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A  fflSTORT 


SEPOY  ¥AB  IN  INDIA. 


1857—1858. 


JOHN  WnilAM  KATE, 

ACTHOB  OF  THI  "EI3T0III  OF  TBI  VAK  IN  AFOBAinBTlII." 


IK  THBEE  VOLUUEa 

VOL.  I.  /§M 

m 


LONDON ; 
W.  H.  ALLEK  &  CO.,  13,  WATERLOO  PLACE. 

MDCCCLXIV, 


A  fflSTORY 

SEPOY  WAR  IN  INDIA. 

1857—1858. 


JOHN  WILIIAM  KATE, 

AOIBOB  fa  IHI  "aUTOKT  OF  TBI  VAR  IK  IFOHAKUIAN." 


IN  THREE  TOLUUES. 
VOL.   I. 


'vX*\ 


LONDON: 
W.  H.  AIjLEN  &  CO.,  13,  WATERLOO  PLACE. 

MDCCCLXIT. 


[Tic  Kglil  (/  TratulelioH  nterred.} 

22L.   i.   4/S'. 


f 


I    SHOULD    HAVE    DEDICATED 


THESE  VOLXJMES 


to 


LOKD    CANNING, 


HAD  HX  LnrxD; 


I  NOW  INSCRIBE  THEM  BEYERENTIALLT 

TO  HIS  MEMORY. 


CONTENTS  OF  VOL  I. 


PAQB 


BOOK  I.— INTEODFCTORY. 
CHAPTEKI. 

THE  CONQUEST  OP  THE  PUNJAB  AND  PEGU. 

The  Administration  of  Lord  Dalhousie — His  Farewell  Minute— Re- 
trospect of  the  First  Sikh  War— The  Military  Occupation  of  the 
Punjab— The  Council  of  Regency— The  Second  Sikh  War— The 
Annexation  of  the  Punjab — Its  Administration  under  the  Law- 
rences— ^The  Conquest  of  Pegu 1 

CHAPTER  II. 

THE   "bight  op  LAPSE." 

The  Administration  of  Lord  Dalhousie — Adoption — ^The  "  Right  of 
Lapse" — Sattarah — Naf^pore — Jhansi — Kerowlee — The  Camatio 
— ^Tanjore — The  Case  of  the  Peishwah — Dundoo  Punt,  Nana  Sahib 
— Sumbhulpore 69 

CHAPTER  III. 

the  annexation  op  oude. 

The  Annexation  of  Oude— -Early  History  of  tlie  Province — The 
Treaty  of  1801— Effects  of  the  Double  Government— Creation  of 
the  Kingsliip — Progress  of  Misrule — Repeated  Warnings — The 
Unratified  Treaty — Colonel  Sleeman's  Reports — Lord  Dalhousic's 
Minute — Views  of  the  Court  of  Directors — Sir  James  Outram 
Resident — Annexation  proclaimed 112 


VI  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

PBOGKESS  07  ENGLISHISM. 


PAGE 


Destraction  of  the  Native  Aristocracj — ^Retrospect  of  Ee?enue 
Administration— The  Settlement  of  the  North-West  Provinces — 
The  Ousting  of  the  Talookhdars — ^Resumption  Operations — ^The 
Inam  Commission — Decay  of  Priestly  Power— Social  Reforms — 
Moral  and  Material  Progress 153 


BOOK  II.— THE  SEPOY  ARMY :  ITS  RISE,  PROGRESS, 

AND  DECLINE. 

CHAPTER  I. 

EARLY  HISTOBT  OF  THE  NATIVE  AEMT. 

The  Sepoy  Army  of  the  Company — Its  Rise  and  Progress— The  First 
Mutiny  in  Bengal — Deteriorating  Influences — Degradation  of  the 
Native  Officer — ^The  Reorganisation  of  1796 — Progress  of  Innova- 
tion—The Mutiny  of  Vellore  —  Later  Signs  of  Disaffection- 
Causes  of  the  Mutiny 201 

CHAPTER  n. 

DETERIOBATINO  INFLUENCES. 

Subsidenee  of  Alarm— The  Soldier  in  England  and  in  India — ^The 
Sepoy  and  his  Officer — ^Deteriorating  Influences — ^The  Drainage  of 
the  Staff*— Progress  of  Centralisation — ^The  Reorganisation  of  1824 
— ^The  Barrackpore  Mutiny — The  Half-Batta  Order— Abolition  of 
Corporal  Punishment 258 

CHAPTER  lU. 

THE  SINDH  ICUTINDSS. 

The  War  in  Afghanistan— Pernicious  Effects  of  Defeat^The  An- 
nexation of  Scinde— Results  of  Extension  of  Empire — ^Tlie  Indus 
Allowances — ^Mutiny  of  the  Thirty-fourth  Regiment — Embarrass- 
ments of  Government — Tlie  March  of  the  Sixty-fourth — Mutiny 
at  Shikarpore — Disaffection  in  the  Madras  Army ....    274 


CONTENTS.  Vll 

CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  PUNJAB  MUTINIES. 

PAGB 

The  War  on  the  Satlej — The  Fatna  Conspiracy — Attempt  to  Corrupt 
the  Sepoys  at  Dinapore — The  Occupation  of  the  Punjab — ^An- 
nexation and  its  Effects — Reduction  of  the  Sepoy's  Pay— The 
Mutinies  at  Rawul  Pindee  and  Govindghor — ^Lord  Dalhousie  and 
Sir  Charles  Napier 303 

CHAPTER  V. 

DISCIPLINE  OP  THE  BENGAL  ABMT. 

Character  of  the  Bengal  Sepoy — Conflicting  Opinions— Caste— The 
Seniority  System — ^The  Officering  of  the  Army — Regular  and  Irre- 
gular Regiments — ^Want  of  Europeans — ^The  Crimean  War— Indian 
Public  Opinion — Summary  of  Deteriorating  Influences         .        .    324 


BOOK  in.— THE  OFTBBBAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

CHAPTER  I. 

LORD  CANNING  AND  HIS  COUNCIL. 

Departure  of  Lord  Dalhousie — His  Cliaracter — ^The  Question  of  Suc- 
cession— Arrival  of  Lord  Canning — His  Early  Career— Commence- 
ment of  his  Administration — His  Fellow-Councillors — General  Low 
— Mr.  Dorin — ^Mr.  Grant — Mr.  Barnes  Peacock — ^The  Commander- 
in-Chief 353 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  DUDE  ADBONISTBATION  AND  THE   PERSIAN  WAB. 

Lord  Canning's  First  Year — The  Oude  Commission — Wajid  Ali  and 
the  Embassy  to  England — The  Persian  War— The  Question  of 
Command — James  Outram — Central-Asian  Policy — Dost  Mahomed 
— John  Lawrence  and  Herbert  Edwardes  at  Peshawur — Henry  Law- 
rence in  Lucknow 395 


•  •  * 


Vm  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  in. 

TH£  RISING  OP  THE  8T0BM. 

PAUE 

Lord  Canning  and  the  Anny— The  Call  for  "  More  Officers"— Dread 
of  the  Black  Water— The  (General  Service  Enlistment  Act— Anxie- 
ties and  Alarms — Missionary  Efforts — ^Proselytising  Officers — ^Poli- 
tical Inquietudes— The  Prophecy  of  Fifty-seven  .  .455 

CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  FIRST  MUTINY. 

The  new  Rifled  Musket— The  Story  of  the  Greased  Cartridges— 
Dum-Dum  and  Barrackpore — Excitement  in  the  Native  Regiments 
— Events  at  Berhampore — ^Mutiny  of  the  Nineteenth  Regiment — 
Conduct  of  Colonel  Mitchell 487 

CHAPTER  V. 

PROGRESS  or  MIJTINT. 

Causes  of  delayed  Action— The  Government  and  the  Departments — 
Investigation  of  the  Cartridge  Question— Progress  of  Disaffection 
at  Barrackpore  —  The  Story  of  Mungul  Pandy  —  Mutmy  of  the 
Thirty-fourth — Disbandment  of  the  Nineteenth    •        .        .        .510 

CHAPTER  VI. 

EXCITEMENT  IN  UPPER  INDIA. 

Progress  of  Alarm — ^The  Panic  at  Umballali— General  Anson  and 
the  Rifle  Dep6ts — Incendiary  Fires— General  Barnard — Events  at 
Meerut — The  Bone-dust  Flour— The  Story  of  the  Chupatties— 
Intrigues  of  the  Nana  Sahib 548 

CHAPTER  VII. 

BURSTING  OP  THE  STORM. 

The  Month  of  May — General  Survey  of  Affairs— State  of  Feeling  at 
the  Rifle  Dep6ts— The  Rising  Storm  in  Oude— The  Revolt  at 
Meerut— -The  Seizure  of  Delhi — ^Measures  of  Lord  Canning — The 
Gall  for  Succours 581 

Appendix 619 


PREFACE. 


It  was  not  without  much  hesitation  that  I  under- 
took to  write  this  narrative  of  the  events,  which  have 
imparted  so  painful  a  celebrity  to  the  years  1857-58, 
and  left  behind  them  such  terrible  remembrances. 
Publicly  and  privately  I  had  been  frequently  urged 
to  do  80,  before  I  could  consent  to  take  upon  myself 
a  responsibility,  which  could  not  sit  lightly  on  any 
one  capable  of  appreciating  the  magnitude  of  the 
events  themselves  and  of  the  many  grave  questions 
which  they  suggested.  If,  indeed,  it  had  not  been 
that,  in  course  of  time,  I  found,  either  actually  in 
my  hands  or  within  my  reach,  materials  of  history 
such  as  it  was  at  least  improbable  that  any  other 
writer  could  obtain,  I  should  not  have  ventured  upon 
so  difficult  a  task.  But  having  many  important 
collections  of  papers  in  my  possession,  and  having 
received  promises  of  further  assistance  from  surviv- 
ing axjtors  in  the  scenes  to  be  described,  I  felt  that, 
though  many  might  write  a  better  history  of  the 
Sepoy  War,  no  one  could  write  a  more  trutliful  one. 


X  PREFACE. 

So,  relying  on  these  external  advantages  to  com- 
pensate all  inherent  deficiencies,  I  commenced  what 
I  knew  must  be  a  labour  of  years,  but  what  I  felt 
would  be  also  a  labour  of  love.  My  materials  were 
too  ample  to  be  otherwise  than  most  sparingly  dis- 
played. The  prodigal  citation  of  authorities  has  its 
advantages;  but  it  encumbers  the  text,  it  impedes 
the  narrative,  and  swells  to  inordinate  dimensions 
the  record  of  historical  events.  On  a  former  occa- 
sion, when  I  laid  before  the  public  an  account  of  a 
series  of  important  transactions,  mainly  derived  from 
original  documents,  pubUc  and  private,  I  quoted 
those  documents  freely  both  in  the  text  and  in  the 
notes.  As  I  was  at  that  time  wholly  unknown  to 
the  public,  it  was  necessary  that  I  should  cite  chapter 
and  verse  to  obtain  credence  for  my  statements. 
There  was  no  ostensible  reason  why  I  should  have 
known  more  about  those  transactions  than  any  other 
writer  (for  it  was  merely  the  accident  of  private 
fnendships  and  associations  that  placed  such  pro. 
fuse  materials  in  my  possession),  and  it  seemed  to  be 
imperative  upon  me  therefore  to  produce  my  cre- 
dentials. But,  believing  that  this  necessity  no  longer 
exists,  I  have  in  the  present  work  abstained  from 
adducing  my  authorities,  for  the  mere  purpose  of 
substantiating  my  statements.  I  have  quoted  the 
voluminous  correspondence  in  my  possession  only 
where  there  is  some  dramatic  force  and  propriety  in 
the  words  cited,  or  when  they  appear  calculated, 
without  impeding  the  narrative,  to  give  colour  and 
vitality  to  the  story. 

And  here  I  may  observe  that,  as  on  former  occa- 
sions, the  historical  materials  which  I  have  moulded 
into  this  narrative  are  rather  of  a  private  than  of 
a  public   character.      I   have  made  but  little   use 


PREFACE.  XI 

of  recorded  official  documents.  I  do  not  mean 
that  access  to  such  documents  has  not  been  ex- 
tremely serviceable  to  me;  but  that  it  has  rather 
afforded  the  means  of  verifying  or  correcting  state- 
ments received  from  other  sources  than  it  has  sup- 
plied me  with  original  materials.  So  far  aa  respects 
the  accumulation  of  facts,  this  History  would  have 
differed  but  slightly  from  what  it  is,  if  I  had  never 
passed  the  door  of  a  public  office;  and,  generally, 
the  same  may  be  said  of  the  opinions  which  I 
have  Expressed.  Those  opinions,  whether  sound  or 
unsound,  are  entirely  my  own  personal  opinions- 
opinions  in  many  instances  formed  long  ago,  and 
confirmed  by  later  events  and  more  mature  consi- 
deration. No  one  but  myself  is  responsible  for  them ; 
no  one  else  is  in  any  way  identified  with  them.  In 
the  wide  range  of  inquiry  embraced  by  the  considera- 
tion  of  the  manifold  causes  of  the  great  convulsion  of 
1857,  almost  every  grave  question  of  Indian  govern- 
ment and  administration  presses  forward,  with  more 
or  less  importunity,  for  notice.  Where,  on  many 
points,  opinions  widely  differ,  and  the  policy,  which 
is  the  practical  expression  of  them,  takes  various 
shapes,  it  is  a  necessity  that  the  writer  of  cotempo- 
rary  history,  in  the  exercise  of  independent  thought, 
should  find  himself  dissenting  from  the  doctrines  and 
disapproving  the  actions  of  some  authorities,  living 
and  dead,  who  are  worthy  of  all  admiration  and  re- 
spect. It  is  fortunate,  when,  as  in  the  present  in- 
stance, this  difference  of  opinion  involves  no  diminu- 
tion of  esteem,  and  the  historian  can  discern  worthy 
motives,  and  benevolent  designs,  and  generous  striv- 
ings after  good,  in  those  whose  ways  he  may  think 
erroneous  and  whose  course  of  action  he  may  deem 
unwise. 


XU  PREFACE. 

Indeed,  the  errors  of  which  I  have  freely  spoken 
were,  for  the  most  part,  strivings  after  good.  It  was 
in  the  over-eager  pursuit  of  Humanity  and  Civilisa- 
tion that  Indian  sta.tesmen  of  the  new  school  were 
betrayed  into  the  excesses  which  have  been  so  griev- 
ously visited  upon  the  nation.  The  story  of  the 
Indian  Rebellion  of  1857  is,  perhaps,  the  most  signal 
illustration  of  our  great  national  character  ever  yet 
recorded  in  the  annals  of  our  country.  It  was  the 
vehement  self-assertion  of  the  Englishman  that  pro- 
duced this  conflagration  ;  it  was  the  same  vehement 
self-assertion  that  enabled  him,  by  God's  blessing,  to 
trample  it  out.  It  was  a  noble  egotism,  mighty  alike 
in  doing  and  in  suflfering,  and  it  showed  itself  grandly 
capable  of  steadfastly  confronting  the  dangers  which 
it  had  brought  down  upon  itself.  If  I  have  any  pre- 
dominant theory  it  is  this:  Because  we  were  too 
English  the  great  crisis  arose ;  but  it  was  only  be- 
cause we  were  English  that,  when  it  arose,  it  did  not 
utterly  overwhelm  us. 

It  is  my  endeavour,  also,  to  show  how  much  both 
of  the  dangers  which  threatened  British  dominion  in 
the  East,  and  of  the  success  with  which  they  were 
encountered,  is  assignable  to  the  individual  characters 
of  a  few  eminent  men.  With  this  object  I  have  sought 
to  bring  the  reader  face  to  face  with  the  principal 
actors  in  the  events  of  the  Sepoy  War,  and  to  take  a 
personal  interest  in  them.  If  it  be  true  that  the  best 
history  is  that  which  most  nearly  resembles  a  bundle 
of  biographies,  it  is  especially  true  when  said  with 
reference  to  Indian  history ;  for  nowhere  do  the  cha- 
racters of  individual  Englishmen  impress  themselves 
with  a  more  vital  reality  upon  the  annals  of  the 
country  in  which  they  live ;  nowhere  are  there  such 
great  opportunities  of  independent  action ;  nowhere 


PREFACE.  XUl 

are  developed  such  capacities  for  evil  or  for  good,  as 
in  our  great  Anglo-Indian  Empire.    If,  then,  in  such 
a  work  as  this,  the  biographical  element  were  not 
prominently  represented — if  the   individualities  of 
such  men  as  Dalhousie  and  Canning,  as  Henry  and 
John  Lawrence,  as  James  Outram,  as  John  Nichol- 
son,  and  Herbert  Edwardes,  were   not  duly  illus- 
trated, there  would  be  not  only  a  cold  and  colourless, 
but  also  an  unfaithful,  picture  of  the  origin  and  pro- 
gress of  the  War.     But  it  is  to  be  remarked  that,  in 
proportion  as  the  individuality  of  the  English  leaders 
is  distinct  and  strongly  marked,  that  of  the  chiefs  of 
the  insurrectionary  movement  is  faint  and  undecided. 
In  the  fact  of  this  contrast  we  see  the  whole  history 
of  the  success  which,  by  God's  providence,  crowned 
the  efforts  of  our  countrymen.     If  the  individual 
energies  of  the  leaders  of  the  revolt  had  been  com- 
mensurate with  the  power  of  the  masses,  we  might 
have  failed  to  extinguish  such  a  conflagration.     But 
the  whole  tendency  of  the  English  system  had  been 
to  crush  out  those  energies ;  so  again,  I  say,  we  found 
in   the  very  circumstances  which  had  excited  the 
rebellion  the  very  elements  of  our  success  in  sup- 
pressing it.     Over  the  Indian  Dead  Level  which  that 
system  had  created,  the  English  heroes  marched  tri- 
umphantly to  victory. 

In  conclusion,  I  have  only  to  express  my  obliga- 
tions to  those  who  have  enabled  me  to  write  this 
History  by  supplying  me  with  the  materials  of  which 
it  is  composed.  To  the  executors  of  the  late  Lord 
Canning,  who  placed  in  my  hands  the  private  and 
demi-official  correspondence  of  the  deceased  states- 
man, extending  over  the  whole  term  of  his  Indian 
administration,  I  am  especially  indebted.  To  Sir 
John  Lawrence  and  Sir  Herbert  Edwardes,  who  hav6 


XIV  PREFACE. 

furnished  me  Avith  the  most  valuable  matmals  for 
my  narrative  of  the  rising  in  the  Punjab  and  the 
measures  taken  in  that  province  for  the  re-capture  of 
Delhi ;  to  the  family  of  the  late  Colonel  Baird  Smith, 
for  many  interesting  papers  illustrative  of  the  opera- 
tions of  the  great  siege ;  to  Sir  James  Outram,  who 
gave  me  before  his  death  his  correspondence  relating 
to  the  brilliant  operations  in  Oude;  to  Sir  Robert 
Hamilton,  for  much  valuable  matter  in  elucidation  of 
the  history  of  the  Central  Indian  Campaign ;  and  to 
Mr.  E.  A.  Reade,  whose  comprehensive  knowledge 
of  the  progress  of  events  in  the  North-Westem  Pro- 
vinces has  been  of  material  service  to  me,  my  warmest 
acknowledgments  are  due.  But  to  no  one  am  I 
more  indebted  than  to  Sir  Charles  Wood,  Secretary 
of  State  for  India,  who  has  permitted  me  to  con- 
sult the  official  records  of  his  Department — a  privi- 
lege which  has  enabled  me  to  make  much  better  use 
of  the  more  private  materials  in  my  possession.  No 
one,  however,  can  know  better  or  feel  more  strongly 
than  myself,  that  much  matter  of  interest  contained 
in  the  multitudinous  papers  before  me  is  unrepre- 
sented in  my  narrative.  But  such  omissions  are  the 
necessities  of  a  history  so  full  of  incident  as  this.  If 
I  had  yielded  to  the  temptation  to  use  my  illustrative 
materials  more  freely,  I  should  have  expanded  this 
work  beyond  aU  acceptable  limits. 

London,  Octoberi  1864. 


ADVERTISEMENT  TO  VOL.  I. 


I  MAY  say  here  a  few  words  about  the  general  de- 
sign of  this  work,  and  the  course  which  the  narrative 
is  to  take.  The  story  is  to  be  comprised  in  Nine 
Books,  making  three  volumes.  In  the  first  of  these 
volumes,  now  oflfered  to  the  public,  I  have  written 
of  the  antecedents  of  the  mutiny  of  the  Bengal  Army. 
I  have  touched  upon  the  principal  political  events,  and 
upon  the  social  and  material  progress,  of  the  ten  years 
which  preceded  the  outburst ;  I  have  traced  the  his- 
tory of  the  Bengal  Army  from  its  formation  to  the 
close  of  Lord  Dalhousie's  administration ;  and  I  have 
written  in  detail  of  the  first  year  of  Lord  Canning's 
government  and  of  the  earlier  incidents  of  the  mutiny, 
up  to  the  period  of  the  outbreak  at  Meerut  and  the 
seizure  of  Delhi.  It  is  intended  that  the  second 
volume  shall  contain  an  account  of  the  progress  of 
mutiny  and  rebellion  in  the  North- Western  Pro- 
vinces, of  the  mutiny  in  the  Punjab,  of  the  rebel- 
lion in  Oude,  of  the  rising  in  Behar,  of  the  in- 
surrection in  the  Southern  Mahratta  country,  of  the 
siege  and  capture  of  Delhi,  and  of  the  first  relief  of 
Lucknow.  The  third  volume  will,  God  willing,  com- 
prise a  narrative  of  the  operations  of  the  army  under 
Sir  Colin  Campbell,  of  the  recovery  of  Oude,  of  the 
campaign  in  Central  India,  and  finally  of  those  mea- 
sures by  which,  upon  the  re-establishment  of  British 
authority  all  over  the  country,  Lord  Canning  sought 
to  restore  confidence  to  the  princes  and  people  of 
India,  and  general  prosperity  to  the  land. 


•  .  .  Foe  to  tuikk  that  an  handpul  of  people  cak,  with  the 
obeatest  cou&aob  and  pouct  in  the  world,  embbace  too  large  ex- 
tent of  dominion,  it  mat  hold  por  a  time,  but  it  will  pail  suddenly. 


...  As  POR  MERCENARY  POBCES  (WHICH  IS  THE  HELP  IN  THIS  CASE), 
ALL  EXAMPLES  SHOW  THAT,  WHATSOEVER  ESTATE,  OR  PRINCE,  DOTH  REST 
UPON  THEM,  HE  MAY  SPBEAD  HIS  FEATHERS  FOR  A  TIME,  BUT  HE  WILL  MEW 
THEM  SOON  AFTER. — JktCOn. 


If  THERE  BE  FUEL  PREPARED,  IT  IS  HARD  TO  TELL  WHENCE  THE  SPARK 
SHALL  COME  THAT  SHALL  SET  IT  ON  FIRE.  ThE  MATTER  OF  SEDITIONS  IS  OF 
TWO  KINDS,  MUCH  POYERTY  AND  MUCH  DISCONTENTMENT.  It  IB  CERTAIN, 
80  MANY  OVERTHROWN  ESTATES,  SO  MANY  VOTES  FOR  TROUBLES.  .  .  .  ThE 
CAUSESiAND  MOTIVES  FOR  SEDITION  ARE,  INNOVATIONS  IN  RELIGION,  TAXES, 
ALTERATION  OF  LAWS  AND  CUSTOMS,  BREAKING  OF  PRIVILEGES,  GENERAL 
OPPRESSION,  ADVANCEMENT  OF  UNWORTHY  PERSONS,  STRANGERS,  DEATHS, 
DISBANDED  SOLDIERS,  FACTIONS  GROWN  DESPERATE ;  AND  WHATSOEVER  IN 
OFFENDING  PEOPLE  JOINETH  AND  KNITTETH  THEM  IN  A  COMMON  CAUSE. — 
BaCOM, 


HISTORY  OF  THE  SEPOY  WAR. 


BOOK  I.— INTEODUCTOET. 

[1846—1856.] 

CHAPTER  I. 

THB  ja)Xnri8TBATI0K  07  LOBD  DALHOUSIE — HIS  TARtWELL  lOKUTE — 
RETBOBFECT  OP  THE  FIB8T  SIKH  WAB — THE  MILITABT  OCCUPATION  OF 
THE  PUHJAB — THE  C017KCIL  OP  BEGENCT — TBE  SECOND  SIKH  WAB— 
THE  ANNEXATION  07  THE  PUNJAB — ITS  ADMINISTBATION  XTNDEE  THE 
LAWBENGBS— THE  CONQUEST  07  PEGU. 

Broken  in  bodily  health,  but  not  enfeebled  in  spirit, 
by  eight  years  of  anxious  toil,  beneath  an  Indian 
sun,  Lord  Dalhousie  laid  down  the  reins  of  govern- 
ment and  returned  to  his  native  country  to  die.  Since 
the  reign  of  Lord  Wellesley,  so  great  in  written  history, 
so  momentous  in  practical  results,  there  had  been 
no  such  administration  as  that  of  Lord  Dalhousie; 
there  had  been  no  period  in  the  annals  of  the  Anglo- 
Indian  Empire  surcharged  with  such  great  political 
events,  none  which  nearly  approached  it  in  the  rapidity 
of  its  administrative  progress.  Peace  and  War  had 
yielded  their  fruits  with  equal  profusion. 

On  the  eve  of  resigning  his  high  trust  to  the  hands 
of  another,  Lord  Dalhousie  drew  up  an  elaborate  state- 

B 


1$5«« 


2  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

1856.  paper  reviewing  the  eventful  years  of  his  government 
He  had  reason  to  rejoice  in  the  retrospect ;  for  he  had 
acted  in  accordance  with  the  faith  that  was  within 
him,  honestly  and  earnestly  working  out  his  cherished 
principles,  and  there  was  a  bright  flush  of  success 
over  all  the  apparent  result.  Peace  and  prosperity 
smiled  upon  the  empire.  That  empire  he  had  vastly 
extended,  and  by  its  extension  he  beliieved  that  he 
had  consolidated  our  rule  and  imparted  additional 
security  to  our  tenure  of  the  country. 

Of  these  great  successes  some  account  should  be 
given  at  the  outset  of  such  a  narrative  as  this ;  for  it 
is  only  by  understanding  and  appreciating  them  that 
we  can  rightly  estimate  the  subsequent  crisis.  It  was 
in  the  Punjab  and  in  Oude  that  many  of  the  most 
important  incidents  of  that  crisis  occurred.  Lord 
Dalhousie  found  them  Foreign  States ;  he  left  them 
British  Provinces. 


184^5-46.  Lord  Hardinge  conquered  the  Sikhs ;  but  he  spared 
First  occupa-  the  Punjab.  Moderate  in  victory  as  resolute  in  war, 
pSnab^^*^  he  left  the  empire  of  Runjeet  Singh,  shorn  only  of  its 
outlying  provinces,  to  be  governed  by  his  successors, 
and  strove  to  protect  the  boy-prince  against  the  law- 
lessness of  his  own  soldiers.  But  it  was  felt  that  this 
forbearance  was  only  an  experimental  forbearance; 
and  the  proclamation  which  announced  the  restora- 
tion of  the  Punjab  to  the  Maharajah  Duleep  Singh 
soimded  also  a  note  of  warning  to  the  great  military 
autocrasy  which  had  well-nigh  overthrown  the  State. 
"  If  this  opportimity,"  said  the  victor,  "  of  rescuing 
the  Sikh  nation  from  military  anarchy  and  misrule  be 
neglected,  and  hostUe  opposition  to  the  British  army 
be  renewed,  the  Government  of  India  will  make  such 


THE  MiUTART  OCCUPATION  OF  LAHORE.  3 

other  arrangements  for  the  future  government  of  the  1846. 
Punjab  Bs  the  interests  and  security  of  the  British 
power  may  render  just  and  expedient."  Thus  was  the 
doubt  expressed;  thus  were  the  consequences  fore- 
shadowed. It  did  not  seem  likely  that  the  experi- 
ment would  succeed;  but  it  was  not  less  right  to 
make  it.  It  left  the  future  destiny  of  the  empire, 
under  Providence,  for  the  Sikhs  themselves  to  deter- 
mine. It  taught  them  how  to  preserve  their  national 
independence,  and  left  them  to  work  out  the  problem 
with  their  own  hands. 

But  Hardinge  did  more  than  this.  He  did  not 
interfere  with  the  internal  administration,  but  he  esta- 
blished a  powerful  military  protectorate  in  the  Punjab. 
He  left  the  Durbar  to  govern  the  country  after  its 
own  fashion,  but  he  protected  the  Government  against 
the  lawless  domination  of  its  soldiery.  The  Sikh  army 
was  overawed  by  the  presence  of  the  British  battalions ; 
and  if  the  hour  had  produced  the  man — ^if  there  had 
been  any  wisdom,  any  love  of  country,  in  the  coimcils 
of  the  nation — the  Sikh  Empire  might  have  survived 
the  great  peril  of  the  British  military  protectorate. 
But  there  was  no  one  worthy  to  rule ;  no  one  able  to 
govern.  The  mother  of  the  young  Maharajah  was 
nominally  the  Regent.  There  have  been  great  queens 
in  the  East  as  in  the  West — ^women  who  have  done 
for  their  people  what  men  have  been  incapable  of 
doing.  But  the  mother  of  Duleep  Singh  was  not  one 
of  these.  To  say  that  she  loved  herself  better  than 
her  country  is  to  use  in  courtesy  the  mildest  words, 
which  do  not  actually  violate  truth.  She  was,  indeed, 
an  evil  presence  in  the  nation.  It  rested  with  her  to 
choose  a  minister,  and  the  choice  which  she  made  was 
another  great  suicidal  blow  struck  at  the  life  of  the 
Sikh  Empire.     It  may  have  been  difficult  in  this 

B  2 


i 


4  TIIE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

1 S4G.  emergency  to  select  the  right  man,  for,  in  truth,  there 
were  not  many  wise  men  £rom  whom  a  selection  could 
be  made.  The  Queen-Mother  cut  through  the  difficulty 
by  selecting  her  paramour. 

Lai  Singh  was  unpopular  with  the  Durbar;  un- 
popular with  the  people ;  and  he  failed.  He  might 
have  been  an  able  and  an  honest  man,  and  yet  have 
been  found  wanting  in  such  a  conjuncture.  But  he 
was  probably  the  worst  man  in  the  Punjab  on  whom 
the  duty  of  reconstructing  a  strong  Sikh  Government 
could  have  devolved.  To  do  him  justice,  there  were 
great  difficulties  in  his  way.  He  had  to  replenish  an 
exhausted  treasury  by  a  course  of  unpopular  retrench- 
ments. Troops  were  to  be  disbanded  and  Jagheers 
resumed.  Lai  Singh  was  not  the  man  to  do  this,  as 
one  bowing  to  a  painful  necessity,  and  sacrificing 
himself  to  the  exigencies  of  the  State.  Even  in  a  coun- 
try where  political  virtue  was  but  little  understood, 
a  course  of  duty  consistentiy  pursued  for  the  benefit 
of  the  nation  might  have  ensured  for  him  some  sort 
of  respect.  But  whilst  he  was  impoverishing  others, 
he  was  enriching  himself  It  was  not  the  public 
treasury,  but  the  private  purse  that  he  sought  to  re- 
plenish, and  better  men  were  despoiled  to  satisfy  the 
greed  of  his  hungry  relatives  and  friends.  Vicious 
among  the  vicious,  he  lived  but  for  the  indulgence  of 
his  own  appetites,  and  ruled  but  for  his  own  aggran- 
disement. The  favourite  of  the  Queen,  he  was  the 
oppressor  of  the  People.  And  though  he  tried  to 
dazzle  his  British  guests  by  rare  displays  of  courtesy 
towards  them,  and  made  himself  immensely  popular 
among  all  ranks  of  the  Army  of  Occupation  by  his 
incessant  effi^rts  to  gratify  them,  he  could  not  hide  the 
one  great  patent  fact,  that  a  strong  Sikh  Government 


TUB  FALL  OF  LAL  SINCH.  5 

could  never  be  established  under  the  wuzeerat  of  Lai     184G. 
Singh. 

But  the  Britiflh  were  not  responsible  for  the  failure; 
The  Regent  chose  him ;  and,  bound  by  treaty  not  to 
exercise  any  interference  in  the  internal  administra- 
tion of  the  Lahore  State,  the  British  Government  had 
only  passively  to  ratify  the  choice.  But  it  was  a  state 
of  things  burdened  with  evils  of  the  most  obtrusive 
kind.  We  were  upholding  an  unprincipled  ruler  and 
an  unprincipled  minister  at  the  point  of  our  British 
bayonets,  and  thus  aiding  them  to  commit  iniquities 
which,  without  such  external  support,  they  would 
not  have  long  been  suflfered  to  perpetrate.  The  com- 
pact, however,  was  but  for  the  current  year;  and 
even  for  that  brief  period  there  seemed  but  little  pro- 
bability of  Lai  Singli  tiding  over  the  difficulties  and 
dangers  which  beset  his  position. 

Very  8oon  his  treachery  undid  him.  False  to  his 
own  country,  he  was  false  ako  to  the  British  Govern- 
ment The  province  of  Cashmere,  which  was  one  of 
the  outlying  dependencies  taken  by  the  British  in  pay- 
ment of  the  war-charges,  had  been  made  over  to  Gholab 
Singh,  chief  of  the  great  Jummoo  family,  who  had 
paid  a  million  of  money  for  the  cession.  But  the 
transfer  had  been  resisted  by  the  local  governor,  who 
had  ruled  the  province  under  the  Sikh  Rajahs,  and 
covertly  Lai  Singh  had  encouraged  the  resistance. 
The  nominal  offender  was  brought  to  public  trial,  but  Dec.  18 40. 
it  was  felt  that  the  real  criminal  was  Lai  Singh,  and 
that  upon  the  issue  of  the  inquiry  depended  the  fate 
of  the  minister.  It  was  soon  apparent  that  he  was  a 
traitor,  and  that  the  other,  though  for  intelligible 
reasons  of  his  own,  reluctant  to  render  an  account  of 
his  stewardship,  was  little  more  than  a  tool  in  his 


6  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

1846.  hands.  The  disgrace  of  the  minister  was  the  im- 
mediate result  of  the  investigation.  He  left  the  Durbar 
tent  a  prisoner  under  a  guard,  an  hour  before  his  own 
body-guard,  of  Sikh  soldiers ;  and  the  great  seal  of  the 
Maharajah  was  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  British 
Resident.  So  fell  Lai  Singh ;  and  so  fell  also  the  first 
experiment  to  reconstruct  a  strong  Sikh  Government 
on  a  basis  of  national  independence. 

Another  experiment  was  then  to  be  tried.  There 
was  not  a  native  of  the  country  to  whose  hands  the 
destinies  of  the  empire  could  be  safely  entrusted.  If 
the  power  of  the  English  conqueror  were  demanded 
to  overawe  the  turbulent  military  element,  English 
wisdom  aiid  English  integrity  were  no  less  needed,  in 
that  conjuncture,  to  quicken  and  to  purify  the  corrupt 
councils  of  the  State.  Sikh  statesmanship,  protected 
against  the  armed  violence  of  the  PraBtorian  bands, 
which  had  overthrown  so  many  ministries,  had  been 
fairly  tried,  and  had  been  found  miserably  wanting. 
A  purely  native  Government  was  not  to  be  hazarded 
again.  Averse  as  Hardinge  had  been,  and  stiU  was, 
to  sanction  British  interference  in  the  internal  ad- 
ministration of  the  Punjab,  there  was  that  in  the  com- 
plications before  him  which  compelled  him  to  over- 
come his  reluctance.  The  choice,  indeed,  lay  between 
a  half  measure,  which  might  succeed,  though  truly 
there  was  small  hope  of  success,  and  the  total  abandon- 
ment of  the  country  to  its  own  vices,  which  would 
have  been  speedily  followed,  in  self-defence,  by  our 
direct  assumption  of  the  Government  on  our  own 
account  Importuned  by  the  Sikh  Durbar,  in  the 
name  of  the  Maharajah,  Hardinge  tried  the  former 
course.  The  next  effort,  therefore,  to  save  the  Sikh 
Empire  from  self-destruction,  embraced  the  idea  of  a 
native  Government,  presided  over  by  a  British  states- 


HENRT  LAWRENCE.  7 

man.     A  Council  of  Regency  was  instituted,  to  be     1846. 
^composed  of  Sikh  chiefe,  under  the  superintendence 
and  control  of  the  Resident ;  or,  in  other  words,  the 
British   Resident  became  the  virtual  ruler  of  the 
country. 

And  this  time  the  choice,  or  rather  the  accident,  of 
the  man  was  as  propitious,  as  before  it  had  been 
untoward  and  perverse.  The  English  officer  possessed 
well-nigh  all  the  qualities  which  the  Sikh  Sirdar  so 
deplorably  lacked.  A  captain  of  the  Bengal  Artillery, 
holding  the  higher  rank  of  colonel  by  brevet  for  good 
service,  Henry  Lawrence  had  graduated  in  Punjabee 
diplomacy  under  George  Clerk,  and  had  accompanied 
to  Caubul  the  Sikh  Contingent,  attached  to  Pollock's  1842. 
retributory  force,  combating  its  dubious  fidelity,  and 
controlling  its  predatory  excesses  on  the  way.  After 
the  return  of  the  expedition  to  the  British  provinces, " 
he  had  been  appointed  to  represent  our  interests  in 
Nepaul ;  and  there — ^for  there  was  a  lull  in  the  san- 
guinary intrigues  of  that  semi-barbarous  Court— im- 
mersed in  his  books,  and  turning  to  good  literary  pur- 
pose his  hours  of  leisure,  he  received  at  Catamandoo 
intelligence  of  the  Sikh  invasion,  and  of  the  death  of 
George  Broadfoot,  and  was  summoned  to  take  the 
place  of  that  lamented  officer  as  the  agent  of  the 
Governor-General  on  the  frontier.  In  the  negotiations 
which  followed  the  conquest  of  the  Ehalsa  army,  he 
had  taken  the  leading  part,  and,  on  the  restoration  of 
peace,  had  been  appointed  to  the  office  of  British 
Resident,  or  Minister,  at  Lahore,  under  the  first  ex- 
periment of  a  pure  Sikh  Government  hedged  in  by 
British  troops. 

If  the  character  of  the  man  thus  placed  at  the  head 
of  afiairs  could  have  secured  the  success  of  this  great 
compromise,  it  would  have  been  successful  far  beyond 


8  TH£  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

JS40.  i]^Q  expectations  of  its  projectors.  For  no  man  ever 
undertook  a  high  and  ii^portant  trust  with  a  more* 
solemn  sense  of  his  responsibility,  or  ever,  with  more 
singleness  of  purpose  and  more  steadfast  sincerity  of 
heart,  set  himself  to  work,  with  God's  blessing,  to 
turn  a  great  opportunity  to  great  account  for  the 
benefit  of  his  feUows.  In  Henry  Lawrence  a  pure 
transparent  nature,  a  simple  manliness  and  truthful- 
ness of  character,  were  combined  with  high  intel- 
lectual powers,  and  personal  energies  which  nothing 
earthly  could  subdue.  I  may  say  it  here,  once  for 
all,  at  the  very  outset  of  my  story,  that  nowhere  does 
this  natural  simplicity  and  truthfulness  of  character 
so  often  as  in  India  survive  a  long  career  of  public 
service.  In  that  countiy  pubUc  men  are  happay  not 
exposed  to  the  pernicious  influences  which  in  England 
shrivel  them  so  fast  into  party  leaders  and  parUa- 
mentary  chiefs.  With  perfect  singleness  of  aim  and 
pure  sincerity  of  purpose,  they  go,  with  level  eyes, 
straight  at  the  public  good,  never  looking  up  in  fear 
at  the  suspended  sword  of  a  parliamentary  majority, 
and  never  turned  aside  by  that  fear  into  devious  paths 
.  of  trickeiy  and  finesse.  It  may  be  that  ever  since  the 
days  of  Clive  and  Omichund  an  unsavoury  odour  has 
pervaded  the  reputation  of  Oriental  diplomacy ;  but 
the  fact  is,  that  our  greatest  successes  have  been 
achieved  by  men  incapable  of  deceit,  and  by  means 
which  have  invited  scrutiny.  When  we  have  opposed 
craft  to  craft.,  and  have  sought  to  out-juggle  our  op- 
ponents, the  end  has  been  commonly  disastrous.  It 
is  only  by  consummate  honesty  and  transparent  truth- 
fulness that  the  Talleyrands  of  the  East  have  been 
beaten  by  such  mere  children  in  the  world's  ways  as 
Mountstuart  Elphinstone,  Charles  Metcalfe,  James 
Outram,  and  Henry  Lawrence. 


H£NBT  LAWRENCE  9 

Henry  Lawrence,  indeed,  was  wholly  without  guile.  1840. 
He  had  great  shrewdness  and  sagacity  of  character, 
and  he  could  read  and  understand  motives,  to  which 
his  own  breast  was  a  stranger,  for  he  had  studied  well 
the  Oriental  character.  But  he  was  sinffularly  open 
and  unreserved  in  aU  his  deaUngs,  and  would  ralTer 
have  given  his  antagonist  an  advantage  than  have 
condescended  to  any  small  arts  and  petty  trickeries 
to  secure  success.  All  men,  indeed,  trusted  him ;  for 
they  knew  that  there  was  nothing  selfish  or  sordid 
about  him ;  that  the  one  desire  of  his  heart  was  to 
benefit  the  people  of  the  country  in  which  it  had 
pleased  Grod  to  cast  his  lot.  But  he  never  suffered 
this  plea  of  beneficence  to  prevail  against  his  sense  of 

lltcgether  kcapable  of  tL  c^W  which  j^ve. 
a  gloss  of  htunanity  to  self-seeking,  and  robs  people 
for  their  own  good.  He  did  not  look  upon  the  mis- 
government  of  a  native  State  as  a  valid  reason  for  the 
absorption  of  its  revenues,  but  thought  that  British 
power  might  be  exercised  for  the  protection  of  the 
oppressed,  and  British  wisdom  for  the  instruction  and 
reformation  of  their  oppressors,  without  adding  a  few 
more  thousand  square  miles  to  the  area  of  our  British 
possessions,  and  a  few  more  millions  of  people  to  the 
great  muster-roll  of  British  subjects  in  the  East. 

Above  the  middle  height,  of  a  spare,  gaunt  frame, 
and  a  worn  face  bearing  upon  it  the  traces  of  ment^ 
toil  and  bodily  suffering,  he  impressed  you,  at  first 
sight,  rather  with  a  sense  of  masculine  energy  and 
resolution  than  of  any  milder  and  more  endearing 
qualities.  But  when  you  came  to  know  him,  you  saw 
at  once  that  beneath  that  rugged  exterior  there  was  a 
heart  gentie  as  a  woman's,  and  you  recognised  in  his 
words  and  in  his  manner  the  kindliness  of  nature, 


10  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALUOUSIE. 

1846.  which  won  the  affection  of  all  who  came  within  its 
reach,  and  by  its  large  and  liberal  manifestations  made 
his  name  a  very  household  word  with  thousands,  who 
had  never  felt  the  pressure  of  his  hand  or  stood  in  his 
living  presence.  But,  with  all  this,  though  that  name 
was  in  men's  mouths  and  spoken  in  many  languages, 
no  unknown  subaltern  had  a  more  lowly  mind  or  a 
more  unassuming  deportment. 

Such  was  the  man  who  now  found  himself  the 
virtual  sovereign  of  the  empire  of  Runjeet  Singh. 
The  new  protectorate,  established  at  the  end  of  1846, 
gave  to  Henry  Lawrence  "  unlimited  authority,"  "  to 
direct  and  control  every  department  of  the  State." 
He  was  to  be  assisted  in  this  great  work  by  an  efficient 
establishment  of  subordinates,  but  it  was  no  part  of 
the  design  to  confer  upon  them  the  executive  manage- 
ment of  affairs.  The  old  officers  of  the  Sikh  Govern- 
ment were  left  to  carry  on  the  administration,  guided 
and  directed  by  their  British  allies.  Under  such  a 
system  corruption  and  oppression  could  no  longer  run 
riot  over  the  face  of  the  land.  It  was  a  protectorate 
for  the  many,  not  for  the  few;  and  for  a  while  it 
seemed  that  all  classes  were  pleased  with  the  arrange- 
ment. Outwardly,  indeed,  it  did  not  seem  that  feel- 
ings of  resentment  against  the  British  Government 
were  cherished  by  any  persons  but  the  Queen-Mother 
and  her  degraded  paramour. 

1847.  And  so,  in  the  spring  of  1847,  the  political  horizon 
was  almost  unclouded.  The  Council  of  Regency, 
under  the  control  of  Henry  Lawrence,  seemed  to  be 
carrying  on  the  government  with  a  siicere  desire  to 
secure  a  successful  result.  Tranquillity  had  been  re- 
stored; confidence  and  order  were  fast  returning. 
The  Sikh  soldiery  appeared  to  be  contented  with  their 


ELEMENTS  OP  DANGER.  11 

lot,  and  to  be  gradually  acquiring  habits  6f  discipline  1847. 
and  obedience,  under  a  system  which  rendered  them 
dependent  on  the  British  officers  for  whatever  most 
promoted  their  interests  and  contributed  to  their 
comfc»1».  But  it  did  not  escape  the  sagacious  mind 
of  the  Eesident,  that  serene  as  was  the  aspect  of 
affairs,  and  promising  as  were  the  indications  of  con- 
tinued repose,  there  'vC'ere,  beneath  all  this  surface- 
cahn,  dangerous  elements  at  work,  waiting  only  for 
time  and  circumstance  to  call  them  into  full  activity. 
The  memory  of  frequent  defeat  was  still  too  fresh  in 
the  minds  of  the  humbled  Ehalsa  to  suffer  them  to 
indulge  in  visions  of  at  once  re-acquiring  their  lost 
supremacy.  But  as  time  passed  and  the  impression 
waxed  fainter  and  fainter,  it  was  well-nigh  certain 
that  the  old  hopes  would  revive,  and  that  outbursts 
of  desperate  Asiatic  zeal  might  be  looked  for  in 
quarters  where  such  paroxjrsms  had  long  seemed  to 
be  necessary  to  the  very  existence  of  a  lawless  and 
tumultuous  class.  It  is  a  trick  of  our  self-love — of 
our  national  vanity — to  make  us  too  often  delude 
ourselves  with  the  belief  that  British  supremacy  must 
be  welcome  wheresoever  it  obtrudes  itself.  But  Henry 
Lawrence  did  not  deceive  himself  in  this  wise.  He 
frankly  admitted  that,  however  benevolent  our  motives, 
and  however  conciliatory  our  demeanour,  a  British 
army  could  not  garrison  Lahore,  and  a  British  func- 
tionary supersede  the  Sikh  Durbar,  without  exciting 
bitter  discontents  and  perilous  resentments.  He  saw 
around  him,  struggling  for  existence,  so  many  high 
officers  of  the  old  Sikh  armies,  so  many  favourites  of 
the  old  line  of  Wuzeers  now  cast  adrift  upon  the  world, 
without  resources  and  without  hope  under  the  exist- 
ing system,  that  when  he  remembered  their  lawless 


12  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

1S47.  habits,  their  headstrong  folly,  their  desperate  suicidal 
zeal,  he  could  but  wonder  at  the  perfect  peace  which 
then  pervaded  the  land. 

But  whatsoever  might  be  taking  shape  in  the  future, 
the  present  was  a  season  of  prosperity — a  time  of 
promise — and  the  best  uses  were  made  by  the  British 
functionaries  of  the  continued  calm.  Interference  in 
the  civil  administration  of  the  country  was  exercised 
only  when  it  could  be  turned  to  the  very  apparent 
advantage  of  the  people.  British  authority  and  British 
integrity  were  then  employed  in  the  settlement  of 
long-unsettled  districts,  and  in  the  development  of  the 
resources  of  long-neglected  tracts  of  country.  The 
subordinate  officers  thus  employed  under  the  Resident 
were  few,  but  they  were  men  of  no  common  ability 
and  energy  of  character — soldiers  such  as  Edwardes, 
Nicholson,  Reynell  Taylor,  Lake,  Lumsden,  Becher, 
George  Lawrence,  and  James  Abbott ;  civilians  such 
as  Vans  Agnew  and  Arthur  Cocks — ^men,  for  the 
most  part,  whose  deeds  will  find  ample  record  in  these 
pages.  They  had  unbounded  confidence  in  their 
chief,  and  their  chief  had  equal  confidence  in  them. 
Acting,  with  but  few  exceptions,  for  the  majority 
were  soldiers,  in  a  mixed  civil  and  military  character, 
they  associated  with  all  classes  of  the  community; 
and  alike  by  their  courage  and  their  integrity  they 
sustained  the  high  character  of  the  nation  they  re- 
presented. One  common  spirit  of  humanity  seemed 
to  animate  the  Grovemor-General,  the  Resident,  and 
his  Assistants.  A  well-aimed  blow  was  struck  at 
infanticide,  at  Suttee,  and  at  the  odious  traffic  in 
female  slaves.  In  the  agricultural  districts,  a  system 
of  e-rforoed  labour,  whiXhad  press«l  hea^y  L  the 
ryots,  was  soon  also  in  course  of  abolition.  The  weak 
were  everywhere  protected  against  the  strong.     An 


FIBST  ADMlNISTRATiyE  EFFORTS.  13 

entire  revision  of  the  judicial  and  revenue  systemB  of  1847. 
the  country — ^if  systems  they  can  be  called  where 
system  there  was  none — ^was  attempted,  and  with 
good  success.  New  customs  rules  were  prepared,  by 
which  the  people  were  greatly  gainers.  Every  legiti- 
mate means  of  increasmg  the  revenue,  and  of  con- 
trolling unnecessary  expenditure,  were  resorted  to,  and 
large  savings  were  eflfected  at  no  loss  of  efficiency  in 
any  department  of  the  State.  The  cultivators  were  en- 
couraged to  sink  wells,  to  irrigate  their  lands,  and 
otherwise  to  increase  the  productiveness  of  the  soil, 
alike  to  their  own  advantage  and  the  profit  of  the 
State.  And  whilst  ever3rthing  was  thus  being  done 
to  advance  the  general  prosperity  of  the  people,  and 
to  ensure  the  popularity  of  British  occupation  among 
the  industrial  classes,  the  Army  was  propitiated  by  the 
introduction  of  new  and  improved  systems  of  pay 
and  pension,  and  taught  to  believe  that  what  they 
had  lost  in  opportunities  of  plunder,  and  in  irregular 
largesses,  had  been  more  than  made  up  to  them  by 
certainty  and  punctuality  of  payment,  and  the  interest 
taken  by  the  British  officers  in  the  general  welfare  of 
their  class. 

As  the  year  advanced,  these  favourable  appearances 
rather  improved  than  deteriorated.  In  June,  the 
Resident  reported  that  a  large  majority  of  the  dis- 
banded soldiers  had  returned  to  the  plough  or  to 
trade,  and  that  the  advantages  of  British  influence  to 
the  cultivating  classes  were  every  day  becoming  more 
apparent.  But  still  Lawrence  clearly  discerned  the 
fact  that  although  the  spirit  of  insurrection  was  at 
rest  in  the  Punjab,  it  was  not  yet  dead.  There  were 
sparks  flying  about  here  and  there,  which,  alighting 
on  combustible  materials,  might  speedily  excite  a 
blaze.    "  If  every  Sirdar  and  Sikh  in  the  Punjab,"  he 


14  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LOBD  DALHOUSIE. 

1847.  wrote,  with  the  candour  and  good  sense  which  are  so 
conspicuous  in  all  hb  communications,  ^^  were  to  avow 
himself  satisfied  with  the  humbled  position  of  his 
country,  it  would  be  the  extreme  of  infatuation  to 
believe  him,  or  to  doubt  for  a  moment  that  among 
the  crowd  who  are  loudest  in  our  praise  there  are 
many  who  cannot  forgive  our  victory,  or  even  our 
forbearance,  and  who  chafe  at  their  own  loss  of  power 
in  exact  proportion  as  they  submit  to  ours."  People 
were  not  wanting  even  then,  in  our  camp,  to  talk  with 
ominous  head-shakings  of  the  ^^  Caubul  Catastrophe," 
and  to  predict  all  sorts  of  massacres  and  misfortunes. 
But  there  was  no  parallel  to  be  drawn  between  the 
two  cases,  for  an  overweening  sense  of  security  had 
not  taken  possesion  of  the  Britbh  functionaries  at 
Lahore.  They  had  not  brought  themselves  to  believe 
that  the  country  waa  "  settled,"  or  that  British  occu- 
pation was  "  popular"  among  the  chiefs  and  people  of 
the  Punjab.  With  Grod's  blessing  they  were  doing 
their  best  to  deserve  success,  but  they  knew  well  that 
they  might  some  day  see  the  ruin  of  their  hopes,  the 
failure  of  their  experiments,  and  they  were  prepared, 
in  the  midst  of  prosperity,  at  any  hour  to  confront 
disaster. 

Even  then,  fair  as  was  the  prospect  before  us,  there 
was  one  great  blot  upon  the  landscape ;  for  whilst  the 
restless  nature  of  the  Queen-Mother  was  solacing  itself 
with  dark  intrigues,  there  was  a  continual  source  of 
disquietude  to  disturb  the  mind  of  the  Resident  with 
apprehensions  of  probable  outbreaks  and  seditions. 
She  hated  the  British  with  a  deadly  hatred.  They 
had  deprived  her  of  power.  They  had  torn  her  lover 
from  her  arms.  They  were  training  her  son  to  be- 
come a  puppet  in  their  hands.  To  foment  hostility 
against  them,  wheresoever  there  seemed  to  be  any 


BINISHHENT  OF  THE  MAHARANEE.  15 

hope  of  successftJ  revolt,  and  to  devise  a  plot  for  the  1847. 
murder  of  the  Resident,  were  among  the  cherished 
objects  by  which  she  •  sought  to  gratify  her  malice. 
But  she  could  not  thus  labour  in  secret.  Her  schemes 
were  detected,  and  it  was  determined  to  remove  her 
from  Lahore.  The  place  of  banishment  was  Sheiko- 
poor,  in  a  quiet  part  of  the  country,  and  in  the  midst 
of  a  Mussulman  population.  When  the  decision  was 
conmiunicated  to  her  by  her  brother,  she  received  it 
with  apparent  indifference.  She  was  not  one  to  give 
her  enemies  an  advantage  by  confessing  her  wounds 
and  bewailing  her  lot.  She  uttered  no  cry  of  pain, 
but  said  that  she  was  ready  for  anything,  and  at  once 
prepared  for  the  journey. 

The  autumn  passed  qidetly  away.  But  an  im- 
portant change  was  impending.  Lord  Hardinge  was 
about  to  lay  down  the  reins  of  government,  and 
Colonel  Lawrence  to  leave  the  Punjab  for  a  time. 
The  health  of  the  latter  had  long  been  failing.  He 
had  tried  in  August  and  September  the  effect  of  the 
bracing  hill  air  of  Simlah.  It  had  revived  him  for  a 
while,  but  his  medical  attendants  urged  him  to  resort 
to  the  only  remedy  which  could  arrest  the  progress  of 
disease;  and  so,  with  extreme  reluctance,  he  con- 
sented to  quit  his  post,  and  to  accompany  Lord 
Hardinge  to  England.  He  went ;  and  Sir  Frederick 
Currie,  a  public  servant  of  approved  talent  and  in- 
tegrity, who,  in  the  capacity  of  Political  Secretary, 
had  accompanied  the  Governor-General  to  the  banks 
of  the  Sutlej,  and  who  had  been  subsequently  created 
a  baronet  and  appointed  a  member  of  the  Supreme 
Council  of  India,  was  nominated  to  act  as  Resident  in 
his  place. 

Meeting  the  stream  of  European  revolution  as  they 
journeyed  homewards,  Hardinge  and  Lawrence  came 


16  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

1848.  overland  to  England  in  the  early  spring  of  1848. 
Brief  space  is  allowed  to  me  for  comment ;  but  before 
I  cease  to  write  Lord  Hardinge^s  name  in  connexion 
with  Sikh  politics  and  history,  I  must  give  expr^ion, 
if  only  in  a  single  sentence,  to  the  admiration  with 
which  I  regard  his  entire  policy  towards  the  Punjab. 
It  was  worthy  of  a  Christian  warrior :  it  was  worthy 
of  a  Christian  statesman.  It  is  in  no  wise  to  be 
judged  by  results,  still  less  by  accidents  not  assign- 
able to  errors  inherent  in  the  original  design.  What 
Hardinge  did,  he  did  because  it  was  right  to  do  it. 
His  forbearance  under  provocation,  his  moderation  in 
the  hour  of  victory  foreshadowed  the  humanity  of 
his  subsequent  measures.  It  was  his  one  desire  to 
render  British  connexion  with  the  Punjab  a  blessing 
to  the  Sikhs,  without  destroying  their  national  inde- 
pendence. The  spirit  of  Christian  philanthropy  moved 
at  his  bidding  over  the  whole  face  of  the  country — 
not  the  mere  image  of  a  specious  benevolence  dis- 
guising the  designs  of  our  ambition  and  the  impulses 
of  our  greed,  but  an  honest,  hearty  desire  to  do  good 
without  gain,  to  save  an  Empire,  to  reform  a  people, 
and  to  leave  behind  us  the  marks  of  a  hand  at  once 
gentle  and  powerful — ^gentle  to  cherish  and  powerful 
only  to  sustain. 


C(mqiie8t  of       The  portfolio  of  the  Indian  Government  now  passed 
« l^mjab.    jjj^Q  ^jjg  hands  of  Lord  Dalhousie,  a  young  statesman 

of  high  promise,  who,  in  the  divisions  of  party  politics 
at  home,  had  been  ranged  among  the  followers  of  Sir 
Robert  Peel,  and  professed  the  newly- developed  libe- 
ralism of  that  great  parliamentary  chief.  Held  in 
esteem  as  a  man  of  moderate  views,  of  considerable 
administrative  ability,  and  more  than  common  assi- 


LORD  DALHOUSIE.  17 

dnity  in  the  public  service,  his  brief  career  as  an  1848. 
English  statesman  seemed  to  afford  good  hope  that,  in 
the  great  descriptive  roll  of  Indian  Viceroys,  his  name 
would  be  recorded  as  that  of  a  ruler  distinguished 
rather  for  the  utility  than  for  the  brilliancy  of  his  ad- 
ministration. And  so,  doubtless,  it  seemed  to  him- 
self. What  India  most  wanted  at  that  time  was  Peace. 
Left  to  her  repose,  even  without  external  aid,  she 
might  soon  have  recovered  from  the  effects  of  a  suc- 
cession of  wasting  wars.  But,  cherished  and  fostered 
by  an  unambitious  and  enlightened  ruler,  there  was 
good  prospect  of  a  future  of  unexampled  prosperity — 
of  great  material  and  moral  advancement — of  that 
oft-promised,  ever  realisable,  but  still  unrealised 
blessing,  the  "  development  of  the  resources  of  the 
country."  The  country  wanted  RaUroads,  and  the 
people  Education,  and  there  was  good  hope  that  Dal- 
housie  would  give  them  both. 

When  he  looked  beyond  the  frontier  he  saw  that 
everything  was  quiet.  The  new  year  had  dawned 
auspiciously  on  the  Punjab.  The  attention  of  the 
British  functionaries,  ever  earnest  and  active  in  well- 
doing— for  the  disciples  of  Henry  Lawrence  had 
caught  much  of  the  zealous  humanity  of  their  master 
— ^was  mainly  directed  to  the  settlement  of  the  Land 
Revenue  and  the  improvement  of  the  judicial  system 
of  the  country.  They  had  begun  codifying  in  good 
earnest,  and  laws,  civil  and  criminal,  grew  apace 
under  their  hands.  In  a  state  of  things  so  satisfactory 
as  this  there  was  little  to  call  for  special  remark,  and 
the  Governor-General,  in  his  letters  to  the  Home 
Government,  contented  himself  with  the  simple  ob- 
servation, that  he  "  fonvarded  papers  relating  to  the 
Punjab."  But  early  in  May  intelligence  had  reached 
Calcutta  which  impelled  him  to  indite  a  more  stirring 

c 


18  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

1848.      epistle.     The  Punjab  was  on  the  eve  of  another 
crisis. 

In  September,  1844,  Sawnn  Mull,  the  able  and 
energetic  Governor*  of  Mooltan,  was  shot  to  death  by 
an  assassin.  He  was  succeeded  by  his  son  Moolraj, 
who  also  had  earned  for  himself  the  reputation  of  a 
chief  with  just  and  enlightened  views  of  government, 
and  considerable  administrative  ability.  But  he  had 
also  a  reputation  very  dangerous  in  that  country :  he 
was  reputed  to  be  very  rich.  Sawun  Mull  was  be- 
lieved to  have  amassed  immense  treasures  in  Mool- 
tan ;  and  on  the  instalment  of  his  son  in  the  govern- 
ment, the  Lahore  Durbar  demanded  from  him  a  suc- 
cession-dutyf  of  a  million  of  money.  The  exorbitant 
claim  was  not  complied  with ;  but  a  compromise  was 
effectcfd,  by  which  Moolraj  became  bound  to  pay  to 
Lahore  less  than  a  fifth  of  the  required  amount.  And 
this  sum  would  have  been  paid,  but  for  the  convul- 
sions which  soon  began  to  rend  the  country,  and  the 
disasters  which  befel  the  Durbar. 

On  the  re-establishment  of  the  Sikh  Government 
the  claim  was  renewed.  It  was  intimated  to  the 
Dewan  that  if  the  stipulated  eighteen  lakhs,  with  cer- 
tain amounts  due  for  arrears,  were  paid  into  the 
Lahore  Treasury,  he  would  be  allowed  to  continue  in 
charge  of  Mooltan  ;  but  that  if  he  demurred,  troops 
would  be  sent  to  coerce  him.  He  refused  payment  of 
the  money,  and  troops  were  accordingly  sent  against 
him.  Thus  threatened,  he  besought  the  British  Gro- 
vemment  to  interfere  in  his  favour,  and  consented  to 
adjust  the  matter  through  the  arbitration  of  the  Resi- 
dent.    The  result  was,  that  he  went  to  Lahore  in  the 

*  I  have  used  the  word  most  in-  financial  manager  or  revenne-fiumer 

telli^ble  to  ordinary  English  readers,  of  the  district  with  the  control  of 

but  it  does  not  fitly  represent  the  the  internal  administration, 

office  held  by  the  "  Dewan,"  who  was  f  Nuzzurana. 


AFFAIBS  OF  MOOLTAN.  19 

autumn  of  1846 ;  promised  to  pay  by  instalments  the  i84S. 
money  claimed ;  and  was  mulcted  in  a  portion  of  the 
territories  from  which  he  had  drawn  his  revenue.  The 
remainder  was  farmed  out  to  him  for  a  term  of  three 
years.  With  this  arrangement  he  appeared  to  be 
satisfied.  He  was  anxious  to  obtain  the  guarantee  of 
the  British  Government ;  but  his  request  was  refused, 
and  he  returned  to  Mooltan  without  it. 

For  the  space  of  more  than  a  year,  Moolraj  re- 
mained in  peaceful  occupation  of  the  country  which 
had  been  leased  out  to  him.  There  was  no  attempt, 
on  the  part  of  the  British  functionaries,  to  interfere 
with  the  affairs  of  Mooltan.  That  territory  was  espe- 
cially exempted  from  the  operation  of  the  revenue 
settlement)  which  had  taken  effect  elsewhere,  and  of 
the  new  customs  regulations  which  had  been  esta- 
blished in  other  parts  of  the  Punjab.  But  the  com- 
pact which  had  been  entered  into  with  the  Lahore 
Durbar  did  not  sit  easily  upon  him.  He  thought,  or 
affected  to  think,  that  its  terms  were  too  rigorous ; 
and  accordingly,  about  the  close  of  1847,  he  repaired 
to  the  capital  to  seek  some  remission  of  them.  He 
soon  began  intriguing  with  the  Durbar  for  the  reduc- 
tion of  the  stipulated  rents ;  and  not  coming  to  any 
satisfactory  arrangement,  intimated  his  wish  to  resign 
a  charge  which  he  had  found  so  little  profitable.  He 
was  told  that  his  resignation,  when  formally  tendered, 
would  be  accepted ;  but  was  recommended  to  reflect 
upon  the  subject  before  finally  coming  to  a  determi- 
nation, which  could  not  be  subsequently  revoked, 
Moolraj  quitted  Lahore  ;  and  sent  in  first  a  somewhat 
vague,  and  afterwards  a  more  distinct,  resignation  of 
his  office ;  and  the  Durbar  at  once  appointed  a  suc- 
cessor. Sirdar  Kan  Singh,  who  was  described  as  "  a 
brave  soldier  and  intelligent  man,"  was  nominated  to 

c2 


» 


20  TIIE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

1848.  the  Governorship  of  Mooltan,  on  a  fixed  annual 
salary.  At  the  same  time,  Mr.  Vans  Agnew,  a  civil 
servant  of  the  Company,  and  Lieutenant  Anderson, 
of  the  Bombay  army,  were  despatched  to  Mooltan 
with  the  new  Governor,  and  an  escort  of  five  hundred 
men,  to  receive  charge  of  the  place.  On  their  arrival 
before  the  city  there  were  no  symptoms  of  any  hostile 
intentions  on  the  part  of  its  occupants.  Moohraj  him- 
self waited  on  the  British  officers  on  the  18th  of  April, 
and  was  peremptorily  called  upon  to  give  in  his  ac- 
counts. Disconcerted  and  annoyed,  he  quitted  their 
presence,  but  next  morning  he  met  them  with  a 
calm  aspect,  and  conducted  them  through  the  fort. 
Two  companies  of  Goorkhas  and  some  horsemen  of 
the  escort  were  placed  in  possession  of  one  of  the 
fort-gates.  The  crisis  was  now  at  hand.  Moolraj 
formally  gave  over  charge  of  the  fort ;  and  as  the 
party  retired  through  the  gate,  the  British  officers 
were  suddenly  attacked  and  severely  wounded.  Mool- 
raj, who  was  riding  with  them  at  the  time,  offered  no 
assistance,  but,  setting  spurs  to  his  horse,  galloped 
off  in  the  direction  of  his  garden-house,  whilst  the 
wounded  officers  were  carried  to  their  own  camp  by 
Kan  Singh  and  a  party  of  the  Goorkhas. 

In  the  course  of  the  following  day  all  the  Mooltanee 
troops  were  in  a  state  of  open  insurrection.  Moolraj 
himself,  who  may  not  have  been  guilty  in  the  first  in- 
stance of  an  act  of  premeditated  treachery,  and  who 
subsequently  pleaded  that  he  was  coerced  by  his 
troops,  sent  excuses  to  Vans  Agnew,  who,  with  the 
generous  confidence  of  youth,  acquitted  him  of  all 
participation  in  the  outrage.  But  he  was  soon  heart 
and  soul  in  the  work ;  and  his  emissaries  plied  their 
trade  of  corruption  with  unerring  effect.  Before 
nightfall,  the  commandant  of  the  escort,  with  all  his 


MURDER  OF  AGNEW  AND  ANDERSON.  21 

men,  went  over  to  the  enemy.  The  buUding  in  which  1848. 
the  wounded  officers  lay  was  surrounded.  A  motley 
crew  of  ruffians — soldiers  and  citizens — ^men  of  all 
classes,  young  and  old,  moved  by  one  conmion  im- 
pulse, one  great  thirst  of  blood,  came  yelling  and 
shouting  around  the  abode  of  the  doomed  Feringhees. 
In  they  tushed,  with  a  savage  cry,  and  surrounded 
their  victims.  The  wounded  officers  lay  armed  on 
their  beds,  and  helpless,  hopeless  as  they  were,  put 
on  the  bold  front  of  intrepid  Englishmen,  and  were 
heroes  to  the  last.  Having  shaken  hands,  and  bade 
each  other  a  last  farewell,  they  turned  upon  their 
assailants  as  best  they  could;  but  overpowered  by 
numbers,  they  fell,  declaring  in  the  prophetic  lan- 
guage of  death,  that  thousands  of  their  countrymen 
would  come  to  avenge  them.  The  slaughter  tho- 
roughly accomplished,  the  two  bodies  were  dragged 
out  of  the  mosque,  and  barbarously  mutilated  by  the 
murderers,  with  every  indignity  that  malice  could 
devise. 

Irretrievably  committed  in  the  eyes  both  of  our  coun- 
trymen and  his  o^vn,  Moolraj  now  saw  that  there  was 
no  going  back ;  he  had  entered,  whether  designedly 
or  not,  on  a  course  which  admitted  of  no  pause,  and 
left  no  time  for  reflection.  AU  the  dormant  energies 
of  his  nature  were  now  called  into  full  activity.  He 
took  command  of  the  insurgents— identified  himself 
with  their  cause — ^bestowed  largesses  upon  the  men 
who  had  been  most  active  in  the  assault  upon  the 
British  officers,  retained  all  who  would  take  service 
with  him,  laid  in  stores,  collected  money,  and  ad- 
dressed letters  to  other  chiefs  urging  them  to  resist- 
ance. He  had  never  been  looked  upon  by  others — 
never  regarded  himself — as  a  man  to  become  the  leader 
of  a  great  national  movement ;  but  now  circumstances 


22  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LOSD  DALHOUSIfi. 

iW8.  ha(j  done  for  him  what  he  would  never  willingly  have 
shaped  out  for  himself;  so  he  bowed  to  fate,  and  be- 
came a  hero. 

Thus  was  the  second  Sikh  War  commenced.  Out- 
wardly, it  was  but  the  revolt  of  a  local  government — 
the  rebellion  of  an  officer  of  the  Sikh  State  against 
the  sovereign  power  of  the  land.  But,  rightly  con- 
sidered, it  was  of  far  deeper  significance.  Whether 
Moolraj  had  been  incited  to  resistance  by  the  prompt- 
ings of  a  spirit  far  more  bitter  in  its  resentments,  and 
more  active  in  its  malignity  than  his  own,  is  not  very 
apparent.  But  it  is  certain  that  when  he  raised  the 
standard  of  rebellion  at  Mooltan,  he  did  but  antici- 
pate a  movement  for  which  the  whole  country  was 
ripe.  Already  had  ominous  reports  of  ill-concealed 
disaffection  come  in  from  some  of  the  outlying  dis- 
tricts, and  though  the  mortifying  fact  was  very  re- 
luctantly believed,  it  is  certain  that  the  state  of  things 
which  Henry  Lawrence  had  predicted  was  already  a 
present  reality,  and  that  the  Sikhs,  chafing  under  the 
irritating  interference  of  the  European  stranger,  were 
about  to  make  a  common  effort  to  expel  him.  A  finer 
body  of  officers  than  those  employed  under  the  British 
Resident  in  the  Punjab  seldom  laboured  for  the  good 
of  a  people.  That  they  worked,  earnestly  and  assi- 
duo4,  animated  by  L  pure*  spin,  i  ChrMan 
benevolence,  is  not  to  be  doubted.  But  it  was  not 
in  the  nature  of  things  that  even  if  the  thing  done 
had  been  palatable  to  the  Sikhs,  they  would  have 
reconciled  themselves  to  the  doers  of  it.  Habituated 
to  rule  in  all  parts  of  the  world,  and  to  interfere  in 
the  affairs  of  people  of  all  colours  and  creeds,  Eng- 
lishmen are  slow  to  familiarise  themselves  with  the 
idea  of  the  too  probable  unpopularity  of  their  inter- 
ference. They  think  that  if  they  mean  well  they 
must  secure  confidence.     They  do  not  consider  that 


FQtST  ADMINISTRATiyE  EFFORTS.  23 

our  beneficent  ways  may  not  be  more  in  accordance  1848, 
with  the  national  taste  ^an  our  round  hats  and  stiff 
neckcloths ;  and  that  even  if  they  were,  alien  inter- 
ference must  in  itself  be  utterly  distasteful  to  them. 
It  is  not  to  be  doubted,  I  say,  that  the  young  Eng- 
lishmen first  employed  in  the  Punjab  laboured  earn- 
estly for  the  good  of  the  people ;  but  their  very  pre- 
sence was  a  sore  in  the  flesh  of  the  nation,  and  ^  they 
had  been  endowed  with  superhuman  wisdom  -and 
angelic  benevolence,  it  would  have  made  no  differ- 
ence in  the  sum  total  of  popular  discontent. 

But  it  is  probable  that  some  mistakes  were  com- 
mitted— ^the  inevitable  growth  of  benevolent  igno- 
rance and  energetic  inexperience — at  the  outset  of 
our  career  as  Punjabee  administrators.  The  inter- 
ference appears  to  have  been  greater  than  was  con- 
templated in  the  original  design  of  the  Second  Pro- 
tectorate. At  that  time  the  God  Terminus  was  held 
by  many  of  our  administrators  in  especial  veneration. 
TTie  Theodolite,  the  Reconnoitring  Compass,  and  the 
Measuring  Chain  were  the  great  emblems  of  British 
rule.  And  now  these  mysterious  instruments  began 
to  make  their  appearance  in  the  Punjab.  We  were 
taking  sights  and  measuring  angles  on  the  outskirts 
of  civilisation ;  and  neither  the  chiefs  nor  the  people 
could  readily  persuade  themselves  that  we  were 
doing  all  this  for  their  good ;  there  was  an  appear- 
ance in  it  of  ulterior  design.  And,  as  I  have 
hinted,  the  agents  employed  were  sometimes  wholly 
inexperienced  in  business  of  this  kind.  "  My  pre- 
sent rofe,"  wrote  a  young  ensign*  of  two  years' 
standing  in  the  service,  whose  later  exploits  will 
be  recorded  in  these  pages,   "is  to  survey  a  part 

*  W.  R.  Hodaon  ('*  Hodaon  of  the  fkte  of  Anderson  at  Mooltan,  for 
Hodson's  Horse"),  January,  1828.  he  bad  been  selected  in  the  first  ia- 
Tliis  yooDg  officer  narrowly  escaped    stance  to  accompany  Vans  Agnew. 


24  TUE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LOSD  DALHOCSIE. 

1848.  of  the  country  lying  along  the  left  bank  of  the 
Ravee  and  below  the  hills,  and  I  am  daily  and  all 
day  at  work  with  compasses  and  chain,  pen  and 
pencil,  following  streams,  diving  into  vallejrs,  bur- 
rowing into  hills,  to  complete  my  work,  I  need 
hardly  remark,  that  having  never  attempted  anything 
of  the  kind,  it  is  bothering  at  first.  I  should  not  be 
surprised  any  day  to  be  told  to  build  a  ship,  compose 
a  code  of  laws,  or  hold  assizes.  In  fact,  *tis  the  way 
in  India ;  every  one  has  to  teach  himself  his  work, 
and  to  do  it  at  the  same  time/'  Training  of  this  kind 
has  made  the  finest  race  of  officers  that  the  world  has 
ever  seen.  But  the  novitiate  of  these  men  may  have 
teemed  with  blunders  fatal  to  the  people  among  whom 
they  were  sent,  in  all  the  self-confidence  of  youth,  to 
learn  their  diversities  of  work.  As  they  advance  in 
years,  and  every  year  know  better  how  difficult  a 
thing  it  is  to  administer  the  affairs  of  a  foreign  people, 
such  public  servants  often  shudder  to  think  of  the 
errors  committed,  of  the  wrong  done,  when  they 
served  their  apprenticeship  in  government  without  a 
master,  and  -taught  themselves  at  the  expense  of 
thousands.  The  most  experienced  administrators  in 
the  present  case  might  have  failed  from  the  want  of 
a  right  understanding  of  the  temper  of  the  people. 
But  it  was  the  necessity  of  our  position  that  some 
who  were  set  over  the  officers  of  the  Sikh  Grovem- 
mcnt  knew  little  of  the  people  and  little  of  adminis- 
tration. They  were  able,  indefatigable,  and  con- 
scientious. They  erred  only  because  they  saw  too 
much  and  did  too  much,  and  had  not  come  to  under- 
stand the  wise  policy  of  shutting  their  eyes  and 
leaving  alone. 

And  so,  although  the  rebellion  of  Moolraj  was 
at  first  only  a  local  outbreak,  and  the  British  autho- 
rities were  well  disposed  to  regard  it  as  a  movement 


EYHS  OF  DEUT.  25 

against  the  Sikh  Grovemment^  not  as  an  outrage  espe-  1848. 
cially  directed  against  ourselves,  that  fiction  could 
not  be  long  maintained — ^for  every  day  it  became  more* 
and  more  apparent  that  the  whole  country  was  ripe  for 
tknother  war  with  the  intruding  Feringhee.  The  Dur- 
bar officers  did  not  hesitate  to  express  their  conviction 
that  to  send  Sikh  troops  to  act  against  Moolraj  would 
only  be  to  swell  the  number  of  his  adherents.  To 
have  despatched  with  them  a  small  English  force 
would  have  been  to  risk  its  safety  and  precipitate 
the  conflict.  An  overwhelming  display  of  force,  on 
the  part  of  the  British  Government,  might  have 
crushed  the  rebellion  at  Mooltan  and  retarded  the 
general  rising  of  the  country.  But  the  season  was 
far  advanced;  the  responsibility  was  a  great  one. 
The  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  British  army  in  India 
was  not  far  distant.  Currie,  therefore,  though  his 
own  judgment  inclined  to  the  commencement  of  im- 
mediate hostilities,  rightly  referred  the  momentous 
question  to  the  military  chief.  Lord  Gough  was 
against  inmiediate  action ;  and  the  head  of  the  In- 
dian Government  unreservedly  endorsed  the  de- 
cision. 

The  remnant  of  the  old  Khalsa  army  eagerly  watched 
the  result,  and  were  not  slow  to  attribute  our  in- 
activity, at  such  a  moment,  to  hesitation — ^to  fear — 
to  paralysis.  I  am  not  writing  a  miUtary  history  of 
the  Second  Sikh  War,  and  the  question  now  suggested 
is  one  which  I  am  not  called  upon  to  discuss.  But  I 
think  that  promptitude  of  action  is  often  of  more  im- 
portance than  completeness  of  preparation,  and  that 
to  show  ourselves  confident  of  success  is  in  most  cases 
to  attain  it.  The  British  power  in  India  cannot 
afford  to  be  quiescent  under  insult  and  outrage.  De- 
lay is  held  to  be  a  sign  of  weakness.  It  encourages 
enmity  and  confirms  vacillation.     It  is  a  disaster  in 


26  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LOBD  DALHOUSIE. 

18^.  itself— more  serious,  ofiten,  than  any  that  can  arise 
from  insufficient  preparation,  and  that  great  bugbear 
the  inclemency  of  the  season.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  is  not  to  be  forgotten  that  to  despise  our  enemies  is 
a  common  national  mistake,  and  that  sometimes  it 
has  been  a  fatal  one.  We  have  brought  calamities 
on  ourselves  by  our  rashness  as  we  have  by  our 
indecision.  The  History  of  India  teems  witii  ex- 
amples of  both  results ;  the  most  profitable  lesson  to 
be  learnt  from  which  is,  that,  however  wise  we  may 
be  after  the  event,  criticism  in  such  a  case  ought  to 
be  diffident  and  forbearing. 

But  whilst  the  Commander-in-Chief,  in  tiie  cool 
mountain  air  of  Simlah,  was  deciding  on  the  impossi- 
bility of  commencing  military  operations,  a  young 
lieutenant  of  the  Bengal  army,  who  had  been  engaged 
in  the  Revenue  settlement  of  the  country  about  Bun- 
.  noo,  was  marching  down  upon  Mooltan  with  a  smaU 
body  of  troops,  to  render  assistance  to  his  brother- 
officers  in  their  perilous  position,  and  to  support  the 
authority  of  the  Lahore  Durbar.  A  letter  from 
Vans  Agnew,  dictated  by  the  wounded  man,  had  pro- 
videntially fallen  into  his  hands.  He  saw  at  once  the 
emergency  of  the  case ;  he  never  hesitated ;  but  aban- 
doning all  other  considerations,  improvised  the  best 
force  that  could  be  got  together,  and,  with  fifteen 
hundred  men  and  two  pieces  of  artillery,  marched 
forth  in  all  the  eager  confidence  of  youth,  hoping 
that  it  might  be  his  privilege  to  rescue  his  country- 
men from  the  danger  that  beset  them. 

The  name  of  this  young  officer  was  Herbert  Ed- 
wardes.  A  native  of  Frodley,  in  Shropshire,  the  son 
of  a  country  clergjrman,  educated  at  King's  College, 
London,  he  had  entered  the  Company's  service  as  a 
cadet  of  infantry,  at  an  age  somewhat  more  advanced 


HERBERT  EDWARDES.  27 

than  that  which  sees  the  initiation  into  military  life  184S. 
of  the  majority  of  young  officers.  But  at  an  age 
much  earlier  than  that  which  commonly  places  them 
in  possession  of  the  most  superficial  knowledge  of  the 
history  and  politics  of  the  East,  young  Edwardes  had 
acquired  a  stock  of  information,  and  a  capacity  for 
judging  rightly  of  passing  events,  which  would  have 
done  no  discredit  to  a  veteran  soldier  and  diplomatist 
He  had  served  but  a  few  years,  when  his  name  be- 
came funiliar  to  English  readers  throughout  the  Pre- 
sidency to  which  he  belonged,  as  one  of  the  ablest 
anonymous  writers  in  the  country.  His  Uterary 
talents,  like  his  military  qualities,  were  of  a  bold, 
earnest,  impulsive  character.  Whatever  he  did,  he 
did  rapidly  and  welL  He  was  precisely  the  kind  of 
man  to  attract  the  attention  and  retain  the  favour  of 
such  an  officer  as  Henry  Lawrence,  who,  with  the 
same  quiet  love  of  literature,  combined  a  keen  appre- 
ciation of  that  energy  and  fire  of  character  which 
shrink  fix)m  no  responsibility,  and  are  ever  seeking  to 
find  an  outlet  in  dashing  exploits.  In  one  of  the 
earliest  and  most  striking  scenes  of  the  Punjabee 
drama,  Edwardes  had  acted  a  distinguished  part. 
When  the  insurrection  broke  out  in  Cashmere,  he 
was  despatched  to  Jummoo,  to  awaken  Gholab  Singh 
to  a  sense  of  his  duty  in  that  conjuncture ;  and  there 
are  few  more  memorable  and  impressive  incidents  in 
Sikh  history  than  that  which  exhibited  a  handful  of 
British  officers  controlling  the  movements  of  large 
bodies  of  foreign  troops, — ^the  very  men,  and  under 
the  very  leaders,  who,  so  short  a  time  before,  had 
contested  with  us  on  the  banks  of  the  Sutlej  the 
sovereignty  of  Hindostan. 

On  the  reconstruction  of  the  Sikh  Government, 
after  the  deposition  of  Lai  Singh,  Herbert  Edwardes 


28  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

1848.  was  one  of  the  officers  sdected  to  superintend  the 
internal  administration  of  the  country ;  and  he  had  just 
completed  the  Revenue  settlement  of  Bunnoo,  when 
the  startling  intelligence  of  the  Mooltanee  outbreak 
reached  his  camp.  He  marched  at  once  to  succour 
his  brother-officers ;  crossed  the  Indus,  and  took  pos- 
session of  Leia,  the  chief  city  in  the  Sindh  Saugor 
Doab.  But  tidings  by  this  time  had  reached  him  of 
the  melancholy  fate  of  Agnew  and  Anderson,  and 
there  was  then  no  profit  in  the  immediate  movement 
on  Mooltan  to  compensate  for  its  certain  danger.  But 
the  demonstration  still  had  its  uses.  It  was  something 
that  there  was  a  force  in  the  field  with  a  British  officer 
at  the  head  of  it  to  assert  the  cause  of  order  and  au- 
thority in  the  name  of  the  Maharajah  of  the  Punjab. 
Such  a  force  might,  for  a  time  at  least,  hold  rebellion 
in  check  in  that  part  of  the  country.  But  Edwardes 
dreamt  of  higher  service  than  this.  To  the  south  of 
Mooltan,  some  fifty  miles,  lies  Bahwulpore,  in  the 
chief  of  which  place  we  believed  that  we  had  a 
staunch  ally.  In  the  name  of  the  British  Government, 
Edwardei^  called  upon  him  to  move  an  auxiliary  force 
upon  Mooltan;  and  he  had  little  doubt  that,  after 
forming  a  junction  with  these  troops,  he  could 
capture  the  rebel  stronghold.  The  confidence  of  the 
young  soldier,  stimulated  by  a  victory  which  he 
gained  over  a  large  body  of  rebels  on  the  great  anni- 
versary of  Waterloo,  saw  no  obstacle  to  this  enterprise 
which  could  not  be  overcome  if  the  Resident  would 
only  send  him  a  few  heavy  guns  and  mortars,  and 
Major  Napier,  of  the  Engineers,  to  direct  the  opera- 
tions of  the  siege.  He  knew  the  worth  of  such  a  man 
in  such  a  conjuncture,  and  every  year  that  has  since 
passed  has  made  him  prouder  of  the  youthful  forecast 
which  he  then  evinced. 


EDWARDES  AT  MOOLTAN.  29 

The  Bahwulpore  troops  were  sent,  the  junction  was  1S48. 
formed,  and  the  forces  marched  down  upon  Mooltan. 
Placing  himself  at  the  head  of  a  considerable  body  of 
men,  the  rebel  chief  went  out  to  give  them  battle,  but 
was  beaten  by  Edwardes,  aided  by  Van  Cortlandt,  a 
European  officer  in  Sfth  employ,  who  has  since  done 
good  service  to  the  British  Government,  and  Edward 
Lake,  a  gallant  young  officer  of  Bengal  Engineers, 
directing  the  Bahwidpore  colunm,  who  has  abun- 
dantly fulfilled,  on  the  same  theatre  of  action,  the 
high  promise  of  his  youth.  But  much  as  irregular 
levies,  so  led,  might  do  in  the  open  field,  they  were 
powerless  against  the  walls  of  Mooltan.  Again,  there- 
fore, Edwardes  urged  upon  the  Resident  the  ex- 
pediency of  strengthening  his  hands,  especially  in  re- 
spect of  the  ordnance  branches  of  the  service.  Only 
send  a  siege  train,  some  Sappers  and  Miners,  with 
Robert  Napier  to  direct  the  siege,  and — ^this  time,  for 
the  difficulties  of  the  work  had  assumed  larger  pro- 
portions in  his  eyes — a  few  regular  regiments,  under 
a  young  brigadier,  and  we  shall  "close,"  he  said, 
"  Moolraj's  accounts  in  a  fortnight,  and  obviate  the 
necessity  of  assembling  fifty  thousand  men  in  October.'* 

In  the  early  part  of  July  this  requisition  was  re- 
ceived at  Lahore.  The  interval  which  had  elapsed, 
since  the  disastrous  tidings  of  the  rebellion  of  Moolraj 
had  reached  the  Residency,  had  not  been  an  unevent- 
ful one  at  the  capital.  Early  in  May,  discovery  was 
made  of  an  attempt  to  corrupt  the  fidelity  of  our 
British  Sepoys.  The  first  intimation  of  the  plot  was 
received  from  some  troopers  of  the  7th  Irregular 
Cavalry,  who  communicated  the  circumstance  to  their 
commanding  officer.  The  principal  conspirators  were 
one  Kan  Singh,  an  unemployed  general  of  the  Sikh 
anny,  and  Gunga  Ram,  the  confidential  Vakeel  of  the 


30  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

1848.  Maharanee.  These  men,  and  two  others,  were  seized, 
tried,  and  convicted.  The  two  chief  conspirators 
were  publicly  hanged,  and  their  less  guilty  associates 
transported.  That  they  were  instruments  of  the 
Maharanee  was  sufficiently  proved.  The  conspirators 
acknowledged  that  she  was  the  prime  instigator  of  the 
treacherous  attempt,  and  her  letters  were  found  in 
their  possession.  With  this  knowledge,  it  could  no 
longer  be  a  question  with  the  Resident  as  to  what 
course  it  behoved  him  to  adopt.  The  mother  of  the 
Maharajah  and  the  widow  of  Runjeet  Singh  could  no 
longer  be  suffered  to  dwell  among  the  Sikhs.  She  had 
already  been  removed  from  Lahore  to  Sheikopoor. 
It  now  became  necessary  to  remove  her  from  the 
Punjab.  Accordingly,  certain  accredited  agents  of 
the  Lahore  Durbar,  accompanied  by  two  British 
officers.  Captain  Lumsden  and  Lieutenant  Hodson, 
were  despatched  to  Sheikopoor,  with  a  mandate 
under  the  seal  of  the  Maharajah,  directing  her  re- 
moval from  that  place.  Without  offering  any  resist- 
ance, or  expressing  any  dissatisfaction,  she  placed  her- 
self under  the  charge  of  the  deputation ;  and,  when 
it  became  clear  to  her  that  she  was  on  her  way  to  the 
British  frontier,  she  desired — not  improbably  with 
that  blended  irony  and  bravado  which  she  so  well 
knew  how  to  employ — ^that  her  thanks  might  be  con- 
veyed to  the  Resident  for  removing  her  to  the  Com- 
pany's dominions,  out  of  the  reach  of  the  enemies 
who  would  destroy  her.  With  a  considerable  retinue 
of  female  attendants,  she  was  conveyed  to  Ferozepore, 
and  eventually  to  Benares,  where  she  was  placed  under 
the  charge  of  Major  George  Macgregor,  an  Artillery 
officer  of  high  personal  character  and  great  diplomatic 
experience,  who  had  well  sustained  in  the  Punjab  the 
brilliant  reputation  which  he  had  earned  at  Jellalabad. 


EDWARDES  AT  MOOLTAN.  29 

The  Bahwulpore  troops  were  sent,  the  junction  was  1S48. 
formed,  and  the  forces  marched  down  upon  Mooltan. 
Placing  himself  at  the  head  of  a  considerable  body  of 
men,  the  rebel  chief  went  out  to  give  them  battle,  but 
was  beaten  by  Edwardes,  aided  by  Van  Cortlandt,  a 
European  officer  in  Sikh  employ,  who  has  since  done 
good  service  to  the  British  Government,  and  Edward 
Lake,  a  gallant  young  officer  of  Bengal  Engineers, 
directing  the  Bahwulpore  colunm,  who  has  abun- 
dantly fulfilled,  on  the  same  theatre  of  action,  the 
high  promise  of  his  youth.  But  much  as  irregular 
levies,  so  led,  might  do  in  the  open  field,  they  were 
powerless  against  the  walls  of  Mooltan.  Again,  there- 
fore, Edwardes  urged  upon  the  Resident  the  ex- 
pediency of  strengthening  his  hands,  especially  in  re- 
spect of  the  ordnance  branches  of  the  service.  Only 
send  a  siege  train,  some  Sappers  and  Miners,  with 
Robert  Napier  to  direct  the  siege,  and — this  time,  for 
the  difficulties  of  the  work  had  assumed  larger  pro- 
portions in  his  eyes — a  few  regular  regiments,  under 
a  young  brigadier,  and  we  shall  "close,"  he  said, 
"Moolraj's  accounts  in  a  fortnight,  and  obviate  the 
necessity  of  assembling  fifty  thousand  men  in  October.'* 

In  the  early  part  of  July  this  requisition  was  re- 
ceived at  Lahore.  The  interval  which  had  elapsed, 
since  the  disastrous  tidings  of  the  rebellion  of  Moolraj 
had  reached  the  Residency,  had  not  been  an  unevent- 
ful one  at  the  capital.  Early  in  May,  discovery  was 
made  of  an  attempt  to  corrupt  the  fidelity  of  our 
British  Sepoys.  The  first  intimation  of  the  plot  was 
received  from  some  troopers  of  the  7th  Irregular 
Cavalry,  who  communicated  the  circumstance  to  their 
commanding  officer.  The  principal  conspirators  were 
one  Kan  Singh,  an  unemployed  general  of  the  Sikh 
anny,  and  Gunga  Ram,  the  confidential  Vakeel  of  the 


32  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

1848.  still  appeared  to  trust  the  chiefs  of  the  Regency ;  and 
Shere  Singh,  with  a  strong  body  of  Sikh  troops,  was 
sent  down  to  Mooltan.  It  was  wise  to  maintain,  as 
long  as  possible,  the  semblance  of  the  authority  of 
the  Sikh  Durbar — wise  to  keep  up  the  show  of  sup- 
pressing a  rebellion  by  the  hand  of  the  native  Go- 
vernment To  send  down  that  undeveloped  traitor  to 
the  great  centre  of  revolt  may  have  been  a  hazardous 
experiment,  but  it  was  hazardous  also  to  keep  him 
where  he  was ;  and  the  master-passion  of  the  Sikh 
soldiery  for  plunder  might  have  kept  his  battalions 
nominally  on  the  side  of  authority,  until  they  had 
glutted  themselves  with  the  spoils  of  Mooltan,  and  pre- 
parations had,  meanwhile,  been  made  in  the  British 
provinces  for  the  commencement  of  military  operations 
on  a  scale  befitting  the  occasion.  But  the  repeated  re- 
quisitions of  Edwardes  for  British  aid  at  last  wrought 
upon  the  Resident,  and  Currie  determined  to  send  a 
force  to  Mooltan,  with  a  siege-train  for  the  reduction 
of  the  fortress.  In  General  Samson  Whish,  of  the 
Artillery,  under  whose  command  the  force  was  de- 
spatched, there  was  not  literally  what  Edwardes  had 
asked  for — "a  young  brigadier" — ^but  there  was  a 
general  officer  of  unwonted  youthfulness  of  aspect 
and  activity  of  body,  who  could  sit  a  horse  well, 
could  ride  any  distance  at  a  stretch,  and  was  gene- 
rally esteemed  to  be  one  of  the  best  artillery  officers 
in  the  service.  This  forward  movement  was  not 
countenanced  in  high  places.  The  Commander-in- 
Chief  shook  his  head.  The  Governor-General  shook 
his  head.  But  the  Resident  had  ordered  it,  and  it 
could  not  be  countermanded,  without  encouraging  a 
belief  that  there  was  a  want  of  unanimity  in  British 
councils. 

So  the  besieging  force  marched  upon  Mooltan,  and 


THE  DEFECTION  OF  SHERE  SINGH.  33 

arrived  before  the  city  in  high  health  and  excellent  1848. 
spirits.  On  the  5th  of  September,  in  the  name  of  the 
Maharajah  and  Queen  Victoria,  the  British  General 
summoned  the  garrison  to  surrender.  No  answer  was 
returned  to  the  summons,  and  the  siege  commenced. 
But  on  the  14th,  when  our  guns  were  within  breach- 
ing distance  of  the  waUs  of  the  town,  Whish,  to  his 
bitter  mortification,  was  compelled  to  abandon  the 
siege.  The  Sikh  force  under  Shere  Singh  had  gone 
over  to  the  enemy. 

This  event  had  long  been  matter  of  anxious  specu- 
lation in  the  British  camp,  and  now  took  no  one  by 
surprise.  It  was  known  that  the  hearts  of  the  soldiery 
were  with  Moolraj ;  but  there  was  something  of  a 
more  doubtful  character  in  the  conduct  of  the  Rajah 
himself,  who  had  on  more  than  one  occasion  testified 
his  zeal  and  loyalty  by  voluntary  acts  of  service  in 
our  cause.  In  his  own  camp,  the  Ehalsa  troops  said 
contemptuously,  that  he  was  a  Mussulman.  With 
Edwardes  he  was  outwardly  on  the  best  possible 
terms;  spoke  freely  of  the  conduct  of  his  father, 
Chuttur  Singh ;  declared  that  he  washed  his  hands 
of  all  the  old  man's  rebellious  projects ;  and  candidly 
avowed  his  mistrust  of  the  Sikh  troops.  But  in  all 
this  he  was  playing  a  part.  He  had  written  to  his 
brother  to  say  that  he  intended  to  go  over  to  the 
enemy  on  that  very  14th  of  September,  and  he  kept 
his  word  to  the  letter.  On  the  morning  of  that  day, 
the  whole  Durbar  force  sought  entrance  into  the 
city.  Doubtful  of  the  real  nature  of  the  movement, 
Moolraj  at  first  refused  them  admittance ;  but  soon 
satisfied  of  their  intentions,  he  opened  his  gates  ;  the 
long  dreaded  and  fatal  junction  was  efiected ;  and 
the  British  General  was  under  the  mortifying  neces- 
sity of  raising  the  siege  of  Mooltan. 

D 


34  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LOSD  DALHOUSIE. 

I8i8.  The  whole  truth  was  now  visible  before  the  world. 
It  was  impossible  any  longer  to  maintain  the  fiction 
of  a  local  rebellion,  to  pretend  that  the  Lahore  Go- 
vernment, assisted  by  British  troops,  was  endeavour- 
ing to  coerce  a  refractory  subject.  The  very  heads 
of  that  Government  were  in  open  hostility  to  the 
British,  raising  the  standard  of  nationality  in  the 
name  of  the  Maharajah.  It  was  obvious  that  the 
war  now  about  to  be  waged,  was  between  the  British 
and  the  Sikhs.  Some  hope  was  at  one  time  to  be 
drawn  from  the  fact  of  long-standing  feuds  among 
the  different  Sikh  families.  Then  there  was  the  not 
unreasonable  conviction  that  the  Mahomedan  popu- 
lation of  the  Punjab  might  easily  be  kept  in  a  state 
of  enmity  with  the  Sikhs.  But  these  assurances  soon 
melted  away.  Hostile  families  and  hostile  religions 
were  content  to  unite  for  the  nonce  against  the 
Feringhees;  and  the  Commander-in-Chief,  as  the 
cold  weather  approached,  was  gratified  by  finding 
that  there  had  been  no  premature  birth  of  victory — 
that  the  work  was  yet  to  be  done  —  and  that  an 
army  of  twenty  thousand  men,  under  his  personal 
command,  was  required  to  take  the  field. 

And  from  that  time  Mooltan  ceased  to  be  the  focus 
of  rebellion  and  the  head-quarters  of  the  war.  In 
the  Hazareh  country  Chuttur  Singh  had  throvm  off 
all  vestments  of  disguise,  and  plunged  boldly  into  the 
troubled  waters  that  lay  before  him.  The  thoughts 
of  Shere  Singh  soon  began  to  turn  towards  that 
quarter — indeed,  such  had  been  his  desire  from  the 
first — and  before  the  second  week  of  October  had 
passed  away,  he  had  marched  out  of  Mooltan  to 
join  his  father.  The  whole  country  was  now  rising 
against  us.  Having  used  the  name  of  the  Maharajah, 
the  Sikh  leaders  were  eager  to  possess  themselves  of 


MOVEMENTS  OF  THE  GOVEBXOR-GENERAL.  35 

the  person  of  the  boy-King,  and  but  for  the  vigilance      18i8. 
of  the  Resident  they  would  have  achieved  an  object 
which  would  have  added  a  new  element  of  strength 
to  the  national  cause.     Duleep  Singh  remained  in  our 
hands  vbtuaUy  a  prisoner  at  Lahore. 

All  this  time  the  Governor-General  was  at  Cal- 
cutta^ watching  from  a  distance  the  progress  of 
events,  and  betraying  no  eagerness  to  seize  a  favour- 
able opportunity  for  the  conquest  of  the  Pimjab.  In- 
deed, it  has  been  imputed  to  him,  as  a  grave  political 
error,  that  he  did  not  at  an  earlier  period  make  due 
preparation  for  the  inevitable  war.  But,  it  would  seem 
that  in  the  summer  of  1848,  his  desire  was  to  recog- 
nise as  long  as  possible  only  internal  rebellion  in  the 
Sikh  country  —  to  see,  not  the  rising  of  a  nation 
against  a  foreign  intruder,  but  the  revolt  of  a  few  un- 
loyal  chiefe  against  their  own  lawful  sovereign.  But 
with  the  first  breath  of  the  cool  season  there  came  a 
truer  conception  of  the  crisis,  and  Lord  Dalhousie  pre- 
pared himself  for  the  conflict.  "  I  have  wished  for 
peace,"  he  said,  at  a  public  entertainment,  early  in 
October ;  "  I  have  longed  for  it ;  I  have  striven  for 
it.  But  if  the  enemies  of  India  determine  to  have 
war,  war  they  shall  have,  and  on  my  word  they  shall 
have  it  with  a  vengeance."  A  few  days  afterwards 
he  turned  his  back  upon  Calcutta,  and  set  his  face 
towards  the  north-west.  All  the  energies  of  his 
mind  were  then  given  to  the  prosecution  of  the  war. 

The  British  army  destined  for  the  re-conquest  of 
the  Punjab  assembled  at  Ferozepore,  and  crossed  the 
Sutlej  in  different  detachments.  On  the  13th  of 
November  the  head-quarters  reached  Lahore.  At 
that  time  it  could  hardly  be  said  that  British  influ- 
ence extended  a  rood  beyond  the  Residency  walls. 
In  all  parts  of  the  country  the  Sikhs  had  risen  against 

d2 


86  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

1848.  the  great  reproach  of  the  English  Occupation.  In 
many  outlying  places,  on  the  confines  of  civilisa- 
tion, our  English  officers  were  holding  out,  in  the 
face  of  every  conceivable  difficulty  and  danger,  with 
constancy  and  resolution  most  chivalrous,  most 
heroic,  hoping  only  to  maintain,  by  their  own  per- 
sonal gallantry,  the  character  of  the  nation  they  re- 
presented. There  was,  indeed,  nothing  more  to  be 
done.  We  had  ceased  to  be  regarded  as  allies.  So 
eager  and  so  general  was  the  desire  to  expel  the 
intruding  Feringhee,  that  the  followers  of  Govind 
sank  for  a  time  all  feelings  of  national  and  religious 
animosity  against  their  Afghan  neighbours,  and  in- 
voked Mahomedan  aid  from  the  regions  beyond  the 
passes  of  the  Khyber. 

On  the  21st  of  November,  Lord  Gough  joined  the 
army  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Sutlej.  A  veteran  com- 
mander, who  within  the  space  of  a  few  years  had 
fought  more  battles  in  different  parts  of  the  world 
than  were  crowded  into  the  lives  of  most  living  war- 
riors—a general  whose  uniform  good  fortune  had 
glossed  over  his  want  of  forecast  and  science,  and 
whose  repeated  successes  had  silenced  criticism — ^he 
was  now  about  to  engage  in  military  operations  greater 
than  those  of  his  antecedent  campaigns,  with,  perhaps, 
even  less  knowledge  of  the  country  and  less  considera- 
tion of  the  probable  contingencies  of  the  war.  But  all 
men  had  confidence  in  him.  India  had  been  won  by 
a  series  of  military  mistakes  that  would  have  dis- 
graced an  ensign  before  the  examination  period,  and, 
perhaps,  would  not  have  been  won  at  all  if  we  had 
infused  into  our  operations  more  of  the  pedantry  of 
military  science.  He  was  a  soldier,  and  all  who  fought 
under  him  honoured  his  grey  hairs,  and  loved  him 
for  his  manly  bearing,  his  fine  frank  character,  and 


BAMNUGGUR.  37 

even  for  the  impetuosity  which  so  often  entangled      1848. 
his  legions  in  difficulties,  and  enhanced  the  cost  of 
the  victories  he  gained. 

The  arrival  of  the  Commander-in-Chief  was  the 
signal  for  the  immediate  commencement  of  hostilities. 
The  force  then  under  his  personal  command  consisted 
of  upwards  of  twenty  thousand  men,  with  nearly  a 
hundred  pieces  of  artillery,  and  Gough  was  in  no 
temper  for  delay.  On  the  day  after  his  arrival  in 
camp  was  fought  the  battle  of  Ranmuggur,  the  first 
of  those  disastrous  successes  which  have  given  so 
gloomy  a  character  to  the  campaign.  The  enemy 
had  a  strong  masked  battery  on  the  other  side  of  the 
river,  and  very  cleverly  contrived  to  draw  the  British 
troops  into  an  ambuscade.  The  operations  of  the 
Conmiander-in-Chief,  commenced  with  the  object  of 
driving  a  party  of  the  rebels,  who  were  on  his  side  of 
the  Chenab,  across  the  river,  had  the  eflfect  of  bring- 
ing his  cavalry  and  artillery  within  reach  of  these  con- 
cealed guns;  and  twenty-eight  pieces  of  ordnance 
opened  upon  our  advancing  coliunns.  The  cavalry 
were  ordered  to  move  forward  to  the  attack  as  soon 
as  an  opportunity  presented  itself.  They  found  an 
opportunity,  and  charged  a  large  body  of  the  enemy, 
the  Sikh  batteries  pouring  in  their  deadly  showers  aU 
the  while.  Many  fell  under  the  fire  of  the  guns,  many 
under  the  sabre-cuts  of  the  Sikh  swordsmen,  many 
under  the  withering  fire  of  a  body  of  matchlockmen, 
who,  taking  advantage  of  the  nature  of  the  ground, 
harassed  our  horsemen  sorely.  Nothing  was  gained 
by  our  "  victory ;"  but  we  lost  many  brave  and  some 
good  soldiers ;  and  our  troops  returned  to  camp 
weary  and  dispirited,  asking  what  end  they  had  ac- 
complished, and  sighing  over  the  cost. 
Some  days  afterwards  a  force  under  General  Thack- 


38  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

1848.  well  was  sent  out  to  cross  the  river,  but  being  scantily 
supplied  with  information,  and  grievously  hampered 
by  instructions,  it  succeeded  only  in  losing  a  few  men 
and  killing  several  of  the  enemy.  No  great  object 
was  gained,  but  great  opportunities  were  sacrificed. 
The  Commander-in-Chief  pompously  declared  that 
"  it  had  pleased  Almighty  God  to  vouchsafe  to  the 
British  arms  the  most  successful  issue  to  the  extensive 
combinations  rendered  necessary  for  the  purpose  of 
effecting  the  passage  of  the  Chenab,  the  defeat  and 
dispersion  of  the  Sikh  force  under  the  insurgent 
Rajah  Shere  Singh  and  the  numerous  Sikh  Sirdars 
who  had  the  temerity  to  set  at  defiance  the  British 
power."  These  "  events,  so  fraught  with  importance," 
were  to  "  tend  to  most  momentous  results."  The  re- 
sults were,  that  the  field  of  battle  was  shifted  from 
the  banks  of  the  Chenab  to  the  banks  of  the  Jhelum. 
The  enemy,  who  might  have  been  taken  in  rear,  and 
whose  batteries  might  have  been  seized,  if  Thackwell 
had  been  free  to  carry  out  the  most  obvious  tactics, 
escaped  with  all  their  guns;  and  on  the  13th  of 
January  bore  bloody  witness  to  the  little  they  had 
suffered,  by  fighting  one  of  the  greatest  and  most 
sanguinary  battles  in  the  whole  chronicle  of  Indian 
warfare. 

By  this  time  Henry  Lawrence  had  returned  to  the 
Punjab.  The  news  of  the  outbreak  at  Mooltan  had 
reached  him  in  England,  whilst  still  in  broken  health, 
and  had  raised  within  him  an  incontroUable  desire, 
at  any  hazard,  to  return  to  his  post.  He  had  won 
his  spurs,  and  he  was  eager  to  prove  that  he  was 
worthy  of  them,  even  at  the  risk  of  life  itself.  It  has 
been  said  that  he  ought  not  to  have  quitted  the  Pun- 
jab, and  that  if  he  had  been  at  Lahore  in  the  spring 
of  1848,  the  war  would  not  then  have  been  preci- 


RETUKN  OF  HENRT  LAWRENCE.  39 

pitated  by  the  rebellion  of  Moolraj,  for  "  any  one  but  1848. 
a  civilian  would  have  foreseen  that  to  send  Vans 
Agnew  and  Anderson  down  to  Mooltan  at  the  time 
and  in  the  manner  selected  was  almost  sure  to  pro- 
duce an  ebullition  of  feeling  and  violence."  But  if  CaJcuita 
Lawrence  had  not  gone  to  England  at  that  time,  he 
would,  in  all  human  probability,  have  died;  and 
though  he  might  not  have  sent  the  same  men  to 
Mooltan,  he  would  have  sent  a  mission  there  for  the 
same  purpose.  "  I  meant  to  have  sent  Arthur  Cocks," 
was  his  remark  to  the  present  writer,  when  the  dis- 
astrous news  reached  us  in  London.  He  saw  at  once 
that  tiie  Mooltanee  revolt  was  but  the  prelude  to  a 
great  national  outbreak,  and  though  his  friends 
trembled  for  his  safety  and  counselled  delay,  his 
strong  sense  of  duty  to  the  State  overruled  all  per- 
sonal considerations,  and  so  he  carried  back  his  shat- 
tered frame  and  his  inexhaustible  energies  to  the 
scene  of  the  coming  conflict.  Leaving  London  at 
the  end  of  October,  he  reached  Bombay  early  in  De- 
cember, and  pushing  up  the  Indus  with  characteristic 
rapidity  of  movement,  joined  the  camp  of  General 
Whish,  before  the  walls  of  Mooltan,  two  days  after 
the  great  festival  of  Christmas. 

On  the  second  day  of  the  new  year,  Whish,  rein-  1849. 
forced  from  Bombay,  carried  the  city  of  Mooltan. 
Long  and  obstinate  had  been  the  resistance  of  the  be- 
sieged ;  and  now  that  our  storming  columns  entered 
the  breach,  the  garrison  still,  at  the  bayonet's  point, 
showed  the  stuff  of  which  they  were  made.  Frightful 
had  been  the  carnage  during  the  siege.  Heaps  of 
mangled  bodies  about  the  battered  town  bore  ghastly 
witness  to  the  terrible  effects  of  the  British  ordnance. 
But  many  yet  stood  to  be  shot  down  or  bayoneted  in 
the  streets ;  and  the  work  of  the  besieging  force  was 


40  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSK. 

1849.  yet  far  from  its  close.  Moolraj  was  in  the  citadel  with 
some  thousands  of  his  best  fighting-men ;  and  the 
fort  guns  were  plied  as  vigorously  as  before  the  cap- 
ture of  the  town.  The  strength  of  this  formidable 
fortress  seemed  to  laugh  our  breaching  batteries  to 
scorn.  Mining  operations  were,  therefore,  com- 
menced; but  carried  on,  as  they  were,  beneath  a 
constant  discharge  from  our  mortars,  it  seemed  little 
likely  that  the  enemy  would  wait  to  test  the  skill  of 
the  engineers.  The  terrible  shelling  to  which  the 
fortress  was  exposed  dismayed  the  pent-up  garrison. 
By  the  21st  of  January  they  were  reduced  to  the  last 
extremity.  Moolraj  vainly  endeavoured  to  rally  his 
followers.  Their  spirit  was  broken.  There  was  no- 
thing left  for  them  but  to  make  a  desperate  sally  and 
cut  their  way  through  the  besiegers,  or  to  surren- 
der at  once.  The  nobler  alternative  was  rejected. 
Asking  only  for  his  own  life  and  the  honour  of  his 
women,  Moolraj  tendered  on  that  day  his  submission 
to  the  British  General.  Whish  refused  to  guarantee 
the  first,  but  promised  to  protect  the  women;  and 
on  the  following  morning  the  garrison  marched  out 
of  Mooltan,  and  Dewan  Moolraj  threw  himself  upon 
the  mercy  of  the  British  Government. 

Meanwhile,  Henry  Lawrence,  having  witnessed  the 
fall  of  the  city  of  Mooltan,  hastened  upwards  to  Feroze- 
pore,  conveyed  to  Lord  Dalhousie  the  first  welcome 
tidings  of  that  event,  took  counsel  with  the  Governor- 
General,  made  himself  master  of  the  great  man's 
views,  then  hurried  on  to  Lahore,  communicated  with 
the  Resident,  and  on  the  same  evening  pushed  on  to 
the  camp  of  the  Commander-in-Chief,  which  he  reached 
on  the  night  of  the  10th  of  January.  He  was  there 
in  no  recognised  official  position,  for  Currie's  tenure  of 
office  did  not  expire  until  the  beginning  of  the  ensuing 


CHILLIANWALLAH.  41 

month ;  but  he  was  ready  for  any  kind  of  service,  and      1849. 
he  placed  himself  at  Lord  (rough's  disposal,  as  an 
honorary  aide-de-camp,   or  any  other    subordinate 
officer,  in  the  fine  army  which  was  now  stretching  out 
before  him. 

Three  days  after  Lawrence's  arrival  in  camp  the 
battle  of  Chillianwallah  was  fought.  The  time  had 
arrived  when  a  far  less  impetuous  general  than  Gough 
might  have  deemed  it  incumbent  on  him  to  force  the 
Sikh  army  into  a  general  action.  It  is  true  that  the 
final  reduction  of  the  fortress  of  Mooltan  would  have 
liberated  a  large  portion  of  Whish's  column,  and 
greatly  have  added  to  the  strength  of  the  British 
army  on  the  banks  of  the  Jhelum.  But  the  Sikh 
Sirdars,  on  this  very  account,  were  eager  to  begin  the 
battle,  and  would  not  have  suffered  us  to  wait  for  our 
reinforcements.  Grough  abeady  had  a  noble  force 
under  him,  equal  to  any  service.  It  was  panting  for 
action.  There  had  been  a  lull  of  more  than  a 
month's  duration,  and  all  through  India  there  was  a 
feeling  of  impatience  at  the  protracted  delay.  Gough, 
therefore,  prepared  for  action.  Ascertaining  the 
nature  of  the  country  occupied  by  the  Sikh  army, 
and  the  position  of  their  troops,  he  planned  his  attack 
upon  sound  tactical  principles,  and  fully  instructed 
his  generals  in  the  several  parts  which  they  were 
called  upon  to  play.  On  the  afternoon  of  the  13  th 
everything  was  ready,  and  the  battle  was  to  have  been 
commenced  early  on  the  following  morning.  But^ 
unwilling  to  give  the  British  General  the  long  hours 
of  the  morrow's  light,  firom  daybreak  to  sunset,  that 
he  wanted,  to  fight  his  battle  according  to  approved 
principles  of  modem  warfare,  the  Sikh  leaders,  when 
the  day  was  far  spent,  determined,  if  possible,  to 
aggravate  him  into  an  immediate  encounter.     They 


42  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALH0U8IE. 

1849.  knew  their  man.  So  they  advanced  a  few  guns,  and 
sent  some  round-shot  booming  in  the  direction  of  the 
British  camp.  The  bait  took.  The  warm  Hibernian 
temperament  of  the  British  leader  could  not  brook  the 
insult.  He  moved  up  his  heavy  guns,  responded  with 
some  chance  shots  at  the  invisible  enemy,  and  then, 
there  being  little'of  the  day  left  for  his  operations, 
gave  the  command  for  his  line  to  advance. 

The  story  of  what  followed  has  been  often  told,  and 
it  is  not  so  gratifying  a  page  of  history  that  I  need 
care  to  repeat  it.  Night  closed  upon  the  fearful 
carnage  of  that  terrible  engagement,  and  both  armies 
claimed  the  victory.  What  it  cost  us  is  written  in 
the  Gazette.  Never  was  an  official  bulletin  received 
in  England  with  a  wilder  outcry  of  pain  and  passion. 
The  past  services,  the  intrepid  personal  courage,  the 
open  honest  character,  the  many  noble  qualities  of 
the  veteran  Commander  were  forgotten  in  that  burst 
of  popular  indignation,  and  hundreds  of  English 
families  turned  from  the  angry  past  to  the  fearful 
future,  and  trembled  as  they  thought  that  the  crown- 
ing action  with  that  formidable  enemy  had  yet  to  be 
fought  by  a  General  so  rash,  so  headstrong,  and  so 
incompetent. 

In  the  high  places  of  Grovemment  there  was  uni- 
versal discomposure,  and  the  greatest  military  au- 
thority in  the  country  shook  his  head  with  an 
ominous  gesture  of  reproach.  Then  arose  a  wild 
cry  for  Napier.  The  conqueror  of  the  Beloochees  was 
sent  out  in  hot  haste  to  India  to  repair  the  mischief 
that  had  been  done  by  Gough,  and  to  finish  off  the 
war  with  the  Sikhs  in  a  proper  workmanlike  manner. 
But  the  hottest  haste  could  not  wholly  annihilate  time 
and  space,  and  though  this  sudden  supersession  of  the 
brave  old  chief,  who  had  fought  so  many  battles  and 


THE  AFGHAN  ALLUNCE.  43 

won  SO  many  victories,  might  shame  his  grey  hairs,  it  1849. 
could  not  bring  the  war  to  a  more  rapid  or  a  more 
honourable  dose.  The  carnage  of  ChiUianwallah 
shook  for  a  time  the  confidence  of  the  army  in  their 
chief,  but  it  did  not  shake  the  courage  of  our  fighting- 
men,  or  destroy  their  inherent  capacity  for  conquest. 
It  was  a  lesson,  too,  that  must  have  scored  itself  into 
the  very  heart  of  the  British  chief,  and  made  him  a 
sadder  man  and  a  wiser  commander.  The  errors  of 
the  13th  of  January  were  to  be  atoned  for  by  a 
victory  which  any  leader  might  contemplate  with 
pride,  and  any  nation  with  gratitude.  Scarcely  had 
his  i^pointed  successor  turned  his  back  upon  England 
when  Gough  fought  another  great  battle,  which 
neither  Napier,  nor  Wellington  himself,  who  talked  of 
going  in  his  place,  could  have  surpassed  in  vigour 
of  execution  or  completeness  of  effect. 

