserting that it would be madness to make the
attempt before the arrival of a reinforcement of at least a
thousand men. On the other hand. Commissioner Greathed,
who represented the Lieutenant-Governor of the North- Western
Provinces, strongly urged that such a delay would encourage
the disaff"ected, and weaken the confidence of the native allies
of the British Government. The council broke up without
coming to any decision, but reassembled on the following
day. Brigadier Wilson and General Eeed,'^ who
had succeeded Anson as Provisional Commander-in-
Chief, declared themselves strongly opposed to undertaking
the assault even on the arrival of the first instalment of
the expected reinforcements. The chief reasons which they
gave were, that, as nearly the whole force would be required
for the enterprise, the camp would necessarily be left exposed
to attack ; that, even if the assaulting columns should succeed
in forcing their way into the city, they would run the risk of
being destroyed by the superior numbers of the insurgents, who
had shown that they could fight resolutely enough behind
cover ; and that, on political no less than on military grounds,
it would be prudent to wait, inasmuch as by the adoption of
such a course a large body of mutineers, who would otherwise
be free to spread fire and sword through the surrounding
country, would be kept inactive within the city. Influenced by
these arguments, Barnard, who from the beginning had never
known his own mind, abandoned the idea of the assault. A
few days later, indeed, Wilberforce Greathed, pointing out that
^ Hodson, pp. 204, 207-8.
'^ Ill-health prevented Reed from taking au active part in the work of the
siege.
1857 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI 343
the mutineers would soon be strongly reinforced, and that, if
Delhi were not speedily reduced, Agra would most probably be
besieged, made a last attempt to obtain the adoption of his own
views, but in vain.^
It is probable that, if the assault had been delivered, as
originally intended, on the morning of the 1 3th, not only would
the city have been taken, but it would have been held.^ There
were not more than seven thousand sepoys of all arms within
the city ; while Barnard's available infantry numbered tAvo
thousand.^ There is good reason to believe that the latter
would have been strong enough to overcome the resistance of
the former;'^ and it is certain that, from the bulk of the citizens,
they would have met with no resistance at all. Moreover, auda-
city counts for so much in Indian warfare that, even if they had
been too weak in themselves, the awe inspired by the sudden-
ness and swiftness of their attack might have given them the
victory. On the other hand, though we may believe, we cannot
be sure that they would have succeeded ; and, if they had
failed, the results would have been calamitous.
The more important question, whether the early recapture
of Delhi would have been politically useful, may be answered
decidedly in the affirmative. The great argument of those who
1 Kaye (vol. ii. pp. 533-7, 539-40) gives Jong extracts from the memoranda
which the officers laid before the council.
^ Hodsou, p. 214. Greatlied's Letters -written during the Siege of Delhi,
p. 110. See also a letter written by Baird Smith to a friend, and published in
the Tiims of May 11, 1858, p. 6, cols. 2, 3.
^ Hodson, p. 239, and note. Hodson was chief of the Intelligence Depart-
ment. Innes [Sepoy Revolt, p. 107) estimates the number of the sepoys at 8000.
The entire British force comprised 2400 infantry and 600 cavalry, besides the
Guides (six companies of infantry and three of cavalry). A note by Com-
missioner Barnes to a statement prepared by Hodson's spy, Rajab Ali (Aug.
14, 1857), says "in round numbers the mutineers may be estimated at 4000
Cavalry and 12,000 Infantry. The rest, say 1000 Cavalry and 3000 Infantry,
are undisciplined levies of no account whatever." Enclosures to Secret Letters from
India, 8 to 22 Oct. 1857, p. 128. Henry Norman, on the other hand, says that
the mutineers numbered, at that time, 30,000. When the assault was actually
delivered, the strength of the assaulting columns and the reserve was 5160.
Forrest's Selections from State Papers, vol. i. pp. 371-2, 449.
* As the numerical discrepancy between tlie contending forces was as great
when the city was at last taken, it is fair to assume that the columns intended
for the assault of the 12tli of June would have succeeded at least as well as those
which made the actual assault on the 14th of September. ["Our troops,"
wrote Wilberforce Greathed, "were in splendid fettle, the enemy dispirited
by four heavy repulses in five days." — A Memorial of the Life and Services of
MaJ.-Geii. W. W. H. Greathed, C.B., p. 23, by Sir H. Yule.]
344 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI chap, x
opposed the assault was, that its success would have allowed
the mutineers to disperse, and raise disturbances in the sur-
rounding country. Even if this had been the case, however,
the exjDected reinforcements would have been available to
destroy them. Moreover, any temporary mischief that might
have ensued would have been more than counterbalanced. The
timely reconquest of the imperial city, by aftbrding an undeni-
able proof of the enduring vitality of the British power, would
have at once removed the strain upon the Punjab, might
have at once extinguished the fire of insurrection throughout
the North-Western Provinces, and would at least have set free,
to tread out any embers that might have still continued to
smoulder, a host of British soldiers, who were destined to perish
fruitlessly in a long series of tedious combats on the Ridge.
Meanwhile the enemy were taking full advantage of the
respite which their opponents had afforded them. On the 12th
En I lite, they made an attack on the camp both in front
witti the and rear, but were beaten back, and pursued up
enemy. ^^ ^-^^ walls of the city; while the Metcalfe house
was Avrested from them, strengthened by a piquet, and placed
in communication with the post at the Flagstafif Tower. The
result was that it became impossible for them to turn the left
of the British defences. Notwithstanding this failure, they
made three several attempts to capture Hindu
'' ' ' Rao's house, the importance of which they fully
appreciated, but were uniformly repulsed. On the 17th the
British assumed the offensive, and succeeded in destroying
a battery Avhich their opponents were erecting with the ob-
ject of enfilading the Ridge. Two days later
the enemy made another attack on the rear, but
were again defeated.
After this Aveek of fighting they rested awhile, but only to
prepare themselves for a greater effort. The Centenary of
Plassey was approaching ; and their priests and astrologers
bade them be of good courage, for on that day the empire of
the Feringhees Avas fated to be overthrown. Relying on these
assurances, and fortified, like the besiegers of Arcot, by copious
draughts of bhang, they marched out of the Lahore gate at
daybreak, and passed the British right, intending
to attack the camp in rear ; but, finding that the
bridges over the Najafgarh Canal had been destroyed, they
1857 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI 345
were forced to return to the Sabzi-Mandi. There a desperate
struggle was maintained. About noon a determined attempt
was made, supported by the heavy guns thundering from the
city and the suburbs, to capture Hindu Eao's house ; and,
though the 60th Eifies, the Gurkhas, and the Guides offered a
noble resistance, Major Eeid, who commanded the post, was
bvirely able to hold his ground until reinforcements arrived.
Then the tide began to turn ; and the enemy, again and again
repulsed, fell back at sunset on the city, having lost over three
hundred men.^ A permanent result of the day's fighting was
the capture of a building in the Sabzi-Mandi called the Sammy
house, which was thenceforward garrisoned by a body of
Europeans, and connected by a line of breastworks with
Hindu Eao's house. This success, following the destruction of
the bridges over the Najafgarh Canal, made it impossible for
the rebels to attack the rear of the camp without undertaking
a long circuit.^
The prospects of the besiegers were now beginning to brighten.
Eeinforcements had just arrived ; and more were
to follow soon. On the day after the Centenary Nevme cham-
of riassey, Neville Chamberlain, who had handed ^^'i^'!,'" '"^'^
.1 iri -r> .iT.,r ■> , r^ ■, Baird Smith.
over the command oi the runjab Moveable Column
to Nicholson, came to assume the office of Adjutant-General.
The more eager and daring spirits rejoiced at the coming of
one who, they had good reason to hope, would breathe a more
fervent spirit into the counsels which directed them. " He
ought," wrote Hodson exultingly, " to be worth a thousand
men to us."^ Another arrival, too, was hopefully awaited.
The Chief Engineer was no longer fit for duty ; and Colonel
Baird Smith, who presided over the great engineering college at
Eoorkee, was summoned to take his place. Eapidly organising
a body of pioneei^s, and collecting a supply of engineering tools
and stores, he travelled down as fast as horses and elephants
could carry him, stimulated to greater speed by a message
which reached him on his way, telling that Delhi juiy 2.
was at last to be assaulted. But his haste was all
in vain. On his arrival he found that Barnard Julys.
^ Reid's Letters and Notes, quoted by Kaye, vol. ii. p. 555, note.
- Cave-Browne, vol. i. pp. 351-2 ; H. Norman's Narratice of the Campaign of
the Delhi Army, p. 18 ; Ilistonj of the Siege of Delhi, by an Officer who served
there, pp. 120-2 ; Lord Eoberts, vol. i. p. 174.
3 Hodsou, p. 216.
346 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI chap, x
had postponed the intended enterprise, in the belief that he
was himself to be attacked in great force on the very morning
of the appointed day. The enemy had just been reinforced by
the mutinous regiments from Rohilkhand ; and though, as it
turned out, they did not carry out the threat which had alarmed
Barnard, they made an expedition on the evening of the same
day to Alipur, intending to intercept some British convoys.
They failed, indeed, in their object ; but the mere
commuiiica- ^^^t of their being able to make the attempt
tionsen- showed the besiegers the danger to which their
dangered. . . • i i -r» • i
communications with the Punjab were exposed.
If there had been an able general in Delhi, he would have seen
from the first that his true policy was to cut that all-important
line, and would have kept a strong column in the field till the
work should have been done. But Baird Smith had gauged
the capacity of his opponents ; and he saw that a few days'
labour would make the position secure. The engineers, there-
fore, set to work under his orders, and succeeded in destroy-
ing a number of bridges over the Western Jumna Canal, and
two over the Najafgarh jheel ; but one over the latter, and the
bridge of boats over the Jumna, by which the rebel reinforce-
ments, as they arrived, were enabled to make their way
into the city, resisted every eff'ort for their destruction.^
The British reinforcements had not come a moment before
they were needed ; for, though the enemy had
mentsof failed in every object which they had undertaken,
'^'"^'^ ■ Barnard had as certainly failed to make the
slightest visible impression upon the city. He could not help
seeing that he was in reality not besieging, but besieged. His
artillery park was so ill supplied that it was actually necessary
to buy from camp-followers the shot, fired from the enemy's
batteries, which they had picked up on the field. He had
not been able to silence one of the hostile guns. If the
enemy were inferior to his troops in close fighting, their artillery
practice was superior ; their guns outnumbered his by four to
one ; their stores of ammunition were virtually inexhaustible ;
and they too had been reinforced, and reinforced in far greater
strength than their opponents.- Barnard's victories, while yield-
^ Cave-Browne, vol. ii. p. 14 ; Noi'mau, p. 22 ; Hodsoii, p. 261 ; Vibart's
Richard Baird Smith, pp. 8-9, 30.
2 Lord Roberts, vol. i. p. 178 ; Vibart, p. 32. It was the deliberate opiniou of
1857 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI 347
ing no decisive result, had been dearly bought. From the
30th of May to the 30th of June, the Rifles alone had lost a
hundred and sixty-five men, killed, wounded, and destroyed by
disease.^
How bitterly conscious Barnard was of his own failure, is
evident from the eagerness with which he endeavoured to make
his Government and his own friends appreciate his difficulties.
And those difficulties were indeed so great that it is doubtful
whether any general could have surmounted them. But
Barnard must also have felt that he had lost the confidence of
those who served under him. The cause was not simply that
he had failed. Soldiers seldom ask themselves why they trust
one leader, why they distrust another. But up to a certain
point they are as infallible judges of the qualities of their com-
mander as schoolboys are of the qualities of their master. The
explanation of the distrust with which Barnard was regarded is
simply that he distrusted himself, and therefore allowed him-
self to be swayed hither and thither by mutually antagonistic
advisers. 2
But, if he had failed to inspire men with confidence in his
powers as a general, he inspired them with some-
thing akin to love for himself as a man; In the
midst of all his labours, his troubles, and his anxieties, he re-
mained the perfect gentleman, the courteous, open-handed
host, the thoughtful, tender friend. Hodson has feelingly re-
lated how one night, when he chanced to awake, he found the
kind old man standing at his bedside, carefully covering him
up from the draught.^ He let the humblest of his soldiers
John Lawrence that Delhi would have been in our possession early in July but for
the material aid and, much more, the moral stimulus given to the nmtineers by the
reinforcements from JuUuudur and Bareilly, which only the imbecility of Johnstone
and Hewitt allowed to arrive. "General Hewitt," he wrote, " might well have
spared at least half the 1400 men under his conmiand ; such a body under an enter-
prising and efficient officer would have prevented the mutineers from ever crossing
the Ganges." Enclosures to Secret Letters from India, August 1857, pp. 804-6,
809 ; Dunlop's Service and Adventure with the Khakee Ressalah, pp. 53-4.
[See Baird Smith's letter published in the Times of May 11, 1858, giving reasons
for believing that an assault early in July would have succeeded.]
1 Rotton, p. 108.
" Lord Roberts, vol. i. p. 186. An engineer officer writing to the Times, Sept. 1 ,
1857, p. 8, col. 6, from Delhi, says : "The great want in this (an action fought
on June 28), as in all our actions, was the want of a head ; officers lead on their
parties without any method or arrangement."
3 Hodson, p. 207.
348 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI chap, x
know that he felt for their sufferings, and took a pride in their
valour and endurance. While he thus endeared himself to all,
he won their respect by his conscientious performance of duty.
His anxiety and his failing nerves would not suft'er him to
sleep ; and therefore, while life remained to him, he worked on
day and night alike. The coming of Baird Smith cheered him :
but his end was even then approaching ; for on
His death
the 5th of July he was struck down by cholera,
and before night he died.
The vexed question of assault was now reopened. Baird
The question '^^^ith, finding that it was as yet impossible to
of assault Undertake a regular siege, on account of the
paucity of guns and the insufficiency of ammuni-
tion, submitted a plan of attack to Reed, who had succeeded
Barnard. Valuable time, however, was lost in considering the
plan ; and after a week's delay Reed was persuaded to reject
it. Meanwhile the British had suffered heavy loss ; and a day
or two later Baird Smith himself acknowledged that the time
for an assault had gone by.^ On the 17th, Reed, who had been
in wretched health since the beginning of the siege, made over
the command to Wilson.
The new chief Avas a good officer in his own branch of the
service, and could boast that he had already won
two battles over the mutineers ; but neither in
heart nor in head was he strong enough to sustain a burden
under which his two predecessors had succumbed within six
weeks. Great men of action have suffered from sensitive
nerves more often than the world suspects ; but they have
become great by learning to hold their nerve force under con-
trol. This, however, was precisely what Wilson had not learned
to do. He allowed himself to be irritated l)y trifles, not only
out of his equanimity, but also out of his urbanity. Yet it is
certain that many expected great results from his appointment.
Hardly, however, had he succeeded to the command before he
began to think of retiring from Delhi altogether. The thought
did not, indeed, originate with him. Even Hervey Greathed
had suggested that the army would be better employed in re-
storing order in other parts of the country than in fighting
battles that led to no result. Baird Smith, however, represent-
1 Times, May ] 1, 1858, p. tl, col. 2 j Vibai't's Richard Baird Umitli, pp. 95
98, 102.
1857 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI 349
ing that to retreat v/ouki be to abandon communication with
the Punjab, and to withdraw the protection Avhich the army
in its present position aftbrded to that province, entreated
Wilson to remain. Wilson was sagacious enough to see the
force of these arguments, and wrote to John
Lawrence, declaring his resolve to stand his
ground to the last, and begging for reinforcements.
The most trying period of the so-called siege had now been
reached. The rains had set in ; and men wetted T^ ,
■ re ^ Deeds and
to the skin often found, on coming ofi duty, that sufferings
their tents were water-logged. Swarms of flies earmy.
tormented the wounded as they lay in hospital, and craAvled
over the meat on the mess-tables. Owing perhaps to abundant
food and water, the rate of mortality was indeed far below that
recorded in Havelock's campaign ; but still there was quite
enough sickness to impair seriously the fighting strength of the
force. Wilson's army was of the finest mettle : but the best
troops would deteriorate after fighting, on an average, three
battles a week for six weeks without making any apparent pro-
gress towards their object ; and it was clear that the men were
losing their discipline. Wilson's best title to praise is that he set
himself resolutely to remedy this state of things. He insisted
on the men wearing their uniforms instead of turning out in
their shirt-sleeves, as they had fallen into the habit of doing ;
he organised a regular system of reliefs in order to give them
the greatest possible amount of rest ; and above all he ex-
pressed his resolve to protect the camp-followers, whom, in their
unthinking hatred of the coloured races, they had treated with
insolent cruelty.^
Meanwhile the fighting on the Ridge had been maintained
almost without a pause. From every part of the country, from
Jhansi, from R.ijputana, from the Punjab, from Central
India, and from the North-Western Provinces, the mutineers
had been and were still streaming in their thousands into
Delhi ; and it was the custom that each instalment of the rein-
forcements should go forth soon after its arrival, and prove its
title to share in the honours of the garrison by attacking the
^ Hodsou, pp. 227, 282 ; Greatlied, pp. 115, 165 ; Turnbull's Letters writien
during the Siege of Delhi, p. 14 ; Cave-Browne, vol. ii. p. 33 ; Rortton, pp. 153,
155-6 ; History of the Siege of Delhi, by an Officer who served tliere, pp. 119,
165-6, 175, 195-6, 231-2 ; Lord Roberts, vol. i. pp. 19.5, 198.
3r.O THE PUNJAB AND DELHI chai>. x
besiegers. Thus attacks were persistently made on the right
and on the rear ; while cannon thundered from the walls and
from the enemy's batteries ; and the crack of musketry con-
tinually re-echoed among the houses of the suburbs. It would
need an epic to tell of the deeds of valour and of self-sacrifice
that were performed, here and there on the side of the
mutineers, everywhere on the side of the British. If hope long
deferred was beginning to tell on the discipline of the latter, it
could not weaken their spirit. In six weeks they
Ju"yf8. h^^ fought more than twenty battles.^ The
sound of the alarm became familiar to those who
had never heard it in previous campaigns.- At any hour of the
day or night the warning note might be heard ; and then, as
the enemy's masses came swarming to the attack, officers were
to be seen hurrying to their tents to buckle on their arms,
horse-artillery galloping to the front, foot-soldiers of divers
complexions, and wearing divers uniforms, pressing forward to
defend the threatened point. At Hindu Rao's house, Reid
held his own as stubbornly as ever with a handful of rifiem-en
and his regiment of war-loving Gurkhas ; for he knew that if
his post were captured, the camp would be exposed to the
enemy's fire, and the Ridge itself become untenable,^ On the
left and rear Hodson kept watch with an eye which nothing
could escape, and, at whatever point the battle might be raging,
was sure to appear in moments of difficulty, and restore the
fortunes of the day by swift counsel or strong succour.^ And
there were many other nameless heroes who, each in his own
sphere, contributed to make ultimate success certain. To-
wards the end of July, it was plain that invariable defeat was
breaking down the confidence of the enemy. ^ While their
attacks became less spirited, the British added, foot by foot, to
the ground which they held, until the Sabzi-Mandi was com-
pletely in their power. It is true that on the 1st of August, the
day of the great festival of the Bakra Eed, Mahomedans and
Hindus were stimulated by their priests to join in a desperate
onslaught upon the right : but the British, screened by their
^ Enclosures to Secret Letters from Iiidia, 24 Sept. 1857, p. 28.
'^ Greathed, p. 142 ; TurnbuU, pp. 14-1.5 ; History of the Siege of Delhi, by
an Officer who served there, pp. 94 -f).
^ See letter in Kaye, vol. iii. pp. 672-3.
■» Greathed, p. 122.
■' Hodson, pp. 242, 248.
1857 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI 351
breastworks, received the fanatics with a steady fire ; and the
expiring effort was succeeded by a general lull.^
But when would the great object be attained ? When would
Delhi itself fall ? We can only imagine from a word let fall
here and there the bitterness of delay which all, from the
General down to the meanest private, must have tasted in those
days. *' I confess," wrote one whose heart never failed him,
"I confess sometimes it requires all one's trust in the God
of battles, and all the comforting and sustaining words of those
nearest and dearest to us, to bear up boldly and bravely through
these weary days." ^ But utterances like these were simply
expressions of a longing for the sympathy of some loving heart
by men who Avould have scorned to utter a word of complaint
to others. In the darkest days a tone not only of cheerfulness,
but of gaiety pervaded the camp. In the mess-tents, however
rude the table might be, however homely the fare, talk flowed
as freely, jests were bandied as merrily as ever. Off duty,
officers and men kept up their spirits by riding pony-races, or
playing cricket or quoits. There was a marvellous sympathy
and good-fellowship among all ranks. The gallantry of the
Gurkhas and the Guides had made them special favourites
with their white comrades ; and sometimes a British private
and a frontier-man might be seen sitting side by side, each
puffing gravely at his pipe, and talking in his own dialect,
without understanding a word of what his companion said.
Wounded officers were carried out on their couches in the
evening to enjoy the air, and listen to the music of the bands.
Nor were the men in hospital forgotten. They knew that they
might reckon upon their comrades coming round in leisure
moments, to smoke a pipe with them, and chat over the events
of the day. The spirit of the sufferers was admirable. One
man, who had only a few hours to live, cheerily told an officer
that he knew he would soon be up again, and ready for another
brush with the mutineers. There was indeed a darker side to
the picture. Thoughtless lads were heard to say that eveiy
Poorbeah in camp ought to be put to death : ignorant soldiers
too often repaid the camp-followers, without whose services,
given at the risk of their lives, they could not have existed for
^ Norman's Narrative (Forrest's Selectiuns from State Papers, vol. i. jip.
457-60) ; Vibart, pp. 103, 109.
- Hodson, pp. 263-4.
352 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI chap, x
a day, with brutal words and savage blows ; and few of their
officers cared or ventured to restrain them, even if they did not
set them the example. But, while no good man would think
of defending such things, no thoughtful man, rememberinj., the
circumstances of the time, would be extreme to condemn
them.^
Meanwhile the people of Delhi had had ample opportunities
for reflecting upon the comparative advantages of
fnsid7Deihf ' British and of Mogul rule. One of the King's
sons, the Shahzada, Mirza Mughal, had been
appointed Commander-in-Chief. His troops, though not so
unmanageable as might have been expected, were perpetually
squabbling with their officers, and had to be coaxed into the
performance of their duty. As time passed, and they failed to
dislodge their opponents, numbers of them deserted. Those
who remained became daily less submissive to discipline,
and more regardless of civil authority. Swaggering into the
bazaars, they plundered the shops, and bragged of imaginary
exploits to unarmed listeners, who, for their lives, dared not
contradict them. The King was besieged by petitions from
respectable citizens, complaining that the sepoys burst into
their houses, and debauched their wives and daughters ; but he
was powerless to punish the offenders, or to grant redress to
the sufferers. " Repeated injunctions," he wrote, " have been
issued prohibiting plunder and aggression in the city, but all
to no purpose." The rapacity of the sepoys indeed was not
without excuse ; for the poverty of the King was such that
they could hardly get any pay. Nay, while rebuking them for
plundering, he was himself driven to extort loans from the
unhappy merchants. At last a clever subahdar of artillery,
named Bakht Khan, arrived with the Bareilly brigade, and,
favoured by the King, who was nettled by the haughty and
overbearing demeanour of Mirza Mughal, took command of the
army. But even Bakht Khan, though he did his best to
restrain the licentious soldiery, could effect little without
support. Moreover, Mirza Mughal could ill brook the depriva-
tion of his command ; and the sepoys clamoured for the dis-
missal of the subahdar. It was finally arranged that the army
^ Medley, pp. 68-9 ; Histcn-y if the Siege, of Delhi, by an Officer wlio served
there, p. 194 ; Hodson, p. 213. It is only fair to say that the bheesties were
well treated. Medley, p. 93.
1857 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI 353
should be divided into three brigades, of which Bakht Khan
should command one, and Mirza Mughal another. The quarrels
of the rival chiefs were imitated by their inferiors. The cavalry
were split up into numerous factions. Hindu sepoys reproached
Mahomedans for having deceived them by false alarms about
religion, and declared that if only they could be sure that their
lives would be spared, they would gladly go back to their old
officers. Mahomedans insisted on their right to slaughter kine,
and fought with Hindus in the streets ; while all who had any-
thing to lose cursed the sepoys, and mourned over the downfall
of the British Eaj.
The King, though he felt that he was impotent to exert the
powers of sovereignty, tried feebly to support its external
dignity. From time to time he took his seat upon the throne,
and held durbars in the hall wherein his dread ancestors had
given audience. A few weeks before, the highest English
officials had been accustomed to dismount at the entrance of
the passage leading to the hall, and to salute him, as they
entered, with all the respect due to the representative of ah
ancient dynasty ; but now sepoy officers galloped up to the
very door, and, striding in with their swords clanking, sat
down on the cushions, side by side with chiefs and courtiers,
and insulted him to his face. On one occasion some hundreds
of hungry sepoys rushed into the hall, and, thronging round
him, demanded that he should imprison his sons, who had
embezzled their pay, and swore that, if their pay were not
given to them, they would murder him and his family. In the
surrounding districts, as in the city, his authority was despised.
The mutineers were strong enough to have detached parties to
awe the population into obedience ; but, if any of their com-
manders had the wit to perceive the necessity of such a step,
the spirit of dissension was too strong to admit of its execu-
tion. The King tried to find solace for the miseries of his lot
by describing them in doggerel verse : " The army surrounds
me," he complained, " I have no peace nor quiet ; my life alone
remains, and that they will soon destroy." At last, in his
misery, he declared that he would abdicate, and seek consola-
tion in a religious life. " Wearied and helpless," he wrote, " we
have now resolved on making a vow to pass the remainder of
our days in service acceptable to God, and relinquishing the title
of sovereign, fraught with cares and troubles, and in our present
2 A
354 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI chap, x
griefs and sorrows assuming the garb of a religious mendicant,
to proceed first and stay at the shrine of the saint Khwaja
Sahib, and, after making necessary arrangements for the journey,
to go eventually to Mecca."
But the restless intriguers who surrounded him still hoped
to retrieve their lost cause. Emissaries were despatched to
gain over native princes. Eloquent moiilvis flocked from all
parts into the city, and, from the pulpits of the mosques,
preached a war of extermination against the infidels. It was
announced that the Agra fort had been captured by the
Neemuch brigade ; and a salute of twenty-one guns celebrated
the imaginary exploit. The disheartened sepoys were told that
help would soon reach them ; and on the 11th of August Mirza
Mughal, as though to give additional force to these assurances,
issued a magniloquent order, in which he boasted that, " in
three or four days hence, please God, the whole Kidge will be
taken, when every one of the base unbelievers will be humbled
and ruined, and will be sent to hell." ^
Long before this period had been reached, a controversy of
The Peshawar historical interest, relating to the siege, had arisen
w)-s)i5 i)eihi in the Punjab. So early as the 27th of May,
con roverby. Edwardes, who looked with a longing eye upon
the goodly reinforcements which his chief was preparing to
despatch against Delhi, begged him to divert a portion of them
for the relief of Peshawar. " You know," he pleaded, " on
what a nest of devils we stand. Once let us take our foot up,
and we shall be stung to death." But Lawrence had more fear
of the devils in Hindustan. Delhi was lost. Within its walls
were gathered together the arch-traitors, the ringleaders in
mutiny. It was the focus of rebellion, the vital point upon
the recovery of which was staked the honour, nay the very
existence of the empire. He might have said, in the spirit of
Queen Mary, " If I were to die now, the word ' Delhi ' would
be found engraven upon my heart." His voice had been the
loudest to urge its recovery. He must bend all his strength to
support those who were marching against it, in obedience to
* Cooper, pp. 196-211 ; Cave-Browne, vol. ii. p. 37 ; History of the Siege of
Delhi, by an OfBcer who served there, pp. 137-48 ; Evidence taken before the
Court appointed, for the Trial of the King of Delhi, pp. 115, 118, 120, 124, 165,
168, 217, 219, 237-8, 278-9 ; Syad Ahmad Khan's Tlie Causes of the Didian
Revolt, p. 53 ; Enclosures to Secret Letters from India, 8 to 22 Oct. 1857,
pp. 180, 186.
1857 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI 355
him. AVhen, therefore, he saw that its recovery might be a
question of time, he was only the more firmly resolved to con-
tinue his supjDort. On the 9th of June he wrote to tell
Edwardes that, if the besiegers should be in danger of failing
for want of reinforcements, he thought of sending the European
troops in the Peshawar valley to help them, and asking Dost
Mahomed to occupy the valley with his troops, on the undei'-
standing that, if he proved a faithful ally, it should be ceded
to him in perpetuity. "Peshawar," he said, "would accom-
plish his heart's desire, and would do more to make the
Afghans friendly to us than anything else which we could do."
" One thing," he added, " appears to be certain, which is, that
if disaster occurs at Delhi, all the native regulars, and some of
the irregulars (perhaps many), will abandon us."
Edwardes was amazed at the proposal ; and Nicholson and
Cotton shared his feelings. He knew indeed the importance
of Delhi ; but his own station was all in all to him. He spoke
of it as the anchor of the Punjab, the removal
of which would allow the whole ship to drift to
sea. He ridiculed the idea that Dost Mahomed would show
himself grateful for the cession. Rather " he would assume
our day to be gone in India, and follow after us as an enemy."
"Europeans cannot retreat," he urged; "Caubul would come
again."
Lawrence treated these arguments with the respect which
the experience of their author demanded ; but he was not con-
vinced by them. " There was no one thing," he
wrote to his lieutenant, " which tended so much to
the ruin of Napoleon in 1814 as the tenacity with which, after
the disasters at Leipsic, he clung to the line of the Elbe,
instead of falling back at once to that of the Rhine." ^ A few
days later he sent a telegram, announcing the
march of the Bareilly mutineers for Delhi, and
implying his resolve to give effect to the Peshawar arrange-
ments if the prospects of the besiegers should become worse.
Then Cotton and Edwardes sat down to address a last remon-
strance to their chief. Cotton urged that the abandonment of
Peshawar would cause the border tribes, the Punjabi Irregulars,
the Sikhs, and all who had hitherto remained faithful, to turn
' It is hardly necessary to point out Lawrence's blunder. Napoleon had
abandoned the line of the Elbe before the battle of Leipzig.
358 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI chap, x
upon us, as, hoAvever plausibly we might explain it, their keen
instincts would seize upon it as a proof of weakness.
Edwardes's letter was much more than a remon-
strance. It reads like the passionate outburst of a man who,
in his eagerness, feels that he is pleading, as it were, face to
face with one bent upon rushing to his own destruction. The
Punjab would be sacrificed by giving up Peshawar. " If
General Reed," he insisted, " cannot take Delhi with eight
thousand men, he will not take it with nine thousand or ten
thousand. . . . Make a stand ! ' Anchor, Hardy, anchor ! '
... If you hold the Punjab, you will facilitate the reconquest
of India from the seaboard. . . . Whatever takes place in
Central India, we shall stand in a firm and honourable attitude
if we maintain the capitals on the sea, and the frontiers here.
Between the two it is all a family quarrel, an insurrection in our
own lionise. Make sure of one practicable policy. If General
Reed, with all the men you have sent him, cannot get into
Delhi, let Delhi go." ^ So strongly convinced, indeed, was he of
the truth of his opinions, that he wrote privately to Lawrence,
begging him not to order him to abandon Peshawar, as, rather
than obey such an order, he would feel bound by conscience to
resign his post, and explain to Government his reasons for
doing so.-
Before this letter was written, the Chief Commissioner, like
the sensible, cool-headed statesman that he was,
had asked the Governor-General to decide between
him and his lieutenant. He had requested that an answer
might be sent to him in one of two foi-ms : " Hold on to
Peshawur to the last," or "You may act as may appear ex-
pedient regarding Peshawur." On the 24th of July he wrote
again, as though to win over the Governor-General to his own
view, " The Punjab will prove short work to the mutineers when
the Delhi army is destroyed."^ But, before the
Governor -General received this letter, he had
decided in favour of Edwardes.
The wisdom of this decision is beyond all doubt. Lawrence
agreed with Edwardes in thinking that it was more important
^ The italics are mine. Edwardes thought that Reed, if he could not take
Delhi, should " fall back on the Siitlej, leaving the North-West Provinces to be
recovered when they could be." MS. correspondence.
2 Ih.
^ The italics are mine.
1857 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI 357
to hold the Punjab than even to prosecute the siege of Delhi.^
The question, then, is narrowed to this, — would the abandon-
ment of Peshawar have involved the loss of the Punjab 1
Even if our knowledge of Asiatic character and Anglo-Indian
history did not incline us to accept Edwardes's view of the
results that would have followed the abandonment of Peshawar,
the correctness of that view would be rendered probable by the
fact that a mere rumour that the Trans-Indus was to be ceded
to Dost Mahomed caused the greatest uneasiness and distress
to the staunchest supporters of the Government.^ The Afghans
were longing to invade the Punjab ; and, if Dost Mahomed
had not appreciated the solid advantages which he derived
from his treaty, if he had not felt a wholesome respect for the
resolute bearing of Edwardes, Nicholson, and Cotton, he would
doubtless have undertaken an invasion. It is absurd to
suppose that he or his subjects would have regarded the
cession of Peshawar as anything but a sign of weakness ; and,
if they had remained content with the cession, if they had not
taken advantage of our embarrassment to clutch at so splendid
a prize as the Punjab, they would hardly have been human
beings, they would certainly not have been Asiatics. It is as
certain, then, as any conjecture can be, that, if the cession had
taken place, the Punjab would have gone.^ On the other
hand, the fact that the mere delay in reducing Delhi caused
the most dangerous symptoms to appear in the Punjab, proves
how disastrous the abandonment of the siege must have
been.^
To sum up, perhaps the weightiest words in the whole con-
^ Life of Lord Lamrence, vol. ii. p. 145.
2 P. M. R., pp. 76-7, par. 126.
■^ "If," wrote Canning, in his letter of July 15 (Sir H. S. Cunningham's Jiarl
Canning, ])p. 122-4), "we were now to abandon territory, no matter how
distant, it would 1)6 impossible that faith in the permanency of our rule should
not be shaken. The encouragement to join the league against us would be
irresistible."
•* La\vrence thought that, if any disaster occurred at Delhi, it would be
impossible to hold both Peshawar and the other important points in the
Puujab. Edwardes, however, wrote, "We thought, whatever dangers occurred
at Delhi, the Punjalj could be held till troops can come from England, by our
holding two points in strength, Peshaure and the Manjha about Lahore and
Umritzir : and we recommended John Lawrence to stand or fall at these places,
dismissing the idea of retreat." MS. correspondence. Mr. Bosworth Smith
admits that, if Lawrence had resolved to abandon the siege, he could have
riildeu out the storm in the Puujab. Life of Lord Laim-ence, vol. ii. pp. 141-2.
358 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI chap, x
troversy were those in which Edwardes counselled the main-
tenance, at any cost, of the frontier and the capitals on
the sea, because "between the two it is a family quarrel."
If it had been necessary either to abandon Peshawar, or
to abandon temporarily the siege of Delhi, it would have
been wiser to choose the latter alternative. The choice, how-
ever, would have lain between two great, though unequal,
evils. It is fortunate indeed that such a choice never became
necessary.^
Meanwhile, although the Punjab was officially reported
quiet, the authorities knew that they were, so to
Punjab! ^'^^ speak, standing upon a mine. Seven infantry
and two cavalry regiments of armed natives were
still scattered over the country.- Two of these, the 58th at
Rawalpindi and the 14th at Jhelum, were known to be
ripening so fast for mutiny, that the Chief Commissioner re-
solved to disarm them. He laid his plans with consummate
skill. The Jhelum regiment was to be surprised by a force
from Rawalpindi. Moreover, the two regiments were to be
disarmed on the same day, lest either should hear of the fate
of the other and thus gain time to prepare for resistance. The
^ Mr. Bosworth Smith, in his elaborate vindication of Lawrence's jiroposed
policy, makes the following remark, — " That he was prepared calmly to face
the outcry which such a proposal would create . . . shoios that lie regarded
the struggle with the eye of a statesman as vxll as a soldier, that he embraced
its im.2)erial as well as its local asjKcts." It shows nothing of the sort. To say
that, because a man is prejiared to face an outcry against a measure, the measure
must necessarily be statesmanlike, is as much as to say that moral courage and
statesmanship are identical.
I must also protest against the injustice wliicli Mr. Bosworth Smith does to
the memory of Edwardes in asseitiiig that lie regarded the struggle from a
provincial point of view, while Lawrence embiaced its imperial aspects. How
does Mr. Bosworth Smith interpret these words of Edwardes, — "Not that I
would say secure your own province if the Empire required its sacrifice. We
would sacrifice any other province without a pang or a doubt, but the Empire's
reconquest depends on the Punjab." The fact is, and Mr. Bosworth Smith might
have been generous enough to admit it, that each disputant was actuated by
imperial motives. The italics are mine. [At the end of the first week in July,
Baird Smith described the British position before Delhi as jjerfectly safe (Vibart's
Richard Baird Smith, p. 95) ; and there can be no doubt that after this
time Lawrence was unduly nervous. General Inues, I am glad to find,
supports my view, that Edwardes was in the right. See his Sejjoi/ Revolt,
p. 106.]
^ Exclusive of two regiments at Peshawar and one at the frontier station of
Dera Ismail Khan. See I'. M. R., pp. 11-12, pars. 28-32; and Cave-Browne,
vol. 11. p. 48.
1857 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI 359
plan, however, was marred in the execution. Nicholson indeed
took up a commanding position at Amritsar, from
which he could overawe the Man j ha, and ad-
vance to the relief of any point that might be threatened. But
the attempt to surprise Jhelum failed. The sepoys
were therefore on their guard, and, though expelled "^"^^ ''
from their lines, succeeded in gaining a village ^afkot^"*^
from which their assailants, overcome by the heat,
and staggering under the effects of drink, failed to dislodge
them. Next morning, when the attack was about
July 8.
to be renewed, it was found that the sepoys had
disappeared. Almost all were eventually either slain, or
captured and executed ; but their momentary triumph was
noised abroad. The native garrison at Sidlkot, who un-
fortunately had not been disarmed, hearing that a British
regiment had been beaten, flung off control, and, after a day
of murder, pillage, incendiarism, and wanton
destruction, made off towards the river Rdvi, on
their way to Delhi. ^
At eleven o'clock that night a messenger from Sialkot came
into Lahore, and informed Robert Montgomery of
the disaster. Before midnight he had despatched jJontKomeiT
orders for the disarming of the troops at Feroze-
pore, Kangra, and Nurpur, and sent a messenger by express
mail-cart to warn Nicholson of the work which lay before
him.^
The great Brigadier had already done enough to silence the
murmurs of the little-minded men who could not
1 . • , 1 Nicholson in
endure to see a young man, a mere regimental command of
captain, put above themselves. Directly after co^J^"^''''''^®
assuming command of the Moveable Column, he
had disarmed, at Phillaur, two of the regiments that composed
it, the 33rd and 35th Native Infantry ; on hearing
at Amritsar of the outbreak at Jhelum, he had June 25.
disarmed the 59th; and now, on receiving Mont- ju^io
gomery's express, he disarmed a body of cavalry
belonging to one of the Sialkot regiments. His remaining force
consisted of the 52nd regiment, which had never been under
^ Cave-Browne, vol. ii. p. 49 ; Cotton, p. 198 ; P. M. M,, p. 42, pars. 77-8,
pp. 44-5, par. 88.
- lb. p. 36, par. 54 ; Cave-Browne, vol. ii. p. 70.
360 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI chap, x
fire, one hundred and eighty-four Punjabi infantry, two newly
raised and undisciplined troops of police sowars, and nine guns.
Later in the day he heard that the Sidlkot mutineers themselves
were marching down on Gurdaspur, obviously with the intention
of stirring up the regiment there to mutiny, and carrying it
along with them to Delhi. There was no time to be lost.
Gurdaspur was forty -four miles from Amritsar, and by this
time the mutineers must be close upon it ; but Nicholson
resolved that, rather than they should reach it before him, he
would cover those forty-four miles in a single march. His
preparations were soon made. The district officers had impressed
all the country carts and ponies upon which they could lay
their hands, and sent them into his camp. Mounting as many
of his infantry as he could upon these, he began his great race
at sunset. By daybreak twenty-six miles had been
traversed. A halt was then called ; and bread, rum,
and milk were served out to the men. The fierce July sun
was fast rising, the goal was still eighteen miles off, and all
knew what they must sutfer before they could reach it : but
they also knew the value of the stake for which they were
contending ; and it was with strong hope and cheerfulness
that they resumed their march. The gunners piled up boughs
over their waggons and gun-carriages to keep off the sun.
Privates who had never crossed a horse before, joked each
other as they rode. Those who had no horse to carry them,
shouldered their muskets, and tramped doggedly on. Several
men and horses fell victims to the heat. But the object was
gained. By six o'clock the whole force entered Gurdaspur, and
found that the mutineers were still loitering on the further side
of the Ravi.^
Fearing that they might escape him if they saw him approach-
ing, Nicholson decided to halt for the night, and allow them to
walk into the trap which he had set for them.
Trimmu Ghat. Next moming he heard that they were crossing the
^'^^ ■ river at a place called the Trimmu Ghat, nine miles
oft', and marched to intercept them. About noon
he came upon them drawn up in line on the left bank. Their
right rested on a serai and a small dismantled fort ; their left
on a village and a clump of trees. Masking his batteries
^ G. Bourchiei's ^ir/W Months' Campaign, pp. 14-15; Enclosures to Secret
Letters from India, 24 Sept. 1857, p. 117.
1857 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI 361
with the sowars, Nicholson pushed forward to the attack.
Three hundred of the 52 nd were formed up in the spaces
between the guns and on their flanks, while the rest of the
infantry remained in the rear as supports and reserve. But
the mutineers were not wanting in spirit. Their cavalry, drunk
with bhang, gnashing their teeth, and yelling furiously, charged
down upon the maskers and put them to flight, and their
infantry, advancing with admirable steadiness, fired a volley :
but the Punjabis, and the British with their Enfield rifles,
speedily replied ; the artillery opened out with grape and
shrapnel ; and, although the mutineers resisted bravely, many
of them pressing right up to the guns, while their cavalry made
repeated rushes upon our flanks and rear, they were soon over-
whelmed by sheer weight of metal, and driven back upon the
river, leaving a hundred and twenty dead upon the field. Many
more were drowned.^ The survivors took refuge upon an island
in mid-stream.
Unable to follow up his success, owing to want of cavahy
and the dangerous depth of the river, Nicholson fell back on
Gurdaspur, leaving a small force to keep watch at the Ghat.
Three days afterwards he heard that only about
three hundred of the mutineers remained upon
the island. He therefore at once resolved to destroy them,
and procured boats for the passage of the river.
Next mormng he crossed on to the island, and ni
a few minutes gained an almost bloodless victory. A few of
the mutineers died like brave soldiers, fighting to the last the
only gun that they possessed. The rest fled, and were either
slain at the water's edge, or drowned, or seized and reserved
for military execution.-^
The column then returned to Amritsar ; while Nicholson went
to Lahore, to confer with the Chief Commissioner. ^,. , ,
_ , ' , ..,•,. ... Nicholson
On the ■24th he re]omed his men, bringing them marches for
the news that they were to march at once for Delhi.
Their joy was intense. Their only fear was lest Delhi should
fall before they could arrive. But, as they marched south-
wards, they knew that, if they should be too late to join in the
assault, it would not be the fault of their General.^
' Pari. Papers, vol. xliv. (1857-58), Part 3, pp. 55-7 ; W. S. Moorsom's Hist.
Records of the. Fifty-Second Regiment, pp. 375, 397.
" Cave-Browne, vol. ii. p. 79. * Bourchier, p. 24. See App. L.
362 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI chap, x
The tale of mutinies in the Punjab is not yet complete.
On the last day of July some villagers near Bal-
Cooper nnn, */ »/ <-> ^
the mutineers ghdt, ou the left bank of the Ravi, were surprised
oi the 2bth. j^y ^^g appearance of a body of disarmed sepoys,
who asked to be directed to the nearest ford. The villagers
scented mischief, and, sending messengers to warn the authorities,
kept their visitors waiting on one pretence or another. Before
long the tahsild^r of Ajndla arrived with his police, and found that
the sepoys belonged to the 26th Native Infantry,
July 30. who, on the previous day, had mutinied at Lahore,
and murdered four of their officers. Then ensued a fight in
which a hundred and fifty sepoys were destroyed by the
police and the villagers. Towards evening Frederick Cooper,
the Deputy-Commissioner of the district, appeared with seventy-
six sowars and six or seven volunteer horsemen. Before him
lay a grim record of the day's work. The grass on the banks
was trodden down, and plastered into bloody slime ; and on an
island in mid-stream a number of sepoys, crouching like a flock
of wild fowl, were waiting for death. Pressing their palms
together, they crowded down to the shore when they saw the
burra-sahib's men making for the island in their boats ; and,
in another moment, thirty-five of them flung themselves into
the river in despair. The rest submitted to be pinioned and
stacked in the boats ; and a number of others were brought
in by the zealous villagers. The entire number, amounting to
two hruidred and eighty-two, were then conveyed by Cooper
to Ajnala. Then came the question, what Avas to be done with
them. The Moveable Column was hundreds of miles away.
There was no means of transporting them to a place where
they could be formally tried ; for the sowars and the police
were far too few to guard them. They were all mutineers ;
they were all virtually murderers. On the other hand, if they
were summarily executed, other regiments and intending rebels
might take warning by their fate, and thus further bloodshed
be prevented. For these reasons. Cooper, fully conscious as he
was of the enormous responsibility which he was undertaking,
resolved to put them all to death. Next morning,
accordingly, he brought them out in tens, and
made some Sikhs shoot them. In this way two hundred and
sixteen perished. But there still remained sixty-six others,
who had been confined in one of the bastions of the tahsil.
1857 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI 363
Expecting resistance, Cooper ordered the door to be opened.
But not a sound issued from the room. Forty-five dead bodies
lay upon the floor ; for, unknown to Cooper, the windows had
been closely shut, and the wretched prisoners had found in the
bastion a second Black Hole. The remaining tAventy-one were
shot like their comrades.^
For this splendid assumption of responsibility Cooper was
assailed, as other men of his mettle, both in the East and the
West Indies, have been, by the hysterical cries of ignorant
humanitarians. But Eobert Montgomery unanswerably vindi-
cated his conduct by proving that he had saved the Lahore
Division.^
It was not only the sepoys, however, who were becoming
demoralised by the spectacle of the successful
resistance of the Delhi mutineers. The minds of Edwardesaiid
the Punjabis generally had gradually passed of Peshawar.
from confidence in the power of the English to
doubt, and from doubt to disbelief.^ An unniistakeable sign
of this appeared in Peshawar. About the middle of July,
Edwardes summoned the chief native gentlemen of the city to
consult on the loan which had been lately opened. They
looked very grave when he introduced the subject, and, though
professing themselves quite superior to the vulgar belief that
the British power was coming to an end, evidently thought
that no one would care to risk his money in supporting it.
They promised, however, to send the chief capitalists to
Edwardes, to discuss the question. Next day, accordingly,
but two hours after the appointed time, the capitalists apj^eared,
slinking into the room, and each trying to keep himself as far
as possible in the background. Edwardes began by fining
them all round for unpunctuality, and then asked them what
they had to propose. After deliberating apart, they replied
that they thought fifteen thousand rupees might possibly be
raised by good management in a few months. Edwardes saw
at once that the matter was resolving itself into a trial of
strength between the Government and its subjects, and that,
if the former were beaten, its prestige would be destroyed.
' Cooper, pp. 154-6 ; P. M. R., p. 39, par. 65, pp. 104-5 ; Enclosures to Secret
Letters from India, 24 Sept. 1857, pp. 310-14.
^ Cave-Browne, vol. ii. pp. 101-3, note ; Cooper, pp. 167-70.
3 P. M. R., p. 18, par. 48.
364 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI chap, x
He therefore bluntly told the capitalists that they could easily
afford to subscribe five hundred thousand, and must do so.
Seeing that he was in earnest, they gave in at once. The
Government treasurer was appointed to assess their respective
shares ; and in the end about four hundred thousand rupees
were collected. The victory thus gained was as decisive as
the disarming of the mutinous regiments had been. The
people chuckled over the defeat of the capitalists, and felt an
increased respect for the Government. The capitalists them-
selves saw that thenceforth their interests must be identical with
those of the Power to which they had lent their money.^
Other dangers, however, still remained to be confronted. At
the end of June, a party of Hindustanis, the
theborfe?" emissaries of a restless border-chief, had stolen
into the Peshawar valley, to instigate the villagers
to withhold their revenue. This spark of rebellion had been
extinguished. But now special messengers from
^'" Delhi were busily proclaiming the overthrow of
the Nazarenes ; and a number of Ghazis, catching up the
cry, swarmed out of their fastnesses with a moulvi at their
head, and planted their standard in a strong mountain
village called Nowrunjee, just outside the Peshawar frontier.
Though speedily put to flight, the moulvi re-
Juiy 21. appeared in a few days : but this time the force
Aug. 3. that moved against him was stronger than before :
the village was destroyed ; and the borderers were
awed into tranquillity.^
Peshawar itself was the next point threatened. Towards the
end of August a number of incendiary letters,
Pe"hawar* ^^nt by a mendicant fanatic named Syad Amir,
found their way into the native lines. The dis-
armed sepoys became violently excited. Cotton saw the danger,
and resolved to take the initiative. Accordingly on the 28th
he caused the lines to be searched. Swords, muskets, pistols,
and ammunition were found hidden in floors, roofs, bedding,
and even drains. The 51st, in despair at the discovery of their
treason, seized the piled arms of a newly-raised
irregular regiment, rushed upon the regiment
itself, ajid overpowered the officers. Cotton, however, had
made all his preparations, and was not for a moment dis-
1 P. M. R., pp. 74-5, paxs. 111-18. ■ lb. pp. 73-4, pars. 103-8.
1857 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI 365
concerted. In a few minutes the troops were under arms : the
civil officers brought up their levies and police ; and, though
the heat was so dreadful that several horses dropped down
dead, and the colonel of the 51st perished before evening, the
mutineers were never allowed a moment's respite. Not more
than sixty escaped. The rest were either slain in the pursuit,
or executed by sentence of drum-head court-martial on the
following day. " Seven hundred comrades," wrote Edwardes,
" who yesterday were ripe for the murder of European officers,
and ladies, and little children, to-day lay dead in three deep
trenches." Thenceforward their surviving comrades were as
still as they.^
And now, as it became known that Delhi was indeed to be
assaulted, the anxiety of all, Europeans and
natives alike, became hourly more intense. As Syad Amir
£inu. tii6
each successive message came in from below, the Mohmands.
natives closely scanned their rulers, to see how
the news had affected them. The outlook, indeed, was even now
gloomy enough. All was still at Peshawar : but the horizon
was overhung by black thunder-clouds. With Nicholson at
Delhi, Delhi must soon fall, but the Punjab might first give
way under the strain upon its loyalty. Suddenly Syad Amir
reappeared with a few of the survivors of the g f q
51st and a horde of Mohmands, and presented
himself by night before the fort of Michni. The garrison had
hitherto remained faithful among the faithless ; but would they
stand such a test as this ? The Mohmands, eager to recover a
fief of which they had been deprived by the Government, as a
punishment for former misconduct, were sending the fiery cross
to the neighbouring tribes. There were no troops to send
against them. But the emergency only revealed more clearly
the quality of Edwardes's statesmanship. His one course, he
saw, was to yield gracefully. He therefore sent to tell the
Mohmands that they did not know their own interests. Their
true policy was to support the Government. For instance, let
them send Syad Amir a prisoner to Dost Mahomed. Then
he would intercede with the Governor-General for the restitu-
tion of their fief. The Mohmands listened and obeyed. Syad
1 P. M. E., pp. 77-8, pars. 129-34 ; Cotton, p. 202. Tliere were also less
serious mutinies at Ferozepore (Aug. 19), UmbuUa (Sept. 30), and Meean Wali.
P. M. R., p. 22, par. 5.
366 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI
Amir was sent off to Kabul ; and Edwardes felt that a great
load had been taken oif his mind.^
Still, however, Delhi held out. The general disbelief in the
vitality of the British power was fast begetting
suspense.^ "^^ general disaffection, which was encouraged by the
fact that the province had been denuded of its
best troops. While the Chief Commissioner was waiting for
the news that Delhi had fallen, he heard that the storm of
rebellion, which had been so long gathering, had burst at last
on the Murree Hills, and over the jungle-covered plains of
Mooltan.2
On the 7th of August Nicholson arrived at Delhi, having
hastened on in advance of his column to consult
ft Ddhr with Wilson. On the night of his arrival he dined
at the headquarters mess. His entertainers,
always gay and unrestrained among themselves, were surprised,
perhaps awed, by the stern and majestic reserve of his manner.
They felt his power at once ; but they did not at once welcome
him as a friend. The events of the past few months, indeed,
could not but have had the effect of deepening the natural
seriousness of a nature like his. His lot had been cast amid
some stormy scenes : but no man had ever known anything like
the hurricane beneath which the imperial pile was now groan-
ing and trembling to its foundations. Henry Lawrence, his
revered master, had passed away ; and he felt how far he was
from being able to follow the example of that noble soul. But
Edwardes was still left to him ; and to him he turned for
sympathy, as he braced himself for the hero's work, the desper-
ate deed which he had come down from the Punjab to do.^
That work was soon to begin. A few days after his arrival
he went out to meet the MovealDle Column, which
"■ ' was now fast approaching, and marched back into
camp at its head. The effective force now amounted to eight
thousand men. Some days later it became known that the
siege-train, so long expected, was on its way down. Un-
^ P. M. R., pp. 78-9, pars. 136-8. Edwardes wrote: "They have sent me
word that they would rather uot kill him, as he is a Syiid and has got a flag with
Mahomed embroidered on it, but that they don't mind plundering him." MS.
correspondence.
2 P. M. R., pp. 15-16, pars. 43-4 ; p. .50, par. 109.
^ Lives of Indian Officers, vol. ii. p. 474 ; Greathed, p. 179 ; History of the
Siege of Delhi, by an Officer who served there, p. 223.
To ftice -page 361.
VILLAGE
heLeUhy
SKETCH
illixstrative of tlie
ACTION OF
IS^AJAFGAKH.
REFERENCE.
B.RisiriQgt'oimAlinihcfTVb of
oxtracL'aJvce .
C.Lirie ofattujck on. Serai- consisttng
riqili Z^'^Fimjablnr.pnUn,.
J).DJ).3 VMaqe.s held hvEtvenvif
F..Brid.i)e89fcetloni)XTbrt>aA,blown'ap
iv prevent Ertemy threatening our rear.
]\ Grm.s hramjiht Tn'JEnetnv ioptqy orv
Jhidge when, held iy ihs.
G.Oiir Guns brou^Jvf'Uptv silence theirs.
London : Macmillan & C?L'^
Stan/ords Geog'- £siabt Zondcrt.
1857 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI 367
fortunately, however, it had been impossible to spare more
than a weak native detachment to escort it.^ Aware of this,
the enemy resolved to intercept it, and with this object sent
out a large force in the direction, as was supposed, of a suburb
called Bahadurgarh. To frustrate their design, Nicholson
started in the same direction at daybreak on the
25th, with about two thousand men. The only Najaf^arh
road open to him was a mere bullock-track, rendered
almost impassable by the rains, and surrounded by swamps and
floods. The infantry kept slipping as they tried to march ;
and the gunners had over and over again to put their shoulders
to the wheels of their gun-carriages, and force them out of the
slough. All through the morning rain fell in torrents. At
length, after a struggle of seven hours, during which he had
only advanced nine miles, Nicholson learned that the enemy
were, after all, not at Bahadurgarh, but moving towards
Najafgarh. He therefore struck off from the Bahadurgarh
road, and pressed on to overtake them. About four o'clock he
came upon a branch of the Najafgarh jheel canal, and saw
them drawn up on the opposite side. Their right rested on
a bridge crossing the canal itself, which ran at right angles to
the branch. In front of their left centre was a serai ; and on
their right front and right rear, close to the canal, were two
villages, which they had occu})ied. They had three guns at
each of these villages, four at the serai, and three at the bridge.
On their extreme left they occupied the village of Najafgarh.
By five o'clock the whole of the British force had forded the
branch of the canal. After a hasty reconnaissance, Nicholson
resolved to begin by attacking the serai, which he saw to be
the strongest point in the position of the enemy. Turning to
the European infantry, whom he had ordered to lie down, he
thus harangued them in his deep, sonorous voice : "Now, 61st,
I have but a few words to say. You all know what Sir Colin
Campbell said to you at Chilianwdla, and you must also
have heard that he used a similar expression at the battle of
the Alma, that is, ' Hold your fire till within twenty or thirty
yards of that battery, and then, my boys, we will make short
work of it.' " 2
1 P. M. R., p. 15, par. 40 ; p. 27, par. 26 ; Lord Roberts, vol. i. p. 208.
- History of the Siege of Delhi, by an Officer who served there, p. 228. The
words were preserved by a soldier of the 61st
368 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI chap, x
The British artillery opened the battle. After they had fired
a few rounds, the infantry sprang to their feet, and, with
Nicholson at their head, advanced through a shower of grape
and musketry, holding back their OAvn fire till they were Avithin
twenty yards of the enemy. Then, with a loud cheer, they
fired a volley, charged, captured the guns, and, after a short
sharp struggle, drove the mutineers out of the serai. Changing
front to the left, they swept down the line and turned the guns
between the serai and the canal ; while the enemy ran before
them, and fled, hunted by our artillery, over the bridge, leaving
all their guns upon the field. MeauAvhile the 1st Punjab
Infantry had won the town of Najafgarh. A few of the enemy,
however, were found to be still lurking in a little village on
our right rear. The Punjabis Avere therefore sent to expel
them : but the rebels, seeing their retreat cut off, fought des-
perately ; and the village was not carried till reinforcements
were sent down.^
The conquerors were obliged to bivouac upon the wet field
without food or covering ; for it would have been dangerous to
attempt to bring the baggage across the ford.
"^' ' Next day they returned to the Ridge.^
On the 4th of September the siege-train arrived. The excite-
ment among all ranks now became intense. Delhi must be
taken within a few days at latest, if only their General willed
it. But some uneasily suspected that he would even now hold
back if he dared. Anxiety had broken down his health ; and
his nerves trembled as he thought of the magnitude of his task
and the probability of failure. The truth was that he had
Au' 20 written a few days before to Baird Smith, explain-
wiien shall ii^g why it had been impossible to attempt an
be^deHvered? ^^sault earlier, and saying that, though he intended
to begin more active operations on the ai'rival of
the siege-train, he could not hope to succeed until he was
reinforced by the army from below. Baird Smith had insisted
in reply that to deliver the assault as soon as possible would
be the most prudent course, as the enemy would otherwise
have time to learn our intentions, and strengthen their defences.
1 ■' Indeed," says Sir H. Norman (Forrest's Selections from State Papers, vol. i.
p. 464), 'more properly speaking, it was not taken, bnt was evacuated by the
enemy during the night."
2 Cave-Browne, vol. ii. pp. 150-2, and pp. 332-4 (Nicholson's report).
1857 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI 369
Then Wilson had yielded, confessing that, though his belief as
to the improbability of success was unshaken, he could suggest
no way out of the difficulty. He had thus virtually thrown the
responsibility of the siege upon Baird Smith. What wonder
then that indignation should have burst forth against him ?
What wonder that Nicholson should have written
to Lawrence, " Had Wilson carried out his threat
of withdrawing the guns, I was quite prepared to appeal to the
army to set him aside, and elect a successor." ^
There was no longer, however, any danger of Wilson's
postponing the assault. He might argue and expostulate and
conjure up alarms : but Baird Smith was determined that he
should not go back from his word. Baird Smith was as ill as
Wilson. He was suffering intense pain from a neglected wound,
and was so enfeebled by chronic diarrhoea that he could only
keep himself fit for work by taking brandy and opium : but his
strong, calm, buoyant nature triumphed over physical prostra-
tion. He had established an ascendency over his chief ; and
his chief knew it. He pestered Baird Smith with letters,
opposed his plans, at last refused to communicate with him
except through the staft' : but he leaned upon his support. On
the 7th he issued an address to the troops, which _
. Wilson s
Baird Smith was believed to have written for him. address to
He warned them that the hardest part of their tii«army.
task was now about to begin, but assured them that, if they
maintained their discipline, they could not fail to succeed, and
bade them spare women and children, but give no
quarter to mutineers.^ About the same time the
last reinforcements arrived.
It was fortunate for the British that this increase of strength
was not counterbalanced. The mutineers were still about
twice as numerous as their opponents, of whom little more than
a third were European troops ; and, if an able leader
had arisen, who could have made himself obeyed, nmtiiieers to
their superiority might have been greatly increased. sXcicn™^'^ "^
But the mutineers throughout India were acting in 5^''^"°'^'^ "P"*^
groups, without concert or definite aim ; and forces
which might, for a time, have turned the scale, were wasting
^ Lord Roberts, vol. i. yi\j. 213-16 ; Life of Lord Lawrence, 6th ed. vol. ii.
p. 112 ; Vibart's Richnrd Bcird Smith, pp. 49-54.
- lb. pp. 75, 128-9, 135-7, 149.
2 B
370 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI chap, x
their strength between the Jumna and the Nerbudda and on
the east of Oudh.
Meanwhile the engineers, directed by Baird Smith, and
immediately supervised by Captain Alexander
The sie^e */ i »/ x
Taylor, an officer of rare ability and inex-
haustible energy,^ were hard at work. The same causes
indeed which had originally made it impossible to invest the
city, forbade them to follow the prescribed routine of siege
operations. All that they could do was to select that portion
of the defences against which the bombardment could be
directed, and the assault afterwards delivered, with the greatest
possible effect and the least possible loss. This portion Avas
the front already invested. On the evening of the 6th they
had run up a light battery on the Ridge, to cover the opera-
tions of the working parties who were to construct the heavy
siege-batteries below. On the 7th the first heavy battery was
traced seven hundred yards from the Mori bastion. This
battery was to be the key of the attack. It was to consist of
two parts, the right of which was to bombard the Mori
bastion itself, while the left was to hold in check the fire of
the enemy from the Kashmir bastion. While the work of
tracing was going on, strings of camels kept coming down,
laden with fascines and gabions, and by their incessant groan-
ing kept the working party in a fever of anxiety lest the enemy
should suspect what they were about. As soon as the camels
were got rid of, the artillery-carts began to arrive, laden with
shot and shell ; and soon the siege-guns followed, each drawn
by twenty pairs of bullocks. It was now near
dawn ; and the first faint light revealed a strange
scene, — helpless oxen bellowing, and struggling with each other
in an entangled heap, drivers ctirsing and slashing with their
whips, sappers, pioneers, and infantry volunteers working at the
unfinished battery and magazines, artillerymen storing ammu-
nition. Wilson was in despair, and talked of withdrawing
the guns : Major Brind, the officer in command, would
not listen to the suggestion. Every man Avorked his hardest ;
but only one gun had been dragged on to its platform, when
the enemy in the Mori bastion saw what was going on,
and instantly opened fire. Round after round of shot and
grape came crashing against the battery : but Brind replied
^ Riducrd Baird Smith, pp. 78-80.
1857 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI 371
as well as he could with a single howitzer : the Europeans
worked on at the remaining platforms : one gun after another
was mounted and fired ; and then, as the masonry of the
bastion crumbled, and tottered, and soon began to fall in ruins
under the cannonade, the enemy gradually lost heart, and by
the afternoon had ceased to fire. For the next
two days, however, the guns in the left section of ^^^ ' " '
the battery were utilised for holding the fire of the Kashmir
bastion in check. ^
Meanwhile the other batteries on the left were being con-
structed with but little interruption ; for the fire of No. 1
deluded the enemy into the belief that the British attack was
to be delivered from the right only. No. 2, which was to
batter down the Kashmir bastion, and breach g^ ^ g
the adjacent curtain, consisted, like No. 1, of (nighV
two sections, the left immediately in front of (nfgiit).
Ludlow Castle, and the right a little to the right Sept. 9
front of the same building. No. 3 was erected sept.'i2
inside a ruined office of the Custom House, which ("lorniug)-
the enemy had foolishly neglected to occupy. It was only one
hundred and sixty yards from the Water bastion, against which
its fire was to be directed. A mortar battery was
also thrown up near a palace called the Kudsia sept. o
Bagh, to play upon the curtain between the Kash- (°'sht).
mir and the Water bastions.^
On the morning of the 11th, No. 2 was to open. There was,
however, some unavoidable delay ; and the enemy in the
Kashmir bastion, seeing eighteen guns unmasked, but not
firing, turned the delay to good account. With strange want
of forethought they had neglected to mount heavy guns behind
the curtains, to support the fire from their bastions ; and,
though they had not time now to remedy the error, they
dragged a number of light guns into convenient nooks, from
which they kept up an oblique cannonade. By eight o'clock,^
however, the left section of No. 2 was ready. Nine guns were
discharged simultaneously ; and, the smoke clearing away, the
gunners cheered exultingly as they saw the huge blocks of
1 Greathed, pp. 259, 265 ; Medley, pp. 74-8.
- Greathed, p. 261 ; Medley, pp. 80-2.
* lb. p. 87. Major Gaitskell, commanding the artillery brigade, in his
official report, raeutious 5.30 a.m. as the hour. Jiiujlishman, Nov. 11, 1857.
372 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI chap, x
stone tumbling over on to the ground beneath from the Kash-
mir bastion and the curtain. In ten minutes the hostile suns
were silenced. Still the work of breaching went on ; but the
enemy, seeing with consternation the ruin of their defences,
strove hard to make up for their past remissness. Ever and
anon a round shot, hurled from an enfilading gun on the right,
tore through the interior of the battery from end to end ; while
infantry, lining the trenches in front, or skirmishing over the
broken ground, maintained a galling musketry fire. Yet the
British gunners, unheeding their losses, regardless of the fear-
ful heat, went on fighting their guns hour after hour, with no
other thought than to prepare the M^ay for their impatient
comrades to deliver the assault. Now, too, No. 3 battery was
at work ; and the Water bastion was hurled by its fire into a
chaotic mass of ruins.^
The end, for good or for evil, was fast approaching. On the
„, , ,^1 3th, Wilson and Baird Smith arranged the plan of
Plan of assault. i^^ m i • c i i • ■ i i
assault. Ihe attacking force was to be divided
into four columns and a reserve. The first column, under
Nicholson, was to storm the breach near the Kashmir bastion,
and escalade the face of the bastion itself. The second, under
Brigadier Jones, was to storm the breach near the Water
bastion. The third, under Colonel Campbell, was to make its
way into the city through the Kashmir gate, which was first to
be blown open. The fourth, under Major Reid, was to expel
the enemy from the suburbs of Kishenganj and Paharipur, and
then toienter the city by the Kabul gate, which was to be opened
from within. The reserve, under Brigadier Longfield, was to
follow the first column. Speaking generally, the outer defences
of the city were to be taken possession of, and secured by the
establishment of posts ; while the succeeding operations were to
be determined by circumstances and the discretion of the leader,
it being understood that the palace was ultimately to be bom-
barded, and the king made a prisoner.- Who the leader must
be, could not admit of doubt. If Nicholson had appealed to
the army to elect a new general, and he would have done so if
Wilson had refused to permit the assault, their choice would
have fallen upon him. They h.id heard of his wild ride in
pursuit of the mutinous 55th. They had heard of, some of
1 Medley, pp. 85-92,
2 7ft. pp. 94, 102-3 ; Kaye, vol. iii. p. 590. See App. M.
1857 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI 373
them had followed him in his victorious march through the
Punjab, his onslaught at Najafgarh. And, since he had
appeared among them, he had made them feel that what they
had heard of him was not in excess of the truth ; that he had
come destined, as he himself believed, to put an end to their
weary waiting, to lead them to the slaughter of their enemies,
to give them possession of the imperial city. Even Wilson,
though he might shrink from acknowledging his influence, could
not but own his power.^ To him, therefore, he entrusted the
general direction of the assault.
But, before the assault could be delivered, it Avas first neces-
sary to examine the breaches. Two engineer
officers. Medley and Lang, arranged to start on fi^^^XSe" °^
this errand soon after sunset, with six picked men.
There was no moon : but the heavens were bright with stars ;
and flashing rockets and fire-balls were continually lighting up
the sky ; while the roar of the guns, and the clear, sharp report
of the shells alone broke the stillness of the air. Suddenly, as
the clocks struck ten, the batteries ceased firing. Then the
explorers, drawing their swords, and feeling for their revolvers,
began to creep towards the breach near the Kashmir bastion.
In a few minutes they reached the edge of the ditch. The
officers and two of the men slid down. Quiet as they had
been, however, they knew that they had startled the enemy ;
for they could hear the sound of feet moving towards the
breach. They therefore climbed back again to their own side,
and lay down on the grass to wait. Unseen themselves, they
could see dark figures moving about in the breach and heard
the sound of voices, and presently the ring of ramrods. Still
they lay waiting, hoping that the enemy would go away, but in
vain. Medley could see, however, that the breach was a good
one, and, knowing that it would be hopeless to attempt to
examine it further, gave the signal to return. As the eight
started to their feet, the enemy fired, and the bullets whizzed
about their ears ; but no one was hurt, and all made their way
safely back to camp. Medley then reported to Baird Smith
that the breach, though capable of improvement, was still
practicable ; and Lieutenants Home and Wilberforce Greathed,
who had examined the breach near the Water bastion, told him
that there also the result was satisfactory. Upon this, Baird
^ Life, of Lord Lawrence, vol. ii. p. 206.
374 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI chap, x
Smith advised Wilson to deliver the assault at daybreak. He
pointed out that during the past week every man in the force
had been working at the highest pressure, and that they could
not endure the strain much longer. Wilson admitted the force
of this argument, and issued the necessary orders at once. But,
as the fateful moment drew near, his heart misgave him again ;
and he wrote to tell Baird Smith that he feared that it would
be hopeless to assail the Water bastion. " What do you pro-
pose 1 " he asked : " you are determined I shall not have a
moment's sleep to-night." Baird Smith promptly reassured
him ; and he lay down for a brief repose.^
About three o'clock the whole camp was astir. There were
Sept 14 some who looked forward to the struggle upon
Preparations which they Were about to enter, not merely with
or eassa . ^^^ martial ardour of soldiers, the stern longing of
men Avho had the blood of innocent women to avenge, but with
an enthusiasm as solemn as that which inspired the Ironsides
who fought in the Civil War. The chaplain had administered
the Holy Communion to a few officers and men at their own
desire ; and in some tents the Old Testament lesson for the
day had been read. The chapter was that in which the doom
of Nineveh was foretold. The words must have sounded
strangely prophetic to those plain soldiers : " Woe to the
bloody city ! it is all fu.ll of lies and robberj'^ . . . draw thee
waters for the siege, fortify thy strongholds . . . then shall
the fire devour thee ; the sword shall cut thee off, it shall eat
thee up like the canker-worm." ^
The columns fell in on the road leading from cantonments
to the city, all but Reid's, Avhose place was on the
^t^coimniis I'igliti. There were some four thousand five hundred
men, British soldiers with bronzed, war-worn faces,
wearing uniforms which had been dyed dust-colour, Sikhs with
their long hair twisted up behind, and tall, muscular Pathans
with faces as fair as those of Englishmen.^ Eager as they were
to move on, they were depressed and wearied by delay ; for
the enemy had filled up the breaches in the night ; and it was
necessary for the batteries to reopen. But at length the signal
^ Life of Lord Lawi-cnce, vol. ii. p. 212 ; Medley, pp. 96-100 ; Tivies, May 11,
1858, p. 6, col. 3 ; Lord Roberts, vol. i. pp. 222-4 ; Forrest's Selections from Stale
Papers, vol. i, p. 392 ; Vibart, p. 61.
'^ Rotton, pp. 259-60 ; Cave-Browue, vol. ii. pj). 156-7.
" Medley, p. 64.
1857 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI 375
was given ; and, while the heavy guns still thundered at the
breaches, answered by the heavy guns from the city, and shells
burst, and rockets, flashing along the dark sky, hissed above
their heads, the columns tramped silently and steadily down.
Wilson rode up as they advanced, looking nervous and anxious.
Near Ludlow Castle they halted, and took up their respective
stations. The engineer officers with their ladder-men moved
on in front. Then Nicholson went to Brigadier Jones, who
commanded the second column, and asked whether he was
ready. ^ The Brigadier replied that he was. Nicholson put his
arm round his comrade's shoulder, and then hurried off" to join
his own column. The guns ceased firing ; the Rifles, in
skirmishing order, dashed to the front with a loud cheer and
opened fire ; and the columns streamed after to the assault of
Delhi.2
The ladder-men moved quickly on : but the enemy, crowding
in the breach, received the men of the first column r.^_„..„„„ „f
' _ Operations or
with a terrible musketry-fire, and, catching up the the first and
1 1 , 111x1 1 \i • second columns.
loosened stones, hurled them down upon their
heads, yelling, cursing, and daring them to enter. For a
moment it seemed as if the avalanche would overwhelm them :
man after man was struck down : but in another moment two
ladders were thrown into the ditch : the stormers closed up
behind : Nicholson, as ever in the front, slid down and mounted
the scarp : the rest followed : the enemy, feeling that the
breach was lost, fled ; and the victorious column poured into
the city, and took up its position in the main-guard.^
The shout of the Riflemen had served as a common signal
for the first three columns ; and the second, on hearing it, had
started for the left breach. But they too were received with a
musketry-fire so severe that out of the thirty-nine ladder-men
twenty-nine were in a few minutes killed or wounded.'* Not-
withstanding, the ladders were planted ; and the stormers
plunged into the city, some at the Water bastion, others
through the Kashmir curtain. Then, turning to the right,
and joined by some of Nicholson's men, they ran down the
road past the ramparts, sweeping the enemy before them like
^ Kaye, vol. iii. p. 591.
^ Cave-Browne, vol. ii. p. 172 ; Medley, pp. 104-6 ; Memorials of Gen. Sir
E. H. Greathed, p. 58, by Lieut. -Gen. A. C. Robertson.
^ lb. pp. 106-7 ; Cave-Browue, vol. ii. p. 175.
^ Medley, p. 108.
376 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI cha.p. x
frightened sheep, and, rushing into the Mori, bayoneted the
gunners, who stood resolutely to their guns, then leaped on to
the parapet, and waved their caps to their comrades on the
Ridge. Leaving a party to hold the bastion, they pressed on
till they came to the Kabul gate, where they had been ordered
to remain until they should hear that the third column had
captured the Jamma Masjid. The bugles were sounded to
collect the men of the various regiments, who had become
scattered in the confusion ; and Colonel Greathed, who com-
manded the 8th regiment, walked back to see that the gates
and bastions Avhich had been passed were in safe keeping.
Meanwhile Jones, fancying that he had stopped at the wrong
gate, pushed on again until he found himself unexpectedly
under the Lahore bastion. With one bold rush he might have
taken it. But he had received no orders to do so ; and he was
not a man to act without them. Falling back, therefore, on
the Kabul gate, he planted his flag there, and awaited Nichol-
son's arrival.^
Before this, numbers of the mutineers, dismayed by the
overpowering violence with which the columns swept through
the breaches into the city, had begun to retreat, and actually
crossed the bridge of boats : but soon, perceiving that the con-
querors hesitated to follow up their advantage, they plucked up
courage to return ; and many of them occupied houses abutting
on the Chandni Chauk, from which they would be able to fire
upon the stormers, when they should advance to assault the
Lahore bastion.'^
Thus the further progress of the first two columns was likely
to be disputed. But it had been provided in the
^oiumii^ai"!'^ V^^^ of assault that the fourth column should fight
tiie cavalry Jts Way to the Kabul gate to their support. At
five o'clock all the detachments which composed
this column were mustered for the start. The Jammu Con-
tingent, lent by the Maharaja of Kashmir, Avas there, the
stalwart Guides infantry, and the fearless little Gurkhas, who,
though sadly thinned in numl)ers, were as confident as ever in
themselves and in the leader under whom they had already
gained twenty-five victories. Three guns, however, which had
been promised, were late in arriving, and so inadequately
^ See App. M.
'^ MS. Memo, and letters from an otiieer who served with the tirst eolumu.
1857 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI 377
manned that Eeid had to send for more gunners. As he was
waiting, he heard that a portion of the Jammu troops which he
had sent to make a diversion on the right by attacking a fort
called the Eedgah, had prematurely engaged the enemy. He
therefore decided to advance without further delay. Two
breastworks lay before him, which the enemy had thrown up
as a jorotection to Kishenganj, the first point which the column
was to attack. The Rifles and Gurkhas carried the first with a
rush. The enemy seemed to hesitate ; and the column, press-
ing on, began to cross a bridge spanning the canal under the
walls of Kishenganj. Now, however, the want of guns was
felt. Thousands of rebels from the city were seen pouring
doAvn the dry bed of the canal to reinforce their comrades.
Still, Reid was confident of success. Standing on the parapet
of the bridge, he was just going to direct a false attack to be
made on the enemy's front and a real one against their left
flank and rear, when he fell wounded. The Gurkhas, dispirited
by the loss of their leader, hung back : but the 1st Bengal
Fusiliers, followed by the 61st regiment, rushed across the
bridge. A few minutes later Eeid came to his senses, and
made over the command to Captain Richard Lawrence. But
the battle was already lost. The various detachments of the
column, crowded together, and harassed by a severe musketry-
fire which the enemy poured into them from loopholes in the
wall, had become so confused that their officers could not make
themselves heard : the Jammu troops on the right, flying before
their assailants, rushed panic-stricken into the column, and in-
creased its disorder ; and at last the situation became so des-
perate that Captain Muter of the 60th Rifles, assuming command
independently of Lawrence, withdrew the troops around him to
Hindu Rao's house, followed some time afterwards by Lawrence
and the Kashmiris.^ The enemy, following up their success,
were threatening this vital point of the British position, when
the Cavalry Brigade under Brigadier Hope Grant, which had
hitherto been covering the assaulting columns, moved down
close under the Mori bastion, to support the beaten column.
The enemy, clustering in the houses and gardens near Kishen-
' Cave-Browne, vol. ii. pp. 181-4, 336 ; Letters from Gen. E. Lawrence and
Col. Muter (Kaye, vol. iii. App. pp. 693-4, 698-700) ; Memoranda by Major
Reid and Sir H. Edwardes (Malleson, vol. ii. App. A. jjp. 579-89) ; Forrest's
Selections from State Papers, vol. i. pp. 407-13.
378 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI chap, x
gaiij, turned upon their new opponents with so sharp a musketry-
fire that it was necessary to send Tombs with his horse-artillery
troop to the rescue. The musketeers were soon subdued : but
the brigade was now exposed to a steady fire of grape from the
Lahore bastion. The carnage was terrible. Forty-two men
and six officers of the Lancers, twenty-five out of the fifty
ofiicers and men composing Tombs's troop, were struck. But
for two hours the brigade never moved. The horses stood still
under the iron storm : the men sat in their saddles as patiently
as the sentries at the Horse Guards : Tombs never ceased fight-
ing his guns ; and at length the enemy's fire slackened and died
away, and Hindu Rao's house was safe.^
Meanwhile a struggle not less severe had been going on
within the city. It Avas not till after Jones planted his
flag on the Kabul gate, that Nicholson arrived thither ; for he
had been forced to diverge from his prescribed route, to silence
a body of musketeers harassing his left. When he did join
Brigadier Jones, the enemy near the Lahore bastion, misunder-
standing the temporary inaction of the columns, were firing
down the road ; and the 75th regiment, after vainly attempting
to force a passage, had fallen back upon the Kabul gate.
Seeing that the mutineers were regaining courage and resolved
not to give way to an enemy whom he despised, Nicholson
gathered together a number of men from both
Lahore basUon. columns, and advanced to assault the bastion. Then
was seen how much Jones had lost by neglecting
his opportunity. To reach the bastion, a narrow lane, all but
choked in places by projecting bastions, had to be ti'aversed.
The enemy had planted a gun some distance down this, and
another at the bottom ; while their sharpshooters swarmed at
the windows and on the flat roofs of the low houses on the left,
and behind the parapets of the bastions. The danger was in-
creased by the fact that the fourth column had failed to
accomplish its task. Officers crowded round Nicholson, and
tried to persuade him to be content with occupying the houses
near the lane. But it was not in Nicholson's nature to wait.
The column entered the lane. The leaders soon took the first
gun, and advanced to within ten yards of the second ; Lieu-
tenant Butler of the 1st Bengal Fusiliers ran right past it, and
J Hodson, p. 290 ; Hope Grant's Incidents of the Sejjoy War, pp. 123-7 ; MS.
Memo, by Sir N. Chamberlain ; Life of Sir Ho^je Grant, vol. i. pp. 248-9.
1857 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI 379
in single combat encountered the enemy behind : but the fire
was so appalling that the men could not steel their hearts to
follow him, and fell back behind the first gun, bafiled and
dispirited. For a few moments they halted : then they were
told to try again, moved onward, and recovered and spiked the
first gun ; and now the ofiicers, still nobly leading, strove by
passionate exhortations, by heroic example, to nerve them for
the last fatal rush. But they felt that they could not try.
Showers of grape tore their ranks open ; bullets flew down upon
them like hail from above ; stones and round shot were pitched
among them ; two ofiicers fell mortally wounded ; five more
were struck, and the shattered column, hurled back in confu-
sion, stood cowering under the storm. ^ Then Nicholson himself
strode forward, and, raising his sword above his head, indig-
nantly apjDealed to them to advance. In another moment he
had fallen shot through the chest.
The historian will best express his reverence for the fallen
hero by going on without a pause to narrate the course of the
struggle, on the chances of which his thoughts were fixed, even
while he was being lifted up and carried back to the Ridge.
Just before the first and second columns had begun
the assault, Lieutenants Home and Salkeld of the ga^.
Engineers, Bugler Hawthorne of the 52nd, and
Sergeants Carmichael, Smith, and Burgess of the Bengal
Sappers, started in advance of the third column, to blow up
the Kashmir gate. Outside the gate, the ditch was spanned by
a wooden bridge, the planks of which had been removed, leav-
ing only the sleepers intact. Passing through the outer gate-
way. Home, who was in front, crossed one of the sleepers with
the bugler under a sharp musketry-fire, planted his bag of
powder, and leaped into the ditch. Carmichael followed, but,
before he could lay his bag, was shot dead. Then Smith, who
was just behind, planted his own and his comrade's bag, and
arranged the fuses ; while Salkeld, holding a slow match in his
hand, stood by, waiting to fire the charge. Just as he was
going to do so, he was struck down by two bullets. As he
fell, he held out the match, telling Smith to take it and fire.
Burgess, who was nearer to the wounded man, took it instead,
^ Blackwood's Magazine, January 1858. Article — "The First Bengal Euro-
pean Fusiliers in the Delhi Campaign," p. 133. Lord Roberts, vol. i. pp. 233-4 ;
Cave-Browne, vol. ii. pp. 177-8 ; information from Sir Seymour Blane. See App. M.
380 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI chap, x
but presently cried that it had gone out, and, just as Smith
was handing him a box of matches, fell over into the ditch,
mortally wounded. Smith, now, as he thought, left alone, ran
close up to the powder bags, to avoid the enemy's fire, struck
a light, and was in the act of applying it, when the port-fire in
the fuse went off in his face ; and, as he was plunging through
a cloud of smoke into the ditch, he heard the thunder of the
explosion, and barely escaped being dashed to pieces by the
masses of masonry falling from above by clinging fast to the
wall. For this gallant service Salkeld, Home, Smith, and Haw-
thorne'were recommended for the Victoria Cross ; but only the
two last lived to wear it.^
The column passed through the ruined gate into the city,
and pushed on to the Chandni Chauk ; but Camp-
thcfthirT"^ ° bell, finding it impossible to advance further with-
reserve ^"^^ ^^^ ^^^ Undue loss, and learning that the other columns
had not been able to penetrate the city far enough
to support him, fell back to the church, between the Water
bastion and the gate, and there joined the reserve, which had
followed him and occupied the posts from which he had ex-
pelled the enemy .2
Meanwhile those who remained on the Ridge had been
waiting with intense anxiety for the issue of the
day's'lighttos! struggle. They heard the sullen roar of artillery
and the rattle of musketry in the city ; they saw
the litters, filled Avith dead, and dying, and wounded men,
pouring in an endless stream to the hospital ; but no one could
tell them how their comrades were faring. But at last they
heard a loud cheer resounding from the walls, and knew that
all was well.^ Gradually the din of battle began to be hushed ;
for the troops, though their lust for blood was still unappeased,
were becoming too exhausted to do more. Towards evening
Wilson rode through the city, map in hand, to ascertain what
progress had been made. The space between the Water bastion
and the Kabul gate was in our hands. Taylor had already
taken every possible precaution for securing the position of the
^ MS. notes sent to me by Lieut.-Col. Tnrnbiill ; Cave-Browne, vol. ii. p. 173;
Forrest's Selections from State Papery vol. i. p. 401. The accounts of the ex-
plosion naturally vary in details. I have followed that of Sergeant Smith, who,
as far as I can jud^e, had tlie best opportunity of observing what took place.
- Norman, p. 43 ; Cave-Browne, vol. ii. jip. 179-80 ; Medley, p. 112.
^ G. Bourchier's Eight Months Campaign, p. 63.
1857 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI 381
assailants, by loopholing, fortifying, and garrisoning the cap-
tured houses, throwing up barricades across the streets, and
posting piquets to keep up communication between the three
columns. But Wilson was ill -satisfied with what he saw.
Owing to the failure of Eeid's attack, the right flank was still
exposed ; and even the first three columns had done little more
than enter the city. Sixty-six officers and eleven hundred and
four men had fallen during the day.^ The mutineers had
suffered heavily ; but tens of thousands of them still remained.
The finest soldier in the camp was mortally wounded. Irri-
table and weak from anxiety and illness, and having no firmness
of character to support him, Wilson petulantly spoke of with-
drawing the troops altogether. But Baird Smith, to whom he
turned for advice, insisted on his holding on.^
The night of the 1 4th passed away ; and another day broke,
a day of shame and humiliation for the victorious
army. The enemy, knowing the weakness of Spt is!'"''^ °^
British soldiers, had cunningly strewn the deserted
shops and the pavements with bottles of beer, wine, and spirits.
Many of the troops, indeed, were not exposed to, or resisted
the temptation ; but numbers drank themselves drunk. Lying
helpless and senseless as a herd of swine, they had bartered
away their lives for a few hours' debauch, — if the enemy had
had the sense to butcher them. But the opportunity was lost ;
and Wilson, trembling at the thought of what might have been,
ordered every remaining bottle to be destroyed.^
The citizens and the more prudent or less resolute of the
mutineers were now fast hurrying out of the city. ,pj^g exodus.
Many, however, failed to escape ; for the British ^^
soldiers, though they treated the women and the British
children with forbearance and even kindness,
showed no mercy to the men. Harmless citizens were shot,
clasping their hands for mercy. Trembling old men were cut
down. But, in justice to the soldiers who committed these
cruelties, it should be said that they had received great pro-
vocation. Many of their comrades, rashly wandering from
^ MS. Correspondence ; Medley, p. 114. Neville Chamberlain stated the
number at 1145 — GO officers and 1085 men — killed and wounded. Pad. Papers,
vol. xliv. Part 1, p. 360. The loss of the Delhi Field Force in killed, wounded,
and missing from May 30 to Sept. 20 amounted to 2151 Europeans and 1686
natives. Ih. Part 3, p. 230.
2 See App. M. » See App. M.
382 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI chap, x
their posts, had been enticed by lurking fanatics and bud-
mashes into dark alleys, and there foully murdered.^
Meanwhile, the army was forcing its way by slow and pain-
„ ^ p ful steps into the heart of the city. On the 15th
Capture of J- . i i i i c i •
Delhi com- the magazine was reached, and the enemy of then'
^^^' own accord evacuated Kishenganj. On the 16th
the magazine was stormed and carried. On the 17th the Bank
was captured. The formidable Lahore bastion, however, still
held out. On the 18th and 19th, therefore, the houses leading
to it were sapped through by Taylor's suggestion, and in this
way it was won without exposing the troops to the perils of
street-fighting. Next day the Lahore gate, the Jamma Masjid,
and the Selimgarh were taken. Finally, the gates of the palace
itself were blown in : a few Ghazis, who had remained in it,
were slaughtered : the British flag was hoisted ; and the city
of the Moguls, now resembling a city of the dead, was again
subject to the Nazarenes.-
The King, however, was still at large. Bakht Khan had
urged him to share the flight of the mutineers ; but
S7S*'°^ one of his nobles, Mirza Ilahi Bakhsh, wishing to
purchase the favour of the conquerors by some
signal service, had persuaded him that, by separating himself
from his army, he would gain the credit of having originally
acted under their compulsion. Yielding to the tempter, he had
consented to remain with his family for a short time at the
tomb of the Emperor Humayun, which was situated about six
miles from Delhi. Hodson, who presided over the Intelligence
Department, was promptly informed of his whereabouts by a
spy named Rajab Ali ; and at once resolved to carry out a pur-
pose which he had long formed, by eff"ecting his capture.
The fame which this officer won for himself in the history of
the Mutiny is out of all proportion with the rank
which he held. Following the path prescribed by
ciistom for military men of ability, he had, early in his career,
obtained work as a civil officer. He had the good fortune to
be one of Henry Lawrence's disciples, and won, for a time, his
confidence and regard.^ But, after some years of unbroken
* Histwy of the Siege of Delhi, by an Officer who served there, pp. 256-7 ;
Kaye, vol. iii. p. 636.
'^ Cave-Browne, vol. ii. pp. 188-90 ; Norman, p. 44 ; Boiirchier, pp. 73, 7->.
^ Life vf Sir II. Lam-eiwe, pp. 411-12, 436.
X iace page 382
London Macimliaii &. ( " L **
StanfittrU Groa' gstal
1857 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI 383
success, the tide of his fortunes ebbed. He was accused of
coiTU]Dtion. He was found guilty of injustice to a native chief,
and irrevocably dismissed from civil employment. The de-
gradation, however, really increased his ultimate chances of
distinction. He had always been a soldier at heart : he was
now a soldier by necessity ; and, in the bitterness of his spirit,
he resolved to do something that should compel the highest
authority to recognise his deserts. The outbreak of the Mutiny
gave him his opportunity. How he used it, this history has
but faintly recorded. He managed the Intelligence Depart-
ment with rare tact and skill. By the mingled ardour and
prudence of his counsels, his readiness in undertaking, his
judgement in execu.ting a variety of bold and useful enterprises,
he won the confidence of three successive commanders. En-
trusted by Anson with the task of raising a corps for service
while actually in the field, he moulded into a regiment the mob
of recruits who formed his raw material, bound them to himself
by the closest ties of personal devotion, and, forcing them,
while yet only half trained, into the field, hurled them in a
series of cavalry combats against the enemy, and proved to
them that, under his leadership, they were irresistible. Capable
of enduring the extremes of hardship and fatigue, revelling in
danger yet never rash, knowing exactly what was possible, and
never hesitating to attempt what was all but impossible, he was
the beau-ideal of a partisan leader. Towards casual acquaint-
ances his speech was brusque, and his manner distant and
supercilious ; but in his intercourse with his friends, he knew
how to show all the graces and the sympathies of comradeship.
The brave and gentle Seaton wrote of him, " During the whole
of that siege we were together in the same tent, and it was to
his unremitting care and nursing that in great measure I owed
my life. It was then that I saw in all their splendour his noble
soldierly qualities, never fatigued, never downcast, always cool
and calm, with a cheerful countenance, and a word of encourage-
ment for every one." But in the stress and whirl of a stormy
life, his fine nature had been grievously marred. Poverty had
corrupted his sense of honour ; and time had not softened the
truculence of his spirit. It has been proved by men who knew
him well that he enriched himself by dishonest means, and
that, during the siege of Delhi, he executed, firing the first shot
with his own hands, without a regular trial, and solely upon
384 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI chap, x
the statement of an interested informer, a native officer who
had befriended him when his fortunes Avere low, but to whose
prayers for justice not even gratitude could induce him to give
heed.^ Still, there were a few unquenchable sparks of nobility
left in him ; and others besides Seaton held fast to his friend-
ship. Unscrupulous, unprincipled, he was yet a man capable
of loving and of winning love from the good, a man without
fear, if not without reproach.