Anxiously  was  intelligence  of  the  surrender  of 
Moolraj  looked  for  in  the  camp  of  the  Commander- 
in-Chief.  Since  that  disastrous  action  at  ChiUian- 
wallah, Grough  had  been  entrenching  his  position,  and 
waiting  reinforcements  from  Mooltan.  The  surrender 
of  that  fortress  set  free  some  twelve  thousand  men, 
and  Whish,  with  unlooked-for  rapidity,  marched  to 
the  banks  of  the  Jhelimi  to  swell  the  ranks  of  the 
grand  army.  A  great  crisis  was  now  approaching. 
Thrice  had  the  British  and  Sikh  forces  met  each  other 
on  the  banks  of  those  classical  rivers  which  had  seen 
the  triumphs  of  the  Macedonian — ^thrice  had  they 
met  each  other  only  to  leave  the  issue  of  the  contest 
yet  undecided.  A  great  battle  was  now  about  to  be 
fought— one  differing  from  all  that  had  yet  been 
fought  since  the  Sikhs  first  crossed  the  Sutlej,  for  a 
strange  but  not  unlooked-for  spectacle  was  about  to 
present  itself — Sikhs  and  Afghans,  those  old  heredi- 


44  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

1849.  tary  enemieSy  fighting  side  by  side  against  a  common 
foe.  The  Sikh  Sirdars,  I  have  said,  had  been  in- 
triguing to  secure  the  assistance  of  the  Ameer  of 
CabooL  For  some  time  there  appeared  little  like- 
lihood that  old  Dost  Mahomed,  whose  experience 
ought  to  have  brought  wisdom  with  it,  would  lend 
himself  to  a  cause  which,  in  spite  of  temporary  suc- 
cesses, was  so  sure  to  prove  hopeless  in  the  end.  But 
neither  years,  nor  experience,  nor  adversity  had 
taught  him  to  profit  by  the  lessons  he  had  learned. 
The  desire  of  repossessing  himself  of  Peshawur  was 
the  madness  of  a  life.  The  bait  was  thrown  out  to 
him,  and  he  could  not  resist  it.  He  came  through 
the  Khybur  with  an  Afghan  force,  marched  upon  the 
Indus,  and  threatened  Attock,  which  fell  at  his  ap- 
proach; despatched  one  of  his  sons  to  the  camp  of 
Shere  Singh,  and  sent  a  body  of  Douranee  troops  to 
fight  against  his  old  Feringhee  enemy,  who  for  years 
had  been  the  arbiter  of  his  fate.  How  deplorable  an 
act  of  senile  fatuity  it  was,  the  events  of  the  2l8t  of 
February  must  have  deeply  impressed  upon  his  mind. 
On  that  day  was  fought  an  action — ^was  gained  a 
victory,  in  the  emphatic  words  of  the  Crovemor- 
General,  "  memorable  alike  from  the  greatness  of  the 
occasion,  and  from  the  brilliant  and  decisive  issue  of 
the  encounter.  For  the  first  time,  Sikh  and  Afghan 
were  banded  together  against  the  British  power.  It 
was  an  occasion  which  demanded  the  putting  forth  of 
all  the  means  at  our  disposal,  and  so  conspicuous  a 
manifestation  of  the  superiority  of  our  arms  as  should 
appal  each  enemy,  and  dissolve  at  once  their  compact 
by  fatal  proof  of  its  futility.  The  completeness  of  the 
victory  which  has  been  won  equals  the  highest  hopes 
entertained."  And  there  was  no  official  exaggeration 
in  this ;  none  of  the  vain  boasting  of  the  interested 


GOOJKAT.  45 

despatch-writer.  At  Goojrat,  to  which  place  the  1849. 
enemy  had  unexpectedly  moved  their  camp.  Lord 
Gough  fought  a  great  battle  as  a  great  battle  ought 
to  be  fought,  coolly  and  deliberately,  by  a  British 
Commander.  Every  arm  of  his  fine  force  was  brought 
eflfectively  into  play ;  each  in  its  proper  place,  each 
supporting  and  assisting  the  others,  and  each  covering 
itself  with  glory.  From  the  early  dawn  of  that  clear 
bright  morning  the  cannonade  commenced.  Never 
had  the  Bengal  Artillery  made  a  nobler  display; 
never  had  it  been  worked  with  more  terrible  eflfect. 
Resolute  and  well  handled  as  was  the  Sikh  army,  it 
could  not  stand  up  against  the  steady  fire  of  our  guns. 
By  noon  the  enemy  were  retreating  in  terrible  dis- 
order, "their  position  carried,  their  guns,  ammuni- 
tion, camp  equipage,  and  baggage  captured,  their 
flying  masses  driven  before  their  victorious  pursuers, 
from  mid-day  receiving  most  severe  punishment  in 
their  flight."  And  all  this  was  accomplished  with 
but  Uttie  loss  of  life  on  the  side  of  the  victorious 
army.  It  pleased  the  Almighty  that  the  bloody 
lessons  of  the  Chenab  and  the  Jhelum  should  not 
be  thrown  away. 

A  division  under  Sir  Walter  Gilbert,  an  officer  of 
great  personal  activity,  unequalled  in  the  saddle,  was 
ordered  to  follow  up  the  success  of  Goojrat,  and  to 
drive  the  Afghans  from  the  Punjab.  And  well  did  he 
justify  the  choice  of  his  chief  By  a  series  of  rapid 
marches,  scarcely  excelled  by  any  recorded  in  history, 
he  convinced  the  enemy  of  the  hopelessness  of  all 
further  resistance.  The  Barukzye  force  fled  before 
our  advancing  columns,  and  secured  the  passage  of 
the  Khybur  before  British  influence  could  avail  to 
close  it  against  the  fugitives.  By  the  Sikhs  them- 
selves the  game  had  clearly  been  played  out.     The 


46  THE  ADinmSTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

1849.  Khalsa  was  now  quite  broken.  There  was  nothing 
left  for  Shere  Singh  and  his  associates  but  to  trust 
themselves  to  the  clemency  of  the  British  Govern- 
ment. On  the  5th  of  March,  the  Rajah  sent  the 
British  prisoners  safely  into  Gilbert's  camp.  On  the 
8th,  he  appeared  in  person  to  make  arrangements  for 
the  surrender  of  his  followers ;  and  on  the  14th,  the 
remnant  of  the  Sikh  army,  some  sixteen  thousand 
men,  including  thirteen  Sirdars  of  note,  laid  down 
their  arms  at  the  feet  of  the  British  General. 

The  military  chief  had  now  done  his  work,  and  it 
was  time  for  the  appearance  of  the  Civil  Governor  on 
the  scene.  Lord  Dalhousie  was  on  the  spot  prepared 
for  immediate  action.  Already  was  his  portfolio 
weighty  with  a  proclamation  which  was  to  determine 
the  fate  of  the  empire  of  Runjeet  Singh.  I  do  not 
suppose  that  a  moment's  doubt  ever  obscured  the 
clear,  unsullied  surface  of  the  Governor-General's  re- 
solution. It  was  a  case  which  suggested  no  misgivings 
and  prompted  no  hesitation.  The  Sikhs  had  staked 
everything  on  the  issue  of  the  war,  and  they  had  lost 
it  in  fair  fight.  They  had  repaid  by  acts  of  treachery 
and  violence  the  forbearance  and  moderation  of  the 
British  Government.  We  had  tried  to  spare  them ; 
but  they  would  not  be  spared.  First  one  course, 
then  another,  had  been  adopted  in  the  hope  that 
eventually  a  strong  native  Government  might  be  esta- 
blished, able  to  control  its  own  subjects,  and  willing 
to  live  on  terms  of  friendly  alliance  with  its  neigh- 
bours. Our  policy  had  from  the  first  been  wholly 
unaggressive.  There  was  no  taint  of  avarice  or  ambi- 
tion in  it.  But  it  had  not  been  appreciated ;  it  had 
not  been  successful.  The  whole  system  had  collapsed. 
And  now  that  again  a  British  ruler  was  called  upon 
to  solve  the  great  problem  of  the  Future  of  the 


THE  FAT£  OF  DULEEP  SINGH.  47 

Punjab,  he  felt  that  there  was  no  longer  any  middle  1849. 
course  open  to  him ;  that  there  was  but  one  measure 
applicable  to  the  crisis  that  had  arisen ;  and  that 
measure  was  the  annexation  of  the  country  to  the 
territories  of  the  British  Empire.  So  a  Proclamation 
was  issued  announcing  that  the  kingdom  founded  by 
Runjeet  Singh  had  passed  under  British  rule ;  and 
the  wisdom  and  righteousness  of  the  edict  few  men 
are  disposed  to  question. 

The  last  Sikh  Durbar  was  held  at  Lahore.  The  g^^ch  29, 
fiat  of  the  British  conqueror  was  read  aloud,  in  the 
presence  of  the  young  Maharajah,  to  the  remnant  of 
the  chiefe  who  had  not  committed  themselves  by  open 
rebellion ;  and  a  paper  of  Terms  was  then  produced 
by  which  the  British  Government  bound  themselves 
to  pay  the  annual  sum  of  forty  or  fifty  thousand 
pounds  to  the  boy-Prince  and  his  family,*  so  long  as 
he  should  remain  faithful  to  his  new  master  and 
abide  by  his  sovereign  will.  It  was  a  happy  change 
for  Duleep  Singh,  bom  as  he  was  for  the  Sikh 
shambles;  for  in  his  new  state  he  had  abundant 
wealth,  perfect  safety,  freedom  from  all  care,  and  the 
insurpassable  blessing  of  a  saving  faith.  Becoming, 
in  his  twelfth  year,  the  ward  of  the  Governor-General, 
he  was  placed  under  the  immediate  tutelage  of  an 
Assistant-Surgeon  of  the  Bengal  Army,f  who  was  so 
fit  a  man  for  the  office,  so  worthy  of  the  confidence 
reposed  in  him,  that  the  little  Sikh  Prince,  under  his 
wise  ministrations,  developed  into  a  Christian  gentle- 
man, an  English  courtier,  and  a  Scotch  laird.  And 
it  may  be  recorded  here,  before  I  pass  on  to  the  his- 
tory of  British  rule  in  the  Punjab,  that  the  mother 

*  This  is  not  the  loose  diction  of    less  than  four,  or  more  than  ^ye^ 
doubt.  The  agreement  was,  that  the    laklis  of  rupees. 
Britt^  GoTemment  should  pay  not        f  Afterwards  Sir  John  Login. 


48  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALH0U8IE. 

1849.  of  Duleep  Singh,  the  widow  of  old  Runjeet,  that  rest- 
less, turbulent  Chund  Kowr,  whose  intrigues  did  so 
much  to  precipitate  the  fall  of  the  Sikh  Empire,  after 
a  series  of  strange  romantic  vicissitudes,  prematurely 
old,  well-nigh  blind,  broken  and  subdued  in  spirit, 
found  a  resting-place  at  last  under  the  roof  of  her 

18G3.  8on,  in  a  quiet  comer  of  an  English  castlcy  and  died 
in  a  London  suburb. 

1849.  The  Proclamation  which  turned  the  Punjab  into 

loi"*oMhe  ^  British  province  was  not  the  only  weighty  State- 
Punjab,  paper  in  the  portfolio  of  the  Gk^vemor-Greneral. 
Whilst  Gough  had  been  preparing  to  strike  the  last 
crushing  blow  at  the  military  power  of  the  Khalsa, 
DaJhousie,  with  Henry  Elliot  at  his  elbow,  never 
doubting  the  issue,  was  mapping  out  the  scheme  of 
administration  under  which  it  seemed  good  to  him  to 
govern  the  country  which  was  about  to  pass  under 
our  rule.  The  crowning  victory  of  Goojrat  found 
everything  devised  and  prepared  to  the  minutest 
detail.  The  men  were  ready;  the  measures  were 
defined.  There  was  no  hurry,  therefore — ^no  con- 
fusion. Every  one  fell  into  his  appointed  place,  and 
knew  what  he  had  to  do.  And  never  had  any 
Governor  better  reason  to  place  unbounded  confi- 
dence in  the  men  whom  he  employed ;  never  was  any 
Governor  more  worthily  served. 

The  country  which  had  thus  fallen  by  right  of 
conquest  into  our  hands  embraced  an  area  of  fifty 
thousand  square  miles,  and  contained  a  popula- 
tion of  four  millions  of  inhabitants.  These  inhabi- 
tants were  Hindoos,  Mahomedans,  and  Sikhs.  The 
last  were  a  new  people — a  sect  of  reformed  Hindoos, 
of  a  purer  faith  than  the  followers  of  the  Brahminical 
superstitions.     It  was  a  Sikh  Government  that  we 


THE  PUNJAB  AND  ITS  PEOPLE.  49 

had  supplanted;  and  mainly  a  Sikh  army  that  we  ^^^* 
had  conquered;  but  it  must  not  be  supposed  that 
Punjabee  is  synon^ous  with  Sikh,  that  the  country 
was  peopled  fironr  one  end  to  the  other  with  the  fol- 
lowers of  Nanuk  and  Grovind,  or  that  they  were  the 
ancient  dwellers  on  the  banks  of  those  five  legendary 
rivers.  The  cities  of  the  Punjab  were  Mahomedan 
cities ;  cities  founded,  perhaps,  ere  Mahomed  arose, 
enlarged  and  beautified  by  the  followers  of  the  Ghuz- 
nivite.  The  monuments  were  mainly  Mahomedan 
monuments,  with  traces  here  and  there  of  Grecian 
occupation  and  Bactrian  rule.  Before  Delhi  had 
risen  into  the  imperial  city  of  the  Moguls,  Lahore 
had  been  the  home  of  Indian  kings.  But  the  rise  of 
the  Sikh  power  was  cotemporaneous  with  our  own, 
and  the  apostles  of  the  new  Reformation  had  not 
numbered  among  thdr  converts  more  than  a  section 
of  the  people.  And  as  was  the  population,  so  was 
the  country  itself,  of  a  varied  character.  Tracts  of 
rich  cultivated  lands,  the  corn-field  and  the  rose- 
garden,  alternated  with  the  scorched  plain  and  the 
sandy  desert  Here,  as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach,  a 
dreary  level  of  jungle  and  brushwood ;  there,  a  mag- 
nificent panorama,  bounded  by  the  blue  ranges  and 
the  snowy  peaks  of  the  Himalayah.  And  ever  the 
great  rivers  as  they  flowed  suggested  to  the  cultured 
mind  of  the  English  scholar  thoughts  of  that  grand 
old  traditionary  age,  when  Poms  fought,  and  Alex- 
ander conquered,  and  Megasthenes  wrote,  and  the 
home-sick  Argive,  on  the  banks  of  those  fabulous 
streams,  sighed  for  the  pleasant  country  he  had  left, 
and  rebelled  against  his  leader  and  his  fate.  It  was 
a  country  full  of  interest  and  full  of  opportunity ; 
and  it  grew  at  once  into  the  pet  province  of  the 

E 


50  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

1849.    British  Viceroy,  the  youngest  and  the  most  hopeful 
ofaU. 

That  a  country  so  situated,  so  circumstanced,  and 
so  peopled,  should  not  be  brought  under  the  system 
of  administration  prevailing  in  our  long-settled  pro- 
vinces was  a  mere  matter  of  course.  But  Dalhousie 
had  no  disposition  to  rush  into  the  opposite  extreme 
of  a  purely  military  government.  He  had  at  no  time 
of  his  career  any  class  prejudices,  and  he  did  not 
see  why  soldiers  and  civilians  should  not  work  har- 
moniously together  in  the  administrative  agency  of 
the  province.  He  had  faith  in  both ;  each  in  his  ap- 
pointed place ;  for  there  was  rough  soldiers'  work  to 
be  done,  and  much  also  that  needed  the  calm  judg- 
ment and  the  tutored  eye  of  the  experienced  didlian. 
So  he  called  in  the  aid  of  a  mixed  Staff  of  civil  and 
military  ojficers,  and  at  the  head  of  this  he  placed  a 
Board  of  Administration,  presided  over  by  Heniy 
Lawrence.* 

The  Board  was  to  consist  of  three  members,  with 
secretaries  to  do  the  pen-work  of  the  administration, 
and  to  scatter  its  instructions  among  the  subordinate 
functionaries  of  the  province.  It  was  not  a  control- 
ling  authority  which  a  man  of  Dalhousie's  stamp  was 
likely  to  affect ;  scarcely,  indeed,  could  he  be  sup- 
posed to  tolerate  it.  But  he  could  not  set  aside  the 
great  claims  of  Henry  Lawrence,  nor,  indeed,  could 
he  safely  dispense  with  his  services  in  such  a  con- 
juncture ;  yet  he  was  unwilling  to  trust  to  that  honest, 
pure-minded,  soldier-statesman  the  sole  direction  of 
affairs.  The  fact  is  that,  with  a  refinement  of  the 
justice  and  moderation  which  were  such  conspicuous 
features  of  Henry's  character,  he  dissented  firom  the 

*  Sir  Frederick  Carrie  had  by  this  iime  resumed  his  seat  in  the  Su- 
preme Council  of  India. 


JOHN  LAWRENCE.  51 

poliey  of  annexation.  He  thought  that  another  effort  1849. 
might  have  been  made  to  save  the  Sikh  Empire  from 
destruction.  Out  of  this  difficulty  arose  the  project  of 
the  Board.  It  was  natural  that  Dalhousie  should  have 
desired  to  associate  with  one  thus  minded  some  other 
statesman  whose  views  were  more  in  harmony  with 
his  own.  A  Board  of  two  is,  under  no  circumstances^ 
a  practicable  institution ;  so  a  Triumvirate  was  esta- 
blished. But  sentence  of  death  was  written  down 
against  it  from  the  very  hour  of  its  birth. 

The  second  seat  at  the  Board  was  given  to  the 
President's  brother,  John  Lawrence.  An  officer  of 
the  Company's  Civil  Service,  he  had  achieved  a  high 
reputation  as  an  administrator ;  as  one  of  those  hard- 
working, energetic,  conscientious  servants  of  the  State, 
who  live  ever  with  the  harness  on  their  back,  to  whom 
labour  is  at  once  a  duty  and  a  delight,  who  do  every- 
thing in  a  large  unstinting  way,  the  Ironsides  of  the 
Public  Service.  He  had  taken,  in  the  earlier  stages 
of  his  career,  an  active  part  in  the  Revenue  Settlement 
of  the  North-Westem  Provinces,  and  had  subsequently 
been  appointed  Magbtrate  of  the  great  imperial  city 
of  Delhi,  with  its  crowded,  turbulent  population,  and 
its  constant  under-current  of  hostile  intrigue.  In  this 
post,  winning  the  confidence  of  men  of  all  classes  and 
all  creeds.  Lord  Hardinge  found  him  when,  in  1845, 
he  journeyed  upwards  to  join  the  army  of  the  Sutlej. 
There  was  an  openness,  a  frankness  about  him  that 
pleased  the  old  soldier,  and  a  large-hearted  zeal  and 
courage  which  proclaimed  him  a  man  to  be  employed 
in  a  post  of  more  than  common  difficulty,  beyond  the 
circle  of  ordinary  routine.  So,  after  the  campaign  on 
the  Sutlej,  when  the  Jullindur  Doab  was  taken  in  part 
paj^ment  of  the  charges  of  the  war,  John  Lawrence 
was  appointed  to  superintend  the  administration  of 

£  2 


52  THE  ADMmiSTILATION  OF  LORD  DILHOUSIE. 

1849.  that  tract  of  country ;  and  on  more  than  one  occasion, 
during  the  enforced  absence  of  Henry  from  Lahore,  in 
the  first  two  years  of  the  British  Protectorate,  he  had 
occupied  his  brother's  seat  at  the  capital,  and  done  his 
work  with  unvaried  success.  That  there  were  great 
characteristic  diflPerences  between  the  two  Lawrences 
will  be  clearly  indicated  as  I  proceed ;  but  in  unsullied 
honesty  and  intrepid  manliness,  they  were  the  counter- 
parts of  each  other.  Both  were  equally  without  a 
stain. 

The  third  member  of  the  Lahore  Board  of  Admini- 
stration was  Mr.  Charles  Grenville  Mansel,  also  a  cove- 
nanted civilian,  who  had  earned  a  high  reputation  as 
one  of  the  ablest  financiers  in  India,  and  who  supplied 
much  of  the  knowledge  and  experience  which  his  col- 
leagues most  lacked.  His  honesty  was  of  as  fine  a 
temper  as  theirs,  but  he  was  a  man  rather  of  thought 
than  of  action,  and  wanted  the  constitutional  robust- 
ness of  his  associates  in  office.  Perhaps  his  very  pecu- 
liarities, rendering  him,  as  it  were,  the  complement  of 
the  other  two,  especially  marked  him  out  as  the  third 
of  that  remarkable  triumvirate.  Regarded  as  a  whole, 
with  reference  to  the  time  and  circumstances  of  its 
creation,  the  Board  could  not  have  been  better  con- 
stituted. It  did  honour  to  the  sagacity  of  Lord 
Dalhousie,  and  fully  justified  the  choice  of  agents 
he  had  made. 

The  system  was  one  of  divided  labour  and  common 
responsibility.  On  Henry  Lawrence  devolved  what 
was  technically  called  the  "political"  work  of  the 
Government.  The  disarming  of  the  country,  the 
negotiations  with  the  chiefs,  the  organisation  of  the 
new  Punjabee  regiments,  the  arrangements  for  the 
education  of  the  young  Maharajah,  who  had  now  be- 
come the  ward  of  the  British  Government,  were  among 


TIIE  PUNJABEE  OFFICIALS.  53 

the  immediate  duties  to  which  he  personally  devoted  1849. 
himself;  the  chief  care  of  John  Lawrence  was  the 
civil  administration,  especially  the  settlement  of  the 
Land  Revenue;  whilst  Mansel  superintended  the 
general  judicial  management  of  the  province ;  each, 
however,  aiding  the  others  with  his  advice,  and  having 
a  potential  voice  in  the  general  Council.  Under  these 
chief  officers  were  a  number  of  subordinate  adminis- 
trators of  different  ranks,  drawn  partly  from  the  civil 
and  partly  from  the  military  service  of  the  Company. 
The  province  was  divided  into  seven  divisions,  and  to 
each  of  these  divisions  a  Commissioner  was  appointed. 
Under  each  of  these  Commissioners  were  certain 
Deputy-Commissioners,  varying  in  number  accordmg 
to  the  amount  of  business  to  be  done ;  whilst  under 
them  again  were  Assistant-Commissioners  and  Extra 
Assistants,  drawn  from  the  uncovenanted  servants  of 
Government — ^Europeans,  Indo-Britons,  or  natives  of 
pure  descent. 

The  officers  selected  for  the  principal  posts  under 
the  Lahore  Board  of  Administration  were  the  very 
flower  of  the  Indian  services.  Dalhousie  had  thrown 
his  whole  heart  into  the  work  which  lay  before  him. 
Resolved  that  it  should  not  be  marred  by  the  in- 
efficiency of  his  agents,  he  looked  about  him  for  men 
of  mark  and  likelihood,  men  in  the  vigour  of  their 
years,  men  of  good  performance  for  the  higher  posts, 
and  sturdy,  eager-spirited  youths  of  good  promise  for 
the  lower.  It  mattered  not  to  him  whether  the  good 
stuff  were  draped  in  civil  blaek  or  military  red.  Far 
above  all  petty  prejudices  of  that  kind,  the  Governor- 
General  swept  up  his  men  with  an  eye  only  to  the 
work  that  was  in  them,  and  sent  them  forth  to  do  his 
bidding.  Some  had  already  graduated  in  Punjabee 
administration  under  the  Protectorate  ;  others  crossed 


54  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALH0U8IE. 

1849.  the  Sutlej  for  the  first  time  with  honours  taken  under 
Thomason  and  his  predecessors  in  the  North-Weat 
Provinces.  And  among  them  were  such  men  as  Greorge 
Edmonstone,  Donald  Macleod,  and  Robert  Mont- 
gomery from  the  one  service;  Frederick  Mackeson 
and  George  Macgregor  from  the  other ;  such  men, 
besides  those  already  named,*  as  Richard  Temple,  Ed- 
ward Thornton,  Neville  Chamberlain,  George  Barnes, 
Lewin  Bowring,  Philip  Goldney,  and  Charles  Saun- 
ders; soldiers  and  civilians  working  side  by  side, 
without  a  feeling  of  class  jealousy,  in  the  great  work 
of  reconstructing  the  admimstration  of  the  Punjab 
and  carrying  out  the  executive  details ;  whilst  at  the 
head  of  the  department  of  Public  Works  was  Robert 
Napier,  in  whom  the  soldier  and  the  man  of  science 
met  together  to  make  one  of  the  finest  Engineer 
officers  in  the  world. 

They  found  much  to  do,  but  little  to  undo.  The 
Government  of  Runjeet  Singh  had  been  of  a  rude, 
simple,  elementary  character;  out  of  all  rule;  in- 
formal; unconstitutional;  unprincipled;  one  great 
despotism  and  a  number  of  petty  despotisms ;  accord- 
ing to  our  English  notions,  reeking  with  the  most 
"  frightful  injustice."  But  somehow  or  other  it  had 
answered  the  purpose.  The  injustice  was  intelligible 
injustice,  for  it  was  simply  that  of  the  strong  will 
and  the  strong  hand  crushed  down  in  turn  by  one 
still  stronger.  Petty  governors,  revenue-farmers,  or 
kardars  might  oppress  the  people  and  defraud  the 
State,  but  they  knew  that,  sooner  or  later,  a  day  of 
reckoning  would  come  when  their  accounts  would  be 
audited  by  the  process  of  compulsory  disgorgement^ 

*  JnUt  p.  13.  I  have  here  named  Others  there  were,  appointed  at  a 
only  those  diBtinguished  during  the  later  period,  equally  entitled  to  bo- 
earlier  period  of  our  Punjabee  career,    nouraole  mention. 


THE  PUNJAB  SYSTEM.  55 

or  in  some  parts  of  the  country  settled  in  the  noose  of  ia49. 
the  proconsular  gibbet.  No  niceties  of  conscience  and 
no  intricacies  of  law  opposed  an  obstacle  to  these 
summary  adjustments.  During  the  existence  of  that 
great  fiction  the  Council  of  Regency,  we  had  begun  to 
systematise  and  to  complicate  affairs ;  and  as  we  had 
found — at  least,  as  far  as  we  understood  the  matter — 
a  clear  field  for  our  experiments,  we  now,  on  assuming 
undisguisedly  the  administration  of  the  country,  had 
a  certain  basis  of  our  own  to  operate  upon,  and  little 
or  nothing  to  dear  away. 

The  system  of  administration  now  introduced  into 
the  Punjab,  formal  and  precise  as  it  may  have  been 
when  compared  with  the  rude  simplicity  of  the  old 
Sikh  Government,  was  loose  and  irregular  in  com- 
parison  with  the  strict  procedure  of  the  Regulation 
Provinces.  The  administrators,  whether  soldiers  or 
civilians,  were  limited  to  the  discharge  of  no  par- 
ticular  departmental  functions.  They  were  judges, 
revenue-collectors,  thief-catchers,  diplomatists,  con- 
servancy officers,  and  sometimes  recruiting  Serjeants 
and  chaplains,  all  in  one.  Men  trained  in  such  a  school 
as  this,  and  under  such  masters  as  the  Lawrences, 
became  equal  to  any  fortune,  and  in  no  conjuncture, 
however  critical,  were  ever  likely  to  fail.  There 
was  hardly  one  among  them  who  did  not  throw  his 
whole  heaji,  into  his  work;  who  ever  thought  of  ease, 
or  leisure,  or  any  personal  enjoyment  beyond  that 
which  comes  from  an  honest  sense  of  duty  done. 
They  lived  among  the  people  of  the  country,  their 
tents  open  to  all  the  points  of  the  compass;*  and 

*  Sir  John  Malcolm  uBed  to  say  here  is  a  pleasant  illostratiTe  proof, 

that  the  only  way  to  govern  the  from  a  paper  written  by  one  of  them : 

people  of  a  newly-acaoired  coontiy  — "  For  eight  months  in  the  year  the 

was  by  means  of  ekar  aurwasek  kolak,  tent  is  the  proper  home  of  him  who 

or  fonr  doors  open.    That  the  Pun-  loves  his  duties  and  his  people.  Thus 

jabee  ofl&ciab  well  understood  this,  he  comes  to  know  and  be  Jmown  of 


56  TU£  ADMINISTRAnOM  OF  LORD  DALH0U8IE. 

1849.    won  by  their  personal  bearing  the  confidence  and  the 
admiration  of  all  who  came  within  their  reach. 

And  so,  far  sooner  than  even  sanguine  men  ven- 
tured to  predict^  the  Punjab  began  to  settle  down 
under  its  new  rulers.  Even  the  old  Ehalsa  fighting, 
men  accepted  their  position,  and  with  a  manly  resig- 
nation looking  cheerfully  at  the  inevitable,  confessed 
that  they  had  been  beaten  in  fair  fight^  and  submitted 
themselves  to  the  English  conqueror.  Some  were 
enlisted  into  the  new  Punjabee  Irregular  Regiments, 
which  were  raised  for  the  internal  defence  of  the  pro- 
vince. Others  betook  themselves,  with  the  pensions 
or  gratuities  which  were  bestowed  upon  them,  to  their 
fields,  and  merged  themselves  into  the  agricultural 
population.  There  was  no  fear  of  any  resurrection 
of  the  old  national  cause.  For  whilst  the  people  were 
forced  to  surrender  all  their  weapons  of  war — ^their 
guns,  their  muskets,  their  bayonets,  their  sabres,  their 
spears — ^the  whole  province  was  bristling  with  British 
arms.  An  immense  military  force  was  maintained  in 
the  Punjab.  It  was  a  happy  circumstance  that,  as 
the  Indus  had  now  become  our  boundary  and  the 
country  of  the  Sikhs  our  frontier  province,  it  was 
necessary  for  purposes  of  external  defence,  after  the 
apparent  settling  down  of  our  newly-acquired  terri- 
tories, still  to  keep  our  regular  troops,  European  and 
native,  at  a  strength  more  than  sufficient  to  render 
utterly  harmless  all  the  turbulent  elements  of  Pim- 
jabee  society.     Had  the  British  army  been  withdrawn 

them ;  thus  personal  influence  and    and  almonds,  aooordinff  to  the  fashion 


local  knowledge  give  him  a  power  of  their  countir,  ana  are  never  so 

not  to  be  won  by  bribes  or  upheld  happy  as  when  allowed  to  seat  them- 

by  bayonets.    The  notables  of  the  selves  on  the  carpet  and  talk  over 

neighbourhood  meet  their  friend  and  old  times  and  new  events — the 

ruler  on  his  morning  march ;  grey-  mise  of  the  harvest  and  the 


neighbourhood  meet  their  friend  and  old  times  and  new  events — the  pro- 
ruler  on  his  morning  march ;  grey-  mise  of  the  harvest  and  the  last 
beards  throng  rouncThis  unguiu-ded    orders  of  the  rulers." — Calcuita  Be^ 


door  with  presents  of  the  best  fruits    view^  vol.  xxxiii. 


I 


of  the  land,  or  a  little  sugar,  spices. 


THE  8IKH  SIRDABS.  57 

firom  the  Punjab,  as  at  a  later  period  it  was  from    1849. 
Oude,  it  is  hard  to  say  what  might  not  have  resulted 
from  our  confidence  and  incaution. 

On  the  acquisition  of  a  new  country  and  the  ex- 
tiBcrion  ofrold  dynast,  i.  ha,  oon^nly  happened 
that  the  chief  sufierers  by  the  revolution  have  been 
found  among  the  aristocracy  of  the  land.  The  great 
masses  of  the  people  have  been  considerately,  indeed 
generously  treated,  but  the  upper  classes  have  been 
commonly  prostrated  by  the  annexmg  hand,  and  have 
never  recovered  from  the  blow.  This  may  be  partly 
attributed  to  what  is  so  often  described  as  the  ^^  in- 
evitable tendency"  of  such  a  change  from  a  bad  to  a 
good  government.  It  has  been  assumed  that  the  men 
whom  we  have  found  in  the  enjoyment  of  all  the 
privileges  of  wealth  and  social  position,  have  risen  to 
this  eminence  by  spoliation  and  fraud,  and  maintained 
it  by  cruelty  and  oppression.  And  it  is  true  that  the 
antecedents  of  many  of  them  would  not  bear  a  very 
jealous  scrutiny.  Now,  so  far  as  the  substitution  of  a 
strong  and  pure  for  a  weak  and  corrupt  government 
must  necessarily  have  checked  the  prosperous  career 
of  those  who  were  living  on  illicit  gains  and  tyran- 
nous exactions,  it  was,  doubtless,  the  inevitable  ten- 
dency of  the  change  to  injure,  if  not  to  ruin  them,  as 
the  leaf  must  perish  when  the  stem  dies.  But  it  must 
be  admitted  that  for  some  years  past  the  idea  of  a 
native  aristocracy  had  been  an  abomination  in  the  eyes 
of  English  statesmen  in  India ;  that  we  had  desired 
to  see  nothing  between  the  Sircar,  or  Government, 
and  the  great  masses  of  the  people ;  and  that,  how- 
ever litde  we  might  have  designed  it,  we  had  done 
some  great  wrongs  to  men,  whose  misfortune,  rather 
than  whose  fault,  it  was  that  they  were  the  growth  of 
a  corrupt  system.     There  was  at  the  bottom  of  this  a 


58  TH£  ADMINISTEATION  OF  L0B9  DALHOUSIB. 

1849.  strong  desire  for  the  welfare  of  the  people — an  eager 
and  a  generous  longing  to  protect  the  we£(k  against 
the  tyranny  of  the  strong;  but  benevolence,  like 
ambition,  sometimes  overleaps  itself,  and  falls  prostrate 
on  the  other  side,  and  out  of  our  very  love  of  justice 
come  Bometimes  unjust  deeds. 

To  the  great  chiefs  of  the  Punjab  the  annexation 
of  the  country  to  the  British  Empire  was  a  source  of 
sore  disquietude.  •  Mercy  to  the  vanquished  in  the 
hour  of  victory  was  not  one  of  the  weaknesses  they 
had  been  accustomed  to  contemplate.  They  had 
played  for  a  great  stake,  and  they  had  lost  They 
had  brought  their  losses  on  themselves.  They  had 
invited  by  their  own  acts  the  conflict  which  had 
ruined  them.  In  no  one  instance  had  our  policy 
been  aggressive.  We  had  not  coveted  the  possession 
of  the  Punjab.  We  had  not  invited  either  the 
first  or  the  second  great  conflict  between  the  British 
and  the  Sikh  armies.  A  brave  nation  fighting  for 
its  independence  is  one  of  the  noblest  spectacles 
of  humanity ;  and  the  leaders  of  such  a  movement 
have  just  claim  to  sympathy  and  respect.  But  these 
men  had  risen  against  us  whilst  they  pretended  to 
be  our  friends.  They  had  soiled  their  patriotism 
by  treachery,  and  forfeited  their  honour  by  false- 
hood and  deceit.  Still,  to  a  man  of  large  mind  and 
catholic  spirit  like  Henry  Lawrence,  it  could  not 
seem  right  to  judge  these  Sirdars  as  he  would  the 

*  This  was  admitted  in  the  first  thosiasm,  cannot  return  to  the  ordi- 

PuDJab  Report,  the  following  pas-  nary  level  of  society  and  the  common 

sage  of  whicu  may  be  advantageously  occupations  of  life  without  feeling 

quoted : — "  A  great  revolution  can-  some  discontent  and  some  enmity 

not  happen  without  injurinsr  some  against  their  powmfnl  but  humane 

classes.     When  a   State  fims,  its  conquerors,    but  it  is  probable  that 

nobility  and  its  supporters  must  to  the  mass  of  the  people  will  advance 

some  extent  suffer  with  it ;  a  domi-  in  material  prosperity  and  in  moral 

nant  sect  and  party  once  moved  by  eleration  under  the  ipfl"ft"^   of 

political  ambition  and  religious  en-  British  rule." 


JA6HKEB8  AND  PENSIONS.  59 

flower  of  European  chivalry.  So  he  dealt  gtotly  1849. 
with  their  offences ;  and  when  he  came  to  consider 
their  position  under  the  new  Grovemment,  he  re- 
spected their  fallen  fortunes,  and  laid  a  lighter  hand 
upon  their  tenures  than  higher  authority  was  alto- 
gether willing  to  sanction.  That  a  large  portion  of 
the  revenue  would  be  alienated  by  grants  to  military 
chie&  and  to  priestly  sinecurists  was  certain;  not 
less  certain  did  it  ap^  that  the  money  might  be 
better  bestowed.  StiuTit  might  be  politic,  even  in 
a  financial  aspect,  to  tolerate  for  a  time  abuses  of 
this  kind,  as  not  the  most  expensive  means  of  re- 
conciling the  influential  classes  to  our  rule.  Thus 
argued  Henry  Lawrence,  ^p  these  privileged  classes 
received  from  him,  in  many  instances,  though  not  all 
that  he  wished  to  give,  more  perhaps  than  they  had 
dared  to  expect.  Existing  incumbents  were  generally 
respected ;  and  the  privileges  enjoyed  by  one  gene- 
ration were  to  be  only  partially  resumed  in  the  next. 
Th«^  by  .  weU^^LnedL:^  of  vigour  «>d 
clemency,  the  submission,  if  not  the  acquiescence,  of 
the  more  dangerous  classes  was  secured;  and  our 
admimstrators  were  left,  undisturbed  by  the  fear  of 
internal  revolt,  to  prosecute  their  ameliorative  mea- 
sures. It  would  be  beyond  the  scope  of  such  a  nar- 
rative as  this  to  write  in  detail  of  the  operations 
which  were  carried  out,  under  the  Lahore  Board,  at 
once  to  render  British  rule  a  blessing  to  the  people, 
and  the  possesion  of  the  Punjab  an  element  of 
strength  and  security  to  the  British  Empire.  These 
great  victories  of  peace  are  reserved  for  others  to 
record  That  the  measures  were  excellent,  that  the 
men  were  even  better  than  the  measures,  that  the 
administration  of  the  Punjab  was  a  great  fact,  at 
which  Englishmen  pointed  with  pride  and  on  which 


60  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALH0U8IE. 

1849.  foreigners  dwelt  with  commendation,  is  freely  ad- 
mitted, even  by  those  who  are  not  wont  to  see  much 
that  is  good  in  the  achievements  of  the  British 
Government  in  India.  Under  the  fostering  care  of 
the  Grovemor-General,  who  traversed  the  coimtry 
from  one  end  to  the  other,  and  saw  everything  with 
his  own  eyes,  the  "Punjab  system"  became  the 
fashion,  and  men  came  to  speak  and  to  write  of  it  as 
though  it  were  a  great  experiment  in  government 
originated  by  Lord  Dalhousie.  But  it  was  not  a  new 
system.  It  had  been  tried  long  years  before,  with 
marked  success,  and  was  still  in  force  in  other  parts 
of  India,  though  it  had  never  been  carried  out  on  so 
large  a  scale,  or  in  so  fine  a  country,  or  been  the 
darling  of  a  viceroy.  The  only  novelty  in  the  con- 
struction of  the  administration  was  the  Lahore  Board, 
and  that  was  abandoned  as  a  failure. 

I  do  not  say  that  it  was  a  failure ;  but  it  was  so 
regarded  by  Lord  Dalhousie,  who,  in  1853,  remorse- 
lessly signed  its  death-warrant.  A  delicate  operation, 
indeed,  was  the  breaking  up  of  the  Punjabee  Cabinet 
and  the  erection  of  an  autocrasy  in  its  place.  It  was 
the  will  of  the  Governor-General  that  the  chief  direc- 
tion of  affairs  should  be  consigned  to  the  hands,  not 
of  many,  but  of  one.  And  when  the  rumour  of  this 
resolution  went  abroad,  there  was  scarcely  a  house,  or 
a  bimgalow,  or  a  single-poled  tent  occupied  by  an 
English  officer,  in  which  the  future  of  the  Punjab— 
the  question  of  the  Lawrences — ^was  not  eagerly  dis- 
cussed. Was  Henry  or  was  John  Lawrence  to  re- 
main supreme  director  of  affairs  ?  So  much  was  to 
be  said  in  favour  of  the  great  qualities  of  each 
brother,  that  it  was  difficult  to  arrive  at  any  antici- 
patory solution  of  the  question.     But  it  was  in  the 


ABOUnON  OF  THE  BOARD.  61 

character  of  the  Governor-General  himself  that  the  1853. 
key  to  the  difficulty  should  have  been  sought.  Lord 
Hardinge  would  have  chosen  Henry  Lawrence.  Lord 
Dalhousie  chose  John.  No  surprise  is  now  expressed 
that  it  was  so ;  for,  in  these  days,  the  character  and 
policy  of  Dalhousie  are  read  by  the  broad  light  of 
history.  No  regret  is  now  felt  that  it  was  so ;  for, 
when  the  great  hurricane  of  which  I  am  about  to 
write  swept  over  India,  each  of  those  two  great 
brothers  was,  by  God's  providence,  foimd  in  his 
right  place.  But  there  were  many  at  the  time  who 
grieved  that  the  name  of  Henry  Lawrence,  who 
had  been  for  so  many  years  associated  with  all  their 
thoughts  of  British  influence  in  the  Sikh  country,  and 
who  had  paved  the  way  to  all  our  after  successes, 
was  to  be  expunged  from  the  list  of  Punjabee  admi- 
nistrators. It  was  said  that  he  sympathised  overmuch 
with  the  fallen  state  of  Sikhdom,  and  sacrificed  the 
revenue  to  an  idea ;  that  he  was  too  eager  to  provide 
for  those  who  sufiered  by  our  usurpation ;  whilst  Dal- 
housie, deeming  that  the  balance-sheet  would  be  re- 
garded as  the  great  test  and  touchstone  of  success,  was 
eager  to  make  the  Punjab  pay.  John  Lawrence,  it 
was  said,  better  understood  the  art  of  raising  a  revenue. 
He  was  willing,  in  his  good  brotherly  heart,  to  with- 
draw from  the  scene  in  favour  of  Henry ;  but  the  Go- 
vernor-General needed  his  services.  So  he  was  ap- 
pointed Chief-Commissioner  of  the  Punjab,  and  a 
new  theatre  was  found  for  the  exercise  of  Henry 
Lawrence's  more  chivalrous  benevolence  among  the 
ancient  states  of  Rajpootana. 

Outwardly,  authoritatively,  and  not  untruthfully, 
the  explanation  was,  that  the  work  of  the  soldier-states- 
man was  done,  that  the  transition-period  in  which 


63  TH£  ADMOnsnUTlON  OF  LOBD  DM.H0U8IE. 

1853.  Henry  Lawrence's  services  were  so  especiaUy  needed 
had  passed ;  that  the  business  of  internal  administra- 
tion was  principaUy  such  as  comes  within  the  range 
of  the  civil  officer's  duties ;  and  that  a  civilian  with 
large  experience,  especially  in  revenue  matters,  was 
needed  to  direct  all  the  numerous  details  of  the  Exe- 
cutive Grovemment  Dalhousie  never  liked  the  Board. 
It  waa  not  a  description  of  administrative  agency 
likely  to  find  favour  in  his  eyes ;  and  it  is  not  impos- 
sible that  he  placed,  with  some  reluctance,  at  the 
head  of  it  a  man  who  had  not  approved  the  original 
policy  of  annexation.  But  he  could  not  have  read 
Henry  Lawrence's  character  so  badly  as  to  believe 
for  a  moment  that,  on  that  account,  the  policy  once 
accomplished,  he  could  have  been  less  eager  for  its 
success,  or  less  zealous  in  working  it  out.  There  was 
the  indication,  however,  of  a  fimdamental  difference  of 
opinion,  which  as  time  advanced  became  more  and 
more  apparent,  for  Henry's  generous  treatment  of  his 
fallen  enemies  came  from  that  very  source  of  enlarged 
sympathy  which  rendered  the  poUcy  of  annexation  dis- 
tasteful  to  him.  It  was  natural,  therefore,  that  the 
Governor-General,  who  had  resolved  to  rid  himself 
of  the  Board  on  the  first  fitting  opportunity,  should 
have  selected  as  the  agent  of  his  pet  policy,  the 
administrator  of  his  pet  province,  the  civilian  who 
concurred  with,  rather  than  the  soldier  who  dis- 
sented firom,  his  views.  The  fitting  opportunity 
came  at  last,  for  there  was  a  redistribution  of  some 
of  the  higher  political  offices;*  and  Dalhousie  then 

*  The  Hyderabad  Eesidencj  was  bered)  that  eitiier  he  or  his  brother 

about  to  be  vacated.    It  was  an  should  be  sent  to  Hyderabad.   Lord 

office  that  had  been  held  by  Sir  Dalhousie,    however,  sent  General 

Charles  Metcalfe  and  other  eminent  Low  to  the  Court  of  the  Nisam,  and 

men.    I  believe  that  Henry  Law-  gave  Heniy  Lawrence  the  scarcely 

renoe  suggested  (for  the  dajs  of  the  less  honourable  appointment  of  Qo- 

Board  hMbeen  for  some  time  num-  vemor-General's  agent  in  Rajpootana. 


HXRVY  AKD  JOHN  LAWBENCE.  68 

swept  away  the  obnoxiotis  institution,  and  placed  the    1863. 
administration  of  the  Punjab  in  the  hands  of  a  single 
man. 

Henry  Lawrence  bowed  to  the  decision,  but  was  not 
reconciled  to  it.  He  betook  himself  to  his  new  duties 
a  sadder  and  a  wiser  man.  He  did  not  slacken  in 
good  service  to  the  State ;  but  he  never  again  had  the 
same  zest  for  his  work.  Believing  that  he  had  been 
unfairly  and  ungratefully  treated,  he  had  no  longer 
hia  old  confidence  in  his  master,  and  as  the  Dalhousie 
policy  developed  itself,  imder  the  ripening  influence 
of  time,  he  saw  more  clearly  that  he  was  not  one  to 
find  favour  in  the  eyes  of  the  Governor-General 
Much  that  he  had  before  but  dimly  seen  and  partly 
understood  now  became  folly  revealed  to  him  in  the 
clear  light  of  day.  Once,  and  once  only,  there  was 
any  ofiicial  conflict ;  but  Henry  Lawrence  saw  much 
that  whilst  he  deplored  he  could  not  avert,  and  he 
sighed  to  think  that  his  principles  were  out  of  date 
and  his  politics  out  of  fashion. 

In  the  mean  while,  John  Lawrence  reigned  in  the 
Punjab.  The  capacity  for  administration,  which  he 
had  evinced  as  a  Member  of  the  Board,  had  now  free 
scope  for  exercise,  and  was  soon  fully  developed.  His 
name  became  great  throughout  the  land,  and  he  de- 
served the  praise  that  was  lavished  upon  him.  Right 
or  wrong  he  did  all  in  accordance  with  the  faith 
that  was  in  him.  He  was  a  fitting  agent  of  Dalhousie's 
policy,  only  because  he  believed  in  that  policy.  And 
happily  the  greater  part  of  his  work  lay  along  the 
straight  road  of  undebatable  beneficence.  How  he 
worked,  day  after  day,  early  and  late,  and  how  all 
men  worked  under  him,  is  a  history  now  well  known. 
He  was  emphatically  a  man  without  a  weakness. 
Strong  himself,  bone  and  muscle,  head  and  heart,  of 


64  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

1853.  adamantine  strength,  that  would  neith^  bend  nor 
break,  he  expected  others  to  be  equally  strong. 
They  sighed,  perhaps  they  inwardly  protested,  but 
they  knew  that  the  work  he  exacted  from  them  he 
gave,  in  his  own  person,  unstintingly  to  the  State ; 
and  they  could  not  res^ard  as  a  hard  task-master  one 
who  tasked  himself  h^est  of  alL  From  moral  in. 
firmities  of  all  kinds  he  appeared  to  be  equally  free. 
He  did  not  even  seem  to  be  ambitious.  Men  said  that 
he  had  no  sentiment,  no  romance.  We  so  often  judge 
our  neighbours  wrongly  in  this,  that  I  hesitate  to 
adopt  the  opinion ;  but  there  was  an  intense  reality 
about  him  such  as  I  have  never  seen  equalled.  He 
seemed  to  be  continually  toiling  onwards,  upwards, 
as  if  life  were  not  meant  for  repose,  with  the  grand 
princely  motto,  " /  serve^'  inscribed  in  characters  of 
light  on  his  forehead.  He  served  God  as  unceasingly 
as  he  served  the  State ;  and  set  before  all  his  coimtry- 
men  in  the  Punjab  the  true  pattern  of  a  Christian 
gentleman. 

And  it  was  not  thrown  away.  The  Christian  cha- 
racter of  British  administration  in  the  Punjab  has 
ever  been  one  of  its  most  distinguishing  features.  It 
is  not  merely  that  great  humanising  measures  were 
pushed  forward  with  an  alacrity  most  honourable  to 
a  Christian  nation — ^that  the  moral  elevation  of  the 
people  was  continually  in  the  thoughts  of  our  ad- 
ministrators;  but  that  in  their  own  personal  cha- 
racters they  sought  to  illustrate  the  religion  which 
they  professed.  Wherever  two  or  three  were  gathered 
together,  the  voice  of  praise  and  prayer  went  up  from 
the  white  man's  tent.  It  had  been  so  during  the  Pro- 
tectorate, when,  in  tl)e  wildest  regions  and  in  the 
most  stirring  times,  men  like  the  Lawrences,  Reynell 
Taylor,   and   Herbert  Edwardes,   never   forgot  the 


THE  BURMESE.  65 

Gliristian  Sabbath.*  And  now  that  peace  and  order  1853. 
leigned  over  the  country,  Christianity  asserted  itself 
more  demonstratiyely,  and  Christian  churches  rose  at 
our  bidding.  There  was  little  or  none,  too,  of  that 
great  scandal  which  had  made  our  names  a  hissing 
and  a  reproach  in  Afghanistan.  Our  English  officers, 
for  the  most  part,  lived  pure  lives  in  that  heathen 
land ;  and  private  immorality  imder  the  administra- 
tion of  John  Lawrence  'grew  into  a  grave  public 
offence. 


And  80  the  Punjab  administration  flourished  under  Conquest  of 
ihe  Chief-Commissioner  and  his  assistants  ;f  and  the  ^^^ 
active  mind  of  Lord  Dalhousie  was  enabled  to  direct 
itself  to  new  objects.  Already,  far  down  on  the 
south-eastern  boundary  of  our  empire — at  the  point 
fafl.e^re.>ovedoraWthegLtoo«n.^wh«o 
destimes  we  have  been  considering — the  seeds  of  war  ♦ 

had  been  sown  broad-cast.  Ever  since  1826,  when 
the  first  contest  with  Ava  had  been  brought  to  a  close 
by  the  surrender  to  the  English  of  certain  tracts  of 
country  in  which  no  Englishman  could  live,  our  rela- 
tions with  the  Burmese  had  been  on  an  unsatisfactory 
footing.  In  truth,  they  were  altogether  a  very  un- 
satisfactory people ;  arrogant  and  pretentious,  blind 
to  reason,  and  by  no  means  anxious  to  manifest  their 
appreciation  of  the  nice  courtesies  of  diplomatic  in- 

*  Many  will  remember  that  de-  was  sufficientlj  a  Christian  to  be 

ligbtfnl  uttle    story,  so  pleasantly  admitted  to  swell  the  two  or  three 

told  in  Edwardes's  **  Year  on  the  into  three  or  four. 

Punjab  Frontier,"  of  Reynell  Taylor's  f  On  the  abolition  of  the  Board, 

inTiUtion  to  prayer  on  a  Sunday  Mr.  Montgomeir,  who  had  succeeded 

morning  in  February,  1848,  and  of  Mr.  Manselas  third  member,  became 

the  qu^ion  whether  the  half-caste  Judicial  CJommissioner,  and  Mr.  Mac- 

oolonel,  "  John  Holmes,"  who  had  Icod  was  appointed  Financial  Com- 

"  always  attended  prayers  at  Peaha-  missioner. 
wur  "  in  George  Lawrence's  house, 

F 


66  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

1849.  tercourse.  To  find  just  cause,  according  to  European 
notions,  for  chastising  these  people  would  at  any  time 
have  been  easy.  But  their  insolence  did  us  very  little 
harm.  We  could  tolerate,  without  loss  of  credit  or  of 
prestige,  the  discourtesies  of  a  barbarian  Government 
on  the  outskirts  of  civilisation.  An  insult  on  the 
banks  of  the  Irrawaddy  was  very  diflPerent  from  an 
insult  on  the  banks  of  the  Jumna.  The  Princes  and 
chiefs  of  India  knew  nothing  and  cared  nothing  about 
our  doings  far  out  beyond  the  black  waters  of  the 
Bay  of  Bengal.  But  at  last  these  discourtesies  cul- 
minated in  an  outrage  which  Lord  Dalhousie  thought 
it  became  the  British  Grovemment  to  resent.  Whether, 
under  more  discreet  management,  redress  might  have 
been  obtained  and  war  averted,  it  is  now  of  little 
moment  to  inquire.  A  sea-captain  was  appointed  to 
conduct  our  diplomacy  at  Rangoon,  and  he  con- 
ducted it  successfully  to  a  rupture.  A  war  ensued,  to 
which  the  future  historian  of  India  may  devote  a  not 
very  inviting  chapter,  but  its  details  have  nothing  to 
do  with  the  story  of  this  book.  English  arms  were 
triumphant,  and  the  province  of  Pegu  lay  at  our 
feet.  Dalhousie  annexed  it  to  the  British  Empire, 
"  in  order  that  the  Government  of  India  might  hold 
from  the  Burmese  State  both  adequate  compensation 
for  past  injury,  and  the  best  security  against  future 
danger."  Thus  did  the  British  Empire,  which  had  so 
recently  been  extended  to  the  north-west,  stretch  itself 
out  to  the  south-east ;  and  the  white  man  sat  himself 
down  on  the  banks  of  the  Irrawaddy  as  he  had  seated 
himself  on  the  banks  of  the  Indus.  There  were  not 
wanting  those  who  predicted  that  the  whole  of 
Burmah  would  soon  become  British  territory,  and 
that  then  the  "uncontrollable  principle,"  by  reference 
to  which   a  great  English  statesman  justified  the 


THE  ANNEXATION  OF  PEGU.  67 

sdznre  of  Sindh,  would  send  the  English  conqueror  1849. 
to  grope  his  way  through  the  Shan  States  and  Siam 
to  Cochin-China.  But  these  apprehensions  were 
groundless.  The  administrator  began  his  work  in 
Pegu,  as  he  had  begun  his  work  in  the  Punjab,  and 
there  was  no  looking  beyond  the  frontier ;  but,  on  the 
other  hand,  a  desire  to  avoid  border  disputes,  or,  if 
they  could  not  be  avoided,  to  treat  them  as  matters 
of  light  account,  inevitable  and  soon  to  be  forgotten. 
There  was  a  military  officer,  admirably  fitted  for  the 
work^  who  had  served  long  and  successfully,  as  a 
civil  administrator,  in  Arracan  ;  who  knew  the  Bur- 
mese language  and  the  Burmese  people,  and  had  a 
great  name  along  the  eastern  coast.  Those  isolated 
regions  beyond  the  Bay  of  Bengal  are  the  grave  of  all 
catholic  fame.  Whilst  the  name  of  Lawrence  was  in 
all  men's  mouths,  Phayre  was  pursuing  the  even 
tenor  of  his  way,  content  with  a  merely  local  reputa- 
tion. But  the  first,  and  as  I  write  the  only  commis- 
sioner of  Pegu,  is  fairly  entitled  to  a  place  in  the  very 
foremost  rank  of  those  English  administrators  who 
have  striven  to  make  our  rule  a  blessing  to  the  people 
of  India^  and  have  not  failed  in  the  attempt. 

In  India  the  native  mind  readily  pervades  vast 
distances,  and  takes  little  account  of  space  that  the 
foot  can  travel.  But  it  is  be^vildered  and  confused  by 
the  thought  of  the  "black  water."  The  unknown  is 
the  illimitable.  On  the  continent  of  India,  therefore, 
neither  our  war-successes  nor  our  peace-successes  in 
the  Burmese  country  stirred  the  heart  of  Indian 
society.  In  the  lines  of  the  Sepoy  or  the  shops  of  the 
money-changer  they  were  not  matters  of  eager  inte- 
rest and  voluble  discourse.  We  might  have  sacked 
the  cities  of  Ava  and  Amarapoora,  and  caused  their 
sovereign  lord  to  be  trodden  to  death  by  one  of  his 

f2 


68  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LOBD  DALHOUSIE. 

1849.  white  elephants  without  exciting  half  the  interest 
engendered  by  a  petty  outbreak  in  Central  India,  or 
the  capture  of  a  small  fort  in  Bundelkund.  The 
Princes  and  chiefe  of  the  great  continent  of  Hindostan 
knew  little  and  cared  less  about  a  potentate,  however 
magnificent  in  his  own  dominions,  who  neither  wor- 
shipped  their  gods  nor  spoke  their  language,  and 
who  was  cut  off  from  their  brotherhood  by  the  in- 
tervention of  the  great  dark  sea.  We  gained  no 
honour,  and  we  lost  no  confidence,  by  the  annexation 
of  this  outlying  province ;  but  it  opened  to  our  Native 
Soldiery  a  new  field  of  service,  and  unfortunately  it 
was  beyond  the  seas. 


LAF8B.  69 


CHAPTER  11. 

THE  ADMnriSTBATlOH  O?  LO&D  DALHOUSU — ADOPTION—THE  "BIOHT  OF 
lapse"— 8ATTAKA.H — NAGPO&E — JHAN8I—  KEBOWLEE — THE  CA BNATIC — 
TAE/ORE — THE  CASS  OP  THE  PEISHWAH — ^DUEDOO  PUNT,  NANA  SAHIB — 
8UXBUULP0BE. 

So,  three  years  after  his  arrival  in  India,  Dalhousie  1848-1856. 
had  brought  to  a  close  two  great  military  campaigns, 
and  had  captured  two  great  provinces.  He  had  then 
done  with  foreign  wars ;  his  after-career  was  one  of 
peaceful  invasion.  Ere  long  there  was  a  word  which 
came  to  be  more  dreaded  than  that  of  Conquest.  The 
native  mind  is  readily  convinced  by  the  inexorable 
logic  of  the  sword.  There  is  no  appeal  from  such 
arbitration.  To  be  invaded  and  to  be  conquered  is  a 
state  of  things  appreciable  by  the  inhabitant  of  India. 
It  is  his  "  kismut ;"  his  fate ; .  God's  will.  One  stronger 
than  he  cometh  and  taketh  all  that  he  hath.  There 
are,  however,  manifest  compensations.  His  religion  is 
not  invaded ;  his  institutions  are  not  violated.  Life 
is  short,  and  the  weak  man,  patient  and  philosophical, 
is  strong  to  endure  and  mighty  to  wait.  But  Lapse 
is  a  dreadful  and  an  appalling  word ;  for  it  pursues 
the  victim  beyond  the  grave.  Its  significance  in  his 
eyes  is  nothing  short  of  eternal  condenmation. 


70  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LOBD  DALHOUSIE. 

1848-1866.  "  The  son,"  says  the  great  Hindoo  lawgiver,  "  de- 
livers his  father  from  the  hell  called  Put."  There 
are,  he  tells  ns,  different  kinds  of  sons ;  there  is  the 
son  begotten ;  the  son  given ;  the  son  by  adoption ; 
and  other  filial  varieties.  It  is  the  duty  of  the  son  to 
perform  the  funeral  obsequies  of  the  father.  If  they 
be  not  performed,  it  is  believed  that  there  is  no  re- 
surrection to  eternal  bliss.  The  right  of  adoption  is, 
therefore,  one  of  the  most  cherished  doctrines  of 
Hindooism.  In  a  country  where  polygamy  is  the 
rule,  it  might  be  supposed  that  the  necessity  of  adopt- 
ing another  man's  offspring,  for  the  sake  of  these  cere- 
monial ministrations,  or  for  the  continuance  of  an 
ancestral  name,  would  be  one  of  rare  occurrence.  But 
all  theory  on  the  subject  is  belied  by  the  fact  that  the 
Princes  and  chiefs  of  India  more  frequently  find  them- 
selves, at  the  close  of  their  lives,  without  the  solace  of 
male  offspring  than  with  it.  The  Zenana  is  not  an 
institution  calculated  to  lengthen  out  a  direct  line  of 
Princes.  The  alternative  of  adoption  is  one,  therefore, 
to  which  there  is  frequent  resort ;  it  is  a  source  of 
imspeakable  comfort  in  life  and  in  death ;  and  politi- 
cally it  is  as  dear  to  the  heart  of  a  nation  as  it  is 
personally  to  the  individual  it  affects. 

It  is  with  the  question  of  Adoption  only  in  its 
political  aspects  that  I  have  to  do  in  this  place.  There 
is  a  private  and  personal,  as  there  is  a  public  and 
political,  side  to  it.  No  power  on  earth  beyond  a 
man's  own  will  can  prevent  him  from  adopting  a  son, 
or  can  render  that  adoption  illegal  if  it  be  legally  per- 
formed. But  to  adopt  a  son  as  a  successor  to  private 
property  is  one  thing,  to  adopt  an  heir  to  titular 
dignities  and  territorial  sovereignty  is  another.  With- 
out the  consent  of  the  Paramount  State  no  adoption 


•  THE  8ATTABAH  LAPSE.  71 

of  the  latter  kind  can  be  valid.  Whether  in  this  case  1848-1856. 
of  a  titular  Prince  or  a  possessor  of  territorial  rights, 
dependent  upon  the  will  of  the  Government,  Hindoo- 
ism  is  satisfied  by  the  private  adoption  and  the  penal- 
ties of  the  sonless  state  averted,  is  a  question  for  the 
pundits  to  determine ;  but  no  titular  chief  thinks  the 
adoption  complete  unless  he  can  thereby  transmit  his 
name,  his  dignities,  his  rights  and  privileges  to  his 
successor,  and  it  can  in  no  wise  be  said  that  the  son 
takes  the  place  of  his  adoptive  father  if  he  does  not 
inherit  the  most  cherished  parts  of  that  father's  pos- 
sessions. 

But  whether  the  religious  element  does  or  does  not  J848. 
rightly  enter  into  the  question  of  political  adoptions,  Sattarah. 
nothing  is  more  certain  than  that  the  right,  in  this 
larger  political  sense,  was  ever  dearly  prized  by  the 
Hindoos,  and  was  not  alienated  from  them  by  the 
Lords-Paramounts  who  had  preceded  us.  The  im- 
perial recognition  was  required,  and  it  was  commonly 
paid  for  by  a  heavy  "nuzzurana,"  or  succession-duty, 
but  in  this  the  Mogul  rulers  were  tolerant.  It  was 
reserved  for  the  British  to  substitute  for  the  right  of 
adoption  what  was  called  "  the  right  of  lapse,"  and  in 
default  of  male  heirs  of  the  body  lawfully  begotten  to 
absorb  native  principalities  into  the  great  amalgam 
of  our  British  possessions.  "  In  1849,"  Avrote  Lord 
Dalhousie,  in  his  elaborate  farewell  minute,  "the 
principality  of  Sattarah  was  included  in  the  British 
dominions  by  right  of  lapse,  the  Rajah  having  died 
without  male  heir."  The  Princes  of  Sattarah  were  the 
descendants  of  Sevajie,  the  founder  and  the  head  of 
the  Mahratta  Empire.  Their  power  and  their  glory 
had  alike  departed.  But  they  were  still  great  in 
tradition,  and  were  looked  up  to  with  respect  by  the 


72  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LOBD  DALH0U8IE. 

1848.  Mahrattas  of  Western  India.  In  April,  1848,  the  last 
Rajah  died  ;*  and  a  question  arose  as  to  whether,no 
direct  male  heir  of  the  body  having  been  left  by  the 
deceased,  a  son  by  adoption,  or  a  collateral  member 
of  the  family,  should  be  permitted  to  succeed  him,  or 
whether  the  rights  and  titles  of  the  principality  should 
be  declared  to  be  extinct.  Sir  George  Clerk  was  then 
Governor  of  Bombay.  He  looked  at  the  Treaty  of 
1819 ;  saw  that  "  the  British  Government  agreed  to 
cede  in  perpetual  sovereignty  to  the  Rajah  of  Sattarah, 
his  heirs  and  successors,"  the  territories  which  he  had 
held,  and  at  once  declared  himself  in  favour  of  the 
continuance  of  the  native  Raj.  The  members  of  his 
Council  looked  upon  the  question  as  purely  one  of 
expediency,  and  considered  it  the  duty  of  the  British 
(jovemment  to  decide  it  in  the  manner  most  advan- 
tageous to  ourselves.  But  the  Gk)vemor  refused  to 
admit  any  secondary  considerations,  saj^g,  "  If  it  be 
inconsistent  with  justice  to  refuse  confirmation  to  the 
act  of  adoption,  it  is  useless  to  inquire  whether  it  is 
better  for  the  interests  of  the  people  or  of  the  empire 
at  large  to  govern  the  Sattarah  territories  through  the 
medium  of  a  native  Rajah,  or  by  means  of  our  own 
administration."  The  trumpet  of  that  statesman  was 
not  likely  to  give  an  uncertain  sound. 

When  this  question  first  arose,  the  Governor-Gene- 
ral was  in  his  novitiate.  But  new  as  he  was  to  the 
consideration  of  such  subjects,  he  does  not  appear  to 
have  faltered  or  hesitated.  The  opinions,  the  practi- 
cal expression  of  which  came  subsequentiy  to  be  called 


ceeded 

was  _,^ , — , ,     „^  . ^__-  „   -,  ^  ^    ^ 

rightly,  on  account  of  a  series  of  punish    him   in   the  manner  least 

intrigues  against   the  Britisn  Go-  likely  to  be  advantageous  to  our- 

vcmment,  equally  foolish  and  dis-  selves. 


THE  POLICY  OF  ANNEXATION.  73 

the  "  policy  of  annexatioD/'  were  formed  at  the  very  1848. 
outset  of  his  career,  and  rigidly  maintained  to  its 
close.  Eight  months  after  his  first  assumption  of  the 
Crovemment  of  India,  he  placed  on  record  a  confes- 
sion of  faith  elicited  by  this  agitation  of  the  Sattarah 
question.  Subsequent  events  of  far  greater  magni- 
tude dwarfed  that  question  in  the  public  mind,  and 
later  utterances  of  the  grea* .  minute-writer  caused 
this  first  manifesto  to  be  comparatively  forgotten; 
but  a  peculiar  interest  must  ever  be  associated  with 
this  earliest  exposition  of  Dalhousie's  political  creed, 
and  therefore  I  give  it  in  the  words  of  the  statesman 
himself:  "The  Government,"  he  wrote  on  the  30th 
of  April,  1848,  "  is  bound  in  duty,  as  well  as  policy, 
to  act  on  every  such  occasion  with  the  purest  in- 
tegrity, and  in  the  most  scrupulous  observance  of 
good  faith.  Where  even  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  prospec- 
tive. 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  adop- 
tion should  not  be  permitted,  excepting  in  those  cases 
in  which  some  strong  political  reason  may  render  it 
expedient  to  depart  from  this  general  rule.  There 
may  be  conflict  of  opinion  as  to  the  advantage  or  the 
propriety  of  extending  our  already  vast  possessions 
beyond  their  present  limits.  No  man  can  more  sin- 
cerely deprecate  than  I  do  any  extension  of  the 
frontiers  of  our  territory  which  can  be  avoided,  or 
which  may  not  become  indispensably,  necessary  from 


74  THE  ADlfflNISTRATION  OF  LOBD  DALHOUSIE. 

1849.  considerations  of  our  own  safety,  and  of  the  mainte- 
nance of  the  tranquillity  of  our  provinces.  But  I 
cannot  conceive  it  possible  for  any  one  to  dispute  the 
policy  of  taking  advantage  of  every  just  opportunity 
which  presents  itself  for  consolidating  the  territories 
that  already  belong  to  us,  by  taking  possession  of 
States  that  may  lapse  in  the  midst  of  them ;  for  thus 
getting  rid  of  these  petty  intervening  principalities, 
which  may  be  made  a  means  of  annoyance,  but  which 
can  never,  I  venture  to  think,  be  a  source  of  strength, 
for  adding  to  the  resources  of  the  public  Treasury, 
and  for  extending  the  uniform  application  of  our  sys- 
tem of  government  to  those  whose  best  interests,  we 
sincerely  believe,  will  be  promoted  thereby.  Such  is 
the  general  principle  that,  in  our  humble  opinion, 
ought  to  guide  the  conduct  of  the  British  Govern- 
ment in  its  disposal  of  independent  States,  where 
there  has  been  a  total  failure  of  heirs  whatsoever,  or 
where  permis^on  is  asked  to  continue  by  adoption  a 
succession  which  fails  in  the  natural  line." 

The  Court  of  Directors  of  the  East  India  Company 
confirmed  tiie  decision  of  the  Governor-General,  and 
Sattarah  was  annexed.  There  were  men,  however,  in 
the  Du-ection  who  protested  against  the  measure  as  an 
act  of  unrighteous  usurpation.  "  We  are  called  upon," 
said  Mr.  Tucker,  ever  an  opponent  of  wrong,  "to 
consider  and  decide  upon  a  claim  of  right,  and  I  have 
always  felt  that  our  best  policy  is  that  which  most 
closely  adheres  to  the  dictates  of  justice."  "We 
ought  not  to  forget,"  said  Mr.  Shepherd,  who,  on 
great  questions  of  this  kind,  was  commonly  to  be 
found  side  by  side  with  his  veteran  friend,  contendmg 
for  the  rights  of  the  native  Princes  of  India,  "  that 
during  the  rise  and  progress  of  our  empire  in  the 
East,  our  Governments  have  continued  to  announce 


DEATH  OF  THE  BONSLAH.  75 

and  proclaim  to  the  people  of  India  that  not  only  1849l 
should  all  their  rights  and  privileges  which  existed 
under  preceding  Governments  be  preserved  and  main- 
tained, but  that  their  laws,  habits,  customs,  and  pre- 
judices should  be  respected."*  And  what  right  more 
cherished,  what  custom  more  honoured,  than  the  right 
and  custom  of  adoption  ?  But  the  majority  of  the 
Court  of  Directors  supported  the  views  of  the  Governor- 
General  They  had  heard  the  voice  of  the  charmer. 
And  from  that  time  the  policy  of  Dalhousie  became 
the  policy  of  Leadenhall-street,  and  the  "  Right  of 
Lapse"  was  formally  acknowledged. 

And  it  was  not,  for  reasons  which  I  have  already  i858. 
given,  likely  long  to  remain  a  dead  letter.  Soon  Nagpore. 
another  of  the  great  Mahratta  chiefs  was  said  to  be 
dying,  and  in  a  few  days  news  came  to  Calcutta  that 
he  was  dead.  It  was  the  height  of  the  cold  season 
of  1853 — a  few  days  before  Christmas — ^when  the 
slow  booming  of  minute  guns  from  the  Saluting 
Battery  of  Fort  William  announced  the  death  of 
Ragojee  Bonslah,  Rajah  of  Nagpore.  At  the  age  of 
forty-seven  he  succumbed  to  a  complication  of  dis- 
orders, of  which  debauchery,  cowardice,  and  obstinacy 
were  the  chief.  There  have  been  worse  specimens  of 
royalty,  both  in  Eastern  and  Western  Palaces,  than 
this  poor,  worn-out,  impotent  sot;  for  although  he 
was  immoderately  addicted  to  brandy  and  dancing- 
girb,  he  rather  liked  his  people  to  be  happy,  and  was 
not  incapable  of  kindness  that  caused  no  trouble  to 
himself.  He  had  no  son  to  succeed  him ;  a  posthu- 
mous son  was  an  impossibility;  and  he  had  not 
adopted  an  heir. 

It  may  seem  strange  and  contradictory  that  if  the 

*  Colonel  Oliphaiit  and  Mr.  Leslie  Melville  recorded  minutes  on  the 
same  side. 


76  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

1853.  right  of  adoption  as  sanctioned  by  religion  and  pre- 
scribed by  ancestral  usage  be  so  dear  to  the  people  of 
India,  they  should  ever  fail  to  adopt  in  default  of  heirs 
of  their  body.  But  we  know  that  they  often  do ;  and 
the  omission  is  readily  explicable  by  a  reference  to  the 
ordinary  weaknesses  of  humanity.  We  know  that 
even  in  this  country,  with  all  the  lights  of  civilisation 
and  Christiaiuty  to  keep  us  from  going  astray,  thou- 
sands  of  reasoning  creatures  are  restrained  from 
making  their  wills  by  a  vague  feeling  of  apprehension 
that  there  is  something  "unlucky"  in  such  a  pro- 
cedure ;  that  death  will  come  the  sooner  for  such  a 
provision  against  its  inevitable  occurrence.  What 
wonder,  then,  that  in  a  country  which  is  the  very 
hotbed  of  superstition,  men  should  be  restrained  by 
.  kmdred  feLg  from  providkg  .gaiBrt  the  event  of 
their  dissolution  ?  But  in  this  case  there  is  not  only 
the  hope  of  life,  but  the  hope  of  oflFspring,  to  cause  the 
postponement  of  the  anticipatory  ceremony.  Men, 
under  the  most  discouraging  circumstances,  still  cling 
to  the  belief  that  by  some  favourable  reaction  of 
nature  they  may,  even  when  stricken  in  years,  beget 
an  heir  to  their  titles  and  possessions.  In  this  sense, 
too,  adoption  is  held  to  be  unlucky,  because  it  is 
irreligious.  It  is  like  a  surrender  of  all  hope,  and  a 
betrayal  of  want  of  faith  in  the  power  and  goodness 
of  the  Almighty.  No  man  expects  to  beget  a  son 
after  he  has  adopted  one. 

In  the  case,  too,  of  this  Mahratta  Prince,  there  were 
special  reasons  why  he  should  have  abstained  from 
making  such  a  provision  for  the  continuance  of  his 
House.  According  to  the  law  and  usage  of  his 
country,  an  adoption  by  his  widow  would  have  been 
as  valid  as  an  adoption  by  himself.  It  was  natural, 
therefore,  and  assLdly  it  was  in  accordance  with 


THE  NAGFORE  SUCCESSION.  77 

the  cliaracter  of  the  man,  who  was  gormandising  and  1853. 
dallying  with  the  hand  of  death  upon  him,  that  he 
should  have  left  the  ceremony  to  be  performed  by 
others.  Whether  it  was  thus  vicariously  performed  is 
not  very  clearly  ascertainable.  But  it  is  certain  that 
the  British  Resident  reported  that  there  had  been  no 
adoption.  The  Resident  was  Mr.  Mansel,  who  had 
been  one  of  the  first  members  of  the  Lahore  Board  of 
Administration — a  man  with  a  keen  sense  of  justice, 
favourable  to  the  maintenance  of  native  dynasties, 
and  therefore,  in  those  dajrs,  held  to  be  crotchety  and 
unsound.  He  had  several  times  pressed  the  Rajah  on 
the  subject  of  adoption,  but  had  elicited  no  satisfactory 
response.  He  reported  unequivocally  that  nothing  had 
been  done,  and  asked  for  the  instructions  of  the 
Supreme  Government. 

Lord  Dalhousie  was  then  absent  from  Calcutta. 
He  was  making  one  of  his  cold-weather  tours  of  in- 
spection— seeing  with  his  own  eyes  the  outlying  pro- 
vince of  Pegu,  which  had  fallen  by  right  of  conquest 
into  his  hands.  The  Council,  in  his  absence,  hesitated 
to  act,  and  all  the  instructions,  therefore,  which  they 
could  send  were  to  the  efiect  that  the  Resident  should 
provide  for  the  peace  of  the  country,  and  keep  things 
quiet  until  further  orders.  There  was  no  doubt  about 
Dalhousie's  decision  in  such  a  case.  Had  the  Rajah 
adopted  a  son,  there  was  little  likelihood  of  the 
Governor-General's  sanction  of  the  adoption ;  but  as 
he  had  wilfully  foiled  to  perform  the  ceremony,  it  ap- 
peared to  be  as  clear  as  noon-day  that  the  great  organ 
of  the  Paramount  State  would  pronounce  the  fatal 
sentence  of  Lapse. 

Dalhousie  returned  to  Calcutta,  and  with  cha- 
racteristic energy  addressed  himself  to  the  mastery  of 
the  whole  question.     Before  the  first  month  of  the 


78  THE  ADBONISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

Jan.  28,  new  year  had  worn  to  a  dose,  he  attached  his  dgna- 
ture  to  an  elaborate  minute,  in  which  he  exhausted 
all  the  arguments  which  could  be  adduced  in  favour 
of  the  annexation  of  the  country.  Printed  at  full 
length,  it  would  occupy  fifty  pages  of  this  book.  It 
was  distinguished  by  mfinite  research  and  unrivalled 
powers  of  special  pleading.  It  contended  that  there 
had  been  no  adoption,  and  that  if  there  had  been,  it 
would  be  the  duty  of  the  British  Government  to 
refuse  to  recognise  it.  "  I  am  well  aware,"  he  said, 
"  that  the  continuance  of  the  Raj  of  Nagpore  imder 
some  Mahratta  rule,  as  an  act  of  grace  and  favour  on 
the  part  of  the  British  Government,  would  be  highly 
acceptable  to  native  sovereigns  and  nobles  in  India ; 
and  there  are,  doubtless,  many  of  high  authority  who 
would  advocate  the  policy  on  that  special  ground.  I 
understand  the  sentiment  and  respect  it;  but  re- 
membering the  responsibility  that  is  upon  me,  I  can- 
not  bring  my  judgment  to  admit  that  a  kind  and 
generous  sentiment  should  outweigh  a  just  and 
prudent  policy." 

Among  the  members  of  the  Supreme  Council  at 
that  time  was  Colonel  John  Low.  An  old  officer  of 
the  Madras  army,  who  long  years  before,  when  the 
Peishwah  and  the  Bonslah  were  in  arms  against  the 
British,  had  sate  at  the  feet  of  John  Malcolm,  and 
had  graduated  in  diplomacy  under  him,  he  had  never 
forgotten  the  lessons  which  he  had  learnt  fi'om  his 
beloved  chief;  he  had  never  ceased  to  cherish  those 
"kind  and  generous  sentiments"  of  which  the  Go- 
vernor-General had  spoken  in  his  minute.  His  whole 
life  had  been  spent  at  the  Courts  of  the  native  Princes 
of  India.  He  had  represented  British  interests  long 
and  faithfully  at  the  profligate  Court  of  Lucknow. 
He  had  contended  with  the  pride,  the  obstinacy,  and 


JOHN  LOW.  79 

the  superstition  of  the  effete  Princes  of  Rajpootana.  1854. 
He  had  played,  and  won,  a  difficult  game,  with  the 
bankrupt  State  of  Hyderabad.  He  knew  what  were  the 
vices  of  Indian  Princes  and  the  evils  of  native  misrule. 
But  he  had  not  so  learnt  the  lesson  presented  to  him 
by  the  spectacle  of  improvident  rulers  and  profligate 
Courts ;  of  responsibilities  ignored  and  opportunities 
wasted ;  as  to  believe  it  to  be  either  the  duty  or  the 
policy  of  the  Paramount  Grovemment  to  seek  "just  oc- 
casions" for  converting  every  misgoverned  princi- 
pality into  a  British  province.  Nor  had  he,  knowing 
as  he  did,  better  perhaps  than  any  of  his  countrymen, 
the  real  character  of  such  misgovemment,  ever  che- 
rished the  conviction  that  the  inhabitants  of  every 
native  State  were  yearning  for  the  blessings  of  this 
conversion.  There  were  few  such  States  left — Hindoo 
or  Mahomedan — ^but  what  remained  from  the  wreck 
of  Indian  dynasties  he  believed  it  to  be  equally  just 
and  poUtic  to  preserve.  And  entertaining  these 
opinions,  he  spoke  them  out ;  not  arrogantly  or 
offensively,  but  with  what  I  believe  may  be  described 
as  the  calm  resolution  of  despair.  He  knew  that  he 
might  speak  with  the  tongue  of  angels,  and  yet  that 
his  speech  would  no  more  affect  the  practical  result 
than  a  sounding  brass  or  a  tinkling  cymbal.  What 
am  I  against  so  many?  he  said;  nay,  what  am  I 
aiminst  one?  Who  will  listen  to  the  utterance  of 
my  ideas  when  opposed  to  the  "  deliberately-formed 
opinion  of  a  statesman  like  the  Marquis  of  Dalhousie, 
in  whose  well-proved  ability  and  judgment  and  in- 
tegrity of  purpose  they  have  entire  confidence  ?"*  But 
great  statesmen  in  times  past  had  thought  that  the 
extension  of  British  rule  in  India  was,  for  our  own 
sakes,  to  be  arrested  rather  than  accelerated ;  that  the 

*  Minute  of  Colonel  John  Low.    February  10, 1854. 


80  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALH0U8IE. 

1864.  native  States  were  a  source  to  us  of  strength  rather 
than  of  weakness,  and  that  it  would  go  ill  with  us 
when  there  were  none  left.* 

Strong  in  this  belief,  Colonel  Low  recorded  two 
minutes,  protesting  against  the  impolicy  and  the  in- 
justice of  the  proposed  annexation  of  Nagpore.  He 
said  that  already  the  annexation  of  Sattarah  had  in 
many  parts  of  India  had  a  bad  moral  effect  ;f  that  it 
had  shaken  the  confidence  of  the  people  in  the  justice 
and  good  faith  of  the  British  Government;  that 
people  had  asked  what  crime  Sattarah  had  committed 
that  sentence  of  political  death  should  thus  have  been 
pronounced  against  it ;  that  throughout  India  axjqui- 
sition  by  conquest  was  well  understood,  and  in  many 
cases  aihnitted  to  be  right ;  that  the  annexation  of  the 
Punjab,  for  example,  had  not  been  regarded  as  a 
wrong,  because  the  chiefs  and  people  had  brought  it 
on  themselves,  but  that  the  extinction  of  a  loyal  native 
State,  in  default  of  heirs,  was  not  appreciable  in  any 
part  of  India,  and  that  the  exercise  of  the  alleged 
right  of  lapse  would  create  a  common  feeling  of 
uncertainty  and  distrust  at  every  Durbar  in  the 

*  "If  Great  Britain  shall  retain  1850,  where  I  met  many  old  ae- 

her  present  powerful  position  among  qaaintances,   whom    I  had   known 

the  States  ot  Europe,  it  seems  highly  when  a  verv  young  man,  and  over 

probable  that,  owin^  to  the  infringe-  whom  I  held  no  authority,  I  found 

ment  of  their  treaties  on  the  part  of  these  old  acouaintances  speak  out 

native  Princes  and  other  causes,  the  much  more   oistinctly  as  to  their 

whole  of  India  will,  in  tbe  course  of  opinion  of  the  SatUu^h  case ;    so 

time,  become  one  British  province ;  much   so,  that  I  was,  on  several 

but  many  eminent  statesmen  have  occasions,  obliged  to  check  them, 

been  of  opinion  that  we  ought  most  It  is  remarkable  that  every  native 

carefully  to  avoid  unnecesauEuily  ac-  who  ever  spoke  to  me  respecting  the 

celerating  the  arrival  of  that  great  annexation  of  Sattarah,  asked  pre- 

change;   and  it  is  within  my  own  cisely  the  same  question:    'What 

knowledge  that  the  following  five  crime  did  the  late  Rajah  commit  that 

great  men  were  of  that  numoer —  his  country  should  be  seized  by  the 

namely.  Lord  Hastings,  Sir  Thomas  Company  r    Thus  clearly  indicating 

Munro,  Sir  John  Malcolm,  the  Hon.  their  notions,  that  if  any  crime  had 

Monntstuart  Elphinstone,  and  Lord  been  committed  our  act  would  have 

Metcalfe." — Minute,  Feb,  10, 1854.  been  justifiable,  and  not  otherwise." 

t  <<When  I  went  to  Malwa,  in  Minute  o/Ool<ml  Low,  Feb AO,lSb^ 


LOW'S  MINUTES.  81 

■ 

country.  He  dwelt  upon  the  levelling  effects  of  1854. 
British  dominion,  and  urged  that,  as  in  our  own 
provinces,  the  upper  classes  were  invariably  trodden 
down,  it  was  sound  policy  to  maintain  the  native 
States,  if  only  as  a  means  of  providing  an  outlet  for 
the  energies  of  men  of  good  birth  and  aspiring  natures, 
who  could  never  rise  under  British  rule.  He  con- 
tended that  our  system  of  administration  might  be  far 
better  than  the  native  system,  but  that  the  people  did 
not  like  it  better ;  they  clung  to  their  old  institutions, 
however  defective,  and  were  averse  to  change,  even 
though  a  change  for  the  better.  "  In  one  respect,"  he 
said,  "the  natives  of  India  are  exactly  like  the  in- 
habitants of  all  parts  of  the  known  world ;  they  like 
their  own  habits  and  customs  better  than  those  of 
foreigners." 

Having  thus  in  unmeasured  opposition  to  the  Dal- 
housie  theory  flung  down  the  gauntlet  of  the  old 
school  at  the  feet  of  the  Governor-General,  Low 
ceased  from  the  enunciation  of  general  principles,  and 
turned  to  the  discussion  of  the  particular  case  before 
him.  He  contended  that  the  treaty  between  the 
British  Government  and  the  late  Rajah  did  not  limit 
the  succession  to  heirs  of  his  body,  and  that,  there- 
fore, there  was  a  clear  title  to  succession  in  the 
Bonslah  family  by  means  of  a  son  adopted  by 
either  the  Rajah  himself  or  by  his  eldest  widow,  in 
accordance  with  law  and  usage.  The  conduct,  he 
said,  of  the  last  Prince  of  Nagpore  had  not  been  such 
as  to  alienate  this  right;  he  had  been  loyal  to  the 
Paramount  State,  and  his  country  had  not  been  mis- 
governed ;  there  had  been  nothing  to  call  for  mili- 
tary interference  on  our  part^  and  little  to  compel 
grave  remonstrance  and  rebuke.  For  what  crime, 
then,  was  his  line  to  be  cut  off  and  the  honours  of 

G 


82  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LOED  DALHOUSIE. 

1854.  his  House  extinguished  for  ever?  To  refuse  the 
right  of  adoption  in  such  a  case  would,  he  alleged, 
be  entirely  contrary  to  the  spirit,  if  not  to  the  letter, 
of  the  treaty — But  how  was  it  to  be  conceded  when 
it  was  not  claimed ;  when  no  adoption  had  been 
reported ;  when  it  was  certain  that  the  Rajah  had  not 
exercised  his  right,  and  there  had  been  no  tidings  of 
such  a  movement  on  the  part  of  his  widow?  The 
answer  to  this  was,  that  the  Government  had  been 
somewhat  in  a  hurry  to  extinguish  the  Raj  without 
waiting  for  the  appearance  of  claimants,  and  that  if 
they  desired  to  perpetuate  it,  it  was  easy  to  find  a 
fitting  successor. 

Of  such  opinions  as  these  Low  expected  no  sup- 
port in  the  Coimcil-chamber  of  Calcutta — ^no  support 
from  the  authorities  at  home.  It  little  mattered,  in- 
deed, what  the  latter  might  think,  for  the  annexation 
of  Nagpore  was  decreed  and  to  be  accomplished  with- 
out reference  to  England.  As  the  extinction  of  the 
Sattarah  State  had  been  approved  by  the  Company, 
in  the  face  of  an  undisputed  adoption  asserted  at  the 
right  time,  Dalhousie  rightly  judged  that  there  would 
be  no  straining  at  a  gnat  in  the  Nagpore  case,  where 
there  had  been  no  adoption  at  all.  Indeed,  the 
general  principles  upon  which  he  had  based  his  pro- 
ceedings towards  Sattarah,  in  the  first  year  of  his 
administration,  having  been  accepted  in  Leadenhafl- 
street,  there  could  be  no  stickling  about  so  mild  an 
illustration  of  them  as  that  afforded  by  the  treatment 
of  Nagpore.  The  justification  of  the  policy  in  the 
latter  instance  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  there 
was  no  assertion  of  an  adoption — ^no  claim  put  for- 
ward on  behalf  of  any  individual — ^at  the  time  when 
the  British  Government  was  called  upon  to  determine 


trrmcnoM  of  the  bonslah  family.  83 

the  course  to  be  pursued.  It  is  true  that  the  provi-  1854. 
sional  Government  might,  for  a  time,  have  been 
vested  in  the  eldest  widow  of  the  deceased  Prince, 
adoption  by  whom  would  have  been  recognised  by 
Hindoo  law  and  Mahratta  usage ;  but  it  was  not 
probable  that  the  British  Government  would  have 
thus  gone  out  of  its  way  to  bolster  up  a  decayed 
Mahratta  dynasty,  when  the  head  of  that  Grovern- 
ment  conscientiously  believed  that  it  was  the  duty  of 
the  Paramount  State  to  consolidate  its  dominions  by 
recognising  only  among  these  eflfete  Princes  succession 
by  direct  heirship  of  the  body.  Cherishing  the  faith 
which  he  did,  Dalhousie  would  have  gone  grievously 
wrong,  and  he  would  have  stood  convicted  of  a 
glaring  inconsistency,  if  he  had  adopted  any  other 
course ;  so  the  kingdom  of  Berar  was  declared  to 
have  lapsed  to  the  British  Government,  and  the 
family  of  the  Bonslah  was  extinct. 

The  country  passed  under  British  rule,  and  the 
people  became  British  subjects,  without  an  audible 
murmur  of  discontent  except  from  the  recesses  of  the 
palace.  There  the  wretched  ladies  of  the  royal  house- 
hold, at  first  dismayed  and  paralysed  by  the  blow 
which  had  fallen  upon  them,  began,  after  a  little 
space,  to  bestir  themselves  and  to  clamour  for  their 
asserted  rights.  Liberal  pensions  had  been  settled 
upon  them;  but  their  family  was  without  a  head, 
and  that  which  might  soon  have  faded  into  an  idea 
was  rendered  a  galling  and  oppressive  reality  by  the 
spoliation  of  the  palace,  which  followed  closely  upon 
the  extinction  of  the  Raj.  The  live  stock  and  dead 
stock  of  the  Bonslah  were  sent  to  the  hammer.  It 
must  have  been  a  great  day  for  speculative  cattle- 
dealers    at  Seetabaldee  when   the  royal   elephants, 

g2 


84 


THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  IX)RD  DALHOUSIE. 


1851  horses,  and  bullocks  were  sold  off  at  the  price  of 
carrion  ;*  and  a  sad  day,  indeed,  in  the  royal  house- 
hold, when  the  venerable  Bankha  Baee,f  with  all  the 
wisdom  and  moderation  of  fourscore  well-spent  years 
upon  her,  was  so  stung  by  a  sense  of  the  indignity 
offered  to  her,  that  she  threatened  to  fire  the  palace  if 
the  furniture  were  removed.  But  the  furniture  was 
removed,  and  the  jewels  of  the  Bonslah  family, 
with  a  few  propitiatory  exceptions,  were  sent  to  the 
Calcutta  market.  And  I  have  heard  it  said  that 
these  seizures,  these  sales,  created  a  worse  impression, 
not  only  in  Berar,  but  in  the  surrounding  provinces, 
than  the  seizure  of  the  kingdom  itself.  J 

But  even  in  the  midst  of  their  degradation,  these 
unfortunate  ladies  clung  to  the  belief  that  the  Bons- 
lah family  v^ould  some  day  be  restored  and  rehabi- 
litated. The  Governor-General  had  argued  that  the 
widow,  knowing  that  her  husband  was  disinclined  to 
adopt,  had,  for  like  reasons,  abstained  from  adoption. 
He  admitted  the  right  according  to  Mahratta  usage, 
but  declared  that  she  was  unwilling  to  exercise  it. 
He  contended,  too,  that  the  Bankha  Baee,  the  most 
influential  of  the  royal  ladies,  would  naturally  be 
averse  to  a  measure  which  would  weaken  her  own 
authority  in  the  palace.     But  his  logic  halted,  and 


*  Between  &Ye  and  six  hundred 
elephants,  camels,  horses,  and  bul- 
locks were  sold  for  1300/.  The  fta- 
nees  sent  a  protest  to  the  Commis- 
sioner, and  memorialised  the  Gbver- 
nor-General,  alleging,  in  the  best 
English  that  the  Palnce  could  fur- 
nish, that  "  on  the  4th  instant  (Sept.) 
the  sale  of  animals,  viz.  bullocks, 
horses,  camels,  and  elephants,  com- 
menced to  sell  by  public  auction  and 
resolution—a  pair  her  hackeiy  bul- 
locks, valued  100  rupees,  sold  in  the 
above  sale  for  5  rupees." 


f  The  Bankha  Baee  was  the  adop- 
tive mother  of  the  deceased  Rajah. 

1  I  know  that  the  question  of 
public  and  private  property,  in  such 
cases,  is  a  very  difficult  one,  and  I 
shall  not  attempt  to  decide  it  here. 
1  only  speak  of  the  intense  mortifi- 
cation which  these  sales  create  in  the 
family  itself,  and  the  bad  impres- 
sion which  they  produce  througnout 
the  country.  Rightly  or  wrongly, 
they  cast  great  discredit  on  our 
name ;  and  the  gain  of  money  is  not 
worth  the  loss  (S  character. 


EETIREMENT  OF  BOt.  ]CAN8£L. 


85 


his  prophecy  failed.  Both  the  elder  and  the  younger 
lady  were  equally  eager  to  perpetuate  the  regal  dig- 
nities of  their  House.  Mr.  Mansel  had  suggested  a 
compromise,  in  the  shape  of  an  arrangement  some- 
what similar  to  that  which  had  been  made  with  the 
Newabs  of  the  CamatiCy  by  which  the  title  might  be 
maintained,  and  a  certain  fixed  share  of  the  revenue 
set  apart  for  its  dotation.  But  he  had  been  severely 
censured  for  his  indiscretion,  and  had  left  Nagpore 
in  disgrace.  He  was,  perhaps,  the  best  friend  that 
the  Ranees  had  in  that  conjuncture;  but — such  is 
the  value  of  opinion — ^they  accused  him,  in  the 
qount  Palace-English  of  their  scribe,  of  ^^  endeavour- 
ing to  gain  baronetage  and  exaltation  of  rank  by  re- 
porting to  the  Grovemor-General  that  the  late  Rajah 
was  destitute  of  heirs  to  succeed  him,  with  a  view  to 
his  Lordship  being  pleased  to  order  the  annexation 
of  the  territory."*  But  there  was  not  a  man  in  the 
country  less  disposed  to  annex  provinces  and  to 
humour  Grovemors  than  Charles  Mansel,  and  instead 
of  being  exalted  in  rank,  he  sacrificed  his  prospects 
to  his  principles  and  retired  from  the  Service. 

Failing  altogether  to  move  the  Governor-General, 
the  Ranees  sent  agents  to  London,  but  with  no  better 


1854 


*  Lord  DalboQsie,  in  his  Narpore 
Minute,  saTS  that  the  Rajah  did  not 
adopt,  pwrtly  because  he  did  not  like 
to  acknowledge  his  inability  to  beget 
a  ion,  and  piurtlj  because  he  feared 
that  the  existence  of  an  adopted  son 
might  some  day  be  used  as  a  pretext 
for  deposing  him.  He  then  obsenres : 
"  The  dislike  of  the  late  Rajah  to  the 
adopt  ion  of  a  successor,  was  of  coarse 
known  to  his  widow ;  and  although 
the  custom  of  the  Mahrattas  exempts 
her  from  that  necessity  for  haviiig 
the  concorrence  of  her  husband  in 
adoption,  which  general  Hindoo  law 


imperatively  reouires,  in  order  to 
render  the  act  of  adoption  valid,  still 
the  known  disinclination  of  the  Raiuh 
to  all  adoption  could  not  fail  to  dis- 
incline his  widow  to  have  recourse  to 
adoption  after  his  decease."  It  will 
be  seen  at  once  that  the  ordinary 
logical  acumen  of  the  Governor-Ge- 
neral failed  him  in  tliis  instance,  for 
the  very  reasons  fiven  by  the  writer 
himself  for  the  failure  of  adoption  by 
the  Rajah  oeiised  altogether  to  be 
operative,  ipto  facio,  "  after  his  de- 
cease." 


86  TU£  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALnOUSI£. 

1851  result.  After  the  manner  of  native  emissaries  from 
Indian  Courts,  they  spent  large  sums  of  money  in 
feeing  lawyers  and  printing  pamphlets,  without 
making  any  impression  on  Leadenhall-street  or  Can- 
non-row, and  at  last,  being  recalled  by  their  em- 
ployers, and  having  nothing  wherewith  to  pay  their 
debts,  they  flung  themselves  on  the  generosity  of  their 
opponents,  and  were  sent  home  by  the  help  of  the  great 
Corporation  whom  they  had  reviled.  Meanwhile,  the 
elder  widow  of  the  late  Rajah  died,  and  a  boy,  of  an- 
other branch,  whom  the  Ranees  called  Janojee  Bons- 
lah,  and  in  whose  person  they  desired  to  prolong  the 
Nagpore  dynasty,  was  formally  adopted  by  the  dying 
lady.  Clutching  at  any  chance,  however  desperate, 
an  attempt  was  made  to  revive  the  question  of  the 
political  adoption;  but  the  sagacity  of  the  Bankha 
Baee  must  have  seen  that  it  was  too  late,  and  that 
nothing  but  the  private  property  of  the  deceased 
Princess  could  be  thus  secured  to  the  adopted 
heir.  The  country  of  the  Bonslahs  had  become  as 
inalienably  a  part  of  the  Company's  possessions  as 
the  opium  go-downs  of  Patna,  or  the  gun-factory  at 
Cossipore. 

Thus,  within  a  few  years  of  each  other,  the  names 
of  two  of  the  great  rulers  of  the  Mahratta  Empire 
ceased  from  off  the  roU  of  Indian  Princes ;  and  the 
territories  of  the  Company  were  largely  increased. 
Great  in  historical  dignity  as  was  the  Sattarah  Raj, 
it  was  comparatively  limited  in  geographical  extent, 
whilst  the  Bonslah,  though  but  a  servant  in  rank, 
owned  rich  and  productive  lands,  yielding  in  profu- 
sion, among  other  good  gifts,  the  great  staple  of  our 
English  manufactures.*     Whilst  the  annexation  of 

*  Lord  Dalhousie  put  forth  the    ments  which  he  adduced  in  fiavour  of 
cotton-growing  quedities  of  the  Berar    the  annexation  of  the  tenitoiy. 
country  as  one  of  the  many  argu- 


SATTAIUH  AND  NAGPORE.  87 

the  Punjab  and  of  Pegu  extended  the  British  Empire  I85i. 
at  its  two  extreme  ends,  these  Mahratta  acquisitions 
helped  to  consolidate  it.  Some  unseemly  patches^ 
breaking  llie  great  rose-hued  surface,  which  spoke  of 
British  supremacy  in  the  East,  were  thus  effaced  from 
the  map ;  and  the  Right  of  Lapse  was  proclaimed  to 
the  furthermost  ends  of  our  Indian  dominions. 

There  is  a  citcumstantial  difference  between  these 
two  cases,  inasmuch  as  that,  in  the  one,  there  was  an 
actual  and  undisputed  adoption  by  the  deceased 
Rajah,  and  in  the  other  there  was  none;  but  as 
Dalhousie  had  frankly  stated  that  he  would  not  have 
recognised  a  Nagpore  adoption  had  there  been  one,  the 
two  resumptions  were  governed  by  the  same  principle. 
And  this  was  not  a  mere  arbitrary  assertion  of  the 
power  of  the  strong  over  the  weak,  but  was  based,  at 
all  events,  on  a  plausible  substratum  of  something 
that  simulated  reason  and  justice.  It  was  contended 
that^  whenever  a  native  Prince  owed  his  existence 
as  a  sovereign  ruler  to  the  British  Government,  that 
Government  had  the  right,  on  failure  of  direct  heirs, 
to  resume,  at  his  death,  the  territories  of  which  it 
had  originally  placed  him  in  possession.  The  power 
that  rightly  gives,  it  was  argued,  may  also  rightfully 
take  away.  Now,  in  the  cases  both  of  Sattarah  and 
Nagpore,  the  Princes,  whom  the  British  Government 
found  in  possession  of  those  States,  had  forfeited  their 
rights:  the  one  by  hidden  treachery  and  rebellion, 
the  other  by  open  hostility.  The  one,  after  full  in- 
quiry, had  been  deposed;  the  other,  many  years 
before,  had  been  driven  into  the  jungle,  and  had 
perished  in  obscurity  a  fugitive  and  an  outcast.*     In 

*  It  is  to  be  obserred,  too,  with  Raj  itself  had  been  resascitated  bj 

respect  to  Sattarah,  that  not  only  had  us  in  the  person  of  his  firedecessor. 

the  last  Rajah  been  elevated  by  the  We  had  found  the  Rajah  prostrate 

British  Gofcmment,  but  that  the  and  a  prisoner,  almost,  it  may  be 


A 


88  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

1854.  both  cases,  therefore,  the  "  crime"  had  been  com- 
mitted which  the  natives  of  India  are  so  willing  to 
recognise  as  a  legitimate  reason  for  the  punishment 
of  the  weaker  State  by  the  stronger.  But  the  offence 
had  been  condoned,  and  the  sovereignty  had  been 
suffered  to  survive ;  another  member  of  the  reigning 
family  being  set  up  by  the  Paramount  State  in  place 
of  the  offending  Prince.  Both  Perfaub  Singh  and 
Ragojee  Bonslah,  as  individuals,  owed  their  sove- 
reign power  to  the  grace  and  favour  of  the  British 
Grovemment.  All  this  is  historical  fact.  It  may  be 
admitted,  too,  that  when  the  crimes  of  which  I  have 
spoken  were  committed  by  the  heads  of  the  Sattarah 
and  Nagpore  families,  the  British  Government  would 
have  been  justified  in  imposing  conditions  upon  the 
restoration  of  the  Raj,  to  the  extent  of  limiting  the 
succession  to  heirs  of  the  body,  or  even  in  making  a 
personal  treaty  with  the  favoured  Prince  conferring 
no  absolute  right  of  sovereignty  upon  his  successors. 
But  the  question  is  whether,  these  restrictions  not 
having  been  penally  imposed,  at  the  time  of  for- 
feiture, the  right  which  then  might  have  been  exer- 
cised could  be  justly  asserted  on  the  occurrence  of  a 
subsequent  vacancy  created  by  death?  Lord  Dal- 
housie  thought  that  it  could — that  the  circumstances 
under  which  the  Sattarah  and  Nagpore  Princes  had 
received  their  principalities  as  free  gifts  frx)m  the 
British  Government  conferred  certain  rights  of  suze- 
rainty on  that  Government,  which  otherwise  they 
could  not  have  properly  asserted.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  is  contended  that  both  principalities,  what- 

said,  at  his  last  gasp ;  we  had  res-  necessarily  imparted  additional  force 

cued  him  from  his  enemies,  and  set  to  it.    The  same  may  be  said  of  the 

him  up  in  a  principality  of  his  own ;  Nagpore  Raj.  It  was  ''resuscitated'* 

a  fact  which,  assuminf^  the  validity  by  the  British  Government, 
of  the  argument  against  adoption, 


JHANSI.  89 

soever  might  have  been  the  offences  committed  years  1854. 
before  by  their  rulers,  had  been  re-established  in  their 
integrity — ^that  no  restrictions  as  to  their  continuance 
had  then  been  imposed — ^that  treaties  had  been  con- 
cluded containing  the  usual  expressions  with  respect 
to  succession — ^in  a  word,  that  the  condonation  had 
been  complete,  and  that  both  the  Sattarah  and  the 
Nagpore  Houses  really  possessed  all  the  rights  and 
privileges  which  had  belonged  to  them  before  the 
representative  of  the  one  compromised  himself  by  a 
silly  intrigue,  and  the  head  of  the  other,  with  equal 
&tuity,  plunged  into  hostilities  which  could  result 
only  in  his  ruin. 

This  justificatory  plea,  based  upon  the  alleged 
right  of  the  British  Government  to  resume,  in  default 
of  direct  heirs,  tenures  derived  from  the  favour  of  the 
Lord  Paramount,  was  again  asserted  about  the  same 
time,  but  with  some  diversity  of  application.  Com- 
paratively insignificant  in  itself,  the  case^^laims  espe- 
cial attention  on  account  of  results  to  be  hereafter 
recorded  in  these  pages.  In  the  centre  of  India, 
among  the  amaU  principalities  of  Bundelkund,  was 
the  state  of  Jhansi,  held  by  a  Mahratta  chief,  origi-  Jliausi. 
nally  a  vassal  of  the  Peishwah.  But  on  the  transfer 
to  the  British  Government  of  that  Prince's  posses- 
sions in  Bundelkund,  the  former  had  resolved  "to 
declare  the  territory  of  Jhansi  to  be  hereditary  in  the 
family  of  the  late  Sheo  Rao  Bhow,  and  to  perpetuate 
with  his  heirs  the  treaty  concluded  with  the  late 
Bhow;"  and,  accordingly,  a  treaty  was  concluded 
with  the  ruling  chief.  Ram  Chand,  then  only  a 
Soubahdar,  constituting  '^  him,  his  heirs  and  succes- 
sors," hereditary  rulers  of  the  territory.  Loyal  and 
well  disposed,  he  won  the  favour  of  the  British  Go- 
vernment, who,  fifteen  years  after  the  conclusion  of 


90  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

1854.    the  treaty,  conferred  upon  him  the  title  of  Rajah, 
which  he  only  lived  three  years  to  enjoy. 

For  all  purposes  of  succession  he  was  a  childless 
man ;  and  so  various  claimants  to  the  chiefship  ap- 
peared. The  British  agent  believed  that  the  most 
valid  claim  was  that  of  the  late  Rajah's  uncle,  who 
was  at  all  events  a  direct  lineal  descendant  of  one  of 
the  former  Soubahdars.  He  was  a  leper,  and  might 
have  been  rejected,  but,  incapable  as  he  was,  the 
people  accepted  him,  and,  for  three  years,  the  admi- 
nistration of  Jhansi  was  carried  on  in  his  name.  At 
the  end  of  those  three  years  he  died,  also  without 
1838.  heirs  of  the  body,  and  various  clainmnts  as  before 
came  forward  to  dispute  the  succession.  Having  no 
thought  of  absorbing  the  State  into  our  British  terri- 
tories. Lord  Auckland  appointed  a  commission  of 
British  officers  to  investigate  and  report  upon  the 
pretensions  of  the  several  claimants ;  and  the  result 
was,  that  Grovemment,  rightly  considering  that  if  the 
deceased  Rajah  had  any  title  to  the  succession,  his 
brother  had  now  an  equally  good  tide,  acknowledged 
Gungadhur  Rao's  right  to  succeed  to  the  hereditary 
chiefship. 

Under  the  administration  of  Ragonath  the  Leper 
the  country  had  been  grossly  mismanaged,  and  as 
his  successor  was  scarcely  more  competent,  the  British 
Government  undertook  to  manage  the  State  for  him, 
and  soon  revived  the  revenue  which  had  dwindled 
down  under  the  native  rulers.  But,  in  1843,  after 
the  amputation  of  a  limb  of  the  territory  for  the  sup- 
port of  the  Bundelkund  Legion,  the  administration 
was  restored  to  Gungadhur  Rao,  who  carried  on  the 
government  for  ten  years,  and  then,  like  his  prede- 
cessors, died  childless. 

Then  again  arose  the  question  of  succession ;  but 


ANNEXATION  OF  JHANSI.  91 

the  daims  of  the  different  aspirants  to  the  Raj  were  1858. 
regarded  with  far  other  eyes  than  those  which  had 
scrutinised  them  in  times  past.  The  Governor-Gene- 
ral recorded  another  fatal  minute,  by  which  the 
death-warrant  of  the  State  was  signed.  It  was  ruled 
that  Jhansi  was  a  dependent  State,  held  by  the  favour 
of  the  Peishwah,  as  Lord  Paramoimt,  and  that  his 
powers  had  devolved  upon  the  British  Government. 
A  famous  minute  recorded,  in  1837,  by  Sir  Charles 
Metcalfe,  was  cited  to  show  the  difference  between 
Hindoo  sovereign  Princes  and  "  chiefs  who  hold 
grants  of  land  or  public  revenue  by  gift  from  a  sove- 
reign or  paramount  Power,"  and  to  prove  that,  in  the 
latter  case,  "the  Power  which  made  the  grant,  or 
that  which  by  conquest  or  otherwise  has  succeeded  to 
its  rights,  is  entitled  to  limit  succession,"  and  to 
"  resume  on  failure  of  direct  heirs  of  the  body."*  To 
demonstrate  the  right  to  resume  was  in  those  daj^ 
tantamount  to  exercising  it.  So  Jhansi  was  resumed. 
In  vain  the  widow  of  the  late  Rajah,  whom  the  Poli- 
tical Agent  described  as  "  a  lady  bearing  a  high  cha- 
racter, and  much  respected  by  every  one  at  Jhansi," 
protested  that  her  husband's  House  had  ever  been 
faithful  to  the  British  Government — in  vain  she 
dwelt  upon  services  rendered  in  former  days  to  that 
Government,  and  the  acknowledgments  which  they 
had  elicited  from  our  rulers — in  vain  she  pointed  to 
the  terms  of  the  treaty,  which  did  not,  to  her  simple 
understanding,  bar  succession  in  accordance  with  the 
laws  and  usages  of  her  country — ^in  vain  she  quoted 

♦  But  what  Sir  Charles  Metcalfe  such  ca^es.ihereTore,  the  Tower  which. 

really  said  was,  that  the  paramount  granted,  or  the  Power  standing  in  ita 

Power  was  "  entitled  to  limit  succes-  place,  would  have  a  right  to  resume 

sion  aeeording  to  the  limitations  of  on  failure  of  heirs  male  of  the  bod?.'* 

the  grani,  which  in  general  confirms  This  passage  is  very  fairlj  quoted  in 

it  to  heirs  male  of  the  body,  and  Lord  Dalhousie's  Minute, 
consequently  precludes  adoptfon.  In 


92  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALUOUSIE. 

1853.  precedents  to  show  that  the  grace  and  favour  sought 
for  Jhansi  had  been  yielded  to  other  States.  The  fiat 
was  irrevocable.  It  had  been  ruled  that  the  interests 
both  of  the  Jhansi  State  and  the  British  Government 
imperatively  demanded  annexation.  "As  it  lies  in 
the  midst  of  other  British  districts,"  said  Lord  Dal- 
housie,  "  the  possession  of  it  as  our  own  will  tend  to 
the  improvement  of  the  general  internal  administra- 
tion of  our  possessions  in  Bundelkund.  That  its  in- 
corporation with  the  British  territories  will  be  greatly 
for  the  benefit  of  the  people  of  Jhansi  a  reference  to 
the  results  of  experience  will  suffice  to  show."  The 
results  of  experience  have  since  shown  to  what  extent 
the  people  of  Jhansi  appreciated  the  benefits  of  that 
incorporation. 

Kerowlee.  Whilst  this  question  was  being  disposed  of  by  Lord 
Dalhousie  and  his  coUeagues,  another  lapse  was  under 
consideration,  which  had  occurred  some  time  before, 
but  regarding  which  no  final  decision  had  been 
passed.  In  the  summer  of  1852,  the  young  chief  of 
Kerowlee,  one  of  the  smaller  Rajpoot  States,  had  died, 
after  adopting  another  boy,  connected  with  him  by 
ties  of  kindred.  At  that  time  Colonel  Low  repre- 
sented the  British  Government  in  Rajpootana,  and  he 
at  once  pronounced  his  opinion  that  the  adoption 
ought  immediately  to  be  recognised. 

The  Governor-General  hesitated.  It  appeared  to 
him  that  Kerowlee  might,  rightly  and  expediently, 
be  declared  to  have  lapsed.  But  his  Council  was 
divided;  his  Agent  in  Rajpootana  had  declared  un- 
equivocally for  the  adoption ;  and  the  case  differed 
in  some  respects  from  the  Sattarah  question,  which 
had  already  been  decided  with  the  sanction  and  ap- 
proval of  the  Home  Government.  How  great  the 
difference  really  was  appeared  far  more  clearly  to  the 


KEROWLEE.  93 

experienced  eye  of  Sir  Frederick  Currie  than  to  the  1862. 
vision  of  the  Governor-General,  clouded  as  it  was  by 
the  film  of  a  foregone  conclusion.*  The  name  of 
Sattarah  had,  by  the  force  of  accidental  circum- 
stances, become  great  throughout  the  land,  both  in 
India  and  in  England;  it  was  a  familiar  name  to 
thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  who  had  never 
heard  of  Kerowlee.  With  the  Mahrattas,  too,  the 
House  of  Sivajee  had  been  held  in  high  veneration ; 
but  the  Mahrattas  could  only  boast  of  recent  sove- 
reignty; their  high  estate  was  one  of  modem  usur- 
pation. Their  power  had  risen  side  by  side  with 
our  own,  and  had  been  crushed  down  by  our  greater 
weight  and  greater  vigour.  But  the  Houses  of  Raj- 
pootana  had  flourished  centuries  before  the  establish- 
ment of  British  rule  ^  and  the  least  of  them  had  an 
ancestral  dignity  respected  throughout  the  whole 
length  and  breadth  of  Hindostan,  and  treaty  rights 
not  less  valid  than  any  possessed  by  the  greatest  of 
territorial  Princes.  To  men  who  had  graduated, 
from  boyhood  upwards,  in  Indian  statesmanship, 
there  was  something  almost  sacrilegious  in  the  idea 
of  laying  a  destroying  hand  even  upon  the  least  of 
the  ancient  Houses  of  Rajpootansr— of  destroying 
titles  that  had  been  honoured  long  years  before  the 
face  of  the  white  man  had  been  seen  in  the  country. 
But  impressions  of  this  kind  are  the  growth  of  long 
intercourse  with  the  people  themselves,  and  we  cannot 
be  surprised  that,  after  a  year  or  two  of  Indian  go- 
vernment, Lord  Dalhousie,  with  all  his  unrivalled 
quickness  of  perception,  should  not  have  thoroughly 
understood  the  vital  differences  between  the  various 

♦  Sir  Frederick  Currie's  Minute    facts,  clear  in  its  lojB;ic,  and  uncxcep- 
on  the  Kerowlee  question  is  an  ad-    tionable  in  its  political  morality. 
niirable  state-paper— accurate  in  its 


94  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

1852.  races  inhabiting  the  great  continent  of  India.  Had 
he  done  so,  he  would  at  once  have  sanctioned  the 
proposed  adoption  ;  as  it  was,  he  referred  the  question 
to  the  final  decision  of  the  Home  Government. 

Eager  as  they  were  at  that  time  to  support  the  policy 
of  Lord  Dalhousie,  and  entire  as  was  the  faith  of  many 
of  them  in  his  wisdom,  the  Directors  could  not  look 
with  favour  upon  a  proposal  to  commence  the  gradual 
extinction  of  the  ancient  principalities  of  Rajpootana. 
Jan.  26,    "  It  appears  to  us,"  they  said,  "  that  there  is  a  marked 

^^^^*  distinction  in  fact  between  the  case  of  Kerowlee  and 
Sattarah,  which  is  not  sufficiently  adverted  to  in  the 
Minute  of  the  Governor-General.  The  Sattarah  State 
was  one  of  recent  origin,  derived  altogether  from  the 
creation  and  gift  of  the  British  Government,  whilst 
Kerowlee  is  one  of  the  oldest  of  the  Rajpoot  States, 
which  has  been  under  the  rule  of  its  native  Princes 
from  a  period  long  anterior  to  the  Briti^  power  in 
India.  It  stands  to  us  only  in  the  relation  of  pro- 
tected ally,  and  probably  there  is  no  part  of  India 
into  which  it  is  less  desirable,  except  upon  the 
strongest  grounds,  to  substitute  our  government  for 
that  of  the  native  rulers.  In  our  opinion,  such 
grounds  do  not  exist  in  the  present  case,  and  we 
have,  therefore,  determined  to  sanction  the  succession 
of  Bhurt  Pal." 

But  before  the  arrival  of  the  despatch  expressing 
these  just  sentiments  and  weighty  opinions,  all  chance 
of  the  succession  of  Bhurt  Pal  had  passed  away.  Had 
the  adoption  been  granted  at  once,  it  would,  in  all 
probability,  have  been  accepted  by  the  members  of 
the  late  Rajah's  family,  by  the  principal  chiefs,  and 
by  the  people  of  the  coimtiy.  But  it  is  the  inevitable 
tendency  of  delay  in  such  a  case  to  unsettle  the  public 
mind,  to  raise  questions  which  but  for  this  suspense 


KEROWLEE.  95 

would  not  have  been  bom,  and  to  excite  hopes  and  1853. 
stimulate  ambitions  which  otherwise  would  have  lain 
dormant.  So  it  happened  that  whilst  London  and 
Calcutta  were  corresponding  about  the  rights  of 
Bhurt  Pal,  another  claimant  to  the  sovereignty  of 
Eerowlee  was  asserting  his  pretensions  in  the  most 
demonstrative  manner.  Another  and  a  nearer  kins- 
man of  the  late  Prince — older,  and,  therefore,  of  a 
more  pronounced  personal  character — stood  forward 
to  proclaim  his  rights^  and  to  maintain  them  by  arms. 
The  ladies  of  the  royal  family,  the  chiefs,  and  the 
people,  supported  lus  claims ;  and  the  representative 
of  the  British  Government  in  Rajpootana  recognised 
their  validity.  That  representative  was  Sir  Henry 
Lawrence.  Succeeding  General  Low  in  the  Agency, 
he  cherished  the  same  principles  as  those  which  had 
ever  been  so  consistently  maintained  by  that  veteran 
statesman ;  but  circumstances  had  arisen  which  moved 
him  to  give  tiiem  a  different  appUcation.  This  new 
pretender  to  the  throne  had  better  claims  on  the  score 
of  consanguinity  than  Bhurt  Pal,  but  Adoption  over- 
rides all  claims  of  relationship,  and,  if  the  adoption 
were  valid,  the  latter  was  legally  the  son  and  heir  of 
the  deceased.  In  this  view,  as  consonant  mth  the 
customs  of  the  country,  Henry  Lawrence  would  have 
supported  the  succession  of  Bhurt  Pal ;  but,  on  inves- 
tigation, it  appeared  that  all  the  requirements  and 
conditions  of  law  and  usage  had  not  been  fulfilled, 
and  that  the  people  themselves  doubted  the  validity 
of  the  adoption.  It  appeared  to  him,  therefore,  that 
the  British  Government  would  best  discharge  its  duty 
to  Kerowlee  by  allowing  the  succession  of  Muddun 
Pal.  Even  on  the  score  of  adoption  his  claims  were 
good,  for  he  had  been  adopted  by  the  eldest  of  the 
late  Rajah's  widows,  which,  in  default  of  adoption  by 


96  TUB  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

^^5^  the  Rajah  himself,  would  have  been  good  against  all 
claimants.  But,  in  addition  to  this,  it  was  to  be  said 
of  the  pretensions  of  this  man  that  he  was  older  than 
the  other ;  that  a  minority  would  thus  be  avoided 
altogether ;  that  he  had  some  personal  claims  to  con- 
sideration ;  and  that  the  voice  of  the  chiefe  and  the 
people  had  decided  in  his  favour.  As  the  succession, 
therefore,  of  Bhurt  Pal  had  not  been  sanctioned,  and 
as  the  decision  of  the  Home  Government  in  his  favour 
had  not  been  published,  there  would  be  no  wrong  to 
him  in  this  preference  of  his  rival,  so  Henry  Lawrence 
recommended,  and  the  Government  of  Lord  Dalhousie 
approved,  the  succession  of  Muddun  Pal  to  the  sove- 
reignty of  Kerowlee. 