Hodson lost no time in going to Wilson Avith the story
„ ,^ , which his spy had told him, and, pointing out that
the king the Capture of the city would avail but little so
Sept. 21. j^j^g ^g ^.jjg King remained at liberty, asked
whether he did not intend to pursue him. Wilson replied
tTiat he had no Eviropean troops to spare. Hodson then volun-
teered to go himself with some of his own irregulars. Still
Wilson refused. At last, however, he gave way. Hodson then
asked for permission to promise the King that his life should
be spared, explaining that otherwise it would be impossible to
induce him to surrender. To this request Wilson at first em-
phatically refused to assent ; but, after some further argument,
he reluctantly yielded to the remonstrances of those around
him.'- Hodson was not, however, influenced by pity for the
King. He had, indeed, himself declared that the King was old
and wellnigh impotent, that he had throughout been a mere
tool in the hands of others ; but nevertheless he longed to take
his life, and regretted that policy forbade him to do so.^ The
truth was that he had a cogent reason for the persistence
with which he urged Wilson to show mercy. Secretly, and for
his own purposes, he had already taken upon himself to sign
^ See App. N.
^ This is stated on the authority of Lieutenant - Colonel (then Lieutenant)
Turnbull, who was Wilson's A.D.C., and was present when the discussion as
to wliether the King's life should be guaranteed took place. See also a
letter from Sir T. Seaton. Hodson of Hodsons Horse (a new edition of
Twelve Years of a Soldier's Life in India), pp. 231-2. Hodson himself ^\Tote
on Sept. 24, 1857, "I assured him (Wilson) it was nothing but his own order
which bothered him with the King, as I would much rather have brought
him into Delhi dead than living." lb. p. 223. But, on Feb. 12, 1858, he
wrote, " General WUson refused to send troops in pursuit of him (the King),
and, to avoid greater calamities, I then, and not till then, asked and obtained
permission to offer him his wTetched life, on the ground, aud solely on the
ground, that there was no other way of getting him into our possession."
76. p. 230.
3 Jb. pp. 223, 230.
lRr.7 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI 385
a paper guaranteeing the safety of the King and Queen and of
her family ; and this transaction he naturally did not care to
reveal.^ After receiving his instructions, he set out on his
errand with fifty of his troopers. Approaching the tomb, he
concealed himself and his men in some old buildings near the
gateway, and then sent messengers to demand the surrender of
the King, on the sole condition that his life should be spared.
Two hours after, they brought back word that the King would
surrender, if Hodson would himself go, and pledge his word for
the fulfilment of the condition. Hodson consented, and rode
out from his hiding-place. A great crowd was gathered in
front of the tomb. Presently the Queen and her son passed
out through the gateway, followed by a palkee bearing the
King. Hodson rode up, and bade the King give up his arms.
The King in reply asked Hodson to confirm the pledge which
his messengers had given. Hodson solemnly promised. Then,
in the presence of a crowd who were too awed to strike a blow
in his behalf, with the glorious white marble dome of that
imperial mausoleum to remind him of the majesty of his
ancestors, betrayed by his own kinsmen, his city captured, his
army defeated and dispersed, his hopes shattered, the last king
of the house of Timour gave up his arms to an English sub-
altern, and was led away captive to await his trial.
But the King's sons were still to be brought to their account.^
Hodson resolved to go and capture them as he had
captured the King. At first Wilson would not be Hodson and the
'^ . o _ King s sons.
persuaded to give his consent : but Hodson was
importunate : Nicholson from his dying bed vehemently sup-
ported him ; and Wilson at last yielded.^
At eight o'clock on the morning of the 22nd he started with
Lieutenant Macdowell, his second in command, and a hundred
picked men of his own regiment. Let the reader try to picture
to himself the departing cavalcade, — wild -looking horsemen
wearing scarlet turbans and dust-coloured tunics bound with
scarlet sashes ; their leader a tall spare man attired like them,
riding his horse with a loose rein, with reddish brown hair and
beard, aquiline nose, thin curved defiant nostrils, and blue eyes
1 See App. N. § v.
^ They were his children by another wife ; and therefore Hodson's secret
guarantee did not apply to them.
^ Hodson, p. 300.
2C
386 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI chap, x
which seemed aglow with a half-kindled light.^ Arriving at
the tomb, he sent in Mirza Ilahi Bakhsh and Rajab AH, both
of whom he had brought with him, to say that he had come to
seize the princes for punishment, and intended to do so, dead
or alive. For more than half an hour the two Englishmen
were kept in suspense. At last the messengers returned to
ask Hodson whether he would promise the princes their lives.
He replied that he would not. The messengers went back.
Hodson and Macdowell waited on, wondering whether the
princes would ever come. They heard furious shouting within.
It was the appeal of a fanatical mob of Mussulmans to their
princes to lead them out against the infidels. At length a
messenger came out to say that the princes were coming.
Hodson sent ten men to meet them ; and Macdowell by his
order formed up the troop across the road, to shoot them down
if there should be any attempt to rescue them. Presently
they ^ were seen approaching in a small bullock-cart, with the
ten troopers escorting them, and a vast crowd behind. Hodson
and Macdowell rode up alone to meet them. Once more they
begged Hodson to promise them their lives. "Most certainly
not," he replied, and ordered the driver to move on. The driver
obeyed ; and the crowd were following simultaneously, when
Hodson imperiously waved them back, and Macdowell, beckon-
ing to his troop, formed them up between the crowd and the
cart, the latter of which was thus free to pursue its way, while
the former, baffled, fell slowly and sullenly back. Then Hod-
son galloped up to the troopers who were escorting the cart,
and told them to hurry on towards the city as fast as they
couTd, while he and Macdowell dealt with the mob. Hastily
joining his subaltern, he found the mob streaming up the
steps of the gateway into the garden of the tomb. Leaving
the bulk of the troop outside, he followed with his subaltern
and but four men. Then, seeing the necessity of instantly awing
the crowd, he commanded them in a firm voice to surrender
their arms. They hesitated, — there were some six thousand
of them confronting him. He sternlj' repeated the order ; and
the}'^ obeyed.
^ Hodson, p. 320. History of the Siege of Delhi, by an Officer who served
there, p. 108.
- There were three — two of the King's sons and one of his grandsons. Hope
Grant, p. 133.
1857 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI 387
Within two hours five hundred swords and more than five
hundred firearms were collected ; and Hodson, followed by the
crowd, rode off with the troop to overtake his prisoners. As
he drew near, the crowd pressed close on to the horses of the
troopers and thronged round the cart. He had intended that
the princes should be hanged : but now he determined to dispose
of them himself. " What shall we do with them ? " he asked
his subaltern : "I think we had better shoot them here ; we
shall never get them in." He rejoiced that circumstances had
given him the opportunity of playing the part of executioner.^
Halting the troop, he placed five troopers in front of the cart
and five behind, and ordered the princes to strip off their upper
garments. The crowd never stirred. Ten troopers sufficed to
paralyse the host whom Hodson professed to fear. Did he
still believe that he could not take his prisoners into camp ?
Galloping into the midst of the croAvd, he reined up, and
addressed them, saying that the princes had butchered the
women and children of his race, and that Government had now
sent their punishment. With these words he seized a carbine
from one of his men, and shot the three princes dead. Finally,
while the crowd stood by, awe-struck and motionless, he ordered
the corpses to be taken away, and flung out in front of the
Kotwalii On this spot the head of a famous Sikh Guru, Tegh
Bahadur Khan, had been exposed by order of Aurangzeb. A
prophecy had long been current among the Sikhs that they
should reconquer the city of the persecuting emperor by
the aid of the white men. The prophecy was now in their
eyes fulfilled ; and Hodson had avenged the martyr of their
religion."
^ " I am not cruel, but I confess I did rejoice at the opportunity of ridding the
earth of these wretches." Hodson of Hodson^s Horse, p. 224.
'•' Hodson, pp. 300-2, 310-13. To naoralise upon the slaughter of the princes
would be superiiuous. The reader only requires to know the relevant facts. But
there is one important question of fact regarding which there is not absolute
unanimity. Hodson himself asserted that if he had not killed the princes, the
crowd would have killed him, — "We should have been most unquestionably
sacrificed if I had hesitated for a moment " {Hodson of Hodson' s Horse, pp. xvi-xvii,
224). Sir Hugh Gough says {Old Memories, p. 107) that Macdowell made a
.similar assertion to him, — -"Our own lives were not worth a moment's purchase."
But these excuses will not bear examination. Hodson had one hundred troopers
under his command. With only four of the hundred, according to his own account
and that of Macdowell {Hodson of Hodson' s Horse, pp. xiv-xv, 223-4), he had over-
awed and disarmed a crowd numbering six thousand at the tomb ; and ten of the
hundred, according to Macdowell {lb. pp. xv-xvi), kept back the same crowd,
388 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI chap, x
All this time John Nicholson, the fallen Lion of the Punjab,
was dying slowly on the Ridge. As he lay tossing
Nicholson ^^ ^^^^ ^^^' ^® asked often how the army, with
which he was no more to go forth to battle, was
prospering ; and, though his wound was such that he could not
speak without agony, he still made his influence felt by written
suggestion.^ When he heard that Wilson spoke of retreating,
he cried out, the fire of his indignation leaping upward in an
expiring flame, " Thank God, I have strength yet to shoot him,
if necessary." ^ At times he suffered such paroxysms of pain
that it was necessary to drench him Avith morphia. Neville
Chamberlain often came to sit by his bedside, and cheer him
up ; but he knew he was dying. Such as he was, such as he
had made himself, a mighty spirit, wild and untamed, vibrating
with ambitions only half realised, glowing Avith noble aspirations
too imperfectly followed, his time of probation, he knew, was
over. He had no wife to send him the last messages of love ;
he had held on his stormy course through this world alone.
But to his mother, and to those two dear friends, of whom one
still lives to cherish his memory, he sent his words of love.
Of what sort that love was, let his last message to Edwardes
show; — "Say that, if at this moment a good fairy were to
give me a wish, my wish would be to have him here next to
my mother." On the morning after he had said this, the 23rd of
September, he died. He looked like a noble oak riven asunder
by a thunderbolt.^
" increasing " tliough Macdowell says it was, while the princes were taking off
their clothes, while Hodson was making his speech, and while the princes were
being shot, — from which we may conclude that a Delhi mob, at that time,
had not much stomach for a fight. Anyhow, it is impossible to explain away
Hodson's significant admissions, — "I would much rather have brought the
King into Delhi dead than alive," and "the orders I received were such that
I did not dare to act upon the dictates of my own judgment to the extent of
killing the King when he had given himself up." lb. pp. 223, 239. See also
Lord Roberts, vol. i. p. 250, and Life of Sir Hope Grant, vol. i. p. 256. Sir
Hope, immediately after hearing an account of the slaughter of the princes
from Hodson's own lips, wrote in his journal, "This sad act was most uncalled
for " ; and General Reynell Taylor ^\Tote {Life of Lord Lmvrence, 6th ed. vol.
ii. p. 507), "I have never admitted that their death was necessitated by the
danger of rescue." Indeed it should seem that Sir Hugh Gough himself agrees with
Taylor ; for he describes Hodson's action as a " false step."
^ Cave-Browne, vol. ii. p. 195.
- Letter from Neville Chamberlain to Herbert Edwardes, (juoted in Kaye's Lives
of Indian Officers, vol. ii. p. 480.
•* So wrote Hope Grant.
1857 THE PUNJAB AND DELHI 389
"On the 20th," wrote Edwardes, "Delhi was completely in
our possession, and every English heart thanked God for it.
There seemed a hope, too, that Nicholson might live. On the
23rd that hoj)e was extinguished ; and with a grief unfeigned,
and deep, and stern, and worthy of the man, the news was
whispered, ' Nicholson is dead.' " ^
Nicholson was dead. But, if his countrymen are careless of
his fame, his spirit yet lives in the memory of the lawless
frontiermen whose fathers loved, and reverenced, and dreaded
him. They say that the hoofs of his war-horse are to be heard
ringing at night over the Peshawar valley ; and they believe
that until that sound dies away, the empire of the Feringhees
will endure.
1 P. M. R., p. 79, par. 140.
CHAPTER XI
LATER EVENTS IN THE PUNJAB — OPERATIONS CONSEQUENT ON
THE FALL OF DELHI — FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN
CAMPBELL
It is time iioav to speak of those disturbances in the Punjab,
the news of which had caused such grave anxiety
to the Chief Commissioner before he heard of the
recapture of Delhi.
It happened that Lady Lawrence was staying at the hill
station of Murree. On the 1st of Sejatember one
?nMun:ee.°" of her native servants warned the Assistant-
Commissioner to expect an attack that night.
The information was perfectly true. The turbulent hill-men
of the district had been incited to make the attack by some
Hindustani Mahomedans, who had Avorked successfully upon
their religious passions and their love of plunder. In the
dead of the night they came, expecting an easy victory ; but,
encountering a determined resistance from the police and the
few Europeans who were living in the station, they stopped
short, and, after a brief skirmish, fled. Many of them were
pursued and taken. Others took refuge in Hazara, the inhabit-
ants of which ultimately delivered them over to Becher for
punishment.^
The rebellion in Mooltan was more formidable. The restless
Mahomedan tribes of the Gugera district mistook
?u g'S^^" the mildness of British rule, so unlike the cruelty
which they had suffered at the hands of the Sikhs,
for weakness, and were encouraged in their disaffection by the
apparent inability of our army to win back Delhi. In this
temper they were wrought upon by their fanatical leaders to
1 P. M. It, pp. 45-6, par. 88 ; pp. 110-3, pars. 55-80.
1857 LATER EVENTS IN THE PUNJAB 391
undertake a crusade for the glory of Islam. It was on the
evening of the 14th of September that the Chief Commissioner
heard that they had risen. Within three hours he had sent
against them all the troops whom he could spare. For some
time, indeed, their fastnesses, surrounded by swamps and thick
jungle, protected them from attack. At length, however, the
British troops, guided by some shepherds whom they had
captured, surprised and routed them.^ Thenceforward no
disturbances of any importance occurred to break the peace
of the Punjab ; for, when the people became really convinced
that Delhi had fallen, their confidence in British power, and
with it their loyalty, or at least their resignation to British rule
returned.
Still, whatever results the recapture of Delhi might have
had, if it had occurred in June, it came in fact too d-eathed's
late to produce all the sedative effects which had march through
been expected; to follow it. General Wilson saw
that, if his success were to have any value, he must follow it
up at once. Swarms of mutineers who had escaped from Delhi
were pushing across the Doab, with the object of entering
Oudh. He resolved, therefore, to send a column in pursuit of
them under Lieutenant- Colonel Edward Greathed, who had
distinguished himself in the operations against Delhi. On the
24th of September, the column, consisting of two thousand
seven hundred and ninety ^ men, of whom a third were
Europeans, marched out of camp at daybreak in the direction
of Aligarh. They had to cross the city before they could reach
the Grand Trunk Road. As they marched along the Chandni
Chauk, they realised, as they had never done before, the
circumstance of war. Dead bodies lay all round them : dogs
were gnawing naked limbs ; and gorged vultures, disturbed by
the tramp of the column, fluttered lazily away. The very
horses snorted and trembled with fear. But now Delhi was
left behind ; and as the soldiers struck into the open country,
they breathed with relief the pure morning air.^ All were in
high spirits after the long weariness of the siege. On the 27th
they reached Sikandarabad. This town and the villages that
^ P. M. R., p. 16, pars. 44-5 ; pp. 53-5, pars. 124-32.
'■^ This was Bourchier's estimate. Neville Chamberlain stated the number of
fighting men to be 2639. J£)tdo&ures to Secret Letters from India, 24 Nov. 1857,
p. 512.
" Lord Roberts, vol. i. pp. 258-9 ; Bourchier, p. 81.
392 LATER EVENTS IN THE PUNJAB chap, xi
surrounded it l5ore marks of having suffered terribly at the
hands of the Gujars. All the houses had been gutted ; every
article of proi^erty had been plundered ; the bullocks had been
driven away.^ Early next morning Greathed continued his
march, scattering the rebels like spray, and driving the
mutineers before him. A village called Khiirja was passed,
the inhabitants of which were believed to be rebels and
murderers : but the soldiers' eagerness for vengeance was
checked by the civil oflficers accompanying the column, who
were unwilling that the innocent should suffer with the guilty,
and feared lest severity might exasperate a loyal regiment
which included many kinsmen of the villagers.'^ Aligarh
was found unoccupied, save by a few Ghazis, who were hunted
down and killed by the cavalry. Leaving a detachment
to hold it, Greathed pushed on up the Trunk Road, his
troops burning villages and even shooting down unarmed
peasants on the Avay.^ As he advanced, a succession of letters
written in every language, living and dead,"* poured in upon
him from Agra, beseeching, commanding him to hasten at his
utmost speed, to succour that place. The fact was that an
army of mutineers from Central India, reinforced by mutineers
from Gwalior and Delhi, was hovering in the neighbourhood of
the fortress, and all the old terrors of the garrison had revived.
Greathed and his officers read these letters with a mixture of
amusement and contempt. They felt sure that the authorities
of Agra, with a strong fort and a sufficient garrison to protect
them, were exposed to no such perils as they had themselves
successfully overcome at Delhi. Nevertheless Greathed felt
bound to turn aside. At midnight on the 8th of October, he
sent on his cavalry and horse-artillery, with orders to proceed
by forced marches to Agra. At four o'clock on the following
morning he pressed on himself with the infantry. Early on
the morning of the 10th he crossed the Jumna under the walls
of the fort, having marched forty-four miles in twenty-eight
hours."'' "Those dreadful -looking men must be Afghans,"
^ Enclosures to Secret Letters fro»t India, 24 Nov. 1857, p. 84.
- Frie7i.d of India, Nov. 11, Dec. 9, 1858 ; Bourchier, p. 79 ; Sir G. Campbell's
Memoirs of my Indian Career, vol. ii. pp. 253-4.
^ Col. H. A. Oiivry's Cavalry Experiences, ])p. 165-6 ; 0. H. S. G. Anson's
With II. M. 0th Lancers duriny the Indian Mvtiny, p. 177.
■* Bourcliiur, p. 97.
* Greatlied's despatch {Pari. I'ajjcru, vol. xliv. 1857-58, Part '3, p. 20).
1857 LATER EVENTS IN THE PUNJAB 393
remarked a lady to a civilian, as she Avatched the jaded, war-
worn, sun-dried soldiers of the 8th Queen's tramp wearily over
the bridge.^
Greathed was informed on his arrival that the enemy had
retired beyond a stream nine miles distant. The „ ^^, , .
I'l-riTiT T>i 1T1 !• Battle of Agra.
chief of the Intelligence Department had done his
best to procure information : but Colonel Cotton had deliber-
ately withdrawn his vedettes and patrols ; and the commandant
of the militia, who warned him that the enemy were approach-
ing, was snubbed for his pains.^ Greathed accepted without
enquiry the information •which was given him. The inmates
of the fort, relieved from their fears, were congregated outside
the southern gateway, to see their defenders pass by. The site
which Greathed selected for his camp was the parade-ground,
about a mile and a half south of the fort, bordered on its
further side, at the distance of six hundred yards, by high
crops. The guns were parked ready for use : but Greathed
neglected to post piquets, and went off to the fort. The camp
was marked out, and the men breakfasted. Some then lay
down on the ground, and went to sleep. Others moved about,
talking to their friends of the garrison. Crowds of natives
from the town Avere flocking round the camp, and among them
were four jugglers, who walked up, tossing their balls into the
air and catching them, towards the tents. Suddenly flinging
away their balls, they drew swords, and rushed in, striking out
right and left. Simultaneously two troops of cavalry emerged
from the crops, and a number of round shot crashed into the
camp. But it was impossible to take soldiers like these by
surprise. An officer galloped off to fetch Greathed. The
infantry instinctively sprang up, and seized their muskets ; the
cavalry ran to saddle their horses ; the artillery manned their
^ C Raikes's I^otes on the Revolt, p. 70.
- March Phillipps, the magistrate of Agra, says that he liimself and Miiir, the
chief of the Intelligence Department, had done their utmost to procure through
spies "speedy and certain intelligence of the movements of the rebels," but that
Colonel Cotton had deliberately -withdrawn the vedettes and patrols (C. C.
Seymour's ITow I won the Indian Mutiny Medal, pp. 155, 157-8). "Many
natives," says Jlr. Thornhill {Indian Mutiny, 1^.2^2), "very reliable, had ex-
pressed their belief that the rebel force was still on our side the Khara Nuddee,
and much nearer to us than the authorities had any idea of. These statements
were communicated to the Government, but met witli no a,ttention, nor was more
regard paid to the rei^resentations of the officer commanding the militia," etc.
See also Malleson, vol. ii. p. 98, note.
394 LATER EVENTS IN THE PUNJAB chap, xi
guns. Meamvliile the members of the garrison who had gone
to visit the camp, were rushing back panic-stricken to the fort
with such headlong violence, many of them galloping on the
artillery horses, Avhich they had purloined, that the officers
who were trying to get to their regiments could hardly make
head against the torrent. The first comers saw a number of
independent combats going on. The enemy's cavalry had
begun the battle by charging the British artillery, but were
hurled back instantly by a squadron of the 9th Lancers. On
the right the 8th Queen's and two regiments of Punjab infantry
were getting under arms : the 75th, many of th^m in their
shirt-sleeves, were forming square to oppose a charge of rebel
horse ; and on their left a troop of horse-artillery and Bour-
chier's battery had already opened fire. When Greathed rode
on to the ground, he deployed his infantry into line, and sent
Lieutenant Watson with three squadrons of Punjabi cavalry to
turn the enemy's left flank. The British infantry suffered
severely from the fire of the enemy's heavy guns. Fortunately,
as they were beginning to give way. Captain Pearson came
hurrying up from the fort with his battery to reinforce them ;
the enemy were driven back ; and Watson, charging at the
right moment, threw them into complete disorder. They were
already in full retreat along the Gwalior road when Colonel
Cotton, with the regiment which had fought at Sacheta,
joined the pursuers, and, as senior officer, assumed command.
The pursuit was continued for seven miles. The enemy lost
all their baggage, guns, and ammunition. It was they, in fact,
Avho had been surprised.^
For the next three days the column halted at Agra. While
it was there, Hope Grant received a letter from
Hope Grant the Secretary to the Government of the North-
tocommand Western Provinces, irrforming him that he was to
Greathed's come down, and take command of it. "You are
column. ' in ££ • 1
to come on at once, wrote the Secretary, in the
mail-cart, if possible." Hope Grant would have been delighted
to go, but he could not understand what authority a secretary
had to give him such an appointment. General Penny, how-
ever, who had succeeded to the command at Delhi, reassured
' Greathed's despatch ; Bourchier, pp. 100-5 ; M. ThoinhilVs Indian Mutini/,
pp. 291-304 ; A. C. Robertson's Memorials of Sir E. R. Greathed, pp. 71-2, 94-5 ;
Lord Roberts, vol. i. pp. 273-6. See App. 0.
1857 LATER EVENTS IN THE PUNJAB 395
him ; and, by travelling night and day, he overtook the column,
which had left Agra three days before, at Firozabad. All ranks
gladly welcomed him as their leader. On the 26th of October
he reached Cawnpore ; crossed the Ganges on the 30th ; and
marched, by order of the Commander-in-Chief, to Banthi'ra, a
village in the plain beyond the Bani bridge, where he waited
to take his part in the coming operations for the relief of
Lucknow.^
Meanwhile other operations for the reduction of the country
round Delhi were being carried on. Before the ^ erationsof
close of September, General Van Cortlandt had van cortiandt
succeeded in restoring order in the districts to
the north-west. On the 2nd of October, Brigadier Showers
led out a column from Delhi to reduce the Avestern and south-
western districts, and returned on the 19th, after burn-
ing a number of villages, taking three forts, about seventy
guns, and treasure to the amount of seventy thousand
pounds, and capturing two rebel princes.^ Before
long, however, news arrived from Rajputana,
which obliged General Penny to send another column into the
field.
For some weeks after the critical events in June, Rajputana
had remained comparatively quiet. After George
Lawrence had once impressed the population with of affairs in
the belief that he was determined to keep the "^^^^ ^'^'
upper hand, he was able to rely not only upon the good
behaviour, but also to some extent upon the loyal support of
the respectable classes, even including Mahomedans.^ There
was, indeed, a strong Mahomedan faction in Jeypore, which
eagerly desired the success of the Delhi mutineers. But it
was only from the dregs of the civil population and the soldiery
that Lawrence had to apprehend serious danger. In August
a number of prisoners escaped from the A j mere gaol, and some
of the Bombay troops stationed at Nusseerabad and Nee-
much mutinied. In these three cases, however, authority
speedily and easily vindicated itself. The most serious
troubles which arose, were due to the sympathy of troops
1 Hope Grant, pp. 159-75 ; Lord Roberts, vol. i. p. 288.
" BlackwoocV a Magazine, June 1858, p. 719.
^ It is worth while to remark that trade and agriculture went on as usual,
and that the land revenue was collected in full. Enclosures to Secret Letters
from India, 8 to 22 Oct. 1857, p. 5S0.
396 LATER EVENTS IN THE PUNJAB chap, xi
in the service of native princes with the mutineers of the
sepoy army.
On the 22nd of August the bulk of the Jodhpur legion,
which was quartered at Erinpura, mutinied. Next day they
were joined by two detachments of their comrades, who had
lately been repulsed in an attempt to murder
some of the Europeans at Mount Abu. The whole
force now marched out of Erinpura, and, near Pali, defeated an
army which the loyal raja of Jodhpur had sent against them.
Some days before, Lawrence, who was then at Ajmere, had
heard what had taken place. ^ The troops which he had at his
disposal were very few ; but he knew that his authority would
be lost unless he made some attempt to punish the mutineers.
He therefore marched against a fort which they had occupied.
Finding that it was too strong for him to take, and that he
could not persuade them to come out and fight, he fell back on
Ajmere. The legion then marched in the direction of Delhi.
On the 10th of November a column under Colonel Gerrard
started from that city to deal with them. At ICanaud, which
he reached on the 15th, Gerrard received information which
led him to believe that he would be able to bring them to
action on the morrow. Next morning, therefore, he pushed
on for the village of Narnul. The road was so deep with
sand that the guns could hardly be dragged along, and the
infantry had to halt again and again to give them time to
come up. Ten hours Avere consumed in marching twelve miles,
and the men chafed angrily at a delay which, they feared,
Avould allow the enemy to escape. They were soon to find,
however, that this very delay was the most fortunate thing
that could have happened to them. At eleven o'clock in the
morning they reached a village about two miles from Narnul. ^
This place was so strong that, if the enemy had held it, they
could not have been dislodged, except at the cost of much
bloodshed. As a matter of fact, they had occupied it on that
very morning ; but their leader, concluding from the non-
appearance of the British that they were not coming at all,
and too heedless to take pains to verify his conjecture, had
abandoned it !
^ E^iclosnres to Secret Letters frovi hidia, J a,n. 1858, p. 791 ; Sir G. Lawrence's
Forty-three Years' Service in India, pp. 285-6, 289-94.
" Blackwood's Magazine, June, 1858.
1857 LATER EVENTS IN THE PUNJAB 397
Gerrard halted for a short time to recruit his men. They
were eating the food which they had taken with
them, and drinking their grog, when they saw a NarnAi"^
little cloud of dust rising over some sloping
ground in their front. In a few moments they discerned
masses of horsemen through the dust. Presently a shot
whizzed over their heads. No time was lost in replying to the
challenge. The British advanced steadily ; their artillery threw
a shower of grape and round shot into the rebel ranks ; and
now the loud " Shabash " ^ of the Guides, and the flash of
sabres and tulwars amid a cloud of dust on the right showed
that a cavalry combat had begun. The enemy's horsemen met
the shock of the Guides and the Carabineers right gallantly,
but were, notwithstanding, overpoAvered and hurled back ; the
victors, wheeling to the left, swooped upon the gunners and
cut down all that stood their ground ; the 1st Bengal Fusiliers
overpowered the infantry and captured the guns ; and the
Mooltani horse, charging the rebel right, completed the rout.
Gerrard pressed on in pursuit ; but, as he was sitting con-
spicuous on his white Arab, his red coat covered with decora-
tions, a rebel aimed deliberately at him, and wounded him
mortally. At this moment, the Fusiliers dashed into the rebel
camp, and captured two more guns ; but presently they were
withdrawn, to support the British artillery, who were opening
fire against Narnul. The enemy took heart again, threw the
Mooltanis into confusion by a sudden charge, and recovered the
guns ; but the Guides and Fusiliers came to the rescue, expelled
them from some buildings which they still held, and won the
battle.2
Next day the troops rested. On the 23rd they came to a
town, called Paltauli, and were there joined by Lieutenant-
Colonel Seaton, who had been appointed to succeed Gerrard.
Under his command they returned to Delhi, to prepare for a
fresh campaign.
The people of Delhi had expiated, many times over, the
crimes of the mutineers. Tens of thousands of
men, and women, and children were wandering, Delhi after its
for no crime, homeless over the country. What >'^'=^i'*"''^-
1 "Hurrah."
2 Blackwood, pp. 721-4 ; Pari Paper.i, vol. xliv. (1857-58). Part. 4, pp.
9-14.
398 OPERATIONS CONSEQUENT ON chap, xi
they had left behind was lost to them for ever ; for the soldiers,
going from house to house and from street to street, ferreted
out every article of value, and smashed to pieces whatever
they could not carry away. A Military Governor had been
appointed ; but he could do little to restrain the passions
of those who surrounded him. Natives were brought forward
in batches to be tried by a Military Commission or by Special
Commissioners, each one of whom had been invested by the
Supreme Government with full powers of life and death.
These judges were in no mood to shoAv mercy. Almost all
who were tried were condemned ; and almost all who were
condemned were sentenced to death. A four-square gallows
was erected in a conspicuous place in the city ; and five or six
culprits were hanged every day. English officers used to sit
by, puffing at their cigars, and look on at the convulsive
struggles of the victims. Sir Theophilus Metcalfe, a civilian
whose house had been gutted by the mutineers, and who, to
do him justice, would never have turned his back, in the days
of their triumph, upon any number of them, was foremost in
the work of retribution. One anecdote will show the terror
which he inspired. An English lady happened one day to be
inspecting some ornaments^ Avhich a native jeweller had brought
to her. Thinking that the prices which he asked for them were
too high, she exclaimed, " I will send you to Metcalfe Sahib."
In a moment the man had fled, leaving all his goods behind.
To many, however, it seemed that not nearly enough had been
done to avenge the massacres of the 11th of May, and to
vindicate the outraged majesty of the imperial race. There
were men, — and among them was James Outram, — who urged
that the accursed city should be rased to the ground.
Bixt there was one who pleaded, in fearless and earnest
tones, for justice and for mercy. In many a letter to the
Governor - General and to the authorities at Delhi, John
Lawrence insisted that the great mass of the citizens had had
nothing to do with the rebellion, and should be encouraged to
return to their homes, that martial law should cease, and
plundering be summarily stopped. He gained his end at last.
In February, 1858, the Delhi territory was transferred to the
Punjab Government : the citizens came back ; and the whole
population of the district gradually learned to feel that they
were under a strong and merciful rule.
1857 THE FALL OF DELHI 399
About the same time the fate of the King was decided. For
some months he had lain in a miserable room in the palace ;
and rude visitors had thronged to stare at or to insult him.
Fortunately for himself, he was so old and had suffered so
much that he was'almost indifferent to his shame.
On the 27th of January he was brought before
a court-martial, and put upon his trial for rebellion and for
complicity in the murder of Europeans. The trial lasted more
than two months. The substance of the King's defence was
that he had been a mere instriiment in the hands of the
mutineers. On the 29th of March he was found guilty, and
sentenced to imprisonment for life. The sentence was just ;
for the King had not saved, as he might have done, the lives
of those who had been brought captive to his palace. He was
transported to Eangoon ; and there, on the 7th of November,
1862, he died.i
As the recapture of Delhi had produced no tranquillising
results in the surrounding districts, it is not
surprising that it had failed to do so in remoter ^u o^Deiw!**
parts of the country. It was indeed the turning-
point of the war, and from the moment when it took place the
British felt confident of ultimate victory : but it did not give
a death-blow to the cause of the rebels, it simply made their
ultimate subjection possible. If it had been much longer
delayed, the anarchy which still prevailed might no doubt have
become far worse ; but, as a matter of fact, the only positive
and unmistakeable benefits which resiilted from it were the
removal of the strain under Avhich the loyalty of the Punjab
had nearly given way, and the overthrow of the hopes which
might have induced waverers to rebel. For some time the
very fact that the city had fallen was simply disbelieved by the
natives, who regarded the salutes and the illuminations with
which the event was celebrated as the last desperate device
by which the Feringhees hoped to make it appear that they
had recovered their ascendency." From the frontier of the
^ Life of Lord Lavjrence, vol. ii. pp. 243-62 ; Montgomery-Martin, vol. ii.
pp. 451-60 ; Enclosures to Secret Letters from India, Feb. 1858, p. 266 ;
General Report on the Administration of the Punjab Territories for 1856-7
and 1S57-S, p. 39, par. 127 ; Evidence taken before the Court appointed far the
Trial of tlie King of Delhi ; Cornhill Magazine, July-Dec. 1862, pp. 528-34 ; etc.
2 Pari. Papers, vol. xliv. (1857-58), Part 3, p. 48-i ; P. M. R., p. 142,
par. 75 ; Enclosures to Secret Letters from India, 24 Nov. 1857, pji. 155-6, 192.
400 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPRELL CH. xi
Punjab down into the heart of Bengal, from the Himalayas to
the Saugor and Xerbudda territories, Northern British India
was still overrun by mutineers and rebels. The spirit of dis-
affection had even flown across the Bay of Bengal. Symptoms
of disquiet began to appear in the newly annexed province of
Pegu : the courtiers of the King of Burma urged him to seize
the opportunity for attacking the power Avhich had humiliated
him ; and, if he had not had a shrewd idea of its reserved
strength, he would have been ready enough to follow their
advice.^ It was left for the new Commander-in-Chief, Sir
Colin Campbell, to paralyse the surviving energies of the
uprising, the first and most appalling shock of which had been
so^mightily withstood by the heroes who had appeared before
him that it had not utterly destroyed the imperial fabric.
Sir Colin Campbell had been a soldier for forty-nine years.
He had served in the Peninsula and with the
canfpbin. Walcheren expedition ; he had led a forlorn hope
at the storming of St. Sebastian ; he had served
in the American War of 1814, in the West Indies, in the
Chinese War of 1842, at Chilian wala, at Gujrat, against the
hill-tribes of the north-west frontier, and in the Crimea. He
was a man who, like Charles Napier, could not help loving war
for its own sake, even while he knew its horrors ; a man whose
heart beat stronger on the day of battle ; a general who could
inspire his soldiers with his own spirit, because, when he
harangued them, the glow on his cheek and the tremor of his
voice told how strongly his own nature was stirred. He was
not a heaven -born general. He was not such a thorough
scholar in the art of war as Havelock. He had not the won-
derful dash, the power to put everything to the hazard for a
great end, the absolute fearlessness of responsibility which
belonged to John Nicholson. But for the work he was called
upon to perform, a work requiring methodical and precise
movements, extraordinary care for details, and close super-
vision over the distant operations of a number of lieutenants
working independently of each other, few commanders could
have been better fitted. He set such a high value upon dis-
cipline that he could not brook hearing officers of rank ill-
spoken of even when they had shown themselves hopelessly
1 FMclosures to Secret Letters from India, 8 to 22 Oct. 1857, p. 820 ; Jan.
1858, pp. 1, 16.
18.-7 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL 401
incompetent ; ^ yet he always manifested that care for the
safety and comfort of soldiers which, when it follows a strong
discipline, never fails to win their attachment. He had fought
his life's battle too right gallantly. Harassed by poverty for
many years, he had welcomed the tardy accessions to his for-
tune mainly because they enabled him to provide better for a
dearly loved sister. He had never married ; but his relations
with this sister, and with his old, tried friends, show what a
power of love he had. No commander-in-chief more acceptable
to the mass of Anglo-Indian officers could have been selected.
Many of them already knew his appearance well, his strong,
spare, soldierly figure, his high, rugged forehead crowned by
masses of crisp, grey hair, his keen, shrewd, kindly, honest
eyes, his firm mouth with its short, trim moustache, his ex-
pression denoting a temper so excitable, yet so exact, so
resolute to enforce obedience, yet so genial, so irascible, and so
forgiving. His character does not leave so sharp an impression
upon the mind as that of other actors in the Mutiny ; yet it is
one which is more appreciated the better it is known.
Sir Colin was at Calcutta, busily preparing to open his
campaign, when he received from Lucknow news giocj-ajeof
which warned him that he must not lose a the Lucknow
moment, if he wished to avert a great disaster.- ^''"'^ "'
It will be remembered that only a small part of the force
which Outran! and Havelock commanded, had been able to
enter the entrenchment on the evening of the 25th of Sep-
tember. A detachment which had been left behind at the
Fari'd Bakhsh made its way in early on the following morning.
About the same time the enemy, catching sight of
the rear - guard, opened fire upon it. Colonel ' "^^ ' "*'■
Robert Napier was sent to the rescue, and by the morning of
the 27th all the survivors of the force, with the exception of
the detachment that had been left to hold the Alambagh, had
joined Inglis's old garrison.
The two Generals had entered the entrenchment with the
resolve of at once withdrawing the garrison to a place of safety.
Circumstances, however, soon forced themselves upon Outram's
attention which made him fear that it would he impossible to
^ Riissell's Diary m India, vol. i. pp. 39.')-6.
- Blackxrood's Maqazine, Oct. 1858, p. 485, — Art. "Lord Clyde's Campaign in
lu.lia."
2 D
402 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL ch. xi
do so. He was told that means of transport for the women
and children, the sick and wounded, could not be provided.
He saw that, even if this difficulty could be overcome, his army
would not be strong enough to escort them to Cawnpore. At
the same time he feared that his stock of provisions was too
scanty to last until his people should be relieved. His anxiety,
as he thought of what might befall them, was intense. One
night, when his private secretary happened to come into his
room, he saw him kneeling upon the bed, with his head on the
pillow, absorbed in prayer.
These doubts were solved a few days after he entered the
Residency. Meantime he had to devise some plan for accom-
modating the multitude under his command. Accordingly he
determined to seize and occupy the palaces on the bank of the
river. He succeeded without much difficulty in doing this.
Havelock was placed in command of these new posts ; while
Inglis continued responsible for the old garrison, now consider-
ably reinforced. The officer who had been left in charge of
the Alambagh on the 25th of September was directed to hold
it as long as possible, since it would be invaluable as a halting
place for a relieving army. Baffled in his resolve to withdraw
the garrison, Outram determined to leave the 90th regiment to
strengthen it, and to march back with the rest of the force to
Cawnpore. On the 4th of October, however, he ascertained
that the amount of food still remaining had been under-
estimated, and that, by dint of great economy, he would be
able to make it last for some weeks longer. The enemy, he
found, were too strong to allow him to withdraw any of his
force ; and he therefore resolved to wait patiently until Sir
Colin Campbell should come to his relief.
On the north and east the limits of the British position were
now considerably extended. On the south and west it was less
capable of being improved. Still, even here new posts were
occupied ; outposts were taken and held on the road leading to
the iron bridge ; and the old defences were repaired and new
batteries constructed. The enemy, on their part, had by no
means given up the struggle. It was true indeed that they had
been obliged to fall back so far that their musketeers could no
longer fire as effectively as before. They continued, however,
to throw cannon-shot into the entrenchment, and carried on
mining operations as vigorously as ever. Large bodies of
1857 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL 403
mutineers from Delhi Lad reinforced them ; and if Outram and
Havelock had been much longer delayed, these new assailants
must have overwhelmed the defenders of the Eesidency. But
the garrison now felt themselves too strong to remain merely
on the defensive. Day after day they sallied forth, spiked
guns, and destroyed houses and batteries, while they repeatedly
took possession of the enemy's mines, and destroyed his miners.
In other respects too their condition during the blockade was
better than it had been during the siege. The advent of Outram
and Havelock had taken a load off the minds of Inglis and his
people ; and all now believed that, however long and weary
might be the time of waiting for relief, relief Avould surely
come at last. Their material condition, however, was still
wretched enough. By slaughtering their gun-bullocks they
would have just enough meat to maintain strength for working
and fighting. They would be able, too, to make their grain
last by reducing the rations. But, as they had no bakers, they
were obliged still to eat chapatties instead of bread. In con-
sequence of this, many suffered from diarrhoea and dysentery ;
while the want of vegetables caused scorbutic affections. The
miseries of the sick were aggravated by the crowded state of
the hospitals. Those who were not absolutely incapacitated
for duty became weak and ailing, and, having no tobacco, were
driven to smoke leaves, tea, and even the bark of trees. They
were harassed by continual night-duty. The cold autumn air
penetrated their thin summer clothing. Inspired by the ex-
ample and the sympathy of the generals, they sustained all
these hardships without complaining, fought gallantly and
worked faithfully, like British soldiers. But hope long de-
ferred made their hearts sick. October drew towards its close,
and still there was no news of Sir Colin's coming.^
Sir Colin's delay was due to causes beyond his own control.
Before his arrival, the Government had prepared
little for the equipment of the expected reinforce- preparations
ments or for their transport to the seat of war.
The railway was only open as far as Eaniganj, a hundred and
twenty miles from Calcutta ; and the remainder of the journe}'
to Allahabad, the base for all operations against Lucknow, could
1 Marsliman, pp. 418-20, 427-34 ; Gulibms, pp. 334-4.^), 355-78 ; Life of
Oil tram, vol. ii. pp. 237-ri7 ; Imies's Lticknow and Ovde in the Mutimi, pj).
226-44.
404 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL rn. xt
only be perfoi'med along the Grand Trunk Eoad, which was
infested by bodies of mutineers and rebel hordes, Avho, en-
couraged by the outbreak at Dinapore, had risen in Eastern
Behar and the neighbouring province of Chutia Nagpur.^ From
the moment of his arrival, hoAvever, Sir Colin resolutely set
himself to overcome these obstacles. He roused sluggish de-
partmental officials to bestir themselves. He caused horses to
be purchased for the cavalry and artillery ; ordered guns to be
cast, gun-carriages, harness, and tents to be made up, and rifle-
balls to be manufactured and procured from England ; sent for
supplies of flour from the Cape ; and engaged servants for the
European soldiers. Finally, he contracted for the transport of
the troops from Raniganj in bullock-waggons, and provided for
their security by sending small moveable columns to keep the
road clear. These efforts were as successful as they deserved
to be. Early in October reinforcements arrived from the Cape ;
and within the next fortnight more followed from England.
On the 27th, Sir Colin, having seen them all duly sent on their
way, started himself with his staff from Calcutta.
Calcutta*^ ^'^"^ Near SherghAti he narrowly escaped falling into
the hands of a party of mutineers who happened
to be crossing the road. On the 1st of November he reached
Allahabad. Next day, after making arrangements for the pro-
tection of the districts he was leaving behind him, he resumed
his journey. On the same day one of the columns marching
to the front gained a victory at Kajwa, a village
Kajw!i°^ situated about twenty -four miles north-west of
Fatehpur, over a rebel army which had threatened
to break in upon the road.^ On the 3rd Sir Colin arrived at
Cawnpore. That city Avas exposed to a danger so serious as
to make it right that he should reconsider his de-
ttweateied. cisiou to advance in the first instance to the relief
of Lucknow. Soon after the fall of Delhi, the
Gwalior Contingent, refusing to be cajoled any longer by
Sindhia, had accepted an offer made to them by the notorious
Tdntia Topi to lead them against the English, and were now
moving upon Kalpi with the object of joining the Nana Sahib
and the Dinapore mutineers in an attack upon Cawnpore. It
was clear then that, if the Lucknow garrison could possibly
^ Pari. Papers, vol. xliv. (1857-58), Parts 1 and 4, passim.
- Blackwood's Muyazine, Oct. 1858, pp. 482, 485-7.
1857 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL 405
aflbrd to wait a little longer for relief, Sir Colin would best
serve the interests of the empire by proceeding first of all to
deal these rebels such a blow as would place Cawnpore beyond
the reach of danger. Outram himself, with characteristic un-
selfishness, earnestly recommended the adoption of this course.
" We can manage," he wrote, " to screw on till ^^^ .^^
near the end of November on further reduced
rations . . . it is so obviously to the advantage of the State that
the Gwalior rebels should he first effectually destroyed that our relief
should : be a secondary consideration." ^ In spite of ^ ^
these facts, Sir Colin persisted in his original re- Outram's
solve. Leaving General Windham with only five coi/n'resoives
hundred Europeans and a few Sikhs to protect Lucknwv
Cawnpore, he proceeded on the 9th to join Hope before secur-
n /• 4-1, I • -u 1 T3 ' ing Cawnpore.
G-rant in the plain beyond iiani.
In order to ensure the success of the operation which Sir
Colin was now about to attempt, it was most important that
he should receive detailed information respecting the geography
of Lucknow and its environs. Some days previously Outram
had sent him a collection of maps accompanied by a despatch
containing his own ideas as to the route which it would be
advisable to follow. Something more, however, was required.
If only some intelligent European member of the garrison could
manage to communicate personally with Sir Colin, explain the
maps to him, and supplement from local knowledge the in-
formation Avhich they yielded, their value would be greatly
increased. But so many native spies had already been cap-
tured by the enemy that an Englishman could hardly hope to
elude them. It was impossible for a humane general to ask
any man to volunteer for such a forlorn hope, when the penalty
of failure would be death in some hideous and shameful form.
Notwithstanding, a volunteer did present himself.
Among the uncovenanted civil servants in the garrison was
^ Outram's General Orders, etc., p. 361 ; Life of Outram, vol, ii. p. 258.
This letter was addressed to Captain Bruce, the liead of the Intelligence Depart-
ment at Cawnpore ; and Outram told him to telegi-aph the substance to Sir Colin.
Sir F. Goldsmid says in a note to p. 257, "The dates show that there would have
been ample time to have attacked the Gwalior troops and accomplished the advance
on Lucknow (which their dispersion nnist have facilitated) between the receipt of
this letter of Outram's and the end of Novemlier." [As a matter of fact, though
neither Outram nor Sir Colin knew it, Outram had enough grain to last till
the end of December without any reduction of ratiuxis. See p. 279, note 1,
sujpraJ]
406 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL cii. xi
a clerk named Kavanagh. He Avas a man of great physical
Kavanagh Strength and iron nerve. The prominent features
yoiuiiieers of his character were a vanity and a self-import-
to open com- -^ i
lauuications ance SO prepostcrous as almost to amount to in-
ontramand Sanity.^ But almost anything can be forgiven to
Sir Coim. .^ really brave man ; and, for cool daring, the deed
which Kavanagh was about to perform remains unsurpassed by
anything which history can show. Believing that no man could
be better qualified than himself to act as a guide to the Com-
mander-in-Chief, he persuaded a clever native spy named
Kanauji Lai to accompany him, and then told Outram that he
Avas prepared to hazard the attempt. At first Outram could
hardly believe in the sincerity of the proposal ; then he pointed
out the dreadful perils of the undertaking ; but, when he saw
that Kavanagh fully realised, yet did not fear them, his heart
warmed towards him, and he consented to let him go. Then,
however, Kavanagh began to reflect on the ruin which would
befall his wife and children, if he should fail. "I vainly
struggled," he wrote, " to convince myself that it mitst be done,
till the convulsions of my heart were relieved by tears." Still,
he had no thought of going back from his word. Disguising him-
self as a budmash, he placed in his belt a pistol with which he
resolved to commit suicide in case he should fall into the hands
of the rebels. At half-past eight in the evening he was ready
to start. Outram and Napier Avarmly pressed his
II ■ • d • t hand as they bade him God-speed ; and then he
' and his companion passed out through the British
lines. Crossing the river by a ford, they went up the left
bank for a few hundred yards, re-crossed by the stone bridge,
and entered the principal street of Lucknow. Fortunately the
city was not lighted as brightly as usual. Passing out into
the open country, they lost their way, and presently found
themselves in the Dilkusha park, which was occupied by the
enemy. For some time they wandered about in dread of
^ Tliere is jiroof enough of this in a little book written by Kavanagh, called
JIow I toon the Victoria, Crons. I could make a most amusing collection of ex-
tracts from this work, if I had sufficient space. After describing his great ad-
venture, lie remarks, " For less thau this names have descended from age to age
as if never to be obliterated from the heroic })ages of history." He then proceeds
to compare himself with Aristomenes, Mucins, Horatius Codes, and Decius,
pointing out, however, that his motives were far purer thau theirs. The book is
really so entertaining that it ought to be better known.
1857 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL 407
capture. At last they came to a hut, entered it, and woke the
occupants, who told them how to regain the road. About
three o'clock in the morning they met a guard of ^ . o
sepoys. Kanauji Lai was terribly frightened, and
threw away a despatch with which he had been entrusted.
Kavanagh, however, explained that they were only going to
visit a friend in a village some miles off", and coolly asked the
sepoys to direct him on his way. They readily complied.
After struggling on for about two hours longer, Kavanagh
became so tired that he insisted on lying down to sleep. Pre-
sently he was roused by a native challenge, " Who goes there ? "
A few moments of suspense followed ; and he found himself in
the British camp.^
The route which Outram advised Sir Colin to follow diff"ered
in part from that by which he himself and Have- gj;. q^i^^ adopts
lock had advanced to the Residency. Instead of '" p/incipie the
, , 1 i-ii 1 1 1 • 1 o- route recom-
crossing the canal at the Uharbagh bridge, oir mended by
Colin was to strike off' eastward from the Alam-
bagh as far as the Dilkvisha, cross the canal near that point,
and thence pursue the route by which the main column had
advanced on the 25th of September. His chief engineer ad-
vised him to adopt Havelock's original plan, — cross the Giimti
and move along its farther bank to the Iron bridge. This
route led across open ground, where there were no strong posts
to be taken, Avhere his powerful artillery would have ample
room to act, and where the enemy were not prepared to resist.
Notwithstanding, Sir Colin decided to accept Outram's advice
in principle.'^
On the afternoon of the following day Sir Colin reviewed his
troops. The little army was drawn up in the
centre of the great plain. It numbered some g^ir^coUn
three thousand four hundred men. Peel's sturdy reviews his
• 1 1 • 1 1 • • 1 1 troops.
sailors were there with their eight heavy guns.
There were artillerymen clustering round the guns which had
come battered and blackened out of the combats on the Ridge.
There were the 9th Lancers, Hope Grant's gallant regiment,
with their blue uniforms, and forage-caps encircled by white
^ How I vjon the Victoria Cross, pp. 75-92.
- Outram's General Orders, etc., pp. 362-70 ; Inues's Luckno^v and Oude in
the Mutiny, pp. 25-1-5. If Sir Coliu had adoi^ted the Trans-Gumti route, could
he have .safely removed the women and children from the Residency ? General
Innes hay no doubt that he could have done so.
408 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL en. xi
turbans. There were the Sikh cavahy, tall dark men, with
piercing black eyes and well-chiselled features, curled black
moustachios and silky beards carefully combed, wearing blue or
red turbans and loose fawn - coloured robes, carrying silver-
mounted firearms and curved scimitars, and riding gaily-
caparisoned horses. Next to them, grouped round their
standards, stood the 8th and 75th Queen's, whose wasted
ranks and weary air told what they had sufiered in the summer
campaign, and the 2nd and 4th Punjab Infantry, who, like
them, had followed John Nicholson to the assault of Delhi.
All these, as the General rode past them, gazed at him silently
and fixedly, as though trying to read in his face the quality of
his generalship. But from the serried ranks of the 93rd
Highlanders, who stood at the end of the line, there arose, as
he came up to them, an enthusiastic shout of welcome ; for
they had learned to know his quality already in the Crimea.^
At sunrise next morning the army was put in motion. After
marching about three miles the advanced guard
Nov!l'2°i5! °^ came under the enemy's fire; but Captain
Bourchier brought his battery to the front, and
replied promptly and effectively, while Lieutenant Gough
charged with a squadron of Hodson's Horse, and captured two
of the guns as the enemy were endeavouring to remove them.
The troops advanced Mathout further opposition to the
Alambagh, and halted under its walls. Sir Colin spent the
next day in completing his arrangements. His
army had been strengthened by successive rein-
forcements, and now amounted to about five thousand men.
Leaving three hundred to garrison the Alambagh, he resumed
his advance on the morning of the 14th. The enemy were
taken completely by surprise, and evacuated the Dilkiisha and
the Martiniere almost without a struggle. Sir Colin then
detached vai'ious bodies of troops to secure the ground which
he had won ; and although, before sunset, the enemy twice
attempted to turn his position, they were easily repulsed.
The men lay down to sleep without tents and with their arms
by their sides. Next day Sir Colin signalled to Outram that
he would begin his final operations on the morrow, and, in
order to delude the enemy into the belief that he would
' 0. J. Jones's liccullcctions of a Winter CaiiijMi'jn in India in lSo7-S, p. 50 ;
lUackivood''s J/wjadue, October, 18o8, p. 489.
1857 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL 409
advance on the left, made a strong reconnaissance on that
side.-^
Earlj^ next morning the march began. After crossing the
canal, the army skirted the river-bank for about
a mile ; then threaded its way along a narrow Attack on the
and tortuous lane through some thickly-wooded ' ^ *" ^^ ^°
enclosures. The enemy had clearly been misled by Sir Colin's
reconnaissance ; for they offered no opposition. At length the
advanced guard reached a corner where the lane, passing-
through a village, turned sharply to the left. Winding
round this point, they found themselves moving parallel to the
Sikandar Bagh, which was only a hundred and twenty yards off
on their right, and were suddenly deluged by a storm of bullets
from that building and the houses near it. Their situation
was almost desperate. The cavalry, jammed together in the
narrow lane, prevented the infantry and artillery from
advancing. " If," remarked a staff-officer, " these fellows allow
one of us to get out of this cul-de-sac alive, they deserve every
one of them to be hanged." Sir Colin rode fearlessly to the
front, withdrew the cavalry into the side alleys of the village,
and directed a company of the 53rd to line the enclosures
bordering on the lane with skirmishers. The skirmishers
returned the enemy's fire, and forced back the rebels who had
collected outside the Sikandar Bagh : but the great castle
appeared unassailable. The bank on the right side of the lane
was so steep that it seemed impossible for artillery to ascend it.
But nothing was impossible to the old Bengal Artillery. At
this very bank Major Blunt and his troop rushed, and
clambered up it, men and horses struggling with incredible
energy ; then dashed at full gallop across an open space on the
top between the Sikandar Bagh and a serai a hundred yards
further up the lane, unlimbered, and opened fire on the former
building. At the same moment the 93rd Highlanders came
up, and drove the enemy out of the surrounding houses and
the serai ; and Travers, following with his heavy battery,
dragged two eighteen-pounders through an opening which the
sappers and miners had cut in the bank, and opened a fresh
fire on the Bagh. In less than an hour a breach aj^peared.
The bugle sounded the assault. A Sikh officer, waving his
tulwar above his head, led the way. The Highlanders, their
' Blackwood, p. 491 ; Bourcliier, p. lol.
410 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL ch. xi
officers leading like gallant gentlemen, and the ensigns holding
up the colours to the breeze, followed, contending with the
wild Punjabis for the lead. One of the latter was the first to
gain the iDreach, but was shot dead as he entered it. A High-
lander who followed him stood for a moment in the breach,
then fell forward, a corpse. Another and another met the
same fate. The fifth man, Lieutenant Cooper of the 93rd,
leaped clear through the hole, and, closely followed by Colonel
Ewart of the same regiment, Captain Lumsden,^ and about a
dozen privates, Sikhs and Highlanders, ran along a path to the
right through some high grass which covered the enclosure,
and, approaching the eastern side of the building, came upon a
multitude of rebels. The latter, astonished at the daring of
their handful of opponents, fled through one of the rooms into
a court-yard behind ; the British pressed after ; and then
followed a combat hand to hand. Cooper received a gash
across the forehead, but not till he had himself struck down
many of the rebels. Ewart brought down six of them with
six successive shots of his revolver. Yet their inexhaustible
numbers might have prevailed, if the remainder of the storm-
ing party, who had turned aside from the breach, and forced
their way in, some through a door, others through a window,
the iron bars of which they violently smashed in, had not come
to the rescue. The defenders were caught as in a trap ; and
volley after volley of musketry tore through the surging
throng. Then the air was rent by the screams of the rebels
for help, the loud commands of the officers to go in among
them and destroy them with the bayonet, and the curses of
the British soldiers, as, in answer to despairing appeals for
help, they bade their victims remember Cawnpore, In the
midst of this awful scene a fire suddenly burst forth ; and
many rebels who sought an easier death by flinging them-
selves upon the bayonets of their opponents, were remorselessly
hurled back into the flames. A writhing heap of bodies some
five feet high lay upon the ground ; and wounded men, who
could not extricate themselves from the hideous pile, hissed out
^ Kavanagh,' p. 106 ; J. A. Ewart's Story of a Soldier's Life, vol. ii. p. 78 ;
H. Burgoyne's Hist. Records of tlw 93rd (Sutherland) Highlmuiers, pp. 200-6.
Captain Biirroughs of the 93r(l entered the breach Viefore Ewart, Imt turned to
the left. [It is not certain who was the first to enter the breach, or rather hole.
See Enrgoyne's work and Forbes-Milchell {Reminiscences of the Great Mutiwj,
p. 64).]
1857 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OP SIR COLIN" CAMPBELL 411
the foulest epithets at every British officer who approached.
Those who had not yet fallen retreated into the towers at the
angles of the building. One of these was so obstinately
defended that it was necessary to bring up artillery ; and then
the fierce shoiits of the victors, the sullen utterances of the
vanquished were drowned in the deep thunder of the guns and
the crash of masses of stone falling from the wrecked tower.
Still from the topmost rooms there poured down an incessant
musketry -fire : but the stormers forced their way up the stairs
with fixed bayonets ; and, though the caged rebels smote them
wildly from above with their tuhvars, they could not escape,
they could not repel the rising tide. Now those above rushed
down in terror on those below, and left them no room to strike :
the corpses of the slain, pitched down from the windows above,
fell with a dull thud upon the ground ; and, when at sunset
the horrid din was hushed, two thousand dead, but not one
living rebel remained in the Sikandar Bagh.^
The survivors of the storming party were drawn off, and
moved on in the direction of the Residency. The
road traversed an open plain about twelve hun- y^au'^Naji/^*^
dred yards broad. About five hundred and fifty
yards down the road, and a hundred to the right of it, was a
large mosque called the Shah Najif, which stood in a garden
enclosed by a strong and lofty wall, and fringed by jungle and
mud cottages. Sir Colin determined to carry this stronghold
iDefore nightfall ; and accordingly Peel brought up his twenty-
four pounders, mortars, and rocket-frames, and placed them in
battery against it. The enemy, however, aiming securely under
cover of the jungle, and behind the loopholes in the walls,
replied with a biting and incessant musketry-fire. Meanwhile
the animals which were carrying ammunition up the narrow lane
from the rear, shrinking from the fire in their front, and
shoved forward by those behind, got jammed together in a
confused mass ; and it was only along a by-path, which an
officer fortunately discovered, that fresh ammunition could be
at last supplied to the troops engaged before the Shah Najff.
Even then, however, they could make no way. Sir Colin sat
by them on his white horse, anxiously watching the struggle.
^ Bourchier, p. 142 ; T. H. Kavanagh's JIow I won the Victoria Cross,
pp. 104, 107-8 ; Blackwood, p. 493 ; Lord Roberts, vol. i. p. 327 ; Normau's
Lecture on tfie llelief of Lucknow, pp. 20-2.
412 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN" CAMPBELL ch. xi
He saw that the crisis of the battle, — of the campaign had
come ; that for his army there was no retreat, though success
seemed impossible ; that he must succeed, or leave Outram,
and Havelock, and their long-tried garrison to perish. Gather-
ing his Highlanders about him, he spoke a few words to them.
He had not meant, he said, to ex^^ose them again that day.
But the Shah Najif must be taken : the artillery could not
subdue its fire ; they must go forward then, and carry it at the
point of the bayonet, and he himself would go with them.
The regiment was ready, and formed in column on the plain.
Then Middleton's battery of the Royal Artillery came up, the
drivers waving their whips, and the gunners their caps, dashed
at full gallop through that unceasing storm of bullets close
under the wall, unlimbered, and opened with grape; Peel
fought all his guns with an unsurjDassed energy ; and the
veterans of the 93rd, their grey-headed General and his staff,
and Adrian Hope, their loved colonel, riding before them,
marched with a great enthusiasm to do their part. But their
enthusiasm spent itself in vain. The impregnable walls of the
Shah Najif, enveloped in a cloud of smoke, frowned grimly
down upon them ; they could not advance ; they would not
retreat ; and at every discharge from the loopholes fresh
victims fell. Hope and his aide-de-camp had their horses shot
under them, and rolled over on the ground ; tAvo of the head-
quarters staff Avere struck down ; and, as night was now fast
approaching. Sir Colin, despairing of success, ordered the guns
to be withdrawn. At this moment Hope, followed b}'' some
fifty men, crept round through the jungle to the right, and was
trying to find some weak point in the wall, when Sergeant
Baton of the 93rd pointed out to him a narrow cleft Avhich the
lire of the artillery had opened. One man was first pushed
up by his comrades ; the rest followed ; and, finding to their
amazement that hardly a rebel remained to opi)ose them, ran
to the gate and opened it. The British, as they poured in,
could just see the white dresses of the last of the fugitives
disappearing through the smoke into the darkness of night.
Outside, Sir Colin remained with his staft", his anxious face lit
up by the lurid glare shed from the flames which girt about
the doomed mosque. Suddenly, above the infernal din of
bursting shells and splinters falling from the walls rose the
familiar Highland yell. Then his face grew bi'ight again, and
1857 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGT^S OF SIR COLIX CAMPBELL 413
he moved off to make his arrangements for the night, for he
knew that the Shah Naji'f was won.^
Meanwhile the garrison had been doing their utmost to
co-operate with the men Avho were striving to
relieve them. On the morning of the 16th, Have- operates in
lock, to whom Outram had given the conduct of |"pJ'°','*°^
' _ _ o _ Sir Colin.
the operations, occupied the Farid Bakhsh. His
object was to storm two buildings called the Harn-Khdna and
the Steam-Engine House, and thus diminish the distance which
Sir Colin would have to traverse. At about eleven o'clock he
heard that the relieving force was attacking the Sikandar Bagh.
Vincent Eyre then opened fire on the outer wall of the Fari'd
Bakhsh and the buildings beyond it. At a quarter past three
two mines, which had been sunk under the Harn-Khana, exploded
with excellent effect. Havelock now felt that the way had been
sufficiently cleared to allow the infantry to act. A few minutes
later the bugle sounded the advance : the troops, answering with
a loud cheer, rushed to the assault ; and soon both buildings
were in their hands.^
Sir Colin's troops lay down in their ranks to rest. Before
daybreak they were awoke by the city bells ring- jj^^ jy
ing loudly, and the enemy's drums beating. No
attack, however, followed. Sir Colin, therefore, Mes^s^we**^
at once began his preparations for capturing the ^'^y."^^°*'
Mess-house and the Moti Mahal, the only strong
places that still barred his approach to the imprisoned garrison.
For several hours Peel bombarded the Mess-house. By three
o'clock in the afternoon its musketry was almost entirely
subdued, and Sir Colin ordered it to be stormed. The rebels
speedily fled ; and the stormers, encouraged by Captain Garnet
Wolseley, pressing after them to the Moti Mahal, within which
they had taken refuge, forced an opening through the wall, and,
after a fierce struggle, expelled them. Only a few hundred
yards of open ground now separated the relievers from the
relieved. A tempest of bullets from the Kaisar Bagh was
rushing over this space ; but notwithstanding, Outram and
Havelock, Napier, Eyre, young Havelock, and four other,-;
started to cross it and welcome the Commander-in-Chief. They
reached the Moti Mahdl in safety. Havelock, after shaking
^ Blackwood, pp. 493-5 ; Boiircliier, p. 144.
^ Marshman-, pp. 436-7.
414 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL ch. xi
hands with Hope Grant, who was the first to congratulate
him on being relieved, went up to the men, who cheered him
enthusiastically. The old General was deeply moved by this
sign of their regard. " Soldiers," he said, his eyes filling with
tears, " I am happy to see you ; soldiers, I am happy to think
you have got into this place with a smaller loss than I had."
The party still had to cross a road to reach the Commander-in-
Chief, whose quarters were in the Mess-house. Four
the^Generais ^^ *^® ^^^® were wounded ; and Havelock himself
had a narrow escape. In a few moments, however,
he and Outram joined their chief, and congratulated him upon
the successful accomplishment of the relief of Lucknow.^
The garrison, however, had still to be withdrawn in the face
of the vast force of the enemy. This operation
the "arrison °^ ^^^ ^ most difficult and delicate one ; and while
the preparations were going on, every man in the
relieving force was on duty day and night. It was necessary
to secure the entire left flank of the relieving army, in order to
protect the passage of the women and children along the lane
by which Sir Colin had himself advanced. He had already
done something towards effecting this object by occupying on
the 16th a large building, called the Barracks, to the south of
the Sikandar Bagh. On the following day he
Nov. 17 . r fc> J
seized and occupied a group of bungalows near
the Barracks, and an important post, called Banks's House, close
to the canal, and thus cut off the enemy from all communication
between the Kaisar Bagh and the Dilkusha. The left flank
was now secure. On the 19th the women and children, the
sick and wounded were removed. A flying sap had been
constructed, to screen them from the fire of the Kaisar Bagh,
while they were crossing the open space between the Steam-
Engine House and the Moti Mahal. Between the Moti Mahal
and the Shah Naji'f they had to traverse a long stretch of plain,
which was exposed to the fire of the enemy's artillery and
sharpshooters from the opposite bank of the Giimti. Sir Colin,
however, posted gunners in the Moti Mahal and picked marks-
men in the Shah Naji'f, who, by a steady cross-fire, kept them
at a respectful distance ; and thus the women and children
moved across unhurt.- The men were amazed and indignant
1 Marshinan, p. 439 ; Hope Grant, pp. 191-2 ; Blackicond, pp. 49.^)-6.
"^Blackwood, pp. 493, 49G-7 ; Forbes-Miti'liell. pp. 104-5, confirmed by infer-
1857 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL 415
at hearing that they too must abandon the position which had
become endeared to them from the very stubbornness with
which for nearly five months they had defended it against
every attack. Outram, and Havelock, and many of the senior
officers earnestly besought Sir Colin to follow up his victory
over the disheartened rebels, seize the Kaisar Bagh and at once
re-establish British supremacy over Lucknow. Twelve hundred
men, they argued, would then suffice to hold the city. Inglis
undertook to defend the Kesidency against any odds, if only
six hundred men were left to him.^ But Sir Colin had always
regarded the Residency as a false position ; - he insisted that
four strong brigades would be required to hold Lucknow and
preserve communication with the Alambagh ; and he believed
that every man in his force would be needed for the relief of
Cawnpore. On the 20th, 21st, and 22nd, Peel continuously
bombarded the Kaisar Bagh. Three practicable breaches were
made ; and a spy reported that the mutineers were preparing
to evacuate the city. But the chief's resolve was not shaken.
Hope Grant and other officers who then differed from him,
afterwards admitted that he had been right. Nevertheless, it
was certain that when the rebels saw his column in retreat, they
would pluck up heart again and boast that, after all, they had
forced the Feringhees to abandon the capital of Oudh.-^ At
midnight on the 22nd, while the rebels in the Kaisar Bagh
were thinking only of preparing to repel an assault which their
opponents had no intention of delivering, the garrison silently
defiled out of the entrenchment and moved along the lane to
the Dilkusha. The scene there on their arrival
Is ov. 23.
was one of the wildest confusion. Nothing had as
yet been done to provide for the wants of the multitude of
women and children.* Early in the morning, while they were
mation from Sir D. Baird, who served on Sir Colin's staff. Besides the authorities
to which I have referred for the relief of LTicknow, I have consulted Sir Colin's
despatch [Calcutta Gazette. Exty., Dec. 11, 1857, pp. 4-9) and Life of Lm-d Clyde,
vol. ii. pp. 1-20.
^ Life of Outram, vol. ii. pp. 276-7 ; Gubbins, pp. 405-6 ; Hope Grant, p. 196 ;
Lady luglis's Journal.
■•* Enclosures to Secret Letters from India, 24 Nov. 1857, pp. 903-4. [General
Innes {Lucknow and (hide in the Muti7iy, pp. 75-7) has demonstrated that the
Residency was the best position which LawTence could have selected.]
2 Innes's Lucknov and Oudein the Alutiny, pp. 258-9 ; Marshnian, pp. 440-1 ;
Lord Roberts, vol. i. pp. 342-3 ; Life of Sir Hope Grant, vol. i. pp. 300-1.
•• Blackwood, p. 497 ; Bonrchier, p. 159.
416 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGIfS OF SIR COLIN CA^IPBELL ru. xi
trying to settle down into their places, a well-known civilian
might have been seen going up to one of the private soldiers'
tents, to ask after the condition of a sick man who lay within.
The visitor was Martin Gubbins. Entering the tent, he saw on
the ground a dooly, on which General Havelock
Havdock ^^^J g^^isvously ill.^ The veteran was indeed fighting
his last battle here on earth. Weakened by the
privations which he had undergone during the blockade, and no
longer sustained by the excitement of campaigning, he had been
attacked two days before by dysentery. He was convinced
that he had not strength enough left to throw off the disease.
His son, whom alone he would suffer to attend him, was sitting
on the ground by his side, ministering to his wants. He knew
that his Queen and nation appreciated what he had done for
them ; he did not suffer his heart to rebel because he must die
without enjoying the rewards that they were preparing for him,
without seeing his wife and younger children again. " I die
happy and contented," he said; "I have for forty years so
ruled my life that, when death came, I might face it without
fear." Outram, who came in to see him in the evening, has
touchingly recorded what passed between them. "I had a
most affecting interview with him," he wrote ; "his tenderness
was that of a brother. He told me he was dying, and spoke
from the fulness of his honest heart of the feelings which he bore
towards me, and of the satisfaction with which he looked back
to our past intercourse and service together, which had never
been on a single occasion marred by a disagreement of any kind,
nor embittered by an angry word." At half-past nine
Nov 24 o
next morning he died." Soon afterwards the troops
with their convoy marched for the Alambagh. There Havelock
was buried. " On the low plain by the Alumbagh,"
Nov 26 1 J _ o '
wrote a gallant soldier, one of the most distinguished
of Sir Colin's officers, who has left us an unsurpassed record of
the campaign, " they made his humble grave ; and Campbell,
and Outram, and Inglis, and many a stout soldier who had
followed him in all his headlong march, and through the long
fatal street, were gathered there to perform the last rites to
one of England's noblest dead. As long as the memory of great
* Gubbins, p. 417. Dooly — a litter on which a sick or wouiuled soldier is
carried.
■^ Marshman, pp. 444-G ; Life of Outram, vol. ii. p. 278.
Fo &ee pa^e 417.
SKETCH OF THE
AC TION OF CAWNPORE
StreivntJi oCthe BjiUsh. Force.
Infantry Hopes BrigatjU 1700
WcUfwIes 1100
GreaOuxL's 1000
bi^Uss K50
Total, 5050
laxalry LUtles Bri^ouU 600 Sahres
Anmiry 35 Gtuis
1 ^ /f f' t 2MiU.
London : MacmiHan X^ C?L'
•StajvFord^ Gecy^ Sstab^ London.
1857 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL 417
deeds, and high courage, and spotless self-devotion is cherished
amongst his countrymen, so long will Havelock's lonely tomb in
the grove beneath the scorching Eastern sky, hard by the vast
city, the scene alike of his toil, his triumph, and his death, be
regarded as one of the most holy of the many holy spots where
her patriot soldiers lie." ^
Sir Colin was now anxious to start as soon as possible for
Cawnpore, as he had received no news from Wind- gj^, ^^^^^^
ham for several days. He made up his mind to sets out for
leave Outram to occupy the Alambagh, and hold ^^"p°''®-
the rebels in check until he should be able to return and finally
crush them out of Lucknow. At eleven o'clock on the morning
of the 27th he left the Alambagh with the convoy and an army
of some three thousand men. The low, tremulous sound which
tells a soldier that artillery are at work at some distant place,
was plainly to be heard. When Sir Colin reached
Nov 2S
the Bani bridge at evening, he learned that can-
nonading had been heard that day and the day before. The
news added greatly to his anxiety.^
Meanwhile great events had been passing at Cawnpore. Sir
Colin, knowing the difficulty of the task which he gji-coim's
had imposed upon Windham, had laid down the instructions
■^ . , -^ , . '. , , . , , . to Windham.
most minute and precise instructions tor his
guidance. He was to occupy and strengthen the entrenchment
which Havelock had constructed four months before ; to send on
to Lucknow any European infantry that might join him ; and,
if the rebels should manifest a decided intention of attacking
him, to make the most of his scanty force by extending it con-
spicuously in advance of the entrenchment. But he was on no
pretence whatever to assume the offensive, unless there should be
no other way of saving the entrenchment from a bombardment.
Windham lost no time in setting labourers to work at the
entrenchment. It was impossible, however, to convert it into
a really defensible post ; for it had originally been intended
to serve as a mere tete-de-pont. Moreover it was so closely
hemmed in by houses, gardens, and walls, that an enemy
could easily approach it under cover, even with artillery, to
within musket-range.^
1 Blachwoocl, pp. 497-8. - lb. p. 498 ; Bourchier, p. 162.
^ Sir John Adye's Defence of Caionpore, pp. 3-5 ; Pari. Papers, vol. xliv.
(1857-58), Part 4, pp, 16-17.
2 E
418 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL ch. xi
Meanwhile Tantia Topi, who had been patiently biding his
time, Avas preparing to take advantage of Sir
uiarcbes to' CoHn's departure. His army, including the fol-
attaok lowers of the Nana, who was with him, amounted
AVindham. o ^ t •
to about twenty-five thousand men. Leaving a
strong detachment to hold Kalpi, he crossed the Jumna on
the 10th of November, and moved on towards Cawnpore, occu-
pying the most important posts on his line of march, and thus
cutting off Windham from all communication with the country
from which he drew most of his supplies. The news of this
movement made AVindham so anxious that he Avrote to his chief
for leave to detain a portion of the expected reinforcements.
On the 14th he received an answer, authorising him to do so.
Three days later he led out his troops to a position which
covered the town on the west, and there encamped
them in the manner ordered by Sir Colin. ^
The permission which he had received to add to the strength
of his force had in some measure reassured him.
wS1iam°^ This feeling, however, soon passed away. Every
day he looked out, hoping in vain to catch a
glimpse of the advanced guard of Sir Colin's army returning
triumphantly from Lucknow. Every hour he asked for letters
from Sir Colin himself ; but after the 1 9th none came. The
news that did reach him Avas of the gloomiest kind. On the
22nd he heard that a body of rebels had seized the Bani
bridge, and that an army was coming from Oudh to reinforce
Tantia. Thinking that his chief might be in difficulties, he
sent a wing of a native regiment at three o'clock next morning
to recover the bridge. On the same day a letter arrived from
a commissariat officer attached to Sir Colin's force,
begging that ten day's provisions should be sent at
once to Lucknow. Coupled with the fact that no despatch had
been received from Sir Colin for three days, this request
naturally suggested the fear that the Lucknow force was
surrounded by the rebels.^
In these circumstances it behoved Windham to decide
He conceives Promptly upoii some definite course of action,
a plan for His entire force amounted to no more than seven-
" ^ ^ ' ' teen hundred men, composed mainly of detach-
ments of European regiments, and ten guns. He knew that, if
1 Malleson, vol. ii. p. 231 ; Adye, pp. 7-9. - Jb. pp. 13-14.
1857 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL 419
Tdntia, with his large force and numerous artillery, were to
attack him in earnest, it would be impossible to save either the
town or the entrenchment by the kind of defence contemplated
by Sir Colin. His one chance of success lay in boldly taking
the initiative, and attempting to destroy the enemy's scattered
posts in detail. With the view of doing this he had already
prepared and forwarded for his chief's approval
a very skilful plan. Among the positions occu-
pied by Tantia's troops were two villages,^ situated close to
the Ganges canal, and within a long day's march from Cawn-
pore. Windham's idea was to take his force up the canal at
night, pounce upon and destroy one or other of these posts,
and then return to Cawnpore in time to repel any counter-
attack. Owing to the interru]3tion of communication with
Lucknow, he received no answer to his request for Sir Colin's
approval.^ Then was the time for him, if his belief in himself
had only been strong enough, to show that he had the heart
to execute the plan Avhich he had had the head to conceive.
Though, however, he had proved himself to be a soldier of ex-
traordinary personal courage, he could not endure
a test like this. No man indeed has any right to fromVi™ ^
disobey the orders of a superior, unless he has of**|*°g"ut/n<Ht
reason to feel absolutely confident that, in doing
so, he will succeed. No man who commits himself to such
disobedience has any right to complain if, in the event of
failure, the heaviest penalties are exacted from him. But our
history would be other than it is, if men had not arisen in great
conjunctures who counted the hazard of such penalties as
nothing, when measured against the glorious privilege of ren-
dering a service to their country.
Though Windham could not nerve himself to strike a really
decisive blow, his nature was not one that could „ , , , ,,
. . n -n 1 • • Second battle
acquiesce in inaction. Still hoping to receive ofthePaudu
authority to carry out his scheme, he resolved to
be ready to do so on the first opportunity. Accordingly, on
the morning of the 24th, he broke up his camp, and marched
six miles in a south-westerly direction to a position close to the
bridge by which the Kdlpi road crossed the canal. Instantly
accepting the challenge which this movement implied, Tantia
marched with a detachment from Akbarpur, one of the villages
^ Sheoli and Sheorajpur. ^ Adye, pp. 10-11.
420 FIRST T\YO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL ch. xi
of which he had taken possession, and halted next day on the
right bank of the Pandu Naddi, at a point a little
to the south-west of Windham's position. Early
next morning Windham attacked and defeated him
Immediately after the action, however, he fell back
upon Cawnpore, and selected a new encamping-ground at some
brick-kilns near the Kalpi road, which, in anticipation of the prob-
able movements of the enemy, he regarded as more defensible
than the old one. A despatch had come at last, informing him
that all had gone well at Liicknow.^ He had only to hold out
for a day or two longer, and his anxieties would be at an end.
He might be pardoned then for indulging himself with the
hope that Tantia would be too cowed by defeat to attack him
again before the end of that time.
Tantia, however, was not in the least cowed. He had the
GrowiiK' wit to perceive that Windham would not have
audacity of followed up a victory by retreat unless he had felt
it necessary to secure Cawnpore against attack ;
and he resolved that that attack should be speedily delivered.
Next morning; Windham made his troops stand to
Nov 27 . .
their arms, as usual. He was ignorant of the
enemy's intentions ; for so many of his spies had lately been
captured that the rest were afraid to venture out in search of
information. His suspense, however, was soon terminated.
About twelve o'clock, as he was reconnoitring from the top of
a house, he saw the smoke, and heard the roar of an artillery
more powerful than his own.^ Without delay, he moved oflF to
make his dispositions for repelling the attack.
Ordering Brigadier Carthew, who had played a prominent
part in the battle of the previous day, to move to
of'^Ca'^vnpore!^ the right, and defend the town on the side ap-
proached by the Bithiir road, he sent the left
brigade under Colonel Walpole wp the Kalpi road, to engage
the enemy's right. He would have shown more judgement if he
had contented himself with defending his position at the brick-
kilns ; ^ for so superior was Tantia's artillery ■* that Walpole's
^ Adye, pp. 16-21. ^ 7^, p 22.
^ Windham says he would have done so if he had not unwisely rescinded an
order which he had given for sending his baggage to the rear. Obsa-vaiions
svpported by Documents : being a supplement to Col. Adye's Defence of Cawn-
pore, p. 15.
■* Tantia had sixty or seventy guns (fifty, according to Adye, p. 27), Windham
1857 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL 421
men were soon in danger of being overwhelmed. When the
battle had lasted about an hour, Windham, who had till then
been engaged in watching Carthew's operations, retui^ned to the
left brigade. At the critical moment, an officer who com-
manded at a village on his right front pusillanimously retreated,
without orders and without a show of resistance : the bullock-
drivers rapidly deserted : ammunition began to fail ; ^ and
Windham, seeing that success was impossible, determined to
fall back on the brick-kilns, and sent an order to Carthew to do
likewise. Carthew at first took no notice of the order. From
the outset he had successfully maintained his ground, and he
believed that he could and ought to maintain it to the end.
Presently, however, the order was reiterated ; and, feeling the
necessity of obedience, he reluctantly withdrew his brigade.^
What he saw on approaching the brick-kilns, did not tend to
soothe his irritated feelings. The soldiers of the left brigade
were hopelessly confused ; their tents and heavy baggage were
strewn about in disorder ; their cattle had been driven away
by the enemy.
The worst, however, was still to come. About five o'clock a
staff-officer came to Windham with the news that the rebels
were attacking the entrenchment. It was clear that even the
brick-kilns must now be abandoned. Windham accordingly
sent an order to the officer Avhom he had placed in command
there to retreat ; and then, putting himself at the head of a
detachment which had luckily just arrived from Fatehpur,
attacked and forced back the rebels who were threatening the
entrenchment. He then rode to meet Carthew, and ordered
him to return to his original position on the right, and thence
to move to and occupy the theatre. This building, which stood
between the Bithur road and the town, contained an abundance
of clothing and stores. Carthew executed his order with skill
and resolution, severely punishing the rebels who endeavoured
to hinder him. The main body, on the other hand, had to
only ten. lb. p. 18. Tantia's force amounted to about fourteen thousand
disciplined soldiers and eleven thousand irregulars : Windham's to about seven-
teen hundred. Adye, p. 9.
' Windham thought tliat he could have covered the removal of his baggage
but for this contretemps. Observations, etc., p. 15. Sir Colin characterised the
conduct of the officer as pusillanimous and imbecile to the last degi'ee, and said
that it explained " much of what might otherwise have been injurious to Wind-
barn's reputation." lb. p. 16.
2'Malleson, vol. ii. p. 214, note.
422 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL ch. xi
abandon all their tents and baggage, and were harassed, as they
retreated, by a severe musketry-fire. Many of them were raw
recruits ; and, as though they had not been sufficiently
humiliated already, they disgraced their colours by rushing in
panic to the entrenchment ; broke open the stores ; drank the
wine intended for the sick ; and smashed open their officers'
boxes in drunken fury.^
Expecting that the enemy would renew their attack on the
morrow, Windham spent the night in anxious consultation with
his officers. He himself undertook to defend the part of the
town next the Ganges, on the left bank of the canal. Walpole,
commanding again on the left, was to defend the part, also on
the left bank of the canal, that lay nearest to the brick-kilns.
Brigadier Wilson was to guard the entrenchment. Carthew
was to defend the Bithur road, the key of the position, and
thus to secure the stores and clothing intended for the women,
children, and invalids of the Lucknow garrison. The force
which Windham set apart for the execution of this, by far the
most important and difficult part of the contemplated defence,
was wholly inadequate.^
Early in the morning the enemy returned to the attack.^
„ . g. Carthew took up his position at a bridge span-
ning a nullah which ran in front of the theatre.
For two hours and a half the enemy fiercely assailed him with
their artillery ; but they could not dislodge him. At twelve
o'clock he received an order to advance. His path ran up a
level piece of ground about six hundred yards in length, at the
opposite extremity of which the enemy had posted three guns.
The skirmishers pushed on gallantly up to within a hundred
yards of this point ; but so destructive was the fire with which
they were assailed from the guns and from the musketeers who
occupied the houses on either side, that they could go no
further. Undaunted by this failure, Carthew brought up two
guns, which in a few minutes silenced the enemy's fire ; but,
having no cavalry to support him, he was unable to follow up
his advantage. Meanwhile Wilson had made a parallel advance
on Carthew's right against another battery. More successful
at first than their comrades of Carthew's brigade, his skir-
^ Russell, vol. i. p. 206 ; Maude and Sherer, vol. ii. p. 383 : Fortes-Mitehell,
p. 124.
"^ See Malleson, vol. ii. p. 247. ^ Adye, p. 30.
1857 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL 423
mishers charged the guns, and for a moment held possession of
them, but, unsupported by the main body, which had fallen
too far behind, were attacked in their turn and destroyed.
Wilson himself fell ; the main body was driven back on the
entrenchment; and thus Carthew's right was exposed. The
battle, however, was not yet lost. "Windham had only to rein-
force Carthew, and all might still go well. Sir Colin too Avas
sure to arrive in a few hours ; and then the issue would be
placed beyond a doubt.
Early that morning Sir Colin had resumed his march from
Bani. Every moment the sound of firing became sircoiin's
plainer ; but still there was no news of Windham. march to
Mile after mile was quickly traversed. Just before
noon a native ran forward from under a hedge, and handed to
a staff- officer a letter dated November 26, and addressed
"Most urgent, to General Sir Colin Campbell, or any officer
commanding troops on the Cawnpore road." Sir Colin read,
and saw that Cawnpore had been attacked. Presently another
letter was delivered to him, and then another. Windham was
hard pressed, — he had been obliged to fall back on his entrench-
ment. Sir Colin's thoughts soon flashed upon the minds of his
troops. Had the rebels broken down the bridge over the
Ganges ? Perhaps there v.-as a bare chance that they might be
in time to prevent this crowning disaster ; if not, they would
be isolated in an enemy's country. On they pressed all through
that long afternoon, becoming every moment more tired and
footsore, yet still striving more impatiently to reach the goal,
while the rumbling of the cannonade gradually deepened, as
they neared it, into an angry roar, the gasping bearers staggered
as they struggled to keep up with the troops, and the wounded
whom they carried, too weary now to care what might be the
fate of Cawnpore, groaned, and died. At last Sir Colin, unable
to bear the agony of suspense any longer, hurried on in advance
with the cavalry and horse -artillery, and, leaving even these
behind at Mangalwar, rode on at a gallop with only his staff to
escort him. As he approached the river, he could see that the
bridge was still standing. In a few minutes he was upon it, and,
as he spurred across, the light of the setting sun was shed over
the broad flood, but the battle was still raging upon the further
bank, and flames were rushing up above the city of CaAvnpore.^
^ W. Munro'b Reminiscence:; of Military Service toith the 93rd {Sutherland)
424 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL ch. xi
At the critical moment of the battle, the moment when
Wilson's attack had been repulsed, Windham's
thTtett^e"'^ generalship had failed. He had already sent
supports to Walpole, whose task was compara-
tively an unimportant one, and whose original force had proved
amply sufficient. Biit to Carthew, Avho was sustaining the
chief burden of the fight, with whose fortunes the fortunes of
the entire army were bound up, he did not send a single man.
In these trying circumstances, however, Carthew did not lose
heart. He was obliged to fall back upon the bridge, and, Avhen
he reached it, he was isolated ; but he still fought on. The
enemy brought more and more guns to bear upon his position,
and, swarming up in ever increasing numbers into the surround-
ing houses and gardens, assailed him and his little band with a
terrible musketry-fire. Even then he would not give in. Not
until it became clear that, if he remained where he was any
longer, he would be surrounded, not until he had proved that
he could have won the battle if his General had not neglected
him, did he give the order to fall back upon the entrench-
ment.^
By this time Windham was giving an account of his steward-
ship to Sir Colin, Avho had ridden into the entrenchment a
short time before. He had certainly not done all that might
have been done. He had allowed the town, his baggage, and
his stores to fall into the hands of the enemy. On the other
hand, he had succeeded, under circumstances of extraordinary
difficulty, in preserving intact the two vital points, the entrench-
ment and the bridge over the Ganges."^
The night passed quietly. Looking out at daybreak, Tantia
saw that the ijlain beyond the further bank of
The inorning , ^. i • • i i r i
ai'tor. the Ganges was white with the tents oi another
i. ov. .. . jji'^tish army. Knowing that that army would
soon be upon him, unless he could prevent it from crossing the
river, he caused his artillery to open fire upon the bridge.
Peel's heavy guns and all the British field-batteries swiftly
replied : for some time the banks of the river were overclouded
Avith smoke; but the rebels were gradually overpowered, and
Highlanders, pp. 169-70 ; Bourehier, pp. 162-3 ; Blackwood, p. 498 ; H. Nor-
man's Lecture un the Relief of Luclium\ p. 33.
^ Pari. Papers, vol. xl'iv. (18.^)7-58), Part 3, pp. 235-6.
"^ Obserrations, etc., p. 12. Wiudliaiii's desi>atcli will be fouud on pp. 35-40
of Adye's work.
1857 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL 425
forced to abandon their attempt. Then the advanced guard of
Sir Colin's army moved on to the bridge, and,
followed by the women and children, the sick and 3 p.m.- "
wounded, the long train of baggage -carts, and 6p\"i^°'
the rear-guard, crossed the canal, and encamped
on the plain, hard by the entrenchment from which, five
months before, another procession had issued forth to die.^
The rebels, however, still clung resolutely to their position ;
and Sir Colin knew that he could not attempt to -^^3 -women,
dislodge them while the convoy remained to impede children, and
.0 "'...,■' invaluls of
his movements. 1 he preparations for its departure Lucknowsent
■ IP 1 • , 1 . 1 . . 1 to Allahabad.
were therefore pressed on with the utmost speed.
On the night of the 3rd of December it started for Allahabad.
For two days longer Sir Colin remained Avatching the rebels, to
allow it time to get beyond the reach of danger. Meanwhile
the rebels harassed him, as they had done since the beginning
of the month, by desultory attacks. But the hour of retribu-
tion was now at hand.
The position held by the rebels was on the whole very
strong. Their left was protected by the Ganges, posi^onof
Their centre occupied the town, the narrow, wind- tiie rebels at
ing streets of which were well adapted for defence.
Their right stretched out behind the canal into the open plain.
About two miles in rear of the right, and close to the Kalpi
road, was the camp of the Gwalior Contingent, by far the most
formidable portion of the rebel army. Reviewing
the whole position, Sir Colin saw that the right ^ atuck.' ^''''"
was not only the one vulnerable point, but also
the most important to gain, inasmuch as it would give him
possession of the Kalpi road, the only line of retreat open to
the Gwalior Contingent. He determined therefore to attack it
with all the force which he could bring to bear against it, over-
whelm it before aid could reach it from the centre ; and then,
seizing the camp of the Gwalior Contingent, plant himself upon
the Kalpi road, and strike at the enemy's communications.
His army, which had just been strengthened by reinforcements
from England, amounted to five thousand infantry, six hundred
cavalry, and thirty-five guns.
At ten o'clock in the morning of the 6th, Windham,
who had been placed in command of the entrenchment,
■' Blackwood, p. 500.
426 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL ch. xr
began the battle by opening fire from all his guns and mortars
upon the enemy's left and centre. For about two
o?cav^fpore. hours a tempest of iron beat upon the houses of
Cawnpore ; and the rebels, crowded together in the
narrow streets, were destroyed in great numbers. Their attention
was so distracted by the fury of the attack that they brought down
more and more troops to repel it, leaving their right unsupported.
Thus Sir Colin's first object was attained. Then
ou noon, ^j^^ ^^^^^ ^£ ^^^q cannonade became hushed : the
smoke passed away ; and, the rest of the infantry being masked
from observation, Greathed's brigade closed rapidly on to the line
of the canal, and kept the centre engaged by a brisk musketry-
fire, while, further to the left, the dark-clad riflemen of Wal-
pole's brigade forded the canal, and, sweeping past the walls of
the town, hurled back the head of every column which threat-
ened to debouch from the streets to the assistance of the right.
Meanwhile the cavalry and horse-artillery moved forward at a
fast trot from the extreme left, and Hope's and Inglis's brigades,
suddenly emerging from their hiding-places, streamed swiftly in
two lines across the plain. The enemy, massed behind the
brick-kilns, received them with a well-directed fire, but, unable
to stem the rush of the skirmishers, fell back upon a bridge
which spanned the canal. Aware of the importance of this
point, they opened from it a fresh fire so heavy that the skir-
mishers, as they came hurrying up, momentarily^ faltered ; but
at the critical moment a deep, rumbling sound was heard, and
Peel's sailors came running up, dragging their twenty-four
pounders with them, dashed right on to the bridge, planted one
of the guns, and opened fire. The infantry, greatly stirred by the
sight of this gallant deed, and burning to rival it, rushed for-
ward at the top of their speed, crossed the bridge, or forded the
canal itself, and, scattering the enemy before them, raced on to
the camp of the Gwalior Contingent ; while Bourchier's battery,
galloping up on the left, unlimbered within a short distance of
the tents, and, pouring in round after round of grape, speedily
cleared them. The surprise was complete. Chapatties were
found heating on the fires ; bullocks wei-e standing tied up
beside the hackeries ; and surgeons were seen rushing out of
the hospitals to escape the destruction which had come upon
them unawares. Sending General Mansfield to prevent the
centre and left frum escaping. Sir Colin waited till nearly two
1857 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL 427
o'clock for his cavalry and horse-artillery. Then, as they had
not arrived, he pressed on himself with Bourchier's battery and
his small escort of cavalry in pursuit of the Gwalior Contingent.
So demoralised were the fugitives that this slender force sufficed
to keep them on the run. At length the cavalry and horse-
artillery, whose guide had misled them, came hurrying up to
join him, and started at full gallop after the flying rebels.