So  Lapse,  in  this  instance,  did  not  triumph ;  and 
the  ancient  Houses  of  Rajpootana,  which,  during 
these  two  years  of  suspense,  had  awaited  the  issue 
with  the  deepest  interest,  felt  some  temporary  relief 
when  it  was  knowTi  that  the  wedge  of  annexation  had 
not  been  driven  into  the  time-honoured  circle  of  the 
States.  But  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  because  no 
wrong  was  done  at  last  no  injury  was  done  by  the 
delay.  Public  rumour  recognises  no  Secret  Depart- 
ment. It  was  well  known  at  every  native  Court,  in 
every  native  bazaar,  that  the  British  Government 
were  discussing  the  policy  of  annexing  or  not  annex- 
ing Kerowlee.  The  mere  fact  that  there  was  a  ques- 
tion to  be  discussed,  in  such  a  case,  was  sufficient  to  fill 
the  minds  of  the  people  with  anxiety  and  alarm.  For 
two  years  Kerowlee  was  without  any  other  ruler  than 
the  Political  Agent  of  the  British  Government ;  and 
this  was  a  significant  fact,  the  impression  of  which 
was  not  to  be  removed  by  the  subsequent  decision. 
The  Rajpoot  Princes  lost  their  confidence  in  the  good 
faith  of  the  British  Government.     Kerowlee  had  been 


RAJPOOT  ALARlfS.  97 

spared,  they  scarcely  knew  how ;  some  were  fam  to  1853. 
attribute  it  to  the  well-known  justice  and  liberality  of 
Henry  Lawrence.  But  the  same  moderation  might 
not  be  displayed  again ;  there  were  childless  men 
amongst  them ;  and  from  that  time  a  restless,  uneasy 
feeling  took  possession  of  them,  and  no  man  felt  sure 
that  his  House  would  not  perish  with  him.  It  was 
not  strange,  indeed,  that  a  year  or  two  afterwards 
there  should  have  been  in  circulation  all  over  the 
country  ominous  reports  to  the  effect  that  the  policy 
of  Lord  Dalhousie  had  eventually  triumphed,  and 
that  the  gradual  absorption  of  all  the  Rajpoot  States 
had  been  sanctioned  by  the  Home  Government.  It 
was  a  dangerous  lie ;  and  even  the  habitual  reticence 
of  the  Court  of  Directors  was  not  proof  against  the 
grossness  of  the  calumny ;  so  it  was  authoritatively 
contradicted.  But  not  before  it  had  worked  its  way 
in  India,  and  done  much  to  undermine  the  founda- 
tions of  that  confidence  which  is  one  of  the  main 
piUars  of  our  strength. 

There  is  one  other  story  of  territorial  annexation  Sumbhulpore. 
yet  to  be  told — briefly,  for  it  was  not  thought  at  the 
time  to  be  of  much  political  importance,  and  now  is 
held  but  little  in  remembrance.  Beyond  the  north- 
western frontier  of  Bengal  was  the  territory  of  Sum- 
bhulpore.  It  had  formerly  been  an  outlying  district 
of  the  Nagpore  principality,  but  had  been  ceded  by 
the  Bonslah  family,  and  had  been  bestowed  by  the 
British  on  a  descendant  of  the  old  Sumbhulpore 
Rajahs,  under  terms  which  would  have  warranted 
the  resumption  of  the  estate  on  the  death  of  the  first 
incumbent.  But  twice  the  sovereign  rights  had  been 
bestowed  anew  upon  members  of  the  family,  and  not 
until  1849,  when  Narain  Singh  lay  at  the  point  of 
death,  was  it  determined  to  annex  the  territory  to 

H 


98  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALIIOUSIE. 

1849.  the  British  dominions.  There  were  no  heirs  of  the 
body  ;  no  near  relatives  of  the  Rajah.  No  adoption 
had  been  declared.  The  country  was  said  to  have 
been  grievously  misgoverned.  Ajid  so  there  seemed 
to  be  a  general  agreement  that  the  Lapse  was  per- 
feet,  and  that  annexation  might  be  righteously  pro- 
claimed. Dalhousie  was  absent  from  the  Presidency ; 
but  the  case  was  clear,  and  the  Government  neither 
in  India  nor  in  England  hesitated  for  a  moment. 
And,  perhaps,  though  it  was  not  without  its  own 
bitter  fruit,  there  is  less  to  be  said  against  it,  on  the 
score  of  abstract  justice,  than  against  anything  of 
which  I  have  written  in  this  division  of  my  work. 

But  there  were  lapses  of  another  kind,  lapses 
which  involved  no  gain  of  territory  to  the  British 
Government,  for  the  territory  had  been  gained  be- 
fore. There  were  several  deposed  princes  in  the  land, 
representatives  of  ancient  Houses,  whose  sceptres  had 
passed  by  conquest  or  by  treaty  into  the  white  man's 
hand,  but  who  still  enjoyed  the  possession  of  consi- 
derable revenues,  and  maintained  some  semblance  of 
their  former  dignity  and  state.  It  happened  that, 
whilst  Dalhousie  reigned  in  India,  three  of  these 
pensioned  princes  died.  Of  the  story  of  one  of  them 
The  story  I  must  Write  in  detail.  There  had  once  been  three 
Pcishwali.  great  Mahratta  Houses :  the  Houses  of  Sattarah,  of 
Nagpore,  and  of  Poonah.  It  has  been  told  how 
Dalhousie  extinguished  the  two  first ;  the  third  had 
been  for  some  thirty  years  territorially  extinct, 
when  he  was  sent  out  to  govern  India.  In  1818, 
at  the  close  of  the  second  great  Mahratta  war, 
the  Peishwah,  Badjee  Rao,  surrendered  to  Sir  John 
Malcolm.  He  had  been  betrayed  into  hostility,  and 
treacherous  hostility  ;  he  had  appealed  to  the  sword, 
and  he  had  been  fairly  beaten  ;  and  there  was  nothing 


THE  FALL  OF  THE  PEISHWAH.  99 

left  for  him  but  to  end  his  days  as  an  outcast  and  a  1818. 
fugitive,  or  to  fling  himself  upon  the  mercy  of  the 
British  Government.  He  chose  the  latter  course; 
and  when  he  gave  himself  to  the  English  General, 
he  knew  that  he  was  in  the  hands  of  one  who  sym- 
pathised with  him  in  his  fallen  fortunes,  and  would 
be  a  generous  friend  to  him  in  adversity.  Malcolm 
pledged  the  Government  to  bestow  upon  the  Peish- 
wah,  for  the  support  of  himself  and  family,  an  annual 
pension  of  not  less  than  eight  lakhs  of  rupees.  The 
promise  was  said  to  be  an  over-liberal  one ;  and 
there  were  those  who  at  the  time  condemned  Mal- 
colm for  his  profiiseness.  But  he  replied,  that  "  it 
had  been  the  policy  of  the  British  Government,  since 
its  first  establishment  in  India,  to  act  towards  princes, 
whose  bad  faith  and  treachery  had  compelled  it  to 
divest  them  of  all  power  and  dominion,  with  a  gene- 
rosity which  almost  lost  sight  of  their  oflfences.  The 
effect  of  this  course  of  proceeding  in  reconciling  all 
classes  to  its  rule  had  been  great.  The  liberality  and 
the  humanity  which  it  had  displayed  on  such  occa- 
sions had,  I  was  satisfied,  done  more  than  its  arms 
towards  the  firm  establishment  of  its  power.  It  was, 
in  fact,  a  conquest  over  mind,  and  among  men  so 
riveted  in  their  habits  and  prejudices  as  the  natives 
of  their  country,  the  effect,  though  unseen,  was  great 
beyond  calculation."  It  was  a  solace  to  him  to  think 
that  these  sentiments  were  shared  by  such  men  as 
Mountstuart  Elphinstone,  David  Ochterlony,  and 
Thomas  Munro. 

So  Badjee  Rao  went  into  honourable  seclusion,  and 
an  asylum  was  found  for  him  at  Bithoor,  distant 
some  twelve  miles  from  the  great  military  station 
of  Cawnpore,  in  the  North-Western  Provinces  of 
India.     He  was  not  then  an  old  man,  as  age  is  calcu- 

H  2 


1 00  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

« 

181851.  lated  by  years,  but  he  was  said  to  be  of  debauched 
habits  and  feeble  constitution ;  and  no  one  believed 
that  he  would  ver}'^  long  sunrive  to  be  a  burden  upon 
the  Company.  But  he  outlived  his  power  for  a 
third  part  of  a  centurj^,  living  resignedly,  if  not  con- 
tentedly, in  his  new  home,  with  a  large  body  of  fol- 
lowers and  dependents,  mostly  of  his  own  race,  and 
many  others  of  the  outward  insignia  of  state.  From 
the  assemblage,  under  such  circumstances,  of  so  large 
a  body  of  Mahrattas,  some  feeling  of  apprehension 
and  alarm  might  have  arisen  in  the  mind  of  the 
British  Government,  especially  in  troubled  times; 
but  the  fidelity  of  the  ex-Peishwah  himself  was  as 
conspicuous  as  the  good  conduct  and  the  orderly 
behaviour  of  his  people.  Nor  was  it  only  a  passive 
loyalty  that  he  manifested  ;  for  twice  in  critical  con- 
junctures, when  the  English  were  sore-pressed,  he 
came  forward  with  oflfers  of  assistance.  When  the 
War  in  Afghanistan  had  drained  our  Treasury,  and 
money  was  grievously  wanted,  he  lent  the  Company 
five  lakhs  of  rupees;  and  when,  afterwards,  our 
dominions  were  threatened  with  an  invasion  from 
the  Punjab,  and  there  was  much  talk  all  over  the 
country  of  a  hostile  alliance  between  the  Sikhs  and 
the  Mahrattas,  the  steadfastness  of  his  fidelity  was 
evidenced  l)y  an  offfer  made  to  the  British  Govern- 
ment to  raise  and  to  maintain  at  his  own  cost  a 
thousand  Horse  and  a  thousand  Foot.  As  he  had 
the  disposition,  so  also  had  he  the  means  to  serve 
us.  His  ample  pension  more  than  sufficed  for  the 
wants  even  of  a  retired  monarch ;  and  as  years 
passed,  people  said  that  he  had  laid  by  a  great  store 
of  wealth,  and  asked  who  was  to  be  it^s  inheritor  ? 
For  it  was  with  him,  as  it  was  with  other  Mahratta 
princes,  he  was  going  down  to  the  grave  leaving  no 


DEATH  OF  THE  PEISHWAH.  101 

son  to  succeed  him.  So  he  adopted  a  son,  from  his  1818-51. 
own  family  stock,*  and,  some  years  before  his  death, 
sought  the  recognition  of  the  British  Government  for 
an  adoption  embracing  more  than  the  right  of  suc- 
cession to  his  savings  (for  this  needed  no  sovereign 
sanction)  the  privilege  of  succeeding  to  the  title  and 
the  pension  of  the  Peishwah.  The  prayer  was  not 
granted  ;  but  the  Company  did  not  shut  out  all  hope 
that,  after  the  death  of  Badjee  Rao,  some  provision 
might  be  made  for  his  family.  The  question  was  re- 
served for  future  consideration — that  is,  until  the 
contingency  of  the  ex-Peishwah's  death  should  be- 
come an  accomplished  reality ;  and  as  at  this  time 
the  old  man  was  feeble,  paralytic,  and  nearly  blind, 
it  was  not  expected  that  his  pension  would  much 
longer  remain  a  burden  on  the  Indian  revenues. 

But  not  until  the  28th  of  January,  1851,  when  Death  of 
there  was  the  weight  of  seventy-seven  years  upon  ^^  J*^® 
him,  did  the  last  of  the  Peishwahs  close  his  eyes 
upon  the  world  for  ever.     He  left  behind  him  a  will, 
executed  in  1839,  in  which  he  named  as  his  adopted 
son,  "  to  inherit  and  be  the  sole  master  of  the  Guddee 
of  the  Peishwah,  the  dominions,  wealth,  family  pos- 
sessions, treasure,  and  all  his  real  and  personal  pro- 
perty," a  youth  known  as  Doondoo  Punt,  Nana  Sahib.  The  Nana 
When  Badjee  Rao  died,  the  heir  was  twenty-seven 
years   old ;    described   as    ''a  quiet,    unostentatious 
young  man,  not  at  all  addicted  to  any  extravagant 
habits,  and  invariably  showing  a  ready  disposition  to 
attend  to  the  advice  of  the  British  Commissioner." 

*  Strictlj  it  should  be  said  that  Rao,  my  graudson ;  these  three  are 

he  adofjled  tliree  sons  and  a  grand-  my  sons  and  grandson.    After  me 

son.  His  will  says :  **  That  D(K)ndoo  Doondoo  Punt,  Nana,  my  eldest  son. 

Punt,  Nana,  my  eldest  son,  and  Gun-  Mookli  Perdau,  shall  inherit  and  be 

gadhnr  Rao,  my  youngest  aud  third  the  sole  master  of  the  Guddee  of  the 

son,  and  Sada-Shco  Punt  Dada,  son  Peishwah,  &c." — J^S.  Records. 
of  my  second  sou,  Pundoo  Ruug 


102 


THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 


1851.  What  he  was  safe  to  inherit  was  about  300,000/., 
more  than  one-half  of  which  was  invested  in  Govern- 
ment securities  ;*  but  there  was  an  immense  body  of 
dependents  to  be  provided  for,  and  it  was  thought 
that  the  British  Government  might  appropriate  a 
portion  of  the  ex-Peishwah's  stipend  to  the  support 
of  the  family  at  Bithoor.  The  management  of  affairs 
was  in  the  hands  of  the  Soubahdar  Ramchunder 
Punt,  a  faithful  friend  and  adherent  of  Badjee  Rao, 
who  counseUed  his  master  with  wisdom,  and  con- 
trolled his  followers  with  vigour ;  and  he  now,  with 
all  due  respect  for  the  British  Government,  pleaded 
the  cause  of  the  adopted  son  of  the  Peishwah.  "  Nana 
Sahib,"  he  said,  "  considering  the  Honourable  Com- 
pany in  the  room  of  the  late  Maharajah  as  his  pro- 
tector and  supporter,  is  full  of  hopes  and  free  of  care 
on  this  subject.  His  dependence  in  every  way  is  on 
the  kindness  and  liberality  of  the  British  Govern- 
ment, for  the  increase  of  whose  power  and  prosperity 
he  has  ever  been,  and  will  continue  to  be,  desirous." 
The  British  Con^ssioner  at  Bithoorf  supported  the 
appeal  in  behalf  of  the  family,  but  it  met  with  no 
favour  in  high  places.  Mr.  Thomason  was  then 
Lieutenant-Governor  of  the  North- Western  Provinces. 
He  was  a  good  man,  an  able  man,  a  man  of  high  re- 
putation, but  he  was  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  New 
School,  and  was  no  friend  to  the  princes  and  nobles 
of  the  land ;  and  he  told  the  Commissioner  to  dis- 
courage all  hopes  of  further  assistance  in  the  breasts 


*  The  official  report  of  tbe  Com- 
missioner said,  16  lakhs  of  Govern- 
ment paper,  10  lakhs  of  jewels,  3 
lakhs  of  gold  coins,  80,000  rupees 
gold  ornaments,  20,000  mpees  suver 
plate. 

•f  It  should  rather  be  said,  "  two 
Bntisli    Commissioners."      Colonel 


Manson  was  Commissioner  when  the 
Peishwah  died,  but  he  left  Bithoor 
shortly  afterwards,  and  Mr.  Morlaiid, 
then  magistrate  at  Cawnpore,  took 
his  place,  and  on  him  devolved  the 
principal  business  of  the  settlemeut 
of  the  cx-Peishwah's  affairs. 


THE  NANA  SAIllB.  103 

of  the  family,  and  to  "  strive  to  induce  the  numerous  1851. 
retainers  of  the  Peishwah  speedily  to  disperse  and 
return  to  the  Deccan."  Lord  Dalhousie  was  Go- 
vernor-General ;  and,  in  such  a  case,  his  views  were 
little  likely  to  differ  from  those  of  his  Lieutenant. 
So  he  declared  his  opinion  that  the  recommendations 
of  the  Commissioner  were  ''  uncalled  for  and  unrea- 
sonable." "The  Governor-General,"  it  was  added, 
"concurs  in  opinion  with  his  Honour  (Mr.  Thoma- 
son)  in  thinking  that,  under  any  circumstances,  the 
Family  have  no  claim  upon  the  Government;  and 
he  wiU  by  no  means  consent  to  any  portion  of  the 
public  revenues  being  conferred  on  them.  His  Lord- 
ship requests  that  the  determination  of  the  Govern- 
ment of  India  may  be  explicitly  declared  to  the 
Family  without  delay."  And  it  was  so  declared ; 
but  with  some  small  alleviation  of  the  harshness  of 
the  sentence,  for  the  Jagheer,  or  rent-free  estate,  of 
Bithoor  was  to  be  continued  to  the  Nana  Sahib,  but 
without  the  exclusive  jurisdiction  which  had  been 
enjoyed  by  the  ex-Peishwah. 

When  Doondoo  Punt  learnt  that  there  was  no  hope  Memorial  of 
of  any  further  assistance  to  the  family  at  Bithoor  **^®  ^'*^** 
from  the  liberality  of  the  Government  of  India,  he 
determined  to  appeal  to  the  Court  of  Directors  of 
the  East  India  Company.  It  had  been  in  contem- 
plation during  the  lifetime  of  Badjee  Rao  to  adopt 
such  a  course,  and  a  son  of  the  Soubahdar  Ram- 
chunder  had  been  selected  as  the  agent  who  was  to 
prosecute  the  appeal.  But  discouraged  by  the  Com- 
missioner, the  project  had  been  abandoned,  and  was 
not  revived  until  all  other  hope  had  failed  after  the 
ex-Peishwah's  death.  Then  it  was  thought  that  a 
reversal  of  the  adverse  decision  might  be  obtained 
by  memorialising  the  authorities  in  England,  and  a 


104  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

jember  29,  memorial  was  accordingly  drawn  up  and  despatched, 
in  the  usual  manner,  through  the  Government  in 
India.  "The  course  pursued  by  the  local  govern- 
ments," it  was  said,  "  is  not  only  an  imfeeling  one 
towards  the  numerous  family  of  the  deceased  prince, 
left  almost  entirely  dependent  upon  the  promises  of 
the  East  India  Compan)^,  but  inconsistent  with  wliat 
is  due  to  the  representative  of  a  long  line  of  sove- 
reigns. Your  memorialist,  therefore,  deems  it  expe- 
dient at  once  to  appeal  to  your  Honourable  Court, 
not  merely  on  the  ground  of  the  faith  of  treaties,  but 
of  a  bare  regard  to  the  advantages  the  East  India 
Company  have  derived  from  the  last  sovereign  of  the 

Mahratta  Empire It  would  be  contrary  to 

the  spirit  of  all  treaties  hitherto  concluded  to  attach 
a  special  meaning  to  an  article  of  the  stipulations 
entered  into,  whilst  another  is  interpreted  and  acted 
upon  in  its  most  liberal  sense."  And  then  the  me- 
morialist proceeded  to  argue,  that  as  the  Peishwah, 
on  behalf  of  his  heirs  and  successors,  had  ceded  his 
territories  to  the  Company,  the  Company  were  bound 
to  pay  tlie  price  of  such  cession  to  the  Peishwah  and 
his  heirs  and  successors.  If  the  compact  were  lasting 
on  one  side,  so  also  should  it  be  on  the  other.  "  Your 
memorialist  submits  that  a  cession  of  a  perpetual 
revenue  of  thirty-four  lakhs  of  rupees  in  considera- 
tion of  an  annual  pension  of  eight  lakhs  establishes  a 
de  facto  presumption  that  the  payment  of  one  is  con- 
tingent upon  the  receipt  of  the  other,  and  hence  that, 
as  long  as  those  receipts  continue,  the  payment  of  the 
pension  is  to  follow."  It  was  then  argued  that  the 
mention,  in  the  treaty,  of  the  "  Family"  of  the  Peish- 
wah indicated  the  hereditary  character  of  the  stipula- 
tion, on  the  part  of  the  Company,  as  such  mention 
would  be  unnecessary  and  unmeaning  in  its  applica- 


MEMORIAL  OF  THE  NANA  SAHIB.  105 

tion  to  a  mere  life-grant,  "for  a  provision  for  the  1852. 
support  of  the  prince  necessarily  included  the  main- 
tenance of  his  family ;"  and  after  this,  from  special 
arguments,  the  Nana  Sahib  turned  to  a  general  asser- 
tion of  his  rights  as  based  on  precedent  and  analogy. 
"  Your  memorialist,"  it  was  said,  "  is  at  a  loss  to 
account  for  the  diflference  between  the  treatment,  by 
the  Company,  of  the  descendants  of  other  princes 
and  that  experienced  by  the  family  of  the  Peishwah, 
represented  by  him.  The  ruler  of  Mysore  evinced 
the  most  implacable  hostility  towards  the  Company's 
government ;  and  your  memorialist's  father  was  one  of 
the  princes  whose  aid  was  invoked  by  the  Company 
to  crush  a  relentless  enemy.  When  that  chieftain 
fell,  sword  in  hand,  the  Company,  far  from  abandon- 
ing his  progeny  to  their  fate,  have  afforded  an  asylum 
and  a  liberal  support  to  more  than  one  generation  of 
his  descendants,  without  distinction  between  the  legi- 
timate and  the  illegitimate.  With  equal  or  even 
greater  liberality  the  Company  delivered  the  de- 
throned Emperor  of  Delhi  from  a  dungeon,  re-in- 
vested him  with  the  insignia  of  sovereignty,  and 
assigned  to  him  a  munificent  revenue,  which  is  con- 
tinued to  his  descendants  to  the  present  day.  Wherein 
is  your  memorialist's  case  different  ?  It  is  true  that 
the  Peishwah,  after  years  of  amity  with  the  British 
Indian  Government,  during  which  he  assigned  to 
them  revenues  to  the  amount  of  half  a  crore  of 
rupees,  was  unhappily  engaged  in  war  with  them,  by 
which  he  perilled  his  throne.  But  as  he  was  not 
reduced  to  extremities,  and  even  if  reduced,  closed 
with  the  terms  proposed  to  him  by  the  British  Com- 
mander, and  ceded  his  rich  domains  to  place  himself 
and  his  family  under  the  fostering  care  of  the  Com- 
pany, and  as  the  Company  still  profit  by  the  revenues 


IjUK^  n%  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

i^i«o;fc  \^  bufe  hereditary  possessions,  on  what  principle  are 
hi*  ileseendants  deprived  of  the  pension  included  in 
tho^e  terms  and  the  vestiges  of  sovereignty  ?  Wherein 
are  the  claims  of  his  family  to  the  favour  and  consi- 
deration of  the  Company  less  than  those  of  the  con- 
quered Mysorean  or  the  captive  Mogul  ?"  Then  the 
Nana  Sahib  began  to  set  forth  his  own  personal 
claims  as  founded  on  the  adoption  in  his  favour ;  he 
quoted  the  best  authorities  on  Hindoo  law  to  prove 
that  the  son  by  adoption  has  all  the  rights  of  the 
son  by  birth ;  and  he  cited  numerous  instances, 
drawn  from  the  recent  history  of  Hindostan  and  the 
Deccan,  to  show  how  such  adoptions  had  before  been 
recognised  by  the  Britisli  Government.  "The  same 
fact,"  he  added,  "  is  evinced  in  the  daily  practice  of 
the  Company's  Courts  all  over  India,  in  decreeing  to 
the  adopted  sons  of  princes,  of  zemindars,  and  persons 
of  every  grade,  the  estates  of  those  persons  to  the  ex- 
clusion of  other  heirs  of  the  blood.  Indeed,  unless 
the  British  Indian  Government  is  prepared  to  abro- 
gate the  Hindoo  Sacred  Code,  and  to  interdict  the 
practice  of  the  Hindoo  religion,  of  both  of  which 
adoption  is  a  fundamental  feature,  your  memorialist 
cannot  understand  with  what  consistency  his  claim 
to  the  pension  of  the  late  Peishwah  can  be  denied, 
merely  on  the  ground  of  his  being  an  adopted 
son." 

Another  plea  for  refusal  might  be,  nay,  had  been, 
based  upon  the  fact  that  Badjee  Rao,  from  the 
savings  of  his  pension,  had  accimiulated  and  left 
behind  him  a  large  amount  of  private  property, 
which  no  one  could  alienate  from  his  heirs.  Upon 
this  the  Nana  Sahib,  with  not  unreasonable  indigna- 
tion, said  :  "  That  if  the  withholding  of  the  pension 
proceeded  from  the  supposition  that  the  late  Peish- 


MEMORUL  OF  THE  NANA  SAHIB.  107 

wah  had  left  a  sufficient  provision  for  his  family,  it  185«. 
would  be  altogether  foreign  to  the  question,  and  un- 
precedented in  the  annals  of  the  History  of  British 
India.  The  pension  of  eight  lakhs  of  rupees  per 
annum  has  been  agreed  upon  on  the  part  of  the 
British  Government,  to  enable  his  Highness  the  late 
Badjee  Rao  to  support  himself  and  family ;  it  is  im- 
material to  the  British  Government  what  portion  of 
that  sum  the  late  prince  actually  expended,  nor  has 
there  been  any  agreement  entered  into  to  the  effect 
that  his  Highness  the  late  Badjee  Rao  should  be 
compelled  to  expend  every  fraction  of  an  annual 
allowance  accorded  to  him  by  a  special  treaty,  in 
consideration  of  his  ceding  to  the  British  Govern- 
ment territories  yielding  an  annual  and  perpetual 
revenue  of  thirty-four  lakhs  of  rupees.  Nobody  on 
earth  had  a  right  to  control  the  expenditure  of  that 
pension,  and  if  his  Highness  the  late  Badjee  Rao  had 
saved  every  fraction  of  it,  he  would  have  been  per- 
fectly justified  in  doing  so.  Your  memorialist  would 
venture  to  ask,  whether  the  British  Government  ever 
deigned  to  ask  in  what  manner  the  pension  granted 
to  any  of  its  numerous  retired  servants  is  expended  ? 
or  whether  any  of  them  saves  a  portion,  or  what 
portion,  of  his  pension?  and,  furthermore,  in  the 
event  of  its  being  proved  that  the  incumbents  of  such 
pensions  had  saved  a  large  portion  thereof,  it  would 
be  considered  a  sufficient  reason  for  withholding  the 
pension  from  the  children  in  the  proportions  stipu- 
lated  by  the  covenant  entered  into  with  its  servant  ? 
And  yet  is  a  native  prince,  the  descendant  of  an  an- 
cient scion  of  Royalty,  who  relies  upon  the  justice 
and  liberality  of  the  British  Government,  deserving 
of  less  consideration  than  its  covenanted  servants? 
To  disperse,  however,  any  erroneous  impression  that 


108  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

1852.  may  exist  on  the  part  of  the  British  Government  on 
that  score,  your  memorialist  would  respectfully  beg 
to  observe  that  the  pension  of  eight  lakhs  of  rupees, 
stipulated  for  by  the  treaty  of  1818,  was  not  exclu- 
sively for  the  support  of  his  Highness  the  late  Badjee 
Rao  and  his  family,  but  also  for  the  maintenance  of 
a  large  retinue  of  faithful  adherents,  who  preferred 
following  the  ex-Peishwah  in  his  voluntary  exile. 
Their  large  number,  fully  known  to  the  British  Go- 
vernment, caused  no  inconsiderable  call  upon  the 
reduced  resources  of  his  Highness ;  and,  furthermore, 
if  it  be  taken  into  consideration  the  appearance 
which  Native  princes,  though  rendered  powerless, 
are  still  obliged  to  keep  up  to  ensure  respect,  it  may 
be  easily  imagined  that  the  savings  from  a  pension  of 
eight  lakhs  of  rupees,  granted  out  of  an  annual  re- 
venue of  thirty-four  lakhs,  could  not  have  been  large. 
But  notwithstanding  this  heavy  call  upon  the  limited 
resources  of  the  late  Peishwah,  his  Highness  hus- 
banded his  resources  with  much  care,  so  as  to  be 
enabled  to  invest  a  portion  of  his  annual  income  in 
public  securities,  which,  at  the  time  of  his  death, 
yielded  an  income  of  about  eighty  thousand  rupees. 
Is  then  the  foresight  and  the  economy  on  the  part  of 
his  Highness  the  late  Badjee  Rao  to  be  regarded  as 
an  oflfence  deserving  to  be  visited  with  the  pimish- 
ment  of  stopping  the  pension  for  the  support  of  his 
3.  Eecords.  family  guaranteed  by  a  formal  treaty  ?" 

But  neither  the  rhetoric  nor  the  reasoning  of  the 
Nana  Sahib  had  any  effect  upon  the  Home  Govern- 
ment. The  Court  of  Directors  of  the  East  India 
Company  were  hard  as  a  rock,  and  by  no  means  to 
be  moved  to  compassion.  They  had  already  ex- 
pressed an  opinion  that  the  savings  of  the  Peishwah 
were  sufficient  for  the  maintenance  of  his  heirs  and 


AZIM-OOLLAH  KHAN. 


109 


dependents;*  and  when  the  memorial  came  before      1853. 
them,  they  summarily  rejected  it,  writing  out  to  the  theTcmnpany, 
Government  to   "inform  the  memorialist  that  the 
pension  of  his  adoptive  father  was  not  hereditary, 
that  he  has  no  claim  whatever  to  it,  and  that  his 
application  is  wholly  inadmissible."     Such  a  reply  as  May  4,  1863. 
this  must  have  crushed  out  all  hope  from  the  Bithoor 
Family,  and  sho^vn  the  futility  of  further  action ;  but 
it  happened  that,  before  this  answer  was  received, 
the  Nana  Sahib  had  sent  an  agent  to  England  to  pro- 
secute his  claims.     This  agent  was  not  the  son  of  the 
old  Mahratta  Soubahdar,  to  whom  the  mission  first 
contemplated  was  to  have  been   entrusted,   but  a 
young  and  astute  Mahomedan,  ^vith  a  good  presence, 
a  plausible  address,  and  a  knowledge  of  the  English 
language.     His  name  was  Azim-oollah  Khan.    In  the 
summer  of  1 853  he  appeared  in  England,  and  in  con- 
junction with  an  Englishman,  named  Biddle,  prose- 
cuted the  claims  of  the  Nana,  but  with  no  success. 
Judgment  had  already  been  recorded,  and  nothing 
that  these  agents  could  say  or  do  was  likely  to  cause 
its  reversal. 

So  Azim-oollah  Khan,  finding  that  little  or  nothing 
could  be  done  in  the  way  of  business  for  his  em- 
ployer, devoted  his  energies  to  the  pursuit  of  pleasure 
on  his  own  account.  Passing  by  reason  of  his  fine 
clothes  for  a  person  of  high  station,  he  made  his  way 
into  good  society,  and  is  said  to  have  boasted  of 
favours  received  from  English  ladies.  Outwardly  he 
was  a  gay,  smiling,  voluptuous  sort  of  person ;  and 


*  "iTflylO,  1852.--We  entirely 
approve  of  the  decision  of  the  Go- 
Tenior-General  that  the  adopted  son 
and  dependents  on  Badjee  Rao  have 
no  claim  upon  the  British  Grovcrn- 
meut.  The  larf<e  pension  which  the 
ex-Peishwah  enjoyed  during  thirty- 


three  years  a£forded  him  the  means 
of  waking  an  abundant  provision  for 
his  family  and  dependents,  and  the 

f)ropcrty,  which  he  is  known  to  have 
eft,  is  amply  sufficient  for  their 
support." — The  Court  of  Directors  to 
the  Government  of  India. — MS, 


110  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

1853.  even  a  shrewd  observer  might  have  thought  that  he 
was  intent  always  upon  the  amusement  of  the  hour. 
There  was  one  man,  however,  in  England  at  that 
time,  who,  perhaps,  knew  that  the  desires  of  the 
plausible  Mahomedan  were  not  bounded  by  the  en- 
joyment of  the  present.  For  it  happened  that  the 
agent,  who  had  been  sent  to  England  by  the  deposed 
Sattarah  Family,  in  the  hope  of  obtaining  for  them 
the  restoration  of  their  principality,  was  still  resident 
in  the  English  metropolis.  This  man  was  a  Mahratta 
named  Rungo  Bapojee.  Able  and  energetic,  he  had 
pushed  his  suit  with  a  laborious,  untiring  conscien- 
tiousness, rarely  seen  in  a  Native  envoy ;  but  though 
aided  by  much  soundness  of  argument  and  much 
fluency  of  rhetoric  expended  by  others  than  hired 
advocates,  upon  the  case  of  the  Sattarah  Princes,  he 
had  failed  to  make  an  impression  on  their  judges. 
Though  of  different  race  and  different  religion,  these 
two  men  were  knit  together  by  common  sympathies 
and  kindred  tasks,  and  in  that  autumn  of  1853,  by 
like  failures  and  disappointments  to  brood  over  and 
the  same  bitter  animosities  to  cherish.  What  was 
said  and  what  was  done  between  them  no  Historian 
can  relate.  They  were  adepts  in  the  art  of  dissimula- 
tion. So  the  crafty  Mahratta  made  such  a  good  im- 
pression even  upon  those  whom  his  suit  had  so 
greatly  troubled,  that  his  debts  were  paid  for  him, 
and  he  was  sent  back  at  the  public  expense  to  Bom- 
bay with  money  in  his  pocket  from  the  Treasury  of 
the  India  House  ;*  whilst  the  gay  Mahomedan  floated 
about  the  surface  of  society  and  made  a  conspicuous 
figure  at  crowded  watering-places,  as  if  he  dearly 
loved  England  and  the  English,  and  could  not  per- 

*  Rango    Bapojee    returned    to    India  Company  gave  him  2500/.  and 
India  in  December,  1853.   The  East    a  free  passage. 


CARNATIC  AND  TANJORE.  Ill 

suade  himself  to  return  to  his  own  dreary  and  be-       1853. 
nighted  land. 

So  little  material  are  they  to  this  History  that  I  Carnatic  and 
need  not  write  in  detail  of  the  circumstances  attend-  ^^^^' 
ing  the  extinction  of  the  titular  sovereignties  of  the 
Carnatic  and  Tanjore,  two  ancient  Houses,  one  Ma- 
homedan,  the  other  Hindoo,  that  had  once  flourished 
in  the  Southern  Peninsula.  Lord  Wellesley  had 
stripped  them  of  territorial  power.  It  remained, 
therefore,  only  for  Lord  Dalhousie,  when  the  Newab  1854. 
of  the  Carnatic  and  the  Rajah  of  Tanjore  died  with-  1855. 
out  heirs  of  the  body,  to  abolish  the  titular  dignities 
of  the  two  Families  and  "  to  resume  the  large  stipends 
they  had  enjoyed,  as  Lapses  to  Government."  Pen- 
sions were  settled  upon  the  surviving  members  of 
the  two  Families ;  but  in  each  case,  the  head  of  the 
House  made  vehement  remonstrance  against  the  ex- 
tinction of  its  honours,  and  long  and  loudly  cla- 
moured for  restitution.  There  were  many,  doubt- 
less, in  Southern  India  who  still  clung  with  feelings 
of  veneration  to  these  shadowy  pageants,  and  de- 
plored the  obliteration  of  the  royal  names  that  they 
had  long  honoured ;  and  as  a  part  of  the  great  sys- 
tem of  demolition  these  resumptions  made  a  bad  im- 
pression in  more  remote  places.  But  empty  titular 
dignities  are  dangerous  possessions,  and  it  may  be, 
after  aU,  only  mistaken  kindness  to  perpetuate  them 
when  the  substance  of  royalty  is  gone. 

%*  In  this  chapter  might  have  to  increase,  in  some  measure,  the 

been  included  other  cases  of  Lapse,  feeling  of  insecurity  in  men's  minds, 

as  those  of  the  Pergunnah,  of  Odei-  they  were  comparatively  of  little  po- 

))oor,  on  the  South- Western  Fron-  litical  importance;   and  Lord  Dal- 

tier,   and   of    Jeitpore,   in  Bundle-  housie  did  not  think  them  worth  a 

kbund ;   but,  although  every  addi-  paragraph  in  his  Farewell  Minute, 
tional  absorption  of  territory  tended 


112  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALH0U3IE. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  ANNEXATION  OP  OUDE — EARLY  HISTOBT  OP  THE  PROVINCE— THE  TREATY 
OP  1801 — EPPECT8  OP  THE  DOUBLE  GOVERNMENT — CREATION  OP  THE 
KINGSHIP— PROGRESS  OP  MISttULE — REPEATED  WARNINGS— THE  UN- 
RATIPIED  TREATY — COLONEL  SLEEMAN's  REPORTS — LORD  DALHOUSIE's 
MINUTE — ^VIEWS  OP  THE  COURT  OP  DIRECTORS — SIR  JAMES  OUTRAM 
RESIDENT — ANNEXATION  PROCLAIMED. 

1856.  There  was  still  another  pro\dnce  to  be  absorbed 

into  the  British  Empire  under  the  administration  of 
Lord  Dalhousie ;  not  by  conquest,  for  its  rulers  had 
ever  been  our  friends,  and  its  people  had  recruited 
our  armies ;  not  by  lapse,  for  there  had  always  been 
a  son  or  a  brother,  or  some  member  of  the  royal 
house,  to  fulfil,  according  to  the  Mahomedan  law  of 
succession,  the  conditions  of  heirship,  and  there  was 
still  a  king,  the  son  of  a  king,  upon  the  throne ;  but 
by  a  simple  assertion  of  the  dominant  will  of  the 
British  Government.  This  was  the  great  province  of 
Oude,  in  the  very  heart  of  Hindostan,  which  had  long 
tempted  us,  alike  by  its  local  situation  and  the  reputed 
wealth  of  its  natural  resources. 

It  is  a  story  not  to  be  lightly  told  in  a  few  sentences. 
Its  close  connexion  with  some  of  the  more  important 
passages  of  this  history  fully  warrants  some  ampli- 
tude of  narration.  Before  the  British  settler  had  esta- 
blished himself  on  the  peninsula  of  India,  Oude  was 


EAfiLY  CONNEXION  WITH  OUDE.  113 

a  province  of  the  Mogul  Empire.  When  that  empire  1756-1790. 
was  distracted  and  weakened  by  the  invasion  of 
Nadir  Shah,  the  treachery  of  the  servant  was  turned 
against  the  master,  and  little  by  little  the  Governor 
began  to  govern  for  himself.  But  holding  only  an 
official,  though  an  hereditary  title,  he  still  acknow- 
ledged his  vassalage ;  and  long  after  the  Great  Mogul 
had  shrivelled  into  a  pensioner  and  a  pageant,  the 
Newab-Wuzeer  of  Oude  was  nominally  his  minister. 

Of  the  earliest  history  of  British  connexion  with 
the  Court  of  the  Wuzeer,  it  is  not  necessary  to  Avrite 
in  detaiL  There  is  nothing  less  creditable  in  the 
annals  of  the  rise  and  progress  of  the  British  power 
in  the  East.  The  Newab  had  territory ;  the  Newab 
had  subjects ;  the  Newab  had  neighbours ;  more  than 
all,  the  Newab  had  money.  But  although  he  pos- 
sessed in  abundance  the  raw  material  of  soldiers,  he 
had  not  been  able  to  organise  an  army  sufficient  for 
all  the  external  and  internal  requirements  of  the 
State,  and  so  he  was  fain  to  avail  himself  of  the 
superior  military  skill  and  discipline  of  the  white 
men,  and  to  hire  British  battalions  to  do  his  work. 
At  first  this  was  done  in  an  irregular,  desultory  kind 
of  way,  job-work,  as  in  the  infamous  case  of  the 
Rohilla  massacre ;  but  aftenvards  it  assumed  a  more 
formal  and  recognised  shape,  and  solemn  engagements 
were  entered  into  >vith  the  Newab,  by  which  we  un- 
dertook, in  consideration  of  certain  money-payments, 
known  as  the  Subsidy,  to  provide  a  certain  number  of 
British  troops  for  the  internal  and  external  defence  of 
his  Excellency's  dominions. 

In  truth  it  was  a  vicious  system,  one  that  can 
hardly  be  too  severely  condemned.  By  it  we  esta- 
blished a  Double  Government  of  the  worst  kind.  The 
Political  and  Military  government  was  in  the  hands 

I 


114  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

1796.  of  the  Company ;  the  internal  administration  of  the 
Oude  territories  still  rested  with  the  Newab-Wuzeer. 
In  other  words,  hedged  in  and  protected  by  the 
British  battalions,  a  bad  race  of  Eastern  Princes  were 
suffered  to  do,  or  not  to  do,  what  they  liked.  Under 
such  influences  it  is  not  strange  that  disorder  of  every 
kind  ran  riot  over  the  whole  length  and  breadth  of 
the  land.  Never  were  the  evils  of  misrule  more  hor- 
ribly apparent ;  never  were  the  vices  of  an  indolent 
and  rapacious  Government  productive  of  a  greater 
sum  of  misery.  The  extravagance  and  profligacy  of 
the  Court  were  written  in  hideous  characters  on  the 
desolated  face  of  the  coimtry.  It  was  left  to  the 
Nabob's  Grovemment  to  dispense  justice :  justice  was 
not  dispensed.  It  was  left  to  the  Nabob's  Govern- 
ment to  collect  the  revenue ;  it  was  wrung  from  the 
people  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet.  The  Court  was 
sumptuous  and  profligate;  the  people  poor  and 
wretched.  The  expenses  of  the  royal  household  were 
enormous.  Hundreds  of  richly-caparisoned  voracious 
elephants  ate  up  the  wealth  of  whole  districts,  or  car- 
ried it  in  glittering  apparel  on  their  backs.  A  multitu- 
dinous throng  of  imserviceable  attendants ;  bands  of 
dancing-girls ;  flocks  of  parasites ;  costly  feasts  and 
ceremonies ;  folly  and  pomp  and  profligacy  of  every 
conceivable  description,  drained  the  coffers  of  the 
State.  A  vicious  and  extravagant  Government  soon 
beget  a  poor  and  a  suffering  people ;  a  poor  and  a 
suffering  people,  in  turn,  perpetuate  the  curse  of  a 
bankrupt  Government.  The  process  of  retaliation  is 
sure.  To  support  the  lavish  expenditure  of  the  Court 
the  mass  of  the  people  were  persecuted  and  outraged. 
Bands  of  armed  mercenaries  were  let  loose  upon  the 
ryots  in  support  of  the  rapacity  of  the  Aumib,  or 
Revenue-farmers,  whose  appearance  was  a  terror  to 


INTERVENTION  OF  LORD  WELLESLET.  US 

the  people.  Under  such  a  system  of  cruelty  and  1798. 
extortion,  the  country  soon  became  a  desert,  and  the 
Govemment  then  learnt  by  hard  experience  that  the 
prosperity  of  the  people  is  the  only  true  source  of 
wealth.  The  lesson  was  thrown  away.  The  decrease 
of  the  revenue  was  not  accompanied  by  a  corre- 
sponding diminution  of  the  profligate  expenditure  of 
the  Court,  or  by  any  effort  to  introduce  a  better 
administrative  system.  Instead  of  this,  every  new 
year  saw  the  unhappy  country  lapsing  into  worse  dis- 
order, with  less  disposition,  as  time  advanced,  on  the 
part  of  the  local  Govemment  to  remedy  the  evils  be- 
neath which  it  was  groaning.  Advice,  protestation, 
remonstrance  were  in  vain.  Lord  Comwallis  advised, 
protested,  remonstrated:  Sir  John  Shore  advised, 
protested,  remonstrated.  At  last  a  statesman  of  a 
very  different  temper  appeared  upon  the  scene. 

Lord  Wellesley  was  a  despot  in  every  pulse  of  his 
heart.     But  he  was  a  despot  of  the  right  kind ;  for 
he  was  a  man  of  consummate  vigour  and  ability,  and 
he  seldom  made  a  mistake.     The  condition  of  Oude 
soon  attracted  his  attention ;  not  because  its  govem- 
ment was  bad  and  its  people  were  wretched,  but  be- 
cause that  country  might  either  be   a  bulwark  of 
safety  to  our  own  dominions,  'or  a  sea  of  danger  which 
might  overflow  and  destroy  us.     That  poor  old  blind 
ex-King,  Shah  Zemaun,  of  the  Suddozye  family  of 
Caubul,  known  to  the  present  generation  as  the  feeble 
appendage  of  a  feeble  puppet,  had  been,  a  little  while 
before  the  advent  of  Lord  Wellesley,  in  the  heyday  of 
his  pride  and  power,  meditating  great  deeds  which  he 
had  not  the  ability  to  accomplish,  and  keeping  the 
British  power  in  India  in  a  chronic  state  of  unrest. 
If  ever  there  had  been  any  real  peril,  it  had  passed 
away  before  the  new  century  was  a  year  old.     But  it 

i2 


116  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALUOUSIE. 

1799.  might  arise  again.  Doubtless  the  military  strength 
of  the  Afghans  was  marvellously  overrated  in  those 
days ;  but  still  there  was  the  fact  of  a  minacious  Ma- 
homedan  power  beyond  the  frontier,  not  only  medi- 
tating invasion,  but  stirring  up  the  Mahomedan 
Princes  of  India  to  combine  in  a  religious  war  against 
the  usurping  Feringhee.  Saadut  Ali  was  then  on  the 
musnud  of  Oude ;  he  was  the  creature  and  the  friend 
of  the  English,  but  Vizier  Ali,  whom  he  had  sup- 
planted, had  intrigued  with  Zemaun  Shah,  and  would 
not  only  have  welcomed,  but  have  subsidised  also  an 
Afghan  force  in  his  own  dominions.  At  the  bottom 
of  all  our  alarm,  at  that  time,  were  some  not  unrea- 
sonable apprehensions  of  the  ambitious  designs  of  the 
first  Napoleon.  At  all  events,  it  was  sound  policy  to 
render  Oude  powerful  for  good  and  powerless  for 
evil.  To  the  accomplishment  of  this  it  was  necessary 
that  large  bodies  of  ill-disciplined  and  irregularly 
paid  native  troops  in  the  service  of  the  Newab-Wuzeer 
— flawless  bands  that  had  been  a  terror  alike  to  him 
and  to  his  people — should  be  forthwith  disbanded, 
and  that  British  troops  should  occupy  their  place. 
Now,  already  the  Wuzeer  was  paying  seventy-six 
lakhs  of  rupees,  or  more  than  three-quarters  of  a 
million  of  money,  for  his  subsidised  British  troops, 
and  though  he  was  willing  to  disband  his  own  levies, 
and  thereby  to  secure  some  saving  to  the  State,  it 
was  but  small  in  proportion  to  the  expense  of  the 
more  costly  machinery  of  British  military  defence 
now  to  be  substituted  for  them.  The  additional  bur- 
den to  be  imposed  upon  Oude  was  little  less  than  half 
a  million  of  money,  and  the  unfortunate  Wuzeer, 
whose  resources  had  been  strained  to  the  utmost  to 
pay  the  previous  subsidy,  declared  his  inability  to 
meet  any  further  demanc^  on  his  treasury.    This  was 


THE  TREATY  OF  1801.  117 

what  Lord  Wellealey  expected — ^nay,  more,  it  was  isoo. 
what  he  wanted.  If  the  Wuzeer  could  not  pay  in 
money,  he  could  pay  in  money's  worth.  He  had  rich 
lands  that  might  be  ceded  in  perpetuity  to  the  Com- 
pany for  the  punctual  pa3nnent  of  the  subsidy.  So 
the  Governor-General  prepared  a  treaty  ceding  the 
required  provinces,  and  with  a  formidable  array  of 
British  troops  at  his  call,  dragooned  the  Wuzeer  into 
sullen  submission  to  the  will  of  the  English  Sultan. 
The  new  treaty  was  signed ;  and  districts  then  yield- 
ing a  million  and  a  half  of  money,  and  now  nearly 
double  that  amoimt  of  annual  revenue,  passed  under 
the  administration  of  the  British  Government. 

Now,  this  treaty — the  last  ever  ratified  between  isoi. 
the  two  Governments — ^bound  the  Newab  Wuzeer  to 
"  establish  in  his  reserved  dominions  such  a  system  of 
administration,  to  be  carried  on  by  his  own  officers, 
as  should  be  conducive  to  the  prosperity  of  his  sub- 
jects, and  be  calculated  to  secure  the  lives  and  pro- 
perties of  the  inhabitants,"  and  he  undertook  at  the 
same  time  "  always  to  advise  with  and  to  act  in  con- 
formity to  the  counsels  of  the  officers  of  the  East 
India  Company."  But  the  English  ruler  knew  well 
that  there  was  small  hope  of  these  conditions  being 
fulfilled.  "  I  am  satisfied,"  he  said,  "  that  no  effec- 
tual security  can  be  provided  against  the  ruin  of  the 
province  of  Oude  until  the  exclusive  management  of 
the  civil  and  military  government  of  that  country 
shall  be  transferred  to  the  Company  under  suitable 
provisions  for  the  maintenance  of  his  Excellency  and 
his  family."  He  saw  plainly  before  him  the  break- 
down of  the  whole  system,  and  believed  that  in  the 
course  of  a  few  years  the  entire  administration  of  the 
province  would  be  transferred  to  the  hands  of  our 
British  officers.     There  was  one  thing,  however,  on 


118  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

1801-17.  which  he  did  not  calculate — ^the  moderation  of  his 
successors.  He  lived  nearly  half  a  century  after 
these  words  were  written,  and  yet  the  treaty  outlived 
him  by  many  years. 

If  there  was,  at  any  time,  hope  for  Oude,  under 
purely  native  administration,  it  was  during  the 
wuzeership  of  Saadut  Ali,  for  he  was  not  a  bad  man, 
and  he  appears  to  have  had  rather  enlightened  views 
with  respect  to  some  important  administrative  ques- 
tions.* But  the  oppbrtimity  was  lost;  and  whilst 
the  counsels  of  our  British  officers  did  nothing  for  the 
people,  the  bayonets  of  our  British  soldiers  restrained 
them  from  doing  anything  for  themselves.  Thus 
matters  grew  from  bad  to  worse,  and  from  worse  to 
worst.  One  Govemor-Greneral  followed  another ;  one 
Resident  foUowed  another ;  one  Wuzeer  followed  an- 
other: but  still  the  great  tide  of  evil  increased  in 
volume,  in  darkness,  and  in  depth. 

But,  although  the  Newab-Wuzeers  of  Oude  were, 
doubtless,  bad  rulers  and  bad  men,  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted that  they  were  good  allies.  False  to  their  people 
— ^faJse  to  their  own  manhood — ^they  were  true  to  the 
British  Grovemment.  They  were  never  known  to  break 
out  into  open  hostility,  or  to  smoulder  in  hidden  trea- 
chery against  us;  and  they  rendered  good  service,  when 
they  could,  to  the  Power  to  which  they  owed  so  little. 
They  supplied  our  armies,  in  time  of  war,  with  grain ; 
they  supplied  us  with  carriage- cattle ;  better  still, 
they  supplied  us  with  cash.    There  was  money  in  the 

*  Sir  Henry  Lawrence  says  that  to  the  resentment  he  felt  for  his 
he  was  ''in  advance  of  the  Bengal  own  wrongs,  and  the  bitterness  of 
Government  of  the  day  on  revenue  soul  with  which  he  must  have  re- 
arrangements," and  gives  two  strik-  ceived  all  advice  from  his  oppressors, 
ing  instances  of  the  fact.   With  cha-  no  less  than  to  the  necessitv  with 


tributable  to  English  interference,    this  paper  is  printed. 


PROGRESSIVE  MISRULE.  119 

Treasury  of  Lucknow,  when  there  was  none  in  the  I817. 
Treaauiy  of  Calcutta;  and  the  time  came  when  the 
Wu25eer's  cash  was  needed  by  the  British  ruler.  En- 
gaged in  an  extensive  and  costly  war,  Lord  Hastings 
wanted  more  millions  for  the  prosecution  of  his  great 
enterprises.  They  were  forthcoming  at  the  right 
time;  and  the  British  Government  were  not  un- 
willing in  exchange  to  bestow  both  titles  and  terri- 
tories on  the  Wuzeer.  The  times  were  propitious. 
The  successful  close  of  the  Nepaul  war  placed  at  our 
disposal  an  unhealthy  and  impracticable  tract  of 
country  at  the  foot  of  the  Hills.  This  "  terai"  ceded 
to  us  by  the  Nepaulese  was  sold  for  a  million  of 
money  to  the  Wuzeer,  to  whose  domains  it  was  con- 
tiguous, and  he  himself  expanded  and  bloomed  into 
a  King  under  the  fostering  sun  of  British  favour  and 
affection.*  The  interest  of  the  other  miUion  was  paid 
away  by  our  Government  to  a  tribe  of  Oude  pen- 
sioners, who  were  not  sorry  to  exchange  for  a  British 
guarantee  the  erratic  benevolence  of  their  native 
masters. 

It  would  take  long  to  trace  the  history  of  the  pro- 
gressive misrule  of  the  Oude  dominions  imder  a  suc- 
cession of  sovereigns  all  of  the  same  classr— passive 
permitters  of  evil  rather  than  active  perpetrators  of 
iniquity,  careless  of,  but  not  rejoicing  in,  the  suffer- 
ings of  their  people.  The  rulers  of  Oude,  whether 
Wuzeers  or  Kings,  had  not  the  energy  to  be  tyrants. 

*  Sir  John  Malcolm  said  that  the  rence  seems  to  have  thought  that 
very  mention  of  ''his  Majesty  of  this  was  precisely  what  was  in- 
Oade"  made  him  sick.  '*  Would  I  tended.  *'  The  Newab  Ghazce-ood- 
make,"  he  said,  "  a  golden  calf,  and  deen  Hyder,"  he  wrote,  "was  en- 
suffer  him  to  throw  off  his  subordi-  couraged  to  assume  the  title  of 
UAte  title,  and  araume  equaliU  with  King ;  Lord  Hastings  calculated  on 
the  degraded  representative  or  a  line  this  exciting  a  riva&y  between  the 
of  monarchs  to  whom  his  ancestors  Oude  and  Delhi  ITamilies."  —  CaU 
have  been  for  ages  really  or  nomi-  cutta  Review^  vol.  iii. ;  and  Essays, 
nally  subject  f "    Sir  Uenry  Law-  page  119. 


k 


120  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALIIOUSIE. 

1817.  They  simply  allowed  things  to  take  their  course. 
Sunk  in  voluptuousness  and  pollution,  often  too  hor- 
ribly revolting  to  be  described,  they  gave  themselves 
up  to  the  guidance  of  pandars  and  parasites,  and 
cared  not  so  long  as  these  wretched  creatures  admi- 
nistered to  their  sensual  appetites.  Affairs  of  State 
were  pushed  aside  as  painful  intrusions.  Corruption 
stalked  openly  abroad.  Every  one  had  his  price. 
Place,  honour,  justice — everything  was  to  be  bought. 
Fiddlers  and  barbers,  pimps  and  moimtebanks,  be- 
came great  functionaries.  There  were  high  revels  at 
the  capital,  whilst,  in  the  interior  of  the  country, 
every  kind  of  enormity  was  being  exercised  to  wring 
from  the  helpless  people  the  money  which  supplied 
the  indulgences  of  the  Court.  Much  of  the  land  was 
farmed  out  to  large  contractors,  who  exacted  every 
possible  farthing  from  the  cultivators ;  and  were  not 
seldom,  upon  complaint  of  extortion,  made,  unless 
inquiry  were  silenced  by  corruption,  to  disgorge 
into  the  royal  treasury  a  large  portion  of  their  gains. 
Murders  of  the  most  revolting  type,  gang-robberies 
of  the  most  outrageous  character,  were  committed  in 
open  day.  There  were  no  Courts  of  Justice  except  at 
Lucknow ;  no  Police  but  at  the  capital  and  on  the 
frontier.  The  British  troops  were  continually  called 
out  to  coerce  refractory  landholders,  and  to  stimulate 
revenue-collection  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet.  The 
sovereign — ^Wuzeer  or  King — ^knew  that  they  would 
do  their  duty ;  knew  that,  imder  the  obligations  of  the 
treaty,  his  authority  would  be  supported ;  and  so  he 
lay  secure  in  his  Zenana,  and  fiddled  whilst  his  coun- 
try was  in  flames. 

And  so  years  passed ;  and  ever  went  there  from  the 
Residency  to  the  Council-chamber  of  the  Supreme 
Government  the  same  unvarying  story  of  frightful 
misrule.     Residents  expostulated,  Governors-General 


lOBD  WILLUM  BENTINCK  AT  LUCKNOW.  121 

protested  against  it.  The  protests  in  due  course  be-  183]. 
came  threats.  Time  after  time  it  was  announced  to 
the  rulers  of  Oude  that^  imless  some  great  and  imme- 
diate reforms  were  introduced  into  the  system  of 
administration,  the  British  Government,  as  lords- 
paramount,  would  have  no  course  left  to  them  but 
to  assume  the  direction  of  aflFairs,  and  to  reduce  the 
sovereign  of  Oude  to  a  pensioner  and  a  pageant. 

By  no  man  was  the  principle  of  non-interference 
supported  more  strenuously,  both  in  theory  and  in 
practice,  than  by  Lord  William  Bentinck.  But  in 
the  affairs  of  this  Oude  State  he  considered  that  he 
was  under  a  righteous  necessity  to  interfere.  In  April, 
1831,  he  visited  Lucknow ;  and  there,  distinctly  and 
emphatically  told  the  King  that  "  unless  his  terri- 
tories were  governed  upon  other  principles  than  those 
hitherto  followed,  and  the  prosperity  of  the  people 
made  the  principal  object  of  his  administration,  the 
precedents  afforded  by  the  principalities  of  the  Car- 
natic  and  Tanjore  would  be  applied  to  the  kingdom 
of  Oude,  and  to  the  entire  management  of  the  coun- 
try, and  the  King  would  be  transmuted  into  a  State 
prisoner."  This  was  no  mere  formal  harangue,  but 
the  deliberate  enunciation  of  the  Government  of 
India ;  and  to  increase  the  impression  which  it  was 
calculated  to  make  on  the  mind  of  the  King,  the 
warning  was  afterwards  communicated  to  him  in 
writing.  But,  spoken  or  written,  the  words  were  of 
no  avaiL  He  threw  himself  more  than  ever  into  the 
arms  of  parasites  and  pandars  ;  plunged  more  deeply 
into  debauchery  than  before,  and  openly  violated  all 
decency  by  appearing  drunk  in  the  public  streets  of 
Lucknow.*     With  the  corruption  of  the  Court  the 


*  This  was  Nussar-ood-deenHyder  tive  merits.    Colonel  Sleeman  seems 

— the  second  of  the  Oude  kings,  and  to  have  thought  that  he  miglit  have 

Eerhaps  the  worst.     I  speaK  du-  extracted  more  good  out  of  Nussur- 

iously,  however,  of  their  coni])ura-  ood-dcen  than  out  of  any  of  tlic  rest. 


122  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

1831.  disorders  of  the  country  increased.  The  crisis  seemed 
now  to  have  arrived.  A  communication  was  made 
to  the  Court  of  Oude,  that  "  instructions  to  assume 
the  government  of  the  coimtry,  if  circumstances 
should  render  such  a  measure  necessary,  had  arrived, 
and  that  their  execution  was  suspended  merely  in  the 
hope  that  the  necessity  of  enforcing  them  might  be 
obviated." 

But  in  what  manner  was  the  administration  to  be 
assumed— in  what  manner  was  the  improvement  of 
the  country  to  be  brought  about  by  the  intervention 
of  the  British  Government?  There  were  different 
courses  open  to  us,  and  they  were  all  diligently  consi- 
dered. We  might  appoint  a  Minister  of  our  own 
selection,  and  rule  through  him  by  the  agency  of  the 
Resident.  We  might  depose  the  ruling  sovereign, 
and  set  up  another  and  more  hopeful  specimen  of 
royalty  in  his  place.  We  might  place  the  country 
under  European  administration,  gi^g  all  the  sur- 
plus  revenues  to  the  King.  We  might  assume  the 
entire  government,  reducing  the  King  to  a  mere 
titular  dignitary,  and  giving  him  a  fixed  share  of  the 
annual  revenues.  Or  we  might  annex  the  country 
outright,  giving  him  so  many  lakhs  of  rupees  a  year, 
without  reference  to  the  revenues  of  the  principality. 
The  ablest  and  most  experienced  Indian  statesmen  of 
the  day  had  been  invited  to  give  their  opinions. 
Malcolm  and  Metcalfe  spoke  freely  out  The  first  of 
the  above  schemes  seemed  to  represent  the  mildest 
form  of  interference ;  but  both  the  soldier  and  the 
civilian  imhesitatingly  rejected  it  as  the  most  odious, 
and,  in  practice,  the  most  ruinous  of  all  interposi- 
tion. Far  better,  they  said,  to  set  up  a  new  King,  or 
even  to  assume  the  government  for  ourselves.  But 
those  were  days  when  native  dynasties  were  not  con- 
sidered unmixed  evils,  and  native  institutions  were  not 


MODBRAHON  OF  TH£  EAST  INDU  GOMPANT.  123 

pure  abominations  in  our  eyes.  And  it  was  thought  1833. 
that  we  might  assume  the  administration  of  Oude,  but 
not  for  ourselves.  It  was  thought  that  the  British 
Government  might  become  the  guardian  and  trustee 
of  the  King  of  Oude,  administer  his  affairs  through 
native  agency  and  in  accordance  with  native  institu- 
tions, and  pay  every  single  rupee  into  the  royal  trea- 
aury. 

This  was  the  scheme  of  Lord  William  Bentinck,  a 
man  of  unsurpassed  honesty  and  justice ;  and  it  met 
witli  favourable  acceptance  in  LeadenhaU-street.  The 
Court  of  Directors  at  that  time,  true  to  the  old  tradi- 
tions of  the  Company,  were  slow  to  encourage  their 
agents  to  seek  pretexts  for  the  extension  of  their 
dominions.  The  despatches  which  they  sent  out  to 
India  were  for  the  most  part  distinguished  by  a 
praiseworthy  moderation;  sometunes,  indeed,  by  a 
noble  frankness  and  sincerity,  which  showed  that  the 
authors  of  them  were  above  all  disguises  and  pre- 
tences.  They  now  looked  the  Oude  business  fairly 
in  the  face,  but  hoping  still  against  hope  that  there 
might  be  some  amelioration,  they  suflfered,  after  the 
receipt  of  Lord  William  Bentinck's  report,  a  year  to 
pass  away,  and  then  another  year,  before  issuing 
authoritative  orders,  and  then  they  sent  forth  a 
despatch,  which  was  intended  to  bring  the  whole  ,  ,  ,p 
question  to  a  final  issue.  They  spoke  of  the  feelings  1834. ' 
which  the  deplorable  situation  of  a  country  so  long 
and  so  nearly  connected  with  them  had  excited  in 
their  minds— of  the  obligations  which  such  a  state  of 
things  imposed  upon  them — of  the  necessity  of  find- 
ing means  of  effecting  a  great  alteration.  They  ac- 
knowledged, as  they  had  acknowledged  before,  that 
our  connexion  with  the  country  had  largely  contri- 
buted to  the  sufferings  of  the  people,  inasmuch  as  it 
had   afforded   protection  to  tyranny,  and  rendered 


124  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

1834.  hopeless  the  resistance  of  the  oppressed.*  This  made 
it  tiie  more  incumbent  upon  them  to  adSpt  measures 
for  the  mitigation,  if  not  the  removal,  of  the  existing 
eviL  They  could  not  look  on  whilst  the  ruin  of  the 
country  was  consummated.  It  was  certain  that  some- 
thing must  be  done.  But  what  was  that  something 
to  be  ?  Then  they  set  in  array  before  them,  some- 
what as  I  have  done  above,  the  diflferent  measures 
which  might  be  resorted  to,  and,  dwelling  upon  the 
course  which  Bentinck  had  recommended,  placed  in 
the  hands  of  the  Governor-General  a  discretionary 
power  to  carry  the  proposed  measure  into  effect  at 
such  period,  and  in  such  a  manner  as  might  seem 
advisable,  but  with  the  utmost  possible  consideration 
for  the  King,  whose  consent  to  the  proposed  arrange- 
ment was,  if  possible,  to  be  obtained.  It  was  sug- 
gested that  all  the  titles  and  honours  of  sovereignty 
should  remain  with  his  Majesty  as  before;  that  the 
revenues  should  be  mainly  expended  in  the  adminis- 
tration and  the  improvement  of  the  country,  and 
that  either  the  surplus,  or  a  fixed  stipend,  should  be 
assigned  to  the  King.  But,  at  the  same  time,  the 
Government  were  instructed,  in  the  event  of  their 
proceeding  to  assume  the  administration  of  the  coun- 
try, distinctly  to  announce  that,  so  soon  as  the  neces- 
sary reforms  should  have  been  eflfected,  the  admi- 
nistration of  the  country,  as  in  the  case  of  Nagpore, 
would  be  restored  to  its  native  rulers. 

Colonel  John  Low,  of  whose  character  and  career 
I  have  already  spoken,  was  then  Resident  at  Luck- 

*  For  a  long  time,  as  we  have  vengeance."  This  scandal  no  longer 

said,  our  troops  were  employed  by  existed ;    bnt  our  battalions  were 

the  King's  officers  to  aid  tliem  in  the  still  stationed  in  the  country,  ready 

collection  of  the  revenue;  thereby  to  dragoon  down  any  open  insur- 

active,  as  the  Court  frankly  described  rection  that  might  result  from  the 

it,  as  "  instnuncnts  of  extortion  and  misgovemment  of  Oude. 


VIEWS  OF  COLONEL  LOW.  125 

now.  The  despatch  of  the  Court  of  Directors,  autho-  1836. 
rising  the  temporary  assumption  of  the  Government 
of  Oude,  was  communicated  to  him,  and  he  pondered 
over  its  contents.  The  scheme  appeared  in  his  eyes 
to  be  distinguished  by  its  moderation  and  humanity, 
and  to  be  one  of  a  singularly  disinterested  character. 
But  he  was  convinced  that  it  would  be  misunderstood. 
He  said  that,  however  pure  the  motives  of  the  British 
Government  might  be,  the  natives  of  India  would 
surely  believe  that  we  had  taken  the  country  for  our- 
selves. So  he  recommended  the  adoption  of  another 
method  of  obtaining  the  same  end.  Fully  impressed 
with  the  necessity  of  removing  the  reigning  King, 
Nussur-ood-deen,  he  advised  the  Government  to  set 
up  another  ruler  in  his  place;  and  in  order  that 
the  measure  might  be  above  all  suspicion,  to  abstain 
firom  receiving  a  single  rupee,  or  a  single  acre  of 
ground,  as  the  price  of  his  elevation.  "  What  I  re- 
commend is  this,"  he  said,  "  that  the  next  heir  should 
be  invested  with  the  full  powers  of  sovereignty ;  and 
that  the  people  of  Oude  should  continue  to  live  under 
their  own  institutions."  He  had  faith  in  the  charac- 
ter of  that  next  heir ;  he  believed  that  a  change  of 
men  would  produce  a  change  of  measures ;  and,  at  all 
events,  it  was  but  bare  justice  to  try  the  experiment. 
But,  before  anything  had  been  done  by  the  Go- 
vernment of  India,  in  accordance  with  the  discretion 
delegated  to  them  by  the  Court  of  Directors,  the  ex- 
periment which  Low  had  suggested  inaugurated  itself. 
Not  Avithout  suspicion  of  poison,  but  really,  I  believe, 
killed  only  by  strong  drink,  Nussur-ood-deen  Hyder 
died  on  a  memorable  July  night.  It  was  a  crisis  of  1837. 
no  common  magnitude,  for  there  was  a  disputed  suc- 
cession ;  and  large  bodies  of  lawless  native  troops  in 
Lucknow  were  ready  to  strike  at  a  moment's  notice. 


126  THE  ADIUNISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

1637.  The  cool  courage  of  Low  and  his  assistants  saved  the 
city  from  a  deluge  of  blood.  An  uncle  of  the  deceased 
Prince— an  old  man  and  a  cripple,  respectable  in  his 
feebleness — ^was  declared  King,  with  the  consent  of 
the  British  Government;  and  the  independence  of 
Oude  had  another  lease  of  existence. 

Lord  Auckland  was,  at  that  time,  Governor-General 
of  India.  The  new  King,  who  could  not  but  feel 
that  he  was  a  creature  of  the  British,  pledged  himself 
to  sign  a  new  treaty.  And  soon  it  was  laid  before 
him.  That  the  engagements  of  the  old  treaty  had 
been  violated,  day  after  day,  year  after  year,  for  more 
than  a  third  part  of  a  century,  was  a  fact  too  patent 
to  be  questioned.  The  misgovemment  of  the  coun- 
try was  a  chronic  breach  of  treaty.  Whether  the 
British  or  the  Oude  Government  were  more  respon- 
sible for  it  was  somewhat  doubtful  to  every  clear 
understanding  and  every  unprejudiced  mind  The 
source  of  the  failure  was  in  the  treaty  itself,  which 
the  author  of  it  well  knew  from  the  first  was  one  of 
impossible  fulfilment.  But  it  was  still  a  breach  of 
treaty,  and  there  was  another  in  the  entertainment 
of  vast  numbers  of  soldiers  over  and  above  the  stipu- 
lated allowance.  Those  native  levies  had  gradually 
swollen,  according  to  Resident  Low's  calculations,  to 
the  bulk  of  seventy  thousand  men.  Here  was  an  evil 
not  to  be  longer  permitted ;  wonder,  indeed,  was  it 
that  it  should  have  been  permitted  so  long.  This  the 
new  treaty  was  to  remedy ;  no  less  than  the  continued 
mal-administration  of  the  country  by  native  agency. 
It  provided,  therefore,  that  in  the  event  of  any  fur- 
ther-protracted misrule,  the  British  Government 
should  be  entitled  to  appoint  its  own  officers  to  the 
management  of  any  part,  small  or  great,  of  the  pro- 
vince; that  the  old  native  levies  should  be  aban- 


THE  DISALLOWED  TREATY.  127 

doned,  and  a  new  force,  commanded  by  British  1837. 
officers,  organised  in  its  place,  at  the  cost  of  the  Oude 
Government.  But  there  was  no  idea  of  touching,  in 
any  other  way,  the  revenues  of  the  country.  An 
account  was  to  be  rendered  of  every  rupee  received 
and  expended,  and  the  balance  was  to  be  paid  punc- 
tually into  the  Oude  Treasury. 

This  was  the  abortion,  often  cited  in  later  years  as 
the  Oude  Treaty  of  1837.  Authentic  history  recites 
that  the  Government  of  India  were  in  throes  with  it, 
but  the  strangling  hand  of  higher  authority  crushed 
all  life  out  of  the  thing  before  it  had  become  a  fact. 
The  treaty  was  wholly  and  absolutely  disallowed  by 
the  Home  Government.*  They  took  especial  excep- 
tion to  the  establishment  of  the  new  auxiliary  force, 
which  was  to  cost  the  Oude  Treasury  sixteen  lakhs 
of  rupees  a  year;  for,  with  all  the  pure  logic  of 
honesty,  they  said  that  the  treaty  of  1801  had  made 
it  compulse,^  on  the  British  Government  to  provide 
for  the  defence  of  the  country,  and  that  a  large  tract 
of  territory  had  been  ceded  with  the  express  object  of 
securing  the  payment  of  the  troops  necessary  for  this 
purpose.  If,  then,  it  were  expedient  to  organise  a 
fresh  force  under  British  officers,  it  was  for  the  Com- 
pany, not  for  the  Oude  Government,  to  defray  the 
expenses  of  the  new  levy.  But  not  only  on  these 
grounds  did  they  object  to  the  treaty.  It  is  true 
that,  a  few  years  before,  they  had  given  the  Governor- 
General  discretionary  power  to  deal,  as  he  thought 
best,  with  the  disorders  of  Oude,  even  to  the  extent 
of  a  temporary  assumption  of  the  government ;  but 
this  authority  had  been  issued  at  a  time  when  Nussur- 
ood-deen,  of  whose  vicious  incapacity  they  had  had 

♦  That  is  to  say,  by  the  Secret  Committee,  who  bad,  by  Act  of  Par- 
iiament,  special  powers  in  this  matter  of  Treaty-niaking. 


128  THE  ADBUNISTRATION  OF  LOBD  DALHOUSIE. 

1838.  many  years'  experience,  sat  upon  the  throne;  and 
the  Home  Government  were  strongly  of  opinion  that 
the  new  King,  of  whose  character  they  had  received 
a  favourable  account,  ought  to  be  allowed  a  fair 
trial,  under  the  provisions  of  the  treaty  existing  at 
the  time  of  his  accession  to  the  throne.  They  there- 
fore directed  the  abrogation,  not  of  any  one  article, 
but  of  the  entire  treaty.  Wishing,  however,  the 
annulment  of  the  treaty  to  appear  rather  as  an  act  of 
grace  from  the  Government  of  India  than  as  the  result 
of  positive  and  unconditional  instructions  from  Eng- 
land, they  gave  a  large  discretion  to  the  Governor- 
General  as  to  the  mode  of  announcing  this  abrogation 
to  the  Court  of  Lucknow. 

The  receipt  of  these  orders  disturbed  and  perplexed 
the  Governor-General.  Arrangements  for  the  orga- 
nisation of  the  Oude  auxiliary  force  had  already  ad- 
vanced too  far  to  admit  of  the  suspension  of  the 
measure.  It  was  a  season,  however,  of  difficulty  and 
supposed  danger,  for  the  seeds  of  the  Afghan  war  had 
been  sown.  Some,  at  least,  of  our  regular  troops  in 
Oude  were  wanted  to  do  our  own  work ;  so,  in  any 
view  of  the  case,  it  was  necessary  to  fill  their  places. 
The  Auxiliary  Force,  therefore,  was  not  to  be  arrested 
in  its  formation,  but  it  was  to  be  maintained  at  the 
Company's  expense.  Intimation  to  this  effect  was 
given  to  the  King  in  a  letter  from  the  Governor- 
General,  which,  after  acquainting  his  Majesty  that 
the  British  Government  had  determined  to  relieve 
him  of  a  burden  which,  in  the  existing  state  of  the 
country,  might  have  imposed  heavier  exactions  on 
the  people  than  they  were  well  able  to  bear,  ex- 
pressed a  strong  hope  that  the  King  would  see,  in 
the  relaxation  of  this  demand,  good  reason  for  apply- 
ing his  surplus  revenues  firstly  to  the  relief  of  op- 


abbooahon  of  the  treaty.  129 

preflsive  taxation,  and,  secondly,  to  the  prosecution  isss, 
of  useful  public  works.  But  nothing  was  said,  in 
this  lettep,  about  the  abrogation  of  the  entire  treaty, 
nor  was  it  desired  that  the  Resident,  in  his  con- 
ferences with  the  King  or  his  minister,  should  say 
anything  on  that  subject.  The  Governor-General, 
still  hoping  that  the  Home  Government  might  be  in- 
duced to  consent  to  the  terms  of  the  treaty  (the  con- 
dition of  the  auxiliary  force  alone  excluded),  ab- 
stidned  from  an  acknowledgment  which,  he  believed, 
would  weaken  the  authority  of  his  Government.  But 
this  was  a  mistake,  and  worse  than  a  mistake.  It 
betrayed  an  absence  of  moral  courage  not  easily  to 
be  justified  or  forgiven.  The  Home  Government 
never  acknowledged  the  validity  of  any  later  treaty 
than  that  which  Lord  Wellesley  had  negotiated  at 
the  commencement  of  the  century* 

Such  is  the  history  of  the  treaty  of  1837.  It  was 
never  carried  out  in  a  single  particular,  and  seldom 
heard  of  again  imtil  after  a  lapse  of  nearly  twenty 
years,  except  in  a  collection  of  treaties  into  which  it 
crept  by  mistake.*    And,   for  some  time,   indeed, 

*  Much  was  attempted  to  be  the  Commissionera  for  the  affairs  of 
made  out  of  this  circumstance — but  India.  ^igned)  "  R.  Gordon. 
the  mistake  of  an  under  Secretary  "  India  Board,  3rd  Julv,  1838." 
cannot  give  validity  to  a  treaty  It  must,  however,  be  admitted,  on 
which  the  highest  authorities  refused  the  other  hand,  that,  years  after 
to  ratify.  If  Lord  Auckhmd  was  un-  this  date,  even  in  the  Lucknow 
willing  to  declare  the  nullity  of  the  E^esidency,  the  treaty  was  held  to  be 
treaty  because  its  nullification  hurt  valid.  In  October,  1853,  Colonel 
the  pride  of  his  Government,  the  Sleeman  wrote  to  Sir  James  Hogg : 
Home  Government  showed  no  such  "  The  treaty  of  1837  gives  our  Go- 
unwillingness,  for,  in  1838,  the  fol-  vemnient  ample  authority  to  take 
lowing  return  was  made  to  Parlia-  the  whole  administration  on  our- 
ment,  under  the  signature  of  one  of  selves."  And  again,  in  1854,  to 
the  Secretaries  of  tne  Board  of  Con-  Colonel  Low :  "  Our  Crovemment 
trol :  would  be  fully  authorised  at  any 

"There  has  been  no  treaty  con-  time  to  enforce  the    penalty  pre- 

eloded  with  thepresent  King  of  Oude,  scribed  in  your  treaty  of  1837." 

which  has  been  ratified  by  the  Court  This  was  doublj  a  mistake.    The 

of  Directors,  with  the  approbation  of  treaty  was  certainly  not  Low's. 


130  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

183846.  little  was  heard  of  Oude  itself.  A  Native  State  is 
never  so  near  to  death,  but  that  it  may  become  quite 
hale  and  lusty  again  when  the  energies  and  activities 
of  the  British  are  engrossed  by  a  foreign  war.  Now, 
it  happened  that,  for  some  time  to  come,  the  British 
had  quite  a  crop  of  foreign  wars.  First,  the  great 
Afghanistan  wax  of  Auckland,  which  made  him 
wholly  forgetful  of  Oude — her  People  and  her  King 
— ^her  sorrows  and  her  sensualities.  Then  there  was 
the  Sindh  war  of  Ellenborough,  intended  to  wash  out 
by  a  small  victory  the  stain  of  a  great  defeat,  but 
fixing  a  still  deeper  stain  upon  the  character  of  the 
nation ;  and  next  the  fierce  Mahratta  onslaught,  which 
followed  closely  upon  it.  Then  there  was  the  inva- 
sion firom  beyond  the  Sutlej,  and  the  first  Sikh  war, 
in  which  Hardinge  was  most  reluctantly  inuneraed. 
Altogether,  some  eight  years  of  incessant  war,  with  a 
prospect  of  further  strife,  kept  the  sword  out  of  the 
scabbard  and  the  portfolio  out  of  the  hand.  Then 
Oude  was  safe  in  its  insignificance  and  obscurity. 
Moreover,  Oude  was,  as  before,  loyal  and  sympa- 
thising, and,  although  the  hoardings  of  Saadut  All 
had  long  since  been  squandered,  there  was  still 
money  in  the  Treasure-chests  of  Lucknow.  But 
peace  came,  and  with  it  a  new  birth  of  danger  to  the 
rulers  of  that  misruled  province.  There  had  been  no 
change  for  the  better ;  nay,  rather  there  had  been 
change  for  the  worse,  during  the  years  of  our  con- 
flicts beyond  the  frontier.  One  Prince  had  succeeded 
another  only  to  emulate  the  vices  of  his  ancestors  with 
certain  special  variations  of  his  own.  And  when 
Lord  Hardinge,  in  the  quiet  interval  between  the  two 

1847.  Sikh  wars,  turned  his  thoughts  towards  the  kingdom 
of  Oude,  he  found  Wajid  Ali  Shah,  then  a  young 
man  in  the  first  year  of  his  reign,  giving  foul  pro- 


LOBD  HABDINGE's  WARNINGS.  131 

mise    of  sostaming   the    character   of  the    Royal      1847. 
House.* 

With  the  same  moderation  as  had  been  shown  by 
Lord  William  Bentmck,  but  also  with  the  same 
strong  sense  of  the  paramount  duty  of  the  Britbh 
Government  to  arrest  the  disorders  which  had  so 
long  been  preying  upon  the  vitals  of  the  coimtry, 
Lord  Hardinge  lifted  up  his  voice  in  earnest  remon- 
strance and  solemn  warning;  and  the  young  King 
cowered  beneath  the  keen  glance  of  the  clear  blue 
eyes  that  were  turned  upon  him.  There  were  no 
vague  words  in  that  admonition ;  no  uncertain  sound 
in  their  utterance.  Wajid  Ali  Shah  was  distinctly 
told  that  the  clemency  of  the  British  Government 
would  allow  him  two  years  of  grace ;  but  that  if  at 
the  end  of  that  period  of  probation  there  were  no 
manifest  signs  of  improvement,  the  British  Govern- 
ment  could,  in  the  interests  of  humanity,  no  longer 
righteously  abstain  from  interfering  peremptorily  and 
absolutely  for  the  introduction  of  a  system  of  admi- 
nistration calculated  to  restore  order  and  prosperity  to 
the  kingdom  of  Oude.  The  discretionary  power  had 
years  before  been  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  Governor- 
General,  and  these  admonitions  failing,  it  would  as- 
suredly be  exercised.  A  general  outline  of  the  means, 
by  which  the  administration  might  be  reformed,  was 
laid  down  in  a  memorandum  read  aloud  to  the  King ; 
and  it  was  added  that,  if  his  Majesty  cordially  en- 
tered into  the  plan,  he  might  have  the  satisfaction, 

*  There  was  something   in  the  hope  of  an  improved  administration, 

number  ievem  fatal  to  the  Princes  of  But,  eapax  imperii  nisi  imperamt,  he 

Oude.    Ghazec-ood-deen  Hyder  died  was,  for  all  purposes  of  goremment, 

in  1827 ;  Nussur-ood-deen  in  1837 ;  as  incompetent  as  his  predecessors, 

and  Umjid  Ali  Shah  in  1847.    The  His  besetting  infirmity  was  avarice, 

last  named  succeeded,  in  1842,  the  and  he  seemed  to  care  for  nothing 

old  King,  whom  we  had  set  up,  and  so  long  as  the  treasure-chest  was 

from  whose  better  character  there  full. 
appeared  at  one  time  to  be  some 

k2 


132  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

1847.  within  the  specified  period  of  two  years,  of  checking 
and  eradicating  the  worst  abuses,  and,  at  the  same 
time,  of  maintaining  his  own  authority  and  the  native 
institutions  of  his  kingdom  unimpaired — but  that  if 
he  should  adhere  to  his  old  evil  ways,  he  must  be 
prepared  for  the  altematiye  and  its  consequences. 

Nervous  and  excitable  at  all  times,  and  greatly 
afiected  by  these  words,  the  King  essayed  to  speak ; 
but  the  power  of  utterance  had  gone  from  him.  So 
he  took  a  sheet  of  paper  and  wrote  upon  it,  that  he 
thanked  the  Governor-General,  and  would  regard  his 
counsels  as  though  they  had  been  addressed  by  a 
father  to  his  son.  There  are  no  counsels  so  habitually 
disregarded;  liie  King,  therefore,  kept  his  word. 
Relieved  from  the  presence  of  the  Governor-General 
his  agitation  subsided,  and  he  betook  himself,  without 
a  thought  of  the  future,  to  his  old  courses.  Fiddlers 
and  dancers,  singing  men  and  eunuchs,  were  suffered 
to  usurp  the  government  and  to  absorb  the  revenues 
of  the  country.  The  evil  influence  of  these  vile 
panders  and  parasites  was  felt  throughout  all  condi- 
tions of  society  and  in  all  parts  of  the  country.  Sunk 
in  the  uttermost  abysses  of  enfeebling  debauchery, 
the  King  pushed  aside  the  business  which  he  felt 
himself  incapable  of  transacting,  and  went  in  search 
of  new  pleasures.  Stimulated  to  the  utmost  by  un- 
natural excitements,  his  appetites  were  satiated  by 
the  debaucheries  of  the  Zenana,  and,  with  an  imder- 
standing  emasculated  to  the  point  of  childishness,  he 
turned  to  the  more  harmless  delights  of  dancing,  and 
drumming,  and  drawing,  and  manufacturing  small 
rhjones.  Had  he  devoted  himself  to  these  pursuits 
in  private  Ufe,  there  would  have  been  small  harm  in 
them,  but  overjoyed  with  his  success  as  a  musician, 
he  went  about  the  crowded  streets  of  Lucknow  with 


REPRIEVB  FOR  WAJID  ALL  133 

a  big  drum  round  his  neck,  striking  as  much  noise      1849. 
out  of  it  as  he  could,  with  all  the  extravagance  of 
childish  deUght. 

The  two  years  of  probation  had  passed  away,  and 
the  British  Resident  reported  that  "the  King  had 
not,  since  the  Governor-General's  visit  in  October, 
1847,  shown  any  signs  of  being  fully  aware  of  the 
responsibility  he  incurred."  "  In  fact,"  he  added,  "  I 
do  not  think  that  his  Majesty  can  ever  be  brought  to 
feel  the  responsibilities  of  sovereignty  strongly  enough 
to  be  induced  to  bear  that  portion  of  the  burden  of  its 
duties  that  must  necessarily  devolve  upon  him;  he  will 
always  confide  it  to  the  worthless  minions  who  are 
kept  for  his  amusements,  and  enjoy  exclusively  his 
society  and  his  confidence."  So  the  time  had  arrived 
when  the  British  Government  might  have  righteously 
assumed  the  administration  of  Oude.  The  King  had 
justly  incurred  the  penalty,  but  the  paramount  power 
was  in  no  haste  to  inflict  it.  Lord  Dalhousie  was 
Governor-General  of  India;  but  again  the  external 
conflicts  of  the  British  were  the  salvation  of  the  sove- 
reignty of  Oude.  The  Punjab  was  in  flames,  and  once 
more  Lucknow  was  forgotten.  The  conquest  of  the 
Sikhs;  the  annexation  of  their  country;  the  new 
Burmese  war  and  its  results;  the  lapses  of  which  I 
have  spoken  in  my  last  chapter;  and  many  impor- 
tant affairs  of  internal  administration  of  which  I  have 
yet  to  speak,  occupied  the  ever-active  mind  of  Lord 
Dalhousie  until  the  last  year  of  his  reign ;  but  it  was 
felt  by  every  one,  who  knew  and  pondered  over  the 
wretched  state  of  the  country,  that  the  day  of  reckon- 
ing was  approaching,  and  that  the  British  Govern- 
ment could  not  much  longer  shrink  from  the 
performance  of  a  duty  imposed  upon  it  by  every 
consideration  of  humanity. 


■.* 


134  THE  ADIOKISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

1849-60.  Colonel  Sleeman  was  then  Resident  at  Lucknow. 
He  was  a  man  of  a  liberal  and  humane  nature,  tho- 
roughly acquainted  with  the  character  and  feelings, 
the  institutions  and  usages  of  the  people  of  India. 
No  man  had  a  larger  toleration  for  the  short-comings 
of  native  Governments,  because  no  one  knew  better 
how  much  our  own  political  system  had  aggravated, 
if  they  had  not  produced,  the  evils  of  which  we  most 
complained.  But  he  sympathised  at  the  same  time 
acutely  with  the  sufferings  of  the  people  living  imder 
those  native  Governments;  and  his  sympathy  over- 
came his  toleration.  Having  lived  aU  his  adult  life 
in  India — ^the  greater  part  of  it  in,  or  on  the  borders 
of,  the  Native  States — ^he  was  destitute  of  all  over- 
weening prepossessions  in  favour  of  European  insti- 
tutions and  the  "  blessings  of  British  rule."  But  the 
more  he  saw,  on  the  spot,  of  the  terrible  effects  of  the 
misgovemment  of  Oude,  the  more  convinced  he  was 
of  the  paramoimt  duty  of  the  Brit^h  Government  to 
step  in  and  arrest  the  atrocities  which  were  converting 
one  of  the  finest  provinces  of  India  into  a  moral  pest- 
house.  In  1849  and  1850  he  made  a  tour  through 
the  interior  of  the  country.  He  carried  with  him  the 
prestige  of  a  name  second  to  none  in  India^  as  that 
of  a  friend  of  the  poor,  a  protector  of  the  weak,  and 
a  redresser  of  their  wrongs.  Conversing  freely  and 
familiarly  in  the  native  languages,  and  knowing  well 
the  character  and  the  feelings  of  the  people,  he  had  a 
manner  that  inspired  confidence,  and  the  art  of  ex- 
tracting from  every  man  the  information  which  he  was 
best  able  to  afford.  During  this  tour  in  the  interior, 
he  noted  down,  from  day  to  day,  all  the  most  striking 
facts  which  were  brought  to  his  notice,  with  the  re- 
flections which  were  suggested  by  them;  and  the 
whole  presented  a  revolting  picture  of  the  worst  type 


COLONEL  8LEEMAN.  135 

of  misrule— of  a  feebleness  worse  than  despotism,  of  1850. 
an  apathy  more  productive  of  human  suffering  than 
the  worst  forms  of  tjn^nnous  activity.  In  the  absence 
of  all  controlling  authority,  the  strong  carried  on 
everywhere  a  war  of  extermination  against  the  weak. 
Powerful  families,  waxing  gross  on  outrage  and  rapine, 
built  forts,  collected  followers,  and  pillaged  and  mur- 
dered at  discretion,  without  fear  of  justice  overtaking 
their  crimes.  Nay,  indeed,  the  greater  the  criminal 
the  more  sure  he  was  of  protection,  for  he  could  pur- 
chase immunity  with  his  spoil.  There  was  hardly, 
indeed,  an  atxciity  commi  A  from  one  end  of  the 
country  to  the  other,  that  was  not,  directly  or  indi- 
rectly, the  result  of  the  profligacy  and  corruption  of 
the  Court.* 

Such  was  Colonel  Sleeman's  report  of  the  state  of 
the  Oude  country ;  such  was  his  account  of  what  he 
had  seen  with  hi  own  eyes  or  heard  with  his  own 
ears.  There  was  not  a  man  in  the  Two  Services  who 
was  more  distressed  by  the  fuiy  for  annexation  which 

*    "  The   Talookdars   keep    the  a  day  has  passed  since  I  left  Luck- 

oountry  in  a  perpetual  state  of  dis-  now,  in  which  I  have  not  had  abon- 

turbapoe,  ana  render  life,  property,  dant  proof  of  numerous  atrocities  of 

and  industry,  everywhere  insecure,  this  Kind  committed  by  landholders 

Whenever  they  quarrel  with  each  within  the  district  through  which  I 

other,  or  with  the  local  authorities  was  passing,  year  by  year,  up  to  the 

of  the  Government,  from  whatever  present  day.      And  again :   "  It  is 

cause,  they  take  to  indiscriminate  worthy  of  remark  that  these  great 

plunder  and  murder—oyer  all  lands  landholders,  who  have  recently  ac- 

not  held  by  men  of  the  same  class —  a\^ed  their  possessions  b^  the  plun- 

no  road,  town,  village,  or  hamlet,  is  aer  and  the  murder  of  their  weaker 

secure  from  their  merciless  attacks  neighbours,  and  wlio  continue  their 

— robbery  and  murder  become  their  system  of  plunder  in  order  to  ac- 

diveraion,  their  sport,  and  they  think  quire  the  means  to  maintain  their 

no  more  of  takine  the  lives  of  men,  gangs  and  add  to  their  possessions, 

women,    and  children,  who    never  are  those  who  are  most  favoured  at 

offended  them,  than  those  of  deer  Court,  and  most  conciliated  by  the 

and  wild  hogs.    They  not  only  rob  local  rulers,  because  they  are  more 

and  mnrder,  but  seize,  confine,  and  able  and  more  willing  to  pay  for  the 

torture  all  whom  they  seize,  and  favour  of  the  one  ana  set  at  defiance 

suppose  to  have  money  or  credit,  till  the  authority  of  the  other." — iSle$» 

tbey  ransom  themselves  with  all  they  man's  Diary. 
have,  or  can  beg  or  borrow.  Hardly 


136  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

1863.  was  at  that  time  breaking  out  in  the  most  influential 
public  prints  and  the  highest  official  circles.  He  saw 
clearly  the  danger  into  which  this  grievous  lust  of 
dominion  was  hurrying  us,  and  he  made  a  great  effort 
to  arrest  the  evil;*  but  he  lifted  up  a  warning  voice 
in  vain.  The  letters  which  he  addressed  to  the  Go- 
vernor-General and  to  the  Chairman  of  the  East  India 
Company  appear  to  have  produced  no  effect.  He  did 
not  see  clearly,  at  that  time,  that  the  principles  which 
he  held  in  such  abhorrence  were  cherished  by  Lord 
Dalhousie  himself,  and  he  did  not  know  that  the  Court 
of  Directors  had  such  faith  in  their  Governor-General 
that  they  were  content  to  substitute  his  principles  for 
their  own.  But,  utterly  distasteful  to  him  as  were  the 
then  prevailing  sentiments  in  favour  of  absorption  and 
confiscation,  Sleeman  never  closed  his  eyes  against  the 
fact  that  interference  in  the  affairs  of  Oude,  even  to 
the  extent  of  the  direct  assumption  of  the  government, 
would  be  a  righteous  interference.  Year  after  year  he 
had  pressed  upon  the  Governor-General  the  urgent 
necessity  of  the  measure.  But,  perhaps,  had  he  known 
in  what  manner  his  advice  was  destined  to  be  followed, 
and  how  his  authority  would  be  asserted  in  justifica- 

*  See  81eeman*8  Correspondeneef  dangerous  to  our  role  in  India,  and 

jMMtMn.    BxempU  gratid:  "In  Sep-  prejudicial  to  the  best  interests  of 

tember,  1848, 1  tcwk  the  liberty  to  the  country.    The  people  see  that 

mention  to  your  Lordship  my  fears  these  annexations  and  con6scations 

that  the  system  of  annexing  and  go  on,  and  that  rewards  and  honorary 

absorbing  llatiye  States — so  popular  distinctions  are  giyen  for  them  and 

with  our  Indian  Seryices,  and  so  for  the  yictories  which  lead  to  them, 

much  adyocated  by  a  certain  class  and  for  little  dse;  and  they  are  too 

of  writers  in  public  journals — ^might  apt  to  infer  that  they  are  systematic 

some  day  render  us  too  yisibly  de-  and  encouraged  and  prescribed  from 

pendent  upon  our  Natiye  Army ;  that  home.    The  rf  ative  States  I  consider 

they  might  see  it,  and  that  accidents  to  be  breakwaters,  and  when  they 

might  occur  to  unite  them,  or  too  are  all  swept  away  we  shall  be  left 

great  a  portion  of  them,  in  some  des-  to  the  mercy  of  our  Natiye  Army, 

perate   act." — {Colojtel  Sleenum  to  which  may  not  always  be  sufficiently 

XofY^  2^/AoMi>,  April,  1852.)    And  under  our  control." — Colonel  Sleeman 

again :  *'  I  deem  such  doctrines  to  be  to  Sir  Jemet  Hogg,  January,  1853* 


sleeman's  warnings.  137 

tion  of  an  act  which  he  could  never  countenance,  he  1858; 
would  rather  have  suffered  the  feeble-minded  de- 
bauchee who  was  called  King  of  Oude  still  to  remam 
in  undisturbed  possession  of  the  throne,  than  have 
uttered  a  word  that  might  hasten  a  measure  so  at 
variance  with  his  sense  of  justice,  and  so  injurious  as 
he  thought  to  our  best  interests,  as  that  of  which 
the  interference  of  Government  eventually  took  the 
shape. 

Sleeman's  advice  had  been  dear,  consistent,  unmis- 
takable. "Assume  the  administration,"  he  said,  "but 
do  not  grasp  the  revenues  of  the  coimtry."  Some 
years  before  the  same  advice  had  been  given  by  Henry 
Lawrence,*  between  whom  and  Sleeman  there  was 
much  concord  of  opinion  and  some  similitude  of  cha- 
racter. The  private  letters  of  the  latter,  addressed 
to  the  highest  Indian  functionaries,  and,  therefore, 
having  all  the  weight  and  authority  of  public  docu- 
ments, were  as  distinct  upon  this  point  as  the  most 
emphatic  words  could  make  them.  "  What  the  people 
want,  and  most  earnestly  pray  for,"  he  wrote  to  the 
Crovemor-General,  "is  that  our  Government  should 
take  upon  itself  the  responsibility  of  governing  them 
weU  and  permanently.  AU  classes,  save  the  knaves, 
who  now  surround  and  govern  the  King,  eamesdy 
pray  for  this — ^the  educated  classes,  because  they  would 
then  have  a  chance  of  respectable  employment,  which 
none  of  them  now  have ;  the  middle  classes,  because 
they  find  no  protection  or  encouragement,  and  no 
hope  that  their  chUdren  wiU  be  permitted  to  inherit 

*  "  Let  the  management/'  he  said,  (The  italics  are  Lawrence's.)    "  Let 

**  be  assumed  under  some  such  rules  Oude  be  at  last  governed,  not  for  one 

as  those  which  were  laid  down  by  man,  the  King,  but  for  him  and  hia 

Lord  William  Bentinck.    Let  the  people." — Calcuiia  Beview,  rol.  iii. 

administration  of  the  country,  as  far  (1 845) ;  and  Lawrence's  Essays,  p. 

as  possible,  be  native.     Let  not  a  132. 
rupise  come  into  the  Companft  coffenJ* 


138  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIR. 

1868.  the  property  they  leave,  not  invested  in  our  Govern- 
ment Securities;  and  the  humbler  classes,  because 
they  are  now  abandoned  to  the  merciless  rapacity  of 
the  starving  troops  and  other  public  establishments, 
and  of  the  landholders  driven  or  invited  to  rebellion 
by  the  present  state  of  misrule."  But  he  added :  "  I 
believe  that  it  is  your  Lordship's  wish  that  the  whole 
of  the  revenues  of  Oude  should  be  expended  for  the 
benefit  of  the  Royal  Family  and  People  of  Oude,  and 
that  the  British  Government  should  disclaim  any  wish 
to  derive  any  pecuniary  advantage  from  assuming  to 
itself  the  administration."  And  again,  about  the  same 
time,  he  had  written  to  the  Chairman  of  the  Court  of 
Directors,  urging  the  expediency  of  assuming  the  ad- 
ministration, but  adding :  "  If  we  do  this,  we  must,  in 
order  to  stand  well  with  the  rest  of  India^  honestly 
and  distinctly  disclaim  all  interested  motives,  and 
ttppropriate  the  whole  of  the  revenues  for  the  benefit 
oiF  the  People  and  Royal  Family  of  Oude.  If  we  do 
this,  all  India  will  think  us  right."  And  again,  a  few 
months  later,  writing  to  the  same  high  authority,  he 
said,  mournfully  and  prophetically,  that  to  annex  and 
confiscate  the  country,  and  to  appropriate  the  reve- 
nues to  ourselves,  would  "be  most  profitable  in  a 
pecuniary  view,  but  most  injurious  in  a  political  one. 
It  would  tend  to  accelerate  the  crisis  which  the  doc- 
trines of  the  absorbing  school  must  sooner  or  later 
bring  upon  us."* 

Such  was  the  counsel  Sleeman  gave ;  such  were  the 
warnings  he  uttered.  But  he  did  not  remain  in  India, 
nay,  indeed  he  did  not  live,  to  see  his  advice  ignored, 
his  cautions  disregarded.  After  long  years  of  arduous 
and  honourable  service,  compelled  to  retire  in  broken 

*  Priyate  correspondenoe  of  ^    of  the  English  edition  of  his  *'  Diary 
W.  H.  Sleeman,  printed  at  the  end    in  Onda' " 


JAIIES  OUTRAM.  139 

health  from  his  post,  he  died  on  his  homeward  voya^      1853. 

leaving  behind  him  a  name  second  to  none  upon  the 

roll  of  the  benefactors  and  civilisers  of  India,  for  he 

had  grappled  with  her  greatest  abomination,  and  had  Thuggee. 

effectually  subdued  it.     Some  solace  had  it  been  to 

him  when  he  turned  his  back  upon  the  country  to 

know  that  his  place  would  be  well  and  worthily  filled. 

"  Had  your  Lordship  left  the  choice  of  a  successor  to 

me,"  he  wrote  to  the  Govemor-Cxeneral,  "I  should  September, 

have  pointed  out  Colonel  Outram ;  and  I  feel  very 

much  rejoiced  that  he  has  been  selected  for  the  office, 

and  I  hope  he  will  come  as  soon  as  possible.  "• 

An  officer  of  the  Company's  army  on  the  Bombay 
establishment,  James  Outram  had  done  good  service 
to  his  country,  good  service  to  the  people  of  India, 
on  many  different  fields  of  adventure ;  and  had  risen, 
not  without  much  sore  travail  and  sharp  contention, 
to  a  place  in  the  estimation  of  his  Government  and 
the  affections  of  his  comrades,  from  which  he  could 
afford  to  look  down  upon  tho  conflicts  of  the  Past 
with  measureless  calmness  and  contentment.  Versed 
alike  in  the  stem  severities  of  war  and  the  civilising 
humanities  of  peace,  he  was  ready  at  a  moment's 
notice  to  lead  an  army  into  the  field  or  to  superintend 
the  government  of  a  province.  But  it  was  in  rough 
soldier's  work,  or  in  that  still  rougher  work  of  mingled 
war  and  diplomacy  which  falls  to  the  share  of  the  Po- 
litical officer  in  India,  that  Outram's  great  and  good 
qualities  were  most  conspicuously  displayed.  For  in 
him,  with  courage  of  the  highest  order,  with  mascu- 
line energy  and  resolution,  were  combined  the  gentle- 
ness of  a  woman  and  the  simplicity  of  a  child.  No 
man  knew  better  how  to  temper  power  with  mercy 
and  forbearance,  and  to  combat  intrigue  and  perfidy 
with  pure  sincerity  and  stainless  truth.    This  truth- 


140  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALH0U8IE. 

1864.  fulness  was,  indeed,  perhaps  the  most  prominent,  as  it 
was  the  most  perilous,  feature  of  his  character.  Whatso- 
ever he  might  do,  whatsoever  he  might  say,  the  whole 
was  there  before  you  in  its  full  proportions.  He  wore 
his  heart  upon  his  sleeve,  and  was  incapable  of  con- 
cealment or  disguise.  A  pure  sense  of  honour,  a 
strong  sense  of  justice,  the  vehement  assertions  of 
which  no  self-interested  discretion  could  hold  in  re- 
straint, brought  him  sometimes  into  collision  with 
others,  and  immersed  him  in  a  sea  of  controversy. 
But  although,  perhaps,  in  his  reverential  love  of 
truth,  he  was  over-eager  to  fight  down  what  he  might 
have  been  well  content  to  live  down,  and  in  after  life 
he  may  have  felt  that  these  wordy  battles  were  very 
little  worth  fighting,  he  had  still  no  cause  to  regret 
them,  for  he  came  unhurt  from  the  conflict.  It  was 
after  one  of  these  great  conflicts,  the  growth  of  serious 
official  strife,  which  had  sent  him  from  an  honourable 
post  into  still  more  honourable  retirement,  that,  re- 
turning to  India  with  strong  credentials  from  his 
masters  in  Leadenhall-street,  Lord  Dalhousie  selected 
him  to  succeed  Sleeman  as  Resident  at  Lucknow. 

The  choice  was  a  wise  one.  There  was  work  to  be 
done  which  required  a  hand  at  once  gentle  and  strong. 
The  fame  of  Outram  was  not  the  fame  of  a  spoliator, 
but  of  a  just  man  friendly  to  the  native  Princes  and 
chiefs  of  India,  who  had  lifted  up  his  voice  against 
wrongs  done  to  them  in  his  time,  and  who  would 
rather  have  closed  his  public  career  than  have  been 
the  agent  of  an  unrighteous  policy.  But  a  measure 
which  Low,  and  Sleeman,  and  Henry  Lawrence  had 
approved,  nay,  which  in  the  interests  of  humanity 
they  had  str^uously  recommended,  was  little  likely 
to  be  an  unrighteous  one,  and  Outram,  whilst  re- 
joicing that  his  past  career  had  thus  been  stamped  by 


OOTRAH'S  R£P(ttT.  141 

his  Government  mth  the  highest  practical  approval^      18^^- 
accepted  the  ofier  in  the  full  assurance  that  he  coald 
fulfil  its  duties  without  a  stain  upon  his  honour  or  a 
burden  upon  his  conscience.* 

Making  all  haste  to  join  his  appointment,  Outram 
quitted  Aden,  where  the  summons  reached  him,  and 
took  ship  for  Calcutta,  where  he  arrived  in  the  first 
month  of  the  cold  season.  His  instructions  were  soon  NoTembcr, 
prepared  for  him ;  they  were  brief,  but  they  su^ested  ^^*" 
the  settled  resolution  of  Government  to  wait  no  longer 
for  imposnble  improvementa  from  within,  but  at  once 
to  shape  their  measures  for  the  assertion,  in  accord- 
ance with  Treaty,  of  the  authority  of  the  Para- 
mount State.  But  it  was  not  a  thing  to  be  done  in  a 
hurry.  The  measure  itself  was  to  be  deliberately 
carried  out  after  certain  preliminary  formalities  of 
inquiry  and  reference.  It  was  Outram's  part  to 
inquire.  A  report  upon  the  existing  state  of  Oude 
was  called  for  from  the  new  Resident,  and  before  the 
end  of  March  it  was  forwarded  to  Calcutta.  It  was  1S55. 
an  elaborate  history  of  the  misgovemment  of  Oude 
from  the  commencement  of  the  century,  a  dark  cata- 
logue of  crime  and  suffering  "  caused  by  the  culpable 
apathy  of  the  Sovereign  and  the  Durbar."  "  I  have 
shown,"  said  the  new  Resident,  in  conclusion,  *'  that 
the  affairs  of  Oude  still  continue  in  the  same  state,  if 
not  worse,  in  which  Colonel  Sleeman  from  time  to  time 
described  them  to  be,  and  that  the  improvement  which 
Lord  Hardinge  peremptorily  demanded,  seven  years 
ago,  at  the  hands  of  the  King,  in  pursuance  of  the 
Treaty  of  1801,  has  not,  in  any  degree,  been  effected. 
And  I  have  no  hesitation  in  declaring  my  opinion, 

*  I  tpeak,  ol  oonne.  of  tiw  men    lag  out  the  mcMure  had  not  tlien 
bet  ol  tbs  auumption  of  tbo  ad-    been  decided. 


142 


THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALH0U8IE. 


1855. 


lCftroh28, 
1855. 


therefore,  that  the  duty  imposed  on  the  British  Go- 
vernment by  that  trea^,  cannot  any  longer  admit  of 
our  *  honestly  indulging  the  reluctance  which  the  Go- 
vernment of  India  has  felt  heretofore  to  have  recourse 
to  those  extreme  measures  which  alone  can  be  of  any 
real  efficiency  in  remedying  the  evils  from  which  the 
state  of  Oude  has  suffered  so  long.' " 

To  this  report,  and  to  much  earlier  information  of 
the  same  kind  with  which  the  archives  of  Government 
were  laden,  the  Governor-General  gave  earnest  and 
sustained  attention  amidst  the  refreshing  quiet  of  the 
Blue  Mountains  of  Madras.  The  weighty  document 
had  picked  up,  on  its  road  through  Calcutta,  another 
still  more  weighty,  in  the  shape  of  a  minute  written 
by  General  Low.  Few  as  were  the  words,  they  ex- 
hausted all  the  arguments  in  favour  of  intervention, 
and  clothed  them  with  the  authority  of  a  great  name. 
No  other  name  could  have  invested  them  with  this 
authority,  for  no  other  man  had  seen  so  much  of  the 
evils  of  native  rule  in  Oude,  and  no  man  was  on 
principle  more  averse  to  the  extinction  of  the  native 
dynasties  of  India.  AU  men  must  have  felt  the  case 
to  be  very  bad  when  John  Low,  who  had  spoken  the 
brave  words  in  defence  of  the  Princes  and  chiefs  of 
India  which  I  have  cited  in  the  last  chapter,  was 
driven  to  the  forcible  expression  of  his  conviction 
that  it  was  the  paramount  duty  of  the  British  Go- 
vernment to  interfere  at  once  for  the  protection  of 
the  people  of  Oude** 


*  Low  said  that  be  was  in  &yoiir 
of  interference,  "  because  tbe  public 
and  sbameful  oppressions  committed 
on  tbe  people  by  Gk)yemment  officers 
in  Oude  bave  of  late  years  been  con- 
stant and  extreme ;  because  tbe  King 
of  Oude  has  continually,  during  many 
years,  broken  tbe  Treaty  by  syste- 


matically disregarding  our  adyice, 
instead  of  following  it,  or  even  en- 
deavouring to  follow  it ;  because  we 
are  bound  by  Treattf  (quite  xiifferent 
in  that  respect  from  our  position  re- 
latively to  most  of  the  ^pneat  Native 
States)  to  prevent  sanous  interior 
mianile  in  Oode;   becanae  it  has 


LORD  DALHOUSIE's  MINUTE.  143 

It  waa  not  possible  to  add  much  in  the  way  of  fact  1856. 
to  what  Outram  had  compiled,  or  much  in  the  way  of 
argument  to  what  Low  had  written.  But  Dalhousie, 
to  whom  the  fine  bracing  air  of  the  Neilgherries  had 
imparted  a  new-bom  capacity  for  sustained  labour, 
sat  himself  down  to  review  the  whole  question  in  a 
gigantic  minute.  He  signed  it  on  the  18th  June ;  and, 
indeed,  it  waa  his  Waterloo — ^the  crowning  victory  of 
annexation.  It  is  not  necessary  to  repeat  the  facts, 
for  I  have  stated  them,  or  the  arguments,  for  I  have 
suggested  them.  No  reader  can  have  followed  me 
thus  far,  without  a  strong  assurance  on  his  mind  that 
it  would  have  been  a  grievous  wrong  done  to  hu- 
manity to  have  any  longer  abstained  from  inter- 
ference. But  what  was  the  interference  to  be  ?  Here 
was  a  question  for  the  Governor-General  to  solve  in 
the  invigorating  atmosphere  of  Ootacamund — a  ques- 
tion, the  solution  of  which  was  to  yield  the  crowning 
measure  of  his  long  vice-regal  career. 

There  may  have  been  many  ways  of  working  out 
the  practical  details  of  this  measure ;  but  there  waa 
only  one  uncertain  point  which  was  of  much  substan- 
tial importance.  All  men  agreed  that  the  Treaty  of 
1801  might  rightfully  be  declared  to  have  ceased  by 
reason  of  repeated  violations,  and  that  with  the  con- 
sent of  the  King,  if  attainable,  or  without  it,  if  unat- 
tainable, the  Government  of  the  country  might  be 
transferred  to  the  hands  of  European  administrators. 
That  the  King  must  be  reduced  to  a  mere  cypher  was 

been  fully  proyed  that  we  have  not  to  these  pungent  sentences  an  ex- 
preTented  it,  and  that  we  cannot  pression  of  opinion  that  the  un- 
prevent  it  by  the  present  mode  of  tulfilled  threats  of  Lord  Hardinge 
ooodncting  our  relations  with  that  had  inqreased  the  evil,  inasmuch  aa 
State ;  and  because  no  man  of  com-  that  they  had  produced  an  impres- 
mon  sense  can  entertain  the  smallest  sion  in  Gude  that  the  Indian  Go- 
expectation  that  the  present  Kin^  of  vemment  were  restrained  from  inter* 
Oode  can  erer  become  an  efficient  ference  by  the  orders  of  higher 
ruler  of  hia  country. "  And  he  added  authority  at  home. 


i 


144  THE  ADinNISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

1853.  certain ;  it  was  certain  that  all  possible  respect  ought 
to  be  shown  to  him  in  his  fallen  fortunes,  and  that  he 
and  all  his  family  ought  to  be  splendidly  endowed ; 
no  question  could  well  be  raised  upon  these  points. 
The  question  was,  what  was  to  be  done  with  the 
surplus  revenue  after  pajdng  all  the  expenses  of  ad- 
ministration ?  Just  and  wise  men,  as  has  been  shown, 
had  protested  against  the  absorption  of  a  single  rupee 
into  the  British  Treasury.  They  said  that  it  would 
be  as  politic  as  it  would  be  righteous,  to  demonstrate 
to  all  the  States  and  Nations  of  India,  that  we  had 
not  deposed  the  King  of  Oude  for  our  own  benefit — 
that  we  had  done  a  righteous  act  on  broad  principles 
of  humanity,  by  which  we  had  gained  nothing.  But 
Lord  Dalhousie,  though  he  proposed  not  to  annex 
the  country,  determined  to  take  the  revenues. 

It  is  not  very  easy  to  arrive  at  a  just  conception  of 
his  views:  "The  reform  of  the  administration,"  he 
said,  "may  be  wrought,  and  the  prosperity  of  the 
people  may  be  secured,  without  resorting  to  so  extreme 
a  measure  as  the  annexation  of  the  territory  and  the 
abolition  of  the  throne.  I,  for  my  part,  therefore,  do 
not  recommend  that  the  province  of  Oude  should  be 
declared  to  be  British  territory."  But  he  proposed 
that  the  King  of  Oude,  whilst  retaining  the  sove- 
reignty of  his  dominions,  should  "vest  all  power, 
jurisdiction,  rights  and  claims  thereto  belonging,  in 
the  hands  of  the  East  India  Company,"  and  that  the 
surplus  revenues  should  be  at  the  disposal  of  the 
Company.  What  this  territorial  sovereignty  was  to 
be,  without  territorial  rights  or  territorial  revenues, 
it  is  not  easy  to  see.  When  the  Newab  of  the  Camatic 
and  the  Rajah  of  Tanjore  were  deprived  of  their 
rights  and  revenues,  they  were  held  to  be  not  terri- 
torial, but  titular  sovereigns.    The  Nizam,  on  the 


DALHOUSIE'S  VIEWS.  145 

other  hand,  might  properly  be  described  as  "  terri-  1835, 
torial  sovereign"  of  the  Assigned  Districts,  although 
the  administration  had  been  taken  from  him,  because 
an  account  of  the  revenue  was  to  be  rendered  to  him, 
and  the  surplus  was  to  be  paid  into  his  hands.  But 
the  King  of  Oude,  in  Dalhousie's  scheme,  was  to  have 
had  no  more  to  do  with  his  territories,  than  the 
titular  sovereigns  of  the  Camatic  and  Tanjore ;  and 
yet  he  was  to  be  told  that  he  was  "  to  retain  the  so- 
vereignty- of  all  the  territories"  of  which  he  was  then 
in  possession. 

Strictly  interpreted  to  the  letter,  the  scheme  did  not 
suggest  the  annexation  of  Oude.  The  province  was 
not  to  be  incorporated  with  the  British  dominions. 
The  revenues  were  to  be  kept  distinct  from  those  of  the 
empire ;  there  was  to  be  a  separate  balance-sheet ;  and 
thus  far  the  province  was  to  have  a  sort  of  integrity  of 
its  own.  This  is  sufficiently  intelligible  in  itself;  and, 
if  the  balance  being  struck,  the  available  surplus  had 
been  payable  to  the  King  of  Oude,  the  rest  of  the 
scheme  would  have  been  intelligible  also,  for  there 
would  have  been  a  quasi-sovereignty  of  the  territories 
thus  administered  still  remaining  with  the  King.  But 
the  balance  being  payable  into  the  British  Treasury, 
it  appears  that  Oude,  in  this  state  of  financial  isola- 
tion, would  still  have  substantially  been  British  ter- 
ritor}^,  as  much  as  if  it  had  become  a  component  part 
of  the  empire.  Ajrain,  under  the  proposed  system, 
Oude  would  have  been  beyond  the  circle  of  our 
ordinary  legislation,  in  which  respect  it  would  not 
have  differed  much  from  other  "  Non-Regulation  Pro- 
vinces ;"  and  if  it  had,  even  this  Legislative  segregation 
superadded  to  the  Financial  isolation  of  which  I  have 
spoken,  would  not  have  made  it  any  the  less  British 
territory.     The   Channel    Islands  have  a  separate 

L 


146  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

1866.  Budget  and  distinct  laws  of  their  own,  but  still  they 
are  component  parts  of  the  British  Empire,  although 
they  do  not  pay  their  surplus  into  the  British 
Treasury.  But  in  everjrthing  that  really  constitutes 
Kingship,  the  Bailiff  of  Jersey  is  as  much  the  terri- 
torial sovereign  of  that  island  as  Wajid  Ali  would 
have  been  territorial  sovereign  of  Oude  under  Lord 
Dalhousie's  programme  of  non-annexation. 

But  this  transparent  disguise  was  not  to  be  worn ; 
this  distinction  without  a  difference  was  not  to  be 
asserted,  anywhere  out  of  Lord  Dalhousie's  great 
Minute.  The  thing  that  was  to  be  done  soon  came 
to  take  its  proper  place  in  the  Councils  of  the  Indian 
Empire  as  the  Annexation  of  Oude ;  and  it  was  as 
the  annexation  of  Oude  that  the  measure  was  con- 
sidered by  the  Government  at  home.  The  Court  of 
Directors  consented  to  the  annexation  of  Oude.  The 
Board  of  Control  consented  to  the  annexation  of 
Oude.  The  British  Cabinet  consented  to  the  annexa- 
tion of  Oude.  The  word  was  not  then,  as  it  since 
has  been,  freely  used  in  official  documents,  but  it  was 
in  all  men's  minds,  and  many  spoke  it  out  bluntly 
instead  of  talking  delicately  about  "assuming  the 
Government  of  the  Country."  And,  whether  right  or 
wrong,  the  responsibility  of  the  measure  rested  as 
much  with  the  Queen's  Ministers  as  with  the  Merchant 
Company.  That  the  Company  had  for  long  years 
shown  great  forbearance  is  certain.  They  had  hoped 
against  hope,  and  acted  against  all  experience.  So 
eager,  indeed,  had  they  been  to  give  the  native 
Princes  of  India  a  fair  trial,  that  they  had  disallowed 
the  proposed  treaty  of  1837,  and  had  pronounced 
an  authoritative  opinion  in  favour  of  the  main- 
tenance of  the  then  existing  Native  States  of  India. 
But  twenty  more  years  of  misrule  and  anarchy  had 


ORDEES  FROM  HOME.  147 

raised  in  their  minds  a  feeling  of  wondering  self-  isss. 
reproach  at  the  thought  of  their  own  patience ;  and 
when  they  responded  to  the  reference  firom  Calcutta, 
they  said  that  the  doubt  raised  by  a  survey  of  the 
facts  before  them,  was  not  whether  it  was  then  in- 
cumbent upon  them  to  free  themselves  firom  the  re- 
sponsibility of  any  longer  upholding  such  a  Grovem- 
ment,  but  whether  they  could  excuse  themselves  for 
not  having,  many  years  before,  performed  so  impera- 
tive a  duty. 

The  despatch  of  the  Court  of  Directors  was  signed  NofwnWl! 
in  the  middle  of  November.  At  midnight  on  the 
2nd  of  January,  the  Grovemor-General  mastered  its 
contents.  Had  he  thought  of  himself  more  than  of 
his  country  he  would  not  have  been  there  at  that 
time.  The  energies  of  his  mind  were  undimmed ;  but 
climate,  and  much  toil,  and  a  heavy  sorrow  weighing 
on  his  heart,  had  shattered  a  frame  never  constitu- 
tionally robust,  and  all  men  said  that  he  was  "  break- 
ing." Without  any  fjdlure  of  duty,  without  any 
imputation  on  his  zeal,  he  might  have  left  to  his 
successor  the  ungrateful  task  of  turning  into  stem 
realities  the  oft-repeated  menaces  of  the  British 
rulers  who  had  gone  before  him.  But  he  was  not 
one  to  shrink  from  the  performance  of  such  a  task 
because  it  was  a  painful  and  unpopular  one.  He 
believed  that  by  no  one  could  the  duty  of  bringing 
the  Oude  Government  to  solemn  account  be  so  fitly 
discharged  as  by  one  who  had  watched  for  seven 
years  the  accumulation  of  its  offences,  and  seen  the 
measure  of  its  guilt  filled  to  the  brim.  He  had  inti- 
mated, therefore,  to  the  Court  of  Directors  his  wil- 
lingness to  remain  at  his  post  to  discharge  this  duty, 
and  in  the  despatch,  which  he  read  in  the  quiet  of 
that  January  night,  he  saw  on   official  record  the 

l2 


148  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

1856.  alacrity  with  which  his  offer  was  accepted,  and  he 
girded  himself  for  the  closing  act  of  his  long  and 
eventful  administration.* 

Next  morning  he  summoned  a  Council.  It  was 
little  more  than  a  form.  Dalhousie  had  waited  for 
the  authoritative  sanction  of  the  Home  Government ; 
but  he  knew  that  sanction  was  coming,  and  he  was 
prepared  for  its  arrival.  The  greater  part  of  the 
work  had,  indeed,  been  already  done.  The  instruc- 
tions to  be  sent  to  the  Resident;  the  treaty  to  be 
proposed  to  the  King ;  the  proclamation  to  be  issued 
to  the  people  had  all  been  drafted.  The  whole 
scheme  of  internal  government  had  been  matured, 
and  the  agency  to  be  employed  had  been  carefully 
considered.  The  muster-roll  of  the  new  administra- 
tion was  ready,  and  the  machinery  was  complete. 
The  system  was  very  closely  to  resemble  that  which 
had  been  tried  with  such  good  success  in  the  Punjab, 
and  its  agents  were,  as  in  that  province,  to  be  a 
mixed  body  of  civil  and  military  officers,  under  a 
Chief  Commissioner.  All  the  weighty  documents,  by 
which  the  revolution  was  to  be  effected,  were  in  the 
Portfolio  of  the  Foreign  Secretary  ;  and  now,  at  this 
meeting  of  the  Council,  they  were  formally  let  loose 
to  do  their  work. 

The  task  which  Outram  was  commissioned  to  per- 
form was  a  difficult,  a  delicate,  and  a  painful  one. 
He  was  to  endeavour  to  persuade  the  King  of  Oude 
formally  to  abdicate  his  sovereign  functions,  and  to 
make  over,  by  a  solemn  treaty,  the  government  of 
his  territories  to  the  East  India  Company.  In  the 
event  of  his  refusal,  a  proclamation  was  to  be  issued, 
declaring  the  whole  of  Oude  to  be  British  territory. 

*  The  Court  of  Directors  to  the  Government  of  India^  November  19, 
1855.    Faragnphl9. 


ANNEXATION.  149 

By  a  man  of  Outram's  humane  and  generous  nature  1856. 
no  counsel  from  his  Government  was  needed  to 
induce  him  to  do  the  work  entrusted  to  him  in  the 
manner  least  likely  to  woimd  the  feelings  of  the  King. 
But  it  was  right  that  such  counsel  should  be  given. 
It  was  given ;  but  the  decree  of  the  Paramount  State, 
tempered  as  it  might  be  by  outward  courtesy  of  man- 
ner, was  still  to  be  carried  out,  with  stem  and  reso- 
lute action.  No  protests,  no  remonstrances,  no  pro- 
mises, no  prayers  were  to  be  suffered  to  arrest  the 
retributive  measure  for  a  day.  It  need  not  be  added 
that  no  resistance  could  avert  it.  A  body  of  British 
troops,  sufficient  to  trample  down  all  possible  opposi- 
tion, had  been  moved  up  into  a  position  to  overawe 
Lucknow,  and  for  the  doomed  Government  of  Oude 
to  attempt  to  save  itself  by  a  display  of  force  would 
have  been  only  to  court  a  most  useless  butchery. 

Outram  received  his  instructions  at  the  end  of 
January.  On  the  last  day  of  the  month  he  placed 
himself  in  communication  with  the  Oude  Minister, 
clearly  stated  the  orders  of  the  British  Government, 
and  said  that  they  were  final  and  decisive.  Four 
days  were  spent  in  preliminary  formalities  and  nego- 
tiations. In  true  Oriental  fashion,  the  Court  endea- 
voured to  gain  time,  and,  appealing  to  Outram, 
through  the  aged  Queen  Mother — a  woman  with  far 
more  of  masculine  energy  and  resolution  than  her 
son — importuned  him  to  persuade  his  Government  to 
give  the  King  another  trial,  to  wait  for  the  arrival 
of  the  new  Governor-General,  to  dictate  to  Wajid  Ali 
any  reforms  to  be  carried  out  in  his  name.  All  this  had 
been  expected;  all  this  provided  for.  Outram  had 
but  one  answer ;  the  day  of  trial,  the  day  of  forbear- 
ance was  past.  All  that  he  could  now  do  was  to 
deliver  his  message  to  the  King. 


150  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

1856.  On  the  4th  of  February,  Wajid  AU  announced 

his  willingness  to  receive  the  British  Resident;  and 
Outram,  accompanied  by  his  lieutenants,  Hayes  and 
Weston,  proceeded  to  the  palace.  Strange  and  sig- 
nificant sjnnptoins  greeted  them  as  they  went.  The 
guns  at  the  palace-gates  were  dismounted.  The  pa- 
lace-guards were  unarmed.  The  guard  of  honour, 
who  should  have  presented  arms  to  the  Resident, 
saluted  him  only  with  their  hands.  Attended  by  his 
brother  and  a  few  of  his  confidential  Ministers,  the 
King  received  the  English  gentlemen  at  the  usual 
spot ;  and  after  the  wonted  ceremonies,  the  business 
commenced.  Outram  presented  to  the  King  a  letter 
from  the  Governor-General,  which  contained,  in  terms 
of  courteous  explanation,  the  sentence  that  had  been 
passed  upon  him,  and  urged  him  not  to  resist  it.  A 
draft  of  the  proposed  treaty  was  then  placed  in  his 
hands.  He  received  it  with  a  passionate  burst  of 
grief,  declared  that  treaties  were  only  between  equals; 
that  there  was  no  need  for  him  to  sign  it,  as  the 
British  would  do  with  him  and  his  possessions  as 
they  pleased  ;  they  had  taken  his  honour  and  his 
country,  and  he  would  not  ask  them  for  the  means 
of  maintaining  his  life.  All  that  he  sought  was  per- 
mission to  proceed  to  England,  and  cast  himself  and 
his  sorrows  at  the  foot  of  the  Throne.  Nothing  could 
move  him  from  his  resolution  not  to  sign  the  treaty. 
He  uncovered  his  head;  placed  his  turban  in  the 
hands  of  the  Resident,  and  sorrowfully  declared  that 
title,  rank,  honour,  everything  were  gone ;  and  that 
now  the  British  Government,  which  had  made  his 
grandfather  a  King,  might  reduce  him  to  nothing, 
and  consign  him  to  obscurity. 

In  this  exaggerated  display  of  helplessness  there 
was  something  too  characteristically  Oriental  for  any 


ANNEXATION.  151 

part  of  it  to  be  assigned  to  European  prompting.  But  1S5G. 
if  the  scene  had  been  got  up  expressly  for  an  English 
audience,  it  could  not  have  been  more  cunningly  con- 
trived to  increase  the  appearance  of  harshness  and 
cruelty  with  which  the  friends  of  the  King  were  pre- 
pared  to  invest  the  act  of  dethronement.  No  man 
was  more  likely  than  Outram  to  have  been  doubly 
pained,  in  the  midst  of  all  his  painful  duties,  by  the 
unmanly  prostration  of  the  King.  To  deal  harshly 
with  one  who  declared  himself  so  feeble  and  defence- 
less, was  like  striking  a  woman  or  a  cripple.  But 
five  millions  of  people  were  not  to  be  given  up,  from 
generation  to  generation,  to  suffering  and  sorrow, 
because  an  effeminate  Prince,  when  told  he  was  no 
longer  to  have  the  power  of  inflicting  measureless 
wrongs  on  his  country,  burst  into  tears,  said  that  he 
was  a  miserable  wretch,  and  took  off  his  turban  in- 
stead of  taking  out  his  sword. 

There  was  nothing  now  left  for  Outram  but  to 
issue  a' proclamation,  prepared  for  him  in  Calcutta, 
declaring  the  province  of  Oude  to  be  thenceforth,  for 
ever,  a  component  part  of  the  British  Indian  Empire. 
It  went  forth  to  the  people  of  Oude ;  and  the  people 
of  Oude,  without  a  murmur,  accepted  their  new 
masters.  There  were  no  popular  risings.  Not  a 
blow  was  struck  in  defence  of  the  native  d3masty  of 
Oude.  The  whole  population  went  over  quietly  to 
their  new  rulers,  and  the  country,  for  a  time,  was 
outwardly  more  tranquil  than  before. 

This  was  the  last  act  of  Lord  Dalhousie's  Ministry. 
When  he  placed  the  Portfolio  of  Government  in  the 
hands  of  Lord  Canning,  the  British  officers  to  whom 
had  been  entrusted  the  work  of  reforming  the  ad- 
ministration of  Oude,  were  discharging  their  pre- 
scribed  duties   with   an    energy  which  seemed  to 


152  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LOKD  DALHOUSIE. 

1856.  promise  the  happiest  results.  The  King  was  still 
obstinate  and  sullen.  He  persisted  in  refusing  to 
sign  the  treaty  or  to  accept  the  proposed  stipend  of 
£120,000  'twelve  lakhs;  and  though  he  had  thought  better  of 
the  idea  of  casting  himself  at  the  foot  of  the  British 
Throne,  he  had  made  arrangements  to  send  his  nearest 
kindred — his  mother,  his  brother,  and  his  son — to 
England  to  perform  a  vicarious  act  of  obeisance, 
and  to  clamour  for  his  rio^hts. 

With  what  result  the  administration,  as  copied 
closely  from  the  Punjabee  system,  was  wrought  out 
in  detail,  will  be  shown  at  a  subsequent  stage  of  this 
narrative.  It  was  thought,  as  the  work  proceeded 
in  quietude  and  in  seeming  prosperity,  that  it  was  a 
great  success;  and  it  gladdened  the  heart  of  the 
Government  in  Leadenhall-street,  to  Aink  of  the 
accomplishment  of  this  peaceful  revolution.  But 
that  the  measure  itself  made  a  very  bad  impression 
on  the  minds  of  the  people  of  India,  is  not  to  be 
doubted;  not  because  of  the  deposition  of  a  King 
who  had  abused  his  powers ;  not  because  of  the  in- 
troduction of  a  new  system  of  administration  for  the 
benefit  of  the  people ;  but  because  the  humanity  of 
the  act  was  soiled  by  the  profit  which  we  derived 
£rom  it ;  and  to  the  comprehension  of  the  multitude 
it  appeared  that  the  good  of  the  people,  which  we 
had  vaunted  whilst  serving  ourselves,  was  nothing 
more  than  a  pretext  and  a  sham ;  and  that  we  had 
simply  extinguished  one  of  the  few  remaining  Ma- 
homedan  States  of  India  that  we  might  add  so 
many  thousands  of  square  miles  to  our  British  terri- 
tories, and  so  many  millions  of  rupees  to  the  revenues 
of  the  British  Empire  in  the  East  And  who,  it  was 
asked,  could  be  safe,  if  we  thus  treated  one  who  had 
ever  been  the  most  faithful  of  our  allies  ? 


EXTINCTION  OF  THE  ABISTOCRACT.  153 


CHAPTER  IV. 

DESTEUCnOH  Of  THE  NATIYS  ABI8T0CEACT  —  BBTB08PECT  Of  BXYENUB 
ADXISISTBATION — THE  SETTLEMENT  OF  THE  KOBTH-WEST  PB0VDICE8^> 
THB  OUSTDIO  OP  THE  TAL00RHDAB8 — BESUMFTIOK  OFEBATIOHS-'-THB 
ISAM  COlCMIBSIOir — ^DECAT  OP  PBIESTLT  POWBB— SOCIAL  BEPOBMS— 
XOBAL  AND  ICATBBIAL  PBOGBESS. 

Whilst  great  principalities  were  thus  being  ab-  1800-1866. 
sorbed  and  ancient  sovereignties  extinguished,  a  war 
of  extermination  no  less  fatal  in  its  effects,  but  more 
noiseless  in  its  operations,  was  being  waged  against 
the  nobility  and  gentry  of  the  country.  The  original 
proclamation  of  this  war  did  not  emanate  from  Lord 
Dalhousie.  The  measures  by  which  the  native  aris- 
tocracy were  destroyed  were  not  primarily  his  mea- 
sures.  It  was  the  policy  of  the  times  to  recognise 
nothing  between  the  Prince  and  the  Peasant ;  a  policy 
which  owed  its  birth  not  to  one  but  to  many ;  a  poUcy, 
the  greatest  practical  exposition  of  which  was  the  Set- 
tlement of  the  North- West  Provinces.  It  was  adopted 
in  pure  good  faith  and  with  the  most  benevolent  in- 
tentions. It  had  the  sanction  of  many  wise  and  good 
men.  It  was  not  the  policy  by  which  such  statesmen 
as  John  Malcolm,  George  Clerk,  and  Henry  Law- 
rence, sought  to  govern  the  people ;  but  it  was  sanc- 
tified by  the  genius  of  John  Lawrence,  and  of  the 
Gamaliel  at  whose  feet  he  had  sat,  the  virtuous,  pure- 
minded  James  Thomason. 


154  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

1806-56.  To  bring  the  direct  authority  of  the  British  (xo- 
vemment  to  bear  upon  the  great  masses  of  the  people, 
without  the  intervention  of  any  powerful  section  of 
their  own  countrymen — ^to  ignore,  indeed,  the  exist- 
ence of  all  governing  classes  but  the  European  officers, 
who  carried  out  the  behests  of  that  Government — 
seemed  to  be  a  wise  and  humane  system  of  protection. 
It  was  intended  to  shelter  the  many  from  the  injurious 
action  of  tiie  interests  and  the  passions  of  the  few. 
The  utter  worthlessness  of  the  upper  classes  was 
assumed  to  be  a  fact ;  and  it  was  honestiy  believed 
that  the  obliteration  of  the  aristocracy  of  the  land 
was  the  greatest  benefit  that  could  be  conferred  on 
the  people.  And  thus  it  happened  that  whilst  the 
native  sovereigns  of  India  were  one  by  one  being 
extinguished,  the  native  aristocracy  had  become  well- 
nigh  extinct. 

Doubtiess,  we  started  upon  a  theory  sound  in  the 
abstract,  intent  only  on  promoting  the  greatest  hap- 
piness of  the  greatest  number ;  but  if  we  had  allowed 
ourselves  to  understand  the  genius  and  the  institu- 
tions of  the  people,  we  should  have  respected  the 
rights,  natural  and  acquired,  of  all  classes  of  the  com- 
munity, instead  of  working  out  any  abstract  theory 
of  our  own.  It  was  in  the  very  nature  of  things 
necessary,  inevitable,  that  the  extension  of  British 
rule,  followed  always  by  a  reconstruction  of  the  ad- 
ministration, and  a  substitution  of  civil  and  military 
establishments  fashioned  upon  our  own  models  and 
composed  of  our  own  people,  should  have  deprived 
many  of  the  chief  people  of  their  official  rank  and 
official  emoluments,  and  cast  them  adrift  upon  the 
world,  either  to  seek  new  fields  of  adventure  in  the 
unabsorbed  Native  States,  or  to  fester  into  a  disaffected 
and  dangerous  class  sullenly  biding  their  time.     This 


TH£  T£RIUTOIUAL  NOBIUXIT.  155 

is  an  old  story ;  an  old  complaint.  Half  a  century  180M6. 
before  the  time  of  which  I  am  now  writing,  it  had 
been  alleged  to  be  one  of  the  main  causes  of  that 
national  outburst  in  Southern  India  known  as  the 
mutiny  of  VeUore.  But  this  very  necessity  for  the 
extinction  of  the  old  race  of  high  native  functionaries, 
often  hereditary  office-bearers,  ought  to  have  ren- 
dered us  all  the  more  desirous  to  perpetuate  the 
nobility  whose  greatness  was  derived  from  the  Land. 
It  is  true  that  the  titles  of  the  landed  gentry  whom 
we  found  in  possession  were,  in  some  cases,  neither  of 
very  ancient  date  nor  of  very  unquestionable  ori^. 
But,  whatsoever  the  nature  of  their  tenures,  we  found 
them  in  the  possession  of  certain  rights  or  privileges 
allowed  to  them  by  the  Governments  which  we  had 
supplanted,  and  our  first  care  should  have  been  to 
confirm  and  secure  their  enjoyment  of  them.  We 
might  have  done  this  without  sacrificing  the  rights 
of  others.  Indeed,  we  might  have  done  it  to  the  full 
contentment  of  the  inferior  agricultural  classes.  But 
many  able  English  statesmen,  especially  in  Upper 
India,  had  no  toleration  for  any  one  who  might 
properly  be  described  as  a  Native  Gentleman.  They 
had  large  sympathies  and  a  comprehensive  humanity, 
but  still  they  could  not  embrace  any  other  idea  of  the 
Native  Gentry  of  India  than  that  of  an  institution 
to  be  righteously  obliterated  for  the  benefit  of  the 
great  mass  of  the  people. 

There  were  two  processes  by  which  this  depression 
of  the  privileged  classes  was  eflFected.  The  one  was 
known  by  the  name  of  a  Settlement,  the  other  was 
called  Resumption.  It  would  be  out  of  place  here,  if 
I  had  the  abiUty,  to  enter  minutely  into  the  difficult 
question  of  landed  tenures  in  India.  It  is  an  old  story 
now,  that  when  that  clever  coxcomb,  Victor  Jacque- 


156  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALUOUSIE. 

1806-56.    monty  asked  Holt  Mackenzie  to  explain  to  him  in  a 
five  minutes'  convewation  the  various  systems  of  Land 
Revenue  obtaining  in  different  parts  of  the  country, 
the  experienced  civilian  replied  that  he  had  been  for 
.   twenty  years  endeavouring  to  understand  the  sub- 
ject and  had  not  mastered  it  yet.     Such  a  rebuke  ought 
to  be  remembered.     The  little  that  I  have  to  say  on 
the  subject  shall  be  said  with  the  least  possible  use  of 
technical  terms,  and  with  the  one  object  of  making 
the  general  reader  acquainted  with  the  process  by 
which  the  substance  of  the  great  landholders  in  Upper 
India  was  diminished  by  the  action  of  the  British 
Government 
Stittlement       In  the  Literature  of  India  the  word  '^  Settlement" 
Operationa.  jg   ^^^   q£  g^^j^  frequent  occurrence,   and   to  the 

Indian  resident  it  conveys  such  a  distinct  idea,  that 
there  is  some  danger  of  forgetting  that  the  general 
reader  may  not  be  equally  conversant  with  the  exact 
meaning  of  the  term.  It  may  therefore,  perhaps,  be 
advantageously  explained  that  as  the  Indian  Revenue 
is  mainly  derived  from  the  land,  it  is  of  the  first  im- 
portance, on  the  acquisition  of  new  territory,  clearly 
to  ascertain  the  persons  from  whom  the  Government 
dues  are  to  be  exacted,  and  the  amount  that  is  payable 
by  each.  We  may  call  it  Rent  or  we  may  call  it 
Revenue,  it  little  matters.  The  adjustment  of  the 
mutual  relations  between  the  Government  and  the 
agriculturists  was  known  as  the  Settlement  of  the 
Revenue.  It  was  an  affair  of  as  much  vital  interest 
and  concernment  to  the  one  as  to  the  other,  for  to 
be  charged  with  the  pajnnent  of  the  Revenue  was  to 
be  acknowledged  as  the  proprietor  of  the  land. 

When  we  first  took  possession  of  the  country  ceded 
by  the  Newab-Wuzeer  of  Oude,  or  conquered  from 
the  Mahrattas,  all  sorts  of  proprietors  presented  them- 


TALOOKHDAREE  RIGHTS.  157 

selves,  and  our  officers,  having  no  special  theories  1806-56. 
and  no  overriding  prejudices,  were  willing  to  con- 
sider the  claims  of  all,  whether  small  or  great  holders, 
whom  they  found  in  actual  possession ;  and  brief  set- 
tlements or  engagements  were  made  with  them,  pend- 
ing a  more  thorough  investigation  of  their  rights. 
There  was,  doubtless,  at  first  a  good  deal  of  ignorance 
on  our  part,  and  a  good  deal  of  wrong-doing  and 
usurpation  on  the  part  of  those  with  whom  we  were 
called  upon  to  deal.  But  the  landed  gentry  of  these 
Ceded  and  Conquered  Provinces,  though  they  suf- 
fered by  the  extension  of  the  British  Raj,  were  not 
deliberately  destroyed  by  a  theory.  It  was  the  in- 
evitable tendency  of  our  Regulations,  especially  of 
that  great  Mystery  of  Iniquity,  the  Sale  Law,  and  of 
the  immigration  of  astute  native  functionaries  from 
the  Lower  Provinces,  which  inaugurated  our  rule,  to 
subvert  the  supremacy  of  the  old  landholders.  Under 
the  system,  which  we  introduced,  men  who  had  been 
proprietors  of  vast  tracts  of  country  as  far  as  the  eye 
could  reach,  shrivelled  into  tenants  of  mud-huts  and 
possessors  only  of  a  few  cooking-pots.  The  process, 
though  certain  in  its  results,  was  gradual  in  its  opera- 
tion ;  and  the  ruin  which  it  entailed  was  incidental, 
not  systematic.  It  was  ignorantly  suffered,  not  deli- 
berately decreed.  But,  at  a  later  period,  when  a  new 
political  creed  had  grown  up  among  our  British  func- 
tionaries in  India,  and  upon  officers  of  this  new  school 
devolved  the  duty  of  fixing  the  relations  of  the  agri- 
cultural classes  with  the  British  Government,  the 
great  besom  of  the  Settlement  swept  out  the  remnant 
of  the  landed  gentry  from  their  baronial  possessions, 
and  a  race  of  peasant-proprietors  were  recognised  as 
the  legitimate  inheritors  of  the  soil. 

How  this  happened  may  be  briefly  stated.     A  Per- 


158  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

l806-56w  manent  Settlement  on  the  Bengal  model  had  been 
talked  of,  ordered  and  counter-ordered ;  but  for  nearly 
a  third  part  of  a  century,  under  a  series  of  brief 
engagements  with  holders  of  diflferent  kinds,  uncer- 
tainty and  confusion  prevailed,  injurious  both  to  the 
Government  and  to  the  People.     But  in  the  time 

1833.  of  Lord  William  Bentinck  an  order  went  forth  for 
the  revision  of  this  sptem  or  no-system,  based  upon 
a  detailed  survey  and  a  clearly  recorded  definition  of 
rights,  and  what  is  known  in  History  as  the  Settle- 
ment of  the  North- West  Provinces,  was  then  formally 
conunenced. 

That  it  was  benevolently  designed  and  consci- 
entiously executed,  is  not  to  be  doubted.  But  it  was 
marred  by  a  Theory.  In  the  pursuit  of  right,  the 
framers  of  the  settlement  fell  into  wrong.  Striving 
after  justice,    they  perpetrated  injustice.     Nothing 

1845.  could  be  sounder  than  the  declared  principle  that  '^  it 
was  the  duty  of  the  Government  to  ascertain  and  pro- 
tect all  existing  rights,  those  of  the  poor  and  humble 
villager  as  well  as  those  of  the  rich  and  influential 
Talookhdar."*  It  was  said  that  this  principle  had 
been  not  only  asserted,  but  acted  upon.  But  the  fact 
is,  that  the  practice  halted  a  long  way  behind  the 
principle.  Such  were  the  feelings  with  which  many  of 
our  officers  regarded  the  great  landholders,  that  equal 
justice  between  the  conflicting  claims  and  interests 
of  the  two  classes  was  too  often  ignored.  There 
were  scales  over  the  eyes  of  commonly  clear-sighted 
men  when  they  came  to  look  at  this  question  in  the 
face,  and  therefore  the  "  poor  and  humble  villager" 

*  See  letter  of  Mr.  John  Thorn-  undeniable  troth,  that  ''in  so  £Eur  as 

ton,  Secretaryto  Government,  North-  this  is  done  with  care  and  diligence 

West  Provinces,  to  Mr.  H.  M.  £1-  will  the  measure  be  suooessuil  in 

liot.  Secretary  to  Board  of  Revenue,  placin;:^  property  on  a  healthy  and 

April  30,  1S45.    It  is  added^  with  sound  footing." 


SETTLEMENT  OF  NORTH-WESTERN  PROVINCES.  159 

had  a  full  measure  of  justice,  pressed  down  and  run-    183G46. 
ning  over,  whilst  the  ^^rich  and  influential  Talookhdar" 
had  little  or  none. 

There  are  few  who  have  not  become  familiar  with 
this  word  Tahokhdar ;  who  do  not  know  that  an 
influential  class  of  men  so  styled  in  virtue  of  certain 
rights  or  interests  in  the  land,  were  dispossessed  of 
those  rights  or  interests  and  reduced  to  absolute  ruin. 
It  must  be  understood,  however,  that  the  proprietary 
rights  of  which  I  speak  were  very  different  from  the 
rights  of  landed  property  in  England.  The  Talookh- 
dar  was  little  more  than  an  hereditary  revenue-con- 
tractor. His  right  was  the  right  to  all  the  just  rents 
paid  by  the  actual  occupants,  after  satis&ction  of 
the  Government  claims.  His  property  was  the  rent 
minus  the  revenue  of  a  particular  estate.  This  Ta- 
lookhdaree  right,  or  right  of  collection,  was  distinct 
fix)m  the  Zemindaree  right,  or  proprietary  right  in 
the  soil;  The  Talookhdar,  who  paid  to  Government 
the  revenue  of  a  large  cluster  of  villages,  had,  perhaps, 
a  proprietary  right  in  some  of  these  small  estates; 
perhaps,  in  none.  The  proprietary  right,  in  most 
instances,  lay  with  the  village  communities.  And  it 
was  the  main  effort  of  the  English  officers,  engaged 
in  the  Settlement  of  the  North-West  Provinces,  to 
bring  these  village  occupants  into  direct  relations 
with  the  Government,  and  to  receive  from  them  the 
amount  of  the  assessment  fixed  upon  their  several 
estates. 

Now  it  was  a  just  and  fitting  thing  that  the  rights 
of  these  village  proprietors  should  be  clearly  defined. 
But  it  was  not  always  just  that  the  Government  should 
enter  into  direct  engagements  with  them  and  drive 
out  the  intervening  Talookhdar.  The  actual  occu- 
pants might,  in  a  former  generation,  have  been  a  con- 


160  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LOBD  DALHOUSIE. 

1886-46.  sequence  only  of  a  pre-existing  Talookhdaree  right, 
as  in  cases  where  cultivators  had  been  located  on 
waste  lands  by  a  contractor  or  grantee  of  the  State ; 
or  the  Talookhdar  might  have  acquired  his  position 
by  purchase,  by  favour,  perhaps  by  fraud,  after  the 
location  of  the  actual  occupants ;  still  it  was  a  pro- 
prietary interest,  perhaps  centuries  old.  Let  us  ex- 
plain their  position  as  we  may,  these  Talookhdars  con- 
stituted the  landed  aristocracy  of  the  country ;  they 
had  recognised  manorial  rights;  they  had,  in  many 
instances,  all  the  dignity  and  power  of  great  feudal 
barons,  and,  doubtless,  often  turned  that  power  to 
bad  account.  But  whether  for  good  or  for  evil,  in  past 
years,  we  found  them  existing  as  a  recognised  insti- 
tution ;  and  it  was  at  the  same  time  a  cruel  wrong 
and  a  grievous  error  to  sweep  it  away  as  though  it 
were  an  incumbrance  and  an  usurpation. 

The  theory  of  the  Settlement  officers  was  that  the 
village  Zemindars  had  an  inalienable  right  in  the  soil, 
and  that  the  Talookhdar  was  little  better  than  an 
upstart  and  an  impostor.  All  the  defects  in  his 
tenure  were  rigidly  scanned ;  all  the  vices  of  his 
character  were  violently  exaggerated.  He  was  writ- 
ten down  as  a  fraudulent  upstart  and  an  unscrupu- 
lous oppressor.  To  oust  a  Talookhdar  was  held 
by  some  young  Settlement  officers  to  be  as  great  an 
achievement  as  to  shoot  a  tiger ;  and  it  was  done,  too, 
with  just  as  clear  a  conviction  of  the  benefit  con- 
ferred upon  the  district  in  which  the  animal  prowled 
and  marauded.  It  was  done  honestly,  conscien- 
tiously, laboriously,  as  a  deed  entitling  the  doer 
to  the  gratitude  of  mankind.  There  was  something 
thorough  in  it  that  wrung  an  unwilling  admiration 
even  from  those  who  least  approved.  It  was  a 
grand  levelling  system,  reducing  ever}i;hing  to  first 


TBEATMENT  OF  THE  TALOOKHDARS.       161 

principles  and  a  delving  Adam.  Who  was  a  gentle-  1836-46. 
man  and  a  Talookhdar,  they  asked,  when  these  time- 
honoured  Village  Communities  were  first  established 
on  the  soil  ?  So  the  Settlement  Officer,  in  pursuit  of 
the  great  scheme  of  restitution,  was  fain  to  sweep  out 
the  Landed  Gentry  and  to  applaud  the  good  thing  he 
had  done.* 

And  if  one,  by  happy  chance,  was  brought  back  by 
a  saving  hand,  it  was  a  mercy  and  a  miracle;  and 
the  exception  which  proved  the  rule.  The  chances  * 
agafast  L,  were  many  and  great,  for  he  had  dive., 
ordeals  to  pass  through,  and  he  seldom  survived 
them  all.  It  was  the  wont  of  many  Settlement  officers 
to  assist  the  solution  of  knotty  questions  of  pro- 
prietary right  by  a  reference  to  personal  character 
and  co-^duct,  so  that  when-  the  claims  of  a  great 
Talookhdar  could  not  be  altogether  ignored,  it  was 
declared  that  he  was  a  rogue  or  a  fool — ^perhaps,  an 
atrocious  compound  of  both — and  that  he  had  for- 
feited, by  oppressions  and  cruelties,  or  by  neglects 
scarcely  less  cruel,  all  claim  to  the  compassion  of  the 
State.  They  gave  the  man  a  bad  name,  and  straight- 
way they  went  out  to  ruin  him.  A  single  illustra- 
tion will  suffice.  One  of  the  great  landholders  thus 
consigned  to  perdition  was  the  Rajah  of  M3nipooree. 
Of  an  old  and  honoured  family,  distinguished  for 
loyalty  and  good  service  to  the  British  Government, 
he  was  the  Talookhdar  of  a  large  estate  comprising 
nearly  two  hundred  villages,  and  was  amongst  the 
most  influential  of  the  landed  aristocracy  of  that  part 
of  the  country.     The  Settlement  officer  was  one  of 

*  In  sober  ofBcial  language,  de-  tions,  and  to  substitute,  whenever 
scribed  bj  Lieutenant-Governor  Ro-  tliere  was  an  opportunity,  a  viUage 
bcrtson  as  "the  prevailing,  aud  per-  community  for  an  individual  land- 
baps  excessive,  readiness  to  reduce  holder." 
cxteuive  properties  into  minute  por- 

M 


162 


THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 


1836-10. 

Mr.  G.  Ed- 

inousione. 


the  ablest  and  best  of  his  class.  Fulfilling  the  great 
promise  of  his  youth,  he  afterwards  attained  to  the 
highest  post  in  those  very  Provinces,  an  eminence 
firom  which  he  might  serenely  contemplate  the  fact 
that  the  theory  of  the  Dead-Level  is  against  nature, 
and  cannot  be  enforced  without  a  convulsion.  But, 
in  the  early  days  of  which  I  am  speaking,  a  great 
Talookhdar  was  to  him  what  it  was  to  others  of  the 
same  school;  and  he  represented  that  the  Rajah, 
himself  incompetent  almost  to  the  point  of  imbecility, 
was  surrounded  by  agents  of  the  worst  character, 
who  in  his  name  had  been  guilty  of  all  kinds  of 
cruelty  and  oppression.  Unfit  as  he  was  said  to  be 
for  the  management  of  so  large  an  estate,  it  would, 
according  to  the  prevailing  creed,  have  been  a 
righteous  act  to  exclude  him  from  it;  but  it  was 
necessary,  according  to  rule,  to  espy  also  a  flaw  in 
his  tenure ;  so  it  was  found  that  he  had  a  just  pro- 
prietary right  in  only  about  a  fourth  of  the  two 
hundred  villages.*  It  was  proposed,  therefore,  that 
his  territorial  greatness  should  to  this  extent  be 
shorn  down  in  the  future  Settlement,  and  that  the 
bulk  of  the  property  should  be  settled  with  the  vil- 
lage communities,  whose  rights,  whatever  they  might 
originally  have  been,  had  lain  for  a  century  in 
abeyance. 

Above  the  Settlement  officer,  in  the  ascending 
scale  of  our  Administrative  Agency,  was  the  Com- 
missioner; above  the  Commissioner,  the  Board  of 
Revenue;  above  the  Board  of  Revenue,  the  Lieu- 
tenant-Grovemor.  In  this  cluster  of  graduated  autho- 
rities the  Old  and  New  School  alternated  like  the 
Black  and  White  of  a  chess-board.     The  recommen- 

*  Tlie  exact  number  was  189,  of  pensation,  in  the  shape  of  a  per- 

which  it  was  ruled  that  the  Rajah  oentage,  was  to  be  given  him  for  the 

could  justly  be  recorded   as   pro-  loss  of  the  rest, 
prietor  only  of  51.    A  money-corn- 


TBSATMENT  OF  THE  TALOOKHDABS.  163 

dations  of  Greorge  Edmonstone  were  stoutly  opposed  1836-46. 
by  Robert  Haimlton.  The  sharp,  incisive  logic  of 
the  Commissioner  cut  through  the  fallacious  reason- 
ing of  the  Settlement  officer.  "  He  was  of  opinion 
that  the  value  of  landed  possessions  and  the  import- 
ance attached  to  them  could  never  be  made  up  by  a 
money  allowance ;  that  the  imbecility  of  the  Rajah, 
if  affording  a  justification  for  his  being  relieved  from 
the  management  of  his  estate,  could  be  none  for  de- 
priving his  family  of  their  inheritance ;  and  that  it 
was  inconsistent  to  denounce  as  oppressive  in  a  native 
ruler  the  same  measures  of  sale  and  dispossession 
which  were  adopted  by  our  own  Government  towards 
Revenue  defaulters."*  But  the  Board,  of  which  the 
li>ang  principle  was  Robert  Bird,  dissented  fit)m  the 
views  of  the  Commissioner,  and  upheld  the  levelling 
processes  of  the  Settlement  officer.  Then  Lieutenant- 
Grovemor  Robertson  appeared  upon  the  scene,  and 
the  decision  of  the  Board  was  flung  back  uppn  them 
as  the  unjust  growth  of  a  vicious,  generalising  system, 
which  would  break  up  every  large  estate  in  the 
country  into  minute  fractions,  and  destroy  the  whole 
aristocracy  of  the  country.  He  could  not  see  that, 
on  the  score  either  of  invalidity  of  tenure  or  of  ad- 
ministrative incapacity,  it  would  be  just  to  pare  down 
the  Rajah's  estate  to  one-fourth  of  its  ancestral  dimen- 
sions ;  so  he  ruled  that  the  settlement  of  the  whole 
ought  rightly  to  be  made  with  the  Talookhdar.f  But 
the  vicissitudes  of  the  case  were  not  even  then  at  an 

*  Despatch  of  Court  of  Directors,  clasive ;  that  if  the  Zemindars  ever 

Angust  13, 1851.  possessed  the  rights  attributed  to 

f  "  The  Lieutenant-Oovemor  re-  them,  they  had  not  been  in  the  active 
corded  his  opinion,  that  no  proof  of  enjoyment  of  them  for  upwards  of  a 
the  Rajah's  mismanagement,  such  as  century,  while  the  Bajah's  chiims 
could  justifY  his  exclusion,  had  been  had  been  admitted  for  more  than 
adduced ;  that  the  evidence  in  sup-  four  generations  ;  that,  admitting 
port  of  the  proprietary  claims  of  the  the  inconvenience  which  might  some- 
Zemindars  was  insufficient  and  inoon-  times  result  from  the  recognition  of 

m2 


164 


THE  ADMINI8TBATI0N  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 


Mr.  G€0rg6 
Clerk. 


1844. 


Mr.  Tboma- 

SOIL 


183646.  end  The  opposition  of  the  Board  caused  some  deky 
in  the  issue  of  the  formal  instructions  of  Government 
for  the  recognition  of  the  Talookhdar,  and  before  the 
settlement  had  been  made  with  the  Rajah,  Robertson 
had  resigned  his  post  to  another.  That  other  was  a 
man  of  the  same  school,  with  no  greater  passion  than 
his  predecessor  for  the  subversion  of  the  landed 
gentry ;  but  sickness  rendered  his  tenure  of  office  too 
brie^  and,  before  the  close  of  the  year,  he  was  suc- 
ceeded by  one  whose  name  is  not  to  be  mentioned 
without  respect — ^the  honoured  son  of  an  honoured 
father — ^the  much-praised,  much-lamented  Thomason. 
He  was  as  earnest  and  as  honest  as  the  men  who  had 
gone  before  him ;  but  his  strong  and  sincere  convic- 
tions lay  all  in  the  other  way.  He  was  one  of  the 
chief  teachers  in  the  New  School,  and  so  strong  was 
his  faith  in  its  doctrines  that  he  regarded,  with  feel- 
ings akin  to  wondering  compassion,  as  men  whom 
God  had  given  over  to  a  strong  delusion  that  they 
should  believe  a  lie,  all  who  still  cherished  the  opi- 
nions which  he  had   done  so  much  to   explode.* 

the  superior  malgoosar,  it  would  not  much  honesty  of  principle  he  is  pos- 

be  reconcilable  with  good  feeling  or  sessed  of  a  constitution  of   mind 

justice  to  deal  as  the  Board  pro-  which    prevents  him  from    readily 

posed  to  do,  with  one  found  in  actual  adopting  the  principles  of  others,  or 

and  long- acknowledged  possession,  acting  upon  their  rules.    A  great 

He  condemned  the  practice  of  de-  part  of  his  Indian  career  has  oeen 

tiding  cases  of  this  nature  on  one  passed  in  opposition  to  the  prevail- 

invHriable  and  generalising  principle ;  mg  maxims  of  the  day,  and  he  finds 

stated  that  he  could  discover  no  suf-  himself  conscientiously  adverse  to 

ficient  reason  for  excluding  the  Bajah  what  has  been  done."    With  respect 

of  Mynpooree  from  the  mana^ment  to  these  prevailing  maxims,  Mr.  F. 

of  any  of  the  villages  oomposmg  the  H.  Robinson,  of  the  Civil  Service, 

Talook  of  Minchunnah;  and  finally  in  a  pamphlet  published  in  1855, 

withheld   his   confirmation    of   the  quotes   the  significant   obsenraition 

settlement  concluded  with  the  vil-  of  an  old  Res»aldar  of  Gardener's 

lage  Zemindars,  directing  the  engage-  Horse,  who  said  to  him :  "  No  doubt 

ments  to  be  taken  from  the  Talookh-  the  wisdom  of  the  new  gentlemen 

dar." — DefpaiehofCkntri  of  Directors,  had  shown  them  the  foUy  and  the 

Auaust  13,  1851.  ignorance  of  the  gentlemen  of  the 

*  See,  for  example,  his  reflections  end  time,  on  whom  it  pleased  Grod, 

on  the  contumacy  of  Mr.  Boulderson,  nevertheless,  to  bestow  the  govern- 

of  whom  Mr.  Thomason  says :  "With  ment  of  India." 


TBEATMENT  OF  THE  TALOOKdDARS.  165 

Supreme  in  the  North-West  Provinces,  he  found  the  1836-46. 
case  of  the  Mynpooree  Rajah  still  formally  before  the 
Government.  No  final  orders  had  been  issued,  so  he 
issued  them.  The  besom  of  the  Settlement  swept  the 
great  Talookhdar  out  of  three-fourths  of  the  estate, 
and  the  village  proprietors  were  left  to  engage  with 
Government  for  all  the  rest  in  his  stead. 

It  is  admitted  now,  even  by  men  who  were  per- 
sonally concerned  in  this  great  work  of  the  Settlement 
of  Northern  India,  that  it  involved  a  grave  political 
error.  It  was,  undoubtedly,  to  convert  into  bitter 
enemies  those  whom  sound  policy  would  have  made 
the  friends  and  supporters  of  the  State.  Men  of  the 
Old  School  had  seen  plainly  from  the  first  that  by  these 
measures  we  were  sowing  broadcast  the  seeds  of  future 
trouble.  Foremost  among  these  was  the  veteran  Di- 
rector Tucker,  who  had  been  engaged  in  the  first  set- 
tlement of  the  Ceded  and  Conquered  Provinces,  and 
who  knew  as  well  as  any  man  what  rights  existed  on 
our  original  assumption  of  the  government  of  those 
territories.  "The  way  to  conciliate  the  peasantry,"  1832. 
he  wrote,  "or  to  improve  their  condition,  is  not,  I 
think,  by  dissolving  the  connexion  between  them  and 
the  superior  Talookhdars,  or  village  Zemindars.  The 
one  we  have,  I  fear,  entirely  displaced ;  but  we  cannot 
destroy  -the  memory  of  their  past  or  the  consciousness 
of  their  present  state.  They  were  once  prosperous, 
and  they  and  their  descendants  must  feel  that  they  are 
no  longer  so.  They  are  silent,  because  the  natives  of 
India  are  accustomed  to  endure  and  to  submit  to  the 
will  of  their  rulers ;  but  if  an  enemy  appear  on  our 
Western  frontier,  or  if  an  insurrection  unhappily  take 
place,  we  shall  find  these  Talookhdars,  I  apprehend, 
in  the  adverse  ranks,  and  their  ryots  and  retainers 
ranged  under  the  same  standard."  •  And  a  quarter  of 


166  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

18M-46.  a  century  later,  one  who  had  received  the  traditions 
of  this  school  unbroken  from  Thomas  Campbell 
Robertson,  at  whose  feet  he  had  sat,  wrote  that  he 
had  long  been  pointing  out  that,  ^^  although  the  old 
families  were  being  displaced  fast,  we  could  not 
destroy  the  memory  of  the  past,  or  dissolve  the 
ancient  connexion  between  them  and  their  people ;  and 
said  distinctly  that,  in  the  event  of  any  insurrection  oc- 
curring, we  should  find  this  great  and  influential  body, 
through  whom  we  can  alone  hope  to  keep  under  and 
control  the  rural  masses,  ranged  against  us  on  the  side 
of  the  enemy,  with  their  hereditary  followers  and  re- 
tainers rallying  around  them,  in  spite  of  our  attempts 
to  separate  their  interests."  "My  warnings,"  he 
added,  "were  unheeded,  and  I  was  treated  as  an 
alarmist,  who,  having  hitherto  served  only  in  the 
political  department  of  the  State,  and  being  totally 
inexperienced  in  Revenue  matters,  could  give  no 
sound  opinion  on  the  subject"* 
Treatment  of  Warnings  of  this  kind  were,  indeed,  habitually 
gi^/^®  disregarded;  and  the  system,  harsh  in  itself^  was 
carried  out,  in  some  cases  harshly  and  uncompro- 
misingly, almost  indeed  as  though  there  were  a  plea- 
sure in  doing  it.  It  is  true  that  men  deprived  of  their 
vested  interests  in  great  estates  were  recommended 
for  money-payments  direct  firom  the  Treasury ;  but 
this  was  no  compensation  for  the  loss  of  the  land, 
with  all  the  dignity  derived  firom  manorial  rights 
and  baronial  privileges,  and  it  was  sometimes  felt  to 
be  an  insult.  It  was  not  even  the  fashion  in 
those  dsLjs  to  treat  the  Native  Gentry  with  personal 
courtesy  and  conciliation.    Some  of  the  great  masters 

*  Personal  Adventares  daring  the    and  late  Magistrate  and  Collector  of 
Indian  Rebellion.    By  William  £d-    Budaon,  in  Robilcund. 
wards,  B.C.8.,  Judge  'of  Benares, 


R£NT-FR££  TENURES.  167 

of  the  school,  men  of  the  highest  probity  and  bene-  183646 
volence,  are  said  to  have  failed  in  this  with  a  great 
failure,  as  lamentable  as  it  was  surprising.  '^  In  the 
matter  of  discourtesy  to  the  native  gentry/'  wrote 
Colonel  Sleeman  to  John  Colvin,  "  I  can  only  say 
that  Robert  Mertins  Bird  insulted  them,  whenever 
he  had  an  opportunity  of  doing  so ;  and  that  Mr. 
Thomason  was  too  apt  to  imitate  him  in  this  as 
in  other  things.  Of  course  their  example  was  fol- 
lowed by  too  many  of  their  followers  and  admirers."* 

And  whilst  all  this  was  going  on,  there  was  another  Rentfree 
process  in  active  operation  by  which  the  position  of  *^''^' 
the  privileged  classes  was  still  further  reduced. 
There  is  not  one  of  the  many  difficulties,  which  the 
acquisition  of  a  new  country  entails  upon  us,  more 
serious  than  that  which  arises  from  the  multiplicity 
of  privileges  and  prescriptions,  territorial  and  official, 
which,  undetermined  by  any  fixed  principle,  have 
existed  under  the  native  Government  which  we  have 
supplanted.  Even  at  the  outset  of  our  administrative 
career  it  is  difficult  to  deal  with  these  irregular 
claims,  but  the  difficulty  is  multiplied  tenfold  by 
delay.  The  action  of  our  Government  in  all  such 
cases  should  be  prompt  and  imvarying.  Justice  or 
Injustice  should  be  quick  in  its  operation  and  equal 
in  its  effects.  Accustomed  to  revolutions  of  empire 
and  mutations  of  fortune,  the  native  mind  readily 
comprehends  the  idea  of  confiscation  as  the  imme- 
diate result  of  conquest.  Mercy  and  forbearance  at 
such  time  are  not  expected,  and  are  little  understood. 
The  descent  of  the  strong  hand  of  the  conqueror  upon 
all  existing  rights  and  privileges  is  looked  for  with  a 

•  See  Correspondence  annexed  to  whose  authority  is  entitled  to  rc- 
mihlishcd  edition  of  Sleeman's  Oudo  spect,  that  the  statement  is  to  be 
biary.     1  liuvc  been  told  by  men    received  with  caution. 


168  THE  ADMINISnULTION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

183646.  feeling  of  submission  to  inevitable  fate ;  and  at  such 
a  time  no  one  wonders,  scarcely  any  one  complains, 
when  the  acts  of  a  former  Grovemment  are  ignored, 
and  its  gifts  are  violently  resumed. 

Under  former  Grovemments,  and  indeed,  in  the 
earlier  dsiys  of  our  own,  there  had  been  large  aliena- 
tions of  revenue  in  favour  of  persons  who  had  rendered 
good  service  to  the  State,  or  had  otherwise  acquired 
the  favour  of  the  rulers  of  the  land.  These  rent-free 
tenures  were  of  many  different  kinds.  A  volume 
might  be  filled  with  an  axjcount  of  them.  Some  were 
burdened  with  conditions;  some  were  not.  Some 
were  personal  life-grants;  some  were  hereditary  and 
perpetual  Some  were  of  old  standing;  some  were 
of  recent  origin.  Some  had  been  fairly  earned  or 
justly  acquired ;  others  were  the  vile  growth  of  fi^aud 
and  corruption.  They  varied  no  less  m  the  circum- 
stances  of  their  acquisition  than  in  their  intrinsic 
character  and  inherent  conditions.  But  anyhow  they 
were  for  some  time  a  part  of  our  system,  and  had 
come  to  be  regarded  as  the  rights  of  the  occupants. 
Every  year  which  saw  men  in  undisturbed  posses- 
sion seemed  to  strengthen  those  rights.  An  mquiry, 
at  the  outset  of  our  career  of  administration,  into  the 
validity  of  all  such  tenures  would  have  been  an  in- 
telligible proceeding.  Doubtless,  indeed,  it  was  ex- 
pected. But  years  passed,  and  the  danger  seemed  to 
have  passed  with  them.  Nay,  more,  the  inactivity, 
seemingly  the  indifference  of  the  British  Government, 
with  respect  to  those  whom  we  found  in  possession, 
emboldened  others  to  fabricate  similar  rights,  and  to 
lay  claim  to  immunities  which  they  had  never  en- 
joyed imder  their  native  masters. 
Bengal.  In  Bengal  this  manufacture  of  rent-free  tenures 


BESUlfPnON  OPERATIONS.  169 

waa  carried  on  to  an  extent  that  largely  diminislied  I836.tt>. 
the  legitimate  revenue  of  the  country.  A  very  con* 
siderable  portion  of  these  tenures  was  the  growth  of 
the  transition-period  immediately  before  and  imme- 
diately after  our  assumption  of  the  Dewanee,  or 
Revenue  -  Administration,  of  Bengal,  Behar,  and 
Orissa.  At  the  time  of  the  great  Permanent  Set-  1793. 
tlement  the  rent-free  holders  were  called  upon  to 
register  their  claims  to  exemption  frx)m  the  payment 
of  the  Government  dues,  and  their  grounds  of  exemp- 
tion ;  and  as  they  still  remained  in  possession,  they 
believed  that  then-  rights  and  privileges  had  been 
confirmed  to  them.  The  Permanent  Settlement, 
indeed,  was  held  to  be  the  Magna  Charta  of  the 
privileged  classes;  and  for  more  than  forty  years 
men  rejoiced  in  their  freeholds,  imdisturbed  by  any 
thoughts  of  invalidity  of  title  or  insecurity  of 
tenure. 

But  after  this  lapse  of  years,  when  Fraud  itself  Resumption 
might  reasonably  have  pleaded  a  statute  of  Umita.°P«^- 
tions,  the  English  revenue-officer  awoke  to  a  sense  of 
the  wrongs  endured  by  his  Government.  So  much 
revenue  alienated;  so  many  worthless  sinecurists 
living  in  indolent  contentment  at  the  cost  of  the  State, 
enjoying  vast  privileges  and  immunities,  to  the  injury 
of  the  great  mass  of  the  People.  Surely  it  was  a 
scandal  and  a  reproach  I  Then  well-read,  clever 
secretaries,  with  a  turn  for  historical  iUustration,  dis- 
covered  a  parallel  between  this  grievous  state  of 
things  in  Bengal  and  that  which  preceded  the  great 
revolution  in  France,  when  the  privileges  of  the  old 
nobility  pressed  out  the  very  life  of  the  nation,  until 
the  day  of  reckoning  and  retribution  came,  with  a 
more  dire  t3n'anny  of  its  own.     Viewed  in  this  light, 


170  THE  ADlONISmATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

163646.  it  was  held  to  be  an  imperative  duty  to  Colbertise  the 
Lakhirajdars  of  the  Lower  Provinces.*  So  the  re- 
sumption-officer was  let  loose  upon  the  land.  Titles 
were  called  for;  proofc  of  validity  were  to  be  esta- 
blishedy  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  Grovemment  func- 
tionary. But  in  families,  which  seldom  last  a  genera- 
tion without  seeing  their  houses  burnt  down,  and  in 
a  climate,  which  during  some  months  of  the  year  is 
made  up  of  incessant  rains,  and  during  others  of 
steamy  exhalations — ^where  the  devouring  damp,  and 
the  still  more  devouring  insect,  consume  all  kinds  of 
perishable  property,  even  in  stout-walled  houses,  it 
would  have  been  strange  if  genuine  documentary 
evidence  had  been  forthcoming  at  the  right  time.  It 
was  an  awful  thing,  after  so  many  years  of  undis- 
turbed possession,  to  be  called  upon  to  establish 
proo&,  when  the  only  proof  was  actual  incumbency. 
A  reign  of  terror  then  commenced.  And  if,  when 
thus  threatened,  the  weak  Bengalee  had  not  some- 
times betaken  himself  in  self-defence  to  the  ready 
weapons  of  forgery,  he  must  have  changed  his  nature 
under  the  influence  of  his  fears.  That  what  ensued 
may  properly  be  described  as  wholesale  confiscation  is 
not  to  be  doubted.  Expert  young  revenue-officers 
settled  scores  of  cases  in  a  day ;  and  families,  who 
had  held  poasession  of  inherited  estates  for  lonryears, 
and  never  doubted  the  security  of  their  tenure,  found 

*  *'  In  a  memoir  of  the  Great  Col-  taxation  by  the  prostitution  of  Court 
bert  I  read  the  following  words,  favour,  or  the  abuse  of  official  pri- 
which  are  exactly  descriptive  of  the  vileges.  These  cases  Colbert  caused 
natureof  the  pretensions  of  the  great  to  be  investigated,  and  those  who 
mass  of  the  Lakhirajdars,  and  ol  the  failed  in  making  out  a  legal  claim  to 
present  measures  of  IheCiovemment:  immunity  were  compelled  to  pay 
'  Under  the  pernicious  system  which  their  shure  of  the  public  burdens,  to 
exempted  the  nobility  from  pavment  the  relief  of  the  labouring  classes,  on 
of  direct  taxes,  a  great  number  of  whom  nearly  the  whole  weight  of  tax- 
persons  had  fraudulentljr  assumed  ation  fell/  —See  Letters  of  Gaunt- 
1  ities  and  claimed  rank,  while  another  let,  addressed  to  the  Calcutta  Papers 
class  had  obtained  immunity  from  0^1838. 


BESUMFTION  0PERATI0N8.  171 

themselves  suddenly  deprived  of  their  freeholds  and  183646. 
compelled  to  pay  or  to  go.  That  the  State  had  been 
largely  defrauded,  at  some  time  or  other,  is  more 
than  probable.  Many,  it  is  admitted,  were  in  posses- 
sion who  had  originally  no  good  title  to  the  exemp- 
tion they  enjoyed.  But  many  also,  whose  titles  were 
originally  valid,  could  produce  no  satisfactory  evi- 
dence of  their  validity;  so  the  fraudulent  usurper 
and  the  rightful  possessor  were  involved  in  one  com- 
monruin. 

The  success  of  these  operations  was  loudly 
vaunted  at  the  time.  A  social  revolution  had  been 
accomplished,  to  the  manifest  advantage  of  the  State, 
and  at  no  cost,  it  was  said,  of  popular  discontent. 
The  Bengalee  is  proverbially  timid,  patient,  and  long- 
suffering.  But  there  were  far-seeing  men  who  said, 
even  at  that  time,  that  though  a  strong  Grovemment 
might  do  this  with  impunity  in  those  lower  provinces^ 
they  must  beware  how  they  attempt  similar  spoliation 
in  other  parts  of  India,  especially  in  those  from  which 
the  Native  Army  was  recruited.  If  you  do,  it  was 
prophetically  said,  you  will  some  day  find  yourselves 
holding  India  only  with  European  troops.  The  pro- 
bability of  alienating  by  such  measures  the  loyalty  of 
the  military  classes  was  earnestly  discussed  in  the 
European  joumab  of  Calcutta;*  and  it  was  said,  by 
those  who  defended  the  measure,  that  it  was  not  in- 
tended to  extend  these  resumption  operations  to  other 

*  The  following,  written  a  quarter  charitable  foundations  which  it  is 

of  a  century  ago,  affords  a  curious  now  sought  to  confiscate  and  destroy, 

glimpse  of  the  apprehensions  even  The  alarm  has  not  yet,  we  believe, 

then  entertained  hj  far-seeing  men :  spread  to  the  Army,  but  it  has  not 

"  We  would  just  hmt  by  the  way  to  been  without  its  causes   of  com- 

those  who  have  planned  this  very  plaints ;  and  we  would  very  calmly 

extraordinary   attack    upon   vested  and  respectfully  put  it  to  our  rulers, 

rights,  that  the  Sepoys  are  abnost  all  whether  it  u  wise  or  prudent  to  run 

landholders,  many  of  them  Brahmins,  the  risk  to  which  this  Resumption 

whose  families  arc  supported  by  the  measure  would  sooner  or  later  in- 


172 


THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALH0U8IE. 


Norih-West 
Provinces. 


183646.  parts  of  the  country.  But  scarcely  any  part  of  the 
country  escaped ;  scarcely  any  race  of  men,  holding 
rent-free  estates  of  any  kind,  felt  secure  in  the  posses- 
sion of  rights  and  privileges  which  they  had  enjoyed 
under  Mogul  and  Mahratta  rule,  and  had  beUeved 
that  they  could  still  enjoy  under  the  Raj  of  the 
Christian  ruler. 

In  the  North- West  Provinces  it  was  part  of  the 
duty  of  the  Settlement  officer  to  inquire  into  rent-free 
tenures,  and  to  resume  or  to  release  from  assessment 
the  lands  thus  held.  The  feelings  with  which  the  task 
imposed  upon  him  was  regarded  varied  with  the 
character  and  the  opinions  of  the  functionary  thus 
employed ;  but  whilst  those  who  were  disposed  to  look 
compassionately  upon  doubtful  claims,  or  believed 
that  it  would  be  sound  policy  to  leave  men  in  undis- 
turbed possession  even  of  what  might  have  been  in 
the  first  instance  unrighteously  acquired,  were  few, 
the  disciples  of  Bird  and  Thomason,  who  viewed  all 
such  alienations  of  revenue  as  unmixed  evils,  and 
considered  that  any  respect  shown  to  men  who  were 
described  as  "  drones  who  do  no  good  in  the  public 
hive"  was  an  injury  done  to  the  tax-paying  com- 
munity at  large,  were  many  and  powerful,  and  left 
their  impression  on  the  land.  Rejoicing  in  the  great 
principle  of  the  Dead-Level,  the  Board  commonly 
suppoirted  the  views  of  the  resumptionist ;  and  but 
for  the  intervention  of  Mr.  Robertson,  the  Lieutenant- 


fallibly  lead.    The  natiTc  soldier  has 
lon{|^  been  in  the  habit  of  placing  im- 

EUcit  reliance  upon  Britisn  faith  and 
onour ;  but  let  the  charm  once  be 
broken,  let  t.he  confiscation  of  rent- 
free  laud  spread  to  those  provinces 
out  of  which  our  Army  is  recruited, 
and  the  consequences  may  be  that 
we  shall  very  soon  have  to  trust  for 
our  security  to  British  troops  alone. 


The  Government  may  then  learn 
rather  late  that  revenue  is  not  the 
only  thing  needful,  and  that  their 
financial  arithmetic,  instead  of  mak- 
ing twice  two  equal  to  one,  as  Swift 
says  wfCs  the  case  in  Ireland,  may 
end  by  extracting  from  the  same 
process  of  multiplication  just  no- 
thing at  all." — EnglUkman,  Novem- 
her  2,  1838. 


BESUMPTION  OPERATIONS.  1 73 

Governor,  there  would  scarcely,  at  the  end  of  the  183(W6. 
Settlement  operations,  have  been  a  rent-free  tenure 
in  the  land.  There  was  sometimes  a  show  of  lustice 
on  the  side  of  resumption  forthe  immmutv  hi  been 
granted,  in  the  fi^t  instanee,  ..  payment  for  aeryiee 
no  longer  demanded,  or  what  had  been  originally 
merely  a  life-grant  had  assumed  the  character  of  an 
hereditary  assignment.  Perhaps  there  was  sometimes 
more  than  suspicion  that  in  unsettled  times,  when 
there  was  a  sort  of  scramble  for  empire,  privileges  of 
this  kind  had  been  fabricated  or  usurped ;  but  in  other 
instances  strong  proofe  of  validity  were  ignored,  and 
it  has  been  freely  stated,  even  by  men  of  their  own 
order,  that  these  earnest-minded  civilians  "rejected 
royal  firmans  and  other  authentic  documents,"  and 
brought  upon  the  great  rent-roll  of  the  Company 
lands  which  had  been  for  many  generations  free  from 
assessment.  Nay,  even  the  highest  authority,  in  the 
great  Settlement  epoch,  declared  that  "the  Settle- 
ment officer  swept  up,  without  inquiry,  every  patch 
of  unregistered  land ;  even  those  exempted  by  a  sub- 
sequent order,  which  did  not  come  out  until  five- 
sixths  of  the  tenures  had  been  resumed."  In  one 
district,  that  of  Furruckabad,  "  the  obligations  of  a 
treaty  and  the  direct  orders  of  Government  were  but 
lightly  dealt  with ;  and  in  all,  a  total  disregard  was 
evinced  for  the  acts  even  of  such  men  as  Warren 
Hastings  and  Lord  Lake."*  In  every  case  what  was 
done  was  done  conscientiously,  in  the  assured  belief 
that  it  was  for  the  general  good  of  the  people ;  but 
the  very  knowledge  that  was  most  vaunted,  a  know- 
ledge of  the  institutions  and  the  temper  of  the  natives, 

*  Minute  of  Mr.  Bx)bert8on,  Lieu-    the  Court  of  Directors,  August  13| 
tenant-Governor  of  the  North- West    1851. 
Provinces,  quoted  in  Despatch  of 


174  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIR. 

1886-40.    was  that  which  they  most  lacked.  They  were  wrecked 
upon  the  dangerous  coast  of  Little  Learning. 

There  were,  however,  it  has  been  said,  some  men  en- 
gaged in  those  great  Settlement  operations  who  were 
not  smitten  with  this  unappeasable  earth-hunger,  and 
who  took  altogether  another  view  both  of  the  duty 
and  of  the  policy  of  the  State.  Mr.  Mansel,  of  whose 
eager  desire,  so  honourably  evinced  at  a  later  period, 
to  uphold  the  Native  States  of  India  I  have  already 
spoken,  was  the  principal  exponent  of  these  excep- 
tional opinions.  "  If  it  be  of  importance,"  he  wrote, 
in  his  Report  on  the  Settlement  of  the  Agra  District, 
'^  to  conciliate  the  affections  of  the  people,  as  well  as 
to  govern  by  the  action  of  naked  penal  laws ;  if  it  be 
important  that  the  natural  tendency  of  every  part  of 
native  society  in  these  provinces,  to  sink  into  one 
wretched  level  of  poverty  and  ignorance,  should,  as  a 
principle,  be  checked  as  far  as  possible  by  the  acts  of 
Government;  if  it  be  important  that  the  pride  of 
ancestry  and  nobility,  the  valour  of  past  times,  and 
the  national  character  of  a  country,  should  be  che- 
rished in  recollection,  as  ennobling  feelings  to  the 
human  mind,  I  know  of  no  act  to  which  I  could 
point  with  more  satisfaction,  as  a  zealous  servant  of 
Government,  than  the  generous  manner  in  which  the 
restoration  of  the  family  of  the  Buddawar  Rajah  to  rank 
and  fortune  was  made  by  the  Lieutenant-Governor 
of  Agra ;  and  I  cannot  refirain  from  allowing  myself  to 
echo,  for  the  inhabitants  of  this  part  of  the  country, 
that  feeling,  in  a  report  of  necessity,  largely  con- 
nected with  the  welfare  and  happiness  of  the  district 
of  Agra."  Mr.  Robertson  had  granted  the  Buddawar 
Jagheer  to  the  adopted  son  of  the  deceased  Rajah,  and 
it  was  the  recognition  of  this  adoption  which  so  re- 
joiced the  heart  of  the  sympathising  Settlement  officer. 


RESUMPTION  OPERATIONS.  175 

As  the  events  of  which  I  am  about  to  write  occurred,  1817-58. 
for  the  most  part,  in  Northern  India,  it  is  to  the  dis- 
turbing causes  in  that  part  of  the  country  that  the 
introductory  section  of  this  book  is  mainly  devoted. 
But  before  it  passes  altogether  away  from  the  subject 
of  Resumption,  something  sliould  be  said  about  the 
operations  of  that  great  confiscatory  Tribunal  known 
as  the  Inam  Commission  of  Bombay.  This  was  but  '^  ^j^ 
the  supplement  of  a  series  of  measures,  of  which  it  of  Bombi^. 
would  take  a  long  time  to  write  in  detail.  A  great 
part  of  the  territory,  now  constituting  the  Presidency 
of  Bombay,  was  in  1817  conquered  from  the  Peishwah. 
With  conquest  came  the  old  difficulty,  of  which  I 
have  spoken* — ^the  difficulty  of  dealing  with  the 
privileges  and  prescriptions,  tibe  vested  interests  of  all 
kinds,  territorial  and  official,  derived  from  the  Mah- 
ratta  Government.  As  in  Bengal  and  in  the  North- 
western Provinces,  these  difficulties  were  greatly  ag- 
gravated by  delay.  Had  we  instituted  a  searching 
inquiry  at  once,  and  resumed  every  doubtful  tenure ; 
had  we  cancelled  even  the  undoubted  grants  of  former 
governments,  and  suddenly  annulled  all  existing  privi- 
leges, such  proceedings  in  the  eyes  of  the  people  would 
have  been  the  intelligible  tyranny  of  the  conqueror, 
and,  at  all  events,  in  accordance  with  the  custom  of 
the  country.  But  our  very  desire  to  deal  justly  and 
generously  with  these  privileged  classes  generated  de- 
laid  and  unequal  action.  At  different  times,  and  in  dif- 
ferent parts  of  Western  India,  these  old  alienations  of 
Revenue  were  dealt  with  after  different  fashions ;  and 
it  was  a  source  of  bitter  discontent  that,  imder  like 
circumstances,  claims  were  settled  by  Government 
with  far  greater  rigour  in  one  part  of  the  country 
than  in  another. 

•  Afite,  page  167. 


176  THE  ADMINISTBATIOM  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

1858.  Years  passed,  various  regulations  were  framed,  for 

the  most  part  of  restricted  operation ;  and  still,  after 
the  country  had  been  for  more  than  a  third  of  a 
century  under  British  rule,  the  great  question  of 
alienated  revenue  had  only  been  partially  adjusted. 
So  in  1852  an  act  was  passed,  which  empowered  a 
little  body  of  English  officers,  principally  of  the 
military  profession — ^men,  it  was  truly  said,  "not 
well  versed  in  the  principles  of  law,  and  wholly  un- 
practised in  the  conduct  of  judicial  inquiries" — ^to 
exercise  arbitrary  jurisdiction  over  thousands  of 
estates,  many  of  them  held  by  men  of  high  family, 
proud  of  their  lineage,  proud  of  their  ancestral  privi- 
leges, who  had  won  what  they  held  by  the  sword,  and 
had  no  thought  by  any  other  means  of  maintaining 
possession.  In  the  Southern  Mahratta  country  there 
were  large  numbers  of  these  Jagheerdars,  who  had 
never  troubled  themselves  about  title-deeds,  who 
knew  nothing  about  rules  of  evidence,  and  who  had 
believed  that  long  years  of  possession  were  more 
cogent  than  any  intricacies  of  law.  If  they  had  ever 
held  written  proofs  of  the  validity  of  their  tenures, 
they  had  seldom  been  so  provident  as  to  preserve 
them.  But,  perhaps,  they  had  never  had  better  proof 
than  the  memory  of  a  fierce  contest,  in  the  great 
gurdee-ka-umkhtj  or  time  of  trouble,  which  had  pre- 
luded the  dissolution  of  the  Mahratta  power  in 
Western  India,  and  placed  the  white  man  on  the 
Throne  of  the   Peishwah.*     Year  after  year  had 

*  See  the  admirably-written  me-  mitted   arms   and    retainers,    with 

morial   of  Mr.  0.  fi.  Seton-Karr:  whose  aid  they  had  learnt  to  con- 

**  Chiefs,  who  had  won  their  estates  aider  mere  titles  sapei^uous,  as  with- 

by  the  sword,  had  not  been  careful  out  it  they  were  contemptible.    In 

to  fence  them  in  with  a  paper  barrier,  ot  her  instances,  men  of   local    in- 

vhich  they  felt  the  next  successful  fluence    and     energetic    character 

adventurer  would  sweep  away  as  un-  havinjjp  grasped  at  the  lands  which 

ceremoniously  as  themselves.     In-  lay  within  their  reach  in  the  general 

stead   of  parchments,    they  trans-  scramble  which  preceded  the  down- 


THE  INAM  COMMISSION  OF  BOMBAY.  177 

passed,  one  generation  had  foUowed  another  in  un-  1862. 
disturbed  possession,  and  the  great  seal  of  Time  stood 
them  in  stead  of  the  elaborate  technicalities  of  the 
Conveyancer.  But  the  Inam  Commission  was  esta- 
blished. The  fame  of  it  went  abroad  throughout  the 
Southern  Mahratta  country.  From  one  village  to 
another  passed  the  appalling  news  that  the  Commis- 
sioner had  appeared,  had  called  for  titles  that  could 
not  be  produced,  and  that  nothing  but  a  general  con- 
fiscation of  property  were  likely  to  result  from  the 
operations  of  this  mysterious  Tribunal.  "  Each  day," 
it  has  been  said,  "  produced  its  list  of  victims ;  and 
the  good  fortune  of  those  who  escaped  but  added  to 
the  pangs  of  the  crowd  who  came  forth  from  the 
shearing-house,  shorn  to  the  skin,  unable  to  work, 
ashamed  to  beg,  condemned  to  penury."*  The  titles 
of  no  less  than  thirty-five  thousand  estates,  great  and 
small,  were  called  for  by  the  Commission,  and  during 
the  first  five  years  of  its  operations,  three-fifths  of  1852-67. 
them  were  confiscated-! 

Whilst  the  operations  of  the  Revenue  Department  Operation  of 
were  thus  spreading  alarm  among  the  privileged  Jlj^^^^^^ 
classes  in  all  parts  of  the  country,  the  Judicial  De- 
partment was  doing  its  duty  as  a  serviceable  ally  in 
the  great  war  of  extermination.  Many  of  the  old 
landed  proprietors  were  stripped  to  the  skin  by  the 
decrees  of  our  civil  courts.  The  sale  of  land  in 
satisfaction  of  these  decrees  was  a  process  to  which 
recourse  was  often  had  among  a  people  inordinately 

fal  of  the  Peishwah's  GoTemment,  precarious  title,  or  of  no  title  at  all, 

bad  transmitted  their  acquisitions  to  found  themselves  suddenly  brought 

the  children,  fortified  bj  no  better  face    to    face  with    an    apparatus, 

titles  than  entries  in  tlie    village  which,  at  successive  strokes,  peeled 

account-books,  which  a  closer  ex-  awa^  their  possessions  with  the  harah 

ainination  showed  to  be  recent  or  precision  oi  the  planing  machine." 
spurious.    Ronsed  from  the  dreams        *  Memorial  oi  G.  fi.  Seton-Karr. 
of  thirty  years,  these  proprietors  of       f  ^^^^ 

N 


178  THE  ADMINI81UATI0N  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

1836  56.  addicted  to  litigation.  We  must  not  regard  it  alto- 
gether with  English  eyes;  for  the  Law  had  often 
nothing  else  to  take.  There  was  many  a  small  landed 
proprietor  whose  family  might  have  been  established 
for  centuries  on  a  particular  estate,  with  much  pride 
of  birth  and  affection  for  his  ancestral  lands,  but 
possessing  movable  goods  and  chattels  not  worth 
more  than  a  few  rupees.  He  might  have  owned  a  pair 
of  small  bullocks  and  a  rude  country  cart  consisting 
of  two  wheeb  and  a  few  bamboos,  but  beyond  such 
aids  to  husbandry  as  these,  he  had  nothing  but  a 
drinking-vessel,  a  few  cooking-pots,  and  the  blankets 
which  kept  the  dews  off  at  night.  Justice  in  his 
case  might  not  be  satisfied  without  a  surrender  of  his 
interests  in  the  land,  which  constituted  the  main  por- 
tion of  his  wealth.*  So  a  large  number  of  estates 
every  year  were  put  up  to  sale,  under  the  decrees  of 
the  courts,  in  satisfaction  of  debts  sometimes  only  of 
a  few  shillings,  and  bought  by  new  men,  perhaps  from 
different  parts  of  the  coimtry,  not  improbably  the 
agents  or  representatives  of  astute  native  function- 
aries from  the  lower  provinces;  whilst  the  ancient 
proprietors,  still  rooted  to  the  soil,  shrunk  into  small 
farmers  or  under-tenants  on  their  old  ancestral  do- 
mains. Thus  a  revolution  of  landed  property  was 
gradually  brought  about  by  means  of  English  appli- 
cation, which,  acting  coinddentally  with  the  other 
agencies  of  which  I  have  spoken,  swelled  the  number 

*  T  have  stated  here  the  principle  Bengal  Civil  Service,  in  a  Memoran- 

upon  which  the  law  was  based.  But  dum  before  me,  "  estates  put  up  for 

I  Delieve  that  in  manj^  cases  no  pains  sale  for  four  rupees  (eight  shillings), 

were  takei  to  ascertain  in  the  first  which  appears  to  me  just  the  same  as 

instance   what   were   the  movable  if  an  English  grocer,  getting  a  decree 

goods  of  the  debtor.    Becourse  was  in  a  smafl-debt  court  against  a  squire 

nad  to  the  register  of  landed  pro-  for  half  a  sovereign,  put  up  his  estate 

perty,  even  when  the  debt  amounted  in  Cheshire  for  the  same,  instead 

to  no  more  than  four  or  five  rupees,  of  realising  the  debt  by  the  sale  of 

"  I  have  seen,"  says  an  officer  of  the  his  silk  umDieUa." 


DEPRESSION  OF  THE  UPPER  CLASSES.  179 

of  the  disaffected,  dangerous  classes,  who  traced  their    I83d-5d. 
downM  to  the  operations  of  British  rule,  and  sullenly 
bided  their  time  for  the  recovery  of  what  they  had 
lost,  in  some  new  revolutionary  epoch. 

This  general  system  of  depression,  which,  thus  as- 
suming many  dLQerent  forms  and  exerdsing  itself  in 
many  different  ways,  struck  with  uniform  precision  at 
the  most  cherished  privileges  of  the  upper  classes,  had 
not  its  origin  in  the  fertile  brain  of  Lord  Dalhousie. 
He  only  confirmed  and  extended  it ;  confirmed  it  in 
our  older  provinces,  and  extended  it  to  those  which 
he  had  himself  acquired.  In  the  Punjab  it  sorely  dis- 
quieted some  few  of  our  more  chivalrous  English 
officers  connected  with  the  Administration,*  and  it 
was  carried  into  the  Oude  dominions,  as  will  hereafter 
be  shown,  with  a  recklessness  which  in  time  brought 
down  upon  us  a  terrible  retribution.  Every  new 
acquisition  of  territory  made  the  matter  much  worse. 
Not  merely  because  the  privileged  classes  were  in 
those  territories  struck  down,  but  because  the  exten- 
sion of  the  British  Raj  gradually  so  contracted  the 
area  on  which  men  of  high  social  position,  expelled  by 
our  system  from  the  Company's  provinces,  could  find 
profitable  and  honourable  employment,  that  it  seemed 
as  though  every  outlet  for  native  enterprise  and  ambi- 
tion were  about  to  be  closed  against  them.  It  was 
this,  indeed,  that  made  the  great  difference  between 

*   Sir  Herbert  Edwardes,  in  a  state  of  the  old  officials  and  Sirdars." 

Memorandum  quoted  bj  Mr.  Charles  Of   Henry  Lawrence  himsdf,  Mr. 

Raiies  in  his  naphic  "  Notes  of  the  Baikes   says :    '*  He   fought  every 

Keyolt  of  the  North- West  Provinces  losing  battle  for  the  old  chiefs  and 

of  India,"  says  of  Arthur  Cocks,  Jagheerdars  with  entire  disregard  for 

that  he  "  imbibed  Sir  Henry  Law-  his  own  interest,  and  at  last  left  the 

rence's  feelings,  and  became  greatly  Punjab,  to  use  Colonel  Edwardes's 

attaclied  to  the  chiefs  and  people,  words,  dented  all  over  with  defeats 

He  hardly  stayed  a  year  after  annex-  and     disappointments,    honourable 

ation,  and  left  the  Punjab  because  scars  in  the  eyes  of  the  bystanders." 
be  could  not  bear  to  see  the  fallen 

n2 


180  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALUOUSIE. 

1836-56.  resumptions  of  rent-free  estates  under  the  Native 
€rovemment8  and  under  our  own.  It  has  been  said 
that  under  the  former  there  was  no  security  of  tenure ; 
and  it  is  true  that  the  Native  Princes  did  not  consider 
themselves  bound  to  maintain  the  grants  of  their  pre- 
decessors, and  often  arbitrarily  resumed  them.  But 
the  door  of  honourable  and  lucrative  employment 
was  not  closed  against  the  sufferers.  All  the  great 
offices  of  the  State,  civil  and  military,  were  open  to  the 
children  of  the  soil.  But  it  was  not  so  in  our  British 
territories.  There  the  dispossessed  holder,  no  longer 
suffered  to  be  an  unprofitable  drone,  was  not  per- 
mitted to  take  a  place  among  the  working  bees  of  the 
hive.  And  what  place  was  there  left  for  him,  in 
which  he  could  serve  under  other  masters  ?  We  had 
no  room  for  him  under  us,  and  we  left  no  place  for 
him  away  from  us.  And  so  we  made  dangerous 
enemies  of  a  large  number  of  influential  persons, 
among  whom  were  not  only  many  nobles  of  royal  or 
princely  descent^  many  military  chiefs,  with  large 
bodies  of  retainers,  and  many  ancient  landholders 
for  whom  a  strong  feudal  veneration  still  remained 
among  the  agricultural  classes,  but  numbers  of  the 
Brahminical,  or  priestly  order,  who  had  been  sup- 
ported by  the  alienated  revenue  which  we  resumed, 
and  who  turned  the  power  which  they  exercised  over 
the  minds  of  others  to  fatal  account  in  fomenting 
popular  discontent,  and  instilling  into  the  minds  of 
the  people  the  poison  of  religious  fear. 


Thn  Priest.        Other  measures  were  in  operation  at  the  same  time, 

hood.  ^YiQ  tendency  of  which  was  to  disturb  the  minds  and 

to  inflame  the  hatred  of  the  Priesthood.    It  seemed  as 

though  a  great  flood  of  innovation  were  about  to 


BRAmilNISM.  181 

sweep  away  all  their  powers  and  their  privileges.  The  1848-5C. 
pale-faced  Christian  knight,  with  the  great  Excalibar 
of  Truth  in  his  hand,  was  cleaving  right  through  all 
the  most  cherished  fictions  and  superstitions  of 
Brahminism.  A  new  generation  was  springing  up, 
without  faith,  without  veneration;  an  inquiring, 
doubting,  reasoning  race,  not  to  be  satisfied  with 
absurd  doctrines  or  captivated  by  grotesque  fables. 
The  literature  of  Bacon  and  Milton  was  exciting  a 
new  appetite  for  Truth  and  Beauty ;  and  the  exact 
sciences  of  the  West,  with  their  clear,  demonstrable 
facts  and  inevitable  deductions,  were  putting  to  shame 
the  physical  errors  of  Hindooism.  A  spirit  of  inquiry 
had  been  excited,  and  it  was  little  likely  ever  to  bo 
allayed.  It  was  plain  that  the  inquirers  were  exalt- 
ing the  Professor  above  the  Pundit,  and  that  the  new 
teacher  was  fast  displacing  the  old. 

Rightly  to  understand  the  stake  for  which  the 
Brahmin  was  playing,  and  with  the  loss  of  which  he 
was  now  threatened,  the  reader  must  keep  before  him 
the  fact  that  Brahminism  is  the  most  monstrous 
system  of  interference  and  oppression  that  the  world 
has  ever  yet  seen,  and  that  it  could  be  maintained  only 
by  ignorance  and  superstition  of  the  grossest  kind. 
The  people  had  been  taught  to  believe  that  in  all  the 
daily  concerns  of  life  Brahminical  ministrations  were 
essential  to  worldly  success.  The  Deity,  it  was 
believed,  could  be  propitiated  only  by  money-pay- 
ments to  this  favoured  race  of  holy  men.  "  Every 
form  and  ceremony  of  religion,"  it  has  been  said ;  "  all 
the  public  festivals ;  all  the  accidents  and  concerns  of 
life;  the  revolutions  of  the  heavenly  bodies;  the 
superstitious  fears  of  the  people;  births,  sicknesses, 
marriages,  misfortunes ;  death  ;  a  future  state — ^have 
all  been  seized  as  sources  of  revenue  to  the  Brahmins." 


180  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALUOUSIE. 

193^56.    resumptions  of  rent-free  estates  under  the  Xn* 
Governments  and  under  our  own.     It  has  been 
that  under  the  former  there  was  no  securir\'  of  ten 
and  it  is  true  that  the  Xative  Princes  did  not  cot^ 
themselves  !x>und  to  maintain  the  grants  of  the! 
decessors,  and  often  arbitrarily  resumed  them, 
the  door  of  honourable  and  lucrative  empL 
was  not  closed  aminst  the  sufferers.     All  th 
offices  of  the  State,  civil  and  military,  were  ope 
children  of  the  soil.     But  it  was  not  so  in  or 
territories.     There  the  dispossessed  holder,  i 
suffered  to  be  an  unprofitable  drone,  wa> 
mitted  to  take  a  place  among  the  working  1 
hive.     And  what  place  was  there  left  f« 
which  he  could  serve  under  other  masters " 
no  room  for  him  under  us,  and  we  left  ] 
him  away  from  us.      And   so  we  mad. 
enemies  of  a  large  number  of  influoi 
among  whom  were  not  only  many  no])l 
princely  descent,    many  military  chii 
bodies  of  retainers,   and  many  ancit 
for  whom  a  strong  feudal  veneration 
among  the  agricultural  classes,  but 
Brahininical,  or  priestly  order,  wIp 
ported  by  the  alienated  revenue  wL 
and  who  turned  the  power  which  tli 
the  minds  of  others  to  fatal  accn 
popular  discontent,  and  instilling  .> , 

the  p(»ople  the  poison  of  religious  i'ra 

opic 
igious 

Tiip  Priest-        Other  measures  were  in  opem  ^ecutaf 

'^  ■  the  tendency  of  which  was  to  <l 

to  inflame  the  hatred  of  the  Pri  '^^ 

though  a  great  flood  of  inno 


VT.  183 


Uc     1848^6. 

a 


be 

jurt 

t  was 

whole 

.vileges, 

ay  from 

arrest  the 

but  the  pro- 
.slowy  and  its 
eatly  to  alarm 
0  receptacles  of 
lever  boys  in  the 
lie  nation  was  still 
superstition,  Brah- 
it  when  these  boys 
families,  rejoicing  in 
.  from  prejudice,  laugh- 
ith  as  a  bundle  of  old 
md  drinking  wine,  and 
r  he  distinguishing  articles 
s  dear  that  a  very  serious 
/eaten  the  ascendancy  of  the 
that  a  reformation  of  this 
would  work  its  way  in  time 
of  society.    They  saw  that,  as 
lie  after  another  brought  under 
light  must  diffuse  itself  more  and 
.  ould  scarcely  be  a  place  for  Hin- 
inolested.     And  some  at  least,  con- 
id  effect^  began  to  argue  that  all  this 
absorption  was  brought  about  for  the 

vol.  xi.    Article :  "  Phjaical  Errors  oi  Hindooism." 


184 


THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 


EdvcaiioiQ. 


1848-66.  express  purpose  of  overthrowing  the  ancient  faiths  of 
the  country,  and  establishing  a  new  religion  in  their 
place. 

Every  monstrous  lie  exploded,  every  abominable 
practice  suppressed,  was  a  blow  struck  at  the  Priest- 
hood ;  for  all  these  monstrosities  and  abominations 
had  their  root  in  Hindooism,  and  could  not  be  eradi- 
cated without  sore  disturbance  and  confusion  of  the 
soiL  The  murder  of  women  on  the  funeral-pile,  the 
murder  of  little  children  in  the  Zenana,  the  murder  of 
the  sick  and  the  aged  on  the  banks  of  the  river,  the 
murder  of  human  victims,  reared  and  fattened  for  the 
sacrifice,  were  all  religious  institutions,  from  which 
the  Priesthood  derived  either  profit,  power,  or  both. 
Nay,  even  the  wholesale  strangling  of  unsuspecting 
travellers  was  sanctified  and  ceremoniaUsed  by  re- 
ligion. Now  all  these  cruel  rites  had  been  sup- 
pressed, and,  what  was  still  worse  in  the  eyes  of  the 
Brahmins,  the  foul  superstitions  which  nurtured  them 
were  fast  disappearing  from  the  land.  Authority 
might  declare  their  wickedness,  and  still  they  might 
exist  as  part  and  parcel  of  the  faith  of  the  people. 
But  when  Reason  demonstrated  their  absurdity,  and 
struck  opnviction  into  the  very  heart  of  the  nation, 
there  was  an  end  of  both  the  folly  and  the  crime. 
The  Law  might  do  much,  but  Education  would  as- 
suredly do  much  more  to  sweep  away  all  these  time- 
honoured  superstitions.  Education,  pure  and  simple 
in  its  secularity,  was  quite  enough  in  itself  to  hew 
down  this  dense  jungle  of  Hindooism ;  but  when  it 
was  seen  that  the  functions  of  the  English  school- 
master and  of  the  Christian  priest  were  often  united 
in  the  same  person,  and  that  high  oflScers  of  the  State 
were  present  at  examinations  conducted  by  chaplains 
or  missionaries,  a  fear  arose  lest  even  secular  educa- 


PB06BESS  OF  £NU6HT£NM£NT«  185 

tion  might  be  the  mask  of  proselytism,  and  so  the    1848-56. 
Brahmins  began  to  alarm  the  minds  of  the  elder 
members  of  the  Hindoo  community,  who  abstained, 
under  priestly  influence,  from  openly  countenancing 
what  they  had  not  the  energy  boldly  to  resist.* 

And,  every  year  the  danger  increased.  Every 
year  were  there  manifestations  of  a  continually  in- 
creasing desire  to  emancipate  the  natives  of  India 
from  the  gross  superstitions  which  enchained  them. 
One  common  feeling  moved  alike  the  English  Grovern- 
ment  and  the  English  community.  In  other  matters 
of  State-policy  there  ijiight  be  essential  changes,  but 
in  this  there  was  no  change.  One  Governor  might 
replace  another,  but  only  to  evince  an  increased  hos- 
tility to  the  great  Baal  of  Hindooism.  And  in  no 
man  was  there  less  regard  for  time-honoured  abomi- 
nations and  venerable  absurdities — ^in  no  man  did 
the  zeal  of  iconoclasm  work  more  mightily  than 
in  Lord  Dalhousie.  During  no  former  administra- 
tion had  the  vested  interests  of  Brahminism  in  moral 
and  material  error  been  more  ruthlessly  assailed. 
There  was  nothing  systematic  in  all  this.  Almost, 
indeed,  might  it  be  said  that  it  was  unconscious. 
It  was  simply  the  manifestation  of  such  love  as  any 
clear-sighted,  strong-headed  man  may  be  supposed 
to  have  for  truth  above  error,  for  intelligent  pro- 
gress above  ignorant  stagnation.  From  love  of 
this  kind,  from  the  assured  conviction  that  it  was 
equally  humane  and  politic  to  substitute  the  strength 
and  justice  of  British  administration  for  what  he 
regarded  as  the  effete  tyrannies  of  the  East,  had 
emanated  the  annexations  which  had  distinguished 

*  The  English  journalists  some-  "  We  cannot  help  expressing  great 

times  remarked  in  their  reports  of  surprise  at  the  absence  of  natives  of 

these  school-examinations  upon  the  influence." — Bengal Hwrkaru,  March 

absence  of  the  native  gentry—^,  g, :  14,  1863. 


186  THE  ADIONISTRATION  OF  LOBD  DALHOUSIE. 

1848-66.  his  rule.  And  as  he  desired  for  the  good  of  the  people 
to  extend  the  territorial  rule  of  Great  Britain,  so  he 
was  eager  also  to  extend  her  moral  rule,  and  to  make 
those  people  subject  to  the  powers  of  light  rather 
than  of  darkness.  And  so  he  strove  mightily  to  ex- 
tend among  them  the  blessings  of  European  civilisa- 
tion, and  the  Priesthood  stood  aghast  at  the  sight  of 
the  new  things,  moral  and  material,  by  which  they 
were  threatened. 

Many  and  portentous  were  these  menaces.  Not 
only  was  Government  Education,  in  a  more  syste- 
matised  and  pretentious  shape  than  before,  rapidly 
extending  its  network  over  the  whole  male  popula- 
tion of  the  country,  but  even  the  fastnesses  of  the 
female  apartments  were  not  secure  against  the  intru- 
don  of  the  new  learning  and  new  phUosophy  of  the 
West  England  had  begun  to  take  account  of  its 
short-comings,  and,  among  all  the  reproaches  heaped 
upon  the  Company,  none  had  been  so  loud  or  so 
general  as  the  cry  that,  whilst  they  spent  millions  on 
War,  they  grudged  hundreds  for  purposes  of  Edu- 
cation. So,  in  obedience  to  this  cry,  instructions  had 
been  sent  out  to  India,  directing  larger,  more  com- 
prehensive, more  systematic  measures  for  the  instruc- 
tion of  the  people,  and  authorising  increased  expendi- 
ture upon  them.  Whilst  great  Universities  were  to 
Jbe  established,  under  the  immediate  charge  of  the 
Government,  the  more  humble  missionary  institu- 
tions were  to  be  aided  by  grants  of  public  money, 
and  no  effort  was  to  be  spared  that  could  conduce  to 
the  spread  of  European  knowledge.  It  was  plain  to 
the  comprehension  of  the  guardians  of  Eastern  leam- 
*ing,  that  what  had  been  done  to  unlock  the  flood- 
gates of  the  West^  would  soon  appear  to  be  as 
nothing  in  comparison  with  the  great  tide  of  Euro- 


PROGRESS  OF  ENUGHTENMENT.  187 

pean  civilisation  which  was  about  to  be  poured  out    l848-5a 
upon  them. 

Most  alarming  of  all  were  the  endeavours  made,  Female  Eda- 
during  Lord  Dalhousie's  administration,  to  penetrate  ^**^""^ 
the  Zenana  with  our  new  learning  and  our  new  customs. 
The  English  at  the  large  Presidency  towns  began  to 
systematise  thdr  efforts  for  the  emancipation  of  the 
female  mind  from  the  utter  ignorance  which  had  been 
its  birthright,  and  the  wives  and  daughters  of  the 
white  men  began  to  aid  in  the  work,  cheered  and  en- 
couraged by  the  sympathies  of  their  sisters  at  home. 
For  the  first  time,  the  education  of  Hindoo  and 
Mahomedan  females  took,  during  the  administration 
of  Lord  Dalhousie,  a  substantial  recognised  shape. 
Before  it  had  been  merely  a  manifestation  of  mifih 
sionary  zeal  addressed  to  the  conversion  of  a  few 
orphans  and  castaways.  But  now,  if  not  the  imme- 
diate work  of  the  Government  in  its  corporate  capadly) 
it  was  the  pet  project  and  the  especial  charge  of  a  Mr.  Beiliane. 
member  of  the  Government,  and,  on  his  death,  passed 
into  the  hands  of  the  Governor-General  himself,  and 
afterwards  was  adopted  by  the  Company's  Gt)vem- 
ment.  Some  years  before,  the  Priesthood,  secure  in 
the  bigotry  and  intolerance  of  the  heads  of  families, 
might  have  laughed  these  efforts  to  scorn.  But  now 
young  men,  trained  under  English  Professors,  were 
becoming  fathers  and  masters,  sensible  of  the  gr^t 
want  of  enlightened  female  companionship,  and  ill- 
disposed  to  yield  obedience  to  the  dogmas  of  the 
Priests.  So  great,  indeed,  was  this  yearning  after 
something  more  attractive  and  more  satisfying  than 
the  inanity  of  the  Zenana,  that  tiie  courtesans  of  the 
Calcutta  Bazaars  taught  themselves  to  play  on  in- 
struments, to  sing  songs,  and  to  read  poetry,  that 
thereby  they  might  lure  from  the  dreary  environ- 


188 


THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 


Be-marriage 
of  Hindoo 
Widows. 


1866^6.    ments  of  their  vapid  homes  the  very  flower  of  Young 
Bengal. 

About  the  same  time  the  wedge  of  another  startling 
innovation  was  being  driven  into  the  very  heart  of 
Hindoo  Society.  Among  the  many  cruel  wrongs  to 
which  the  womanhood  of  the  nation  was  subjected  was 
the  institution  which  forbade  a  bereaved  wife  ever  to 
re-many.  The  widow  who  did  not  bum  was  con- 
demned to  perpetual  chastity.  Nay,  it  has  been 
surmised  that  the  burning  inculcated  in  the  old  re- 
ligious writings  of  the  Hindoos  was  no  other  than 
that  which,  centuries  afterwards,  the  great  Christian 
teacher  forbade,  saying  that  it  is  better  to  marry  than 
to  bum.  Be  this  as  it  may,  the  re-marriage  of  Hindoo 
widows  was  opposed  both  to  the  creeds  and  the 
customs  of  the  land.  It  was  an  evil  and  a  cruel  thing 
itself,  and  the  prolific  source  of  other  evils.  Evil  and 
cruel  would  it  have  been  in  any  country  and  under 
any  institutions,  but  where  mere  children  are  married, 
often  to  men  advanced  in  years,  and  are  left  widows, 
in  tender  youth,  when  they  have  scarcely  looked  upon 
their  husbands,  its  cruelty  is  past  counting.  To  the 
more  enlightened  Hindoos,  trained  in  our  English 
colleges  and  schools,  the  evils  of  this  prohibition  were 
BO  patent  and  so  distressing,  that  they  were  fain  to  see 
it  abrogated  by  law.  One  of  their  number  wrote  a 
cFever  treatise  in  defence  of  the  re-marriage  of  widows, 
and  thousands  signed  a  petition,  in  which  a  belief 
was  expressed  that  perpetual  widowhood  was  not  en- 
joined by  the  Hindoo  scriptures.  But  the  orthodox 
party,  strong  in  texts,  greatly  outnumbered,  and, 
judged  by  the  standard  of  Hindooism,  greatly  out- 
argued  them.  The  Law  and  the  Prophets  were  on 
their  side.  It  was  plain  that  the  innovation  would 
inflict  another  deadly  blow  on  the  old  Hindoo  law  of 


FR06BESS  OF  ENUGHTENMENT.  189 

inheritance.  Already  had  dire  offence  been  given  to  1855-56. 
the  orthodoxy  of  the  land  by  the  removal  of  those 
disabilities  which  forbade  all  who  had  forsaken  their 
ancestral  faith  to  inherit  ancestral  property.  A  law 
had  been  passed,  declaring  the  abolition  of  "  so  much 
of  the  old  law  or  usage  as  inflicted  on  any  person 
forfeiture  of  rights  or  property,  by  reason  of  his  or 
her  renouncing,  or  having  been  excluded  from,  the 
communion  of  any  religion."  Against  this  the  old 
Hindoos  had  vehemently  protested,  not  without 
threats,  as  a  violation  of  the  pledges  given  by  the 
British  Government  to  the  natives  of  India ;  pledges, 
they  said,  issued  in  an  hour  of  weakness  and  revoked 
in  an  hour  of  strength.*  But  Lord  Dalhousie  had 
emphatically  recorded  his  opinion  "that  it  is  the 
duty  of  the  State  to  keep  in  its  own  hands  the  right 
of  regulating  succession  to  property,"  and  the  Act  had 
been  passed.  And  now  there  was  further  authorita- 
tive interference  on  the  part  of  the  State,  for  it  was 
proposed  to  bestow  equal  rights  of  inheritance  on  the 
offspring  of  what  the  old-school  Hindoos  declared  to 
be  an  illicit,  God-proscribed  connexion.  This,  how- 
ever, was  but  a  part  of  the  evil.  Here  was  another  step 
towards  the  complete  emancipation  of  woman ;  and 
Hindoo  orthodoxy  believed,  or  professed  to  believe, 
that  if  widows  were  encouraged  to  marry  new  hus- 
bands instead  of  burning  with  the  corpses  of  the  old, 

*  The  Ben|gal  Memorial  said:  changed  into  sollen  submission  to 
"  Your  memorialists  will  not  concetil  their  will,  and  obedience  to  their 
that  from  the  moment  the  proposed  power."  The  Madras  Memorial 
act  becomes  a  part  of  the  law  appli-  was  couched  in  much  stronger  Ian- 
cable  to  Hinaoos,  that  confidence  guage.  It  denounced  the  measure 
which  thej  hitherto  felt  in  the  pa-  as  a  direct  act  of  tyranny,  and  said 
temal  character  of  their  British  that  the  British  Government, "  tread- 
rulers  will  be  most  materially  sliaken.  ing  the  path  of  oppression,"  "would 
No  outbreak,  of  course,  is  to  be  well  desenre  what  it  will  assuredly 
dreaded ;  but  the  active  spirit  of  fer-  obtain — the  hatred  and  detestation 
vent  loyalty  to  their  sovereign  will  be  of  the  oppressed." 


190  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

1855-56.  wivea  would  be  induced  to  make  themselves  widows 
by  poisoning  or  otherwise  destrojdng  their  lords.  It 
was  apprehended,  too — and  not  altogether  without 
reason* — ^that  the  re-marriage  of  Hindoo  widows 
would  soon  be  followed  by  a  blow  struck  at  Hindoo 
polygamy,  especially  in  its  worst  but  most  honoured 
form  of  Eulinism ;  and  so  the  Brahmins,  discomfited 
and  alarmed  by  these  innovations,  past,  present,  and 
prospective,  strove  mightily  to  resist  the  tide,  and 
to  turn  the  torrent  of  destruction  back  upon  their 
enemies.f 
ThelUilway  Nor  was  it  Only  by  the  innovations  of  moral 
mpL*  '^®^*'  progress  that  the  hierarchy  of  India  were  alarmed 
and  offended.  The  inroads  and  encroachments  of 
physical  science  were  equally  distasteful  and  dis- 
quieting. A  privileged  race  of  men,  who  had  been 
held  in  veneration  as  the  depositaries  of  all  human 
knowledge,  were  suddenly  shown  to  be  as  feeble  and 
impotent  as  babes  and  sucklings.  It  was  no  mere 
verbal  demonstration ;  the  arrogant  self-assertion  of 
the  white  man,  which  the  Hindoo  Priesthood  could 
contradict  or  explain  away.  There  were  no  means  of 
contradicting  or  explaining  away  the  railway  cars, 

*  See  the  foUowinff  passage  of  a  (juent  desertion  of  them,  was  an  in- 

speech  delivered  by  Mr.  Barnes  Pea-  jury  to  societv,  and  therefore  that  it 

cock,  in   the  LegisUtive  Ck)ancil,  should  be  illegal  to  do  so.    He" 

Juljr  19,  1856 :  "There  was  a  great  (Mr.  Peacock)  "  maintained  that  it 

distinction  between  preventing  a  maa  was  the  duty  of  the  Legislature,  in 

from  doin^  that  wuich  his  relig^ion  such  a  case,  to  prevent  him  from 

directed  him  to  do,  and  preventing  doin^  that  which  his  religion  merely 

him  from  doinff  that  which  his  re-  permitted,  but  did  not  command  him 

ligion  merely  aUowed  him  to  do.    If  to  do." 

a  man  were  to  sav  that  his  religion  f  The  "Bill  to  remove  all  legal 

did  not  forbid  polygamy,  and  there-  obstacles  to  the  marriage  of  Hinooo 

fore  that  he  might  marry  as  many  widows,"  though  introoucedand  dis- 

wivea  as  he  pleased,,  when  it  was  cussed  during  the  administration  of 

impossible  for  him  to  carry  out  the  Lord    Dalhousie,    was    not    finally 

contract  of  marria^,  it  would  be  no  passed  till  after  his  retirement.    It 

interference  with  his  religion  for  the  received  the  assent  of  Lord  Canning 

Legislature  to  say  that  the  marrying  in  July,  1856. 
of  a  hundred  wives,  and  the  subae- 


MATERIAL  PROGRESS.  191 

which  travelled,  without  horses  or  bollocks,  at  the    1848-5(V 
rate  of  thirty  miles  an  hour,  or  the  electric  wires, 
which  in  a  few  minutes  carried  a  message  across  the 
breadth  of  a  whole  province. 

These  were  facts  that  there  was  no  gainsa3dng.  He 
who  ran  might  read.  The  prodigious  triumphs  over 
time  and  space  achieved  by  these  "  fire-carriages  ** 
and  "lightning-posts,**  put  to  shame  the  wisdom  of 
the  Brahmins,  and  seemed  to  indicate  a  command 
over  the  supernatural  agencies  of  the  Unseen  World, 
such  as  the  Pundits  of  the  East  could  never  attain  or 
simulate.  They,  who  for  their  own  ends  had  im- 
parted a  sacred  character  to  new  inventions,  and  had 
taught  their  disciples  that  all  improvements  in  art 
and  science  were  derived  firom  the  Deity  through 
their  especial  intercession,  and  were  to  be  inaugu- 
rated with  religious  ceremonies  attended  with  the 
usual  distribution  of  largesses  to  the  priests,  now 
found  that  the  white  men  could  make  the  very  ele- 
ments their  slaves,  and  call  to  their  aid  miraculous 
powers  undreamt  of  in  the  Brahminical  philosophy. 
Of  what  use  was  it  any  longer  to  endeavour  to  per- 
suade the  people  that  the  new  knowledge  of  the 
West  was  only  a  bundle  of  shams  and  impostures, 
when  any  man  might  see  the  train  come  in  at  a 
given  moment,  and  learn  at  Benares  how  many 
pounds  of  flour  were  sold  for  the  rupee  that  morn- 
ing in  the  bazaars  of  Delhi  and  Calcutta  ? 

To  the  introduction  into  India  of  these  mysterious 
agencies  the  Hour  and  the  Man  were  alike  propi- 
tious. When  Lord  Dalhousie  went  out  to  India, 
England  was  just  recovering  from  the  effects  of  that 
over-activity  of  speculation  which  had  generated  such 
a  disturbance  of  the  whole  financial  system  of  the 
country.     She  had  ceased  to  project  lines  of  Railway 


192  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE. 

1848-56.  between  towns  without  Traffic,  and  through  countries 
without  Population,  and  had  subsided,  after  much 
suffering,  into  a  healthy  state  of  reasonable  enter- 
prise, carefully  estimating  both  her  wants  and  her 
resources.  As  President  of  the  Board  of  Trade, 
Dalhousie  had  enjoyed  the  best  opportunities  of  ac- 
quainting himself  with  the  principles  and  with  the 
details  of  the  great  question  of  the  day,  at  the  one 
central  point  to  which  all  information  converged, 
and  he  had  left  England  with  the  full  determination, 
God  willing,  not  to  leave  the  coimtry  of  his  adoption 
until  he  had  initiated  the  construction  of  great  trunk- 
roads  of  iron  between  all  the  great  centres  of  Govern- 
ment and  of  Commerce,  and  had  traversed,  at  rail- 
way speed,  some  at  least  of  their  first  stages.  A 
little  while  before,  the  idea  of  an  Indian  railway  had, 
in  the  estimation  of  the  greater  number  of  English 
residents,  been  something  speculative  and  chimerical, 
encouraged  only  by  visionaries  and  enthusiasts.  A 
few  far-seeing  men,  foremost  among  whom  was  Mac- 
donald  Stephenson,  predicted  their  speedy  establish- 
ment, and  with  the  general  acceptance  of  the  nation ; 
but  even  after  Dalhousie  had  put  his  hand  to  the 
work,  and  the  Company  had  responded  to  his  efforts, 
it  was  the  more  general  belief  that  railway  commu- 
nication in  India  would  be  rather  a  concern  of  Go- 
vernment, useful  in  the  extreme  for  military  pur- 
poses, than  a  popular  institution  supplying  a  national 
want.  It  was  thought  that  Indolence,  Avarice,  and 
Superstition  would  keep  the  natives  of  the  country 
from  flocking  to  the  Railway  Station.  But  with 
a  keener  appreciation  of  the  inherent  power  of  so 
demonstrable  a  benefit  to  make  its  own  way,  even 
against  these  moral  obstructions,  Dalhousie  had  full 
faith  in  the  result.     He  was  right.     The  people  now 


liATERIAL  PROGRESS.  193 

learnt  to  estimate  at  its  full  worth  the  great  truth    18^-6^- 
that  Time  is  Money;  and  having  so  learned,  they 
were  not  to  be  deterred  from  profiting  by  it  by 
any  tenderness  of  respect  for  the  feelings  of  their 
spiritual  guides. 

That  the  fire-carriage  on  the  iron  road  was  a  heavy 
blow  to  the  Brahminical  Priesthood  is  not  to  be 
doubted.  The  lightning  post,  -^hich  sent  invisible 
letters  through  the  air  and  brought  back  answers, 
from  incredible  distances,  in  less  time  than  an  or- 
dinary messenger  could  bring  them  from  the  next 
street,  was  a  still  greater  marvel  and  a  still  greater 
disturbance.  But  it  was  less  patent  and  obtrusive. 
The  one  is  the  natural  complement  of  the  other ;  and 
Dalhousie,  aided  by  the  genius  of  O'Shaughnessy, 
had  soon  spread  a  network  of  electric  wires  across 
the  whole  length  and  breadth  of  the  country.  It  was 
a  Mose  thing  to  do  ;  a  right  thing  to  do ;  but  it  was 
alarming  and  ofiensive  to  the  Brahminical  mind.  It 
has  been  said,  that  as  soon  as  we  had  demonstrated 
that  the  earth  is  a  sphere  revolving  on  its  axis,  there 
was  an  end  to  the  superstitions  of  Hindooism.  And 
so  there  was — ^in  argimient,  but  not  in  fact.  The 
Brahminical  teachers  insisted  that  the  new  doctrines 
of  Western  civilisation  were  mere  specious  inventions, 
with  no  groundwork  of  eternal  truth,  and  as  their 
disciples  could  not  bring  the  test  of  their  senses  to 
such  inquiries  as  these,  they  succumbed  to  authority 
rather  than  to  reason,  or  perhaps  lapsed  into  a  state 
of  bewildering  doubt.  But  material  experiments,  so 
palpable  and  portentous  that  they  might  be  seen  at  a 
distance  of  many  miles,  convinced  whilst  they  as- 
tounded. The  most  ignorant  and  unreasoning  of 
men  could  see  that  the  thing  was  done.  They  knew 
that  Brahminism  had  never  done  it.  They  saw  plainly 

o 


1S4  1HE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DAUIOUSIE. 

^  j^«<^44i  tlie  fiK?t  that  there  were  wonderful  things  in  the  world 
wliich  their  own  Priests  could  not  teach  them — of 
which,  indeed,  with  all  their  boasted  wisdom,  they 
Kad  never  dreamt ;  and  from  that  time  the  Hindoo 
Hierarchy  lost  half  its  power,  for  the  People  lost  half 
their  faidi. 
0«rt^  But  clear  as  was  all  this,  and  alarming  as  were  the 
prospects  thus  unfdlded  to  the  Pundits,  there  was 
something  more  than  this  needed  to  disturb  the 
]>opular  mind.  Hindooism  might  be  assailed;  Hin- 
dooism  might  be  disproved ;  and  still  men  might  go 
about  their  daily  business  without  a  fear  for  the  future 
or  a  regret  for  the  past.  But  there  was  something 
about  which  they  disturbed  themselves  much  more 
than  about  the  abstract  truths  of  their  religion.  The 
great  institution  of  Caste  was  an  ever-present  reality. 
It  entered  into  the  commonest  concerns  of  life.  It  was 
intelligible  to  the  meanest  understanding.  Every 
man,  woman,  and  child  knew  what  a  terrible  thing  it 
would  be  to  be  cast  out  from  the  community  of  the 
brotherhood,  and  condemned  to  live  apart,  abhorred 
of  men  and  forsaken  by  God,  If,  then,  the  people 
could  be  taught  that  the  English  by  some  insidious 
means  purposed  to  defile  the  Hindoos,  and  to  bring 
them  all  to  a  dead  level  of  one-caste  or  of  no-caste,  a 
great  rising  of  the  Natives  might  sweep  the  Fo- 
reigners into  the  sea.  This  was  an  obvious  line  of 
policy;  but  it  was  not  a  policy  for  all  times.  It 
needed  opportunity  for  its  successful  development. 
Equally  patient  and  astute,  the  Brahmin  was  content 
to  bide  his  time  rather  than  to  risk  an}rthing  by  an 
inopportune  demonstration.  The  English  were  loud 
in  their  professions  of  toleration,  and  commonly  cau- 
tious in  their  practice.  Still  it  was  only  in  the  nature 
of  things  that  they  should  some  day  make  a  false  step. 
As  the  Brahmin  thus  lay  in  wait,  eager  for  his 


PRISON  DISCIPLLVE.  195 

opportunity  to  strike,  he  thought  he  espied,  perhaps  1846-66. 
in  an  unexpected  quarter,  a  safe  point  of  attack.  It 
required  some  monstrous  invention,  very  suitable  to  The  Messing 
troubled  times,  but  only  to  be  circulated  with  success  ^ob^  ^ 
after  the  popular  mind,  by  previous  excitement,  had 
been  prepared  to  receive  it,  to  give  any  colour  of  pro- 
bability to  a  report,  that  the  Government  had  laid  a 
plot  for  the  defilement  of  the  whole  mass  of  the 
people.  But  there  were  certain  classes  with  which 
Grovemment  had  a  direct  connexion,  and  whose  bodies 
and  souls  were  in  the  immediate  keeping  of  the  State. 
Among  these  were  the  inmates  of  our  gaols.  As 
these  people  were  necessarily  dependent  upon  Govern- 
ment for  their  daily  food,  it  appeared  to  be  easy,  by 
a  well-devised  system  of  Prison  Discipline,  either  to 
destroy  the  caste  of  the  convicts  or  to  starve  them  to 
death.  The  old  tolerant  regulations  allowed  every 
man  to  cater  and  to  cook  for  himself.  A  money- 
allowance  was  granted  to  him,  and  he  turned  it  into 
food  after  his  own  fashion.  But  this  83rstem  was  very 
injurious  to  prison  discipline.  Men  loitered  over 
their  cooking  and  their  eating  and  made  excuses  to 
escape  work.  So  the  prisoners  were  divided  into 
messes,  according  to  their  several  castes ;  rations  were 
issued  to  them,  and  cooks  were  appointed  to  prepare 
the  daily  meals  at  a  stated  hour  of  the  day.  If  the 
cook  were  of  a  lower  caste  than  the  eaters,  the  neces- 
sary result  was  the  contamination  of  the  food  and 
loss  of  caste  by  the  whole  mess.  The  new  system, 
therefore,  was  one  likely  to  be  misunderstood  and 
easily  to  be  misinterpreted.  Here,  then,  was  one  of 
those  openings  which  designing  men  were  continually 
on  the  alert  to  detect,  and  in  a  fitting  hour  it  was 
turned  to  account.  Not  merely  the  inmates  of  the 
gaols,  but  the  inhabitants  of  the  towns  in  which  pri- 

o2 


196  THE  ADJOMaTKATION  OF  LDID  DALHOCSIE. 

y%^^.  gons  were  located,  were  readily  made  to  believe  that 
it  was  the  intention  of  the  British  (jOYemment  to 
destroy  the  caste  of  the  prisoners,  and  forcibly  to 
convert  them  to  Christianity.  It  mattered  not  whe- 
ther Brahmin  cooks  had  or  had  not,  in  the  first  in- 
stance, been  appointed.  There  might  be  a  Brahmin 
cook  to-day ;  and  a  low-caste  man  in  his  place  to- 
morrow. So  the  lie  had  some  plaoability  about  it ; 
and  it  went  abroad  that  this  assanlt  upon  the  gaol- 
birds was  but  the  beginning  of  the  end,  and  that  by 
a  variety  of  different  means  the  religions  of  the 
country  would  soon  be  destroyed  by  the  Grovemment 
of  the  Feringhees. 

Reports  of  this  kind  commonly  appear  to  be  of 
Hindoo  origin;  for  they  are  calculated  primarily 
to  alarm  the  minds  of  the  people  on  the  score 
of  the  destruction  of  caste.  But  it  seldom  hap- 
pens that  they  are  not  followed  by  some  auxiliary 
lies  expressly  designed  for  Mahomedan  reception. 
The  Mahomedans  had  some  especial  grievances  of 
their  own.  The  tendency  of  our  educational  mea- 
sures, and  the  all-pervading  EngUslusm  with  which 
the  country  was  threatened,  was  to  lower  the  dignity 
of  Mahomedanism,  and  to  deprive  of  their  emoluments 
many  influential  people  of  that  intolerant  faith.  The 
Moulavees  were  scarcely  less  alarmed  by  our  innova- 
tions than  the  Pundits.  The  Arabic  of  the  one  fared 
no  better  than  the  Sanskrit  of  the  other.  The  use 
of  the  Persian  language  in  our  law  courts  was  abo- 
lished ;  new  tests  for  admission  into  the  Public  Service 
cut  down,  if  they  did  not  wholly  destroy,  their 
chances  of  official  employment.  There  was  a  general 
inclination  to  pare  away  the  privileges  and  the  per- 
quisites of  the  principal  Mahomedan  seats  of  learning. 
All  the  religious  endowments  of  the  great  Calcutta 


MAHOMEDAN  ALARMS.  197 

Madrissa  were  annihilated ;  and  the  prevalence  of  the  1845-56. 
English  language,  English  learning,  and  English  law, 
made  the  Mahomedan  doctors  shrink  into  insignifi- 
cance, whilst  the  resumption  of  rent-free  tenures, 
which,  in  many  instances,  grievously  affected  old 
Mussulman  families,  roused  their  resentments  more 
than  all  the  rest,  and  made  them  ripe  for  sedition. 
A  more  active,  a  more  enterprising,  and  a  more  in- 
triguing race  than  the  Hindoos,  the  latter  knew  well 
the  importance  of  associating  them  in  any  design 
against  the  State.*  So  their  animosities  were  stimu- 
lated, and  their  sympathies  were  enlisted,  by  a  report, 
sedulously  disseminated,  to  the  effect  that  the  British 
Government  were  about  to  issue  an  edict  prohibiting 
circumcision,  and  compelling  Mahomedan  women  to 
go  abroad  unveiled. 

Small  chance  would  there  have  been  of  such  a  lie 
as  this  finding  a  score  of  credulous  Mussulmans  to 
believe  it,  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  little  grain  of 
truth  that  there  was  in  the  story  of  the  messing- 
system  in  the  gaols.  The  innovation  had  been  origi- 
nated some  years  before  Lord  Dalhousie  appeared 
upon  the  scene.    At  first  it  had  been  introduced  with 

*  It  most  be  admitted,  however,  to  the  English  language,  have  pro- 

tliat  it  b  a  moot  question,  in  many  duced  the  greatest  discontent  aud 

instances,  whether  the  first  move-  the  bitterest  animosity  against  onr 

ment  were  made  by  the  Hindoos  or  ffovemment,  finding    that    the  en- 

the  liahomedans.    Good  authorities  forcement  of  the  messing-system  iu 

sometimes  incline  to  the  latter  sup-  the  gaols  had  produced  a  consider- 

position.  Take,  for  example,  the  fol-  able  sensation  amongst  the  ocople, 

lowing,  which  has  reference  to  a  se-  were  determined  to  improve  the  op- 

ditious  movement  at  Patna  in  the  portunity,  especially  as  our  troops 

cold    season    of  1845-46  :    "  From  were  weak  in  numbers,  and  we  were 

inquiries  I  have  made,"  wrote  Mr.  supposed  to  be  pressed  in  the  North- 

Dampier,  Superintendent  of  Police  West."    Of  the  event  to  which  this 

in  the  Lower  Provinces,  "  in  every  refers,  more  detailed  mention  will  be 

miarter,  I  am  of  opinion  that  the  found  in  a  subsequent  chapter  of  this 

Ilahomedans  of  tliese  parts,  amongst  work,  in  connexion  with  the  attempt 

whom  the  resumption  of  the  M^  then  made  to  corrupt  the  regiments 

fee  Tenures,  tlie  new  educational  at  Dinapore. 
system,  and  the  encouragement  given 


198 


THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LORD  DALUOUSIE. 