Passing cart-loads of ammunition strewn along the road, spik-
ing numbers of abandoned guns, and dealing death without
remorse, they urged on their panting horses mile after mile,
and never paused until the hunted rebels, throwing away
their arms in despair, fled from the road to hide themselves
in the jungle, or disperse over the country on either side.
It was midnight before the conquerors returned to Cawn-
pore.^
Meantime, however, the completeness of the British triumph
had been marred by the failure of the operations entrusted
to Mansfield. That officer was the chief of the staff. Sir
Colin felt for him a deep affection, and had a high opinion
of his powers. But the old soldier was more than once mis-
taken in the judgements which he formed on the professional
qualities of the officers who served under him ; ^ and it is certain
that Mansfield, though his look and bearing strongly impressed
every observer with whom he came in contact, did not possess
the eye of a general. The precise instructions which he received
were to seize a position called the Subadar's Tank, which com-
manded the BithiAr road, the only line of retreat open to the
enemy's centre and left. Thus he had before him the chance
of forcing something like two-thirds of the entire army to
surrender. When he reached the tank, large masses of the
enemy were already retreating. He opened fire upon them,
but, in spite of the remonstrances of his officers, would not
allow his infantry to advance. Presently a portion of the
hostile left, which had not yet had time to gain the road,
opened fire upon his force. He might have captured their guns
if he had not shrunk from incurring the loss which an attack
upon their position would have involved. As it was, he allowed
^ Blackwood, pp. 501-3 ; Life, of Lord Clyde, vol. ii. pp. 37-40 ; Bourcliier,
p. 175 ; Lord Roberts, vol. i. pp. 371-2.
'-' He subseqneutly appointed Walpole and Brigadier Campbell of the Bays to
commands for which they proved themselves wholly unfit.
428 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL ch. xi
them also to escape, and returned to camp, having accomplished
absolutely nothing.^
In consequence of this failure. Sir Colin was obliged to send
HopeGi-aiit '''■i^other body of troops in pursuit. He placed
foiio\ysiip Hope Grant in command. Early in the afternoon
VIC 01 >. ^j ^^^ g^j^ ^j^^ detachment started. From an
observation of the traces which the fugitives had left behind
them, Hope Grant felt sure that they must have diverged from
the Bithur road, and made for a ferry some miles oft' to the
north-west, in the hope of escaping across the Ganges into
Oudh. He therefore turned in the same direction, marched
with all speed through the night, reached the village of Sheo-
rajpur, about three miles from the ferry, just before
daybreak, and, leaving his baggage there, hurried
on to intercept the rebels. Approaching the river, he caught
sight of them. For a moment they turned to bay ; but, swiftly
bringing his artillery into action, he poured a concentrated fire
into their disorderly and crowded masses with such terrible
effect that they gave way, and ran as fast as they could up the
bank, leaving fifteen guns behind them.'^
Sir Colin was unable to follow up his success at once, owing
to the want of carriage. He was obliged therefore
plan for the ^o remain inactive at Cawnpore, waiting until the
ofThe^itoab ^arts which had transported the convoy to Allaha-
bad, should return. In the meantime he thought
out his plans for the future course of the campaign. He saw
that before he could proceed to the reconquest of Rohilkhand
and Oudh, he must reopen communication with Delhi and the
Punjab. He could only do this by regaining possession of the
Doab, which formed the connecting-link between the plains
watered respectively by the Indus and the lower Ganges.
Greathed's brilliant march had had no lasting eff'ect ; for the
rebels whom he had scattered had closed up again in the rear
of his column, and renewed their depredations. Sir Colin
resolved therefore that the work of reconquest should now be
performed thoroughly. Three of the most important points in
the Doab, namely Delhi at its north-western, Allahabad at its
south-eastern extremity, and Agra, midway between the two,
^ My account of Mansfield's operatious is founded u^jou a comi)arison of
Malleson, vol. ii. pp. 275-6, with Blackwood, p. 504.
2 Hope Grant, pp. 208-10.
1857 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL 429
were already in his possession. The one point still to be gained
was Fatehgarh on the Ganges, nearly opposite to Agra. His
design was that several converging columns should advance upon
Fatehgarh, sweeping before them the rebels who still infested the
Doab to that place, and driving them thence across the Ganges
into Rohilkhand. Accordingly he directed "VValpole to make a
semicircular sweep to the left through the Lower Do4b on Main-
puri, there to join Seaton, who was escorting a convoy of stores
and cattle through the Upper Doab, and finally to move on
Fatehgarh, whither he would himself march with the main army.^
Seaton left Delhi on the 9th of December, having heard on
the previous night that a number of rebels were
gathered together in the Aligarh district, through of seatonT
which his route lay. His convoy was of enormous ^'fr^^\^;,^"'^
length, extending over about nineteen miles of
road. How was it possible to arrange for its safety, and to fight
battles at the same time ? Seaton solved this problem by a very
simple and effective method. On his arrival at Aligarh he located
the convoy under the cover of the fort guns, and then, marching
in a south-easterly direction, defeated the rebels at Khasganj and
Patiali, returned to fetch the convoy, gained another victory at
Mainpuri, and moved thence to Bewar. There on the 3rd of
January, 1858, he was joined by Walpole,who had encountered
no opposition worth mentioning on his march from Cawnpore.^
Sir Colin himself began his march on the 24th of December,
and, clearing the country on his flanks as he advanced, arrived
on the 31st at Gursahaiganj. About five miles from this town,
the road to Fatehgarh crossed a stream, called the Kdli Naddi,
by a suspension-bridge. If the rebels who had fled before the
converging columns had had the wit to break down this bridge
in time, they might have secured for themselves a temporary
asylum in Fatehgarh. On the day of Sir Colin's arrival at
Gursahaiganj they were engaged in the work. But it was then
too late. Next morning Hope's brigade drove
them away, and a party of engineers, sappers, and
sailors proceeded to restore the damaged portion of the bridge.
On the morning of the 2nd, Sir Colin rode clown to the
bridge, to see how his men were faring. Just as he aii'ived,
^ Blackwood, pp. 505-7.
^ Boxirchier, pp. 179-82 ; Sir T. Seaton's From Cadet to Colonel, vol. ii.
pp. 235-62.
430 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL en. xi
swarms of men clad in white di'esses appeared on the top of a
hill v.'Iiich rose gradually from the opposite bank of the river,
and, running down the slope into a village facing the bridge,
opened a sharp fire of musketry.
The repair of the bridge had just been completed. The
53rd Regiment crossed over, and extended to cover
K^ii Nrddi!" the bridge-head. One wing of the 93rd took post
behind the bridge as a reserve ; while the other
was sent to hold a ford three miles to the right, and thus secure
the British flank. Then the General, sending an order for the
main body of the army to come to his support, brought all his
available artillery to bear upon the village. The enemy, how-
ever, fought the battle with resolution ; and one of their guns
especially, worked from behind the cover of a house close to
the bridge, destroyed many of the British until Lieutenant
Vaughan of the Naval Brigade succeeded in dismounting it by
a well-directed shot. By this time the head of the main column
had arrived ; and the 53rd, a regiment composed mainly of un-
governable Irishmen, hearing that they were to be relieved,
and determined to keep to themselves the glory of striking the
decisive blow, rushed forward to attack the village, in defiance
of the General's orders. The enemy gave way unresistingly,
and retreated in good oi'der along the road to Fatehgarh. But
Hope Grant was there to pursue them. Leading his cavalry
at a rapid pace through the fields on the left, he disappeared for
a time from the view of his comrades ; but presently a cloud
of dust arose, and through the swaying corn, and across the plain
beyond it, squadron after sqiiadron of horsemen was seen charging
down in the direction of the road. Then the rebels, feeling
their flank assailed, broke their ranks, threw away their arms,
and fled ; the horsemen dashed in among them, and speared or
cut down all whom they could reach ; guns, colours, baggage-carts,
and ammunition -waggons were left behind ; and the terrified
survivors, only pausing for a few moments, when they reached
their camp, to lay their hands upon such things as they could
carry, hurried on breathlessly across the Ganges into Rohilkhand.
Next day Sir Colin reoccupied Fatehgarh. Three days later
he was joined by Walpole's and Seaton's united
columns.^
An important question had now to be decided. What por-
^ Blackwood, pp. 507-10 ; Hope Grant, pp. 214-17.
1857 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL 431
tion of the disturbed country was Sir Colin to reconquer next 1
Writing to him on the 20th of December, Canning
suggested that Oudh ought to be taken in hand re^s«°^ '^
at once, as the rebels were more united there than Rowikhand
elsewhere, and more likely to take advantage
of a respite. Sir Colin, on the other hand, was anxious to
utilise the remaining three months of cold weather for the
reduction of Rohilkhand. He Avas loth to expose his troops
to the cruel hardships of the hot weather campaign which would
be inevitable if so difficult and tedious a task as the reconquest
of Oudh were next to be undertaken ; and he believed that it
would be quite safe to leave the Oudh rebels to themselves
until the following autumn, j^rovided they were simply prevented
from making incursions into other provinces. He further
argued that sufficient troops could not yet be mustered for the
double work of conquering and retaining Lucknow, to say
nothing of Oudh, and securing the Grand Trunk Road, and
that the safety of the British residents at Naini Tal would
be imperilled unless the Rohilkhand rebels were promptly
attacked. But Canning had by this time acquired too firm a
grasp of the political situation to be satisfied with these argu-
ments. The restoration of order in Rohilkhand, a province
which had long been under British rule, was, he pointed out, a
mere matter of police. But Oudh was very differently cir-
cumstanced. Broad political reasons demanded that it should
be dealt with at once, even if purely military considerations,
like those adduced by Sir Colin, pointed in the opposite
direction. It represented a dynasty, and every eye in India
was bent to see whether we were strong enough to assert our
sovereignty over it. The example of Delhi, indeed, forbade us
to expect any very widespread or immediate effect from the
recapture of Lucknow ; but still, to leave Lucknow in rebel
hands would be as fatal as it would have been to retire from
Delhi. For these reasons, Canning insisted that Oudh should
be taken in hand as soon as possible, with these limitations ;
first, that a sufficient number of troops should be set apart to
keep open the communications through the Doab, and secondly,
that the recapture of Lucknow should not necessarily involve
any immediate attempt to subjugate the whole of Oudh.^
^ Life of Lord Clyde, vol. ii. pp. 65-86. See also Enclosures to /Secret Letters
from India, 4 to 8 March 1858, pp. 345-7.
432 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL ch. xi
There never was a more loyal soldier than Sir Colin Campbell,
„ ,. never one who was more thorouofhly convinced
Preparations o J
for the siege that military power should be subordinate to civil
uc now. government. As soon, therefore, as he saw that
his arguments could not prevail, he set himself to fulfil the
Governor-General's wishes. But some time was required for
the completion of the preparations. The army needed to be
largely reinforced before it could venture to undertake so
important an operation as the siege of Lucknow. Sir Colin's
first business then was to select some post, the occupation of
which would enable him at once to maintain his hold upon
the country which he had just reconquered, and to cover the
advance of the reinforcements to Cawnpore, where they were
to concentrate before advancing against Lucknow. Fatehgarh,
the position which he was then occupying, seemed to him the
most suitable. Situated, as it was, on the high road to Bareilly,
the capital of Rohilkhand, it would present an obstacle to any
rebels who might advance thence to the invasion of the Upper
Dodb. Similarly, it threatened Lucknow, with which it was
connected by a direct road, and would thus support Outram in
his endeavours to hold the Oudh rebels in check. It would
also overawe the remains of the Gwalior Contingent at Kalpi,
in case they should meditate an incursion into the Lower Doab.
Finally, as a result of the checks which it imposed upon these
three hostile points, Bareilly, Lucknow, and Kalpi, it would
screen from attack the siege-train, destined for the reduction of
Lucknow, in its transport from Agra to Cawnpore.^
While Sir Colin was awaiting the arrival of his reinforce-
ments, the hot-headed and ignorant journalists of India abused
him for what they regarded as his inactivity. As a matter of
fact, however, few men could have done more than he did.
Moveable columns, issuing forth from Fatehgarh, scoured the
surrounding country, punished insurgent villages, and, by
skilful demonstrations, deluded the Rohilkhand rebels into the
belief that their country was to be the next object of attack.
Brigades were detailed to garrison Fatehgarh and the districts
dependent upon it. Finally, an arrangement was made with
Sir John Lawrence, in accordance with which a force should be
collected at Roorkee, and march thence into Rohilkhand, to
hold the rebels of that province in check uritil Sir Colin could
^ Blackioood, pp. 511-12.
1858 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL 433
find time to deal with them. On the 1st of February, the
siege-train having started from Agra, Sir Colin left Fatehgarh
for Cawnpore, and thence proceeded to Allahabad, to confer
with Canning. On the 9th he returned to Cawnpore, to
superintend the final preparations for the siege of Lucknow.^
Meanwhile, two powerful armies were marching from the
east to join in the siege. The immediate object,
however, for which they had been sent into the Beimes^an/^*'
field was the protection of the Benares Division, Aiiahabad
Divisions,
which they would have to traverse before entering
Oudh. Though the iron hand of Frederic Gubbins had main-
tained order in the city of Benares, anarchy had prevailed in
the districts. The authority of the British had not, indeed,
been everywhere overthrown. Conspicuous among those who
strove to uphold the cause of civilisation was an indigo-planter,
named Venables, who, as well as some other private gentlemen,
was temporarily invested by the Government with executive
powers. Supported by a handful of troops, he reoccupied
Azamgarh after it had been abandoned by the civil officers, held
it till the close of July, inflicted two defeats upon
insurgent mobs, and, by an unsparing use of the
gallows, did something to check the development of crime.
But, in spite of all that that heroic man and others who vied
with him could do, the peaceable inhabitants of the country
were continually robbed and harassed by the malcontents who
lived among them, and others who kept swarming across the
frontier from Oudh. It was not till the Gurkha army which
had marched down from Khatmandu in answer to the Governor-
General's appeal, arrived, that the prospect began to brighten.
In the middle of August this force took possession of the
stations of Azamgarh and Jaunpur. Within the next few
weeks it gained four victories over hordes of insurgents. In
one sense these victories were decisive. They enabled the civil
ofiicers to regain a hold, which they never afterwards entireh'
lost, upon the districts that had passed beyond their control.
The rebels, however, though continually beaten, continually
rallied, and renewed their depredations. Moreover, the authori-
ties at Allahabad complained that their districts north of the
Ganges were also overrun by rebels from Oudh. These
invaders had for weeks past been systematically conquering
^ Blackwood, pp. 512-13 ; Life of Lord Clyde, vol. ii. p. 116.
2 F
434 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIX CAMPBELL ch. xi
the country. They had driven away the police, and appointed
their own, destroyed the crops, annexed village after village,
exacted tribute from the peaceful villagers, and murdered all
who resisted them. Canning saAV that he must take some
decisive steps to remedy these evils. Brian Hodgson, a retired
civilian, who had once been Resident at Khdtmandu, and was
then staying in Calcutta, urged him to trust Jang Bahddur and
take full advantage of his friendly zeal.^ Accordingly he
asked him to lead a Gurkha army through the northern portion
of the Benares Division, expel the rebels who were harrying
it, and then proceed to Lucknow and join the Commander-in-
Chief. At the same time he placed Brigadier-General Franks
in command of an army consisting of two thousand three
hundred Europeans and three thousand two hundred Gurkhas,
and ordered him to take steps for protecting Benares itself
from attack. Columns were likewise organised for the purpose
of keeping open the communication between Allahabad and
Cawnpore.''*
Jang Bahddur, at the head of an army of nine thousand
men, entered British territory in December, and
and^G^erai"'^ was joined by Colonel MacGregor, who was to
Franks march accompauy him as the representative of the British
for TjUcknow i «/ j.
Government. On the 6th of January, 1858, he
defeated a body of rebels near Gorakhpur, and thus enabled
the civil authorities to resume their work in the district. His
army was joyfully welcomed by the chief landholders and the
respectable villagers. On the 19th of February he reached the
left bank of the Gogra. There he met a small force under
Colonel Rowcroft, who was charged by MacGregor with the
duty of holding Gorakhpur. On the 25th he crossed the river,
and pursued his march towards Lucknow.^
Franks had begun to move just five weeks earlier. He had
taken up his position with a portion of his army at a town
^ Sir W. Hunter's Life of Brian Houghton Hodgson, pp. 257-8.
2 Enclosures to Secret Letters from India, 8 to 22 Oct. 1857, p. 550, 24 Nov.
1857, pp. 631, 657 ; Pari. Papers, vol. xxx. (1857), pp. 624-6 ; vol. xliv.
(1857-58), Part 3, p. 300, pars. 2, 3 ; pp. 386-93, 454-5, 501, pars. 9-11 ;
pp. 505-6, 509-12 ; Part 4, p. 44, pars. 12-13 ; pp. 219-20, pars. 32, 38 ; p. 872,
etc. etc. In the Azanigarli district, as in the North-Western Provinces generally,
old zaminddrs dispossessed by auctiou-pnrchasers were to a man against the
Government.
' Enclosures to Secret Letters from India, Jan. 1858, pp. 965, 1033, 1148;
Part. Papers, vol. xliv. (1857-58),'Part 4, pp. 101, 111.
1858 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL 435
called Badlapur between Jaunpur and Azamgarh. There he
heard that a rebel chief, named Mahndi Husain, with a force
of fifteen thousand matchlock-men, of whom about five thou-
sand deserved to be called soldiers, intended to oppose his
entrance into Oudh. As soon as his preparations were com-
pleted, he marched out of Badlapur, defeated one of Mahndi
Husain's lieutenants, re - established civil authority in the
country north of Allahabad, and then returned. On the 14th
of February he again moved forward to a point within a few
miles of the frontier. There he had to make up his mind to
halt until the news should arrive that Jang Bahddur was
ready to co-operate with him. This news reached him on the
19th. Instantly he began his advance, crossed the frontier,
and, before night, had gained two victories over detachments
of Mahndi Husain's army. Mahndi Husain, however, under-
stood the value of the stake for which he was contending.
Between the point where he had rallied and the point which the
British had reached was a strong fort, called Budhayan. He
knew that, if he could make himself master of this stronghold,
he would be able at least to delay Franks's advance. He
exerted all his powers of strategy to gain his object, but in
vain. Franks was too clever for him, and seized the fort on
the afternoon of the 21st. Still, the rebel leader did not give
up hope. He collected his whole force near the town of
Sultanpur, and there, in conjunction with an ofiicer named
GafFur Beg, who had been sent from Lucknow to support him,
prepared to make his last stand. His force, which had been
strengthened by various roving bands, now amounted to twenty-
five thousand men, of whom five thousand were sepoys, and
twenty -five guns. GafFur Beg assumed command. He drew up
the force behind a deep stream which was crossed by the main
road leading to Lucknow. Near this road he posted his
strongest battery. But he made the mistake of neglecting to
guard another road which crossed the stream some distance off
on his right. On approaching the stream, Franks saw at a
glance how to act. Making a false attack on the enemy's
front, he sent the bulk of his force to seize the unguarded road.
The enemy were busily engaged in trying to repel the false
attack, when suddenly they saw with dismay that their position
had been turned. One charge, led by Franks himself, decided
the battle. The enemy's gunners, fighting their guns to the
436 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL cii. xi
last, were cut down. The rest fled, leaving twenty guns upon
the field.
Marching on, Franks reached Selimpur on the 1st of March,
and there halted, to await orders from the Commander-in-
Chief.^
It is now time to relate what Outram had done and sufiFered
since Sir Colin had left him in command at the
Aiambaeh^^^^ Alambagh. Before Sir Colin's departure from
Lucknow, the Alambagh, in itself a strong posi-
tion, had been made stronger by earthworks. A portion of the
force was stationed there, while the position occupied by the
main body stretched behind, across the Cawnpore road to right
and left, and was protected by batteries, trenches, and abattis,
and at some points by swamps. The entire force amounted
originally to four thousand four hundred and forty-two men,
of whom rather more than three-fourths were Europeans, and
twenty-five pieces of artillery. So large a proportion had to
be set apart for garrisoning the Alambagh itself, and a fort
which protected the right flank, and for escorting the convoys
that were constantly travelling to and from Cawnpore, that
little more than two thousand men were available for action in
the field. From time to time, it is true, Outram received
reinforcements, which amounted to several hundred men ; but,
on the other hand, he was obliged to send the worn-out
survivors of the 75th to seek rest in the hills. The enemy's
forces outnumbered his in the proportion of nearly thirty to
one. They consisted of thirty - seven regiments of sepoys,
fourteen of new levies, one hundred and six of iiTegulars,
twenty-six of cavalry, four or five which fled to Lucknow from
Fatehgarh, a camel corps, and artillerymen, besides talukdars'
retainers and armed budmashes, in all at least a hundred and
twenty thousand men.
In spite, however, of their vast numerical superiority, the
rebels were so thoroughly cowed by the severe punishment
which Sir Colin had inflicted upon them, that for some days
they remained wholly inactive. In the first week of December,
* Enclosures to Secret Letters from India, 15 to 31 March, 1858, pp. 230,
243 ; Calcutta Gazette, Jan.- June, 1858, pp. 839-43. In the three actions wliich
he had fought with Mahndi Husain, Franks's loss amounted to only 2 men killed
and 23 wounded. " The secret of this," says General Innes (Lucknow and Oude
in tlie Mutiny, p. 27C), "lay in the formation of his figliting force being not in
line but in open skirmishing order."
1857-8 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL 437
they began to throw up batteries in front of the British
position. On the 22nd they made a determined attempt to
sever the communication of their opponents with Cawnpore ;
but Outram, having ascertained their plan of attack before-
hand from his spies, defeated them so completely that for the
next three weeks they hardly ventured to molest him. On the
12th and 16th of January they plucked up courage to attack
him again, but were defeated as thoroughly as before. For the
next month they contented themselves with bugling loudly,
and occasionally throwing cannon-balls in the direction of the
British position from a very respectful distance. The only
effect of these demonstrations, however, was to disturb the
sleep of their opponents.
If, however, the mass of the rebels were cowards, their leader
was a man fitted both by his spirit and by his capacity to sup-
port a great cause, and to command a great army. This was
Ahmad Ulla, the Moulvi of Fyzabad, who had first made him-
self famous by the ardour with which, in the spring of the
preceding year, he had preached the crusade against the Ferin-
ghees.^ Knowing that the army of the Commander-in-Chief
was approaching, and that he must therefore dislodge Outram
speedily, or not at aJ.1, he attempted another attack on the 15th
of February. His troops, however, failed to support him.
Three times more, on the 16th, 21st, and 25th, he tried and
failed. The time was now at hand when he and his troops
would be attacked in their turn. Thenceforth they had enough
to do in preparing to repel the attack, and left Outram in peace.'-
It is difficult to over-estimate the importance of the service
which he and the soldiers who composed his force had rendered
to their country. For more than three months they had
neutralised the baneful activity of a hundred and twenty
thousand rebels, diverting all their attacks on to themselves,
and standing the shock unmoved. If they had once suflfered
themselves to be forced from their position, they would not
have been allowed to escape across the Ganges, and the vic-
torious rebels would have been free to attack Cawnpore, to
break through Sir Colin's communications, and to carry fire
and sword whithersoever they pleased,
^ See p, 92 supra.
2 Life of Sir J. Outram, vol. ii. pp. 279-317 ; Pari. Papers, vol. xliii, (1857-
58), pp. 50-3 ; Calcutta Review, Jan, -June, 1860, pp. 1-16,
438 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL ch. xi
For nearly three weeks after his visit to the Governor-
General, Sir Colin remained at Cawnpore. The
Final arrange- defensive works at that city had been strengthened
CoHnf °^^"^ with the view of repelling a possible attack from
the remnant of the Gwalior Contingent. The
army was continually swelled by new reinforcements ; and day
after day dense battalions of infantry, bright squadrons of
cavalry, batteries of artillery, hackeries laden with ammuni-
tion, commissariat waggons, and legions of camp-followers
passed over the bridge. On the 28th of February Sir Colin,
having seen the last detachment start, quitted Cawnpore, and
made a forced march to Banthira, where the whole army was
encamped. So powerful a British army had never before been
seen in India. There were seventeen battalions of infantry,
twenty-eight squadrons of cavalry, and a hundred and thirty-
four guns and mortars. Though Sir Colin was already chafing
against delay, he determined to wait a few days longer, in
order to give the Gurkhas time to come up, lest their com-
mander, finding himself deprived of the glory of sharing in the
siege, should take offence, and return to Nepal. He had already
accepted a plan of operations, which had been devised by his
Chief Engineer, Brigadier Robert Napier.^
During the past three months the enemy had greatly in-
creased the strength of their position. They had
Lucknow.°^ broken down all the bridges over the canal, which
served them as a wet ditch, and had connected the
loAver portion with the river by a deep and straight cutting.
Behind the canal, from the place where this cutting touched
the river to a point about half a mile beyond Banks's House,
they had built a strong earthen rampart with bastions at
intervals ; and from this point to the Charbagh Bridge they
had thrown up a parapet with occasional batteries. These
works formed their first line of defence. The second line ex-
tended from the river, in front of the Moti Mahal and the
Mess-house, to the Hazrat Gaiij, the main street of the city,
which it touched at the Imambara. The third and last line
defended the Kaisar Bagh, which the rebels regarded as their
citadel. These three lines were not the only defences. The
main streets were protected at various points by bastions and
' Ll/eof Lord C?y(£e, vol. ii. pp. 120, 130-2 ; Blachvuixf'x Mai/azine, Oct. ISbS,
p. 513 J Times, Ap. 'lO, 1858, p. 10, col. 1 ; Lord Roberts, vol. i. p. 396, note f.
1858 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL 439
barricades ; and almost every house was loopholed and fortified.
About a hundred and twenty ^ guns and mortars were mounted
upon the batteries.
The immense diligence, however, which had been brought to
the construction of these defences bad not been wisely directed.
As neither Havelock nor Sir Colin in his former attack had
operated on the northern side of the Gumti, the rebels had
neglected to provide for the defence of that side. Sir Colin's
plan was based upon the observation of this neglect.
A portion of the army, under Outram, was to cross of attack.^ ^''^"
the river, advance up its opposite bank, and, taking
the enemy's left flank in reverse, enfilade it with an artillery
fire, while Sir Colin himself was to cross the canal with the
remaining portion, and, turning the right flank, move along the
Hazrat Ganj straight against the Kaisar Bagh.^
On the morning of the 2nd of March, Sir Colin marched
from Banthi'ra with a portion of his force across „, .
XJ16 SIC^G.
the level, well-cultivated plain that stretched to-
wards Lucknow. Here and there, with bits of red cloth still
fluttering on the bones, lay the sun-dried skeletons of rebels
who had fallen in attacking Outram's gallant band. As the
troops approached the Dilkiisha, the enemy's skirmishers dis-
charged a few shots at them from the edges of the crops on
their flanks ; but the fire was swiftly silenced ; the skirmishers
fell back ; and cavalry and horse-artillery, leaping and bound-
ing over the ditches, galloped in pursuit. And now a high and
far-reaching bank of earthworks was in sight; and above the
trees that fringed it behind rose the domes and minarets of
Lucknow.^ Before long the Dilkiisha was captured, and Sir
Colin ordered batteries to be erected to subdue the fire which
the enemy maintained from the opposite bank of the canal.
The batteries were completed that night, and
opened fire on the following morning. Soon the March 3.
rebels were forced to withdraw their guns ; and
the remainder of the British force moved up to the March 3, 4.
Dilkusha. On the 4th, Franks's column arrived.
Early in the morning of the 6 th the force destined to operate
on the further side of the Giimti crossed that river. Onward
^ Medley, p. 164 ; Shadwell {Life of Lord Clyde, vol. ii. p. 145) says 131.
'^ Medley, pp. 164-6.
^ Tiima, Ap. 19, 1858, p. 8, col. G ; p. 9, cols. 1, 2.
440 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL ch. xi
they streamed, infantry and artillery, the Bays in their white-
covered helmets and bright scarlet, the Lancers with their
flagless lances, the Hussars in blue and yellow, over the bridges
and into the fields beyond, till they came to a road lined with
trees. The enemy, meanwhile, were gathered in irregular
groups over the corn-fields. Suddenly a confused mob of
cavalry and infantry, conspicuous in white dresses, were seen
rushing wildly from behind the trees that fringed the road;
and after them the Bays came galloping with arms uplifted and
sabres flashing in the sun ; and the horse-artillery, joining in
the pursuit, hurled shower after shower of grape and canister.
Gradually the column disappeared.^ That evening it encamped
close to the village of Ismailganj. On the 8th Outram received
twenty-two heavy siege guns. On the morning of the 9th,
having pushed his piquets a little more forward, and con-
structed a battery to play upon the Chakar Kothi, the key of
the hostile position, he began his attack in earnest. The battery
opened fire. Then the right column under Walpole advanced
against the enemy's left, and drove them through a dense
jungle which they had occupied ; while Outram, commanding
the left column in person, captured the Chakar Kothi, thereby
turning the first line of works, and hunted the rebels
through the suburbs to the bank of the river. Here the
columns reunited ; and two batteries were constructed, —
one near the point where the cutting touched the river,
to enfilade the first line of works, and the other, a little
further up, to subdue the fire from the city. Just after
the guns of the former had been unlimbered, the officer com-
manding it observed that the works were apparently deserted.
A regiment of Highlanders was seen about six hundred yards
off on the opposite side of the river. If only they could be
communicated with, the works might be taken possession of
at once. Understanding this. Lieutenant Butler of the 1st
Bengal Fusiliers and four privates ran down to the bank, and
shouted and gesticulated in the hope of attracting the attention
of the Highlanders, but in vain. Then, without a moment's
hesitation, Butler took off his coat, plunged into the river,
swam across, sprang on to the parapet of one of the works, and
there remained until the Highlanders and a Punjab regiment
came up and took possession.
^Russell, vol. i. pp. 279, 283.
1858 FIRvST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL 441
At two o'clock Sir Colin, who had been waiting until Out-
ram's operations should be sufficiently developed to allow him
to begin his own, sent a force of infantry to attack the Mar-
tiniere. No serious attack, however, was required. The rebels,
astonished and confused by Outram's enfilading fire, made only
the feeblest attempt to resist, and fled across the canal. It
was then that the post of which Butler had taken possession
was occupied. During the night the whole of the first line of
works was captured. Outram spent the next day
in strengthening his position in the suburbs, and
bombarding the Hazrat Ganj and the Kaisar Bagh ; while Sir
Colin stormed and captured Banks's House. Next day Outram
resumed his advance, and, -capturing the houses as
he proceeded, took possession of the iron bridge,
and fought his way up to the stone bridge, but, finding that it
was exposed to a heavy fire, contented himself with posting
piquets to guard the ground which he had won, and sent back
the bulk of his force to camp.
Meanwhile Sir Colin had made great progress. Napier had
erected batteries at Banks's House ; and from these a heavy fire
was directed against the Begam Kothi. At half-past three in
the afternoon a narrow breach was effected ; and Adrian Hope's
brigade was ordered to advance to the assault. Captain Clarke,
commanding the 9.3rd Highlanders, waved his sword in the air,
and rushed straight upon the breach, shouting, " Come on,
93rd." The 93rd answered the call by a ringing cheer : the
4th Punjab Eifles followed in support ; and though for a few
moments the garrison, trusting to their vast numerical superi-
ority, maintained their footing in the breach, they were soon
overborne by the vigour of the assault, and driven back into
the buildings. Every door and window was barricaded ; and
bullets flew from every loophole. One after another the bar-
riers were burst open ; the enemy were hunted from court to
court and from room to room ; and when, after two hours' fight-
ing, the Begam Kothi was won, eight hundred mutineers lay
dead in the central court alone. ^ The loss of the conquerors
was small : but one of those who fell had won for himself so
high a reputation in the course of the war that his death was
spoken of as a national misfortune.^ After the assault, he
^ E. H. Veruey's The Shannun's Brigade in India, pp. 103-4 ; Forbes-Mitchell,
p. 210. - Russell, vol. i. p. 320.
442 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL CH. xi
had, without orders, accompanied Napier through the breach.
As he was peering into a dark room in the palace, in the
hope of catching some hirking rebel, a shot fired by unseen
hands struck him, and, staggering back a few paces, he fell
mortally wounded. A number of Highlanders were outside.
Rushing in, they saw that it was Hod son of Hodson's Horse
who had fallen, and, in a frenzy of rage, bayoneted every one
of the mutineers.^
On this day the Sikandar Bagh, the Shah Najif, and the
Kaddam Rasul had also fallen ; and Jang Bahadur and his
Gurkhas had arrived to take their part in the siege.
On the two following days, while the Gurkhas advanced
„ , against the suburbs on the left, and Outram kept
March 12, 13. ^ , . n^ ■, ,^ .-, ■ i tvt •
up his ennlade fire, the engineers under JNapier,
supported by infantry and the fire of heavy guns, sapped
through the houses to the left of the Hazrat Ganj. The citadel
was gradually being approached; but, before it could be attacked,'
the Imambara had first to be stormed. Against the walls of
that stronghold, therefore, a heavy fire was directed. At nine
o'clock on the morning of the 14th the stormers, — Brasyer's
Sikhs and the 10th Foot, — rushed into the breach, and, after a
hot struggle, expelled the garrison. The sun was now high in
the heavens, and the cry " Water, water ! " Avas heard on every
side ; - but the stormers, though distressed by their exertions,
were stimulated anew by the sight of the rebels whom they had
just defeated flying towards the citadel, and many started in
pursuit. At the same time some men of the 90th under young
Havelock, following in a parallel line, gained possession of a
palace commanding a portion of the citadel, and thus turned
the second line of works, which Outram had already turned at
the other end. At this juncture the engineers suggested that
further operations should be postponed until the morrow : but
the Sikhs and the men of the 90th, whose martial passions had
been stirred up by victory into an unquenchable flame, were
madly eager to go on ; and Brasyer and Havelock, gladly taking
advantage of theii* temper, led them forward into a court-yard
' Hodson, p. 350. Several conflicting accounts of Hodson's deatli appeared in
the newspapers in the spring of 1883. The account which I have followed was
based on the statements of Hodson himself, of his orderly, and of the doctor who
attended him. [See also my article on " Hodson of Hodson's Horse " iu the
National Review for August, 1884, and App. N.]
'^ Russell, vol. i. p. 326.
1858 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL 443
adjoining the citadel. Then Havelock ran back to fetch the
men of the 1 0th, who had remained behind ; and they, willingly
responding to his call, rushed forward, joined the Sikhs, and
with them fought their Avay to the rear of the Tara Kothi and
the Mess-house. Thus the third line of works had been tvirned.^
But now the enemy, some six thousand strong, who, congregated
in the Tara Kothi and the Mess-house, had been defending the
second line, saw that their retreat was threatened, and rushed
down towards the citadel, intending to break out into the city.
Havelock and Brasyer, with their little band, were in great
peril. Then Havelock, taking a few Sikhs with him, seized
two of the bastions in the third line, turned their guns against
the rushing throng, checked them and drove them off towards
the Chattar Manzil. Presently Franks and Napier brought up
reinforcements ; and the citadel was won.
Then the bonds of discipline, already strained by the tumul-
tuous joy begotten of an unexjjected triumph, were burst by
the mad lust for plunder. British soldiers and Sikhs ran
hither and thither through the spacious courts within the
citadel, firing at the windows, while others, bent upon seizing
the treasures that lay stored within the rooms, surged around
the doors and dashed their muskets against the panels, or fired
at the fastenings. By the fountains, and among the orange-
groves of the courts, the bodies of dead and dying sepoys were
scattered ; and a British soldier, unnoticed by his heedless
comrades, was leaning against a statue, gasping out his life,
and at every gasp deluging the white plaster with his blood.
The groans of the dying were drowned by the yells of the
combatants, the frequent reports of firearms, the crash of
shivered window-panes, and the roar of a fire which the plun-
derers had wantonly kindled in the middle of the court. Ever
and anon soldiers came streaming out of the rooms thi'ough the
shattered doorways, laden with plunder, and, laughing at the
threats and entreaties of their helpless officers, flung all that
they could not carry away, pictures, and furniture, and china
vases, into the flames. -
The progress made during the day had been far greater than
Sir Colin had anticipated. In addition to the places already
mentioned, the Mess-house, the Moti Mahal, the Tara Kothi,
* Inues's Liicknow and (hide in the Mutiny, pp. 285-7.
- Ptussell, vol. i. pp. 329-33.
444 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL ch. xr
and the Chattar Manzil had been captured. But, if he had
known how to use his opportunities, if he had accepted the
wise counsel of one of his lieutenants, he might have gained a
far more splendid and decisive success, — he might at one stroke
have achieved the subjugation, not only of Lucknow, but of
the whole of Oudh. Eager to strike another blow at the rebels
while they were confused and demoralised by the loss of their
citadel, Outram had applied for permission to recross the river
and attack them. If he had been allowed to do so, he might
have cut off their retreat. Sir Colin's answer was one which,
if it had proceeded from a less sagacious man, might have been
regarded as a symptom of insanity. Influenced by his almost
miserly reluctance to expend the lives of his soldiers even for
the attainment of a great object, he forbade Outram to execute
his plan if he thought that by doing so he would lose a single
man.^ A Neill or a Nicholson might have dared to disobey so
absurd an order. Outram, however, was not a man to act in
opposition to his instructions ; and thus a great opportunity
was lost.
Sir Colin spent the 15th in preparing to attack the posts
which the enemy still held on his side of the river. He also
sent his two cavalry brigades, under Hope Grant and Brigadier
Campbell of the Bays, along the roads leading to Sitapur and
Sandila, to pursue the fugitive rebels, who were believed to
have gone in those directions. On the 16th, Outram, leaving
Walpole's brigade to watch the bridges, crossed the river, and
marched to attack the Residency. The defenders received
their assailants with a fire of musketry, but dared not attempt
to withstand an assault, and ran in confusion towards the river.
Outram pushed on, and captured the Great Im^mbara and the
Machi Bhawan. But a host of rebels who, taking advantage
of the departure of the cavalry and of Outram's absence from
the northern bank, had fled over the stone bridge, threw them-
selves upon AValpole's piquets, to divert their attention ; while
the fugitives from the Residency, who had crossed the river
higher up, circled round Walpole's rear, gained the Fyzabad
1 See Lord Roberts, vol. i. p. 406. It is a remarkable fact that Sir Colin had
given a similar answer to Colonel Ewart iu the preceding November. ' ' I told
(Sir Colin) that an incessant fire was kept up by the rebels, and asked his
permission to sally out of (the barracks) and drive them away. His reply was
' I will only give you permission ... if you will guarantee that you will not lose
a single man.' " Ston'ij of a Soldier's Life, vol. ii. p. 88.
1858 FIRST TAVO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL 445
road, and, joined by those who had engaged the piquets,
escaped, twenty thousand strong, — to renew the war. The
cavahy brigades, which had gone on a bootless errand,
were recalled, too late. Meanwhile a determined attack
which another body of rebels had made upon the Alambagh
had been repulsed. On the 17th, Outram took possession of
three other posts, the Husainabad, the Daulatkhana, and
Sharfu-ddola's house. On the 18th he advanced still further,
clearing the houses and streets in his front. One strong place,
however, still remained to be captured. This was the Musa
Bagh, a palace situated on the right bank of the river, about
four miles to the north-west of the city. About nine thousand
rebels had established themselves here. Sir Colin determined
not only to dislodge them, but also to cut off their retreat.
Accordingly he directed Outram to march against them, while
Campbell was to lie in wait on the left front of their stronghold,
and fall upon them in case they fled in his direction ; and, on
the other hand, Hope Grant was to prevent them from escaping
across the river. Campbell had had no experience of Indian
warfare ; and Sir Colin could not have chosen a more in-
competent leader. Outram performed his part successfully.
The rebels fled by the line which Campbell was supposed to
command. But Campbell, shutting his eyes to the directions
of his guides, and turning a deaf ear to the remonstrances of
his officers, missed his way. Meanwhile Hope Grant and his
powerful brigade, which ought also to have been placed on the
right bank, could do nothing but watch the rebels streaming
unmolested from the Miisa Bagh into the open country. Thus,
for the third time, a large rebel force was allowed to escape ; and
Sir Colin had thrown away nearly all the advantages which he
might have gained from the capture of Lucknow.
A few rebels, among whom was the Moulvi, still remained
with strange pertinacity in the doomed city; but on the 21st
they were dislodged, and the siege was at an end.^
The appearance of the city was sadly different now from
what it had been nine months before. The gilded domes, the
minarets, the long fa9ades were battered and riddled with shot :
^ Calcutta Gazette, Jan. -June, 1858, pp. 694-706 ; Life of Lord Clyde, vol. ii.
pp. 143-73 ; Life of Sir J. Outrmn, vol. ii. pp. 319-33 ; Calactta Revievj, Jaii.-
June, 1859, p. 236 ; V. D. Majendie's Up among the Pandies, p. 203 ; Innes's
Lucknmo and Oude in the Mutiny, pp. 287-9 ; Lord Roberts, vol. i. p. 407. In
the 20 days' operations, 127 men were killed, and 595 wounded.
446 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL ch. xi
swollen and distorted corpses were floating down the river, and
foul birds of prey were hovering over them : the once gorgeous
rooms of the palace were strewn with shattered mirrors, broken
furniture, battered statues, and putrid corpses : artillery horses
were picketed in the gardens : soldiers in their shirt-sleeves
were smoking and drinking in the corridors : the bazaars were
deserted ; and in the squalid streets in the meaner portion of
the city no living thing was to be seen save here and there a
pariah dog, a decrepit beggar, or a lurking budmash, for the
bulk of the peaceable inhabitants had fled in terror, and the
sepoys and rebels had wandered forth to join the tdlukddrs who
still bade defiance to the British power.^
During the last few days of the siege the interest of the
more thoughtful spirits in the British camp had
proclamation, been keenly excited by a proclamation, to be
addressed to the civil population of the province,
which the Governor-General had recently forwarded to Outram.
Setting forth that the mutineers had received great assistance
from the citizens of Lucknow and the inhabitants of Oudh
generally, the proclamation declared that the lands of the pro-
vince, with the exception of those held by six specified persons
who had shown conspicuous loyalty, and of others to be granted
as rewards to them and to all who could prove that their con-
duct had been loyal, were confiscated to the British Govern-
ment. The boon of life and of immunity from disgrace was
promised to all rebels M'ho should submit at once, and were
not guilty of the murder of Europeans. For any additional
boon they were to trust to the mercy of the British Govern-
ment. In a letter which he received at the same time, Outram
was warned not to publish the proclamation until after the
capture of Lucknow, lest the large measure of indulgence
which it off'ered to the rebels should be attributed by them to
weakness.-
In the judgement of Outram, however, the proclamation, so
far from being lenient, was most dangerously severe ; and his
view was shared by every man in camp who expressed an
opinion upon the subject. Acknowledging the receipt of the
Governor -General's instructions, he pointed out
Mtircli S
that the tjllukddrs had been unjustly treated in the
settlement of 1856, and that, even if they had been well treated,
1 Majoudie, pp. 234-5. - Pari. Papers, vol. xliii. (1857-58), p. 409,
Londou : Macmillaii Sc C? Jj
Sttai/brds Gety^£si/ih''Jtindan
1858 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL 447
it would have required a degree of fidelity on their part quite
foreign to the usual character of an Asiatic to have remained
faithful to our Government under the shocks to which it was
exposed in Oudh.^ For these reasons he urged that they ought
to be treated as honourable enemies rather than as rebels, and
warned Canning that, if nothing more than their lives and
freedom from imprisonment were offered to them, they would
be driven by despair to wage a guerilla war which would in-
volve the loss of thousands of Europeans by battle, disease,
and exposure, whereas, if the possession of their lands were
guaranteed to them, they would exert their influence to support
the Government in the restoration of order.^
The Governor-General was doubtless pained to find that an
officer Avhose character and judgement he thoroughly respected
should diff'er from him on a question of such importance. But,
as he had not drawn up his proclamation until after he had
taken counsel with men who, from having filled posts within
the province, or upon its frontiers, were apparently qualified to
give him sound advice, he would not alter it in principle. The
only concession which he made was to add to it the following
clause : "To those amongst them who shall promptly come
forward and give to the Chief Commissioner their support in
the restoration of peace and order, this indulgence will be large,
and the Governor-General will be willing to view liberally the
claims which they may thus acquire to a restitution of their
former rights."
Some weeks later he answered Outram's criticisms in detail.
Admitting that some of the talukdars had been unjustly treated
at the settlement, he argued that their rebellion had been due
not to that treatment, but to the reluctance which they had
felt to surrender their arbitrary power, and to the dislike
with which they had viewed the necessity of renouncing their
lawless habits, and submitting to the restraints of civilised life.
" Whilst," he reminded his correspondent, " confiscation of
proprietary rights in the land is declared to be the general
penalty, the means of obtaining more or less of exemption from
it . . . have been pointed out, and are within the reach of
1 Pari. Papers, vol. xliii. (1857-58), p. 401, par. 5.
- It should be mentioned that, on the 15th of January, Outrani had written to
Canning, "the lands of men who have taken an active part against us should l)e
largely confiscated." Pari. Papers, vol. x^iii. (1859), p. 289, par. 36.
448 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL ch. xi
all without injury to their honour." To have offered greater
indulgence would, he insisted, have been to treat the rebels not
as honourable enemies, but as enemies who had won the day.^
The proclamation was destined to create at least as great
excitement in England as it did in India. On the 1 2th of April ^
a copy was put into the hands of Lord Ellenborough, who had
just succeeded to the office of President of the Board of Control.
Indignant at what seemed to him the outrageous harshness of
confiscating the lands of a whole people, he composed for
transmission to the Governor-General a despatch condemning
the proclamation in terms not of grave censure, but of studied
invective.^ Nor was this all. He had not even yet acquired
that official discretion, to the want of which his own recall from
India had partly been due. Having written the despatch, he
was so carried away by his feelings that, without showing it to
his colleagues, without even submitting it to the Queen for
approval, he sent it out direct to the Governor-General. Nay,
three weeks later, he so far forgot himself as to suffer a copy
of this secret despatch to be laid on the table of the House
of Commons. Some days previously Disraeli had announced
that the Government entirely disapproved of the policy of the
proclamation ; and this announcement, which might be construed
as a direct invitation to rebellion, had been, as Canning after-
wards justly complained, "carried by the telegraph over the length
and breadth of India." ^
As an inevitable consequence of this series of mistakes. Lord
Ellenborough soon found himself obliged to resign his office.
The Governor-General's tenure of power, however, was not for an
instant endangered. It was felt at home and in India that he
had been unfairly treated.^ The Directors sent him a copy of a
1 Pari. Papers, vol. xviii. (1859),. p. 286, par. 17 ; vol. xliii. (1857-58),
p. 403, par. 4, p. 404, par. 7.
2 lb. p. 410, par. 2.
^ The view which Lord Ellenborough took of the proclamation was attributed
by Lord Derby to the fact that Vernon Smith, who had preceded him in the
office of President, and to whom the copy of the proclamation had been addressed,
had forgotten to pass on to him a letter in which the Governor-General had
promised to send home a despatch explaining his policy. I cannot believe,
however, that, if Lord Ellenborough had received this letter, his despatch would
have been conceived in a different spirit ; for he had received a copy of the
original letter written to Outram on the 3rd of l\Iarch, and, referring to it, he
said, "The people of Oudli will see only the proclamation." Pari. Papers, vol.
xliii. p. 410, par. 3.
■» Life of the Prince Consort (People's Edition), Part III. p. 39. ^ Jb.
1858 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL 449
resolution, expressing their continued confidence in him ; and
numerous public men wrote to ofier him their sympathy.
Nevertheless, in issuing this proclamation, the Governor-
General committed a grave error. Outram's warning did not
stand alone. John La^vrence had already pleaded that the time
had come to offer an amnesty to all mutineers and insurgents
who had not committed murder. To defeat them was not
enough. " No mutineer," he wrote, " ever surrenders ; for
directly he is caught, he is shot or hanged." If the hope of
mercy were not held out to them, they must be extei-minated ;
and to exterminate countless hordes of desperate men, who
could outmarch their pursuers, would not be easy. George
Campbell, a distinguished civilian, had urged the Governor-
General to assure the talukdars that bygones should be
bygones.^ And indeed, considering the provocation which
they had received, the temptations to which they were exposed,
and the pressure which had been put upon them, the bulk of
the tdlukdars had not shown any virulent hostility. Won over
by the charm of Henry Lawrence's manner and the wisdom of
his policy, some of them had sent supplies for the provisionment
of the Residency and had aided our fugitives after the mutinies
in Oudh : until Havelock retreated to Cawnpore, hardly one of
them had lifted a finger against the besieged gari'ison ; and since
then, though they had sent their retainers into the field, they
had, with few exceptions, personally remained passive. But
now they were alarmed and exasperated. The concessions which
the Governor-General offered them they generally disregarded or
disbelieved. The broad fact which they realised was that their
lands were confiscated ; and the bolder spirits determined to
resist the British to the last.'-^
^ Life of Lord Lawrence, 6th ed. vol. ii. pp. 176, 191, 193-5 ; Sir G. Campbell's
Memoirs of my Indian Career, vol. ii. p. 14 ; Life of Sir Hope Grant, vol. i. p. 320.
* See App. S. It is only fair to notice the two chief arguments which Canning
adduced in defence of his proclamation. Quoting from a letter dated May 22,
1858, in which Captain L. Barrow, one of the Deputy-Commissioners, stated that
" every talookdar is wavering, that most have tendered their allegiance by letter
or vakeel, and that many have personally attended" (Pari. Papers, vol. xviii.,
1859, p. 292), he argued that "the spirit of the proclamation has not been
misunderstood." It is sufficient to reply first, that all those talukdars who had
submitted, had done so not in obedience to the proclamation, but tempted by the
circular which Outrani sent to them along with the proclamation, and which
assured them that theii- lands should not be confiscated ; secondly, that in spite
of this circular and of another which Montgomery issued on the 23id of June
(Sykes, Compendium of the Laws specially relating to the Talvqdars of Qudh,
2 G
450 FIRST TWO CAMPAIGNS OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL ch. xi
pp. 382-3) many tahikdars refused to believe in the sincerity of the promises that
were made to them ; and thirdly, that in the cold weather of 1858 many talukdars
kept up a harassing guerilla warfare against Sir Colin Campbell.
Canning further pointed out that, according to Montgomery in order to carry
a new settlement into effect, "some authoritative declaration, either of the failure of
the village system or of the imperative jiolicy of a return to the former tenures, was
required. . . . Tlie authority thus sought was obtamed in the issue of the Proclamation
of the Governor-General. . . . This sentence having been recorded against all estates
in Oude, there was no longer difficulty in returning to the tenure which prevailed
at the time of annexation."
But if the proclamation gave Montgomery the authority vrhich he sought, it
does not follow that some other " declaration," equally "authoritative" and not open
to objection, might not have been made. When Dalhousie vrrote his letter of
instructions to Outram with the view to the conclusion of a summary settlement,
he expressly stated (Sykes, p. 14) that no proprietary right was to be recognised :
the talukdars, at the time of which Montgomery wrote, were beaten and submissive,
and not in a position to oppose any settlement which the Government might
desire to carrj"^ out ; and, as the new settlement was to favour them as decidedly
as the summary settlement had favoured the ^^llage occupants, it is not easy to
understand how, even in the absence of Canning's proclamation, any difficulty
could have arisen. Sir George Campbell, who was consulted by Canning before
the issue of the proclamation, advised him " to assure the talookdars that bygones
should be bygones, that their property and reasonable claims should be respected,
and that the whole question of landed rights should be again considered. " Memoirs
of my Indian Career, vol. ii. p. 14.
Furthermore, Canning himself admitted (Pari. Papers, vol. xviii, 1859, p. 293,
par. 4) that the proclamation "must have produced the expectation of much
more general and indiscriminate dispossession than would have been consistent
with justice or with policy."
CHAPTER XII
ANARCHY IN WESTERN BEHAR — EASTERN BEHAR,
BENGAL, AND CHUTIA NAGPUR
The Commander-in-Chief was still at Lucknow, meditating on
the work that remained to be done, when he jg^g
received a startling message from the east. In sir Coiin hears
order to make the import of this message clear, startling news.
it will be necessary to review what had passed in the Patna
Division since the removal of Tayler from the Commissionership.
Though Halliday had declared that Patna was in no danger,
he took care, on appointing a successor to Tayler, gtateofthe
to send two hundred British soldiers and two Patna Division
guns for its protection. This force was strong missaiof
enough to overawe the Mahomedan citizens who '^^y^^''-
were congratulating each other on Tayler's removal. But,
from the moment when the rebels got the upper hand in the
neighbouring district of Gorakhpur, the country round Patna
had no peace. If some districts were not actually disturbed,
all were alike insecure. To the horrors of invasion were added
the horrors of anarchy. Kunwar Singh soon found imitators.
In the district of which Gaya was the capital, a zaminddr
proclaimed that the British Government was at an end, murdered
every villager who opposed him, and parcelled out among his
followers estates which did not belong to him. Bands of
mutineers roamed at will over the country, plundered, destroyed
public buildings, levied tribute, and ravished the wives of
respectable Hindus.^ Deplorable, however, as these evils were,
they were merely local. The strong rule of Tayler had prevented
1 Pari. Papers, vol. xliv. (1857-58), Part 2, pp. 337, 401 ; Part 3, p. 246, pars.
7, 8 ; p. 258, par."?. 2, 3 ; p. 263, par. 1 ; p. 350 ; Part 4, p. 140, inc. 306 in No. 1,
etc. etc.
452 ANARCHY IN WESTERN BEHAR chap, xii
disturbances from breaking out until the critical months of the
mutiny had passed ; and, Avhen they did break out, the timely
victories of Eyre had prevented them from becoming general.
After the destruction of his stronghold, Kunwar Singh,
with his heterogeneous army of sepoys and feudal
raidTnto thff '' "* retainers, pursued the career of a freebooter far
^.^J^sarh away from the land of his birth. But in the spring
of 1858 he saw an opportunity of proving in a
worthier fashion his claim to rank among the heroes of his race.
The necessity of concentrating as many troops as possible before
Lucknow had seriously weakened the British garrisons in the
country east of Oudh. Now was the time for him to strike a
crushina: blow at the Government which had robbed him of his
birthright. He forced Andrew Eoss, the magistrate of Ghazipur,
to abandon his hold on the district in which he had bravely
striven to maintain order. Marching on into Oudh, he seized
on the 17th of March a village called Atraulia, close to the
Azamgarh frontier. A number of the rebels whom Franks
had lately defeated flocked to his standai'd. On the 20th,
Colonel Milman, who, with a force of between two and three
hundred men, was encamped at Koelsa, near Azamgarh, was
informed of the danger to which the district was exposed. At
three o'clock on the following morning he marched to attack
the rebels, surprised them in some mango-groves, and drove
them away. His men piled their arms, and rested while their
breakfasts were being cooked. Suddenly he heard that the
rebels were returning to deliver a counter-attack. Riding to
reconnoitre, he found them posted behind a mud wall in the
midst of clumps of trees. His troops soon followed. As
the rebels threatened to outflank him, he retreated to Koelsa.
The rebels, who had followed him at a distance, were evidently
determined to press their advantage : he was unable to procure
supplies ; and he therefore decided to continue his retreat, and
take refuge within an entrenchment at Azamgarh.^
On his arrival, he at once sent off messengers to Benares, to
Allahabad, and to Lucknow, for succour. By
blockaded by the 27th three small detachments from Benares
Kunwar Singh ^^^^ j^g neighbourhood had joined him. On the
in Azamgarh. . o i i i i i
previous day, however, the rebels had come up,
^ Calcutta Gazette, Jan.-Jime, 1858, pp. 854-5 ; Enclosures to Secret Letters
from India, 9 Nov. 1857, pp. 229-31.
1858 ANARCHY IN WESTERN BEHAR 453
and seized the town. On the 27th the garrison made a sortie,
but were driven back into the entrenchment. As they had only
a few days' provisions left, their one hope of safety depended
on the speedy arrival of relief.^
The Governor-General, who was at Allahabad when the
news of the disaster reached him, was seriously
alarmed. It seemed quite possible that Kunwar Lord Mark'^ *"
Singh, flushed with victory, would make a raid Miiinan.'^'^'^"^
uj^on Benares, and cut in two the line of com-
munication between Lucknow and Calcutta. Fortunately there
was at Allahabad a portion of the 13th Light Infantry under
Colonel Lord Mark Kerr. This officer was ordered to march at
once to the relief of Azamgarh. Before night he was on his
way. Four days later he reached Benares. There
he was joined by a troop, of the Bays and a few
gunners with two guns and two mortars. On the 2nd of April
he moved forward again. At ten o'clock on the night of the
5th he halted within eight miles of Azamgarh. Till mid-
night, messengers kept coming in from the staff- officer at
that station, imploring him to push on without a moment's
delay. But, as he knew nothing of the country through which
he would have to march, he determined to stay where he was
till dawn. At four o'clock the march began.
Two hours later, Lord Mark, who was riding in •^P"!*^.
, p 1 1 J- Battle of
advance oi the column, saw masses oi sepoys Azamgarh.
occupying some buildings and mango -groves on
the left of the road, and lining the ditches of the fields on its
right. Returning to the column, he sent a company of infantry
to turn the fields. The enemy fell back on another line of
ditches : but at the same time their comrades on the other side
of the road opened a heavy fire. Thereupon Lord Mark
ordered up his guns, which began to throw shrapnel into the
buildings. Still the enemy showed no signs of giving way ;
many of them had climbed the mango-trees, and from their
branches kept up an incessant fire of musketry ; and their
reserves were threatening to cut off Lord Mark's baggage-
train. At last a small breach appeared in the main building.
Some thirty volunteers rushed to the assault, but, discerning
through the breach an inner wall which still remained un-
injured, were obliged to fall back. The guns again opened
^ Enclosures to Secret Letters from India, 15-31 Mar. 1858, pp. 959, 973.
454 ANARCHY IN WESTERN BEHAR chap, xii
fire. After some time had elapsed, Lord Mark was about
to try a second assault, when the building was suddenly
evacuated. A pile of corpses three feet high was found cover-
ing the space within. The Bays galloped in pursuit of the
fugitives. Meanwhile, an attack on the British rear had
been repulsed, and a detachment which Lord Mark had sent
to protect the baggage was able to rejoin him. Within
a few hours the column entered the entrenchment of Azam-
gai'h.^
The garrison was now strong enough to assume the offensive ;
but it was forced, in obedience to orders from the
seiid°Lugard Commander - in - Chief, to remain inactive until
to relieve further reinforcements should arrive from Luck-
Azamgarh.
now. On the 15th, General Sir Edward Lugard,
with three regiments of European infantry, seven hundred
Sikh cavalry, and eighteen guns, appeared on the opposite bank
of the river Tons, which flows past Azamgarh. Kunwar Singh
knew now that he must give up his designs against the gar-
rison ; but his presence of mind did not forsake him. He
posted the flower of his troops to oppose the passage of the
„ „. , river by the relieving force, and made use of the
makes for Jag- time which he thus gained to effect his escape.
fibpui. Flying before a column under Brigadier Douglas,
which Lugard sent to pursue him, and eluding another column
which Avas waiting on the borders of Behar to cut off his
retreat, he crossed the Ganges, and sought an
^" """ asylum in the familiar jungles of Jagdispur.
There he was joined by some thousands of peasants, raised
A ml -^3 ^y ^^^ brother, Ammar Singh. Next day he
His last signally defeated a force which had set out from
VIC ory. j^j^rah to attack him. The authorities, terrified
by this fresh disaster, sent messengers to beg Douglas to
hasten on at once to the rescue. Douglas promptly
Jp^ptJ;'^- responded to the appeal. Before his arrival, the
old Kajput, who had fought so honoux-ably and so
ably against the British power, died.
Ammar Singh succeeded to the command. Lugard, who had
already left Azamgarh, hastened, on hearing the
April 30. news of the ilefeat of the Arrah force, to overtake
^ (Jttlr.utta Englishman, April 15, 1858 ; C'alcuUa Oa-^lle, Jj,u.-Juue, 1858,
pp. 930-1.
1858 ANARCHY IN WESTERN BEHAR 455
Douglas. He at once began to make the most strenuous
efforts to subdue the rebels. His great difficulty
was to get at them. The jungle, through which maintain a
they could easily thread their way, offered a serious |ga[nstLugard.
obstacle to the movements of his unwieldy columns.
His soldiers, therefore, working like coolies in the suffocating
heat, cut roads through the tangled maze. Again and again
they brought parties of the rebels to action, and invariably
defeated them. But these victories, except in so far as they
kept up the impression that the British would never give up
the struggle, were not worth the powder and shot which was
expended in gaining them. The rebels had one great resource,
which baffled all the skill and all the prowess of the British, —
swiftness of foot. Knowing that fighting was not their strong
point, they ran away as often as they were attacked, and
simply did their best to annoy their opponents by doing as
much damage and making as great a disturbance as they could.
By the middle of June, Lugard was so exhausted by the hard-
ships, the fatigue, and the anxiety which he had undergone,
that he was obliged to resign his command, and go home. He
had succeeded for the moment in driving the rebels out of the
jungle, and he persuaded himself that he had broken their
spirit. He was mistaken. Even Asiatics have too much spirit
to submit, when submission is rewarded by an ignominious
death. " We must cling together," pleaded one who was taken
prisoner ; " for, when we go to our homes, we are hunted down
and hanged."
All through the sweltering summer months the wretched
struggle dragged on. Douglas, who succeeded
Lugard, had seven thousand men under his com- uougks."^^*^
mand, and he spared neither himself nor them ;
but it was all that he could do to keep the insurrection within
bounds. He had in his head an admirable plan for hunting
down his pestilent enemies ; but he was obliged to wait until
the return of the dry season should enable him to execute it ;
for the country was so sodden by the rains that operations on
a large scale were for the time impossible. Yet he could give
his weary soldiers no rest ; for the Grand Trunk Road had to
be guarded, and numerous petty expeditions had to be under-
taken. The men of one regiment were so ill that they could
hardly eat or sleep ; and the most robust suffered from the
456 ANARCHY IN WESTERN BEHAR chap, xii
alternation of scorching suns and drenching showers. Mean-
while the rebels were practically masters of Shahabad. Break-
ing up into small parties, they roamed over the country,
maintaining themselves by plunder, and wreaking savage ven-
geance on all who refused to help them. One party, with a
mob of budmashes, made a raid upon Gaya, burst open the gaol,
and released the prisoners. Another swooped down upon
Arrah, and fired a number of bungalows. Placards appeared,
offering rewards for the heads of the English officials. At last,
however, the time came for Douglas to execute his plan.
Dividing his force into seven columns, he arranged that four
should move from Buxar, driving the rebels before them, to-
wards Jagdispur, and, with a fifth, which was in the neighbour-
hood of Sasseram, form a connected line from the Ganges to
the Soane, and thus hem in the western and southern sides of
the jungle, while two others, one of which he commanded in
person, should hem it in on the east. As the Ganges bounded
it on the north, the rebels would be compassed in on every side,
and must surrender. On the 13th of October the columns
began to move. Every hour the ring within which the rebels
were confined became smaller. On the 15th all the columns
were within a short distance of the jungle. Douglas accord-
ingly sent a few trusty men to deliver instructions to the
several commanders to close simultaneously on to it. The
country which the men had to traverse swarmed Avith the
enemy ; but they braved every peril, and delivered their
messages. Early in the afternoon of the 17th, Douglas sent
final and most minute instructions for the execution of the last
move. He felt sure that he was going to succeed. But one
column Avas delayed for some hours by a sudden
Oct IS . . . .
inundation ; and the rebels, promptly seizing the
opportunity, rushed out of the jungle, and struck eastwards
with the object of crossing the Soane.
Douglas was bitterly disappointed ; but he did not give up
Sir Henry hopc. It happened that one of his staff was the
Haveiock's vounsT officer who had won his Victoria Cross at
plan
the fir.st battle of Cawnpore, upon whom had
been conferred the title which his father would have received if
he had lived, and who, moreover, had inherited his father's
military talents, Major Sir Henry Havelock. It had occurred
to him some time before that the one Avay to neutralise the
1858 ANARCHY IN WESTERN BEHAR 457
advantage which the rebels derived from their superior speed
would be to pursue them with mounted infantry, armed with
Enfield rifles, who would be able to overtake them, and keep
them engaged until a supporting force should come up and
annihilate them. Douglas had approved of the idea. Accord-
ingly, at about eight o'clock on the night of the 18th, Havelock
set out from the neighbourhood of Jagdispur with sixty
mounted infantry, under orders to make for Ari'ah, and
thence move up the left bank of the Soane. A force of cavalry
followed him ; and at ten o'clock an infantry column was de-
spatched, and pursued a course parallel Avith and north of the
rebels' line of flight. Douglas himself, with another infantry
column, marched for Arrah at daybreak. Within a few hours
the rebels found themselves headed. It was im-
Oct. 10.
possible for them to cross the Soane. For a long
time they could not make up their minds to do anything. At
last they turned round and fled southwards. Their pursuers
dogged them. The country was flooded, and the mounted in-
fantry Avere up to their saddles in water ; but the rebels, whose
one thought now Avas to save their lives, were going at a terrific
pace, and, though the horses rapidly became exhausted, the
chase had to be maintained. On the afternoon of the following
day, Havelock overtook the rear -guard of the
. . . . Oct. 20
fugitives, drove them into a village, and shut
them up in it until an infantry cokimn came up to his aid.
Three hundred of the rebels Avere soon destroyed. Two hun-
dred more darted out of the village, and made a desperate
efi'ort to rejoin their comrades, but were hunted doAvn, and shot
or sabred. The main body fled on, doubling again and again
like hares. Still, the mounted infantry kept up the chase ;
but numbers of horses dropped down dead, and every villager
whom Havelock questioned about the direction Avhich the fugi-
tives had taken, lied. On the evening of the 23rd he got Avithin
a few hundred yards of them ; but the horses were too tired to be
able to pass them ; and, though sorely harassed by the rifles of
their pursuers, they succeeded in escaping into the Kaimiir hills.
But there Avas still no rest for them or for the British. It
Avas an axiom of the Commander-in-Chief that . .
no district could be regarded as subdued Avhile the Kaimur
a single armed rebel remained within it. He
therefore ordered Douglas to dislodge the fugitives from their
458 EASTERN BEHAR, BENGAL, AND CHUTIA NAGPUR ch.xii
new asylum. The undertaking involved extraordinary toil and
hardship. The hills were covered with dense jungle and huge
boulders, which greatly impeded the progress of the columns.
In many places the ground was so slippery that the baggage-
animals fell down. Still Douglas persevered. At midnight
on the 24th of November, he saw fires burning some way off in
the jungle. As silently as deer-stalkers the troops crept along
till, when they were within fifty yards of the fires, a few
figures rose and moved off. The troops charged. The rebels
stole down the hills, entered the plains, and tried to cross the
Ganges. But the captains of some steamers, which were
patrolling the river, opened fire upon them, and sent them
flying from the bank. Their spirit was now at last broken.
They no longer attempted to preserve their organisation. The
leaders fled for their lives. The rest skulked off by twos and
threes to their homes ; and, before the close of the year, peace
was restored to the land.^
Meanwhile the eastern, north-eastern, and south-eastern
districts of the country subject to the Govern-
Bencai'™ °^ mcut of Bengal had remained comparatively quiet,
and such disturbances as had arisen in no way
affected the development of the more vital parts of the organism
of disaffection. The zamindars in many cases proved them-
selves actively loyal. Here and there, indeed, the stories of
mutinies at distant stations awoke feelings of excitement and
distrust in the power of the British ; here and there the people,
though they committed no breach of the peace, were believed
to be disaffected ; while in Assam a conspiracy was actually
discovered. But, speaking generally, the inhabitants of these
districts passed satisfactorily through the ordeal.
The sepoys, however, were naturally influenced by the con-
duct of their brethren. On the 18th of November,
The mutineers ,„__,„., ^.^ . -r . ^, . ■,
of chittagoug 1857, the 34th JNative Infantry at Ohittagong sud-
denly rose, and, after committing the usual acts of
violence and plunder, marched oft' and made for the hills of
Tipperah. Four days later an attempt to disarm
the troops at Dacca was stubbornly resisted ; and
' Calcutta Gazette, Jan.-Juiie, 1858, pp. 1024, 1256 : Julv-Dec. 1858, pp.
1403, 1671, 1858, 1981-2, 2004-5, 2008-9 ; Jan.-Juue, 1859, pp. 25-31 ;
267-8 ; Life of Lord Clyde, vol. ii. p. 277 ; Enclosures to Secret Letters from
India, 3-17 July, 1858, pp. 251, 267, 283 ; 23 July, 1858, pp. 937, 939 ; Pari.
Papers, vol. xliv. (1857-58), Part 4, p. 169, iuc. 3 in No. 19, p. 564, par. 4.
1857 EASTERN BEHAR, BENGAL, AND CHUTIA NAGPUR 459
the mutineers, worsted in a desperate conflict, fled. Mean-
while the Chittagong mutineers were hurrying blindly up the
country towards their intended place of refuge. But the
Raja of Tipperah, loyally responding to an appeal of the
Commissioner of Chittagong, sent a body of his retainers to
stop them. Turning aside, they ventured again into British
territory ; but they met with no sympathy from the people.
On the loth of December the chief civil officer at Sylhet sent
the Sylhet Light Infantry, a loyal native regiment, commanded
by Major Byng, to pursue them. After marching the extra-
ordinary distance of fifty-five ^ miles in thirty-six hours, Byng
learned that the mutineers had retraced their steps, and were
making for Latu. To reach this place, he had to march back
twenty-eight miles along the road which he had just traversed.
His men folloAved him without a murmur, came up with the
mutineers early on the 18th, and completely defeated them.
Byng was killed early in the action ; but Lieutenant Sherer,
who succeeded to the command, ably filled his place. Flying
to the north-east, the mutineers were beaten again on the 12th
of January by a detachment of the Sylhet regiment ; and the
survivors, shut up in the hills, perished from exposure or
disease.
Meanwhile the Bhagalpur Division, without being actually
disorganised, had been in an unhealthy condition.
Soon after the mutiny at Dinapore, the 5th purDiviffon.
Irregular Cavalry had mutinied, and carried fire 14 ic -
and sword over the country. Most of the zamin-
dars had supported the authorities in maintaining order : but
the number of dacoities had increased ; and the people generally
were in an irritable temper. Moreover, the headquarters of
one of the detachments which had mutinied at Dacca were at
the station of Jalpaiguri within the Division.
When, therefore. Commissioner Yule heard of the mutiny,
he knew that he must act promptly if the muti- „ , .,
1 II- 1 T 1 Exploits of
neers were to be prevented from handmg on the Yuieand
torch to their brethren. Accordingly, on the ^^^''y™P^e.
29th of November, he left Bhdgalpur with a few of the 5th
^ In former editions I said eighty miles, accepting the statements of the
despatches : but the distance from Sylhet to Ldtu, where the regiment halted, is
only twenty-seven miles ; and from Latu to Partabgarh, whence the troops
retraced their steps, the distance, as I learn from General Sherer, is only twenty-
eieht miles.
460 EASTERN BEHAR, BENGAL, AND CHUTIA NAGPUR ch.xii
Fusiliers, and inarched northwards in the direction of Jalpaiguri.
While he was on his way, two cavalry detachments at Madari-
ganj and Jalpaiguri mutinied, and rode off southwards towards
DinAjpur. Dalrymple, the collector of that station,
and a few Europeans and Eurasians whom he
gathered round him, resolved to remain where they Avere and
defend the Government treasure to the last.^ But, when the
mutineers were almost on the point of attacking the station,
they were warned that a force of British sailors was marching
towards them, and struck off westward on the road to Purneah.
The moment that Yule heard of their movement he hastened
back to intercept them, arrived at Purneah in time to prevent
them from plundering, defeated them, and, having by a rapid
march to the north-west frustrated an attempt which they
made to gain the town of Nathupur, forced them to fly for
refuge into Nepal. Halting at Nathupur, he received a
message warning him that the Dacca mutineers were about to
swoop down on Jalpaiguri, and begging him to come to the
rescue. He did not lose a moment in complying with the
request. Making a series of prodigious marches towards the
threatened station, he dashed past it in the hope of stopping
the mutineers, and attacking them before they could cross the
river Tista. They succeeded, however, in turning his position,
and, making good use of their start, got safely across the
river. But, though baffled in his original object, Yule was
determined to jwevent them from gaining a foothold in British
territory. Marching westward, to the south and,
.anu ry. ^^ .^ were, alongside of them, he forced them
also to take refuge within Nepal.
While Yule was performing these exploits, the Chutia
Nagpur Division remained in the same disturbed
The Chutia Ndg- condition in which it had been at the time of
piir Division.
Sir Colin's departure from Calcutta. Many of
the landowners, indeed, steadily supported the authorities ; but
the aboriginal tribes gathered together in large numbers to
plunder, to revenge themselves upon chiefs who had offended
them, or to support pretenders of their own choice. The
British officers marched from one threatened point to another
with such scanty forces as they could muster; but, though
they beat the insurgents in a number of petty combats, anarchy
^ Malleson, vol, ii. p. 431.
Tofacepaaej€C_
Sttm/unLy ^!sKy-*7Vaii* Zendc^
1858 EASTERN BEHAR, BENGAL, AND CHUTIA NAGPUR 461
continued to prevail. Towards the end of 1857 reinforcements
began to arrive. At one time, in a single district, no less than
five different detachments were simultaneously hunting in-
surgents ; but the country was so hilly and overgrown with
jungle that their operations were seriously impeded. Early in
1858, however, the tide began to turn. Numbers of guilty
villages were destroyed, and quantities of grain and cattle
captured. The efTect of these measures was speedily apparent.
The disaffected felt that it was high time to settle down again
in their villages, and a renewed influx of revenue proved that
all classes were regaining their old confidence iu British
power.^
It is now time to trace the progress of the events that dis-
turbed the peace of the Bombay Presidency, of Central and of
Southern India. After making this excursion, the reader will
understand how it was that Sir Colin Campbell was able to
undertake with confidence the work of reconquering Rohil-
khand and Oudh.
1 Pari. Papers, vol. xliv. (1857-58), Part 1, p. 426, par. 60. Part 2, p. 266,
par. 31 ; p. '275, par. 16. Part 4, pp. 68, 95, 311 ; p. 551, par. 34 ; p. 569, par.
37 ; p. 572, par. 17 ; p. 587, par. 20 ; p. 591, par. 22 ; p. 611, pars. 11-12, etc.
Report on the Administration of the Districts under the Qovernment of Bengal
during the years 1857-58, p. 4.
CHAPTER XIII
THE BOMBAY PRESIDENCY
The Bombay Presidency was bounded on the north by
- Baluchistan and the south-western extremity of
The Bombay the Punjab, on the west by Baliichistan and the
Presidency, gg^^ ^^ ^j^g south by Mysore, and on the east by
the Nizam's dominions, the Central Provinces, Malwa, and
Eajputdna. The whole extent of the territory, including the
dominions of a number of protected native princes, was
about four times that of England.
The Governor of the Presidency was Lord Elphinstone. He
Lord El hin- ^^^ ^^^ ^ ^^^S ^"<^ varied experience of Anglo-
.stone. Indian politics. Twenty years before, he had
^^^"- been appointed Governor of Madras. At that
time, indeed, no very high opinion had been formed of
his qualifications for rule. "We want a Governor," a
zealous official had remarked, "and they send us a guards-
man ; we want a statesman, and they send us a dancer." ^
Since then, however. Lord Elphinstone had ripened into a
statesman of the first order. He had tact and knowledge of
men. He knew when and how to rebuke a subordinate, when
to restrain him, when to let him have his own way. He never
attempted to fetter men who could be trusted to use their
own discretion. While his lofty character, his bold and en-
lightened statesmanship won the respect and confidence of
those who served under him, he had the art of attaching
them to himself, of stimulating them to the utmost zeal
by well-timed compliment or frankly-expressed trust in their
ability.
* Kaye, vol. i. p. 421.
1857 THE BOMBAY PRESIDENCY 463
The news of the outbreak at Meerut reached him on the 14th
of May. Like John Lawrence, he at once made „
1 • • 1 1 . 1 • ! ^ i- 1 • S^ resolves
np his mind to regard the interests oi his own to save
charge as subordinate to the interests of the *^®"*''^' ^"'^'^•
empire. It was due to his energy that the troops who had
been engaged in the Persian war were despatched with such
rapidity to Calcutta ; it was due to his swift recognition of the
essential conditions of the struggle that Bartle Frere was
enabled to execute his design of reinforcing the Punjab, and
that George Lawrence was provided with the means
of saving Kajputana. As soon as the news of the
mutiny at Nusseerabad reached him, he saw that it would be
his task to secure the all -important line of communication
between Bombay and Agra, and to support the authorities in
Central India. Accordingly, although his own resources were
but slender, he lost no time in equipping a column for the
attainment of these objects. The column was placed under
the command of Major-General Woodburn, who was ordered to
proceed direct to Mhow, and to obey whatever instructions
he might receive from the Governor -General's Agent at
Indore.^
Soon, however, events occurred which warned Elphinstone
that the country under his own control was not to pass scathless
through the crisis. In the recently-annexed pro-
roi.' ^u 4. £!•• Plot at Satdra.
vince of Satara there was a strong feeling in
favour of the pretensions of the adopted son of the late Raja's
brother. Moreover, the feudatory chiefs, who, with only one
exception, had no male issue, knowing that their adopted sons
would not be alloAved to succeed to their estates, were per-
sonally anxious for the overthrow of the British Government.
On the 12th of June the magistrate. Rose, learned that one
Ranga Bapaji had formed a plot to release the prisoners in the
town of Satara, plunder the treasury, and attack the canton-
ments. He at once sent for European reinforcements. One of
the chief conspirators was discovered and arrested. Thereupon
Ranga Bdpaji fled. His followers were attacked and dispersed
by a party of the Southern Mardtha Irregular Horse under
Lieutenant Kerr, Subsequent investigations proved that the
family of the late Raja had been implicated in the plot. They
^ Re^Mrt on the Administration of Public Affairs in the Bombay Presidency
for the year 1857-58, pp. 27-8, pars. 140-1.
464 THE BOMBAY PRESIDEXCY chap, xiii
were therefore transported, while seventeen of their fellow-con-
spirators were convicted and executed.^
Soon after the detection of the plot which has just been
Southe described, Elphinstone received gloomy reports
Maratha from the Southem Mardtha country. Stretching
country. ^^ ^-^q gouth of Satara, that country is bounded
on the east by the Nizam's dominions, on the west by the
Ghdts, and on the south by the Madras Presidency. It con-
tained two British collectorates, Belgaum and Dharwar, numerous
small semi -independent states, and one of more importance,
Kolhiipur. At each of the three chief towns, Kolhdpur,
Belgaum, and Dharwar, there was a native regiment. At
Belgaum there were some four hundred European women and
children, while the only British force consisted of a battery of
artillery and some thii'ty infantry. The chiefs and smaller
landowners still smarted from the wounds inflicted upon them
by the Inam Commission ; to many of them had been denied
the privilege of adopting heirs to their estates ; and they were
backed by the sympathies of a warlike people who had been
foolishly allowed to retain their arms. In Kolhapur and the
neighbouring province of Sawant \Yari there were other grounds
of disaffection. In 1842 the Eaja of Kolhdpur died, leaving
two infant sons. Thereupon the British Government appointed
a native minister, who Avas to act under the control of a British
political officer. The country was studded with numerous forts,
garrisoned by hereditary defenders. These garrisons were
removed by order of the political officer. The native court
resented this measure, and in 1844 a rebellion broke out. The
states of Kolhapur and Sdwant Wari were forced to pay the
expenses incurred in suppressing the rebellion.- Naturally,
therefore, there were many in both states who were prepared
to take advantage of the first opportunity to strike at the
British power.
The political officer in charge of the Southern Mardtha
country was George Berkeley Seton-Karr, the
arr. j^^gistrate and collector of Belgaum. He was
a steadfast opponent of the policy of the Inam Commission ;
he heartily sympathised with those who were suffering from its
^ Report, etc., p. 18, pars. 90-2 ; Enclos^ires to Secret Letters from India, 24
Sept. 1857, pp. 7P6-8.
^ Sir G. Jacob's Western India, pp. 158-61.
1857 THE BOMBAY PRESIDENCY 465
action ; and he had succeeded so thoroughly in impressing
them with the belief that he was their friend that, for some
time after the news of the Meerut outbreak reached them, he
was able to hold their passions in check. As time went on,
however, the strain upon his powers of management increased.
On the 20th of June he represented to the Governor the
alarming condition of the country ; but, knowing that there
was more than enough work for every British soldier else-
where, he would not harass him by asking for help ; he simply
asked for authority to meet the crisis on his own responsibility
as best he could. The request was granted, and the unselfish
courage which had prompted it was rewarded. For, though
the excitement of the Mardthas became more intense when
they heard hoAV Nana Sahib had triumphed at Cawnpore, and
how he had assumed the title of Peshwa, Seton-Karr still kept
his hold upon them. He had not the means, and, if he had
had the means, he would not have had the inclination to rule
by fear ; but he knew how to rule by love.^ He knew, how-
ever, that the three native regiments were intriguing with each
other. Suddenly he received by telegraph news
of a disaster which threatened to render all his ^^
exertions unavailing.
On the 31st of July the sepoy conspirators at Kolhdpiir dis-
covered that the native adjutant of the regiment
was sending away his family. Feeling sure that Koihlipulr*^^
he was going to betray them, they resolved to
rise at once. The night was intensely dark ; and heavy rain
was falling. The adjutant ran to the officers' bungalows to
warn the inmates. The ladies had just time to escape before
the mutineers came up. A few of the officers tried to recall
the men to their duty, but in vain. Telegrams, however, were
sent to Bombay and Satara for aid. The sepoys, after
plundering the treasury and the station, marched to the town,
but found the gates closed against them. Most of them then
returned to their lines. The rest marched to the Ghats, but
found the road leading down to the coast blocked. The bulk
of them then made for the Sdwant Wari jungles. The re-
mainder, about forty in number, returned to Kolhdpur, and
threw themselves into a small outwork adjoining the town. 2
1 Malleson, vol. iii. pp. 20, 25-31.
- Times, ()ct. 6, 1857, p. 9, cols. 2, 3 ; Jacob, pp. 155-6 ; Report on the
2 H
466 THE BOMBAY PRESIDENCY chap, xiii
Meanwhile the news of the mutiny had created a panic in
Bombay. Many of the European residents removed their
Avives and children to the ships in the harbour. The Governor,
however, was equal to the occasion. He at once
sends Jacob decided to send Colonel George Le Grand Jacob,
to the rescue. ^^ experienced soldier -statesman who had just
returned from the Persian expedition, to restore order in
Kolhapur. "I am aware," he said, in bidding Jacob farewell,
" that in a crisis like this a person on the spot ought to be the
best judge of any action that might be at once necessary ; to
wait for orders may allow events to become too strong to
master. I have confidence in your judgement ; do your best to
meet the present emergency and rely on my full support." At the
same time he despatched by steamer two detachments of the 2nd
Europeans, which were to land in the Portuguese territory of
Goa, and thence mai*ch respectively to Kolhapur and Belgaum.
Jacob started at once. On his way he received proofs of
a treasonable correspondence between the Wahabi high -priest
of Poona and his disciples in the Southern Mardtha country.
Just before midnight on the 14th of August he reached Kol-
hdpur, and found that order had been already restored. Lieu-
tenant Kerr had hastened from Satdra with fifty of his troopers,
swum three swift and deep rivers, traversed eighty miles in
twenty-four hours, fought his way into the outwork, and over-
powered the mutineers.
On the 17th the men of the 2nd Europeans, who had made
a harassing march from the coast across a flooded
parade!" "°^ country, reinforccd Jacob. He now felt strong
Aug 18. enough to disarm the native regiment. Next day
the disarming parade was held. Jacob harangued
the sepoys, appealing to every feeling that could lead them to
reproach themselves for their conduct. Before he had finished
his speech, he noticed tears rolling down the cheeks of some of the
men. He then gave the order to pile arms. For a few moments
the men hesitated. Then they obeyed, and the crisis was at an end.
There still remained, however, the work of discovering and
Punishment punishing the ringleaders, and investigating the
gafion.^^^^' causes of the plot. Courts-martial were promptly
Aug. 19. held. Next day twentj'^-one prisoners were con-
Achninistration of Public Affairs in (he JJwubai/ Presidency fw the year 1857-58,
p. 29, par. 153.
1857 THE BOMBAY PRESIDENCY 467
victed. Two were hanged, eleven shot, and eight blown away
from guns. Subsequent enquiries proved that the regiment
had long been in correspondence with the Bengal sepoys.^
The news of the mutiny had seriously aggravated the perils
of Seton-Karr's position. The regiments at Bel-
gaum and Dharwar were alike disaffected, and had, seton^Karr.
as was afterwards discovered, agreed to follow the
example of their comrades at Kolhapur. Fortunately the men
at Belgaum as yet knew nothing of what the telegraph had
told Seton-Karr. Having discovered the man whom they
looked up to as their leader, he instantly sent him off on special
duty to a distant town. The result was that, when the sepoys
heard of the mutiny, they were so paralysed by the loss of
their head that they did nothing. On the 10th of August the
detachment of the 2nd Europeans arrived. Seton-Karr and his
military coadjutor, General Lester, now felt strong enough to
arrest a number of conspirators of whose guilt they had pro-
cured evidence. A number of intercei^ted letters, written by
one of these men, proved the existence of an organised
Mahomedan conspiracy for a general rising throughout the
Southern Maratha country and Kolhapur. The writer and one
of his associates were tried, condemned, and executed.^
Meanwhile Elphinstone was becoming anxious for the safety
of Bombay. The military force in that city consisted of three
native regiments and only four hundred Europeans under
Brigadier Shortt ; there were also a number of
native and sixty European police under Superin- expected at
tendent Forjett. Hitherto quiet had prevailed, ^"^''^y-
But the great Mahomedan festival of the Muharram was ap-
proaching, and it seemed probable that the disaffected would
take advantage of the excitement which it was sure to cause.
The authorities, however, were not agreed among themselves as
to who were really disaffected. The Government
were under the impression that danger was to be ofthe'^ ^™^"
apprehended only from the townspeople, of whom ^"^^'^o^ties.
a hundred and fifty thousand were Mahomedans. It is hardly
necessary to say that Brigadier Shortt and his officers put
absolute faith in the sepoys. Forjett, on the contrary, who
^ Pteport on tlie Administration of Public Affairs in the Bombay Presidency
for the year 1857-58, par. 155 ; Jacob, pp. 148-54, 157, 162-77.
- Ih. pp. 214-16 ; Malleson, vol. iii. pp. 32-3.
468 THE BOMBAY PRESIDENCY chap.xiii
had been born and bred in India, and knew the natives
thoroughly, Avas convinced that, Avhilc the townspeople would
not dare to stir unless the sejjoys set them the example, the
sepoys needed to be closely watched. These opinions, which he
freely expressed, gave great offence to the Brigadier, who seems
to have regarded him as a meddler.
A few days before the festival the Governor suggested to
the Brigadier a plan for the maintenance of order in the city.
Next morning Forjett called upon the Brigadier. He learned
that, in accordance with the plan suggested by the Government,
the European troops and the European police were to be split
up into small parties and posted in various quarters of the city ;
but that there would not be a single European soldier to oppose
a mutiny among the sepoys at the point where it would be
likely to begin. He at once detected the weakness of this
arrangement, and begged the Brigadier to mass his European
infantry and guns on a spot which commanded both the sepoy
lines and the town. The Brigadier refused to do so. Still,
Forjett resolved that, as far as in him lay, he would counteract
the baneful tendency of the official plan. Accordingly, the
next time he saw the Governor, he plainly told him that he
should feel obliged to disobey the orders of Government regard-
ing the location of the police, as, if the sepoys were to mutiny,
it would be necessary for him to have them all in hand. " It
is a very risky thing," replied the Governor, who appreciated
Forjett's worth, " to disobey orders, but I am sure you will do
nothing rash." Forjett took the hint.
The Muharram began. Every night Forjett went his rounds
^ „ ^ in disguise. Whenever he heard anybody speak-
The Muharram. . . ° ,,,. r,, p,i
mg ni a tone oi exultation ot the successes of the
mutineers in other parts of India, he seized him on the spot,
and whistled for his men, some of whom were sure to be lurk-
ing about within earshot. The budmashes were so thoroughly
frightened by these seemingly magical arrests that, as Forjett
had predicted, they remained perfectly still. But on the last
night but one, as a Hindu idol was being carried in procession
throiigh the streets, a drunken Christian drummer, belonging
to one of the sepoy regiments, insulted the devotees who sur-
rounded it, and knocked it down. Two policemen at once took
him into custody. As soon as his comrades heard that he had
been arrested, they determined to vent their spleen upon the
1857 THE BOMBAY PRESIDENCY 469
police, whom they detested as myrmidons of Forjett. A score
of them hurried to the lock-up, burst it open, rescued the
drummer, and carried off the two policemen to their lines. A
European constable and four native policemen went thither at
once, and demanded the release of their comrades. Instead of
granting their demand, the sepoys assaulted them : a fight en-
sued : the police fought their way out, leaving two sepoys for
dead : numbers of sepoys turned out ; and a messenger ran to
warn Forjett.
Ordering the European police to follow him as fast as they
could, Forjett mounted his horse, and galloped at full speed to
the scene of mutiny. The sepoys were trying to force their
way out of the lines, and their officers, with drawn swords,
were doing their best to hinder them. As soon as the sepoys
saw Forjett, their excitement rose to fury. " For God's sake,
Mr. Forjett," cried the officers, "go away." "If your men are
bent on mischief," replied Forjett, " the sooner it is over, the
better." The sepoys hesitated. Forjett sat still on his horse,
confronting them. Presently his assistant came galloping up.
Fifty-four Europeans followed. Bringing them to the halt,
Forjett cried, " Throw open the gates ; I am prepared for them."
The sepoys were fairly mastered ; their excitement quieted
down ; and they slunk back within their lines.
Twenty-four hours more, and the festival would be over.
Like a good general, Forjett followed up his victory by keeping
his men still on the alert. The consequence was that, on the
last night, not only were the sepoys quiet, but it was unneces-
sary to make a single arrest in the town. A few days later
Forjett caused a gibbet to be erected in the yard of the police-
oflSce, sent for the most influential of those citizens whom he
knew to be disaffected, and, pointing to the gibbet, told them
that, if he should find the least reason to believe that any of
them meditated an outbreak, they should be instantly hanged.
They listened in solemn silence, and went away overawed. All
danger, however, was not yet over. Forjett was informed by
one of his detectives that a number of sepoys were in the habit
of holding secret meetings in the house of one Ganga Parshad.
He accordingly caused this man to be arrested in the night, and
brought to the police-office. There, partly by threats, partly
by the promise of a large reward, he induced him to tell what
he knew. Next evening he went to the house, and, going into
470 THE BOMBAY TRESIDENCY chap, xiii
a room adjoining the one in which the meetings were held,
peeped through a hole which had been drilled in the wall.
Presently he saw the sepoys come in, one by one. From what
he heard he gathered that they intended to mutiny during the
Hindu festival of the Diwali in October, pillage the city, and
then quit the island. Another day, knowing that the officers
were still disposed to trust their men, he persuaded Major
Barrow, the commandant of one of the regiments, to go with
him to the house. " My God," said Barrow, when he saw the
sepoys through the holes, " my own men ! is it possible ! "
The plot was reported to the Brigadier and the Governor.
" Mr. Forjett has caught us at last," said Shortt. Courts-martial
were held, and two of the sepoys were executed, and six trans-
ported for life. The Diwali passed quietly, and thenceforth
Bombay was safe.^
Still, in many parts of the Presidency the state of affairs
-, ,. . ... was such as to cause the Governor grave anxiety.
Mutmies m the i i -n i i i i
north of the Although the Bombay army, on the whole, was
lesi ency. tolerably staunch, there were many Poorbeahs in
its ranks who sympathised with their brethren in North- Western
India. In September two plots to mutiny, at Hyderabad in Sind
and at Ahmadabad, were nipped in the bud, and at
Sept. 15. Karachi in Sind a mutiny actually took place.^ But
it was in the Southern Maratha country that the most formidable
danger lurked. The brother of the Raja of Kolhapur, a clever
and ambitious man, was known to be disaffected. Emissaries
from the Nana Sahib and from various Southern
Southern ^ Maratha chiefs stole into Kolhapur, and did their
country. ^^^* ^° persuade him to rebel. All through the
autumn Jacob's mind was kept on the rack by
rumours of intended risings. At last, on the night of the 5th
of December, he was awakened by the clatter of horses' hoofs.