1845-46.  a  discretion  signifying  a  full  knowledge  of  the  lurking 
danger  ;•  but,  as  time  advanced,  one  experiment  fol- 
lowed another,  and  some  of  the  old  caution  was 
perhaps  relaxed.  So  in  many  places  the  prisoners 
broke  into  rebellion  and  violently  resisted  the  pro- 
posed change.  Eager  and  excited,  under  the  influ- 
ence of  a  common  alarm,  the  townspeople  cheered 
them  on,  and  were  ready  to  aid  them,  with  all  their 
might,  in  what  they  believed  to  be  the  defence  of 
their  religion.  At  Shahabad,  Sarun,  Behar,  and 
Patna,  there  were  serious  disturbances^  and  at  a  later 
1852.  period,  Benares,  the  very  nursery  and  hotbed  of 
Hindooism,  the  cherished  home  of  the  Pundite,  was 
saved  only  by  prudential  concessions,  from  becoming 
the  scene  of  a  sanguinary  outbreak. 
Tlie  Hindoo  The  experience  thus  gained  of  the  extreme  sensi- 
•ndbia  Lotah,  ijjygjjggg  ^f  ^y^q  native  mind,  given  up  as  it  was  to 

gross  delusions,  does  not  appear  to  have  borne  the 
fruit  of  increased  caution  and  forbearance.  For  not 
long  afterwards  another  improvement  in  prison  disci- 
pline again  stirred  up  revolt  in  the  gaols ;  and,  for  the 
same  reason  as  before,  the  people  sided  with  the  con- 
victs. A  Hindoo,  or  a  Hindooised  Mahomedan,  is 
nothing  without  his  Lotah.  A  Lotah  is  a  metal 
drinking- vessel,  which  he  religiously  guards  against 
defilement,  and  which  he  holds  as  a  cherished  posses- 
sion when  he  has  nothing  else  belonging  to  hiTn  in 
the  world.  But  a  brass  vessel  may  be  put  to  other 
uses  than  that  of  holding  water.  It  may  brain  a 
magistrate,!  or  flatten  the  face  of  a  gaoler,  and  truly 

*  See  Circular  Orders  of  Lieu-  offend  the  religious  prgudices  of  the 

tenant-Govemor  of  the  North-West  people,  or  injure  the  future  prospects 

Provinces,  July,  1841 : — "  Govern-  of  those  who  may  be  subjected  to 

ment  are  of  opinion  that  these  mea-  temporary  imprisonment." 
sures  oug^ht  not  to  be  compulsorily        f  My  earliest  recollection  of  India 

enforced,  if  there  be  any  ffood  ffround  is   associated    with    the    sensation 

to  believe  that  they  will  violate  or  created  in  Calcutta,  in  April,  1834, 


PRISON  OUTBREAKS,  199 

it  was  a  formidable  weapon  in  the  hands  of  a  despe-  1855. 
rate  man.  So  an  attempt  was  made  in  some  places 
to  deprive  the  prisoners  of  their  lotahs,  and  to  sub- 
stitute earthenware  vessels  in  their  place.  Here, 
then,  in  the  eyes  of  the  people,  was  another  insidious 
attempt  to  convert  prison  discipline  into  a  means  of 
religious  persecution — another  attempt  covertly  to 
reduce  them  all  to  one  caste.  So  the  prisoners  re- 
sisted the  experiment,  and  in  more  than  one  place 
manifested  their  resentment  with  a  fury  which  was 
shared  by  the  population  of  the  town&  At  Arrah 
the  excitement  was  so  great  that  the  guards  were 
ordered  to  fire  upon  the  prisoners,  and  at  Mozuffer- 
pore,  in  Tirhoot,  so  formidable  was  the  outburst  of 
popular  indignation,  that  the  magistrate,  in  grave 
official  language,  described  it  as  «  a  furious  aad  alto- 
gether  unexpected  outbreak  on  the  part  of  the  people 
of  the  town  and  district  m  support  and  sympathy 
with  the  prisoners."  The  rioters,  it  was  said,  "  in- 
eluded  almost  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  town,  as  well 
as  a  vast  number  of  ryots,  who  declared  that  they 
would  not  go  away  until  the  lotahs  were  restored;" 
and  so  great  was  the  danger  of  the  prisoners  escaping, 
of  their  plundering  the  Treasury  and  pillaging  the 
town,  before  the  troops  which  had  been  sent  for  could 
be  brought  up,  that  the  civil  authorities  deemed  it 
expedient  to  pacify  the  insurgents  by  restoring  the 
lotahs  to  the  people  in  the  gaols.  And  this  was  not 
held  at  the  time  to  be  a  sudden  outburst  of  rash  and 
misguided  ignorance,  but  the  deliberate  work  of  some 
of  the  rich  native  inhabitants  of  the  town,  and  some 
of  the  higher  native  functionaries  of  our  Civil 
Courts. 

wbcn  Mr.  BichardBon,  magistrate  of    Alipore  gaol  by  a  blow  from  a  brass 
the  24  Pergunnahs,  was  killed  in    lotaii. 


200  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  LOBD  DALHOUSIE. 

1856.  It  was  clear,  indeed,  that  the  inflammability  of  the 

native  mind  was  continually  increasing;  and  that 
there  were  many  influential  persons,  both  Hindoo 
and  Mahomedan,  running  over  with  bitter  resent- 
ments against  the  English,  who  were  eagerly  awaiting 
a  favourable  opportunity  to  set  all  these  combustible 
materials  in  a  blaze.  The  gaol-business  was  an  ex- 
periment, and,  as  far  as  it  went,  a  successful  one.  But 
it  was  not  by  an  outbreak  of  the  convict  population 
that  the  overthrow  of  the  English  was  to  be  accom- 
plished. There  was  another  class  of  men,  equally 
under  the  control  of  the  Government,  whose  cor- 
ruption would  far  better  repay  the  labours  of  the 
Moulavees  and  the  Pundits. 


THE  SEPOY  ARMY.  201 


BOOK  n.— THE  SEPOY  AEMT. 

[1756—1856.] 


CHAPTER  I. 

THB  8EP0T  ABMT  07  THE  COHPAinr — ^ITS  BI8B  AND  FR00BE8S — THE  TISST 
MUTDIT  IH  BENGAL— DBTZKIOBATIKG  IKFLXJENCE8 — DEGBADATION  07 
THE  NATITE  OmCEA— THE  BEORGANISATION  07  1796— PA0GBE88  07  IH- 
VOYATION— THB  KUTISY  07  YELLOBE—LATEB  SIGNS  07  DISAFFECTION — 
CAUSES  07  THE  MUTDiy. 

Whilst  the  hearts  of  the  Aristocracy  and  of  the  1856. 
Priesthood  of  the  country  were  thus  turned  against 
the  government  of  the  English,  there  was  a  third 
great  class,  esteemed  to  be  more  powerful  than  all, 
whom  it  was  believed  that  our  policy  had  propitiated. 
There  was  security  in  the  thought  that  the  Soldiery 
were  with  us.  It  was  the  creed  of  English  statesmen 
that  India  had  been  won  by  the  Sword,  and  must  be 
retained  by  the  Sword.  And  so  long  as  we  held  the 
sword  firmly  in  our  hands,  there  was  but  little  appre- 
hension of  any  internal  danger.  The  British  power 
in  the  East  was  fenced  in  and  fortified  by  an  army 
of  three  hundred  thousand  men. 

A  small  part  only  of  this  Army  was  composed  of 
our  own  countrymen.  Neither  the  manhood  of  Eng- 
land nor  the  revenues  of  India  could  supply  the 
means  of  defending  the  country  only  with  British 
troops.  A  large  majority  of  our  fighting-men  were, 
therefore,  natives  of  India,  trained,  disciplined,  and 


202  THE  SEPOY  ASMY — ^ITS  RISE  AND  PROGRESS. 

1756-1866.  equipped  after  the  English  fashion.  We  had  first 
learnt  from  the  French  the  readiness  with  which  the 
"  Moors"  and  the  "  Gentoos"  could  be  made  to  adapt 
themselves  to  the  habits  and  forms  of  European  war- 
fare, and,  for  a  hundred  years,  we  had  been  im- 
proving on  the  lesson.  Little  by  little,  the  handful 
of  Blacks  which  had  helped  Robert  Clive  to  win  the 
battle  of  Plassey  had  swollen  into  the  dimensions  of 
a  gigantic  army.  It  had  not  grown  with  the  growth 
of  the  territory  which  it  was  intended  to  defend ; 
but  still,  nerved  and  strengthened  by  such  European 
regiments  as  the  exigencies  of  the  parent  state  could 
spare  for  the  service  of  the  outlying  dependency,  it 
was  deemed  to  be  of  sufficient  extent  to  support  the 
Government  which  maintained  it  against  all  foreign 
enmity  and  all  intestine  revolt. 

It  was,  doubtless,  a  strange  and  hazardous  experi- 
ment upon  the  forbearance  of  these  disciplined  native 
fighting-men,  held  only  by  the  bondage  of  the  Salt  in 
allegiance  to  a  trading  Company  which  had  usurped 
the  authority  of  their  Princes  and  reduced  their 
countrymen  to  subjection.  But  it  was  an  experi- 
ment which,  at  the  date  of  the  commencement  of 
this  history,  had  stood  the  test  of  more  than  a  cen- 
tury of  probation.  The  fidelity  of  the  Native  Army 
of  India  was  an  established  article  of  our  faith.  Tried 
in  many  severe  conjimctures,  it  had  seldom  been 
found  wanting.  The  British  Sepoy  had  faced  death 
without  a  fear,  and  encountered  every  kind  of  suf- 
fering and  privation  without  a  murmur.  Commanded 
by  officers  whom  he  trusted  and  loved,  though  of 
another  colour  and  another  creed,  there  was  nothing, 
it  was  said,  which  he  would  not  do,  there  was  no- 
thing which  he  would  not  endure.  In  an  extremity 
of  hunger,  he  had  spontaneously  offered  his  scanty 


DALHOUSIE  ON  THE  SEPOY  AfiMT.  203 

food  to  sustain  the  robuster  energies  of  his  English  1756-1856. 
comrade.  He  had  planted  the  colours  of  his  regi- 
ment on  a  spot  which  European  valour  and  perse- 
verance had  failed  to  reach.  He  had  subscribed 
from  his  slender  earmngs  to  the  support  of  our 
European  wars.  He  had  cheerfully  consented,  when 
he  knew  that  his  Government  was  in  need,  to  forego 
that  regular  receipt  of  pay,  which  is  the  very  life- 
blood  of  foreign  service.  History  for  a  hundred 
years  had  sparkled  with  examples  of  his  noble 
fidelity  ;  and  there  were  few  who  did  not  believe,  in 
spite  of  some  transitory  aberrations,  that  he  would  be 
true  to  the  laat  line  of  the  chapter. 

If  there  were  anything,  therefore,  to  disturb  the  ^866. 
mind  of  Lord  Dalhousie  when  he  laid  down  the  reins 
of  government  on  that  memorable  spring  morning, 
the  trouble  which  oppressed  him  was  not  the  growth 
of  any  mistrust  of  the  fidelity  of  the  Sepoy.  "  Hardly 
any  circumstance  of  his  condition,"  he  said,  in  his 
Farewell  Minute,  "  is  in  need  of  improvement."  And 
there  were  few  who,  reading  this  passage,  the  very 
slendemess  of  which  indicated  a  more  settled  faith  in 
the  Sepoy  than  the  most  turgid  sentences  could  have 
expressed,  did  not  feel  the  same  assurance  that  in 
that  direction  there  was  promise  only  of  continued 
repose.  It  was  true  that  Asiatic  armies  were  ever 
prone  to  revolt — ^that  we  had  seen  Mahratta  armies 
and  Sikh  armies,  Arab  armies  and  Goorkha  armies, 
aU  the  military  rax.es  of  India  indeed,  at  some  time 
or  other  rising  in  mutiny  against  their  Government, 
and  perhaps  overthrowing  it.  But  fifty  years  had 
passed  away  since  the  minds  of  our  British  rulers  had 
been  seriously  disturbed  by  a  fear  of  military  revolt, 
and  that  half  century,  it  was  believed,  had  brought 
full  conviction  home  to  the  understanding  of  the  Sepoy 


204  THE  SEPOY  ARMY — ITS  RISE  AND  PROGRESS. 

1856.  that  the  Company  was  a  good  and  generous  master, 
whose  colours  it  was  a  privilege  to  bear.  Outwardly, 
there  was  only  a  great  calm ;  and  it  was  not  thought 
that  beneath  that  smooth  surface  there  were  any 
latent  dangers  peculiar  to  the  times.  The  Sepoy  was 
esteemed  to  be  "faithful  to  a  proverb;"  and  his 
fidelity  was  the  right  arm  of  our  strength. 


Firat  Sepoy  Qur  first  Scpoy  Icvies  were  raised  in  the  Southern 
Bombay  and  Peninsula,  when  the  English  and  the  French  powers 
Madras.  were  contending  for  the  dominant  influence  in  that 
part  of  the  country.  They  were  few  in  number,  and 
at  the  outset  commonly  held  in  reserve  to  support 
our  European  fighting-men.  But,  little  by  little,  they 
proved  that  they  were  worthy  to  be  entrusted  with 
higher  duties,  and,  once  trusted,  they  went  boldly  to 
the  front.  Under  native  commandants,  for  the  most 
part  Mahomedans  or  high-caste  Rajpoot  Hindoos,  but 
disciplined  and  directed  by  the  English  captain,  their 
pride  was  flattered  and  their  energies  stimulated  by 
the  victories  they  gained.  How  they  fought  in  the 
attack  of  Madura,  how  they  fought  in  the  defence  of 
Arcot,  how  they  crossed  bayonets,  foot  to  foot,  with 
the  best  French  troops  at  Cuddalore,  historians  have 
delighted  to  tell.  All  the  power  and  all  the  respon- 
sibility, all  the  honours  and  rewards,  were  not  then 
monopolised  by  the  English  captains.  Large  bodies 
of  troops  were  sometimes  despatched,  on  hazardous 
enterprises,  under  the  independent  command  of  a 
native  leader,  and  it  was  not  thought  an  offence  to  a 
European  soldier  to  send  him  to  fight  imder  a  black 
commandant.  That  black  commandant  was  then  a 
great  man,  in  spite  of  his  colour.  He  rode  on  horse- 
back at  the  head  of  his  men,  and  a  mounted  staff- 


BIRTH  OF  THE  BENGAL  ARMY.  205 

officer,  a  native  adjutant,  carried  his  commands  to     1756-67. 
the  Soubahdars  of  the  respective  companies.     And  a 
brave  man  or  a  skilful  leader  was  honoured  for  his 
bravery  or  his  skill  as  much  under  the  folds  of  a 
turban  as  under  a  round  hat. 

When  the  great  outrage  of  the  Black  Hole  called  The  Benpd 
Olive's  retributory  army  to  Bengal,  the  English  had  ^^^' 
no  Sepoy  troops  on  the  banks  of  the  Hooghly.  But 
there  were  fourteen  native  battalions  in  Madras, 
numbering  in  all  ten  thousand  men,  and  Clive  took 
two  of  these  with  him,  across  the  black  water,  to 
Calcutta.  Arrived  there,  and  the  first  blow  struck, 
he  began  to  raise  native  levies  in  the  neighbourhood, 
and  a  battalion  of  Bengal  Sepoys  fought  at  Plassey 
side  by  side  with  their  comrades  from  Madras.  Eight 
years  after  this  victory,  which  placed  the  great  pro- 
vince of  Bengal  at  our  feet,  the  one  battalion  had 
swollen  into  nineteen,  each  of  a  thousand  strong.  To 
each  battalion  three  English  officers  were  appointed 
— ^picked  men  from  the  English  regiments.*  The 
native  element  was  not  so  strong  as  in  the  Southern 
Army ;  but  a  good  deal  of  substantive  authority  still 
remained  with  the  black  officers. 

And  that  the  Bengal  Sepoy  was  an  excellent  sol- 
dier, was  freely  declared  by  men  who  had  seen  the 
best  troops  of  the  European  powers.  Drilled  and 
disciplined  in  all  essential  points  after  the  English 
model,  the  native  soldier  was  not  called  upon  to 
divest  himself  of  all  the  distinctive  attributes  of  his 
race.  Nothing  that  his  creed  abhorred  or  his  caste 
rejected  was  forced  upon  him  by  his  Christian 
masters.  He  lived  apart,  cooked  apart,  ate  apart, 
after  the  fashion  of  his  tribe.     No  one  grudged  him 

*  In  1765»  the  number  was  in-    nati?e  commandant  and  ten  Soubah- 
creased  to  fire.    There  were  then  a    dars  to  each  battalion. — Broome, 


206  THE  SEPOT  ARMY — ITS  RISE  AND  PROGRESS. 

1757.  his  necklace,  his  ear-rings,  the  caste-marks  on  his 
forehead,  or  the  beard  which  lay  upon  his  breast. 
He  had  no  fear  of  being  forcibly  converted  to  the  re- 
ligion of  the  white  men,  for  he  could  not  see  that  the 
white  men  had  any  religion  to  which  they  could 
convert  him.  There  waa  no  interference  from  the 
Adjutant-Greneral's  office,  no  paper  government,  no 
perpetual  reference  to  order-books  bristling  with  in- 
novations; and  so  he  was  happy  and  contented, 
obedient  to  the  officers  who  commanded  him,  and 
faithful  to  the  Government  he  served. 

His  predominant  sentiment^  indeed,  was  fideUty  to 
his  Salt,  or,  in  other  words,  to  the  hand  that  fed  him. 
But  if  he  thought  that  the  hand  was  unriffhteously 
closed  to  withhold  from  hun  what  he  believed  his  du^, 
he  showed  hhnself  to  be  most  tenacious  of  his  rights, 
and  he  resolutely  asserted  them.  This  temper  very 
1764.  soon  manifested  itself.  The  Bengal  Army  was  but 
Mutin^'^n  ^evcn  yesTs  old,  when  it  first  began  to  evince  some 
Benf^.  sjrmptoms  of  a  mutinous  spirit.  But  in  this  instance 
the  contagion  came  from  the  Europeans.  The  white 
troops  had  mutinied  because  the  promise  of  a  donation 
to  the  Army  from  Meer  Jaffier  had  halted  on  the  way 
to  performance ;  and  when  the  money  came,  the  Sepoys 
followed  their  example,  because  they  thought  that  they 
were  denied  their  rightful  share  of  the  Prize.  They 
had  just  ground  of  complaint  in  this  instance,  and 
they  were  soothed  by  a  reasonable  concession.*  But 
the  fire  had  not  burnt  itself  out ;  and  before  the  close 
of  the  year  some  regiments  were  again  in  rebellion. 
One  battalion  seized  and  imprisoned  its  English  officers, 
and  vowed  that  it  would  serve  no  more.  It  was  one 
of  those  childish  ebullitions,  of  which  we  have  since 

*  Wbilst  a  private  of  the  Euro-    sii.     Tlie  share  of  the  ktter  was 
pean  Armj  was  to  reoeiye  forbf  ni-    afterwarda  fixed  at  twenty  rupees, 
pees,  it  was  proposed  to  give  a  l^epoy 


BLOWN  FROM  THE  GUNS.  207 

seen  so  many  in  the  Bengal  Army.  But  it  was  plain  1764. 
that  the  evil  was  a  growing  one,  and  to  be  arrested 
with  a  strong  hand.  So  twenty-four  Sepoys  were 
tried,  at  Chuprah,  by  a  drum-head  Court-Martial,  for 
mutiny  and  desertion,  found  guilty,  and  ordered  to  be 
blown  away  firom  the  guns. 

A  century  has  passed  since  the  order  was  carried 
into  execution,  and  many  strange  and  terrible  scenes 
have  been  witnessed  by  the  Sepoy  Army ;  but  none 
stranger  or  more  terrible  than  this.  The  troops 
were  drawn  up,  European  and  Native,  the  guns  were 
loaded,  and  the  prisoners  led  forth  to  suffer.  Major 
Hector  Munro,  the  chief  of  the  Bengal  Army,  super- 
intended that  dreadful  punishment  parade,  and  gave 
the  word  of  command  for  the  first  four  of  the  criminals 
to  be  tied  up  to  the  guns.  The  order  was  being 
obeyed ;  the  men  were  being  bound ;  when  four  tall, 
stately  Grenadiers  stepped  forward  from  among  the 
condemned,  and  represented  that  as  they  had  always 
held  the  post  of  honour  in  life,  it  was  due  to  them  that 
they  should  take  precedence  in  death.  The  request 
was  granted ;  a  brief  reprieve  was  given  to  the  men 
first  led  to  execution ;  the  Grenadiers  were  tied  to 
the  guns,  and  blown  to  pieces  at  the  word  of  com- 
mand. 

Then  all  through  the  Sepoy  battalions  on  that  ghastly 
parade,  there  ran  a  murmur  and  a  movement,  and  it 
seemed  that  the  black  troops,  who  greatly  outnum- 
bered the  white,  were  about  to  strike  for  the  rescue  of 
their  comrades.  There  were  signs  and  sounds  not  to 
be  misunderstood ;  so  the  officers  of  the  native  regi- 
ments went  to  the  front  and  told  Munro  that  their 
men  were  not  to  be  trusted ;  that  the  Sepoys  had  re- 
solved not  to  suffer  the  execution  to  proceed.  On  the 
issue  of  that  reference  depended  the  fate  of  the  Bengal 
Army.     The  English  troops  on  that  parade  were  few. 


208  THE  SEPOY  ARMY — ^ITS  RISE  AND  PROGRESS. 

1764.  There  was  scarcely  a  man  among  them  not  moved  to 
tears  by  what  he  had  seen ;  but  Munro  knew  that 
they  could  be  trusted,  and  that  they  could  defend  the 
guns,  which  once  turned  upon  the  natives  would  have 
rendered  victory  certain.  So  he  closed  the  Europeans 
on  to  the  battery ;  the  Grenadiers  upon  one  side,  the 
Marines  on  the  other,  loaded  the  pieces  with  grape, 
and  sent  the  Sepoy  officers  back  to  their  battalions. 
This  done,  he  gave  the  word  of  command  to  the  native 
regiments  to  groimd  arms.  In  the  presence  of  those 
loaded  guns,  and  of  the  two  lines  of  white  troops 
ready  to  fire  upon  them,  to  have  disobeyed  would 
have  been  madness.  They  moved  to  the  word  of 
command,  laid  down  their  arms,  and  when  another 
word  of  command  was  given,  which  sent  the  Sepoys 
to  a  distance  from  their  grounded  muskets,  and  the 
Europeans  with  the  guns  took  ground  on  the  inter- 
vening space,  the  danger  had  passed  away.  The 
native  troops  were  now  completely  at  Munro's  mercy, 
and  the  execution  went  on  in  their  presence  to  its 
dreadful  close.  Twenty  men  were  blown  away  from 
the  guns  at  that  parade.  Four  were  reserved  for 
execution  at  another  station,  as  a  warning  to  other 
regiments,  which  appeared  to  be  mutinously  disposed, 
and  six  more,  tried  and  sentenced  at  Bankepore,  were 
blown  away  at  that  place.  Terrible  as  was  this 
example,  it  was  the  act  of  a  merciful  and  humane 
man,  and  Mercy  and  Humanity  smiled  sorrowfully, 
but  approvingly,  upon  it.  It  taught  the  Sepoy  Army 
that  no  British  soldier,  black  or  white,  can  rebel 
against  the  State  without  bringing  down  upon  himself 
fearful  retribution,  and  by  the  sacrifice  of  a  few 
guilty  forfeited  lives  checked  the  progress  of  a  disease 
which,  if  weakly  suffered  to  run  its  course,  might 
have  resulted  in  the  slaughter  of  thousands. 


CUVE  AND  THE  BENGAL  OFHCEBS.  209 

The  lesson  was  not  thrown  away.  The  Sepoy  learnt  1766. 
to  respect  the  stem  authority  of  the  Law,  and  felt 
that  the  Nemesis  of  this  new  Government  of  the 
British  was  certain  in  its  operations,  and  not  to  be 
escaped.  And  the  time  soon  came  when  his  con- 
stancy was  tested,  and  found  to  have  the  ring  of 
the  true  metaL  The  European  officers  broke  into 
rebellion;  but  the  natives  did  not  falter  in  their  Mutm?  of  the 
allegiance.  Conceiving  themselves  aggrieved  by  the  oSSl. 
withdrawal  of  the  extraordinary  allowances  which 
they  had  enjoyed  in  the  field,  the  former  determined 
to  remonstrate  against  the  reduction,  and  to  clamour 
for  what  they  called  their  rights.  In  each  brigade 
meetings  were  called,  consultations  were  held,  and 
secret  committees  were  formed,  under  the  disguise  of 
Freemasons'  Lodges.  Headstrong  and  obstinate,  the 
officers  swore  to  recover  the  double  batta  which  had 
been  taken  from  them,  or  to  resign  the  service  in  a 
body.  Large  sums  of  money  were  subscribed,  and 
the  Company's  civihans  contributed  to  the  fund,  which 
was  to  enable  their  military  brethren  to  resist  the 
authority  of  their  common  masters.  It  was  a  for- 
midable conjuncture,  and  one  to  try  the  courage 
even  of  a  Clive.  The  orders  of  the  Company  were 
peremptor}' ;  and  he  was  not  a  man  to  lower  the  au- 
thority of  Government  by  pelding  to  a  threat.  But 
he  could  not  disguise  from  himself  that  there  were 
contingencies  which  might  compel  him  to  make  a 
temporary  concession  to  the  insubordinates ;  one  was 
an  incursion  of  the  Mahrattas,*  the  other  the  defection 
of  the  Sepoys.  Had  the  native  soldiers  sympathised 
with  and  supported  the  English  officers,  the  impetus 

*  "  In  case  the  Mahrattas  should  case,  jou  have  authority  to  make 

still  appear  to  intend  an  invasion,  terms  with  the  officers  of  your  bri- 

or  in  case  you  apprehend  a  mutiny  gade." — Lord  Give  ioCol.Smiih,  Mam 

among  the  troops,  but  in  no  other  11, 1766.  [See  also  following  note.J 

P 


210  TOE  SEPOT  ARMY — ^ITS  RISE  AND  PROGRESS. 

1766.  thus  given  to  the  movement  would  have  overborne 
all  power  of  resistance,  and  Government  must  have 
succumbed  to  the  crisis.  In  this  emergency,  Clive 
saw  clearly  the  importance  of  securing  "  the  fidelity 
and  attachment  of  the  Soubahdars,  or  commanding 
officers  of  the  black  troops,"  and  he  wrote  urgently 
to  his  lieutenants,  Smith  and  Fletcher,  instructing 
them  to  attain  this  end.  But  the  Sepoys  had  never 
wavered.  True  to  their  colours,  they  were  ready  at 
the  word  of  command  to  fire  on  the  white  mutineers. 
Assured  of  this,  Clive  felt  that  the  danger  was  over — 
felt  that  he  could  hold  out  against  the  mutiny  of  the 
English  officers,  even  though  the  European  troops 
should  break  into  revolt.* 

The  founders  of  the  Native  Army  had  conceived 
the  idea  of  a  force  recruited  from  among  the  people 
of  the  country,  and  commanded  for  the  most  part  by 
men  of  their  own  race,  but  of  higher  social  ^sition 
— ^men,  in  a  word,  of  the  master-class,  accustomed  to 
exact  obedience  from  their  inferiors.  But  it  was  the 
inevitable  tendency  of  our  increasing  power  in  India 
to  oust  the  native  functionary  from  his  seat,  or  to  lift 
him  from  hi8  saddle,  that  the  white  man  might  fix  him- 
self  there,  with  all  the  remarkable  tenacity  of  his  race. 
An  Englishman  believes  that  he  can  do  all  things 
better  than  his  neighbours,  and,  therefore,  it  was  doubt- 

*  "The  black  Sepoy  officers,  as  European  battalion  had  got  under 

well  as  men,  have  given  great  proofs  arms,  and  were  preparing  to  leave 

of  fidelity  and  steadiness  upon  this  the  fort  and  follow  their  officers,  and 

occasion,  and  so  Ions  as  they  remain  the  artillery  were  about  to  do  the 

80,  nothing  is  to  oe  apprehended  same,  but  the  unexpected  appear- 

from  the  European  soldiery,  even  if  ance  of  this  firm  line  of  Sepoys,  with 

they  should  be  mutinously  mclined."  tlieir  bayonets  fixed  and  arms  loaded, 

— Clive  to  Smith,  May  15, 1760,  MS,  threw  them  into  some  confusion,  of 

RecortU. — They  had  just  afforded  a  which  Captain  Smith  took  advan- 

striking[  proof  that  they  wore  pre-  tage,  and  warned  them,  that  if  they 

pared,  if  necessary,  to  fire  upon  the  did  not  retire  peaceably  into  their 

Europeans.  See  Broome's  History  of  barracks,  he  would  fire  upon  them 

the  Bengal  Army,  vol.  i.  589 :  "  The  at  once." 


DEGRADATION  OF  THE  NATIVE  OFFICER.  211 

less  with  a  sincere  conviction  of  the  good  we  were  doing  1784. 
that  we  gradually  took  into  our  own  hands  the  reins  of 
office,  civil  and  military,  and  left  only  the  drudgery 
and  the  dirty  work  to  be  done  by  the  people  of  the 
soil.  Whether,  if  we  had  fairly  debated  the  ques- 
tion, it  would  have  appeared  to  us  a  safer  and  a  wiser 
course  to  leave  real  military  power  in  the  hands  of 
men  who  might  turn  it  against  us,  than  to  cast  upon 
the  coimtry  a  dangerous  class  of  malcontents  identi- 
fying the  rise  of  the  British  power  with  their  own 
degradation,  it  may  now  be  difficult  to  determine. 
But  any  other  result  than  that  before  us  would  have 
been  utterly  at  variance  with  the  genius  of  the 
English  nation,  and,  theorise  as  we  might,  was  not  to 
be  expected.  So  it  happened,  in  due  course,  that 
the  native  officers,  who  had  exercised  real  authority 
in  their  battalions,  who  had  enjoyed  opportunities  of 
personal  distinction,  who  had  felt  an  honourable 
pride  in  their  position,  were  pushed  aside  by  an  in- 
cursion of  English  gentlemen,  who  took  all  the  sub- 
stantive power  into  their  hands,  and  left  scarcely 
more  than  the  shadow  of  rank  to  the  men  whom 
they  had  supplanted.  An  English  subaltern  was  Increase  of 
appointed  to  every  company,  and  the  native  officer  o^e«. 
then  began  to  collapse  into  sometiiing  littie  better 
than  a  name. 

As  the  degradation  of  the  native  officer  was  thus 
accomplished,  the  whole  character  of  the  Sepoy  army 
was  changed.  It  ceased  to  be  a  profession  in  which 
men  of  high  position,  accustomed  to  command, 
might  satisfy  the  aspirations  and  expend  the  ener- 
gies of  their  lives.  All  distinctions  were  effaced. 
The  native  service  of  the  Company  came  down  to  a 
dead  level  of  common  soldiering,  and  rising  from  the 
ranks  by  a  painfully  slow  process  to  merely  nominal 

p2 


212  THE  SEPOT  ABMT — ITS  RISE  AND  PROGRESS. 

1784-96.  command.  There  was  emplojmient  for  the  many ; 
there  was  no  longer  a  career  for  the  few.  Thence- 
forth, therefore,  we  dug  out  the  materials  of  our 
army  from  the  lower  strata  of  society,  and  the  gentry 
of  the  land,  seeking  military  service,  carried  their 
ambitions  beyond  the  red  line  of  the  British  frontier, 
and  oflfered  their  swords  to  the  Princes  of  the  Native 
States. 

But  in  those  lower  strata  there  were  elementary 
diversities  of  which  in  England  we  know  nothing. 
The  lower  orders  amongst  us  are  simply  the  lower 
orders — all  standing  together  on  a  common  level 
of  social  equality;  we  recognise  no  distinctions 
among  them  except  in  respect  of  the  callings  which 
they  follow.  Thus  one  common  soldier  differs  only 
from  another  common  soldier  in  the  height  of  his 
stature,  or  the  breadth  of  his  shoulders,  or  the  steadi- 
ness of  his  drill.     But  in  India  the  great  institution 

Caste,  of  Caste — at  once  the  most  exclusive  and  the  most 
levelling  system  in  the  world — ^may  clothe  the  filthiest, 
feeblest  mendicant  with  all  the  dignities  and  powers 
of  the  proudest  lord.  So,  in  our  native  army,  a 
Sepoy  was  not  merely  a  Sepoy.  He  might  be  a  Brah- 
min, or  he  might  be  a  Pariah ;  and  though  they 
might  stand  beside  each  other  shoulder  to  shoulder, 
foot  to  foot,  on  the  parade-ground,  there  was  aa  wide 
a  gulf  between  them  in  the  Lines,  as  in  our  own 
country  yawns  between  a  dustman  and  a  duke. 

In  the  Bengal  Army  the  Sepoys  were  chiefly  of 
high  Caste.  Deriving  its  name  from  the  country  in 
which  it  was  first  raised,  not  from  the  people  com- 
posing it,  it  was  recruited  in  the  first  instance  from 
among  the  floating  population  which  the  Mahomedan 
conquest  had  brought  from  the  northern  provinces — 
from  Rohilcund,  from  Oude,  from  the  country  be- 


CASTE  IN  THE  ASMY.  213 

tween  the  two  rivers ;  men  of  migratory  habits,  and  I784.9a 
martial  instincts,  and  sturdy  frames,  differing  in  all 
respects,  mind  and  body,  from  the  timid,  feeble  deni- 
zens of  Bengal.  The  Jat,  the  Rajpoot,  and  the 
priestly  Brahmin,  took  service,  with  the  Patan,  under 
the  great  white  chief,  who  had  humbled  the  pride  of 
Soorajah  Dowlah.  And  as  time  advanced,  and  the 
little  local  militia  swelled  into  the  bulk  of  a  magnifi- 
cent army,  the  aristocratic  element  was  stiU  dominant 
in  the  Bengal  Army.  But  the  native  troops  of 
Madras  and  Bombay  were  made  up  from  more  mixed 
and  less  dainty  materials.  There  were  men  in  the 
ranks  of  those  armies  of  all  nations  and  of  all  castes, 
and  the  more  exclusive  soon  ceased  from  their  exclu- 
siveness,  doing  things  which  their  brethren  in  the 
Bengal  Army  shrunk  from  doing,  and  solacing  their 
pride  with  the  reflection  that  it  was  the  "  custom  of 
the  country."  Each  system  had  its  advocates.  The 
Bengal  Sepoy,  to  the  outward  eye,  was  the  finest 
soldier;  tallest,  best-formed,  and  of  the  noblest  pre- 
sence. But  he  was  less  docile  and  serviceable  than 
the  Sepoy  of  the  Southern  and  the  Western  Armies. 
In  the  right  mood  there  was  no  better  soldier  in  the 
world,  but  he  was  not  always  in  the  right  mood ;  and 
the  humours  which  he  displayed  were  ever  a  source 
of  trouble  to  his  commanders,  and  sometimes  of  dan- 
ger to  the  State. 

In  an  army  so  constituted,  the  transfer  of  all  sub-  The  Sepo^r 
stantive  authority  to  a  handful  of  alien  officers  ^®^^' 
might  have  been  followed  by  a  fatal  collapse  of  the 
whole  system,  but  for  one  fortimate  circumstance, 
which  sustained  its  vitality.  The  officers  appointed 
to  command  the  Sepoy  battalions  were  picked  men ; 
men  chosen  from  the  European  regiments,  not  merely 
as  good  soldiers,  skilled  in  their  professional  duties, 


214  THE  SEPOY  ASMY — US  RISE  AND  PROGRESS. 

1784.96.  but  as  gentlemen  of  sound  judgment  and  good 
temper,  acquainted  with  the  languages  and  the 
habits  of  the  people  of  the  country,  and  prone  to 
respect  the  prejudices  of  the  soldiery.  The  command 
of  a  native  battalion  was  one  of  the  highest  objects 
of  ambition.  It  conferred  large  powers  and  often 
great  wealth  upon  the  Sepoy  officer;  and  though 
the  system  was  one  pregnant  with  abuses,  which 
we  see  clearly  in  these  days,  it  contained  that 
great  principle  of  cohesion  which  attached  the  Eng- 
lish officer  and  the  native  soldier  to  each  other — 
cohesion,  which  the  refinements  of  a  later  civilisation 
were  doomed  rapidly  to  dissolve. 

1796.  It  lasted  out  the  century,  but  scarcely  survived  it.* 

The  English  Sepoy -officer  having  become  a  great 
substantive  fact,  not  a  mere  excrescence  upon  the 
general  body  of  the  English  Army,  it  became  ne- 
cessary to  define  his  position.  He  had  many  great 
advantages,  but  he  had  not  rank;  and  the  Com- 
pany's officer  found  himself  continually  superseded  by 
younger  men  in  the  King's  army.  Very  reasonably, 
if  not  always  very  temperately,  he  began  then  to 
assert  his  rights ;  and  the  result  was  an  entire  reor- 

*  That  the  national  basis,  which  command  of  this  party,"  says  the 

had    originally    distinguished    the  biographer,    "  went   Ensign   John 

foundation  of  the  Madras  Army,  did  Malcolm.  This  was  his  firat  service ; 

not  very  long  survive  the  establish-  and  it  was   long  remembered    by 

ment  of  the  reformed  system  of  Ben-  others  than  the  youthful  hero  him* 

gal,  and  that  the  native  officers  soon  self.    When  the  detachment  met  the 

lost  the  power  and  the  dignity  in  prisoners'    escort,    a    bright-faced, 

which  they  had  once  rejoiced,  may  healthy  English  boy  was  seen  by  the 

be  gathered  from  an  early  incident  in  latter  riding  up  to  them  on  a  rough 

the  Life  of  Sir  John  Malcolm.    It  pony.    Dalks  asked  him  after  his 

was  in  1784,  when  an  exchange  of  commanding  officer,  '/am  the  com- 

prisoners  with  Tippoo  had  been  ne-  manding  officer,'  said  young  Mal- 

gotiated,  that  a  detachment  of  two  colm."     As  Malcolm  was  lx>m  in 

companies  of  Sepoys  was  sent  out  1769,  he  must  at  this  time  have  been 

from  our  side  of  the  Mysore  frontier  a  boy  of  fifteen ;  yet  he  commanded 

to   meet  the   escort  under  Major  a  detachment  of  two  companies  of 

Dallas  conveying  the  English  pri-  Sepoys,  and  all  the  old  native  officers 

soDcrs   from   Seriugapatam.      "  In  attached  to  them. 


THE  REORGANISATION  OF  1796.  215 

ganisation  of  the  Company's  army,  which  greatly  im-  1796. 
proved  the  status  of  its  old  officers  and  opened  a  door 
for  the  employment  of  a  large  number  of  others.  By  the 
regulations.then  framed,  two  battalions  of  Sepoys  were 
formed  into  one  regiment,  to  which  the  same  number 
of  officers  were  posted  as  to  a  regiment  in  the  King's 
army,  and  all  took  rank  according  to  the  date  of 
their  commissions.  It  was  beUeved  that  the  increased 
number  of  European  officers  would  add  to  the  effi- 
ciency of  the  Native  Army.  But  it  was  admitted, 
even  by  those  who  had  been  most  active  in  working 
out  the  new  scheme,  that  it  did  not  develop  all  the 
good  results  with  which  it  was  believed  to  be  laden. 
The  little  authority,  the  little  dignity,  which  still 
clung  to  the  position  of  the  native  officers  was  then 
altogether  effaced  by  this  new  incursion  of  English 
gentlemen;*  and  the  discontent,  which  had  been 
growing  up  in  the  minds  of  the  soldiery,  began  then 
to  bear  bitter  fruit. 

But  this  was  not  all.  The  new  regulations,  which 
so  greatly  improved  the  position  of  the  Company's 
officers,  and  in  no  respect  more  than  in  that  of  the 
pensions  which  they  were  then  permitted  to  enjoy, 
held  out  great  inducements  to  the  older  officers  of  the 
Company's  army  to  retire  from  active  service,  and  to 
spend  the  remainder  of  their  days  at  home.  Many  of 
the  old  commandants  then  prepared  to  leave  the  bat- 
talions over  which  they  had  so  long  exercised  paternal 
authority,  and  to  give  up  their  places  to  stran- 
gers. Not  only  was  there  a  change  of  men,  but  a 
change  also  of  system.  The  English  officer  rose  by 
seniority  to  command.      The  principle  of  selection 

*  It  was  alleged  to  be  an  ad  van-  would  obviate  the  necessity  of  ever 
tage  of  the  new  system  that  the  in-  sending  out  a  detachment  under 
creased  number  of  English  olllccrs    native  command. 


216  THE  8EP0T  ARlfT — ^ITS  BISE  AND  PROGRESS. 

1796  was  abandoned.  And  men,  who  could  scarcely  call 
for  a  glass  of  water  in  the  language  of  the  counliy,  or 
define  the  difference  between  a  Hindoo  and  a  Ma- 
homedan,  found  themselves  invested  with  responsi- 
bilities  which  ought  to  have  devolved  only  on  men  of 
large  local  experience  and  approved  good  judgment 
and  temper. 
le  Mysore  But  the  evil  results  of  the  change  were  not  imme- 
g^  diately  apparent.  The  last  years  of  the  eighteenth,  and 

the  first  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  were  years  of 
active  Indian  warfare.  In  the  Mysore  and  in  tiie  Mah- 
ratta  countries  the  Sepoy  had  constant  work,  under 
great  generals  whom  he  honoured  and  he  trusted ; 
he  had  strong  faith  in  the  destiny  of  the  Company ;  and 
his  pride  was  flattered  by  a  succession  of  brilliant 
victories.  But  it  is  after  such  wars  as  those  of  Harris, 
Lake,  and  Wellesley,  when  a  season  of  stagnation 
succeeds  a  protracted  period  of  excitement,  that  the 
discipline  of  an  army,  whether  in  the  East  or  in  the 
West,  is  subjected  to  its  severest  trials.  All  the 
physical  and  moral  properties  which  have  so  long 
sustained  it  in  high  health  and  perfect  efficiency  then 
seem  to  collapse;  and  the  soldier,  nerveless  and 
languid,  readily  succumbs  to  the  deteriorating  in- 
fluences by  which  he  is  surrounded.  And  so  it 
was  with  the  Sepoy  after  those  exhausting  wars.  He 
was  in  the  state  which,  of  all  others,  is  most  suscep- 
tible of  deleterious  impressions.  And,  unhappily, 
there  was  one  especial  source  of  annoyance  and  alarm 
to  irritate  and  disquiet  him  in  the  hour  of  peace. 
Amidst  the  stem  realities  of  active  warfare,  the  Euro- 
pean officer  abjures  the  pedantries  of  the  drill-sergeant 
and  the  fopperies  of  the  regimental  tailor.  He  has  no 
time  for  small  things;  no  heart  for  trifles.  It  is 
enough  for  him  that  his  men  are  in  a  condition  to 


DRESS  AND  DRILL.  217 

fight  battles  and  to  win  them.     But  in  Peace  he      1805. 
sometimes  shrivels  into  an  Arbiter  of  Drill  and  Dress, 
and  worries  in  time  the  best  of  soldiers  into  malcon- 
tents and  mutineers. 

And  so  it  was  that,  after  the  fierce  excitement  of 
the  Mysore  and  Mahratta  wars,  there  arose  among  our 
English  officers  an  ardour  for  military  improvement ; 
and  the  Sepoy,  who  had  endured  for  years,  without  a 
murmur,  all  kinds  of  hardships  and  privations,  under 
canvas  and  on  the  line  of  march,  felt  that  life  was  less 
endurable  in  cantonments  than  it  had  been  in  the 
fidd,  and  was  continually  disturbing  himself,  in  his 
matted  hut,  about  the  new  things  that  were  being 
forced  upon  him.  All  sorts  of  novelties  were  bristling 
up  in  his  path.  He  was  to  be  drilled  after  a  new 
English  fashion.  He  was  to  be  dressed  after  a 
new  English  fashion.  He  was  to  be  shaved  after 
a  new  English  fashion.  He  was  not  smart  enough 
for  the  Martinets  who  had  taken  him  in  hand  to 
polish  him  up  into  an  English  soldier.  They  were 
stripping  him,  indeed,  of  his  distinctive  Oriental  cha- 
racter ;  and  it  was  not  long  before  he  began  to  see  in 
these  efforts  to  Anglicise  him  something  more  than 
the  vexatious  innovations  and  crude  experiments  of 
European  military  reform. 


To  these  annoyances  and  vexations  the  Madras  Matmy  of 
Army  were  especially  subjected.  Composed  as  were  its  ^^* 
batt^ons  of  men  of  different  castes,  and  not  in  any 
way  governed  by  caste  principles,  they  were  held  to  be 
peculiarly  accessible  to  innovation;  and,  little  by 
little,  all  the  old  outward  characteristics  of  the  native 
soldier  were  effaced,  and  new  things,  upon  the  most 
approved  European  pattern,  substituted  in  their  place. 


218 


THE  SEPOY  AKMY — ITS  RISE  AND  PROGRESS. 


1S05-6.  At  last  the  Sepoy,  forbidden  to  wear  the  distinguish- 
ing marks  of  Caste  on  his  forehead,  stripped  of  his 
ear-rings,  to  which,  by  ties  alike  of  vanity  and  super- 
stition, he  was  fondly  attached,*  and  ordered  to  shave 
himself  according  to  a  regulation  cut,f  was  put  into 
a  stiff  round  hat,  like  a  Pariah  drummer's,  with  a  flat 
top,  a  leather  cockade,  and  a  standing  feather.  It  was 
no  longer  called  a  "  turband ;"  it  was  a  hat  or  cap ;  in 
the  language  of  the  natives,  a  topi ;  and  a  topi-wallah^ 
or  hat-wearer,  was  in  their  phraseology  a  synonym 
for  a  Feringhee  or  Christian. 

The  Sepoy  is  not  logical,  but  he  is  credulous  and 
suspicious.  It  was  not  difficult  to  persuade  him  that 
there  were  hidden  meanings  and  occult  designs  in  all 
this  assimilation  of  the  native  soldier's  dress  to  that  of 
the  European  fighting-man.  The  new  hat  was  not 
merely  an  emblem  of  Christianity,  and  therefore 
possessed  of  a  grave  moral  significance,  but  materially, 
also,  it  was  discovered  to  be  an  abomination.  It  was 
made  in  part  of  leather  prepared  from  the  skin  of  the 
unclean  hog,  or  of  the  sacred  cow,  and  was,  therefore, 
an  offence  and  a  desecration  alike  to  Mahomedan  and 
Hmdoo.  The  former  had  no  distinguishing  marks  of 
caste  to  be  rubbed  off  on  parade  with  a  dirty  stick,  but 
he  venerated  hU  beard  L  hb  ear-rrngs,  Li,  under 
the  force  of  contact  and  example,  he  had  developed 
many  strong  generic  resemblances  to  the  caste- 
observing  Hindoo.    The  Mahomedan  of  India  differs 


*  By  the  Mahomedan  Sepoy  the 
ear-ring  was  often  worn  as  a  charm. 
It  was  given  to  him  at  his  birth,  and 
dedicated  to  some  patron  saint. 

f  See  the  following.  Para.  10, 
Sec.  11,  Standing  Orders  of  Madras 
Army :  "  It  is  ordered  by  the  Regu- 
lations that  a  native  soldier  shall  not 
mark  his  face  to  denote  his  caste,  or 


wear  ear-rings  when  dressed  in  his 
uniform ;  and  it  is  further  directed, 
that  at  aJl  parades,  and  on  all  duties, 
every  soldier  of  the  battalion  shall 
be  clean-shaved  on  the  chin.  It  is 
directed,  also,  that  uniformity  shall, 
as  far  as  is  practicable,  be  preserved 
in  regard  to  the  quantity  and  shape 
of  the  hair  on  the  upper  lip." 


THE  HINDOOISED  MAHOMEDAN.  219 

greatly  in  his  habits  and  his  feelings  from  the  Ma-  1806. 
homedan  of  Central  Asia  or  Arabia;  he  accommo- 
dates himself,  in  some  sort,  to  the  usages  of  the 
country,  and  being  thus  readily  acclimatised,  he 
strikes  strong  root  in  the  soil.  Christianity  does  not 
differ  more  than  Mahomedanism,  doctrinaUy  or  ethi- 
cally, from  the  religion  of  the  Hindoos;  but  in 
the  one  case  there  may  be  social  fusion,  in  the 
other  it  is  impossible.  Even  in  the  former  instance, 
the  fusion  is  imperfect,  and  there  is  in  this  partial 
assimilation  of  races  one  of  the  chief  elements  of  our 
security  in  India.  But  the  security  derived  from  this 
source  is  also  imperfect ;  and  circumstances  may  at 
any  time,  by  an  unfortunate  coincidence,  appeal  to 
the  ethnical  resemblances  and  the  common  instincts 
of  different  nationalities,  in  such  a  manner  as  to  excite 
in  both  the  same  fears  and  to  raise  the  same  aspira- 
tions, and  so  to  cause  all  diversities  to  be  for  a  time 
forgotten.  And  such  a  coincidence  appears  now  to 
have  arisen.  Different  races,  moved  by  the  sense  of 
a  common  danger,  and  roused  by  a  common  hope, 
forgot  their  differences,  and  combined  against  a 
common  foe. 

And  so  it  happened  that  in  the  spring  of  1806,  the 
Hindoo  and  Mahomedan  Sepoy  in  the  Southern 
Peninsula  of  India  were  talking  together,  like  caste- 
brothers,  about  their  grievances,  and  weaving  plots 
for  their  deliverance.  It  is  pardy  by  accident,  partly 
by  design,  that  such  plots  ripen  in  the  spring.  By 
accident,  because  relieved  from  cold-weather  exercises, 
parades,  field-days,  and  inspections,  the  soldier  has 
more  leisure  to  ruminate  his  wrongs,  and  more  time 
to  discuss  them.  By  design,  because  the  coming  heats 
and  rains  paralyse  the  activities  of  the  white  man,  and 
are  great  gain  to  the  native  mutineer.     In  April  and 


220  THE  SEPOT  ABMT — ^ITS  RISE  AND  PROGRESS. 

1806.  May  the  English  officer  sees  little  of  his  men ;  his 
visits  to  the  Lines  are  few ;  few  are  his  appearance  on 
parade.  He  is  languid  and  prostrate.  The  morning 
and  evening  ride  are  as  much  as  his  energies  can 
compass.  The  Sepoy  then,  disencumbered  of  dress 
and  dismissed  from  drill,  can  afford  to  snatch  some 
hours  from  sleep  to  listen  to  any  strange  stories,  told 
by  wandering  mendicants,  with  the  odour  of  sanctified 
filth  about  them,  and  to  discuss  the  most  incredible 
fables  with  all  the  gravity  of  settled  belief.  There  is 
always  more  or  less  of  this  vain  talk.  It  amuses  the 
Sepoy  and  for  a  while  excites  him  with  a  visionary 
prospect. of  higher  rank  and  better  pay,  under  some 
new  dispensation.  But  he  is  commonly  content  to 
regard  this  promised  time  as  a  far-off  Hegira,  and,  as 
he  turns  himself  round  on  his  charpoy  for  another 
nap,  he  philosophically  resolves  in  the  mean  while  to 
eat  the  Company's  salt  in  peace,  and  to  wait  God's 
pleasure  in  quietude  and  patience. 

But  there  was  at  this  time  something  more  to  excite 
the  imagination  of  the  Sepoy  in  Southern  India  than 
the  ordinary  vain  talk  of  the  Bazaars  and  the  Lines. 
The  travelling  fakeers  were  more  busy  with  their  in- 
ventions ;  the  rumours  which  they  carried  from  place 
to  place  were  more  ominous ;  the  prophecies  which 
they  recited  were  more  significant  of  speedy  fulfilment. 
There  was  more  point  in  the  grotesque  performances 
of  the  puppet-shows  —  more  meaning  in  the  rude 
ballads  which  were  sung  and  the  scraps  of  verse 
which  were  cited.  Strange  writings  were  dropped  by 
unseen  hands,  and  strange  placards  posted  on  the 
waUs.  At  all  the  large  military  stations  in  the 
Camatic  and  in  the  Deccan  there  was  an  uneasy  feel- 
ing as  of  something  coming.  There  were  manifold 
signs  which  seemed  to  indicate  that  the  time  to  strike 


GRIEVANCES  OF  THE  SEPOTS.  221 

had  arrived,  and  so  the  Sepoy  began  to  take  stock  of      1806. 
hb  griev^es  and  to  set  befo^  him  aU  the  benefits  of 
change. 

The  complaints  of  the  Sepoy  were  many.  If  he 
were  to  pass  his  whole  life  in  the  Company's  service 
and  do  what  he  might,  he  could  not  rise  higher  than 
the  rank  of  Soubahdar ;  there  had  been  times  when 
distinguished  native  soldiers  had  been  appointed  to 
high  and  lucrative  commands,  and  had  faithfully  done 
th^  du^ ,  but  .hose  times  M  passed,  a.d,  iosLd  of 
being  exalted,  native  officers  were  habitually  degraded. 
A  Sepoy  on  duty  always  presented  or  carried  arms  to 
an  English  officer,  but  an  English  soldier  suffered  a 
native  officer  to  pass  by  without  a  salute.  Even  an 
English  Sergeant  commanded  native  officers  of  the 
highest  rank.  On  parade,  the  English  officers  made 
mistakes,  used  the  wrong  words  of  command,  then 
threw  the  blame  upon  the  Sepoys  and  reviled  them. 
Even  native  officers,  who  had  grown  grey  in  the 
service,  were  publicly  abused  by  European  striplings. 
On  the  line  of  march  the  native  officers  were  com- 
pelled to  live  in  the  same  tents  with  the  common 
Sepoys,  and  had  not,  as  in  the  armies  of  native 
potentates,  elephants  or  palanquins  assigned  to  them 
for  their  conveyance,  how  great  soever  the  distance 
which  they  were  obliged  to  traverse.  And  if  they  rode 
horses  or  ponies,  purchased  from  their  savings,  the 
English  officer  frowned  at  them  as  upstarts.  "The 
Sepoys  of  the  Nizam  and  the  Mahratta  chiefs,"  they 
said,  "  are  better  off  than  our  Soubahdars  and 
Jemidars."  Then  it  was  urged  that  the  Company's 
officers  took  the  Sepoys  vast  distances  from  their 
homes,  where  they  died  in  strange  places,  and  that 
their  wives  and  children  were  left  to  beg  their  bread ; 
that    native    Princes,    when    they    conquered   new 


222  THE  SEPOT  ABMT — ITS  RISE  AND  PROGRESS. 

1806.  countries,  gave  grants  of  lands  to  distinguished 
soldiers,  but  that  the  Company  only  gave  them  sweet 
words ;  that  the  concubines  of  the  English  gentlemen 
were  better  paid  than  the  native  officers,  and  their 
grooms  and  grass-cutters  better  than  the  native 
soldiers ;  that  the  English  officers  could  import  into 
their  Zenanas  the  most  beautiful  women  in  the 
country,  whilst  the  natives  hardly  dared  look  at  the 
slave-girls;  and,  to  crown  all,  it  was  declared  that 
Greneral  Arthur  Wellesley  had  ordered  his  wounded 
Sepoys  to  be  mercilessly  shot  to  death. 

Preposterous  as  were  some  of  the  fables  with  which 
this  bill  of  indictment  was  crusted  over,  there  was 
doubtless  beneath  it  a  large  substratum  of  truth. 
But  the  alleged  grievances  were,  for  the  most  part, 
chronic  ailments  which  the  Sepoy  had  been  long 
enduring,  and  might  have  endured  still  longer,  pa- 
tiently and  silently,  had  they  not  culminated  in 
the  great  outrage  of  the  round  hat,  with  its  auxiliary 
vexations  of  the  shorn  beard,  the  effaced  caste-marks, 
and  the  despoiled  ear-rings.  Then,  it  was  not  diffi- 
cult to  teach  him  that  this  aggregation  of  wrongs 
had  become  intolerable,  and  that  the  time  had 
come  for  him  to  strike  a  blow  in  defence  of  his 
rights.  And  the  teacher  was  not  far  distant.  The 
great  Mahomedan  usurpation  of  Mysore  had  been 
overthrown,  but  the  representatives  of  the  usurper 
were  still  in  the  country.  The  family  of  the  slain 
Sultan  were  living  in  the  fort  of  Vellore,  as  the 
clients  rather  than  the  captives  of  the  English,  with 
abundant  wealth  at  their  command,  and  a  numerous 
body  of  Mussulman  attendants.  But  generous  as 
was  the  treatment  they  had  received,  and  utterly  at 
variance  with  their  own  manner  of  dealing  with 
fallen  enemies,  they  had  not  ceased  to  bewail  the 


THE  BCY80RE  FRINGES.  223 

loss  of  the  sovereign  power  which  had  passed  from  1806. 
their  House,  or  to  hate  the  conquerors  who  had 
unkinged  them.  In  the  luxurious  idleness  of  Vel- 
lore  they  dreamed  of  the  recovery  of  their  lost 
empire.  There  was  but  one  way  to  the  attainment 
of  that  cherished  object,  and  that  way  was  through 
the  corruption  of  the  Sepoy.  The  time  was  pro- 
pitious, and  the  work  commenced. 

It  ought  not  to  have  been  easy  work,  but  so  it 
was.  If  there  had  been  relations  of  confidence  be- 
tween the  English  officer  and  the  native  soldier,  the 
corruption  of  the  latter  would  have  been  a  task  of 
sore  difficulty  and  danger ;  but  those  relations  were 
not  what  they  had  been  a  few  years  before.  It  was 
not  that  the  officers  themselves  had  deteriorated,  but 
that  a  new  system  had  been  introduced,  which,  greatly 
improving  their  state  and  prospects,  and,  it  may  be 
said,  permanently  increasing  their  efficiency  as  a 
body,  stiU  caused  some  temporary  relaxation  of  the 
ties  which  bound  them  to  the  soldiery  of  the  country. 
The  new  regulations  of  1796,  it  has  been  said,  opened 
out  to  the  elder  generation  of  officers  a  door  by  which 
they  might  retire  on  advantageous  terms  from  the 
service.  Some  took  their  pensions  at  once;  but  a 
period  of  active  warfare  supervened,  and  many 
veteran  officers  waited  for  the  restoration  of  peace 
to  take  advantage  of  the  boon  that  was  offered. 
They  went ;  and  a  new  race  of  men,  young  and  inex- 
perienced, took  their  places.  And  so,  for  a  time,  the 
Sepoy  did  not  know  his  officer,  nor  the  officer  his 
men ;  they  met  almost  as  strangers  on  parade,  and 
there  was  little  or  no  communion  between  them.  It 
was  a  transition-period  of  most  untoward  occurrence, 
when  so  many  other  adverse  influences  were  destroy- 
ing the  discipline  of  the  army ;  and,  therefore,  again 


224  THE  8EP0T  ABMY — ^ITS  RISE  AKD  PB06RESS. 

1806.  I  say  the  hour  was  propitious,  and  the  work  of  cor- 
ruption commenced. 
May  7.  At  the  end  of  the  first  week  of  May,  as  Adjutant- 
SuSny.  General  Agnew  was  rising  from  his  work,  in  the 
white  heat  of  Fort  St.  Greorge,  there  came  tidings  to 
his  office  of  general  disaflfection  among  the  native 
troops  at  Vellore.  One  battalion,  at  least,  already  had 
broken  into  open  mutiny.  The  chief  of  the  Madras 
army.  Sir  John  Cradock,  had  retired  for  the  even- 
ing to  his  garden-house  in  the  pleasant  suburbs  of 
Madras,  so  Agnew  drove  out  to  see  him  with  the  im- 
portant missive  in  his  hand.  A  few  days  afterwards, 
Cradock  was  posting  to  Vellore.  Arrived  there,  he 
found  that  there  had  been  no  exaggeration  in  the 
reports  which  had  been  furnished  to  him,  but  that 
more  judicious  treatment  at  the  outset  might  have 
allayed  the  excitement  among  the  troops,  and  re- 
stored the  confidence  of  the  Sepoy.  So  said  a  Court 
of  Inquiry;  so  said  the  Commander-in-Chief.  A 
gentle  sudorific,  almost  insensibly  expelling  the  pent- 
up  humours,  may  suffice  at  the  beginning,  though 
only  much  blood-letting  can  cure  at  the  end.  But 
ailments  of  this  kind,  in  the  military  body,  seldom 
reveal  themselves  in  their  full  significance  until  the 
time  for  gentle  treatment  is  past.  When  Cradock 
went  to  Vellore  no  mere  explanations  could  repair 
the  mischief  that  had  been  done.  The  mutinous 
troops  were  sent  down  to  the  Presidency,  and  others 
substituted  for  them.  Military  discipline  was  vindi- 
cated for  the  time  by  a  court-martial,  and  two  of  the 
ringleaders  were  sentenced  to  be — ^flogged.  But  the 
infection  still  clung  to  Vellore.  The  whole  native 
garrison  was  tainted  and  corrupted. 

Nor  was  it  a  mere  local  epidemic.  At  other  military 
stations  in  the  Camatic  there  was  similar  excitement. 


mCAUTION  OF  GOYEBNMENT.  225 

Midnight  meetings  were  being  held  in  the  Lines;  ^^^• 
oaths  of  secresy  were  being  administered  to  the 
Sepoys ;  threats  of  the  most  terrible  vengeance  were 
6n.^i  against  any  one  darmg  U.  iLay  them. 
The  native  officers  took  the  lead,  the  men  followed, 
some  roused  to  feelings  of  resentment,  others  huddling 
together  like  sheep,  under  the  influence  of  a  vague 
fear.  In  the  bungalows  of  the  English  captains  there 
was  but  smaU  knowledge  of  what  was  passing  in  the 
Sepoys'  Lines,  and  if  there  had  been  more,  discretion 
would  probably  have  whispered  that  in  such  a  case 
"  silence  is  gold."  For  when  in  the  high  places  of 
(jovemment  there  is  a  general  disinclination  to  believe 
in  the  existence  of  danger,  it  is  scarcely  safe  for  men 
of  lowlier  station  to  say  or  to  do  anything  indicating 
suspicion  and  alarm. 

At  Vellore,  after  the  first  immature  demonstration, 
there  was  a  lull ;  and  the  quietude  had  just  the  effect 
that  it  was  intended  to  have ;  it  disarmed  the  sus- 
picion and  suspended  the  vigilance  of  the  English. 
The  most  obvious  precautions  were  neglected.  Even 
the  significant  fact  that  the  first  open  manifestation 
of  disaffection  had  appeared  under  the  shadow  of  the 
asylum  of  the  Mysore  Princes,  had  not  suggested  any 
special  associations,  or  indicated  the  direction  in  which 
the  watchful  eye  of  the  British  Government  should 
be  turned.  Nothing  was  done  to  strengthen  the  Eu- 
ropean garrison  of  Vellore.*  No  pains  were  taken 
to  cut  off  the  perilous  intercourse  which  existed  be- 

•  **  That  neither  the  Government  Princes.     No  precautions  seem  to 

nor  the  Commander-in-Chief  enter-  have  been  taken  within  the  Fort,  and 

taincd    any    serious    apprehensions  notwithstanding  the  discontent  ma- 

froro  the  agitation  having  first  oc-  nifested  by  the  native  troops,  the 

curred  at  vellore,  b  obvious.    The  garrison  was  still  left  with  only  four 

battalion  that  most  opposed  the  in-  companies  of   Europeans." — Barrw 

novation  was,    indeed,    ordered   to  Close   to  John  Malcolm,     Poonah, 

Madras,  but  nothing  was  directed  Aug.  12, 1806.   MS.  Correspondence. 
indicative  of  any  jealousy  of   the 

Q 


226  THE  SEPOT  ABMY — ITS  RISE  AND  PROGRESS. 

1806.  tween  the  native  soldiery  and  the  occupants  of  the 
Palace.  So  the  latter  went  about  the  Fort  jeering 
the  Sepoj^,  and  telling  them  that  they  would  soon 
be  made  Christians  to  a  man.  The  different  parts 
of  their  uniform  were  curiously  examined,  amidst 
shrugs  and  other  expressive  gestures,  and  significant 
"Wah-wahs!"  and  vague  hints  that  everything 
about  them  in  some  way  portended  Christianity. 
They  looked  at  the  Sepoy's  stock,  and  said,  "  What 
is  this?  It  is  leather!  Weill"  Then  they  would 
look  at  his  belt,  and  tell  him  that  it  made  a  cross 
on  his  breast,  and  at  the  little  implements  of  his 
calb'ng,  the  tumscrew  and  worm,  suspended  from  it, 
and  say  that  they  also  were  designed  to  fix  the  Chris- 
tian's cross  upon  his  person.  But  it  was  the  round 
hat  that  most  of  all  was  the  object  of  the  taunts  and 
warnings  of  the  people  from  the  Palace.  "  It  only 
needed  this,"  they  said,  "  to  make  you  altogether  a 
Feringhee.  Take  care,  or  we  shall  soon  all  be  made 
Christians — Bazaar-people,  Ryots,  every  one  will  be 
compelled  to  wear  the  hat;  and  then  the  whole 
country  will  be  ruined."  Within  the  Fort,  and  out- 
side the  Fort,  men  of  all  kinds  were  talking  about  the 
forcible  conversion  to  Christianity  which  threatened 
them ;  and  everyivhere  the  round  hat  was  spoken  of 
as  the  instrument  by  which  the  Caste  of  the  Hindoo 
was  to  be  destroyed,  and  the  faith  of  the  Mussulman 
desecrated  and  demolished. 

But  all  this  was  little  known  to  the  officers  of  the 
Vellore  garrison,  or,  if  known,  was  little  heeded.  So 
unwilling,  indeed,  were  they  to  believe  that  any 
danger  was  brewing,  that  a  Sepoy  who  told  his 
English  officer  that  the  regiments  were  on  the  eve  of 
revolt  was  put  in  irons  as  a  madman.  The  native 
officers  declared  that  he  deserved  condign  punish- 


OUTBREAK  OF  MUTINY.  227 

ment  for  blackening  the  faces  of  his  corps,  and  they  1806. 
were  readily  believed.  But  the  time  soon  came 
when  the  prophecy  of  evil  was  verified,  and  the  pro- 
phet was  exalted  and  rewarded.  Deeply  implicated  as 
he  was  said  to  be  in  the  plot — a  traitor  first  to  the 
English,  and  then  to  his  own  people — his  name  be- 
came an  offence  and  an  abomination  to  the  Army, 
and  the  favour  shown  to  him  a  source  of  the  bitterest 
resentment.  "The  disposition  of  the  gentlemen  of 
the  Company's  service,"  they  said,  "  and  the  nature 
of  their  government,  make  a  thief  happy,  and  an 
honest  man  afflicted."* 

On  the  10th.  of  July  the  mine  suddenly  exploded.  VeUore, 
It  was  remembered  afterwards  that  on  the  preceding  ^  ' 
afternoon  an  unusual  number  of  people  had  passed 
into  the  Fort)  some  mounted  and  some  on  foot, 
seemingly  on  no  especial  business ;  all  with  an  inso- 
lent, braggart  air,  laughing  and  rollicking,  making 
mimic  battle  among  themselves,  and  otherwise  ex- 
pressing a  general  expectancy  of  something  coming. 
It  was  remembered,  too,  that  on  that  evening  there 
had  been  more  than  the  common  tendency  of  the 
times  to  speak  abusively  of  the  English.  The  Adjutant 
of  a  Sepoy  regiment  had  been  called,  to  his  face, 
by  the  vilest  term  of  reproach  contained  in  the  lan- 
guage of  the  country.f  But  it  has  been  doubted 
whether  the  day  and  hour  of  the  outburst  were  those 
fixed  for  the   development  of  the  plot.      The  con- 

*  From  a  paper  in  Hindostanec,  dar.  The  same  Mnstapha  6ef^,  Sepoy, 

transmitted  to  Adjutant-General  Ag-  was  the  man  who  gave  the  signal  for 

new  from  the  Hjacrabad  Subsidiary  revolt  to  the  people  at  Vellorc,  and 

Force :  "  In  the  affair  at  Vcllore,"  this  is  the  man  wiiom  the  Company 


said  the  Sepoys,  "  when  the  mutiny  have  distinguished  by  their  favour.' 
first  commenced,  it  was  on  account        f  Unhappily  it  is  one  of  the  first 

of  Mustapba  Beg ;  and  the  gentle-  words    which    the    Englishman    in 

men  of  the  Company's  Government  India  learns  to  speak,  and  by  which 

have  bestowed  upon  him  a  reward  of  many  young  officers,  when  displeased, 

two  thousand  pagodas  from  the  pub-  habitually  call  their  native  servants, 
lie  treasury,  with  the  rank  of  Souoah- 

q2 


228  THE  SEPOY  ARMY — ^IT8  RISE  AND  PROGRESS. 

1806.  spirators,  it  is  said,  were  not  ripe  for  action.  Two  or 
three  days  later,  the  first  blow  was  to  have  been 
struck,  but  that  a  Jemadar,  inflamed  with  strong 
drink,  could  not  control  the  passionate  haste  within 
him,  and  he  precipitated  the  collision  which  it  was  the 
•policy  of  his  party  to  defer.*  Numbers  thus  suddenly 
roused  to  action  were  unprepared  to  play  their  parts  ; 
and  letters  which  had  been  written  to  disaffected 
polygars  and  others  in  Mysore  had  not  yet  been  de- 
spatched. It  was  confidently  believed  that  in  a  few 
days  ten  thousand  faithful  adherents  of  the  House  of 
Hyder  would  rally  round  the  standard  of  the  Mussul- 
man Princes.  All  that  was  required  of  the  Sepoys 
was,  that  they  should  hold  Vellore  for  a  week.  At 
the  end  of  that  time  it  was  believed  that  the  whole 
country  would  be  in  the  hands  of  the  insurgents. 
The  European  garrison  of  Vellore,  at  this  time, 
His  Majesty's  consisted  only  of  four  companies  of  a  Line  regiment. 
To  fall  suddenly,  in  the  dead  of  the  night,  on  all  who 
might  happen  to  be  on  guard,  to  overpower  them  by 
numbers,  and  then  to  murder  the  rest  in  their  beds, 
was  apparently  an  easy  task.  Two  hours  after  mid- 
night the  work  commenced.  The  sentries  were  shot 
down.  The  soldiers  on  main  guard  were  killed  as 
they  lay  on  their  cots,  and  the  white  men  in  the 

*  In  the  private  coxrespondence  ing  the  native  guard  fell  sick,  that 

of  the  time,  it  is  stated  that  the  day  the  Soubahdar  was  also  indisposed, 

fixed  for  the  outbreak  was  the  14th.  and  that  Jemadar  Cossim  Khan,  one 

It  appeared,  however,  in  the  evi-  of  the  most  active  of  the  mutineers, 

dence  of  the  first  Ck)mmittee  of  Tn-  was  ea^er  to  go  the  grand  rounds ; 

quiry  assembled  at  Vellore,  that  it  and  it  is  possinle  that  this  accident 

was  agreed  thai  the  first  blow  should  helped  to  precipitate  the  crisis.    On 

be    struck  fifteen    days    after    the  the  other  hand,  it  is  to  be  observed 

Mysore  standard,  prepared   in  the  that  Major  Armstrong,  who  had  been 

Palace,  was  ready  to  be  hoisted,  and  absent  from  Vellore,  and  who  re- 

tliat  thirteen  days  had  then  passed,  turned  on  the  night  of  the  lOth,  was 

The  story  of  the  drunken  Jemad^  warned  by  peopfe  outside  the  Fort 

appears  in  Madras   Secret  Letter,  not  to  enter,  as  something  was  about 

Sept.  30,  1806.    It  happened,  too,  to  happen, 
that  the  European  officer  command- 


THE  MASSACRE  OF  VELLORE.  229 

hospital  were  ruthlessly  butchered.  There  was  then  1806. 
a  scene  of  unexampled  confusion.  Roused  from  their 
beds  by  the  unaccustomed  sound  of  firing  in  the  Fort, 
the  English  officers  went  out  to  learn  the  cause  of  the 
commotion,  and  many  of  them  were  shot  down  by  the 
mutineers  in  the  first  bewilderment  of  surprise.  The 
two  senior  officers  of  the  garrison  were  among  the 
first  who  fell.  On  the  threshold  of  his  house.  Fan- 
court,  who  commanded  the  garrison,  was  warned,  for 
dear  life's  sake,  not  to  come  out,  but  answering  with 
the  Englishman's  favourite  formula  of  "  Never  mind," 
he  made  for  the  Main  Guard,  and  was  shot  with  the 
"  Fall  in  I"  on  his  lips.  Of  the  survivors  two  or 
three  made  their  way  to  the  barracks,  and  took  com- 
mand of  such  of  the  Europeans  as  had  escaped  the 
first  murderous  onslaught  of  the  Sepoys.  But  it  was 
little  that  the  most  desperate  resolution  could  do  in 
this  extremity  to  stem  the  continually  increasing  tide 
of  furious  hostiUty  which  threatened  to  overwhehn 
them.  It  was  no  mere  military  revolt.  The  inmates 
of  the  Palace  were  fraternising  with  the  Sepoys.  From 
the  apartments  oif  the  Princes  went  forth  food  to  re- 
fresh the  weary  bodies  of  the  insurgents,  and  vast 
promises  to  stimulate  and  sustain  the  energies  of  their 
minds.  One  of  the  Princes,  the  third  son  of  Tippoo,  ^"»ce  MoiV 
personally  encouraged  the  leaders  of  the  revolt.  With 
his  own  hands  he  gave  them  the  significant  beetle-nut. 
With  his  own  Ups  he  proclaimed  the  rewards  to  be 
lavished  upon  the  restorers  of  the  Mahomedan  dynasty. 
And  from  his  apartments  a  confidential  servant  was 
seen  to  bring  the  tiger-striped  standard  of  Mysore, 
which,  amidst  vociferous  cries  of  "  Dheen  I  Dheen  I" 
was  hoisted  above  the  walls  of  the  Palace.  But  the 
family  of  the  Sultan  were  soon  forgotten.  There  was 
no  combination  to  aid  their  escape.     The  Sepoys  at 


230  THE  SEPOT  ARMY — ITS  RISE  AND  PROGRESS. 

1806.  first  gave  themselves  up  to  the  work  of  massax^re.  The 
people  from  the  Palace,  following  in  their  wake, 
gorged  themselves  with  the  plunder  of  the  white  men, 
and  aided  the  mutineers  without  sharing  their  danger. 
After  a  time  the  Sepoys  betook  themselves  also  to 
plunder ;  and  the  common  object  was  forgotten  under 
the  excitement  of  personal  greed.  The  white  women 
in  the  Fort  were  spared.  The  tender  mercies  of  the 
wicked,  with  a  refined  cruelty,  preserved  them  for  a 
worse  fate  than  death.  The  people  from  the  Palace 
told  the  Sepoys  not  to  kill  them,  as  all  the  English 
would  be  destroyed,  and  the  Moormen  might  then 
take  them  for  wives.* 

But  whilst  these  terrible  scenes  were  being  en- 
acted, and  the  sons  of  Tippoo  were  swelling  with 
the  proud  certainty  of  seeing  the  rule  of  the  Sultan 
again  established  in  Mysore,  retribution  swift  and 
Major  Coats,  certain  was  overtaking  the  enterprise.  An  officer  of 
the  English  regiment,  who  happened  to  be  on  duty 
outside  the  Fort,  heard  the  firing,  thoroughly  appre- 
hended the  crisis,  and,  through  the  darkness  of  the 
early  morning,  made  his  way  to  Arcot,  to  carry 
thither  the  tidings  of  insurrection,  and  to  summon 
succours  to  the  aid  of  the  imperiUed  garrison.  There 
Tlie  19th  was  a  regiment  of  British  Dragoons  at  Arcot,  under 
DragooM.  ^Yie  command  of  Colonel  Gillespie.  By  seven  o'clock 
Coats  had  told  his  story.  Fifteen  minutes  afterwards, 
GiUespie,  with  a  squadron  of  hh  regiment,  was  on  his 
way  to  Vellore.  The  rest  were  saddling  and  mount- 
ing; the  galloper-guns  were  being  horsed  and  lim- 
bered;  and  a  squadron  of  Native  Cavalry  was  re- 
sponding to  the  trumpet-call  with  as  much  alacrity 

*  The  massacre  included  fourteen    ral  officers  and  men  wounded,  some 
officers   and    ninety  •  nine    soldiers    of  the  latter  mortally, 
killed.    There  were,  moreover,  seve- 


SUGCOUBS  FROM  ARGOT.  231 

as  the  British  Dragoons.  The  saving  virtues  of  1800. 
promptitude  and  preparation  were  never  more  con- 
spicuously manifested.  A  little  vacillation,  a  little 
blundering,  a  little  delay,  the  result  of  nothing  being 
ready  when  wanted,  and  all  might  have  been  lost. 
Never  had  the  sage  precept  of  Hyder  Ali,  that  the 
English  should  keep  their  white  soldiers  like  hunting- 
leopards  in  cages,  and  slip  them  suddenly  and  fiercely 
at  the  enemy,  been  wrought  into  practice  with  more 
terrible  effect,  than  now  against  the  followers  and 
supporters  of  his  descendants. 

Once  under  the  walls  of  Vellore,  Gillespie  was 
eager  to  make  his  way  into  the  Fort,  that  he  might 
rally  the  remnant  of  the  European  garrison  and 
secure  the  safe  admission  of  his  men.  The  outer 
gates  were  open,  but  the  last  was  closed,  and  in  pos- 
session of  the  enemy.  There  was  no  hope  of  forcing 
it  without  the  aid  of  the  guns.  But  these  were  now 
rapidly  approaching.  There  were  good  officers  with 
the  relieving  force,  to  whom  the  conduct  of  external 
operations  might  be  safely  entrusted;  and  Gillespie 
longed  to  find  himself  with  the  people  whoili  he  had 
come  to  save.  So,  whilst  preparations  were  being 
made  for  the  attack,  he  determined  to  ascend  alone 
the  walls  of  the  Fort.  In  default  of  ladders,  the  men 
of  the  69th  let  down  a  rope,  and,  amidst  the  shouts 
of  the  delighted  Europeans,  he  was  drawn  up,  un- 
hurt^ to  the  crest  of  the  ramparts,  and  took  command 
of  the  survivors  of  the  unhappy  force.  Quickly 
forming  at  the  word  of  command,  they  came  down 
eagerly  to  the  charge,  and,  cheered  by  the  welcome 
sound  of  the  guns,  which  were  now  clamouring  for 
admission,  and  not  to  be  denied,  they  kept  the  muti- 
neers at  a  distance  till  the  gates  were  forced;  and 
then  the  cavalry  streamed  in,  and  victory  was  easy. 


i 


232  THE  SEPOY  ARMY — ITS  RISE  AND  PROGRESS. 

1806.  The  retribution  wa^  terrible,  and  just.  Hundreds  fell 
beneath  the  sabres  of  the  Dragoons  and  of  the  native 
horsemen,  who  emulated  the  ardour  of  their  European 
comrades.  Hundreds  escaped  over  the  walls  of  the 
Fort,  or  threw  down  their  arms  and  cried  for  mercy. 
But  the  excited  troopers,  who  had  seen  Tippoo's 
tiger-standard  floating  over  the  citadel  of  Vellore, 
could  not,  after  that  hot  morning-ride,  believe  that 
they  had  done  their  work  until  they  had  destroyed 
the  "cubs."  They  were  eager  to  be  led  into  the 
Palace,  and  there  to  inflict  condign  punishment  on 
those  whom  they  believed  to  be  the  real  instigators 
of  the  butchery  of  their  countrymen.  For  a  moment 
there  was  a  doubt  in  Gillespie's  mind ;  but  an  appeal 
from  Colonel  Marriott,  in  whose  charge  was  the 
Mysore  family,  removed  it;  and  he  put  forth  a  re- 
straining hand.  He  would  not  soil  his  victory  with 
any  cruel  reprisals.  The  members  of  Tippoo's  family 
Avere  now  at  his  mercy,  and  the  mercy  which  he 
showed  them  was  that  which  the  Christian  soldier 
delights  to  rain  down  upon  the  fallen  and  the  help- 
less.* 

*  For  all  ibc  facts  fi^ven  in  the  ibat  Major  Coat«,  who  was  bearer  of 
text,  I  have  the  authority  of  a  mass  the  news,  was  outside  the  Fort  at  the 
of  official,  semi-official,  and  private  time  of  the  outbreak.  It  is  very 
contemporary  correspondence,  which  cenerally  stated,  too,  that  when 
I  have  Tcry  carefully  collated.  In  uiUespie  wished  to  enter  the  Fort  in 
doing  so,  I  have  been  compelled  to  advance  of  his  men,  as  there  were  no 
reject  some  personal  incidents  which  ladders  and  no  ropes,  the  survivors 
have  hitherto  generally  formed  part  of  the  69th  fastened  their  belts  to- 
of  the  narrative  of  the  "  Massacre  gether,  and  thus  drew  him  up  the 
of  Vellore,"  but  ^hich,  however  walls.  But  I  have  before  me  two 
serviceable  they  may  be  for  purposes  letters,  signed  "  R.  Gillespie,"  which 
of  effective  historical  writing,  are,  I  state  that  he  was  drawn  up  hj  a 
am  sorrv  to  say,  at  best  apocryphal,  rope.  Among  the  fictitious  inci- 
It  has  been  said  that  the  officer  who  dents  of  the  mutiny  may  be  men- 
carried  the  tidings  to  Arcot  escaped  tioned  the  whole  of  tlie  stories  which 
through  a  salW-port,  and  swam  the  tell  of  the  foul  murder  of  English 
ditch  of  the  Fx)rt  so  fEunons  for  the  women,  and  the  braining  of  uttle 
number  and  size  of  its  alligators,  children  before  their  mothers'  eyes. 
Sober  official  correspondence  states 


PROGRESS  OF  DISAFFECTION. 


233 


But  the  storm  had  not  expended  itself  in  this  fierce  I8O6. 
convulsion.  Taught  by  so  stem  a  lesson,  the  Go- 
vernment resolved  that  "  all  orders  which  might  be 
liable  to  the  objection  of  affecting  the  usages  of  the 
troops,"  should  be  abandoned.  But  the  obnoxious 
hats  might  have  been  burnt  before  the  eyes  of  the 
troops,  and  the  caste-marks  and  ear-rings  restored  on 
parade,  in  the  presence  of  the  Governor,  the  Com- 
mander.in.Chief,  and  all  the  magnates  of  the  land; 
and  stiU  a  return  to  quietude  and  contentment  might 
have  been  far  distant.  Individual  causes  of  anger 
and  bitterness  might  be  removed,  but  still  there  would 
remain,  together  with  the  mistrust  they  had  engen- 
dered, all  the  vague  anxieties  on  the  one  side,  and  the 
indefinite  expectations  on  the  other,  which  designing 
men  had  excited  in  the  minds  of  the  soldiery.*  Re- 
bellion had  been  crushed  for  a  time  at  its  Head- 
Quarters.  The  British  flag  floated  again  over  Vel- 
lore ;  but  there  were  other  strong  posts,  which  it  had 
been  intended  to  seize,  and  efforts  might  yet  be  made 
to  establish  revolt  in  other  parts  of  the  Southern 
Peninsula, 

Nor  was  it  only  in  Mysore  and  the  Camatic  that  Hyderabad, 
the  spirit  of  disaffection  was  rife.     In  the  Deccan, 
also,  it  was  manifesting  itself  in  a  manner  which,  for 
a  while,  created  serious  alarm.     At  Hyderabad,  the 
capital  of  the  Nizam's  dominions,  there  was  a  high 


•  **  The  subversion  of  the  British 
Empire  in  India  by  foreign  invasion 
and  domestic  revolt,  seems  to  have 
been  the  common  theme  of  discourse 
all  over  the  country,  and  opinions 
have  generally  prevailed  that  such  a 
revolution  was  neither  an  enterprise 
of  great  difficulty,  nor  that  the  ac- 
complishment of  it  was  far  distant. 
A  most  extraordinary  and 


unaccountable  impression  has  been 
made  upon  the  Sepoys,  which  has 
been  fomented  by  prophecies  and 
predictions  inducing  a  belief  that 
wonderful  changes  are  about  to  take 
place,  and  that  the  Europeans  are  to 
DC  expelled  from  India." — General 
Hay  Macdowall,  Nandydroog^  Oct, 
31.    MS,  Correspondence, 


234  THE  SEPOY  ARMY — ITS  RISE  AND  PROGRESS. 

1806.  tide  of  excitement  It  was  apprehended  that  the 
native  troops  of  the  Subsidiary  Force,  encouraged 
and  aided  by  some  of  the  chief  people  of  this  Maho- 
medan  State,  if  not  by  the  Nizam  himself,  would 
break  out  into  revolt.  They  were  wrought  upon  by 
nearly  the  same  influences  as  had  destroyed  the 
loyalty  of  the  troops  in  Mysore,  with  some  peculiar 
aggravations  of  their  own.  A  new  commanding 
Colonel  Men-  officer  had  recently  been  placed  over  them — a  smart 
disciplinarian  of  the  most  approved  European  pattern. 
They  had  been  worried  and  alarmed  before  his  ar 
rivfd.  Montresor's  appearance  soon  made  matters 
worse.  Knowing  little  or  nothing  of  the  habits  and 
feelings  of  the  people  of  the  country,  he  enforced 
the  new  orders  with  more  than  common  strictness, 
and  supplemented  them  with  some  obnoxious  regula- 
tions of  his  own.  An  order  had  been  issued  just 
before  his  arrival  forbidding  the  Sepoy  to  leave  his 
Guard  and  to  divest  himself  of  his  uniform  during 
his  period  of  duty ;  and  now  the  new  English  com- 
mandant prohibited  the  beating  of  taum-taums  in  the 
bazaars.  It  was  not  seen  that  these  prohibitions  were, 
in  effect,  orders  that  the  Hindoo  Sepoy  should  take  no 
sustenance  on  duty,  and  that  there  should  be  no  mar- 
riage and  no  funeral  processions.  When  the  disco- 
very was  made,  the  new  local  regulations  were  re- 
scinded ;  but  it  was  not  possible  to  rescind  the  mis- 
chief that  was  done.  There  was  a  profound  convic- 
tion among  the  Sepoys  that  it  was  the  intention  of 
the  English  to  destroy  their  caste,  to  break  down 
their  religion,  and  forcibly  to  convert  them  to  Chris- 
tianity. And  all  through  the  long  straggling  lines  of 
Hyderabad  there  was  a  continual  buzz  of  alarm,  and 
the  Sepoys  were  asking  each  other  if  they  had  heard 


CONDUCT  OF  THE  NIZAM.  235 

how  the  English  General,  Wemyss  Sahib,  at  Colombo,      1806. 
had  marched  his  native  soldiers  to  Church.* 

That  the  feeling  of  mingled  fear  and  resentment, 
which  had  taken  possession  of  the  minds  of  the  sol- 
diery, was  much  fomented  by  emissaries  from  the 
city  of  Hyderabad,  is  not  to  be  doubted.  Many  lead- 
ing men,  discontented  and  desperate,  at  all  times 
prone  to  intrigue  and  ripe  for  rebellion,  looked 
eagerly  for  a  crisis  out  of  which  might  have  come 
some  profit  to  themselves.  It  is  probable  that  they 
were  in  communication  with  dependents  of  the  House 
of  Tippoo.  It  is  certain  that  they  fostered  the  re- 
sentments and  stimulated  the  ambition  of  the  native 
officers,  and  that  a  programme  of  action  had  been 
agreed  upon,  of  which  murder  and  massacre  were  the 
prelude.f  But  happily  the  Nizam  and  his  minister, 
Meer  Allum — ^the  one  in  word,  the  other  in  spirit — 
were  true  to  the  English  alliance.  Wisely,  in  that 
conjuncture,  did  Sydenham  confide  all  his  troubles 
to  them.  It  is  a  sad  necessity  to  be  compelled  to 
communicate  to  a  native  Prince  the  belief  of  the 
English  Government  that  their  troops  are  not  to  be 
trusted.  But  concealment  in  such  a  case  is  impos- 
sible, and  any  attempt  to  disguise  the  truth  helps 

*  "  It  is  astonishing  how  strong  that  "  the  native  troops  had  been 

and  how  general  the  impression  was  invited  to  desert  their  colours,  to 

of  a  systematic  design  to  enforce  the  break  out  in  open  mutiny,  and  to 

conversion  of  the  oepoys  to  Chris-  murder  their  officers.     It  was  in- 

tianitv.    The  men  here  heard,  and  tended  that  a  commotion  should  have 

talked  of  the  late  arrival  of  some  taken  place  in  the  city  at  the  moment 

clergymen  from  England,  and  of  the  of  the  insurrection  in  cantonments ; 

story  of  General  Wemyss  marching  that  Meer  Allum,  and  all  those  in 

the  Sepoys  to  church  at  Colombo."—  the  interests  of  the  English,  were  to 

Captain  Thomas  Sydenham  {Resident  be  destroyed ;   that  the  Soubahdar 

at  Hyderabad)  to  Mr.  Edmonstone,  TNizam)  was  to  be  confined,  and 

July  27, 1806.    MS.  Correspondence.  Eeridoom  Jah  either  made  Dewan  or 

t  Captain  Sydenham  wrote  that,  placed  on  the  musnud,  as  circum- 

from  the  best  mformation  he  could  stances  might  suggest." — MS.  Cor- 

obtain  at  Hyderabad,  it  appeared  respondenoe. 


236  THE  SEPOY  ABMT— ITS  RISE  AND  PROGRESS. 

1806.  others  to  exaggerate  and  to  distort  it.  The  Nizam 
knew  all  that  nad  been  going  on,  perhaps  before  the 
British  Resident  had  even  a  suspicion  of  it.  Eager 
for  his  support,  and  willing  to  raise  the  standard  of 
revolt  in  his  name,  the  conspirators  had  conveyed  to 
him  a  written  paper  signifying  their  wishes.  He  did 
not  answer  it.  He  did  not  give  it  to  the  Resident. 
He  simply  waited  and  did  nothing.  It  was  not  in 
the  nature  of  the  man  to  do  more.  He  knew  the 
power  of  the  English ;  but  he  secretly  hated  them, 
and  naturally  shrank  from  opposing  or  betraying  a 
cause  which  appealed  to  him  in  the  name  of  his  reli- 
gion. Perhaps  it  is  hardly  fair  to  expect  from  a 
native  Prince,  under  such  conflicting  circumstances, 
more  than  this  negative  support. 

The  feeling  among  the  native  troops  was  so  strong, 
the  danger  appeared  to  be  so  imminent,  that  Mon- 
tresor  was  besought  by  some  old  Sepoy  officers  not 
to  enforce  the  obnoxious  regulations.  But  he  replied 
that  he  had  been  selected  for  that  especial  command 
as  a  fitting  agent  for  their  enforcement,  and  how  could 
he  turn  his  back  upon  his  duty  ?  But  when  tidings 
of  the  massacre  at  Vellore  reached  Hyderabad,  he 
saw  at  once  that  concession  must  be  made  to  the  pre- 
judices of  the  Sepoy,  and  the  orders  were  revoked  in 
Julj  22,1806.  anticipation  of  instructions  from  the  Madras  Govern- 
ment. Still  the  troops  were  not  satisfied.  Having 
gained  one  victory  they  determined  to  attempt  an- 
other. So  they  fell  back  upon  the  old  grievance  of 
the  leather  stock,  and  the  men  of  some  of  the  batta- 
lions, encouraged  by  their  native  officers,  were  seen 
disencumbering  themselves  of  this  article  of  their 
uniform  on  parade,  and  casting  it  contemptuously  on 
the  ground.  A  display  of  vigour  at  the  right  time 
crushed  the  mutiny  ere  it  was  matured.     On  the 


ALARM  AT  NDNDYDROOG.  237 

14th  of  August,  the  troops  at  Hyderabad  were  or-  1806. 
dered  under  arms.  The  English  regiment  was  H.M/8  33rd 
posted  near  the  park  of  artillery,  and  the  cavalry  ^*8i»ent. 
were  drawn  up  en  potence  on  both  flanks.  Then  four 
Soubahdars  of  Native  Infantry,  who  were  believed  to 
be  the  ringleaders  in  the  mutinous  movement,  were 
called  to  the  front  and  marched  off  under  a  guard  of 
thirty  Europeans  and  a  company  of  Sepoys.  Under 
this  escort  they  were  sent  to  Masulipatam.  This 
movement  had  the  best  possible  effect  both  in  the 
cantonment  and  the  city.  Mutiny  was  awe-struck; 
sedition  was  paraljrsed;  conciliatory  explanations 
and  addresses,  which  had  before  failed,  were  now 
crowned  with  success,  and  early  in  the  following 
month  Sydenham  wrote  from  Hyderabad  that  every- 
thing was  "  perfectly  tranquil,  both  in  the  city  and 
the  cantonments."  "The  Sepoys,"  it  added,  "ap- 
pear cheerful  and  contented,  and  the  Government 
goes  on  with  considerable  vigour  and  regularity." 

But  ere  long  the  anxieties  of  the  Government 
again  turned  towards  the  old  quarter.  It  was  clear 
that,  in  the  former  domains  of  the  Sultan,  the  fire, 
though  suppressed  for  a  time,  had  not  been  extin- 
guished. At  Nundydroog,  in  the  heart  of  the  Nundydroog. 
Mysore  territory,  there  had  been  symptoms  of  un- 
easiness from  the  commencement  of  the  year.  The 
native  troops  were  few ;  but  the  fortress,  built  upon 
a  high  scarped  rock,  was  one  of  uncommon  strength, 
and,  well  defended,  might  have  defied  attack.  In 
itself,  therefore,  a  coveted  possession  for  the  rebel 
force,  it  was  rendered  doubly  important  by  its 
position.  For  it  was  within  a  night's  march  of 
the  great  station  of  Bangalore,  and  the  mutineers 
from  that  post  would  have  flocked  to  it  as  a 
rallying-point  and   a  stronghold,    admirably  suited 


238  THE  SEPOY  ABMT— ITS  RISE  AND  PROGRESS. 

1806.  fop  the  Head-Quarters  of  Rebellion.*  The  mfluences, 
therefore,  of  which  I  have  spoken — ^the  fakeers,  the 
conjurors,  the  puppet-sho>vmen,  the  propagators  of 
strange  prophecies — ^were  more  than  commonly  opera- 
tive in  that  direction,  and  had  success  attended  the 
first  outbreak  at  Vellore,  the  Nundydroog  garrison 
would  then  have  turned  upon  their  officers,  hoisted 
the  rebel  flag  on  the  walls  of  the  Fort,  and  displayed 
signals  which  might  have  been  seen  at  Bangalore. 
But  a  season  of  suspended  activity  naturally  followed 
this  failure ;  and  it  was  not  until  the  month  of  Oc- 
tober that  they  ventured  to  resolve  on  any  open 
demonstration.  Then  the  Mahomedan  and  Hindoo 
Sepoys  feasted  together,  bound  themselves  by  solemn 
engagements  to  act  as  brethren  in  a  common  cause, 
and  swore  that  they  would  rise  against  and  massacre 
their  English  officers. 

October  18,  The  day  and  the  hour  of  the  butchery  were  fixed. 
The  native  soldiery  had  quietly  sent  their  families  out 
of  the  Fort,  and  otherwise  prepared  for  the  struggle.f 
Two  hours  before  midnight  on  the  18th  of  October 
the  Sepoys  were  to  have  rushed  upon  their  English 
officers,  and  not  left  a  white  man  living  in  the  place. 

GapLBajnes.  But  about  eight  o'clock  on  that  evening  an  English 
officer  galloped  up  to  the  house  of  the  Commandant 
Cuppage,  and  told  him  that  no  time  was  to  be  lost ; 
that  the  Sepoys  were  on  the  point  of  rising,  and  that 

♦  Mark  Wilks  wrote  td  Barry  themselves  a  strong  post  on  which 
Close,  with  reference  to  this  move-  to  assemble  in  force.  Cuppage's 
ment  at  Nandydroog:  "I  do  not  garrison,  though  small,  may  have 
know  what  to  make  of  all  this ;  men  had  it  in  view  to  seize  on  Nnndy- 
who  had  any  great  combination  in  droog.  Possessed  of  this  strong  post, 
view  oonld  scarcely  have  any  design  the  conspirators  would  have  probably 
to  act  on  so  small  a  scale."  But  assembled  upon  it  in  force,  and  pro- 
Barry  Close,  taking  a  more  compre-  ceeded  to  act  against  us  openly.  — 
hensive  view,  rephed:  "The  great  MS.  Correspondence, 
object  of  the  Insurgents  at  Vellore  f  Colonel  Cuppage  to  Barry  Close, 
seems  to  have  been  to  secure  to  — MS.  Correspondence, 


ALARM  AT  PALLAMCOTTAH.  239 

means  of  safety  must  at  once  be  sought  Scarce  had  1806. 
the  story  been  told,  when  an  old  and  distinguished 
native  officer  came  breathless  with  the  same  intelli- 
gence. There  was  no  room  for  doubt ;  no  time  for 
delay.  An  express,  calling  for  reinforcements,  was 
despatched  to  Bangalore ;  and  the  officers,  selecting 
one  of  their  houses  in  the  Pagoda-square,  which 
seemed  best  adapted  to  purposes  of  defence,  took  post 
together  and  waited  the  issue.  The  night  passed 
without  an  attack;  and  on  the  morrow  afternoon 
safety  came  in  the  shape  of  a  squadron  of  Dragoons 
from  Bangalore.  Colonel  Davis  had  received  the 
tidings  soon  after  daybreak,  and  by  three  o'clock  his 
troopers  were  clattering  into  Nundydroog. 

November  came,  and  with  it  came  new  troubles.  PallamooltaL. 
Far  down  the  coast,  not  many  leagues  removed  from 
the  southernmost  part  of  the  Peninsula,  lies  the  station 
of  Pallamcottah.  There  Major  Welsh,  with  six  Euro- 
pean officers  under  him,  commanded  a  Sepoy  battalion, 
in  which  many  relatives  of  the  mutineers  cut  up  at 
Vellore  were  brooding  over  their  loss  of  kindred. 
Towards  the  end  of  the  third  week  of  the  month,  it 
was  believed  that  the  Mahomedan  Sepoys  were  about 
to  rise  and  to  massacre  all  the  Europeans  in  the  place. 
The  story  ran  that,  rejecting  with  contempt  the  idea 
of  banding  themselves  with  the  Hindoos,  they  had 
met  at  a  mosque  and  concerted  their  murderous  plans. 
Some  buildings  were  to  be  fired  in  the  cantonment  to 
draw  the  English  officers  from  their  homes.  In  the 
confusion,  the  whole  were  to  be  slain,  the  Fort  was  to 
be  seized,  and  the  rebel  flag  hoisted  on  the  ramparts. 
Scenting  the  plot,  a  Malabar-man  went  to  the  mosque 
in  disguise,  and  carried  tidings  of  it  to  the  English 
Commandant.  The  danger  appeared  to  be  imminent, 
and  Welsh  at  once  took  his  measures  to  avert  it. 


240  THE  SEPOT  ABMT — ^ITS  RISE  AITD  PROGRESS. 

1806.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  judgment  and  discretion 
of  the  man,  his  courage  and  determination  were 
conspicuous;  and  his  comrades  were  of  the  same 
temper.  Assuming  the  bold,  intrepid  front,  which 
has  so  often  been  known  to  overawe  multitudes,  this 
Uttle  handful  of  undaunted  Englishmen  seized  and 
confined  thirteen  native  officers,  and  turned  five 
hundred  Mussulman  Sepoys  out  of  the  Fort.  That 
they  were  able  to  accomplish  this,  even  with  the  sup- 
port of  the  Hindoos,  was  declared  to  be  a  proof  that 
no  desperate  measures  had  really  been  designed.  But 
the  premature  explosion  of  a  plot  of  this  kind  always 
creates  a  panic.  In  a  state  of  fear  and  surprise,  men 
are  not  capable  of  reasoning.  There  is  a  vague  im- 
pression that  boldness  presages  power ;  that  there  is 
something  behind  the  imposing  front.  A  single  man 
has  ere  now  routed  a  whole  garrison.  I  am  not  sure, 
therefore,  that  there  was  no  danger,  because  it  was  so 
easily  trodden  out 

Two  days  afterwards  Colonel  Dyce,  who  com- 
manded the  district  of  Tinnivelly,  threw  himself 
into  Pallamcottah ;  assembled  the  Hindoo  troops ; 
told  them  that  he  had  come  there  to  maintain  the 
authority  of  the  Company,  or  to  die  in  the  defence  of 
the  colours  which  he  had  sworn  to  protect.  He  then 
called  upon  those  who  were  of  the  same  mind  to  ap- 
proach the  British  flag  for  the  same  purpose,  but  if 
not,  to  depart  in  peace.  They  went  up  and  took  the 
oath  to  a  man,  presented  arms  to  the  colours,  gave 
three  unbidden  cheers  in  earnest  of  their  unshaken 
loyalty,  and  fell  in  as  on  a  muster-parade. 

On  the  first  appearance  of  danger,  Welsh  had 
despatched  a  letter  by  a  country-boat  to  Ceylon,  call- 
ing for  European  troops,  and  the  call  was  responded 
to  with  an  alacrity  beyond  all  praise.     But  so  eflfec- 


FATE  OF  MAJOR  WELSH.  241 

tual  were  the  measures  which  had  been  already      1806. 
adopted,  or  so  littlef  of  real  danger  had  there  been, 
that  when  the  succour  which  had  been  sent  for 
arrived  from  Trichinopoly,  the  alarm  had  passed, 
and  the  work  was  done. 

Told  as  I  have  told  this  story — ^a  simple  recital  of 
facts,  as  written  down  in  contemporary  correspondence 
— ^it  would  appear  to  afford  an  instructive  example  of 
the  virtue  of  promptitude  and  vigour.  But  this  is  not 
the  only  lesson  to  be  learnt  from  it.  It  is  more  in- 
structive still  to  note  that  Major  Welsh  was  severely 
condemned  as  an  alarmist,  the  tendency  of  whose 
precipitate  action  was  to  destroy  confidence  and  to 
create  irritation.  Another  officer,*  who,  apprehend- 
ing danger,  had  disarmed  his  regiment  as  a  precau- 
tion, was  denounced  with  still  greater  vehemence.f 
Apprehensions  of  this  kind  were  described  as  "dis- 
graceful and  groundless  panics ;"  and  political  officers 
chuckled  to  think  that  it  was  proposed  at  Madras  to 
remove  from  their  commands  and  to  bring  to  Courts* 
Martial  the  officers  who  had  considered  it  their  duty 
not  to  wait  to  be  attacked.  J  With  these  lessons  before 

*  Lieatenant-Colonel  Grant.  and  he  and  Welsh  ordered  for  Coort- 

f  I  find  this  fact  recorded  in  tlie  Martial    Both  were  honourably  ac- 

correspondence  of  the  day  with  three  quitted. 

notes  of  exclamation :  "  With  reeard  X  Many  years  after  the  occurrence 

to    Colonel  Grant/'    wrote    Major  of  these  events,  Major,  then  Colonel 

Wilks  from  Mysore,    "  it  appears  Welsh,  published  two  volumes  of 

that  he  disarmed  his  troops  simply  Military  Reminiscences.  Tumine  to 

as  a  measure  of  precaution ! ! !  Wlie-  these  for  some  account  of  the  affair 

tlier  we  are  in  danger  from  our  own  at  Pallaracottah,  I  was  disappointed 

misconduct,  or  from  worse  causes,  to  find  only  the  following  scanty 

the  danger  is  great.  ...  I  conclude  notice  of  it :  "  Towards  the  end  of 

that  Chalmers  will  be  sent  to  super-  the  year  an  event  took  place,  wliicli, 

sede  Grant,  and  Yesey  to  Pallamcot-  although  injurious  to  injf  own  pros- 

tab,  and  my  best  hope  is  that  there  pects  and  K>rtnne,  under  the  signal 

will  be  found  sufficient  grounds  for  olessiug  of  Providence   terminated 

turning  Welsh  and  G^t  out  of  the  fortunately.    Time  has  now  spread 

service,  but  this  will  not  restore  the  his  oblivions  wings  over  the  whole 

confidence  of  the  Sepoys."  —  M.S.  occurrence,  and  I  will  not  attempt 

Cnrreapondenee.  Grant's  conduct  was  to  remove  the  Teil." 
at  once  repudiated  in  a  general  order, 

R 


bad. 


242  THE  S£POY  ARMY — ITS  RISE  AND  PROGRESS. 

1806.  usy  we  cannot  wonder  that  men,  in  such  conjunctures, 
should  hesitate  to  strike  the  bloiii^which  any  one  may 
declare  uncalled-for^  and  the  wisdom  of  which  no  one 
can  prove — should  pause  to  consider  whether  they  are 
more  likely  to  develop  the  evil  by  an  assertion  of 
strength,  or  to  encourage  its  growth  by  the  feebleness 
of  inaction.* 
Wallajaha-  But  it  was  plain  that,  whatsoever  might  be  the  wisest 
course  in  such  a  conjuncture,  the  Government  of  Lord 
William  Bentinck  was  all  in  favour  of  the  milder  and 
more  sedative  mode  of  treatment  In  remarkable 
contrast  to  the  manner  in  which  the  symptoms  of 
coming  mutiny  were  grappled  with  at  Pallamcottah 
stands  the  story  of  Wallajahabad.  Some  of  the  earliest 
signs  of  disaffection,  on  the  score  of  the  turban,  had 
manifested  themselves  at  that  place;  and  Gillespie, 
with  his  dragoons,  had  been  despatched  thither  at 
the  end  of  July,  not  without  a  murmur  of  discontent 
at  the  thought  of  his  "poor  hard-worked  fellows" 
being  sent  to  counteract  what  appeared  to  him  a 
doubtful  danger.  It  was  believed,  however,  that 
the  uneasiness  had  passed  away,  and  for  some 
months  there  had  been  apparent  tranquillity.  But 
in  November  the  alarm  began  to  revive;    and  a 

*  The  diffiooltiea  of  the  English  seyerest  censure,  as  well  as  respon- 
offioer  at  that  time  were  thus  de-  sible  for  his  own  and  the  lives  of  his 
scribed  by  a  contemporarj  writer,  in  European  officers.  On  the  contrary, 
a  passase  which  I  have  chanced  upon  if  he  took  precautionary  measures 
since  the  aboye  was  written :  "  The  he  was  accused  of  creating  unneces- 
massacre  at  Vellore  had  naturally  sary  distrust ;  and  equally  censured 
created  a  great  degree  of  mistrust  for  being  premature  and  not  allow- 
between  the  European  officers  and  ing  the  mutiny  to  ^0  on  till  satis- 
the  SepojTS  throughout  the  Army ;  fitctorily  proved,  when  it  would  have 
and  the  indecision  of  measures  at  been  too  late  to  prevent." — Sirie- 
Head-Ouarters  seemed  further  to  iwret  on  the  preteMi  Oovemmemi  of 
strengthen  this  mistrust.  If  an  India,  ^re.  In  a  LsUerfrom  an  Qguir 
officer  took  no  precautionary  mea-  mideni  on  ike  ipoi.  Trickinopoh. 
sures  on  receiving  information  of  an  1807;  London,  1808. 
intended  plot,  he  was  liable  to  the 


QOTERNMENr  MEASURES.  243 

detailed  statement  of  various  indications  of  a  coming  130G. 
outbreak,  drawn  up  by  Major  Hazlewood,  was  sent  to 
the  authorities.  On  the  morning  of  the  2nd  of  De- 
cember the  members  of  the  Madras  Government  met 
in  CoimciL  Hazlewood's  statement  was  laid  before 
them  and  gravely  discussed;  but  with  no  definite 
result.  The  Council  broke  up  without  a  decision,  but 
only  to  meet  again,  refreshed  by  the  sea-breeze  and 
the  evening  ride.  Then  it  was  resolved  that  a  discreet 
officer,  in  the  confidence  of  Government,  should  be 
sent  to  Wallajahabad  to  inquire  into  and  report  on 
the  state  of  affairs ;  and  on  the  same  evening  Colonel 
Munro,  the  Quartermaster-Gteneral,  received  his  in- 
structions, and  prepared  to  depart.  The  event  ap- 
peared to  justify  this  cautious  line  of  action ;  but 
one  shudders  to  think  what  might  have  happened  at 
Wallajahabad  whilst  Government  were  deliberating 
over  written  statements  of  danger,  and  drafting  in- 
structions for  a  Staff-officer  in  the  Council-Chamber 
of  Madras. 

Six  months  had  now  passed  since  the  Madras  Gro-  Deo.,  1806. 
vernment  had  been  made  acquainted  with  the  state 
of  feeling  in  the  Native  Army,  and  understood  that  a 
vague  apprehension  of  the  destruction  of  caste  and  of 
"forcible  conversion  to  Christianity"  had  been  one 
of  the  chief  causes  of  the  prevailing  disquietude. 
The  obnoxious  regulations  had  been  abandoned,  but 
this  was  a  concession  obviously  extorted  from  fear ; 
and  nothing  had  yet  been  done  to  reassure  the 
minds  of  the  soldiery  by  a  kindly  paternal  address 
to  them  from  the  fountain-head  of  the  local  Govern- 
ment. But  at  last  Bentinck  and  his  colleagues 
awoke  to  a  sense  of  the  plain  and  palpable  duty 
which  lay  before  them ;  and  at  this  Council  of  the 
2nd  of  December  a  Proclamation  was  agreed  upon, 

R  2 


244  THE  8EP0T  ABMT — ITS  RISE  ilND  PB0GBE8S. 

1806.  and  on  the  foUowing  day  issued,  which,  translated 
into  the  Hindostanee,  the  Tamul,  and  Telegoo  dia^ 
lects,  was  sent  to  every  native  battalion  in  the  Army, 
with  orders  to  commanding  officers  to  make  its  con- 
tents known  to  every  native  officer  and  Sepoy  under 
their  command.  After  adverting  to  the  extraordinary 
agitation  that  had  for  some  time  prevailed  in  the 
Coast  Army,  and  the  reports  spread  for  malicious 
purposes,  by  persons  of  evil  intention,  that  it  was  the 
design  of  the  British  Government  to  convert  the 
troops  by  forcible  means  to  Christianity,  the  Procla- 
mation proceeded  to  declare  that  the  constant  kind- 
ness and  liberality  at  all  times  shown  to  the  Sepoy 
should  convince  him  of  the  happiness  of  his  situation, 
"  greater  than  what  the  troops  of  any  other  part  of 
the  world  enjoy,"  and  induce  him  to  return  to  the 
good  conduct  for  which  he  had  been  distinguished  in 
the  days  of  Lawrence  and  Coote,  and  "other  re- 
nowned heroes."  If  they  would  not,  they  would 
learn  that  the  British  Government  "  is  not  less  pre- 
pared to  punish  the  guilty  than  to  protect  and  dis- 
tinguish those  who  are  deserving  of  its  favour."  But 
this  was  something  more  than  the  truth.  The  British 
Government  did  not  show  itself,  in  this  conjuncture, 
to  be  "  prepared  to  punish  the  guilty"  in  a  manner 
proportionate  to  the  measure  of  their  offences.  Lord 
William  Bentinck  and  his  Councillors  were  all  for 
clemency.  Sir  John  Cradock  counselled  the  adoption 
of  more  vigorous  punitory  measures,  and  the  Supreme 
Government  were  disposed  to  support  the  military 
chief.  Something  of  a  compromise  then  ensued,  the 
result  of  which  was  a  very  moderate  instalment  of  the 
retribution  which  was  justly  due.  A  few  only  of  the 
most  guilty  of  the  murderers  were  executed ;  whilst 
others,  clearly  convicted  of  taking  part  in  the  sangui- 


CAUSES  OF  THE  MUTINY.  245 

nary  revolt,  were  merely  dismissed  the  service.  And  1806, 
if  it  had  not  been  for  the  overruling  authority  of  the 
Government  at  Calcutta — that  is,  of  Sir  George 
Barlow,  with  Mr.  Edmonstone  at  his  elbow* — ^the 
numbers  of  the  assassin-battalions  would  not  have 
been  erased  from  the  Army  List.  But  penal  measures 
did  not  end  here.  The  higher  tribunals  of  the  Home 
Government  condemned  the  chief  authorities  of 
Madras,  and,  justly  or  unjustly,  the  Governor,  the 
Commander-in-Chief,  and  the  Adjutant-General,  were 
summarily  removed  from  office. 

The  mutiny  died  out  with  the  old  year ;  the  active  1807. 
danger  was  passed;  but  it  left  behind  it  a  flood  Alleged 
of  bitter  controversy  which  did  not  readily  subside.  Kevolt. 
What  was  the  cause  of  the  revolt  ?  Whose  fault  was 
it?  Was  it  a  mere  military  mutiny,  the  growth  of 
internal  irritation,  or  was  it  a  political  movement 
fomented  by  agitators  from  without?  The  contro- 
versialists on  both  sides  were  partly  wrong  and  partly 
rights-wrong  in  their  denials,  right  in  their  assertions. 
It  is  difficult  in  such  a  case  to  put  together  in  proper 
sequence  all  the  links  of  a  great  chain  of  events  ter* 
minating  even  in  an  incident  of  yesterday,  so  little  do 
we  know  of  what  is  stirring  in  the  occult  heart  of 
native  society.  After  a  lapse  of  half  a  century  it  is 
impossible.  There  is  often  in  the  Simultaneous,  the 
Coincidental,  an  apparent  uniformity  of  tendency, 
which  simulates  design,  but  which,  so  far  as  human 
agency  is  concerned,  is  wholly  fortuitous.     We  see 

*   Many   yean   afterwards,    Sir  formed  at  Vellore."    "  His  wise  and 

George  Barlow  eracefolly  acknow-  steady  counsel,"  added  Barlow,  "  af- 

ledgc^  the  valuabTe  assistance  which,  forded  me  important  aid  and  support 

in  tnis  conjuncture,  Mr.  Edmonstone  in  carrying  into  effect  the  measures 

had  rendered  to  him,  saying  that  his  necessary  tor  counteracting  the  im- 

"unshaken  firmness  and  resolution  pressions  made   by  that   alarming 

in  times  of  internal  difficulty  and  event,  which  threatened  the  most 

danger"  were  "  signally  diaplayed  serious  consequences  to  the  security 

on  the  discovery  of  the  conspiracy  of  our  power.  — MS,  DocumenU. 


246  THE  SEPOY  A&MY — ITS  RISE  AND  PROGRESS 

1807.  this  in  the  commonest  concerns  of  life.  We  see  it 
in  events  affecting  mightily  the  destinies  of  empires. 
Under  a  pressure  of  concurrent  annoyances  and 
vexations,  men  often  cry  out  that  there  is  a  con- 
spiracy against  them,  and  the  historical  inquirer 
often  sees  a  conspiracy  when  in  reality  there  is  only 
a  coincidence.  A  great  disaster,  like  the  massacre  at 
Vellore,  acts  like  iodine  upon  hidden  writings  in  rice- 
water.  Suddenly  is  proclaimed  to  us  in  all  its  signifi- 
cance what  has  long  been  written  down  on  the  page 
of  the  Past,  but  which,  for  want  of  the  revealing  agent, 
has  hitherto  lain  illegibly  before  us.  Doubtless, 
many  hidden  things  were  disclosed  to  us  at  this  time ; 
but  whether  they  were  peculiar  to  the  criris  or  of  a 
normal  character,  at  any  period  discernible,  had  we 
taken  proper  steps  to  develop  them,  was  matter  of 
grave  dispute.  The  political  officers,  headed  by  Mark 
Wilks,  the  historian  of  Southern  India,  who  was  tiben 
representing  British  interests  in  M3rsore,  laughed  to 
scorn  the  discoveries  of  the  military  officers,  and 
said  that  the  things  which  they  spoke  of  as  so  por- 
tentous were  in  reality  only  phenomena  of  every-day 
appearance,  familiar  to  men  acquainted  with  the  feel- 
ings and  habits  of  the  people.  He  derided  aU  that 
had  been  said  about  seditious  conversations  in  the 
Bazaars  and  the  Lines,  the  wild  prophecies  and  mys- 
terious hints  of  wandeiing  Fakeers,  and  the  sugges- 
tive devices  of  the  puppet-shows.*  There  was  nothing 
in  all  this,  he  contended,  of  an  exceptional  character^ 
to  be  regarded  as  the  harbingers  of  mutiny  and  mas- 
sacre. And  his  arguments  culminated  in  the  chuckling 
assertion  that  the  military  authorities  had  discovered 

*  There  were  two  subjeots  which    of  the  French  oyer  the  English,  the 

*    the 
the 


IflLITARY  ARGUMENTS.  247 

a  cabalistic  document  of  a  most  treasonable  character,  I807. 
which  appeared  to  their  excited  imaginations  to  be  a 
plan  for  partitioning  the  territory  to  be  wrested  from 
the  English,  but  which,  in  reality,  was  nothing  more 
portentous  than  the  scribblement  of  the  Dervish  Bazee, 
or  "  royal  game  of  goose." 