Rushing out of doors, he was met by a native officer, who told
him that ominous shouts had been heard in the town. The
explanation was soon forthcoming. A band of insurgents,
instigated doubtless by the Raja's brother, had thrown them-
selves into the town and shut the gates. Jacob instantly
^ C. Forjett 's 0%tr Real Danger in India, pp. 106-44 ; Report cm the Admini-
straiiu7i of Public Affairs in the Bunibay Presidency for the year 1857-58, p. 20,
par. 97.
2 Ih. pp. 31-2, pars. 160-1, 166-7.
1857-8 THE BOMBAY PRESIDENCY 471
galloped into the camp, and sounded the alarm : the troops
turned out : one of the gates was blown open : the storming
party rushed in : the rebels fled ; and thirty-six who were taken
prisoners were then and there tried by drum-head court-martial,
convicted, condemned, and executed. But for this prompt
action, the wave of rebellion might have streamed down the
whole of the Southern Maratha country, and overflowed into
the dominions of the Nizam. ^
The other states of the Southern Maratha country, indeed,
v/ere agitated by troubles of their own. Seton-Karr and
Lester, backed up by an able officer. Colonel Malcolm, were
steadily disarming the population : but a succession of petty
outbreaks had occurred, and had been with diffi-
culty repressed. Early in 1858, Malcolm had to
march eastward against the Raja of Shorapur, a weak and hot-
headed young chief, owning the sovereignty of the Nizam, who
had been hurried by unscrupulous advisers into rebellion. It
was clearly necessary to subdue the insurrectionary spirit before
it could take hold of the people of the surrounding country.
Accordingly, the Government resolved to make an administrative
change.
In May, Jacob was appointed Commissioner of the Southern
Maratha country. At the same time Seton-Karr jacobaud
was directed to make over the political agency to Mansou
his assistant, Charles Manson, who was to act
under Jacob. '^ It is hardly necessary to say that these changes
reflected no censure upon Seton-Karr. The Government simply
felt that it would be wise, in the existing emergency, to place
the supreme control of so turbulent a country in the hands of
one man.
Unfortunately, Manson, having been connected with the Inam
Commission, was regarded with suspicion by the
native chiefs. The ablest of these was Baba Sahib, g^ta slhiS
chief of Nargund. A few weeks before, he had
heard with sorrow and alarm that one of his brother chiefs had
been arrested by Manson ; and, now that Manson had been
promoted, he was seized by the fancy that proofs of his own dis-
loyalty had been obtained, and that he was to be the next victim.
^ Report on tJie Administration of P^iblic Affairs iii the Bombay Presidency
for tlie ymr 1857-58, pp. 18-19, pars. 93-4 ; Jacob, pp. 178-97.
2 Ih. p. 210.
472 TPIE BOMBAY PRESIDENCY chap, xiii
On the 26th of May, Manson left Kolhapur, where he had
been conferring with Jacob, intending to visit the northern
states of the country, and try whether his personal influence
could keep the chiefs steady. He was accompanied only by
twelve troopers of the Southern Mardtha Horse. Four hours
later Jacob received a telegram, to the effect that Baba Sahib
was believed to have risen. He at once sent a messenger on
horseback to deliver the news to Manson, to tell him that he
had telegraphed to Lester to send a force to Nargund if the
news should turn out to be true, and to recommend him to
return to Kolhapur and consult with him, on his way to join
this force. The messenger overtook Manson at a place called
Kurandwar. Manson, still confident in the strength of his OAvn
influence, told him to go back and tell Jacob that he intended
to hurry across country to Nargund, and, if possible, nip the
revolt in the bud. He then pushed on rapidly with the
troopers. On the 29th he arrived at Rdmdriig, the chief of
which place was Baba Sahib's half-brother. From him he
learned that Bdba Sahib had committed himself irretrievably.
He resolved, therefore, to go southward and join Malcolm, who
had already marched to attack the rebels. That evening he
started. After an exhausting stage, he halted for the night
near a village called Suriban, and lay down with his troopers
in a temple to sleep. About midnight Baba Sahib and a
number of his followers stole up to the temple, fired a volley,
and rushed in with drawn swords. Starting from his sleep,
Manson jumped up and fired his revolver at his assailants ; but
in a moment they overpowered him, cut off" his head, and flung
his body into the fire. Baba Sahib then returned to Nargund,
and hung up the gory head over a gateway.
For two days he enjoyed his triumph. On the 1st of June,
Malcolm appeared before the walls of Nargund, defeated him,
and drove him and his followers into the fort. Next morning
the fort was found empty. Bdba Sahib had fled in the night.
Nemesis Frank Souter, the superintendent of police, rode
overtakes with a fcw men in pursuit, and on the 2nd caught
Baba Sahib. ,. t ., ^ ., . .,, . , ^i
him, disguised as a pilgrim, in the jungle, boon
afterwards he was tried, condemned, and executed.
Within a few weeks Jacob completely restored order in the
countiy above the Ghats.^
> Jacob, pp. 221-32.
1858 THE BOMBAY PRESIDENCY 473
Some months earlier, a tribe called the Sawant Dessayees
had taken advantage of the disturbed condition of
the Presidency to plunder villages in the country DessayeeT
below the Ghats. The dense jungles afforded them
so secure an asylum that for many months they were able to
defy the various columns that were striving to get at them.
Before the end of 1858, however, they were subdued by the aid
of the Portuguese Government of Goa.^
1 Jacob, pp. 199-201, 232-8.
CHAPTER XIV
THE CENTRAL INDIAN AGENCY — THE MALWA
CAMPAIGN
Before the crisis in the Bombay Presidency was over, a series
1867 ^-^ great events had occurred in that part of Central
The Central India for the security of v/hich Lord Elphinstone
gency. ^^^ made such great sacrifices. The most im-
portant point in this country was Indore, where the Mardtha
prince, Holkar, held his court.
Holkar's state, like that of Sindhia, was in subsidiary alliance
with the British Government, and under the supervision of the
Central Indian Agency. His capital was the headquarters of
the Agency. The most important of the other states for
which the Agent was responsible were Bhopdl, Dhar, Dewas,
and Jaora.
At the time of the outbreak at Meerut the appointment of
Agent was held by Sir Robert Hamilton. A few weeks before,
however, he had been obliged to return to England for his
health ; and his work was now being done by Colonel Henry
Marion Durand of the Royal Engineers.
This officer was in the prime of life, being only forty-four
years of age. Early in his Indian career he had
Duxand. '*"°° been pointed to as a man of promise ; but for the
last thirteen years his life had been one hard and
bitter struggle against ignorant or unscrupulous enemies. The
truth is that his nature was such as could not have failed to
provoke enmity. There never was a man, even in the Indian
service, who held stronger opinions than Durand, or expressed
them with more fearless or uncompromising sincerity. His
Indian experiences had so disgusted him that he had tried to
1857 THE CENTRAL INDIAN AGENCY 475
find employment at home ; but he had failed ; India could not
afford to lose him ; and, now that he had at last achieved a
position worthy of his powers, he knew that he had succeeded,
not by flattery or intrigue, not by concealing unpleasant truths,
but by the sheer fact that he was indispensable. Still, he
had suffered acutely from the disappointments which he had
undergone ; and, as one result of them, his manner and con-
versation had become tinged with an acrimonious bitterness
which prevented all, except the most sympathetic, from under-
standing his real nature. For, though he was a dangerous man
to provoke, though he could be as hard as adamant when hardness
was called for, his heart yearned with tenderness towards the
weak and the suffering. Perhaps his most prominent charac-
teristic was absolute manliness, a quality which is by no means
universal even among men of exceptional force of character.
He never would allow a private sorrow, a personal wrong, to
relax the fibres of his mind, or tempt him to slacken in the
rigid performance of public duty. He would have attributed
the strength which had enabled him to stand up under the
slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, not to himself, but to
the Higher Power in which he believed with a faith remarkable
even in that era of Anglo-Indian history. Men who did not
appreciate him have said that he lacked sympathy with natives.
The criticism is not substantially true ; but there is some
foundation for it. Few men understood natives better ; but
he was quicker to detect their faults than to appreciate their
virtues ; he was always willing to support, to instruct, or to
advise deserving natives, and to give them credit for proved
well-doing ; but his sympathy was not of that ever-ready, all-
embracing, genial kind which belonged to Henry Lawrence.
This failing, however, did not in the least affect his fitness for
the work which now lay before him.
When Durand entered upon his duties, there was not a
ripple to break the calm which prevailed in Central
India. Three weeks later, however, a sepoy was ^ ff "' ^" ,
'It/ Gatherin'^ of
caught in the act of carrying a treasonable message the storm
to the Rewah Durbar. From that time symptoms of ^^ i^'^ore.
disquiet appeared, which forced upon Durand the conviction
that a storm was brewing. On the 14th of May he heard that
the storm had burst at Meerut. He instantly realised the
appalling seriousness of his position. On the north, east, and
476 THE CENTRAL INDIAN AGENCY chap, xiv
west, Indore ^ was locked in by native states swarming with
national and contingent troops. On the southern side, it is
true, there was a British station, Mhow. But this station was
by no means a pure source of strength ; for, while the native
portion of the garrison consisted of a regiment of infantry and
a wing of a regiment of cavalry, there were no Europeans
except the gunners of a single battery, the drivers of which
were natives. These gunners, moreover, were the only British
soldiers whose services Durand could command. Indore itself
was garrisoned by two hundred men of the Malwa Contingent.
In spite, however, of the great dangers which threatened
him, and the slenderness of his resources, Durand did not for
a moment lose heart. He saw that what he had to do was to
preserve intact the line of the river Nerbudda, and thus pre-
vent the fire of insurrection which was leaping up in Northern
India from spreading southwards ; to guard the great road
from Bombay to Agra, along which ran the telegraphic line,
and by which troops could most conveniently advance to his
relief, and to hold on to Indore as long as possible. He saw
too that, in order to minimise the internal dangers which
threatened the peace of the states of the Central Indian
Agency, he must try to prevent the native troops of the
Company's army fi-om intriguing with the Contingents.
Very much depended upon the loyalty of Holkar himself.
The lustre shed upon the family name by the
exploits of his ancestor, Jeswant Rao, had not
faded ; and it seemed certain to the most experienced and
sagacious observers that, if he were to rise, all the lesser chiefs
would follow his lead.'^ But Durand, though he had not that
confidence in Holkar which he might perhaps have acquired if
he could have brought himself to cultivate his acquaintance,
felt no suspicion towards him. " Holkar's fears and interests,"
he wrote, " are on our side, and, so far as any Durbar, especially
a Mahratta Durbar, is trustworthy, Holkar's seems so." ^ As
a matter of fact, Holkar's loyalty, if not unwavering, was all
^ It should be. mentioned that the city of Indore was .situated in an isolated
fraction of Holkar's douiinious, which were broken up like the several parts of
Cromarty in Scotlaud.
- Last Counsels of an UnknmonXCounsellnr (John Dickinson), edited by Major
Evans Bell, p. 68.
^ Sir H. M. Uurand's Central India in 1S57, p. 16. The writer is a son of
the late Sir Heury Durand.
1857 THE CENTRAL INDIAN AGENCY 477
that we had any right to expect from a Maratha prince who was
still a youth, and who had no Dinkar Rao to guide him. For
Sir Eobert Hamilton, to whom he owed his throne, he had a
sincere regard : those who insist that he played a double game
have failed to search out more evidence than would justify
a faint suspicion ; and his advocates have shown that when the
crisis came, he approved himself a friend by deeds. ^
The first step which Durand took was to reinforce his little
garrison by a detachment of two hundred and
seventy Bhils, whom he summoned from Sirdapur, DurancL
and two troops of cavalry, two hundred and seventy ji^y 14
infantry, and two guns belonging to the Bhopdl
Contingent. These reinforcements arrived on the 20tli of May.
Holkar himself placed at the disposal of Durand three guns
and three companies of infantry. In the middle of June
another detachment of Bhopal cavalry arrived under Colonel
Travers, who thenceforth held command of the entire force,
and, though glad to be able to avail himself of the advice of
Durand, for whom he had a most affectionate respect and ad-
miration, was, for all military arrangements, solely i-esponsible.-
To help the reader to picture to himself the events which
followed, it will be well to give a short description of the
Residency and its environs.
The Residency was a two-storied stone house, standing in a
sort of park, about four hundred yards east of the river Khan
and two miles south-east of the town. The Mhow road skirted
the north-western side of the park, and crossed the river by a
bridge. The troops lent by Holkar were posted among a group
of buildings about a hundred yards north-west of the Residency ;
while the remaining troops were posted in the neighbourhood
of some Government offices on its north-east.
Before the arrival of Travers, there had been many signs
that the storm was rushing swiftly down upon Central India.
Successive messages had told of the mutinies at Nusseerabad,
at Neemuch, at Jhansi, and of that of the United Malwa Con-
tingent at Mehidpur ; and it was rumoured that the troops at
Mhow intended to mutiny, and march upon Indore. So alive
was Holkar to the significance of these events that on the 9th
of June he besought Durand to send off the Government
^ See App. P.
^ J. Travers's Evacuation of hidore, pj). 3, 4. Letters from Gen. Travers.
478 THE CENTRAL INDIAN AGENCY chap, xtv
treasure and the English ladies to Mhow for better security,
and to convert the Residency into a defensible post. Durand
did not listen to this advice.^ He knew, indeed, what must
have escaped the observation of Holkar, that the soil in the
neighbourhood of the Residency was so thin as to make the
erection of defensive works impossible.'^ It was understood,
however, that, in the event of a mutiny, all the European and
Eurasian residents were to throw themselves into the Resi-
dency .'"^ A few days afterwards two officers, Captains Ludlow
and Cobbe, suggested that Holkar's three guns should be
brought up to the Residency, in order that they might be more
under control. Durand and Travers rejected this advice on
the ground that to adopt it would cause a panic, and that
prudence required the gunners of the Bhopdl Contingent to be
kept separate from those of Holkar.*
A few days later the news of a disaster greater than any of
which he had yet heard, reached Durand. The Gwalior Con-
tingent had mutinied. In consequence of this, communication
with Agra by the direct road was cut off. A great hope, how-
ever, remained. General Woodburn's column was advancing
towards Mhow. The mere news of its approach was enough
to shake the mutinous resolves of the troops at that station.
But Woodburn turned aside from his course to suppress a dis-
turbance which had broken out at Aurangabad, and remained
there even after he had accomplished his purpose.^ On the
^ Last Counsels, etc., p. 79.'
^ Ti-avers, p. 23. In answer to Dickinson's charge tliat Durand did not send
the ladies to Mhow, Travers simply says " Durand had, no doubt, what appeared
to him at the time, good reasons for not accepting the advice." The Indore
JUpisode (a printed sheet containing some extracts from Dickinson with replies by
Travers). [I do not think that Travers's answer will be accepted as satisfactory.]
'^ The uncovenanted servants afterwards complained that, although their
numbers were considerable, Durand had neither availed himself of the oppor-
tunity of organising them as a defensive force, nor appointed any place +o which
they might retire in the event of a mutiny. Enclosures to Secret Letters from
India, 15 to 31 Mar. 1858, p. 141 ; Last Counsels, etc., p. 80. To this charge
Travers replies that there were not more than half-a-dozen to organise, and that
the Europeans and Eurasians knew that the Residency was to be their rendezvous,
as was proved by the fact that, with the exception of one obstinate man, they all
hastened thither on the outbreak of mutiny. The Indore Episode.
■* lb. ; Enclosures to Secret Letters from India, 15 to 31 Mar. 1858.
^ Durand afterwards wrote that Woodburn had apparently thought it impos-
sible to reach Mhow in time at tliat season of the year. Enclosures to Secret
Letters from India, 9 Nov. 1857, p. 171. Woodburn was summoned to Aurang-
abad )iy the British Resident at Hyderabad. Pari. Papers, vol. xxx. (1857),
p. 575.
1857 THE CENTRAL INDIAN AGENCY 479
28th, Lord Elphinstone telegraphed to Durand that the column
could not advance, and asked what would be the effect on the
country for which Durand was responsible. Durand replied
that he could not answer one hour for the safety of Central
India, if the fact that the column was not advancing should
become known.^ Already the fact had penetrated the thin
reserve of the telegraph clerks, and become a theme for the
gossips in the bazaars. One more hope and one more dis-
appointment remained for Durand. The report that Delhi had
fallen had reached Indore, and instantly exercised a sedative
influence on the disorderly portion of the population. But on
the night of the 30th of June one of Travers's servants went to
Durand, and informed him that there was to be a mutiny next
morning. The man was rebuffed for his pains. ^
Next morning, at about eight o'clock, Durand re-
ceived a letter from Agra, informing him that the report of the
fall of Delhi was unfounded. Half an hour later, as he was
embodying the substance of this letter in a telegram for Lord
Elphinstone, a native servant rushed into his room, and said
that there was a great uproar in the bazaar. Durand laid down
his pen, and walked out to see what was the matter. As he
came on to the steps outside the Eesidency, Holkar's three guns
opened fire and hurled a shower of grape into the Bhopdl Con-
tingent lines.
Durand and Travers were equal to the occasion. The former
at once wrote to summon the Mhow battery to his
assistance. The latter hastened to join his men,
and, ordering the infantry and artillery to turn out, led off the
cavalry and attempted to form them up to charge Holkar's
guns. But the native officer was a traitor, and three times
broke the formation. The men helplessly moved their horses
about in doubt and confusion. Travers, however, was a man
of action. He gave the word, " Charge," and, though only five
men had the heart to folloAV him, galloped straight upon
the guns, and captured them. But no one backed him up;
Holkar's infantry were firing upon him ; and he was obliged to
retire. The enemy's guns, supported by infantry, were then
moved round, with the object of bombarding the front of the
1 T. Lowe's Central India in 1857, pp. 19, 20.
- Memo, by a Mr. Beauvais, who was residing at Indore at the time. En-
closures to Secret Letters from India, 15 to 31 Mar. 1858, p. 155.
4 so THE CENTRAL INDIAN AGENCY chap, xiv
Residency ; but the gunners of the BhopAl Contingent had
had time to get their guns ready, and, aided by tAvo English
sergeants, opened a fire which soon forced the supports to fall
back. If the cavalry could only have been induced to charge,
the day might have been won ; but nothing could be done with
them. They were not positively mutinous ; but they were not
loyal. Instead of charging, they rode about the enclosure,
thinking only of escaping the enemy's fire.
Still, the infantry might do something. Travers called upon
them to follow him. But they would not obey ; and the men
of the Bhopal Contingent, twelve only excepted, actually
threatened their officers' lives. As a last resource, Travers
brought the Bhils, who had at least remained passively loyal,
into the Residency, in the hope that they would pluck up
courage to fight behind cover. But the enemy's round shot
and grape were crashing through the walls ; their infantry,
now reinforced by the Malwa and Bhopal Contingents, were
threatening to advance to the assault ; it was reported that
Holkar himself was coming, at the head of his troops, to join
in the attack ;^ and the Bhils ran panic-stricken into the inner
rooms. Thirty-nine of the Christian residents, mostly Eurasian
clerks with their women and children, had been murdered by
the mutineers. About ten o'clock the cavalry sent word that
they dared not remain where they wei'e any longer, lest their
retreat should be cut off, and begged that the defenders of the
Residency, and the women and children, would take advantage
of their escort to effect their escape. Durand had to decide at
once to accept or to refuse the offer. Besides himself and
Travers, there were only seven officers, three doctors, two
sergeants, fourteen native gunners, and five civilians to defend
an unfortified house against some six hundred trained soldiers.^
It would be madness for him to attempt to hold out against
such odds, unless help should speedily arrive ; and the Mhow
battery, the only available reinforcement, could not possibly
arrive for two hours, and might then be unable to fight its
way unsupported through the vastly superior numbers of the
enemy. It was indeed a bitter humiliation to him to be
obliged to retreat before an enemy whom, if his own troops
had supported him, he could have easily overwhelmed ; but it
' Enclosures to Secret Letters from India, 15 to 31 March 1858, p. 148.
^ The I adore Episode.
1857 THE CENTRAL INDIAN AGENCY 481
was better to suffer humiliation than to sacrifice the lives of
women and children. He resolved, therefore, with the concur-
rence of Travers and all the officers, to retreat at once. The
point to which it would have seemed natural to retreat, if it
had been possible to do so, was Mhow. But, in order to gain
the road to Mhow, Durand and his handful of men, his women
and children, would have had to move for four hundred yards
under the fire of an enemy twenty times as numerous as them-
selves,^ an enemy who, moreover, had acquired confidence by
victory. Had they attempted to do so, it is not likely that
one of them would have lived to tell the tale. Moreover, even
if it had been possible to retreat to Mhow, Durand would have
been unwilling to stay there long. It seemed almost certain
that Mhow would soon be besieged ; and, shut up in its fort,
Durand could have rendered comparatively little service to the
State.^ He resolved, therefore, to go to meet Woodburn,
hoping that he would be able to induce him to undertake the
pacification of Central India. He had not gone far, however,
before he heard that the Simrol pass, through which his road lay,
was occupied by Holkar's troops. He determined notwithstand-
ing to push on. But the cavalry flatly refused to make the
attempt. They were determined, they said, to go to Sehore in
Bhopal, where their homes lay. Without the cavalry Durand
could do nothing. Accordingly he made the best of his situation,
and, pushing on rapidly, arrived at Sehore on the 4th of July.^
Meanwhile the explosion at Indoi'e had scattered its devas-
tating fragments far and wide over the surround-
ing country. Captain Hungerford, the officer in oj""^e^,"ut|^f''
command of the Mhow battery, hearing, on his
way to Indore, of Durand's retreat, had galloped swiftly back
to Mhow. At night the native troops at that
station rose, set fire to the mess-house, murdered ^'^
the colonel, the adjutant, and the commandant of the cavalry,
and then hurried off" to ioin their fellows at , ,
, ' Julv 4.
Indore. The 5th Gwalior Contingent at Agar rose
next. A day or two later the entire host of mutineers, with the
exception of some of Holkar's troops, swarmed out of Indore,
and, plundering the villages, cutting the telegraph wires, and
^ A glance at the plan will prove this. " Letter from Gen. Travers.
•' lio-we' s Central Iiidia in 1857 ; The Evacuatvm of Indore, "pp. \^-2^ ; Letters
from Gen. Travers.
2 I
482 THE CENTRAL INDIAN AGENCY chap, xiv
burning the bungalows, as they went along, pushed northwards
towards Gwalior. The restless spirits in Central India were
smitten with the contagion. The wild Bhi'ls in Northern
Malwa began to raise disturbances. Even the distant country
of Gujarat was in danger : but the fort of Dohad, which com-
manded the main roads from Malwa, was fortunately in British
hands : the powerful chiefs of the country, under the able
guidance of Sir Richmond Shakespear, the British Resident at
Baroda, remained loyal ; and the disturbances which a few
budmashes and needy adventurers raised, to gain purely
personal ends, were easily suppressed. The British, however,
were swept out of Mandleswar, and anarchy prevailed until
Captain Keatinge, the Political Agent, an officer of splendid
nerve and energy, gained the mastery over the disturbers of
the peace. The Soondeahs and the Mewattees in the neigh-
bourhood of Jaora shook themselves free from control. The
peasantry throughout Sindhia's Malwa districts harassed the
European fugitives who were obliged to pass through their
country. Though most of the chiefs of Western Malwa did
their duty, not one of Holkar's districts escaped the horrors
of anarchy. The troops of the Bhopal Contingent intrigued
with their guilty comrades at Sehore ; the Bhopal chiefs, who
had long chafed under the control of their Begam, railed at
her for not seizing the opportunit}'^ to strike a blow for the
glory of Islam, and talked of raising a Holy War ; and the
ready wit and the marvellous tact of that shrewd and loyal
princess hardly averted a mutiny, and put out the sparks of
religious fanaticism.
There was still hope, however, for the cause of civilisation
in Centi'al India. Hungerford, as his colonel
^Tnafkar ^^^ perished, and Durand had been forced to
flee, took upon himself the duties and responsi-
bilities of Agent. He made up his mind to stand fast in the
fort of Mhow, if he could do nothing else, and hold it as a
breakwater against the lashing waves of rebellion. Proclaiming
martial law throughout Mhow, he laid in provisions, mounted
guns on the bastions of the fort, and made every preparation
to beat off attack. Nor was Holkar a whit behind him in loyal
zeal. On the very day of the mutiny at Indore
^ ' he wrote to Durand, professing himself eager to
do anything he could to prove his attachment to the British
Ibfiicepoge 4B2 ,
Londoii . MacmiDaxi Sc C?L >
S-txnJhrd's &eog'^ £sinb*. londim.
1857 THE CENTRAL INDIAN AGENCY 483
power, and sent a deputation to communicate with the magis-
trate of Mhow. The mutineers flocked round his
palace, and insisted on his delivering up the
Christians to whom he had granted an asylum ; but he braved
all their threats and clamours, and declared that he would
have nothing to do with them. Their departure
took a load off his mind, and left him free to
prove the sincerity of his professions by deeds. Three days
afterwards he sent out a force to rescue a number
of Europeans, who were wandering about the
country in peril and distress, and despatched all the treasure
that had escaped the cupidity of the mutineers to Mhow.^
Camel-loads of letters, arriving in Indore, were forwarded by
him to their destinations. So efficiently, in a word, did he
co-operate with Hungerford, that the latter found himself able
to re-establish postal and telegraphic communication, and to
restore order in Mhow and the neighbouring districts. Durand,
however, was seriously displeased with Hungerford for having
ver nred to assume the powers of Agent, when, as he pointed
out, communication with himself had been easy and rapid.
There was no ground for his displeasure. Hungerford had
wr^'tten to him ; but for nearly a month he vouchsafed no
rej ly ; and his silence, as it seemed to imply a resolve to cut
himself adrift from all connexion with his old charge, tended
seriously to keep up a restless state of feeling among the
people of Indore.^
It is time now to follow the movements of Durand. When
he arrived at Sehore, the Begam plainly told him
that it was out of her power to offer him or his ^"Durand^
party shelter in her dominions. Accordingly, he
pushed on to Hoshangabad, with the view of meeting Wood-
burn's column. On his arrival at this place, he had the satis-
faction of learning that the safety of Mhow was assured. He
next hastened on by forced marches towards Asirgarh, resolving
to hurry up Woodburn's column at once and at any cost
^ Travers is inclined to give the credit of this to the Treasury clerks. Evacua-
tion of Indore, p. 12, note f.
- Pari. Papers, vol. xliv. (1857-58), Part 1, pp. 172-3. Enclosures to Secret
Letters from India, Aug. 1857, pp. 521-2, 992 ; 8 to 22 Sept. 1857, pp. 303-11,
327 ; 24 Sept. 1857, pp. 465, 567-8 ; 8 to 22 Oct. 1857, p. 248 ; 9 Nov. 1857,
pp. 89, 139-53 ; 24 Nov. 1857, p. 61 ; 15 to 31 Mar. 1858. pp. 565-9, 571-4.
Last Cou7isels, etc., pp. 89-91, 96, 106-8, 110, 115.
484 THE CENTRAL INDIAN AGENCY chap, xiv
from Aurangabad to Mhow for tlie preservation of the
line of the Nerbudda and the rescue of Central India from
anarchy, and intending to return, after the attainment of these
objects, to Mhow or Indore, inflict a just punishment upon the
mutineers and the murderers of the latter town, and exact from
the states of Central India the same tokens of respect that
they had yielded to his Government before the mutinies. On
his way he heard from Brigadier Stuart, who
^^ ■ had succeeded Woodburn, that the column was
actually advancing. Thus the Nerbudda was out of danger.
Still, as Mhow was safe, and as he was loth to return thither
in the false and undignified position in which, as a high
political officer, without an army to enforce obedience to his
will, he must find himself, he resolved to adhere to his former
resolution of going to join the column. On the 22nd of July
the column encamped at the foot of the hill on which stood
the fort of Asirgarh. The European residents at that place
had for several weeks lived in continual fear lest the garrison,
a wing of the 6th Gwalior Contingent, should mutiny. Fortu-
nately, however, the garrison had just been successfully dis-
armed, and a reinforcement had arrived. On the day of
Stuart's arrival, Durand joined the column, whose movements
he thenceforward virtually directed. On the 24th the column
marched for Mhow, and arrived there on the 1st of August.
Durand resolved, for various reasons, to remain away from
Indore for some time. He had no intention of resuming his
former relations with Holkar until the Governor-General should
have acquitted him of complicity in the mutiny of the 1st of
July ; his force was too weak to undertake the necessary task
of disarming Holkar's troops ; and, above all, a new and
formidable enemy had arisen, whom he must face as soon as
possible, and by overcoming whom he knew that he could alone
acquire the prestige that would overawe the disaffected at
Indore. In the previous month a number of Sindhia's troops
had seized Mandiswar, a town situated about a hundred and
twenty miles north - west of Indore. The remnant of the
mutinous cavalry of the Gwalior Contingent and
insurrection various insurgent hordes had flocked to join them ;
inMaiwa. ^^^^ Prince Firoz Shah, a connection of the King
of Delhi, had put himself at their head. The whole force
amounted in September to some seventeen or eighteen thousand
1857 THE MALWA CAMPAIGN 485
men. Towards the end of that month Durand received a
number of intercepted letters, from which he learned that, at
the beginning of the dry season, there was to be a general in-
surrection in Malwa. Moreover, some hundreds of mercenaries,
enlisted by the minister of Dhar, had plundered and burned
two British stations ; and it was reported that the mother and
the uncle of the boy Raja of that state had instigated these
outrages, and that the Durbar was intriguing Avith the Mandiswar
insurgents. The embers of disaffection were smouldering, here
and there throwing up jets of flame in the country south of the
Nerbudda. If this insurrection were not trodden out, they
would surely burst into a blaze.^
Anxious as he was to set about his task, Durand Avas kept
waiting at Mhow for nearly three months by ^^^^^^^^ ^g^^, ^^^^
stress of weather. There were no real roads to queii the
through the country that had to be traversed ; *"'^""'®° '°"-
and heavy rains rendered it impassable. But at last the dry
season set in ; and Durand was ready. His force consisted of
fourteen hundred and two men, of Avhom five hundred and
eighteen were Europeans. It was very weak in infantry, but
strong in cavalry and artillery. On the 12th of October two
bodies of Hyderabad cavalry were detached, one to defend the
town of Mandleswar from a threatened attack, the other to
Giijri, to intercept the expected assailants on their march.
Two days later another party Avent out to reinforce
the Giijri detachment ; on the 20th the bulk of the
force marched for Dhar; and on the 21st the siege-train
followed.
After a tedious march of tAvo days over a broken and muddy
country, the little army approached Dhar. The garrison were
ready. On a hill south of the fort they had
planted three guns ; and, sallying forth, they gjg.^'^oj ^^^^
descended in skirmishing order, to dispute the
advance of their assailants. But the advance was irresistible.
The 25th Bombay Native Infantry, a loyal regiment, which
had a long career of glory before it, charged up the hill,
captured the guns, and turned them against the rebels, Avho,
after a brief combat, Avere hurled back into the fort. The
' Last Counsels, etc., p. 87. Endoswres to Secret Letters from, India, Aug.
1857, p. 917; 8 to 22 Oct. 1857, p. 972; 9 Nov. 1857, pp. 139-53, 172-3,
175 ; Feb. 1858, pp. 70-2 ; 15 to 31 Mar. 1858, pp. 589-90.
486 THE MALWA CAMPAIGN chap, xiv
conqueroi's marched down into a ravine girt in on all sides by
heights broken by huge fissures, and there pitched their camp.
About a mile and a half to their north, on a low hill rising out
of the plain, stood the fort, a massive structure of red sand-
stone. Opposite its western face there was an unfordable
lake ; and on the eastern and northern faces cavalry and
infantry piquets were posted. Thus the garrison was hemmed
in on every side. On the morning of the 24th the siege-train
arrived. On the night of the 25th the breaching battery was
thrown up on a mound, which formed a natural parallel not
more than three hundred yards from the western face of the
fort. Next day the guns opened fire. For some time the
bombardment produced hardly any effect upon the thick
curtains : but at last the stone began to crumble, and then
more and more rapidly after each discharge to fall in ruins.
On the 31st a storming party Avas formed, and ordered to
be ready for the assault at night. About ten o'clock two
corporals went to examine the breach. They returned, and
reported it practicable. The storming party advanced, mounted
the breach, entered the fort, — and found not a soul within.
Durand ordered the fort to be destroyed, and the state
attached until the Government should decide its
Mandiswar. ^^te. At five o'clock On the morning of the 8th
of November, the force broke up its encampment,
and marched for Mandiswar. Flames leaped up from the ruins
of the fort, and cast a lurid light upon the departing masses,
as they silently tramped past the dismantled bastions. From
time to time, as they marched northwards, they received
news of fresh outrages committed by the rebels. The Mandis-
war host had defeated a small British force at Jiran in
Rajputana, and were besieging Neemuch. The fugitives from
Dhar had plundered several of Sindhia's villages, attacked and
pillaged the station of Mehidpur, and expelled the British
officers.
Retribution, however, was at hand. On the 9th, Major Orr,
who had lately joined Durand with a reinforcement drawn from
J, ^ the Hyderabad Contingent, marched with a small
body of cavalry for Mehidpur, and, hearing on
his arrival that the rebels had gone on, rode after
them, caught them at the village of Rawal, and inflicted upon
them a crushing defeat. Meanwhile the column was toiling on
1857 THE MALWA CAMPAIGN 487
ovei' the hills, and poppy fields, and undulating meadows of
Mahva. On the 19th of November it reached the Chambal.
With the usual thoughtlessness of Asiatics, the enemy had
forgotten to dispute the passage. But the passage was difficult
enough in itself. The banks were rugged, and ran down
almost sheer into the water ; and the deep clear river below
rushed and eddied round huge boulders jutting out of its bed
till it was lost in the blue horizon. The sappers had to cut a
path down the bank. Then the passage was begun. The
horses neighed, the cattle lowed, the camels groaned, the
elephants trumpeted, as they picked their way down the path ;
the guns bumped and rattled, the cavalry plunged and splashed
through the water, and climbed the opposite bank ; and the
whole force pushed on in high spirits for Mandiswar.
On the morning of the 21st the British encamped in sight
of Mandiswar, and occupied a little village on their left with
a strong outpost. Mandiswar stood on an island formed by
the river Sowna, a tributary of the Chambal. Presently the
enemy posted piquets about two miles from the British camp,
along the banks of the river. About three o'clock in the
afternoon the piquets marched down, and seized the village.
The British troops fell in ; their guns opened fire ; the rebels
hesitated, evacuated the village, and, pursued by the Hyderabad
cavalry, fled back into the town.
Early on the morning of the next day the British crossed
the Sowna, then made a flank movement to the left, and
halted about two thousand yards west of the town. The rebels
who had been besieging Neemuch, had raised the siege, and
were hurrying down to relieve their comrades in Mandis-
war. Durand's object in encamping where he did was to be
able to strike right and left at these two bodies. Just
before the camp was marked out, a number of the
enemy's horsemen appeared on the left. Some of the British
cavalry rode out, cut up about two hundred of them, and then
returned.
At eight o'clock next morning Durand struck his camp.
The column crossed another branch of the river, j.^^. 23
and, after a march of five miles, descried a mul- Battle of
titude of armed men and waving flags in a field
about a mile distant on the left. At last the decisive hour had
come. The British chanired front to the left. The rebels were
488 THE MALAVA CAMPAIGN chap, xiv
very strongly posted. Their right rested in and beyond a
village called Goraria ; their right centre was covered by a
nullah and lines of date trees ; and their left, extending along
a ridge, by fields of standing corn. On the same ridge they
had planted five guns.
The British guns rattled to the front, the gunners waving
their caps to their comrades, and cheering, as they galloped
past to open fire. Then the infantry advanced in echelon ; the
rebel infantry came on to meet them ; and the rattle of mus-
ketry resounded over the battlefield. And now, as the
enemy's artillery-fire was gradually being silenced, some squad-
rons of dragoons and Hyderabad cavalry charged and captured
their guns ; masses of the infantry broke and fled ; and the
victorious cavalry rode in among them, and smote down
numbers in the fields. But the rest of the infantry, though
gradually forced back, refused to fly, and, planting themselves
in the village, prepared to hold it to the last. For some
time the British artillery shelled them. Then the 86th County
Downs and the 25th Bombay Native Infantry fought their way
into the village : but the fire from the houses was so fierce that
the Brigadier ordered them to withdraw. Meanwhile, the force
in the town had made an ineft'ectual attack upon the British
rear. Night set in, and a ring of flames girt in the doomed
rebels in the village ; but still they would not surrender.
Next morning the artillery was brought close up ; a storm of
shot and shell fell upon the village ; and the houses
were dashed to atoms. At mid -day some two
hundred and twenty of the rebels came out and surrendered.
Nothing now remained of the village but a burnt and tottering
shell : but behind this wretched cover a few Eohillas, who
deserve to be classed with the heroes of Cawnpore, still fought
on ; and it was not till four o'clock, when a final assault was
delivered, that the battle of Goraria was won.
The victory was decisive. The country population turned
on the beaten rebels, and destroyed many of them. Leaving
Keatinge in political charge of Mandiswar, Du-
™um of"^ rand marched back for Indore. On the day after
Duranri to j^jg arrival he disarmed Holkar's regular cavalry,
Dec. 10. ''^"^ wrote to Holkar himself, insisting that the
rest of the troops should be disarmed at once,
and that all who were implicated in the mutiny of the 1st of
1857 THE MALWA CAMPAIGN 489
July and the attack on Mehidpur should be punished. Accord-
ingly, in the afternoon the infantry were disarmed. Durand
then paid a formal visit to Holkar. Next day he
handed over his charge to Sir Robert Hamilton,
who, on hearing of the mutiny at Meerut, had hastened to
return to India, and resume his duties. His conduct of affairs
had not been free from mistakes ; but he had contributed more
than any other man to the preservation of Central India. ^
^ Enclosures to Secret Letters from India, 24 Nov. 1857. pp. 321, 413 ;
10 Dee. 1857, p. 855 ; Jan. 1858, pp. 54-6, 69, 81-5, 635-7, 775 ; Lowe's
Central India, pp. 65, 70, 73, 76, 79, 88, 95, 109-16, 127, 140 ; Pari. Pcqiers,
vol. xliv. (1857-58), Part 4, pp. 75-G.
CHAPTER XV
BUNDELKHAND AND THE SAUGOR AND NERBUDDA
TERRITORIES — NAGPUR — HYDERABAD
The enquirer must now prepare to penetrate into the heart
of the Peninsula, and even to push southwards as
1857 .
far as Mysore and the mountains of Coorg.
The germs of disaffection, arising from the jSTorth- Western
Provinces, were early wafted across the Jumna
Jhansi . ...
into Bundelkhand. One district, situated in the
western extremity of that country, was the theatre of events
which, both from the romantic interest which attaches to them
and from the importance of their bearing upon the general
situation, must ever hold a prominent place in Anglo-Indian
history.
Not one of Lord Dalhousie's acts had given more offence to
the hostile critics of his policy than the annexa-
Jhlnfr" °^ tion of Jhansi. That country had formerly been
under the overlordship of the Peshwa ; but, on
his downfall in 1817, it passed into the hands of his conquerors,
who, in return for a yearly tribute, agreed to recognise its
existing ruler and his posterity as hereditary princes.^ In
1854, however, the last male descendant of the family in
whose interests the treaty of 1817 had been made, died ; and
Dalhousie, refusing to allow the succession of an adopted son,
declared that the state had lapsed to the British Government.
The widow of the late Raja strenuously protested against his
action ; but she might, in time, have learned to reconcile
herself to the common fate, if the Government, with a niggard-
liness that was to cost our country terribly dear, had not called
upon her to pay the debts which her husband had left, out of
■* The Treaty is to be found in Pari. Papers, vol. xl. (1854-55), pp. 47-9.
1857 BUNDELKHAND 491
the paltry six thousand a year which was fixed as her allow-
ance. At first the Rani could not conceal her indignation at
such meanness ; but, when she found that her remonstrances
were disregarded, she resolved, with true Maratha cunning, to
wear a smiling face in the presence of her masters, while
secretly waiting for an opportunity to gratify the bitter resent-
ment which she harboured against them. She was indeed a
woman whom it was dangerous to provoke. Tall of stature
and comely in person, she bore all the outward signs of a
powerful intellect and an unconquerable resolution. Moreover,
while brooding over her own special grievances, she knew how
to avail herself of the discontent which British rule had
awakened in the minds of her people. The English had
insulted their religion by openly slaughtering kine in their
country ; and she had petitioned in vain for the prohibition
of the odious practice. When, therefore, she heard of what
had happened at Meerut, she felt that her day had come at
last.
She at once began to intrigue with the garrison, with
whom the Government had foolishly neglected to
associate any British troops. At the same time, jMns^^^*^
in order to throw dust in the eyes of the British
officials, she pretended, with an adroitness worthy of a Sivaji,
that their enemies were hers, and successfully asked permission
to enlist troops for her protection. Fortunately for her, the
Commissioner, Captain Skene, was a man of singular credulity.
Forgetting, or unable to understand the circumstances in its
past history which should have made Jhansi a peculiar subject
of anxiety, he wrote to Colvin, expressing perfect confidence
that there was no danger to be feared either from the people or
from the sepoys. So blind indeed was he to the most obvious
symptoms of coming mutiny that when, on the 5th of June,
some of the sepoys openly seized a fort in the cantonments, he
believed the disavowal of complicity in the crime and the
assurances of loyalty which their comrades were careful to
make. Naturally, after this the disaffected hesitated no longer.
On the afternoon of the 6th they mutinied, murdered all their
officers except one who escaped wounded, and then, after burst-
ing open the gaol, marched, with the escaped prisoners and a
mob of townspeople, to attack the town fort, within which the
rest of the Europeans had taken refuge. The garrison, however,
492 BUNDELKHAXD
had no thought of yielding without a struggle, and, firing a
volley among their assailants, forced them to retire in con-
fusion. The night was spent by the besiegers in preparations
for a renewed attack, by the besieged in considering Avhat course
they ought to pursue. They had no prospect of being able to
stand a siege ; for guns and supplies of every kind were almost
entirely wanting. They therefore decided to ask the Kani to
allow them to retreat unmolested to some place of
June I. refuge within British territory. In the morning
three ambassadors went out to beg for mercy from the injured
princess. Hardly had they left the fort before they were seized
and di'agged to the palace. But the Rani would have nothing
to say to them. " I have no concern," she said, " with the
English swine," and ordered them to be taken to the Rissaldar
of the 14th Irregular Cavalry. They were instantly dragged
out of the palace, and put to death. In the afternoon the
besiegers renewed their attack, but with no better success than
on the previous day. The garrison, however, had no cause to
exult ; for, unless help should come to them from without, they
could see no prospect but starvation or surrender, and some
Eurasians who tried to steal out, hoping to obtain help, were
caught and put to death. The last straw at which the garrison
had despairingly clutched was thus broken, when suddenly the
prospect of life and liberty was held out to them. The Rani,
not knowing to what straits they were reduced, and fearing the
consequences of English valour, had determined to gain her end
by such a device as is most congenial to the heart of the Maratha.
She sent messengers to say that all she wanted was the
possession of the fort, and that, if the garrison would lay down
their arms, she would send them off under an escort to another
station. Trusting to the solemn oaths with which the mes-
sengers swore to the sincerity of their offer, the garrison walked
out of the fort. It would have been better if they had re-
mained within, destroyed their women and children with their
own hands, and then died at their posts. Then at least they
would have sold their lives dearly. Victory or no surrender is
the only motto for those who Avar with Asiatics. The moment
they had quitted the fort the rebels fell upon them, dragged
them off to a garden close by, and there murdered nearly every
man, woman, and child among them.^
^ Annals of the Indian Rebelllvn, pp. 511-30 ; Moutgonievy Martin, vol. ii.
1857 BUNDELKHAND 493
Whether or not the Eani Avas responsible for that day's
work,^ she never sank to the level of the monster
of Cawnpore. At least she showed no craven of°thJ^Rin?*'°'^
fear of the race which had wronged her, and
which, in her passionate revenge, she had yet more cruelly
wronged. Buying over the sepoys, who had threatened to set
up a rival upon her throne, she made them proclaim her ruler
of Jhansi, and then, entering resolutely upon the work of her
unlawful government, fortified her city, raised an army, and,
strengthened by the devotion which the fascination of her
presence and her brave heart had inspired among her people,
resolved to defend herself and her country to the last against
the British power.
It was not likely that so signal an example of successful
rebellion should find no imitators. The first shock
was felt at Nowgong, which was garrisoned by Nowgmg.
detachments of the Jhansi regiments. When junes
they first heard that their comrades had mutinied,
they made the most ardent professions of devotion to their
officers. A few days later, however, hearing that the mutiny
had culminated in massacre, they too threw off
their allegiance. Their officers could only bow to
the storm, and retreat ; but, burdened as they were by many
helpless women and children, they had small chance of being
able to reach a place of safety. Eighty-seven sepoys, who had
held aloof from their mutinous brethren, went with them ; but
soon they too fell away, disheartened by the dangers and the
hardships of the journey, and the seeming hopelessness of
reaching British territory in safety. Those of the Europeans
who did not perish on the road, made their way at last to
Banda. When they came to tell of all that they had gone
through, how the people of the country had molested them, and
bands of robbers attacked them, how they had had to leave
some of their friends, struck down by the sun or dying of
apoplexy, to be devoured by the vultures and the jackals, they
pp. 303-6 ; Times, Sept. 11, 1857, p. 7, cols. 1, 2 ; Pari. Pcipers, vol. xliv.
(1857-58), Part 1, p. 184.
^ Kaye (vol. iii. p. 369) says " Whether the Eanee instigated this atrocity,
or to what extent she was imjilicated in it, can never be clearly known." Accord-
ing to a written statement made hy a Mrs. Mutlow, the Rani j^romised in ^VTiting
that none of the garrison shoukl be injured. J'Jndusures to Secret Letters from
India, April, 1858, p. 679.
494 BUNDELKHAND chap, xv
did not forget to speak of the touching kindness with which
the Nawab of this place, though at his own peril, had sheltered
and protected them.^
Meanwhile the civil population of Bundelkhand were becom-
ing excited. In July came the news of the mutiny
Bundelkhand ^^ Indore. Forthwith the people of the south-
western frontier rose in insurrection. Still the
disaffected in the more northerly districts held their hands.
They were looking towards a little state on the south-east ; and
upon the action of the Raja of that state depended whether or
not they would rebel.^
The state in question was called Rewah. The officer to
„.„ ^^ whom belonged the duty of watching over British
Willoughby . *= p 1 Ti . T
Osborne at interests at the court of the Raja, was a lieutenant
of the Madras army named Willoughby Osborne.
Few probably of those in England who were looking with such
intense interest to the newspapers and telegrams for details
of the struggle in which their countrymen were engaged, ever
noticed this young man's name ; but it is not too much to
say that he contributed more than almost any officer of his
rank to the preservation of the empire. He was a noble type
of the rough and ready soldier-statesman of the old East India
Company, zealous, brave, clear-headed, and self-reliant. He
saw that upon his keeping a firm grasp of Rewah depended
not only the conduct of the wavering chiefs of Bundelkhand,
but, what was even more important, the security of the line of
communication between Calcutta and Central India, the Deccan,
and Bombay ; and, though his resources seemed wretchedly
inadequate, he applied himself cheerfully and confidently to
his task.
His first object was, of course, to gain over the Raja ; and
he soon succeeded in persuading him that it would be for his
interest to support the British cause. The first-fruits of this
success appeared on the 8th of June, when the Raja offered
the use of his troops to the British Government. The offer
was accepted ; and two thousand of the troops were sent out
to keep the peace in the surrounding country, and prevent the
insurgents of Bundelkhand from communicating with those
of the country north of the Jumn;i. Still the odds against
1 Pad. Papers, vol. xliv. (1857-58), Part 1, pp. 173-85.
2 2b. Part 3, p. 328.
1857 BUNDELKHAND 495
Osborne were so great that, although he managed to make head
against each successive difficulty as it arose, he could not rest
nor feel secure for a single day. It was only by exerting all
his powers of management that he could keep the zamind^rs
quiet. The Eaja himself was by no means a staunch ally.
He was a weak and timid man ; he was constantly receiving
letters threatening him with vengeance if he would not join the
rebels ; and he was beset by a number of moulvis who did
their best to destroy Osborne's influence. Towards the end of
August the alarming news arrived that Kunwar Singh and the
Dinapore mutineers were about to enter Rewah. The Eaja
was dreadfully alarmed, begged Osborne to quit his territory,
and hurried away himself to a place of refuge. But Osborne had
no thought of abandoning his post. Finding that the peasantry
were unwilling to see the mutineers enter their country, he
exhorted them to stand on the defensive. The result was that
Kunwar Singh turned aside and entered Bundelkhand. This
danger was hardly tided over when it was an-
nounced that the 50th at Nagode and the 52 nd at ^"^ "'" ^^'
Jubbulj)ore had mutinied. The news stimulated the rebellious
passions of the disaffected at Eewah. They openly talked of
murdering Osborne. He reported their intentions to Govern-
ment, and wrote coolly of the contingency of his own death.
On the 8th of October the crisis came. Osborne heard that
his office was to be attacked. Collecting about a hundred men
around him, he calmly awaited the issue. Early in the after-
noon some two thousand five hundred budmashes thronged
round the office, but, finding to their astonishment that the
sahib was prepared to resist them, stopped short, hovered about
for a few hours, and finally slunk off". From that moment
Osborne's attitude was changed. He no longer stood on the
defensive. On the 14th of December, Colonel Hinde, command-
ing the Rewah force, marched by his orders in the direction of
Jubbulpore, cleared the road of rebels, captured six forts, forty-
two pieces of artillery, and a number of prisoners, and reduced all
disturbers of the peace to order. It is true that, notwithstanding
all Osborne's exertions, many of the chiefs of Bundelkhand,
notably the Nawab of Banda, rebelled. But the great object
was attained. The line of communication between Calcutta and
Bombay was kept l^nbroken.^
' Pari. Papers, vol. xxx. (1857), pp. 452, 514. Enclosures to Secret Letters
496 SAUGOR AND NEKBUDDA TERRITORIES chap, xv
The British districts of the Saugor and Nerbudda Terri-
tories were, owing to their geographical position,
and Nerbudda intimately connected with the countries that have
em ones. ^^^^^ been reviewed.^ For some weeks after the
outbreak at Meerut nothing worth mentioning occurred in these
districts. But on the 1 2th of June, three companies of a regiment
of the Gwalior Contingent at Lalitpur mutinied ; then the Eaja
of Banpur, a powerful chieftain, rose in rebellion, and a few weeks
later disturbances became general. The dacoits plied their trade
with increased boldness. Thakurs plundered defenceless villages.
Village communities preyed upon each other. Villagers refused
to pay their revenue, plainly telling the collectoi's that the
Government could no longer enforce its demands. Mutinies
broke out at Saugor and Jubbulpore ; and at the
' former station the British residents were obliged
to take refuge within the fort, and make up their minds to
hold out there until relief should reach them. Major Erskine,
the Commissioner of the Territories, and his subordinates, did
indeed try to make a stand against the rebels and mutineers.
A column marched from Kampti, in the neighbouring province
of Nagpur, to Jubbulpore, and did something to restore order
in the country round that station. Small detachments went
out from the different stations, and gained some isolated
successes. But the rebels still remained practically masters
of the situation. To show how numerous they were, it will
be enough to say that in the Jubbulpore district alone one
hundred and seventy-nine rebel leaders appeared in arms.
ExcejDt in one or two districts the officials could do little more
than hold on to their stations, and hope for t"he arrival of a strong
army, which should enable them to re-establish their authority
over the country.'^
from India, 24 Sept. 1857, pp. 59o-7 ; 8 to 22 Oct. 1S57, pp. 629, 681 ; 9 Nov.
1857, pp. 229-31 ; 24 Nov. 1857, pp. 346, 350 ; 10 Dec. 1857, p. 255 ; 24 Dec.
1857, pp. 403, 430-1 ; 4 to 8 Mar. 1858, pp. 191, 198; 15 to 31 Mar. 1858,
p. 259 ; Ap. 1858, pp. 572, 574-5. [I am glad to fiud that my estimate of Osborne
is conlirmed by Mr. J. W. Sherer, who knew him and saw the results of his work.
Memories of the Mutiny, vol. i. p. 170. The Nawab of Banda was practically
forced to rebel, lb. p. 164.]
^ Three of the British districts under the administration of the Comrais.sioner
of the Saugor and Nerbiuldti Territories, viz. Jalaun, Jhansi, and Chanderi, were
actually in Bnndelkhand.
^ Enclosures to Secret Letters from. India, 4 July, 1857, p. 386; 20 to 29
July, 1857, pp. 268, 271 ; Aug. 1857, pp. 427, 443, 462, 469-80, 484, 489-90,
1857 NAGPUR 497
South of the Saugor and Nerbudda Territories was the
recently annexed province of N^gpiir. Its capital,
also called Nagpur, contained about eighty thousand ^4"gpm? ^*
inhabitants.^ Here the Commissioner, George Plow-
den, had his headquarters. His charge was a most important
one, as, if he could succeed in keeping his province intact, it
would serve as a breakwater to prevent the flood of insurrection
from sweeping southwards. At the same time he had a difficult
task to perform ; for, the necessity of saving Northern India being
paramount, no European troops could be sent to his support.
The artillery, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Infantry, and 1st Cavalry of
the Nagpur Subsidiary Force were quartered at Nagpur itself
and other stations ; and one cavalry and fov;r infantry regiments
of the Madras army were at the neighbouring station of Kampti.
Besides these, Plowden had at his disposal two hundred and
eighty British artillerymen.
The crisis at Nagpur was short and sharp. At eleven o'clock
on the night of the 13th of June, Plowden heard that the 1st
Cavalry were going to rise in one hour's time. They had formed
their plans in concert with a party of the citizens, and intended
to murder all the Christian residents. Without losing a moment,
Plowden sent off the ladies and children to Kampti. A foot
roll-call of the cavalry was then ordered. They assembled on
the parade-ground without their arms ; and the infantry and
artillery, who were thorovighly loyal, took up their positions
opposite them. The ringleaders were seized, and
committed for trial. Next morning reinforcements "^^^ ^■*-
arrived from Kampti. A week later the fort and -^^^^ 21.
a hill called Sitabaldi, close to the city, were garrisoned by
European gunners, and provisions were laid in. Plowden now
prepared, in conjunction with Colonel Cumberlege of the 4th
Madras Light Cavalry, to disarm the guilty troopers. They
were paraded on the 23rd. Cumberlege was at hand with his
regiment, ready to exterminate them if they showed the slightest
symptoms of insubordination. But there Avas no cause for
anxiety. At the word of command the troopers laid down
495, 502, 901, 910 ; 8 to 22 Oct. 1857, pp. 690-2 ; 24 Dec. 1857, p. 469 ; Feb.
1858, pp. 997, 1019, 1063 ; Aug. 1858, pp. 377-87. J^arl. Papers, vol. xliv.
(1857-58), Part 3, pp. 502-4, etc.
^ 100,000, according to the rough estimate of the time: but the census of
1872 (Hunter's Imperial Gazetteer, 2n(l ed. vol. x. p. 174) showed that the popula-
tion was then 84,441.
2k
498 NAGPUR chap, xv
their arms. Next day the trials of the ringleaders began.
While they were proceeding, Plowden took measures for disarm-
ing the city population. On the 29th three of the prisoners
were sentenced. At half-past seven on the following morning
they were hanged in presence of the entire garrison, and not a
murmur was heard.
The crisis was over. The swift stern action of Plowden had
had its effect, and, after the executions of the 30th of June,
a great awe sank into the minds of the people of Nagpur.
Thenceforth a stillness that was not peace reigned in the city.
Intrigues, it is true, in favour of the deposed royal familj^, were
reported from various parts of the country ; biit there was no
open sign of disaffection. Once only, in the beginning of 1858,
was the general stillness ruffled. On the 18th of January, a
few men of the garrison at Raipur mutinied. There were only
three Europeans at the station ; and for a moment Plowden
feared that the district would be lost, and that disturbances
would break out in the country round it. But, four
Jan 2*^ d ^
days after the mutiny, those three Europeans dared
to hang the mutineers in the presence of the whole garrison ;
and the astounded malcontents subsided into tranquillity.^
Proceeding to the south-west, we find ourselves in the country
of the Nizam. This country, pressing, as it did,
Domfnira'^.^ upon Ndgpur, portions of Sindhia's dominions,
and the presidencies of Bombay and Madras, was,
so to speak, the heart of India. The stake that depended
upon its preservation was almost as great as the stake that
depended upon the recapture of Delhi, and the reconquest of
Oudh. If once the matter of disaffection were to find a way
into it, and come to maturity, it would issue forth again in
poisonous streams through the veins and arteries of the entire
body. Those who formed their opinions from their recollections
of the newspapers of the time might suppose that the southern
portion, at least, of the Peninsula, was beyond the reach of
danger. There coixld not be a greater mistake. It is true
that the Madras troops were staunch ; ^ but there were many
' Enclosures to Secret Letters from India, 4 July, 1857, pp. 189-90, 193, 215,
225, 237, 249 ; 20 to 29 July, IS.")?, p. 161 ; 4 to 8 Mar. 1858, pp. 438-42.
Meadows-Taylor, p. 381. The tliree Europeans were the Deputy-Commissioner
Lieut. C. Elliot, the Assistant Commissioner Lieut. C. B. Lucie-Smith, and Lieut.
G. 0. Rybot.
- Major Evans Bell, who was at Nagpur in 1857, asserts that "all their
1857 HYDERABAD 499
disloyal spirits in the Southern Presidency, and, before the
close of the Mutiny, overt acts of disaffection were committed
within its limits.
Right in the centre of the Nizam's dominions lay his capital,
Hyderabad. There was not in the whole of India
a more turbulent or dangerous mass than the ^ *"^
population of this city. Nothing but sheer force could keep
them down. Every man among them carried a weapon of some
sort. It was estimated by the Resident, at the outset of the
mutiny, that there were more than a hundred thousand armed
Mahomedan fanatics within the walls. The Nizam himself was
well disposed towards his British allies, but young, ignorant,
and liable to be led astray.
The Resident Avas Major Cuthbert Davidson. Exclusive of
the Hyderabad Contingent, the military force at
his disposal consisted of one European regiment, Davidson.
one regiment of Madras cavalry, a battalion of
Madras artillery, and seven regiments of Madras infantry.
Enough has been said to show that the task before him was one
of extreme responsibility and difficulty. But, if his material
resources were small, he knew that he could rely on the moral
support of a coadjutor of rare ability, a man whose name de-
serves to be ever mentioned by Englishmen with „„ ^
Salar Jan"".
gratitude and admiration, the minister, Sdlar Jang.
It was not till after the third week of May that the news of
the Meerut and Delhi outbreaks reached Hydera-
The crisis
bad. Sdlar Jang was prompt in declaring his
intentions. AVhether he liked the English or not, he knew
that their rule could alone secure the foundations upon which
the future prosperity of India must be based, — internal peace
and order. The Nizam, for his part, was jealous of Salar Jang,
and too narrow-minded to appreciate the support which the
presence of such an upright and enlightened statesman lent to
his government, Moreover, the minister had enemies, who
whispered lying tales about him to the Nizam, and tried to
procure his dismissal. Fortunately, however, the Nizam had
no sympathy with the movement for the restoration of the
Mogiil empire, for it had been owing to the decline of that
sympathies aud hopes were with the mutineers and rebels." Letters from
Nagpore, p. 18. This is probably an exaggeration ; but of course they would
have risen if they had believed our cause to be lost.
500 HYDERABAD
empire that his ancestors had been able to win for themselves
the position of independent sovereigns. Thns his minister was
able to lead him to pronounce in favour of the British. The
populace wei'e infuriated on hearing of his resolution, and their
leaders were ready to take advantage of their temper. Moulvis
put forth all their eloquence to stir up the passions of the
Mahomedan gentry to crusading fervour. Fakirs preached, in
ruder phrases, to ragged zealots. The poison soon took efiect.
Some of the native troops fell under suspicion. Salar Jang had
his eye upon them, and handed them over to the Resident for trial.
A court of inquiry was held, and the prisoners were morally con-
victed ; but the evidence against them broke down on a technical
point. Still, the minister's sharpness had frightened others who
were disaffected ; and thenceforth they became very cautious.
The real crisis, however, had not yet begun. On Friday, the
12th of June, some five thousand worshippers were assembled
in a great mosque called the Mecca Mas j id. Prayers were hardly
over when one of the congregation rose, and shouted to the
Moulvi to proclaim the Jehdd. The kotAval, who, by the
minister's orders, was present with his men, was just going to
arrest the fanatic, when he managed to escape through the
crowd. Morning after morning, placards, denouncing the
minister, were found posted up in the mosques. Undaunted
by the popular hatred, he ordered the placards to be torn down ;
posted trusty Arab guards round the mosques and at the
gates of the city ; dispersed mobs whenever they ventured to
assemble ; and kept a sharp watch on all suspicious characters.
Captain Webb, the jDolice magistrate, was equally indefatigable.
Making it his chief aim to prevent infection from reaching the
soldiers, he packed off all the fakirs upon whom he could lay
his hands ; maintained a strict supervision over the post-office ;
seized the busybodies who came to spread the news of British
disasters ; and had them soundly flogged. But all his efforts
could not prevent rumours of the mutinies and massacres in
Northern India from spreading ; and the hopes of the disaffected
rose as they listened to the grim details. On the 16th of June
the authorities heard with serious alarm of the outbreak at
Aurangabad. The Wahabis were labouring zealously to keep
up the fire of their disciples' fanaticism ; and Davidson coiild
not conceal from himself that there was danger of the troops
yielding to the pressure of their co-religionists.
1857 HYDERABAD 501
At last the disaifected made up their minds to act. At a
quarter to four in the afternoon of the 17th of July, SAlar Jang
informed Davidson that an attack was just going to be made
upon the Residency. Davidson had long prepared for such a
contingency, and was not for a moment flurried by the sudden-
ness of the news. In seven minutes the troops had turned out,
and were standing at their posts. Presently the yells of an
angry multitude were heard, and about five hundred Rohillas,
followed by a mob of citizens, were seen surging towards the
Residency. On they came, and were just going to break down
one of the gates of the Residency Garden, when the guns of the
Madras Horse Artillery opened fire, and hurled a shower of
canister into their midst. When the smoke cleared away, not a
rebel was to be seen. It was the deliberate opinion of the
Resident that, if the Madras gunners, men of the same creed as
the insurgents, had failed to do their duty, the population of
the Nizam's territories might have risen, and the embers of
rebellion that lay scattered between the Nerbudda and Cape
Comorin have burst into a blaze.
The worst was over now. Treasonable letters indeed were
still intercepted ; Rohillas, Punjabis, Afghans, out- .
cast mutineers, and villains of every stamp kept
flocking into the city, and told the inhabitants that the English
were everywhere disastrously beaten. ^ The fanatics waited
anxiously for the issue of the struggle at Delhi and Lucknow,
persuading themselves that the champions of their faith would
sooner or later prevail. Even now, if a resolute leader had
come forward, the populace would have followed him. But the
fanatics of Hyderabad were no martyrs. Being Asiatics, they
knew when they were beaten. The roar of the Madras guns
was still dinning upon their ears. Thenceforth they were con-
tent to vent their enthusiasm in whispering curses against the
infidels ; they dared not strike a blow for the glory of Islam.
In the Assigned Districts,^ as in the country under the
Nizam's own government, emissaries from the north „,,.■,
• 1 1 1 in -r. 1 ^^^ Assigned
tried hard to get up a rebellion. But the temper Districts.
^ " Fortunately for us," wrote Davidson (Aug. 2), " the Nizam's Government
remains staunch . . . were it otherwise, no force ... at present in Southern
India could in my opinion stem the torrent of revolt . . . the eyes of all the
Mussulmans in Mysore and the Carnatic are turned in this direction, and . . .
they are already impatient at the delay of their friends here in proceeding to action."
- The Assigneil Districts were in Berar and the Raichur Doab, and along the
502 HYDERABAD
of the people of these districts was very dift'erent from that of
the rabble of Hyderabad. They had had experience of the
advantages of British rule, and had no sympathy with mutineers
or rebels. The peace of the districts continued, with two
insignificant exceptions, unbroken throughout the crisis.^
Rays of hope were already piercing through the dark clouds
that overhung Central India. On the west horizon appeared
the flashing weapons of an irresistible host, led by a great
captain, who still lives, an honoured veteran, in our midst ; ^
and the tramp of his legions and the thunder of his artillery
were sending forth a message of doom to rebels and mutineers.
borders of the Sholapur and Ahmadnagar CoUectorates. Pari. Papers, vol. xlv.
(1856), p. 71.
^ Meadows-Taylor, pp. 365, 381-3. Letter from Hyderabad to the Times,
Dec. 3, 1857, p. 7, cols. 1, 2. Rejjort on the Hyderabad Assigned Districts for
the year 1857-58, p. 18, par. 98 ; pp. 225-6, pars. 149-51 ; pp. 70-1, pars.
399-406. Ih. for the year 1858-59, p. 107, par. 2 ; p. 142, pars. 183-4 ;
p. 143, par. 187. Annual Report of the Central Jail, Hyderabad Assigned
Districts, at NiiXdroog, foi- tlie year eiuling on 31a< Dec. 1857, pp. 16-18.
Report on the Administration of Mysore for 1857-58, p. 44. Annual Repiort
on the Administration of the Madras Presidency during the year 1858-59, pp.
337-8, pars. 371-2 B ; p. 341, par. 390. Enclosures to Secret Letters from
India, 4 July, 1857, pp. 506, 510; Aug. 1857, pp. 243-4, 1152-3 ; 8 to 22 Oct.
1857, pp. 780-1. Pari. Papers, vol. xxx. (1857), pp. 355, 579.
- Written in 1882. Lord Strathnairu died in 1885.
&iaatpiu;e^?.
I
CHAPTER XVI
CAMPAIGNS OF SIR HUGH ROSE AND WHITLOCK
Soon after the return of Sir Robert Hamilton from furlough,
the Governor-General had asked him to draw up a
plan for the restoration of order in Central India, ^j^. j^Q^ert
Sir Robert Hamilton suggested that a Bombay Hamilton's
plan for the
column, starting from Mhow, should march by way pacification of
of Jhansi to Kalpi ; and that a Madras column, Central India,
starting from Jubbulpore, should march across Bundelkhand to
Banda. The plan was submitted to the Commander-in-Chief,
and received his sanction. The operations of the two columns
were not to be isolated, but to form part of a large general
combination. While supporting each other, they were not only
to restore order in Central India, but also to draw off the pres-
sure of the Gwalior Contingent and other rebels on the rear of
Sir Colin's army.^
The officer selected to command the Bombay column was
Major-General Sir Hugh Rose. Early in his mili-
tary career, which had extended over thirty-seven
years, he had been employed in suppressing disturbances in
Ireland. "-^ In 1840 he had served with distinction in Syria. As
Consul-General at Beyrout, as Secretary to the Embassy and
subsequently as Charg6 d' Affaires at Constantinople, he had
proved himself a clever diplomatist and a statesman of keen
discernment and swift decision. There are many who remember
the splendid fearlessness of responsibility with which, in the
absence of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, he checkmated Prince
MenschikofF by ordering the British fleet to sail from Malta to
^ Life of Lord Clyde, vol. ii. pp. 190, 264, note 1.
" Calcutta Review, vol. xli. 1865, — Art. "Sir Hugh Rose," pp. 172-3.
504 CAMPAIGNS OF SIR HUGH ROSE AND WHITLOCK ch. xvi
Besika Bay. Some, too, of his old comrades could tell how he
fought at the Alma, at Inkerman, and before Sebastopol.
Although he had never served in India, he had an instinctive
perception of the conditions of success in Indian warfare. But
his whole personality was strikingly unlike that of any of the
other heroes of the mutiny. The stern resolution of the soldier
was overlaid by the polish of the man of fashion. His gal-
lantry was as conspicuous in the drawing-room as on the field
of battle. His enemies might have said that he exemplified
the Duke's saying, that dandies often make the best officers.
In many respects, indeed, his character resembled that of
Claverhouse, — but of Claverhouse as he appears in the pages of
Scott, not in those of Macaulay.
On the 16th of December Sir Hugh arrived at Indore. The
army of which he was about to take command
tfon^'^^^^'^^ was divided into two brigades, comjDrising two
regiments of European infantry, one of European
cavalry, four of native infantry, four of native cavalry, bodies
of artillery, sappers and miners, and a siege-train. Some of
these corps were very weak in numbers ; and all were under-
officered.^ The 1st brigade, under Brigadier Stuart, was at
Mhow ; the 2nd, under Brigadier Steuart, at Sehore. Sir
Hugh resolved to Avait until he should hear that General Whit-
lock, who commanded the Madras column, was ready to advance
to the relief of Saugor. While the men of the 1st brigade,
who had but just returned from the Malwa campaign, rested
and enjoyed themselves in the pleasant country round Mhow
and Indore, he busied himself in completing his arrangements.
Some critics, presuming that because he had never been in
India before, he would fail in the task he had undertaken, spoke
of him as a "griff"; but the vigour which he displayed from
the moment that he took command soon turned the laugh
against them. On Christmas night he dined with a number
of his officers at Mhow. The room was decorated with green
leaves and the banners captured in the Malwa campaign. The
meeting was a happy one : but the merriment of some Avas
so])ered when they asked themselves how many of their number
would be spared to celebrate another Christmas day.- The
1 Pari. Papers, vol. xlii. 1864, p. 182.
- Calcutta Reviev\ lit svpra, p. 181 ; T. Lowe's Central India during (he
Rebellion <>/' 1857-58, pp. 152, 154-7.
1858 CAMPAIGNS OF SIR HUGH ROSE AND WHITLOCK 505
new year came ; and Sir Hugh, learning that Whitlock would
not be able to take the field for some time, and knowing that
the garrison of Saugor was in peril, resolved to begin his march
at once.^ Accordingly, on the 6th of January, he set out
with Sir Robert Hamilton, who was to accompany the force as
political officer, for Sehore. The 1st brigade was to clear the
Grand Trunk Road, and afterwards to join in the siege of Jhansi.
On the 16th Sir Hugh marched out of Sehore with the 2nd
brigade, intending to open the campaign by attack-
ing Ratgarh, a fort situated in the Saugor district. R^t-'axL
For a week the troops toiled on across rivers,
through jungle, and over hills. On the morning of the 24th
they came in sight of Ratgarh. The eastern and southern
faces of the fort, which stood on the spur of a long hill over-
grown with jungle, rose sheer above a deep and rapid river
called the Bi'na : the western face overlooked the town and the
road along which the troops were advancing. The enemy were
discerned in the town, and lining the banks of the stream.
After a brisk skirmish, Sir Hugh invested the town and the
fort. By the evening of the 26th, the sappers had cut a road
up the hill to a point opposite the northern face of the fort,
and the enemy had been expelled from the town. The guns
were dragged up the road. A mortar battery was speedily
thrown up, and opened fire at eleven o'clock. At five o'clock
next morning the breaching battery was ready. On the
morning of the 28th, while the guns were still thundering at
the wall, a swarm of camp-followers came running into the rear
of the force, shrieking with terror. The cause of their alarm
was soon apparent. A large force of rebels, with standards
flying, were seen descending the bank of the river, and preparing
to cross. It was the army of the Raja of Banpur coming to
relieve the beleaguered garrison.
Not deigning to pause for a moment in the work of the
siege. Sir Hugh detached a portion of his force to deal with
the intruders. The artillery dashed down to the bank, and
threw shell and grape across the river into their ranks • and,
before the cavalry and infantry could get at them, they flung
away their muskets and flags, and fled. At ten o'clock that
night the breach seemed practicable ; and it was generally
expected that the assault would take place in the morning.
^ Calcutta Review, ut supra, p. 182.
506 CAMPAIGNS OF SIR HUGH ROSE AND WHITLOCK ch.xvi
When, however, the besiegers awoke, they noticed that a
strange stillness prevailed within the fort. Two officers, re-
solving to find out for themselves what had happened, jumped
down into the ditch, and scrambled up the breach. They
found only a few old men, women, and childi'en inside. Ropes
were hanging from the top of the eastern wall ; and one or two
mangled bodies lay on the ground below. The garrison, in
despair, had evidently let themselves down by the ropes in the
night, and eluded the troops who ought to have intercepted
them.^
The sappers and miners proceeded to demolish the fort.
While they were doing so. Sir Hugh heard that
anuary oO. ^j^g rebels had rallied near a village called Barodia,
Battle of situated about fifteen miles off, not far from the
Barodia. . '
river. He promptly ordered out a portion of the
force, and, after a laborious march of twelve miles through
dense jungle, caught sight of the rebels posted on the opposite
bank of the river. Fighting his way across, he pressed on
through the jungle to Barodia, scattered the rebels, and returned
at night to Ratgarh.'- The blow which he had stru^ck so cowed
the rebels round Saugor that they made no attempt to oppose
his advance. On the morning of the 3rd of February he came
in sight of the fort, rising above a hill in the heart of the town.
The villagers, who had been mercilessly robbed by the rebels,
assembled in thousands to welcome him. As the
Sau^r!'^ ° troops approached the town, the Europeans of the
garrison, riding on elephants or horses, or driving
in buggies, came to meet them ; and crowds of natives in dresses
of many colours, lined each side of the road. Thus escorted,
and saluted by the guns of the fort, the column marched
through the streets, and encamped on the further side of the
town.^
The district, however, was still menaced by a large force of
rebels and mutineers, who had taken possession of
Garhakota. ^ ^o^t called Garhakota, about twenty -five miles
east of Saugor. On the 9th, Sir Hugh marched to
1 Pari. Papers, vol. xlii. 1864, p. 187 ; Calcutta Gazette, July-Dec. 1859, pp.
2'286-9 ; Lowe, pp. 163, 166, 171-82. The troops whom the garrison eluded were
levies lent by the Begam of Bhopal.
■■^ lb. pp. 182-3. Calcutta Gazette, July-Dec. 1859, pp. 2290-1.
^ Lowe, pp. 186-7, 189 ; Enclosures to Secret Letters from India, Feb. 1858,
p. 592.
1858 CAMPAIGNS OF SIR HUGH ROSE AND WHITLOCK 507
reduce this stronghold. On the 17th he returned. His force
had been too small to invest the whole circuit of
the fort ; and the garrison had escaped through an Feb. 12.
unguarded gate.
Sir Hugh was eager to push on as early as possible for
Jhansi, and avenge the massacre of the preceding p^.^ aratious
year ; but two circumstances compelled him to halt for tue attack
for a time. He was in need of supplies, and the
country round Saugor had been so completely devastated that
they could not be procured at once. Moreover, he felt that it
would be rash to leave Saugor until he should hear that Whit-
lock was on his way to occupy it. Meanwhile he sent an order
to Stuart to strike off eastward from the Grand Trunk Road,
and attack the fort of Chanderi ; for he knew that so long as
the rebels held this strong position on his left, he could not
safely lay siege to Jhansi. The supplies were collected as speedily
as possible : the Saugor arsenal was ransacked for fresh guns and
ammunition ; and the troops were provided with loose stone-
coloured cotton trousers, blouses, and puggerees, as a precaution
against the fierce heat which they would soon have to endure.^
The enforced delay went far to neutralise the good effects
of the capture of Garhakota. The rebels were pi„htin<^ in the
emboldened to occupy the strongest positions in mus south of
. . Shah'^arh.
the mountain range that separates the district of
Saugor from Shahgarh."^ On the 27th, soon after midnight,
the column resumed its march. Immediately afterwards,
rockets were seen shooting up from the town. The baffled
rebels evidently intended to warn their friends in the mountains
to be on the alert.^ Next day Sir Hugh captui^ed ^ v, ., -
a fort called Barodia, in which he left a garrison
to keep up his communications with Saugor. He was informed
that the Raja of Banpur, believing that the British must
advance through the pass of Narut, near Malthon, had occupied
it with eight or ten thousand men, and barricaded it with
boulders of rock. But there was another pass, called the pass
of Madanpur, which, though likewise occupied by rebels, offered
an easier entrance into Shahgarh. Sir Hugh determined to foil
the Raja by making his real attack on this pass, while sending
a detachment to make a feint against the other. On the 3rd
^ Lowe, pp. 198-200 ; Calcutta Gazette, Jau.-Juue, 1858, p. 951.
2 lb. pp. 951-3, 3 Lowe, pp. 205-6.
508 CAMPAIGNS OF SIR HUGH ROSE AND WHITLOCK cH.xvi
of March he reached the foot of the hills. At five o'clock next
morning he broke up his encampment, and, after a flank march
of five or six miles under the hills, plunged into a deep wooded
glen, which led towards the pass. Immediately afterwards a
succession of sharp reports resounded from the heights on either
side : the roar of artillery reverberated from the distant gorge ;
and the glen was overclouded with smoke. The British artillery
pushed forward to reply, while two regiments of infantry
swarmed up the steep rocks on the left. Still the rebels held
their ground. Bullets fell so fast and so thick among the
British gunners that they were actually obliged to withdraAV
the guns some way. Sir Hugh himself had his horse shot
under him. At last more guns were brought up, and shelled
the rebels who were massed in the jungle on the left of the
pass : the infantry charged ; and the enemy fled, piu'sued by the
cavalry, over the hills and through the gorge. ^ The rebels in
Shahgarh were so terrified by this disaster that they precipitately
abandoned a number of strong forts, and made no attempt to
defend the river Betwa, which lay between the British force and
Jhdnsi. Accordingly, on the 17th of March, the column crossed
that river.^ Next day it was announced in the camp that
Brigadier Stuart had captured Chanderi.
On the morning of the 20th, Sir Hugh halted within four-
teen miles of Jhdnsi, and sent on a small force to
judged 'order, reconnoitre. Suddenly a despatch from the Com-
mander-in-Chief was put into his hands. He
found that it contained an order to march at once to the aid
of a loyal chief, the Raja of Charkhari, who was besieged in
his fort by the Gwalior Contingent under Tdntia Topi. He
saw that the Commander-in-Chief had made a great mistake.
If he were to retire from Jhansi, the Rani and her people would
feel that they had won a moral victory ; and eleven thousand
rebels and mutineers would be let loose upon his line of opera-
tions and upon that of Whitlock. Moreover, if Sir Robert
Hamilton's spies were to be trusted, it would be impossible to
relieve Charkhari in time. On the other hand, a bold attack
on Jhansi would probably lead Tantia to abandon the siege of
Charkhari, and hasten to the relief of the Rani. Yet, what
could Sir Hugh do but obey the order of his military superior ?
^ Calcutta Oazette.vt svpra, pp. 951-3 ; Enclosures to Secret Letters from, hidia,
15-31 Mar. 1858, p. 168. - Lowe, p. 227.
1858 CAMPAIGNS OF SIR HUGH ROSE AND WHITLOCK 509
Fortunately Sir Robert Hamilton had the wisdom and the
courage to help him out of his difficulty. He was not a soldier,
but a political officer, and, as such, might venture to use his
own discretion. Though he had received from the Governor-
General an order similar to that sent by the Commander-in-
Chief, he took upon himself the responsibility of directing Sir
Hugh to go on Avith his operations against Jhansi.^
Meanwhile the Rani had been distracted by the conflicting
exhortations of her counsellors. The sepoys who
had rallied round her pressed her to fight. On The Rani and
p 1 • •! rv -1 • her advisers.
the other hand, some of her civil officers advised her
to make terms. On the 14th she held a council of war. Some
of those present insisted that it would be madness to attempt
to resist the invincible English. Others declared that it would
be mean to surrender without a struggle the kingdom which had
been regained with so much toil. Their counsels prevailed. ^
At seven o'clock on the morning of the 21st, the column
arrived before Jhansi, and piled their arms on the
right of the road. Sir Hugh at once rode oflf with
his staff to reconnoitre. Before him stretched the charred
ruins of the cantonments. Further to the north, on a high
rock rising above the city, towered the huge granite walls of
the fort, above which, on a white turret gleaming under the
morning sun, floated the standard of the Rdni. Just outside
the city, the landscape was diversified by picturesque lakes,
gardens, temples, and woods ; to the north and east stretched
a long belt of hills, through which ran the road to Kdlpi ; and
all around, as far as the eye could reach, extended a desolate
plain, only relieved here and there by bare granite crags.
Sir Hugh rode about all day, scanning the features of the
stronghold. The walls of the fort were of a thickness varying
from sixteen to twenty feet, and were strengthened by a
number of high towers, on all of which guns were mounted,
and by outworks. Part of the southern, the northern, and
the eastern face were protected by the city, which was in its
turn surrounded by a granite wall, about twenty-five feet high,
loopholed, and strengthened at intervals by bastions mounting
guns : the western face was rendered impregnable by the
steepness of the rock ; while the city wall, running in a south-
^ See App. Q.
^ Enclosures to Secret Letters from India, April, 1858, pp. 193, 214.
510 CAMPAIGNS OF SIR HUGH ROSE AND WHITLOCK ch.xvi
easterly direction from the centre of the southern face,
terminated in a high mound fortified by a circular bastion.
Sir Hugh saw that it would be impossible to breach the fort.
He determined therefore to breach the southern wall of the city
as near the fort as he could ; and to this end it was necessary to
capture the mound. ^
In the night the cavalry of the 1st brigade arrived from
Chanderi. Sir Hugh, mindful of what had
occurred at Ratgarh and Garhakota, was deter-
mined that the garrison should not escape his clutches.
Next day, therefore, notwithstanding the small-
Mar '''' . . T
ness of his force, he invested the city and fort
with his cavalry. The garrison, who numbered some ten
thousand Bundelas and Wilayatis,^ and fifteen hundred sepo3'^s,
must have been astounded at his daring. By the evening of
the 24th, four batteries had been thrown up, — one near a
temple on the south, and the others on a rocky knoll, about
five hundred yards from the eastern wall of the town. Next
morning they opened fire. A few hours later some
Mar 25 o */ i
haystacks in the southern quarter of the city were
struck by shells, and burst into a blaze ; the flames spread,
and soon all the neighbouring houses were on fire. In the
course of the day the remainder of the 1st brigade
Mar ^G ... .
arrived with the siege-train. Next morning fresh
batteries were thrown up on another rocky knoll on the left,
about four hundred yards from the fort.
The real struggle now began. The besiegers, obliged to be
always ready to obey any summons, never took off their clothes.
The burden of their toil was aggravated by intolerable heat.
Every day, from sunrise to sunset, they were exposed to a
fierce glare which radiated from the sun-beaten crags, and
half-stifled by blasts of hot wind sweeping over the plain.
But, by taking frequent draughts of water, and keeping wet
towels bound round their heads, they were able to mitigate the
eff"ects of the sun ; and, above all, they were sustained by
excitement and by the terrible stimulant of lust for revenge.
Moreover, they knew ' that their General was sharing their
^ Calcutta Gazette, Jan. -June, 1858, pp. 1193-1200 ; Lowe, pp. 232-4 ; Pari.
Papers, vol. xlii. 1864, p. 187.
^ "Wilayati" means a foreigner. As used by sepoys, tlie term generally
denotes an Afghan : l>ut I do not know wlietlier these W^ilayatis were all Afghans
or not.
1858 CAMPAIGNS OF SIR HUGH ROSE AND WHITLOCK 511
hardships, and continually saw him, and heard his cheery-
voice. Thus encouraged, the infantry kept up a galling fire
against the rebels who lined the walls, while the gunners
hurled shot and shell without ceasing into the city, and against
the fort. But the garrison, conscious that they were all
implicated in the inexpiable crime of the preceding June, and
knowing that the fall of their stronghold would involve the
ruin of the rebel cause in that part of India, were as resolute
to hold the fortress as their opponents were to wrest it from
their grasp. Their guns never ceased firing except at night.
Even women were seen working in the batteries, and distribut-
ing ammunition. Yet, in spite of all that they could do, they
gradually lost ground. On the 29th the parapets of the mound
bastion were battered down, and its guns silenced. Next day
a breach appeared in the city wall. It Avas
. Mar 30
promptly stockaded ; but presently the besiegers
opened a fire of red-hot shot which destroj^ed much of the
stockade. Next evening, while the bombardment
• Mar 31
was still going on, the attention of the besiegers
and the besieged was suddenly diverted from the struggle. A
huge bonfire, the appearance of which was greeted by exultant
shouts from the besieged, M^as blazing on one of the hills
between the city and the Betwa ; and flags were seen flying
from a telegraph post which Sir Hugh had caused to be erected
on a neighbouring hill. The signals indicated that Tantia Topi
was marching to relieve Jhansi. Sir Hugh was in a battery on
the right when his aide-de-camp hurried up Avith the news.
He rode off calmly to make his dispositions.
It would be difficult to exaggerate the magnitude of the
peril which now confronted him. Eleven thousand desperate
rebels and mutineers, holding one of the strongest fortresses in
India, and inspired by a woman of genius and masculine
resolution, defied him to dislodge them. Twenty-two thousand
rebels and mutineers, led by a general who had defeated the
hero of the Eedan, threatened to dislodge him. But his judge-
ment was unclouded, and his nerve unshaken. Knowing that
it would be fatal to raise the siege even for a day, he pressed
on the work of bombardment as vigorously as ever, and, without
withdrawing a single piquet from its place, collected from the
two brigades all the men whom he could spare, and prepared to
attack Tantia on the morrow.
512 CAMPAIGNS OF SIR HUGH ROSE AND WHITLOCK ch.xvi
The bulk of Tantia's force was on the right flank of the
British, between the belt of hills and the Betwa.
Betwa °^ ^^^ ^^^^ remainder had been detached for the purpose
of relieving the city on the north. Soon after
sunset the men of the 1st brigade struck their camp, and
marched to frustrate this movement : opposite the right flank
of the enemy they halted unobserved, and lay down to rest in
their clothes. Meanwhile the 2nd brigade remained under
arms in their camp. Presently masses of the enemy swarmed
down, and took up a position opposite them. During the
night their sentries kept taunting those of the British, and
telling them that they would all be sent to hell on the morrow,
while the garrison exultantly shouted, fired salutes, bugled,
and beat torn - toms. About half - past four the
^" ' British piquets began to fall back. The enemy
were advancing. Seeing this, the rebels in the fort and city
mounted the walls and bastions, and, with loud yells, poured
down volleys of musketry on the besiegers. But the besiegers,
undismayed, went on with their work. By this time the battle
had begun. After firing a few volleys, the British infantry
were ordered to lie down. The artillery continued firing ; but,
in spite of all that they could do, the first line of the rebels
steadily advanced. Sir Hugh saw that, if they were not
checked, they would outflank his little force, and swoop down
upon the besiegers. As quick as thought, he sent the horse-
artillery and a squadron of dragoons against their right flank,
and, at the head of another squadron, himself charged the left.
The flanks gave way ; the centre, bewildered and terrified at
what they saw, halted and huddled together ; the British
infantry leaped to their feet, fired one volley, and charged
them ; and the whole of the first line fled.
When the smoke cleared away, it was seen that they had
fallen back on the second. Suddenly the force which Tantia
had detached on the previous night came rushing on to his
right flank, pursued by the 1st brigade. He saw that he
must retreat at once. Setting fire to the jungle in his front
to hinder the pursuers, he crossed the Betwa, skilfully covering
his passage by an artillery-fire ; but the British cavalry and
horse-artillery rushed over the blazing jungle, splashed through
the water, and galloped in pursuit. At sunset they rejoined
their comrades, bringing with them twenty-eight captured guns.
1858 CAMPAIGNS OF SIR HUGH ROSE AND WHITLOCK 513
Sir Hugh now resolved to follow up his victory as soon a,s
possible. Next day he was informed that the . ^.jj ,
breach was just practicable. He determined,
therefore, to deliver the assault early on the follow- Plan of assault
ing morning. The assaulting force was divided
into two parts, called the right attack and the left attack, each
of which was subdivided into two columns and a reserve. The
signal for the assault was to be given by the guns of a small
detachment which was to make a feint against the western
wall. Then the right attack was to escalade the wall, while
the right column of the left attack was to storm the breach,
and the left to escalade a tower known as the " Rocket Tower,"
and the curtain on its right.
At three o'clock in the morning the columns marched silently
down to their respective positions. The moon
was very bright, and the men of the right attack, xhe^a'ssauit
fearful of being discovered, waited for some time
in agonising suspense for the signal. At length the order to
advance was whispered ; the sappers hoisted the ladders on
their shoulders, and moved on ; and the troops followed with
their swords and bayonets glistening in the pale light. As
they turned into the road leading towards the wall, the blast
of bugles was heard ; the wall and the towers were lighted up
by a sheet of fire ; and round shot, bullets, and rockets flew
down upon them. Notwithstanding, they pushed on ; the
sappers planted their ladders ; but now the bullets flew more
thickly, and, while cannon roared, and rockets hissed and burst,
and tom-toms clashed, stink-pots, stones, blocks of wood, and
trees crashed down from the wall, and the columns, moment-
arily wavering, sought shelter from the pelting storm. Still
the sappers stood fast under the wall, holding on to the
ladders. Presently the stormers regained their courage, and
began to climb ; but three of the ladders snapped under the
weight, and numbers of men were thrown to the ground. The
check, however, was but momentary ; the engineer officers led
the men forward again ; and now Lieutenant Dick ran up one
of the ladders, and, springing on to the wall, called to the
men to follow, while Lieutenant Meiklejohn leajDed down into
the midst of the rebels. The men clambered up from be-
hind and gained the rampart ; but Dick and Meiklejohn were
slain.
514 CAMPAIGNS OF SIR HUGH ROSE AND WHITLOCK CH.xvi
The battle was still raging on the rampart when a shout
of triumph was heard, and the men of the left attack, having
fought their way through the breach, or over the curtain,
threw themselves upon the flank and rear of the rebels who
were grappling Avith the right attack. Paralysed by this un-
expected movement, the rebels fell back, and the left attack
joined the right.
Then began a grim struggle for the possession of the street
leading to the palace. House after house was desperately
defended, and resolutely stormed. Many rebels whose retreat
was cut off jumped down into the wells ; but the infuriated
soldiers dragged them out and slew them. The street was
choked with corpses, and the houses on either side were all
ablaze. At length the soldiers reached the further end of
the street, and, making a rush to escape the cannonade which
Avas still kept up from the fort, streamed through the palace
gateway, and fought their way from room to room, until the
whole building was in their hands. But some forty sowars
still held a room attached to the stables. The room was set on
fire. Then the sowars rushed out, their clothes all aflame, and
hacked wildly with their tulwars at their assailants ; but every
man of them was put to the sword.
By this time many of the surviving rebels had lost heart,
and begun to retreat. Some who attempted to make a stand
in the suburbs were speedily put to flight. On the night of
the 4th, the Rani stole out of the fort with a
™8|itofthe fg^y attendants, and rode for Kalpi. Her de-
parture was the signal for a general retreat. A
few desperate men, indeed, still held oiit in their homes ; but
on the 6th the last group was slain, and the blood-stained city
was again in British hands. ^
By this time, however, the extraordinary hardships of the
campaign were beginning to make themselves
pJu^'fwthe' ^6^^- '^^® ^^^^ ^^^^ "^'^^ becoming longer every
capture of (Jay. But rest was not to be thought of until
Kalpi should be taken. For nearly three Aveeks
Sir Hugh remained at Jhansi, collecting supplies and ammu-
^ Lowe, pp. 237-61 ; Calcutta Review, p. 189 ; C'akntta Gazette, id supra,
pp. 1193-1200 ; Pari. Papers, vol. xlii. 1864, p. 188 ; G. C. Stent's Personal
AdventureJi while in the 4lh (King's) Light Dragoons, pp. 201-7. Stent relates
how, during the siege, he himself and other British soldiers plundered and slew
defenceless citizens, who nightly tried to escape from the town.
1858 CAMPAIGNS OF SIR HUGH ROSE AND WHITLOCK 515
nition. Major Orr was sent out to prevent any rebels from
crossing the Betwa and doubling back to the south; and
Major Gall was ordered to proceed up the Kdlpi road and
procure information of their movements. A brigade under
Brigadier Smith was coming from Eajputdna to secure Jhansi
from the possible attacks of the rebels in that country. Sir
Hugh was thus relieved from anxiety for the stability of his
conquest. On the 25th he began his march up the Kalpi road,
leaving a small garrison in Jhansi. On the 1 st of May he over-
took Gall at Punch, and learned from him that Tdntia Topi,
reinforced by various disaffected rajas and five hundred Wildyatis
under the Rdni, had left Kdlpi, whither he had retreated after
his defeat at the Betwa, and marched down the road to a town
called Kiinch. The fact was that Tantia knew very well how
his enemies were suffering from the heat, and hoped to be able
to wear them out before they could reach Kalpi. Sir Hugh, on
his part, while aware that his troops could not hold out much
longer, was determined that they should not break down within
sight of the goal. He had learned by experience that the surest
way of shattering the confidence of the rebels was to turn their
position, and he had ascertained that the north-western side of
Kiinch was unfortified. He therefore resolved to make a flank
march to a position facing that side. Before daybreak on the
6th he began his march. The men were very weary from
continued want of sleep ; and, as the sun rose higher, they
became more and more nervous and excitable, and kept crying
hysterically for water. At length, after a march of fourteen
miles, they halted. Kiinch, half hidden by a belt
of woods, gardens, and temples, lay two miles off l^inih"^
on their right. Orr, who had inflicted a defeat
upon the Raja of Bdnpur, but had failed to cut off his retreat,
was already on the ground. The 1st brigade was posted on the
left, the 2nd brigade in the centre, and Orr's force on the right.
While the men of the 1st brigade rested and ate their break-
fasts, an artillery -fire was opened upon the rebels who were
posted among the trees. After some time, the bulk of them
retreated into the town ; but some still stood their ground out-
side. Sir Hugh, therefore, advanced with the 1st brigade, swept
this remnant out of the gardens and temples, drove them into
the town, and, chasing them through the streets, captured the
fort. Thence he hastened to support the 2nd brigade, which
516 CAMPAIGNS OF SIR HUGH ROSE AND WHITLOCK ch.xvi
was striving in vain to dislodge some rebel infantry who had
posted themselves in cultivated ground on its right. Now,
however, feeling their flank menaced by the 1st brigade, they
broke and fled. Tantia's line of defence was now cut in two,
and his right turned. Meanwhile, Orr had moved round the
east of the town, with the object of cutting off the rebels' re-
treat. Before he could intercept them, however, they succeeded
in gaining the plain stretching towards Kdlpi, The 1st brigade
hurried in pursuit through the narrow, winding streets of the
town. Entering the plain, they descried the rebels steadily
retreating in a long irregular line, supported at intervals by
groups of skirmishers, who served it as bastions. The infantry
were so exhausted that it would have been cruel to send them
in pursuit. Dooly after dooly, laden with officers and men,
some dead from sunstroke, others deliriously laughing and
sobbing, kept coming into the field-hospital. Sir Hugh, there-
fore, contented himself with sending the cavalry and horse-
artillery to deal with the fugitives. The cavalry charged down
upon the skirmishers on the right and left, while the artillery
showered grape into the centre. But the rebels kept their
presence of mind. The bastion-like groups held together, and
enabled the line to move on unbroken. Some of the skir-
mishers, when hard pressed by the cavalry, threw away their
muskets and struck out desperately with their swords. A
number of those on the right were so bold as to fall back with
the object of enfilading the pursuers; but the 14th Light
Dragoons charged them, and cut them off from their comrades.
At last all the groups were driven on to the line. Then all lost
their nerve, poured into the Kalpi road, and ran for their
lives. Some were seized with heat -apoplexy, and fell dead.
Others, even when the cavalry were upon them, stopped at the
wells to cool their baked lips with a draught of water. But
the horses of the pursuers were now so tired that they could
barely walk. The pursuit, therefore, was soon abandoned ; and
the long stream of fugitives poured away towards their last
asylum.^
By this time Whitlock should have been ready to take his
share in the operations against Kalpi, But, OAving
campaign.^ partly to adverse circumstances, partly to his own
inactivity, he was too late. On the 17th of
1 Calcutta Gazette, JiUy-Dec. 18.58, pp. 1617-21 ; Lowe, pp. 271-6.
1858 CAMPAIGNS OF SIR HUGH ROSE AND WHITLOCK 517
February he started from Jubbulpore, and, taking a circuitous
route through Rewah, for the purpose of overawing its rebellious
zamindars, arrived on the 4th of March at Damoh, a town in
the Saugor and Nerbudda Territories. Next day he entered
Saugor with a part of his force. A week later he Mar. 5.
returned to Damoh. On the 1 7th he received Mar. 12.
orders from the Governor -General to go to the
assistance of the loyal rajas of Bundelkhand, and open communica-
tions with Sir Hugh Rose. Setting out on the 22nd, he moved
slowly in the direction of Banda. On the morning of the 19th
of April he arrived before that town, and found that his
entrance was to be disputed. The enemy, commanded by the
Nawab of Banda, were nine thousand strong ; their fi'ont was
protected by numerous ravines and nullahs; and their guns
commanded the road by which Whitlock was advancing. The
main body of the British was still some way behind, when the
advanced guard, under Colonel Apthorp, came under the fire of
the enemy's guns. Apthorp at once endeavoured to turn their
left. Every nullah was stubbornly defended. At last the
main body arrived. Even then, however, the resistance was
maintained; many hand-to-hand combats took place; and it
was not till the battle had lasted six or seven hours that the
Nawab and his followers fled.^
Whitlock took up his quarters at Banda, intending to wait
there until the arrival of reinforcements should enable him to
march for Kalpi. But the reinforcements did not make their
appearance until the 27th of May.
Meanwhile, Sir Hugh prepared to finish the campaign un-
aided. Indeed, if a startling change of fortune ^
' • 1 1 1 -1 Fears and
had not occurred, he might have done so without hopes of the
a contest. After the battle of Kunch, Tantia fled
to his home. His beaten troops, as they trudged back to
Kalpi, quarrelled among themselves. The infantry accused
the cavalry of having pusillanimously deserted them at the
critical moment. All ranks joined in abusing Tantia for having
run away before the close of the battle. So demoralised were
they that, hearing on the day after their return to Kalpi that
Sir Hugh was approaching, they dispersed over the surrounding
country. Soon afterwards, however, the Nawab of Banda, with
^ Mallesou, vol. iii. pp. 191-5, 197-8 ; Calcutta Gazette, Jan.-Juue, 1858,
pp. 1108-12.
518 CAMPAIGNS OF SIR HUGH ROSE AND WHITLOCK ch. xvi
his own followers and a large force of mutinous cavalry, arrived
in Kalpi. Thereupon the fugitives plucked up courage to
return, A nephew of the Nana, known as the Rao Sahib, was at
Kalpi ; and his presence shed a reflected lustre on their cause.
The Nawab and the Rdni impressed them by the energy with
which they prepared for defence, and adjured them to hold
their only remaining stronghold to the last. They reflected
that, so long as it remained intact, the pivot of Central India
belonged to them ; and their spirits bounded from despaii- to
the highest pitch of confidence. Nor was their confidence
without foundation. The villagers of the neighbourhood,
stimulated by the exhortations of Maratha pundits who were
preaching a crusade on behalf of the Nana, were all on their
side. Moreover, if the British had been invariably successful
hitherto, Kdlpi appeared strong enough to defy even their
prowess. The fort stood on a steep and lofty rock springing
from the southern bank of the Jumna, and was protected in
front by no less than five lines of defence, — a chain of ravines,
the town, a second chain of ravines, eighty-four temples of
solid masonry, and, on the outside, a line of entrenchments.
The eastern and western faces were also surrounded by ravines.
Moreover, the rebels had taken care to fortify the Kalpi road,
along which they expected that the British would advance.
But Sir Hugh had no intention of fulfilling their expecta-
tions. The Commander-in-Chief had detached a
n|f/^^°pf force under Colonel Maxwell to co-operate with
him ; and he learned that this force was posted
on the northern bank of the Jumna, opposite a village called
CTolauli, about six miles east of Kalpi. He accordingly
struck off the road to the right, and marched for Golauli,
which he reached on the 15th. By this manoeuvre he had at
once turned the fortifications on the road and the five lines of
defence, and virtually effected a junction with the Commander-
in-Chief's army.
The troops were now fearfully exhausted. Sir Hugh
himself had had five sunstrokes ; and even the powerful
remedies which he took could hardly have enabled him to
sustain the pressure of incessant toil and anxious thought, if he
had not resolved that, let his constitution suffer as it might, he
would never rest until he had conquered KAlpi. The rebel
leaders, knowing how their opponents were suffering, issued a
1858 CAMPAIGNS OF SIR HUGH ROSE AND WHITLOCK 619
general order stating that, "as the European infidels either
died or had to go into hospital from fighting in the sun, they
were never to be attacked before ten o'clock in the day, in
order that they might feel its force." On the 16th and four
following days they continually harassed Sir Hugh by desultory
attacks. Sir Hugh, resolved not to play into their hands,
contented himself with simply repelling these attacks, while
steadily maturing his OAvn plans for striking a decisive blow.
Notwithstanding all his care, however, the condition of the
troops became daily worse. Half of them were sick ; all were
more or less ailing. More than two hundred men of a single
native regiment, numbering less than four hundred, had fallen
out of the ranks on the 16th. The superintending surgeon
reported that, if the operations were protracted much longer,
the whole force would be prostrated. Yet the men would not
increase the anxieties of their General by a single complaint.
Meanwhile, Maxwell was busily erecting batteries on the
northern bank of the river. Sir Hugh's plan Avas that these
batteries should shell the city and fort, while he himself cleared
the eastern ravines, and attacked the left face of the fort. His
army, which had been strengthened by a reinforcement from
Maxwell's detachment, was between the river and the Kalpi
road, the right flank being encamped perpendicularly to the
river, and facing the ravines. On the 21st he heard that the
rebels were going to attack him in earnest next morning, and
had sworn on the sacred waters of the Jumna to destroy his
force, or die.
At ten o'clock in the morning a large force was seen march-
ing across the plain, as though to turn the British ^^^^ g.,
left. Presently their guns opened fire on the Battle of
centre. A brisk artillery duel was kept up for
some time. Meanwhile all was so still in the ravines that Sir
Hugh felt sure that the attack on his left and centre was only
a feint, that his right was to be the real object of attack, and
that the enemy were trying to delude him into weakening it.
He resolved to catch them in their own trap. Accordingly, he
sent a company of infantry into the ravines, to try whether
any rebels were concealed there. Suddenly the roar of
artillery and the rattle of musketry were heard on the right ;
and the ravines were enveloped in fire and smoke. The
enemy, roused from their lair, were pressing forward to attack
520 CAMPAIGNS OF SIR HUGH ROSE AND WHITLOCK ch.xvi
the British right ; and now, overflowing the ravines, they ad-
vanced swiftly, with features distorted by opium and fury, and
uttering yells of triumph. Brigadier Stuart saw that his guns
were in danger. Springing from his horse, he took his stand
by them, and bade the gunners draw their swords, and defend
them with their lives. Sir Hugh heard the British fire be-
coming fainter and fainter, and that of the enemy louder and
louder. Knowing that the key of his position was imperilled,
he placed himself at the head of Maxwell's Camel Corps, and
rode at full speed to reinforce Stuart. There were the rebels
before him, within thirty yards of the guns. Ordering his men
to dismount, he charged at their head. The enemy Avavered,
turned, and fled headlong into the ravines.
Meanwhile the British centre and left had resolutely held
their ground. Their constancy was tried no longer. The left
centre pursued the fugitives through the ravines till they fell
from exhaustion. The left attacked the rebel right, which
soon gave way, disheartened by the failure of their comrades ;
and infantry, cavalry, and artillery rushed confusedly over the
plain, and disappeared in the ravines.
It was now near sunset, and the General knew that in a few
hours Kalpi would be his. Day had not dawned
May 23
when the camp was struck : but through the
darkness could be seen the flashes from Maxwell's batteries ;
and shells were flying across the river into the city. The 1st
brigade entered the ravines, and made their way through them
like beaters ; but the game had fled. Near the city, they were
joined by the 2nd brigade, which had followed the Kalpi road.
While Major Gall, with the cavalry and horse-artillery, went in
pursuit of the rebels, the two brigades entered Kalpi. Pigs
and pariah dogs were fighting over the corpses that lay scat-
tered over the streets ; but hardly a human being was to be seen.^
Sir Hugh had fulfilled his instructions. The next few days
startling Were Spent in preparations for breaking up the
news received army. On the 1st of June Sir Hugh issued his
^ "^ "^ ■ farewell order to the troops. He was looking
forAvard to starting, within a few days, for Poona, to recruit
his shattered health.- But his 2)lans were rudeh' (listurl)ed.
Calcutta Gazette, July-Dec. 1858, pp. 465-72; Lowe, pp. 282-94;
Sylvester's Campaign in Central India, p. 161 ; Calcutta Jievieiv, pp. 193-5.
- Lowe, pi>. 296-9.
1858 CAMPAIGNS OF SIR HUGH ROSE AND WHITLOCK 521
On the 4th of June he heard of an event, the news of which
caused throughout India a sensation hardly less than that
caused by the news of the first mutinies.^ Before going on to
see how he rose to the occasion, it will be necessary to trace
the influence which his campaign had exercised upon the course
of events in Northern India.
^ Calcutta Gazette, Jan. -June, 1859, Suppl. pp. 1-20.
CHAPTER XVII
CAMPAIGNS IN ROHILKHAND AND OUDH
Some weeks before Rose gained the victory near Kalpi, the
effect of his advance had begun to be felt in the
Effects of country north of the Jumna. The Gwalior Con-
torie^onttie tingcut and the rebels in Bundelkhand, who had
country north gQ long been threatening the rear of the Com-
01 the Jumna. i • /-~(i • o i ^ • ^ •
mander-in-Chiei s army, were threatened m their
turn by the Bombay column. ^ When, therefore, after the re-
capture of Lucknow, the Commander-in-Chief began to consider
what operation he ought to undertake next, he was free from
one great source of anxiety. The first subject that
Oudh.*'°" °^ engaged his attention was the condition of the pro-
vince of Oudh. Outram had sent out to many of the
talukdars, along with Canning's proclamation, a circular in which
he assured them that, provided they were innocent of the murder
of Europeans, none of their lands should be confiscated, and
their claims to lands which they had held before the annexa-
tion should be reheard. At first many of them accepted his
summons to surrender ; but soon they became suspicious and
withdrew."^ The fall of Lucknow had raised British prestige ;
but, owing to Sir Colin's remissness and Canning's ill-judged
severity, it had had no effect at all in tranquillising the sur-
rounding country. On the contrary, it had let loose a swarm
of sepoys, feudal retainers, convicts, and budmashes of every
sort, to strengthen the hands of the tdlukddrs who were deter-
mined to withstand the alien infidels to the bitter end. The
weakness of these rebels was their want of cohesion. Their
p. 335.
^ Blackiobod's Magazi7ie, Oct. 1858, p. 513.
* Sir G. Campbell's Memoirs, vol. ii. pp. 16-17 ; Life of Outram, vol. ii.
1858 CAMPAIGNS IN ROHILKHAND AND OUDH 523
aims were mainly personal. There was no man among them of
sufficient power, there was not sufficient dignity in their cause
to bind their ranks together into a serried mass. The sepoys,
the troops of the deposed King, the Mahomedan zealots, and
the tdlukddrs' clansmen formed distinct groups ; and the two
former were disheartened by defeat. On the other hand, the
numbers of the rebels were great ; they were well armed ; and
every tdlukdar among them had his fort, surrounded by dense
jungles which he or his ancestors had carefully grown and pre-
served as a special means of defence.^ Neither the sepoys nor
the tdlukdars had any recognised head. The leaders of the
other groups were the Begam, who, in spirit and ability, was
the rival of the Rani of Jhdnsi, and the Moulvi, who, though
not the equal of Hyder and Sivaji, was probably the most
capable, as he was certainly the most determined of the men
who fought against us in the Indian Mutiny. -
Even noAv, however, the majority of the population were
not rebels. The peasant cultivators, hardly noticing the storm
that was raging around them, tilled their fields as assiduously,
and, in due season, reaped as plenteously as in the most
peaceful times. But the zami'ndars, the yeomen of the country,
were less fortunately situated. If, on the one hand, the British
Government had established a claim to their gratitude, if they
had no reason to sympathise with the talukdars, who had robbed
them of their landed rights, yet on the other hand, the British
Government was a government of aliens and infidels ; the sepoy
mutineers, whom the rebel talukdars had joined, were their
kinsmen and co-religionists, and naturally looked to them for
support ; while the talukdars were their natural chiefs, under
whose lead they must place themselves if they wished to render
that support effectual. Paralysed by these conflicting con-
siderations, the majority of the zami'ndars remained neutral :
but the minority felt themselves bound by the ties of kinship
and religion, and threw in their lot with the tdlukdars.^
^ Before 1860, 1572 forts had been destroyed, and 714 cannon, exclusive
of those taken in action, surrendered. Pari. Papers, vol. xlvi. (1861), p. 527.
Tlie number of armed men who succumbed in Oudh was about 150,000, of whom
at least 35,000 were sepoys. Life of Lc/nl Clyde, vol. ii. p. 37'2.
- Sir T. Seaton's From Cadet to Colonel, vol. ii. p. 293 ; Pari. Papers, vol.
xviii. (1859), p. 285, par. 13.
^ Irwin's Garden of India, pp. 184-6 ; Oude Adviinistration Report for
1S5S-9, p. 33 ; Pari. Papers, vol. xviii. (1859), p. 290, par. 44 ; vol. xliii.
524 CAMPAIGNS IN ROHILKHAND AND OUDH CH. xvii
On the 24th of March Sii* Colin wrote to Canning, explain-
ing his views. The substance of his letter was,
w^i("Rohii-' that it would be wise to put off the reconquest of
y^Tsf '=°"*'"°- Eohilkhand till the autumn, and spend the inter-
vening time in systematically reducing the country
round Lucknow. He pointed out that, if this were not done,
the garrison of Lucknow might be blockaded and cut off from
supplies. Canning, for political reasons, would not accept his
friend's suggestion. The point on which he laid most stress
was, that while the Hindus of Eohilkhand were almost univer-
sally friendly to the British Government, their friendship might
give way, if the British Government delayed much longer to
rescue them from the tyranny of Khan Bahadur Khan. Sir
Colin was, in his heart, dissatisfied with Canning's decision.
He held that, as Oudh had been once invaded, it ought to be
completely disposed of before the reconquest of another pro-
vince was undertaken. But he had such a warm regard for
Canning, that he put his personal opinions wholly on one side,
and prepared with singleness of heart to execute his instructions.
His plan was that three cokmins, commanded re-
piau fo'Ahe spectively by Walpole, Penny, and Brigadier-
'SndiaucL^ General Jones, should invade Eohilkhand on the
south-east, south-west, and north-west, and, driving
the rebels before them, converge upon Bareilly, where the
decisive battle would probably be fought. These columns
would be supported by a fourth under Seaton, which, since
January, had been keeping watch over the central portion of
the Doab, and guarding the door of Eohilkhand at Fatehgarh.^
The operations of Sir Colin and his lieutenants in December
and January had wrought a great improvement in
tCDo!ib!°'^ the condition of the Doab. The mass of the
population heartily rejoiced over the discomfiture
of the rebels. The inhabitants of the districts of Etawah and
Muttra distinguished themselves by the zeal with which they
supported the re-established civil authorities. But the civil
authorities had to struggle night and day, and-to expose their
lives to continual dangers, in order to hold the ground which
had been recovered for them. Eebellious chiefs were still in
(1857-58), 1). 399, i)ar. 9 ; Endosiires to Secret Letters from India, Aug. 1858
pp. 286, 567.
1 Life of Lord Clyde, vol. ii. pp. 176-81; 182-5, 192-3, 198-9, 204-5.
1858 CAMPAIGNS IN ROHILKHAND AND OUDH 525
the field. Swarms of rebels from Kalpi, from Gwalior, and
from Jhansi, kept pouring across the Jnmna. So many rob-
beries were committed, so many public buildings were burned,
that journalists had never any lack of matter for sensational
writing. Hardly a week passed in which a column was not
sent into the field to disperse marauders. The marauders,
indeed, were invariably beaten. But early in April a new
danger appeared. Three strong bodies of rebels threatened an
invasion from Rohilkhand. Seaton was on the alert. March-
ing against the central body, which was posted in a group of
villages near Kankar, he inflicted upon them such a crushing
defeat that they and their comrades lost heart and abandoned
their design.^
Next day Walpole started from Lucknow with a powerful
little army, in which were included three regi-
ments of Highlanders. His brother officers who watpoie's'
remained behind, had no high opinion of his talents, ?}^J"9j! i"*°,
and asked each other in amazement what could
have induced Sir Colin to entrust him with those beloved
troops. For eight days his march was unopposed. On the
morning of the 15th he came in sight of a fort called Ruiyd.
He was positively informed that the tdlukdar who owned the
fort would be only too glad to evacuate it, as soon as he had
saved his honour by making a show of resistance. This in-
formation he would not believe. He might, however, at least
have taken the trouble to examine the fort itself. Had he
done so, he would have found that the wall, though high and
strong on the side opposite to him, was so low on the further
side that a man could have easily jumped over it. But he was
too self-confident or too careless to stoop to such routine work
as reconnoitring. What he did was to send some companies of
infantry, in skirmishing order, to attack the near side of the
fort. The rebel chief, perceiving his folly, naturally resolved
to make a serious defence. The infantry advanced to the
attack under a heavy fire of musketry. They performed pro-
digies of valour, but in vain. They had no ladders, and the
high wall defied them. The heavy guns opened fire, but with-
1 Life of Lm-d Clyde, pp. 81, 98, 100, 127. Pari. Papers,iyo\. xliv. (1857-
58), Part 3, pp. 151, 366, 368, 437. Enclosures to Secret Letters from India,
15 to 31 Mar. 1858, pp. 375, 891, 951 ; April, 1858, p. 855 ; May, 1858, p. 277 ;
Juue, 1858, p. 282. Calcutta Gazette, Jan.-June, 1858, pp. 357-9, 592. Seaton,
vol. ii. pp. 274-82.
526 CAMPAIGNS IN ROHILKHAND AND OUDH ch. xvii
out effect. More than a hundred men were killed, nearly as
many as had fallen in the three weeks' siege of LucknoAv. At
last Walpole ordered a retreat. Among those who had been
butchered was the gallant and gentle Adrian Hope, the hero of
the Shah Naji'f. The Highlanders savagely cursed the blun-
derer who had caused the death of their beloved leader ; and,
when his burial took place, their emotions were so violently
displayed that their officers, who in their hearts sympathised
with them, feared that they would mutiny, — or do something
worse. ^
The rebels evacuated the fort in the night. The rest of
Walpole's march was tolerably successful. Crossing the Ganges
and the Rdmganga, he entered the plains of Rohilkhand.
Sir Colin quitted Lucknow on the 17th, having some days
before sent out Hope Grant to deal with the rebel
foUows'him. bands which had rallied round the Moulvi and the
Begam. On the night of the 27th he overtook
Walpole at a place called Inigri. Next morning he heard of
an event the news of which caused sorrow to every soul in
India that wished well to the British cause. William Peel,
enfeebled by a wound which he had received at the siege of
Lucknow, had succumbed to an attack of smallpox. The troops
pushed on over wooded plains and through rich fields of sugar-
cane. On the 30th, just before entering Shahjahanpm-, Sir
Colin was informed of a fresh disaster. General Penny had
been killed in a night skirmish.^ Shahjahdnpur was found
evacuated. Sir Colin left a small garrison under Colonel Hale
to hold it. On the 3rd of May he was joined by the column
which Penny had commanded, and next day he found himself
within a single march of Bareilly.
Khan Bahadur Khan, reinforced by hosts of rebels flying
before Jones, who had gained two brilliant vic-
Bareiiiyf tories On his march from Roorkee, was determined,
though menaced in front and in rear by two power-
ful armies, to strike a blow for his usurped throne. Between
his capital and the position occupied by Sir Colin's army ran
^ Life of Lord Clyde, vol. ii. pp. 193-4, 199-202 ; Calcutta Gazette, Jan.-June,
1858, pp. 921-2 ; Munro's Reminiscences of Military Service toith the 93rd
(Sutherland) Highlanders, pp. 151-5 ; W. H. Russell's Diary in India, vol. i.
pp. 370-1, 393 ; Forbes-Mitcliell's Reminiscences of tfie (Ireat Mutiny, pp. 243,
246 ; Burgoyne's Hist. Records of the 9Srd (Sutherland) Higldanders, pp. 264-5.
2 Russell, vol. i. pp. 394-5, 401 : Life of Lord Clyde, vol. ii. p. 202.
1858 CAMPAIGNS IN ROHILKHAND AND OUDH 527
a deep stream, called the Nattia Naddi, spanned by a bridge.
He crossed the bridge in the evening, and planted his guns on
some sand-hills situated on either side of the road by Avhich Sir
Colin would have to advance. His first line of infantry, with
cavalry on its flanks, was drawn up so as to cover the guns.
The second line remained in the cantonments, near the tOAvn.
Early next morning Sir Colin put his troops in motion. At
the sixth milestone he halted, and formed them up
in two lines. The second line was to defend the
baggage and the siege-train. The whole force amounted to
seven thousand six hundred and thirty-seven men with nine-
teen field-guns.
About seven o'clock, as the first line was approaching the
bridge, the enemy's guns roared out. The British cavalry and
horse-artillery trotted forward from both flanks ; and the horse-
artillery, unlimbering, replied to the challenge. The enemy's
first line broke, and, leaving several guns behind them, fled
across the bridge into the cantonments. The British pressed
on in pursuit. The left halted on the bank of the stream.
The right crossed the bridge, and moved leisurely forward
about three-quarters of a mile in the direction of the town.
A regiment of Sikhs took possession of the Irregular Cavalry
lines on the left of the road. Suddenly a number of grizzly-
bearded Ghazis, with their green-turbaned heads bent low
under their shields, and flourishing their tulwars in the air,
rushed down, shouting " Deen, Deen," ^ upon the astonished
Sikhs, sent them flying out of the lines, and drove them back
upon the 42nd Highlanders, who had formed up behind to
support them. Sir Colin was sitting on his horse close by.
"Stand firm, 42nd," he cried, "bayonet them as they come on."
The 42nd repelled the charge with effect. But Sir Colin had
a narrow escape. As he was riding from one company to
another, he saw a Ghdzi, apparently dead, lying before his
horse's legs. In a moment the man sprang to his feet, and was
about to strike, when a Sikh rushed up, and, with one blow of
his tulwar, slashed off his head.
Meanwhile a scene hardly less exciting had been enacted
in another part of the field. The baggage-train had halted in
the rear. Suddenly a vast wave of white-clad sowars was seen
pouring down. Their t\dwars flashed in the sun ; the roar of
^ Religion.
528 CAMPAIGNS IN ROHILKHAND AND OUDH en. xvii
their voices filled the air; their horses' hoofs thundered over
the plain. Camp-followers, with cloven skulls and bleeding
wounds, rolled over on the ground. Men, women, children,
horses, camels, and elephants shrilly trumpeting, fled in one
confused mass. But now a body of dragoons charged ; Tombs's
troop, coming up at a gallop, fired a volley ; and the sowars
were scattered as quickly as they had come.
The battle had lasted for six hours ; a scorching wind was
blowing ; and several men had died of sunstroke. Sir Colin
therefore, in mercy to his troops, who were faint and parched
with thirst, suffered them to rest, even at the cost of leaving
his victory incomplete. Advancing next morning
into the cantonments, he learned that Khan Bahd-
dur Khan, Avith the greater part of his army, had escaped.
The sound of distant firing was heard. It proceeded from the
guns of Jones's column, which was forcing its way into the city
from the north. Next day the city was com-
pletely occupied, and the two columns united.^
Before night, however, a disaster for which Sir Colin had been
prepared when he left Shahjahanpur, was reported in the camp.
Shahjahdnpur stands in a peninsula, formed by the con-
fluence of the Garra and the Khanaut. Colonel
TheMouiVi Hale, who had been placed in command, was a
tahlnpur^^^' ^^^^ ^^^ skilful officer. Acting on his instructions,
he threw up an entrenchment round the gaol, and
^^ ^' pitched his camp in a tope of trees close by. On
the morning after Sir Colin had gone, he heard that a large
force under the Moulvi Avas within four miles of the town. He
had been warned to remain on the defensive. He therefore at
once ordered the camp to be struck, and everything to be re-
moved into the entrenchment. Presently the enemy appeared
above the brow of a hill on the opposite side of the river
Khanaut. Down they swept, crossed the river, and, pressing
on, opened an artillery-fire against the gaol.
As soon as Sir Colin heard the news, he ordered Jones to
Sir Colin sends m^rch to the rescue. Jones set out on the follow-
jonestothe jncr moming. Three days later he approached the
rescue o o »/ x x
Mays.' Garra. He saw the enemy's cavalry swarming
^^^"" down, with the Moulvi at their head, as though
1 Russell, vol. ii. pp. 7, 11, 13-14 ; Calcutta Gazette, Jau.-June, 1858, pp.
1085-6 ; Life of Lord Clyde, vol. ii. pp. 210-16.
1858 CAMPAIGNS IN ROHILKHAND AND OUDH 529
to prevent him from crossing. A few rounds from Jones's
heavy guns forced them back ; and, as they retreated across
the bridge, his field-pieces opened fire upon them, and sent
them galloping through the streets. Rapidly following up
his success, he shelled the town. Several houses were soon in
flames. As Jones drew near the gaol, the enemy, who were
blockading it, abandoned their position, and left him free to
join Hale.^ But their numbers were so great that, feeling that
it would be rash to attack them, he determined to remain on
the defensive, and despatched a messenger to Sir Colin for
help.
Sir Colin, flattering himself that he had completed the
reconquest of Rohilkhand, had re-established the „. „ ,. ,
• -1 1 • • rr 11 1 • SirColms
Civil authorities, and sent on all the regiments return march
that he could spare to their respective quarters. ° a e gar .
Being anxious to confer with the Governor-General, he set out
on the 15th on his return march towards Fatehgarh. Receiv-
ing Jones's message next day, he turned aside, and hastened to
relieve him. An awful thunderstorm swept over the camp,
lighting up the tents, as the final march was about to be made.
About nine o'clock on the morning of the 18th, Sir Colin
joined his lieutenants. The Moulvi had been strongly rein-
forced by all the rebels in the neighbourhood. In the afternoon
a skirmish took place. The Moulvi was repulsed ; but he was
so strong in cavalry that Sir Colin dared not risk a decisive
action. He sent, however, for reinforcements, which arrived on
the 23rd. That evening the Moulvi fell back into Oudh. Sir
Colin, leaving to Jones the responsibility of dealing with him,
started at midnight for Fatehgarh. The march was one of the
most distressing recorded in the annals of the Mutiny. By
day the heat was scorching ; by night it was stifling. It
needed all the exertions of the drivers to keep the jaded horses
on their legs. On the night of the 25th a fearful storm of
burning wind and dust smote the column, and absolutely forced
it to stand still. But next morning the rippling music of
many waters was heard ; the clear stream of the Ramganga
was seen sparkling in the sunlight ; and soldiers and camp-
followers ran down the banks, and bathed their aching limbs
in the grateful flood. Soon the mud walls of the fort of
^ Life of Lord Clyde, vol. ii. p. 217 ; Calcutta Gazette, Jan. -June, 1858, pp.
1139, 126-1.
2 M
530 CAMPAIGNS IN ROHILKHAND AND OUDH ch. xvii
Fatehgarh were discerned. The Eohilkhand campaign was
over.^
But the spirit of the Moulvi was not yet broken. He had
arrogated to himself the title of King of Hindustan ; and it
must be admitted that, on the score of fitness for rule, he had
a better right to the title than any of his fellow-rebels. The
„, „ , . Governor - General had paid him the high com-
The Moulvi ^ "
and the Raja pliment of offering a reward of fifty thousand
o awayan. j-^pegg fQj. jjjg apprehension. ^ But it i^eemed
that he was too clever to be apprehended. Eluding Jones's
column, he made a raid upon the station of Pali, and savagely
mutilated one of the native officials.^
On the 5th of June he started on an elephant for Pawayan,
intending to demand from the Raja of that place the surrender
of some native officials in the service of the British. On his
arrival, he found the gate shut. The Raja, with his brother
and his followers, was standing close by on the rampart. A
parley followed. The Moulvi soon saw that he could only
gain admittance by force. He therefore ordered the mahout
to make the elephant charge the gate. The brute's head
crashed against it with the force of a battering-ram ; and it
was already tottering and creaking when the Raja's followers
fired a volley from their matchlocks, and shot the Moulvi dead.
The brothers instantly rushed out, and cut off their victim's
head. The Raja wrapped it up in a cloth, rode off on his
elephant, escorted by a number of his men, to Shahjahanpur,
and called at the magistrate's house. Ushered into the dining-
room, in Avhich the magistrate and some of his friends were
seated, he opened his bundle and let the head roll out on the
floor. The magistrate was delighted. The next day the head
was stuck up on the Kotwdli.*
Rohilkhand was reconquered. The most formidable enemy
of the British in Northern India was no more.
' But the Commander - in - Chief's work was not
nearly at an end. Hope Grant, after some unimportant
1 Russell, vol. ii. pp. 24, 32-7 ; Life of Lord Clyde, vol. ii. pp. 222-3.
2 Calcutta Gazette, Jau.-June, 1858, p. 803.
^ Enclosures to Secret Letters from India, June, 1858, pp. 464-5.
* Seaton's From, Cadet to Colonel (Routledge's 1 vol. edn.), pp. 406-7 ; Sir
A. Lyall, K.C.B. , who was in the magistrate's house at the time, has furnished
me with information which has enabled me to correct my original account of this
episode. [The correction was made in the second edition.]
1858 CAMPAIGNS IN ROHILKHAND AND OUDH 531
skirmishes with different rebel bands, had returned to Luck-
now, to consult with Robert Montgomery, who had succeeded
Outram as Chief Commissioner. Learning from him that a
notorious tdlukdar, named Beni Madho, was infesting the
Cawnpore road, he put his troops in motion again on the 25th
of May. The marauders, however, had disappeared. Still,
Hope Grant found enough to occupy his troops. For the next
three months he was marching from place to place, holding out
a helping hand to distressed adherents of the Government, and
attacking and dispersing rebel bands wherever he could find
them.^ But at the end of this period Oudh was as far from
being subdued as ever. It is true that, as early as the close
of the third week in May, the authorities had succeeded in
re-establishing a number of tahsils and thanas,^ and the
peasants, groaning under the oppression which they had
suffered, had welcomed their return. Many of the talukdars
also, yielding to the assurances which Montgomery gave them
that their lands should not be confiscated, had tendered their
submission. But the incursion of the Moulvi wrought a change
for the worse. The number of talukddrs who remained in
arms was still considerable ; and the terror which they inspired
was so great that few of the respectable inhabitants dared to
come forward, and avow their attachment to a Government
which seemed too weak to protect them.^ Moreover, the
weather was now such that British troops could no longer
keep the field without injury to their health. Hope Grant
determined, therefore, with the consent of his chief, to give the
troops rest, until it should be time to undertake the work of
systematically reducing the country. Other commanders,
however, had still plenty of work to do in guarding the districts
abutting on the eastern and south-eastern frontiers of the
province from invasion.*
Meanwhile the Commander-in-Chief was busily maturing his
plans. He saw that, in order to effect a solid
conquest of the country, it would be necessary p'iai^°for the
not merely to defeat the rebels in action, but, as reconquest of
J , ' ' Oudh.
each district was successively wrested from them,
' Hope Grant, pp. 284-303. ^ Police -stations.
•* Enclosures to Secret Letters from India, April, 1858, p. 801 ; June, 1858,
pp. 457-60, 515, 955 ; Aug. 1858, pp. 275, 286-7, 297, 567 ; Sir G. Campbell's
Memoirs of my Indian Career, vol. ii. pp. 16-17 ; Pari. Papers, vol. xviii.
(1859), p. 302. •* Calcutta Gazette, passivi.
532 CAMPAIGNS IN ROHILKHAND AND OUDH ch. xvii
to lay upon it the grasp of civil authority. To support the
civilians in the maintenance of order, he had already organised
a strong force of military police.^ His plan of campaign was
to surround the province on the north-west, west, south, east,
and north-east with a cordon of strong columns, which, cutting
off the rebels from every loophole of escape, should push them
through a gradually lessening space northwards into Nepal.
Narratives of military operations seldom have any permanent
interest for general readers, unless they are connected with
events of deep historical importance, or are enriched by
picturesque incident and heart-stirring human action. The
operations in Oudh were not of this sort. Thei'e was nothing
in them to touch the heart as the story of Havelock's march
touches it. There was nothing in them that could have kindled
in a Napier such poetic fire as illumines the tale of the assault
on Badajoz, or the charge of the Fusiliers at Albuera. But
there was much to interest those who can appreciate the
thoughtful conception and patient execution of a beneficent
plan. No ordinary general could have subdued and pacified
Oudh. Few generals could have done so more economically
and more successfully than Colin Campbell. He succeeded
because he spared no pains in thinking out his plan, because he
neglected no details in executing it, because he exercised such
a thorough supervision over his lieutenants as to ensure a
harmonious and punctual co-operation between their respective
columns. If his success was less swift and decisive than it
might have been, it was because his army was not organised
for the pursuit of guerilla bands, whose strength was in their
speed ; and because, good soldier though he was, he lacked the
enterprise to adopt new methods, which he had not himself
proved.
Early in October the campaign was opened. ^ The British
arms would have had a far harder task if they had
The Oudh j^q^ been supported by diplomacy. Every talukdar
who had hitherto submitted had been persuaded to
do so by the assurances which he received that the confiscation
of his lands should not take effect ; and, although many who
held back had been deterred by the fear that their countrymen
1 Life of Lord Clyde, vol. ii. pp. 279-80.
^ See the admirable map illustrating Shadvvell's account of the campaign in
Life of Lord Clyde, vol. ii.
1858-9 CAMPAIGNS IN ROHILKHAND AND OUDH 533
would take vengeance upon them, others had wavered because
the offers which were pressed upon them seemed too good to
be true. Lavish promises, immediately following wholesale
confiscation, looked like a bait intended to lure them to
destruction. But diplomacy in its turn was supported by
arms. The converging columns quickened the decision of
those who still wavered.^ Before the close of the first week
in December the southern portion of Oudh, between the
Ganges and the Gogra, was absolutely mastered. Then the
Commander-in-Chief moved northwards from Lucknow, driv-
ing the rebels before him as he went; while Hope Grant,
also moving northwards, but more to the east, pursued a
similar victorious course. By the close of the third week in
the month it was evident that those rebels who were still in
the field were becoming dispirited. On the 22nd the Begam's
vakil came into the Commander-in-Chief's camp, to ask what
terms she might expect. All the rajas and tdlukdars who were
still at large had already sent their vakils on like errands. On
the last day of 1858 the Commander-in-Chief defeated a body
of rebels at Banki, near the frontier, and expelled them from
Oudh. In the belief that the war was now virtually at an end,
he entrusted the military command of the province to Hope
Grant, enjoining him to keep the frontier closed, lest the rebels
should escape and make a dash southwards. Most of the rebels,
however, desired only to be left unmolested in Nepal. But
Jung Bahadur was inconvenienced by their presence, and begged
Lord Canning to order the British troops to hunt them down.-
Accordingly, early in 1859, columns acting under Hope Grant's
supervision drove them up to the foot of the Himalayas, whence
many of them, after throwing away their arms, stole back to
their homes. A few more, determined not to yield, or despairing
of finding mercy, rushed down again into Oudh, and occupied
a small fort near the river Naddi, but were there defeated.
Some still lurked in the Tarai. They had been living in the
dense jungles of that pestilential country during the worst
season of the year, with nothing but the branches of trees to
shelter them from the rain ; and now, fever-stricken and
enfeebled by dysentery, without arms and without money,
they were forced to flee before Hope Grant's pursuing column,
^ Sir G. CaraiJbeH's Memoirs, vol. ii. pp. 17-18,
2 Life of Lord iJlyde, vol. ii. p. 387.
534 CAMPAIGNS IN ROHILKHAND AND OUDH ch. xvii
to perish in the hills. Among them were two notorious
criminals, of one of whom it may be confidently said that
there was not a soldier in Hope Grant's force who would not
have risked his life to capture him. From each of them Hope
Grant received letters. One, Bala Rao, the brother of the Nana
Sahib, wrote in a penitent strain, and declared that he was
guiltless of the blood of those who had perished at Cawnpore.
The other, the Nana Sahib himself, abused the Government of
the Company, and asked what right the British had to be in
India, and to declare him an outlaw. One of Hope Grant's
prisoners offered to catch him, and bring him into camp. But
it was not thought advisable to accept the ofFer.^ The decision
is not to be regretted. It is not to be regretted that the
Nana remained unpunished — by man.^ Let the countrymen of
those whom he murdered remember the words, " ' Vengeance is
mine, and I will repay,' saith the Lord."
It is now time to describe the extraordinary event which had
forced Sir Hugh Rose to postpone his anticipated rest.
I Hope Grant, pp. 327-32.
^ I have not been able to discover any certain information about the Nana's
death. A letter appeared in the St. James's Gazette of August 2, 1895, ^v^itten
by Mr. E. S. Robertson, whose official duty it was to visit Joala Parshad, one of
the Nana's officers, in gaol before his execution. Joala Parshad told Mr. Piobert-
son that, some time before his o^vn capture, which, Mr. Robertson thinks, took
place in October, 1860, the Nana had perished from the hardships which he had
had to endure in the jungle. On the other hand, the Calcutta correspondent of
the Times affirmed, in a very interesting letter dated November 23, 1860 (Times,
Dec. 28, 1860, p. 8, col. 3), that he had the best of reasons for knowing that
although the Nana's fellow-rebels had asserted that he had died of fever in the
jungle, he was in Tibet and alive. The correspondent's story was based upon
" the statement furnished by a native who has just escaped from their (the Nana's
and his followers') camp,"
CHAPTER XVIII
LAST EFFORTS OF TANTIA TOPI AND THE RANI OF JHANSI —
PURSUIT OF T^ysfTIA TOPI — THE QUEEN'S PROCLAMATION
After the battle of Golauli, the Rani of Jhansi and tlie Rao
Sahib fled to Gopalpur, a town about forty-six miles
south-west of Gwalior. There they were soon r^.j^nyaand
afterwards joined by Tdntia Topi. How the three the Rani at
felt and what they said to each other will never "^'^ ^"'
be known ; but they would hardly have deserved to be called
faint-hearted if they had abandoned all hope. They had been
disastrously beaten in a succession of battles ; they had been
deprived of all their strongholds ; on the east, on the west,
on the north, on the south, they were compassed in by British
troops. But it is in the darkest moments that the fire of
genius burns with the brightest flame. To the Rdni or to
Tantia ^ an idea suggested itself, as original and as daring as
that which prompted the memorable seizure of Arcot. They
would march to Gwalior, cajole or compel Sindhia's army to join
them, seize his mighty fortress, and oppose the whole strength
of the Mardtha power to their detested enemies. The execu-
tion of the plan was worthy of the design. On the 30th of
May the three leaders arrived, with the remnant of their army,
before Gwalior. On the 1st of June Sindhia marched out to
attack them. In a few minutes the battle was de-
TllGV SBlZfi
cided. After firing one round, Sindhia's guns were Gwalior. '
^ Malleson (voL iii. pp. 204-5) argues from the fact that Tantia, in his Me7iioir,
did not take to himself the credit of tlie idea of seizing Gwalior, that the idea was
the Rani's. The conjecture is very likely correct. But it should be noticed that
Tantia, in his Memoir, did not take to himself credit lor anythiug ; he described
himself throughout as simply the servant of the Nana and the Rao Sahib ; and his
style was dry and concise to the last degree.
536 LAST EFFORTS OF TANTIA TOPI chap, xviii
captured ; his whole army, with the exception of his bodyguard,
went over to the enemy; he himself fled to Agra ; and the victori-
ous rebels marched into Gwalior, seized the fortress, the treasury,
and the arsenal, and proclaimed the Nana Sahib as Peshwa.
On the 25th of May Sir Hugh had sent a small column under
Colonel Robertson to the south-west, to pursue
reai^es'the ^hesB vcry rebels in their flight from Kalpi. A
significance week later he received an express from Robertson,
June 1 stating that they had taken the road to Gwalior.
The news seemed incredible. Sir Robert Hamilton
said that he was sure Robertson must have been mistaken.
A few hours later, however, he received a similar message him-
self. Sir Hugh, resolving to act, at all events, as though the
news were true, sent Stuart with a portion of the 1st brigade
to reinforce Robertson. On the 4th of June he received the
astounding intelligence that the rebels had actually seized
Gwalior. The whole import of the daring stroke at once
presented itself to his mind. The main artery of communication,
and the telegraphic line between Bombay and the North-
Western Provinces, which traversed Sindhia's dominions, were
in danger of being cut in two. Worse still, Tantia and his
ally, strengthened as they now were, not only by Sindhia's army,
military material, and treasure, but by the sudden acquisition
of the highest political prestige, might leave a garrison in
Gwalior, and, marching southwards, raise the standard of the
Nana in the Deccan and the Southern Maratha country. The
rains were about to fall, the heat was becoming more and more
intense, and, for the exhausted soldiers of Sir Hugh's aimy,
further campaigning seemed almost impossible : but all that he
had hitherto accomplished, all that had been accomplished by
„ , his countrymen for the suppression of the Mutiny,
to reconquer was at Stake ; and he resolved to take the field at
once. Resuming, on his own responsibility, the
command which he had laid aside, dismissing from his mind all
dreams of rest and recreation, he made his preparations for the
reconquest of Gwalior.
On the 5th of June he received a telegram from the
Commander-in-Chief, informing him that Brigadier
tions and plan Smith's brigade and a column under Colonel Riddell
were to join him. He ordered the garrison which
he had left in Jhansi to march to his assistance. The men of
Tofgjxpa^ BW
MAP OF GWAUOB. AND ITS EJSTVTRONS.
London MaunnllaD & C° L'
SbiTVwdj fitog E«tah Londa
1858 AND THE RANI OF JHANSI 537
the Hyderabad Contingent, who had set out homewards some
days before, turned back of their own accord the moment they
heard of Sindhia's defeat. Sir Hugh's plan was to attack Gwalior
on its weakest side, the east, and to invest it as closely as
possible, so as to cut off the retreat of the rebels. Accordingly,
he ordered Eiddell to march down the Agra road. Smith to
proceed to Kotah-ki-serai, about four miles south-east of Gwalior,
and the Hyderabad Contingent to cut off the retreat of the rebels
to the south.
On the 6th of June he quitted Kalpi. He was obliged to
make forced marches ; but he made them by night, in order to
shield his men as far as possible from the sun. On the 12th
he overtook Stuart, and on the 16th reached a point about
five miles from the Morar cantonments, which lay four miles
north-east of Gwalior. A party of cavalry rode forward to re-
connoitre. Presently they returned with the news that there was
a number of rebels in front of the cantonments. Weary though
his troops were, Sir Hugh resolved to bring on a battle at once.
The troops marched to the right, with the object of gaining
the road leading to the cantonments : but a native
who had undertaken to guide them lost his way ; ^^^Hl °^
and presently they found themselves on the edge
of a chain of ravines, right opposite a battery posted in the
enemy's centre. The battery, and the infantry and artillery
on either side of it opened fire : the British guns replied : Sir
Hugh, leading his infantry to the right, turned the left of the
rebels : they fell back ; and the British, pressing on, took the
cantonments by storm. Some of the rebels threw themselves
into a dry nullah surrounding a village behind the cantonments,
and, striking desperately at the 71st Highlanders, who fell upon
them, were slain to a man. The rest fled, hunted by the 14th
Light Dragoons.
Sir Hugh was now master of Morar, and, as a result of his
victory, regained command of the Agra road, and was enabled
to communicate with Smith,
At half-past seven next morning Smith arrived at Kotah-ki-
serai. Right in front of him, barring his approach to Gwalior,
was a range of hills, broken up by nullahs, and,
as he soon perceived, occupied by masses of rebels. Battle of
In spite of the difficulties presented by the ground, ^'^^^
he made up his mind to strike the first blow. His horse-
538 LAST EFFORTS OF TANTIA TOPI chap, xviii
artillery moved forward ; and the enemy's gunners limbered
up and retreated, after firing only three or four rounds. Smith
then sent forward his infantry, to attack a breastwork in their
front ; the rebels who held it fell back as the skirmishers
charged them, and moved off over the hills. Meanwhile, Smith
was advancing with his cavalry through a defile, along which,
skirting a deep and dry canal, ran the road leading through
the hills to Gwalior. Joining his infantry at the further end
of the defile, on the crest of the hills, he caught sight of the
Gwalior Contingent cavalry, in their red uniforms, advancing
up a broad ravine on his right. The infantry beat them back.
Instantly Smith launched against them a squadron of the 8th
Hussars, who, galloping down the hills, drove them through
the Phul Bagh Cantonment. Among them rode a woman in
male attire. Close to the cantonment, she was struck by a
carbine bullet ; and immediately afterwards a hussar, ignorant
of her sex, dealt her a blow with his sabre. She kept her
saddle for a few seconds, and then fell dead. The body was
found to be that of her whom Sir Hugh Rose esteemed as " the
best and bravest military leader of the rebels," — the Rani of
Jhansi.
The troops, who had been fighting the whole day without
food, were now completely Avorn out. The hussars, as they
returned from their charge, could hardly sit in their saddles ;
and in one infantry regiment eighty-four men were prostrate
from sunstroke. The enemy, notwithstanding their reverses,
were making as though they would return to the attack. Smith
therefore drew back the hussars, and took up his position for
the night on the heights on the right of the defile, both ends
of which he guarded with infantry piquets. The enemy occu-
pied the heights on the opposite side. Thus Smith's left was
exposed, while his baggage was within range of the enemy's
guns. Sir Hugh, on hearing how he was situated, at once sent
a small force of all arms under Robertson to his support.
Next day Sir Hugh was reinforced by the garrison which he
had left in Kalpi. He saw that, before he could advance on
Gwalior, he must expel the enemy from their position on the
June 18 ^®^^ °^ ^^® canal. Leaving Brigadier Robert Napier,
Sir Hugh who now Commanded the 2nd brigade, to hold the
joiiib ini 1. •jyj-Qj.^j. cantonment, he marched in the afternoon
to join Smith. The distance was about ten miles ; and so
1858 AND THE RANI OF JHANSI 539
fiercely did the sun strike down that of one regiment alone a
hundred men fell out of the ranks. Late in the evening the
troops halted on the western bank of the river Morar, close to
Smith's position. Sir Hugh saw that the rebels, by occupying
positions on the hills so far from and unsupported by Gwalior,
had exposed themselves to be cut off from their comrades. In
the night his sappers began to throw a bridge over the canal.
His intention was to cross over before dawn on the 20th and
plant himself between the enemy's position and the town.
Early in the morning of the 19th, however, he saw a large force
debouching from Gwalior, evidently with the object of attacking
him. He resolved, therefore, to deliver his own attack at once.
The 86th, County Downs, supported by the 25th Bombay
Native Infantry, was ordered to cross the canal,
move up the hills, and attack the enemy's left owaifor.
flank, while the 95th, supported by the 10th
Bombay Native Infantry, should make a diversion in their
favour by attacking a battery on the enemy's left. Giving
way before the charge of the 86th, the rebels fell back on the
battery, and, as the 86th still pressed them, abandoned the
guns and ran for their lives. A few minutes later the 10th
Bombay Native Infantry, which was on the extreme right,
was assailed by the fire of artillery and musketry from the
heights on the extreme left of the rebels. Wheeling to the
right, it drove the infantry from the heights, and captured
the guns.
Clustering on the edge of the heights, the victorious troops
looked down upon the goal which they had toiled so hard to
reach. On the left, half hidden by masses of foliage, shone the
mansions of the Lashkar, or new city ; on the right, conspicuous
in a verdant garden, stood the palace of the Phiil Bagh ; the
squalid lanes of the old town crossed each other in a tangled
maze ; and behind, extending a mile and a half in length, and
rising sheer above them to a height of full three hundred feet,
loomed the sandstone precipices of the fortress of Gwalior, — the
Gibraltar of India. ^
The beaten rebels were seen crowding over the plain for
shelter towards the houses among the trees outside the city.
Sir Hugh, as he watched them, felt sure that he could take
Gwalior before sunset. Sending the 1st Bombay Lancers down
^ Hunter's Imperial Gazetteer, vol. iii. pp. 494-5.
540 LAST EFFORTS OF TANTIA TOPI chap, xvin
the hills to the rear, to attack the Grand Parade and the
Lashkar from the south, he moved straight on with the main
body. Panic-stricken, the rebels abandoned the houses, and
made for the Parade : two companies of the 95th rushed after
them ; while the Lancers, emerging from the hills, charged
across the Parade, and drove the rebels who were fleeing before
them, into the Lashkar. Presently Sir Hugh overtook the men
of the 95th, and pushed on with them into the Lashkar ; but
the fugitives made their way through the streets so rapidly that
their pursuers could hardly catch sight of them. Meanwhile,
Smith had captured the Phiil Bagh ; and Tantia, in accordance
with his usual custom, had long since fled.
Gwalior was reconquered : the bulk of the rebels were in
full retreat ; and Sir Hugh had sent an order to
fee fort?" Napier to pursue them. But the great fortress
June "0 ^^^^^ ^^^^ °^^ '> ^^^ early next morning its guns
reopened fire. Hearing the roar of the first dis-
charge. Lieutenant Kose of the 25th Bombay Native Infantry
went to a brother officer. Lieutenant Waller, who was close by,
and asked him whether he would join in an attack on the
fortress. Waller consented. Taking with them a stalwart
blacksmith and the few sepoys whom they commanded, the two
officers stole up to the first gateway. The blacksmith burst it
open : five more gates yielded to his strength ; but suddenly
the alarm was given, and a gun opened fire on the daring
assailants. On they went in spite of it, till, as they turned into
a narrow lane leading to the fort, a number of Mahomedan
fanatics fell upon them. Then ensued a desperate struggle. For
some minutes the event was doubtful. At last Rose gathered
his men together, and made a rush : the enemy were over-
powered : the fortress was won ; but Rose fell mortally
wounded.
That day Sindhia, accompanied by Sir Robert Hamilton and
sindhia Charters Macpherson, re-entered his capital. The
re-enters General and a number of officers of rank went out
to meet him : a squadron of the 8th Hussars and
a squadron of the 14th Light Dragoons escorted him to his
palace ; and the streets through which he passed were thronged
by thousands of citizens, who greeted him with enthusiastic
acclamations.^
^ OalciUla Gazette, Jau.-Juue, 1859, Suppl. pp. 1-20. In the five days' opera-
b tiux. page 54^1
E R
Ma.p Slievring"
TRACK OF REBELS
UNDER
TANTIA TOPI
fivnvtheir defeat at GwaliorJunjRZO.ISSS.
( V P 0 R E ToPauH dispa-siAnv in-Hoaxh 18B9.
Looaom Macmillan i- C"L'?
Stan/ordi Geoa^ SstaiT Lmtilim,
1858 PURSUIT OF TANTIA TOPI 541
Meanwhile Napier, in obedience to the order which he had
received from the General, was pursuing the flying
rebels. They numbered four thousand men ; while xdntia*"^
Napier had only five hundred and sixty cavalry
and a battery of horse-artillery. On the 22 nd he overtook
them at Jaora Alipur. Only a few shots had fallen among
them, when their ranks began to waver : Captain Lightfoot's
gunners limbered up and galloped down upon them ; and the
14th Light Dragoons and the Hyderabad cavalry, riding their
hardest to keep up with that wonderful artillery,^ joined in the
charge. In a few minutes all was over.^ Between three and
four hundred of the rebels were slain ; and Tantia Topi and the
Rao Sahib, leaving all their guns upon the field of battle, fled
across the Chambal into Rdjputdna.
Beaten and disgraced, deprived of the powerful ally who had
so long shared his fortunes, the clever Maratha did not yet
feel that all was lost. His army, though small, was strong in
cavalry and well equipped ; he possessed an abundance of money
and jewels, which he had stolen from Sindhia's treasury ; and
he knew that his cause would find many sympathisers in the
country which he had now entered. Before going on to speak
of his further adventures, it will be necessary to describe what
had passed in that country since the mutiny of the Jodhpur
legion.
During the autumn of 1857 a few isolated disturbances
occurred. Major Burton, the British Resident at Kotah, was
murdered, with his two sons, by the soldiers of the Mahardo.
Throughout this trying time, indeed, George Lawrence never
lost his hold upon the country. But it was not till the next
year, when reinforcements under Major-General Roberts arrived
from Bombay, that he was able effectually to restore order.
On the 30th of March, Roberts defeated the mutinous troops
of the Maharao, and recaptured Kotah. "^ Thus, when Tantia
made his appearance, the British authorities were ready to
meet him.
Tantia's first step was to send emissaries to Jeypore, where
tions before Gwalior only twenty-one were killed and sixty-six wounded on the
British side.
' Malleson, vol. iii. p. 230.
'^ Calcutta (rcizette, Jan. -June, 1859, Suppl. pp. 13-1,1.
^ LaAvrence's Remitdscences, pp. 295-9 ; I. T. Prichard's Mutinies in Rajpoo-
tana, pp. 249-52,
542 PURSUIT OF TANTIA TOPI chap, xviii
there was a large party ready to join him. Hearing of his in-
tended advance on this place, Roberts started with
a force of about two thousand men from Nusseer-
abad to intercept him. Foiled by this move, Tantia marched
southwards, followed by Roberts. The heat, which had been
great from the outset of the campaign, now became so dreadful
that twenty-two of Roberts's men died of sunstroke
in three days ; and he therefore decided to detach
a light column under Colonel Holmes in pursuit, in order to
minimise the sufferings of the remainder. Meanwhile Tdntia,
whose infantry had a number of hardy ponies to help them
in trying marches, was making good use of his start. Passing
through Tonk, where he obtained four guns, he
still pushed southwards, intending to cross the
Nerbudda, enter the Southern Mardtha country, and there
work up, in the interest of the Nana, the seething dis-
content of the intriguing Brahmins whose influence had been
destroyed by the downfall of the Peshwa. In order to execute
this plan, however, it was first necessary to cross the Chambal ;
and the Chambal had risen so high as to have become impass-
able. He therefore turned aside to the westward, and crossed
the Biindi hills. The rains were now falling with almost un-
precedented violence. The great rivers of Rdjputdna were
turned into raging torrents ; and for twelve days all military
operations were su.spended.
Roberts, who, on hearing that the rebels had crossed the
Biindi hills, had moved westward to cover Ajmere, now found
it very hard to procure information as to their further move-
ments. At last he learned that they were still moving west-
w^ard, and marched, on the subsidence of the floods,
towards Neemuch. As he approached the river
Kotdria, he caught sight of them encamped on the opposite
side, in front of the town of Bhilwara. Under
"' ■ cover of an artillery -fire, his troops crossed the
stream, played upon themselves by Tantia's guns ; but, after
ascending the further bank, they had only just time to throw
a few shells before the rebels, now in full retreat, were out of
range. Roberts bivouacked on the field. Pressing on next
day in pursuit, he reached Kankrauli on the 13th, and was
there informed that they were only seven miles oft", on the river
Bands. As the day was far spent, he resolved to wait till
1858 PURSUIT OF TANTIA TOPI 543
next morning before giving battle. Meanwhile Tdntia, who,
like some other great criminals, was a punctilious observant of
religious ceremonial, had left his army to pay a visit to a
famous shrine in the neighbourhood. At midnight he returned,
and, hearing that his pursuers were close behind him, ordered
the bugle to be sounded. The infantry, however, flatly refused
to obey orders. It was all very well, they said, for the cavalry
and artillery to go on making forced marches ; but they were
exhausted, Tantia was obliged to give way. When, therefore,
Eoberts approached the river in the early morning,
he found the opposite bank lined with rebels. As
soon as they had fired a few rounds from their guns, they
abandoned their position. The British cavalry rode after them
and cut down numbers of stragglers ; but the survivors soon
reached ground which favoured their escape, and fled on east-
wards by prodigious marches.
On the fourth day after the action, Eoberts met Brigadier
Parke in command of another pursuing column at
. Au^ 18
Poona,^ and entrusted further operations to him, °'
enjoining him to prevent Tdntia, at all hazards, from breaking
away to the south. Parke therefore, instead of following
Tdntia's track, marched straight to Neemuch, where he pro-
cured fifty fresh horses for his cavalry. He was greatly puzzled
by the conflicting reports which he received. A district officer
told him that the rebels could not possibly cross the Chambal in
its then flooded condition, and would try to shoot past him to
the south. Another informant sent him word that they were
determined to get across the river somehow. The former
report appeared the more probable, and was accepted by Parke ;
but it turned out to be incorrect. Parke was in consequence
delayed for a few hours ; and though, when he learned the real
state of affairs, he made a great effort to catch the rebels before
they could cross the river, he only reached it in time to see
them disappearing among a grove of mango-trees on the west
horizon. He then returned to Neemuch to refit his column.
It was now feared that Tdntia would march to plunder the
wealthy town of Ujjain, which lay about forty miles to the
north-west of Indore. A small force under Colonel
Lockhart was therefore sent from Mhow to oppose
^ This must not be confounded with the better-known town of the same name
near Bombay.
544 PURSUIT OF TANTIA TOPI chap, xvin
him, if he should manifest any such intention ; and another under
Lieutenant-Colonel Hope followed soon afterwards. Tantia,
however, had another object in view. Finding the country
clear after he had crossed the Chambal, he marched direct to
Jhalra Pdtan, the capital of a Rajput state, levied a contribution
of sixty thousand pounds on the inhabitants, collected forty
thousand more from the Government property, seized thirty
guns, and enlisted a large number of fresh troops. In the
beginning of September, he marched out of the town with an
army now numbering some nine thousand men, intending to
make for Indore. The idea was a bold one : but it offered
every chance of success ; and, if successful, it would give a new
lease of life to his cause, and undo all the work which his
pursuers had done. He i-epresented the cause of the Nana ;
and the Nana, whom every Mardtha regarded as Peshwa, would
find a host of sympathisers at the court of Holkar. Tdntia
would have known how to march with a light column fast
enough to elude Hope and Lockhart ; and, if he had reached
Indore without suffering another defeat, the Indore troops
would have joined him, and the revolt would have spread
throughout Holkar's dominions. But the rebels had not
sufficient confidence in each other to carry out the daring plan
which their leader had conceived.^
Lockhart and Hope met at Nalkera. There they were joined
by Major-General Michel, who took command of their united
columns, and was soon after appointed to the command of
Malwa and Rajputana. Hearing that the rebels were some-
where to the north-east, he marched to intercept them. The
black cotton-soil of the country was swollen into a sticky paste ;
and the heat was so intense that many horses dropped dead
at the guns. Still Michel pushed on as well as he could, and,
coming upon the rebels a few miles north of Rajgarh, thought
that he saw a chance of a battle. But, in Tantia Topi's eyes,
to fight battles was no part of a general's business. He saw
and was conquered. His army of eight thousand men fled
from an army of less than thirteen hundred, and
^^ ■ ^' left their thirty guns behind them. The moral
effects of the victory, if there can be said to have been a victory
^ Blackwood's Magazine, Aug. 1860, — Article on the Pursuit of Tantia Topee,
p. 181. The. writer was an actor in the canijiaign. There is some obscurity in
ibis part of his narrative : but I have done my best to interpret his meaning.
1858 PURSUIT OF TANTIA TOPI 545
where thei'e was no battle, were decisive. The people of the
country could not but feel that Tantia had disgraced himself.
For some weeks the fugitives wandered about aimlessly in
the jungles. At last they bi'oke up into two divisions, one of
which, under the Eao Sahib, Avent to the north ; while the rest,
under Tantia, marched southwards till, at Mangrauli, they fell
in with Michel, who again defeated them. Turn-
. . . r)ct '^>
ing to the north-east, they rejoined their comrades
at Lalitpur. Next day the Kao Sahil), with a part of the army,
started off towai'ds the south-east. A few days
later he was surprised and beaten by Michel at Oct. ip.
Sindwao. Soon afterwards he rejoined his ally. The pair
now fled in a north-westerly direction, but finding the Betwa
guarded by a British force, resolved to push south for the
Nerbudda at all hazai'ds. As soon as Michel heard of their
design, he sent an express to warn Parke, whose duty it was to
cover Indore, and, fairly outmarching the rebels,
" . Oct "5
caught them obliquely crossing his front near
Khorai, and cut their line in two. The left wing was driven
back, with heavy loss, into the jungles, where the survivors dis-
persed : the right wing, without attempting to succour their
comrades, made good their escape.
The Governments of Bombay and Madras were seriously
alarmed when they heard that Tantia was going to cross the
Nerbudda. As it turned out, however, their alarm was ground-
less. He crossed the river about forty miles north-east of
Hoshangabad, and tried to reach Nagpur, but, finding himself
headed by a force from that town, unable to break through the
Meilghat, which was likewise closely watched, hindered from
entering Khandesh, and unable to summon up courage to make
a dash over the Satpura hills and cross the Tapti, he moved
westward to Kargun, and there, finding himself well ahead of
the pursuing columns, halted to refresh his jaded followers and
deliberate.
He had by this time lost more than half his army. The
fault was partly his own. He did not know how to use his
strength. He never attempted to avail himself of his superiority
in cavalry for the purpose of crippling his pursuers or harassing
their baggage-train. But in his own way he could still do
serious injury to the British cause.
The authorities at Indore had taken fright on hearing of his
2 N
546 PURSUIT OF TAKTIA TOPI chap.xviii
retrograde movement. What if he should again take it into
his head to visit their town ? What if he should take his stand
upon the Grand Trunk Road, and interrupt the communication,
and break down the telegraph wires between Bombay and
Rdjputana ? To guard against these contingencies, two small
infantry detachments were sent from Mhow to watch the
fords of the Nerbudda above Akbarpur, through which the
road passed. Major Sutherland, who commanded one of these,
heard that Tdntia was moving westward from Kar-
Nov. 23. giin, and went to Jilwana to intercept him. While
there, he was informed that a party of the rebels was on the
road about six miles to the north, and had cut the
Nov. 25. telegraph wires. He started next morning at day-
break to clear the road, but, on reaching the place where the
wires had been cut, found no rebels. Some villagers, hoAvever, told
him that the whole force had passed by westward during the night.
Sutherland soon found their tracks, and, after going about eight
miles, caught sight of their rear-guard streaming out of the town
of Rajpur. Taking with him a few Highlanders mounted on
camels, and leaving the rest of his force to follow, he continued
the pursuit. About five miles further on he descried the rebels
again, about to ford a stream which crossed the road : the
infantry marched up at a rapid pace to take part in the battle ;
but now the rebels were out of sight. A few minutes later he
saw them again, perched on a rocky ridge crowning a jungle-
covered slope in his front. They actually stood to fire a few
rounds of musketry and grape : but the British charged up the
slope, and captured their guns ; and they were gone in a moment.
Next day Sutherland resumed the pursuit, but, as he drew near
the Nerbudda, had the mortification to see them comfortably
encamped on the further side. It was impossible for him to
force a passage over a river five hundred yards wide ; and next
morning they Avere no more to be seen.
A few days before, Brigadier Parke had been despatched with
a flying column, from Charwah, a town on the
Nov •>! .
south of the Nerbudda, to continue the pursuit.
Marching two hundred and forty miles in nine days,
on the last of Avhich he had to thread his way for twenty
miles through a dense jungle, he overtook and
defeated the rebels at Chota Oodeypore, thus
relieving the Britisli Resident at Baroda of all anxiety for the
1858 PURSUIT OF TAISTTIA TOPI 547
safety of that rich town. After this, however, he was obliged
to wait for some days, to give his horses rest and allow
stragglers to rejoin the column. Meanwhile, Tantia was
wandering about in the dense forests of Banswara. The passes
leading into Gujarat and Malwa were barred against him.
He tried to gain admittance into the fort of Salumbar, but
failed ; and, when he moved on to the south, Colonel Benson
prepared to cut off his escape, while a little column under Major
Rocke watched the exits from the jungle on its eastern side.
The wild Bhils of Banswara were waiting to fall upon him when
the end should come. In fact he was at his wits' end to know
what to do. Most of his followers would have surrendered,
if they had not been persuaded by their chiefs, who knew
that they themselves had no right to expect mercy from
the British Government, that the amnesty which it had
tardily offered to all who had not committed murder was a
delusion. In this desperate situation, however, a gleam of
hope appeared. Prince Firoz Shah, Tdntia heard, had marched
from Oudh to join him. He resolved to make a final effort to
break through the net which encompassed him.
Dec ''5
Turning to the north-east, he rushed out of the
jungle through a pass at Partabgarh, opposite Major Rocke's
little band, and, assuming the offensive for the first and onl}'-
time, managed to keep his opponents at bay long enough to
allow his own men to get clear. Colonel Benson, who had been
watching the passes into Malwa, got information of his line of
flight, started in pursuit, and, by dint of marching thirty-five
miles a day for four days, got close enough to the
fugitives to capture six of their elephants at Zirapur. ^^' ^^'
Next morning Brigadier Somerset came up to Dec. 30.
continue the pursuit, marched seventy miles in
forty-eight hours, and caught them at Barode. After standing
the fire of his artillery for a few minutes with unusual firm-
ness, they turned and fled. At Indergarh they were joined
by Firoz Shah and his followers. The combined army
now amounted to no more than two thousand men. The
only hope left to them was to escape death at the hands
of the soldier or the hangman. Their cattle shared their
sufferings. "Many a well-bred charger," wrote an officer who
took part in the campaign,^ " was left standing by the roadside,
^ Tlie wi'iter of tlie article in Blackwood.
548 PURSUIT OF TANTIA TOPI chap.xviii
its back sAvarming with maggots, and its hoofs woi"n to the
sensible sole."
Still the pursuing columns pushed doggedly and relentlessly
on. For a time, indeed, they were confused by the terrific
speed with which the fugitives rushed from the centre of Malwa
to the northern extremity of Rajputana. Only for a time, how-
ever. Colonel Holmes, who had been sent out from Nusseerabad
with a few infantry and artillerymen to do what he could, per-
formed the astounding march of fifty -four miles across a sandy
desert in a little over twenty-four hours, surprised the rebels en-
camped at Sikar, and, by merely firing a few rounds,
threw them into the utmost confusion. Tdntia
was now thoroughly disheartened, and worn out with fatigue.
Next day he made off, attended by only a few followers, re-
crossed the Chambal, and hid himself in the jungles near Sironj.
A few days later some six hundred of the rebels gave them-
selves up to the Eaja of Bikaner, begging him to intercede
with the British on their behalf. The Government, well pleased
to be saved the trouble of hunting them down, ordered them
to be sent home, only stipulating that any who might there-
after be convicted of murder, should be brought up, if required,
for execution. Michel believed that those who were still at
large would try to escape him by crossing the Aravalli
range, through which no guns could follow them, into Malwa.
He therefore posted columns to hem them in on all sides
except the east, where the great desert effectually im-
prisoned them. Once again, however, their marvellous speed
upset all his calculations. Shooting past the right flank of the
southern column, which was commanded by Brigadier Honner,
they fled through Jodhpur. But Honner was on their track
in an instant, and, marching a hundred and forty-
Feb. 10. five miles in four days, came up with and beat
Feb. 15. them at Koshdni. Five days later they reached
the Chattarbhuj pass, and got safely through, but
to their dismay found a column hovering in the neighbourhood.
They made for the Banswara jungles. The passes were closed.
Then they rushed to the east past Partdbgarh, hunted by
Somerset, who marched two hundred and thirty miles in nine
days. Most of them fell out of the line of march,
Feb. 22. threw away their arms, and sneaked home. A few,
to whom the amnesty held out no hope, escaped into the
1859 PURSUIT OF TANTIA TOPI 549
Sironj jungles. The rest, numbering about two hundred,
surrendered near Runnejah.^
Tantia, however, was still at large. The jungle in which he
had taken refuge belonged by right to a feudatory of Sindhia,
named Man Singh, with whom he had lately been associated.
This man had, however, a few months before, been deprived
of his estates by his overlord, had rebelled against him, and,
having been attacked by Napier, who could not afford to over-
look any disturbance, even though it were unconnected with
the Mutiny, had entered upon the career of an outlaw. He
happened at this time to be wandering in the jungle. One
day he came across Tantia. " Why did you leave your force 1 "
he asked ; " you have not acted rightly in so doing." " I was
tired of running away," replied Tantia, " and, whether I have
done right or wrong, I will remain with you." He might
indeed feel that he was safe where he was, for no European
would ever be able to follow him through the pathless mazes
of the jungle to his hiding-place. But it had occurred to
Napier, who knew that he was somewhere in the jungle, that
he might be able to effect his capture, if he could first succeed
in gaining over Man Singh. It was not likely that Man Singh
would refuse to surrender, if a sufficient bait were held out to
him. For he had staked everything on the issue of his quarrel
with Sindhia, and had lost. His one chance of regaining his
lost wealth and position would be to place himself in the hands
of the British, and to court their good offices.
Major Richard Meade, an officer of the Gwalior Contingent,
had already been sent by Napier, in command of a small
detachment, to clear the country in the neighbourhood of the
jungle, and to attack Tantia and M^n Singh, if he should find
an opportunity of doing so. In the first week of March he
heard that the thakur of a village in which his troops were
quartered was connected with Man Singh. On the 8th he went
to see the thakur, and succeeded in getting him to promise to
bring Man Singh's agent to him, and to try to persuade Man
Singh himself to surrender. Three days later the
. Mar 11
agent presented himself before Meade, who gave
1 BlackwoocCs Magazine, Aug. 1860, pp. 173-91. Calcutta Gazette, July-
Dec. 1858, pp. 2042-3, 2091, 2346-8, 2434-7, 2453-4 ; Jan. -June, 1859, pp. 34,
128-9, 138-9, 184-6, 571-6, 1276-8, etc. TAntia's Memoir, printed in vol. iii. of
Mallesou's Histonj, pp. 518-22.
550 PURSUIT OF TANTIA TOPI chap, xviii
him a letter for his master, which contained an invitation to
surrender. Some weeks of negotiation followed. On the 31st,
Meade was informed that Man Singh was prepared to accept
the invitation on certain specified conditions. Some of these
he could not accept. At last all Man Singh's scruples were
overcome. It was agreed that he should be free to remain in
the British camp, instead of being handed over to the tender
mercies of Sindhia ; and on the 2nd of April he gave himself
up.
But the most delicate part of Meade's task remained to be
done. He knew that Man Singh must be longing to be restored
to the position which he had occupied before his rebellion.
Accordingly, on that day and the next he repeatedly talked to
him in private, and laboured to instil into his mind the idea
that, if he wanted to establish a claim to indulgence, he must
make himself useful to Government. Meanwhile, Tantia,
though he knew that Man Singh had surrendered, had not the
faintest suspicion of what was passing through his mind. On
the 5th he sent a messenger to ask him whether he would
advise him to rejoin Firoz Shah, or to remain where he was.
Md,n Singh sent back word to Tantia that he would come and
see him in three days. Two days later he allowed
Auril 7 .
Meade to be informed that he Avas prepared to
apprehend Tantia, if Grovernment would distinctly promise to
restore to him a portion of his estate. Meade was not em-
powered to promise so much. All that he could do was to tell
Man Singh that any claim which he might establish would be
considered. Mdn Singh's mind was soon made up. He pro-
mised to do his best to apprehend Tantia.
But to apprehend Tantia was as difficult as to stalk a red
deer. His spies swarmed in the British camp. It was obvi-
ously necessary that the work of seizing him should be entrusted
to natives only, and that of those natives none but M^n Singh
himself should know who the intended victim was. Accordingly,
Meade selected a number of sepoys, and, without mentioning
Tantia's name, ordered them to obey any instructions which
Mdn Singh might give them. That night Man Singh went to
see TAntia, in fulfilment of his promise. Once more Tantia
asked him whether he would advise him to rejoin Firoz Shah,
or to stay where he was. Man Singh said that he would give
him a definite answer in the morning, and then went away.
1859 PURSUIT OF TANTIA TOPI 551
About midnight he came back, followed by the sepoys, and
found Tantia asleep. The sepoys woke him up,
seized him, and carried him back to Meade. He Tintia!''°^
was then conveyed to Si'pri.^
But even now his power was not wholly gone. Man Singh
warned Meade that he had contrived to tamper with the sepoys,
and that he would effect his escape if he were not speedily
disposed of ; and Sir Robert Hamilton sent orders that he
should be brought to justice without delay.
On the morning of the 15th, a court-martial was assembled
in an officer's bungalow to try him. He bore him-
self under the ordeal with perfect calmness. The
charge brought against him was, that he had waged war as a
rebel against the British Government. " I only obeyed," he
pleaded, " in all things that I did, my master's orders up to the
capture of Kalpi ; and afterwards those of Rdo Sahib. I have
nothing to state except that I have had nothing to do with the
murder of any European men, women, or children, neither have
I, at any time, given orders for any one to be hanged." The
defence was not accepted. In the evening Tantia was found
guilty, sentenced to death, and carried off" to the fort of Sipri.
During three days he waited impatiently for death. Once
he expressed a hope that Government would pro-
vide for his family, and not punish them for what '^ ^^^°" '°"'
he had done. The evening of the 18th was fixed for his
execution. At five o'clock on that day he was brought out of
the fort, under the escort of a comj)any of British soldiers, to
the place where he was to die. The troops of the station were
drawn up on the ground in a hollow square, in the centre of
which stood the gallows. Every spot from which it was pos-
sible to see the convict was crowded with onlookers. There
was a delay of about twenty minutes. Then Major Meade read
the charge, the finding of the court, and the sentence. As
soon as the last word had been uttered, the fetters were taken
^ Malleson, vol. iii. pp. 367-9, and App. I. pp. 523-4 (Tantia's deposition).
Sir Richard Meade, to whom I applied for information, was abroad at the time,
and had not his papers with him ; but, as Malleson's account, which I have fol-
lowed, was based upon information supplied by Su- Richard, I have no doubt
that what I have written in the text is substantially true. [Lady Meade has
this year (1897) been so kind as to lend me a copy of her late husband's papers,
from which I find that what I wrote is perfectly accurate. The papers include
Tantia's deposition, which is printed at the end of Malleson's third volume. ]
552 THE END OF THE STRUGGLE chap, xviii
off Tantia's legs ; and, with a firm step, he mounted the ladder
on to the platform. He was pinioned and tied. Then, of his
own accord, he put his head into the noose : the bolt was
drawn ; and, after a slight struggle, he died.^
It has been argued that as, at the time when Tantia was
born, his master, the Peshwa, Avas an independent
Was* tt just? prince, and as he Avas not charged with having
committed murder, it was unjust to hang him.
It is sufficient to reply that as, at the time of the Mutiny,
he was a subject of the British Government, he undoubtedly
rebelled in waging war against it, and was therefore as justly
liable to be hanged as any of the poor deluded mutineers who
suffered the same fate. Moreover, though he was not charged
with having committed murder, there is abundant evidence to
prove that, in denying that he had committed murder, he lied,
— that he helped to contrive the deaths of those who Avere shot,
or sabred, or drowned, or torn to pieces in the Ganges by
Cawnpore.'^ On this charge also he would have been tried,
and his guilt would have been brought home to him, if there
had been time to pi'ocure the necessary evidence : but although
he was convicted on the lesser charge alone, posterity will
say that his punishment was just.
The annihilation of Tantia's power was the last event of
real political importance in the insurrection. For
stru""ie.°^ *^'*'' some months longer, however, the dying embers of
the fire which had swept over the land smouldered
on. Throughout the summer and the autumn, in Bundelkhand,
in the Saugor and Nerbudda Territories, and elsewhere, small
columns were constantly employed in hunting down bands of
marauders who could not bring themselves to turn aside, with-
out a struggle, from the paths of violence and rapine which the
outbreak of the mutiny had opened to them. It was not till
the end of the year that India was restored to something like
its normal condition.^
1 Daihj Netni, May 20, 1859, p. :'., col. 4 ; Tlnm, May '20, 1859, p. 10, cols.
2, 3 ; papers lent to me by Lady Meade.
'^ Tantia also declared that the Nana was not responsible for the Cawnpore
murders. Against his unsupported statement of his o^ra and of his master's
innocence, we have the testimony of a host of iudejwndent witnesses. See
Depositions taken of Caionpore under the directum of Col. WiUianis, pp. 5, 8,
13-14, 16-17, 19, '26, 35-6, 38-9, 42, 45, 49, 50, 52, 60, 78, 83, 85, 87, 90, 9G-7,
99-103, 111-13. •* Calcutta Gazette, x^o^sim.
1857-9 THE END OF THE STRUGGLE 553
The question inevitably arises whetiier the war might not
have been brought to an end before, and with a ^^ ^^^^ ^j^^
vigour which would have made a deeper impression -struggle so^
upon the people of India. If it is good for us to
contemplate with pride the heroic deeds of our countrymen, it
is not well to shut our eyes to failures which experience may
teach us to avoid. The fault was not merely that when the
mutiny broke out, we were unprepared. When the heroes of
1857 had repelled the first onslaught of the mutineers, there
was some want of power in crushing their resistance ; and when
they had abandoned all hope of success, and were oidy seeking
to plunder or to escape, they outmarched us at every point.
For this failure our organisation was in part responsible. Our
cavalry were neither trained, nor equipped, nor armed to
destroy the enemy whom they had to pursue. As Havelock's
gifted son, who himself showed with brilliant success how to
deal with the runaways, afterwards remarked, " Our magni-
ficent force was capable of crushing anything : it could overtake
nothing." ^ To say that Sir Colin Campbell failed to remedy
this defect, is simply to admit that he was not a born general.
His experience had for the most part been gained upon
European fields ; and he did not fully understand the con-
ditions of success in Indian warfare. His movements were
somewhat slow ; and he had an undue respect for his enemy."
Cautious by disposition and intensely conservative, he was
deeply sensible of the heavy responsibility which lay upon him ;
and he refused to run risks or to listen to those who urged
him to try new methods. When, by a failure of judgement
which, even on his own principles, was inexcusable, he had
sufiered over a hundred thousand rebels and mutineers to
escape almost unscathed from Lucknow, he might still, if he
had considered how Lake had hunted the Marathas fifty years
before, have done something to repair his error. Towards the
end of the year, Outram, pointing to the brilliant example
of the younger Havelock, urged him to form a corps of
mounted infantry, — the arm which, if it had been ready to
his hand, might have changed the whole complexion of the
^ Major, now Sir H. M. Havelock- Allan's Three 2Iam Military Questions of
the Day, p. 167. See Api?. T.
- General Innes suggests {Tlie Sepoy Revolt, p. 297) that Sir Colin's slowness
was " at variance with his own character, and largely due to his deference to other
inlluences." Query, — the influence of Mansfield ?
554 THK QUEEN'S PROCLAMATION chap.xviii
war. But such an innovation was not to be expected from an
old man.
It would be unjust, however, to dwell only upon the weak
side of Colin Campbell's generalship. Much of the invective
that has been directed against him was based upon ignorance of
the circumstances in which he had to act ; and much of it was
vague declamation. If he did his work in his own way, he did
it on the whole thoroughly and well. And the work which he
had to do Avas even harder than that Avhich tried to the utter-
most the powers of Havelock and Outram and Nicholson. For
he had to maintain a weary, heart-breaking struggle against
tens of thousands of guerillas, whom despair stimulated to
resist to the last, and whom a timely amnesty might have
induced to lay down their arms.^ The worst that can be said
of him is that, hampered by a defective organisation and unable
to remedy it for lack of initiative and breadth of view, pur-
sued by the results of the fatal errors which he had committed
at Lucknow, he allowed the war, which might have been
terminated sooner and with more decisive effect, to drag on till
near the close of 1859.
Long before this, however, an event had occurred which
marked the close of the crucial period of the
theGovem°° Struggle, and the restoration of British supre-
b^theCrown ^^'^^y. In England, all political parties agreed
in throwing the blame of the Mutiny on the
East India Company. The Company was therefore abolished ;
and Queen Victoria became virtually Empress of
proclamation. India. A proclamation was prepared, explaining
the principles in accordance with which the im-
perial functions were thenceforth to be exercised. It declared
that the government of India had been assumed by the Queen ;
that Lord Canning was to be the first Viceroy ; that all officers
who had been in the service of the East India Company were
confirmed in their offices ; that all treaties made by the Com-
pany with native princes were to be maintained ; that the
Queen desired no extension of territory ; that she promised
full religious toleration to her Indian subjects, and would
always respect their ancient usages ; that she oftered pardon to
all rebels who had not directly taken part in the murder of
^ See Life of Lord Clyde, vol. ii. 2'p. '277-8, aud Life of Lord Lawrence, tith
ed. vol. ii. pp. 3 7(3, 191-3 195.
1858 THE queen's PROCLAMATION 555
Europeans ; and that she would always labour for the pro-
sperity of her newly acquired dominions.^
On the 1st of November, 1858, the proclamation was read
out at every station in India. Religious services, military
salutes, concerts, displays of bunting, banquets, illuminations,
iireworks, testified the enthusiasm of the Europeans : loyal
addresses Avere signed by thousands of natives ; '^ and a new era
of Anglo-Indian history began.
^ Calcutta Gazette, Exty., Nov. 1, 1858.
^ ludiau newspapers.
CHAPTER XIX
CONCLUSION
The objects of this chapter are to determine, from the evidence
recorded in the preceding narrative, first, what were the causes
of the Mutiny and of the disturbances which accompanied it
among the civil population, and secondly, what was the signifi-
cance of those disturbances, whether, in short, they amounted
to rebellion. I have traced in the nai^rative the working of
the ascertainable causes, and need only now recapitulate
them. Though there are some points involved in the enquiry,
regarding which the evidence is defective, and which, therefore,
can never be satisfactorily decided, yet they are of minor import-
ance. For historical purposes the evidence is amply sufficient.
The evidence concerns first, the mental attitude of the
natives of India, and particularly of the subjects of the Com-
pany, before the outbreak of the Mutiny, and secondly, their
conduct during its progress.
History and common sense alike show that a rebellion,
properly so-called, can never take place without provocation.
Had the British Government given such provocation 1 It is
true that, on personal grounds, the King of Delhi, minor
potentates who were alarmed by the progress of annexation,
landholders who had suifered from the unwise action of the
British Government, ambitious spirits whom its levelling policy
had condemned to restless inaction, all who fancied that its
overthrow would open to them opportunities for gratifying
their selfish desires, desii'ed that overthrow with more or less
eagerness. So did many Mahomedans^ from political or
^ It woukl be a great mistake to assume that the Mahomedans were universally
hostile to us. \Vhen the regiments at Chittagong and Dacca mutinied, tlie
Mahomedans of Eastern Bengal, as Sir G. Campbell observes {Memoirs, vol. i.
p. 294), " treated the sepoys with just as much hostility as the Punjabis. They
CONCLUSION 5n7
religious motives, and many Brahmins from a sense of wounded
self-importance. There were others too, who, though they
did not perhaps consciously desire the ruin of the Feringhees,
were yet so far dissatisfied with them and their administration,
that they would not have been sorry to see them involved in
difficulties. But, though British rule had been far from fault-
less, it was confessedly superior to any that had preceded it : ^
the poor and the un warlike knew that it had ameliorated their
lot ; and its sins had not been grave enough to provoke de-
liberate rebellion. The accident that it was an alien and
infidel rule, however humiliating to native pride,- would never
have been enough in itself to afford provocation. The result
of this absence of provocation, coupled with the diversities of
race, religion, rank, status, and aim among the discontented,
was that they neither wished nor were able to combine against
the British Government. They were simply in a mood to take
advantage of any embarrassment which might overtake it, for
the attainment of their private ends : some of them were in a
mood to scheme, and did scheme, in order to bring such em-
barrassment upon it.
Excepting the General Service Enlistment Act and the
new postal rules, the native army had, in the beginning
hated them as an alien race . . . and hunted them out with much pluck." See
also pp. 44 and note, 143 and 185 supra,
^ Sir G. Campbell tells us {Ale^noirs of my Indian Career, vol. ii. pp. 356-7)
that a sepoy officer remarked, in a paper discovered in the palace of Delhi, that
" with all the faiilts of the English, their Government was the best Hindustan has
ever seen, and he projioses that the future adnunistration should be based on
their model." See also a translation of a most interesting circular letter
addressed by the notorious Raja Man Singh to the talukdars of Oudh on July
20, 1857, printed in Innes's Lucknow and Oude. in the Mutiny, pp. 334-9 ; and
above all see Sir J. Strachey's India, pp. 313-20, 365-6. "The duty," says Sir
John (p. 366), " was once imposed upon me of transferring a number of villages
which had long been included in a British district to one of the best governed of
the Native States. I shall not forget the loud and universal protests of the
people against the cruel injustice with which they considered they were being
treated. Everyone who has had experience of similar cases tells the same story.
Nevertheless I cannot say that our Government is loved ; it is too good for
that."
2 See Thornhill's Indian Mutiny, p. 332 ; John Lawrence's letter on the
causes of the Mutiny {Pari. Papers, vol. xxv. Sess. 2, 1859, p. 337) ; and
Innes's Lucknmu and Oude in the Ahitiny, p. 4. Mr. Thornhill speaks of
'■ that vague discontent which is necessarily and invariably produced by the
domination of an alien race, especially of a race whose habits, ideas and
sentiments differ widely from those of the people they rule " ; and Lawrence
insists that "the people of India can never forget that we are an alien race,
in respect of colour, religion, habits and sympathies."
558 CONCLUSION chap, xix
of 1857, hardly any substantial grievances to complain of i^
but the relaxation of discipline had encouraged them to twist
into a grievance anything that startled their imaginations, or
offended their caprices. They were irritated by past acts of
bad faith : they sympathised with civil discontent ; and they
shared in the general fear, begotten of ignorance, that Eeligion
was in danger. They were from various causes generally far
less attached to their British officers than they had once been :
it was in the nature of things impossible that, without such
attachment, they should feel active loyalty towards the British
Government ; and they had become so powerful and were so
conscious of their power that, from purely selfish causes, they
Avere ripe for mutiny.
While the feelings of the civil and military populations of
India were in this inflammable condition, the discovery of the
greased cartridge struck them like a flaming brand hurled into
a mass of stored gunpowder ; the inevitable mutiny burst
forth ; the zealots or sufi"erers who really desired to sweep the
British away, took up arms against them, or waited in the hope
that it would soon be safe to strike ; the discontented seized the
opportunity to redress their grievances ; and many who were
not discontented were swept away by sympathy, by threats, by
persuasions, or by greed, into the flood of disaffection, or like
schoolboys who, though prepared to reverence authority, must
find a vent for their inborn love of milchief when they feel
that their master is powerless to control them, took advantage
of the prostration of governmental force to outrage the law.
But, as might have been expected, the disturbances, except in
one or two isolated regions, and on the part of a few embittered
or fanatical groups, never amounted to rebellion. If they had
done so, the empire must have been destroyed.
In trying to estimate the conduct of the people of India
dixring the Mutiny, it is important to bear in mind that it
would have been unnatural for them to feel towards an alien
Government like ours the loyalty that can only co-exist with
patriotism. Those of them who regarded our rule as beneficial
helped us, or at least left us free to help ourselves ; but there
was hardly one of them who would not have turned against us,
^ See Sir H. Lawrence's articles on The Indian Army and Army Reform in
liis collected essays. [The Act only afteeted the sepoys through their sympathies,
with their relatives and others who contemplated joining the service.]
CONCLUSION 559
if he had once come to believe that we should be overthrown.
Such conduct might not have accorded with romantic notions
of fidelity ; but it would most certainly have been dictated by
common sense. No wise man ever fights for a lost cause. If
we had not been able to quell the Indian Mutiny, it would
have been a plain proof that we had no business to be in India.
Although, even in Dalhousie's time, the sepoys were in a
mutinous temper, although their fears and hopes were probably
excited by the agents of discontented princes, it is certain
that, before the greased cartridge story got abroad, they
formed no definite plot for a general mutiny. Whether or
not such a plot was formed afterwards, will never be as-
certained: all that is certain is that, in the spring of 1857, a
correspondence was kept up among the regiments of the
Bengal army, and that they generally agreed to refuse the
cartridges.^
The evidence clearly proves that Dalhousie was not in any
special degree, not more than any one else, responsible for the
Mutiny,^ or for the disturbances which accompanied it. It is
true that some of the acts of his administration, righteous
though they were, had added to the discontent which produced
some of the disturbances. But that the harsh criticisms directed
against the annexation policy by pamphleteers and historians
were unsound is demonstrated by the fact that, with two ex-
ceptions, the annexed states were far less disturbed in the years
of the Mutiny than provinces which had been for generations
under British rule. The exceptions were Oiidh and Jhdnsi. It
is certain that, if those states had not been annexed, the
British Government would have escaped some of the difficulties
which beset it in 1857 and 1858 ; but it would have purchased
this relief by infamy, — the infamy of abandoning millions of
peasants to groan under opjsression for fear of incurring the
ill-will of their oppressors. Moreovei', even the annexations of
Oudh and Jhansi would have been harmless, if they had been
supported, as they would have been by any Government but
ours, with armed force. Nor must it be forgotten that the
rebellion in Oudh was due, not so much to annexation,^ as to the
' See Sir J. LawTence's letter on the causes of the Mutiny. Pari. Papers,
voh XXV. (Sess. 2), 1859, pp. 333 et seq.
'^ He was partially respousi1)le for the Mutiny, inasmuch as he did not perceive,
or at least made no attempt to remedy, the indiscipline of the native army.
^ See Syad Ahmad Khan's Tlie Caiispf; nf the Indian Revolt, p. 5.