With  equal  confidence  on  the  other  hand,  the  mili- 
tary authorities  protested  that  the  new  regulations 
had  nothing  to  do  with  the  mutiny — ^that  it  was  alto- 
gether a  political  movement.  The  new  cap,  they 
said,  had  been  accepted  and  worn  by  the  Sepoys. 
Three  representative  men,  types  of  the  principal  na- 
tionalities composing  the  Coast  Army,  had  signified 
their  satisfaction  with  the  new  head-dress,  and  one  or 
two  regiments  en  masse  had  been  paraded  in  it  with- 
out a  murmur.  The  &cty  they  alleged,  was  that  the 
movement  had  emanated  solely  from  the  deposed 
£Eunily  of  Tippoo  Sultan ;  that  its  object  was  to  re- 
store, in  the  first  instance,  the  Mahomedan  dynasty 
in  Southern  India,  and  eventually  to  recover  the 
imperial  throne  for  the  Mogul.  If  proper  precautions 
had  been  taken  by  Govemment-if  Tippoo's  family, 
eager  for  a  taste  of  blood,  had  not  been  left  to  disport 
themselves  at  will  in  Vellore — ^if  they  had  not  been 
gorged  with  money,  and  attended  by  countless  Mus- 
sulman followers  eager  to  recover  the  posts  and  the  pri- 
vileges wluch  they  had  lost,  there  would,  said  the  mili- 
tary leaders,  have  been  no  massacre  and  no  mutiny, 
and,  some  said,  not  even  a  murmur  of  discontent. 
But  the  military  critic  was  as  wrong  as  the  political, 
and  for  the  same  reason.  Each  was  blinded  by  pro- 
fessional interests  and  professional  prejudices.  Each 
argued  in  self-defence.  The  truth,  as  it  commonly 
does  in  such  cases,  lay  midway  between  the  two 
extremes.     But  for  the  intrigues  of  Tippoo*s  family 


248  THE  SEPOY  ABMT — ^ITS  RISE  AND  PROGRESS. 

1807.  there  would  have  been  no  outbreak  at  that  time,  and 
but  for  the  new  military  regulations  they  might  have 
intrigued  in  vain.  It  so  happened  that  the  political 
and  military  influences  were  adverse  to  us  at  the 
same  moment,  and  that  from  the  conjimcture  arose 
the  event  known  in  history  as  the  Massacre  of 
Vellore,  but  which  was  in  reality  a  much  more 
extensive  military  combination,  prevented  only  by 
repeated  local  failures  from  swelling  into  the  dimen- 
sions of  a  general  revolt  of  the  Coast  Army, 

Nor  b  it  to  be  forgotten  that  there  was  a  third 
party,  which  attributed  the  calamity  less  to  political 
and  to  military  causes  than  to  the  general  uneasiness, 
which  had  taken  possession  of  the  native  mind  in  con- 
sequence of  the  supposed  activity  of  Christian  mis- 
sionaries and  of  certain  ^^  missionary  chaplains."  The 
dread  of  a  general  destruction  of  Caste  and  forcible 
conversion  to  Christianity  was  not  confined  to  the 
Sepoys.  The  most  preposterous  stories  were  current 
in  the  Bazaars.  Among  other  wild  fables,  which  took 
firm  hold  of  the  popular  mind,  was  one  to  the  effect 
that  the  Company's  officers  had  collected  all  the 
newly-manufactured  salt,  had  divided  it  into  two 
great  heaps,  and  over  one  had  sprinkled  the  blood  of 
hogs,  and  over  the  other  the  blood  of  cows;  that 
they  had  then  sent  it  to  be  sold  throughout  the 
country  for  the  pollution  and  the  desecration  of 
Mahomedans  and  Hindoos,  that  all  might  be  brought 
to  one  caste  and  to  one  religion  like  the  English. 
When  this  absurd  story  was  circulated,  some  ceased 
altogether  to  eat  salt,  and  some  purchased,  at  high 
price,  and  carefully  stored  away,  supplies  of  the  neces- 
sary article,  guaranteed  to  have  been  in  the  Bazaars, 
before  the  atrocious  act  of  the  Feringhees  had  been 
committed.     Another  story  was  that  the  Collector  of 


LYING  RUMOURS. 


249 


Trinocmialee  had,  under  the  orders  of  Government, 
laid  the  foundation  of  a  Christian  Church  in  his  dis- 
trict dose  to  the  great  Pagoda  of  the  Hindoos ;  that 
he  had  collected  all  the  stone-cutters  and  builders  in 
the  neighbourhood ;  that  he  was  taxing  every  house- 
hold for  the  payment  of  the  cost  of  the  building ; 
that  he  had  forbidden  all  ingress  to  the  Pagoda,  and 
all  worshipping  of  idols ;  and  that  to  all  complaints 
on  the  subject  he  had  replied  that  there  was  nothing 
extraordinary  in  what  he  was  doing,  as  Government 
had  ordered  a  sunilar  building  to  be  erected  in  every 
town  and  every  village  in  the  country.  In  India, 
stories  of  this  kind  are  readily  believed.  The  grosser 
the  lie  the  more  eagerly  it  is  devoured.*  They  are 
circulated  by  designing  persons  with  a  certainty  that 
they  will  not  be  lost.  That  the  excitement  of  religious 
alarm  was  the  principal  means  by  which  the  enemies 
of  the  British  Government  hoped  to  accomplish  their 
objects  is  certain ;  but  if  there  had  not  been  a  foregone 
determination  to  excite  this  alarm,  nothing  in  the 
actual  progress  of  Christianity  at  that  tune  would 
have  done  it.  A  comparison,  indeed,  between  the  re- 
ligious status  of  the  English  in  India  and  the  wild 
stories  of  forcible  conversion,  which  were  then  circu- 


1807. 


*  Not  immediately  illoBtrating  this 
point  of  inquiry,  but  even  more  pre- 
posterous in  itself  than  the  rumours 
cited  in  the  text,  was  a  story  which 
was  circulated  at  Hyderabad.  It 
was  stated  that  an  oracle  in  a  neigh- 
bouring Pagoda  had  declared  that 
there  was  considerable  treasure  at 
the  bottom  of  a  well  in  the  European 
barracks,  which  was  destined  not  to 
be  discovered  until  a  certain  number 
of  human  heads  had  been  offered  up 
to  the  tutehur  deity  of  the  place; 
and  that  acoordini^W  the  European 
soldiers  were  sacnncing  the  neces- 
sary number  of  ?ictims  with  all  pos- 


sible despatch.  It  happened  that 
the  dead  Dody  of  a  native  without  a 
head  was  found  near  the  Kesidency, 
and  that  a  drunken  European  artil- 
leryman, about  the  same  time,  at> 
tacKcd  a  native  sentry  at  his  post. 
These  facts  gave  new  wings  to  the 
report,  and  such  was  the  alarm  that 
the  natives  would  not  leave  their 
homes  or  work  after  dark,  and  it  was 
reported  both  to  the  Nizam  and  his 
minister  that  a  hundred  bodies  with- 
out heads  were  lying  on  the  banks  of 
the  Moose  River. — Captain  Sfydefh 
ham  to  the  Government  of  India.  MS. 
Beeordt, 


250  THE  SEPOT  ARMY — ^ITS  RISE  AND  PROGRESS. 

1807.  lated,  seemed  openly  to  give  the  lie  to  the  maUgnant 
inventions  of  the  enemy.  There  were  no  indications 
on  the  part  of  Government  of  any  especial  concern  for 
the  interests  of  Christianity,  and  among  the  officers  of 
the  Army  there  were  so  few  external  signs  of  religion 
that  the  Sepoys  scarcely  knew  whether  they  owned 
any  faith  at  alL*  But  in  a  state  of  panic  men  do  not 
pause  to  reason ;  and  if  at  any  time  the  doubt  had 
been  suggested,  it  would  have  been  astutely  answered 
that  the  English  gentlemen  cared  only  to  destroy  the 
reUgions  of  the  country,  and  to  make  the  people  all  of 
one  or  of  no  caste,  in  order  that  they  might  make 
their  soldiers  and  servants  do  everything  they  wished. 
Vieiw  of  the  The  authoritative  judgment  of  a  Special  Commis- 
^ram^  sion  appointed  to  investigate  the  causes  of  the  out- 
break confirmed  the  views  of  the  more  moderate  sec- 
tion of  the  community,  which  recognised,  not  one, 
but  many  disturbing  agencies ;  and  the  Home  Go- 
yermnent  accepted  the  kterpretition  in  a  candid  and 
impartial  spirit.  That  ^'the  late  innovations  as  to 
the  dress  and  appearance  of  the  Sepoys  were  the 
leading  cause  of  the  mutiny,  and  the  other  was  the 
residence  of  the  family  of  the  late  Tippoo  Sultan  at 
Vellore,"  was,  doubtless,  true  as  far  as  it  went.  But 
the  merchant-rulers  of  Leadenhall-street  were  dis- 
posed to  soimd  the  lower  depths  of  the  difficulty. 
Those  were  not  days  when  the  numerous  urgent 
claims  of  the  Present  imperatively  forbad  the  elaborate 
investigation  of  the  Past.  So  the  Directors  began 
seriously  to  consider  what  had  been  the  more  remote 
predisposing  causes  of  the  almost  general  disaffection 


*  Sir  John  Cradock  said,  after  the    melancholy  truth  that  so  unfrequent 

refigioos  obsenrances  ox 
ing  duty  with  battalions, 
establishments  in  the  interior  of  the    the  Seooys  have  not,   until   very 
country,  from  the  habits  of  life  pre-    lately,  aiscovered  the  nature  of  the 


occurrence  of   these    events,  that    are  the  religious  observances  of  offi- 
"  from  the  total  alienee  of  religious    cers  doing  duty  with  battalions,  that 


valent  among  military  men,  it  is  a    religion  professed  by  the  English. 


VIEWS  OF  THE  COUST  OF  DIRECIOItS.  251 

of  the  Coast  Army,  And  the  "  Chairs,**  in  a  mas-  1807. 
terly  letter  to  Mr.  Dundas,  freighted  with  the  solid 
intdligence  of  Charles  Grant,  declared  their  convic- 
tion that  the  general  decline  of  the  fidelity  of  the 
Army  and  of  the  attachment  of  the  People  to  British 
rule,  was  to  be  traced  to  the  fact  that  a  new  class  of 
men,  with  little  knowledge  of  India,  little  interest  in 
its  inhabitants,  and  little  toleration  for  their  pre- 
judices, had  begun  to  monopolise  the  chief  seats  in  the 
Government  and  the  chief  posts  in  the  Army ;  that 
the  annexations  of  Lord  Wellesley  had  beggared  the 
old  Mahomedan  families,  and  had  shaken  the  belief 
of  the  people  in  British  moderation  and  good  faith ; 
and  that  the  whole  tendency  of  the  existing  system 
was  to  promote  the  intrusion  of  a  rampant  Eng- 
lishism, and  thus  to  widen  the  gulf  between  the 
Rulers  and  the  Ruled.* 

*  The  Chairman  and  Deputy-  the  President  of  the  Board  of  Con- 
Chairman  of  the  East  India  Com-  trol  (Mr.  Dundas).— jl%  18, 1807. 
pany  (Mr.  Parry  and  Mr.  Grant)  to    MS.  Records. 


252  THE  SEFOT  ABHT — 118  DECLIXE. 


CHAPTER  II. 

SVBSIDSKCE  or  ALASIC— THS  SOLDIEB  IN  ENGLAim  AND  IN  INDIA — THE 
SEPOT  AND  HIS  OPHCEB — DETEBIOBATINO  INFLUENCES — THE  DRAINAGE 
OF  THE  STAFF — PR0O&E8S  OF  CENTRAUSATION — THE  BEOEGANISATION 
OF  1824— THE  BABBACKFORE  MXTTINT— THE  HALF-BATTA  OBDEB^-ABO- 
UTION   OF  COBPOBAL  PUNISHMENT. 

« 

1807-1809,  It  was  not  strange  that  for  some  time  after  the  oc- 
currence of  these  events  in  the  Coast  Army,  the  Eng- 
lish in  Southern  India  should  have  been  possessed  by 
a  common  sense  of  anger,  and  that  this  feeling  should 
have  spread  to  some  other  parts  of  the  country.  For 
a  while  the  white  man  saw  a  conspirator  beneath  the 
folds  of  every  turban,  and  a  conspiracy  in  every 
group  of  people  talking  by  the  wayside.  In  every 
laugh  there  was  an  insult,  and  in  every  shrug  there 
was  a  menace.  English  officers  pillowed  their  heads  on 
loaded  fire-arms,  and  fondled  the  hilts  of  their  swords 
as  they  slept.  But  gradually  they  lived  down  the  sen- 
sitiveness that  so  distressed  them.  Other  thoughts  and 
feelings  took  possession  of  the  bungalow ;  other  sub- 
jects were  dominant  in  the  mess-room.  And  ere  long 
a  new  grievance  came  to  supersede  an  old  danger; 
and  the  officers  of  the  Madras  Army  forgot  the  rebel- 
Mutiny  of  ^^^^  ^^  *^^  Sepoys  as  they  incubated  a  rebellion  of 
Madras  their  own.  How  the  mutiny  of  the  officers  grew  out 
180?L^  ^^  *^^  mutiny  of  the  men  of  the  Coast  Army,  it 
would  not  be  difficult  to  show;  but  the  chapter  of 


RENEWAL  OF  CONFTOENCE.  253 

Indian  history  which  includes  the  former  need  not  be  1807-1809. 
re-written  here.  The  objects  for  which  the  officers 
contended  were  altogether  remote  from  the  interests 
and  sympathies  of  the  Sepoys ;  and  although  the 
latter,  in  ignorance,  might  at  first  have  followed  their 
commanders,  it  is  not  probable  that  they  would  have 
continued  to  cast  in  their  lot  with  the  mutineers,  after 
the  true  character  of  the  movement  had  been  ex- 
plained to  them,  and  an  appeal  made  to  their  fidelity 
by  the  State.  But  they  were  not  unobservant  spec- 
tators of  that  unseemly  strife ;  and  the  impression 
made  upon  the  Sepoy's  mind  by  this  spectacle  of 
disunion  must  have  been  of  a  most  injurious  kind. 
There  is  nothing  so  essential  to  the  permanence  of 
that  Opinion,  on  which  we  so  much  rely,  as  a  prevail- 
ing sense  that  the  EngUsh  in  India  are  not  Many*  but 
One. 

Nor  was  it  strange  that,  after  these  unfortunate 
events,  the  fame  of  which  went  abroad  throughout 
the  whole  country,  there. should  have  been  for  a  little 
space  less  eagerness  than  before  to  enlist  into  the  ser- 
vice of  the  Company.  But  the  reluctance  passed 
away  under  the  soothing  influence  of  time.  In  the 
prompt  and  regular  issue  of  pay,  and  in  the  pensions, 
which  had  all  the  security  of  funded  property,  there 
were  attractions,  unknown  to  Asiatic  armies,  not 
easily  to  be  resisted.  And  there  were  other  privi- 
leges, equally  dear  to  the  people  of  the  country,  which 
lured  them  by  thousands  into  the  ranks  of  the  Com- 
pany's Army.  As  soon  as  his  name  was  on  the 
muster-roll,  the  Sepoy,  and  through  him  all  the 
members  of  his  family,  passed  under  the  special  pro- 
tection of  the  State. 

It  is  difficult  to  conceive  two  conditions  of  life  The  Englbh 
more  dissimilar  in  their  social  aspects  than  soldiering 


254  THE  SEPOY  ARMY — ^ITS  DECLINE. 

1807.1809.  in  India  and  soldiering  in  England.  In  England,  few 
men  enlist  into  the  Army  as  an  honourable  profes- 
sion, or  seek  it  as  an  advantageous  source  of  subsist- 
ence. Few  men  enter  it  with  any  high  hopes  or  any 
pleasurable  emotions.  The  recruit  has  commonly 
broken  down  as  a  civilian.  Of  ruined  fortune  and 
bankrupt  reputation,  he  is  tempted,  cheated,  snared 
into  the  Army.  Lying  placards  on  the  walls,  lying 
words  in  the  pot-house,  the  gaudy  ribbons  of  Ser- 
geant Kite,  the  drum  and  the  fife  and  the  strong 
drink,  captivate  and  enthral  him  when  he  is  not 
master  of  himself.  He  has  quarrelled  with  his  sweet- 
heart or  robbed  his  employer.  He  has  exhausted 
the  patience  of  his  own  people,  and  the  outer  world 
has  turned  its  back  upon  him.  And  so  he  goes  for  a 
soldier.  As  soon  as  he  has  taken  the  shilling,  he  has 
gone  right  out  of  the  family  circle  and  out  of  the 
circle  of  civil  life.  He  is  a  thousandth  part  of  a 
regiment  of  the  Line.  Perhaps  he  has  changed  his 
name  and  stripped  himself  of  his  personal  identity. 
Anyhow,  he  is  as  one  dead.  Little  more  is  heard 
of  him ;  and  unless  it  be  some  doting  old  mother, 
who  best  loves  the  blackest  sheep  of  the  flock,  nobody 
much  wishes  to  hear.  It  is  often,  indeed,  no  greater 
source  of  pride  to  an  English  family  to  know  that 
one  of  its  members  is  serving  the  Queen,  in  the  ranks 
of  her  Army,  than  to  know  that  one  is  provided  for, 
as  a  convict,  at  the  national  expense. 
The  Indian  But  the  native  soldier  of  India  was  altogether  of  a 
Soldier.  different  kind.  When  he  became  a  soldier,  he  did 
not  cease  to  be  a  civilian.  He  severed  no  family 
ties ;  he  abandoned  no  civil  rights.  He  was  not  the 
outcast,  but  the  stay  and  the  pride  of  his  house.  He 
visited  his  home  at  stated  times.  He  remitted  to  it 
a  large  part  of  his  pay.     It  was  a  decorous  boast  in 


HEREDITARY  SOLDIERS.  255 

many  families  that  generation  after  generation  had  1807-1809. 
eaten  the  Company's  salt.  Often,  indeed,  in  one 
household  you  might  see  the  Past,  the  Present^  and 
the  Future  of  this  coveted  military  service.  There 
was  the  ancient  pensioner  imder  the  shade  of  the 
banyan-tree  in  his  native  village,  who  had  stories  to 
tell  of  Lawrence,  Coote,  and  Medows;  of  battles 
fought  with  the  French ;  of  the  long  war  with  Hyder 
and  the  later  struggles  with  his  son.  There  was  the 
Sepoy,  on  furlough  fix)m  active  service,  in  the  prime 
of  his  life,  who  had  his  stories  also  to  tell  of  ^'  the 
great  Lord's  brother,"  the  younger  Wellesley,  of 
Harris  and  Baird,  perhaps  of  '^  Bikrum  Sahib"  and  Abercrombie 
Egypt,  and  how  "Lick  Sahib,"  the  fine  old  man,  ®* 

when  provisions  were  scarce  in  the  camp,  had  ridden 
through  the  lines,  eating  dried  pulse  for  his  dinner. 
And  there  was  the  bright-eyed,  supple-limbed,  quick* 
witted  boy,  who  looked  forward  with  eager  expect* 
ancy  to  the  time  when  he  would  be  permitted  to 
take  his  father's  place,  and  serve  under  some  noted 
leader.  It  was  no  fond  delusion^  no  trick  of  our  self- 
love,  to  believe  in  such  pictures  as  this.  The  Com- 
pany's Sepoys  had  a  genuine  pride  in  their  colours, 
and  the  classes  from  which  they  were  drawn  rejoiced 
in  their  connexion  with  the  paramount  State.  It  was 
honourable  service,  sought  by  the  very  flower  of  the 
people,  and  to  be  dismissed  from  it  was  a  heavy 
punishment  and  a  sore  disgrace. 

Strong  as  were  these  ties,  the  people  were  bound 
to  the  military  service  of  the  Company  by  the  still 
stronger  ties  of  self-interest.  For  hot  only  were  the  Ci?a  privi- 
Sepoys,  as  has  been  said,  well  cared-for  as  soldiers  ^^^jj  ^''^ 
— well  paid  and  well  pensioned — ^but,  as  civilians, 
they  had  large  privileges  which  others  did  not  enjoy. 
Many  of  them,  belonging  to  the  lesser  yeomanry  of 


256  THE  SEPOY  ARMY — ^ITS  DECLINE. 

1807-1809.  the  country,  were  possessors  of,  or  shareholders  in, 
small  landed  estates.  And  thus  endowed,  they  re- 
joiced greatly  in  a  regulation  which  gave  the  Sepoy 
on  furlough  a  right  to  be  heard  before  other  suitors 
in  our  civil  courts.*  In  a  country  whose  people  are 
inordinately  given  to  litigation,  and  where  justice  is 
commonly  slow-paced,  this  was  so  prodigious  a  boon, 
that  entrance  to  the  service  was  often  sought  for  the 
express  purpose  of  securing  this  valuable  precedence, 
and  the  soldier-member  of  the  family  thus  became 
the  representative  of  his  whole  house.  In  this  con- 
nexion of  the  soldiery  with  hereditary  rights  in  the 
soil,  there  was  an  additional  guarantee  for  his  loyalty 
and  good  conduct.  He  was  not  merely  a  soldier — a 
component  unit  of  number  two  company,  third  file 
from  the  right;  he  was  an  important  member  of 
society,  a  distinct  individuality  in  his  native  village 
no  less  than  in  his  cantonment  Lines.  He  retained 
his  self-respect  and  the  respect  of  others ;  and  had  a 
personal  interest  in  the  stability  of  the  Government 
under  which  his  rights  were  secured. 

And  whilst  these  extraneous  advantages  were  at- 
tached to  his  position  as  a  soldier  of  the  Company, 
there  was  nothing  inherent  in  the  service  itself  to 
The  Sepoy  render  it  distasteful  to  him.  His  officers  were  aliens 
Officer!  ^^  another  colour  and  another  creed ;  but  the  Hindoo 
was  accustomed  to  foreign  supremacy,  and  the  Ma- 
homedan,  profoundly  impressed  with  the  mutabilities 
of  fortune,  bowed  himself  to  the  stem  necessities  of 
fate.     As  long  as  the  Sepoy  respected .  the  personal 

*  This  was  a  part  only  of  the  Parliamentary  Committee  of  1832, 

civil  privileges  enjoyed  by  the  native  said  that  the  withdrawal  of  these 

soldier.    A  memorandum  in  the  Ap-  privileges  had  been  regarded  as  an 

pendix  will  show  the  full  extent  of  especiid  grievance  by  tne  Sepoys — 

the  advantages  conferred  upon  him  but  I  have  failed  to  discover  that 

by  this  class-legislation.    Sir  Jasper  they  ever  were  withdrawn. 
Nicolls,  in  his  evidence  before  the 


THE  SEPOY  AND  HIS  OFFICER.  257 

qualities  of  the  English  officer,  and  the  English  officer  1800-1822. 
felt  a  personal  attachment  for  the  Sepoy,  the  relations 
between  them  were  in  no  degree  marred  by  any  con- 
siderations of  difference  of  race.  There  was  a  strong 
sense  of  comradeship  between  them,  which  atoned  for. 
the  absence  of  other  ties.  The  accidental  severance 
of  which  I  have  spoken  was  but  short-lived.*  In  that 
first  quarter  of  the  present  century,  which  saw  so 
much  hard  fighting  in  the  field,  the  heart  of  the 
Sepoy  officer  again  turned  towards  his  men,  and  the 
men  looked  up  and  clung  to  him  with  child-like  con- 
fidence and  affection.  To  command  a  company,  and, 
in  due  course,  a  regiment  of  Sepoys,  was  still  held  to 
be  a  worthy  object  of  professional  ambition.  The 
regiment,  in  those  days,  was  the  officer's  home,  whe- 
ther in  camp,  or  cantonment,  or  on  the  line  of  march. 
There  was  but  little  looking  beyond ;  little  hankering 
to  leave  it.  To  interest  himself  in  the  daily  concerns 
of  the  Sepoys,  to  converse  with  them  off  parade,  to 
enter  into  their  feelings,  to  contribute  to  their  com- 
forts, were  duties,  the  performance  of  which  occupied 
his  time,  amused  his  mind,  and  yielded  as  much 
happiness  to  himself  as  it  imparted  to  others. 
There  was,  in  truth,  little  to  divert  him  from  the 
business  of  his  profession  or  to  raise  up  a  barrier  be- 
tween him  and  his  men.  Intercourse  with  Europe 
was  rare  and  difficult.  Neither  the  charms  of  Eng- 
lish literature  nor  the  attractions  of  English  woman- 
hood alienated  his   affections  from  the  routine  of 

♦  There  had  cert aiuly  been,  before  Mr.  Dunda»,  referred  to  above,  this  ia 
the  mutiny  in  Sonthem  India,  a  very  alleged  to  have  been  one  of  the  re- 
culpable  want  of  kindW  consideration  mote  causes  of  the  mutiny.  It  is 
on  the  part  of  our  English  officers  stated  that  the  Enj^Ush  had  ceased 
for  the  native  officers  and  men  of  the  to  offer  chairs  to  their  native  officers 
Sepoy  arm^.  In  the  letter,  written  when  visited  by  them.  A  favourable 
by  the  Chairman  and  Deputy-(yhair-  reaction,  liowever,  seems  afterwards 
man  of  the  East  India  Company,  to  to  have  set  in. 


258  THE  SEPOY  ABMT — ITS  DECLINE. 

1809.88.  military  life,  and  made  its  details  dull  and  dreary  in 
his  sight.  He  had  subdued  his  habits,  and  very 
much  his  way  of  thinking,  to  the  Orientalism  by 
which  he  was  surroimded.  He  was  glad  to  welcome 
the  native  officer  to  his  bimgalow,  to  learn  from  him 
the  news  of  the  Lines  and  the  gossip  of  the  Bazaar, 
and  to  tell  him,  in  turn,  what  were  the  chances  of  an- 
other campaign  and  to  what  new  station  the  regiment 
was  likely  to  be  moved  at  the  approaching  annual 
Relief.  If  there  were  any  complaints  in  the  regi- 
ment, the  grievance  was  stated  with  freedom  on  the 
one  side,  and  listened  to  with  interest  on  the  other. 
If  the  men  were  right,  there  was  a  remedy ;  if  they 
were  wrong,  there  was  an  explanation.  The  Sepoy 
looked  to  hb  officer  as  to  one  who  had  both  the 
power  and  the  will  to  dispense  ample  justice  to  him. 
In  every  battalion,  indeed,  the  men  turned  to  their 
commandant  as  the  depository  of  all  their  griefs,  and 
the  redresser  of  all  their  wrongs.  They  called  him 
their  father,  and  he  rejoiced  to  describe  them  as  his 
"  babalogue" — ^his  babes. 
Progress  of  But  in  time  the  power  was  taken  from  him,  and 
C^raliaa-     ^^j^  ^j^^  power  went  also  the  wilL     A  variety  of 

deteriorating  circumstances  occurred — some  the  in- 
evitable growth  of  British  progress  in  the  East,  and 
some  the  results  of  ignorance,  thoughtlessness,  or 
miscalculation  on  the  part  of  the  governing  body. 
The  power  of  the  English  officer  was  curtailed  and 
his  influence  declined.  The  command  of  a  regiment 
had  once  been  something  more  than  a  name.  The 
commanding-officer  could  promote  his  men,  could 
punish  his  men,  could  dress  them  and  discipUne  them 
as  he  pleased.  The  difierent  battalions  were  called 
after  the  commander  who  had  first  led  them  to  vic- 
tory, and  they  rejoiced  to  be  so  distinguished.     But, 


m 


BELAXATION  OF  OLD  TIES.  259 

Utde  by  little,  this  power,  by  the  absorbing  action  of  1822-1885 
progressive  centralisation,  was  taken  out  of  his  hands ; 
and  he  who,  supreme  in  his  own  little  circle,  had 
been  now  a  patriarch  and  now  a  despot,  shrivelled 
into  the  mouthpiece  of  the  Adjutant-General's  office 
and  the  instrument  of  Head-quarters.  The  decisions 
of  the  commanding  officer  were  appealed  against,  and 
frequently  set  aside.  In  the  emphatic  language  of  the 
East,  he  was  made  to  eat  dirt  in  the  presence  of  his 
men.  The  Sepoy,  then,  ceased  to  look  up  to  him  as 
the  centre  of  his  hopes  and  fears,  and  the  command- 
ing officer  lost  much  of  the  interest  which  he  before 
took  in  his  men,  when  he  knew  how  much  their 
happiness  and  comfort  depended  upon  his  individual 
acts,  and  how  the  discipline  and  good  conduct  of  the 
corps  were  the  reflexion  of  his  personal  efficiency. 

And  it  happened  that,  about  the  same  time,  new  Enffland  i 
objects  of  interest  sprung  up  to  render  more  com- 
plete the  severance  of  the  ties  which  had  once  bound 
the  English  officer  to  the  native  soldier.  The  second 
quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century  in  India  was  a 
period  of  progressive  reform.  We  reformed  our  Go- 
vernment and  we  reformed  ourselves.  Increased 
facilities  of  intercourse  with  Europe  gave  a  more 
European  complexion  to  society.  EngUsh  news,  Eng- 
lish books,  above  all,  English  gentlewomen,  made 
their  way  freely  and  rapidly  to  India.  The  Over- 
land Mail  bringing  news  scarcely  more  than  a  month 
old  of  the  last  new  European  revolution  ;  the  book- 
club yielding  its  stores  of  light  literature  as  fresh  as 
is  commonly  obtained  from  circulating  libraries  at 
home ;  and  an  avatar  of  fair  young  EngUsh  maidens, 
with  the  bloom  of  the  Western  summer  on  their 
cheeks,  yielded  attractions  beside  which  the  gossip  of 
the  lines  and  the  feeble  garrulity  of  the  old  Soubahdar 

s  2 


260  THE  SEPOY  ARMY— ITS  DECLINE. 

1822-35.  were  very  dreary  and  fatiguing.  Little  by  little,  the 
Sepoy  officer  shook  out  the  loose  folds  of  his  Ori- 
entalism. Many  had  been  wont,  in  the  absence  of  other 
female  society,  to  solace  themselves  with  the  charms 
of  a  dusky  mate,  and  to  spend  much  time  in  the  re- 
cesses of  the  Zenana.  Bad  as  it  was,  when  tried  in 
the  crucible  of  Christian  ethics,  it  was  not  without  its 
miUtary  advantages.  The  English  officer,  so  mated, 
learnt  to  speak  the  languages  of  the  country,  and  to 
understand  the  habits  and  feelings  of  the  people ;  and 
he  cherished  a  kindlier  feeling  for  the  native  races 
than  he  would  have  done  if  no  such  aUiances  had 
been  formed.  But  this  custom  passed  away  with  the 
cause  that  produced  it.  The  English  wife  displaced 
the  native  mistress.  A  new  code  of  morals  was  recog- 
nised ;  and  the  Zenana  was  proscribed.  With  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  English  gentlewoman  in  the  military 
cantonment  there  grew  up  a  host  of  new  interests 
and  new  excitements,  and  the  regiment  became  a 
bore. 
Staff  employ.  Whilst  these  influences  were  sensibly  weakening 
"*"*•  the  attachment  which  had  existed  between  the  native 

soldier  and  his  English  officer,  another  deteriorating 
agent  was  at  work  with  still  more  fatal  effect.  The 
Staff  was  carrying  off  all  the  best  officers,  and  un- 
settling  the  rest.  As  the  red  line  of  British  Empire 
extended  itself  around  new  provinces,  and  the  admi- 
nistrative business  of  the  State  was  thus  largely  in- 
creased, there  was  a  demand  for  more  workmen  than 
the  Civil  Service  could  supply,  and  the  military  esta- 
blishment of  the  Company  was,  therefore,  indented 
upon  for  officers  to  fill  the  numerous  civil  and  poli- 
tical posts  thus  opened  out  before  them.  Extensive 
surveys  were  to  be  conducted,  great  public  works 
were  to  be  executed,  new  irregular  regiments  were  to 


k 


THE  MJklXACE  OT  TB.  OAlF.  dfil 


be  raised,  and  temtories  not  Kade  sdiyca  »  ike 
^^  radiations*'  were,  for  die  matt  pan,  to  ht  adninB- 
tered  by  military  men.  Mare  Imiadii:,  aand  bald  na 
be  more  honourable  than  oammon  renmesaal  cnrr. 
these  appointments  were  eagerly  cov^aed  by  ibe  oAecb 
of  the  Company  8  army.  The  ttn^naskn.  iadodl, 
was  great  The  means  of  mam  iu^  of  prcwiiSiig  fer 
a  family,  of  securing  a  retreat 'to  Europe  brfoR 
feebled  by  years  or  broken  down  by  <^Mft«*- 
presented  to  the  officer  by  diis  dftarhtd 
And  if  these  natural  fipriing!i  were  ikot 
there  was  the  strtmg  incentive  of  amfaixioci  or 
pura*  desire  to  enter  upon  a  career  of  nKire  medvt 
utility.  The  number  oi  officers  with  a  rE^^ment  «ai 
thus  reduced;  but  numbers  are  wm  sirengih.  and 
still  fewer  mi^t  haye  sufficed,  if  titer  had  been  a 
chosen  few.  But  of  those  who  remain^  some  fired 
in  a  state  of  resdess  expectancy,  otfaen  were  sunk 
in  sullen  despair.  It  was  not  easy  to  find  a  Sepoy 
officer,  pure  and  aamjde,  with  no  aspiratioDft  beyond 
his  regiment,  cheerful,  content,  indeed,  proud  ci  hk 
position.  All  that  was  gone.  The  officer  ceased  to 
rejoice  in  his  work,  and  the  men  saw  his  heart  was 
not  with  them. 

There  were  some  special  circumstances,  too,  which 
at  this  time— during  the  administrations  ol  Lord 
Amherst  and  Lord  WHliam  Bentindk — tended  to 
aggravate  these  deteriorating  influences  both  upon 
the  officers  and  the  men  of  the  Sepoy  regiments. 
Since  the  subsidence  of  the  spirit  of  disaffection, 
which  had  pervaded  the  Coast  Army  in  1806,  there 
had  been  no  obtrusive  manifestations  of  discontent  in 
the  Sepoy's  mind.  He  had  done  his  duty  faithfully 
and  gallantly  in  the  great  wars,  which  Lord  Hastings 


GrieTances. 


262  THE  SEPOT  ABMY — ITS  DECLINE. 

1822.  had  conducted  to  a  triumphant  issue ;  but  when  peace 
came  again,  he  again,  after  a  while,  began  to  take 
stock  of  his  troubles  and  to  listen  to  strange  reports. 
One  more  illustration  may  be  drawn  from  Madras, 
before  the  Bengal  Army  claims  a  monopoly  of  the 
record.  In  the  early  spring  of  1822,  a  paper  was 
dropped  in  the  Cavalry  Lines  of  Arcot,  setting  forth 
Mahomedan  that  the  followers  of  Mahomed,  having  been  sub- 
jected to  the  power  of  the  English,  suffered  great 
hardships-that  being  so  subjected,  their  prayers  were 
not  acceptable  to  the  Almighty,  and  that,  therefore, 
in  great  numbers  they  were  dying  of  cholera  morbus 
— ^that  the  curse  of  God  was  upon  them ;  and  that, 
therefore,  it  behoved  them  to  make  a  great  effort  for 
the  sake  of  their  religion.  There  were  countless 
Hindoos  and  Mussulmans  between  Arcot  and  Delhi. 
But  the  Europeans  being  few,  it  would  be  easy  to  slay 
the  whole  in  one  day.  Let  them  but  combine,  and 
the  result  would  be  certain.  There  was  no  time,  it 
said,  to  be  lost.  The  English  had  taken  aU  the 
Jagheers  and  Inams  of  the  people  of  the  soil,  and 
now  they  were  about  to  deprive  them  of  employment. 
A  number  of  European  regiments  had  been  called 
for,  and  in  the  course  of  sue  months  all  the  native 
battalions  would  be  disbanded.  Let,  then,  the  senior 
Soubahdar  of  each  regiment  instruct  the  other  Sou- 
bahdars,  and  let  them  instruct  the  Jemadars,  and  so 
on,  till  all  the  Sepoys  were  instructed,  and  the  same 
being  done  at  Yellore,  at  Chittore,  at  Madras,  and 
other  places,  and  then,  on  a  given  signal,  the  whole 
should  rise  on  one  day.  The  day  fixed  was  Sunday, 
the  17th  of  March.  A  Naick  and  ten  Sepoys  were 
to  proceed  at  midnight  to  the  house  of  each  Eu- 
ropean, and  kill  him,  without  remorse,  in  his  bed. 
This  done,  the  regiments  would  be  placed  under  the 


QBIEVANCES  OF  THE  80LDIERT.  263 

command  of  the  native  officers,  and  the  Soabahdara      I83i. 
should  have  the  pay  of  Colonels.  It  was  always  thns. 
It  is  always  thus.    A  little  for  the  Faith,  and  all  for 
the  Pocket 

From  whomsoever  this  paper  may  have  emanated, 
the  attempt  to  corrupt  the  Sepoys  was  a  failure.  It 
was  picked  up  in  the  Lines  of  the  Sixth  Cavalry,  and 
another  nearly  resembling  it  was  dropped  in  the  Lines 
of  the  Eighth — ^but  both  were  carried  at  once  to  the 
commanding  officer  of  the  station.  Colonel  FonUa 
took  his  measures  with  promptitude  and  vigour.  He 
assembled  the  regimental  commanders,  imparted  to 
them  the  contents  of  the  paper,  and  desired  them  to 
place  themselves  in  communication  with  the  native 
officers  whom  they  most  trusted.  Having  done  this^ 
he  wrote  to  the  commandants  of  the  several  stations 
named  in  the  paper.  But  they  could  see  no  signs  of 
disaffection ;  and  the  appointed  day  passed  by  without 
even  an  audible  murmur  of  discontent.  But  not 
many  days  afterwards,  the  Grovemor  of  Madras  re-  SrllioiDas 
ceived  by  the  post  a  letter  in  Hindostanee,  purporting  "■"®- 
to  come  from  the  principal  native  officers  and  Sepoys 
of  the  Army,  setting  forth  the  grievances  under  which 
they  suffered  as  a  body.  The  complaint  was  that  all 
the  wealth  and  all  the  honour  went  to  the  white 
Sirdars,  especially  to  the  civilians,  whilst  for  the 
soldier  there  was  nothing  but  labour  and  grief.  ^^  If 
we  Sepoys  take  a  country,"  they  said,  "  by  the  sword, 
these  whore^son  cowardly  civil  Sirdars  enter  that 
comitry  and  rule  over  it,  and  in  a  short  time  fill 
their  coffers  with  money  and  go  to  Europe — ^but  if  a 
Sepoy  labour  all  his  life,  he  is  not  five  couries  the 
better."  Under  the  Mahomedan  Gk)vemment,  it  had 
been  different,  for  when  victories  were  gained, 
Jagheers  were  given  to  the  soldiers,  and  high  offices 


264  THE  SEPOT  ARMY — ITS  DECLINE. 

1822.  distributed  among  them.  But  under  the  Company, 
ever3rthing  was  given  to  the  Civil  Service.  "  A  single 
Collector's  peon  has  an  authority  and  greatness  in  the 
country  which  cannot  be  expressed.  But  that  peon 
does  not  fight  like  a  Sepoy."  Such,  in  effect,  was  the 
plaint  of  the  native  soldiery,  as  conveyed  to  Governor 
Munro.  It  may  have  been  the  work  of  an  individual, 
as  might  have  been  also  the  papers  picked  up  in  the 
lines  of  Arcot ;  but  it  is  certain  that  both  documents 
expressed  sentiments  which  may  be  supposed  at  all 
times  to  lie  embedded  in  the  Sepoy's  mind,  and  which 
need  but  little  to  bring  them,  fully  developed,  above 
the  surface.* 

The  relations  between  the  English  officer  and  the 
native  soldier  were  better  then  than  they  had  been 
sixteen  years  before.  But  these  relations  were  sadly 
weakened,  and  a  heavy  blow  was  given  to  the  disci- 
pline and  efficiency  of  the  Indian  army,  when,  two 
years  later,  the  mUitary  establishments  of  the  Three 
Tlie  Bfiorga-  Presidencies  were  reorganised.  Then  every  regiment 
•^""^  of  two  battaUons  became  two  separate  regiments,  and 
the  officers  attached  to  the  original  corps  were  told  off 
alternately  to  its  two  parts — "  all  the  odd  or  uneven 
May  6, 1824.  numbers,"  said  the  General  Order,  "to  the  first,  and 
the  even  numbers  to  the  second ;"  by  which  process  it 
happened  that  a  large  number  of  officers  were  detached 
from  the  men  with  whom  they  had  been  associated 
throughout  many  years  of  active  service.  The  evil 
of  this  was  clearly  seen  at  the  time,  and  a  feeble  com- 
promise was  attempted.  "  It  is  not  intended,"  said 
the  General  Order,  "  that  in  carrying  the  present 
orders  into  effect,  officers  should  be  permanently  re- 
moved from  the  particular  battalion  in  which  they 

*  It  was  to  this  event  that  Sir    markable  minute  on  the  dangers  of 
Thomas  Munro  alluded  in  his  re-    a  Free  Press  in  India. 


WAB  WITH  BURMAH.  265 

may  long  have  served  and  wished  to  remain,  provided  1824. 
that  by  an  interchange  between  officers  standing  the 
same  number  of  removes  from  promotion,  each  could 
be  retained  in  his  particular  battalion,  and  both 
are  willing  to  make  the  exchange."  In  effect,  this 
amounted  to  little  or  nothing,  and  a  large  number  of 
officers  drifted  away  from  the  battalions  in  which 
they  had  been  reared  from  boyhood,  and  strangers 
glided  into  their  place. 

Bad  as  at  any  time  must  have  been  such  a  change  The  Burmese 
as  this,  in  its  influence  upon  the  morale  of  the  Sepoy  ^"'^ 
army,  the  evil  was  greatly  enhanced  by  falling  upon 
evil  times.  The  best  preservative,  and  the  best  re- 
storative of  military  spirit  and  dbcipline,  is  commonly 
a  good  stirring  war.  But  the  Sepoy,  though  not  un- 
willing to  fight,  was  somewhat  dainty  and  capricious 
about  his  fighting-ground.  A  battle-field  in  Hin- 
dostan  or  the  Deccan  was  to  his  taste ;  but  he  was 
disquieted  by  the  thought  of  serving  in  strange 
regions,  of  which  he  had  heard  only  vague  fables, 
beyond  inaccessible  mountain -ranges,  or  still  more 
dreaded  wildernesses  of  water.  With  the  high-caste, 
fastidious  Bengal  Sepoy  the  war  with  Burmah  was 
not,  therefore,  a  popular  war.  The  Madras  Sepoy, 
more  cosmopolitan  and  less  nice,  took  readily  to  the 
transport  vessel ;  and  a  large  part  of  the  native  force 
was  drawn  from  the  Coast  Army.  But  some  Bengal 
regiments  were  also  needed  to  take  part  in  the  opera- 
tions of  the  war,  and  then  the  system  began  to  fail 
us.  To  transport  troops  by  sea  from  Calcutta  to 
Rangoon  would  have  been  an  easy  process.  But  the 
Bengal  Sepoy  had  enlisted  only  for  service  in  coun- 
tries to  which  he  could  march ;  to  take  ship  was  not 
in  his  bond.  The  regiments,  therefore,  were  marched 
to  the  frontier  station  of  Chittagong,  and  there  as- 


266  THE  8EP0Y  ABMY — ^ITS  DECLINE. 

1824.      sembled  for  the  landward  invasion  of  the  Burmese 
country. 

Without  any  apparent  symptoms  of  discontent, 
The  Mutiny  some  corps  had  ahready  marched,  when,  in  October,  the 
por?"**'^'  incident  occurred  of  which  I  am  about  to  write,  an  in- 
cident which  created  a  most  powerful  sensation  from 
one  end  of  India  to  the  other,  and  tended  greatly  to 
impair  the  loyalty  and  discipline  of  the  Bengal  Sepoy. 
The  Forty-seventh  Regiment  had  been  warned  for 
foreign  service,  and  was  waiting  at  Ban^kpore,  a 
few  miles  from  the  Presidency,  whilst  preparations 
were  being  made  for  its  march  in  the  cold  weather. 
To  wait  is  often  to  repent.  Inactive  in  cantonments 
during  the  rainy  season,  and  in  daily  intercourse 
with  the  men  of  other  regiments,  who  had  been 
warned  for  the  same  service,  the  Forty-seventh,  unin- 
fluenced by  any  other  external  causes,  would  have 
lost  any  ardour  which  might  have  possessed  them 
when  first  ordered  to  march  against  a  barbarous 
enemy  who  had  insulted  their  flag.  But  it  happened 
that  ominous  tidings  of  disaster  came  to  them  from 
the  theatre  of  war.  The  British  troops  had  sustained 
a  disaster  at  Ramoo,  the  proportions  of  which  had 
been  grossly  exaggerated  in  the  recital,  and  it  was 
believed  that  the  Burmese,  having  cut  up  our  batta- 
lions, or  driven  them  into  the  sea,  were  sweeping  on 
to  the  invasion  of  Bengal.  The  native  newspapers 
bristled  with  alarming  announcements  of  how  the 
Commander-in-Chief  had  been  killed  in  action  and 
the  Governor-General  had  poisoned  himself  in  de- 
spair; and  there  was  a  belief  throughout  all  the 
lower  provinces  of  India  that  the  rule  of  the  Company 
was  coming  to  an  end.  The  fidelity  of  the  Sepoy 
army  requires  the  stimulus  of  continued  success. 
Nothing    tries    it   so    fatally  as  disaster.      When, 


THE  TB00F8  AT  BABRACKFORE.         267 

therefore,  news  came  that  the  war  had  opened  with  a  1884. 
great  faUure,  humiliating  to  the  British  power,  and 
aU  kinds  of  strange  stories  relating  to  the  difficulties 
of  the  country  to  be  traversed,  the  deadhness  of  the 
climate  to  be  endured,  and  the  prowess  of  the  enemy 
to  be  encountered,  forced  their  way  into  circulation 
in  the  Bazaars  and  in  the  Lines,  the  willingness 
which  the  Sepoys  had  once  shown  to  take  part  in 
the  operations  beyond  the  frontier  began  to  subside, 
and  they  were  eager  to  find  a  pretext  for  refusing  to 
march  on  such  hazardous  service.  And,  unhappily, 
one  was  soon  found.  There  was  a  scarcity  of  avail- 
able carriage-cattle  for  the  movement  of  the  troops. 
Neither  bullocks  nor  drivers  were  to  be  hired,  and 
fabulous  prices  were  demanded  from  purchasers  for 
wretched  starvelings  not  equal  to  a  day's  journey. 
For  the  use  of  the  regunente  which  had  abeady 
marched,  Bengal  had  been  well-nigh  swept  out,  and 
the  reports  which  had  since  arrived  rendered  it  diffi- 
cult  to  persuade  men  voluntarily  to  accompany  as 
camp-followers  an  expedition  fraught  with  such  pecu* 
liar  perils.  All  the  efforts  of  the  Commissariat  failed 
to  obtain  the  required  supply  of  cattle ;  and  so  the 
Sepojrs  were  told  to  supply  themselves.  In  this  con- 
juncture, it  would  seem  that  a  new  lie  was  circulated 
through  the  Lines  of  Barrackpore.  It  was  said  that 
as  the  Bengal  regiments  could  not,  for  want  of  cattle, 
be  marched  to  Chittagong,  they  would  be  put  on 
board  ship  and  carried  to  Rangoon,  across  the  Bay 
of  Bengal.  Murmurs  of  discontent  then  developed 
into  oaths  of  resistance.  The  regiments  warned  for 
service  in  Burmah  met  in  nightly  conclave,  and 
vowed  not  to  cross  the  sea. 

Still  foremost  in  this  movement,  the  Forty-seventh 
Regiment  was  commanded  by  Colonel  Cartwright 


268  THE  SEPOY  ARMY — ^ITS  DECLINE. 

1824.  Rightly  measuring  the  difficulty,  and  moved  with 
compassion  for  the  Sepoy,  who  really  had  just  ground 
of  complaint,  he  offered  to  provide  cattle  from  his 
private  funds ;  and  all  the  refuse  animals,  either  too 
old  or  too  young  for  service,  were  got  together,  and 
the  Government  offered  to  advance  money  for  their 
purchase.  But  the  terrible  ban  of  "  Too  Late"  was 
written  across  these  conciliatory  measures.  The  re- 
giment was  already  tainted  with  the  ineradicable  virus 
of  mutiny,  which  soon  broke  out  on  parade.  The 
Sepoys  declared  that  they  would  not  proceed  to 
Burmah  by  sea,  and  that  they  would  not  march 
unless  they  were  guaranteed  the  increased  allowances 
known  in  the  jargon  of  the  East  as  "  double  batta." 
This  was  on  the  30th  of  October.  On  the  Ist  of 
November,  another  parade  was  summoned.  The  be- 
haviour of  the  Sepoys  was  worse  than  before — ^violent, 
outrageous,  not  to  be  forgiven ;  and  they  remained 
masters  of  the  situation  throughout  both  the  day  and 
night.  Then  the  Commander-in-Chief  appeared  on 
the  scene.  A  hard,  strict  disciplinarian,  with  no 
knowledge  of  the  native  army,  and  a  bitter  prejudice 
against  it.  Sir  Edward  Paget  was  a  man  of  the  very 
metal  to  tread  down  insurrection  with  an  iron  heel, 
regardless  both  of  causes  and  of  consequences.  He 
carried  with  him  to  Barrackpore  two  European  regi- 
ments, a  battery  of  European  artillery,  and  a  troop 
of  the  Governor-General's  Body-guard.  Next  morn- 
ing the  native  regiments  found  themselves  in  the 
presence  of  the  English  troops ;  but  still  they  did  not 
know  the  peril  that  awaited  them,  and,  with  a  child- 
like obstinacy,  they  were  not  to  be  moved  from  their 
purpose  of  resistance.  Some  attempt  was  made  at 
explanation — some  attempt  at  conciliation.  But  it 
was  feeble  and  ineffectual ;  perhaps  not  understood. 


THE  BARRACKPORE  MASSACRE.  269 

They  were  told,  then,  that  they  must  consent  to  1824. 
march,  or  to  ground  their  arms.  Still  not  seeing 
the  danger,  for  they  were  not  told  that  the  Artillery 
guns  were  loaded  with  grape,  and  the  gunners  ready 
to  fire,*  they  refused  to  obey  the  word ;  and  so  the 
signal  for  slaughter  was  given.  The  guns  opened 
upon  them.  The  mutineers  were  soon  in  panic  flight. 
Throwing  away  their  arms  and  accoutrements,  they 
made  for  the  river.  Some  were  shot  down ;  some 
were  drowned.  There  was  no  attempt  at  battle. 
None  had  been  contemplated.  The  muskets  with 
which  the  ground  was  strewn  were  found  to  be  un- 
loaded. 

Then  the  formalities  of  the  military  law  were  called 
in  to  aid  the  stem  decisions  of  the  grape-shot.  Some 
of  the  leading  mutineers  were  convicted,  and  hanged ; 
and  the  regiment  was  struck  out  of  the  Army  List 
But  this  display  of  vigour,  though  it  checked  mutiny 
for  the  time,  tended  only  to  sow  broadcast  the  seeds 
of  future  insubordinations.  It  created  a  bad  moral 
eiFect  throughout  the  whole  of  the  Bengal  army. 
From  Bazaar  to  Bazaar  the  news  of  the  massacre  ran 
with  a  speed  almost  telegraphic.  The  regiments, 
which  had  abready  marched  to  the  frontier,  were  dis- 
cussing the  evil  tidings  with  mingled  dismay  and  dis- 
gust before  the  intelligence,  sent  by  special  express, 
had  reached  the  ears  of  the  British  chiefs.  "They 
are  your  own  men  whom  you  have  been  destroying," 
said  an  old  native  officer;  and  he  could  not  trust 

himself  to  say  more.f    The  Bengal  regiments,  with      1825. 
the  expeditionary  force,    had  soon  a  grievance  of 

their  own,  and  the  remembrance  of  this  dark  tragedy 

♦  It  is  doubtful,  indeed,  whether  Burmese  War."  By  T.  C.  Robertson 

they  knew  that  the  guns  were  in  the  to  whom  was  entrusted  the  political 

rear  of  the  European  regiments.  conduct  of  the  war. 

t  "  Political  lucidents  of  the  first 


270  THE  SEPOT  ARBIT — ^ITS  DECLINE. 

1885.  increased  the  bitterness  with  which  they  discussed  it. 
The  high-caste  men  were  writhing  under  an  order 
which,  on  the  occupation  of  Arrican,  condemned  the 
whole  body  of  the  soldiery  to  work,  as  labourers,  in 
the  construction  of  their  barracks  and  lines.  The 
English  soldier  fell  to  with  a  will ;  the  Madras  Sepoy 
cheerfully  followed  his  example.  But  the  Bengal 
soldier  asked  if  Brahmins  and  Rajpoots  were  to  be 
treated  like  Coolies,  and,  for  a  while,  there  was  an 
apprehension  that  it  might  become  necessary  to  make 
another  terrible  example  after  the  Barrackpore  pat- 
tern. But  this  was  fortunately  averted.  General 
Morrison  called  a  parade,  and  addressed  the  recusants. 
The  speech,  sensible  and  to  the  point,  was  translated 
by  Captain  Phillips ;  and  so  admirable  was  his  free 
rendering  of  it,  so  perfect  the  manner  in  which  he 
dothed  it  with  familiar  language,  making  every  word 
carry  a  meaning,  every  sentence  strike  some  chord  of 
sympathy  in  the  Sepoy's  breast,  that  when  he  had 
done,  the  high-caste  Hindostanees  looked  at  each 
other,  understood  what  they  read  in  their  comrades' 
faces,  and  forthwith  stripped  to  their  work. 

Thus  was  an  incipient  mutiny  checked  by  a  few 
telling  words.  And  the  sad  event  which  had  gone 
before  might  have  been  averted  also  if  there  had 
been  as  much  tact  and  address  as  '^  promptitude  and 
decision."  A  few  sentences  of  well-chosen,  well-de- 
livered Hindostanee,  on  ftiat  fatal  November  morning, 
might  have  brought  the  Sepoys  back  to  reason  and 
to  loyalty.  But  they  had  the  benefit  of  neither  wise 
counsel  from  within  nor  kindly  exhortation  from 
without.  Deprived,  by  the  reconstruction  of  the 
Army,  of  the  officers  whom  they  had  long  known  and 
trusted,  they  were  more  than  ever  in  need  of  external 
aid  to  bring  them  back  to  a  right  state  of  feeling. 


HALF-lARi.  271 

They  wanted  a  General  of  Dhision,  sudi  a§  \lalmhn  URJK. 
or  Ochterlony,  to  reawaken  their  addierh'  insdiicta — 
their  pride  in  their  oolomBy  dieir  kmdxr  to  their 
Salt  But,  instead  of  sach  jodicioiis  treatment  at 
would  have  shown  them  their  own  fcAj.  as  in  a  g^ia, 
the  martinets  of  the  H<X8e  Guards,  stem  in  their 
unsympathising  ignorance,  their  mthless  pr^udioei^ 
had,  in  our  own  territories^  at  the  Tery  seat  oi  go- 
vernment, in  the  presence  of  no  presnng  danger,  no 
other  lessons  to  teach,  no  other  remedies  to  apply, 
than  those  which  were  to  be  administered  at  the 
bayonet's  point  and  die  camion  s  mouth. 

With  the  return  ci  peace  came  new  disquietodea.  PfMg> 
A  reign  of  Retrenchment  commenced.  Alarmed  by 
the  expenses  of  their  military  establishmentB,  the 
Company  sent  out  imperative  orders  for  their  reduc- 
tion—orders more  than  once  issued  before,  more  than 
once  disobeyed.  Blows  of  this  kind  commonly  fidl 
upon  the  weakest — upon  those  least  able  to  endure 
them.  So  it  happened  that  the  condition  of  the  re- 
gimental officer  having,  by  a  variety  of  antecedent 
circumstances,  been  shorn  of  well-nigh  all  its  advan- 
tages, i^tras  rendered  still  more  grievous  and  intolerable 
by  the  curtailment  of  his  pecuniary  allowances.  An 
order,  known  in  military  history  as  the  Half-Batta 
Order,  was  passed,  by  which  all  officers  stationed 
within  a  certain  distance  fipom  the  Presidency  were 
deprived  of  a  large  per-centage  of  their  pay.*  The 
order  excited  the  utmost  dismay  throughout  the 
Army ;  but  the  discontent  which  it  engendered  vented 
itself  in  words.  Twice  before  the  officers  of  the  Com- 
pany's army  had  resented  similar  encroachments,  and 

*  Or,  in  strict  professional  Ian-  former,  which  was  small,  was  en- 

fi^iage,  his  allowances.     The  frross  hanced  by  several  suWstantial  acces- 

salarj  of  an  Indian  officer  was  known  sories,  as  tent  age,  house-rent,  and 

as  his  "  paj  and  allowances."    The  batta,  or  field  allowance. 


272  THE  SEPOy  ARMY— ITS  DECLINE. 

1825^5.  had  been  prepared  to  strike  in  defence  of  their  asserted 
rights.  But  this  last  blow  did  not  rouse  them  to  re- 
bellion. Never  before  had  justice  and  reason  been  so 
clearly  upon  their  side ;  but,  keenly  as  they  felt  their 
wrongs,  they  did  not  threaten  the  Government  they 
served,  but  loyally  protested  against  the  treatment  to 
which  they  had  been  subjected.  The  humours  of 
which  their  memorials  could  not  whoUy  relieve  them, 
a  Press,  virtually  free,  carried  off  like  a  great  conduit. 
The  excitement  expended  itself  in  newspaper  para- 
graphs, and  gradually  subsided.  But  it  left  behind  it 
an  after-growth  of  unanticipated  evils.  The  little  zeal 
that  was  left  in  the  regimental  of&cer  was  thus  crushed 
out  of  him,  and  the  Sepoy,  who  had  watched  the 
decline,  little  by  little,  of  the  power  once  vested  in 
the  English  captain,  now  saw  him  injured  and  humi- 
liated by  his  Gk)vemment,  without  any  power  of 
resistance;  saw  that  he  was  no  longer  under  the 
special  protection  of  the  State,  and  so  lost  all  respect 
for  an  instrument  so  feeble  and  so  despised. 
Abolition  of  And  as  though  it  were  a  laudable  achievement 
SaSwi.  *^^®  *^  divest  the  native  soldier  of  all  fear  of  his 
European  officer,  another  order  went  forth  during 
the  same  interval  of  peace,  abolishing  the  punishment 
of  the  lash  throughout  the  Sepoy  army  in  India.  So 
little  was  he  a  drunkard  and  a  ruffian,  that  it  was  a 
rare  spectacle  to  see  a  black  soldier  writhing  under 
the  drummer's  cat.  But  when  the  penalty,  though 
still  retained  in  the  European  army,  became  illegal 
and  impossible  among  them,  the  native  soldiery  felt 
that  another  blow  was  struck  at  military  authority — 
another  tie  of  restraint  unloosed.  It  was  looked  upon 
less  as  a  boon  than  as  a  concession — ^less  as  the  growth 
of  our  humanity  than  of  our  fear.  So  the  Sepoy  did 
not  love  us  better,  but  held  us  a  little  more  in  con- 
tempt. 


GENERAL  DETERIORATION.  273 

There  were  great  diversities  of  sentiment  upon  this  1832. 
pointy  and  some,  whose  opinions  were  entitled  to 
respect,  believed  in  the  wisdom  of  the  measure.  But 
the  weight  of  authority  was  against  it,*  and,  some 
ten  years  afterwards,  Hardinge  revived  what  Ben- 
tinck  had  abolished.  But  even  before  the  act  of 
abolition,  by  a  variety  of  concurrent  causes,  the 
character  and  the  conduct  of  the  Sepoy  Army  were 
so  impaired,  that  an  officer  who  had  served  long 
with  them,  and  knew  them  well,  declared,  in  his 
evidence  before  a  Committee  of  Parliament,  that  "  in 
all  the  higher  qualifications  of  soldiers,  in  devoted- 
ness  to  the  service,  readiness  for  any  duty  they  may 
be  called  upon  to  perform,  cheerfulness  under  priva- 
tions, confidence  and  attachment  to  their  officers,  un- 
hesitating and  uncalculating  bravery  in  the  field, 
without  regard  either  to  the  number  or  the  character 
of  the  enemy,  the  native  soldier  is  allowed  by  all  the 
best-informed  officers  of  the  service,  by  those  who 
have  meet  experience,  and  are  best  acm^ted  with 
their  character,  to  have  infinitely  detefiOTated."t 

*Nameroii8iIlaBtration8  might  be  said  the  old  man,  *  Fouj-beh-durr 

cited,  but  none  more  significant  than  kogya!     (The  Army  has  ceased  to 

the  following  anecdote,  told  by  Mr.  fear.)"    Another  native  officer  said : 

Charles  Eaikes :  "  I  recollect  a  con-  "  The  English,  to  mana£[e  us  rightly, 

▼ersation  which  I  had  in  1839'irith  should  hold  the  whip  in  one  hand 

an  old  pensioned  Soubahdar.    I  in-  and  the  mektoft  (sweetmeats)  in  the 

quired  of  him  how  the  measure  would  other.    You  nave  dropped  the  whip, 

work.  He  repUed,  that  the  abolition  and  now  hold  out  sweets  to  us  in 

of  the  punishment  would  induce  some  both  hands." 
classes  to  enter  the  Army  who  had        f  Evidence  of  Captain  Macan  in 

not  done  to  before.    '  But,  Sahib/  1832. 


274  THE  8EP0T  ABHT— ITS  DECLINE. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THB  WAS  nr  ATGHAinSTAir — P2BMICI0IJ8  E7FECT8  OP  DSFEAT— THE  AV- 
VIXATIOV  OV  SGHrBB— BXiULTS  OV  SZTEH8I0H  OF  X1IFIBS--THB  IKDU8 
ALUOlWAJKCEa^-MJJTaT  01  THX  THIBTr-fOU&TH  BBenOOrT — E¥B4TIBABS" 
VBKTS  07  GOYXBIVMSRT— THE  MABCH  07  THB  8QLTT-70T7BTS— KUmtT 
AX  SBIKABrOBa—DIBATTECTIQN  IN  THE  ICADBAS  ABICY. 

The  War  in  Peacb  is  never  long-lived  in  India,  and  the  Army 
^]|^|^  was  soon  again  in  the  bustle  and  excitement  of  active 
service.  There  was  a  long  war ;  and,  if  it  had  been  a 
glorious  one,  it  might  have  had  a  salutary  effisct  upon 
the  disposition  of  the  Sepoy.  But  when  all  his  sol- 
dierly qualities  were  thus,  as  it  were,  at  the  last  gasp, 
the  War  in  Afghanistan  came  to  teach  him  a  new 
lesson,  and  the  worst,  at  that  time,  which  he  could 
have  been  taught.  He  learnt  then,  for  the  first  time, 
that  a  British  army  is  not  invincible  in  the  fidd; 
tiiat  the  great  ^'  Ikhbal,''  or  Fortune,  of  the  Company, 
which  had  carried  us  gloriously  through  so  many 
great  enterprises,  might  sometimes  disastrously  fedl  us ; 
he  saw  the  proud  colours  of  the  British  nation  defiled 
in  the  bloody  snows  of  Afghanistan,  and  he  believed 
that  our  reign  was  hastening  to  a  close.  The  charm 
of  a  century  of  conquest  was  then  broken.  In  all 
parts  of  Upper  India  it  was  the  talk  of  the  Bazaars 
that  the  tide  of  victory  had  turned  against  the  Fe- 
ringhees,  and  that  they  would  soon  be  driven  into 


THE  AF6HAH  WJJL  275 

the  sea.  Then  the  Sikh  arose  and  the  Mahratta  be-  IWA 
stirred  himaftlfj  rejoicing  in  our  humiliation,  and 
eagerly  watching  the  next  move.  Then  it  was  that 
those  amongst  us,  who  knew  best  what  was  seething 
in  the  heart  of  Indian  society,  were  ^^  ashamed  to 
look  a  native  in  the  £ftce."  The  crisis  was  a  perilous 
one,  and  the  most  experienced  Indian  statesmen  re- 
garded it  with  dismay,  not  knowing  what  a  day 
might  produce.  They  had  no  faith  in  our  allies,  no  1841 
faith  in  our  soldiery.  An  Army  of  Retribution,  under 
a  wise  and  trusted  leader,  went  forth  to  restore  the* 
tarnished  lustre  of  the  British  name ;  but  ominous' 
whispers  soon  came  from  his  camp  that  that  Army 
was  tainted — ^that  the  Sepoy  regiments,  no  longer 
assured  and  fortified  by  the  sight  of  that  asc^idant 
Star  of  Fortune  which  once  had  shone  with  so  bri^it 
and  steady  a  light,  shrunk  from  entering  the  paMet 
which  had  been  the  grave  of  so  many  of  their  conv 
rades.  It  was  too  true.  The  Sikhs  were  tamper!]^ 
with  their  fidelity.  Brahmin  emissariea  were  enden* 
vouring  to  swear  them  on  the  Holy  Water  not  to 
advance  at  the  word  of  the  English  eomtnan4a. 
Nightly  meetings  of  delegates  from  the  dUkrwt  te- 
giments  were  being  held;  and,  perhapti,  we  do  w^ 
even  now  know  how  great  was  the  imfstr.  hut  llie 
sound  disdl^tion  and  excellent  tact  of  PoUod^  aided 
by  the  energies  of  Henry  Lawreoce  and  Biefamfmd 
Shakespear,  brought  the  SepojB  to  a  better  temper, 
and,  when  the  word  was  ^ven,  they  enterfA  the 
dreaded  passes,  and,  confiding  in  their  \^aAt^^  car^ 
ried  victory  with  them  up  to  the  walk  of  the  Afghan 
capital. 

The  Sepoy  did  his  duty  well  under  Pollock.  He 
had  done  his  duty  well  under  Nott,  who  spoke  with 
admiration  of  his  ^^  beautiful  re^menta,"*  and  man* 

T  2 


276  THE  SEFOT  ABMT — ITS  DECLINE. 

1843.      fully  resented  any  imputation  cast  upon  them.     And 
when,  after  the  British  Army  had  been  disentangled 
from  the  defiles  of  Afghanistan,  war  was  made  against 
the  Ameers  of  Scinde,  the  Sepoy  went  gallantly  to 
the  encounter  with  the  fierce  Belloochee  fighting- 
man,  and  Napier  covered  him  with  praise.     Then 
there  was  another  war,  and  the  native  regiments  of 
the  Company  went  bravely  up  the  slopes  of  Maha- 
rajpore,  and  turned  not  aside  from  the  well-planted, 
well-manned  batteries  of  the  turbulent  Mahrattas. 
But  peace  came,  and  with  peace  its  dangers.     Scinde 
had  become  a  British  province,  and  the  Sepoy,  who 
had  helped  to  conquer,  had  no  wish  to  garrison  the 
country. 
BcaulUoftho     The  direct  and  immediate  result  of  well-nigh  every 
Sc23£.         annexation  of  Territory,  by  which  our  Indian  empire 
has  been  extended,  may  be  clearly  discerned  in  the 
shattered  discipline  of  the  Sepoy  Army.     To  extend 
our  empire  without  increasing  our  means  of  defence 
was  not  theoretically  unreasonable;    for  it  might 
have  been  supposed  that  as  the  number  of  our  enemies 
was  reduced  by  conquest  and  subjection,  the  necessity 
for  the  maintenance  of  a  great  standing  army  was 
diminished  rather  than  increased.    These  annexations, 
it  was  said,  consolidated  our  own  territories  by  eradi- 
cating some  native  principality  in  the  midst  of  them, 
or  else  substituted  one  frontier,  and  perhaps  a  securer 
one,  for  another.     But  the  security  of  our  empire  lay 
in  the  fidelity  of  our  soldiery.    To  diminish  the  num- 
ber of  our  enemies,  and  to  extend  the  area  of  the 
country  to  be  occupied  by  our  troops,  was  at  the  same 
time  to  diminish  the  importance  of  the  Sepoy,  and  to 
render  his  service  more  irksome  to  him ;  for  it  sent 
him  to  strange  places  far  away  from  his  home,  to  do 
the  work  of  military  Police.  It  frittered  away  in  small 


DIFFICULTIES  OF  ANNEXATION.  277 

detached  bodies  the  limited  European  force  at  the  dis-  1S4S44. 
posal  of  the  Indian  Government,  or  massed  large  ones 
on  a  distant  frontier.  This  extension  of  territoiy, 
indeed,  whilst  it  made  us  more  dependent  upon  our 
native  troops,  made  that  dependence  more  hazardous. 
The  conversion  of  Scinde  into  a  British  province,  by 
which  our  long  line  of  annexations  was  commenced, 
had  burnt  this  truth  into  our  history  before  Lcnrd 
Dalhousie  appeared  upon  the  scene.  For  indeed  it 
was  a  sore  trial  to  the  Sepoy  to  be  posted  in  s 
dreaiy  outlpng  graveyard  of  this  kind,  £Eur  kwvj 
from  his  home  and  his  people — far  beyond  the  limits 
of  the  empire  in  which  he  had  enlisted  to  serve 
And  when  it  was  proposed  to  take  fix>m  him  tbe 
additional  allowances,  which  had  been  issued  to  the 
troops,  on  active  service  in  an  enemy's  country,  on 
the  plea  that  they  had  subsided  into  the  occupalioii 
of  British  cantonments,  he  resented  this  severe  logjCy 
and  rose  against  the  retrenchment.  He  did  not  see 
why,  standing  upon  the  same  ground,  he  should  not 
receive  the  same  pay,  because  the  red  line  of  the 
British  boundary  had  been  extended  by  a  flooriiib  of 
the  pen,  and  the  population  of  the  country  had  by 
the  same  magic  process  been  converted  into  Brilkii 
subjects ;  and  still  less  easily  could  he  reconcile  him- 
self to  the  decision  when  he  thought  that  the  Sepoy 
himself  had  contributed  to  bring  about  the  result  th^ 
was  so  injurious  to  Mm ;  that  he  had  helped  to  win 
a  province  for  his  employers,  and,  in  return  for  this 
good  service,  had  been  deprived  of  part  of  his  pay. 
In  the  old  time,  when  the  Company's  troops  con- 
quered a  country,  they  had  profited  in  many  ways  by 
the  achievement,  but  now  they  were  condemned  to 
suffer  as  though  gallantry  were  a  crime. 

In  more  than  a  camel-load  of  documents  tho  story 


278  THE  SEPOr  ABMT — ITS  DECLINE. 

1844.  lies  recorded;  but  it  must  be  briefly  narrated  here. 
Mutiny  of  the  In  the  month  of  February,  1844,  Governor-General 
J-  ourt  .  Ellenborough,  being  then  absent  from  his  Council  in 
the  Upper  Provinces,  received  the  disheartening  in- 
telligence that  the  Thirty-fourth  Sepoy  Regiment  of 
Bengal,  which  had  been  warned  for  service  in  Scinde, 
had  been  halted  at  Ferozepore.  It  had  refused  to 
enter  our  newly-acquu-ed  province,  unless  its  services 
were  purchased  by  the  grant  of  the  additional  allow- 
ances given  to  the  soldiery  beyond  the  Indus  in  time 
of  war.  The  distressing  character  of  the  intelligence 
was  aggravated  by  many  circumstances  of  time  and 
place.  In  a  moment,  Ellenborough's  quick  percep- 
tions had  grappled  the  whole  portentous  truth.  Our 
troops  were  mutinying  for  pay,  on  the  Punjab 
frontier,  almost  in  the  presence  of  the  disorderly 
masses  of  Sikh  troops,  who,  gorged  with  the  donatives 
Ihey  had  forced  from  a  weak  Government,  were  then 
dominating  the  empire.  Other  regiments  were  coming 
up,  on  the  same  service,  who  might  be  expected  to 
follow  the  rebellious  lead  of  the  Thirty-fourth ;  and 
so  Ellenborough  and  Napier  might  have  found  them- 
selves with  the  province  they  had  just  conquered  on 
their  hands,  and  no  means  of  securing  its  military 
occupation,  without  destroying  the  authority  of  Go- 
vernment by  humiUating  concessions. 

In  this  conjuncture,  the  first  thing  that  Ellen- 
borough  did  was  the  best  that  could  have  been  done. 
He  delegated  to  the  Commander-in-Chief  the  full 
powers  of  the  Governor-General  in  Council  for  the 
suppression  of  mutiny  in  the  Army.  But,  how  were 
those  powers  to  be  exercised  ?  Doubt  and  perplexity, 
and  something  nearly  approaching  consternation,  per- 
vaded Army  Head-Quarters.  The  Seventh  Bengal 
Cavalry,  on  the  line  of  march  to  the  frontier,  had 


fBOGiESS  OF  Momnr.  279 

broken  intx>  open  mutiny,  and  in  spite  of  all  the  ef- 
forts of  their  officers,  who  had  guaranteed  to  pay  them 
from  their  own  funds  the  allowances  they  demanded, 
the  troopers  had  refused  to  obey  the  trumpet-call  to 
march,  and  were  halted,  therefore,  sullen  and  obsti- 
nate, in  the  neighbourhood  of  Ferozepore.  Some 
companies  of  Native  Artillery  had  already  refused 
to  march,  and  there  were  rumours  of  other  re^ 
ments  being  on  the  eve  of  declaring  their  refuasL 
The  most  obvious  course,  under  such  circuniatance% 
was  to  march  the  recusant  regiments  back  to  one  m 
more  of  the  large  stations^  as  Loodhianah  and  Meem^ 
where  European  troops  were  posted,  and  there  to 
disband  them.  But  sinister  whispers  were  abroad  that 
the  sympathies  of  the  Europeans^  in  this  instance,  weze 
with  the  native  soldiery.  One  regiment  of  the  Line^ 
it  was  reported,  had  openly  declared  that  it  would  not 
act  against  the  Sepoys,  who  were  demanding  no  mon 
than  their  rights.  There  were  Sikh  emissaries  firom 
beyond  the  SuUej  doing  their  best  to  debauch  the 
Sepoys  by  offering  both  their  sympathy  and  their 
assistance.  Dick,  the  Creneral  of  Division,  declared 
his  belief  that  an  order  to  the  mutineers  to  march 
back  for  disbandment  would  not  be  obeyed ;  and  a 
violent  collision  at  such  a  time  would  have  set  the 
whole  frontier  in  a  blaze.  The  project  of  disbandment 
was,  therefore,  suspended ;  and  all  the  more  readily,  as 
even  at  Head-Quarters  there  was  a  belief  that,  al- 
though the  recusant  troops  might  have  had  no  reason* 
able  ground  of  complaint,  the  actual  state  of  the  case 
with  respect  to  the  Scinde  pay  and  allowances  had  not 
been  properly  explained  to  them.* 

*  Tbe  extraoidinaij  allowances —  Indus  in  1838,  on  their  march  to 

the  withdrawal  of  wbidi  liad  created  Candahar  and  CaaboL    They  wero 

all  this  ill  feeling — were  originally  withdrawn  from  the  troops  in  Scinde 

granted  when  the  troops  crossed  the  early  in  1840,  when  there  seemed  to 


280  THE  SEFOT  ARHY— ITS  DECLINE. 

1844.  Uncondemned,  the  mutinous  regiments  were  or- 

dered back  to  the  stations  from  which  they  had 
marched,  to  await  the  result  of  a  reference  to  the 
Governor- General;  and  other  corps,  warned  for 
the  Scinde  service,  came  up  to  the  frontier.  Dick's 
first  and  wisest  impulse  had  been  to  halt  the  re- 
giments marching  to  Ferozepore,  in  order  that 
they  might  not  run  the  risk  of  contamination  by 
the  tainted  corps,  or  the  corrupting  influence  of 
the  Sikhs.  But,  by  some  strange  fatality,  this  judi- 
cious measure  had  been  revoked;  the  regiments 
marched  to  the  frontier;  and  Dick's  difiiculties  in- 
SixW-  creased.  The  Sixty-ninth  refused  to  embark,  unless 
h  and  the  ^^^  ^j^  Indus  allowances  were  guaranteed  to  them. 
By  the  exertions  of  the  officers,  one-half  of  the  regi- 
ment was  afterwards  brought  round  to  a  sense  of 
their  duty ;  they  loaded  their  carriage  cattle,  marched 
to  the  banks  of  the  river,  and  declared  their  willing- 
ness to  embark  on  the  boats.  They  ought  to  have 
been  embarked  at  once  with  the  colours  of  their 
regiment.  Their  comrades  would  then  have  followed 
them ;  and  other  regiments,  moved  by  the  good  ex- 
ample, might  also  have  asserted  their  fidelity.  But  the 
golden  opportunity  was  lost ;  and  all  example  was  in 
the  way  of  evil.  The  Fourth  Regimfent,  trusted  over- 
much by  its  commanders,  followed  the  Sixty-ninth 
into  mutiny  at  Ferozepore,  and  such  was  the  conduct 
of  the  Sepoys,  that  Philip  Goldney,  a  man  of  equal 
courage  and  capacity,  suddenly  called  to  the  scene 
of  tumult,  drew  upon  one  of  the  foremost  of  the 
mutineers,  and  a  younger  officer,  moved  to  passion 

be  no  longer  any  extraordinary  duties  were  restored;  but  tliej  were  asrain 

to  be  performed  by  tliem.     Wiien  reduced  from  the  1st  of  July,  1843, 

the  insurrection  broke  out  in  Af-  after  the  close  of  the  war  in  Afghan- 

ghanistan,  and  retribiitory  operations  istan  and  the  conquest  of  Scindle. 
were   oommenced«   the   allowances 


CONDUCT  OF  THE  SIXTY-FOURTH.  281 

by  their  violence,  struck  out  with  a  bayonet,  and  1844. 
wounded  two  soldiers  in  the  face.  Those  were  days 
when  mutiny  did  not  mean  massacre,  and  the  Sepoy 
did  not  turn  upon  his  officer.  But  neither  regiment 
would  march.  On  many  hard-fought  fields  Sir  Robert 
Dick  had  proved  himself  to  be  a  good  soldier,  but 
he  was  not  equal  to  such  a  crisis  as  this:  so  Ellen- 
borough  at  once  ordered  him  to  be  cushioned  in  some 
safer  place. 

In  the  mean  while,  aid  to  the  embarrassed  Govern- 
ment was  coming  from  an  unexpected  quarter.  The 
Sixty-fourth  Regiment  of  Sepoys  had  formed  part  of  The  Sixiy- 
that  unfortunate  detachment  known  in  history  aft  ^^  ' 
Wilde's  Brigade,  which  had  been  sent,  before  Pollock's 
arrival  at  Peshawur,  to  carry  the  Khybur  Pass,  with- 
out guns  and  without  provisions.  It  had  afterwards 
served  with  credit  during  the  second  Afghan  cam- 
paign, since  the  close  of  which  it  had  been  cantoned 
at  the  frontier  station  of  Loodhianah.  The  Sepoys 
had  manifested  a  strong  reluctance  to  serve  in  Scinde, 
and  had  addressed  to  their  Adjutant-General  more 
than  one  urzee^  or  petition,  couched  in  language  of 
complaint  almost  akin  to  mutiny.  From  Loodhianah 
the  regiment  had  been  ordered  down  to  Benares. 
On  the  15th  of  February  it  reached  Umballah,  then 
become  the  Head-Quarters  of  the  Sirhind  division  of 
the  Army,  which  General  Fast,  an  old  officer  of  the 
Company's  service,  commanded.  Well  able  to  con- 
verse in  the  language  of  the  country,  and  knowing, 
from  long  intercourse  with  them,  the  character  and 
feelings  of  the  native  soldiery.  Fast  believed  that* 
something  might  still  be  done  to  bring  the  regiment 
back  to  its  allegiance.  So  he  halted  the  Sixty-fourth 
at  UmbaUah,  and  summoned  the  native  officers  to  his 
presence.      Questioned  as  to  the  disposition  of  the 


282  THE  SEPOY  ABMT — ^ITS  DECLINE. 

1841  r^menty  they  one  and  all  declared  that  the  men  had 
never  refused  to  march  to  Scinde;  that  they  were 
still  willing  to  march ;  that  only  on  the  evening 
before  the  native  of&cers  had  severally  ascertained 
the  fact  from  their  respective  companies;  that  the 
matter  of  the  allowances  would  not  influence  the 
Sepoys ;  and  that  the  mutinous  urzees  had  emanated 
only  from  a  few  bad  characters  in  the  regiment; 
perhaps,  it  was  added,  from  a  Sepoy  who  had  been 
already  dismissed.  From  these  and  other  representa- 
tions, it  appeared  to  the  General  that  the  Sixty-fourth 
really  desired  to  wipe  out  the  stain,  which  the  urzees 
had  fixed  upon  their  character,  and,  believing  in  this, 
he  recommended  that  they  should  be  permitted  to 
march  to  Scinde.  Under  certain  stringent  conditions, 
the  Commander-in-Chief  adopted  the  recommenda- 
tion ;  and  so  Moseley,  with  his  Sepo3rs,  again  turned 
ihis  face  towards  the  Indus. 

The  disposition  of  the  regiment  now  seemed  to  be 
so  good ;  it  was  marching  with  such  apparent  cheer- 
fulness towards  the  dreaded  regions,  and  setting  so 
good  an  example  to  others,  that  the  Commander-in- 
Chief  was  minded  to  stimulate  its  alacrity,  and  to 
reward  its  returning  fidelity,  by  a  voluntary  tender  of 
special  pay  and  pension,  and  relaxations  of  the  terms 
of  service.*  The  language  of  these  instructions  was 
somewhat  vague,  and  Moseley,  eager  to  convey  glad 

*   "In  addition  to  the  full  or  anhealthy,  and  under  no    circnm- 

marching  batta  always  allowed  to  stances  be  kept  in  Scinde  beyond 

regiments  serving  in  Scinde,   still  two  years,  wmle  the  indulgence  of 

higher  advantages  in  regard  to  pay,  furlough  to  visit  their  homes  will,  in 

together  with  the  benefits  of  the  re-  the  latter  case,  be  extended  to  the 

gulated  family  pension  to  the  heirs  men  in  the  proportion  enjoyed  by 

of  those  who  may  die  from  disease  corps  located  at  stations  within  the 

contracted  on  service."    The  com-  British  frontier."  —  [7%e  Adjutani^ 

xnanding  officer  was  also  instructed  General  to  Colonel  Moteleyt  March 

"to  miic  known  to  the  corps  that  15,  1844.]     Scmde,  however,   had 

it  shall  be  brought  back  to  a  station  become  a  British  "  province,"  and 

in  the  provinces  in  one  year  in  the  was  *'  within  the  British  frontier." 
event  of  the  ensuing  season  proving 


COLONEL  MOSELET  AND  THE  SCnT-FOURTH.  283 

tidings  to  his  men,  turned  the  vagueness  to  account      1844. 
by  exaggerating  the  boon  that  was  offered  to  them. 
And  so  the  error  of  Head-Quarters  was  made  doubly 
erroneous,  and  the  Governor-General  was  driven  wild 
by  the  blunder  oi  the  Commander-in-Chief. 

Whatsoever  Head-Quarters  might  have  intended  to 
grant,  was  contingent  upon  the  good  conduct  of  the 
regiment.  But  before  the  letter  had  been  received  by 
Moseley,  on  the  line  of  march,  mutiny  had  again 
broken  out  in  the  ranks  of  the  Sixty-fourth.  At 
Moodkhee,  now  so  famous  in  the  annals  of  Indian 
warfare,  the  regiment,  not  liking  the  route  that  had 
been  taken,  assumed  a  threatening  front,  and  at- 
tempted to  seize  the  colours.*  The  petulance  of  tihie 
hour  was  suppressed,  and  next  day  the  regiment  re- 
sumed its  march.  But  transitory  as  was  the  out- 
break, it  was  Mutiny  in  one  of  its  worst  forms. 
On  the  second  day,  the  Colonel  received,  at  Tibbec, 
the  letter  from  Head-Quarters,  on  the  subject  of 
the  additional  allowances.  The  outbreak  at  Mood- 
khee had  converted  it  into  an  historical  document,  to 
be  quietly  put  aside  for  purposes  of  future  record.  It 
was,  indeed,  a  dead  letter.  The  fatal  words  ^^too 
late"  were  already  written  across  the  page.  But 
Moseley  laid  eager  hands  upon  it,  as  a  living  reality, 
for  present  uses.  The  Sixty-fourth  was  plainly  in  an 
excitable  state.  It  had  mutinied  once  on  the  march, 
and,  without  the  appUcation  of  some  very  powerful 
sedative,  it  might  mutiny  again.  The  outbreak  at 
Moodkhee  had  not  been  reported  to  Head-Quarters. 
It  might  pass  into  oblivion  as  an  ugly  dream  of  the 
past ;  and  the  future  might  be  rendered  peaceful  and 
prosperous  by  the  letter  of  the  Adjutant-General.    So 

♦  It  was  advisable  to  march  the  either  coming  from  that  province  or . 

troops  proceeding  to  Scinde  along  a  stationed  on  the  frontier;  and  it  was 

ronte  which  would  not  brin^  them  especially  desirable  to  mask  Ferose* 

into  contact  with  other  regiments,  pore. 


284  THE  SEPOT  ABlfY — ITS  DECLINE. 

18H  Moseley,  having  caused  it  to  be  translated  into  Hin- 
dostanee,  summoned  a  parade,  and  ordered  it  to  be 
read  aloud  to  his  men. 

Tremendous  as  was  this  error — ^for  it  tendered  to 
the  mutinous  the  reward  intended  only  for  the 
faithful — ^its  proportions  were  dwarfed  by  the  after- 
conduct  of  the  infatuated  Colonel.  He  put  a  gloss 
of  his  own  on  the  Head-Quarters'  letter,  and  told 
the  regiment  that  they  would  receive  the  old  Indus 
allowances  given  to  Pollock's  Army.*  Upon  which 
they  set  up  a  shout  of  exultation.  And  then  the 
Sixty-fourth  pursued  its  journey  to  Scinde. 

The  horrible  mistake  which  had  thus  been  com- 
mitted soon  began  to  bear  bitter  fruit.    The  inevitable 
^   pay-day  came;  and  Moseley,  like  a  man  who  has 
silenced    the    clamorous    demands   of   the    Present 
by  drawing  a  forged  bill  upon  the  Future,  now  saw 
his  gigantic  folly  staring  him  in  the  face.     The  crisis 
came  at  Shikarpore.     The  Indus  war-allowances  were 
not  forthcoming,  and  the  Sixty-fourth  refused  in  a 
body  to  receive  their  legitimate  pay. 
George  Hun-     There  was  then,    under    Governor  Napier,   com- 
*^'  manding  the  troops  in  Scinde,  an  old  Sepoy  officer, 

familiarly  and  affectionately  known  throughout  the 
Army  as  George  Hunter.  Of  a  fine  presence,  of  a 
kindly  nature,  and  of  a  lively  temperament,  he  led 
all  men  captive  by  the  sunny  influences  of  his  warm 
heart  and  his  flowing  spirits ;  whilst  his  manly  courage 
and  resolution  commanded  a  wider  admiration  and 
respect.  Of  his  conspicuous  gallantry  in  action  he 
carried  about  with  him  the  honourable  insignia  in  an 
arm  maimed  and  mutilated  by  the  crashiiag  downward 
blow  of  a  Jdt  swordsman,  as  he  was  forcing  one  of 

*  This  was  known  among  the  Se-    up  the  soldier's  paj  to  twelve  rupees 
poys  as  **  Pollock's  Batta."    It  made    a  month. 


6E0B6E  HUKTER.  285 

the  gates  oi  Bhurtpore.  In  the  whole  wide  circle  of  1844. 
the  Army,  there  was  scarcely  one  man  whom  the  Sepoy 
more  loved  and  honoured ;  scarcely  one  whose  ap- 
pearance on  the  scene  at  this  moment  could  have  had 
a  more  auspicious  aspect.  But  there  are  moods  in 
which  we  turn  most  angrily  against  those  whom  we 
most  love ;  and  General  Hunter  in  this  emergency 
was  as  powerless  as  Colonel  Moseley. 

Greorge  Hunter  was  hot  a  man  to  coquet  with  Mutiny  of  iho 
mutiny.  He  saw  at  a  glance  the  magnitude  of  the  ^  "^  ' 
occasion,  and  he  was  resolute  not  to  encourage  its 
further  growth  by  any  inopportune  delay.  The  short 
twilight  of  the  Indian  summer  was  already  nearly 
spent  when  news  reached  him  that  the  regiment  had 
refused  to  receive  its  pay.  Instantly  calling  a  parade, 
he  declared  his  intention  of  himself  paying  the  troops. 
Darkness  had  now  fallen  upon  the  scene ;  but  lamps 
were  lit,  and  the  Greneral  commenced  his  work.  The 
light  company,  as  the  one  that  had  evinced  the  most 
turbulent  spirit  was  called  up  first ;  the  Sepoys  took 
Aeir  pay  Ja  man,  and  were  dtaussed  to  AeirLinea- 
Of  the  company  next  called,  four  men  had  refused  to 
receive  their  pay,  when  Moseley  went  up  to  the 
General,  and  told  him  that  the  whole  regiment  would 
take  their  money  quietly,  if  disbursed  to  them  by 
their  own  officers.  Hunter  had  once  refused  this,  but 
now  he  consented,  and  again  the  effort  to  flatter  the 
corps  into  discipline  was  miserably  unsuccessful.  No 
sooner  was  this  reluctant  consent  wrung  from  the 
General,  than  the  parade  was  broken  up  with  a 
tumultuous  roar.  Filling  the  air  with  shouts,  some- 
times shaped  into  words  of  derision  and  abuse,  the 
Sepoys  flocked  to  their  Lines.  In  vain  Hunter  ordered 
them  to  fall  in ;  in  vain  he  implored  them  to  re- 
member that  they  were  soldiers.     They  turned  upon 


286  THE  SEPOT  ABHT — ^TIS  DECLINE. 

ISiA,  him  with  the  declaration  that  they  had  been  lured  to 
Scinde  by  a  lie ;  and  when  he  still  endeavotired  to 
restore  order  and  discipline  to  the  scattered  rabble 
into  which  the  regiment  had  suddenly  crumbled,  they 
threw  stones  and  bricks  at  the  fine  old  soldier  and  the 
other  officers  who  had  gone  to  his  aid. 

Nothing  more  could  be  done  on  that  night;  so 
Hunter  went  to  his  quarters,  and  waited  anxiously  for 
the  da¥m.  A  morning  parade  had  been  previously 
ordered,  and  when  the  General  went  to  the  ground, 
he  saw,  to  his  exceeding  joy,  that  the  Sixty-fourth 
were  already  drawn  up — ^^  as  fine-looking  and  steady 
a  body  of  men,"  he  said,  "as  he  could  wish  to  see." 
Ko  signs  of  disorder  greeted  him ;  and  as  he  inspected 
company  after  company,  calling  upon  all  who  had 
complaints  to  make  to  come  forward,  the  regiment 
preserved  its  staid  and  orderly  demeanour,  and  it 
seemed  as  if  a  great  shame  held  them  all  in  inactivity 
and  silence.*  Returning  then  to  the  head  of  the 
column,  drawn  up  left  in  front,  Himter  proceeded  to 
resume  the  work  which  had  been  broken  off  so 
uproariously  on  the  preceding  evening.  Ten  men  of 
one  company  refused  their  pay,  but  none  others  fol- 
lowed their  example.  All  now  seemed  to  be  pro- 
ceeding to  a  fiivourable  issue ;  and  Hunter  believed 
that  the  fevourable  disposition  which  had  begun  to 
show  itself  might  be  confirmed  by  a  suitable  address. 
So  he  prepared  himself  to  harangue  them. 

The  ways  of  the  Sepoy  are  as  unaccountable  as  the 
ways  of  a  child.  It  is  impossible  to  fix  the  limits  of 
his  anger,  or  righdy  to  discern  the  point  at  which  his 
good  temper  has  really  returned.  Unstable  and  in- 
consistent, his  conduct  baffles  all  powers  of  human 

*  Onljone  man  came  forward,  and  his  complaint  was  that  he  had  been, 
passed  OTer  in  promotion. 


MOTINT  OF  THE  SIXTY-FOURTH.  287 

comprehension.  So  it  happened  that  just  on  the  U41 
seeming  verge  of  success  the  ground  crumbled  away 
under  Hunter*s  feet.  As  each  company  had  been 
called  up  to  receive  its  pay,  the  men  had  piled  their 
arms  to  the  word  of  command.  But  when  the  word 
was  given  to  un-pile,  there  was  an  immediate  shudder 
of  hesitation,  which  seemed  to  be  caught  by  one 
company  firom  another,  until  it  pervaded  the  whole 
regiment.  Elach  man  seemed  to  read  what  was  in 
his  neighbour's  heart,  and  without  any  previous  con- 
cert, tihierefore,  they  clung  to  each  other  in  their  dis- 
obedience. Three  Grenadier  Sepoys  took  their 
muskets,  and  were  promoted  on  the  spot ;  but  not 
another  man  followed  their  example.  The  re^ment 
had  again  become  a  rabble.  Nothing  now  could 
reduce  them  to  order. 

Until  the  hlaaang  June  sun  was  rising  high  in  the 
heavens.  Hunter  and  the  regimental  officers  remained 
on  the  parade-ground,  vainly  endeavouring  to  per- 
suade the  Sepoys  to  return  to  their  duty.  They  had 
only  one  answer  to  give — their  Colonel  and  their 
Adjutant  had  promised  them  what  they  had  not 
received.  If  the  Greneral  would  guarantee  them  the 
old  Indus  war-allowances,  they  would  serve  as  good 
soldiers ;  if  not,  they  wished  to  be  discharged,  and 
return  to  their  homes.  All  through  the  day,  and  all 
through  the  night,  without  divesting  themselves  of 
their  uniform,  without  going  to  their  Lines  to  cook 
or  to  eat,  the  mutineers  remained  on  the  ground, 
sauntering  about  in  the  neighbourhood  of  their  piled 
arms,  and  discussing  their  wrongs. 

Day  broke,  and  found  them  still  on  the  ground. 
But  hunger  and  fatigue  had  begun  to  exhaust  the 
energies  of  their  resistance,  and  when  Hunter  ap- 
peared again  on  the  scene,  accompanied  only  by  his 


288  THE  SEFOY  ABMT — ^ITS  DECUNS. 

1844.  aide-de-camp,  and  beat  to  arms,  the  men  fell  in,  took 
their  muskets,  and  evinced  some  signs  of  contrition. 
Then  the  General  spoke  to  them,  saying  that  he  would 
receive  at  his  quarters  a  man  from  each  company,  and 
hear  what  he  had  to  say  on  the  part  of  his  comrades. 
Satisfied  with  this  promise,  and  being  no  longer  irri- 
tated by  the  presence  of  the  officers  who  had  deceived 
them,  the  Sixty-fourth  allowed  the  parade  to  be 
quietly  dismissed,  and  went  to  their  Lines.  At  the 
appointed  hour,  the  delegates  from  the  several  regi- 
ments waited  on  the  General,  and  each  man  told  the 
same  story  of  the  deception  that  had  been  practised 
upon  the  regiment.  They  had  been  promised  "  Ge- 
neral Pollock's  Batta,"  and  the  twelve  rupees  which 
they  had  expected  had  dwindled  down  into  eight. 

With  this  evidence  before  him,  the  General  re- 
moved Colonel  Moseley  from  the  command  of  the 
'Station  and  from  the  conmiand  of  the  regiment,*  and 
ordered  the  Sixty-fourth  to  march  to  Sukkur,  on  their 
way  back  to  our  older  provinces.  It  was  an  anxious 
time;  a'  hazardous  march.  So  Hunter  went  with 
them.  But  the  hot  stage  of  the  fever  had  passed,  and 
the  paroxysm  seemed  to  have  left  them  feeble  and 
June  26,  sorc-spent.  Unresistingly  they  went  to  Sukkur,  and 
encamped  in  the  presence  of  European  troops ;  and 
George  Hunter,  thanking  God  that  the  peril  was  over, 
and  that  not  a  drop  of  blood  had  been  shed,  then 
took  upon  himself  the  responsibility  of  pardoning 
the  regiment  as  a  body,  and  bringing  to  punishment 
only  the  worst  of  the  individual  ofFenders.f  Such 
moderation  could  hardly  be  misunderstood  at  a  time 

*  Colonel  Moseley  was  afterwards  pital  punishmeni,  and  the  sentence 

tried  b?  coort-martial,  and  cashiered,  of  death  passed  upon  the  others  was 

f  Thirty-nine  prisoners  were  sent  commuted  to  imprisonment  and  hard 

to  trial,  of  whom  one  onlj  was  ac-  labour  for  yarious  terms, 
quitted.    8ix  were  ordered  for  ca- 


18i4. 


DIFnCULTIES  OF  OOYERHMEMT.  289 

when  tbere  was  present  power  to  enforce  the  decrees  1S41 
of  a  sterner  justice.  So  he  addressed  the  regiment 
on  parade,  told  them  that  he  pardoned  all  but  the 
leading  mutineers,  who  would  be  tried  bj  Court- 
martial  ;  and  he  trusted  that  the  mercy  thus  shown  to 
them  would  not  be  thrown  away,  that  they  would 
repent  of  their  misconduct  and  return  to  their  alk> 
giance.  And  perhaps  the  provocation  which  they 
had  received  was  ample  warrant  for  the  Ummcy  o( 
their  treatment* 

But  the  embarrassments  of  the  Government  did  not 
end  here.  Whatsoever  might  be  the  punishment  of 
the  offence,  it  could  not  afford  a  remedy  fr/r  the  eWL 
The  mutinous  regiments  might  be  disbanded,  and 
their  ringleaders  might  be  hanged  by  the  neck,  or 
blown  to  atoms  from  the  guns ;  but  still  there  would 
be  no  answer  to  the  question  of  how  was  Scinde  to 
be  garrisoned  with  British  troops  ?  It  ha/1  been  the 
design  of  the  Grovemment  to  employ  only  Ii<mgal 
regiments  on  that  service,  seeking  aid  in  iriii^dsr 
quarters  from  Madras.  But  the  Bengal  Anny  had 
broken  down  under  the  experiment ;  and  there  wsii 
small  hope,  after  what  had  passed,  of  its  ever  Wiuf^ 
induced,  except  by  humiliating  concessions,  to  U>ok 
that  hated  province  in  the  hce.  There  were,  bow- 
ever,  two  other  Presidencies,  and  two  other  Armies, 
not  so  nice  as  Bengal ;  and  the  defence  ^/f  »Scinde 
might  be  entrusted  to  Bombay  or  Ma^iras  regiments* 
If  such  had  been  the  design  in  the  first  instance,  it 
might,  under  judicious  management,  have  been  sue- 

*  There  is  something  itrj  touch-  the  dreumsUmces,    *'  I  ne? er  could 

iog  ia  the  humilitj  which  penrades  write/'  he  s«jf  at  tlie  end  of  one 

the  letters  written  at  this  time  br  letter,  "and  old  age  does  not  im- 

Geom  Hunter  to  Lord  EUenborougn  prore  a  man  in  any  wmj,  except,  I 

and  bir  Ciiarles  Napier.    He  aaks  to  trust,  in  seeing  lilf  Qwm  uiiliflgt  nd 

be  pardoned  for  all  short-comings,  praying  for  ■"■**  ^ 
in  consideration  of  the  dificolij  of 

U 


290 


THE  SEPOY  ARMY — ^IT8  DECLINE. 


1843.  cessfuUy  carried  into  effect.  But  after  such  an  ex- 
ample as  had  been  set  by  the  Bengal  regiments^  there 
was  small  consolation  to  be  drawn  from  the  prospect 
of  loyal  service  to  be  rendered  by  their  comrades. 
Already,  indeed,  were  there  signs  that  the  disposition 
to  strike  for  higher  pay  which  had  manifested  itself 
among  the  Bengal  troops  was  not  confined  to  the 
Sepoys  of  that  "  pampered  and  petted"  Army.  The 
Bombay  regiments  were  untainted  ;•  but  a  mutinous 
spirit  had  again  displayed  itself  among  the  native 
soldiery  of  the  Coast  Anny.f 
MutiiiTofthe  The  first  sjmaptom  of  this  was  in  a  Cavalry  re- 
fiVidrT  ^™  8"^^^*  at  Jubbulpore.  Among  the  results  of  an 
extension  of  empire  without  a  corresponding  aug- 
mentation of  our  military  force,  are  frequent  viola- 
tions of  old  Presidential  limits  in  the  location  of  our 
troops,  which,  however  unobjectionable  they  may 
appear  at  the  Adjutant-Greneral's  office,  are  seldom 
carried  out  without  some  disturbance  of  our  military 
system.  It  might  seem  to  be  of  small  consequence 
whether  the  station  at  which  a  regiment  was  posted 
were  within  the  limits  of  one  Presidency  or  another ; 
but  if  a  Madras  regiment  were  called  upon  to  serve 
in  the  Bengal  Presidency,  or  a  Bombay  regiment  in 
Madras,  or  any  other  departure  from  ordinary  rule 
were  decreed,  the  Government  was  fortunate  if  it 
were  not  seriously  perplexed  and  embarrassed  by  the 
results.    Now,  the  Madras  Army,  though,  as  has  been 


*  The  Bombay  Army  was  said  at 
that  time  to  hare  more  duty  on  its 
hands  than  it  could  perform  without 
a  severe  strain,  and  the  Bombay  Go- 
venmient  were  clamouring  for  an 
augmentation. 

f  There  had  been  several  recent 
instances  of  extreme  insubordination, 
amounting,  indeed,  to  mutiny,  in  the 
Madras  Army.     The  53nd  Native 


Infantry  had  mutinied  at  Asseeghur 
and  Mallegaum;  there  had  been  a 
mutiny  of  tlie  Madras  troops  at  Se- 
conderabad :  and  the  2nd  and  41st 
Regiments  had  shown  a  bad  spirit, 
when  ordered  to  embari[  for  Cnina. 
The  3rd  and  4th  Native  Cavalry 
regiments  had  also  mutinied ;  iiie 
former  in  1838,  the  latter  in  1843, 


MUnMT  OP  THE  MADRAS  TBOOPS.  291 

said,  more  cosmopolitan  and  less  nice  thw  that  of  1S43. 
Bengal,  and  not  deterred  by  caste  prejudices  from 
proceeding  to  strange  places,  suffered  even  more  than 
the  Bengal  troops  from  being  ordered  to  distant 
stations,  because  the  &mily  of  the  Madras  soldier  fol- 
lowed his  regiment,  whUst  the  belon^gs  of  his 
Bengal  comrade  remained  in  their  native  village. 
The  removal  of  the  family  from  one  station  to  an- 
other was  a  sore  trouble  and  a  heavy  expense  to  the 
Madras  Sepoy ;  and  whatever  increased  the  distance 
to  be  traversed  was,  therefore,  a  grievance  to  him. 

To  the  Cavalry  it  was  especially  a  grievance,  for 
the  troopers  were  principally  well-bom  Mahomedans, 
and  the  rigid  seclusion  in  which  their  women  were 
kept  greatly  increased  the  cost  of  their  conveyance 
from  one  station  to  another.  The  Sixth  Cavalry  had 
been  more  than  commonly  harassed  in  this  respect, 
when,  towards  the  dose  of  1843,  just  as  they  were 
expecting  to  get  their  route  for  the  favourite  cavalry 
station  of  Arcot,  they  received  orders  to  march  from 
Eamptee  to  Jubbulpore,  in  the  valley  of  the  Ner- 
budda,  which,  in  consequence  of  the  demand  for 
Bengal  troops  on  the  Indus,  it  had  been  necessary  to 
occupy  with  regiments  from  Madras.  The  sharp  dis- 
appointment, however,  was  in  some  measure  miti- 
gated by  the  assurance  that  the  service  on  which 
they  were  required  was  but  temporary,  and  that  they 
would  soon  return  within  the  proper  limits  of  their 
own  Presidency.  They  went,  therefore,  leaving  their 
families  behind  them ;  but  when  they  reached  Jub- 
bulpore, they  found  that  they  were  to  be  permanently 
located  there  upon  lower  allowances  than  they  had 
expected,  that  they  must  send  for  their  families  from 
Kamptee,  and  that  their  next  march  would  be  nine 
hundred  miles  southward  to  Arcot. 

u  2 


292  THE  8EP0T  ABMT— ITS  DECLINE. 

1843.  Only  by  sayings  from  their  pay  at  the  higher  rates 

could  the  troopers  hope  to  defray  these  extraordi- 
nary expenses.  On  the  lower  rates  of  pay  it  was 
impossible ;  for  the  greater  part  of  their  earnings 
was  remitted  for  the  support  of  their  absent  families, 
and  what  remained  was  barely  enough  to  keep  toge- 
ther body  and  soul.  When,  therefore,  they  found 
that  they  were  to  receive  these  lower  rates  at  Jubbul- 
pore,  they  broke  into  open  manifestations  of  discon- 
tent, and  bound  themselves  by  oaths  to  stand  by  each 
other  whilst  they  resisted  the  unjust  decree.  The 
first  few  days  of  December  were,  therefore,  days  of 
sore  vexation  and  disturbance  to  the  of&cers  of  the 
Sixth,  and  most  of  all  to  the  Conmiandant,  Major 

Mwor  litcb-  Litchfield,  to  whose  want  of  personal  sympathy  with 
'  their  sufferings  the  Sepoys,  reasonably  or  imreason- 

ably,  attributed  a  great  part  of  their  affliction.  The 
conduct  of  the  men  was  violent  and  outrageousw 
They  were  with  difficulty  induced  to  saddle  and 
mount  for  exercise ;  and  when  the  trumpet  sounded 
for  the  canter,  they  loosened  rein,  urged  their  horses 
forward  at  a  dangerous  pace,  and  raising  the  religious 
war-cry  of  "  Deen !  deen !"  broke  into  tumultuous 
disorder.  Brought  back  to  something  like  discipline, 
the  regiment  was  dismissed ;  but  throughout  the  day 
the  greatest  excitement  prevailed  among  them,  and  a 
large  body  of  troopers  marched  in  a  defiant  manner 

Capt.  Byng.  through  the  Lines  to  the  tent  of  a  favourite  officer, 
declaring  that  they  would  obey  his  orders,  and  serve 
under  him,  and  beseeching  him  to  place  himself  at 
their  head.  On  the  foUowing  day  the  excitement 
had  increased.  The  troop-officers  went  among  their 
men,  endeavouring  to  pacify  them.  But  they  could 
report  nothing  more  satisfactory  than  that  the 
troopers  were  in  a  frantic  state,  and  that  if  Litchfield 


MUTINT  AT  JUBBULPORE.  293 

ventured  on  parade  next  morning  the  result  would      1843. 
be  fatal  to  him. 

Undeterred  by  this,  the  Major  would  have  held  the 
parade,  but  the  Brigadier  commanding  the  station, 
to  whom,  in  due  course,  all  the  circumstances  were 
reported,  caused  it  to  be  countermanded,  and  an 
Inspection  Parade,  under  his  own  command,  ordered 
in  its  stead.  To  this  the  regiment  sullenly  responded ; 
and  when  the  Brigadier  addressed  them,  saying  that 
he  was  willing  to  hear  their  complaints,  many  of  the 
men  stepped  forward  and  presented  him  with  peti- 
tions,  which  were  given  over  to  the  troop-officers,  to 
be  forwarded  to  him  through  the  regular  official 
channels.  But,  although  it  was  plain  that  there  was 
a  bitter  feeling  of  resentment  against  Litchfield,  no 
act  of  violence  was  committed  at  that  parade.  And 
it  happened  that  before  its  dismissal  a  letter  reached 
the  Brigadier  announcing  that  the  higher  allowances 
were  to  be  given  to  the  men ;  and  so  the  active  danger 
was  passed.  But  the  disturbance  which  had  been 
engendered  did  not  soon  pass  away ;  the  Sepoys 
remained  sullen  and  discontented,  and  for  some  days 
it  appeared  to  the  Brigadier  not  improbable  that  he 
would  be  compelled  to  call  the  Infantry  and  the 
Artillery  to  his  assistance.  But  the  Madras  Army  was 
spared  this  calamity  of  bloodshed ;  and  after  a  little 
while  the  regiment  returned  to  the  quiet  and  orderly 
performance  of  its  duty. 

As  the  old  year  closed  upon  the  scene  of  mutiny  in  184344. 
the  Madras  Cavalry,  so,  very  soon,  the  new  year  opened 
upon  a  kindred  incident  in  the  Madras  Infantry.  When 
it  was  found  that  the  Bengal  troops  were  reluctant  to 
serve,  under  the  proposed  terms,  in  the  Scinde  pro- 
vince, and  serious  embarrassment  was,  thereby,  likely 
to  be  occasioned  to  the  Supreme  Government,  the 


294  THE  8EP0T  ARMY — ^IT8  DECLINE. 

1843-44.  Madras  authorities,  believing  that  the  crisis  was  one 
in  which  it  behoved  every  one  to  do  his  best,  promptly 
and  vigorously,  for  the  salvation  of  the  State,  deter- 
mined, on  a  requisition  from  the  Government  of 
Bombay,  to  send  two  infantry  regiments  to  Scinde.* 
The  Sepoys  were  to  embark  on  board  transport  vessels 
at  Madras,  to  touch  at  Bombay,  and  thence  to  proceed 
to  Eurrachee.  One  of  these  regiments,  the  Forty- 
seventh,  was  in  orders  for  Mouhnein,  on  the  eastern 
coast  of  the  Bay  of  Bengal— a  station  at  which,  being 
beyond  Presidential  limits,  extra  allowances,  known 
as  field-batta  and  rations,  were  paid  to  the  troops. 
Ignorant,  it  would  appear,  of  the  Bengal  regulations, 
the  Madras  Government,  represented  by  the  Marquis 
of  Tweedale,  who  held  the  double  office  of  Governor 
and  Commander-in-Chief,  guaranteed  to  the  regiments 
ordered  to  Scinde  the  allowances  received  at  Moul- 
mein ;  and  under  these  conditions  the  Forty-seventh 
embarked  for  Bombay. 
MadrasF^rt  ^  Meanwhile,  the  Supreme  Government  had  been 
sefenth.  advised  of  the  imauthorised  measures  of  the  Madras 
authorities.  Chafing  under  such  usurpation  of  the 
powers  and  prerogatives  of  the  Governor-General, 
Ellenborough  sent  orders  for  the  detention  of  the 
Madras  regiment  at  Bombay,  and  it  was  disembarked 
on  its  arrival.!  There  the  Madras  Sepoys  learnt  that 
the  advantages  of  foreign  service,  promised  to  them  at 
Madras,  and  on  the  faith  of  which  they  had  set  their 
faces  towards  Scinde,  were  disallowed.  The  greater 
part  of  their  pay  up  to  the  end  of  March  had  already 

*  Sir  Charles  Napier  had  made  an  be  stated  that  one  detachment  of 

urgent  call  on  Bombay,  which,  Bom-  the  regiment  mutinied  on  board  the 

bay  not  being  able  to  comply  with,  John  Line  transport  vessel ;  but  the 

passed  on  to  iiadras.  discontent   then   manifested   arose 

t  Intelligence  of  the  change  of  from    circumstances    unconnected 

destination  was  communicated  to  the  with  the  after  -  causes  of  disaflec- 

officers  during  the  voyage.  It  should  tion. 


MUnNT  OF  THE  MADRAS  FORTf -SEVENTH.  295 

been  disbursed  to  them,  for  the  benefit  of  the  families  184844. 
whom  they  left  behind,  and  now  they  found,  in  the 
middle  of  February,  that  the  scanty  residue,  on  which 
they  had  relied  for  their  own  support,  was  by  these 
retrenchments  taken  from  them,  and  that,  far  away 
from  their  homes,  starvation  stared  them  in  the  face. 
It  was  not  strange  that  they  should  have  regarded 
this  as  a  cruel  breach  of  faith ;  and  that  they  should 
have  resented  it.  They  had  been  promised  rations, 
and  they  asked  for  them,  and  when  they  found  they 
were  not  likely  to  be  supplied,  they  manifested  their 
discontent,  after  the  wonted  fashion,  by  breaking  out  Yeh.  19 
on  parade.  When  the  word  of  command  was  given  for  1844. 
them  to  march  to  their  Lines,  by  fours  from  the  left, 
they  stood  fast.  The  word  was  repeated,  but  still 
they  stood  fast ;  and  when  the  Adjutant  rode  up  to 
the  leading  section  and  asked  the  men  if  they  had  not 
heard  the  word  of  command,  they  answered  sullenly 
that  they  had  heard  it;  and  when  a  Native  officer 
asked  them  why  they  did  not  move,  they  told  him 
that  they  wanted  food,  and  that  they  would  not  stir 
without  it. 

When  the  order  to  advance  was  again  given,  the 
regiment  moved  off;  but  only  to  renew  on  the  fol- 
lowing morning  the  exhibition  of  disobedience  and 
discontent.  Paraded  before  the  General  commanding 
the  garrison,  the  regiment  soon  evinced  signs  of  being 
in  the  same  mood.  After  inspection,  when  the  order 
was  given  to  march  by  companies  to  their  respective 
Lines,  the  Grenadiers  stepped  off,  but  presently  wavered 
and  halted ;  and  when  their  captain,  having  ordered 
their  arms,  went  off  to  report  their  conduct  to  the 
commanding  officer,  they  insisted  on  following  him  in 
a  body,  declaring  that  if  they  then  lost  their  chance 
of  representing  their  hard  CflM  to  the  General,  they 


296  THE  8EP0T  ARMY — ^ITS  DECLINE. 

1844.  might  never  find  it  again.  Another  company  was 
even  more  violent  in  its  demands.  When  the  word  of 
command  was  given  to  advance  at  the  quick  march, 
a  man  from  the  ranks  cried  out,  "  Right  about  face," 
and  the  whole  company  stood  fast,  as  did  other  parts 
of  the  column.  Taken  in  the  act  of  flagrant  mutiny, 
the  Sepoy  was  disarmed,  and  sent  to  the  guard, 
whither  the  greater  part  of  the  company  followed, 
declaring  that  they  also  would  go  to  the  guard,  that 
they  wanted  rice,  and  must  have  it. 

After  a  while  order  was  restored.  The  Greneral 
addressed  the  European  and  Native  officers,  and  told 
them  to  assure  the  men,  that  any  complaints  advanced 
in  a  soldierly  manner  would  be  inquired  into  and  any 
grievances  redressed,  but  that  such  conduct  as  had 
been  displayed  on  parade  could  not  be  overlooked.  The 
regiment  was  then  moved  off  to  its  Lines,  some  of  the 
ringleaders  being  carried  off  as  prisoners ;  and  an  ad- 
vance  of  money,  at  first  reluctantly  received,  stifled 
the  further  progress  of  mutiny.  Here,  then,  the  story 
may  end.  The  Madras  Army  was  not  destined  to 
supply  the  want  accruing  from  the  defective  loyalty 
of  Bengal.  It  broke  down  at  a  critical  time ;  but 
only  under  such  a  weight  of  mismanagement  as  might 
have  crushed  out  the  fidelity  of  the  best  mercenaries 
in  the  world. 

In  these,  as  in  instances  above  cited,  by  conflicts  of 
authority  and  variations  of  system,  the  Sepoy  was 
not  unreasonably  alarmed  for  the  integrity  of  his  pay ; 
and  although  we  may  condemn  the  manner  in  which 
he  manifested  his  discontent,  we  must  not  think  too 
harshly  of  the  tenacity  with  which  he  averted  his 
rights.  If  an  English  soldier  strikes  for  more  pay,  it  is 
in  most  cases  only  another  name  for  more  drink.  He 
seeks  it,  too  often,  as  a  means  of  personal  indulgence. 


DBBANDMENT.  297 

There  is  nothing  to  render  less  greedy  his  greed.  But  1844. 
the  avarice  of  the  Sepoy  was  purified  by  domestic 
affection,  by  a  tender  regard  for  the  interests  of  others, 
and  that  strong  feeling  of  family  honour  which  in 
India  renders  Poor  Laws  an  useless  institution.  He 
had  so  many  dependents  with  whom  to  divide  his 
slender  earnings,  that  any  unexpected  diminution  of 
his  pay  excited  alarm  lest  those  who  were  nearest  and 
dearest  to  him  should  in  his  absence  be  reduced  to 
want  The  honour  of  his  family  was  threatened; 
he  chafed  under  the  thought;  and  if  he  took  un- 
soldierly  means  of  asserting  his  rights,  we  must  re- 
member the  provocation,  and  not  forget  those  pecu- 
liarities of  national  sentiment  which  lighten  the  dark 
colours  in  which  all  such  resistance  of  authority  pre- 
sents itself  to  European  eyes. 