5G0 CONCLUSION chap, xix
want of judgement with which the talukchirs were treated after
the annexation ; and still more to the failure of Havelock's first
two attempts to relieve Lucknow; to the abandonment of
Lucknow by Sir Colin Campbell ; to the blunders which he
committed during the siege ; and to Canning's proclamation.
On the other hand, Dalhousie had pleaded earnestly for an
increase of the European force, which, if it had been granted,
would have greatly strengthened his successor's hands, and
might have averted the direst calamities of the Mutiny ; while
by the construction of roads, railways, and telegraphs, and
above all by the magnificent administration which he had be-
stowed upon the Punjab, he had contributed so much to the
power by which order was restored to India that he deserved
to be mentioned with gratitude rather than with reprobation.
The question still remains, how far the rulers of India wei'e
to blame for the evils which befell them and so many of their
subjects. The mutiny might doubtless have been prevented, if
the native army had been treated with invariable consideration
and good faith, if discipline had been persistently enforced, and
if the due proportion between the numbers of the European
and native troops had been maintained. But, if a general
mutiny had ever been suffered to break forth, no power on
earth could have prevented quasi-rebellious disturbances from
following it. Just as the lawless and tyrannical barons of the
twelfth century took advantage of the feebleness of Stephen
to plunder and oppress their weaker neighbours, and chafed
against the strong and just rule of Henry Plantagenet ; just as
a general mutiny of the London police would be followed by a
violent outburst of crime on the part of the London thieves and
roughs ; so would the tdlukddrs, the dispossessed landholders,
the Gujars, and the budmashes of India have welcomed the
first symptom of governmental weakness as a signal for grati-
fying their selfish instincts. The worst that can be alleged
against our rule is that we had, with the best intentions, made
many mistakes, which intensified the force of the disturbances
occasioned by the Mutiny : but much of the discontent felt
against us was the inevitable result of measures which, rightly
taken on behalf of the sufi'ering many, had offended the tyran-
nical few, much of it had been aroused by that resolute asser-
tion of the majesty of the law which is the first duty of every
Government.
APPENDICES
2 o
APPENDIX A
LoRB Auckland and the First Afghan War
Since the fourtli edition of this book was published, Sir Auckland
Colvin has endeavoured to show that the policy which led to the first
Afghan War was " not that of Lord Auckland's Indian subordinates
but of his English masters " {John Colvin [" Rulers of India " series],
p. 73). Sir Auckland's reasoning has been generally accepted as con-
clusive. Not to mention anonymous reviewers, the Rev. W. H.
Hutton, who is known as a student of Anglo-Indian history, writes
(English Historical Review, vol. x. 1895, p. 604), "The author is able
... to reverse entirely the common verdict against Lord Auckland
and his advisers. . . . Passages (in Captain Trotter's ^arZ o/^wcHand)
in which the blame for the disastrous imbroglio appears to be laid upon
Lord Auckland and, still more, upon Colvin and Torrens, must be
modified in any future edition." I have no present concern with
Colvin or Torrens ; and Captain Trotter may be supposed to know his
own business : but Lord Auckland deserved at least as much blame
as his " English masters."
Sir Auckland Colvin relies upon " the despatch bearing date
June 25, which Lord Auckland received in 1836, from the Secret
Committee of the Court of Directors." " This despatch," he remarks
(p. 86), "is not mentioned in Sir John Kaye's History of the Afghan
War. Yet without it the whole of Lord Auckland's policy is unintelli-
gible." After giving an extract from the despatch, Sir Auckland
goes on to say, " It is evident that Lord Auckland's position after the
receipt of this important despatch was clearly and squarely laid down
for him. First, he was to endeavour to enter into commercial, or
into political relations with Afghanistan. He was to adopt any other
measures which he thought desirable in order to counteract Russian
influence, if he were satisfied that the time had arrived for him to
interfere decidedly in the aff'airs of Afghanistan." Yes ! but the
despatch left the Governor -General a free hand. He was not
564 APPENDIX A
instructed to reject the overtures of Dost Mahomed : he was not
instructed to dethrone that friendly prince, or to set up a discredited
exile in his stead. As a writer in the Athenceum (March 9, 1895)
says, in a review of Sir Auckland's book, " Neither in the despatch of
June, 1836, nor in that of May, 1838, can we find any clear fore-
shaping of Auckland's aggressive policy towards the Barakzai Amir
of Kabul. It is true . . . that Lord Auckland referred to those
despatches in justification of a war for which he assumed full responsi-
bility," etc. (see Pari. Papers, vol. xxv. [1 Sess. 2], 1859, p. 307, § 57).
" I have," writes the Governor-General, " in adopting this step, been
deeply sensible of the responsibility which it places on me . . . and
a reference to the Despatches of your Hon. Committee of the 25tli
June 1836, and the 10th May last have led me to look with con-
fidence for your . . . support to the plans on which, in the exercise
of the discretion confided to me, I have resolved." Moreover, even if
the Board of Control had prescribed to the Governor-General a policy
identical with that which he pursued, he would not have been free
from responsibility. That policy is universally admitted to have been
ill conceived and to have led to disastrous results. If Lord Auckland
approved of it, as he did, what is the use of trying to transfer from
him to the Board of Control a responsibility which he expressly
claimed for himself ? If the policy had been prescribed for him and
he had believed it to be fraught with disaster, would it not have been
his duty either to disobey his instructions, as Warren Hastings did
when he knew that his instructions were wrong, or to resign his
oflBce ? It is quite true that, as Mr. H. G. Keene points out {Hist, of
India, vol. iL 1893, p. 408), "the British Ministry made that policy
(Auckland's) their owm," — in a despatch dated October 24, 1838, in
which, as Mr. Keene says, "the policy had been sanctioned by
anticipation," — " so that they would even have enjoined it on the
Governor-General if he had not originated it himself" : but the fact
of their having " sanctioned by anticipation " a disastrous policy does
not absolve its originator from blame.
Sir John Kaye's narrative (Hist, of the JVar in Afghanistan, 2nd ed.
vol. i. pp. 199-385) is, on the whole, remarkably faii\ He freely admits
(pp. 382-3) that on the 1st of October, 1838, Auckland "had good
grounds for believ-ing that the fall of Herat was inevitable " ; and
therefore that he was bound to take active measures of some sort for
averting the dangers which its fall would involve, although " this state
of things was mainly induced by the feebleness of our own policy
towards the Barukzye Sirdars " (jsp. 308-9) : but, he concludes, " the
failure of Mahomed Shah " of Persia " cut from under the feet of Lord
Auckland all ground of justification, and rendered the expedition
across the Indus at once a folly and a crime."
APPENDIX A 565
Sir Auckland Colvin's account of Burnes's negotiations with Dost
Mahomed is hardly less misleading than his attempt to exculpate the
Governor -General. His aim appears to be to show that it was
practically impossible for the Governor-General to secure the alliance
of the Amir. " Dost Muhammad," he writes (pp. 95-6), " was assured
by Captain Burnes of protection against Sikh and Persian. But the
Amir did not fear the Sikh, and the Persian was a long way off. . . .
Unless Peshawar were placed by Lord Auckland in the hollow of Dost
IVfuhammad's hand, it very soon became evident that Captain Burnes
might retrace his steps to India. The Amir would, if desired, pay a
tribute for Peshawar to the Maharaja. . . . But if Lord Auckland
desired his alliance, in one or another fashion Peshawar must be con-
veyed to him. . . . Peshawar must be his. That was his ultimatuu].
There was no getting behind it. On that rock the negotiation split."
And again (p. 99), " in order that we should make him (Dost
Muhammad) our friend, it was necessary that we should make Ran] it
Singh our enemy. That, in Lord Auckland's judgement, would be
madness."
Now it is not strictly true that " Dost Muhammad was assured by
Captain Burnes of protection " against Persia. Tlie assurance was
given to Sirdar Kohin Dil Khan of Candahar. " I have gone so far,"
writes Burnes on December 23, 1837 {Pari. Paioers,\o\. xxv. 1859, p. 97),
" as to inform him that if Herat falls, and the Shah of Persia seeks to
march against Candahar, and he continues the friend of the British
nation, his brother, the Ameer, will come to his assistance ; that I will
accompany him, and that in that event the expenses of keeping off the
Persians will be furnished to him." But Sir Auckland omits to add
that Burnes was severely taken to task by the Governor-General for
having given this assurance [Ih. pp. 121-3, §§ 2-3, 6, 15) ; and Sir
Auckland's statement that "the Persian was a long way off " is misleading.
Dost Mahomed thought that he was quite near enough to be dangerous.
" Russia," says Burnes (Kay e'siives of Indian Officers, vol. ii. p. 37, note),
" guaranteed him against Persia, and thus he clung to her instead of
us." The Amir was even more anxious to obtain from the British a
guarantee of protection from Persia than to get hold of Peshawar.
(See Pari Papers, vol. xxv. 1859, pp. 174 § 10, 228, 229 § 3, 231, and
238 § 7.) What the Amir wants, wrote Burnes, just before he left
Kabul, is "protection from the west, as the price of his adherence to
us, and further, that however Peshawur might be settled by Runjeet
Singh, no acknowledgement could be made for our good offices unless
means were taken to prevent injury from such settlement to those who
had befriended the Ameer." Certainly the Amir was anxious to hold
Peshawar as Ranjit's tributary : but this was not " the rock on which
the negotiation split." That rock was the Governor- General's frigid
566 APPENDIX A
disposition towards the Amir, his manifest unwillingness to give him
any substantial proof of friendship. " It was not the adjustment of
the Peshawur affair," said the principal Afghan secretary to Burnes,
" that dissipated the Ameer's hopes, but the indifference to his suffer-
ings . . . which it was now (March, 1838) clear the British felt"
{lb. p. 173, § 7). If Burnes had been authorised to offer the Amir
protection from Persia, he might have been trusted to adjust " the
Peshawur affair " without offending Ranjit Singh. Sir Auckland
himself tells us (p. 79) that Ranjit was in a compliant mood : — " 'What
the Governor-General whispers in my ear, that will I do,' was his
reply to Lord Auckland's agent." But as late as January 20, 1838,
the Amir's suggestion that he should be allowed to hold Peshawar as
" tributary to Lahore " had not even been communicated to Ranjit
{Pari. Papers, vol. xxv. 1869, p. 123) ; and I can find no evidence that
it was ever communicated to him. Indeed, as Sir John Kaye says
(vol. i. p. 204), "on the 21st of February letters were opened from
the Governor-General, stating . . . that there was no intention to
accede to the proposals of the Ameer, and that Peshawur must be left
to the Sikhs." [See also Pari Papers, vol. xxv. 1 859, pp. 43, 75, 1 33-4.]
Yet as late as Jvdy 1838, Dost Mahomed was still, as he had always
been, hoping against hope to win the friendship of the English {lb.
p. 275).
Sir Auckland Colvin insists (p. 102) that Burnes, although he
warmly espoused the cause of Dost Mahomed, led the Governor-
General to believe that " if Shah Shuja were sent back to Kabul with
a mere personal guard of British troops, he would be received with open
arms." This is substantially true {Pari. Papers, vol. xxv. 1859, pp. 252,
257) ; and the fact should not be forgotten when we condemn the
gratuitous folly of the Governor-General's policy : but Sir Auckland
omits to add that Lieutenant Leech, Bumes's assistant, recorded the
warning that Shah Shuja's " constant reverses appear fated in the
eyes of the multitude, and with great difiicidty could any be found to
join his fortunes without seeing the greatest certainty of success " (76.
p. 268, § 59). What is more, as Sir John Kaye reminds us (vol. i.
p. 357), Burnes himself wrote, " the Afghans are a superstitious people,
and believe Shah Soojali to have no fortune."
APPENDIX B 567
APPENDIX B
Would it have bekn useless to pursue the Meerut
Mutineers ?
Lord Eouerts (Forty - one Years in India, vol. i. p. 90) doubts
whether it would have been of any use to pursue the Meerut mutineers.
" Only a very few European cavalry," he says, " were available for
pursuit, for the Carabineers . . . were . . mainly . . recruits still in the
riding school, and their horses for the most part were quite unbroken , . .
the mutineers had a considerable start, the Cavalry could not have
been overtaken, and . . . the Infantry . . . would have scattered . .
over the country, and favoured by tlie darkness . . have defied pursuit."
The Rifles, adds Lord Roberts, could not have reached Delhi before
the evening of the following day.
I will not apologise for presuming to differ from so high an
authority, first, because no other Indian officer, so far as I know, save
only Generals Hewitt and Wilson, has ever agreed with him ; and
secondly, because I am sure that Lord Roberts, if he had ever found
himself in similar circumstances, would have been the first to insist
upon pursuit. The mutineers fled, as I have already shown (p. 99,
note 1), as a disorganised mob and in detached parties ; and many of
them loitered on the road. A squadron of the (Carabineers was avail-
able ; and, as some days later. Lieutenant Sanford, Lieutenant A. R. D.
Mackenzie, and a j)arty of brave men rode with despatches one hundred
and thirty miles from Meerut on unbroken horses (National Review,
March 1893, p. 60), every man in the station who could ride might
have joined in the pursuit. A strong battery of horse-artillery was
ready for instant action and could have severely punished the fugitives.
The Rifles could at all events have accounted for the laggards. Lord
Roberts will not persuade his brother officers that Wilson and Hewitt
were justified in doing nothing.
[Since I wrote tlie above passage, I have read Sir H. Havelock-
AUan's very interesting book Three Main Military Questions of the Day.
Sir Henry says (p. 174), "The cavalry might, if pushed on alone, or
together with the horse-artillery, have easily overtaken the sepoys
. . . the guns might . . . have inflicted some loss, but the mass of
the rebels could not have been prevented from reaching Delhi before
them." But after remarking that " a hundred and fifty mounted rifle-
men," if such a corps had been available, " would have saved Delhi to
568 APPENDIX C
Britain that night," he points out (p. 175, note) that a modification
of this plan " might have been devised on the spot " :— " It is said that
a captain of the Sixth Carabineers volunteered, if allowed to take his
own squadron, a troop of horse-artillery and a couple of dozen of the
60 th Rifles carried on the limbers and spare waggons of the guns, to
intercept the mutineers, by getting l^efore them to the bridge above
spoken of," — tlie bridge over the Hindan, between Meerut and Delhi,
— " but that the attempt was considered too hazardous," etc. Sir
Hugh Gough says {Old Memories, p. 44), " Even if the . . . mutineers
had arrived before the pursuing force, I believe the moral effect of the
approach of the British troopers would have deterred the Native
Infantry from breaking out, and Delhi would have been saved.' ]
APPENDIX C
John Colvin in the Mutiny
Sir Auckland Colvin, K.C.S.I., has recently written for Sir W.
Hunter's Rulers of India series a memoir of his father, in which he
endeavours to show that the criticisms which have been directed
against his policy in 1857 were undeserved. Sir Auckland concentrates
his attention upon three points. " It has been said," he remarks (jjp.
178-9), " that he failed to detect the true character of the Mutiny till
long after it had become apparent to others in high places. He has
been reproached with the issue on May 25 of a Proclamation, inviting
Sepoys to surrender on terms which Lord Canning compelled him to
withdraw. He has been charged with apathy in the conduct of atfairs
in Agra itself, with neglecting the provisioning of the Fort, and with
causing much loss of property by harsh restrictions as to the amount
to be taken into the Fort, when events drove the Christian population
to its shelter."
The second point, which is by far the least important, Sir Auckland
discusses at the greatest lengtli. He argues that the strictures which
Canning and others passed upon the proclamation were due to a mis-
apprehension of its real character. Canning only saw the English
translation, which was misleading, and, as Sir Auckland allows, was
" obviously open to criticism." I do not think that any fair critic
will deny that Sir Auckland has proved his point : but none of the
three witnesses, — Messrs. C. Raikes, E. A. Reade, and M. Thornhill, —
APPENDIX C 569
who have borue the most emj^hatic testimony against Colvin's errors,
has assailed him on this point at alL
In regard to tlie first point, Sir Auckland's defence amounts to
this, — that " the three men on whom the storm broke, John Colvin,
John Lawrence, and Henry Lawrence, looked to the immediate attack
on Delhi to nip the Mutiny in the bud " ; and that from May 29, the
day when he learned that the attack on Delhi must be delayed,
Colvin, as well as the other two, " had no illusions." But the
Lawrences at once took vigorous action to provide against the worst
that could happen if Delhi should not soon fall ; while Colvin at first did
not know his own mind ; then suffered himself to be unduly influenced
by Driuumond ; and disregarded sound advice that was pressed upon
him. Nor can any one fail to be struck by the contrast between the tone
of the letters and telegrams which Colvin despatched to the Governor-
General in the week after he heard the news of the seizure of Delhi,
and the contemporary letters of Henry and John Lawrence. On the
15th of May Colvin telegraphs, "I have every confidence that they,"
— the sepoy regiments, — " will be all put to rights in a few days."
Next day he sends this message, " The worst of the storm is past, and
the aspect of affairs is fast brightening"; and on the 18th, "a line
only to say that the complexion of all the news of the day is better
and better" (Pari. Papers, vol. xxx. 1857, pp. 220, 228, 236).
Meanwhile Henry Lawrence is hopeful, but fully recognises tlie
gravity of the crisis. "All is quiet here," he says on the 16th, "but
affairs are critical : get every European you can from China, Ceylon,
and elsewhere ; also all the Goorkas from the hills. Time is every-
thing." And on the following day he warns the Governor-General; to
look to the safety of Allahabad and Benares (lb. pp. 221, 229). In
a like spirit, John Lawrence warns Anson on the 13th that, unless
steps are immediately taken to recover Delhi, " the insurrection
will assuredly spread, and our European troops become isolated, and
perhaps be gradually destroyed in detail. . . . Everything now
depends on energy and resolution. A week or two hence it may be
too late. ... I consider this to be the greatest crisis which has ever
occurred in India." On the 16th he tells the Governor-General that
" the worst feeling prevails generally in the native army " ; and on
the same day, writing to Anson again, he insists that " the disaffection
in the native Regular army seems general, and, I may add, universal "
(Life of Loi'd Latorence, vol. ii. pp. 15-17, 20). Those who feel doubtful
about the fairness of my extracts should read for themselves : but it is
certain that, while the Lawrences and Colvin hoped that Delhi would
soon be recaptured, the Lawrences were, from the first, awake to the
gravity of the crisis, which one of them had foreseen, and Colvin was
not.
570 APPENDIX C
Sir Auckland succeeds, I think, in showing that his father was
unreasonably attacked for having refused to allow the non-combatant
Christian population of Agra to take refuge in the fort when Colonel
Fraser first pressed him to do so. Reade held that during May at all
events it would have been unwise for him to accede to Fraser's pro-
posal. But whether Colvin was justified in forbidding the transference
of the Government records into the fort, and in compelling the refugees
to leave the bulk of their property at the mercy of mutineers, is
another question. " With a pedantry," says Mr. Thornhill {Indian
Mutiny, p. 182), "which under the circumstances might have been
thought inconceivable, the size of the boxes was regulated to inches."
Sir Auckland Colvin maintains that his father was quite right.
"When," he says (pp. 194-5), "cholera broke out among the crowded
refugees, the wisdom of the order became apparent." To whom i
Certainly not to the military or to the civil oflBcers who were on the
spot. The cholera was due to the total absence of sanitary precautions
(Thornhill, pp. 173-4, 207), and would not have been increased by
the presence of the Government records, or even of an extra box in
each apartment. As Reade, to whom Sir Auckland Colvin often
appeals, remarked at the time {Narrative of Events, p. 49), " the
accommodation of the fort was grievously underrated." See also
Raikes's Notes on the Revolt, pp. 54-5. Moreover, Reade points out
(pp. 47, 49) that, although it would have been unwise to send the
women and children into the fort in May, a great mistake was made
in not removing them thither in the earlier part of June, — a measure
which, as he says, would have "released the adult males to join in
the defence " ; while Sir Auckland himseK virtually admits that on
the 14th of June the fort was ready for their reception.
In one passage Sir Auckland exercises his powers of sarcasm at my
expense. His father, he says (pp. 197-8), "has been blamed by an
historian of the Mutinies for watching every detail of public business.
' He would have served his country better by sparing himself this
labour, and leaving room in his mind for larger views of state policy.'
Here is a ship almost in the power of nmtineers. A few of the crew
contend with them. The captain, isolated against his will, with the
aid of a handful of men guards at least one stronghold against
violence. He would be better employed, says this critic, in entrusting
defence to others, and in leaving room in his mind for larger views of
seamanship and navigation. Such is the foolishness with which men
are assailed when that turba Remi, which follows fortune, forsakes
them." It is strange that so clever a man as Sir Auckland should
have distorted a meaning that was obvious. I really did not mean to
suggest that his father ought to have sj^ent his time in 1857 in
thinking out a system of political philosophy. I wonder whether
APPENDIX C 571
Sir Auckland had read the passage in Pi,aikes's narrative on which
my remark was founded : — " Mr. Colvin resolutely watched every
detail of public business. Even now, if I wanted a sword or a pistol
from the magazine, Mr. Colvin's counter -signature was necessary"
(p. 56). These words need no comment. The editor of vol. vii. of the
Gazetteer of the N.W.P. (p. 653) attaches the same meaning to them
that I have done. Sir Auckland would have been more accurate,
though less dutiful, if he had written, " The captain does not know
his own mind, suffers his first lieutenant (Drummond) to usurp his
authority, and fails to guard even one stronghold against violence.
He is unable to disentangle himself from the bonds of red tape, and
expends his failing strength in attending to the pettiest details. He
would be better employed in entrusting this business to the ship's
steward, keeping order among his crew and keeping her off the
rocks."
It is only natural that a son should do his best to vindicate his
father's memory ; and though filial piety may sometimes most wisely
operate by silence, the most rigorous critic cannot but sympathise
with a man who, from so honourable a motive, challenges his con-
clusions. I freely acknowledge that, on some points, Colvin has been
hastily and excessively condemned : but it is hopeless for his son to
attempt to reverse the verdict which his colleagues and contemporaries
pronounced against him. Their testimony is too unanimous and too
strong ; and its effect is only increased by the generous eagerness with
which they eulogised his virtues and apologised for his faults. His
conscientiousness, his self-devotion, his gentleness, his forbearance, his
patience under overwhelming trials, — no one has ever denied these
noble qualities, and all who saw have borne witness to them. But
it was not by the distinctively Christian virtues that mutiny
and sedition were quelled in 1857 : it was by the Sai/xovif]
dper-q to which men bowed in homage before Christ taught that it
was not all. It is idle to maintain that John Colvin was a Ruler of
India when those who were his subordinates maintain with one voice
that in troublous times he could not rule at all. He was an admini-
strator of great ability, and he did good work in time of peace : but it is
in connexion with the Mutiny that he will be remembered. " It was his
misfortune," writes one of those who served under him, " to be called
upon to meet a crisis which to meet successfully was impossible, and
which to meet at all required qualities that he did not possess."
[Since I wrote the foregoing note, Sir Auckland Colvin has published
in the Nineteenth Century of April, 1897 (pp. 556-68) an article
entitled "Agra in 1857: a Reply to Lord Roberts." As a reply,
the article is effective, and corrects serious misstatements : but Sir
Auckland naturally writes as an advocate only. For instance, on
572 APPENDIX C
page 558 he remarks that "the Lieutenant-Governor's action" in
refusing to allow the European troops to enter the fort in May, " has
been attributed to Mr. Dnimmond's insistence," clearly implying that
the Lieutenant-Governor acted on his own initiative. But leference
to Raikes (pp. 52-4) and to Reade {p. 42) shows that the Lieutenant-
Governor did defer to Drunimond. Again, it is true that, as Sir
Auckland shows (pp. 561-2), "a considerable amount of supplies"
had been placed in the fort by June 16 : but it is also true that
Drummond's interference greatly retarded the work of provisioning
the fort : that large additional supplies had to be procured even after
the battle of Sacheta : that the fort at that time was not defensible ;
and that sanitary precautions had been neglected (Reade's Narrative,
p. 54 ; Selection of Papers from the Office of Commissioner of Finance
[E. A. Reade], p. 11 ; Thornhill, pp. 173-4, 181-2, 228, 255, 265 ;
Kaye, vol. iii. pp. 396, 399). Moreover, although, as Sir Auckland
points out (p. 563), the European women and children were allowed
to enter the fort on the 27th of June, the native Christians W"ere
excluded until the 4th of July, and were only admitted then because
they naturally "clamoured against the prohibition" (Reade, p. 51).
Furthermore, if Colvin had disarmed the sepoys at Agra in the
middle of May, a wing of the 3rd European regiment might have
been sent out to patrol the districts. See also pp. 44-5, 56 of Reade's
Narrative for further criticisms on Colvin's policy, pp. 52-4 of
Raikes's Notes on the Revolt, and p. 36 of Mr. Thornhill's book. " I
had repeatedly warned the Government," he says, " that the guard "
at Muttra " would probably mutiny . . . and I had recommended
that the temptation to do so should be removed by previously sending
the treasure into Agra. . . . The Government expressed themselves
convinced of the loyalty of the sepoys, and treated my apprehensions
as groundless alarms."
Lastly, Sir Auckland Colvin draws a parallel between the circum-
stances and the policy of his father and of Henry Lawrence, which
will not commend itself to any one who knows the history of the time,
" Each," he says, " kept order at the seat of Government. Each was
assailed by subordinates, who opposed his policy : each adequately
ensured the safety of the community around him." Nothing moi-e
misleading was ever written. Henry Lawrence was from first to last
the leading spirit at Luckiiow : the survivors of the siege declared
with one voice that they owed their lives, and historians have shown
that the empire owed, in a large measure, its preservation to his
forethought : the one subordinate, Martin Gubbins, who opposed his
policy, wrote of him with a general fairness, which was attested by
Lord Lawrence himself (Li/is of Sir H. Lawrence,-^. 554, note) ; and he
inspired all who worked under him with such love and devotion
APPENDIX D 573
that the one great mistake which he made, — the mistake of Chinhat,
— has been generally condoned. At Agra, sncli order as was maintained
was maintained, on John Colvin's own showing, by Drummond (Sir A.
Colvin's article, p. 559, and Reade, p. 47) ; while the testimony of
Reade, of Raikes, of Thornhill, of all contemporary witnesses who
have written upon the subject, and of officers with whom I have
conversed, shows that Colvin vacillated ; that he made great mistakes ;
and that from first to last he failed to impress his subordinates with
the sense that he was their master.]
APPENDIX D
The Battle of Sacheta
Ix my original narrative of the battle of Sacheta, printed in the
first four editions of this book, I, like Kaye, Malleson, Thornhill and
other writers, found fault with Brigadier Polwhele for not having
made use of his infantry earlier than he did. I have, however, lately
been allowed to read a printed (but unpublished) narrative by Colonel
de Kantzow, who was present in the action. Colonel de Kantzow is a
most careful observer ; and after reading and several times re-reading
his narrative, as well as several interesting letters which he has
written to me, I have thought it right to modify my original account.
The great mistake, as I now think, in my previous narrative and in
the narratives of the other writers, except Colonel de Kantzow, is that
they all take for granted that if Polwhele had brought his infantry
into action early, he would certainly have won the battle. Colonel de
Kantzow argues that the sepoys throughout the Mutiny fought well
behind cover : he asks whether it is reasonable to suppose that the
British infantry would have succeeded better than they did if Polwhele
had sent them to storm the village of Sacheta before his artillery-fire
had shaken the mutineers who held it : he points out that the
Neemuch brigade, which formed part of the enemy's force, offered, six
weeks later, a most determined resistance at Najafgarh to Nicholson,
whose force was far stronger, in infantry, cavalry and artillery, than
Polwhele's, and that a portion of the same brigade defended a village
near Najafgarh with such resolution that it was impossible to dislodge
tliem : he remarks that Nicholson expended in the battle of Najafgarli
considerably more artillery ammimition than Polwhele in the battle of
574 APPENDIX E
Sacheta ; and he insists that Polwhele, by his skilful aud orderly
retreat, saved Agra.
The errors which Polwhele actually committed (see pp. 154-5) and
which are acknowledged by Colonel de Kantzow, were so serious that
it is all the more necessary to refrain from blaming him without cause.
It has been asserted that the attack on the village was completely
successful. My account is based upon MS. evidence, which I am
prepared, if necessary, to publish, and which proves (1) that the attack
failed, and (2) that the retreat was not sounded until after the attack
had failed.
APPENDIX E
The Patna Industrial Institution
One of the first subjects to which Tayler directed his attention after
being appointed Commissioner of Patna in 1855, was that of popular
education. Arriving at the conclusion that the Government system
was not only doing little for the attainment of its object, but was also
regarded by the people as an engine of religious proselytism, he sub-
mitted to Halliday a plan for the establishment of an Industrial In-
stitution, the expenses of which should be defrayed by the wealthy
landowners, inasmuch as it was intended for their benefit and that of
their ryots. He was careful, however, not to ask for any subscriptions
until Halliday had expressed his approval of the scheme. How
cordial that approval was, may be gathered from the following words :
" I have a great value for your plan, and think it may become a thing
of vast importance. At all events, I look upon it that the idea is a
creditable one, creditable to you as the originator, and one of which I
shall be proud to partake the triumph, and pursue the gale." More-
over, such men as John Colvin and Dr. Duff wrote to Tayler,
expressing their admiration of his philanthropic efforts, and their
hearty wishes for his success. Presently, however, it began to
be rumoured that the collection of subscriptions from natives
might be regarded by the Supreme Government, and even in
England, as savouring of oppression. Halliday at once took the
alarm. Apprehensive, it would appear, of possible censure, he
issued a proclamation to the effect that no subscriptions would be
acceptable unless they were offered in a purely spontaneous and dis-
interested spirit, withoiit any reference to the wishes of Government
APPElvrDIX E 575
or of the authorities. By taking this step, he had not only thrown
Tayler over, and held him up to the public gaze as an impostor, but
had stultified him.self. There is abundant proof in a MS. Memo, by
Tayler, in the Industrial Institution Blue Book, and in Tayler's Reply
to Halliday's Memorandum, that Halliday had himself repeatedly acted
and spoken in a manner diametrically opposed to the principle laid
down in his proclamation.^ Tayler received numerous letters from
residents in Behar, and various high officials, some of whom were
intimate friends of Halliday himself, assuring him of sympathy, and
expressing indignation at the treatment to which he had been sub-
jected. The following extracts will suffice.
9 May, 1857.
W. Tayler, Esq.,
I think the opinion is general that you have been perfectly .suc-
cessful in showing that you used no improper means to obtain subscriptions ;
and secondly, that you acted throughout with the sanction of the Lieutenant-
Governor. I trust, therefore, that this blast of calumny which has assailed
you will blow over soon, innocuously, and that Halliday Avill not allow him-
self to be influenced by popular clamour, though, between ourselves, that is
one of his weak points.
Yours, &c.,
(Signed) E. A. Samuells.
27 May, 1857.
My Deak Tayler
The correctness of the general princi[i]e which you la}' down as to
the propriety of inducing wealthy natives to expend their money on works of
jmblic utility, and assuring them of the approval of the ruling authority in
the event of their doing so, is quite inidenialjle.
If I am not mistaken, you will find the principle distinctly enunciated in
the notice or circular which the Government issued when they commenced
the publication in the Gazette, of the names of those wlio had assisted or
subscribed to public undertakings during the ^^receding year.
Secondly, I gather from your letter that you have kept Halliday fully
infomied of every step you have taken in the i::atter, and notified to him,
from time to time, the amount of the subscripjtions you have succeeded in
obtaining from the different individuals who have contributed to your scheme.
That Ijeing the case, it was his duty to have interfered at that time, if he
thought you were pressing too hard on the subscribers. To allow you to go on,
and to express his tacit, if not his active approval of your proceedings, so long
as they excited no opposition, and then, at the lii-st breath of popular clamour,
to discredit an officer in your high position, by issuing a proclamation as tliat
you mention, and directing the judges to report on your conduct (for in fact
it amounts to that), was, unquestionably, injudicious, to use a mild phrase,
in the Lieutenant-Governor, and most unfair to you.
Yours, &c.,
(Signed) E. A. Samuells.
^ Thus iu 1854 he went to Arrah, to lay the foundation-stone of a charitable
•lispensary, for whicli Tayler, wlio was the Judge of that district, bad been
576 APPENDIX E
Tayler at once wrote to beg Halliday to withdraw the proclama-
tion, but in vain. It was about this time that the Mutiny broke out.
Suddenly a report reached Tayler to the eft'ect that Halliday intended
to remove him to the Commissionership of Burdwan. To Tayler the
motive of this intention seemed clear. Halliday, he believed, desired
to put a stop to a controversy which must, if continued, lead to
revelations injurious to his character as a man and a public officer.
But Tayler was not to be crushed without a struggle. On the 7th of
June he wrote to Beadon, saying that, while he was quite prepared to
bring his Division safely through the storm if he were not interfered
with, he felt it to be unfair that he should be expected to do so with
the diminution of his authority and prestige which the report of his
intended removal must produce. He therefore begged that either the
report should be authoritatively contradicted, or he should be removed
at once, without being kept longer in suspense. He received in reply
a letter saying that his removal was not contemplated. " This," he
afterwards wrote, " was, of course, Mr. Beadon's delicate way of an-
nouncing the real facts, . . . viz. that my removal was prohibited by
the Governor-General." That Halliday had really intended to remove
him,i he regarded as proved by the following letter which he received
from Sarauells.
collecting subscriptious. At tlie close of a speech which he delivered after perform-
ing the ceremouy, he turned tow;ml.s Tayler, and said, " Hononr he to him . . ,
through ivhose influence this liberal subscription was raised." Again, wi-iting
demi-oflSciaUy to Tayler in connexion with tlie subject of the Industrial Institution
itself, he said, " I quite agree with you as to model schools, and, if the great
zemindars can be got to assist, it will be a great thing. Hutwa was greatly
flattered by the notice you promised him for his ettbrts in the cause, and I trust
much to your influence with others as well as Hutwa to .set this movement going."
The question then with regard to Tayler is narrowed to this. Did he use his
influence for the collection of subscriptions improperly ? The opinion which 1
have formed, after investigating all tlie evidence on both sides, is that he did not.
See MS. Memo. ; Halliday's Memo. ; Tayler's Reply to HaUklays Memo., pp.
6-14 ; Correspondence regarding the Patua Industrial Institution, pp. 41-'2, 40,
68-9, 71-91, 94, 96, 98-101, 119-21, 136, 168-71, 174-6, 178-99, 207-12, 1 A-
48 A, 80 A-82 A, 99 A, 100 A.
Tliere is evidence to show that in some districts his proceedings caused no dis-
content whatever, that iu others they did cause some. But it should be mentioned
that much of the unfavourable evidence was supplied by men who were his personal
enemies, and that no evidence was called for until after Halliday's proclamation
was issued. If Tayler had used his influence with tlie most scrupulous forbear-
ance, it would have been only natural for the native subscribers to withdraw their
support from him after the highest authority in the province had done so. But,
as a matter of fact, many of them continued to give their support. Assuming,
then, that tlie unfavourable evidence was trustworthy, it does not prove that
Tayler, even unconsciously and from an excess of enthusiasm for what he regarded
as a great object, used his influence unfairly.
' Halliday's account of the matter is as follows : " I have for some time fore-
seen . . . his removal from the appointment of Commissioner of Patna . . . but
APPENDIX F 577
June 11, 1857.
My Dear Taylee,
You have, of course, heard ere this that Halliday has removed you
to Burdwan ; after the pains he has taken to destroy your influence at Patna,
it was probably the only course left him.
Yours, &c. ,
(Signed) E. A. Samuells.
Those who will compare the preceding narrative with the account
given in the text of the circumstances of Tayler's subsequent dismissal,
will jsrobably regard it as proved that the wdthdrawal order, which
Halliday put forward as the ground of that dismissal, was merely used
as a pretext, and that the dismissal was a foregone conclusion.
APPENDIX F
Did the Bengal Sepoys plan a General Mutiny for
May 31, 1857 ?
Mr. Cracroft Wilson, who, after the suppression of the Mutiny,
was appointed a Special Commissioner, with a view to the punishment
of guilty and the reward of deserving natives, collected evidence which,
in his judgement, proved "that Sunday, 31st of May, 1857, was the
day fixed for mutiny to commence throughout the Bengal Army ;
that there were committees of about three members in each regiment,
which conducted the duties of the mutiny ; that the sepoys, as a body,
knew nothing of the plans arranged ; and that the only compact
entered into by regiments, as a body, was, that their particular
regiments would do as the other regiments did." — Kaye, vol. ii.
pp. 107-8
Major Williams, to whom I have repeatedly referred as an authority,
did not believe that any plot was formed for a general mutiny. If, he
argued, such a plot existed, the Meerut troops were insane to mar it
by a premature outbreak. This argument, however, would not
necessarily hold good if, as Wilson believed, " the sepoys as a body,
for the consideration that, at a critical period, when ... an outbreak (was)
likely enough at any moment to occur (at Patna), it was desirable, if possible, to
avoid making a change in the office ... I should have been anxious to remove
him at an earher date."
2 P
578 APPENDIX G
knew nothing of the plans arranged." The Meerut troops would nut,
in that case, have known that they were frustrating their leaders'
plans ; and, as their outbreak on the 10th of May was probably
unpremeditated and the result of suddenly awakened passions, it
would doubtless have been impossible then to induce them to bide
their time. If, on the other hand, as there is reason to believe,
some of the sepoys at Meerut determined on the 9th to mutiny on
the following day, the fact would appear to tell against Wilson's
theory.
Again a trooper of the 2nd Cavalry stated, in a letter read by
Major Williams, that "after hearing of the Meerut mutiny," but not
before, " his corps began plotting " {Memo, on the Mutiny and Outbreak
at Meerut, p. 10). If this man told the truth, his statement tells
against Wilson's theory.
John Lawrence, in his letter on the Mutiny (referred to on p. 559,
note 1), also combated the theory of a plot for a general mutiny ; but
he may not have seen the evidence collected by Wilson. The
reasons which he gave for his opinion were, that not one of the
numerous letters which had been intercepted, written by sepoys,
contained so much as a hint of such a plot, and that none of the
faithful sepoys, none of the condemned mutineers who might have
saved their lives by disclosing it, if it existed, knew anything of it.
These reasons have some weight ; but they are not conclusive.
The fact that a plot for a general mutiny was never hinted at in
intercepted letters, by faithful sepoys, or by condemned mutineers,
does not prove that no such plot existed ; for, assuming the truth
of Wilson's theory, the sepoys, as a body, were ignorant of the
plot.
The question can never be positively settled. But why should
the alleged prematureness of the outbreak at Meei'ut have made
the "committees" abandon their plan for a simultaneous rising'? Had
they no control over the sepoys 1
APPENDIX G
Cawnpore
It will be admitted that, whatever reasons Sir Hugh Wheeler may
have had for believing that the sepoys at Cawnpore would not attack
him, he was wanting in judgement if he did not provide, as far as it
APPENDIX G 579
was possible to do so, against the contingency of an attack. It is
contended in the Red Pamphlet (p. 135) that, if he had selected the
magazine as a place of refuge, he would have been obliged, owing to
the distance of the magazine from the sepoy lines, to withdraw the
officers of the sepoy regiments from their men, and thus virtually
invite the latter to mutiny. But he would have been justified in
acting on the assumption that a mutiny was, in any circumstances,
inevitable. " General Wheeler," wrote Neill, " ought to have gone
there (to the magazine) at once ; no one would have prevented
him ; they might have saved everything they had almost, if they had."
Neill is a high authority ; and I venture to think he was right. The
sepoys made no attempt to prevent the entrance of the non-combatants
into the entrenchment. Is it likely that they would have had the
courage and decision, or even the inclination, to oppose Wheeler if,
after first disarming its sepoy guard, he had attempted to occupy the
magazine ?
[General Innes, whose view is substantially the same as my own,
prints, in the second edition of his Lucknow and Oude in the Mutiny,
p. 90, the following note : —
With reference to Wheeler's failure to ocoupy the Magazine or to make
any adequate preparations for defence during the three weeks before the local
mutiny actually broke out, there is reason to believe that the advices he had
received from Calcutta had led him to expect a flow of British troops thence
by Allahabad to Cawnpore and onwards. This, on the one hand, would
make it wrong, he is said to have thought, to occupy the Magazine, because
then the troops coming up from Allahabad would run the danger of being
intercepted by the sepoys. And, on the other, it gave grounds for the hope
that in a few days a sufficient number would arrive to form an escort for his
families to Allahabad. This idea is thought to have been confirmed by the
arrival (just before the local mutiny) of fifty of the 84th with others said to
be close behind them. So he had sent on these fifty men to Lucknow, which
they reached on June 2, two days after the mutiny there, and three days
before the mutiny at Cawnpore. But the others expected as "close behind
them " did not arrive ; and so any move of the families to Allahabad he may
have projected never came olf.
General Innes desires to place on record all that can be said for
Wheeler. But, as he remarked to me, — and the truth of the remark
is obvious,— the sepoys could in any case have intercepted, if they had
had the inclination or the courage, any detachments which might have
come up from Allahabad, whether Wheeler had occupied the Magazine
or not ; and Wheeler had no right to neglect due precautions on the
chance that the expected detachments would join him.]
P. 226. The statement in the text, that the Nana had lived on
the most (outwardly) friendly terms with the English residents at
Cawnpore, is supported by Mowbray Thomson, j)p. 48, 57, and Shepherd,
pp. 14-15. On the other hand, Mr. Keene says {Army and Navy
580 APPENDIX G
Magazine, July 1883, p. 195), "the Nana never willingly associated,
in the slightest degree, with persons of that (the European) race from
the day on which the Peshwa . . . died." The authority of Mowbray
Thomson, who lived at Cawnpore for three months before the Mutiny,
and himself enjoyed the Nana's hospitality, is surely conclusive.
[After reading the foregoing paragraph, ]\Ir. Keene retains his
opinion. " Court," he writes, " the former District oflScer, was my
authority. In a letter to the Times (about 1879) he said, 'the only
persons he (the Nana) ever saw were the Magistrate and the Com-
missioner and the Civil Surgeon.' " But read Mowbray Thomson's
words, written in 1858 : — "It was frequently the custom of the Nana
to entertain the officers of the Cawnpore garrison in the most sumptuous
style ; although he would accept none of their hospitality in return,
because no salute was permitted in his honour. I have been a guest
in those halls when costly festivities were provided for the very
persons who were at length massacred by their quondam host." Story
of Cawnpore, p. 48.]
P. 226. "For . . . withheld." See Army and Navy Magazine,
July, 1883, p. 196.
P. 227, whole paragraph. Col. Williams, in his Synopsis of
Evidence (Annals of the Indian Rebellion, pp. 672-3) says that the
treasury was not plundered or the gaol broken open until after the
53rd and 56th regiments had joined the 1st and the cavalry. His
statement is supported by Depositions, pp. 41, 47, 70, and 73 : my para-
graph is supported by Depositions, pp. 43 and 74, and by Mr. Sherer's
narrative (^Annals, etc., p. 602).
P. 228. Tiintia Topi asserted that the Nana was taken prisoner
by the sepoys, and forced by them to attack Cawnpore. See Tantia's
memoir, printed in vol. iii. of Malleson's History, App. I. p. 515.
Tantia's account is, on this point, unworthy of credit : he naturally
wished to exculpate himself and his master. My account of the
manner in which the alliance between the Nana and the sepoys was
cemented, is supported by Mr. Keene (Army and Navy Magazine, p.
197), as well as by the other authorities to whom I have referred on
p. 226, note.
P. 231. "The siege . . . week." Shepherd (p. 44) gives the
date of the fire as June 13. Ndnakchand, in his Diary (p. xii.),
assigned the event to June 11. As he was a very careful diarist, his
statement is probably correct.
In speaking of the effects of the destruction of the barrack, Kaye
(vol. ii. pp. 324-5) falls into a very natural blunder. He says that a
number of faithful sepoys were obliged to leave the entrenchment,
owing to want of food and of room. As a matter of fact, the sepoys of
whom he was thinking were obliged to quit another barrack outside
APPENDIX G 581
the entrenchment, in consequence of its being burned ; and it was
unfortunately impossible to admit them within the entrenchment.
Mowbray Thomson, p. 40 ; Shepherd, pp. 16-17 ; Depositions,
p. 31.
P. 232. "12th of June." Shepherd (p. 29) says "the first grand
effort was made on the 9th." Nanakchand (p. xii.) speaks of a great
assault as having taken place on the 12th. Mowbray Thomson (pp.
92-5) says that there was an assault on the night of the fire. If the
fire occurred on the 11th, and if the assault took place after midnight,
his statement agrees with that of Nilnakchand.
P. 240. " Along with the hundred and twenty -five." Two or three
of these escaped, and found shelter in the house of a native. Miss
Wheeler and another " young lady " had escaped the massacre on the
Ganges. Depositions, p. 22 ; Annals, etc., pp. 659-68.
Referring to the report written by Major G. W. Williams on the
depositions taken under his direction at Cawnpore, and printed in
Annals of the Indian Rebellion, pp. 668-705, Colonel F. Maude says
{Memories of the Mutiny, vol. i. p. 108) "one must doubt whether the
Nana Sahib was as guilty of complicity in the murders of our women
and children as he is generally believed to have been. I am rather of
opinion that his hand, though guilty, was forced by his more blood-
thirsty followers " ; and Mr. G. W. Sherer remarks {Ih. p. 220) that " of
his individual influence there seems no trace throughout . . . the stolid,
discontented figure of the Nana himself remains in the background,
rejoicing doubtless in the success of the treachery, and gladly consent-
ing probably to the cruelty ; but inanimate, incapable of original
ideas." It will be seen that both Colonel Maude and Mr. Sherer admit
the complicity of the Nana in the massacres : but whether his brain
was as active as the brains of his counsellors in devising revenge will
never be known. That he took an active part in preparing for the
massacre at the Ganges is attested by Nanakchand {Journal, p. xix.)
and by several independent witnesses {Depositions, pp. 13, 16, 86-7,
96, 99). Nanakchand (p. xxvi.) and several other natives and Euras-
ians whose depositions were taken under the direction of Colonel
Williams {Depositions, pp. 8, 14, 17, 107-9) charged him with having
issued orders for the final massacre of July 15, two of them adding
that he threatened to punish the sepoys who declined to execute the
order ; another {Ih. pp. 57-8) stated that the massacre "was concerted
at the Nana's residence " ; and another {Ih. p. 113) that the order was
given by Tantia Topi and Bdba Bliut, who were in his compound.
Whether he actually gave the order or merely allowed or directed his
counsellors to give it, will never be known and does not matter.
Nanakchand represents him as pre-eminent among his advisers, Bala,
Baba Bhut, Azimulla, and Joala Parshad. After re-reading the Journal
582 APPENDIX H
and the Depositions, 1 feel little doubt not only of his acquiescence
but also of his active complicity in the massacres.
Mr. Forbes-Mitchell {Reminiscences of the Great Ahitiny, 1893, p.
191) says that one Mahomed Ali Khan told him that the Nana
" intended to have spared the women and children (who were massacred
on the 15 th of July), but they had an enemy in his zenana . . . and
there were many about the Nana . . . who wished to see him so
irretrievably implicated in rebellion that there would be no possibility
for him to draw back. So this woman was powerfully supported in
her evil counsel, and obtained permission to have the English ladies
killed ; and after the sepoys of the 6th Native Infantry and the Nana's
own guard had refused to do the work, this woman went and procured
the wretches who did it." This information, said Mahomed Ali Khan,
" I have from Tantia Topi." As Mr. Forbes-Mitchell remarks, " some-
thing about this slave-girl was said in the native evidence collected at
the time." According to the eye-witnesses, she accompanied and
directed the butchers and others who massacred the women and
children on the 15th of July. See Depositions, pp. 8, 14, 17.
APPENDIX H
The Dismissal of the Lucknow Sepoys to theik Homes
AT the Instance op Martin Gubbins
There are several versions of this affair. Lieutenant (now Lieutenant-
General) Innes, wrote : —
Gubbins forthwith began to give eflfect to his own policy of disarming and
dispensing Avith all sepoy aid. Step by step he continued to carry it out ;
till, at length, all the Poorbeahs . . . gave up their arms at the bidding of
their own officers, and were started homewards with their furlough tickets.
This was too much for Sir Henrj'. He dissolved the Coimcil, and on the 12th
resumed the active duties of Government .... and, sending messengers after
the sepoys who had left, had the satisfaction of seeing numbers return to their
post, with tokens of delight, the honesty of which was verified by their loyalty
during the siege. — MS. Memo., quoted in Life of Sir II. Latorcnce, p. 588.
It should seem that George Couper,Sir Henry's secretary, and Captain
T. F. Wilson supported Innes's view in a conversation which they had
some years afterwards with Sir John Kaye. Hist, of the Sejwy War, vol.
iii. p. 499, note.
APPENDIX I 583
Colonel Edgell wrote : —
At last, during Sir Henry's illness, in June, when a Council .... were
acting for him, it was determined to send away all who would be induced to
go, on leave. Sir Henry, on resuming the direction of affairs a few days
afterwards, approved ; and the native brigade was reduced to about 500 men.
— MS. Memo., quoted in Life of Sir II. Lawrence, p. 589.
Gubbins himself, saying nothing of the view which Lawrence took
of his action, wrote : —
About 350 sepoys were allowed (by the Council) to remain.— T/tc
Mutinies in Oudh, p. 148.
Colonel Edgell's statement that Lawrence " approved " the action
of the Council is hardly reconcileable with Innes's account : but Colonel
Edgell may have assumed that Lawrence approved, because he did not,
perhaps, hear that he expressed disapproval. That the Council allowed
350 men to remain, is certain. On the other hand, I do not feel justified
in rejecting Innes's account, supported as it appears to be by Wilson
and Couper. Therefore I conclude provisionally that the 350 men
were reinforced by others who were induced to return.
General Innes says (Lucknow and Oude, etc., p. 92) that the action
of the Council caused the mutiny of the military police. Now the
cavalry of the police mutinied on the night of June 11 ; and the
order of the Council was not communicated to the sepoys until the
morning of June 12. How then could the action of the Council have
caused the Mutiny 1
APPENDIX I
The Battle of Chinhat
The statement on page 264,^ — ^"but Colonel Case of the 32nd
. . . protested emphatically that the men were unfit to go into
action," — is made primarily on the authority of General Innes, who
was told by Assistant-Surgeon (now Surgeon-General) Partridge and
Lieutenant (now Major-General) Cook, that they heard Colonel
Case address a protest to Brigadier Inglis against the advance of the
troops. " I recollect," writes Surgeon-General Partridge to me, " that
a strong protest was raised against making any further advance, though
I cannot positively say by whom " ; and he adds that, having been
asked for his professional opinion, he replied that he "believed there
584 APPENDIX J
would be considerable risk" to the British troops if they advanced.
General Cook recollects, so he writes to me, that Colonel Case ex-
pressed his disapproval of a further advance : but he cannot say
positively that he did so at the moment when Birch spoke to Inglis.
Doubtless General Cook and Surgeon-General Partridge spoke to General
Innes when the facts were fresh in their recollection. In a second
letter Surgeon- General Innes writes, " I have no hesitation in saying
that the protest alluded to in my letter was made ... in response to
the question put by Lieut. Birch. I cannot state positively that the
protest was made by Colonel Case, but I should think there could be
very little doubt that it was, as he was then in command of the 32nd,
and his protest must necessarily have been addressed to Colonel
Inglis." The important point is that both Case and Partridge did
protest against an unwise step.
Colonel Malleson says (vol. i. p. 423) regarding the battle of
Chinhat, that, while Lawrence " fought a battle in which victory would
have been decisive, he lost nothing by defeat," and (pp. 427-8) that
" the crisis would have equally come had there been no battle." What
is certain is that by defeat Lawrence lost one hundred and fifteen
British soldiers, who were killed in the action and the retreat, and
that, as Captain Wilson remarked {Diary of a Staff Officer, p. 47), " that
unfortunate day of Chinhat precipitated everything .... People had
made no arrangements for provisioning themselves," etc.
History has dealt very tenderly with Henry Lawrence in this
matter, because he was Henry Lawrence, — because his services had been
invaluable and everybody loved him.
APPENDIX J
Lieutenant Havelock and thp: Victoria Cross
It is well known that the officers of tlie 64tli regiment were greatly
irritated by Havelock's having recommended his son for the Victoria
Cross, on account of his having led the regiment in the final advance
wliich won the battle of Cawnpore. Much ink has been wasted in
discussing the subject by writers who were ignorant of the essential
facts. Mr. Archibald Forbes, who devotes four pages (171-5) of his
short biography of Havelock to an elaborate examination of the case,
finds Havelock guilty of a " serious error of judgment " ; while Mr.
APPENDIX K 585
J. W. Sherer, good-naturedly anxious to please everybody, tells a story
(Memories of the Mutimj, vol. i. pp. 212-13) of which the only defect is
that it is purely apocryphal. The facts were these. Major Stirling,
who commanded the 64th, had dismounted early in the battle, and was
on foot when the order "was given for the final advance. The 64th was
the leading regiment. The men had to advance through high crops ;
and their leader, not being mounted, had no influence on their advance.
The regiment had not moved more than four hundred yards when
Stirling was grazed on the left shoulder, and immediately went to the
rear. Lieutenant Havelock asked the three senior officers of the
regiment to take Stirling's place. All three declined, saying that it
was not their duty to do so. Thereupon Havelock seeing that the men
needed the example of a mounted officer, walked his horse at their head
until the enemy's big gun was captured. Stirling then returned from
the rear, and vented his anger upon Havelock for having taken his
place. A narrative of these facts was published in the Broad Arrow
of Feb. 24, 1894, pp. 256-7. It has never been contradicted,
and it is, I happen to know, incontrovertible.
As the writer in the Broad Arrow truly remarks, " For the supreme
effort from our tired soldiers some personal and visible example was
essential .... The supremely critical situation demanded prompt and
unconventional action."
It is only fair to add that, although the men laughed at Stirling
when he returned from the rear, he behaved, as Sir Henry Havelock-
Allan has told me, with the greatest gallantry at Lucknow. Owing
probably to the fierce sun, he was not himself in the battle of
Cawnpore.
APPENDIX K
The Operations of the 25th of September, 1857
General Innes says (Lucknoio and Oude in the Mutiny, p. 219) that
Havelock " gave his consent, though with reluctance," to Outram's
proposal to advance by way of the Charbagh bridge, "as he believed
that all could go on by No. 4," — that is to say, by the Trans-Gumti
route, — " except perhaps the heavy guns." On the other hand. Marsh-
man says {Memoirs of Sir Henry Havelock, p. 409) that " after a recon-
naissance, made under the direction of Sir James Outram on the 24th,
it was reported to be absolutely impossible to move even the light
586 APPENDIX K
field pieces across the country." The discrepancy is material Sir
H. M. Havelock-Allan, whom I asked for information, wrote to me
in reply, " I cannot say that either the statement of Marshman, which
you quote, or that of General Innes is absolutely correct all through.
My father was always of opinion that No. 4, viz. the * Trans-Goomtee,'
route was the one that ought to be followed, but he desired to take the
heavy guns with us. On the 24th Sept., a reconnaissance was
made by Colonel Napier (afterwards Lord Napier of Magdala), who
reported that the flooded state of the ground would not admit of the
heavy guns going across country. ... I do not consider that my
father had any option in the matter, as, though Sir James Outram had
nominally resigned the command to my father, he still continued to
give all the orders ; and I, as D. A. A.G., actually took the orders for
the advance on the 25 th down in writing from Sir James Outram's
dictation. . . . My father always continued in the belief that we
ought to have gone by Route No. 4 ; and I think so now, even if we
had left the heavy guns behind. Half the loss would have been
avoided." General Sir William Olpherts, who believes that it would
have been a mistake to adopt Route No. 4, tells me that he is neverthe-
less absolutely certain that the horsed field-battery could have gone
by that route. See also Maude and Sherer's Memories of the Mutiny,
vol. ii. pp. 307-11.
Regarding the vexed question of the discussion which took place
between Outram and Havelock as to whether the force should halt for
the night near the Chattar Manzil or push on at once through the streets
to the Residency, General Innes says (p. 223) that Outram " urged a
further halt (by which, as his written statement shows, he meant only a
short halt), while seeing with Moorsom whether there was not really a
practicable route through the Chutter Munzil. But Havelock, as his
official report states, thought he meant a halt for the night, and to this he
demurred." Now " short " is a relative and vague term. Here is
Outram's written statement. Writing on the 2nd of January, 1858,
to the Commander-in-Chief, he says (General Orders, Despatches and
Correspondence, — printed for private circulation only, 1860, p. 18),
" I proposed a halt of only a few hours' duration, in order to enable
the rear-guard ... to come up," etc. Surely a halt of " a few hours'
duration," beginning at dusk, is, for all practical purposes, a halt for
the night. Outram himself certainly did not think that Havelock had
misunderstood him ; for he says (76. p. 20) "I am sure that if he
were alive, he would at once assent to the correctness of what I have
stated."
Tlaere can be no doubt that Havelock, although it would perhaps
have been better if he had waited a few minutes longer for Moorsom's
return, was right in insisting upon an immediate advance ; and that
APPENDIX L 587
if he had yielded to Outram's proposal to halt for " a few hours," the
result would have been disastrous. " An officer of the beleaguered
garrison" asserted indeed (76. pp. 20-22) that the enemy had "not
been able to obtain possession of" the courts and gardens of the
palaces, through which Outram desired to advance on the following
morning to the Kesidency ; and that those courts and palaces, " once
occupied, could have been retained as long as was necessary." But at
dusk on the evening of the 25th the enemy were actually in those
courts and palaces (Lucknow and Oude in the Mutiny, p. 225, and personal
information from General Innes). Is it not, I asked General Innes,
reasonable to assume that if the proposed halt of " a few hours " had
taken place, the enemy would have utilised the delay by occupying the
palaces in overwhelming strength ? " Certainly," he replied ; " and this
was Havelock's point." Among the rebel leaders on the 25th was
the notorious " Trimmer," Raja Mdn Singh. Speaking of what would
have happened if the British had halted for " a few hours," he said
" I would have destroyed them."
APPENDIX L
Did John Lawrence send the Moveable Column to Delhi
under pressure from his military secretary ?
General Innes says (2'/ic Sepoy Revolt, p. 139) that while the Moveable
Column was still in the Punjab, " Sir John was saying that he . . .
could nut spare and would not send another man to Delhi. Mr.
Montgomery in vain urged him to send Nicholson's column ; but after
he had given up expostulating with him about it, Macpherson . . .
continued pressing it . . . till at last Sir John . . . yielded to his
importunity, and allowed Nicholson and his column to go forward to
Delhi." On the other hand, Mr. Bosworth Smith says {Life of Lord
Lawrence, 6th ed. vol. ii. p. 56) that after the departure from the
Punjab of the reinforcements which reached Delhi between the 26th
of June and the 3rd of July (Forrest's Selections from State Papers,
vol. i. p. 448), " a demand came from General Reed for the Moveable
Column itself. This demand John Lawrence could not grant as yet. . . .
On the presence of the Moveable Column in the Punjab at that
moment depended, he knew well, not only the general protection of
the country, but the overawing of some six or seven Poorbea regiments
588 APPENDIX M
which he had not yet found it advisable or possii)le to deprive of their
arms. When once they had been disarmed he would send the
Moveable Column ... to Delhi also." General Innes also says (p.
13.9) that Edwardes "ceaselessly and vehemently urged" Lawrence to
send reinforcements to Delhi : but on the 30th of June Edwardes
wrote to Lawrence (Bosworth Smith, vol. ii. p. 54), "You have indeed
denuded the Punjab to an anxious extent to help General Reed, and
my earnest advice to you is to send not a man more." See also
Memorials of the Life and Letters of Major-General Sir Herbert Edwardes,
vol. ii. p. 21, and Punjab Mutiny Report, pp. 14-15, pars. 38-40.
APPENDIX M
The Assault of Delhi
P. 372. " The fourth, under Major Reid . . . Kabul gate." Accord-
ing to the original plan of attack, Reid was to enter the city by the
Lahore gate : but he pointed out to Wilson that to do this would be
impossible ; and the plan was accordingly modified. See Forrest's
Selections, vol. i. pp. 373, 471 ; Kaye, vol. iii. p. 605, note; and
Malleson, vol, ii. p. 28, note.
P. 376. " Jones fancying that . . . . orders to do so." Kaye (vol. iii.
p. 632) makes a statement identical in substance with this, and which,
so far as I know, has never been contradicted. An officer who served
on the Headquarters Staff has informed me that a report to the same
effect was current in the British camp, but will not vouch for its
accuracy. Another officer, late of the 1st Bengal Fusiliers, who served
Avith the first column, has written to tell me that he himself, a brother
officer, and a few men reached the Lahore bastion, remained there a
few minutes, and were then ordered to return. Possibly this is the
incident to which Kaye refers. I ought to say that the officer himself
believes that the order was judicious. He believes that, if it had not
been given, he and his partj^ might have been cut off from communica-
tion with the Kashmir gate, and exposed to a destructive fire from the
enemy, when the latter returned from the retreat which they had
begun (p. 376), and occupied the houses near the Lahore bastion. I
venture to differ from him. I believe that, as he admits might have
been the case, the mutineers, being Asiatics, would have been cowed
APPEXDIX M 589
by the sudden seizure of tlie Lahore bastion, and would not have dared
to return from the retreat which they had begun ; and I believe that
the fatal attack on the Lahore bastion would have been prevented.
[When I wrote the original draft of the foregoing paragraph, I had not
seen a statement by Colonel E. Greathed, who commanded the 8th
Queen's Eegiment, which formed a part of Jones's column. He says
that after the column reached the Kabul gate, he " went back ... to
see that the gates and bastions were occupied." " After being absent
about an hour," he continues, " I returned and found that Brigadier
Jones had gone on again, thinking he had stopped at the wrong gate.
He was on the point of taking the Lahore gate and bastion when he
found he had gone too far and came back again. This was unlucky."
Memorials of Gen. Sir E. H. Greathed, K.G.B., 1885, p. 61, by Lieut-
Gen. A. C. Eobertson, C.B.]
P. 378. Attack on the Lahore bastion. The authority to whom I
have referred on p. 379, note, took part, I am nearly sure, in the
attack on the Lahore bastion. But, according to a MS. Memo., written
in this year (1883) by an officer late of the 1st Bengal Fusiliers, who
also took part in the attack, the houses on the left of the lane were
merely mud huts, and " no fire was kept up from any point in the
lane, but from the end of it, where the enemy had taken up positions
in windows commanding its whole length." If the officer is right,
" the low houses on the left," of which I have spoken, must have stood
apart from and on the city side of the lane, and my statement (made
on the authority of the writer in Blackivood) that " the enemy's sharp-
shooters " fired from " behind the parapets of the bastions," is incorrect.
[My statement, that sharpshooters fired from houses on the city side
of the lane, is confirmed by Lieut. -Col. P. R. Innes, Hist, of the
Bengal European Eegiment, 1885, p. 480.]
The writer of the Memo, also says, " it was generally reported that
his (Nicholson's) own wish was to keep his troops in hand until the
advance of the corresponding columns should draw off some of the
enemy who were . . . barring his progress ; but it is uncertain whether
Nicholson received an order to advance, or whether, as was generally
reported, he yielded to the advice of an officer." On the other hand,
Malleson (vol. ii. p. 45) says that Seymour Blane (Nicholson's brigade-
major) and Major Jacob tried to dissuade Nicholson from advancing,
but that he persisted, notwithstanding their advice, in doing so. [Sir
Seymour Blane, writing to me, confirms this statement.]
P. 381. "Wilson petulantly spoke . . . holding on." In the
Fortnightly Review, for April, 1883, p. 544, Sir H. Norman says : "It
is alleged (by Mr. Bosworth Smith), that he (Wilson), then became so
nervous 'as to propose to withdraw the guns, fall back on the camp,
and wait for reinforcements there.' I do not believe this storv." The
590 APPENDIX M
story is, notwithstanding, at least substantially true. I believe that
any one will be convinced of its truth who will refer to Kaye, vol. iii.
pp. 617-18 and note, and to Malleson, vol. iii. pp. 55-7 and note. But
I possess additional MS. evidence which proves the truth of the story
beyond the shadow of a doubt. On Sept. 14, Neville Chamberlain
received a letter from Wilson, which he understood as implying that
Wilson thought of withdrawing the troops from the city. Chamberlain
answered the letter in such a way as to show that he understood it in
this sense ; and Wilson never repudiated his conclusions. The purport
of Chamberlain's reply was, that Wilson had no alternative but to
hold the town until the fall of the last man ; that the mutineers must
have been greatly demoralised by the loss of defences which they had
long held, and of many of their guns ; and that, if Wilson persevered,
he would surely succeed. Baird Smith distinctly told Chamberlain
that Wilson had thought about retiring. Moreover, it was commonly
reported at the time that Wilson had also consulted Major Brind, and
that Brind had replied that God had favoured us thus far, and would
not desert us. [See also Lord Roberts's Forty-one Years in India, vol. i.
pp. 233-7, and Col. H. M. Vibart's Richard Baird Smith.]
Sir H. Norman's article contains an elaborate defence of Wilson.
Independently of the remarks which I have already quoted, the
substance of his defence amounts to this, that, in spite of wretched
health, Wilson did his best, and that, considering his circumstances,
it is no wonder if he desponded. That he did his best has never been
denied, but does not prove him to have been an able general. That
he desponded is certainly not wonderful : but, as Baird Smith and
others whose health was as bad as his did not despond, it is impossible
to avoid the conclusion that he was less stout of heart than they.
P. 381. "The debauch of Sept. 15." Sir H. Norman, in the
article (p. 539) to which I have already referred, says: "compared
even to our diminished strength, the nvimber who thus (by drinking)
incapacitated themselves were a mere fraction." (The italics are mine.)
Sir Henry, however, is speaking, as I understand, of September 14.
I do not think that what I have stated in the text is an exaggeration ;
for almost every one who has written about the siege has dwelt
emphatically upon the drunkenness which prevailed ; and some speak
of it as having extended to large numbers of the troops. See Medley,
p. 113 ; Seaton, vol. ii. p. 220 ; Bourchier, pp. 69, 70 ; Cave-Browne,
vol. ii. pp. 186-7 ; History of the Siege of Delhi, by an Officer who
served there, pp. 253-5 ; Rotton, p. 303 ; Major O. Anson's With
H.M. 9th Lancers during the Indiaii Mutiny, ■^i^. 151-2 ; Col. A. R. D.
Mackenzie's Mutiny Memoirs, p. 96, etc., and especially a letter from
Wilson himself, quoted by Kaye, vol. iii. p. 621.
APPENDIX N 591
APPENDIX N
HoDSON OF Hodson's Horse
Those who may wish to test the fidelity of my portrait of Hodson,
whose character has been the subject of so much controversy, are
referred to my article on " Hodson of Hodson's Horse " {National
Review, Aug. 1884, and jPonr Famous Soldiers, 1889), to the
Appendix to the sixth edition of Mr. Bosworth Smith's Life of Lord
Lawrence, to Mr. Hodson's Vindication in his Hodson of Hodson's Horse,
and finally to my " Last Words on Hodson of Hodson's Horse "
(English Historical Review, Jan. 1892). That article was written
with the purpose of proving that certain statements in my biography
of Hodson, which had been challenged by Mr. George Hodson in the
cheap edition of his Hodson of Hodson^s Horse (1889), by Hodson's
brother-in-law, Dr. Luard, in the Dictionary of National Biography,
vol. xxvii., and by writers in the Saturday Review (8 June, 1889)
and Athensenm (31 Aug. and 21 Sept. 1889), were true. I reprint
here so much of it as is necessary to prove the truth of what I have
said on pp. 383-5 of this book.
To begin with, I am obliged to say that I regard the mere testi-
mony of Hodson himself, on all matters connected with the charges
that have been brought against him, as absolutely worthless. I make
this statement deliberately because I can prove that he was several
times guilty of falsehood. For instance, Mr. Hodson (p. xxiv.) tells us
that his brother complained " that he had not had the opportunity of
producing his accounts " for inspection by the court of inquiry before
which he was summoned to appear at Peshawar in 1854. But
General Reynell Taylor ^ testifies that he had the opportunity.
General Crawford Chamberlain,^ the sole surviving member of the
court, writes : " He had repeated opportunities, and he over and over
again thanked the court for its latitude and attention ! He once
asked for and got fourteen days' law to make up his accounts, and
when he produced his account current. Turner saw in five minutes
' Life by E. GamLier Parry, p. 215.
2 Now (1897) Sir Crawford Chamberlain, G.C.I.E.
592 APPENDIX N
tliat items had been wrongly debited and credited to square up." ^
General Godby, who was examined by the court, has also testified to
the care with which it examined the accounts.^ Again, writing on
30 Sept. 1857 to General Wilson, Hodson says : "To the best of my
memory and belief, I have neither acted without orders, nor protected
any one without permission." ^ But, as I have already shown (Athen-
^um, 21 Sept. 1889) and shall show again in this paper. Sir Donald
Stewart and the late Mr. C. B. Saunders both saiv an unauthorised
guarantee of safety, attested by Hodson's signature, which he had given
to the Queen of Delhi before the royal family left the palace ; and it
was afterwards discovered by Mr. Saunders ■^ that he had given similar
guarantees to some of the greatest criminals in Delhi. Another
instance is related by General Crawford Chamberlain.'^
The Chief Commissioner [he says] had called for a return of all men dis-
charged from the Guides, and the reasons thereof, since Hodson assumed
command. He prepared it himself and despatched it. It was returned for
the Adjutant's signature. He refused to sign it as incorrect, but ultimately
did so. After Hodson's explanations, the Court called up Lieutenant and
Adjutant Turner. He pleaded entire irresponsibility for papers prepared
under his commanding officer's personal supervision, and declared that all he
had to do was to obey his orders, to sign all papers brought to him for the
purpose. Hodson denied this statement absolutely. Lieutenant Turner in-
sisted on its truth, and, leisurely searching first in one trouser pocket, and
then in another fruitlessly, twisted his pouch-belt round, and, taking from
it a note, handed it to Colonel Craigie. Hodson was obliged to admit the
authenticity of the letter.
Finally, the court of inquiry record " that from the commencement
of their sittings some months ago, up to this day. Lieutenant Hodson's
statements have abounded in subterfuge, and they cannot too strongly
condemn the same." ^ ....... .
II.
Of all the questions connected with Hodson's career the most com-
plicated is that relating to the court of inquiry which investigated
certain charges brought against him as commandant of the Guides.
The reasons which led the Commander-in-Chief to order this inquirj'^
are fully described on pp. 188-9 of Four Famous Soldiers, and are also
noticed in a letter" written by the sole surviving member of the
^ Four Famo2is Soldiers, p. 192, note.
2 Manuscript memorandum by General C. Chamberlain.
^ Hodson of Hodson's Horse, p. xxxiii.
•* Life of Lord Lawrence (Sixth Edition), ii. 156. This is the edition to which
I shall refer throughout this paper.
5 lb. p. 513. « lb. p. 515. 7 lb. p. 511.
APPENDIX N 593
Court. After showing how Hodson made himself unpopular in the
regiment, my account proceeds :—
As time passed, the officers and many of the men who remained came to
suspect him of misappropriating public monies which passed through his
hands. These suspicions were soon confirmed. An officer, returning after
leave of absence, asked for his pay, which had fallen into arrear. Hodson
coolly replied that he had spent it. Naturally indignant, the officer threat-
ened to expose him unless he refunded the money within twenty-four hours.
Driven to his wits' ends, Hodson sent to Peshawar, and asked the banker of
a native regiment to lend him the required amount. ^ The banker refused to
do so unless Hodson found a surety ; whereupon an officer called Bisharut
All, belonging to the same regiment, generously offered to undertake the re-
sponsibility. Thus Hodson was saved from immediate exposure. At length,
however, he received an order from the Punjab Government to furnish a
return of all the men whom he had discharged from the regiment, and to
state the reasons which liad led him to discharge them. He drew out tlie re-
quired document in his own handwriting, forwarded it to the Government, and
then left Mardan on leave. During his absence, the document was sent back
to the officer who was temporarily commanding the regiment, with a request
that the Adjutant's signature should be affixed to it. The Adjutant refused
to affix his signature, on the gi'ound that certain statements in the document
were untrue." The result was that, towards the end of the year, Hodson was
summoned, by order of the Commander-in-Chief, to appear before a Court of
Enquiiy at Mardan. ... A short time before the enquiry began, Hodson
went to the quarters of one of his subalterns, and asked him in whose favour
he intended to give evidence. The subaltern replied that he hoped he should
not be called upon to give evidence at all ; but that, if he were, he should
simply give truthful answers to such questions as might be put to him.
"Oh yes!" rejoined Hodson, "of course we must all tell the truth ; but
there are different ways of doing it. At all events, if I find myself falling, I
shall drag you with me ; so I give you warning."^
The heads of charges inquired into by the court were (1) misunder-
standing between Lieutenant Hodson and Lieutenant Turner ; (2)
complaint of Nujjuf Ali, moonshee ; (3) complaint of Khalikdad Khan
of foul language ; (4) complaint of Khoorhan Ali, jemadar, of abusive
language ; (5) claim of Azeem Ali for camel hire ; (6) claim of a
Bunya, Sowars, etc. etc. ; (7) confusion in accounts and records.^
The court was composed of officers of various regiments quite un-
connected with the Cluides. General Crawford Chamberlain, the sole
surviving meml)er, has described his colleagues individually.^ They
were, as he testifies, "specially selected so as to give Hodson an im-
^ Stated on the autfiority of the officer himself. See also Life of Lord Law-
rence, ii. 517.
- Stated on the authority of a letter in my possession from the officer who
aslced the adjutant for his signature. See also a letter from Gen. Chamberlain,
published in Life of Lord Lawrence, ii. 513.
^ Stated on the authority of the sulialtem himself.
■* Paper received by Mr. Bosworth Smith from thu Government of India {Life
of Lord Laim-ence, ii. 512, note). ^ lii. p. 512.
2 Q
594 APPENDIX N
partial and patient hearing." " I can answer for it," lie continues,
" that no officer was ever subject to a less biassed or prejudiced court
than he was, for he came before it with the fullest sympathy of all
of us, and received every consideration throughout, even friendly
advice when essential to him." And, in a letter to me, he writes :
" When the court of inquiry was ordered, and my name published as
junior member, both Hodson and his wife rode wp to my house to offer
their perfect satisfaction at my nomination.
The court sat for several weeks, minutely investigated Hodson's
account-books, and cross-examined a number of witnesses. After sending
in its report of the proceedings, it was ordered by the Government of
India to record a verdict upon each heading of the inquiry.^ The
verdict was unfavourable to Hodson ; and Lord Dalhousie, in a minute
dated 15 Sept. 1855, expressed his full concurrence in it.^ In the
previous month Major Reynell Taylor, who had succeeded Hodson in
the command of the Guides, had been ordered, as he himself says, " to
examine and report upon the state of the regimental accounts." In
this examination he was assisted by Hodson himself, and by no one
else ; ^ and the conclusion at which he arrived was that the accounts
showed " numerous irregularities, but no actual improprieties in the
management." *
Mr. Hodson's contention is that his brother " appealed against the
verdict of the court of inquiry on the ground that it had been given
on ex parte evidence, and that he had not had the opportunity of pro-
ducing his accounts " ; that Reynell Taylor, " after a patient and
minute investigation, drew up a report completely vindicating
Lieutenant Hodson on all the charges " ; and that Taylor's report was
adopted by the Government of India (apparently in 1858) as satis-
factory.5 He also tells us, on the authority of the Eev. C. Sloggett,
that Colonel Keith Young, who had been one of the members of the
court of inquiry, after reading a statement which Hodson " had drawn
^ Life of Lord Lmvrence, ii. 512-14. - lb. pp. 515-16.
^ He was nominally assisted by Lieutenant (now Major-General) Godby also,
but only nominally, as the following extract from a manuscript memorandum by
General Chamberlain proves : — Question (by Gen. Chamberlain).— "Did you see
the result of such inquiries?" Answer (by Gen. Godby). — "As the C. 0. was
satisfied, I did not look into it much, but I saw Taylor's remarks ; and, as he as
C. 0. was satisfied, I agreed." Q. — "Did you see the accounts when cleared up?"
A, — " No. That is, I did not examine them, but I saw them." In another place
General Godby ^vrites : " After it was over, Taylor said he was satisfied, and asked
me what I thought. Now, I, although there, did not look into the accounts my-
self, and, as Taylor was satisfied as CO., I agreed, looking upon it as a part of
the overhaul of regimental accounts by one oflicer making overcharge to another."
■* Life of Lord Lmvrence, \\. 517 (Letter from Reynell Taylor) ; Life of Reynell
Taylor,' Y,. 111.
" Hodson of Hodson'' s Horse, pp. xxiv., xxvi.
APPENDIX N 595
up, embodying Major Taylor's report," was "mucli impressed by it,"
and "became one of Hodson's warmest friends." ^ Finally he adduces
tbe testimony of the late Lord Napier of Magdala. I quote the
passages that aj^pear to strengthen Hodson's case. A letter dated
March 1856 contains these words: "On reading a copy of the pro-
ceedings (of the court) I perceived at once that the whole case lay in
the correctness of his regimental accounts," and " the result of Major
Taylor's laborious and patient investigation of Lieutenant Hodson's
regimental accounts has fully justified, but has not at all added to, the
confidence that I have throughout maintained in the honour and
uprightness of his conduct." In a second letter (undated) Lord Napier
says : " When it is remembered that on his being suspended, notice
was given to every complainant to come forward against him, any one
who knows the material contained in the Guides knows that there
were men who might have had enmity to gratify, or hope of positive
advantage in bringing accusations before the court of inquiry." And,
in a letter dated 2 July 1889, he attempts to show that the money
which Hodson took from the regimental chest of the Guides was taken
solely to defray the cost of a fortified cantonment which he was
building at Hoti Mardan : " Hodson informed me that he advanced
money from the regimental chest. There was difficulty and delay in
getting the money from the civil department, and the pay of the
Guides became overdue, there being no money in the regimental chest.
Those hostile to your brother immediately assumed a defalcation." ^
Now Mr. Hodson's version of the facts, which I have given in his
own words, contains at least two very gross misstatements, — misstate-
ments which he persists in making, or else with unpardonable careless-
ness allows to remain uncorrected, although since 1883, when they
were first made, they have been flatly contradicted by the testimony
of Reynell Taylor himself ! His way of putting the case would
create the impression that his brother formally appealed against the
finding of the court of inquiry : that Taylor was directed to revise that
finding ; and that he reversed it by a favourable verdict of his own.
But this impression would be absolutely erroneous. First of all,
Hodson did not appeal against the verdict of the court. One proof of
this is that that verdict was not made public until 15 Sept. 1855,^
and that Taylor had begun his inquiry, or had undertaken it, in the
preceding month.'* What Hodson did was to assert that he could
" render account of the regimental chest if government would arrange
for its hearing " ; ^ and, according to his own account, he had been
^ Hodson of Hodson s Horse, pp. xxvi.-xxvii.
^ Ih. pp. 126, Ixiv.-lxvi.
* Life of Lmxl Lawrence,, ii. 516. ^ Hodson of Hodson's Horse, pp. 128-9.
5 Ldfe of Reynell Tuylm; p. 215.
APPENDIX N
doing tliis for months before August 1855, — that is to say for months
before the verdict of the court was made known.^ Moreover, to any
one who knows anything of afl'airs the notion that a subordinate
government, — the government of the Punjab, — would direct a single
regimental officer to revise the finding of a court of inquiry already
endorsed by a supreme government, is simply ludicrous. If Mr.
Hodson -disputes this, Taylor's own words shall refute him. Not only
was Taylor necessarily ignorant of the (then unpublished) verdict of
the court : he had not even seen the court's proceedings. In a letter
to Mr. Bosworth Smith ^ he speaks of " a voluntary committee " of
himself, Lieutenant Godby, and Hodson.-^ " I did not," he writes,
" see or go through the evidence laid before the court of inquiry. I
did not, to the best of my recollection, see the court's report . . . I
had no 'power to revise any finding of theirs. I was merely ordered to
examine and report on the state of the regimental accounts." Yet
Mr. Hodson speaks of Taylor's report as " completely vindicating
Lieutenant Hodson on all the charges " ! He will not believe his own
witness. He entirely ignores, or rather he implicitly denies, the fact
which the foregoing extract clearly proves, that Taylor's inquiry had
nothing to dovnth anything except accounts,'^ and left the adverse verdict
of the court on the remaining counts completely intact.
The issue then is narrowed to this : Was Taylor's favourable verdict
regarding the accounts justified by the facts ? Now it was absolutely
impossible for Taylor or for any one else to come to any satisfactory
conclusion about the accounts by examining the account-books alone.
For part of the evidence that had been recorded before the court
related to the accounts ; and of this evidence Taylor, on his own
showing, saw nothing. There was, for instance, as I shall presently
show, a false entry in one of the account-books, relating to a pecuniary
claim which had been established against Hodson before the court.
I shall also show that, if Hodson was able to make Taylor believe
that " there were no actual improprieties in the management " of his
^ See Hodson of Hodson' s Horse, p. 129.
^ Life of Lord Lawrence, ii. 517.
^ " I understood," writes General Godby, who held temporary command of the
Guides before Taylor succeeded to the post of commandant, " I understood that
Taylor, in taking command, thought it his duty to make himself acquainted with
everything connected with the regiment, an<l amongst other things with the
accomits, which was only what is expected from every one succeeding to a com-
mand. Whether he first got the sanction (this is not the same as an order) of the
Punjab government or not, I don't know ; but he got Hodson to come to Murdan
with his accounts, and prompted by the noble idea of doing his iitmost to exculpate
Hodson, he set to work, as I thought, for his own satisfaction as commanding the
regiment."
* See also an extract from a letter of General R. Taylor to Mr. Bosworth Smith
{Life of Lm'd Lawrence, ii. 511, note).
I
APPENDIX N 597
accounts, it was partly because he had privately borrowed large sums
to make up the deficiency in the regimental treasure chest which his
own malversation had caused. In a word, although, as Taylor has
told us, he had nothing to do with any of the charges brought before
the court, the question of the correctness of the accounts was in-
extricably bound up with the evidence relating to the pecuniary
claims that had been established against Hodson ; and of that evidence
Taylor says that he knew nothing.
First of all, it is important to state what the finding of the court
on this matter really was. It did not commit itself, in so many words,
to the judgement that Hodson was guilty of fraud. " The court,"
writes General Chamberlain to me, " was very guarded in its language."
" I don't suppose," writes the same authority, " that Lord D. nor Sir
J. L. did actually consider ' peculation ' proved direct and absolute, —
but next door to it." The court stated that the system for which
Hodson was responsible was " calculated to screen peculation and fraud ;"
and it stated that, from the commencement of its sittings, his state-
ments had "abounded in subterfuge," which it "could not too strongly
condemn." ^
But, although the court expressed itself so guardedly, there still
remains evidence of an instance in which it was proved that Hodson
had defrauded one of his native officers. "Amongst the many com-
plaints," writes General Chamberlain,^ " there was one by a duff'adar
of the Guides to the eflect that he had not received payment for a
horse upon the terms agreed. I do not remember whether there had
been a change of horses between Hodson and the dufiadar, but anyhow
there was a monetary transaction, and when the account-book came to
be examined, it was found that the item had been tampered with.
Now R. Taylor may have seen many erasures and alterations in the
account-books, and this item amongst them, but unless he had knowledge
of attendant circumstances, he knew little. . . . Hodson's explanation was
unsatisfactory, and the court considered the claim established." There
were various other claims against him, which, in order to prevent their
being investigated by the court, he settled by privately borrowing
money.^ " When they came up for hearing," says General Chamberlain
in another letter, "a verdict was entered, 'Settled out of court.'" It
is needless to say that Hodson would not have borrowed money
privately to satisfy claims if he had spent the money that would have
otherwise gone to satisfy them on the public service. Then there is
^ Lord Dalhousie's Minute of 15 Sept. 1855 {Life of Lord Latm-ence, ii. 515).
" Four Famous Soldiers, p. 192, note.
^ Letter to irie from General Chaml lerlain, and Life of Lord Lawrence, ii. 517.
"They were all," writes General Chamberlain, '''■official claims, which ought to
have been settled up by drawing the money from the regimental chest."
598 APPENDIX N
General Chamberlain's statement that, after he had been allowed a
fortnight's grace to make up his accounts, a cursory examination showed
that "items had been wrongly debited and credited to square up."
Moreover, it has since been conclusively proved that he was guilty of
another act of malversation which did not come under the notice of
the court at all. I have already related that, some time before Hodson
was summoned to appear before the court of inquiry, one of his sub-
alterns, returning to Mardan after leave of absence, asked him for his
pay ; that Hodson replied that he had spent it ; and that the subaltern
threatened to expose him unless he refunded the money within twentj^-
four hours. I repeat that my authority for this statement is the
subaltern himself, now Major-General C. J. Godby.^ I have also
related that, on being threatened with exposure, Hodson sent to
Peshawar, and obtained the money (,£400 or £500) through the
generous intervention of one Bisharut Ali, from the banker of a native
regiment. My authorities for this statement are Major-General Godby
and General C Chamberlain, who at that time commanded the native
regiment in question, and to whom the application for the loan was
made. He sanctioned the loan in order to oblige Hodson : but not
until 1883, — when he learned the truth from General Godby, — had
he any idea what it was for.^ So far the facts are indisputable ; and
Mr. Hodson has not disputed them. Indeed it is significant that he
has never attempted to defend his brother from this charge at all. But
he may conceivably suggest that Hodson had spent Godby's pay on
public requirements ! Unfortunately this suggestion would be inad-
missible ; for otherwise what should Hodson have had to fear from
exposure 1 As General Chamberlain writes, " If legitimately spent for'
other recoverable items, why was a loan asked for ? " But more than
this. The money was lent to Hodson 2}Tivately, and stood against him
as a private account when Taylor was investigating the Guides' accounts.-^
Yet, to quote General Chamberlain, "he paid the amount to Godby
as being balance of his pay and of his monies lying in the chest to his
credit." " Did Hodson," says the same authority, " ever tell Taylor
that he had smuggled the sum of 5000 rupees into the Treasury ?
And if so, or if not, how could his accounts be right when he had
5000 rupees more than he ought to have had ? " Or, as Mr. Bosworth
Smith ^ pertinently asks,
What avails it to say that the regimental chest contained at that time
what it ought, and that the accounts submitted to Taylor were correct, when
^ See also Life of Lord Lmorence, ii. 517.
2 Letter to me from General Chamberlain, and Life of Lord Laicrence, ii. 513.
■^ Letter to me from General C. Chamberlain, and his printed letter to Mr.
Bosworth Smith [Life of Lord Laiuretice, ii. 513). "* Jb. ii. 517.
APPENDIX N 599
it is admitted that Hodsoii had been driven to borrow large sums, riglit and
left, to make up the deficiencies ? If a banker -who is hard pressed appropriates
the securities committed to him, on the chance of some day being able to make
them good, every one knows what to call him.
Another fact, which has never been made public, is very signi-
ficant. One day, while the court was at lunch, General (then Major)
Chamberlain found Hodson talking to one of his accusers, and remon-
strated with him for doing so. The man complained that Hodson
had been trying to intimidate him ; and he was accordingly placed
under protection by the court.^
I have proved that Hodson committed an act of malversation, that
a pecuniary claim against him was established in spite of his denial,
and that he was obliged to borrow money to settle various other claims,
and thus pi-event their coming under the notice of the court. I have
also proved that, by borrowing this money, he convicted himself of
further malversation. It follows that the report of Reynell Taylor,
who knew nothing of these things, cannot be regarded as an exculiJa-
tion of Hodson. But setting aside these proofs, let me ask any un-
biassed reader this question. Which is more likely to have been
correct — the unanimous verdict of an imi^artial court, based upon the
cross-examination of witnesses and the investigation of documents, and
endorsed by the Commander-in-Chief, Sir John Lawrence, and Lord
Dalhousie, or the verdict of an individual who, by his own showing,
never saw the evidence laid before the court, who examined no witnesses,^
and was assisted in his inquiry by the defendant ? Surely it is more
probable that of the two the court was right.
I have said enough to prove my case : but I had better perhaps
leave none of Mr. Hodson's pleas unanswered. Again and again he
tells us that Lord Napier considered Taylor's report as a triumphant
exculpation of Hodson. Well, I have proved that, for reasons of
which Lord Napier could not have been aware, Taylor's report
cannot, even on the question of accounts, be considered as an
exculpation of Hodson ; and I shall presently prove that a still higher
authority than Lord Napier was dissatisfied with it. How then are
we to account for Lord Napier's having been deceived ? Setting aside
the fact, well known to all his surviving comrades, that Lord Napier
was a man who believed in a friend, once made, through thick and
thin, the explanation is simply that he did not know all the circum-
^ Manuscript memorandum and letter from General C. Chamberlain. General
Godby stated last year (1890) that he remembered General Chamberlain's having
mentioned this episode to him at the time ; and it was, of course, chronicled in
the record of the court's proceedings.
- "No witnesses were called, that I ever remember," writes General Godby,
" except occasionally a moonshee, or native accountant, to explain or comjiare
papers."
600 APPENDIX N
stances of the case. What right have you, I may be asked, to say
this ? Has not Lord Napier written, " On reading a copy of the pro-
ceedings, I perceived at once that tlie whole case lay in the correct-
ness of his regimental accounts " 1 Yes, Hudson, as General Chamber-
lain has told me, made a copy of the proceedings. But it is difficult
to believe that, if he had shown the whole to Napier, Napier would
have committed himself to the astounding assertion that " the whole
case lay in the correctness of his regimental accounts." Did Hodson
show him the item, which he had tampered with, relating to the ex-
change of liorses with a duffadar of the regiment 1 Did he tell him
that he had tried to intimidate one of his subalterns before, and one
of his accusers during, the inquiry 1 Did he reveal the " subter-
fuges " in which his own " statements had abounded " ? But, assuming
that Lord Napier did see the whole of the court's proceedings, what
then ? The conclusion is simply that he was not an impartial judge.
The opinion of a private individual who disputes the summing up of
a judge and the verdict of a jury does not generally carry much
weight. Why then should Lord Napier's belief in his friend's inno-
cence set aside the deliberate judgement of the court, of the Commander-
in-Chief, of the Government of the Punjab, and of the Government of
India ? Again, what of those matters which did not come under the
notice of the court ? Did Hodson allow Napier to know that he had
been obliged to borrow largely in order to settle various claims, for
fear they should come before the court? Did he allow him to know
that he had been obliged to borrow £400 or .£500 in order to refund
Godby his pay, which he had spent ?
In a passage which I have extracted from one of his letters Lord
Napier says that ' ' on his (Hodson's) being suspended, notice was given
to every complainant to come forward against him," etc. By whom ?
And on what authority does Lord Napier make this statement ? On
what authority, — except that of Hodson himself ? Assuredly no such
notice was given by the court. " I do not remember it," writes General
Chamberlain to me, " and was staggered when I first read Lord
Napier's letter." Nor by Lieutenant Godby, who, on Hodson's being
suspended, took temporary command of the Guides.
As commanding the Guides at the time [he writes], I Avas not aware of
any notice having been given to complainants to come forward against
Hodson. Certainly noiie Avas sent from the Regimental Office. But it's
more than probable that the party whose accusations were the subject of
enquiry had invited the discharged men who had claims for arrears of pay to
come forward and lay their demands before the Court ; but of this I had no
knowledge.
Certainly there was no reason why those discharged men should
not come forward and claim their due. I have shown that Hodson
APPENDIX N 601
tacitly admitted the justice of various claims by borrowing money to
satisfy tliem, and tlius keep them out of court. Let it be remembered
also that every plaint that was laid before the court was rigidly
scrutinised. Yet General Chamberlain writes to me, " I do not re-
member one single plaint being disproved." And, he asks, why should
men have accused Hodson falsely, when they knew that if detected
they would be punished, and that " if he cleared himself and returned
to power stronger than ever, they would have to pay for their sins " ?
Did Lord Napier mean that the court could not discern between false
accusations and true ? His plea is simply unmeaning unless it means
that not the court only, but also Sir John Lawrence, the Commander-
in-Chief, and Lord Dalhousie were either incompetent or unjust !
Lord Napier's other statement that " Hodson informed me that he
advanced money from the regimental chest," to defray the expenses of
building the fortified cantonment at Hoti Mardan, is equally unavail-
ing. " I believe," writes General Chamberlain, " advances were made
for the public works at Murdan : but had Hodson been able to show
what had been so spent, the court could have accepted his accounts.
This he could not do." Even if he had been able to do so, the proof
which I have given of his having committed malversation would
remain unshaken.