Eventually  Bombay  troops  were  sent  to  garrison  Penal  Mea- 
Scinde,  and  the  province  became  a  part  of  the  Bombay 
Presidency.  But  it  is  hard  to  say  how  much  these 
first  abortive  attempts  to  provide  for  its  defence  ^hook 
the  discipline  of  the  Sepoy  Army.  For  the  evil  was 
one  to  which  it  was  difficult  to  apply  a  remedy ;  and 
the  authorities  were  greatly  perplexed  and  at  variance 
one  with  another.  The  disbandment  of  a  mutinous 
regiment  is,  in  such  a  case,  the  most  obvious,  as  it  is 
the  easiest  measure,  to  which  Government  can  resort ; 
but  it  may  often  be  unjust  in  itself  and  dangerous  in 
its  results.  It  falls  alike  on  the  innocent  and  on  the 
guilty.  It  fills  the  country  with  the  materials  of 
which  rebellions  are  made,  or  sends  hundreds  of  our 
best  fighting-men,  with  all  the  lessons  we  have  taught 
them,  into  the  enemy's  ranks.  To  be  effective,  it 
should  follow  closely  on  the  commission  of  the  crime 
which  it  is  intended  to  punish ;  but  it  can  rarely  be 
accomplished  with  this  essential  promptitude,  for  it  is 


298  THE  BEPOT  ABMT — ITS  DECLINE. 

1844.  only  under  certain  favouring  circumstances  that  an 
order  to  reduce  to  penury  and  disgrace  a  thousand 
trained  soldiers  can  be  carried  out  with  safety  to  the 
State.  To  delay  the  execution  of  the  punishment  is 
outwardly  to  condone  the  offence.  It  was  not  strange, 
therefore,  that  when  the  Thirty-fourth  Infantry  and 
the  Seventh  Civalry  of  Bengal  mutinied  on  the 
frontier,  almost  in  the  presence  of  the  Sikh  Army, 
there  should  have  been  obstinate  questionings  at  Head- 
Quarters  as  to  the  expediency  of  disbandment  on  the 
spot,  or  at  some  safer  place  remote  from  the  scene  of 
their  crimes.  It  was  the  opinion  of  Lord  EUen- 
borough,  at  the  time,  that  a  regiment  of  Europeans 
and  a  troop  of  European  artillery  should  have  been 
summoned  with  all  haste  from  Loodhianah  to  Feroze- 
pore,  and  that,  in  presence  of  this  force,  the  mutinous 
corps  should  have  been  at  once  disbanded.  But  a 
reference,  it  has  been  said,  was  made  to  Government, 
and  the  mutinous  regiments  were  marched  down, 
unsentenced,  to  Loodhianah  and  Meerut,  there  to 
await  the  decision  of  supreme  authority.  The  orders 
given  left  some  discretion  with  the  Commander-in- 
Chief.  The  Seventh  Cavalry  had  not  mutinied  in  a 
body.  The  Native  officers  and  nearly  two  hundred 
troopers  were  true  to  their  Salt.  Discipline  might, 
therefore,  be  vindicated  by  ordinary  processes  of  law 
without  involving  the  innocent  and  the  guilty  alike 
in  one  common  ruin.  But  the  Thirty-fourth,  Native 
officers  and  Sepoys,  were  all  tainted  j  so,  with  every 
mark  of  infamy,  in  the  presence  of  all  the  troops, 
European  and  Native,  at  Meerut,  the  regiment  was 
broken  up,  the  British  uniform  was  stripped  from  the 
backs  of  the  mutineers,  and  the  number  of  the  regi- 
ment was  erased  from  the  Army  List.* 

*  Two  or  three  years  afterwards    of  a  new  regiment,  in  no  degree 
the  gap  was  filled  up  by  the  raising    better  than  the  old. 


DIBBiMBMEMT.  299 

Propinqmty  to  an  overawing  European  force  re-  iMd 
moves  the  chief  difficulties  which  oppose  themsdves 
to  the  sudden  dissolution  of  a  Native  raiment.  But 
under  no  other  circumstances  is  it  to  be  counselled. 
The  question  of  disbandment,  therefore,  perplexed  the 
Madras  authorities  even  more  than  those  of  Bengal 
To  march  a  regiment,  with  arms  in  its  hands,  some 
hundreds  of  miles  across  the  country,  to  recdve  its 
services,  and  perhaps  to  witness  its  repentance  during 
a  period  of  many  weeks,  all  that  time  concealing  the 
fate  that  is  in  store  for  it,  and  then  having  caged  it  in 
a  safe  place,  pinioned  it,  as  it  were,  beyond  all  hope 
of  resistance,  to  visit  it  with  all  the  terrors  of  a  long- 
hidden,  long-delayed  retribution,  is  altogether  ab- 
horrent to  the  generous  nature  of  an  English  officer. 
To  have  disbanded,  for  example,  the  Sixth  Madras 
Cavalry  at  Jubbulpore  would  have  been  cruel  and 
dangerous.  To  have  marched  it  to  Arcot  in  igno- 
rance of  its  fate,  would  have  been  cruel  and  dastardly. 
To  have  broken  it  up  at  Eamptee  would  have  been 
to  incur,  only  in  a  less  d^ree,  the  evil  of  both 
courses.  And  nothing  else  appeared  possible;  for 
it  was  not  to  be  supposed  that  all  those  indignant 
Mahomedans,  men  with  whom  revenge  is  a  virtue, 
would  have  quietly  gone  down,  mounted  on  good 
horses,  and  with  sharpened  sabres  at  their  sides,  in 
full  knowledge  of  their  destiny,  to  the  disgraceful 
pimishment  awaiting  them.  With  these  considera- 
tions before  them,  it  was  not  strange  that  the  Madras 
authorities  hesitated  to  carry  out  the  comprehensive 
penalty  of  disbandment,  and  that,  as  a  choice  of  dif- 
ficulties, it  should  have  suffered  many  guilty  men  to 
escape. 

In  this  instance,  Lord  EUenborough  was  eager  for 
disbandment.  He  said  that  the  conduct  of  the  regi- 
ment had  been  equally  bad  in  itself  and  pernicious  in 


300  THE  8EP0T  ABMT — ^ITS  DECLINE. 

18*4^  its  results,  for  that  the  disturbed  state  of  Bun^elkund 
rendered  it  little  short  of  mutiny  before  the  enemy, 
and  it  had  disconcerted  all  the  arrangements  of  l]ds 
Government  for  the  general  defence  of  the  country. 
But  it  was  not  his,  either  on  principle  or  in  practice, 
to  deal  harshly  with  the  errors  and  delusions  of  the 
Native  Army,  and  there  were  few  men  living  who 
had  a  more  kindly  appreciation  of  the  good  qualities 
of  the  Sepoy,  or  who  could  more  readily  sympathise 
with  him.  If  he  did  not  know  precisely  how  to  deal 
with  a  mutiny  of  that  Army ;  if  he  could  not,  with 
accurate  calculation  of  the  results,  so  apportion  the 
just  measures  of  leniency  and  severity  as  in  no  case  to 
encourage  by  the  one  or  to  exasperate  by  the  other, 
he  only  failed  where  no  one  had  yet  succeeded,  and 
need  not  have  blushed  to  find  himself  mortal.  He 
often  said  that  a  general  mutiny  of  the  Native  Army 
was  the  only  real  danger  with  which  our  empire  in 
India  was  threatened ;  and  he  believed  that  the  surest 
means  of  maintaining  the  fidelity  of  the  Sepoy  was  by 
continually  feeding  his  passion  for  military  glory.  In 
this  he  was  right.  But  the  passion  for  military  glory 
cannot  always  be  fed  without  injustice,  and  the  evils 
of  conquest  may  be  greater  than  its  gains.  He  had 
much  faith,  too,  in  the  good  effect  of  stirring  ad- 
dresses, appealing  to  the  imaginations  of  the  soldiery, 
and  in  the  application  of  donatives  promptly  follow- 
ing good  service.  And,  although  in  working  out  his 
theory  he  was  sometimes  impelled  to  practical  ex- 
pressions of  it.,  which  caused  people  to  smile,  as  in 
the  famous  Somnauth  Proclamation,  and  in  the  dis- 
Bflrcctmetts.  tribution  of  the  "favourite  mehtoys'^  to  the  Sepoys 
after  the  battle  of  Maharajpore,  there  was,  doubtless, 
sound  philosophy  at  the  bottom  of  it.  But  such  light 
as  this  only  served  to  show  more  clearly  the  many 


;  DIFFICULTIES  OF  GOyESHMENT.  SOI 

luid  great  difficulties  with  which  the  whole  qaesdon  1S44. 
of  the  Sepoy  Army  was  beset,  and  to  c<mviiice  re- 
flecting  minds  that,  though  human  folly  might  ac- 
celerate the  break-down  of  the  whole  system,  human 
wisdom  could  not  so  fence  it  around  with  safeguards 
as  to  give  it  permanent  vitality  and  strength. 

That  the  treatment  to  which  the  mutinies  arisiiig 
out  of  the  annexation  of  Scinde  were  subjected  by  the 
Government  of  the  day  was  nothing  more  than  a 
series  of  expedients  is  a  fact,  but  one  which  may  be 
recorded  without  censure.     The  disbandment  of  one 
regiment,  the  punishment  of  a  few  rin^eaders  in 
others,  the  forgiveness  of  the  rest ;  the  diOTnissal  of  an 
officer  or  two  for  culpable  mismanagement,  and  a 
liberal  issue  of  donatives  to  all  who  during  the  pre- 
ceding year  had  either  done  well,  or  suffered  much,  in 
the  service  of  the  State,  were  so  many  palliatives,  bom 
of  the  moment,  which  did  not  touch  the  seat  of  the 
disease,  or  contribute  to  the  future  healthy  action  of 
the  system.     But  there  were  circumstances,  both 
intrinsic  and  extrinsic,  which  seemed  to  forbid,  on 
grounds  alike  of  justice  and  of  policy,  the  application 
of  more  vigorous  remedies.     The  fact^  indeed,  that 
the  misconduct  of  the  soldiery  had,  in  a  great  measure, 
been  the  direct  growth  of  the  injuries  which  they  had 
sustained  at  the  hands  of  the  Grovemment,  would 
have  made  severity  a  crime.     But  it  was  no  less  cer- 
tain that  leniency  was  a  blunder.     If  an  Army  once 
finds  that  it  can  dictate  to  Government  the  amount 
of  its  pay,  there  is  an  end  to  the  controlling  power  of 
the  latter.  What  the  State  ought  to  have  learnt  from 
this  lesson  was  the  paramount  obligation  which  rested 
upon  it  of  clearly  explaining  to  its  troops  all  regula- 
tions affecting  their  pay  and  allowances,  and  espe- 
cially such  as  entailed  upon  them  any  loss   ^    ^~^ 


302  THE  8EF0T  ARMY— ITS  DECLINE. 

1844.  antecedently  enjoyed.  Under  any  circumstances  a 
reduction  of  pay  is  a  delicate  and  hazardous  opera- 
tion. Even  the  loyalty  of  European  officers  is  not 
always  proof  against  such  a  trial  But  the  absence  of 
explanation  aggravates  it,  in  the  Sepoy's  eyes,  into  a 
breach  of  faith ;  he  believes  that  he  is  only  asserting 
his  rights  when  he  strikes  for  the  restoration  of  that 
of  which  he  has  been,  in  his  own  eyes  unjustly,  de- 
prived ;  and  the  Grovemment  then,  perplexed  in  the 
extreme,  has  only  a  choice  of  evils  before  it,  and  either 
on  the  side  of  leniency  or  severity  is  too  likely  to  go 
lamentably  wrong. 


THE  ffllH  TAK. 


CHAPTER  IV. 


TEB  TAB  OK  IBS   SUTLlf^-THl    PITXA   m««M h-t—- »ti»iipt  fg   GOK- 

xcn  THS  mron  at  smniBB— ch>  ocrarATiov  or  tsb  n:wA^~ 
issBXAnov  Axs  m  imcn — smdcciuv  or  tsi  aKror**  rAr— >■> 

Kumrass  at  kawci.  raoa  ax9  oonis^aw— uod  DAiaocm  axb 
SIX  CHABUB  VAnn. 

It  was  fortunate,  periiaps,  for  llie  mlers  of  that  day  isu. 
that  Peace  was  but  of  diort  doratioii,  and  that  the 
"  passion  for  military  gbiy"  had  agun  something  to 
feed  upon.  The  Sikh  Army,  having  risen  ag^nst  ita 
own  leaders,  was  yapouring  on  tlie  banks  of  the  Sutlg, 
and  threatening  to  cross  the  British  frontier.  No 
war  could  have  been  more  welcome  to  the  Sepoy  than 
a  war  with  the  Sikhs.  For  they  were  an  insolent  and 
minacious  race,  and  it  was  known  that  they  had 
talked  of  overrunning  Hindostan,  and  pooling  on  to 
the  sack  of  Delhi  and  the  pillage  of  Calcutta.  They 
took  the  first  step,  and  the  war  commenced. 

Whilst  the  Governor-General  and  the  Commander-  The  PrtM 
in-Chief  were  at  the  head  of  the  Army  on  the  frontier,  *^***P™'I- 
and  all  eyes  were  turned  towards  the  scene  of  that 
sanguinary  conflict  on  the  Sutlej,  lower  down,  on  the 
banks  of  the  Ganges,  four  hundred  miles  from  Cal- 
cutta, an  incident  was  occurring,  which,  in  quiet 
times,  might  have  made  itself  heard  all  over  the 
counby,  but  which,  lost  in  the  din  of  batde  in  that 


304  THE  SEFOT  A&HT — ITS  DECLINE. 

184546.    momentous  winter,  gave  only  a  local  sound. 

covery  was  made  of  an  organised  attempt  to  corrupt 
the  soldiery  in  the  Lower  Provinces.  On  Christmas- 
eve  the  ma^strate  of  Patna  received  a  letter  from 
Major  Rowcrofty  informing  him  that  the  Moonshee 
of  his  regiment — the  First  Native  Infantry — ^was  in 
treasonable  correspondence  with  a  rich  and  influ- 
ential landholder  in  the  neighbourhood,  who  had 
been  tampering  with  the  allegiance  of  the  Native 
of&cers  and  Sepoys  in  the  contiguous  station  of 
Dinapore. 

Of  the  truth  of  the  story  there  was  no  doubt.  To 
what  dimensions  the  conspiracy  really  extended,  and 
from  what  central  point  it  radiated,  is  not  known, 
and  now  never  will  be  known.  It  was  a  season  of 
considerable  popular  excitement,  aggravated  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Patna  by  local  causes,  and  eager 
efforts  had  been  made  to  prepare  the  people  for 
revolt.  Reports  had  been  for  some  time  current  to 
the  effect  that  the  British  Government  purposed  to 
destroy  the  caste  of  the  Hindoos,  and  to  abolish 
Mahomedanism  by  forbidding  the  initial  ceremony 
through  which  a^nission  is  obtained  to  the  number 
of  the  Faithful.  And  to  this  was  added  another  lie, 
scarcely  less  alarming,  that  the  Purdah  was  also  to 
be  prohibited,  and  that  Mahomedan  females  of  all 
ranks  were  to  be  compelled  to  go  about  unveiled. 
Stories  of  this  kind,  it  has  been  observed,  however 
monstrous  in  themselves,  are  readily  believed,  if 
there  be  but  only  a  very  little  truth  to  give  them 
currency.  The  truth  may  be  from  within  or  it  may 
be  from  without.  It  may  be  direct  proof  or  indirect 
confirmation.  It  little  matters  so  long  as  there  is 
something  which  men  may  see  and  judge  for  them- 
selves.   There  had  been  many  exciting  causes  at  this 


EXCITEIIENT  AT  PATNA.  305 

time,  to  rouse  the  resentments  and  to  stimulate  the  184S^). 
activities  of  the  Moulavees  and  the  Pundits,  such  as 
the  new  law  of  inheritance  and  the  new  educational 
measures ;  and  now  the  iatroduction  of  the  messing- 
system  into  the  gaols  was  a  patent  fact  which  all 
might  understand.  It  was  an  incident,  moreover,  of 
untoward  occurrence,  that  about  this  time,  when  de- 
signing men  were  eagerly  looking  out  for  some  false 
move  on  the  part  of  the  Government,  the  Ma^trate 
of  Patna,  at  the  request  of  the  Principal  of  the 
College,  alarmed  the  inhabitants  of  the  city  by  insti- 
tuting inquiries  enabling  him  to  form  something  of 
a  census  of  the  population,  showing  their  different 
castes,  professions,  and  employments — a  movement 
which  was  at  once  declared  to  be  a  part  of  the  great 
scheme  of  the  Government  for  the  forcible  conversion 
of  the  people. 

But  it  was  necessary  that  the  soldiery  should  be 
g.ined  over  by  some  Inning  iieflon  of  especU  .p. 
plication  to  the  Sepoy  hmiself.  Already  had  indirect 
agency  been  set  at  work  for  his  corruption.  He 
found  the  lie  in  full  leaf  in  his  native  village.  When 
he  went  on  furlough,  his  relatives  told  him  that  if  he 
did  not  make  a  stand  for  his  religion  he  would  soon 
have  to  fight  against  his  brethren  and  kinsmen.* 
When  he  returned  to  his  regiment  he  found  that 
every  one  was  talking  on  the  same  subject,  and  that 
it  was  currently  believed  that  the  introduction  of  the 
messing-system  into  the  gaols  was  to  be  followed  by 
its  introduction  into  the  Army,  and  that  the  Sepoy 
was  not  much  longer  to  be  allowed  to  have  uncon- 
trolled dominion  over  his  own  cooking-pot. 

♦  Some  of  the  men  of  the  First  but  if  you  will  not  listen  to  ns,  we 

Regiment  told  Major  Rowcroft  that  will  send  2000  iuwans  (young  men) 

the  villagers  had  said,  "  Our  Tillage  to  oppose  you.' 
fomishet  500  men  to  yonr  Anny; 

X 


806  THE  SEPOY  AKMY — ITS  DECLINE, 

l8i5-46.  If,  then,  there  had  been  nothing  more  than  this, 
the  time  would  have  been  propitious,  and  plotters 
might  reasonably  have  thought  that  the  opportunity 
was  ripe.  But  in  that  winter  of  1845-46  a  seditious 
enterprise  of  this  kind  in  the  Lower  Provinces  was 
favoured  by  the  circumstances  of  the  great  war  with 
the  Sikhs,  which  was  drawing  all  the  resources  of  the 
Government  to  the  North- Western  frontier.  There 
was  a  vague  belief  that  lakhs  of  Punjabee  fighting- 
men  would  soon  be  streaming  over  the  country,  and 
that  the  English  would  be  driven  into  the  sea.  Many, 
then,  with  eager  cupidity,  bethought  themselves  of 
gutting  the  opium  godowns  of  Patna,  where  a  million 
and  a  half  of  Government  property  lay  stored ;  and 
all  the  dangerous  classes  of  the  city  were  ripe  and 
ready  for  pillage  and  for  slaughter.  A  rising  of  the 
Sepoys  at  such  a  time,  or  their  acquiescence  in  a 
rising  of  the  people,  might  have  been  fatal  to  the 
continued  supremacy  of  Government  in  that  part  of 
the  country.  The  plotters  scarcely  hoped  to  accom- 
plish more  than  the  latter  of  these  two  means  of 
overthrowing  the  English.  At  all  events,  it  was  safer 
to  begin  with  the  milder  experiment  on  the  fidelity 
of  the  Sepoy.  So  delegates  went  about  in  the  Lines 
sapng  that  the  great  King  of  Delhi  had  sent  a  con- 
fidential agent  to  give  a  month's  pay  to  every  Native 
officer  and  soldier  in  the  regiments  in  order  that  if 
any  outbreak  should  occur  in  their  part  of  the  coun- 
try they  should  not  lift  a  hand  in  support  of  the 
Government.  All  the  landholders,  and  the  culti- 
vators, and  the  townspeople  were  ready,  it  was  said, 
to  rise;  and  if  the  soldiery  would  only  remain  in- 
active, the  British  power  might  be  destroyed  before  it 
could  perpetrate  the  outrages  by  which  it  sought  to 
overturn  the  religions  of  the  country. 


CONSPIBACT  DETECTED.  307 

A  Jemadar  of  the  First  Regiment  heard  this  story,  i845-«. 
gravely  listened  to  all  that  was  urged  by  the  emissary 
of  sedition,  and  said  that  he  would  consider  of  the 
matter.*  Then  he  repeated  all  that  had  happened 
to  his  commanding  officer,  and  measures  were  soon 
taken  to  test  the  reality  of  the  plot  There  was  at 
all  events  one  substantial  proof  that  the  story  was  no 
fiction.  There  was  money  counted  out  for  the  work  of 
corruption,  and  tied  up  in  bags  ready  for  immediate 
delivery.  It  was  agreed  that  the  Jemadar  and  another 
officer  in  Rowcroft'a  confidence  should  take  the 
money,  and  matters  were  soon  conveniently  arranged 
so  as  to  bring  about  the  (Usclosure.  A  detachment 
of  the  regiment  was  about  to  proceed  to  Gya ;  with 
this  went  the  two  ffuthful  Jemadars.  On  the  way 
they  met  or  were  overtaken  by  two  well-dressed 
Mahomedans  in  an  ecka,  or  native  wheeled-carriage^ 
who  gave  them  the  money,  saying  that  others  had 
taken  it,  and  that  larger  supplies  were  forthcoming 
for  the  same  purpose.  NotluDg  could  stamp  the 
reality  of  the  design  more  surely  than  this.  Men  are 
in  earnest  when  they  part  with  their  money. 

Another  Native  officer  of  the  First  traitorouftly 
took  the  corrupting  coin,  and  a  Moonshee  of  the 
rc^ment  was  found  to  be  deeply  implicated  in  the 
plot.  But  Rowcrofl's  opportune  diucoverj-  of  tlie 
attempt  to  debauch  his  men,  and  the  measure  wh'u-h 
he  wisely  adopted,  rendered  the  further  efforts  tA'  the 
conspirators  utterly  (utile  and  hopeless.  The  military 
offenders  were  soon  in  confinement ;  the  'rivil  i.;:»' 
gistrate  was  tracking  down  the  insdgat/^nt  t/t  w^li- 
tion  ;  and  if  no  great  success  then  att^ndi^J  th*;  ti*Mftu\A 


by  nanie   M< 
been  paT-haT 


308  THE  SEPOY  ARMY — ITS  DECLINE, 

1845-46.  to  bring  the  necks  of  the  most  guilty  to  the  gaUows^ 
it  was  sufficient  for  the  public  peace  that  the  plot  was 
discovered.  What  the  amount  of  real  danger  then 
was  it  is  difficult  to  determine.  Two  other  Native 
regiments  at  Dinapore  were  tampered  with  in  like 
manner,  but  the  discovery  of  the  plot  in  Rowcrofit's 
corps  rendered  other  efforts  abortive.  Many  great 
names  were  used  by  the  agents  of  sedition,  but  upon 
what  authority  can  only  be  conjectured.  It  was 
stated  that  a  royal  mandate  had  come  from  the  King 
of  Delhi ;  that  the  Rajah  of  Nepaul  was  ready  to 
send  a  great  army  sweeping  down  to  the  plains ;  and 
again  it  was  said  that  the  Sikhs  were  the  prime 
movers  of  the  plot.*  All  this  can  be  only  obscurely 
shadowed  on  the  page  of  history.  But  it  is  certain 
that  a  scroll  was  found,  described  by  a  witness  as 
being  many  cubits  long,  on  which  the  names  of  some 
hundred  of  respectable  inhabitants  of  Patna,  Hindoos 
and  Mahomedans,  were  attached  to  a  solemn  dedar 
ration  binding  them  to  die  in  defence  of  their  reli- 
gion, and  that  it  was  honestly  believed  by  large 
numbers  of  the  educated  no  less  than  the  ignorant 
people  of  that  part  of  the  country,  that  the  one 
cherished  object  of  the  British  Government  was  to 
reduce  all  the  people  of  India  to  the  no-caste  state  of 
the  Feringhees.  Of  the  reality  of  this  beli^  there 
was  no  doubt ;  so  a  Proclamation  was  put  forth  by 
the  Governor  of  Bengal,  declaring  that  as  the  Bri- 
tish Government  never  had  interfered,  so  the  people 

*  The  principal  actor  in  the  Patna  fear  of  reliffioos  con?ersion,  and  ea- 

conspiraoy  was  one  Khojah  ELassan  cooraging  tneir  determination  to  re- 

Ali  Khaa.     It  seems  tnat  at  the  sist.    He  escaped  for  want  of  evi- 

Sonepore  Fair,  a  short  time  before,  dence.    There  was  also  a  wandering 

he  had  appeared  in  great  state,  and  bookseller,  who,  on  the  plea  of  sdE 

received  a  considerable  number  of  ingPersian  volumes  to  the  Moonaheea 

influential  people  in  his  tent,  with  of  regiments,  readily  gained  aooev 

the  object  of  instilling  into  them  a  to  them  without  exciting  auspieioo. 


CONQUEST  OF  THE  PUNJAB.  309 

might  l>e  assured  that  it  never  would  interfere  in  any    iBiS^w. 
way  with  the  reli^ona  of  the  country. 

The  Jemadar  and"  the  Moonshee  of  the  First  Regi- 
ment, who  had  been  seduced  into  traitorous  courses, 
were  tried  by  court-martial,  and  sentenced  to  death, 
with  the  usual  reluctance  manifested  by  a  tribunal 
composed  only  of  Native  officers.*  But  it  was  not 
necessary  to  fltriie  terror  into  the  minds  of  an  army 
hovering  on  the  brink  of  general  mutiny ;  so  the  sen- 
tence was  not  carried  out  Whatever  danger  there 
may  have  been  had  passed  away.f  The  victories  of 
Hardinge  and  Gough  had  a  grand  moral  effect  from 
one  end  of  the  country  to  the  other,  for  It  had  been 
believed  that  the  British  were  sore  pressed,  and  that 
their  power  would  be  shaken  to  the  centre  by  this 
collision  with  the  Sikhs.  Victory  made  all  things 
.  right  again,  and  for  a  while  we  heard  nothing  more 
of  mutiny  or  sedition.  With  intervals  of  comparative 
repose,  distinguished  by  an  occupation  of  the  Sikh 
country,  very  flattering  to  the  Sepoy's  pride,  and  very 
profitable  to  his  purse,  the  operations  which  resulted 
in  the  fall  of  the  Sikh  empire  then  lasted  for  more 
than  three  years.  The  story  has  been  told  in  the  first 
chapter  of  this  work.  The  Punjab,  like  Scinde,  was 
turned  by  a  stroke  of  the  pen  into  a  British  province, 
and  the  same  difficulties  bristled  up  in  the  path  of 

*  Not  lon^  aRer  tbe  discorerr  of  f  It  ia  itated  in  tia  interestinf; 

this  plot,  HaiorRowcroft  was  seized  pamphlet,  published  bjUr.Stocque- 

with  serere  ulness,  not  withoat  bos-  ler,  m  1657,  that  it  was  said  at  Djna- 

picion  of  poison,  and  oblised  to  pro-  pore,  after  the  diseoTer;  of  this  con- 

ceed  to  England.    Jemadar  Uootee-  Bpiracj,  that  although  thcEn^lishliad 

Uiuar  toldhim  that  on  his  return  to  tnen  escaped,  there  would  be,m  1857, 

India,  he  wonld,  doubtless,  be  able  to  when  thej  had  ruled  a  hundred  jean, 

laj  before  the  Major  farther  facta  il-  andi  a  iomatia  as  the  oountrj  had 

liistT»ti*eoftheextentof  llicoonspi-  never  seen,     1  can  linJ  no  troco  of 

racy.     Bat  when  Bovrcroft  rejoined  this  "irj|it™'""P""""'  J'icuny'nt't 

the  refpment  both   Mootee^Missnr  QSdlPHleS?'^^     ""'  '  ',*T'? 
and  the  lAher  biiUal  Jemadw  iitn.^l^F       ^%£.'"'P°i''^  cnnbU-d 

-     -                                                    -a^^^  iH^Htt. .,[  ti^  Uoty, 


310  THE  SEPOT  ARMY — ^ITS  DECLINE. 

184546.  the  Annexer.  The  Sepoy,  called  to  serve  in  the 
Punjab,  had  no  longer  the  privileges  of  foreign  ser- 
vice ;  and,  in  spite  of  the  lesson  taught  by  the  Scinde 
annexation,  he  could  not  understand  why  the  con- 
quest of  the  country  should  be  inaugurated  by  the 
reduction  of  his  pay. 
Matin?  in  the     And  SO  the  regiments  in  the  Punjab  at  that  time, 

our  older  provinces,  determined  to  refuse  the  reduced 
rates,  and  to  stand  out  boldly  for  the  higher  allow- 
ances.    All  the  regiments,  suffering  or  soon  to  suffer 
from  the  incidence  of  the  reduction,  took  counsel  with 
each  other,  and  promised  mutual  support.    Delegates 
from  the  several  corps  went  about  from  station  to 
station,  and  letters  were  exchanged  between  those  at 
a  distance.  The  first  manifestation  of  open  discontent 
was  at  Rawul  Pindee.     There,  one  morning  in  July, 
Sir  Colin  Campbell,  a  soldier  of  the  highest  promise, 
already  budding  into  fame — ^the  "  war-bred  Sir  Colin," 
as  Napier  then  called  him — ^received  the  significant 
July,  1849.  intelligence  that  the  Twenty-second  Regiment  had  re- 
fused to  receive  their  pay.     Outwardly,  the  Sepoys 
were  calm  and  respectful;  but  their  (idmness  indi- 
cated a  sense  of  strength,  and  Campbell  felt  that  all 
the  other  Native  regiments  in  the  Punjab  would  pro- 
bably follow  their  example.      Such  a  combination  at 
any  time  and  in  any  place  would  have  been  dan- 
gerous and  alarming ;  but  the  peril  was  greatly  aggra- 
vated by  the  peculiar  circumstances  of  the  times.  For 
it  had   grown   up   in   a   newly-conquered   country, 
swarming  with  the  disbanded  fighting-men  of  the  old 
Sikh  Army,  and  it  was  believed  that  our  discontented 
Sepoys,  if  they  had  once  broken  into  rebellion,  would 
have  soon  found  their  ranks  swollen  by  recruits  from 
the  Ealsa  soldiery,  eager  to  profit  by  the  crisis,  and 


fe>ViN 


Sil 


again  to  wbmstinrtat  iwa.uhsi}  nr-mBging  ajgnmiiiiL  ISaik 
We  had  jss  SBcai  "dif-  downfiil  nf  jo.  ininii'S:  Tc^ei^^ 
tated  br  liie  'immiaBiam  of  b&  det.  a^TrsL  nnrihri 
by  the  bapJas  of  i&  sreeQ:  mc  ixcm  5ii  seenei  ii^ 
though  our  om  sdifisx.  hsiiiir  nanrtn  -^  c^oi- 
tagioD.  wtfl^  chnziDiiiazig  iar  domscvBL  sad  luc  ss 


quired  Terr  caxdEdl  siaemkc  xd  mivt  is  frani  Ikc^ 
wiedked  vpcB  lihe  aone  tdcIl 

Sir  Charies  XipBr  Itad.  s -difi  tiiD£L  joR  apfeured 
upon  the  flo^  fie  h&d  ^ia«gniirf  fixai  CdLmna  to 
Simlah  to  imsei  lite  GoreEZMr-GoiasL  vho  was  i^ 
freshing  hinwrif  wA  ii£  oml  mcHcitiin  air:   and 


there  the  news  reK^ied  him.  boi  that  one.  but  that 
two  raiments  at  Eaval  Pindee  had  lefiraed  to  take 
their  par.  and  that  there  was  every  prospect  of  fbiir 
more  rpgimfpta  at  Wmeefafaad.  and  two  at  the  inter- 
mediat^p  station  of  Jhelnm,  fioDowing  thdr  example^ 
Then  Dalhooae  and  Xifiier  took  counsel  together^ 
with  scHne  of  their  siadff-offioers,  and  it  was  debatod 
whether  it  would  not  be  wise  to  strike  a  vigorous  blow 
at  the  indpioit  mutiny  by  disbanding  the  regiments 
which  had  already  refosed  to  accept  their  pay«  To 
this  course,  proposed  by  Colonel  Benson,  an  old  ofKcor 
of  the  Company's  service,  held  in  deserved  rog^inl  by 
many  succesave  Governors-General,  Napier  rcsohitoly 
objected,  and  Dalhousie  concurred  witli  tlio  Ohiof. 
Hoping  for  the  best,  but  still  prepared  for  the  wornt*, 
the  old  soldier  instructed  Campbell  to  point  out  to  tho 
recusant  regiments  the  folly  and  wickedness  of  their 
course;  but  he  wrote  privately  to  him  that  in  tho 
event  of  their  obduracy,  he  and  other  conuiuuulinK 
officers  must  bring  the  power  of  the  European  ivjjl- 
ments  in  the  Punjab  to  bear  upon  tho  coori'ion  of  tho 
mutinous  Sepoys.  But  before  these  letters  arriviHl, 
Campbell  had  tided  over  the  difficulty.     "  The  com- 


312  THE  SEPOT  A&MY — ITS  DECLINE. 

1849.  bination  amongst  the  men  of  the  Thirteenth  and 
Twenty-second  Regiments,"  he  wrote  to  Napier,  on 
the  26th  of  July,  "  gave  way  to  fear  on  the  18th,  the 
day  before  your  prescription  for  bringing  them  to 
their  senses  was  despatched  from  Simlah."  The  fact 
is  that,  at  that  time,  they  were  not  ready ;  they  were 
not  strong  enough  for  the  resistance  of  authority ; 
and  they  were  not  prepared  to  be  the  protomartyrs  in 
such  a  cause.  There  was  a  European  regiment  at 
Rawul  Pindee ;  there  were  European  regiments  at 
other  stations  not  far  removed ;  and  so  it  was  held  to 
be  a  wiser  course  to  wait  until  the  new  regiments 
should  arrive  from  the  older  provinces  and  unite  with 
them  in  the  dangerous  work  of  military  rebellion. 

That  these  regiments  were  prepared  to  resist  was 
soon  too  apparent.  From  Simlah,  Napier  proceeded 
on  a  tour  of  inspection  to  the  principal  military 
stations  in  the  Northern  Provinces  of  India ;  and  at 
Delhi  he  found  unmistakable  signs  of  a  confederation 
of  many  regiments  determined  not  to  serve  in  the 
Punjab  except  on  the  higher  pay.  One  regiment 
there,  warned  for  service  beyond  the  Sutlej,  declared 
its  intention  not  to  march  ;  but  it  was  conciliated  by 
a  liberal  grant  of  furloughs,  which  had  before  been 
withheld ;  and  it  went  on  to  its  destination.  Napier 
believed  that  the  spirit  of  disaflfection  was  wide-spread. 
He  had  heard  ominous  reports  of  twenty-four  regi- 
ments prepared  to  strike,  and  when  he  entered  the 
Punjab,  he  wbs  not  surprised  to  find  that  mutiny  was 
there  only  in  a  state  of  suspended  activity,  and  that 
at  any  moment  it  might  burst  out,  all  the  more 
furiously  for  this  temporary  suppression. 

At  Wuzeerabad  it  soon  openly  manifested  itself.  In 
command  of  that  station  was  one  of  the  best  soldiers 
of  the  Company's  service.     At  an  early  age  John 


COLONEL  H£ARS£T.  313 

Hearsey  had  earned  a  name  in  History,  as  one  of  the  1849. 
heroes  of  Seetabuldee,  and  thirty  years  of  subsequent 
service  had  thoroughly  ripened  his  experience,  so  that 
at  this  time  he  had  perhaps  as  large  a  knowledge  of 
the  Sepoy,  of  his  temper,  of  his  habits,  of  his  language, 
as  any  officer  in  the  Native  Army.  With  this  large 
knowledge  dwelt  also  in  him  a  lajrge  sympathy.  It 
commonly  happened  in  those  days  that  the  man  who 
best  knew  the  Sepoy  best  loved  him ;  and  Hearsey, 
who  had  seen  how  good  a  soldier  he  could  be,  before 
the  enemy,  respected  his  good  qualities,  and  looked 
leniently  on  his  bad.  He  believed  that,  with  good 
management,  a  Sepoy  regiment  might  be  kept,  under 
almost  any  circumstances,  in  the  right  temper,  and  he 
had  great  faith  in  the  magic  efficacy  of  a  good  speech. 
When,  therefore,  one  of  the  regiments  at  Wuzeerabad 
openly  refused  its  pay,  Hearsey  drew  up  the  men  on 
parade,  and  addressed  them  in  language  so  touching, 
so  forcible,  and  so  much  to  the  point,  that  many  hung 
down  their  heads,  ashamed  of  what  they  had  done, 
and  some  even  shed  tears  of  penitence.  The  pay  was 
then  offered  to  them  again.  The  first  four  men  who 
refused  were  tried  at  once,  and  sentenced  to  imprison- 
ment with  hard  labour.  The  whole  brigade  was  then 
turned  out  to  see  the  sentence  carried  into  effect 
There  were  four  Native  regiments  at  Wuzeerabad ; 
but  there  was  also  a  Regiment  of  the  line  and  de- 
tachments of  European  Artillery,  Horse  and  Foot.  In 
the  presence  of  this  force,  the  convicted  Sepoys  were 
manacled  as  felons  and  sent  off  to  work  on  the  roads. 
After  this,  there  were  no  more  refusals ;  the  men  took 
their  pay  and  did  their  work. 

But  discipline  had  not  yet  been  fully  vindicated. 
Three  ringleaders,  who  had  been  known  to  go  from 
company  to  company,  instigating  and  fomenting  re- 


314  THE  SEPOT  ARMY — ITS  DECLINE. 

1849.  bellion,  were  tried  by  court-martiaL  and  sentenced  to 
fourteen  yeare'  imprisonment.  But  Napier,  who  re- 
garded  in  a  far  stronger  light  both  the  enormity  of 
the  offence  and  the  magnitude  of  the  danger,  ordered 
a  revision  of  the  sentence,  and  death  was  recorded 
against  the  culprits;  and  against  two  others  who 
were  tried  for  the  same  offence  by  the  same  Court,* 
Then  justioe  ™  ««Med,  «.d  nLy  -night  rtret«h 
forth  its  hand.    The  sentence  was  commuted  to  trans- 

Jmuary  25,  portation  for  life.     "  In  eternal  exile,"  said  Napier,  in 

1850.  his  general  order  to  the  troops,  "  they  will  expiate 
their  crimes.  For  ever  separated  from  their  country 
and  then*  relations,  in  a  strange  land  beyond  the  seas, 
they  will  linger  out  their  miserable  lives.  It  is  a 
change,  but  I  do  not  consider  it  an  amelioration  of 
their  punishment.  They  will  remain  living  examples 
of  the  miserable  fate  which  awaits  traitors  to  their 
colours." 

But  the  spirit  of  disaffection  was  not  suppressed, 
though  locally  for  a  time  it  was  subdued.  It  was  de- 
clared that  the  Post-office  runners  laboured  under 
the  weight  of  the  Sepoys'  letters,  which  were  then 
passing  from  cantonment  to  cantonment ;  but  a  large 
number  of  these  letters  were  seized  and  examined, 
and  they  were  found  to  contain  nothing  on  the  sub- 
ject of  the  allowances.!  Napier,  however,  anticipated 
a  crisis,  and  was  prepared  for  it.  TaMng  post  at 
Peshawur,  the  extremest  comer  of  our  new  Punjab 
territory,  where  was  a  strong  European  force,  he  be- 
lieved that  he  would  ere  long  be  compelled  to  sweep 
down  with  the  English  regiments,  picking  up  rein- 
forcements  as  he  went  from  station  to  station,  and  <to 

*  Sir  Charles  Napier,  in  his  In-        f  Sir  Henry  La 
dian  Misgovemment,  says  that  four    cutta  Review,  vol.  xziL 
were  tried  at  first,  ana  one  after*    ment  is  made  on  tiie 
wards ;  but  the  fact  is  as  stated  in 
the  text. 


MUTINY  OF  TIIE  SIXTY-SIXTH.  315 

crush  a  general  rising  of  the  Sepoy  troops.  And  soon  1860. 
it  appeared  to  him  that  the  crisis  had  come.  The 
Sixty-sixth  Regiment  broke  into  mutiny  at  Govind- 
ghur.  Bursting  out,  on  parade,  with  vehement  shouts 
of  disapprobation,  they  attempted  to  seize  the  gates 
of  the  Fort,  so  as  to  cut  off  all  communication  with 
the  loyal  troops  outside  the  walls.  There  was  no 
European  regiment  at  Govindghur,  but  the  First 
Native  Cavalry,  under  Bradford,  were  faithful  among 
the  faithless,  and,  aided  by  the  cool  courage  of  Mac- 
donald,  of  the  Sixty-sixth,  they  made  good  their  en- 
trance  through  the  gate.*  The  Fort  was  saved.  The 
European  officers  were  saved.  And  the  guilty  regi- 
ment was  doomed  to  a  moral  death.  The  Sixty-sixth 
was  struck  out  of  the  Army  List.  The  men  were  dis- 
banded  in  .  body,  «,d  air  colour,  given  to  a  eorp, 
of  Goorkhas,  from  the  hill-tracts  of  Nepaul,  who  were 
known  to  be  good  soldiers,  with  no  Brahnunical 
daintiness  about  them,  and  a  general  fidelity  to  their 
Salt. 

"When  the  Sixty-sixth  was  disbanded,"  says  Sir 
Charles  Napier,  "  the  mutiny  ceased  entirely.  Why? 
The  Brahmins  saw  that  the  Goorkhas,  another  race, 
could  be  brought  into  the  ranks  of  the  Company's 
Army — ^a  race  dreaded,  as  more  warlike  than  their 
own.^  Their  religiou.  combination  wa.  by  ti„t  one 
stroke  rendered  abortive."  But,  far  other  causes 
than  this  helped  to  subdue  the  spirit  of  disaffection 
which  was  then  ripenmg  in  the  Punjab.  The  Sepoys 
had  struck  for  higher  allowances  than  those  which 
had  been  granted  to  them  by  the  strict  letter  of  the 
Regulations;  but  Napier  thought,  that  however  un- 
soldierly,  however  culpable  their  conduct  might  be, 

*  An  opportune  blow  from  Mac-    statement  pablished  by  Sir  H.  Law« 
donald's   sword   appears   to    ha^e    rence  in  Caleuita  Remew,  voL  zzii. 
caused  the  gate  to  be  opened.    See 


316  TH£  SEPOT  ABMY— ITS  DECLINE. 

1850.  some  grounds  of  dissatisfaction  existed.  The  change, 
which  the  Sepoys  resented,  was  declared  by  the  Chief 
to  be  "  impolitic  and  unjust ;"  and,  pending  a  reference 
to  Grovemment,  orders  were  issued  for  the  payment 
of  compensation  to  the  troops,  on  a  higher  scale  than 
that  sanctioned  by  the  latest  regulations.* 
ihonsie  Then  arose  that  memorable  conflict  between  Napier 

Napier.  ^^^  Dalhousie,  which  ended  in  the  resimation  by  the 
former  of  an  office  which  many  had  predicted  that 
he  could  not  long  continue  to  hold.  Both  were  men 
of  imperious  temper,  and  a  collision  between  them 
was,  from  the  first,  clearly  foreseen.  When  the  Mili- 
tary Chief  took  upon  himself  to  readjust  the  al- 
lowances of  the  troops  in  the  Punjab,  the  Civil  Gro- 

*  The  bare  statement  in  the  text  a  separate  mone^-oompensation  for 
will  suffice  for  the  eeneral  reader,  each  particular  high-prioed  article  of 
but  not,  perhaps,  for  tlie  professional  consumption,  all  tne  several  articles 
one.  It  may  be  stated,  therefore,  were  massed,  and  some  bein^  cheaper 
that  it  had  l>een  for  many  years  the  than  elsewhere,  a  general  aTerage 
rule  of  the  Indian  Grovemment,  when-  was  struck.  It  was  then  officiaUy 
ever  the  prices  of  the  common  arti-  announced  that  thenceforth  compen- 
cles  of  consumption  used  by  the  Na-  sation  would,  be  granted  to  the  Se- 
tive  soldiery  exceeded  a  certain  fixed  poys  "  whenever  the  price  of  pro- 
price,  to  grant  them  compensation,  visions,  forming  the  Native  soldier's 
proportionate  to  the  additional  cost  of  diet,  should  exceed  3  rupees  and  8 
supplies.  This  bounty  seems  first  to  annas,  the  aggregate  of  the  rates 
have  been  bestowed  in  the  year  1821  for  the  several  articles  laid  down  in 
on  the  Native  troops  serving  in  the  the  General  Orders  of  the  26th  of 
Western  Provinces,  and  was  limited  February,  1844."  Whenever,  in 
to  the  single  article  of  ottah,  or  flour,  other  words,  the  Sepoy  was  unable 
Whenever  ottah  was  selling  at  less  to  obtain  his  daily  rations  at  a  cost 
than  fifteen  seers  (or  thirty  pounds)  of  3  rupees  8  annas  a  mouth  (which 
the  rupee,  a  proportionate  compen-  cost  was  calculated  in  accordance 
sation  was  granted.  But,  suose-  with  the  aggregate  fixed  rates  of 
miently,  in  1844,  the  application  of  the  prices  of  provisions,  beyond 
tnis  order  was  extended  by  Lord  which  compensation,  under  the  old 
Ellenborough,  and  compensation  also  relations,  was  granted  for  each 
was  granted  to  the  Native  troops  article),  the  excess  was  to  be  de- 
serving in  Scinde,  when  certain  minor  frayed  by  the  Grovemment.  The 
articles  of  consumption  were  sellmg  regulation  of  1^45  was  not  so  favour- 
at  a  high  price.  In  the  followiujg  able  to  the  troops  as  that  of  1844, 
year  a  new  order  relative  to  this  and  Sir  Charles  Napier,  believing 
same  subject  of  compensation-money  that  the  application  of  the  former 
was  issued  by  Lord  Hardinge,  who  rule  to  the  troops  in  the  Punjab  was  a 
had  by  this  time  succeeded  to  the  mistake,  directed  the  regulation  of 
government.     Instead  of  granting  1844  a^n  to  be  brought  into  force* 


DALHOUSIE  AND  NAPIER.  317 

vemor  was  at  sea,  beyond  the  reach  of  an  official  1850. 
reference.  He  returned  to  find  what  had  been  done, 
and  he  resented  such  an  encroachment  upon  the  pre- 
rogative of  the  Government.  Napier  had  justified 
the  exercise  of  an  authority  not  constitutionally 
belonging  to  his  office,  by  the  a^ertion  that  the 
danger  was  pressing,  and  that  action,  in  such  an 
emergency,  did  not  admit  delay.  Dalhousie  denied 
the  premises;  he  insbted  that  there  had  been  no 
danger.  "  I  cannot  sufficiently  express,"  he  wrote,  in 
an  elaborate  Minute  on  Napier's  proceedings,  "the 
astonishment  with  which  I  read,  on  the  26th  of  May, 
the  intimation  then  made  to  the  Government  by  the 
Commander-in-Chief,  that  in  the  month  of  January 
last  a  mutinous  spirit  pervaded  the  army  in  the 
Punjab,  and  that  insubordination  had  risen  so  high 
and  spread  80  wide,  as  to  impress  his  ExceUency  with 
the  belief  that  the  Government  of  the  country  was 
placed  at  that  time  in  a  position  of  *  great  perQ.'  I 
have  carefully  weighed  the  statements  which  his  Ex- 
cellency has  advanced.  I  have  examined  anew  the 
records  that  bear  on  the  state  of  public  affairs  at  that 
period,  and  I  have  well  reflected  upon  all  that  has 
passed.  While  I  do  not  seek  to  question  in  any  way 
the  sincerity  of  the  convictions  by  which  Sir  Charles 
Napier  has  been  led  to  declare  that  the  army  was  in 
mutiny  and  the  empire  in  danger,  I,  on  my  part,  am 
bound  to  say  that  my  examination  and  reflection  have 
not  lessened  in  any  degree  the  incredulity  with  which 
I  first  read  the  statements  to  which  I  have  referred." 
"There  is  no  justification,"  continued  his  Lordship, 
"  for  the  cry  that  India  was  in  danger.  Free  from  all 
threat  of  hostilities  from  without,  and  secure,  through 
the  submission  of  its  new  subjects,  from  insurrection 
within,  the  safety  of  India  has  never  for  one  moment 


818  THE  SEPOY  ABMY   -ITS  DECLINE, 

1850.  been  imperilled  by  the  partial  insubordination  in  the 
ranks  of  its  army.  I  have  confronted  the  assertions 
of  the  Commander-in-Chief  on  this  head  with  undis- 
puted facts,  and  with  the  authority  of  recorded  do- 
cuments, and  my  convictions  strengthened  by  the 
information  which  the  Government  commands,  I 
desire  to  record  my  entire  dissent  from  the  statement 
that  the  army  has  been  in  mutiny,  and  the  empire  in 
danger." 

This  was,  doubtless,  the  popular  view  of  the  matter ; 
and  it  was  readily  accepted  at  the  time.  What 
amount  of  danger  really  existed  was  never  known, 
and  now  never  will  be  known.  Whatever  it  may 
have  been,  it  was  tided  over ;  and  the  quietude  that 
foUowed  this  temporary  explosion  seemed  to  warrant 
the  confidence  which  the  Governor-General  had  ex- 
pressed. But  Napier  held  to  his  opinion  with  as 
much  tenacity  as  Dalhousie.  Nothing  could  shake 
the  belief  of  the  old  soldier  that  the  exceptional  course 
he  had  adopted  was  justified  by  the  exceptional  cir- 
cumstances of  the  times.  Still  he  knew  the  duty  of 
obedience ;  he  knew  that  in  a  conflict  between  two 
authorities  the  lower  must  peld  to  the  higher,  and 
that  he  had  no  right  to  complain  if  the  latter  asserted 
the  power  vested  in  him  by  the  Law.  "  And  I  do  not 
complain,"  he  emphatically  added.  But,  strong  in 
his  conviction  of  right,  and  master  of  himself,  though 
not  of  the  situation,  he  felt  that  he  could  retire  with 
dignity  from  a  position  which  he  could  not  hold  with 
profit  to  the  State.  And  he  did  retire.  On  the  22nd 
of  May,  he  addressed  a  letter  to  the  Horse-Guards, 
requesting  that  the  Duke  of  Wellington  would  obtain 
her  gracious  Majesty's  permission  for  him  to  resign 
the  chief  command  of  the  Indian  Army.  "  And  the 
more  so,"  he  added,  "as  being  now  nearly  seventy 


NAPl£R'S  RESIGNATION.  319 

years  of  age— during  the  last  ten  years  of  which  I      1850. 
have  gone  through  considerable  fatigue  of  body  and 
mind,  especially  during  the  last  year — my  health 
requires  that  relief  from  cUmate  and  business  which 
public  service  in  India  does  not  admit." 

But  there  is  no  blame,  in  such  a  case,  to  be  re- 
corded against  the  Grovemor-GeneraL  When  an  old 
and  distinguished  soldier — a  warrior  of  high  repute, 
and  a  man  of  consummate  ability — deliberately  de- 
clares that  he  regards  the  system  under  which  he  has 
been  called  upon  to  command  an  army  as  a  system  at 
once  faulty  and  dangerous;  that  he  conceives  the 
power  of  the  civil  magistrate  to  be  so  absolute  that 
the  arm  of  the  chief  soldier  is  paralysed  ;  and  that,  so 
enervated  and  emasculated  by  restrictions  imposed 
upon  him  by  law,  he  cannot  wield  the  sword  with 
honour  to  himself  or  advantage  to  the  State,  and  that^ 
therefore,  he  desires  to  lay  it  down,  he  utters  words 
which,  whether  he  be  righi  or  wrong  in  his  estimate 
of  what  ought  to  be  the  just  balance  between  the  civil 
and  the  military  power,  are  honest,  manly,  dignified 
words,  and  ought  everywhere  to  be  received  with 
respect.  Few  men  had  a  better  right  than  Sir  Charles 
Napier  to  criticise  an  Act  of  Parliament.  He  had  a 
right  to  think  that  the  law  was  a  bad  law ;  and  he  had 
a  right  to  say  that  it  was  bad.  But  the  law,  whether 
good  or  bad,  was  not  made  by  Lord  Dalhousie,  but 
by  the  British  Parliament.  It  was  Dalhousie's  busi- 
ness to  admiDister  that  law,  and  to  maintain  the  au- 
thority vested  in  him  by  the  Imperial  Legislature.  Of 
this  Napier  had  no  right  to  complain  ;  and  he  declared 
that  he  did  not  complain.  But  the  contest  was  on 
every  account  an  unseemly  and  an  unfortunate  one. 
It  was  another  and  a  culminating  instance  of  that 
excessive  centralisation  which  weakened  the  authority 


320  THE  SEPOY  ARMY — ITS  DECLINE. 

1850  and  degraded  the  character  of  the  military  arm,  and 
taught  the  soldiery  that  the  greatest  chief  whom  Eng- 
land could  send  them  was  as  much  a  subaltern  of  the 
civil  governor  as  the  youngest  ensign  on  the  Army 

List 
And  it  taught  even  more  than  this.     It  taught 

thinking  men,  not  for  the  first  time,  that  even  the 
chief  members  of  the  Government  were  at  war  among 
themselves,  and  the  lesson  shook  their  faith  in  the 
stability  of  a  power  thus  disunited,  thus  incoherent 
"  I  am  now  sixty  years  of  age,"  wrote  an  intelligent 
native  official  to  Sir  George  Clerk.  "  I  have  heard 
three  sayings  repeated  by  wise  men,  and  I  myself 
have  also  found  out,  from  my  own  experience,  that 
the  sovereignty  of  the  British  Government  will  not 
be  overthrown  save  by  the  occurrence  of  three  ob- 
jectionable circumstances."  And  the  first  of  these 
circumstances  he  thus  stated :  "  Formerly  the  high, 
dignified  Sahibs  had  no  enmity  among  themselves,  or 
at  least  the  people  of  India  never  came  to  know  that 
they  had  enmity.  Now  enmity  exists  among  them, 
and  it  is  as  well  seen  as  the  sun  at  noonday  that  they 
calumniate  and  bear  malice  against  each  other."* 
Such  conflicts  of  authority  are  keenly  watched  and 
volubly  discussed ;  and  a  siffnificance  is  attached  to 
them  out  of  aU  ^roportion^to  the  importance  with 
which  amongst  us  like  contentions  are  invested.  The 
natives  of  India  know  that  we  are  few ;  but  they  feel 
that  union  makes  us  many.  Seen  to  be  at  discord 
among  ourselves,  we  shrivel  into  our  true  propor- 
tions, and  it  is  believed  that  our  power  is  beginning 
to  crumble  and  decay. 

During  the  administration  of  Lord  EUenborough 
there  had  been  disunion  among  the  higher  authorities, 
arising  out  of  nearly  similar  causes.  The  unauthorised 

*  MS.  Correspondence,  translated  from  the  Persian. 


CONFLICTS  OF  AUTHORITT.  321 

promises  given  by  the  Commander-in-Chief  to  the  ^^^^• 
Native  troops  proceeding  to  Scinde  had  stirred  the  re- 
sentment of  the  Governor-Greneral,  and  his  grave  dis- 
pleasure was  excited  by  the  zealous  indiscretions  of  the 
Madras  Grovemment.  But  he  had  studiously  veiled 
firom  the  public  eye  the  differences  that  had  arisen. 
There  was  nothing  to  which  he  was  more  keenly 
alive  than  to  the  necessity,  especially  in  troubled  times, 
of  maintaining  a  show  of  union  and  co-operation  in  the 
high  places  of  Government.  It  was  his  hard  fate  at 
last  to  be  compelled,  by  the  fiat  of  a  higher  power,  to 
exhibit  to  the  people  of  India,  in  his  own  person,  the 
very  spectacle  which  he  had  striven  to  conceal  from 
them,  and  to  declare,  trumpet-tongued,  that  the  Eng- 
lish were  vehemently  contending  among  themselves. 
But  so  long  as  he  exercised  the  supreme  control  he 
was  careful  not  to  reveal  the  local  dissensions  of  the 
Government,  lest  he  should  weaken  the  authority  it 
was  so  essential  to  uphold;  and  little  even  is  now 
known  of  the  strife  that  raged  at  the  time,  when  the 
great  difficulty  of  garrisoning  Scinde  was  filling  the 
minds  of  the  rulers  of  the  land.  But  the  strife  be- 
tween Dalhousie  and  Napier  was  proclaimed,  almost  as 
it  were  by  beat  of  drum,  in  all  the  Lines  and  Bazaars 
of  the  country ;  and  all  men  knew  that  the  English, 
who  used  so  to  cling  to  one  another,  that  it  seemed 
that  they  thought  with  one  strong  brain  and  struck 
with  one  strong  arm,  were  now  wasting  their  vigour 
by  warring  among  themselves,  and  in  their  disunion 
ceasing  to  be  formidable. 

This  was  apparent  to  all  men's  eyes ;  but  the  Sepoy 
had  his  own  particular  lesson  to  learn,  and  did  not 
neglect  it.  How  it  happened  that  the  bitter  experi- 
ence which  the  English  Government  had  gained,  on 
the  annexation  of  Scinde,  made  no  impression  upon 

Y 


322  THE  SEPOT  ARMY — ITS  DECUNE. 

1850.  the  minds  of  those  whose  duty  it  was  to  provide 
against  the  recurrence  of  similar  disasters,  it  is  impos- 
sible to  explain.  All  we  know  is,  that  five  years  afiter 
a  misunderstanding  between  the  Grovemment  and  the 
Army  with  respect  to  the  rates  of  pay  and  allowance 
to  be  disbursed  to  the  Sepoy,  in  a  newly-acquired 
country,  l«d  drweo  i„«,  Hinj  a  toge  number  rf 
Native  regiments,  and  greatly  perplexed  the  rulers  of 
the  day,  a  similar  conjuncture  arose,  and  there  was 
a  similar  misunderstanding,  with  similar  results.*  The 
Sepoy  had  not  learnt  to  reconcile  himself  to  the  British 
theory  of  Annexation,  and  so  he  resented  it  in  the 
Punjab  as  he  had  before  resented  it  in  Scinde.  In  the 
latter  country  the  excitement  was  far  greater,  and  the 
danger  more  serious,  than  in  the  former ;  but  in  both 
there  was  an  outburst  on  the  one  side,  and  a  concession 
on  the  other.  That  was  given  to  the  mutinous  soldier, 
not  without  loss  of  character  by  Government,  which 
might  before  have  been  given  to  the  loyal  one  with 
befitting  dignity  and  grace.  When  the  emergency 
arises,  it  is  hard  to  say  whether  there  be  greater  evil 
in  concession  or  in  resistance.     Napier  thought  the 

*  Tliis  uncertainty  with  respect  take  advantage  of  difficulties,  not 

to  the  pay  and  allowances  of  dif-  an  umpire  between  man  and  man. 

ferent  branches  and  different  ranks  During  the  last  thirty  years^  I  have 

of  the  Indian  Army  was  emphatically  seen  much  hardship  on  officers  in 

commented  upon  by  Sir  Henry  Law-  matters  of  accounts,  and  of  the  seve- 

rence  in  an  article  bearing  his  name  ral  instances  of  discontent  that  I 

in  the  Calcutta   Review  :   "  Of  all  have  witnessed  in  the  Native  Army, 

the  wants  of  the  Army,  perhaps  the  all  were  more  or  less  connected  with 

greatest  want  is  a  simple  pay-code,  pay,  and  in  almost  every  instance 

unmistakably  showing  the  pay  of  the  men  only  asked  for  what  they 

every  rank,  in  each  branch,  under  all  were  by  existing  rules  entitled  to. 

circumstances.      At  present  there  Half  a  sheet  of  paper  ought  to  show 

are  not  three  officers  m  the  Bengal  every  soldier  his  rate  of  pay,  by  sea, 

Army  who  could,  with  certainty,  tell  by  land,  on  leave,  on  tne  staff,  in 

what  they  and  the    people  under  hospital,  on  duty,  &c.    There  ought 

them  are  entitled  to  in  every  position  to  be  no  doubt  on  the  matter.    At 

in  which  thev  are  liable  to  be  placed,  present  there  is  great  doubt,  though 

The  Audit-office  seldom  affords  help,  there  are  volumes  of  Pay  and  Audit 

It  is  considered  an  enemy  re^dy  to  Regnlations." 


DISREGARDED  WARNINGS.  323 

one  thing,  Dalhousie  thought  the  other;  and  each  1850. 
had  strong  argument  on  his  side.  But  both  must 
have  bitterly  regretted  that  the  contingency  was  ever 
suffered  to  arise,  that  no  one  in  authority,  warned 
by  the  lessons  of  the  Past,  had  learnt  to  look  at  the 
consequences  of  Annexation  with  a  Sepoy's  eyes,  and 
anticipated,  by  small  concessions,  the  not  irrational 
expectations  which,  at  a  later  stage  developing  into 
demands,  had  all  the  force  and  significance  of  mutiny. 
Had  thislbeen  done ;  had  the  Sepoy  been  told  that  in 
consideration  of  increased  distance  from  home,  and 
other  circumstances  rendering  service  in  Scinde  and 
the  Punjab  more  irksome  to  him  than  in  our  older 
provinces,  certain  especial  advantages  would  be  con- 
ferred  upon  him-advantages  which  might  have 
been  bestowed  at  small  cost  to  the  State — ^he  would 
have  received  the  boon  with  gratitude,  and  ap- 
plauded the  justice  of  his  masters;  but  after  he 
had  struck  for  it,  he  saw  not  their  justice,  but  their 
fear,  in  the  concession,  and  he  hugged  the  feeling  of 
power,  which  lessons  such  as  these  could  not  fail  to 
engender. 


y2 


324  THE  MILITABT  8TSTEM  OF  DIDU. 


CHAPTER  V. 

CHAB40TSR  Of  THB  BSSOAL  8BP0T-- COKTUCTINO  OPINIOHS — CASTS— THE 
SSNIOBITT  8T8TBM — THE  OFFICBBINO  OP  THB  ABMT — ^BEGULAR  AHD 
IKBEGULAB  RBOIMBNTS— WANT  OP  BUBOPBANS—THB  CBIKEAN  VAB. — 
nrOIAN  PUEUC  OPIVIOtf— SUMMART  OP  DBTBRIORATIKG  DTPLUEECES. 

1861-66.  After  this,  there  was  again  a  season  of  quiet.  The 
remaining  years  of  Lord  Dalhousie's  administration 
passed  away  without  any  further  military  outbreaks 
to  disturb  his  rooted  conviction  of  the  fidelity  of  the 
Sepoy.  There  were  not  wanting  those  who  declared 
that  there  was  an  ineradicable  taint  in  the  constitu- 
tion of  the  Bengal  Army,  that  it  was  rotten  to  the 
very  core.  But  the  angry  controversies  which  arose 
— ^the  solemn  warnings  on  the  one  side,  and  the  in- 
dignant denials  on  the  other — ^proved  nothing  more 
than  that  among  men,  entitled  to  speak  with  authority 
on  the  subject,  there  were  vast  diversities  of  opinion. 
Much  of  this  was  attributed  to  class  prejudices  and 
professional  jealousies.  One  voice,  very  loud  and 
very  earnest,  pealing  from  the  West,  sustained  for 
years  a  continual  remonstrance  against  the  laxities  of 
the  Bengal  System.  But  Bengal  resented  the  out- 
rage. A  genuine  man,  above  all  pettiness,  John 
Jacob,  was  declared  to  be  the  exponent  only  of 
small  Presidential  envyings  and  heart-burnings.  The 
voice  of  Truth  was  proclaimed  to  be  the  voice  of 


STATE  OF  THE  BENGAL  ARMY.  325 

Bombay.  And  when  officers  of  the  Bengal  Army  1851-56. 
wrote,  as  some  did  most  wisely,  of  the  evil  symp- 
toms which  were  manifesting  themselves,  and  of  the 
dangers  which  appeared  to  be  looming  in  the  dis- 
tance, they  were  denounced  as  defilers  of  their  own 
nest,  and  as  feeble-minded  alarmists,  to  whose  utter- 
ances no  heed  should  be  given.  There  was  a  general 
unwillingness  to  believe  in  the  decay  of  discipline 
throughout  one  of  the  finest  armies  of  the  world; 
and  in  the  absence  of  any  outward  signs  of  mischief, 
we  willingly  consented  not  to  look  beneath  the  surface 
for  the  virus  of  undeveloped  disease. 

There  is  nothing  that  is  strange,  and  little  that  is 
blamable  in  this.  The  Bengal  Sepoy  had  evinced 
ugns  of  a  froward,  petulant  nature,  and  he  had,  on 
several  occasions,  broken  out  after  a  fashion  which, 
viewed  by  European  military  eyes,  is  criminality  of 
the  deepest  dye.  But  these  aberrations  were  merely 
a  few  dark  spots  upon  a  century  of  good  service.  It 
was  not  right  that  rare  exceptions  of  this  kind  should 
cancel  in  our  minds  all  the  noble  acts  of  fidelity  which 
were  chronicled  in  the  history  of  our  empire.  Nor 
was  it  to  be  forgotten  that,  in  most  instances,  the 
criminaUty  of  the  Sepoy  had  been  the  direct  growth 
of  some  mismanagement  on  the  part  either  of  the  offi- 
cers whom  he  followed  or  the  Government  which  he 
served.  To  have  looked  with  suspicion  on  the  Sepoy, 
because  from  time  to  time  some  component  parts  of 
our  Army  had  done  that,  which  the  Armies  of  every 
Native  State  had  done,  with  their  whole  accumulated 
strength,  would  have  been  equally  unwise  and  unjust. 
For  although  it  might  be  said  that  the  examples, 
which  those  Native  States  afforded,  ought  to  have 
taught  us  to  beware  of  the  destroying  power  of  a 
lawless  soldiery,  the  English  were  justified  in  be- 


326  THE  MIUTAKT  SYSTEM  OF  INDIA. 

186146.  lieving  that  there  were  special  reasons  why  their  own 
mercenaries  should  not  tread  in  the  footsteps  of  the 
Mahratta  and  Sikh  Armies.  They  did  not  believe  in 
the  love  of  the  Sepoy ;  but  they  bdieved  in  his  fidelity 
to  his  Pay. 
Cbaraeierof  Whilst  it  was  natural,  and  indeed  commendable, 
the  Sepoy.     ^^^^  ^^^  remembrance  of  all  the  good  service  which 

the  Native  soldiery  had  done  for  their  English  masters, 
should  have  sustained  our  confidence  in  them  as  a 
body,  there  was  nothing  in  the  individual  character 
of  the  Sepoy  to  subvert  it  Even  his  outbreaks  of 
rebellion  had  recently  partaken  more  of  the  naughti- 
ness of  the  child  than  of  the  stem  resolution  of  man- 
hood. He  had  evinced  a  disposition,  indeed,  rather 
to  injure  himself  than  to  injure  others ;  and  it  was 
not  easy  for  those  who  knew  him  to  believe  that  he 
was  capable  of  any  violent  and  sanguinary  excesses. 
His  character  was  made  up  of  inconsistencies,  but  the 
weaker  and  less  dangerous  qualities  appeared  to  have 
the  preponderance ;  and  though  we  knew  that  they 
made  him  a  very  difficult  person  to  manage,  we  did 
not  think  that  they  made  him  a  dangerous  one.  From 
the  time  when,  in  the  very  infancy  of  the  Sepoy  Army, 
a  Madras  soldier  cut  down  Mr.  Haliburton,  and  was 
immediately  put  to  death  by  his  own  comrades,  to  the 
day  when  Colin  Mackenzie  was  well-nigh  butchered  at 
Bolarum  by  troopers  of  his  own  brigade,  there  had 
been  ever  and  anon  some  murderous  incidents  to  dis- 
figure the  Military  History  of  our  Indian  Empire.  ♦  But 
outrages  of  this  kind  are  common  to  all  armies ;  and 
there  was  no  reason  to  regard  them  in  any  other  light 
than  that  of  exceptional  aberrations.     It  was  not  to 

*  See  Williams's  Bengal  Army  section  on  the  Sepoy  Army  in  Suther- 
and  Mackenzie's  Narrative  of  the  land's  Sketches  of  the  Native  States 
Mutiny  at  Bolarum;  compare  also    of  India. 


CHA&ACTBR  OF  THE  BENGAL  SEPOY.  327 

be  said  that  the  Sepoy  was  a  ruffian  because  he  had     1651-56. 
done  some  ruffianly  deeds. 

He  was,  indeed,  altogether  a  paradox.  He  was 
made  up  of  inconsistencies  and  contradictions.  In  his 
character,  qualities,  so  adverse  as  to  be  apparently 
irreconcilable  with  each  other,  met  together  and  em- 
braced. He  was  simple  and  yet  designing ;  credulous 
and  easily  deceived  by  others,  and  yet  obstinately 
tenacious  of  his  own  in-bred  convictions ;  now  docile 
as  a  child,  and  now  hard  and  immovable  in  the  stub- 
bornness of  his  manhood.  Abstemious  and  yet  self- 
indulgent,  calm  and  yet  impetuous,  gentle  and  yet 
cruel,  he  was  indolent  even  to  languor  in  his  daily 
life,  and  yet  capable  of  being  roused  to  acts  of  the 
most  desperate  energy.  Sometunes  sportive,  and 
sometimes  sullen,  he  was  easily  elevated  and  easily 
depressed ;  but  he  was  for  the  most  part  of  a  cheerfiil 
nature,  and  if  you  came  suddenly  upon  him  in  the 
Lines  you  were  more  likely  to  see  him  with  a  broad 
grin  upon  his  face  than  with  any  expression  of 
moroseness  or  discontent.  But  light-hearted  as  was 
his  general  temperament,  he  would  sometimes  brood 
over  imaginary  wrongs,  and  when  a  delusion  once 
entered  his  soul  it  clung  to  it  with  the  subtle  male- 
volence of  an  ineradicable  poison. 

And  this,  as  we  now  understand  the  matter,  was 
the  most  dangerous  feature  of  his  character.  For  his 
gentler,  more  genial  qualities  sparkled  upon  the 
surface  and  were  readily  appreciated,  whilst  all  the 
harsher  and  more  forbidding  traits  lay  dark  and 
disguised,  and  were  not  discernible  in  our  ordinary 
intercourse  with  him.  There  was  outwardly,  indeed, 
very  much  to  rivet  the  confidence  of  the  European 
officer,  and  very  little  to  disturb  it.  It  is  true  that 
if  we  reasoned  about  it,  it  did  not  seem  to  be  alto- 


328  TU£  mUXARY  SYSTEM  OF  IlfI»A. 

1861-66.  gether  reasonable  to  expect  firom  the  Sepoy  any 
strong  affection  for  the  alien  officer  who  had  usurped 
all  the  high  places  of  the  Army,  and  who  kept  him 
.  down  in  the  dead  level  of  the  dust.  But  Englishmen 
never  reason  about  their  position  in  the  midst  of  a 
community  of  strangers ;  they  take  their  popularity 
for  granted,  and  look  for  homage  as  a  thing  of  course. 
And  that  homage  was  yielded  to  the  British  officer, 
not  for  his  own  sake,  for  the  Sepoy  hated  his  colour 
and  his  creed,  his  unclean  ways,  and  his  domineering 
manners;  but  because  he  was  an  embodiment  of 
Success.  It  was  one  of  the  many  inconsistencies  of 
which  I  have  spoken,  that  though  boastful  and  vain- 
glorious  beyond  all  example,  the  Native  soldier  of 
India  inwardly  acknowledged  that  he  owed  to  the 
English  officer  the  aliment  which  fed  his  passion  for 
glory  and  sustained  his  military  pride.  This,  indeed, 
was  the  link  that  bound  class  to  class,  and  resisted 
the  dissolving  power  of  many  adverse  influences.  It 
was  this  that  moved  the  Sepoy  to  light  up  the  tomb 
of  his  old  commanding  officer ;  it  was  this  that  moved 
the  veteran  to  salute  the  picture  of  the  General  under 
whom  he  had  fought.  But  there  was  a  show  also 
of  other  and  gentler  feelings,  and  there  were  instances 
of  strong  personal  attachment,  of  unsurpassed  fidelity 
and  devotion,  manifested  in  acts  of  charity  and  love. 
You  might  see  the  Sepoy  of  many  fights,  watchful 
and  tender  as  a  woman,  beside  the  sick-bed  of  the 
English  officer,  or  playing  with  the  pale-faced  chil- 
dren beneath  the  verandah  of  his  captain's  bungalow. 
There  was  not  an  English  gentlewoman  in  the 
country  who  did  not  feel  measureless  security  in  the 
thought  that  a  guard  of  Sepoys  watched  her  house, 
or  who  would  not  have  travelled,  imder  such  an 
escort,  across  the  whole  length  and  breadth  of  the 


DEFfiCTS  IN  THE  SYSTEM.  329 

land.  What  was  lurking  beneath  the  fair  surface  we  1851-56. 
knew  not.  We  saw  only  the  softer  side  of  the 
Sepoy's  nature ;  and  there  was  nothing  to  make  us 
believe  that  there  was  danger  in  the  confidence  which 
we  reposed  in  those  outward  signs  of  attachment  to 
our  rule. 

But  whilst  cherishing  this  not  unreasonable  con-  Defects  in  the 
fidence  in  the  general  good  chalracter  of  the  Sepoy,  °^*^"'* 
the  British  Government  might  stiU  have  suffered 
some  doubte  and  misgivings  to  arise  when  they  looked 
into  the  details  of  the  System.  They  might,  it  has 
been  urged,  have  believed  in  the  soundness  of  the 
whole,  but  admitted  the  defectiveness  of  parts,  and 
addressed  themselves  earnestly  and  deliberately  to 
the  details  of  the  great  work  of  Army  Reform.  In- 
stead of  boasting  that  the  condition  of  the  Native 
soldier  left  nothing  to  be  desired,  Lord  Dalhousie,  it 
is  said,  ought  to  have  looked  beneath  the  surface,  to 
have  probed  all  the  vices  of  the  existing  system,  and 
to  have  striven  with  all  his  might  to  eradicate  them. 
Information  was  not  wanting.  "  Officers  of  expe- 
rience" were  at  all  times  ready  to  tell  him  what  it 
behoved  him  to  do.  But  in  the  multitude  of  coun- 
sellors there  was  inextricable  conftision.  As  with  the 
whole,  so  with  the  parts.  The  forty  years'  experience 
of  one  greybeard  belied  the  forty  years'  experience 
of  another.  And  when  the  responsible  ruler  had 
been  almost  persuaded  to  see  a  blot  and  to  promise 
to  erase  it,  another  adviser  came,  straightway  de- 
clared it  to  be  a  beauty,  and  besought  him  to  leave  it 
as  it  was.  Thus  distracted  by  the  conflicting  judg- 
ments of  the  best  military  critics,  Dalhousie  did,  as 
others  had  done  before  him ;  he  admitted  that  if  he 
had  then  for  the  first  time  to  construct  a  Native 
Army,  it  would  in  some  respects  differ  from  that 


330  THE  MILITARY  SYSTEM  OF  IMDU. 

185146.  which  he  saw  before  him,  the  growth  not  of  ^sterns 
and  theories  but  of  circumstances ;  but  that  as  it  had 
grown  up,  so  on  the  whole  it  was  better  to  leave  it, 
as  Change  is  sometimes  dangerous,  and  almost  always 
misunderstood. 

That,  indeed,  there  was  no  more  difficult  question 
to  understand  than  that  of  the  Sepoy  Army,  was  a 
fact  which  must  have  been  continually  forced  upon 
the  mind  of  the  Govemor-Greneral,  by  the  discordant 
opinions  which  were  pronounced  on  points  vitally 
aflfecting  its  fidelity  and  efficiency.  Even  on  the 
great  question  of  Caste,  men  differed.  Some  said  it 
was  desirable  that  our  Native  regiments  should  be 
composed  mainly  of  high-caste  men ;  because  in  such 
men  were  combined  many  of  the  best  qualities,  moral 
and  physical,  which  contribute  to  the  formation  of 
an  accomplished  soldier.  The  high-caste  man  had  a 
bolder  spirit,  a  purer  professional  pride,  a  finer  frame, 
and  a  more  military  bearing,  than  his  countryman  of 
lower  social  rank.  Other  authorities  contended  that 
the  Native  soldiery  should  be  enlisted  indiscriminately, 
that  no  account  should  be  taken  of  Caste  distinctions, 
and  that  the  smaller  the  proportion  of  Brahmins  and 
Rajpoots  in  the  service  the  better  for  the  discipline 
of  the  Army.*  Comparisons  were  drawn  between  the 
Bengal  and  the  Bombay  Armies.  There  was  a  strong 
and  not  imnatural  prejudice  in  favour  of  the  Bengal 
Sepoy ;  for  he  was  a  fine,  noble-looking  fellow,  and  in 
comparison  with  his  comrades  from  the  Southern  and 
Western  Presidencies,  was  said  to  be  quite  a  gentle- 
man ;  but  there  were  those  who  alleged  that  he  was 
more  a  gentleman  than  a  soldier;  and  it  was  urged 
that  the  normal  state  of  the  Bengal  Army  was  Mutiny, 
because  in  an  Army  so  constituted  Caste  was  ever 

*  For  the  statistics  of  Cftste  in  the  Sepoy  Army,  see  Appendix. 


HIGH  CASTE  AND  LOW  CASTE.  331 

stronger  than  Discipline ;  and  the  social  institutions    1851-56. 
of  the  Sepoy  domineered  over  the  necessities  of  the 
State. 

It  was  contended,  for  this  reason,  that  the  Bengal 
Army  required  a  larger  infusion  of  low-caste  men. 
But  it  was  alleged,  on  the  other  hand,  that  this  very 
mixture  of  castes  tended  to  destroy  the  discipline  of 
which  it  was  proposed  to  make  it  the  preservative ; 
for  that  military  rank  was  held  to  be  nothing  in  com- 
parison with  Brahminical  Elevation,  and  that  the 
Sepoy  was  often  the  "  master  of  the  officer."*  To  this 
it  was  replied  that  the  presumption  of  Caste  was 
favoured  and  fostered  by  the  weakness  and  indul- 
gence of  the  officers  of  the  Bengal  Army ;  that,  in  the 
armies  of  Madras  and  Bombay,  Caste  had  found  its 
level ;  that  it  had  neither  been  antagonistic  to  good 
service,  nor  injurious  to  internal  discipline;  that 
high-caste  men  in  those  armies  did  cheerfully  what 
they  refused  to  do  in  Bengal,  and  that  low-caste 
native  officers  met  with  all  the  respect  from  their 
social  inferiors  due  to  their  superior  military  rank. 
It  was  asserted,  indeed,  that  Brahminism  was  arro- 
gant and  exacting  in  Bengal,  because  it  saw  that  it 
could  play  upon  the  fears  of  the  English  officers.  To 
this  it  was  replied,  that  disregard  Caste  as  we  might, 
we  could  never  induce  the  natives  to  disregard  it 
And  then  again  the  rejoinder  was,  that  in  the  other 
Presidencies  we  had  taught  them  to  disregard  it,  why, 
then,  might  not  the  same  lesson  be  taught  in  Bengal  ? 
The  answer  to  this  was,  that  men  will  often  do  in 
other  countries  what  they  cannot  be  persuaded  to  do 

*  "I  cannot  conceive  the  pos-  down  to  him  with  his  forehead  on 

sibilitj  of  maintaining  discipline  m  a  the  fs^roand.     I  have  seen  this  done, 

corps  where  a  low-caste  non-com-  The  Sepoy  thus  treated  is  the  master 

missioned  o£Bcer  will,  when  he  meets  of  the  officer." — Eoidence  of  Major- 

off  duty  a  BraJimin  Sepoy,  crouch  Chneral  Birch, 


332  THE  MUJTARY  SYSTEM  OF  INDIA. 

»l-M.  in  their  own ;  that  high-caste  Hindostanees  enlisting 
into  the  Bombay  or  Madras  Armies  were,  to  a  great 
extent,  cut  off  from  the  brotherhood,  that  they  were 
greatly  outnumbered  in  their  several  regimente,  that 
it  was  convenient  to  conform  to  the  custom  of  the 
country,  and  that  what  he  did  in  a  foreign  countiy 
among  strangers  was  little  known  at  home.  In  a 
word,  when  he  took  service  in  the  Bombay  Army,  he 
did  what  was  done  in  Bombay ;  just  as  among  our- 
selves, men  who,  fearful  of  losing  caste,  would  on  no 
account  be  seen  to  enter  a  London  helL  think  nothing 
of  ^»di.g  whole  da^  in  d.e  gj^bltag-room.  „! 
Homburg  or  Baden-Baden. 

oalitics.  Of  a  kindred  nature  was  the  question  hotly  dis- 
cussed, whether  it  were  wiser  to  compose  each  regi- 
ment of  men  of  the  same  race,  or  to  mix  up  different 
races  in  the  same  corps.  On  the  one  hand,  it  was 
alleged  that  the  fusion  of  different  nationalities  had  a 
tendency  to  keep  internal  combinations  in  check ;  but 
that  if  men  of  one  tribe  were  formed  into  separate  re- 
giments; if  we  had  Patau  regiments  and  Goorkha 
regiments,  Sikh  regiments  and  Mahratta  regiments, 
facilities  for  mutinous  combinations  would  be  greatly 
increased.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was  contended  that 
the  fusion  of  different*  tribes  and  castes  in  the  several 
regiments  encouraged  external  combinations  by  im- 
parting common  interests  to  the  whole  Army ;  that 
if  safety  were  to  be  sought  in  the  antagonism  of  na- 
tionalities, it  was  more  likely  to  be  attained  by  keep- 
ing them  apart  than  by  fusing  them  into  a  hetero- 
geneous mass ;  that  it  was  easier  to  keep  one  regiment 
from  following  the  example  of  another  composed  of 
different  materials,  raised  and  stationed  in  a  different 
part  of  the  coimtry,  than  to  keep  one  half  of  a  regi- 
ment from  following  the  example  of  the  other ;  easier 


POINTS  OF  CONTBOVERSr.  333 

to  make  men  fight  against  those  whom  they  had  never  1851-56. 
seen,  than  against  those  with  whom  they  had  long 
lived,  if  not  in  brotherhood  of  caste,  at  least  in  bro- 
therhood of  service- 
Again,  men  discussed,  with  reference  to  this  ques-  Local  and  Ge- 
tion  of  combination,  the  relative  advantages  and  dis-  "^^^  Service, 
advantages  of  localisation  and  distribution.  Whilst 
some  contended  that  the  different  Sepoy  regiments 
should  serve  respectively  only  in  certain  parts  of  the 
country,  except  under  any  peculiar  exigencies  of  war 
— ^in  other  words,  that  they  should  be  assimilated  as 
much  as  possible  to  a  sort  of  local  militiar— others 
were  in  favour  of  the  existing  system,  under  which 
there  were  periodical  reliefs,  and  regiments  marched 
from  one  station  to  another,  often  many  hundreds  of 
mUes  apart.  On  the  one  hand  it  was  argued  that 
there  was  much  danger  in  the  local  influence  which 
would  be  acquired  by  men  long  resident  in  the  same 
place,  and  that  intrigues  and  plots,  rendered  perilous 
by  the  fusion  of  the  civil  and  military  classes,  might 
result  from  this  localisation ;  and,  on  the  other,  it 
was  urged  that  it  was  far  more  dangerous  to  suffer 
the  Sepoy  regiments  to  become  extensively  acquainted 
with  each  other,  for  the  men  to  form  friendships,  and 
therefore  to  have  correspondents  in  other  corps,  and 
thus  to  afford  them  the  means,  in  times  of  excitement, 
of  forming  extensive  combinations,  and  spreading,  as 
it  were,  a  network  of  conspiracy  over  the  whole  face 
of  the  country.  Thus,  again,  men  of  wisdom  and  ex- 
perience neutralised  one  another's  judgments,  and 
from  amongst  so  many  conflicting  opinions  it  was 
impossible  to  evolve  the  truth. 

It  was  a  question  also  much  debated  whether  the    ftmiliei. 
fidelity  and  efficiency  of  the  Sepoy  were  best  main- 
tained by  keeping  him  apart  from  his  family,  or  by 


334  THE  MILITABT  SYSTEM  OF  INDIA. 

1861-55.  sufiering  the  wives,  the  children,  and  the  dependents 
of  the  soldier  to  attach  themsdves  to  his  raiment, 
and  to  follow  his  fortunes.  The  former  was  the  S3rstein 
in  the  Bengal  Army;  the  latter,  in  the  Army  of 
Madras,  and  partially  in  that  of  Bombay.  Each  sys- 
tem had  its  advocates;  each  its  special  advantages. 
The  Bengal  Sepoy  visited  his  family  at  stated  times, 
and  remitted  to  them  a  large  part  of  his  pay.  If  he 
failed  to  do  this  he  was  a  marked  man  in  his  regi- 
ment ;  and,  it  was  said,  that  the  knowledge  that  if  he 
failed  in  his  duty  as  a  soldier,  a  report  of  his  miscon- 
duct would  surely  reach  his  native  village,  and  that 
his  face  would  be  blackened  before  his  kindred,  kept 
him  in  the  strict  path  of  his  duty.  The  presence  of 
the  Family  led  to  much  inconvenience  and  embar- 
rassment, and  the  necessity  of  moving  it  fix)m  one 
station  to  another,  when  the  regimenta  were  relieved, 
strained  the  scanty  resources  of  the  Sepoy,  and  de- 
veloped grievances  out  of  which  mutiny  might  arise.* 
It  was  said,  indeed,  that  there  was  "  hardly  a  Native 
regiment  in  the  Bengal  Army  in  which  the  twenty 
drummers,  who  were  Christians,  and  had  their 
families  with  them,  did  not  cause  more  trouble  to 
their  officers  than  the  whole  eight  hundred  Sepoy8."f 
On  the  other  hand,  it  was  urged  that  the  presence  of 
the  Family  afforded  the  best  guarantee  for  the  fidelity 
and  good  conduct  of  the  Sepoy.  His  children  were 
hostages  in  our  hands ;  the  honour  of  his  women  was 
in  our  keeping.  These  were  held  to  be  safeguards 
against  mutiny  and  massacre.  It  was  urged,  too, 
that  the  system  tended  more  to  keep  them,  as  a  race, 
apart  from  the  general  mass  of  their  countrjnnen ; 
that  the  ties  which  bound  them  to  the  country  were 

•    See  the  case    of    the    Sixth        f  Sleeman  on  the  Spirit  of  Disci- 
Madras  Cavalry,  atUe,  page  291.  pline  in  the  Native  Army. 


THE  SEKIOaiTT  8T8TEH.  335 

thus  weakened,  and  their  interests  more  indissolubly  16S1-56. 
associated  with  the  State.  They  were  less  represen- 
tative men  than  their  brethren  of  the  Bengal  Army, 
and  more  a  part  of  the  machinery  of  Government. 
And  so  each  sj^tem  had  its  advocates,  and  each  was 
left  to  work  itself  out  and  develop  its  own  results. 

Great,  also,  was  thediflerenceof  opinion  with  respect  Pn>motion. 
to  Promotion.  Some  said  that  the  Bengal  Army  was 
destroyed  by  the  Seniority  ^stem,  which  gave  to  every 
Sepoy  in  the  service  an  equal  chance  of  rising  to  the 
rank  of  a  Commissioned  Officer.*  Others  maintained 
that  this  was  the  very  sheet-anchor  which  enabled  it 
to  resist  all  adverse  influences.  Strong  arguments 
were  adduced,  and  great  names  were  quoted  upon 
both  sides.  It  was  said  that  under  such  a  system 
there  was  no  incentive  to  exertion;  that  the  men 
were  independent  of  their  officers,  that  they  had  no 
motive  to  earn  the  good  opinion  of  their  superiors,  that 
it  was  enough  for  them  to  drowse  through  a  certain 
number  of  years  of  service,  to  slide  quietly  into  a 
commission,  and  then  to  end  their  military  lives  in  a 
state  of  senile  somnolence  and  apathy.  The  Native 
officers  of  the  Bengal  Army  were,  therefore,  for  the 
most  part,  respectable,  worn-out,  feeble-minded  old 
men,  with  no  influence  in  their  regiments,  and  no  de- 
rare  beyond  that  of  saving  themselves  as  much  trouble 
as  possible,  and  keeping  things  as  quiet  as  they  could. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  was  alleged  that  the  seniority 
system  was  the  very  prop  and  support  of  the  Sepoy 
service ;  that  all  men  were  happy  and  contented,  and 
bad  some  aliment  of  hope,  so  long  as  they  felt  that 
nothing  but  their  own  misconduct  could  deprive  them 
of  the  right  of  aucceauon  to  the  hi^eet  grades  of  the 

*  To  ereij  ngiamA  of  Nati¥e    dw-mijor,  ta  Souboliilars,  and  ten 
inttntr;  were  alUehcd  one  Soubth-    ' ' — 


336  THE  MIIITAKT  SYSTEM  09  INDIA. 

1851-56.  Native  Army.  It  was  said  that  to  pass  over  a  man  at 
the  head  of  the  list,  and  to  give  promotion  to  others 
of  shorter  service,  would  be  to  flood  the  regiments  with 
desperate  malcontents,  or  else  with  sullen,  broken- 
spirited  idlers.  Whilst  Henry  Lawrence  and  John 
Jacob  were  descanting  on  the  evil  of  filling  the  com- 
missioned ranks  of  the  Sepoy  Army  with  "  poor  old 
wretches,  feeble  in  body  and  imbecile  in  mind,"* 
Charles  Napier  was  peremptorily  commanding  that 
'^  the  fullest  attention  and  consideration  should  inva- 
riably be  given  to  the  claim  of  seniority  in  every 
grade"  of  the  Native  Army,  and  William  Sleeman 
was  asserting,  not  less  emphatically,  in  his  published 
writings,  that  "  though  we  might  have  in  every  regi- 
ment  a  few  smarter  Native  officers,  by  disregarding 
the  rule  of  promotion  than  by  adhering  to  it,  we 
should,  in  the  diminution  of  good  feeling  towards 
the  European  officers  and  the  Government,  lose  a 
thousand  times  more  than  we  gained. "f  What  won- 
der, then,  that  Grovemor-General  after  Govemor-Gre- 
neral  was  perplexed  and  bewildered,  and  left  things, 
when  he  passed  away  from  the  scene,  as  he  found 
them  on  his  first  arrival. 

*  ViewM  and  Opimans  of  General  was  a  good  man,  and  had  seen  mach 

John  Jacob,  p.  120 ;   compare  also  service.    He  had  me  taken  into  the 

Sir  Henry  Lawrence's  Euayi,  Milt-  open  air,  and  when  I  recovered  he 

iarw  and  Political,  p.  24  et  seg.  told  me  that  he  would  write  to  the 

f  Sleeman  relates,  that  **an  old  Commander-in-Chief  and  represent 

Soubahdar,  who  had   been  at  the  my  case.     He  did  so  immediately, 

taking  of  the  Isle  of  France,  men-  and  I  was  promoted,  and  I  have 

tioned  that  when  he  was  the  senior  since  done  my  duty  as  Soubahdar  for 

Jemadar   of   his  reciment,   and  a  ten  years.'  "    But,  it  may  be  asked, 

vacancy  had  occurrea  to  brinff  him  imct     It  must  be  borne  in  mind, 

in  as  Soubahdar,  he  was  sent  for  by  too,  that  Sleeman  speaks  here  of 

his  commanding  officer,  and  told  that  the  effect  of  supersession  under  a 

by  orders  from  Head-Quarters  he  Seniority  system.  Under  a  svstem  of 

was  to  be  passed  over,  on  account  of  selection  such  results  would  not  be 

his  advanced  ajge  and  supposed  in-  apparent,  because  there  would  not  be 

firmity.    '  I  felt,'  said  the  old  man,  toe  same  disgrace  in  being  passed 

*  as  if  I  had  been  struck  by  lightning,  over. 
and  fell  down  dead.     The  Colonel 


OFfIG£RINQ  OF  THE  ARMY.  337 

Then,  again,  thete  were  wide  diversities  of  opinion  1851-66. 
with  respect  to  the  European  officering  of  re^ments.  European 
There  were  those  who  contended  for  the  Irregular  and  ^^^"• 
those  who  were  loud  in  their  praises  of  the  Regular 
system ;  some  who  thought  it  better  to  attach  to  each 
regiment  a  few  select  officers,  as  in  the  old  times, 
giving  them  some  power  and  authority  over  their 
men ;  and  others  who  believed  it  to  be  wiser  to  officer 
the  regiments  after  the  later  English  system,  like  regi- 
ments of  the  Line,  with  a  large  available  surplus  for 
purposes  of  the  General  Staff,  and  to  leave  all  the 
centralised  power  and  authority  in  the  hands  of  the 
Adjutant-General  of  the  Army.*  There  was  a  con- 
tinual cry,  not  always,  it  must  be  admitted,  of  the 
most  unselfish  character,  for  "  more  officers ;"  and 
yet  it  was  plain  that  the  Irregular  regiments,  to 
which  only  three  or  four  picked  officers  were  at- 
tached, were  in  a  perfect  state  of  discipline  in  peace, 
and  capable  of  performing  admirable  service  in  war. 
It  was  said  that  in  action  the  SepoyB,  losing  their 
officers,  killed  or  carried  wounded  to  the  rear,  lost 
heart,  and  were  soon  panic-struck ;  and  that  if  officers 
were  so  few,  this  contingency  must  often  happen.  To 
this,  however,  it  was  replied,  that  if  the  Native 
officers  were  of  the  right  class,  they  would  keep  their 
men  together,  and  still  do  good  service ;  but  if  they 
were  worn-out  imbeciles,  or  over-corpulent  and  scant 
of  breath,  of  course  disorder  and  ruin  must  follow 
the  fall  of  the  English  officers.  Then,  hearing  this, 
the  disputant  on  the  other  side  would  triumphantly 
ask  how  many  years'  purchase  our  empire  in  India 
were  worth,  if  our  Native  officers  were  as  efficient  as 

*  A  regiment  of  Native  Infantry  5  ensigns.     A  few  months  after- 

in  March,  1850,  was  officered  by  1  wards  another  captain  and  another 

colonel,  1  lieutenant-colonel,  1  ma-  lieutenant  were  aaded  to  each  regi- 

jor,  6  captains,  10  lieutenants,  and  ment. 

Z 


338  THE  MIUTABT  SYSTEM  OF  INDIA. 

1851-56.  ourselves.  It  was  often  argued,  indeed,  that  our  in- 
structions might  some  day  return  to  plague  the  in- 
ventor ;  that  to  make  men  qualified  to  lead  our  bat- 
talions to  battle  against  our  enemies  is  to  qualify 
them  to  command  troops  to  fight  against  ourselves. 
But  there  were  others,  and  chief  among  them  Henry 
Lawrence,  who,  taking  a  larger  and  more  liberal  view 
of  the  question,  contended  that  it  was  soimd  policy 
to  give  to  every  man,  European  and  Native,  a  motive 
for  exertion;  who  declared  that  it  was  one  of  the 
crjdng  wants  of  our  system  that  it  afforded  no  outlet 
for  the  energies  of  Native  soldiers  of  superior  courage 
and  ability,  and  urged  that  we  could  not  expect  to 
have  an  efficient  Native  Army  so  long  as  we  rigidly 
maintained  in  it  the  theory  of  the  Dead  Level,  and 
purposely  excluded  every  possible  inducement  to 
superior  exertion. 

Nor  less  curious  were  the  fundamental  diversities 
of  opinion  which  manifested  themselves,  when  think- 
ing men  began  to  consider  whether  the  English  in 
India  carried  into  their  daily  lives  too  much  or  too 
little  of  their  nationality.  It  was  asserted  on  the  one 
side  that  the  English  officer  was  too  stiff-necked  and 
exclusive,  that  he  dwelt  apart  too  much,  and  subdued 
himself  too  little  to  surrounding  influences ;  and  on 
the  other  side,  that  he  fell  too  rapidly  into  Oriental 
habits,  and  soon  ceased  to  be,  what  it  should  have 
been  his  ambition  to  remain  to  the  last,  a  model  of 
an  English  Gentleman.  It  was  urged  by  some  that 
increased  facilities  of  intercourse  with  Europe  ren- 
dered men  more  dissatisfied  with  the  ordinary  en- 
vironments of  Eastern  life  and  professional  duty, 
whilst  others  declared  that  one  of  the  most  serious 
defects  in  the  Indian  Military  System  was  the  diffi- 
culty mth  which  the  English  officer  obtained  furlough 


DIVEK8ITIES  OF  OPINION.  339 

to  Europe.*  The  stringency  of  the  Furlough  Regula-  1851-56. 
tions  had,  however,  been  greatly  relaxed  during  the 
administration  of  Lord  Dalhousie,  and  the  establish- 
ment of  regular  steam-communication  between  the 
two  countries  had  made  the  new  rules  practical 
realities.  But  whatsoever  increased  intercourse  with 
Europe  may  have  done  to  promote  the  application  of 
Western  science  to  our  Indian  Military  System,  it  did 
not  improve  the  regimental  officer.  It  was  contended 
that  he  commonly  returned  to  his  duty  with  increased 
distaste  for  cantonment  life ;  and  that  he  obeyed  the 
mandate,  "  Let  it  be  the  fashion  to  be  English,"  by 
suffering  a  still  greater  estrangement  to  grow  up 
between  him  and  the  Native  soldier. 

Indeed,  there  was  scarcely  a  single  point,  in  the 
whole  wide  range  of  topics  connected  with  the  great 
subject  of  the  efficiency  of  the  Native  Indian  Army, 
which  did  not  raise  a  doubt  and  suggest  a  contro- 
versy.  And  there  was  so  much  of  demonstrable 
trath  in  Ae  assertion,  and  so  much  cogency  in  the 
arguments  adduced,  on  both  sides,  that  m  the  eyes  of 
the  looker-on  it  was  commonly  a  drawn  battle  between 
the  two  contending  parties;  and  so,  as  it  was  the 
easier  and  perhaps  the  safer  course  to  leave  things  as 
they  were,  the  changes  which  Army  Reformers  so 
earnestly  advocated  were  practically  rejected,  and  we 
clung  to  evils  which  had  gro\vn  up  in  the  system 
rather  than  we  would  incur  the  risk  of  instituting 
others  of  our  own. 

But  perplexing  as  were  these  practical  details,  there  Intermixture 
was  nothing  so  difficult  of  solution  as  the  great  doubt  Troops?^'* 
which  arose  as  to  the  amount  of  confidence  in  the 
Sepoy  Army  which  it  was  expedient  outwardly  to 
manifest     It  was  said,  upon  the  one  hand,  that  any 

*  Fiem$  mid  Opinions  of  Brigadier-General  John  Jacob. 

z  2 


ab 


340  THE  MIUTART  SYSTEM  OF  INDIA. 

1851-66.  diminution  of  our  confidence  would  be  fatal  to  our 
rule,  and,  on  the  other,  that  our  confidence  was  lead- 
ing us  onward  to  destruction.  Some  said  that  the 
Native  Army  should  be  narrowly  watched,  and  held 
in  control  by  suflicient  bodies  of  European  soldiery ; 
others  contended  that  we  could  commit  no  more  fatal 
mistake  than  that  of  betraying  the  least  suspicion  of 
the  Sepoy,  and  suggesting  even  a  remote  possibility 
of  one  part  of  our  Army  ever  being  thrown  into  an- 
tagonism to  the  other.  This  controversy  was  half  a 
century  old.  When,  after  the  Massacre  of  Vellore,  the 
Madras  Government  urged  upon  the  Supreme  Autho- 
rity in  Bengal  the  expediency  of  sending  some  rein- 
forcements of  European  troops  to  the  Coast,  the  latter 
refused  to  respond  to  the  call,  on  the  ground  that 
such  a  movement  would  betray  a  general  want  of 
confidence  in  the  Native  Army,  and  might  drive  re- 
giments still  loyal  into  rebellion  under  an  impulse  of 
fear.  There  was  force  in  this  argument,  which  will 
be  readily  appreciated  by  all  who  understand  the 
character  of  the  Sepoy  Army ;  and  its  cogency  was 
not  diminished  by  the  fact  put  forth  by  the  Madras 
Government  that  the  European  troops  under  their 
command  were  fewer  by  two  thousand  men  than 
they  had  been  before  the  recent  large  extension  of 
territory.  But  a  great  lesson  was  to  be  learnt  from 
the  embarrassment  which  then  arose ;  a  lesson  which 
ought  to  have  been  taken  to  the  hearts  of  our  rulers 
from  one  generation  to  another.  It  was  then  clearly 
revealed,  not  merely  that  "  prevention  is  better  than 
cure,"  but  that  prevention  may  be  possible  when  cure 
is  not ;  that  we  may  hold  danger  in  check  by  quietly 
anticipating  it,  but  that,  when  it  has  arisen,  the  mea- 
sures, to  which  we  might  have  resorted  before  the 
fact,  cannot  be  pursued,  after  it,  without  increasing 


AMOUNT  OF  EUROPEAN  FORGE.  341 

the  evil.  If  anything  should  teach  us  the  wisdom  of  1851-56. 
never  suffering  our  European  force,  even  in  the  most 
tranquil  times,  to  decline  below  what  we  may  call 
"  the  athletic  standard,"  it  is  the  fact  that,  when  the 
times  cease  to  be  tranquil,  we  cannot  suddenly  raise  it 
to  that  standard  without  exciting  alarm  and  creating 
danger. 

But  this  lesson  was  not  learnt.  Or,  if  Indian 
statesmen  ever  took  it  to  their  hearts,  it  was  remorse- 
lessly repudiated  in  the  Coimcils  of  the  English 
nation.  Other  considerations  than  those  of  the  actual 
requirements  of  our  Indian  Empire  were  suffered  to 
determine  the  amount  of  European  strength  to  be 
maintained  on  the  Company's  establishment.  Stated 
in  round  numbers,  it  may  be  said  that  the  normal 
state  of  things,  for  some  years,  had  been  that  of  an 
Army  of  three  hundred  thousand  men,  of  which  forty 
thousand  were  European  troops.*  Of  these,  roughly 
calculated,  about  one-third  were  the  local  European 
troops  of  the  Company,  raised  exclusively  for  Indian 
service;  the  rest  were  the  men  of  royal  regiments, 
Horse  and  Foot,  periodically  relieved  according  to 
the  will  of  the  Imperial  Government,  but  paid  out  of 
the  Revenues  of  India.  In  the  five  years  preceding  the 
departure  of  Lord  Dalhousie  from  India,  the  strengtii 
of  the  Company's  European  troops  had  been  somewhat 
increased,  but  the  force  which  England  lent  to  India 
was  considerably  reduced.  In  1852,  there  were 
twenty-nine  Royal  regiments  in  the  three  Presidencies 
of  India,  mustering  twenty-eight  thousand  men ;  in 
1856,  there  were  twenty-four  Royal  regiments,  mus- 
tering twenty-three  thousand  men.  During  those 
five  years  there  had  been  a  vast  extension  of  empire  ; 
but  the  aggregate  European  strength  was  lower  in 

*  For  tlie  detaib  ol  tlie  Natirc  Armj  of  India,  sec  Tables  in  Appendix. 


342  TIIE  inUTART  SYSTEM  OF  INDIA. 

1861-6G.  1856  than  in  1852  by  nearly  three  thousand  men. 
Between  those  two  dates  England  had  been  engaged 
in  a  great  war,  and  she  wanted  her  troops  for  Eu- 
ropean service. 
The  Crimean  ^^  deceive  oursdves,  when  we  think  that  Euro- 
War,  pean  politics  make  no  impression  on  the  Indian  Public. 
The  impression  may  be  very  vague  and  indistinct; 
but  ignorance  is  a  magnifier  of  high  power,  and  there 
are  never  wanting  a  few  designing  men,  with  clearer 
knowledge  of  the  real  state  of  things,  to  work  upon 
the  haziness  of  popular  conceptions,  and  to  turn  a 
little  grain  of  truth  to  account  in  generating  a  harvest 
of  lies.  That  a  number  of  very  preposterous  stories 
were  industriously  circulated,  and  greedily  swallowed, 
during  the  Crimean  war,  and  that  these  stories  all 
pointed  to  the  downfal  of  the  British  power,  is  not 
to  be  doubted.  It  was  freely  declared  that  Russia 
had  conquered  and  annexed  England,  and  that  Queen 
Victoria  had  fled  and  taken  refuge  with  the  Governor- 
General  of  India.  The  fact  that  the  war  was  with 
Russia  gave  increased  significance  to  these  rumours ; 
for  there  had  long  been  a  chronic  belief  that  the  Russ- 
logue  would  some  day  or  other  contend  with  us  for 
the  mastery  of  India ;  that,  coming  down  in  immense 
hordes  from  the  North,  and  carrying  with  them  the 
intervening  Mahomedan  States,  they  would  sweep  us, 
broken  and  humbled,  into  the  sea.  And  it  required 
no  great  acuteness  to  perceive  that  if  a  popular  insur- 
rection in  India  were  ever  to  be  successful,  it  was  when 
the  military  resources  of  the  empire  were  absorbed  by 
a  great  European  war.  It  is  at  such  times  as  these, 
therefore,  when  there  is  always  some  disturbance  of 
the  public  mind,  that  especial  care  should  be  taken 
to  keep  the  European  strength  in  India  up  to  the 
right  athletic  standard.    But,  in  these  very  times,  the 


DEnCIENGT  OF  EUROPEAN  FORCE.  343 

dependency  is  called  upon  to  aid  the  empire,  and  her    1861.5G. 
European  regiments  are  reluctantly  given  up  at  the 
critical  moment  when  she  most  desires  to  retain  them. 
"The  idea  broached  in  Parliament,"  said  a  Native 
gentleman,  "of  drawing  troops  from  India  for  the 
Crimean  War,  took  intelligent  natives  of  India  by  sur- 
prise."    They  saw  plainly  the  folly  of  thus  revealing 
mr  weakness  to  the  subject  races ;  for  we  could  not 
acre  loudly  proclaim  the  inadequacy  of  our  resources 
han  by  denuding  ourselves  in  one  quarter  of  the 
rorld  in  order  that  we  might  clothe  ourselves  more 
officiently  in  another. 
Nor  was  it  this  alone  that,  during  the  last  years  of 
ord  Dalhousie's  administration,   "took  intelligent 
itives  of  India  by  surprise."     They  saw  us  increas- 
g  our  territory,  in  all  directions,  without  increasing 
r  European  force.     There  were  those  who  argued 
It  territorial  increase  did  not  necessarily  demand 
Teased  means  of  defence,  as  it  might  be  a  change, 
not  an  extension  of  frontier ;  indeed,  that  the  consoli- 
dation of  our  empire,  by  diminisliing  the  numbers  of 
our  enemies,  ought  rather  to  be  regarded  as  a  reason 
for  the  diminution  of  our  military  strength.     And 
this,  in  respect  to  our  external  enemies,  it  has  already 
been  observed,  was  not  untrue.*  But  our  dangers  were 
from  within,  not  from  without ;  and  it  was  forgotten 
that  false  friends  might  be  more  dangerous  than  open 
enemies.     The  English  in  India  were,  indeed,  con- 
tinually in  a  state  of  siege,  and  the  conquest  of  their 
external  enemies  increased  the  perils  of  their  position, 
for  it  deprived  them  of  those  safety-valves  which  had 
often  l)cfore  arrested  a  ruinous  explosion.     We  were 
far  too  sanguine  in  our  estimates  of  the  results  of  con- 
quest or  annexation.  We  saw  everything  as  we  wished 

•  Juie,  p.  876. 


844  THE  MIIJTART  SYSTEM  OF  INDIA. 

1851-56.  to  see  it  We  saw  contentment  in  submission,  loyalty 
in  quiescence ;  and  took  our  estimate  of  national  sen- 
timent from  the  feelings  of  a  few  interested  individuals 
who  were  making  money  by  the  change.  But  "  intel- 
ligent natives"  seeing  clearly  our  delusion,  knowing 
that  we  believed  a  lie,  wondered  greatly  at  our  want 
of  wisdom  in  suffering  vast  tracts  of  territory,  per- 
haps only  recently  brought  under  British  rule,  to  lie 
naked  and  defenceless,  without  even  a  detachment  of 
English  fighting  men  to  guard  the  lives  of  the  new 
masters  of  the  country.  And  little  as  we  gave  them 
credit  for  sagacity  in  such  matters,  they  touched  the 
very  kernel  of  our  danger  with  a  needle's  point,  and 
predicted  that  our  confidence  would  destroy  us. 

It  was  fortunate  that,  when  we  conquered  the 
Punjab,  it  was  impossible  to  forget  that  Afghanistan, 
still  festering  with  animosities  and  resentments  bom 
of  the  recent  invasion,  lay  contiguous  to  the  frontier 
of  our  new  province.  It  was  fortunate,  too,  that 
Henry  Lawrence,  being  a  man  of  a  quick  imagina- 
tion,  could  feel  as  a  Sikh  chief  or  a  Sikh  soldier  would 
feel  under  the  new  yoke  of  the  Feringhee,  and  could 
therefore  believe  that  we  were  not  welcomed  as  de- 
liverers from  one  end  of  the  country  to  the  other. 
But  it  was  not  fortunate  that  the  obvious  necessity 
of  garrisoning  this  frontier  Province  with  a  strong 
European  force  should  have  been  practically  regarded 
as  a  reason  for  denuding  all  the  rest  of  India  of  Eng- 
lish troops.  Acting  in  accordance  with  the  old  tradi- 
tions, that  the  only  danger  with  which  our  position 
in  India  is  threatened,  is  danger  coming  from  the 
North- West,  we  massed  a  large  body  of  Europeans 
in  the  Punjab,  and  scattered,  at  wide  intervals,  the 
few  remaining  regiments  at  our  disposal  over  other 
parts  of  our  extended  dominions.     Thus  we  visibly 


THE  ANNEXATION  OF  OUDE.  345 

became  more  and  more  dependent  on  our  Native  issi-so. 
Army;  and  it  needed  only  the  declaration  of  weak- 
ness made,  when  England  called  on  India  for  regi- 
ments to  take  part  in  the  Crimean  war,  to  assure 
"intelligent  natives"  that  the  boasted  resources  of 
England  were  wholly  insufficient  to  meet  the  demands 
made  upon  them  from  different  quarters,  and  that  we 
could  only  confront  danger  in  one  part  of  the  world 
by  exposing  ourselves  to  it  in  another.* 

And  this  impression  was  strengthened  by  tite  &ct  BTeeti  of  Om 
that  when  Oude  was  annexed  to  our  Britbh  terri-^^""' 
tories,  although  the  province  was  thereby  filled  with 
the  disbanded  soldiery  of  the  destroyed  Native  Govern- 
ment, and  with  a  dangerous  race  of  discontented 
nobles,  whom  the  revolution  had  stripped  of  thdr 
privileges  and  despoiled  of  their  wealth,  the  EngUsh 
appeared  not  to  possess  the  means  of  garrisoning  with 
European  troops  the  country  which  they  had  thus 
smed.  As  Oude  was  not  a  frontier  province,  there 
was  no  necessity  to  mass  troops  there,  as  in  the 
Punjab,  for  purposes  of  external  defence ;  and  the 
English,  emboldened  by  success,  were  stronger  than 
ever  in  their  national  egotism,  and  believed  that,  as 
they  could  not  be  regarded  in  Oude  in  any  other  light 
than  that  of  deliverers,  there  was  small  need  to  make 
provi^on  agiunst  the  posability  of  internal  disturb- 
ance. They  left  the  province,  therefore,  after  annexa- 
tion had  been  proclaimed,  with  only  a  small  handful  of 
European  fighting  men;  and  "intelligent  natives" 
were  ag^  surprised  to  see  that  the  English  gentlemen 
were  carrying  out  their  new  scheme  of  administra- 
tion, to  the  ruin  of  almost  every  pre-existing  interest 

•  It  Iws  been  alleged,  too,  IhU  the  Rcnt  oatlm  wllli  the  lidicf  tlit  wa 

aubterintioiu  raiMd  lonrds  the  lup-  were  ua  sUort  o[  nionej  u  VUK^ 

port  01  the  Puriotio  Fui  '    '    '"  '    — 
the  Crimean  War,  impr" 


346  THE  ItlLITARY  SYSTEM  OF  INDIA. 

1851^8.  in  the  country,  with  as  much  confidence  as  if  every 
district  of  Oude  were  bristling  with  British  bayonets. 
They  saw,  too,  that  the  English  had  absorbed  one  of 
the  last  remaining  Mahomedan  States  of  India ;  and 
they  felt  that  not  only  would  this  prodigious  appro- 
priation be  regarded  from  one  end  of  India  to  the 
other  as  the  precursor  of  new  seizures,  and  that  it 
would  thus  greatly  disturb  the  public  mind,  but  that 
the  very  class  of  men  on  whom  we  appeared  to  rely 
for  the  continued  security  of  our  position  were,  of  all 
others,  most  likely  to  resent  this  act  of  aggression. 

For  the  annexation  of  Oude  had  some  results  in- 
jurious to  the  Sepoy.  A  very  large  portion  of  the 
Bengal  Army  was  drawn  from  that  province.  In 
every  village  were  the  families  of  men  who  wore  the 
uniform  and  bore  the  arms  of  the  English.  Being  for 
the  most  part  high-caste  Hindoos,  they  might  not 
have  regarded  the  peaceful  revolution  by  which  a 
Mahomedan  monarchy  was  destroyed  with  any  strong 
feelings  of  national  resentment ;  and  it  is  certain  that 
this  extension  of  territory  was  not  provocative  of  the 
feelings  of  aversion  and  alarm  with  which  they  re- 
garded those  other  seizures  which  had  sent  them  to 
rot  in  the  charnel-house  of  Scinde,  or  to  perish  in 
exile  on  the  frontiers  of  Afghanistan.  Their  griefe 
were  of  another  kind.  The  old  state  of  things  had 
suited  them  better.  They  had  little  sympathy,  per- 
haps, with  Wajid  Ali,  and  service  in  Oude  brought 
them  nearer  to  their  homes.  But  so  long  as  it  was  a 
foreign  province,  they  derived  certain  special  privi- 
leges and  advantages  from  their  position  as  the 
servants  of  the  Company,  and  increased  importance 
in  the  eyes  of  the  people  of  the  province.  They  had, 
indeed,  been  a  favoured  race,  and  as  such  the  Sepoy 
families  had  held  up  their  heads  above  those  of  their 


PRIVILEGES  OF  THE  OUDE  SEPOYS. 


347 


countrymen  who  had  no  such  bonds  of  privilege  and  1861-66. 
protection  to  unite  them  to  the  Paramount  State. 
"  The  Sepoy,"  wrote  the  man  who  had  studied  the 
character  and  probed  the  feelings  of  the  Native  more 
deeply  and  philosophically  perhaps  than  any  of  his 
contemporaries — "  the  Sepoy  is  not  the  man  of  con- 
sequence he  was.  He  dislikes  annexations;  among 
other  reasons,  because  each  new  province  added  to 
the  Empire  widens  his  sphere  of  service,  and  at  the 
same  time  decreases  our  foreign  enemies  and  thereby 

the  Sepoy's  importance The  other  day,  an 

Oude  Sepoy  of  the  Bombay  Cavalry  at  Neemuch, 
being  asked  if  he  liked  annexation,  replied,  ^  No ;  I 
used  to  be  a  great  man  when  I  went  home.  The  best 
in  my  village  rose  as  I  approached.  Now  the  lowest 
puff  their  pipes  in  my  face.'  "*  Under  the  all-pre- 
vailing lawlessness  and  misrule,  which  had  so  long 
overridden  the  province,  the  English  Sepoy,  whatever 
might  be  the  wrongs  of  others,  was  always  sure  of  a 
full  measure  of  justice  on  appeal  to  the  British 
Resident.  If  he  himself  were  not,  some  member  of 
his  family  was,  a  small  yeoman,  with  certain  rights  in 
the  land — ^rights  which  commonly  among  his  country- 
men were  as  much  a  source  of  trouble  as  a  source  of 
pride — and  in  all  the  disputes  and  contentions  in 
which  these  interests  involved  him,  he  had  the  pro- 
tection and  assistance  of  the  Resident,  and  right  or 
wrong  carried  his  point.  In  the  abstract  it  was, 
doubtiess,  an  evil  state  of  things,  for  the  Sepoys' 


•  Sir  Henry  Lawrence  to  Lord 
Canning,  MS.  Correspondence.  I 
may  give  here  in  a  note  the  words 
omitted  in  the  text,  as  bearing, 
though  not  immediately,  upon  the 
Oode  question,  and  upon  the  general 
su^ect  of  annexation:  "Ten  jean 
ago,  a  Sepoy  in  the  Fuiqab  aakid  aa 


officer  what  we  would  do  without 
them.  Another  said,  *  Now  you  have 
pot  the  Punjab,  you  will  reduce  the 
Army.*  A  third  remarked,  when  he 
heard  that  Scinde  was  to  be  joined 
to  the  Bengal  Presidency,  /  Perhaps 
then  will  be  an  order  to  join  Lon- 
diM  to  BoHod.'  ' 


99» 


348  THE  MIUTARY  SYSTEM  OF  INDIA. 

1851-66.  privileges  were  often  used  as  instruments  of  oppres- 
sion, and  were  sometimes  counterfeited  with  the  help 
of  an  old  regimental  jacket  and  pair  of  boots,  by  men 
who  had  never  gone  right-face  to  the  word  of  com- 
mand. But  for  this  very  reason  they  were  deariy 
valued;  and  when  the  Sepoys  were  thus  brought 
down  by  annexation  to  the  dead  level  of  British  sub- 
jects, when  the  Residency  ceased  to  be,  and  all  men 
were  equally  under  the  protection  of  the  Commis- 
sioner, the  Sepoy  families,  like  all  the  other  privileged 
classes  in  Oude,  learnt  what  the  revolution  had  cost 
them,  and,  wide  apart  as  their  several  grievances  lay 
from  each  other,  they  joined  hands  with  other  sufferers 
over  a  common  grief. 


immary  of  Looking,  then,  at  the  condition  of  the  Native  Army 
flu«a^!°^  of  India,  and  especially  at  the  state  of  the  Bengal  re- 
giments, as  it  was  in  the  spring  of  1856,  we  see  that  a 
series  of  adverse  circumstances,  culminating  in  the 
annexation  of  Oude,  some  influencing  him  from  with- 
out and  some  from  within,  had  weakened  the  attach- 
ment of  the  Sepoy  to  his  colours.  We  see  that,  whilst 
the  bonds  of  internal  discipline  were  being  relaxed, 
external  events,  directly  or  indirectly  affecting  his 
position,  were  exciting  within  him  animosities  and 
discontents.  We  see  that  as  he  grew  less  faithful  and 
obedient,  he  grew  also  more  presuming  ;  that  whilst 
he  was  less  under  the  control  of  his  officers  and  the 
dominion  of  the  State,  he  was  more  sensible  of  the 
extent  to  which  we  were  dependent  upon  his  fidelity, 
and  therefore  more  capricious  and  exacting.  He  had 
been  neglected  on  the  one  hand,  and  pampered  on  the 
other.  As  a  soldier,  he  had  in  many  ways  dete- 
riorated, but  he  was  not  to  be  regarded  only  as  a 


STATE  OF  THE  SEPOrS  MIND.  349 

soldier.  He  was  a  representative  man,  the  embodi-  1861-56. 
ment  of  feelings  and  opinions  shared  by  large  classes 
of  his  countrymen,  and  circumstances  might  one  day 
render  him  their  exponent.  He  had  many  opportu- 
nities of  becoming  acquainted  with  passing  events  and 
public  opinion.  He  mixed  in  cantonments,  or  on 
the  line  of  march,  with  men  of  different  classes  and 
different  countries ;  he  corresponded  with  friends  at  a 
distance ;  he  heard  all  the  gossip  of  the  Bazaars,  and 
he  read,  or  heard  others  read,  the  strange  mixture  of 
truth  and  falsehood  contained  in  the  Native  news- 
papers. He  knew  what  were  the  measures  of  the 
British  Government,  sometimes  even  what  were  its 
intentions,  and  he  interpreted  their  meanings,  as  men 
are  wont  to  do,  who,  credulous  and  suspicious,  see  in- 
sidious designs  and  covert  dangers  in  the  most  bene- 
ficent acts.  He  had  not  the  faculty  to  conceive  that 
the  English  were  continually  originating  great  changes 
for  the  good  of  the  people ;  our  theories  of  govern- 
ment were  beyond  his  understanding,  and  as  he  had 
ceased  to  take  counsel  with  his  English  officer,  he  was 
given  over  to  strange  delusions,  and  believed  the 
most  dangerous  lies. 