Again, Mr. Hodson tells us that the Government of India adopted
Taylor's report as satisfactory. Perhaps : but the following extract
from a letter, written by General Sir H. Daly, K.C.B., tells a different
tale : —
I was appointed to tlie Guides on or about 7 May 1857. A few days after
I had been in command, I received a file of papers (Reynell Taylor's report),
with a minute from Lord Canning expressing dissatisfaction, and directing
explanations on many points of Taylor's writing. This was sent to me by
the Brigadier (Sir N. Chamberlain) imder the authority of Sir John Lawrence.
The papers I never read, but within an hour of their receipt wrote to Sir N.
Chamberlain and Sir John Lawrence, stating my inability to do what was
required. I took the file with me to Delhi, placing it in the secret drawer of
a small desk, known only to the Adjutant and myself. After I was wounded
at Delhi, the command of the Guides fell temporarily to Hodson. On the
day of the storm, 14 September, I resumed command. After the fall of
Dellii I was called upon to restore the file ; the desk was searclied ; the file
was missing. Hodson was asked ; he replied that he knew nothing of the
records during his tenure at Delhi. A few months elapsed, and the siege of
Lucknow was in hand. I was with Sir W. Mansfield and Hodson, and in
command of the Horse. He was brought in mortally wounded to Banks's
House, where I was, and he died that night. I was at once asked by Sir W.
Mansfield to take command of Hodson's Horse. I stipulated for freedom in
connection with Hodson's affairs and his " commission of adjustment." This
was accepted by the Commander-in-Chief, and I took command ; Ijut on the
day I did so, remembering the missing file from the desk at Delhi, and hav-
ing strong grounds for thinking Hodson knew, I went to an independent
friend, whose tent was near, and begged him to come with me to Hodson's
602 APPENDIX K
tent before the assembling of the "commission of adjustment." In Hodsmi's
trunk the file was found. I forwarded this to the Government officer, still
living, through whom I received it, describing the discovery, and suggested
that Sir J. Lawrence's sanction be asked to leave the matter in silence. Sir
J. Lawrence acceded to this suggestion, and so the matter remained till 1860,
when, stung by the remarks in Hodson's reminiscences. Sir John spoke to me
about publishing the statement I have now made, the particulars of which
are known to several still living.^
Now observe what Lord Napier says : " If Sir Henry Daly's
memory is accurate, and your brother at the time he was asked the
question denied all knowledge of these papers, I firmly believe that
he spoke the truth, and that had he lived he could have explained
satisfactorily how they came into his possession." ^ Lord Napier was
indeed a stannch friend !
To refute Mr. Hodson is also to refute Dr. Luard, who appeals to
Mr. Hodson's book as his authority. Speaking of the court of inquiry,
Dr. Luard says : " Against their decision he appealed, and a second
inquiry was ordered, and entrusted to Major P^eyneU Taylor, who re-
ported on 13 Feb. 1856. This report fully cleared him of the impu-
tations cast upon him. . . . But the second report was not com-
municated to the commander-in-chief, was laid quietly aside in some
ofi&ce, and no more notice taken of it." ^ These few words contain no
less than three grave errors. First, as I have already proved, Hodson
never appealed against the verdict of the court of inquiry. Secondly,
Taylor's report only touched one of " the imputations cast upon him,"
and did not succeed in clearing him of that. Thirdly, it is not true
that " no more notice was taken of " Taylor's report. On the contrary,
that report, as I have shown on the evidence of Sir Henry Daly, was
read by Lord Canning : he wrote a minute expressing dissatisfaction
with it ; and both minute and report were abstracted by Hodson from
Daly's desk, and found in Hodson's tru^nk after his death. (See
extract, already quoted, from Sir Henry Daly's letter to Mr. Bosworth
Smith.)
To sum up. It is proved that Hodson committed malversation ;
that he committed what was virtually a fraud upon one of his native
officers ; that he was driven to borrow money in order to satisfy
various claims and thus prevent their coming under the notice of the
court of inquiry ; that the opinion of the court was " unfavourable to
him in every way " ; that their verdict, confirmed by the Commander-
in-Chief, by the Government of the Punjab, and by the Government
of India, was never appealed against, and never reversed ; that they
^ Life of Lord Lmorence, ii. 524.
" Hodson of Hodson s Horse, pp. Ixvi.-lxvii.
•* Dictionary of National Bior/rajphy, xxvii. 75.
APPENDIX N 603
found that the system of accounts for which Hodson was responsible
was " calculated to screen peculation and fraud " ; that the accounts
which Hodson could not, although he was allowed all the time that
he asked for, explain to the court, he did explain to the satisfaction of
Reynell Taylor ; but that Eeynell Taylor's report did not satisfy Lord
Canning : finally, that, as Reynell Taylor examined no witnesses,
never saw any record of the court's proceedings, and knew nothing of
the circumstances regarding at least two important points, his report,
whatever may have been its value in other respects, fails to clear
Hodson of dishonourable conduct.
III.
I now come to the notorious case of Bisharut Ali. The story,
based upon information supplied to me by General Crawford Chamber-
lain, who learned the facts direct from eye-witnesses, is told in detail
on pp. 203-5 of my B'our Famous Soldiers. I reproduce it here.
During the earlier days of the siege, it chanced that a native, named
Shahaboodeen, came to Hodson's tent, and informed him that one Bisharut
Ali, an officer of the 1st Punjab Irregular Cavalry, had mutinied, and was
living at his village, within a few miles of Delhi. The man added that
Bisharut Ali's relatives were mutineers. Hodson at once recognised the name.
Bisharut Ali was the same man who, some years before at Peshawiir, when he
had been in sore distress, had stood his secmity to enable him to borrow a
sum of money from the banker of the 1st Irregular Cavalry. Shahaboodeen,
too, had knoA\ai Bisharut Ali before. He had formerly been a trooper in the
regiment to which Bisharut Ali belonged, but had been dismissed from the
service for an assault on one of his comrades ; and his conviction had been
founded, mainly, on evidence furnished by Bisharut Ali. He was a man of
infamous character ; and it was to revenge himself on Bisharut Ali for having
borne witness against him that he now turned infomier. The story which he
told to Hodson was a deliberate invention. As a matter of fact, Bisharut
Ali was a brave and honourable man ; he had been sent by his commanding
officer, Major Crawford Chamberlain, to his village, on sick leave ; and some
of his relations, who were represented by Shahaboodeen as mutineers, had
never, for a single hour, been in the Government employ. But Hodson was
in no mood to ask himself whether the unsupported statement of an ex-convict
deserved to be regarded as evidence. . . . Taking with him a few of his
horsemen, he rode off to the village ; sought out Bisharut Ali's house ; and,
after a fierce struggle with the inmates, in which much blood was shed on
both sides, established his footing within. Eeturning to his camp, whither
Bisharut Ali had gone, he met him, and charged him with being a mutineer.
Bisharut Ali indignantly denied the charge, and demanded that he shoidd
be taken to the British camp at Delhi, and there formally tried. Common
justice required that Hodson should gi'ant the request. Audit might, surely,
have been expected that a motive more powerful than the sense of justice
would impel him to give every chance of proving his innocence to the man
who had helped him in his hour of need. But the desire to destroy a supposed
rebel was uppermost in his heart ; and justice and gratitude, if they pleaded
604 APPENDIX N
at all, pleaded in vain. A hasty trial was held ; and Bisharut Ali was de-
clared guilty. Raising his carbine to his shoulder, Hodson deliberately
aimed at his benefactor, and fired. The shot did not kill Bisharut Ali ; and,
looking Hodson full in the face, he shouted, " Had I suspected such treachery,
I Avould have fought it out instead of being shot like a dog." The troopers
fired, at Hodson's comniaud. Bisharut Ali was slain ; his nephew, a child of
twelve years, was slain, clinging to the knees of another uncle ; his innocent
relatives were slain ; and Hodson, having taken possession of his horses, his
ponies, and some of his personal property, rode ofi' to another village, to hunt
down more mutineers.
Mr. Hodson pleads, in reply (pp. Ixvii.-lxviii.), that, as General
Chamberlain's information "must have come from natives, and pre-
sumably friends of the rebels, it may be considered as carrying about
as much weight as the accounts of Mr. Balfour's ' atrocities,' to vphich
we are all accustomed, gathered from eye-witnesses on the spot where
evictions have taken place, by sympathising visitors." Observe that,
by using the word "rebels," Mr. Hodson begs the whole question.
He goes on to say tliat "it is impossible that General Chamberlain
can know what evidence Hodson had of the man's guilt," and that
"no one at the time doubted Bisharut All's guilt." Major-General
Mitford, Hodson's stepson, adds that Ressaldar Hookiim Singh, of
Hodson's Horse, told him " that he was present with the detachment
when Bisharut Ali was executed, and that he and all those with him
were thoroughly satisfied that Bisharu.t Ali w^as a rebel and thoroughly
deserved death." Furthermore, Major-General Mitford tells us ^ that
one Ressaldar Zari Singh has stated " that he lived in the same village
as Bisharut Ali and was there when the man was shot. Zari Singh
was only a boy at the time, but distinctly recollects the circumstances,
and has often heard them discussed since ; but neither then nor sub-
sequently did he hear any doubt cast on the justice of the punish-
ment. Every one was convinced that Bisharut Ali was a rebel and a
fomenter of rebellion."
I shall presently show that the testimony adduced by Major-
General Mitford is absolutely worthless. Meanwhile I have to deal
with Mr. Hodson. Nearly seven years ago, when Mr. Hodson first
disputed the truth of the story of Bisharut Ali, General Crawford
Chamberlain offered, through the columns of the Daily News (19 Jan.
1884), to furnish him with full details : but Mr. Hodson did not accept
this offer ! General Chamberlain shall now speak for himself. I
quote from a memoir dated 19 Feb. 1884. After relating how he
first heard, at Mooltan in 1857, of Bisharut All's execution, how
staunch Bisharut's regiment had proved during the most trying months
of the Mutiny, and how he told the news of his execution to his
brother-in-law Burkut Ali, General Chamberlain proceeds : —
^ Atlientxam, 31 Aug. 1889.
APPENDIX N 605
His — Burkut All's — first I'eniark, after hearing of liis brother-in-law's
death, was, "You will see that it is Shahaljoodeeu and Hodson Sahib who
have done this. Hodson Sahib has done it to wipe out his debt,^ and my
relatives and friends are those who have suifered. But, whatever calamity
has befallen them, I will be faithful to you and to the State, come wliat
may."
General Chamberlain then relates how lie tried in vain to obtain
from the Government of the Punjab an account of the circumstances
of Bisharut Ali's execution.
The first piece of information was gathered late in the year (1857) from an
officer passing through Moolta:i on his way to England. He told me that
the European officers knew nothing about Bisharut Ali, but Hodson had said
he knew all about him, and that he was a rebel ; so he was shot. ... In
the following November I took leave to visit Delhi, then a centre of intei'est.
Accompanied by Burkut Ali, I purposely took the route through Hurreeana,
in order to visit Khurklionda (Bisharut Ali's village), being anxioiis to gather
there on the spot all the information I could. Hindoos and Maliomedaus
unanimously asserted that Bisharut Ali had never been away from the village
since his arrival ; that neither he nor any one else there had been in rebellion ;
and on the sudden and unexpected arrival of the troojis, he had at once sent
out milk and fruit to the camp, and gone himself by one way while Hodson
and a party had entered the village by another, led, as they subsequently
came to know, by one Shahaboodeen, a native of the place.
This man had formerly served in my regiment, but had forfeited the service
consequent upon a sentence of imprisonment (hard labour for two years) for
violence to a superior officer. The principal witness against him had been
the Eessaldar, Bisharut Ali, with whom he had been in deep enmity ever
since his release from jail, and upon whom he took the opportunity of the
times to have his revenge. With this object in view he laid false information
before the authorities at Delhi, and, bringing Hodson to the spot, succeeded
in carrying out his design to his heart's content.
To return to the villagers' story. A party under Hodson's leadership was
taken to a cluster of houses occupied by Bisharut Ali, his relations, and
friends, where they demanded admittance. As is well known, the natives of
India (and throughout the East) are scrupulously averse to admitting any one
into their houses, on account of their women. They not unnaturally objected
to having their houses entered by troops, and resisted when forcible entrance
was attempted. Fighting ensued ; lives were lost ; and prisoners made. On
Hodson's return to camp, Bisharut Ali was made prisoner : he asserted his
innocence, and asked to be taken to Delhi to be tried, but without avail : he
^ When I first read this remark of Burkut Ali's I was exceedingly puzzled.
It was true, of course, that Hodson could have had no interested motive for
sparing his surety ; for if he proved insolvent and his surety died, not he, but his
creditor would suffer. He had got his loan ; and that was all he wanted. But
neither could he have had any motive for killing his surety, as such ! I asked
General Chamberlain to explain. " I used the word ' security,' " he writes, " but
in fact B. A. aiTanged the loans with my banker." He goes on to speak of
* monies lent to Bisharut Ali and by him lent to Hodson " ; and in another letter
he mentions the loan of 5000 rupees, " which Bisharut Ali negotiated and lent
Hodsou." But of course I do not wsh to be understood as endorsing what
Burkut Ali said.
606 APPENDIX N
was sentenced to be shot, and, according to the testimony of the eye-witnesses,
Hodson, on seeing some hesitation on the part of the firing party, fired at
Bisharut Ali himself. The latter did not fall at once, hut said, " If I had
expected this treachery, I would have fought it out instead of being killed like
a dog." His throat was cut as he lay on the ground.
With respect to Burkut All's brother, Surufraz Ali, the villagers asserted
that they made the most strenuous ettbrts to save his life. He had 7iever been
in Govermncnt cmxiloy, and had passed his life as the family land-agent. . . .
His denial of rebellion and assertion of innocence were quite unavailing, and
(m the statement of Shahaboodcc.n that he was Kote Duffadar (Pay Sergeant) of
a regiment of Oudh Irregular Cavalry, he was sentenced to death and exe-
cuted. His nephew, a lad of some twelve or fourteen years of age, who ran
and clung to him, hoping thus to shield him and save his life, ivas shot on hivi.
This last circumstance was stoutly maintained! . , . This is a smnmary of
the villagers' story ; and, happily for myself, it does not rest solely upon my
memory : two living witnesses can corroborate it.
Ere leaving Khurkhonda, I saw the lands and houses which had been con-
fiscated consequent upon Hodson's operations, for I felt sure the Government
of India would entertain an application for their release. I am glad to say
that, on the Chief Commissioner's recommendation, Bisharut All's lands were
released at once in Burkut All's favour. . . .
On my return to my regiment, I wrote ofiicially to the officer then com-
manding the Guides, requesting him to procure me the fullest information
from native officers and men who had been employed under Hodson in this
affair. After a long interval, receiving no reply, I wrote to him again. He
sent a laconic answer, regretting that he had failed to elicit any information :
but in pencil below his signature were a few lines to the efiect that no one
would open his mouth on the subject.
Five years later, in the commencement of 1864, an opportunity suddenly
presented itself for learning more of the matter of which I write. As I had
to pass through Murdan, in Eusufzaie (the Guides' head-quarters) on my way
from the camp at Umbeyla to Delhi, I asked the officer then in charge of
Murdan if he would allow a certain native officer to accompany me some way
towards Nowshera, as I was quite alone. He did so. After riding some
distance, chatting upon general subjects, I suddenly pulled up, and said :
" Now we are quite alone in this plain. God is above. I want you
to tell me about Bisharut All's case. I tried to get information from your
commanding officer officially, but failed because none of you M'ould speak.
You were there. Tell me all." He was loth to speak. He said, "Don't
ask me. It is too dreadful to think about. You know Bisharut Ali was my
great friend. I felt dreadfully pained at his terrible position and fate. I was
afraid of his seeing me oi' of Hodson Sahib's doing so, for fear he should make
use of me ; so I hid myself. No one can speak of that day," — or words to that
effect. Pressed for time, we parted ; and I carried away the firm conviction
that his expressions and the extreme reticence of the men of the Guides
fully confirmed the' story I had heard from the villagers.
In 1882 I came to learn, for the first time, the names of two British officers
who had been with Hodson on the occasion, and at once wrote. Their replies
did not enlighten me much. Both were engaged in the village with Hodson.
Neither remember whether Bisharut Ali surrendered or was captured : but
both speak decidedly as to his having made no resistance to the troops. One
was especially struck by his brave bearing when a prisoner. One says that a
sort of trial was held by Hodson ; the other calls it a " drumhead court-
martial." Neither was present at it or at the execution. Both considered
I
APPENDIX N 607
he "had failed iu his duty as an officer and soldier" ; and the general opinion
was that the sentence and execution were just.
This is all the evidence I have ever been able to gather on the subject.
The fact that those officers were engaged with Hodson in the village leaves
intact the statement about Bisharut Ali going to the camp, and sending milk
and fruit ; for they were with the party which went in by one way whilst he
went out by another. As regards the fighting, there is the villagers' statement
that Shahaboodeen led the troops to the house in which the officers say,
"rebels had taken refuge." Rebels they were no doubt believed to he; but
only because Shahaboodeen said so. They were not so in fact ; and they never
would have fought but for the reason already explained. They were where
every man has a right to be, viz. in their own houses.
I now come to the main point, viz. Bisharut All's attitude. Was he a
rebel ? And how did he fail in his duty as an officer and a soldier ?
As a man of much local authority and position, he could no doubt, if so
willed, have caused serious trouble : for the furlough men of the Irregular
Cavalry were at their homes throughout Hurreeana. Khurkhonda, a large
village, contained many of them ; but, so far as I heard, none suflered, on
that eventful day, except Bisharut Ali, his relations andfrieouls / This in no
way proves that he or they were rebels ; but it establishes the fact that they
were made the victims of a deep scheme. I am sure that all the officers and
men of the expedition fully believed that they were going to meet mutineers
in open rebellion, and therefore guilty in their eyes, when they started from
Delhi. There has never been any question as to the troops being opposed on
arrival at Khurkhonda ; and the officers state that Bisharut Ali made no
resistance. Whence, then, comes proof of his rebellion ? The utmost that
has been advanced against him is that, as an officer of position and authority
in the service of the Government, he did not do as he was bound to do, viz.
give aid against the rebels. Why did he not do so ? First, because they
were not rebels. Secondly, because they locrc his oivn relatives and friends,
who were defending their houses. In fact, the whole of the (so-called) evidence
against him is of a negative character throughout. He did nothing.
Having known him intimately for eight years, I am able to speak of him
as a brave, quiet, determined man, who, if a rebel, would have been a
dangerous one, instead of remaining, as he did, unsuspiciously in his village,
within striking distance from Delhi. Would not the conduct of a rebel at
heart have been the very opposite of this ? Would he not have fought for his
life ? One of the officers was especially struck by his brave bearing when a
prisoner. Does not this speak more for his innocence than for his guilt 1
Does it not confirm my estimate of his character, as also my conclusions in
respect of what he would have done as a rebel ? An innocent mind can meet
death more calmly than a guilty one. Moreover, the accusation of treachery,
which he is asserted to have made when wounded, seems to me in favour of
his innocence.
And now as regards the trial. It will be seen that Hodson held it. I
must here recall the fact that Burkut Ali, on hearing of Bisharut All's death,
at once predicted that Hodson had done it "to wipe out the debt." I now
explain what he meant. Hodson was well known to Bishariit Ali, who was
with me morning and evening as native adjutant, and who for years was my
constant companion, being the best company in a native I had known. My
friends were his friends. One day when Hodson sent me an urgent application
for a large sum of money on loan, 4,000 or 5,000 rupees (400Z. or 500^.) I
declined to give my banker any verbal endorsement, lest I should be held
responsible ; but Bisharut Ali arranged it at once, and, as I afterwards learnt,
608 APPENDIX N
stood security. Subsequently, when Hodson was very hard pressed for cash,
to settle urgent claims against him (during the sittings of a Court of Euquirj"
to investigate certain matters connected with his command of the Guides),
Bisharut Ali again stood his friend with my banker ; and a considerable sum
was due to the latter from Hodson, when the latter was killed at Lucknow.
... I am fully certain that the officers generally believed in the justice of
Bisharut All's sentence, because Hodson told them he knew him well. Yes,
well indeed ! And I of course feel that no one there knew the relation in
which Bisharut Ali stood to the so-called rebels. . . . Had there been a
regular trial, Bisharut All's life would not have been taken then and there ; nor
would such a miscarriage of justice have occurred as the death of Surufraz
Ali, the familj'^ accountant. It ought to have been impossible, in face of the
villagers' endeavours to save his life. Even now one wishes one could
discredit the story of his death, still more so that of the lad who was killed
with him ; but no room is left for so doing, for Burkut Ali found the painful
Hanks in his family circle. ... I have made every endeavour since 18.o7 to
ascertain the true story. What has been obtained subsequent to the villagers'
account has confirmed rather than shaken the latter. But if any officer who
was actually jiresent at the execution will now affirm that Hodson did not
fire at Bisharut Ali, and that his throat was not cut, I will gladly accept his
assurance. C. Chamberlaix.
I will now expose the worthlessness of the evidence adduced by
Major-General Mitford. The following correspondence, which was
published in the Army and Navy Gazette of 5 and 12 July, and of
2, 9, and 23 August 1890, proves that no Hookuni Singh can be
discovered or can be shown to have ever existed "who was present
with the detachment when Bisharut Ali was executed."
Bisharut Ali
To the Editor of the ^' Army and Navy Gazette."
Sir, — May I ask you to publish this letter, to which I invite the attention
of Major-Gen. R. C. W. Re veley Mitford ? A review of my " Four Famous
Soldiers," which appeared in the Athcna-uon of 31 Aug. 1889, contained the
following statement: — "Gen. Mitford informs lis, that Ressaldar Hookmn
Singh, of Hodson's Horse, 'told me, some four years ago, that he was present
with the detachment when Bisharut Ali was executed, and that he and all
those with him were thoroughly satisfied that Bisharut Ali was a rebel and
thoroughly deserved death.' "
After reading the review. Gen. Crawford Chamberlain, from whose
investigations I had derived my knowledge of the circumstances of Bisharut
All's execution, communicated with Col. Morris, commanding 1st Bengal
Cavalry, There was, as Gen. Chamberlain was aware, a Hookum Singh
belonging to the 1st Irregular Cavalry, who was attached to the Intelligence
Department, under Major Hodson, at Delhi ; but, as Col. Morris ascertained
from an examination of the regimental records, lie died at Jullundur on
18 Oct. 1858. This man, then, was not Gen. Mitford's informant. Col.
Morris subsequently wrote to Col. Robertson, commanding 9tli Bengal
Lancers (late 1st Regt. Hodson's Horse), and to Col. Strong, commanding
10th Bengal Lancers (late 2nd Regt. Hodson's Horse). He asked each of
these officers whether (1) there was in his regiment, at the time of the Indian
APPENDIX N 609
MutiDy, a man called Hookum Singh, and whether he was present at the
siege of Delhi ; (2) whether the said Hookum Singh was present at the
execution of Bisharut Ali at Khurkonda ; (3) whether the same Hookum
Singh was in the regiment four years before {i.e., in 1885) ; (4) if so, what
was his rank at the time ; and (5) where he was then (November 1889)
living. Col. Robertson replied that there was, in January 1858, a ressaldar
named Hookum Singh in the 1st Regt. Hodson's Horse, who was not
present at the siege of Delhi, and retired on pension on 10 Feb. 1887. This
Hookum Singh did not enlist until after the siege of Delhi. In February
last he was living at Philloke, in the district of Gujranwala. Col. Morris
wrote to the Deputy-Commissioner of the district ; and Hookum Singh,
having been personally interrogated by the Extra- Assistant-Commissioner,
stated that he did not accompany the detachment of his regiment which
visited Khurkonda, and that he was therefore not present at the execution of
Bisharut Ali. Col. Strong replied that at the time of the Mutiny there was
in the 2nd Regt. Hodson's Horse a man named Hookum Singh ; that he was
then a sowar, 36 years old ; that he was not present at the execution of
Bisharut Ali, and did not remember having gone to Khurkonda ; and that he
was pensioned in 1876 as a sowar. Neither Col. Robertson nor Col. Strong
mentioned any other Hookum Singh. I have seen the original letters of
Cols. Morris, Robertson, and Strong, regarding Ressaldar Hookum Singli and
the pensioned sowar Hookum Singh, as well as the official docket of the
Extra- Assistant-Commissioner of Gujranwala. The result of the searching
enquiries which I have described is that no Hookum Singh can be discovered,
or can be shown to have ever existed, who was "present with the detachment
when Bisharut Ali was executed." But Gen. Mitford will doubtless explain.
—I am, etc. , T. R. E. Holmes.
10 Eldon Road, W., 17 June.
To the Editcrr of the "Army and Navy Gazette."
Sir, — My attention having been called to a letter in your issue of the 5th
inst., headed "Bisharut Ali," I beg to state in reply that the "Hookum
Singh " referred to was a Ressaldar in the 9th Bengal Cavalry, formerly the
1st Regt. of Hodson's Horse. — I am, etc.,
R. C. W. Reveley Mitford, Major-Gen.
Wellington Club, Grosvenor Place, S.W., 11 July.
[I replied briefly to this letter, pointing out that it explained
nothing ; and General Mitford rejoined with a letter (Army and Navy
Gazette, 9 Aug. 1890) which was merely abusive. I closed the
correspondence with a letter of which I need only quote the final
paragraph.]
I now ask Gen. Mitford this final question. Does he, or does he not,
admit that the evidence of Cols. Robertson and Strong and of Ressaldar
Hookum Singh, as recorded by the Extra- Assistant -Commissioner of
Gujranwala, is correct — in other words, that no Hookum Singh was present
at the execution of Bisharut Ali ? If he does not, how does he propose to
invalidate their testimony ? If he does, why has he shrunk — he who is so
indignant at what he thinks "unmanly" — from admitting that he was in
error, and apologising ? — I am, etc, , T, R. E. Holmes.
Crianlarich Hotel, Perthshire, 20 Aug.
2 R
610 APPENDIX N
To this last letter Major-General Mitford has made no reply.
That being the case, he will not be surprised that I am sceptical about
Zari Singh. Assuming, however, that Zari Singh has been correctly
reported, I may say this much. First of all, as he was by his own
admission a boy at the time of Bisharut All's execution, his testimony
cannot outweigh the unanimous testimony of the Hindus and
Mahomedans from whom General Chamberlain derived his information.
Secondly, he has tried to prove too much. For if, as he said, Bisharut
Ali " kept ostensibly on good terms with the authorities and hoodwinked
them," how was it that he was charged by Hodson with not com-
municating with the authorities.^ .......
It is hardly necessary to notice Mr. Hodsou's plea that, " even if
on private grounds, in remembrance of past obligations, he might
have been inclined to spare him, public considerations required sharp
and speedy justice. The very existence of our Empire was trembling
in the balance." Mr. Hodson cannot mean seriously to argue that, if
Hodson had granted Bisharut Ali's request to be taken to Delhi for
trial, the existence of the Empire would have been imperilled.
His attempt to discredit my narrative by appealing to Sir H,
Norman's History of the Siege of Delhi is equally futile. " At Rohtuck,"
says Sir Henry, " Hodson managed to surprise and nearly to destroy
a party of mutineers, irregular cavalry, sowars of different regiments,
including Ressaldar Bisharut Ali, who was taken and shot." Now
Bisharut Ali was not killed at Rohtuck at all, but at Khurkonda, —
his own village. Moreover, Sir H. Norman was not present at the
execution : his narrative was a contemporary one (it was written in
1857), and only alluded to the affair of Bisharut Ali in the briefest
way ; and he therefore could only have derived his information on
this particular point, directly or indirectly, from Hodson's official
report, or from his oral testimony. Mr. Hodson goes on to say that
his brother mentions " that one of the men killed was a brute of the
1 4th Irregular Cavalry, who committed such butchery at Jhansi " ;
and he remarks, " There certainly is a strong presumption against the
innocence of a man found in such company." Now reference to Mr.
Hodsou's book (pp. 201-4) will show that Bisharut Ali was not in the
" brute's " comjjany at all ! Bisharut Ali was killed at Khurkonda
on 1 5 August. The " brute " was killed at Khotiih, sixteen miles off,
three days later. What, then, becomes of Mr. Hodson's " strong
presumption " ?
^ Manuscript memorandum by General C. Chamberlain.
APPENDIX N 611
IV.
" We are asked," says the Saturday Reviewer, " to believe that
Hodson was a plunderer."
The published evidence in support of the charge that Hodson was
a plunderer is as follows : — (1) the statement of General Pelhain Burn,
who saw Hodson's boxes of loot, when Hodson accompanied him from
Fatehgarh to take part in the siege of Lucknow ; ^ (2) the statement
of General Sir H. Daly, K.C.B., whose duty it was, after Hodson's
death, to open his trunks before the committee of adjustment
examined them, and who saw in those trunks what he himself
described as "loads of loot" ;2 (3) the statement of General Sir Neville
Chamberlain, G.C.B., that " in my opinion and in the general opinion
of those I was then associated with, both he and his men were
considered to have been prominent in looting " ; and that " in Major
Hodson's camp was to be seen a miscellaneous collection of animals
and conveyances of various kinds, and these could not have been
brought together without his knowledge and sanction " ; ^ (4) the
statement of Captain Light, who served at the siege of Delhi, that
Hodson was " the most notorious looter in the whole army " ; ^ (5) the
remark, oft repeated, of General Archdale Wilson, who commanded
the Delhi Field Force — " Poor Hodson, he must be killed in looting
some day " ; ^ (6) the statement of a general officer to Mr. Bosworth
Smith, that he " saw Hodson on his way to the storm," — of the Begam
Kothi at Lucknow, — " to which his duty did not call him." ^
" Behind him," continued this eye-witness, " came an orderly with a
large haversack, which could be wanted only for purposes of plunder.
He was killed forcing open the door to what was then believed to be
the treasure room. Every one in camp knew that Hodson had gone
to plunder" ;" (7) the statement of Major W. Forbes, who writes,
" Hodson was a mauvais sujet ; but Mr. Bosworth Smith is mistaken
in supposing that he was killed in the act of looting. If he had lived
three minutes longer, however, he certainly would have died in the
act. This I know on authority which cannot be disputed" ;^ (8) a
statement made to me by a general officer who served on Sir Colin
Campbell's staff, — which, however, is of course not susceptible of
proof, — that it was well known in camp that Hodson had a list of all
^ Life of Lord Lawrence, ii. 518.
2 lb. * Ih. p. 523. ■* lb. p. 519. ^ /j^
^ The fact that " his duty did not call him " to the Begam Kothi is
corroborated by Sir Henry Norman, Life of Lord Lawrence, ii. 529.
7 Ih. p. 520. 8 7j_ pp, 520-21.
612 APPENDIX N
the places at Delhi and Lucknow where valuable plunder was to be
got ; (9) the statement of General Sir H. Norinan, G.C.B., that Hodson,
who, as his brother has admitted, was, at the outset of the mutiny,
deeply in debt, did, in an underhand way, remit in January 1858
several thousand pounds to Calcutta.
The facts of the remittance [writes Sir Henry] were as follows.
Hodson's regiment, like most others at the time, was largely in arrears of
pay, and, soon after it reached the Headquarters' camp at Futtehghvir, in
January 1858, Hodson came to me as Adjutant-General, and, having
represented to me that his men were in distress for want of funds, asked for
authority to draw a sum of money on account from the regimental chest.
The amount he asked for was large, but I satisfied myself that it was within
the sum then actually due to the regiment, so I issued authority for it to be
paid. Upon the officer in charge of the military chest submitting to me his
next weekly statement of cash in hand, I was surprised to find that his
balance had only been slightly reduced during the week notwithstanding the
large advance authorised for Hodson's Horse. The officer in charge explained
to me that Hodson had taken the advance mainly, if not altogether, in bills,
which to the best of my recollection, were drawn on tlie Treasury at Calcutta.
I was somewhat alarmed at hearing this, and at once instituted a private
inquiry, which resulted in my ascertaining that, although the money had
been taken by Hodson in bills, the men had received their payment in
rupees. The conclusion I then formed was that Hodson had a large sum of
money in his possession at the time he asked for an advance, that this money
was his own property, and tliat he took advantage of tliis opportunity for
remitting his money to a place of security. As the men had received their
money, there was, of course, no fraud on them or on the public, and I had
no reason for taking proceedings against Hodson ; but the occurrence made a
strong impression on my mind, and led me to believe that there was truth in
the common belief in camp that Hodson had freely availed himself of the
many opportunities for plundering which must have presented themselves to
him. . . . the largeness of the amount quite startled me. It was certainly
several thousand pounds. ^
Mr. Hodson's comment on Mr. Bosworth Smith's original summary
of this last piece of evidence is worth quoting.
I was able [he says] (pp. Ixi-lxii) to trace back this story to its origin.
The only foundation for this fresh calumny is that when Hodson applied to
the paymaster, Captain Tombs, for two months' pay for his regiment,
R. 60,000, which was sanctioned by Gen. Mansfield, the chief of the stafi', he
asked to have it in the form of bills on Calcutta, as these were in great
request at that time with the up-country bankers from whom he drew money
for his men. That they were duly paid all allow.
Yes, of course they were duly paid. But what has that got to do
with the matter ? Is Mr. Hodson unable to understand Sir H.
Norman's letter ? If not, why does he ignore the all-important fact
that, " although the money had been taken by Hodson in bills, the
^ Life, of Lord Lawrence, ii. p. 527.
APPENDIX N 613
men had received their payment in rupees ; " and that, as the pay-
master's cash balance " had only been slightly reduced during the
week, ' notwithstanding the large advance authorised for Hodson's
Horse, those 60,000 riqjees must have been paid by Hodson out of
money in his ovm possession. As the men received their payment,
there and then, in rupees, Mr. Hodson's contention about the "up-
country bankers " falls flat. I need hardly say that Hodson would
not, unless he had been insane, have resorted to so roundabout a way
of obtaining the cash which he was authorised to draw direct from the
military chest. Mr. Hodson first published this comment in a letter
to the editors of the National Review (Nov. 1884) before the appear-
ance of Sir H. Norman's letter. He has read that letter since. Does
he believe it ? If so, why does he reprint a comment which can serve
no purpose except that of misleading his readers ?
I am confident that every candid reader will admit that the nine
items of evidence which I have stated, taken together, are strong
enough to condemn a man in a criminal prosecution. Dr. Luard's
reply to this overwhelming consensus of testimony is simply, " that
all his property (save horses) was sold at his death for £170."^ I
must take leave to say that this is no reply at all. The fact that the
personal eff'ects which an officer who died on active service had in his
possession at the time of his death were sold for so much, in no way
proves that he was not worth so much more, in hard cash, in securities
or what not. ^ Mr. Hodson admits (p. xxxvii.), that, during the mutiny,
his brother made " a very large profit " by the sale of prize cattle.
Let us admit that this was an honourable transaction. How was Dr.
Luard to know that Hodson did not make " a very large profit " in
more questionable ways ? Anyhow there is Sir Henry Norman's
damnatory letter. Either it is true or it is not. If it is true, as
coming from Sir Henry it must be, then Hodson, who is admitted to
have been heavily in debt in 1857, must have had in his jiossession at
least 60,000 rupees in January 1858. Mr. Hodson's reply is (1) that
Sir Thomas Seaton, who was prize-agent at Delhi, told him that
Hodson was not a plunderer, and (2) that Hodson died a poor man.
Seaton was, next to Lord Napier of Magdala, Hodson's best friend.
His negative statement avails nothing against the numerous positive
statements which I have qiToted. Undoubtedly he could have spoken
as to the amount of plunder which Hodson handed over to him : but
it was not in his power to say that Hodson kept back nothing from
him. The statement that " he died quite a poor man " is a loose one ;
and it is obviously impossible for an outsider to test it : but it cannot
^ Dictionary of National Biography, xxvii. 76.
^ Heury Lawrence's property was sold at Lucknow lui £70.
614 APPENDIX N
avail against the damning statements wliich I have quoted, especially
those of Sir Henry Norman and Sir Neville Chamberlain. Were such
statements, in such number, and on such authority, ever yet made
against an innocent man ?
Last [says the Sahbrday Reviewer] comes the story that Hodson spared
the King's life for a bribe. For proof of this we have, first, Mr. Holmes's
conviction, based on such evidence as we have examined already, that
Hodson was not the man to sjiare the king unless he had been bribed ; then
the word of a distinguished anonymous officer, who will reveal himself, if
required, and who had the story from the queen. It is rather diflicult to keep
one's temper at the sight of such "evidence" as this. The distinguished
ofiicer can only answer for what the Queen told him. She is the authority
and the only one for the charge against Hodson. We are expected to believe
that an English ofl5cer who was so believed in as Hodson was, was a bribe-
taker on the mere unsupported word of an angry native woman. Such
allegations are the merest trash.
If the reviewer cannot keep his temper at the sight of the fragment
of evidence which he has distorted, what must have been the e£fect
upon his temper of the mass of evidence which he has suppressed ?
Here is the real evidence for my "trash." (1) The "distinguished
oflficer" is General Sir Donald Stewart, G.C.B., late Commander-in-
Chief in India. He saw with his own eyes the unauthorised guarantee,
which Hodson gave to the Queen, and which he attested with his
signature. He states, — and it is of the utmost importance to mark
this, — that the guarantee had been given before the royal family left
the palace of Delhi ; that is to say, hefore Hodson asked General
Wilson for permission to promise the King his life. The late Mr.
C. B. Saunders, who succeeded Hervey Greathed at Delhi, and knew
Hodson well, also saw the guarantee. Neither he nor Sir Donald had
the faintest doubt of the genuineness of the signature. (2) Hodson
did undoubtedly give guarantees for their lives to some of the greatest
criminals in Delhi ; and in a letter to General Wilson, printed on
p. xxxiii. of Mf. Hodson's book, he denied that he had done so. Sir
John Lawrence was asked by Saunders whether these guarantees
should be respected or not. He replied : " As regards Hodson's
guarantees, I think they must be respected, no matter under what
influence they were given. He was allowed great power by the
Commander-in-Chief and his successors, and if he abused it, this is
between him and his conscience." ^ (3) The fact of Hodson's having
given his unauthorised guarantee of the King's life explains the other-
wise unaccountable persistency with which, on 21 Sept. 1857, he
^ Life uf Lord Lmcience, ii. 156. The italics are mine.
APPENDIX N 615
importuned General Wilson to allow him to promise the King his life.
This importunity is attested by Sir Donald (then Captain) Stewart
and by Colonel (then Lieutenant) J. R. Turnbull. Both were present
when Hodson asked Wilson for permission to go and capture the King ;
and both have described the interview to me.^ Sir DonaLl could not
understand Hodson's persistency at the time : but afterwards, when
he saw tlie guarantee, all became clear. Hodson was obliged to urge
Wilson to let him promise the King his life, because he ivas conscious of
having already promised it himself It is true that he alleged, as
his reason for making this request, that he could not otherwise induce
the King to surrender. But he did not think it necessary to make any
such request in the case of the princes. (4) I have proved that
Hodson did give the King a guarantee of his life before the royal
family left the palace of Delhi ; and I have also proved that he was
not authorised to give that guarantee. I would not insult the intelli-
gence of readers by demonstrating the obvious fact that he did not
give it out of charity. But, as neither Mr. Hodson nor the Saturday
Reviewer can see this, I am compelled to explain. By availing himself
of the opportunity which his position as head of the Intelligence
Department afforded him for communicating with the rebels to give
an unauthorised guarantee of safety to the King, Hodson committed a
gross breach of trust. I auj)pose that neither Mr. Hodson nor the
Saturday Reviewer will have the hardihood to deny that, if it had been
discovered, he Avould have been liable to be brought before a court-
martial or a court of inquiry. Is it credible that he would have run
such a risk without securing a quid pro quo ? .
There is one other remark of Mr. Hudson's to which I must call
attention. " I have," he writes (p. Ixxi.), " read carefully Mr. Smith's
reply to my vindication, with the letters of his correspondents, and I
see no reason for retracting or modifying anything that I have written.
. . . Mr. Smith has proved that those who bore enmity against
Hodson and tried to injure him when alive do so still." Consider
what this means. Mr. Hodson is aglow with indignation against those
whom he regards as the calumniators of his brother. But here he
shows himself to be a calumniator on a magnificent scale, — a
calumniator of men against whose honour no one had ever before
breathed a syllable. If these words of his are to be taken seriously,
they can only mean that he regards these men as liars, — liars who
have lied deliberately in order to blast the reputation of a dead
comrade. As I have already written,- " Mr. Bosworth Smith's
appendix is based upon first-hand information from honourable,
impartial, and able men, who had seen with their own eyes, heard
' See Four Famous Soldiers, p. 208, uote. ^ lb. p. 226.
616 APPENDIX N
with their own ears, or learned from the study of original papers or
the cross-examination of eye-witnesses the facts for which they vouched.
Some of them have, of their own personal knowledge, made, both to
Mr. Bosworth Smith and to me, statements, most damaging to Hodson's
reputation, which it is impossible to explain away, impossible to
refute, except on the absurd hypothesis that they are deliberate
falsehoods. Let Mr. Hodson show the courage of his opinions, and
name any one of Mr. Bosworth Smith's correspondents who ever
showed enmity to his brother, or ever tried to injure him when
alive. 1 ...........
Mr. Hodson persists in saying (p. xxxviii. ) that he has the authority
of Sir Donald Stewart for making a certain statement in behalf of his
brother, although, as he must have read on p. 226 of my Four Famous
Soldiers, I have in my possession a letter from Sir Donald, in which
he writes, "You are welcome to say that Mr. Hodson had no
authority to quote me at all in his introductory remarks."
..." Mr. Holmes," complains Mr. Hodson (p. Ixx.), " follows Mr.
Smith in quietly assuming that his viewof Hodson's character was shared
by all those who knew him in India, and Anglo-Indians generally."
I have not written a word which could give Mr. Hodson the right to
say this : but, if he will substitute " proving " for " assuming " and
" nearly all " for " all," I shall be willing to accept his words.
" Personally," writes Sir Charles Aitchison to Mr. Bosworth Smith,^
" I never knew Hodson. But among the many I have known who
knew him intimately, there is but one opinion about him, — a
splendid leader of irregular horse, but a most unscrupulous man.
Your estimate of him is admitted by almost every one to be correct."
" All of the mutiny men," writes Mr. A. Lawrence, Commissioner of
Allahabad, " are with you, except a few personal friends." " The
^ Dr. Luard, in his bibliographical note, asserts that I " give implicit credit to
whatever Hodson's enemies said of him, while neglecting the testimony of such
friends as Lord Napier of Magdala." This assertion is partly untrue and wholly
misleading. So far from neglecting the testimony of Hodson's friends, I
gave prominence to the testimony which Sir Henry Lawrence and Sir Tlionias
Seaton bore in his favour. The testimony of Lord Napier I was obliged
to neglect, because it was overborne by tliat of others who had personal
knowledge of the facts. Moreover, his testimony did not touch the majority of
the charges brought against Hodson. The persons upon whose testimony I made
statements adverse to Hodson were as follows : Lord Dalhousie, the late Sir
Herbert Edwardes, Sir Donald Stewart, Sir Henry Norman, Sir Henry Daly,
Sir Neville Chamberlain, General Crawford Chamberlain, General Pelham Burn,
General C. J. Godby, Captain Light, Dr. Hathaway, Dr. Farquhar, the late Sir
Archdale Wilson, the late Sir George Lawrence, and the late Mr. C. B. Saunders.
Readers will have judged for themselves whether I am right in believing the
statements of tlie^se honourable gentlemen. To call them enemies of Hodson is a
calumny. - 2b. ii. 504, note.
APPENDIX 0 617
common opinion," writes Sir Neville Charaberlain,^ " held in the
Punjab was that he was not clean-handed. ... I know of no other
instance in which suspicion of the kind was attached to any other
officer in the Punjab. If this judgment was the outcome of male-
volence, jealousy or jDrejudice, or any unworthy motive, why did the
imputation prevail only against Hodson ? 1 believe that every one
who has served in India will admit that an imputation of the kind
is never lightly propagated." Even General Reynell Taylor writes,
regarding the slaughter of the princes of Delhi, " I have never
admitted that their death was necessitated by the danger of rescue. I
have never had any other idea than that Hodson, in his extra energy,
looked to the campaign to repair his fortunes, and that he carried it
on in ways that other men would not think of or join in." ^
APPENDIX 0
Brigadier Greathed and the Battle of Agra
Comparing Greathed's and Cotton's despatches, one might feel some
difficulty in deciding what part the latter took in the battle of Agra.
Colonel Malleson, after describing a second charge of the 9th Lancers,
which followed the charge of the Punjab cavalry, says (vol. ii. p. 103)
" Colonel Cotton had by this time arrived from the fort with the 3rd
Europeans, and, as senior officer, had assumed the command. Detaching
two companies of this regiment to strengthen the Panjab infantry on
the right flank, where the enemy were still contesting the ground under
shelter of some high crops, he urged the whole line forward in pursuit.
The rebels fell back in hasty disorder by the Gwaliar road," etc. But
Colonel Malleson's statement is corrected by Greathed's despatch.
Greathed says, " Here " (at a village on the Gwalior road, three miles
from the parade ground, to which village the pursuit had already been
continued) " we were joined by the 3rd European Regiment, who took
their places in the line, detaching two companies to support the Punjab
Infantry engaged in driving out the enemy who still hung on our
flanks in the jungle and topes on our right. Colonel Cotton . . .
then assumed command." If this statement is true, it proves that the
pursuit was not begun, but only continued by Cotton. Cotton's
^ Life of Lord Lawrence, ii. 522. - lb. p. 507, uote.
618 APPENDIX 0
despatch does not contradict this ; and all the other evidence supports
Greathed's statement. Colonel Fraser says that the British troops
were "inspirited (by Cotton) to continue the pursuit of the flying
enemy" (C. C. Seymour's How I won the Indian Mutiny Medal, 1888,
p. 151. See also Memoirs of my Indian Career, vol. i. p. 266, by Sir
George Campbell, who was present in the action). Cotton was indeed
on the ground before the j)ursuit began ; for he left the fort with
Colonel Ouvry, who commanded the 9th Lancers during a part of the
action (see Colonel H. A. Ouvry's Cavalry Exijeriences, pp. 144-5) :
but Greathed completed the victory and began the pursuit independently.
[Since I wrote the foregoing note. Lord Roberts's Fortxj-one Years
in India has appeared. His narrative unmistakeably implies that the
victory was gained quite independently of Greathed ; and indeed
that Greathed did not aj)2^ear on the field until the battle, properly so-called,
was over. "Gradually," says Lord Roberts (vol. i. pp. 275-6), "the
enemy were beaten off, and the troops formed themselves up ready for
pursuit. ... At this juncture Greathed appeared on the ground. . . .
"When Greathed arrived, the order for a general advance was given,
and we were just moving off in pursuit . . . when the 3rd European
Regiment and a battery of Field Artillery under Cotton arrived," etc.
But Greathed himself, writing just after the battle, said, " I galloped
to the front, and found the Artillery already in action and the 9th
Lancers in their saddles, formed up in squadrons. ... I moved with
H. M.'s 8th . . . and the 4th Punjab Lifantry (taking with me on
the way the three squadrons of the 1st, 2nd, and 5th Punjab Cavalry)
to the right, with the view of outflanking and capturing the guns on
that flank. ... I extended the Infantry along the road leading from
the Parade Ground to the Infantry Barracks in skirmishing order
with supports, with directions to advance to their front and clear the
compounds of the enemy's infantry. . . . By this time the Agra
9-pounder Battery came up, and I advanced it in support of the right
flank of the Infantry, on the road leading from the Artillery Parade
Ground, and the enclosures were speedily cleared. In doing this the
4th Punjab Infantry distinguished itself. The advance of the Infantry
and Battery enabled Lieutenant Watson to make his charge and capture
the guns . . . and after that the enemy did not make any stand," etc.
Moreover, Lieutenant "Watson says in his report, " Shortly after the
enemy's fire opened . . . the three squadrons . . . moved off towards
the European Barracks, Colonel Greathed . . . informing us that
beyond the Barracks I should find open ground. ... I perceived a
favourable opportunity . . . and swept down at a gallop on their flank" ;
and Colonel Cotton himself says that " our troops had been drawn up
by Colonel Greathed in a most judicious manner." Finally Colonel
de Kantzow tells me that he acted as galloper to Cotton, and carried
APPENDIX P 619
an order, while the battle was going on, to Greathed, who was very
angry and would not listen to him. From this evidence it is clear
that Greathed had appeared iipon the ground and taken command
some time before the juncture at which Lord Eoberts says that he
appeared.]
APPENDIX P
Was Holkar Loyal during the Indian Mutiny ?
In a footnote to page 461 of the fourth edition of this book (page 484
of the first edition) I wrote, "The fact that throughout the crisis
Holkar evinced the most practical loyalty has been so fully proved by
Kaye and Malleson, who differ widely in their estimates of Durand's
conduct, and by Dickinson, that it is unnecessary to enter into any
further argument upon the subject. Durand himself, though insisting
that the Indore Durbar had incited the mutiny of the 1st of July,
admitted that Holkar was personally undeserving of blame. Enclosures
to Secret Letters from India, 24 Nov. 1857, p. 61." Before the present
year (1897) I was not aware that Durand afterwards changed his
mind. He did not indeed " consider that Holkar had actually gone
against us or instigated his troops to rise," but only that he "had
been trimming and trying to stand fair with both sides." (See Sir
H. M. Durand's Life of Major-General Sir H. M. Durand, vol. i. pp.
236, 469-70.) The late Major Evans Bell, in a pamphlet entitled
A Letter to H. M. Durand, Esq., G.S.L, challenged Durand's biograjiher
to produce the evidence which had led Durand to alter his opinion,
and avowed his conviction that there was no evidence to produce.
The biographer took no notice of this challenge. There can be no
doubt, however, that the question ought to be cleared up. In a letter
dated March 26, 1859, Lord Canning gave Sir Robert Hamilton to
understand that Holkar, as well as Sindhia and the Nizam, was to
receive a territorial reward for his services during the Mutiny ; and
Sir Robert Hamilton communicated this promise to Holkar.^ Lord
Canning, however, subsequently came to the conclusion that it would
not be right to fulfd the promise ; and although Holkar, steadily
backed by Sir Robert Hamilton, never ceased to struggle for redress,
Lords Lawrence, Mayo, Northbrook, and Lytton successively refused
to reverse Lord Canning's decision. Holkar gradually became almost
^ Letter to II. M. Durand, p. 61.
620 APPENDIX P
a monoinauiac upon the subject. " Either I was loyal," he would say,
" or I was disloyal. If I was disloyal I ought to have been hanged.
But Government knew that I was not disloyal, or they never would
have made me a G.C.S.I. Then why did they not keep their
promise ? " ^ The truth was that the Government believed Holkar
to have been both loyal and disloyal. They rewarded him for his
proved acts of loyalty. They withheld from him the reward upon
which he had set his heart because they believed that his loyalty had
not been consistent. It is no business of mine to enquire whether
their treatment of Holkar was right or wrong. But justice both to
them and to him, as well as fidelity to historical truth, demands that
the evidence which led good judges to suspect Holkar should be
published. I have lately been allowed to see a demi-official unpub-
lished letter, written at Bombay in 1885, in which the evidence is
summarised.
(1) On the 11th of July, 1857, Lord Elphinstone wrote that "the
appointment (by Holkar) of Saadut Khan (the leader of the outbreak at
Indore) as Mir Bakshi, even though made on the demand of the
troojjs, is an unfortunate, if not a suspicious circumstance." (2) On
the 10th of October, 1857, two letters were intercepted, written in
enigmatic language by Holkar's family priest to a friend. These
letters, says the writer of the demi-official letter, "dwelt on the
destruction of the red ants by the black ants {i.e. the Europeans by
the natives) . . . and indicated 12th February 1858 as the day on
which the mango fruit would blossom." (3) The mutineers of the
27th regiment at Kolhapur asserted that Holkar had instigated them
to mutiny. (4) It is alleged, though no authority is given for the
allegation, that about July, 1858, Holkar was discovered to be secretly
casting guns and making other warlike prej^arations. (5) On the
17th of June, 1858, General Honner telegraphed that Holkar had
been absenting himself frequently from Indore, on the pretext of
going on shooting expeditions, whereas it had been ascertained that
he was really visiting a hill in the jungle ten miles from Indore, and
there receiving the reports of his spies regarding the position of the
British troops and the strength of their reinforcements. Lord Elphin-
stone wrote on the 6th of July, 1858, that if this report had stood
alone, he would not have attached much importance to it, but that
divers reports of the same kind had reached him from various quarters,
and that they were corroborated by (6) "the direct evidence of the
adopted son of the Ex-Raja of Satara, and by that of several of the
adherents of the Ex-Raja, that Holkar promised his assistance to this
youth in his attempt to jjossess himself of the Satara territory."
^ Private information.
APPENDIX P 621
Personal hostility, Lord Elpliinstone admitted, might have been the
motive of much that had been said against Holkar : still he con-
cluded that "the mass of concurrent evidence and rumour" must
cause doubt.
Certainly. But much of the evidence which the demi-official
letter summarises is wholly unconvincing. No proof is offered of the
allegation that Holkar made secret preparations for war. In the
absence of proof, he cannot be held responsible for the machinations
of his family priest. No one who has any acquaintance with the
habits of native princes will believe that he personally or by letter
instigated the mutineers of the 27th ; and, if they were not lying,
they doubtless meant that the instigation proceeded from some one of
Holkar's dependents. General Honner may or may not have been
rightly informed : but Lord Elphinstone himself said that he would
not have attached much importance to his report, if it had stood
alone. The least weak link in the weak chain is that forged by the
adopted son. of the Ex-Raja of Satara and his friends. Their evidence
must be taken for what it is worth : but the important point is that
it " and the mass of concurrent evidence and rumour " made an
impression upon the strong and acute mind of Lord Elphinstone.
On the other hand it is not denied by Holkar's accusers that he
rendered good service to the British in 1857 (see pp. 482-3 of this
book ; and also Life of Major-General Sir H. M. Durand, vol. i. p. 467 and
a pamphlet entitled A Brief Statement of Sir Kdshi Rao Holkat^s Services,
pp. 3, 5-6) ; and it is difficult to understand why he should have made
preparations for war in 1858, after the fall of Delhi and of Lucknow,
when the cause of the rebels was manifestly doomed. This argument,
however, would not, of course, hold good against the allegation that,
in 1857, before the recapture of Delhi, he intrigued with the 27th
Native Infantry and with the adopted son of the Ex-Raja of Satara.
Reviewing the whole of the evidence, then, it appears to me that the
verdict upon the charges brought against Holkar must be neither
Guilty nor Not Guilty, but Not Proven.
[Two retired Anglo-Indian officers, one of whom personally disliked
Holkar, have read the foregoing note, and tell me that they "think
nothing of the evidence."]
622 APPENDIX Q
APPENDIX Q
Did Sir Robert Hamilton direct Sir Hugh Rose to 'proceed
WITH the Operations against Jhansi ' ?
Sir Owen Burne writes (Clyde and Shrdhnairn [" Rulers of India "
Series], p. 112 note), " Sir Robert Hamilton, in a memorandum written
four years afterwards (March 20, 1862), averred that Sir Hugh Rose
hesitated to disobey the orders received, and that he (Sir R. Hamilton)
took on himself the responsibility of ' jaroceeding with the operations
against Jhansi.' As this assertion has obtained for him the credit of
having saved the campaign, it is right to state that it has no founda-
tion, and was evidently made from memory. It is hardly likely, to
say the least of it, that the military commander would have allowed
the political officer to supersede his authority in so momentous a
military decision. . . . Sir Hugh Rose never thought it worth while
to challenge a statement contradicted by the correspondence which
passed." Whether Sir R. Hamilton's memory failed him or not, I
cannot say ; but his statement is not contradicted by the correspond-
ence. Sir Owen Burne mentions the despatch, dated March 13,
1858, which Sir Robert received on March 20 from the Government
of India ; but he says nothing about the despatch which Sir Hugh
received on the same day from the Commander-in-Chief. Sir R.
Hamilton says in the memorandum (Pari. Papers, vol. xl. 18G3, p.
426) to which Sir Owen Burne refers, "There came also a despatch
from the Commander-in-Chief . . to Sir Hugh Rose, ordering him to
proceed to Chirkaree, to save the loyal rajah of that state. Sir Hugh
Rose considered the order of the Commander-in-Chief imperative,"
etc. There is nothing in the correspondence which passed, to show
that Sir R. Hamilton invented the above statement. In a despatch
which he wrote on March 20 (I'arl. Pajjers, vol. xlii. 1864, p. 208) to
the Secretary to the Government of India, in reply to the Secretary's
of March 13, he says, "In concliision I beg to state that Sir Hugh
Rose desires me to express his entire concurrence in the views and
reasoning above expressed, and his hope that they will be considered
sufficient to allow of a slight delay in giving effect to his Lordship's
wishes." But this does not prove that Sir Hugh had not hesitated to
disobey the orders of the Commavder-in-Chief. Therefore unless and
until it is proved that Sir Hugh did not so hesitate, I shall let the
passage in the text ("Suddenly a despatch . . . operations against
Jhansi," pp. 508-9) stand.
APPENDIX R 623
APPENDIX E
GENERA.L InNES ON SiR HuGH RoSE
General Innes {The Sepoy Revolt, p. 299) says of Sir Hugli Rose
tliat " the cliaracteristic of liis methods seems more theatrical than
genuine. It is to be remembered that he arrived in Bombay, for the
command of the Central India operations in September, but he did
not join his head quarters at Mhow till the 1 6th of December, and he
did not begin his advance from Sehore till the 16th of January. . . .
And, in the end, was his generalship really successful 1 He let
Tantia go free first from Jhansi, then from Kalpee, and finally from
Gwalior," etc.
Sir Hugh did indeed arrive at Bombay in September, 1857 : but
he was not appointed to the command of the Central India Field
Force until the 25th of November ; the instructions which he received
from the Government of Bombay were dated December 12 {Pari.
Papers, vol. xl. 1863, p. 432; vol. xlii. 1864, pp. 180, 198, 201):
and one of the two brigades which composed his force did not return
to Indore from the Malwa campaign until the 14th of the same
month. Sir Hugh quitted Mhow on the 6th of January. Surely the
brigade had fairly earned this short rest, during which Sir Hugh was
hard at work, completing his preparations. Moreover, he was obliged
to wait for news from Whitlock. (See p. 504 supra) General Innes
indeed complains that Sir Hugh delayed overmuch in his advance from
Sehore to Jhansi. But his delays were unavoidable and are accounted for
on p. 507 of this book and on pp. 147-8 of Malleson's third volume.
Finally, will General Innes say in what respect Sir Hugh's generalship
was unsuccessful, save only that " he let Tantia go free " from Jhansi,
from Kalpi and from Gwalior ? Is he prepared to prove that it would
have been possible to prevent Tdntia from going free 1 Does he
blame the generals who, hunting Tantia at their utmost speed,
making forced marches of unprecedented length, "let him go free"
for seven months, and never caught him ?
624 APPENDIX S
APPENDIX S
The Behaviour op the Talukdahs op Oudh during the Mutiny
It is most important, from a historical point of view, to ascertain
exactly how the talukdars of Oudh behaved during the Mutiny. The
prevalent opinion, which I myself echoed in the former editions of
this book, is that the talukdars, with a few exceptions, actively aided
and abetted the mutineers during nearly the whole of the struggle.
But General lunes, in his valuable work, Lticknow and Oude in the Mutiny
(1895), takes great pains to correct this impression. He remarks (p.
19) that the mutineers who defeated Henry Lawrence at Chinhat were
accompanied by only three of the talukdars ; that the talukdars, as a
body, "had been absolutely friendly until Havelock recrossed to
Cawnpore, and after that the participation of most of them in the war
had been more nominal than real" (p. 42), until after the issue of
Canning's proclamation ; and finally, he insists that, even after Have-
lock had returned to Cawnpore, they "sent to the rebel camp only
such contingents as were demanded, and personally remained passive.
. . . Throughout the rest of the campaign they had abstained from any
harassing of British troops — in marked contrast with their conduct
after this Proclamation was issued" (p. 293), when "they rose en
Tnasse in active rebellion" (p. 291). Sir George Campbell, who, in
1858, was appointed Judicial and Financial Commissioner in Oudh,
in some measure confirms General Innes's statements. Only, he says
(Memoirs of my Indian Career, vol. i. p. 211 ; vol. ii. p. 13), after the
failure of Havelock's first relief of Lucknow and the abandonment of
the city in November 1857 by Sir Colin Campbell, did the talukdars
go " into full rebellion."
It is necessary to ask from what sources General lunes derived his
information. " The account of the Talookdars and people of Oude
. . . has been based," he tells xis (Preface, p. vii.), "on the descrip-
tions given me by Sir James Outrara, Captain Alexander Orr his
* Intelligence ' officer, and Mr. Patrick Carnegy ; and on the records
of the trials of the State prisoners on the close of the Mutiny." Now
Outram referred, on March 30, 1858, to "the few powerful talook-
dars who have not taken an active part in the rebellion " {Pari. Papers,
vol. xviii. 1859, p. 302) ; and, as General Innes himself observes
(p. 292), Outram, in arguing against Canning's proclamation, "virtu-
ally admitted that the Talookdars had rebelled " — ;m admission which,
APPENDIX S 625
the General argues, was not justified by the facts. How, I said to
myself, does General Innes propose to invalidate the testimony of his
own witness 1 Ontram resigned the Chief Commissionership on the
3rd of April — only four days after he stated that all but a few taluk-
dars had " taken an active part in the rebellion." Clearly therefore
after that date he received no more reports from his Intelligence
officer. Must not his testimony be preferred to General Innes's
presentation of the facts. I frankly stated my difficulties to
General Innes. He told me that he did not consider Outram's words
irreconcileable with his own. Outram, he said, knew that the re-
tainers of the tiilukdars had been fighting against us ; and accordingly
he spoke of the talukdars themselves as having " taken an active part
in the rebellion." And when I called General Innes's attention to
Sir Kobert Montgomery's report (House of Lm-ds Papers 74, Sess. 2,
ordered to be printed 1st August 1859), his comment was substantially
the same. Montgomery succeeded Outram in April, 1858, as Chief
Commissioner of Oudh ; and it may be presumed that when he wrote
his report in the following year, he had the whole of the evidence
before him. He says (pars. 224-5) that between June and November,
1857, with "a few honourable exceptions," "the whole province of
Oude was in arms against the British Government." General Inues
saw no inconsistency between these words and his own. The taluk-
dars were, he admitted, technically rebels, because, after Havelock re-
crossed the Ganges, they sent their retainers against us : but that was
all. Generally speaking, they " refrained from a hostile bearing : to
as great a degree as could be expected, or as was possible, under the
despotic native rule and powerful army that dominated the situation
at Lucknow and throughout the province" (p. 292).
Let us hear the rest of the evidence. Captain G. Hutchinson wrote
(Narrative of the Mutinies in Oudh, p. 68) from personal observation,
that, early in June, 1857, the population of the country near Malaon
" was rising rapidly . . . not in absolute violence, but quietly arm-
ing ; and villages . . . now mustered their armed men, and collected
supplies for the coming storm, whatever it might be." Lieutenant
Crump, a most intelligent and observant officer, who served under
Havelock throughout his Oudh campaign, says {Saturday Review, 1857,
p. 463) that "the great landed proprietors . . . have, up to the
present time," — the first week in August, — "been perfectly still,
standing at gaze." Outram writes {General Orders, Despatches and
Correspondence, p. 297) on September 17, 1857, that his information
shows that " there is a large and influential class in Oude . . . among
the more powerful, and most of the middle classes of chiefs and zemin-
dars, who really desire the re-establishment of our rule ; while others,
well disposed towards us, have only been induced to turn against us
2 S
626 APPENDIX S
because they believe that our Raj is gone." So far as they go, the
first and the third of these statements confirm General Innes's account ;
and the second does not contradict it. On the other hand, Gubbins
says (Mutinies in Oudh, p. 209) that about July 7, 1857, "it
became known that some of the talookdars had joined our besiegers
with their followers" (see also pp. 434-5) ; while according to the
Gazetteer of the Province of Oudh, vol. i. pp. 259-60, "the whole body
of the taluqdars " in the district of Bara Banki joined the mutineers
before the issue of Canning's proclamation ; but it does not appear
whether they joined them in person or only sent their retainers.
Again, Lieutenant Crump says {Saturday Review, 1857, p. 392) that,
on the 5th of August, after Havelock had made his second advance,
he encountered great opposition at Bashiratganj from matchlockmen
as well as from sepoys. "Before," he writes, "we had only a few
wrong-headed Zemindars to contend with, on the side of the mutineers,
— now, the whole population is against us." By " the whole popula-
tion " he evidently meant the population along the line of march : by
"Zemindars" he may have meant talukdars, for some writers often
used the word in that sense. Finally, Outram's secretary wrote from
the Alambagh on February 5, 1858, that " the powerful landholders are
determined to resort to their forts and to their jungles, and from thence
maintain a guerilla warfare until they compel us to restore them to
their former status." "This statement," he adds, "is confirmed by
authentic intelligence from the city " {Enclosures to Secret Letters from
India, 4 to 8 Mar. 1858, p. 342).
To conclude. I cannot find positive evidence that, before the issue
of Canning's proclamation, any talukdars took the field in ^jerson on
the side of the mutineers, except the three who, as General Innes says
(p. 19), were with the mutineers at Chinhat, the notorious "trimmer,"
Man Singh, who. General Innes tells me, actively opposed Havelock's
advance through the streets of Lucknow on the 25th of September,
the talukdars of Malhiabad, and four others whom Gubbins (pp. 434-
5) mentions by name. I cannot therefore refuse to accept General
Innes's statement of the facts.^ But, I would ask, if some few talukdars
remained loyal to us from first to last, and refused, in spite of the
pressure that was put upon them, to send a single man to fight against
us, may we not fairly say that those who succumbed to that pressure
were not loyal ? It would be absurd to blame them : but it is not
proved that they deserved praise for forbearance.
And, while General Innes exaggerates the friendliness which the
talukdars showed before, he also exaggerates the hostility which they
showed after the issue of Canning's jDroclamation. " Lord Canning,"
^ Unfortimately I have not yet been able to piocure " the records of the trials
of the State prisoners on the close of the Mutiny."
APPENDIX T 627
he says (pp. 307-8), " roused the whole province gratuitously and need-
lessly into desperate hostility " ; " the chiefs rose en masse in active
rebellion" (p. 291); "the ^vhole country pu2)ulation was in dogged
rebellion" (p. 298). Reference to the Parliamentary Papers, to the
Oudh Gazetteer, and to pp. 523, note 3, and 531 of this volume will
show that these statements are misleadin".
APPENDIX T
Sib Colin Campbell and his Critics
Indian journalists wrote many long and tedious invectives against the
slowness of Sir Colin's movements, and often compared him, to his
disadvantage, with Sir Hugh Rose. But Sir Colin acted on the prin-
ciple of thoroughly reconquering, not merely overrunning, every dis-
trict that he invaded. He had noticed that Greathed and others,
though they had won every battle which they had fought, had not
been able to lay any permanent hold upon the districts which they
traversed. He therefore determined to do his work surely, if slowly.
The Indian journalists seemed to forget that, even after Rose's great
and uniformly successful campaign, bands of plunderers continued to
infest Bundelkhand and the Saugor and Nerbudda Territories.
[Sir Colin's generalship has again been censured of late years, — some-
what vaguely by Sir Owen Bume ; temperately by General Innes ; and
with some virulence by Sir George Campbell. The errors which Sir
Colin committed during his final operations against Luckiiow are ad-
mitted by all competent authorities, including Lord Roberts, who, on
all other points, speaks strongly in his favour ; and opinion is still
divided on the question, to which I have also adverted in this book
(p. 415), whether he ought to have abandoned Lucknow in November,
1857. Sir Owen Burne's criticism is directed against Sir Colin's
"rigid preference for cumbersome columns and cumbersome move-
ments" {Clyde and Strathnairn, p. 52) and "the delays and combina-
tions which too often characterised the movements of the North-
western army" {lb. p. 51). "There was still" (in January, 1858), he
says, " a tendency, from causes which no one could fathom ... to
assemble large bodies of troops, and to move about unwieldy brigade?,
charged with orders to risk nothing and to act ' according to the rules
628 APPENDIX T
of war.' The mutineers took advantage of these tactics to spread
themselves over the country and defy the ' bull-dogs who were unable
to catch jackals ' (while all this time the rebels left unmolested in
Lucknow had ample leisure to devote their energies to the task of
strengthening their position)." General Innes says {Lucknow and Oxide
in the Mutiny, p. 45) that the forces with which Delhi was captured
and those with which Havelock reinforced the Imcknow Residency
" were a mere handful compared with the armies with which at length,
after fifteen months, Sir Colin managed to crush the enemy ; and yet
that enemy was never so strong as in the first stage of the war, for
they grew weaker and weaker from losses in men and guns, until in
the last stage their ranks received the accession of the Oude Talook-
dars" (see also pp. 251-2) ; and after describing how Outram with
4400 men defended his position at the Alambagh against 120,000
rebels and mutineers, he says (p. 273), "The thought inevitably arises,
that the enemy's conduct in connection with the Alum Bagh, whether
before Sir Colin's relief or during the following January and February,
cannot be held to have evinced the skill and prowess demanding huge
forces and elaborate precautions to deal with them. Battalions were
now required by the Chief instead of companies ; whereas the enemy
themselves seem to have been affected less by numbers than by energy
in action, and by boldness and promptitude in attack." Sir George
Campbell {Memoirs of my Indian Career, vol. i. p. 301) charges Sir Colin
with having " frittered away " the whole time between the 1 st of
November 1857 and the 1st of May 1858 : he says {lb. p. 302) that
only " under pressure from the Government the Commander-in-Chief
at last started for Rohilcund" ; and that "we were obliged to do in
May and June . . . with much suffering and loss what we might
easily have done in November and December," 1857 ; and he quotes
approvingly from a letter written by " a Disabled Officer " (lb. vol. ii.
pp. 344-52), who insists that " the Commander-in-Chief and his army
spent the cold weather in marching from Cawnpore to Futtehghur
and back again " ; and that " after the capture of Lucknow occurred
another whole month's astonishing delay."
Whether the columns whose movements Sir Colin directed were or
were not unduly " cumbersome," I will not presume to decide.^ But
when Sir Owen blames the Commander-in-Chief for having resorted to
^ " On the whole," writes Sir H. Havelock-Allaii, whose attention I invited to
Sir Owen Burne's criticism, " I don't think Colin Campbell conld have done more.
Whenever we acted with too small forces, we ran the risk of disaster. It comes
back again to the one great difficnlty. Infantrj' could not overtake men who
marched so light and so far. Cavalry could overtake them, but always got
' clawed.' It wanted the intermediate arm (moimted infantry), which nobody
had then thought of."
APPENDIX T 629
" combinations," he is letting his pen run away with him. That com-
binations were essential to success, no one who has any knowledge of
the history of the Mutiny will deny. There remains the charge of
delay. Delay there undoubtedly was : but it was due, as Lord Roberts
testifies {Forty-one Years in India, vol. i. p. 387), to Sir Colin's corre-
s^Dondence with the Governor-General, whose instructions he did not
receive until the 13th of January, 1858 {Life of Lord Clyde, vol. ii. pp.
65-94). Sir Owen Burne seems to imply that if Sir Colin had then
immediately marched against Lucknow, the mutineers would not have
had time to complete their defences. No doubt. But is Sir Owen
prepared to argue that Sir Colin ought to have attacked Lucknow
without a siege-train ? If not, what could Sir Colin do but wait for
the siege-train, which did not even leave Agra for Cawnpore until the
22nd of January? {Ih. vol. ii. p. 108).
When General Innes compares Sir Colin to his disadvantage with
Havelock and Nicholson, he appears to overlook the fact that Sir
Colin's task was totally different from theirs. Sir Colin had not to
reinforce the Lucknow Residency or to recapture Delhi, but to " crush
the enemy" all over Northern and Central India, which was a far
more tedious and, in a sense, more difficult task. If the mutineers
themselves grew weaker, the other disturbers of the peace grew
stronger. Bands of rebels or anarchists swarmed in every part of the
North-Western Provinces, in Oudh, in Central India, in Western
Behar, and in Chutia Nagpur. Outram alone at the Alambagh was
beset by 120,000 mutineers and rebels. It was not Havelock's duty
to crush the Mutiny or the disturbances which accompanied it among
the civil population : he simply had to make head against the
mutineers in one part of India. Sir Colin on the other hand had to
subdue all the mutineers and a vast number of armed rebels and dis-
turbers of the peace, who were scattered over an immense tract.
Moreover, as I have pointed out in the text (p. 554), Sir Colin's
difficulties were enormously increased by the fact that the mutineers
became desperate, as no amnesty was offered to them, and, knowing
that if they were caught they would be hanged, kept up a harassing
guerilla warfare, with which the British military organisation was not
fitted to deal. I am not arguing that Sir Colin was Havelock's equal
as a general, but only pleading that he should be fairly judged.
When I read General Innes's other remarks, they seemed to me to
imply that, in his judgement, Sir Colin was to blame for waiting for
reinforcements and for the siege-train before undertaking the siege of
Lucknow : but the general himself assures me that he did not mean
this. Lord Roberts tells us (vol. i. p. 396) that the troops which Sir
Colin assembled for the siege were " not a man too many " ; and Sir
Henry Havelock- Allan writes, in reply to a question which I put to him,
630 APPENDIX U
" I think Sir Colin did well to wait till he had the siege train and
Franks's and the Gurkha force."
Sir George Campbell's remarks do not call for lengthened notice.
To say that the whole time between the 1st of November 1857 and
the 1st of May 1858 was "frittered away" is obviously absurd.
There was perhaps unnecessary delay in undertaking the reconquest
of Rohilkhand ; though any one who attends to dates will see that to
speak of the delay as having extended over " a whole month " is a
gross exaggeration ; and after the recapture of Lucknow, much
remained to be done in the way of securing command over the city
(Innes's Lucknow and Oude in the Mutiny, pp. 293-4). Nor is it
true that "we were obliged to do in May and June, 1858 . . . what
we might easily have done in November and December," 1857, for
Sir Colin was unavoidably detained, after he had relieved "Windham,
by want of carriage : he had then to reconquer the Gauge tic Doab ;
and he was not permitted to undertake the reconquest of Rohilkhand.
It is possible that if he had been able to hold Lucknow in November,
1857, as Havelock and Outram urged him to do, the reconquest of
Oudh, which occupied the last three months of 1858, might not have
been necessary : but so good a judge as Lord Roberts thinks (vol. i.
pp. 342-3) that Sir Colin was quite right in abandoning Lucknow.
That Sir Colin was over-cautious, and that he had too great a
respect for his enemy, I do not deny. But, setting aside the mistakes
which he undoubtedly made during the siege of Lucknow, the dis-
puted question regarding the abandonment of Lucknow in November,
1857, and certain other points to which I have adverted in the text,
I would ask his critics to abandon generalities and point out exactly
what he did amiss. I have ventured, on pp. 553-4 of this book, to state
my own view, which is the result of much thought and study and of
conversation and correspondence with able officers who served under
Sir Colin, I have no doubt that it is open to correction ; but I
believe that at least it is clear, and avoids rhetoric and declamation,]
APPENDIX U
Alleged Causes of the Mutiny
Colonel Malleson says that, according to " a perfect linguist, whose
opportunities have been unrivalled," and whose statement, so far as it
goes, he endorses, educated Hindus attributed the Mutiny to "the
APPENDIX U 631
gross wrongs inflicted on Nana Sahib ; the injustice done to Kunwar
Singh ; the injuries inflicted on the Rani of Jhansi ; the seizure of
the Kingdom of Oudh . . . and the scores of lesser wrongs done in
reckless insolence to the landowners under the administration of the
north-west provinces " : he insists that " after the natives of Oudh had
had one year's experience of British Government as administered by-
Mr. Coverley Jackson and Mr, Martin Gubbins, they, one and all,
evinced a strong preference for the native government which had been
superseded " ; and, in brief, he holds that the causes of the Mutiny
were bad faith towards the sepoys, Dalhousie's policy of annexation,
and his attempt " to govern an Eastern people according to pure
Western ideas" (Hist, of the Indian Mutiny, vol. iii. pp. 469-91, and
cabinet edition, vol. v. p. 282). Sir Alfred Lyall, commenting on
these views {Nation, vol. 52, 1891, pp. 463-4), observes that "Strict
execution of the laws, enforcement of punctual revenue payments and
of private liabilities, a good police and a well-disciplined soldiery are
all Western ideas which cannot be impressed upon Asiatics without a
certain degree of compulsion, and a little haste or overpressure may
bring about commotions." " But," Sir Alfred wisely adds, " the risk
must be run if civilisation is to advance." What I have to say about
the bad faith with which the sepoys were treated and Dalhousie's
policy of annexation, I have said in the text. Colonel Malleson's
remark about the preference of the natives, — " one and all," — of Oudh
for native government is so rhetorical that I hardly think that it calls for
an answer : but those who will take the trouble to read Hutchinson's
Narrative of the Mutinies in Oudh, Sir J. Strachey's India, 1888, pp.
309-14, and the various documents which I have quoted in writing
about Oudh, will take it cum grano. The treatment which had been
meted out to Nana Sahib, Kunwar Singh, and the Riini of Jhansi
undoubtedly impelled them to take advantage of the Mutiny ; but
that it caused or helped to cause the Mutiny, there is no evidence
worthy of the name. The sepoys were probably tampered with by
the agents of discontented princes : but I cannot find that this has
been proved.
General Innes (Lucknow and Oude in the Mutiny, p. 1 3) infers from
the fact that the first symptoms of mutiny appeared at Barrackpore,
" close to the residence of the King of Oude in Calcutta," Berhampore,
"the seat of the representatives of the Moghul Viceroy of Bengal,"
Umballa, " near Delhi, the Moghul capital," and Lucknow, " the
capital of the Moghul viceroy of Oude," that " the leading spirits of
the rebellion lay in the Moghul faction, and that the sepoy army was
used as a catspaw through the operation of the cartridge incident."
John Lawrence, on the othei' hand, holds (Pari. Pajicrs, vol. xxv.
Sess. 2, 1859, p. 336, par. 17) that there is no evidence that "there
632 APPENDIX V
was any previous conspiracy, Mahomedan or other, extending first
through the influential classes . . . and then to the native army."
"None of the mutineers and rebels," he says, "who paid . . . the
forfeit of their lives ever confessed ... a knowledge of any such
conspiracy, though they knew that any revelations on this subject
would have saved them from death. Again, many papers of various
kinds have come to hand, revealing important secrets, implicating
many persons. . . . Yet in all these there has been no allusion to such
a conspiracy." See also Narrative of Events connected with the Outbreak
in J 867, which fell under the observation of Major Williams in the
Meerut Division, pp. 2-3. Lawrence maintains in the paper already
quoted (p. 334) that when the Mahomedan sepoys "saw that the
mutiny might be expanded into a political movement calculated to
subserve Mussulman interests, they sedulously fanned the flame."
APPENDIX V
The Authorities on which this Book is based
The authorities for the history of the Indian Mutiny may be grouped
as follows : (1) Parliamentanj Papers ; (2) Enclosures to Secret Letters
from India ; (3) Administration Reports for the several Presidencies
and Provinces ; (4) the Calcutta Gazette ; (5) the various Gazetteers of
India and its Provinces ; (6) Narratives written by actors in or wit-
nesses of particular episodes of the struggle, or by enquirers who de-
rived their information from authentic sources ; (7) articles in English
or Indian magazines ; (8) letters in English or Indian newspapers ; (9)
miscellaneous documents published in India; (10) pamphlets; (11)
unpublished letters and journals.
The Parliamentary Papers contain telegrams, despatches from civil
and military officers, demi-official and private letters, proceedings of
courts of inquiry, narratives of survivors, etc. They must not be
followed blindly, as statements made in one page are often contradicted
in another. The most interesting documents in the collection are the
Punjab ]\Iutiny Report and Evidence taken before the Court appointed
for the Trial of the King of Delhi. The references which I have
given are, except in the case of the Punjab Mutiny Report, according
to the paging of the volumes in the Libraiy of the British Museum.
The Enclosures to Secret Letters from India are contained in a series
of MS. volumes in the Political Department of the India Office.
APPENDIX V 633
Many of them are printed in the Parliamentary Fapers ; but many
others are, so far as I know, only to be found in these volumes.
The Administration Eeports were published in India, and are to be
obtained from the Record Department of the India Office. They
contain valuable information and statistics relating to the behaviour of
the civil population.
The Calcutta Gazette, which, like the Gazetteers, is to be found in
the India Office Library, contains a number of military despatches not
to be found in the above-mentioned collections.
The books in the sixth class are of very unequal value ; but I
could not have afforded to neglect any of them absolutely. A book
called Annals of the Indian Bebellion is rich in narratives written by
eye-witnesses.
The articles in the magazines supply a few facts here and there ;
but the only ones of much historical value are those written by actors
in the Mutiny, notably the articles in Blackwood on the " Campaign of
1858," and the "Pursuit of Tantia Topee," and that in the Calcutta
Review on " A District during a Revolt."
The letters in the newspapers contain a great deal of interesting
personal detail, but must be read with caution.
Of the miscellaneous documents published in India those which
have been most useful to me are the Blue Book on Mr. Tayler's case
and the collections of depositions of evidence taken by Colonel
Williams at Meerut, Moradabad, and Cawnpore.
The pamphlets, which are very numerous, are, with a few exceptions,
utterly worthless, except as evidences of the opinions and passions of
those who watched the course of the struggle.
I have sought information, by conversation or correspondence, from
actors or relatives of actors in the Mutiny, whenever I have felt it
necessary or advisable to do so ; and in almost every instance my
enquiries have been kindly, fully, and patiently answered. [Since the
fourth edition of this book was published, I have obtained a great deal
of additional information in this way.]
I have also consulted a few works which could not be included in
any of the above classes, but which are referred to in the footnotes.
Anglo-Indian history is simpler than that of Europe. The immense
extent of India and the number and diversity of the races who inhabit
it make it difficult indeed to give artistic unity to one's history : but
the fact that the Government was despotic makes the political and
sociological problems far less complex than those which beset the
student of European history. The difficulty is not so much to find
out the truth as not to lose oneself in the enormous mass of materials.
As a rule, the writers of the records which we jjossess were not under
any special temptations to misrepresent facts ; many of the records
634 APPENDIX W
were written a few hours only after the events which they describe,
and by men who had witnessed or taken part in those events. On
the whole, then, I believe that the evidence which we possess for the
history of the Indian Mutiny is as comjjlete and credible a body of
evidence as there is for any history. On the other hand, the difficulty
which a European feels in trying to understand natives, the difficulty
of getting native witnesses to sjaeak the truth, and the marked diver-
gencies of opinion which prevail among the various schools of Anglo-
Indian officials are drawbacks which must not be underrated.
[Since the first edition of this book was published, more than a score
of books and articles have appeared, which fall into my sixth and seventh
classes : but although some of them are very interesting and contain
details which had not before been put on record, hardly one adds any-
thing really important to our knowledge of the history of the Mutiny.
Even Mr. Forrest's selections consist almost entirely of papers which
had already been printed in Blue Books. Colonel Vibart's Richard
Baird Smith, however, throws fresh light upon the relations which
existed between the great Chief Engineer of the Delhi Field Force
and his chief; and Lieutenant - General McLeod Innes's Lucknoio
and Oude in the Mutiny (2nd ed., 1897), is one of the most valuable
not only of the recent, but of all the narratives written by actors in
the Mutiny. For the story of Lucknow it is an original authority of
first-rate importance ; and the author's critical sketch of the Mutiny,
as a whole, if it does not always command assent, may be read with
great profit. I have ventured, in Appendices L, R and S, to dissent
from some of his conclusions.
An Unrecorded Chapter of the Indian Mutiny (3rd ed., 1895), by
R. G. Wilberforce, deserves mention for another reason. The numerous
and gross misstatements in this undeniably readable book have been
ruthlessly exposed in the United Service Magazine, vol. x., 1895, pp.
321-8, 521-2. In a footnote to p. 70, Mr. "Wilberforce, acquiescing in the
demolition of one of these misstatements, airily remarks, " After a lapse
of 38 years, such details can hardly be fresh in anyone's memory."]
APPENDIX W
Discussion on certain Statements challenged by Critics of
THE First Edition and on others which conflict with
THE Statements of later Writers
Pp. 15-16. "Unhappily, however . . . what it was." Sir "W.
Hunter indeed says {The Indian Mmalmatis, 3rd ed. p. 1 38), " had we
APPENDIX W 635
hastened by a single decade our formal assumption of the sovereignty,
we should have been landed in a Muhamniadan rising, infinitely more
serious than the mutinies of 1857 . . . The admirable moderation of
the East India Company's servants, and their determination to let the
Muhammadan power expire by slow natural decay . . . averted this
danger." This judgement, however, is opposed to the whole tenor of
Syad Ahmad Khan Bahadur's Review on Dr. Hunter's Indian Musal-
mans (see especially p. 44) ; while on page 7 of The Causes of the
Indian Revolt, the same learned writer remarks that " The declaration
of Lord Amherst in 1827 to the effect that the sovereignty of India
... no longer existed in the Timour family did not offend any one."
P. 65. "In which , . . plunder." A writer who reviewed this
book in Vanity Fair denied the truth of this statement. I have left
it unaltered for the present, as several well-informed Anglo-Indians,
who read the book very carefully and sent me notes, passed it without
remark. [The statement rests on the authority of the famous Col.
John Jacob. " I have known," he wrote {Views and Opinions, p. 108),
" the men leave the ranks by hundreds at a time without leave, to
cook, to plunder, or what not."]
P. 80. " No cartridges greased with the fat of cows or swine
were destined to be issued to the sepoys." Lord Roberts says
{Forty-one Years in India, vol. i. pp. 431-2) that Mr. Forrest
has proved that the new cartridges were greased with cows' fat
and lard. " When the sepoys," he adds, " complained that to bite
them would destroy their caste, they were solemnly assured by their
officers that they had been greased with a perfectly unobjectionable
mixture . . . But nothing was easier than for the men belonging to
the regiments quartered near Calcutta to ascertain, from the low-caste
Native workmen ... at the Fort William arsenal, that the assurances
of their officers were not in accordance with facts." I have carefully
and repeatedly searched Mr. Forrest's pages ; and I affirm with ab-
solute confidence that he has neither proved nor attempted to prove
that " the new cartridges were greased with cows' fat and lard." The
most serious admissions that his pages contain are these. Lieutenant
Currie, Commissary of Ordnance, states that " No inquiry is made as
to the fat of what animal is used " for greasing the cartridges ; and
Colonel Abbott, Inspector of Ordnance, states that " the tallow might
or might not have contained the fat of cows or other animals "
(Appendix, pp. Ixvi.-lxvii.). Kaye indeed tells us (vol. i. p. 519 and
note) that in 1856 and in January 1857 cartridges greased with
tallow partly composed of beef-fat (though not of lard) were manu-
factured at Calcutta and at Meerut : but of this statement he gives no
proof It is true that, according to Captain (afterwards Major-General)
Boxer, R.A., the Enfield rifle cartridges that were sent out from
636 APPENDIX W
England to India were greased with beef-fat {Life of Gen. Sir Hojje Grant,
ed. Col. H. Knollys, vol. i. pp. 178-80); and it is most probable,
though not proved, that the cartridges manufactured in India were
greased with the same substance. Most probable, because while the
Government never denied the allegation, Lieiitenant Currie admitted
that it was " not the intention of Government that all grease used in
any preparation in the magazine is to be made of goats' and sheep's
fat only " : not proved, seeing that Kaye, who had all the records of
Government at his disposal, and Mr. Forrest, who has searched all the
papers in the Military Department, have given no proof. Neither
Currie nor Abbott could ascertain, as far as the records of their
evidence show, what kind of tallow had been used in greasing the new
cartridges.
But, — and this is the important point, — it is not true that any
cartridges greased either with beef-fat or with lard were ever issued
to any sepoys, save only to one Gurkha regiment, at their oivn request.
See Kaye, vol. i. pp. 516 and note, 519; Forrest, App. p. Ixv. ; The Story
of Tioo Noble Lives, by A. J. C. Hare, vol. ii. p. 276 ; and Evidence taken
before the Court appointed for the Trial of the King of Delhi, p. 2 1 1
(101), from which it appears that Lieutenant Martineau, Musketry In-
structor at Umballa, deposed that the sepoys there " were not allowed
to touch any (cartridges) that had been greased previous to distribution ;
they greased their own cartridges with a composition of clarified
butter and bees' wax." Nor is it true that any Enfield rifle cartridges,
greased or dry, were issued before the Mutiny to any sepoys, except
those who belonged to the schools of musketry. Moreover, on the
29th of January, 1857, a circular was issued by the Calcutta Govern-
ment, directing that " when applying tallow to articles which Native
soldiers are required to handle, only the tallow of sheep or goats is to
be employed, that of swine or cows being most carefully excluded "
(Kaye, vol. i. p. 519, note); while Lieutenant Currie deposed that
after January 27, 1857, no greased cartridges whatever were even
manufactured at Durn-Dum. See also Life of Gen. Sir Hope Grant, ed.
Col. H. Knollys, vol. i. pp. 178-80. [The Saturday Review of Sept. 4,
1897, contains a letter from Mr. Forrest, which proves no more than
what I have stated. An extract which lie quotes from a letter written
by General Anson on March 23, 1857, proves nothing. Anson wrote
from Umballa that the cartridges which he had seen were " smeared
with a quantity of grease, which looks exactly like fat." The question
is, what fat ? Mr. Forrest roundly asserts, of course without quoting
any authority, that " it was the fat of all animals " ! As I have shown
in the text (p. 82), the Military Secretary at Calcutta issued an order,
before the end of January, 1857, that greased cartridges might only
be issued at Umballa and Sialkot if they were greased with mutton-
APPENDIX W 637
fat and wax. The natural conclusion is that the fat which General
Anson saw was not, as ^Ir. Forrest insists, " the fat of all animals,"
but simiily mutton-fat. Mr. Forrest goes on to say that the evidence
contained In the Selections from State Papers shows "that the native
workmen employed in the manufacture of the cartridges declared to
the Sepoys that tallow made from all kinds of fat was used." Mr.
Forrest gives no references : but I have again searched his pages ; and
I aflBrm that, setting aside the well-known story told by the Lascar of
Dum-Dum on January 22, the Selections only show that the sepoys
heard "rumours," e.g. that "the cartridges were composed (sic) of the
fat of bullocks, piga and jackasses." This all the world knew before.]
Pp. 96-7. " Colonel Smyth . . . unpopular officer." Shortly before
the publication of the first edition of this book, I received from ]\Iajor-
General Smyth a pamphlet, in which testimonials were quoted to show
that he was a general favourite with natives, a man of fine temper,
and a very popular commanding officer. These testimonials were
referred to in self-defence, as Kaye (vol. ii. pp. 43-4) had said that
Colonel Smyth (as he was in 1857) was unpopular. I had formed the
same opinion from reading a letter from Mrs. Craigie to the Daily
News of July 29, '57, and the statement of an eye-witness as to the
way in which the condemned troopers of the 3rd Cavalry showed
their feelings towards the colonel on the punishment parade of May 9.
Moreover, Dr. O'Callaghan, late surgeon of the 11th Native Infantry,
has assured me in very emphatic language, that the colonel was hard
and unpopular. I have, for these reasons, left the statement in the
text, to which no one but Major-General Smyth himself has taken
exception, unaltered. By some of those under him he was evidently
disliked, and regarded as hard ; others may have been devoted to him.
I naturally regret that my statement should have pained him ; but, as
I believe it to be true, I cannot retract it.
P. 100. " Colonel Smyth indeed .... perfect order." In Major-
General Smyth's pamphlet it is stated that Lieutenant Melville Clarke
had a troop of his own ; that, as adjutant, he ought to have been with
his commandant, and to have got all orders from him ; and that only
six or seven men of Captain Craigie's troop remained faithful. More-
over, a correspondent of Major-General Smyth's implies that both
Clarke and Craigie ought to have been court-martialled for presuming
to go anywhere without orders. What I have written about these
officers was based upon statements of Kaye (vol. ii. p. 64) and a letter
to the Times of July 24, 1857, from Mrs. Craigie, and is confirmed by
a pamphlet entitled Tlie Fatal Falter at Meerut (published at Calcutta
in 1861) by Dr. O'Callaghan, who got his information on the matter
in question direct from Craigie himself. I am therefore certain that
Craigie did bring back his troop in perfect order to the parade-ground.
638 APPENDIX W
though he may afterwards have been deserted by all but a few of his
men. Considering the circumstances under which he acted, I think
that few officers will agree with the opinion expressed by Major-
General Smyth's correspondent.
Major-General Smyth says that he did not go to his regiment after
it mutinied simply because it was his duty, as field-officer of the week,
to go in person to inform Hewitt and Wilson of the outbreak. I
cannot but think that he would have shown more judgement if, at
such a crisis, he had disregarded routine, and, entrusting the duty of
informing his superiors to others, had gone straight to the scene of
mutiny. This opinion is shared by officers to whom I have men-
tioned it.
P. 106. The despatch of the warning telegram from Delhi. — The
inaccurate account which I gave of this episode in former editions
was based partly upon the narrative of Cave-Browne, a writer who
rarely makes a mistake. He implies that the telegraph office was
inside the city ; and both he and the author of the History of the Siege
of Delhi state that the signaller was killed at his post. Even in
Mr. Forrest's plan of Delhi (Selections from State Papers, vol. i.) the office
is placed inside the town ; and I learn from Capt. R. H. Peal, late of
the Telegraph Department, that it was actually there until the end of
1856 or the beginning of 1857.
P. 147. "The Lieutenant-Governor telegraphed . . . break out
there." This statement is made upon the authority of Mrs. Coojiland
{A Lady's Escape from Gwalior, p. 107), but it is right to say that Sir
Auckland Colvin, in his reply (Nineteenth CentxLry, April, 1897, pp.
565-6) to Lord Roberts's strictures upon John Colvin, questions its
accuracy. Lady Meade, who was with her husband, then Brigade-
Major, at Gwalior at the time, tells me that neither she nor any of
her friends who w^re with her at Gwalior, have ever had any doubt
that the telegram was received. I am also informed by an officer who
served at Agra that the despatch of the telegram was there a common
topic of conversation. " We saved our own women-kind," he writes,
" by sending them into Agra at once and without leave, and a few
other stations did the same at first. But afterwards his Honour
positively forbade such action ' to avoid arousing the suspicions of the
troops.' "
INDEX
Abbott, Colonel. See App. W
Abbott, Major, at Delhi mutiny, 107
Abn, Mount, 149, 151, 396
Adoption, Hindu principle of, 34-5 ;
rigbt of adopting heirs refused to
many chiefs in Satara and Southern
Maratha country, 464
Afghans, Auckland's war with, 27-8,
55-6 and App. A ; deterred from
invading Punjab by resolute bearing
of Edwardes, Nicholson and Cotton,
328, note 3 ; anxious to invade
Punjab, 357. See Dost Mahomed
Afri'dis, 323, 326, note 1
Agar, mutiny at, 481
Agra, description of, 128-9 ; events in
May, '57, 129-33 ; troops despatched
from, to restore order in surrounding
districts, 133, 159 ; threatened by
mutineers from Rajputana, 153 ;
events in first week of July, 153-4 ;
British forced to retire into fort,
156-7 ; rising of convicts and mob,
life in fort, 157-9 ; authorities urge
Greathed to succour them, 392 ;
battle of, 393-4 and App. 0
Ahmadabad, 470
Ahmad Ulla, arrested by Tayler, 184 ;
transported, 206
Ahmad Ulla. See Moulvi of Fyzabad
Ajmere, 150-1
Ajnala, 362
Ajiin Khan, 32S
Akbar, 1
Akbarpur, 419
Akhiind of Swat, the, 327
Alambagh, 248 ; battle of, 304 ; Have-
lock leaves baggage at, Sejjt. 25, '57,
306 ; Outran) directs Major Mclutyre
to hold, 402 ; Sir C. Campbell garri-
sons, Nov. 13, '57, 408 ; Havelock
buried near, 416 ; defended by Out-
ram, 436-7 ; attacked by rebels
during siege of Lucknow, 445
Aligarh, mutiny at, 130 ; rebels
defeated, 159 ; reoccupied by Col.
Greathed, 392
Ali Karim, 184-5
Alipur, Barnard arrives at, 123 ; ex-
pedition of Delhi mutineers to, 346
Allahabad, Canning and Anson ne-
glect to secure, 119 note, 215 ; de-
scription of, condition at outset of
mutiny, 215-16 ; crisis at, in May
and June, '57, 216-19 ; saved by
Brasyerand Neill, 219-21 ; prepara-
tions at, for relief of Cawnpore and
Lucknow, 282-3 ; districts near,
overrun by rebels from Oudh, 43.3.
See also 301
Amherst, Lord, 22-3
Amir Khan, 19
Amritsar, 315, 359-60
Annexation policy of Dalhousie, 34-6 ;
unduly censured, 559 and App. U.
See JTiansi, Nagpur, Oudh, Pegu,
Punjab, Satara
Anson, G., Commander-in-Chief, 68 ;
at Uraballa, 88-9 ; does not warn
home authorities of symptoms of
mutiny, 93 ; urges Canning to punish
34th N.I., 94 ; orders Meerut
mutineers to be tried by court-
martial, 97 ; action on hearing of
seizure of Delhi, 113-18 ; death and
character, 118-19 and 119, note
Apthorp, Col., 517
Arakan, 22
Aravalli hills, 548
Arcot, seized and defended by Clive, 3
Armenians at Calcutta, 163
Arras Act, 174
640
INDEX
Arrah, siege of, 191-2, ]94-o; relief,
198. See cdso iM-l
Ashe, Lieut., 225, 227, 237
Asirgarh, 483-4
Assam, 22 ; conspiracy discovered in,
458
Asseergurh. See Asirgarli
Assigned Districts, 501-2
Atraulia, 452
Attoek, 322
Aixckland, Lord, his administration,
^ 27-9. See also 37, 73 and App. A
Aung, battle of, 285
Aurangabad (in Oudh), 135
Aurangabad (in Nizam's dominions),
mutiny at, 478
Auraugzeb, 2
Ava, 22
Azamgarh, mutiny at, 210 ; reoccupied
by Veuables ; by Gurkhas, 433 ;
blockaded by Kunwar Singh, 452-3 ;
relieved by Kerr and Lugard, 453-4
Azimulla, 228 and App. G
Babee, 1
Badlapur, 435
Bagpat, 118
Bahadur Shah, King of Delhi, hopes
for overthrow of British Govern-
ment, 91 ; seizure of Delhi by
mutineers, 105, 109-10 ; life inside
Delhi during siege, 352-4 ; at
Humayun's tomb, 382 ; captured,
384-5 ; tried and transported, 399
Bahadurgarh, 367
Baji Rao. See Peshwa
Bakht Khan, 352-3, 382
Bala Rao, 534 and App. G
Balghat, 326.
Bands river, rout of Tantia Topi at,
543
Banda, Nawab of, shelters fugitives
from Nowgoug, 493 ; forced to rebel,
495 and 496, note ; defeated by
Whitlock, 517 ; at Kalpi, 517-18
Bani, 303, 423 ; bridge, 395, 417-18
Banki, 533
Banks, Major, 261, 269
Banpur, Raja of, rebels, 496 ; tries to
relieve Ratgarh, 505 ; opposes Sir
H. Rose in hills south of Shahgarh,
507 ; defeated by Orr, 515
Bauswdra jungle, 547
Bauthira, 395, 439
Barakzais, 27
Barasat, 87
Bareilly, mutiny at, 135-6 ; battle of,
526-7
Barlow, Sir G., 18
Barnard, H., vindicates Anson's
memory, 118 ; marches for Delhi,
119 ; battle of Badli-ki-Serai, 123-5;
in command of Delhi army, 339-47 ;
character, death, 347-8
Barnes, G., Commissioner of Cis-Sutlej
States, protects Umballa, supports
Anson, 115 ; opens a loan in Cis-
Sutlej States, 334 ; keeps order,
337 '
Baroda, 482
Barode, rout of Tantia Topi at, 547
Barodia, battle of, 506
Barodia, fort captured, 507
Barrackpore, mutiny at, in 1824, 54 ;
discontent of sepoys (Jan. '57), 81,
84-5 ; mutiny of Mungul Pandy,
85-7 ; 19th N.I. disarmed, 87 ;
34th N.L disbanded, 94 ; Canning
refuses to disarm sepoys, 163 ; con-
sents to do so, 170
Barrow, Major, 470
Bashiratganj, battles at, 293, 295 ;
battle near, 297
Bassein, treaty of, 15
Batson, Dr., 108
Baugh, Lieut., 85-6
Beadon, C, 163, 167
Beawar, 150
Becher, Major, and 55th N.I., 327 ;
Murree insurrection, 390
Begam, the, leads group of Oudh rebels
after capture of Lucknow, 523, 526,
533
Begams of Oudh, 9
Behar, invaded by Vizier of Oudh in
1764, 5 ; East India Company
becomes Diwan of, 5-6 ; W. Behar
during summer of '57, 179-204 ;
anarchy in, 451-2, 454-7 ; E.
Behar, 459-60. See Hallida3%
Patna, Tayler
Belgaum, 464, 466-7
Benares, insurrection at, annexation of
{see Chait Singh), 9 ; description of,
208-9 ; affairs in May and early
days of June, '57, 210-11 ; mutiny
and subsequent events, 212-15 ;
anarchy in surrounding districts,
433 ; in danger from Kunwar Singli,
453
INDEX
641
Bengal, 4, 5 ; East India Compauy
becomes Diwan of, 5-6 ; affairs in E.
Bengal, 458-9. See Behar, Halliday,
Patna, Tayler
Bent Madho, 531
Benson, Col., 547
Eentinck, Lord W., his administration,
23-7 ; proclamation to Madras se-
poys, 52 ; abolishes corporal punish-
ment in sepoy army, 55
Berar, Raja of, conquered by Wellesley,
15. See also 19 note, 501 note 2
Berford, 133-4
Berhampore, mutiny at, 83-4
Betwa, river, crossed by Sir H. Rose,
508 ; battle of the, 512 ; Tantia
Topi unable to cross, Oct. '58,
545
Bewar, 429
Bhagalpur, 300, 459 ; Division, 459
Bhil corps, at Indore, 477, 480 ; insur-
rection of Bhils in Malwa, 482 ;
Bhi'ls in Bauswara hostile to Tantia
Topi, 547
Bhopal, 474, 481 ; loyalty of Begam,
482 ; contingent at Indore, 477, 480 ;
at siege of Ratgarh, 505
Bhurtpore (or Bhartpur), Ochterlony
interferes in afi'airs of, ca]jtured by
British, 22-3 ; Raja lends troops to
Colvin, 130 ; troops mutiny, 131
Bibiganj, 197
Bikaner, 548
Bina, river, 505
Birch, Col., Military Secretary, 80-1,
83
Bird, R. M., 25
Bithur, 92, 240 ; rebels at, threaten
Neill, 296 ; battle of, 297-8
Blunt, Major, 409
Board of Contiol, join in directing an-
nexation of Oudh, 39 ; partly re-
sponsible for insufliciency of Euro-
pean troops, 63 ; refuse to allow
H. Ricketts to be made Chief Com-
missioner of Oudh, 69
Bolton, Lieut., 234, 237
Bombay, first native corps disciplined
at, by English, 47, note ; sepoys,
48, 62, 63 note 3, 65 ; boundaries
of Presidency, 462 ; panic at news
of Kolhapur nmtiny, 466 ; crisis,
Aug.-Oct. '57, 467-70 ; feelings of
army, 470
Bone-dust fable, 89-90
Bourchier, Capt., at relief of Lucknow,
408 ; in third battle of Cawnpore,
426
Boyle, v., 190-1, 191
Brahmins, 41 ; sepoys, 51, 60 ; Cal-
cutta Brahmins use greased cartridge
story as a political engine, 81 ;
Benares, 209 ; Doab, 218. See also
557
Brasyer, Capt., saves Allahabad fort,
218 ; capture of Kaisar Bagh, 442-3
Brendish, sends warning telegram from
Delhi, 106
Briggs, Capt., pacifies Nasiri Gurkhas,
116
Brind, Major, 332 note, 370
British rule in India, effects of first
century of, 42-6
Buckley, Conductor, 109
Budaun, mutiny at, 137
Budhayan, 435
Bulandshahr, 123 ; mutiny at, 130
Bundelkhand, anarchy in, stopped by
Minto, 18-19 ; mutiny and rebellion,
490-5 ; plan for pacification, 503 ;
traversed by Wliitlock, 516-17 ;smoul-
dering embers of rebellion, 552. See
also Jhansi, Rewah, Saugor and Ner-
budda Territories
Bundi hills, 542
Burgess, Sergt., 379
Burke, E., 9
Burmese war, first, 22
Bumes, Alexander, 28 and App. A
Burnes, Lieut., 257-9. See Sitapur
Burroughs, Capt., 410, note 1
Burton, Major, 541
Busseerutgunge. See Bashiratganj
Bussy, 4, 13
Butler, Lieut., at assault of Delhi,
378-9 ; siege of Lucknow, 440
Buxar, battle of, 5 ; Eyre at, 1 95-6 ;
columns march from, again.st Jag-
dispur, 456
Byng, Major, 459
Cabul. See Kabul
Calcutta, captured by Suraj-ud-dowlah,
recovered by Clive, 4 ; events at,
during summer of '57, 162-75 ;
reinforcements arrive, Oct. '57, 404
Calpee. See Kalpi
Campbell, Brig., 445
Campbell, Col., 372, 380
Campbell, Sir Colin, at Rawalpindi,
2 T
642
INDEX
58 ; arrives in Calcutta, 175 ; char-
acter, 400-401 ; correspondence with
Havelock, 301 ; prepares for cam-
paign, 403-4 ; goes to Lucknow,
405 ; relief of Lucknow, 407-15 ;
sets out for Cawnpore, 417 ; his
instructions to Windham, 417 ; re-
turn march to Cawnpore, 423 ; third
battle of Cawnpore, 426-7 ; recon-
quest of Doab, 428-30 ; Oudh versus
Rohilkhaud controversy, 431 ; pre-
pares for siege of Lucknow, 432-3,
438 ; siege of Lucknow, 439-45 ;
sends Lugard to relieve Azamgarh,
454 ; orders Sir H. Rose to relievo
Charkhari, 508 and App. Q ; sends
Maxwell to co-operate with Rose,
518 ; second Oudh versus Rohilkhand
controversy, plan for recouquest
of Rohilkhand, 524 ; reconquest of
Rohilkhand, 524-30 ; recouquest of
Oudh, 531-3 ; sends Brig. Smith
and Riddell to join Rose, 536 ;
how far responsible for delay in
supjDressing revolt, 553-4. See also
App. T
Campbell, G., 449
Candahar. See Kandahar
Canning, Lord, his character, 67-8 ;
and Coverley Jackson, 69-70 ; Per-
sian war, 72-3 ; subsidises Dost
Mahomed, 74-5 ; General Service
Enlistment Act, 76 ; susjiected of
designs against caste and religion,
77-8 ; action on hearing of gi-eased
cartridge story, 82-3 ; sympathises
with sepoys' fears, 85 ; his delay in
punishing 34th N.I., 87 ; how he
acted, and how he ought to have
acted, 87-8 ; insists on use of Enfleld
rifle cartridges at Umballa, 89 ;
hopes that quiet is returning, 93 ;
lenity to 34th N.I., 93-4 ; pro-^
poses to disband Lucknow muti-
neers, 95-6 ; action on hearing of
seizure of Delhi, 112-13 ; corresjjond-
ence with Ansou, 117 ; promises
to support Colvin, 130 ; fiuds fault
with Colvin's proclamation, 131 ;
promises to respect independence of
Sindhia's dynasty, 145 ; his policy,
May-Sept. '57, 162-76 ; correspond-
ence with Major Holmes, 186 ;
throws responsibility of disarming
Dinapore sepoys on Lloyd, 187-8 ;
praises Money, 202 ; censures Tayler,
204 ; anxious for safety of him be-
tween Calcutta and Delhi, 208 ;
entrusts Neill ■with work of securing
Benares and Allahabad, and relieving
Cawnpore, 211 ; places Benares Di-
vision under martial law, 215 ; fails
to provide for safety of Allahabad,
215 ; thanks 6th N.L for ofl^er to
march against Delhi, 216 ; anxious
for Cawnpore, 223 ; anxious for Oudh,
244 ; gives H. LawTence plenary
military power in Oudh, 250 ; orders
J. Lawrence to hold on to Peshawar
to the last, 356, 357, note 3 ; con-
troversy with Sir C. Campbell
whether Oudh or Rohilkhand should
be reconquered first, 431 ; asks Jang
Bahadur to march to Liicknow, and
orders Franks to do so, 434 ; Oudh
proclamation, 446-50 ; sends Lord
M. Kerr to relieve Azamgarh, 453 ;
asks Sir R. Hamilton to draw up
plan for pacification of Central India,
503 ; orders Sir H. Rose to relieve
Charkhari, 509 ; directs Sir C. Camp-
bell to undertake reconquest of
Rohilkhand, 524 ; oifers reward for
apprehension of Moulvi, 530
Canning, Lady, 77-8
Carmichael, Sergt., 379
Carnatic, succession to throne of, dis-
puted, 3 ; Lally tries to restore
French power, 4 ; Nawab untrust-
worthy as ally of English, 13 ; ad-
ministration transferred to British
Government, 16 ; Mahomedans watch
events at Hyderabad, 501, note 1
Carnegy, Capt., 261
Carnell, Lieut., 150
Carthew, M., commands a brigade
against Tautia Topi at Cawnpore,
420-4
Case, Col., 264-5 and App. I
Caste, in sepoy array, 48, 51, 55, 59
note 2, 61 ; Government suspected of
designs against, 77
Cavenagh, Col. O., 167, 172
Cawnpore, non-combatants sent to,
from Fatehgarh, 138 ; fugitives
from Fatehgarh go to, 140 ; might
have been saved by Canning, 163,
165, and note ; description of,
223-4 ; events in May and June, '57,
224-7 ; mutiny, 227 ; siege, 229-35 ;
INDEX
643
capitulation of garrison and subse-
quent massacres, 236-42 ; battle of,
286-9 ; reoccupied by Havelock,
290-1 ; Havelock retreats to, 297 ;
Outram arrives at, 301 ; threatened
by Tantia Topi, 404 ; Windham's
operations, 417-24 ; battle of Dec.
6, '57, 426-7 ; defences strength-
ened by Sir C. Campbell, 438. See
also Campbell, Grant (H.), Havelock,
Neill, Windham, App. G
Central Indian Agency. See Durand,
Holkar, Hungerford, Travers
Ceylon, Canning sends for troops from,
113
Chait Singh, 8
Chambal, river, 159 note 2, 487, r)41-4,
548
Chamberlain, C, disarms sepoys at
Mooltan, 333
Chamberlain, N., attends council at
Peshawar, 319 ; takes up office of
Adjt.-Gen. at Delhi, 345 ; visits
Nicholson's death-bed, 388. See also
App. M
Chanderi, 496 note 1, 507 ; capture
of, 508
Chandernagore, 4
Chapatties, 90 and note
Charkhari, besieged by Tantia Topi,
508
Charwah, 546
Chattarbhnj pass, 548
Chilianwala, battle of, 32
China expedition, 113
Chinhat, battle of, 263-6 and App. I
Chittagong, mutiny at, 458
Chota Nagpore. See Chutia Nagpur
Chota Oodeypore, rout of Tantia Topi
at, 546
Christian, Sophy, 257-9
Chumbul. See Chambal
Chunar, 215
Chute, Col., marches against Mardan,
326 ; disarms Abazai garrison, and
returns to Peshawar, 328
Chutia Nagpur, 460-1
Circars, Northern, 4
Cis-Sutlej States, secured by Barnes and
Forsyth, 115 ; affairs during summer
of '57, 337-8. See Ludhiana
Clarke, Capt., 441
Clarke, Lieut. M., 100, 104, App. W
Clavering, 7
Clemency Order, 170
Clive, 3-6 ; raises sepoy battalion, 48 ;
overawes mutinous European officers,
49
Cobbe, Capt.. 478
Colvin, J., Lieut. -Governor of N. W.
Provinces ; Canning's telegram to,
May, '57, 112 ; character, 128 ; early
measures, 129-30 ; proclamation, 131 ;
disarms sepoys at Agra, 132 ; orders
preparation of fort for defence, 133 ;
efforts to restore order, 133 ; fails to
provide for safety of women and
children at Gwalior, 147 ; orders
Carnell to secure Ajmere, 150 ; short-
comings, miseries and efforts to do
right, 151-3 ; removes women and
children into fort, 153 ; health fails,
154 ; death, 161. See also App. C
Cooper, F., holds Amritsar, 315 ;
punishes mutineers of 26th N.I.,
362-3
Cooper, Lieut., 410
Coorg, 24, 45, 490
Coote, E., 4, 8
Corbett, Brig. S., 314-15
Cornwallis, Lord, 10-12, 17-18
Cotton, Brig. S., his character, 318-19 ;
disarms suspected sepoys at Pesha-
war, 321-2 ; maintains stern disci-
pline, 328-9 ; urges J. Lawrence not
to abandon Peshawar, 355 ; quells
mutiny at Peshawar, 364-5
Cotton, Col., in Agra fort, 158 ; battle
of Agra, 393-4 and App. O
Council, W. Hastings's, 7 ; Canning's,
68-9
Craigie, Capt., 100, 104, App. W
Crimean war, effect of, on minds of
sepoys, 64
Cumberlege, Col., at Nagpur, 497
Custance, Col., 122
Dacca, mutiny at, 458
Dagshai, 114
Dalamau, 301
Dalhousie, Lord, his administration,
31-42 ; dispute with C. Napier, 58-
9 ; baulked by a sepoy regiment, 60 ;
puzzled by conflicting opinions about
Bengal army, acquiesces iu its defects,
60-2 ; urges Directors to increase
numbers of European troops, 64-5 ;
his place among Anglo-Indian rulers,
66-7 ; abolishes permanent transport
service, 114 ; effects of his Punjab
644
INDEX
policy on Mutiny, 311-12 ; question
of his responsibility for Mutiny, 559-
60
Dalrymple, F. A. E., 460
Daly, Capt., marches with Guides to
Delhi, 339
Damoh, 517
Daraoganj, 219
Davidson", Major C, 499-501
Deccan, 3 {see Nizam-ul-Mulk) ; suc-
cesses of Bussy in, 4. See also Hydera-
bad
Deesa, 151
Dehra, 114
Delafosse, Lieut., 239-40
Delhi, captured in war with Daulat Rao
Sindhia, 15 ; excitement at, 90-1 ;
seized by mutineers, 104-11 ; descrip-
tion of, 125-6 ; false report of re-
capture, 173 ; Barnard's position
before, defences of, 339-40 ; proposed
coup-de-main, 341-4 ; operations in
June, July and first week of August,
'57, 344-52 ; affairs inside, 352-4 ;
Peshawar versus Delhi controversy,
354-8 ; assault decided upon, 368-9 ;
mutineers fail to concentrate at, in
sufficient strength, 369-70 ; the siege,
370-2 ; plan of assault, 372-3 ; ex-
amination of breaches, 373 ; pre-
parations for assault, 374 ; assault
and capture, 374-82 ; results of
capture, 391, 399 ; affairs at, after
capture, 397-8. See also Barnard,
Hodson, Nicholson, Reed, Smith, Col.
Baird, Wilson, App. M
Deonarain Singh, 214
Derajat, 322 and note 3
Derby, Lord, 448, note 3. See Oudh
proclamation
Dewas, 474
Dhar, 474 ; plotting in, siege and
captiire of, 485-6
Dharma Sablia, 81
Dharwar, 464, 467
Dick, Lieut., 513
Dinajpur, 460
Dinapore, Canning refuses to disarm
sepoys at, 163-5, 187-8 ; m^itiny
expected, June 7, '57, 181 ; Tayler
urges Lloyd to disarm sepoys, 182 ;
English merchants urge Canning to
disarm sepoys, 188 ; mutiny, 188-90 ;
effects of mutiny on Havelock's
situation, 294
Dinkar Rao, 144-6 ; corresponds with
Macpherson, 159
Directors, Court of, withdraw support
from W. Hastings, 8 ; unwilling to
become emperors for fear of suffering
as merchants, 11 ; instruct Corn-
wallis to reform revenue system, 11 ;
distrust Wellesley, 17 ; tired of costly
victories, 17 ; disagree with Lord
Hastings, 20 ; recall Ellenborough,
30 ; annexation of Oudh, 39 ; minute
on Vellore mutiny, 52 ; reduce allow-
ances of English officers, 55 ; partly
responsilile for insufficiency of Euro-
pean troops, 63 ; praise Tayler's
administration, 205 note, 206
Disraeli, B., announces that Govern-
ment disapproves of Oudh proclama-
tion, 448
Diwali, at Bombay, 470
Dixon, Col., 150
Doab, Gangetic, mutinies in, 130-1, 133,
141 ; threatened rising averted by
EjTC, 301 ; partially reconquered by
Sir C. Campbell, 428-30 ; condition
in spring of '58, 524-5
Dohad, 482
Dorin, J., 68-9 ; urges severe punish-
ment of Lucknow mutineers, 96 ;
inclined to disbelieve report of seizure
of Delhi, 111
Dost Mahomed, Auckland's policy
towarils, 27-8 and App. A ; Edwardes
arranges treaty with, 73-5; faithfully
keeps treaty, 328 note 3, 357
Douglas, Brig., sent in pursuit of Kun-
war Singh, 454 ; campaign in Shaha-
bad and Kaimiir hills, 455-8
Douglas, Capt., 105
D'Oyly, Capt., 155, 157
Drummond, R., persuades Colvin to dis-
arm Agra sepoys, 132 ; his ascendency
over Colvin, 132, 153 ; his policy
133 ; his misplaced trust in native
police, 153
Dumraon. Raja of, 200 1
Dunbar, Capt., 192-3 . ■
Dunlop, R., 160 ^
Dupleix, 3-4
Durand, H. M., his character, 474-5 ;
position at outset of mutiny, 475-6 ;
opinion of Holkar, 476 and App. P;
policy in May and June, '57, 477-9 ;
conduct on occasion of Indore mutiny,
479-81 ; displeased with Hungerford,
INDEX
645
483 ; movements in July and August,
483-4 ; quells insurrection in Malwa,
485-8 ; triumphant return to Indore,
East India Company, formation of,
mere traders for a century and a half,
2 ; corruption of their servants ;
Diwan of Bengal, Behar and Orissa,
5-6 ; Hastings dissolves their alle-
giance to Mogul emperor, 6 ; aboli-
tion of, 554. See Board of Control,
Directors, Sepoy army
Eckford, Lieut., 140
Edmonstone, G., his correspondence
with Major Ramsay, 166 ; arrests
King of Oudh, 171
Edwardes, H., defeats Moolraj, 32 ;
treaties with Dost Mahomed, 73-5 ;
character, 318 ; council at Peshawar,
321-2 ; council at Rawalpindi, 322 ;
he and Nicholson persuade Cotton to
disarm suspected sepoys at Peshawar,
325 ; his policy, 328-9 ; resists J.
Lawrence's proposal to abandon
Peshawar, 355-8 ; raises loan from
Peshawar capitalists, 363-4 ; induces
Mohmands to send Syad Amir to
Kabul, 365-6 ; comment on Nichol-
son's death, 389
Edwards, W., 137
Eed, festival of, at Allahabad, 216 ; at
Cawnpoi'e, 226
Ellenborough, Lord, his administration,
29-30 ; Oudh proclamation, 448
Elphinstone, Lord, Governor of Bombay,
offers to send fast steamer to England
with news of Meerut and Delhi out-
breaks, 112 ; character, 462 ; pro-
vides for safety of Central India, 463 ;
sends Jacob to rescue Kolhapur, 466 ;
Muharram at Bombay, 468. See App. P
Elphinstone, M., his treaty with the
Peshwa, 21
Enam. See Inam
Erinpura, 396
Erskine, Major, 496
Etawah, mutiny at, 130 ; Jhansi brigade
halts at, 153 ; loyalty of inliabitants,
524
Ewart, Col., 410, 444, note
Eyre, V., his character, 195 ; expedition
for relief of Arrah, and operations
against Kunwar Singh, 196-200 ;
defeats zamindars near Ganges, 301 ;
battle of the Alambagh, 304 ; bom-
bards Farid Bakhsh, 413
Farukhabad, 138
Fatehgarh, mutiny at, and siege of,
138-40 ; importance of, for recon-
quest of Doab, 429 ; reoccupied by
Sir C. Campbell, 430. See also 432,
529, and Cawnpore
Fatehpur, mutiny at, 218 ; battle of,
284-5 ; reinforcements from, join
Windham at Cawnpore, 421
Fatehpur Sfkri, 154
Ferozepore, 114, 315-16
Finnis, Col., 100
Firoz Shah, heads insurrection in Malwa.
484 ; joins Tantia Topi, 547. See also
550
Fisher, 139-40
Forde, Col., 4
Forjett, C, 467-70
Forrest, Lieut., 109
Forsyth, D., protects Umballa and
supports Anson, 115
Francis, Philip, 7-9
Franks, Brig.-Gen., his campaign in
Oudh, 434-6 ; arrives at Lucknow, 442
Eraser, Col., 132, 154
Eraser, Commissioner, 105
French, their struggle for empire in
India, 3-5 ; reported to be medi-
tating league with Marathas (1779),
8 ; checked by Wellesley, 13-14, 16.
See also Bussy, Dupleix, Labour-
donnais, Lally, Napoleon, Perron,
Red Sea Expedition
French residents at Calcutta. See
Beadon
Frere, B., Commissioner of Sind, sup-
ports Punjab, 463
Fulton, Capt., 275, 278
Furruckabad. See Farukhabad
Futtehgurh. See Fatehgarh
Futtehpore. See Fatehpur
Fyzabad. See Moulvi
Gaffur Beg, 435
Gagging Act, 168-9
Gall, Major, marches up Kdlpi road,
515 ; pursues rebels after battle of
Golauli, 520
Ganges, river, anxiety of Canning for
stations along, 208 ; villagers on
eastern side of, revolt, 218 ; crossed
by Havelock, July 25, '57, 292;
646
INDEX
recrossed, 297 ; communicatiou
secured by Yule, 300 ; crossed bj'
Havelock and Outram, 303 ; bridge
at Cawnpore preserved by Windham,
424. See also Dalamau, Douglas
(Bi'ig.), Fatehgarli, Sj^urgin
Garhakota, 506-7
Garra, river, 528
Gaya, Tayler's withdrawal order, 201 ;
Money quits, 201-2 ; rebel raid on,
456
General Service Enlistment Act, 76-7,
557, 558, note
Gerrard, Col., 397
Ghats, Western, 464
Ghazi-ud-din-Nagar, 121. See Hindan
Ghazijjur, 196
Gillespie, Col., 52
Goa, 466, 473
Gogra, river, 533
Gokal-Chand, Pundit, 214
Golab Khan, 103
Golauli, battle of, 519-20
Goldie, Col., 140
Goojerat. See Gujrat
Gopalpur, 535
Gorakhpur, 186 ; reoccupied by Jang
Bahadur, 434 ; rebels harass Patna
Division, 450
Goraria, battle of, 487-8
Gough, Lieut. H., 98, 408
Gough, Lord, 32
Govindgarh, mutiny at, 58 ; Anson
secures, 114
Grand Trunk Road, infested by mutin-
eers and rebels, 404 ; safety of,
provided for, 455. See also Cis-
Sutlej States
Grand Trunk Road, from Bombay to
Agra, 476, 546
Grant, Brig., 86
Grant, Hope, at battle of Badli-ki-
Serai, 123 ; assault of Delhi, 377-8 ;
appointed to command Greathed's
column, 394-5 ; relief of Lucknow,
407, 414-15 ; victory near Sheorajpur,
428 ; battle of Kali Naddi, 430 ;
sent in pursuit of rebels along
Sitapur road, 444 ; capture of Musa
Bagh, 445 ; marches against Moulvi
and Begam of Oudh, 526 ; operations
in Oudh, 531, 533-4
Grant, J. P., 68-9 ; advises Canning to
enlist Calcutta volunteers, 167 ; and
to arrest King of Oudh, 171
Grant, Sir P., 172-3
Graves, Brig., 104 ; seizure of Delhi,
106-7, 110; battle of Badli-ki-
Serai, 124 ; prevents execution of
coup-de-main on Delhi, 341-2
Greased cartridge, story of, 79-85 ;
Umballa, 88 - 9 ; Lucknow, 95 ;
Meerut, 97, 100, note ; really dreaded
by sepoys, 324, note 1. See also 558
and App. W
Greathed, Col. E., in assault of Delhi,
376 ; his march through Doab,
battle of Agra, 391-4 and App. 0 ;
third battle of Cawnpore, 426
Greathed, H., his narrow escape at
Meerut, 103 ; joins in proclaiming
martial law at Meerut, 121 ; urges
Barnard to attempt coup-de-main on
Delhi, 342 ; suggests retirement from
Delhi, 348
Greathed, W., his plan for coup-de-main
on Delhi, 341-2 ; examines breach
near Water bastion, 373
Gubbins, F., helps to save Benares,
210, 214
Gubbins, M., quarrels with C. Jackson,
69 ; warns Wheeler against Nana
Sahib, 226 ; early suggestions for
defence of Lucknow, 249-50 ; char-
acter, 253 ; advises disarming of
sepoys, 253 ; captures fugitive mutin-
eers, 256 ; measures as president of
provisional council, 261-2 and App.
H ; suggests bold measures, 263 ;
urges claim to Chief Commissioner-
ship, 274
Gugera, insurrection in, 390-1
Gujarat, effects of ludore mutiny in,
482 ; Tantia Topi prevented from
entering, 547
Gujars, 45-6 ; their crimes in Meerut
district, 120 ; in N. W. Provinces
generally, 142
Gujrajganj, battle of, 197-8
Gujrat, battle of, 32
Gujri, 485
Gumti, river, 248-9, 305 {see Havelock,
Lucknow), 407, 438-40, 444-5 (see
Campbell, Sir C, Outram)
Gurdaspur, 360
Gurkhas, war with, 20 ; regiment
raised by Sir C. Napier, 58 ; mutiny
near Simla, 116. See also Jang
Bahadar, Nepal, Reid
Giirsahaigauj, 429
INDEX
647
Gwalior, affairs at, in May and June,
'57 ; mutiny, 144-8 ; seized by
Tantia Topi, 535-6 ; battle near,
537-9
Gwalior contingent, mutiny of, 133,
147-8 ; kejit inactive by Sindhia,
148, 159 ; Tantia Topi leads it
against Windham, 404, 418 ; de-
feated by Sir C. Campbell, 425-7 ;
battle of Kotah-ki-serai, 537-8
Hale, Col., at Shahjahanpur, 526, 528
Halliday, F., issues proclamation about
Missionary Manifesto, 78 ; his char-
acter, 177-8 ; dispute with Tayler
about industrial institution, 178, 180,
App. E ; will not believe that Patna
is in danger, 182 ; believes that
Wahabis are harmless, 183 ; carps
at Tayler's measures, 186 ; rebukes
Tayler for praising Holmes's declara-
tion of martial law, 186, note 3 ;
refuses to interfere on behalf of
Kunwar Singh, 190 ; praises Money,
202 ; removes Tayler from Patna
Commissionership, 203, 204, note 1 ;
subsequent conduct, 204-5 and notes ;
provides for safety of Patna after
dismissing Tayler, 435. See App. E
Hamilton, Col., at battle of Cawnpore,
288. See also 302
Hamilton, Sir R., on furlough, 474 ;
resumes charge of Central Indian
Agency, 489 ; plan for pacification
of Central India, 503 ; sets out with
Sir H. Rose on Central Indian cam-
paign, 505 ; directs him to undertake
operations agaiust Jhansi, 508-9 and
App. Q ; refuses to believe that
fugitives from Kalpi have gone to
Gwalior, 536 ; re-enters Gwalior
with Sindhia, 540
Hardinge, Sir H. (afterwards Lord),
30-1
Harward, Lieut., 217
Hastings, Capt., 196
Hastings, Lord, 20-2
Hastings, Warren, 6-10, 14
Havelock, H., chosen by Sir P. Grant
to command a movealjle column,
173 ; character, 279-81 ; prepares
for campaign, 282 - 3 ; campaign,
283-98 ; supersession by Outram,
298-9 ; correspondence with Com-
mander - in - Chief, 301 ; Outram's
order in his favour, 301-2 ; com-
position of his augmented army,
302 ; final advance towards, and
first relief of Lucknow, 303-10 and
App. K ; blockade of Lucknow
Residency, 401 - 3 ; last military
operations, 413 ; death, 416
Havelock, H. (the younger), at first
battle of Cawnpore, 289 and App. J ;
on Charbagh bridge, 307 ; watches
over father's death-bed, 416 ; capture
of Kaisar Bagh, 442-3 ; devises and
executes plan for hunting down
rebels in Shahabad, 456-7
Hawthorne, Bugler, 379-80
Hay, Lord W., 116
Hazara, 33, note ; mutineers of 55th
N.I. prevented from entering, 327 ;
Murree mutineers prevented from
entering, 390
Hearsey, J., represses incipient mutiny
at Wazirabad, 58 ; reports greased
cartridge story, 82 ; harangues
Barrackpore sepoys, 85 ; mutiny at
Barrackpore, 86 ; disarms 19th N.I.,
87 ; urges Canning to punish 34th
N.I., 94; disarms Barrackpore sepoys,
170
Henderson, Lieut., 140
Herat, besieged by Persians, 27 ;
Persian expedition against, 72
Hewitt, Gen., 97 ; outbreak at Meerut,
101-3 ; conduct after outbreak, 120,
152
Hewson, Sergt.-Major, 85-6
Hidayat Ali,^185
Hindan, river, battles on, 121-2
Hinde, Col., 495
Hindus, offended by Dalhousie's mea-
sures, 41 ; feelings towards English,
44 ; bill for remarriage of widows,
78 ; Hindus ill-treated by Mahome-
dans under Khan Bahadur Khan,
137 ; N. W. Provinces, 142 ; Benares,
209 ; quarrel with Mahomedans in
Delhi, 353. See Adoption Greased
cartridge
Hodgson, B. H., 434
Hodson, W., his amazement at iu'
subordination of Bengal sepoys in
first Sikh war, 56 ; opens communi-
cation between Karnal and Meerut,
118 ; reconnoitres enemy's position
at Badli-ki-Serai, 123 ; joins in pre-
jjaring plan for taking Delhi by
648
INDEX
C0U2} - de - main, 3il - 2 ; Barnard's
kindness to, 347 ; services dui-ing
so-called siege of Delhi, 350 ; char-
acter, 382-4 and App. N ; captures
King, and executes princes of Delhi,
384-7 ; death, 441-2
Holkar, his dominions, 474, 476, note
1 ; his loyalty, and stake depending
upon it, 476-7 and App. P ; lends
troops to Durand, 477 ; advice to
Durand, 478 ; conduct after Indore
mutiny, 482-3 ; disarms his infantry,
in obedience to Durand, 489
Holkar, Jeswant Rao, his campaign
against Wellesley, 15
Holkar, Mulhar Rao, intrigues with
Pindaris, subdued by Lord Hastings,
21
Hollings, 202
Holmes, Col., pursues Tantia Topi,
642, 548
Holmes, Major, 179 ; corresponds with
Canning, keeps order in country
between Patna and Gorakhpur, 186
and note 3 ; murdered, 191
Home, Lieut., 379-80
Honner, Brig., 548
Hope, Brig. A. ; attack on Shah Najif,
412 ; third battle of Cawupore, 426 ;
attack on Begam Kothi, 441 ; death,
526
Hope, Lieut. -Col., 544
Hoshangabad, Durand at, 483 ; Tantia
Topi crosses Nerbudda near, 545
Hungerford, Capt., 481-3
Hyderabad, symptoms of mutiny at, in
1806, 52 ; affairs in '57, 498-501
Hyderabad (in Sind), 470
Hyder Ali, 8, 10
Hyder Ali Khau, 74
Impet, 7
Inam Commission, 40-41, 464, 471
Indergarh, 547
Indore ; headquarters of Central Indian
Agency, 474 ; situation of, May,
'57, 475-6 ; crisis, May-July, '57,
477-9 ; mutiny, 479-81 ; Durand
returns to, 488 ; Sir H. Rose arrives
at, 504 ; threatened by Tantia Topi,
545-6. iSi'c also Holkar
Indus, river, 318, 322
Inglis, J. ; chosen by H. Lawi'ence to
succeed him in command of Oudh
troops, 261, 269 ; character, 270 ; |
defence of Lucknow Residencj-, 272,
274, 276-9 ; blockade of Residency,
402 - 3 ; offers to hold Residency
after relief of Lucknow, 415 ; battle
of Dec. 6, '57, at Cawnpore, 426
lunes, Brig., 316 and note 3
Inues, M'Leod, 278
Ismailganj, 264-5, 440
Jackson, C, 69-70
Jackson, Madeline, 257-9
Jackson, Sir M., 257-9
Jacob, G. Le G., sent to rescue
Kolhapur, 466 ; disarms Kolhapur
sepoys and punishes ringleaders,
466-7 ; suppresses rising in Kolha-
pur, Commissioner of Southern
Maratha country, 470-1 ; dealings
with Manson, pacifies country above
Ghats, 472
Jagdispur, battle near, 198-9 ; Kunwar
Singh's stronghold destroyed, 199 ;
Kunwar Singh retreats to, 454 ;
Ammar Singh and followers main-
tain themselves in jungles, 454-6
Jalaun, 496, note 1
Jalpaiguri, 460
James, Capt., 279, note 1
Jang Bahadur, offers to lend Gurkhas
to British Government, offer first
refused aud then accepted, 166-7 ;
marches from Khatmandu to Luck-
now, 434 ; arrives at Lucknow, 442 ;
asks that mutineers should be hunted
out of Nepal, 533
Jaora Alipur, battle of, 541
Jaunpur, mutiny at, 214 ; reoccupied
by Gurkhas, 433
Java, 4 ; conquered by Lord Minto,
19
Jelalabad, 29
Jeypore, 151 note 2, 395 ; Tantia Topi
sends emissaries to, 541
Jhalra P.itan, 544
Jhansi, annexation of, 35, 490 ; mutiny
and massacre at, 491 -2 ; Sir H. Rose
arrives at, 509 ; description of, 509-
10 ; siege, 510-13 ; assault, 513-14
Jhansi, Rani of ; protests against an-
nexation, 490 ; character, waits for
revenge, intrigues \vith sepoys, 491 ;
question of her responsibilitj' for
massacre, prepares to resist British,
493 aud note 1 ; opinions of her
advisers as to resisting Sir H, Rose,
INDEX
649
509 ; flees from Jhausi, 514; battle
of Kunch, 515 ; urges rebels to
defend Kaljti, 518 ; at Gopalpur,
535 ; in conjunction with Tantia
Topi seizes Gwalior, 535-6 ; death,
538
Jlielum, mutiny at, 395
Jodhpur, 151 ; miitiny of legion, 384
Johnstone, Brig., 330-1, 347, note
Jones, Brig. J. ; ordered to invade
Rohilkhaud from N.W., 524; vic-
tories, 526 ; joins Sir C. Campbell
at Bareilly, 528 ; relieves Shahja-
hanpur, 528-9 ; left by Sir C. Camp-
bell to deal with the Moulvi, 529
Jones, Brig. W., 372 ; assault of
Delhi, 375-6 and App. M
Jones, Mr., 140
Jubbulpore, mutiny at, 496 ; Whitlock
starts from, 517
Julhmdur, mutiny at, 330
Junma, river, anxiety of Canning for
stations along, 208 ; loyalty of cer-
tain rajas on western bank, 218 ;
etfect of Rose's victories on country
north of, 522. See also Agra, Alla-
habad, Delhi
Kabul, 27-8, 73. See Afghans, Dost
Mahomed
Kaimur hills, campaign in, 457-8
Kajwa, battle of, 404
Kalianpur, 228
Kali Naddi, battle of, 430
Kalpi, Tantia Topi marches towards,
404 ; Tantia Topi marches from,
against Windham, 418 ; ^^reparations
of rebels to resist Sir H. Rose, 518 ;
operations near, 518-20 ; Sir H.
Rose marches from, for Gwalior,
537
Kampti, 497
Kanaud, 396
Kanauji Lai, 406-7
Kandahar. 323
Kaugra, 315-16 ; troops at, disarmed,
359
Kaukar, Seaton's victory at, 525
Kargiin, 545
Karnal, loyalty of Nawab of, 115-16.
See also 118
Kasauli, 113
Katchiani, 257
Kavanagh, T. H., 405-7
Keatinge, Capt. R. H., restores order in
Mandleswar, 482 ; jjlaced in political
charge of Mandiswar, 488
Keir, Lieut., 279, note 1
Kerr, Lieut., disperses Ranga Bapaji's
followers, 463 ; saves Kolhapur,
466
Kerr, Lord M., relieves Azamgarh,
453-4
Khalsa, 30-2, 311
Khanaut, river, 528
Khan Bahadur Khan, proclaimed Vice-
roy at Bareilly, 137 ; cruelties,
character of rule, 137-8 ; tyranny,
524 ; battle of Bareilly, 526-8
Khasganj, 429
Khatmanda, 166, 433-4
Khorai, rout of Tantia Topi at, 545
Koelsa, 452
Kohat, 319
Kohistan, 327
Kolhapur, affairs in, before mutiny,
464 ; mutiny at, 465 ; rescued by
Lieut. Kerr, 466 ; sepoys disarmed
and ringleaders punished, 466-7 ;
rising quelled by Col. Jacob, 470-1
Koshaui, 548
Kotah contingent, 153 ; mutinies, 154 ;
murder of Major Burton, recapture
of Kotah, 541
Kotah-ki-serai, 537 ; battle of, 537-8
Kotaria, river, rout of Tantia Tojjia at,
542
Kunch, battle of, 515-16
Kuuwar Singh, joins Dinapore muti-
neers, 190 ; besieges Arrah, 191 ;
defeated by Eyre, 197-9 ; abandons
Jagdispur, 199 ; defeats Milman, and
blockades him in Azamgarh, 452 ;
retreats to Jagdispur, last victory and
death, 454 ; raid into Bundelkhand
noticed, 495
Ki'irandwar, 472
Kurnaul. See Karnal
Kussowlie. See Kasauli
Labourdonnais, 3
Lahore, weakness of Government of,
after Ranjit Singh's death, 31 ; news
of seizure of Delhi reaches, 313 ;
.sepoys ilisarmed, 314-15 ; mutiny at,
362 ; Division saved by Cooper, 363
Lake, Gen., 17
Lalitpur, mutiny at, 496 ; Tantia Topi
at, 545
Lally, 3, 4
650
INDEX
Lang, Lieut., 373
Lapse, right of, 34-5
Lascar of Dum-Dum, the, 79-81
Latu, 459
Lautoiir, 201
Lawrence, G., his administration of
Rajputana, 149-51, 395-6, 541
La^v^ence, Henry, member of Punjab
Board, 33 ; good influence on Panjali
administration, 34 ; men of his stamp
able to win devotion from natives,
46 ; offers to serve as Chief Com-
missioner of Oudh, 69 ; succeeds C.
Jackson as Chief Commissioner, 72 ;
letter to Canning about new postal
rules, 77, note ; tries to heal dis-
content in Oudh, 92 ; alone in fore-
seeing trouble, 93 ; refuses to publish
at Lucknow order for disbandment
of 34th N.I., 94 ; suppresses mutiny
at Lucknow, 95 ; urges Canning to
collect pony -carts for transport of
troops, 166, note ; warns Wheeler
against Nana Sahib, 226 ; obliged to
refuse help to Wheeler, 234 ; his
character, 244-6 ; how he dealt with
civil population and sepoys, 246-8 ;
induced by Gubbins to alter arrange-
ment of Lucknow garrison, 249-50 ;
asks for and obtains plenary military
power in Oudh, 250 ; prepares to
defend Residency and Machi Bhawan,
251 and note ; unselfish exertions,
250 ; refuses to disarm Lucknow
sepoys, 253-4 ; mutiny of May 30,
254 - 5 ; health fails, delegates
authority to provisional council, 261 ;
resumes office, 262 ; battle of Chin-
hat, 263-6 and App. I ; death, 268-
70
La^vrence, John, member of Punjab
Board, 33 ; head of Punjab Govt.,
33 ; treaties with Dost Mahomed,
73-5 and notes ; reports favourably
on Umballa sepoys, 93 ; correspond-
ence with Anson, 114, 117 ; char-
acter, 312-13 ; absent from Lahore
when news from Delhi arrives, 313 ;
gives Montgomery credit for striking
first blow, 317 ; tardily consents to
let Edwardes raise levies in Derajat,
322 and note 3 ; orders disarming
of Mooltan sepoj's, 333 ; his Punjab
policy, 333-5 ; his imperial policy,
338 ; believed that Delhi might have
been taken early in July, '57, but
for imbecility of Johnstone and
Hewitt, 346, note 1 ; his idea of
abandoning Peshawar, 354 - 8 ; his
plan for disarming sepoys at Rawal-
pindi and Sialkot, 358 ; pleads for
mercy towards people of Delhi, and
assumes government of Delhi ten-i-
tory, 398 ; arranges to send a colunm
into Rohilkhand, 432 ; letter on
causes of Mutiny, 559, note 1. See
App. L
LauTence, Lady J., 390
Lawrence, R., at Meean-meer, 314 ;
operations against Kishenganj, 377
Lester, Gen., 467, 471-2
L'Estrange, Capt., 196
Light, Lieut., 122
Lightfoot, Capt., 541
Lloyd, Gen., Gurkha detachment oflFered
him by Major Ramsay, 166 ; rejects
Tayler's advice to disarm Dinapore
sepoys, 182 ; Canning throws on
him responsibility of disarming, 187 ;
mutiny at Dinapore, 188-90 ; con-
duct after mutiny, 191-2 ; cursed by
widows of those who perished in
Dunbar's expedition, 194
Lockhart, Col., 525-6
Longfield, Brig., 372
Loni Singh, 257-8
Liicknow, 72 ; Nana Sahib passes
through, 92 ; mutiny at, 94-5 ; de-
scription of, 248-9 ; events at, in
May, '57, 249-56 ; in June, 260-
63 ; siege, 267-79 ; first relief, 304-
10 and App. K ; blockade, 401-3 ;
relief by Sir C. Campbell, 407-15 ;
siege by Sir C. Campbell, 438-45.
See Campbell, Gubbins, Havelock,
Inglis, H. Lawrence, Outram
Ludhiana, 332
Ludlow, Capt., 478
Lugard, E., relieves Azamgarh, and
sends Douglas to pursue Kunwar
Singh, 454 ; Jagdispur campaign, 455
Lumsden, Capt., at assault of Sikandar
Bagh, 410
Macdonald, Major, at Rohni, 177
Macdowell, Lieut., 385-7 and 387, note
MacGregor, Col., 434
Mackenzie, Capt., 135-6
^Mackenzie, Col., at battle of Ghazi-ud-
din-Nagar, 122
INDEX
651
Mackeson, Col., 73
Macleod, Major, 154
Macpherson, Col. J., 314 and Apjj. L
Macpherson, Major C, Political Agent
at Gwalior, 144 ; work at Gwalior,
145-6 ; persuades Siudhia to detain
mutineers at Gwalior, 148 ; corre-
sponds with Sindhia and Dinkar Rao,
159 ; re-enters Gwalior, 540
Madanpur pass, battle in, 507-8
Madariganj, mutiny at, 460
Madras, captured by Labourdonnais,
3 ; menaced by Hyder Ali, 8 ;
sepoys, 48, 51-2, 61, note 3 ; Canning
sends for reinforcements from, 112 ;
disaft'ection in Presidency, 498 and
note 2, 501, note 1
Mahndi Husain, 435, 436, note
Mahomed, Dost. See Dost
Mahomedans, their feelings towards
British, 44 ; excitement of, at Delhi
in spring of '57, 90-91 ; N. W.
Provinces, 142-3 ; Patna, 179 ;
Allahabad, 215-17 ; Lucknow, 252,
256 ; Murree hills, 390 ; Hyderabad,
499-501. See also Hindus, Missionary
Manifesto
Jlainjiiiri, mutiny at, 130 ; victory of
Seaton, 429
Mairs, 150
Malcolm, Col., helps to disarm people
of Southern Maratha country,
marches against Raja of Shorapur,
471 ; defeats Baba Sahib, 472
Malcolm, Sir J., 17 ; defeats Holkar,
21 ; views about sepoys, 60
Malthon, 507
Malwa, anarchy in, 482 ; insurrection
planned by Prince Firoz Shah, 4S4-5 ;
Durand's campaign, 485-8
Malwa Contingent, 476-7, 480
Man Singh, 649 ; betrays Tantia Topi,
550-1
Man Singh (of Oudh), 297 and App. K
Mandiswar, seized by rebels, 484 ;
recovered by Durand, 487-8
Mandleswar, 482, 485
Mangalwar, 292, 294, 296-7 ; battle of,
303
Mangles, R., Jun., 194
Miinjha, 357, note 4 ; overawed by
Nicholson, 359
Mansel, C, 33
Mansfield, Gen., his attack on Subadar's
tank at Cawupore, 427
Mauson, C, 471-2
Marathas, undermine Mogul Empire, 2 ;
humbled by Hastings, 8 ; war with
Nizam, 12 ; threaten British empire,
13 ; subdued by Wellesley, 14-15 ;
sympathise with Pindaris, 21 ; finally
subdued by Lord Hastings, 21-2 ;
Pundits near Kalpi preach crusade
on behalf of Nana Sahib, 518. See
also Southern Maratha country,
Plolkar, Peshwa, Sindhia, Tantia
Topi
Mardan, in danger, 325 ; mutiny at,
occupied by Chute, 326 and note 3
Martial law. Canning refuses to
establish in Bengal, 174. See also
Benares, Eyre, Greathed (H.), Holmes
Martineau, Lieut., 88-9 and App. W
Masonic Fraternity at Calcutta, 163
Maude, Capt. F. C, 284, 286, 288,
293, 304, 307
Mauritius, 13, 19
Maxwell, Col., co-operates with Sir H,
Rose near Golauli, 518-20
McDowell, W., 194
Meade, Capt. R., his negotiations with
Man Singh, 549-51. Sec also 146,
note 2
Meadows Taylor, 46
Medley, Lieut. J., 141, 373
Meean-meer, 314-15
Meerut, description of, 96 ; mutiny, 96-
104 ; outbreak at, real starting-point
of Indian Mutiny, 111 ; anarchy in
surrounding districts, 120-1 ; exploits
of Dunlop in districts, 160. See
Hewitt, Wilson, A.
Mehidpur, battle of, 21 ; mutiny at,
477 ; attacked by rebels from Dhar,
486
Meiklejohn, Lieut., 513
Meilghat, 545
Metcalfe, C, checkmates Ranjit Singh,
19
Metcalfe, Sir T., 398
Mewattees, 482
Mhow, 476 ; mutiny at, expected, 477 ;
Holkar urges Durand to send ladies
and children to, 477-8 ; battery sent
for liy Durand, imable to join him
in time, 479-81 ; mutiny at, 481 ;
held by Hungerford, 483 ; Stuart's
column arrives at. 484 ; Durand
starts from, on Malwa campaign,
485 ; Stuart's brigade starts from.
652
INDEX
504-5 ; columns march from, against
Tantia Topi, 543
Michel, Major-Gen., 544-5, 548
Michui, 365
Middleton, Capt., at attack on Sliah
Najif, 412
Military Board, neglects Tucker's warn-
ing about greased cartridges, 80-1
Milman, Col., 452
Minto, Lord, 18-19
Mir Jafar, 4
Mirza Ilahi Bakhsh, 382, 386
Mirza Mughal, 352-4
Missionary Manifesto (1856), 78
Mitchell, Col., 83-4
Mithauli, 257
Mogul emjiire, founded by Baber, 1 ;
decline and fall, 2 ; Clive's treaty
with emperor, 5, 6 ; Hastings makes
Company independent of emperor, 6 ;
treatment of emperor by Wellesley,
15-16, and App. W. Sec also Ba-
hadur Shah
Mohamdi, 135
Mohmands, 323 ; surround Michui,
managed by Edwardes, 365
Muller, Lieut., 103, 104
Moncrietf, 235
Money, A., 201-3
Monghyr, 300
Monson, Col., member of Hasting's
council, 7, 8
Montgomery, R., member of Punjab
Board, 33 ; character, 313 ; urges
that Meean-meer sepoys should be
deprived of ammunition, 314 ; issues
circulars to Punjab officers, 315 ;
deserves credit of having struck first
blow in Punjab, 317 ; measures after
hearing of Sialkot mutiny, 359 ;
Chief Commissioner of Oudh, 531
Moolraj, 32
Mooltan, besieged by Edwardes, 32 ;
Edwardes raises levies from Mool-
tanis of Derajat, 322 and note 3 ;
sepoys at, disarmed, 333. See Gugera
Moore, Capt., 234-5, 237
Moorsom, Lieut., 308-9
Moradabad, mutiny at, 137
Morar, battle of, 537
Momington. See Wellesley
Morton, Sergt.-Major, 257-9
Motihari, 201, note 1
Moula Bakhsh, 185
Moulvi of Fyzabad, the, preaches
against English, imprisoned, 72
attacks Outram in Alambagh, 437
holds out to last in Lucknow, 445
a leader of Oudh rebels, 523, 526
attacks Shahjahanpur, 528-9 ; skir-
mish with Sir C. Campbell, raid on
Pali, 529 ; killed, 530
Mounted infantry, 457
Mowbray Thomson, 231, 239-40
Mozuffernuggur. See MuzafFarnagar
Mozuflerpore. See Muzafl'arpur
Muharram, the, at Bombay, 467-9
Mungul Pandy, 85-7
Mnnro, Hector, 5
Munro, Major, 140
Munro, Sir T., his views about sepoys,
60
Murpliy, Private, 240
MuiTce hills, 313 ; insurrection in, 390
Muter, Capt., 377
Mutiny, the Indian, its causes, 556-60.
See N. W. Provinces, App. F and
App. U
Muttra, mutiny at, 131 ; loyalty of
population, 524
Muzaffarnagar, mutiny at, 133
Muzaffarpur, 201
Mythowlee. See Mithauli
Mysore, 8, 14 ; Lord W. Bentinck'.s
dealings with, 23-4 ; Mahomedans
watch events at Hyderabad, 501,
note 1
Nabha, troops with G. Ricketts, 330-1;
loyalty of Raja, 337
Naddi, river, 533
Nadir Shah, 2
Nagode, mutiny at, 495
Nagpur, Raja of, 19 and note, 21 ;
annexation of, 35 ; crisis in '57,
497-8
Naini Tal, 137, 431
Najafgarh canal, 123, 344-6 ; battle
of Najafgarh, 367-8
Nalkera, 544
Nana Sahib, demands that ex-Peshwa's
pension should be continued to him,
41 ; his tour, 92 ; his doings at
Cawnpore, May - June, '57, 224-9,
235-8, 240-3; defeated by Havelock
near Cawnpore, 287-9 ; flees into
Oudh, 291 ; collects a fresh force,
292 ; harasses Havelock's rear dur-
ing his hrst advance towards Luck-
now, 294 ; marches with Tantia.
IKDEX
653
Topi to attack Cawiipore, 418 ; ex-
citement in Southern Maratha country
at news of his triumph, 465 ; his
emissaries enter Kolhapur, 470 ;
crusade preached in his behalf near
Kalpi, 518 ; Hope Grant gets a
letter from, 534 ; Tantia Topi hopes
to raise Southern Marcitha country
in his favour, 542 ; regarded by
Marathas as Peshwa, 544 ; question
of his responsibility for Cawnpore
massacres, 552, note 2. See also
App. G
Napier, Sir C, conquers Sind, 29 ;
his controversy with Outram, 29 ;
sent out to avenge Chilianwala, 32 ;
takes measures for repressing im-
pending mutiny in Punjab, disbands
66th N.I., and raises Gurkha regi-
ment in its place, 58 ; dispute with
Dalhousie, 58-9 ; resigns office of
Commander-in-Chief, 59 ; his opinion
of sepoys, 59 note 3, 62 ; warning
against lowering position of English
commandants, 60 ; advocates pro-
motion 1)y seniority, 61 ; warning
about Delhi, 91, note 1 ; his opinion
of P. Grant, 172
Napier, R., at Lucknow, Sept. 26,
'57, 401 ; advises Sir C. Campbell
how to undertake siege of Lucknow,
438; his part in the siege, 441-2;
operations against Gwalior, 538, 540 ;
battle of Jdora Alipur, 541 ; attacks
Man Singh, conceives idea of induc-
ing him to surrender, orders STeade
to act against Man Singh and Tantia
Topi, 549
Napoleon, his designs against India,
13
Nargiind, 471-2
Narn\'il, battle of, 397
Narut, 507
Nasiri Gurkhas, 116
Nathupur, 460
Nawabganj (in Oudh), 263
Nawabganj, 226-7 ; Havelock at, 291
Neemuch, mutinies at, 151, 395. See
also 486-7
Neill, J., his character, 211 ; how he
dealt with railway officials at Cal-
cutta, 211-12; saves Benares,
212-14 ; starts for Allahabad, 215 ;
restores order in Allahabad and
surrounding districts, 219-21 ; ijre-
pares for relief of Cawnpore, 282 ;
joins Havelock at Cawnpore, 291 ;
correspondence with Havelock,
294-5 ; work at Cawnpore, 296 ;
share in first relief of Lucknow,
302, 307 ; death, 309
Nepal, war with, 20. See Gurkhas,
Jang Bahadur
Nerbudda, river, Durand anxious to
secure line of, 476, 484. See also
542, 545-6
Nicholson, J., takes part in council at
Peshawar, 319 ; character, 319-21 ;
suggests formation of moveable
column, 322 ; measures for safety
of Peshawar, 324 ; joins with
Edwardes in urging Cotton to disarm
suspected sepoys at Peshawar, 325 ;
raid against 55th N.I., 326-7 ;
secures border, and returns to
Peshawar, 328 ; takes command of
moveable column, 345 ; opposes J.
La'wrence's idea of abandoning
Peshawar, 355 ; at Amritsar, warned
of Siiilkot mutiny, disarms suspected
regiments of moveable column, 359 ;
marches against Sialkot mutineers,
battles at Trimmu Ghat, 359-61 ;
marches for Delhi, 361 ; arrives at
Delhi, 366 ; battle of Najafgarh,
367-8 ; indignant at Wilson's hesi-
tation, 369 ; chosen to lead assault
on Delhi, 373 ; enters city at head
of first column, 375 ; wounded in
attack on Lahore bastion, 379 ;
urges Wilson to let Hodson capture
King's sons, 385; death, 388-9.
See also App. M
Nizam, the, 13-15
Nizam, the (1857), 498-501
Nizam-ul-Miilk, 3 and note
Northern Circars, 5
North -Western Provinces, settlement
of, 24-5 ; mutiny and rebellion in,
May-Sept. '57, 130-43, 151-60. See
also Rohilkhand, Doab, etc.
Nowgong, mutiny at, 493
Nowrunjee, 364
Nowshera, mutiny at, 325 ; some of
mutineers go to Marddn, 326
Nuncomar, 7
Nundydroog, symptoms of mutiny at,
52 ^
Nurpiir, 359
Nusseerabad, mutinies at, 151, 395 ;
654
moEx
Roberts and Holmes start from,
against Tantia Toiii, 542
OCHTERLONY, D., 20, 22-3
Olpliei-ts, W., at Benares, 213 ; battle
of the Alambagh, 304
Orissa, East India Company becomes
Diwan of, 6
Orr, Capt. P., 257-9
Orr, Major, defeats rebels at Rawal,
486 ; defeats Raja of Banpnr,
battle of Kimch, 515
Osborne, Lieut. W., 494-5
Oudli, Vizier of, invades Behar, Olive's
dealings with him, 5, 6 ; Hastings
and Begams, 9 ; Wellesley's dealings
with, 16 ; annexation, 37-40 ; eifects
of annexation, 45, 559 ; affairs in
first year of Canning's rule, 69-72 ;
many sepoys come from, 78 ; H.
Lawrence tries to heal discontent,
92-3 ; his partial success, 246-7 ;
King of Oudli arrested, 171-2 ;
mutiny and rebellion, 256-60 ; dis-
cussion between Canning and Sir C.
Campbell, whether it or Rohilkhand
should be reconquered first, 431 ;
rebels overrun Benares and Allaha-
bad Divisions, 433 ; Canning's pro-
clamation, 446-50 ; condition after
recapture of Lucknow, 522 - 3 ;
behaviour of population, 523 ; second
Oudh versus Rohilkhand contro-
versy, 524 ; reconquest, 530-4. See
also Campbell, Grant (H.), Have-
lock, Lawrence (H.), Lucknow, Out-
ram, Talukdars
Outram, J., his controversy with Sir
C. Napier, 29 ; presents new treaty
to King of Oudh, 39 ; returns to
England, 69 ; volunteers to command
in Persian war, 73 ; arrives in Cal-
cutta, 175 ; urges Canning to secure
Allahabad, 215 and note 2; appointed
to command Havelock's column,
298 ; character, 299-300 ; goes to
join Havelock, 300-1 ; leaves to
him glory of relieving Lucknow,
301-2 ; first relief of Lucknow,
303 - 9 ; advises destruction of
Delhi, 398 ; blockade of Lucknow
Residency, 401 - 3 ; advises Sir C.
Campbell to secure Cawnpore before
relieving Lucknow, 405 and note ;
meeting with Sir C. Campbell, 414 ;
defends Alambagh, 436-7 ; operates
on north of Gumti during siege of
Lucknow, 439 - 42, 444 - 5 ; Oudh
proclamation, 446 - 7, 522. See
App. K and App. S
Paget, Sir E, 54
Palamkotta, symptoms of mutiny at, 52
Pali, 396
Pali (in N. W. Provinces), the Moulvi
makes a raid upon, 530
Palmer, Col., 267
Paltauli, 397
Pandu Naddi, battle at, 286, 419-20
Panic Sunday, 170-1
Parke, Brig., 543, 545-6
Partabgarh, 459, note
Partabgarh (pursuit of TantiaTopi), 547
Patiala, loyalty of Raja of, 115
Patiali, 429
Patna, Clive's victory at, 4 ; alarm
roused in Division by Missionary
Manifesto (1856), 78 ; situation of
Division at outset of Mutiny, 179 ;
description of city, 180 ; affairs in
city and districts (June 7 to July 3,
'57), 181-5 ; Tayler's withdrawal
order, 200-1 ; gratitude of Christian
residents to Tayler, 203-4 ; state of
Division after Tayler's dismissal,
451-2. See also Halliday, Tayler
Paton, Sergt., 412
Patterson, Capt., 199
Pawayan, Raja of, refuses shelter to
fugitives from Shahjahanpur, 135 ;
kills Moulvi of Fyzabad, 530
Peacock, B., 68
Pearson, Capt., 394
Peel, W., arrives at Calcutta, 175 ;
relief of Lucknow, 407, 411-13, 415 ;
operations of Nov. 29 and Dec. 6, '57,
at Cawnpore, 424, 426 ; death, 526
Pegu, annexation of, 37 ; reliefs for, 76 ;
symptoms of disquiet in, 400
Penny, Gen., 394-5 ; placed in command
of a column for invasion of Rohil-
khand, 524 ; death, 526
Permanent Settlement, 11-12
Perron, 13
Persia, Auckland's policy towards, 27 ;
war with, 72-3 ; proclamation of Shah,
91, note 2
Peshawar, Sir C. Napier at, 58 ; descrip-
tionof, 317-18 ; council of war, 321-2 ;
state of Division in May, '57, 323 ;
INDEX
655
measures taken for defence, 324 ;
suspected sepoys disarmed, 325-6;
policy of Edwardes and Cotton,
328-9 ; J. Lawrence thinks of aban-
doning, 354-8 ; Edwardes's dealings
with capitalists, 363-4 ; mutiny at,
364-5
Peshwa, Wellesley's treaty with, 15 ;
plots against Lord Hastings, check-
mated, turns traitor, deposed, 21-2 ;
death, 41. See Nana Sahib
Phillaur, Anson provides for safety of,
114 ; reinforced, May 13, '57, 315-16 ;
mutineers from Jullundur at, 330
Pilkingtou, 106
Pindaris, 20-1
Plassey, battle of, 4 ; prophecy about
centenary of, 79 ; rebel attack on
centenary of, at Cawnpore, 235 ; at
Delhi, 344
Plowden, G., 497-8
Pollock, Gen., 29
Polwhele, Brig., 154-6 and App. D
Ponsonby, Brig., 212 and 213, note
Poona (near Bombay). /SVe Wahabis
Poona, 543
Porto Novo, battle of, S
Powain. See Pawayan
Press. See Gagging Act
Proclamation, Colvin's, 131 ; G. Law-
rence's, 150; Oudh, 446-50; the
Queen's, 554-5
Punch, 515
Punjab, Hardinge tries to maintain
native Government of, after first Sikh
war, 31 ; H. LawTence in, 31, 33 ;
annexation, 32 ; administration under
Dalhousie, 33 ; state of, at outset of
Mutiny, 311-12; Punjab officers,
312 ; crisis in, '57, 313-39, 358-66,
390-1. See Peshawar
Purneah, 460
Queen. See Victoria
Raipur, 498
Rajab Ali, 382, 386
Rajgarh, rout of Tautia Topi at, 544
Rajpur, rout of Tautia Topi at, 546
Rajputana, invaded by Amir Khan,
19 ; affairs in, May-June, '57, 148-
51 ; June-Sept. '57, 395 - 6 ; Sept.
'57-Mar. '58, 541. See also Tautia
Topi, pursuit of
Rdjputs, rebel against Aurangzeb, 2
Ramdriig, 472
Ramganga, river, 526, 529
Ramsay, Brig., 146
Ramsay, Major, 166
Ranga Bapaji, 463
Rangoon, 22 ; 84th Regiment fetched
from, by Canning, 84 ; King of
Delhi transported to, 399
Raniganj, 81, 403
Ranjit Singh, 19, 27-30, 33
Rao Sahib, at Kalpi, 518 ; flees with
Rani of Jhansi to Gopalpur, 535 ;
flees with Tautia Topi into Rajputana,
541 ; beaten at Sindwao, 545
Ratgarh, siege of, 505-6
Rattray, Capt., 181, 183
Ravi, river, 359-62
Rawal, 486
Rawalpindi, mutinous regiments at,
58 ; council, 322, 333 ; disarming of
58th N.I., 358
Ray nor, Lieut., 109
Reade, E. A., 131, 154
Rebellion, was there as well as mutiny,
556, et sqq.
Red Sea expedition, 17
Reed, Gen., in council at Peshawar,
319 ; assumes command of Punjab
troops, and goes to join J. Lawrence
at Rawalpindi, 321 ; Provisional
Commander-in-Chief, 342 ; succeeds
Barnard at Delhi, 348
Regulating Act, 7
Reid, Major, joins Brig. Wilson, 123 ;
attacks Delhi mutineers, June 8, '57,
124 ; defends Hindu Rao's house,
345, 350 ; assault of Delhi, 372, 376-7
Religions, native. Government sus -
pected of designs against, 77-8.
See also Hindus, Mahomedans
Renaud, Major, 282-5
"Resumption," 26
Rewah, letter from Indore to Durbar,
475 ; aff"airs in '57, 494-5
Ricketts, G., 330-2
Ricketts, H., 69
Riddell, Col., sent to join Sir H. Rose,
536
Ripley, Col., 107
Roberts, Major-Gen., recaptures Kotah,
541 ; pursues Tantia Topi, 542-3
Robertson, Col., sent to pursue rebels
after battle of Golauli, 536
Robertson, Dundas, 134, 152
Robertson, Major, 139-40
656
INDEX
Rocke, Major, 547
Rohilkhaud, mutiuy and rebellion in,
134 - 8, 141 - 3 ; controversy be -
tween Canning and Sir C. Camp-
bell as to whether it or Oudh should
be reconquered first, 431 ; second
controversy, 524 ; reconqnest, 525-9
Rohni, 177
Roorkee, 134
Rose, discovers plot at Satara, 463
Rose, Sir H., appointed to command
of a column for restoring order in
Central India, 503 ; character, 503-
504 ; preparations, 504 ; campaign,
505-21 ; effect of his campaign on
Sir C. Campbell's position, 522 ;
hearing of seizure of Gwalior by
Tantia Topi and Rani of Jhansi,
marches against them, 536-7 ; re-
conquers Gwalior, 537-40. See also
App. Q and App. R
Rose, Lieut., 540
Ross, A., 452
Rosser, Capt., 103-4
Rowcroft, Col., ordered to hold Gorakh-
pur, 434
Runnejah, 549
Russia, intrigues of, in Persia and
Afghanistan, 27-8 ; Russian army
believed to be coming to invade
India, 91
Sacheta, battle of, 155-6 and App. D
Saddozais, 27
Saharanpur, 134, 143
Saifulla Khan, 153-4
Salar Jang, 499-501
Sale, Sir R., 29, 279
Sale Law, 26 : capitalists driven out of
estates purchased under, 142, 219,
434, note 2
Salkeld. Lieut., 379-80
SaUimbar, 547
Sandila, 444
Sanford, Capt., 118
Sasseram, 456
Sassiah. See Sacheta
Satara, annexation of, 35 ; plot at, 463
Siitpura hills, 545
Saugor, mutiny at, 496 ; relieved by
Sir II. Rose, 506
Saugor and Nerbudda Territories, 126,
note 1 ; mutiny and rebellion in,
496 ; embers of rebellion, 552
Siwant Dessayees, 473
Sawant Wari, disaffection in, 464 ;
some of Kolhapur mutineers flee to,
465
Scully, Conductor, 109
Sealkote. See Sialkot
Seaton, Col. T., his opinion of Hodson,
3S3 ; takes command of Gerrard's
column, 397 ; campaign in Doab,
429 ; gains \'ictory at Kankar, 525
Segauli, 179
Sehore, Durand retreats to, 481 ; Sir
H. Rose starts for, 505
Sepoy army, history of, 47-65 ; suspect
Government of designs against caste
and religion, 76-9. See also 557-8
Seringapatam, 10, 14
Seton-Karr, G. B., keeps order in
Southern Maratha coTintiy, 464-5 ;
punishes Belgaum conspirators, 467 ;
disarms population, 471
Settlement, Permanent, 11-12 ; settle-
ment of N.W. Provinces, 24-5. See
also Ondh
Shah. See Persia
Shah Shuja, 27-9
Shahabad, revolt in, Aug. '57, 200 ;
overrun by Ammar Singh's followers,
456. See also Arrah, Behar, Douglas
(Brig,), Havelock, H. (the younger),
Kuuwar Singh
Shahgan], 153-6
Shahgarh, 507-8
Shahjahanpur, mutiny at, 134-5 ; Col.
Hale left in command at, 526 ;
attacked by the Moulvi, relieved,
528-9
Shaikh Paltu, 86
Shakespear, Sir R., 482
Shaw, Conductor, 109
Sheorajpur, 419, 428
Shepherd, 235
Sherer, Lieut. J. F., 459
Sherghati, 404
Shorapur, Raja of, rebels, 471
Shore, Sir J., 12
Shortt, Brig., 467-8, 470
Showers, Brig., 395
Sialkot, 82, 93 ; mutiny at, 359
Sikandarabad, 391
Sikar, rout of Tantia Topi at, 548
Sikhs, subdued by Ranjit Singh. 19 ;
Ellenborough's precautions against,
29-30 ; first Sikh war, 30-1 ; second
Sikh war, 31-2 ; antipathy to Hindu-
.stdnis and Mahomedans, 311 ; J. Law-
INDEX
657
rence's letter to chiefs, 336, note 1.
See also Brasyer, Cis-Sutlej States,
Khalsa, Peshawar, Punjali, Rattray
Simla, Sir C. Napier at, 67 ; Anson at,
113 ; panic, 116
Simpson, Col., 216-17
Simrol pass, 481
Sind, conquest of, 29. See also Frere,
Hyderabad
Sindhia, Daulat Rao, 13 ; conquered by
Wellesley, 15 ; intrigues witli Peshwa
against Lord Hastings, bound over to
keep peace, 21
Sindhia, Jaiaji Rao, Ellenborough's
dealings with, 29-30 ; sends troops
to Colvin, 130; his rule (1852-7),
144-5; crisis at Gwalior, 145-8;
correspondence with C. Macpherson,
159-60 ; defeated by Tautia Topi,
535-6 ; re-enters Gwalior, 540 ;
severity to Man Singh, 549
Sindwao, rout of Rao Sahib at, 545
Sipri, trial and execution of Tantia Topi
at, 551
Sirdapur, 477
Sironj, 548
Sitabaldi, battle of, 21. See also 497
Sitapur, 138-9 ; mutiny at, 256 ; story
of fugitives from, 257-9. See also 444
Sivaji, 2
Skene, Capt., 491
Sleeman, Col., 37-40
Smith, Brig., marches from Rajputana
to secure Jhansi, 515 ; marches to
Kotah-ki -serai, 536-7; battle of
Kotah - ki - serai, 537-8; joined by
Sir H. Rose, 539
Smith, Col., 138-40
Smith, Col. Baird, takes up post of
Chief Engineer witli Delhi army,
345 ; secures British communica-
tions, 346 ; submits plan of assault
to Reed, 348 ; urges Wilson to
deliver assault as soon as possible,
368 ; directs siege operations, 370 ;
helps Wilson to arrange plan of
assault, 372 ; urges him to assault
on Sept. 14, '57, 374 ; dissuades
him from withdrawing troops from
Delhi, 381 and App. M
Smith, Sergt., 379-80
Smyth, Col., 96-8, 100 and App. W
Soane, river, 191, 193-4 {see Arrah,
Dinapore, Dunbar), 456 - 7 {see
Havelock, H. [the younger])
Sobraon, battle of, 29
Somerset, Brig., 547
Soondeahs, 482
Souter, F., 472
Southern Maratha country, discontent
in, at action of luam Commission,
41; affairs in (1857-58), 464-7,
470-2 ; in danger from Tantia Topi,
536, 542
Southern Maratha Irregular Horse.
See Lieut. Kerr
Spankie, 134, 152
Spottiswoode, Col. (of 37th N.I.), 212
Spottiswoode, Col. (of 55th N.I.), 326
Spurgin, Capt., 282, 291
Stalker, Gen., 73
Steuart, Brig., 504
Stewart, Sergt., 109
Stuart, Brig., takes command of Wood-
burn's column, marches to Asir-
garh, and thence to Mhow, 484 ;
commands 1st brigade under Sir H.
Rose, 504 ; ordered to march against
Chanderi, 507 ; captures Chanderi,
508 ; battle of Golauli, 520 ; sent
towards Gwalior to reinforce Robert-
son, 536
Subathu, 113
Sullivan, Private, 240
Sultanpur, battle of, 435
Snraj-ud-dowlah, 4
Surat, 16
Surat Singh, 214
Suriban, 472
Sutherland, Major, 546
Suttee, 27
Swat, 324 ; mutineers of 55th N.I.
take refuge in ; Akhimd of, dismisses
them, 327
Sweetenhain, Lieut., 140
Syad Amir, 364-6 and note
Syad Mir Khan, 103, note 4
Syad Wilayat Ali Khan, 185
Sylhet, 459
Talukdars, 25. See Settlement of
North-Western Provinces
Talukdars of Oudh ; their misdeeds,
38, 40 ; resent action of settlement
officers, 71 ; resume estates after
mutinies in Oudh, 260 ; their re-
tainers reinforce besiegers of Luck-
now, 271, 297 ; and join mutineers
in attacking Outram in Alambagh,
436 ; prepare to resist British to the
2 U
658
INDEX
last, 449. See also 522 -B, 532-3,
and App. S
Taujore, 16
Tantia Topi, superintends massacre
near Cawnpore, 237 ; leads Gwalior
Contingent to Kalpi, 404 ; operations
against Windham and Sir C. Camp-
bell at Cawnpore, 418-28 ; besieges
Charkhari, 508 ; marches to relieve
Jhansi, 511 ; battle of the Betwa,
512 ; battle of Kiinch, 515 ; abused
by rebels for cowardice, 517 ; joins
Rani of Jhansi at Gop41pur, and,
with her, seizes Gwalior, 535-6 ;
flees from Gwalior, 540 ; pursued,
541-8; captured, 549-51; tried,
condemned, and executed, 551 ;
question of justice of his execution,
552
Tapti, river, 545
Tarai, British refugees perish in, 260 ;
Oudh rebels seek shelter, 533
Tayler, W., reports discontent aroused
in Patna Division by Missionary
Manifesto (1856), 78 ; character,
178-9 ; situation and resources at
outset of Mutiny, 179-80 ; early
measures, 180; administration in June
and Julj% '57, 181-7 ; urges Lloyd
to pursue Dinapore mutineers, 191 ;
how he met crisis after Dunbar's
defeat, 200 - 1 ; -withdrawal order,
201, 204, note 1 ; dismissed, 203 ;
struggle for redress, 206 - 7. See
App. E
Taylor, Capt. A., 370, 380, 382
Teheran. See Persia
Teissier, Capt. de, 107
Tenasserim, 22
Thaneswar, 115
Thornton, at Phillaur, 330
Tipperah. Raja of, 459
Tippoo, 11, 13-14
Tista, river, 460
Todd, Mrs., 106
Tombs, Major H., 122, 378, 528
Tonk, Tantia Topi at, 542
Trades' Association at Calcutta, 163
Trans -Indus, 33, note 1 ; alarm in
Punjab at rumour of cession, 357
Travers, Col. J., joins Durand at
Indore, 477 ; mutiny at Indore,
479-81
Travers, Major, 409
Trichinopoly, 3
Trimmu Ghat, battles at, 360-1
Tripartite Treaty, 28
Troup, Col., at Bareilly, 135-6
Tucker, Col., 80 and 81, note 1
Tucker, H., at Benares, 210, 214
Tucker, R., 218
Tytler, Col. J. F., 284-5, 292
Umballa, 82 ; excitement of sepoys,
88 ; incendiarism, 89 ; sepoys
praised by Barnard, 93 ; Anson
refuses to disarm sepoys, 115 ; saved
by Forsyth and Barnes, 115 ; trial
of Wahabis, 206
Ungud, 274-5, 278-9, 303, 306
Van Cortlandt, 338, 395
Vauglian, Lieut., 430
Vellore, mutiny at, 51-2
Veuables, 433
Vibai-t, Capt., 140
Vibart, Major, 239
Victoria, Queen, assumes Government
of India, 554 ; Queen's proclamation,
554-5
Volunteers of Calcutta, their offers
rejected by Canning, 163-5 ; tardily
accepted, 167
Wahabi, moulvis of Patna, 182-4, 183,
note 1 ; high priest at Poona, 466
Wake, H., 191-2
Wallace, Capt., 107
Waller, Lieut., 540
Walpole, R., his operations at Cawn-
pore, 420, 422, 426 ; siege of Luck-
now, 444 ; march from Lucknow
into Rohilkhand, 525-6
Waris Ali, 184-5
Watson, Lieut. J., 394
Wazirabad, incipient mutinj- at,
checked, 58
Webb, Capt., 500
Wellesley, Arthur, 15, 17
Wellesley, Marquess, 13-17, 66
Wells, Dr., 94-5
Weston, Capt. G., 263
Wheeler, G., 231
Wheeler, Sir H., 224-9, 234-40
Wheler, Col., 78, 86
Whitlock, Gen., 504, 516-17
Williams, Lieut., 330-1
Williams, Major, 160
Willoughby, Lieut., 104 ; blows up
Delhi magazine, 108-9
INDEX
659
Wilson, Archdale, his conduct at
Meerut outbreak, 101-3; battles
near Hindan, 121 - 3 ; joins Bar-
nard, 123 ; battle of Badli-ki-Serai,
124-5 ; succeeds Reid in command
of Delhi army, 348 ; induced by
Baird Smith to prosecute siege, en-
forces discipline, 348-9 ; hesitation
about beginning final siege operations
overcome by Baird Smith, 368-9 ;
address to army, 369 ; arranges plan
of assault, 372 ; issues orders for
assault, 374 ; hesitates again, pre-
vented from withdrawing troops from
Delhi (Sept. 14, '57) by Baird
Smith, 381 and App. M ; orders
destruction of liquor, 381 and App.
M. See also Hodson
Wilson, Brig., 422-3
Wilson, Capt. T. F., 254. 268
Wilson, Cracroft, 137 and App. F
Windham, Gen., at Cawnpore, 405,
417-25
Wolselej% Capt. G., 413
Woodburn, Major -Gen., ordered to
march to Mhow, 463 ; goes to
Aurangabad instead, 478 and note
5 ; Durand goes to meet, 481, 483
Wright, Lieut., 81
Yule, G., 300, 459-60
Zami'ndars, 12 ; behaviour of Oudh,
523
Zirapur, rout of Tantia Topi at 547
THE END
Printed by R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh
A HISTORY OF
THE INDIAN MUTINY
AND OF THE DISTURBANCES WHICH
ACCOMPANIED IT AMONG THE CIVIL POPULATION
Fifth Edition^ revised throughout and slightly enlarged.
WITH FIVE MAPS AND SIX PLANS
Extra Crown Svo, 12s. 6d.
EXTRACTS FROM NOTICES BY THE PRESS.
DAILY NEWS. — "Mr. Holmes has taken infinite pains to verify his
information, and the result is that his history of the Mutiny is the best which
has yet appeared."
"T. P."in THE ^F^^AXF.S'WV.—" It is but a poor and an insufficient
compliment to say that the book is more interesting than any work of fiction.
For myself I have read it as breathlessly as if it were an exciting novel. . . .
Impartiality, profound knowledge, a charming style, unassailable accuracy —
these are qualities that are not often found in combination ; they are found in
this noteworthy volume."
DAILY MAIL. — "The most literary, the most complete, and the most
accurate history of the Mutiny available to the reading public."
ST. JAMES'S GAZETTE.— ''This is a history in the true sense of the
word. . . . Mr. Holmes's narrative is as interesting as it is instructive, and
we might quote passage after passage as specimens of his quietly effective style.
. . . Mr. Holmes is splendidly impartial."
ATHENAEUM. — " He has thrown new light on many debated subjects
. . . and he has shown with much exactitude the precise relation of each part
of the drama to the whole. . . . We cannot refrain from again expressing our
admiration of the judicial temperament of the author. . . . His work is in
every sense of the word a history, and deserves to be read."
PIONEER PRESS (Allahabad).—" What the reader of to-day wants is
exactly what Mr. Holmes has given us : the whole story of the origin, the
course, and the results of the Mutiny in a single handy and attractive volume,
complete in itself, and eminently readable from cover to cover. It is not easy
to see how the present work could be improved. . . . The book is one which
every one should read, and which should be in every library, and particularly
in every soldier's library, in the country."
In one Volume, Demy Svo, pp. xliv, 846, Illustrated with a Photogravure
Portrait of Julius Caesar from the Bust in the British Museum, a Map of
Gaul, Eight Plans, and a few Woodcuts. Price One Guinea net.
Part I. of the work is also published in a separate volume. Svo. 6s. net.
CAESAR'S
CONQUEST OF GAUL
PART 1
CONTAINING A NARRATIVE OF THE CONQUEST AND OF
THE EVENTS WHICH LED UP TO IT
PART II
COMPRISING A SERIES OF ARTICLES ON THE QUESTIONS OF
GALLIC AND GALLO- ROMAN HISTORY, ETHNOLOGICAL,
GEOGRAPHICAL, POLITICAL, MILITARY, ETC., RELATING
to the narrative.
By T. rice holmes
AUTHOR OF "a history OF THE INDIAN MUTINY"
EXTRACTS FROM NOTICES BY THE PRESS.
SPECTATOR.—^' It may be said at once that Mr. Holmes's Conquest oj
Gaul is a masterpiece of sound scholarship and historical appreciation."
ATHENALUM. — " It is difficult to discover any topic of small or great
importance, directly or indirectly connected with the subject, which has not
received adequate treatment. . . . Yet elaborateness has not been achieved at
its usual cost in tediousness. The style is bright and even vivacious throughout,
so that any student who cares for Caesar's campaigns, or for military history at
all, will be able to read with interest to the end. Mr. Holmes has approached
his subject from every point of view, and his treatment of it is strong on most
sides, and really weak on none. It must inspire respect and admiration for its
learning and thoroughness, its acumen, and (if it be viewed as a whole) its
historical impartiality . . . the work is about as complete in its excellence as
work on such a scale can reasonably be expected to be. It will figure for
many years to come as the most prominent and important discussion of the
subject."
SPEAKER. — " The story of these campaigns is told by Mr. Holmes with
a clearness and vigour that surpasses any account yet written in English. Mr.
Holmes is a practised historian ; and his admirable military history will be
read with interest by the general reader and military student no less than by
the professed scholar."
Mr. F. J. Haverfield in ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW.—
" The historical narrative is truly admirable — terse, lucid, vigorous. It ought
some day to be detached from its environment and issued separately as a
companion to its author's excellent account of the Indian Mutiny. Reinforced
by a few additions ... it would at once take rank as the standard English
narrative of Caesar's greatest war. "
Mr. A. G. Peskett in THE CLASSICAL REVIEW.—''! venture to
suggest that this [first] part might with advantage be published in a separate
form ; it would make an excellent book for schoolboys to read in connection
with their study of the text, for it would help them more than any book that I
know to realise the ever-present interest and the military and political signifi-
cance of this great period of Roman expansion. In accuracy it is superior to
Mr. Froude's narrative, and I think it is not inferior to it in style. ... I must
again express the great admiration that I have for the service that he has
rendered to all students of Caesar. His grasp of the whole subject is extra-
ordinarily comprehensive ; he has a considerable knowledge of military science
and military history ; he displays a singular power of acute and penetrating
criticism and a strong faculty of common sense, while the lucidity and vigour
of his style lend a charm even to the least interesting portions of his subject."
NEW YORK NATION— ''Ths narrative . . . while attractive to the
general reader from the vigour of its style, will be found of interest to more
advanced students of the Commentaries. ... Of the dissertations and notes
in Part II. it is not too much to say that they form the best commentary on
Caesar's masterpiece available in any language. . . . He has done for Caesar's
' Gallic War' what Mr. J. G. Frazer lately did for Pausanias."
Prof. B. KuBLER in DEUTSCHE LITTERATURZEITUNG.—''ThQ
book contains such an abundance of material, thoroughly worked up, that one
can only hope that it may be translated into German as soon as possible,
and placed in the library of every classical school, so that it may come into
the hands of the teachers who have to explain the Bellum Gallicttin." ("das
Buch enthalt eine solche Fulle griindlich verarbeiteten Materials, dass man nur
wlinschen kann, es mochte baldigst ins Deutsche iibersetzt und an alien
Gymnasialbibliotheken angeschafft werden, damit es in die Hiinde der Lehrer
gelange, die das Bellum Gallicum zu erkliiren haben.")
Dr. H. Meusel in BERLINER PHILOLOGTSCHE WOCHEN-
SCHRIFT. — "But these errors are insignificant ; the work as a whole is a
valuable enrichment of Caesarian literature." (" Doch alles das sind unbedeu-
tende Mangel ; das Werk als Ganzes ist eine wertvolle Bereicherung der
Casarlitteratur. ")
Dr. R. Menge in NEUE PHILOLOGISCHE RUNDSCHAU.— ''T\i&
author has earned by his work the gratitude not only of all friends of Caesar
but also of all investigators in the same field." ("Der Verf. hat sich mit
seinem Werke den Dank nicht nur aller Casarfreunde, sondern auch aller
Forscher auf diesem Gebiete verdient.")
M. L. Laurand in REVUE DE PHILOLOGIE.—"\]ne premiere
partie contient un recit fort vivant de la guerre des Gaules . . . toujours on le
lit avec profit. Son livre est le commentaire historique le plus complet de
I'oeuvre de Cesar . . . tous ceux qui veulent comprendre Cesar feront bien de
I'etudier."
Prof. Camille Jullian in REVUE HISTORIQUE.— '']e regrette
de n'avoir dit plus tot tout le bien que je pense du livre de M. Rice Holmes.
Veritablement, c'est una encyclopedic complete, exacte, judicieuse de tout ce
qui a pu etre ecrit sur la guerre des Gaules ... la maniere dont M. H. juge
ses devanciers et appuie ses hypotheses fait reconnaitre en lui un veritable
temperament d'historien." (.
The two following reviews by specialists relate only to the
essay on " The Ethnology of Gaul " : —
M. L. Raveneau in ANN ALES DE oAOGRAPHIE.-'' Cet important
ouvrage. ... La geographic est surtout representee par un excellent
chapitre : The Ethnology of Ganl" [AXso by a section devoted exclusively to
geography].
M. BOULE in L'ANTHROPOLOGIE.—'' L'auteur a eu I'heureusc idee, en
effet, de consacrer 80 pages de son livre a une Ethnologie de la Gaule, pour
laquelle il a puise aux sources les plus nombreuses et les plus sures, maniant la
bibliographic anthropologiquc et archeologique avec la meme aisance que la
bibliographic historique ou les textes anciens . . . ces divers problemes, traites
avec methode et, ce qui est assez rare en pareille matiere, avec clarte. Son
travail est une oeuvre de synthesc qui se fait remarquer par un excellent esprit
critique . . . nos lecteurs sont prevenus qu'ils auront a la fois plaisir et interet
a le lire."
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