But  in  taking  account  of  the  effect  produced  upon 
the  Sepoy's  mind  by  the  political  and  social  measures 
of  the  British  Government,  we  must  not  think  only 
of  the  direct  action  of  these  measures — of  the  soldier's 
own  reading  of  distant  events,  which  might  have  had 
no  bearing  upon  his  daily  happiness,  and  which,  there- 
fore, in  his  selfishness  he  might  have  been  content  to 
disregard.  For  he  often  read  these  things  with  other 
men's  eyes,  and  discerned  them  with  other  men's  un- 
derstandings. If  the  political  and  social  revolutions, 
of  which  I  have  written,  did  not  affect  him,  they 
aflbctod  etfMB%»ilristf  in  their  generation,  more  astute, 


350  THE  HILITABT  SYSTEM  OF  INDIA. 

86W6.  more  designing,  who  put  upon  eveiytliing  that  we 
did  the  gloss  best  calculated  to  debauch  the  Sepoy's 
mind,  and  to  prepare  him,  at  a  given  signal,  for  an 
outburst  of  sudden  madness.  Childish,  as  he  was,  in 
his  faith,  there  was  nothing  easier  than  to  make  him 
believe  all  kinds  and  conditions  of  fictions,  not  only 
wild  and  grotesque  in  themselves,  but  in  violent  con- 
tradiction of  each  other.  He  was  as  ready  to  believe 
aat  the  extenrion  of  our  .^tory  woul/throw  him 
out  of  emplojnuent,  as  that  it  would  inflict  upon  him 
double  work.  He  did  not  choose  between  these  two 
extremes ;  he  accepted  both,  and  took  the  one  or  the 
other,  as  the  humour  pleased  him.  There  were  never 
wanting  men  to  feed  his  imagination  with  the  kind  of 
aliment  which  pleased  it  best,  and  reason  never  came 
to  his  aid  to  purge  him  of  the  results  of  this  gross 
feedmg. 

Many  were  the  strange  glosses  which  were  given  to 
the  acts  of  the  British  Government ;  various  were  the 
ingenious  fictions  woven  with  the  purpose  of  un- 
settling the  minds  and  uprooting  the  fidelity  of  the 
Sepoy.  But  diverse  as  they  were  in  many  respects, 
there  was  a  certain  unity  about  them,  for  they  all 
tended  to  persuade  him  that  our  measures  were  di- 
rected to  one  common  end,  the  destruction  of  Caste, 
and  the  general  introduction  of  Christianity  into  the 
land.  If  we  annexed  a  province,  it  was  to  facilitate 
our  proseljrtising  operations,  and  to  increase  the  num- 
ber of  our  converts.  Our  resumption  operations 
were  instituted  for  the  purpose  of  destroying  all  the 
religious  endowments  of  the  country.  Our  legislative 
enactments  were  all  tending  to  the  same  result,  the 
subversion  of  Hindooism  and  Mahomedanism.  Our 
educational  measures  were  so  many  direct  assaults 
upon  the  religions  of  the  country.    Our  penal  system, 


CORRUPTING  INFLUENCES,  351 

according  to  their  showing,  disguised  a  monstrous  1851^6. 
attempt  to  annihilate  caste,  by  compelling  men  of  all 
denominations  to  feed  together  in  the  gaob.  In  the 
Lines  of  every  regiment  there  were  men  eager  to  tell 
lies  of  this  kind  to  the  Sepoy,  mingled  with  assurances 
that  the  time  was  coming  when  the  Feringhees  would 
be  destroyed  to  a  man ;  when  a  new  empire  would 
be  established,  and  a  new  military  system  inaugu- 
rated, under  which  the  high  rank  and  the  higher  pay 
monopolised  by  the  English  would  be  transferred  to 
the  people  of  the  country.  We  know  so  little  of  what 
is  stirring  in  the  depths  of  Indian  society ;  we  dwell 
so  much  apart  from  the  people;  we  see  so  little  of 
them,  except  in  full  dress  and  on  their  best  behaviour, 
that  perilous  intrigues  and  desperate  plots  might  be 
woven,  under  the  very  shadow  of  our  bungalows, 
without  our  perceiving  any  sjnnptoms  of  danger.  But 
still  less  can  we  discern  that  quiet  under-current  of 
hostility  which  is  continually  flowing  on  without  any 
immediate  or  definite  object,  and  which,  if  we  could 
discern  it,  would  baffle  all  our  effbrts  to  trace  it  to  its 
source.  But  it  does  not  the  less  exist  because  we  are 
ignorant  of  the  form  which  it  assumes,  or  the  foimt 
from  which  it  springs.  The  men,  whose  business  it 
was  to  corrupt  the  minds  of  our  Sepoys,  were,  perhaps, 
tlie  agents  of  some  of  the  old  princely  houses,  which 
we  had  destroyed,*  or  members  of  old  baronial  families 
which  we  had  brought  to  poverty  and  disgrace.  They 
were,  perhaps,  the  emissaries  of  Brahminical  Societies, 
whose  precepts  we  were  turning  into  folly,  and  whose 
power  we  were  setting  at  naught.  They  were,  perhaps, 
mere  visionaries  and  enthusiasts,  moved  only  by  their 

*  It  was  asserted  at  the  time  of  Southern  India^  but  that  there  was 

the  "Mutiny  of  Vellore,"  that  not  scarcely  a  regiment  into  which  they 

only  were  agents  of  the  House  of  had  not  enlisted. 
Tippoo  busy  in    all  the  Lines  of 


352  THE  MIUTART  SYSTEM  OF  INDU. 

1851-56.  own  disordered  imaginations  to  proclaim  the  coming 
of  some  new  prophet  or  some  fresh  avatar  of  the  Deity, 
and  the  consequent  downfal  of  Christian  supremacy  in 
the  East.  But  whatsoever  the  nature  of  their  mission, 
and  whatsoever  the  guise  they  assumed,  whether  they 
appeared  in  the  Lines  as  passing  travellers,  as  journey- 
ing hawkers,  as  religious  mendicants,  or  as  wandering 
puppet-showmen,  the  seed  of  sedition  which  they  scat- 
tered struck  root  in  a  soil  well  prepared  to  receive  it, 
and  waited  only  for  the  ripening  sun  of  circumstance 
to  develop  a  harvest  of  revolt 


OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTmT.  353 


BOOK  in.— THE  OUTBEEAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

[1866-1867.] 


CHAPTER  I. 

DEPABTUBE  OS  LOBD  DALHOUSIS — HIS  CHABACTEB— THE  QUESTION  OF 
SUCCESSION — ^ABRIVAL  OP  LOBD  CANNING — HIS  EABLT  CABEEB— COM- 
MENCEMENT OP  HIS  ADMINISTBATION — HIS  IfELLOW  -  COUNCILLOBS — 
CENEBAL  LOW— MB.  DOBIN— MB.  GBANT— MB.  BABNB8  PEACOCK— THB 
COMMANDEB-IN-CHIEP. 

When,  on  the  last  day  of  February,  1856,  "the  1856. 
Most  Noble"  the  Marquis  of  Dalhousie  placed  the 
Portfolio  of  the  Indian  Empire  in  the  hands  of  his 
successor,  all  men  said  that  a  great  statesman  and  a 
great  ruler  was  about  to  depart  from  the  land.  The 
praises  that  were  bestowed  upon  him  had  been  well 
earned.  He  had  given  his  life  to  the  public  service ; 
and  many  feared,  as  they  sorrowfully  bade  him  fare- 
well, that  he  had  given  it  up  for  the  public  good. 

He  stood  before  men  at  that  time  as  the  very  em- 
bodiment of  Success.  Whatsoever  he  had  attempted 
to  do  he  had  done  with  his  whole  heart,  and  he  had 
perfected  it  without  a  failure  or  a  flaw.  The  policy 
which  during  those  eventful  eight  years  had  been  so 
consistently  maintained  was  emphatically  his  policy. 
The  success,  therefore,  was  fairly  his.  No  man  had 
ever  stamped  his  individuality  more  clearly  upon  the 
public  measures  of  his  times.  There  are  periods  when 
the  Government  fades  into  an  impersonality;  when 

2  A 


A 


354  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

1856.      men  cease  to  associate  its  measures  with  the  idea  of 
one  dominant  will.     But  during  the  reign  then  ended 
we  heard  little  of  "  the  Government ;"  in  every  one's 
mouth  was  the  name  of  the  individual  Man. 
aricter  And  in  this  remarkable  individual  manhood  there 

^iwic  ^^  *^^  ^^^  essence  and  concentration  of  the  great 
national  manhood ;  there  was  an  intense  Englishism 
in  him  such  as  has  seldom  been  equalled.  It  was  the 
Englishism,  too,  of  the  nineteenth  century;  and  of 
that  particular  epoch  of  the  nineteenth  century  when 
well-nigh  every  one  had  the  word  "  progress"  on  his 
lips,  and  stagnation  was  both  disaster  and  disgrace. 
A  man  of  strong  convictions  and  extraordinary 
activity  of  mind,  he  laid  fast  hold  of  the  one  abstract 
truth  that  English  government,  English  laws,  English 
learning,  English  customs,  and  English  manners,  are 
better  than  the  government,  the  laws,  the  learning, 
the  customs,  and  the  manners  of  India ;  and  with  all 
the  earnestness  of  his  nature  and  all  the  strength  of 
his  understanding  he  wrought  out  this  great  theory  in 
practice.  He  never  doubted  that  it  was  good  alike 
for  England  and  for  India  that  the  map  of  the 
country  which  he  had  been  sent  to  govern  should 
present  one  surface  of  Red.  He  was  so  sure  of  this, 
he  believed  it  so  honestly,  so  conscientiously,  that, 
courageous  and  self-reliant  as  he  was,  he  would  have 
carried  out  this  policy  to  the  end,  if  all  the  chief 
officers  and  agents  of  his  government  had  been 
arrayed  against  him.  But  he  commenced  his  career 
at  a  time  when  the  ablest  of  our  public  functionaries 
in  India,  with  a  few  notable  exceptions,  had  forsaken 
the  traditions  of  the  old  school — ^the  school  of  Mal- 
colm, of  Elphinstone,  and  of  Metcalfe — and  stood 
eager  and  open-armed  to  embrace  and  press  closely  to 
them  the  very  doctrines  of  which  they  perceived  in 


M 


CHARACTER  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE.  355 

Dalhousie  so  vigorous  an  exponent  He  did  not  l^*^- 
found  the  school ;  neither  were  his  opinions  moulded 
in  accordance  with  its  tenets.  He  appeared  among 
them  and  placed  himself  at  their  head,  just  at  the 
very  time  when  such  a  coming  was  needed  to  give 
consistency  to  their  faith,  and  uniformity  to  their 
works.  The  coincidence  had  all  the  force  of  a  dis- 
pensation. No  prophet  ever  had  more  devoted  fol- 
lowers. No  king  was  ever  more  loyally  served.  For 
the  strong  faith  of  his  disciples  made  them  strive 
mightily  to  accomplish  his  will ;  and  he  had  in  a  rare 
degree  the  faculty  of  developing  in  his  agents  the 
very  powers  which  were  most  essential  to  the  fitting 
accomplishment  of  his  work.  He  did  not  create  those 
powers,  for  he  found  in  his  chief  agents  the  instincts 
and  energies  most  essential  to  his  purpose ;  but  he 
fostered,  he  strengthened  and  directed  them,  so  that 
what  might  have  run  to  weed  and  waste  withou  this 
cherishing  care,  yielded  under  his  culture,  in  ripe  pro- 
fusion, a  harvest  of  desired  results. 

As  his  workmen  were  admirably  suited  to  his  work, 
so  also  was  the  field,  to  which  he  was  called,  the  one 
best  adapted  to  the  exercise  of  his  peculiar  powers. 
In  no  other  part  of  our  empire  could  his  rare  ad- 
ministrative capacity  have  found  such  scope  for  de- 
velopment. For  he  was  of  an  imperious  and  despotic 
nature,  not  submitting  to  control,  and  resenting  oppo- 
sition ;  and  in  no  situation  could  he  have  exercised  a 
larger  measure  of  power  in  the  face  of  so  few  consti- 
tutional checks.  His  capacities  required  free  exercise, 
and  it  may  be  doubted  whether  they  would  have  been 
fully  developed  by  anything  short  of  this  absolute 
supremacy.  But  sustained  and  invigorated  by  a  sense 
of  enormous  power,  he  worked  with  all  the  energies 
of   a  giant.      And   he   was   successful  beyond  all 

2  a2 


>56  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

1856.  example,  so  far  as  success  is  the  full  accomplishmeut 
of  one's  own  desires  and  intentions.  But  one  fatal 
defect  in  his  character  tainted  the  stream  of  his 
policy  at  the  source,  and  converted  into  brilliant 
errors  some  of  the  most  renowned  of  his  achieve- 
ments. No  man  who  is  not  endowed  with  a  compre- 
hensive imagination  can  govern  India  with  success. 
Dalhousie  had  no  imagination.  Lacking  the  imagi- 
native faculty,  men,  after  long  years  of  experience, 
may  come  to  understand  the  national  character ;  and 
a  man  of  lively  imagination,  without  such  experience, 
may  readily  apprehend  it  after  the  intercourse  of  a 
few  weeks.  But  in  neither  way  did  Dalhousie  ever 
come  to  understand  the  genius  of  the  people  among 
whom  his  lot  was  cast.  He  had  but  one  idea  of  them 
— an  idea  of  a  people  habituated  to  the  despotism  of 
a  dominant  race.  He  could  not  understand  the 
tenacity  of  affection  with  which  they  clung  to  their 
old  traditions.  He  could  not  sympathise  with  the 
veneration  which  they  felt  for  their  ancient  dynasties. 
He  could  not  appreciate  their  fidelity  to  the  time- 
honoured  institutions  and  the  immemorial  usages  of 
the  land.  He  had  not  the  faculty  to  conceive  that 
men  might  like  their  own  old  ways  of  government, 
vith  all  their  imperfections  and  corruptions  about 
them,  better  than  our  more  refined  systems.  Arguing 
all  points  with  the  preciseness  of  a  Scotch  logician,  he 
made  no  allowance  for  inveterate  habits  and  ingrained 
prejudices,  and  the  scales  of  ignorance  before  men's 
eyes  which  will  not  suffer  them  rightly  to  discern 
between  the  good  and  the  bad.  He  could  not  form  a 
true  dramatic  conception  of  the  feelings  with  >vhich 
the  representative  of  a  long  line  of  kings  may  be  sup- 
posed to  regard  the  sudden  extinction  of  his  royal 
house  by  the  decree  of  a  stranger  and  an  infidiely  or 


CHARACTER  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE.  357 

the  bitterness  of  spirit  in  which  a  greybeard  chief,  ^^56. 
whose  family  from  generation  to  generation  had 
enjoyed  ancestral  powers  and  privileges,  might  con- 
template his  lot  when  suddenly  reduced  to  poverty 
and  himiiliation  by  an  incursion  of  aliens  of  another 
colour  and  another  creed.  He  could  not  see  with 
other  men's  eyes ;  or  think  with  other  men's  brains ; 
or  feel  with  other  men's  hearts.  With  the  charac- 
teristic unimaginativeness  of  his  race  he  could  not  for 
a  moment  divest  himself  of  his  individuality,  or  con- 
ceive the  growth  of  ancestral  pride  and  national 
honour  in  other  breasts  than  those  of  the  Campbells 
and  the  Ramsay s. 

And  this  egotism  was  cherished  and  sustained  by 
the  prevailing  sentiments  of  the  new  school  of  Indian 
politicians,  who,  as  I  have  said,  la^^ghed  to  scorn  the 
doctrines  of  the  men  who  had  built  up  the  great 
structure  of  our  Indian  Empire,  and  by  the  utterances 
of  a  Press,  which,  wth  rare  ability,  expounded  the 
views  of  this  school,  and  insisted  upon  the  duty  of 
universal  usurpation.  Such,  indeed,  was  the  pre- 
vailing tone  of  the  majority,  in  all  ranks  from  the 
highest  to  the  lowest,  that  any  one  who  meekly  ven- 
tured to  ask,  "  How  would  you  like  it  yourself?"  was 
reproached  in  language  little  short  of  that  which 
might  be  fitly  applied  to  a  renegade  or  a  traitor.  To 
suggest  that  in  an  Asiatic  race  there  might  be  a  spirit 
of  independence  and  a  love  of  countrj^,  the  manifes- 
tations of  which  were  honourable  in  themselves,  how- 
ever inconvenient  to  us,  was  commonly  to  evoke  as 
the  very  mildest  result  the  imputation  of  being 
"Anti-British,"  whilst  sometimes  the  "true  British 
feeling"  asserted  itself  in  a  less  refined  choice  of 
epithets,  and  those  who  ventured  to  sympatliise  in  any 
my  with  the  people  of  the  East  were  at  once  de- 


358  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINT. 

1866.  nounced  as  "white  niggers."  Yet  among  these  very 
men,  so  intolerant  of  anything  approaching  the 
assertion  of  a  spirit  of  liberty  by  an  Asiatic  people, 
there  were  some  who  could  well  appreciate  and  sym- 
pathise with  the  aspirations  of  European  bondsmen, 
and  could  regard  with  admiration  the  struggles  of 
the  Italian,  the  Switzer,  or  the  Pole  to  liberate  him- 
self, by  a  sanguinary  contest,  from  the  yoke  of  the 
usurper.  But  the  sight  of  the  dark  skin  sealed  up 
their  sympathies.  They  contended  not  merely  that 
the  love  of  country,  that  the  spirit  of  liberty,  as 
cherished  by  European  races,  is  in  India  wholly  un- 
known, but  that  Asiatic  nations,  and  especially  the 
nations  of  India,  have  no  right  to  judge  what  is  best 
for  themselves ;  no  right  to  revolt  against  the  bene- 
ficence of  a  more,  civilised  race  of  white  men,  who 
would  think  and  act  for  them,  and  deprive  them,  for 
their  own  good,  of  all  their  most  cherished  rights  and 
their  most  valued  possessions. 

So  it  happened  that  Lord  Dalhousie's  was  a  strong 
Government;  strong  in  everything  but  its  confor- 
mity to  the  genius  of  the  people.  It  was  a  Go- 
vernment admirably  conducted  in  accordance  with 
the  most  approved  principles  of  European  civilisation, 
by  men  whose  progressive  tendencies  carried  them 
hundreds  of  years  in  advance  of  the  sluggish  Asiatics, 
whom  they  vainly  endeavoured  to  bind  to  the  chariot- 
wheels  of  their  refined  systems.  There  was  every- 
thing to  give  it  complete  success  but  the  stubbornness 
of  the  national  mind.  It  failed,  perhaps,  only  because 
the  people  preferred  darkness  to  light,  folly  to 
wisdom.  Of  course  the  English  gentlemen  were 
right  and  the  Asiatics  lamentably  wrong.  But  the 
grand  scriptural  warning  against  putting  new  wine 
into  old  bottles  was  disregarded.    The  wine  was  good 


CHARACTER  OF  LORD  DALH0U8IE.  359 

wine,  strong  wine;  wine  to  gladden  the  heart  of  ^®^^- 
man.  But  poured  into  those  old  bottles  it  Avas  sure, 
sooner  or  later,  to  create  a  general  explosion.  They 
forgot  that  there  were  two  things  necessary  to  suc- 
cessful government :  one,  that  the  measures  should  be 
good  in  themselves ;  and  the  other,  that  they  should  be 
suited  to  the  condition  of  the  recipients.  Intent  upon 
the  one,  they  forgot  the  other,  and  erred  upon  the 
side  of  a  progress  too  rapid  and  an  Englishism  too 
refined. 

But  at  the  bottom  of  this  great  error  were  benign 
intentions.  Dalhousie  and  his  lieutenants  had  a 
strong  and  steadfast  faith  in  the  wisdom  and  bene- 
volence of  their  measures,  and  strove  alike  for  the 
glory  of  the  English  nation  and  the  welfare  of  the 
Indian  people.  There  was  something  grand  and  even 
good  in  the  very  errors  of  such  a  man.  For  there 
was  no  taint  of  baseness  in  them ;  no  sign  of  any- 
thing sordid  or  self-seeking.  He  had  given  himself 
up  to  the  public  service,  resolute  to  do  a  great  work, 
and  he  rejoiced  with  a  noble  pride  in  the  thought 
that  he  left  behind  him  a  mightier  empire  than  he 
had  foimd,  that  he  had  brought  new  countries  and 
strange  nations  under  the  sway  of  the  British  sceptre, 
and  sown  the  seeds  of  a  great  civilisation.  To  do 
this,  he  had  made  unstinting  sacrifice  of  leisure,  ease, 
comfort,  health,  and  the  dear  love  of  wedded  life, 
and  he  carried  home  with  him,  in  a  shattered  frame 
and  a  torn  heart,  in  the  wreck  of  a  manhood  at  its 
very  prime,  mortal  wounds  nobly  received  in  a  great 
and  heroic  encounter. 

Great  always  is  the  interest  which  attaches  to  the 
question  of  succession ;  greatest  of  all  when  such  a 
ruler  as  Dalhousie  retires  from  the  scene.  Who  was 
to  take  the  place  of  this  great  and  successful  states- 


360  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

1866.  man  ?  Who  was  to  cany  out  to  its  final  issue  the 
grand  policy  which  he  had  so  brilliantly  inaugurated  ? 
This  was  the  question  in  all  men's  mouths  as  the  old 
year  passed  away  and  the  new  year  dawned  upon 
India;  in  some  sort  a  remarkable  year,  for  was  it 
not  the  centenary  of  the  great  disaster  of  the  Black 
Hole  which  had  brought  Olive's  avenging  army  to 
Bengal?  Ever  at  such  times  is  there  much  talk  of 
the  expected  advent  of  some  member  of  the  English 
Cabinet,  some  successful  Colonial  Governor,  or  some 
great  Lord  little  experienced  in  statesmanship,  of 
high  lineage  and  dilapidated  fortune.  And  so  now 
there  was  the  wonted  high  tide  of  speculation  and 
conjecture,  wild  guesses  and  moonshine  rumours  of 
all  kinds,  from  dim  possibilities  to  gigantic  nonsenses, 
until  at  last  there  came  authentic  tidings  to  India 
that  the  choice  had  fallen  on  Her  Majesty's  Post- 
master-General, one  of  the  younger  members  of  Lord 
Palmerston's  Cabinet. 


^cedents  Scarcely  within  bounds  of  possibility  was  it,  that, 
S.  in  the  nndst  of  so  great  an  epidemic  of  faith  in  Lord 
Dalhousie,  England  could  send  forth  a  statesman  to 
succeed  him,  whom  her  Anglo-Indian  sons  would  not 
receive  with  ominous  head-shakings,  denoting  grave 
doubts  and  anxious  misgivings.  Another  great  man, 
it  was  said,  was  needed  to  understand,  to  appreciate, 
to  maintain  the  policy  of  the  hero  whom  they  so  glori- 
fied. But  they  knew  little  or  nothing  of  Viscount 
Canning,  except  that  he  was  the  bearer  of  a  great 
1829.  name.  Thirty-four  years  before,  all  England  had 
been  talking  about  the  acceptance  of  the  Governor- 
Generalship   by  this  man's   father.     There  were   a 


EARLY  CAREER  OF  LORD  CANMNG.  361 

few,  then,  who,  looking  at  the  matter  solely  firom  1556 
an  Indian  point  of  view,  exulted  in  the  thought  that 
one  who  had  done  such  cjood  service  at  the  Board  of 
Control,  and  whose  abilities  were  known  to  be  of  the 
very  highest  order,  was  about  to  devote  some  of  the 
best  years  of  his  life  to  the  government  of  our  great 
Eastern  empire.  There  was  another  and  a  baser 
few,  who,  festering  with  jealousies,  and  animosities, 
and  dishonourable  fears,  joyed  most  of  all  that  they 
should  see  his  face  no  more  for  years,  or  perhaps  for 
ever.  But  the  bulk  of  the  English  people  deplored 
his  approaching  departure  from  among  them,  because 
they  felt  that  the  country  had  need  of  his  services, 
and  could  ill  bear  the  loss  of  such  a  man«  And  it 
was  a  relief  to  them  when  the  sad  close  of  Lord 
Castlereagh's  career  brought  George  Canning  back 
from  the  visit,  which  was  to  have  been  his  fBurewell, 
to  Liverpool,  to  take  lus  place  again  in  the  great 
Council  of  the  nation. 

Great,   also,  was   the  relief  to  George  Canning 
himself — great  for  many  reasons ;  the  greatest,  per- 
haps, of  all,  that  he  was  very  happy  in  lus  fsEmiily. 
In  the  first  year  of  the  century  he  had  married  a 
lady,   endowed   with  a  considerable   share  of  the 
world's  wealth,  but  with  more  of  that  better  wealth 
which  the  world  cannot  give ;  the  daughter  and  co- 
heiress of  an  old  general  officer  named  Scott.     Xo 
man  could  have  been  happier  in  lus  domestic  life; 
and  domestic  happiness  is  domestic  virtue.     Blind  to 
the  attractions  of  that  Society  in  which  he  was  so 
pre-eminently  formed  to  shine,  he  found  measureless 
delight  in  the  companionship  of  his  wife  and  children. 
And  as  an  Indian  life  is  more  or  less  a  life  of  separa- 
tion, it  was  now  a  joy  to  him  to  think  that  the  brief 


362  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINT. 

1866.  vision  of  Grovemment  House,  Calcutta,  had  been  re- 
placed by  the  returning  realities  of  the  English  fire- 
side.* 

moester         At  this  time  the  great  statesman  had  a  son  in  his 

^^'  *  tenth  year,  at  school  with  Mr.  Carmalt,  of  Putney, 
on  the  banks  of  the  Thames.  He  Avas  the  third  son 
bom  to  George  Canning  ;f  bom  during  what  was 
perhaps  the  happiest  period  of  his  father's  life,  his 
residence  at  Gloucester  Lodge.  This  was  the  boy's 
birthplace.  Lying  between  Brompton  and  Kensing- 
ton, it  was  at  that  time  almost  in  the  country.  There 
was  not,  perhaps,  a  pleasanter  place  near  Town.  It 
had  a  strange,  memorable  history,  too,  and  it  was 
among  the  notabilities  of  suburban  London.  In  the 
da)rs  of  Ranelagh,  it  had  been,  under  the  name  of 
the  Florida  Gardens,  a  lesser  rival  to  that  fashionable 
haunt ;  and  from  this  state,  after  an  interval  of  de- 
sertion and  decay,  it  had  developed  into  a  royal 
residence.J    The  Duchess  of  Gloucester  bought  the 

1807.  Gardens,  built  there  a  handsome  Italian  villa,  lived 
and  died  there,  and,  passing  away,  bequeathed  her 
interest  in  the  estate  to  the  Princess  Sophia,  who 
sold  it  to  Mr.  Canning.  And  there,  in  this  pleasant 
umbrageous  retreat,  on  the  14th  of  December,  1812, 
was  born  the  third  son  of  George  Canning,  who,  in 
due  course,  was  christened  Charles  John. 

lePutnej        In  1822,  as  I  have  said,  when  George  Canning 

hool. 

*  "The  nnsullied  purity  of  Mr.  f  At  this  time  Charles  was  the 

Cannincfs  domestic  life,"  says  his  second  surviving  son.     The  eldest, 

last  ana  pleasantest  biographer,  "  and  George  Charles,  born  in  April,  ISOl, 

his  love  of  domestic  pleasures  (for  died  in  March,  1820.    The  second 

after  his  marriage    he  seldom  ex-  brother  was  in  the  navy, 

tended  his  intercourse  with  general  X  ^^    Bell's    Life  of   Canning, 

society  beyond  those  occasions  which  chapter  x.,  which  contains  an  ani- 

his  station   rendered  unavoidable),  mated  sketch  of  the  early  history  of 

were  rewarded  by  as  much  virtue  Gloucester  Lodge,  and  of  the  social 

and  devotion   as   ever   graced  the  and  domestic  environments  of  the 

home  of  an  English  statesman." —  great  statesman's  residence  there. 
BelTs  Lt/e  of  Canning. 


EABLT  CAIEEX  OF  LOID  CAXSOXG.        363 

voke  from  his  brief  dream  of  Tmlittn  Tioe-regal  power  i^^^ 
o  take  the  seals  of  the  Foreign  Office,  this  boy 
Charles  was  under  the  scholastic  care  of  Mr.  Carmalt, 
of  Putney.  In  those  days  his  establishment  enjoyed 
a  great  reputation.  It  was  one  of  the  largest  and 
best  private  schools  in  the  neighbourhood  of  London, 
perhaps  in  the  whole  kingdom,  and  as  the  sons  of  our 
highest  noblemen  mingled  there  with  those  of  our 
middle-class  gentry,  not  a  bad  half-way  house  to  the 
microcosm  of  Eton  or  Harrow.  The  impression  which 
Charles  Canning  made  upon  the  minds  of  his  school- 
fellows was,  on  the  whole,  a  favourable  one.  He  was 
not  a  boy  of  brilliant  parts,  or  of  any  large  popu- 
larity; but  he  was  remembered  long  afterwards  as 
one  who,  in  a  quiet,  unostentatious  way,  made  it 
manifest  to  ordinary  observers  that  there  was,  in 
schoolboy  language,  "  something  in  him."  One, 
whose  letter  is  now  before  me,  and  who  was  with 
him  for  nearly  two  years  in  the  same  room  at  the 
Putney  school,  remembered,  after  a  lapse  of  more 
than  a  third  part  of  a  century,  the  admiration  with 
which  he  then  regarded  young  Canning's  "youthful 
indications  of  talent,  and  amiable  and  attractive 
manners." 

Two  years  after  George  Canning's  surrender  of  the  Eton. 
Governor-Generalship,  his  son  Charles  left  Mr.  Car- 
malt's  and  went  to  Eton.  Eton  was  very  proud  of  the 
father's  great  reputation,  and  eager  to  embrace  the 
son  ;  for,  verily,  George  Canning  had  been  an  Etonian 
of  Etonians,  and  had  done  as  much,  as  a  scholar  and 
a  wit,  to  make  Eton. flourish,  as  any  man  of  his  age- 
It  was,  perhaps,  therefore,  in  a  spirit  of  pure  grati- 
tude and  veneration,  and  with  no  "  hope  of  future 
favours,"  that  worthy  Provost  Goodall,  than  whom 
perhaps  no  man  ever  had  a  keener  appreciation  both 


364 


OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 


1856.  of  scholarship  and  of  wit,  on  intimation  made  to  him 
that  George  Canning  -wished  his  son  to  be  entered  as 
an  oppidan,  sent  Mr.  Chapman,  one  of  the  masters  of 
the  school,*  who  had  been  selected  as  the  boy's  tutor, 
to  examine  him  at  Gloucester  Lodge.  These  exami- 
nations, which  determine  the  place  in  the  school 
which  the  boy  is  to  take,  are  commonly  held  in  the 
tutor's  house  at  Eton,  not  beneath  the  parental  roof. 
But  the  Minister's  son  was  examined  in  his  father's 
library  and  in  his  father's  presence  at  Gloucester 
Lodge ;  a  double  trial,  it  may  be  thought,  of  the 
young  student's  nerve,  and  not  provocative  of  a  suc- 
cessful display  of  scholarship.  But  it  was  success- 
ful.! Charles  Canning  was  declared  to  be  fit  for  the 
fourth  form,  and  on  the  4th  of  September,  1824,  he 
commenced  his  career.  It  is  on  record  that  he  was 
"  sent  up  for  good"  for  his  proficiency  in  Latin  verse. 
It  is  on  record,  also,  if  the  recording  minister  at 
Eton  does  not  kindly  blot  out  such  traces  of  boyish 
error,  that  he  was  also  sent  up  for  bad ;  in  more  cor- 
rect Etonian  phraseology,  "in  the  bill,"  marked  for 
the  flogging  block.  And  it  is  traditional  that  the 
avenging  hand  of  Head-master  Keate  was  sometimes 
stayed  by  a  tender  reluctance  to  apply  the  birch  to 
the  person  of  Secretary  Canning's  son.  On  the  whole, 
perhaps,  it  is  historically  true  that,  at  Eton,  he  had 
no  very  marked  reputation  of  any  kind.  He  was 
good-looking,  and  a  gentleman,  which  goes  for  some- 
thing ;  but  I  do  not  know  that  he  was  a  great  rower, 


*  Afterwards  Bishop  of  Ck)Iombo ; 
now  retired. 

f  I  am  indebted  for  this  incident 
to  Sir  Bx)bert  Phiilimore,  Queen's 
Advocate.  The  memorandum  from 
which  it  is  taken  adds  -.  "  The  well- 
known  description  of  the  storm  in 
the  first  ^ncid,  'luterea  magno 
misceri  rourmare  pontum/  &c.,  was 
the  passage  chosen  for  the  trial  of 


his  proficieucy,  and  the  Bishop  now 
remembers  the  anxiety  with  which 
the  father  watched  the  essay  of  liis 
son,  and  the  smile  of  approval  which 
greeted  his  reading  of  the  rather  dif- 
facult  transition,  'Quos  ego  —  sed 
motos/  &c.,  and  the  final  *  Not  so 
bad/  which  followed  at  the  close  of 
the  whole  translation." 


EARLY  CAREER  OF  LORD  GAXXIXG.  365 

a  great  cricketer,  or  a  great  swimmer,  or  was  in  any  1S56. 
sense  an  athlete  of  the  first  water  and  the  admira- 
tion of  his  companions ;  and,  scholastically,  it  is  re- 
membered of  him  that  he  had  ^^  a  reputation  rather 
for  intelligence,  accuracy,  and  painstaking,  than  for 
refined  scholarship,  or  any  remarkable  powers  of 
composition." 

But  on  passing  away  firom  Eton,  the  stature  of  his 
mind  was  soon  greatly  enlarged.     At  the  close  of 
1827,  having  risen  to  tbe  Upper  division  of  the  fifth 
form,  he  received  the  parting  gifts  of  his  school- 
fellows ;  and  soon   afterwards  became  the  private 
pupil  of  the  Rev.  John  Shore,  a  nephew  of  Sir  John 
Shore,  Governor-General  of  India,  and  known  to  a 
later  generation  as  Lord  Teignmouth.    This  worthy 
Christian  gentleman  and  ripe  scholar  lived,  but  with- 
out Church  preferment,   at  Potton,   a  quiet  little 
market-town  in  Bedfordshire,  receiving  pupils  there 
of  the  better  sort.     Among  the  inmates  of  his  house 
was  the  grandson  of  the  first  Lord  Harris,  with  whom 
Charles  Canning  entered  into  bonds  of  ftiendship, 
riveted  at   Oxford,   strengthened  in  public  life  at 
home,  and  again  by  strange  coincidence  in  India, 
and  broken   only  by   death.      Here,  doubtless,   he 
made  great  progress  in   scholarship.     Perhaps  the 
death  of  his  father,   and  the  after-honours  which    AaftuAb, 
were  conferred  on  the  family,  and,  more  than  all,  the 
subsequent   calamitous  end  of  his  elder  brother,* 
awakened  within  him  a  sense  of  the  responsibilities 
of  his  position,  and  roused  him  to  new  exertions. 
Though  bom  the  third  in  succession  of  George  Can- 
ning's sons,  he  was  now  the  eldest,  the  only  one.    He 
and  his  sister  alone  survived.     He  was  now  the  heir 
to  a  peerage,  sufficiently,  though  not  splendidly,  en- 

*  William  Pitt  Cuminff,  then  a    drowned  while  bathing  at  Madetn, 
Captain  iu  the  Bojal  Na?j,  was    in  September,  1S2S. 


IfiiJ. 


366  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINT. 

1850.  dowed,  and  there  was  a  public  career  before  him. 
He  applied  himself  to  his  books.* 
Oxford.  His  next  step  was  to  the  University.  In  Decem- 
ber, 1828,  he  was  entered  on  the  roll  as  a  Student  of 
Christ  Church,  Oxford,  as  his  father  had  been  en- 
tered just  forty  years  before.  Among  the  fore- 
most of  his  fellow-students  were  Mr.  Gladstone,  Mr. 
Bruce,  and  Mr.  Robert  Phillimore,f  all  of  whom 
lived  to  take  parts,  more  or  less  prominent,  in  public 
affairs.  Among  other  members  of  the  same  distin- 
guished house,  at  that  time,  was  the  young  Lord 
Lincoln,  heir  to  the  Dukedom  of  Newcastle,  and  the 
representative  of  the  great  Scotch  House  of  Ramsay, 
ennobled  by  the  Earldom  of  Dalhousie.  But  the 
most  intimate  of  all  his  associates  was  the  present 
Lord  De  Tabley,  with  whom  he  lived  in  the  closest 
bonds  of  friendship  to  the  latest  day  of  his  life.  By 
him,  and  a  few  other  chosen  companions,  he  was 
dearly  loved  and  much  respected ;  but  neither  achiev- 
ing nor  seeking  extensive  popularity  among  his  co- 
temporaries,  he  was  regarded  by  the  outer  University 
world  as  a  man  of  a  reserved  and  distant  manner, 
and  of  a  somewhat  cold  and  unimpulsive  tempera- 
ment. The  few  in  the  inner  circle  knew  that  he  was 
not  cold ;  knew  that  he  had  a  true  loving  heart,  very 
loyal  and  constant  in  its  affections  ;  knew  that  in  the 
society  of  his  familiar  friends  he  had  a  pleasant,  a 
genial,  and  sometimes  a  playful  manner,  that  he  had 
a  fine  scholarly  taste,  a  fund  of  quiet  humour,  a  keen 
appreciation  of  character,  and  that  he  was  all  in  all  a 
delightful  companion.  They  had  great  hope,  too,  of 
his  future  career,  though  he  did  not  seem  to  be  ambi- 

*  It  need  scarcely  be  indicated        f  The  present  (1864)  Chancellor 

that  the  widow  of  George  Canning,  of  the  Exchequer ;   the  late  Lord 

on  his  death,  was  created  a  Vis-  Elgin,  Governor-General  of  India; 

countess,  with  remainder  to  his  eldest  and  the  present  Queen's  Advocate, 
son. 


EABLT  CAREER  OF  LORD  CA5XIXG.        367 

tious;  nay,  rather,  it  appeared  to  thoee  who  closely  1S5«L 
observed  him,  that  he  was  haunted  and  held  back  by 
the  thought  of  his  father's  renown,  and  a  diffidence  ^ 
his  own  capacity  to  maintain  the  glories  of  the  name. 
But,  although  he  did  not  care  to  take  part  in  the 
proceedings  of  debating  societies,  and,  apparently, 
took  small  interest  in  the  politics  of  the  great  wcnrld, 
he  was  anxious  that  at  least  his  University  career 
should  do  no  dishonour  to  his  lineage,  and  that  if  he 
could  not  be  a  great  statesman,  he  might  not  stain 
the  scholarly  reputation  enjoyed  by  two  generati<Hia 
of  Cannings  before  him.  He  strove,  therefore,  and 
with  good  results,  to  perfect  himfiplf  in  the  clasac 
languages ;  and  even  more  assiduous  were  his  endea- 
vours to  obtain  a  mastery  over  his  own  langoage. 
At  an  early  age  he  acquired  a  thoroughly  good  Eng- 
lish style ;  not  resonant  or  pretentious ;  not  splintery 
or  smart ;  but  pure,  fluent,  transparent,  with  the 
meaning  ever  visible  beneath  it,  as  pebbles  beneath 
the  clearest  stream. 

His  efforts  bore  good  firuit  In  1831,  he  wrote  a 
Latin  Prize  Poem,  on  the  "  Captivity  of  Caractacns ;" 
and  recited  it  in  the  great  hall  of  Christ  Church, 
standing  beneath  his  fathers  picture.^     And  in  the 


*  I  am  indebted  for  this  to  Sir  in  the  prine  of  tooiJ^  naSsm  hf 

Robert  Phillimore.    I  me  the  inci-  his  eniiientlT  haaiaame  comaHtaamtt 

dent  in  his  own   words :   '^  In  the  the  noble  featcret  of  the  portnit, 

▼ear  1831,  he  won  the  Christ  Cbnrch  while  imating  the  daasical  prise 

prize  for  Latin  Terse.    The  subject  poem,  whieh  woold  hare  lebdseiied 

was '  Caractacns  CaptiTUS  Romam  in-  nis  Other's  heart.    GenerailT  n^ak. 

greditur.'   The  Terscs  were,  as  usual,  me,  the  resident  memben  ri  Chim 

recited  in  the  hall.  It  was  a  remark-  Chnrch  aJooe  eompoae  the  andkaee 

able  scene.     In    that    mafjfnifioent  when  the  prize  poem  is  reexted.  Bat 

banqueting-room  are  hung  the  por-  <m  this  oocaaioo  there  was  a  ^nn^er 

traits  of  students  who  have  reflected  present — the  old  fahhfnl  friend  of 

honour  upon  the  House  which  reared  Mr:  Canning,  his  staonch  poiitieal 

them  by  the  distinctions  which  ther  adherent  throngh  li£&-~Mr.  Sinrges 

have  won  in  after  life.    Underneath  Bourne.     He    had    trareUed   fr-jm 

the  portrait  of  George  Canning,  the  Loodon  for  the  puriwae  of  witona- 

remllection  of  whose  briliiant  career  ing  the  first  coDsideraUe  acbiere- 

and  nntimeij  end  was  stUl  fresh  im  m^oAci  the  jfmnger  Camung."— 

the  memorj  of  men,  tiood  the  warn,  MEL  ^' 


368  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

1856.  Easter  term  of  1833  he  took  his  degree,  with  high 
honours:  a  first  class  in  Classics,  and  a  second  in 
Mathematics.  He  was  then  in  his  twenty-first  year ; 
and  Parliament  would  soon  be  open  to  him.  But  he 
was  in  no  hurry  to  enter  upon  the  realities  of  public 
life.  He  was  diffident  of  his  oratorical  powers ;  he 
was  constitutionally  shy;  and  it  did  not  appear  to 
him  that  the  House  of  Conmions  was  a  theatre  in 
which  he  was  ever  likely  to  make  a  successful  ap- 
pearance. Moreover,  he  had  other  work  in  hand  at 
that  time ;  other  yearnings  to  keep  down  any  young 
ambitions  that  might  be  mounting  within  hun.  Love 
and  courtship  filled  up  a  sweet  interlude  in  his  life, 
as  they  do  in  the  lives  of  most  men  whose  story  is 
worth  telling ;  and,  in  due  course,  they  bore  the  rich 
fruit  of  happy  wedlock.  On  the  5th  of  September, 
1835,  the  Honourable  Charles  John  Canning  espoused 
the  Honourable  Charlotte  Stuart,  eldest  daughter  of 
Lord  Stuart  De  Rothesay ;  a  lady  of  a  serene  and 
gentle  beauty,  and  many  rare  gifts  of  mind. 

But,  after  a  year  of  wedded  life,  he  was  prevailed 
upon  to  enter  Parliament;  and  in  August,  1836,  he 
was  returned  for  Warwick.  In  that  month,  however, 
Parliament  was  prorogued;  and  on  its  reassembling 
at  the  commencement  of  the  following  year  he  was 
content  to  be  a  silent  member.  His  opportunities, 
indeed,  were  very  few,  for  his  whole  career  in  the 
House  of  Conmions  extended  over  a  period  of  little 
more  than  six  weeks.  During  the  month  of  February 
and  the  early  part  of  March  he  attended  in  his  place 
with  praiseworthy  regularity.*  But,  on  the  15th  of 
the  latter  month,  his  mother.  Viscountess  Canning, 
died ;  and,  on  the  24th  of  April,  he  took  his  seat  in 
the  House  of  Lords. 

*  His  name  is  to  be  found  in  all    (Government,   bat  more  frequently 
the  principal  division  lists.  He  voted    with  it. 
sometimes  against  Ix>rd  Melbourne's 


EARLT  CAREER  OF  LORD  CANNING.         369 

Fop  nearly  twenty  years  he  sate  in  that  House,  183G-56. 
taking  no  very  prominent  part  in  the  debates,  but 
doing  his  duty  in  a  quiet,  unostentatious  way,  and 
gradually  making  for  himself  a  reputation  as  a  con- 
scientious,  painstaking  young  statesman,  who  might 
some  day  do  good  service  to  his  countiy  and  honour 
to  his  great  name.  His  political  opinions,  which 
were  shared  by  most  of  his  distinguished  cotempo- 
raries  at  Christ  Church,  were  characterised  by  that 
chastened  liberalism  which  had  found  its  chief  ex- 
ponent in  Sir  Robert  Peel ;  and  when,  in  1841,  that 
great  Parliamentary  leader  was  invited  to  form  a 
Ministry,  Lord  Canning,  Lord  Lincoln,  and  Mr. 
Gladstone  were  offered,  and  accepted,  official  seats. 
The  seals  of  the  Foreign  Office  had  been  placed  in 
the  hands  of  Lord  Aberdeen.  He  had  a  high  opi- 
nion of,  aod  a  personal  regard  for,  Lord  Canning, 
and  there  was  no  one  whom  the  veteran  statesman 
wished  so  much  to  associate  with  himself  in  office  as 
George  Canning's  son.  About  the  same  time  another 
distinguished  member  of  the  House  of  Lords  was  also 
moved  by  a  strong  desire  to  have  the  benefit  of  the 
young  statesman's  official  co-operation  and  personal 
companionship.  This  was  Lord  EUenborough,  who, 
on  the  formation  of  the  Peel  Ministry,  had  been  ap- 
pointed President  of  the  Board  of  Control,  but  who 
had  subsequently  been  selected  to  succeed  Lord  Auck- 
land as  Governor-General  of  India.  He  offered  to 
take  Canning  with  him  in  the  capacity  of  Private 
Secretary. 

Creditable  as  this  offer  was  to  the  discernment  of 
Lord  EUenborough,  and  made  in  perfect  sincerity,  it 
was  one  little  likely  to  be  accepted  by  a  man  of  high 
social  position,  good  political  prospects,  and  a  suffi- 
cient supply  of  the  world's  wealth.     Lord  Canning 

2b 


370  OUTBREAK  OF  TDE  MUTINY. 

1836-56.  elected  to  remain  in  England,  and  entered  official  life 
as  Under-Secretary  of  State  for  Foreign  Affairs.  He 
liked  his  work  ;  he  did  it  well ;  and  he  had  the  entire 
confidence  of  his  chief.  But  he  did  not  take  an  active 
part  in  the  debates  and  discussions  of  the  House  of 
Lords.  The  presence,  in  the  same  Chamber,  of  the 
Chief  of  his  Department  relieved  him  from  the  re- 
sponsibility of  ministerial  explanations  and  replies, 
and  his  constitutional  reserve  forbade  all  unnecessary 
displays.  It  was  not,  indeed,  until  the  Session  of 
1846  found  him  in  the  office  of  Chief  Conmiissioner 
of  Woods  and  Forests,  that  he  took  any  prominent 
part  in  the  business  of  the  House.  If  the  position 
which  he  then  held  afforded  no  opportunity  for  the 
development  of  his  powers  either  as  an  orator  or  a 
debater,  it  kept  him  continually  in  Parliamentary 
harness,  and  the  training  was  of  service  to  him.  It 
lasted,  however,  but  a  little  time.  At  the  end  of 
June,  1846,  Sir  Robert  Peel  and  his  colleagues  re- 
signed; and  a  Whig  Cabinet  was  formed  under  the 
leadership  of  Lord  John  RusselL 

Lord  Canning  was  then  "  in  opposition ;"  but,  in 
heart,  he  was  a  Liberal,  and  Avilling  to  support 
liberal  measures,  without  reference  to  the  distinc- 
tions of  party.  When,  therefore,  in  May,  1848, 
Lord  Lansdowne  moved  the  second  reading  of  the 
Jewish  Disabilities  Bill,  Lord  Canning  was  the  first 
to  speak  in  support  of  it.  He  answered  Lord  EUen- 
borough,  who  had  moved  the  amendment,  and  he 
voted  against  all  his  old  colleagues  then  in  the  Upper 
House,  with  the  exception  of  Lord  Hardinge.  But 
in  1850  he  supported,  in  a  speech  displaying  an  entire 
mastery  of  the  subject,  the  resolution  of  Lord  Derby 
condemnatory  of  the  Foreign  Policy  of  Lord  Pal- 
merston ;  and  he  spoke  against  the  Ecclesiastical 
Titles  Bill,  introduced  by  Lord  John  Russell.     So 


, EARLY  CAREER  OF  LORD  CANNING.         371 

little,  indeed,  was  he  considered  to  be  pledged  to  any  1836-50. 
party,  that  when  the  Russell  Cabinet  resigned  in  the 
spring  of  1851,  and  Lord  Derby  was  invited  to  form 
an  administration,  the  great  Conservative  leader  saw 
no  reason  why  he  should  not  invite  Canning  to  be- 
come a  member  of  it.  The  offer  then  made  was  a 
tempting  one,  for  it  was  the  offer  of  a  seat  in  the 
Cabinet  second  in  importance  only  to  that  of  the 
First  Minister.  To  the  son  of  George  Canning  it 
was  especially  tempting,  for  it  was  the  offer  of  the 
seals  of  the  Foreign  Office.  In  that  office  the  father 
had  built  up  his  reputation,  and  the  son  had  already 
laid  the  foundation  of  an  honourable  career  of  states- 
manship. It  was  the  department  which,  above  aU 
others.  Lord  Canning  best  knew  and  most  desired. 
He  had  served  a  long  apprenticeship  in  it,  and  if  his 
humility  suggested  any  doubts  of  his  capacity  to 
direct  its  affairs,  they  must  have  been  removed  by 
the  manner  in  which  he  was  invited  to  take  their 
direction. 

The  offer  now  made  to  him  was  made  through  his 
old  official  chie^  Lord  Aberdeen,  who  pressed  him  to 
accept  it.    But  there  were  many  grave  considerations 
which  caused  him  to  hesitate.     He  had  sat  for  some 
years  on    the    same    ministerial    bench   with  Lord 
Derby,  but  the  latter  had  separated  himself  from  his 
party,  and  the  cause  of  the  disruption  was  the  liberal 
commercial  policy  of  Sir  Robert  Peel,  in  favour  of 
which  Canning  had  freely  declared  his  opinions.    He 
had  condemned  the  foreign  policy  of  the  Whig  party ; 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  there  were  matters  of  home 
government,  in  which  his  liberality  was  far  in  ad- 
vance of  the  opinions  of  Lord  Derby  and  his  col- 
leagues ;  and,  on  the  whole,  he  felt  that  he  could  not 
honestly  and  consbtently  support  the  Administration 

2b2 


372  OUTBREAK  OF  TDE  MUTINY. 

1836^6.  which  he  was  invited  to  enter.  He  judged  rightly, 
and  in  such  a  case  he  judged  wisely.  Lord  Derby 
failed  to  construct  a  Ministry,  and  the  Whigs  re- 
sumed office  for  another  year.  This  was  the  turning- 
point  of  Lord  Canning's  career ;  and  it  is  impossible 
to  say  how  different  might  have  been  the  story  which 
I  am  now  about  to  write,  if  these  overtures  had  been 
accepted. 

In  the  foUowing  year.  Lord  Derby  again  endea- 
voured, and  with  better  success,  to  form  a  Ministry, 
but  its  career  was  of  brief  duration.  In  November, 
its  place  was  filled  by  an  Administration  under  the 
premiership  of  Lord  Aberdeen,  composed  of  the  lead- 
ing members  of  the  Governments  both  of  Sir  Robert 
Peel  and  Lord  John  Russell.  In  this  Coalition 
Ministry  Lord  Canning  held  the  office  of  Postmaster- 
General.  Though  held  by  many  a  distinguished 
man,  the  post  was  not  one  to  satisfy  the  desires  of  an 
ambitious  one.  But  he  was  not  disappointed  or  dis- 
couraged. He  knew  the  difficulties  which  lay  in  the 
path  of  his  leader,*  and  he  addressed  himself  cheer- 
fully and  assiduously  to  his  work,  with  a  steadfast 
resolution  to  elevate  the  importance  of  the  appoint- 
ment he  held,  by  doing  in  it  the  largest  possible 
amount  of  public  good.  In  this  office  he  had  first 
an  opportunity  of  displaying  that  high  conscientious 
courage  which  bears  up  and  steers  right  on,  in  spite 
of  the  penalties  and  mortifications  of  temporary  un- 
popularity. What  was  wrong  he  endeavoured  to  set 
right ;  and  knowing  how  much  depended  on  the  per- 
sonal exertions  of  individual  men,  he  strove,  even 

*  In  a  ''  coalition  minisirj"  there  arrangements  then  made  the  seals  of 

is  necessarily  an  exceptional  nuntber  the  foreign  Office  fell,  in  the  first 

of  claimants  for  the  higher  offices  instance,  to  Lord  John  Russell, 
with  seats  in  the  Cabinet.    In  the 


EARLT  CAKEER  OF  LORD  CANNING.  373 

at  the  expense  of  certain  very  clamorous  vested  inte-  183G-56. 
rests,  to  obtain  the  utmost  possible  amount  of  com- 
petency for  the  performance  of  all  the  higher  depart- 
mental duties.  During  his  administration  of  the 
Post-office  many  important  reforms  were  instituted, 
and  much  progress  made  in  good  work  already  com- 
menced. So  effectually,  indeed,  had  he  mastered  all 
the  complicated  details  of  the  department,  that  when 
the  Coalition  Ministry  was  dissoWed  and  a  new  Go- 
vernment formed  under  Lord  Palmerston,  the  public 
interests  required  that  there  should  be  no  change  at 
the  Post-office ;  so  Lord  Canning  was  reappointed  to 
his  old  office,  but  with  further  acknowledgment  of 
his  good  services  in  the  shape  of  a  seat  in  the  Cabinet. 
But  it  was  not  ordered  that  he  should  hold  the  office 
much  longer.  There  was  more  stirring  work  in  store 
for  him.  His  old  friend  and  cotemporary,  Lord  Dal- 
housie,  was  coming  home  from  India,  and  it  was 
necessary  that  a  new  Governor-General  should  be 
appointed  in  his  place.  Practically  the  selection,  in 
such  cases,  was  made  by  the  Imperial  Government, 
but  constitutionally  the  appointment  emanated  from 
the  East  India  Company.  The  President  of  the 
Board  of  Control  and  the  Chairman  of  the  Court 
of  Directors  commonly  took  counsel  together,  when 
the  Cabinet  had  chosen  their  man;  and  then  the 
nomination  was  formally  submitted  to  the  Court. 
There  is  always,  in  such  cases,  much  internal  doubt 
and  conflict  among  those  with  whom  the  selection 
rests,  and  much  speculation  and  discussion  in  the 
outer  world.  It  was  believed  in  this  instance,  that 
some  member  of  the  Ministry  would  be  appointed  ; 
but  people  said  in  England,  as  they  said  in  India, 
that  it  would  be  no  easy  thing  to  find  a  fit  successor 
for  Lord  Dalhousie ;  and  when  at  last  it  transpired 


374  OUTBUJJL  OF  THE  MCTINT. 


r- 


thal  the  dimoe  had  &llen  on  Lord  Canning  men 
shook  their  heads  and  asked  each  other  whether  there 
was  anything  great  about  him  but  his  name.  In 
Parliament  the  propriety  of  the  appointment  was 
questioned  by  some  noisy  speakers,  and  there  was  a 
l^t^m  sode^STfte  appom.»,«..  ™ 
rather  a  mistake.  But  those  who  knew  Lord  Can- 
ning— those  especially  who  had  worked  with  him — 
knew  that  it  was  no  mistake.  They  knew  that  there 
was  the  stuff  in  him  of  which  great  administrators 
are  made. 
t  On  the  first  day  of  August  a  Court  of  Directors 
was  held  at  the  India  House,  and  Lord  Canning  was 
introduced  to  take  the  accustomed  oath.  On  the 
eyening  of  that  day  the  Company  gaye,  in  honour  of 
their  new  servant,  one  of  those  magnificent  enter- 
tainments at  which  it  was  their  wont  to  bid  God- 
speed to  those  who  were  going  forth  to  do  their  work. 
Those  banquets  were  great  facts  and  great  oppor- 
tunities. It  was  discovered  soon  afterwards  that  the 
expenditure  upon  them  was  a  profligate  waste  of  the 
public  money.  But  the  Government  of  a  great  em- 
pire, spending  nothing  upon  the  splendid  foppery  of 
a  Court,  was  justified  in  thinking  that,  without 
offence,  it  might  thus  do  honour  to  its  more  distLo- 
guiahed  servants,  and  that,  not  the  turtle  and  the 
venison,  but  the  hospitality  and  the  courtesy  of  the 
Directors,  thus  publicly  bestowed  upon  the  men  who 
had  done  their  work  well  in  civil  or  military  life, 
would  find  ample  recompense  in  increased  loyalty 
and  devotion,  and  more  energetic  service.  Many  a 
gallant  soldier  and  many  a  wise  administrator  carried 
back  with  him  to  India  the  big  card  of  the  ^^. 
India  Company  inviting  him  to  dinner  at 
Tavern,   and  religiously  preserved  it  as 


THE  FAREWELL  BANQUET.  375 

most  cherished  records  of  an  honourable  career.  1865-66. 
There  were  many,  too,  who  hoarded  among  their 
dearest  recollections  the  memory  of  the  evening  when 
they  saw,  perhaps  for  the  first  and  the  last  time, 
England's  greatest  statesmen  and  warriors,  and  heard 
them  gravely  discourse  on  the  marvel  and  the  miracle 
of  our  Indian  Empire.  Nor  was  it  a  small  thing 
that  a  man  selected  to  govern  a  magnificent  de- 
pendency beyond  the  seas,  should  thus,  in  the  pre- 
sence of  his  old  and  his  new  masters,  and  many  of 
his  coadjutors  in  the  great  work  before  him,  publicly 
accept  his  conunission,  and  declare  to  the  people  in 
the  West  and  in  the  East  the  principles  which  were 
to  regulate  his  conduct  and  to  shape  his  career.  The 
words  uttered  on  these  occasions  rose  far  above  the 
ordinary  convivial  level  of  after-dinner  speeches. 
There  was  a  gravity  and  solemnity  in  them,  appre- 
ciated not  merely  by  those  who  heard  them  spoken, 
but  by  thousands  also,  to  whom  the  Press  conveyed 
them,  in  the  country  which  they  most  concerned; 
and  on  the  minds  of  the  more  intelligent  Natives  the 
fact  of  this  grand  ceremonial  of  departure  made  a 
deep  impression,  and  elevated  in  their  imaginations 
the  dignity  of  the  coming  ruler. 

Seldom  or  never  had  this  ceremonial  assumed  a 
more  imposing  character  than  that  which  celebrated 
the  appointment  of  Lord  Canning  to  the  Governor- 
Generalship  of  India.  In  the  great  Banqueting  HaU 
of  the  London  Tavern  were  assembled  on  that  1st 
of  August  many  members  of  the  Cabinet^  including 
among  them  some  of  Canning's  dearest  friends ;  others 
besides  of  his  old  companions  and  fellow-students; 
«ad  all  the  most  distinguished  of  the  servants  of  the 


'Clompany  at  that  timein  the  country.     Mr.  Elliot 


bat  tU^LUi  th 


teni  Chll^^^l  the  East  India  Company, 


376  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

1855-56.  presided,  and  after  dinner  proposed  the  accostomed 
toasts.  It  was  natural  and  right  that,  when  doing 
honour  to  the  newly-appointed  Governor-General,  the 
speaker  should  pay  a  fitting  tribute  to  the  distin- 
guished statesman  who  was  then  bringing  his  work 
to  a  close ;  it  was  natural  and  graceful  that  tribute 
should  be  paid  also  to  the  worth  of  the  elder  Canning, 
who  had  done  India  good  service  at  home,  and  had 
been  selected  to  hold  the  great  office  abroad  which 
his  son  was  proceeding  to  fill ;  but  there  was  some- 
thing to  a  comparatively  untried  man  perilous  in 
such  associations,  and  the  younger  Canning,  with 
instinctive  modesty,  shrunk  from  the  invidious  sug- 
gestion.  Perhaps  there  were  some  present  who  drew 
comparisons,  unfavourable  to  the  son,  between  the 
early  careers  of  the  two  Cannings,  which  had  entitled 
them  to  this  great  distinction ;  but  when  the  younger 
stood  up  to  speak,  every  one  was  struck — the  many 
judging  by  busts  and  pictures,  and  the  few  recalling 
the  Uving  likeness  of  George  Canning— by  his  great 
resemblance  to  his  father.  The  singularly  handsome 
face,  the  intellectual  countenance,  and,  above  all,  the 
noble  "  Canning  brow,"  like  a  block  of  white  marble, 
bespoke  no  common  capacity  for  empire,  and  gave 
emphatic  force  to  the  words  he  uttered.  He  said, 
after  the  usual  expression  of  thanks  for  the  kind 
words  spoken,  and  the  kind  reception  accorded  to 
th^m,  that  the  kindness  which  he  had  received  had 
not  created  any  delusion  in  his  mind,  for  whether  he 
contemplated  the  magnitude  of  the  task  that  awaited 
him,  or  the  great  achievements  of  the  distinguished 
men  who  had  preceded  him,  he  was  painfully  sensibis 
that  the  labourer  was  unequal  to  the  great  work  tfait 
had  been  entrusted  to  his  hands.  He  was  not 
ashamed  to  confess  that  there  were  times  when  Im- 


THE  FAREWELL  BANQUET.  377 

was  tempted  to  shrink  from  the  responsibility  that  1855-56. 
awaited  him.  But  this  feeling,  he  added,  was  not 
inconsistent  with  his  determination  to  devote  all  the 
energies  of  his  mind,  every  hour,  nay,  every  minute 
of  his  time,  every  thought  and  every  inspiration,  to 
the  discharge  of  the  duties  which  he  had  that  day  ac- 
cepted from  the  hands  of  the  Company.  There  were, 
however,  other  considerations,  which  had  greatly  re- 
assured and  encouraged  him :  "  You  have,"  he  said, 
turning  to  the  Chairman,  "  assured  me,  this  day,  of 
what  you  rightly  describe  as  the  generous  confidence 
and  co-operation  of  the  Court  of  Directors.  I  thank 
you  for  that  assurance,  and  I  rely  on  it  implicitly, 
for  I  know  that  the  body  of  which  you  are  the  head 
are,  wherever  they  bestow  their  confidence,  no  nig- 
gards in  supporting  thosie  who  honestly  and  faith- 
fully serve  them."  And  then,  not  perhaps  without  a 
knowledge  of  what,  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century 
before,  his  father  had  said  on  a  similar  occasion,*  he 
added,  "I  feel  that  I  can  also  rely  on  the  cordial 
support  and  sympathy  of  my  noble  friend  at  the  head 
of  the  Government,  and  of  all  those  colleagues  with 
whom  I  have  had  the  proud  satisfaction  of  serving  as 
a  Minister  of  the  Crown,  but,  above  all,  I  delight  in 
the  co-operation — for  on  that  I  must  daily  and  hourly 
rely — of  those  two  admirable  bodies,  the  Civil  Service 
and  the  Army  of  India.  I  hardly  know  whether 
there  is  any  feature  of  our  Government,  any  portion 
of  our  institutions,  upon  which  Englishmen  may  look 
with  more  honest  exultation  than  those  two  noble 

*  The  occasion  alluded  to  was  the  rope  the  existence  of  any  monarchy 
farewell  banquet  given  by  the  East  which,  within  a  given  time,  has  pro- 
India  Company  to  Sir  John  Malcolm,  duced  so  manv  men  of  the  nrst 
on  his  appointment  to  the  govern-  talents,  in  civil  and  military  life,  as 
ment  of  Bombay.  Then  it  was  that  Lidia  has  first  trained  for  herself, 
C^rge  Canning  said :  "  There  can-  and  then  given  to  their  native 
not  be  found  in  the  history  of  £u-  country/' 


378  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  HCTINT. 

branches  of  our  Public  Service.  The  men  of  thoee 
branches  have  done  much  for  the  advancement  of 
India,  and  have  sent  forth  from  their  ranks  men  who 
were  efficient  in  war  and  peace,  in  numbers  of  which 
any  monarchy  in  Europe  might  be  proud,  and  who 
have  rescued  their  countrymen  from  charges  formerly, 
and  not  unjustly,  levelled  against  them  of  dealing 
sometimes  too  harshly  with  those  whom  they  were 
bound  to  succour  and  protect.  Sir,  it  is  the  posses- 
ion of  such  men  which  enables  you  to  exhibit  a 
spectacle  unequalled  in  the  world's  history — that  of 
a  hxmdred  and  fifty  millions  of  people  submitting  in 
peace  and  contentment,  in  a  country  teeming  with 
wealth,  to  the  government  of  strangers  and  aliens." 

Then,  after  a  few  more  words  on  the  high  charac- 
ter  of  the  Services,  and  a  brief  declaration  of  the  fact 
that  he  assumed  oflSce  "  without  a  single  promise  or 
pledge  to  any  expectant,"  he  proceeded  with  increased 
gravity  and  solenmity  of  utterance,  ahnost,  indeed, 
as  one  under  the  spell  of  prophecy :  "  I  know  not 
what  course  events  may  take.  I  hope  and  pray  that 
we  may  not  reach  the  extremity  of  war.  I  wish  for 
a  peacefiil  time  of  office,  but  I  cannot  forget  that  in 
our  Indian  Empire  that  greatest  of  all  blessiogs  de- 
pends upon  a  greater  variety  of  chances  and  a  more 
precarious  tenure  than  in  any  other  quarter  of  the 
globe.  We  must  not  forget  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  Isiger 
and  larger,  may  at  last  threaten  to  burst,  and  over- 
whelm us  with  ruin.  What  has  happened  once  may 
happen  again.  The  disturbing  causes  have  diminished 
certainly,  but  they  are  not  dispelled.  We  have  still 
discontented  and  heterogeneous  peoples  united  i 
our  sway ;  we  have  still  neighbours  before  whom,  m 


ed  unde^^l 
vhomrii^^H 

M 


THE  FASEWELL  EAXQUET.  379 

cannot  altc^ether  lay  aside  our  watchfulneas ;  and  we     lSss-5^ 
have  a  firontier  configuration  that  renders  it  possible 
that  in  any  quarter,  at  any  moment,  causes  of  colli- 
sion may  arise.   Besides,  so  intricate  are  our  relations 
with  some  subsidiary  states,  that  I  doubt  whether  in 
an  empire  so  vast  and  so  situated  it  is  in  the  power 
of  the  wisest  Government,  the  most  peaceful  and  the 
most  forbearing,  to  command  peace.     But  if  we  can- 
not command,  we  can  at  least  deserve  it,  by  taking 
care  that  honour,  good  faith,  and  fSedr  dealing  are  on 
our  side ;  and  then  if^  in  spite  of  us,  it  should  become 
necessary  to  strike  a  blow,  we  can  strike  with  a  dear 
conscience.     With  blows  so  dealt  the  struggle  must 
be  short  and  the  issue  not  doubtful     But  I  gladly 
dismiss  firom  my  mind  apprehensions  that  may  not 
be  realised,  and  joyfully  recognise  a  large  arena  of 
peaceful  usefulness,  in  which  I  hope  for  your  kind 
assistance  and  co-operation." 

Equally  surprised  were  the  few  then  present,  who 
were  familiar  with  Lord  Canning's  parliamentary 
utterances,  and  the  many,  who  had  never  heard  him 
speak,  but  had  been  told  that  he  was  "  no  orator ;" 
for  the  speech  which  they  now  heard  from  his  lips 
was  all  that  such  a  speech  ought  to  have  been.  It  was 
impressive  rather  than  impassioned ;  slowly  spoken, 
with  a  deliberate  gravity,  every  sentence  making 
itself  feltj  and  every  word  making  itself  heard  in  the 
farthest  comers  of  that  great  Banquetmg  Hall. 
There  were  few  present  in  whose  estimation  the 
speaker  had  not  risen  before  he  resumed  his  seat ; 
few  present  who  did  not,  years  afterwards,  remember 
with  strong  emotion  that  picture  of  the  little  cloud 
rising  in  an  unexpected  quarter,  and  in  time  obscur- 
mg  the  firmament  and  overshadowing  the  iami. 
siL^a^haps,  thoughfeaho  of  another  speech,  then 


380  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

566-66.  delivered  by  a  more  practised  speaker ;  for  the  First 
Minister  of  the  Crown,  on  that  August  evening,  let 
fall  some  memorable  words.  It  was  only  in  common 
course  that  he  should  speak  of  the  qualifications  of 
his  colleague  for  the  high  office  to  which  he  had  been 
appointed;  only  in  common  course  that  he  should 
express  his  gratitude  to  the  Company  who  so  mate- 
rially lightened  the  cares  of  the  Sovereign  and  her 
Ministers.  But  when  Lord  Palmerston  dwelt  on 
"  the  significant  fact  that,  whereas  of  old  all  civilisa- 
tion came  from  India,  through  Egypt,  now  we,  who 
were  then  barbarians,  were  carrying  back  civilisation 
and  enlightenment  to  the  parent  source,"  and  added, 
"  perhaps  it  might  be  our  lot  to  confer  on  the  count- 
less millions  of  India  a  higher  and  a  holier  gift  than 
any  real  human  knowledge;  but  that  must  be  left 
to  the  hands  of  time  and  the  gradual  improvement 
of  the  people,"  he  supplemented  Lord  Canning's  pro- 
phecy, though  he  knew  it  not^  and  pointed  to  the 
quarter  from  which  the  little  cloud  was  to  arise. 

But  although  Lord  Canning  had  been  sworn  in  at 
the  India  House,  and  had  stood  before  the  magnates 
of  the  land  as  Governor-General  elect,  he  was  still  a 
member  of  the  Cabinet  and  her  Majesty's  Postmaster- 
General.  Parliament  was  prorogued  on  the  14th  of 
August,  and  in  accordance  with  that  wise  official 
usage,  which  recognises  the  necessity  of  holidays  no 
less  for  statesmen  than  for  schoolboys,  the  Queen's 
Ministers  dispersed  themselves  over  the  country,  and 
Lord  Canning  went  to  Scotland.  It  had  been  settled 
that  he  should  receive  from  the  hands  of  Lord  Dal- 
housie  the  reins  of  Indian  Government  on  the  1st  of 
February,  1856,  and  his  arrangements,  involving  a 
short  sojourn  in  Egypt,  and  visits  to  Ceylon,  Bombay, 
and  Madras,  had  been  made  with  a  view  to  his  arrival 


THE  DATE  OF  SUCCESSION.  381 

at  Calcutta  on  that  day.  But  at  Dalhousie's  own  re-  1855-50. 
quest,  his  resignation  was  subsequently  deferred  to  the 
1st  of  March.  When  this  request  was  first  made  to 
him,  Canning  thought  that  the  intention  of  the  change 
was  simply  to  allow  the  old  Governor-General  more 
time  not  only  to  consummate  the  annexation  of  Oude, 
but  to  confront  the  first  difficulties  of  the  revolution ; 
and  it  appeared  to  him,  thinking  this,  that  the  post- 
ponement might  be  interpreted  alike  to  his  own  and 
to  his  predecessor's  disadvantage.  It  might  have  been 
said  that  the  new  Governor-General  shrank  from  en- 
countering the  dangers  of  the  position,  or  that  the 
measure  was  so  distasteful  to  him,  on  the  score  of  its 
injustice,  that  he  could  not  bring  himself  to  put  his 
hand  to  the  work.  Both  assumptions  would  have 
been  utterly  erroneous.  The  question  of  the  Annexa- 
tion of  Oude  had  been  a  Cabinet  question,  and  as  a 
member  of  the  Cabinet,  Lord  Canning  had  given  his 
assent  to  the  policy,  which,  after  much  discussion  in 
Leadenhall  and  in  Downing-street,  found  final  expres- 
sion in  the  Court's  despatch  of  the  1 9th  of  November. 
The  policy  itself  had  been  already  determined,  al- 
though the  precise  terms  of  the  instructions  to  be  sent 
to  the  Government  of  India  were  still  under  conside- 
ration, when  Dalhousie's  proposal  reached  him ;  and 
he  was  willing  to  accept  all  the  responsibilities  of  the 
measure.  The  proposed  delay,  therefore,  did  not  at 
first  sight  please  him ;  but  when,  from  a  later  letter, 
he  learnt  that  Dalhousie  required  a  few  more  weeks  of 
office,  not  for  special,  but  for  general  purposes ;  that 
he  needed  time  to  gather  up  the  ends  of  a  large 
number  of  administrative  details,  the  case  was  altered, 
and  he  assented,  with  the  concurrence  of  the  Court  of 
Directors,  to  the  change.* 

*  "  As  long/*  he  wrote  to  the    Chairman,  "  as  it  turned  upon  Oude 


382  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

1855-56.  A  few  days  aflberwards,  Lord  Canning  turned  his 
face  again  towards  the  South,  to  superintend  the  final 
arrangements  for  his  departure,  and  to  take  leave  of 
his  friends.  Thus  the  month  of  October  and  the 
greater  part  of  November  were  passed ;  but  not  with- 
out some  study  of  Indian  questions,  some  useful  train- 
ing for  the  great  work  upon  which  he  was  about  to 
enter.  On  the  21st  of  November  he  went  by  com- 
mand to  Windsor,  accompanied  by  Lady  Canning, 
who  was  among  her  Majesty's  cherished  friends,  and 
on  the  23rd  returned  to  London,  after  taking  final 
leave  of  the  Queen.  Another  day  or  two,  and  he  had 
commenced  his  overiand  journey  to  the  East.  From 
the  French  capital  he  wrote,  on  the  last  day  of  No- 
vember :  "I  intended  to  leave  Paris  this  afternoon, 
but  I  received  notice  in  the  morning  that  the  Emperor 
wished  to  see  me  to-morrow,  so  that  it  will  be  Tuesday 
morning  (December  4th)  before  we  embark  at  Mar- 
seilles. We  still  hope  to  reach  Alexandria  on  the 
10th."  He  arrived  there,  however,  not  before  the 
12th,  and  after  a  day's  halt  pushed  on  to  Cairo, 
where  he  was  received  and  entertained  magnificently 
by  orders  of  the  Pacha,  who  was  at  that  time  absent 
from  his  capital. 

The  party  consisted  of  Lord  and  Lady  Canning, 
his  nephew  Lord  Hubert  de  Burgh,*  Captain  Bou- 

alone,  I  felt  tliat  there  was  some  will  be  agreeable  and  conveDient  to 
difficulty  in  making  the  change  pro-  liim,  and  probably  advantageous  to 
posed  by  Lord  Dalhousie,  and  some  the  public  interests.  I  hope,  there- 
risk  of  its  intention  being  misrepre-  fore,  that  you  will  feel  no  difficulty 
sented  to  the  disadvantage  of  both  in  complying  with  Lord  Dalhousie's 
of  us.  But  it  is  now  clear  that  for  wish,  by  putting  off  my  succession 
other  reasons,  apart  from  Oude,  and  until  the  day  he  names." — Lord 
for  the  general  winding  up  of  the  Canning  to  Mr.  Macnaghieny  Sep- 
work  on  his  hands,  it  will  be  a  great  tember  20,  1855.— i/i^.  Correspond' 
help  to  him  to  have  a  month  more  ence, 

time.    These  are  his  very  words  to  *  Afterwards  Lord  Hubert  Can- 

me ;  and  I  cannot  hesitate,  so  far  as  ning. 
1  am  concerned,  to  do  that  which 


LOBD  CANNING  IN  EGYPT.  383 

verie,  A.D.C.,  and  Djr.  Leckie.    There  was  abundant    1855^6. 
time  for  an  exploration  of  the  wonders  of  Egypt,  and, 
as  the  fine  clunate  of  the  country  invited  a  protract43d 
sojourn  there,  it  was  arranged  that  some  weeks  should 
be  spent  in  pleasant  and  profitable  excursions,  and 
that  they  should  embark  at  Suez  about  the  middle  of 
the  month  of  January.     "  The  Pacha  was  in  Upper 
Egypt  until  to-day,**  wrote  Lord  Canning  to  Mr. 
Macnaghten,  on  the  17th  of  December,  "when  he 
returned  to  tlus  neighbourhood.     I  am  to  see  him 
to-morrow,  and  on  the  following  day  we  set  out  on 
our  expedition  up  the  Nile.    Thanks  to  a  steamer, 
which  the  Pacha  lends  us,  we  shall  be  able  to  accom- 
plish all  we  wish,  and  to  embark  on  the  Feroze  imme- 
diately upon  its  arrival  at  Suez,  which,  according  to 
a  letter  from  Lord  Dalhousie,  that  met  me  at  Alex- 
andria, will  not  be  until  close  upon  the  12th  of 
January.  .  .  .  The  magnificence,  not  to  say  extrava- 
gance, of  our  reception  here  far  exceeds  anything 
that  I  had  expected.     I  shall  need  to  be  very  profuse 
of  my  thanks  to  the  Pacha  to-morrow." 

It  would  be  pleasant  to  follow  Lord  Canning  and 
his  family  on  their  river-voyage,  the  grateful  ex- 
periences of  which  he  has  himself  recorded,  but  these 
personal  incidents  have  no  connexion  with  the  stern 
story  before  me,  and  the  temptation,  therefore,  to 
enlarge  upon  them  must  be  resisted.  The  programme 
of  his  movements  given  in  the  above  letter  to  the 
Chairman  of  the  Company,  was  realised  with  but 
little  departure  from  the  original  design.     The  Go- 
vernor-General elect  halted  at  Aden,  where,  under 
the  guidance  of  Brigadier  Coghlan* — an  officer  of 
the    Company's   Artillery,   one  of   those   excellent 

*  Aftervards  Sir  William  CogWan,  K.C.B. 


384  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

1856.  public  servants  who,  partly  in  a  military,  partly 
in  a  diplomatic  capacity,  represent  great  interests  and 
undertake  great  responsibiUties  in  the  East^Lord 
Canning  made  his  first  acquaintance  with  the  Sepoy 
Army  of  India.  From  Aden  he  steamed  to  Bombay, 
where  he  arrived  on  the  28th  of  January,  1856,  and 
first  planted  his  foot  on  Indian  soil.  "  I  found,"  he 
wrote  to  Mr.  Macnaghten  on  the  2nd  of  February, 
"  that  Lord  Dalhousie  had  given  orders  that  I  should 
be  received  with  the  full  honours  of  Governor-General 
in  possession ;  and  of  course  I  did  nothing  to  check  or 
escape  from  the  demonstrations  with  which  we  were 
met,  though  I  did  not  desire  or  expect  them.  I  have 
been  unceasingly  busy  for  two-thirds  of  every  twenty- 
four  hours  since  our  arrival ;  and  by  the  5th  or  6tJi, 
I  hope  to  have  seen  nearly  all  that  calls  for  ocular  in- 
spection in  the  city  and  its  neighbourhood.  We  shall 
then  embark  for  Madras;  for  I  have  given  up  all 
thoughts  of  stopping  at  Ceylon,  unless  to  coal,  and 
hope  to  arrive  there  on  the  14th  or  15th.  I  cannot 
sufficiently  congratulate  myself  on  having  come  round 
by  this  Presidency.  It  has  shown  me  much  that  I 
should  not  easily  have  learnt  otherwise."  It  was  a 
disappointment  to  him  that  he  had  not  time  to  visit 
Ceylon,  for  his  old  Eton  tutor.  Chapman,  had  de- 
veloped into  Bishop  of  Colombo,  and  there  would 
have  been  a  grand  old  Etonian  pleasure,  on  both  sides^ 
in  talking  over  old  times.  But  there  was  consolation 
in  the  thought  that  his  friend  Lord  Harris,  his  fellow- 
pupil  in  the  Bedfordshire  market-town,  was  Governor 
of  Madras.  In  that  presidency  he.  spent  a  few  plea- 
sant days,  sojourning  at  Guindy,  and  then  on  the 
25th  of  February  set  out  to  face  the  realities  of 
Indian  Government,  and  steamed  up  the  Bay  of 
Bengal. 


On  t&e  lasc  c&sy-  «if  Fe&ciiary«  Lord  Canning  dis-  ^"^^^^l? ' 
embojrfced  ac  Calicizcca :  ami.  proceeding  to  GoTem* 
mezLr  RioBe^  a£  once  mok  his  oaxhs  of  office  and  his 
seat  in  CotmcxL     In  m  the  cisstom  in  such  cases^    No 
time  is  fieft  far  tny  qxiesdoQ  to  arise  as  to  who  is 
GovonoF-Gecusal  q£  Indian     So  bridf  did  the  whole 
opentioa  appear  to  him.  that  he  wrote  home  that  he 
had  been  swom  in  and  installed  '^  within  five  minutes 
after  touching  land."^    As  his  dignities  and  respond- 
hilities  commenced  at  cxice^  so  did  his  work.     At  the 
end  cf  his  first  week  of  office,  he  wrote  that  such  had 
been  die  pressure  of  public  business^  that  he  had 
found  time  <Hibr  for  *^  one  look  out  of  doors"  ^ce  he 
arrived.     Durfaig  that  first  week   Lord  Dalhousie 
tarried  in  Calcutta,  and  the  past  and  future  of  the 
GoTemment  of  India  wo^  discussed  yrith  interest^ 
the  depths  of  which  were  stirred  by  varying  circum- 
stances^ between  those  earnest-minded  men ;  the  one 
all  readiness  to  teach,  the  other  all  eagerness  to  learn. 
Dull  and  prosaic  as  its  details  often  appear  to  Eng- 
lishmen at  a  distance,  it  is  difficult  to  describe  the 
living  interest  with  which  statesmen  in  India  of  all 
classes,  firom  the  highest  to  the  lowest^  perpetually 
regard  their  work. 

No  man  ever  undertook  the  office  of  Governor-  First  days  < 
General  of  India  under  the  impression  that  it  would  ^^^^"inicn 
be  a  sinecure.  But  it  is  scarcely  less  true  that  no 
man,  whatever  opinion  he  may  have  formed  in  Eng. 
land,  ever  entered  upon  its  duties  without  discover- 
ing that  be  had  greatly  underrated  the  extent  of  its 
labours.  The  current  of  work  is  so  strong  and  so 
continuous;  so  many  waters  meet  together  to  swell 
the  stream ;  that  at  first  even  a  strong  man  trying  to 
breast  it  may  feel  that  he  is  in  danger  of  being  over- 
whehned.     Time  lessens  the  difficulty;  but  at  the 

2c 


38G  OlITBREAK  OF  THE  MLTIXY. 

1866.  outset,  the  multiplicity  of  unfamiliar  details  distracts 
and  bewilders  even  the  sharpest  wit  and  the  clearest 
brain  ;  and  the  first  result  is  apt  to  be  a  chaos.  Box 
after  box  is  placed  upon  the  Governor -Generals 
table  ;  and  each  box  is  crammed  with  papers  rugged 
with  the  names  of  strange  men  and  stranger  places, 
and  references  to  unknown  events  and  incomprehen- 
sible  states  of  society.  By  some  means  or  ^other,  he 
must  master  the  antecedents  of  every  case  that  comes 
before  him  for  decision ;  and  there  are  often  very 
intricate  cases  purposely  left  for  his  decision,  that  he 
may  not  be  embarrassed  by  the  judgments  of  his  pre- 
decessor. Week  after  week  goes  by  and  little  im- 
pression is  made  upon  this  pile  of  work.  "  Another 
fortnight  is  gone,"  vrcote  Lord  Canning  towards  the 
end  of  March,  "  and  I  am  beginning  to  gather  up  by 
slow  degrees  the  threads  of  business,  as  it  passes 
before  me ;  but  it  is  severe  work  to  have  to  give  so 
much  time  to  the  bygones  of  almost  every  question 
that  comes  up ;  and  some  weeks  more  must  pass 
before  I  shall  feel  myself  abreast  of  current  events." 
There  was  a  strong  conscientiousness  within  the  new 
Governor- General  which  would  not  sufier  him  to 
pass  anything  lightly  over,  and  he  endeavoured  to 
understand  all  that  came  before  him  even  at  the  risk 
of  some  inconvenient  delays. 

So  he  did  not  rush  at  his  work ;  but  quietly  con- 
fronted it,  and  was  in  no  haste  to  impress  people  with 
a  sense  of  the  profundity  of  his  wisdom  and  the 
greatness  of  his  self-reliance.  He  knew  that  he  had 
much  to  learn,  and  he  adopted  the  best  means  of 
learning  it ;  for  he  invited  all  the  chief  agents  of  his 
Government,  scattered  over  the  country,  especially 
those  who  were  representing  British  interests  at  the 
Native  Courts,  to  correspond  confidentially  with  him 


THE  SUPREME  COCNCII.  :^>T 


on  matte's  relating  to  their  respecdye  charges: 
invitation  which  gave  to  every  man  thus  addressed 
full  liberty  to  declare  his  sentiments  and  to  expound 
his  views.  And  thus  he  escaped  the  danger  on  the 
one  hand  of  surrendering  his  own  judgment,  by  sue- 
cumbing  to  the  influence  of  some  two  or  three  public 
functionaries  immediately  attached  to  the  Execudve 
Grovemment,  and,  on  the  other,  of  the  over-confident 
exercise  of  a  dominant  self-will  rejecting  all  external 
aids,  and  refusing  to  walk  by  other  men's  experiences. 
He  knew  that  there  was  no  royal  road  to  a  knowledge 
of  India ;  and  he  was  well  content  that  the  first  year 
of  his  administration  should  be  unostentatiously  de- 
voted to  the  great  duty  of  learning  his  work. 

There  were  able  men,  too,  at  his  elbow  to  assist  The  GounciL 
him  to  a  correct  knowledge  of  facts,  and  to  the 
formation  of  sound  opinions.  The  Supreme  Council 
consisted  at  that  time  of  General  John  Low,  Mr. 
Dorin,  Mr.  John  Peter  Grant,  and  Mr.  Barnes  Pea- 
cock. Of  the  first  I  can  say  little  in  this  place  that  General  Low. 
has  not  been  already  said.  The  only  charge  laid 
against  him  by  the  a^ailants  of  the  Government  was, 
that  he  was  well  stricken  in  years.  But,  although 
one  who  had  fought  beside  Malcolm  at  Mehidpore, 
and  then  not  in  his  first  youth,  must  have  lost  some 
of  the  physical  energy  that  animated  him  in  his 
prime,  his  intellect  was  unimpaired.  Ceasing  to  be  a 
man  of  action,  he  had  subsided  gracefully  into  the 
condition  of  a  councillor,  the  Nestor  of  the  Political 
Service,  a  veteran  without  a  stain.  No  man  had  so 
large  an  acquaintance  with  the  Native  Courts  of 
India ;  no  man  knew  the  temper  of  the  people  better 
than  John  Low.  He  could  see  with  their  eyes,  and 
speak  with  their  tongues,  and  read  with  their  under- 
standings.    And,  therefore,  he  looked  with  Home  dis- 

2c2 


388  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

1866.  may  at  the  wide-spread  Englishism  of  the  Dalhousie 
school,  and  sorrowfully  regarded  the  gradual  dying 
out  of  the  principles  in  which  he  had  been  nurtured 
and  trained,  and  to  which,  heedless  of  their  unpopu- 
larity, he  clung  with  honest  resolution  to  the  last 
Dalhousie  had  too  often  disregarded  his  counsel ;  but 
he  had  always  respected  the  man.  And  now  Canning 
equally  admired  the  personal  character  of  his  col- 
league, but  was  not  equally  minded  to  laugh  his 
principles  to  scorn. 
Mr.  DoriD.  Of  the  two  Bengal  civilians  who  sat  in  that 
Council,  it  may  be  said  that  the  one  owed  his  posi- 
tion there  apparently  to  chance,  the  other  to  his  un- 
questionable abilities.  Mr.  Dorin  was  not  a  man  of 
great  parts ;  he  was  not  a  man  of  high  character.  If 
he  had  any  official  reputation,  it  was  in  the  capacity 
of  a  financier;  and  finance  was  at  that  time  the 
weakest  point  of  our  Government.  He  had  limited 
acquaintance  with  the  country,  and  but  small  know- 
ledge of  the  people.  He  had  no  earnestness ;  no  en- 
thusiasm ;  no  energy.  He  had  a  genius  for  making 
himself  comfortable,  and  he  had  no  superfluous  ac- 
tivities of  head  or  heart  to  mar  his  success  in  that 
particular  direction.  He  had  supported  the  policy 
of  Lord  Dalhousie,  and  had  recorded  in  his  time 
a  number  of  minutes  expressing  in  two  emphatic 
words,  which  saved  trouble  and  gained  favour,  his 
concurrence  with  the  most  noble  the  Governor-Gene- 
ral; and  now  if  the  new  ruler  was  not  likely  to 
find  in  him  a  very  serviceable  colleague,  there  was 
no  greater  chance  of  his  being  found  a  troublesome 

Jobn  Peter      one. 

^"^*'  In  John  Grant  the  Governor-General  might  have 

found  both.  He  was  many  years  younger  than  his 
brother  civilian,  but  he  had  done  infinitely  more 
work.     In  him,  with  an  indolent  sleepy  manner  was 


JOHN  PETEft  G&AXT.  SKjl 

strangely  combined  extraordinary  activity  of  mind.  l^^i 
He  was  one  of  the  ablest  pablic  senrants  in  the  coon- 
try.  With  some  hereditary  daim  to  distinctMHu  he 
had  been  marked  out  from  the  verv  commeDcement 
of  his  career,  no  less  by  a  &Tourable  concurraice  of 
external  circumstances  than  by  his  own  inherent 
qualifications,  for  the  highest  oflidal  sacoeaa.  Xo 
young  civilian  in  his  novitiate  ever  carried  opoo 
him  so  clearly  and  unmistakaUy  the  stamp  of  the 
embryo  Councillor,  as  John  Grant.  In  some  respects 
this  was  a  misfortune  to  him.  His  coarse  was  too 
easy.  He  had  found  his  way ;  he  had  not  been  ccnn- 
pelled  to  make  it  He  had  not  been  jostled  by  the 
crowd ;  he  had  seen  little  or  none  of  the  rough  work 
of  Indian  administration  or  Indian  diplomacy.  It 
had  been  his  lot,  as  it  had  been  his  choice,  to  spend 
the  greater  part  of  his  official  life  in  close  connexion 
with  the  Head-Quarters  of  the  Government;  and, 
therefore,  his  opportunities  of  independent  action  had 
been  few ;  his  personal  acquaintance  with  the  coun- 
try and  the  people  was  not  extensive ;  and  his  work 
had  been  chiefly  upon  paper.  But  as  a  member  of 
a  powerful  bureaucracy  his  value  was  conspicuous. 
Quick  in  the  mastery  of  fiEu^  dear  and  precise  in 
their  analytical  arrangement,  and  gifted  with  more 
than  common  powers  of  expression,  he  was  admi- 
rably fitted  to  discharge  the  duties  of  the  Secretariat. 
He  was  a  dead  hand  at  a  report ;  and  if  Government 
were  perplexed  by  any  difficult  questions,  involving 
a  tangled  mass  of  disordered  financial  accounts,  or  a 
great  conflict  of  authority  mystifying  the  truth,  he 
was  the  man  of  all  others  to  unravel  the  intricate  or 
to  elucidate  the  obscure.  Comparatively  young  in 
years,  but  ripe  in  bureaucratic  experience,  he  entered 
the  Supreme  Council  towards  the  close  of  Lord  Dal- 
housie's  administration.    But  he  had  sat  long  enough 


390  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

1856.  at  the  Board  to  establish  his  independence.  He  ex- 
pressed his  opinions  freely  and  fearlessly;  and  his 
minutes,  when  minute-writing  was  in  vogue,  were 
commonly  the  best  State  papers  recorded  by  the 
Government  of  the  day.  Closely  reasoned,  forcibly 
expressed,  with  here  and  there  touches  of  quiet 
humour  or  subdued  sarcasm,  they  cut  through  My 
sophistries  put  forth  by  his  colleagues,  with  sharp  in- 
cisive logic,  and  clearly  stated  the  points  at  issue 
without  disguises  and  evasions.  On  the  whole,  he 
was  a  man  of  large  and  liberal  views,  the  natural 
manifestations  of  which  were,  perhaps,  somewhat 
straitened  by  an  acquired  official  reserve;  and  no 
one  questioned  the  honesty  of  his  intentions  or  the 
integrity  of  his  life. 
^*™^,  Mr,   Barnes  Peacock  was  the  fourth,  and,  as  is 

commonly  called,  the  "Law  Member"  of  Council 
An  English  lawyer,  appointed  to  aid  the  great  work 
of  Indian  legislation,  he  was  a  member  of  the  Execu- 
tive rather  by  sufferance  than  by  right.  In  a  limited 
sense,  he  was  supposed  to  represent  the  popular  ele- 
ment in  the  Council.  There  was  no  very  violent 
conflict  of  class-interests  in  those  days.  But  so  tax 
as  such  division  existed  at  all,  he  was  regarded  as 
the  exponent  of  the  views  of  the  non-official  Eng- 
lishman and  of  the  Europeanised  Natives  of  the 
large  towns,  whose  interests  are  bound  up  with 
our  own.  For  the  institution  of  the  Company 
he  was  believed  to  have  no  respect,  and  for  the 
exclusive  system  of  Government  by  the  Company's 
servants  no  toleration.  He  had  a  clear  head,  an 
acute  understanding,  but  by  no  means  a  large  mind. 
Assiduous  in  the  work  of  law-making,  he  was  the 
very  soul  of  the  Legislative  Council ;  and  had  he 
confined  his  efforts  to  the  work  of  moulding  into 


RAINES  PCACOCK.  391 

draft-acts  the  ideas  of  other  men,  he  would  have  ^^^^- 
been  an  invaluable  public  servant.  But  he  some- 
times went  beyond  this;  and,  when  he  did  so,  he 
commonly  went  wrong.  For  knowing  little  of  the 
people  of  India,  and  having  only  thoroughly  English 
notions  of  philanthropic  reforms  and  legislative  bene- 
ficences, he  would  have  taught  the  people  better 
manners  with  a  rapidly  for  which  they  were  i)ot 
prepared,  if  he  had  unrestrainedly  followed  out  his 
own  ideas  of  social  improvement  Indeed,  he  had 
already  threatened  to  limit  the  polygamies  of  the  Na- 
tives of  India,  and,  doubtless,  had  a  draft-act  for  the 
purpose  on  the  legislative  anvil,  when  circumstances 
arrested  his  career  of  reform.  But,  although  it  was 
in  the  legislative  department  that  his  especial  strength 
lay,  he  did  not  confine  himself  to  it.  He  grappled 
manfully  with  all  the  varied  details  of  the  general 
administration.  There  were  times  when  his  legal 
penetration  was  of  service  in  the  disentanglement  of 
knotty  questions  of  executive  government,  and  he 
sometimes  recorded  minutes  distinguished  by  no  com- 
mon powers  of  special  pleading.  But,  on  the  whole,  this 
laborious  addiction  to  business  was  an  encumbrance 
and  an  embarrassment  to  the  Ministry ;  and  Lord  Can- 
ning had  soon  reason  to  complain  of  the  conscientious 
excesses  of  his  colleague.  A  general  disinclination  to 
take  anything  for  granted  impeded  the  progress  of 
business ;  and  the  Governor-General,  not  without  a 
feeling  of  admiration  for  a  defect  that  had  its  root 
in  honesty  of  purpose,  endeavoured,  and  with  good 
success,  to  wean  the  law  member  from  his  habit  of 
mastering  details  which  he  was  not  expected  to 
understand,  and  keeping  back  business  which  it  was 
desirable  to  dispose  of,  whilst  he  was  working  up  the 
past  history  of  a  Native  State,  or  calculating  grain- 


392  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINT. 

1856.  bags  in  a  commissariat  account.  There  must  have 
been  some  inward  promptings  of  self-knowledge  in 
Canning's  own  mind  to  assure  him  that  this  labo- 
rious conscientiousness  was  a  part  of  his  own  nature ; 
but  he  felt^  at  the  same  time,  that  his  larger  scope  of 
responsibility  demanded  from  him  a  larger  scope  of 
action,  and  that  what  was  right  in  the  Governor- 
General  was  not  therefore  right  in  his  departmental 
colleague. 

Such  were  the  fellow-labourers  with  whom  Lord 
Canning  was  now  about  to  prosecute  the  work  of 
Government.  On  the  whole,  the  Council  was  not 
badly  constituted  for  ordinary  purposes  of  adminis- 
tration in  quiet  times.  It  contained,  indeed,  many 
of  the  essential  elements  of  a  good  Board.  What  it 
most  wanted  was  military  knowledge;  for  General 
Low,  though  an  old  soldier  of  the  Madras  Army,  had 
seen  more  of  the  Court  than  of  the  Camp ;  and  it 
was  rather  in  the  diplomacies  of  the  Native  States 
than  in  the  conduct  of  warlike  operations,  or  in  the 
details  of  military  administration,  that  he  had  earned, 
by  hard  service,  the  right  to  be  accepted  as  an  autho- 
rity.* It  was  a  constitutional  fiction  that,  in  an 
Indian  CouncU,  the  necessary  amount  of  mUitaiy 
knowledge  was  supplied  in  the  person  of  the  Com- 
mander-in-Chief, who  had  a  seat  in  it.  The  seat^ 
though  legally  occupied,  was  for  the  most  part  prac- 
tically empty,  for  duty  might  not,  and  inclination 
did  not,  keep  the  military  chief  at  the  Head-Quarters 
of  the  Civil  Government.  But  it  happened  that, 
when  Lord  Canning  arrived  in  India,  he  found 
General  Anson  in  Calcutta.  And  it  was  a  pleasure 
to  him  to  see  in  the  Indian  capital  a  face  that  had 
been  familiar  to  him  in  the  English. 

*  Shortly  after  Lord  Canning's    land,  but  returned  at  the  oommence- 
arrival,  General  Low  went  to  £ng-    mcnt  of  the  cold  weather  (1856-57). 


GENERAL  ANSON.  393 

The  appointment  of  the  Honourable  George  Anson  1856. 
to  the  chief  command  of  the  Indian  Army  took  by  ^^^^ 
surprise  the  English  communities  in  the  three  Presi- 
lencies,  who  had  seen  his  name  only  in  the  Racing 
Calendar,  or  in  other  records  of  the  Turf.  But  there 
was  one  thing  at  least  to  be  said  in  his  favour :  he 
was  not  an  old  man.  It  was  not  in  the  nature  of 
things,  after  a  long  European  peace,  that  good  service 
should  be  found  in  the  officers  of  the  Queen's  Army 
unaccompanied  by  the  weight  of  years.  But  the 
scandal  of  imbeciUty  had  risen  to  such  a  height,  the 
military  world  had  grown  so  sick  of  infirmity  in  high 
places— of  the  blind,  the  lame,  the  deaf,  the  obesely 
plethoric — ^that  they  were  prepared  to  welcome  almost 
any  one  who  could  sit  a  horse,  who  could  see  from  one 
end  to  the  other  of  a  regiment  in  line,  and  hear  the 
report  of  a  nine-pounder  at  a  distance  of  a  hundred 
yards.  There  was  nothing  to  be  said  against  George 
Anson  on  this  score.  He  could  hear  and  see;  he 
could  ride  and  walk.  He  was  of  a  light  spare  figure, 
well  framed  for  active  exercise;  and  his  aspect  was 
that  of  a  man  who  could  "  stand  the  climate."     But 

with  aU  men  who  first  brave  'that  climate  in  the 

•i 

maturity  of  life,  there  is  a  risk  and  an  uncertainty ; 
and  appearances  belied  Anson's  capabilities  of  re- 
sistance. During  the  hot  weather  and  rainy  season 
of  1856,  the  heats  and  damps  of  Bengal  tried  him 
severely;  and  Lord  Canning  more  than  once  wrote 
home  that  his  military  colleague  was  reduced  to  a 
skeleton,  and  had  lost  all  his  bodily  strength  and  all 
his  buoyancy  of  spirit.  But,  at  the  same  time,  he 
spoke  of  the  Chief  as  one  who  had  many  excellent 
points,  both  as  an  officer  and  as  a  man.  The  precise 
limits  of  authority  vested  in  the  chief  civil  and  mili- 
tary functionaries  are  so  ill  defined,  that,  when  the 
powers  of  both  are  combined  in  one  individual,  it  is 


394 


OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 


1856.  a  mercy  if  he  does  not  quarrel  with  himself.  When 
they  are  divided,  as  is  commonly  the  case,  a  conflict 
of  authority  is  inevitable.  And  so  at  this  time,  the 
Governor-General  and  the  Commander-in-Chief  soon 
came  into  official  collision ;  but  it  never  grew  into 
personal  strife  between  Lord  Canning  and  General 
Anson.  The  public  prints  hinted  that  there  was  a  rup- 
ture between  them;  and  the  same  story  travelled  home- 
wards and  penetrated  Cannon-row.  But  the  Civilian 
wrote,  that  though  there  had  been  some  special  points 
of  difference  between  them,  the  temper  of  the  Soldier 
was  so  charming,  and  he  was  so  thoroughly  a  gen- 
tleman,  that  it  was  quite  impossible  to  quarrel  with 
him.  The  inevitable  antagonism  of  official  interests 
could  not  weaken  the  ties  of  personal  regard ;  and 
when  Anson,  in  the  month  of  September,  left  Cal- 
cutta on  a  tour  of  military  inspection  in  the  Upper 
Provinces,  he  carried  with  him  no  kindlier  wishes 
than  those  which  attended  him  warm  from  the  heart 
of  the  Governor-General.* 


*  What  Lord  Canning  wrote  about 
General  Anson  is  so  honourable  to 
both,  that  it  is  quite  a  pleasure  to 
quote  it.  "We  get  on  admirably 
together,"  wrote  the  Governor-Gene- 
ral in  June.  "  His  temper  is  charm- 
ing, and  I  know  no  one  whom  I 
should  not  be  sorry  to  see  substi- 
tuted for  him."  And  again,  in  Oc- 
tober :  "  I  am  not  surprised  at  the 
report  you  mention  that  Anson  and 
I  do  not  get  on  well  together,  be- 
cause such  a  rumour  was  current  in 
Calcutta  two  or  three  months  ago, 
and  even  found  its  way  into  the 
newspapers.  I  believe  it  originated 
in  a  difference  between  us  on  two 
points ;  one  (of  much  interest  to  the 
Indian  Army),  the  power  of  the  Com- 


mander-in-Chief to  withhold  Impli- 
cations for  furlough,  tranamilted 
through  him  to  the  Govemor-Cteiie- 
ral  in  Council ;  the  other,  an  aatho- 
rity  to  exercise  something  very  like 
a  veto  upon  the  Govemor-Genend's 
selections  of  officers  for  civil  and 

r>litical  service.  Upon  both  of  wliidi 
found  it  necessary  to  disallow  his 
pretensions.  But  neither  theae  dia- 
agreements,  nor  the  reports  to  which 
they  eave  rise,  have  lor  a  moment 
caused  any  misunderstanding  or  re- 
serve between  us.  It  would  t>e  very 
difficult  to  quarrel  with  any  one  so 
imperturbably  good  tempered,  and  to 
thorouffhly  a  gentleman/* — MS.  Cbf' 
responaence. 


THE  OUDE  ADMINISTRATION.  395 


CHAPTER  11. 

LOBD  CAXWINO'S  FIBST  YBAB — THE  OTTDB  COMMISSION— WAJID  ALI  AND 
THE  EMBASSY  TO  EN6LANI>--<rHB  PEBSIAIT  WAE — THE  QUESTION  Of 
COMMAND— /AMES  OUTRAM — CENTRAL-ASIAN  POLICY— DOST  MAHOMED- 
JOHN  LAWRENCE  AND  HERBERT  EDWARDES  AT  PES HAWUR  —  HENRY 
LAWRENCE  IN  LUCKNOW. 

With  these  colleagues  in  the  Council  Chamber,  and  isse. 
with  a  staff  of  able,  well-trained  secretaries,  of  whom 
I  shall  speak  hereafter,  in  the  several  Departments, 
the  new  Governor-General  found  the  burden  of  his 
work,  though  it  pressed  heavily  upon  him,  in  no  way 
galling  or  dispiriting.  There  are  always  small  vexa- 
Ions  Li  embLrassments ;  incidental  de^,  that  will 
not  run  smoothly  in  the  administrative  groove,  but 
grind  and  grate  and  have  a  stubborn  obstructiveness 
about  them.  But  the  great  sum-total  of  the  business 
betbre  him  wore  an  aspect  cheerful  and  encourag- 
ing. There  was  tranquillity  in  India.  Outwardly, 
it  seemed  that  Lord  Dalhousie  had  left  only  a 
heritage  of  Peace.  Even  in  Oude,  just  emerging  The  Admiais. 
from  a  revolution,  there  were  external  signs  of  general  oJlie'^  ^ 
quietude  ;  of  contentment,  or  at  least  of  submission  ; 
and  of  the  satisfactory  progress  of  the  administra- 
tion. But  a  new  administrator  was  wanted.  Outram 
had  done  his  work.  He  had  been  selected  to  fill  the 
office  of  Resident,  and  no  man  could  have  more  be- 


396  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

1850.  comingly  represented  British  interests  at  a  corrupt 
and  profligate  Court.  In  that  capacity  it  had  fallen 
to  his  lot  to  accomplish  ministerially  the  revolution 
which  had  been  decreed  by  the  British  Government 
But  it  was  work  that  sickened  him ;  for  although  he 
believed  that  it  was  the  duty  of  the  Paramount  State 
to  rescue  Oude  from  the  anarchy  by  which  it  had  so 
long  been  rent,  he  was  one  whose  political  predilec- 
tions were  in  favour  of  the  maintenance  of  the  Native 
States,  and  he  knew  that  much  wrong  had  been  done 
to  the  Princes  and  Chie&  of  India  under  the  plea  of 
promoting  the  interests  of  the  people.  When  the 
Proclamation  converted  Oude  into  a  British  province, 
the  Resident  became  Chief  Commissioner,  and  the 
superintendence  of  the  administration  was  the  work 
that  then  devolved  upon  him.  But  it  was  work  that 
Outram  was  not  now  destined  to  perform.  His 
health  had  broken  down  ;  the  hot  season  was  coming 
on  apace ;  and  a  voyage  to  England  had  been  ur- 
gently pressed  upon  him  by  his  medical  advisers.  So 
he  sought  permission  to  lay  down  the  Portfolio  for 
a  while,  and  asked  the  Governor-General  to  appoint 
an  officer  to  act  for  him  in  his  absence. 

Btiottof  It  would  have  been  comparatively  easy  to  find  a 
successor  suited  to  the  work,  if  the  appointment  to 
be  disposed  of  had  been  a  permanent  one.  But  Lord 
Canning  had  to  find  a  man  able  to  conduct  the  ad- 
ministration at  its  most  difficult  stage,  and  yet  willing 
to  forsake  other  important  work  for  the  brief  tenure 
of  another's  office.  Outram  said  that  there  was  one 
man  in  whom  both  the  ability  and  the  will  were  to 
be  found.  That  man  was  Henry  Ricketts,  a  Bengal 
civilian  of  high  repute,  whose  appointment  was 
pressed  upon  Lord  Canning  as  the  best  that  could  be 
made.     But    Ricketts  was  wanted  for  other  work. 


ession. 


H£»T  UlWlENCfi.  397 

The  authorities  at  home  were  clamonring  for  a  reduc-  I856u 
tion  of  expenditure ;  and  as  retrenchment,  public  or 
private,  commonly  begins  in  the  wrong  place,  a  re- 
vision of  official  salaries  was  to  be  one  of  the  first 
efforts  of  our  economy.  So  Mr.  Ricketts  had  been 
specially  appointed  to  furnish  a  Report  on  the  best 
means  of  extracting  from  the  officers  of  (jovemment 
the  same  amount  of  good  public  service  for  a  less 
amount  of  public  money.  Lord  Canning  shook  his 
head  doubtfully  at  the  experiment;  but  Cannon- 
row  was  urgent,  and  nothing  was  to  be  suffered  to 
interrupt  the  labours  of  the  man  who  was  to  suggest 
the  means  of  increasing  the  financial  prosperity  of 
the  Company  by  sapping  out  the  energies  of  diose 
upon  whom  that  prosperity  mainly  depended. 

Whilst  Outram  and  the  Grovemor-General  were 
corresponding  about  this  arrangement,  another  plan 
for  the  temporary  administration  of  Oude  was  sug- 
gesting itself;  but  it  never  became  more  than  a  sug- 
gestion. Ever  since  the  dissolution  of  the  Lahore 
Board,  Sir  Henry  Lawrence  had  held  office  as  chief 
of  the  Political  Agency  in  Rajpootana.  It  was  a 
post  of  honour  and  responsibility ;  but  there  was  not 
in  the  work  to  be  done  enough  to  satisfy  so  ardent 
and  so  active  a  mind,  and  he  had  longed,  during 
that  great  struggle  before  Sebastopol,  which  he  had 
watched  with  eager  interest  from  the  beginning,  to 
show,  when  all  the  departments  were  breaking  down, 
what  a  rough-and-ready  Indian  Political  might  do  to 
help  an  arriiy  floundering  miserably  in  a  strange 
land.  But  this  field  of  adventure  was  closed  against 
him.  Peace  was  proclaimed :  and  Henry  Lawrence, 
who  had  studied  well  the  history  and  the  institutions 
of  Oude,  and  who  had  advocated  the  assumption  of 
the  government^  but  not  the  annexation  of  the  pro- 


398  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

1856.  vince  or  the  absorption  of  its  revenues,  thought  that 
he  might  do  some  good  by  superintending  the  ad- 
ministration  during  the  first  year  of  our  tenure- 
There  were  many  interests  to  be  dealt  with  in  that 
conjuncture,  which  required  a  strong  but  a  gentle 
hand  to  accommodate  them  to  the  great  revolution 
that  had  been  accomplished,  and  he  felt  some  appre- 
hension lest  civilian-government,  harsh  and  precise, 
should  forthwith  begin  to  systematise,  in  utter  dis- 
regard of  the  institutions  and  the  usages  of  the 
country,  and  should  strike  at  once  for  a  flourishing 
balance-sheet.  It  was  too  little  the  fashion  to  sym- 
pathise with  the  fallen  fortunes  of  men  ruined  by  the 
dominant  influence  of  the  White  Race.  In  the  chi- 
valrous benevolence  of  the  out-going  Commissioner, 
Henry  Lawrence  had  full  confidence.  The  great- 
hearted compassion  which  Outram  had  shown  for  the 
Ameers  of  Scinde,  proclaimed  the  mercy  and  the 
justice  of  the  man.  But  a  civilian  of  the  new  school 
from  the  Regulation  Provinces  might  bring  with  him 
a  colder  heart  and  a  sharper  practice,  and  might 
overbear  all  ancient  rights  and  privileges  in  pursuit 
of  the  favourite  theory  of  the  Dead  Level.  Anxious 
to  avert  this,  which  he  believed  would  be  a  calamity 
alike  to  the  people  of  Oude  and  to  his  own  govern- 
ment, Henry  Lawrence  offered  to  serve,  during  the 
transition-period,  in  Outram's  place ;  and  the  first 
misfortune  that  befel  the  ministry  of  Lord  Canning 
was  that  the  letter,  conveying  the  proposal,  arrived  a 
little  too  late.  A  Commissioner  had  already  been 
appointed. 

The  choice  had  fallen  on  Mr.  Coverley  Jackson,  a 
civilian  from  the  North-West  Provinces,  an  expert 
revenue-officer,  held  in  high  esteem  as  a  man  of 
ability,  but  more  than  suspected  of  some  infirmity  of 


DITEELET  JACK80X.  399 

temper.  Aware  of  this  notorious  failing,  but  not  1856. 
deeming  it  sufficient  to  disqualify  one  otherwise  so 
well  fitted  for  the  post.  Lord  Canning  accompanied 
his  ofier  of  the  appointment  with  a  few  words  of 
caution,  frank  but  kindly,  and  Jackson  in  the  same 
spirit  received  the  admonition,  assuring  the  Govemor- 
(xeneral  that  it  would  be  his  earnest  endeavour  to 
conciliate  the  good  feelings  of  all  who  might  be 
officially  connected  witli  him,  so  far  as  might  be  con- 
sistent with  the  claims  of  the  public  service  and  the 
maintenance  of  the  authority  entrusted  to  him.  But 
he  did  not  accomplish  this ;  and  there  is  slight  evi- 
dence that  he  resolutely  attempted  it.  It  was  an  un- 
toward occurrence  that  the  man  next  in  authority, 
and  the  one  with  whom  the  circumstances  of  the 
province  brought  him  most  frequently  into  official 
communication,  was  as  little  able  to  control  his 
temper  as  Jackson  himself.  Mr.  Martin  Gubbins,  of 
the  Bengal  Civil  Service,  was  the  Financial  Commis- 
sioner. Upon  him  devolved  the  immediate  superin- 
tendence of  the  revenue  administration  of  our  new 
territory,  whilst  Mr.  Ommaney,  of  the  same  service, 
superintended  the  department  of  Justice.  A  man  of 
rare  intelligence  and  sagacity,  eager  and  energetic, 
Martin  Gubbins  would  have  been  a  first-rate  public 
servant,  if  his  utility  had  not  been  marred  by  a 
contentious  spirit.  His  angularities  of  temper  were 
continually  bringing  him  into  collision  with  others, 
and  his  pertinacious  self-assertion  would  not  suffer 
him,  when  once  entangled  in  a  controversy,  ever  to 
detach  himself  from  it.  Of  all  men  in  the  service  he  j^j^g^^ 
w^as  the  one  least  likely  to  work  harmoniously  with  Gubbins. 
the  Chief  Commissioner.  So  it  happened  that,  in  a 
very  short  time,  they  were  in  a  state  of  violent  an- 
tagonism.    Whether,  in  the  first  instance,  Jackson 


aiu 


400  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

1856.     overstrained  his  authority,  and  unwisely  and  unkindly 
expressed  his  displeasure  in  language  calculated  to 
excite  irritation  and  resentment,  or  whether  Gubbins 
was  the  first  to  display  an  insubordinate  spirit-,  and  to 
provoke  the  censure  of  his  chief  by  the  attempted 
usurpation  of  his  powers,  it  is  of  Utile  importance 
now  to  inquire.     The  sharp  contention  that  grew  up 
between  them  was  soon  made  known  to  the  Gk>vemor- 
General,  who  deplored  and  endeavoured  to  arrest  it 
How  wisely  and  calmly  he  conveyed  to  the  Conmiis- 
sioner  an  expression,  less  of  his  displeasure  than  of 
his  regret,  his  correspondence  pleasantly  illustrated.* 
But  no  kindly  counsel  from  Government  House  could 
smooth  down  the  asperities  of  Jackson's  temper.    As 
time  advanced,  the  feud  between  him  and  Gubbins 
grew  more  bitter  and  more  irreconcilable.     In  Indi^ 
a  paper  war  once  commenced  lasts  out  many  a  mili- 
tary  campaign.     There  is  something  so  exciting,  so 
absorbing  in  it,  that  even  the  best  public  servants 
sometimes  forget  the  public  interests  whilst  they  are 
wasting  their  time  and  expending  their  energies  in 
personal  conflicts  and  criminations.     Had  Coverley 
Jackson  taken  half  as  much  pains  to  see  that  the 
pledges   of  the   British  Government  were  fulfilled, 
and  the  annexation  of  Oude  rendered  as  little  ruinous 

*  Take,  for  example,  tlie  following:  duty,  and  is  possessed  of  the  feelings 
"Judging  bj  my  own  experience,  and  temper  of  a  g:entleman,  the  more 
I  should  say  that  in  dealing  with  simply  liis  error  is  put  before  him, 
public  servants  who  have  incurred  and  the  more  plain  and  quiet  the  re- 
blame,  everything  is  to  be  ^ined  by  proof,  the  better  chance  there  is  of 
telling  them  their  faults  in  unmis-  nis  correcting  himself  readily  and 
takable  language,  plainly  and  na-  willingly,  and  that  if  we  wish  to  get 
kedly ;  but  that  one^s  purpose  (their  work  done  hereafter  out  of  some  one 
amendment)  is  rather  deieated  than  whom  it  is  necessary  to  rebuke,  we 
otherwise  by  the  use  of  terms  that  ought  to  give  him  as  little  excuse  as 
sting  them,  or  amplify  their  offences  possible  (he  will  too  often  find  it 
to  them  unnecessarily — even  thouj^h  where  it  is  not  given)  for  feeline 
all  be  done  within  the  strict  limits  irritated  against  ourselves.*' — Lon 
of  truth  and  fact.  I  believe  that  Canning  to  Mr.  Coverley  Jaekiom^ 
if  a  man  has  at  bottom  a  sense  of  his  Juljf  7,  1856. — MS,  Corretpomdemee, 


THE  KINO  OF  OUDE.  401 

as  possible  to  all  the  chief  people  of  the  province,  1856. 
as  he  did  to  convict  his  subordinates  of  official  mis- 
demeanours, it  would  have  been  better  both  for  his 
own  character  and  for  the  character  of  the  nation. 
But  whilst  Jackson  and  Gubbins  were  in  keen  con- 
tention with  each  other,  covering  reams  of  paper  with 
their  charges  and  counter-charges  and  their  vehement 
self-assertions,  the  generous  nature  of  the  Govemor- 
G^neral  was  grieved  by  complaints  and  remonstrances 
from  the  King,  who  declared,  or  suffered  it  to  be 
declared  for  him,  that  the  English  officers  in  Luck- 
now  were  inflicting  grievous  wrongs  and  indignities 
upon  him  and  upon  his  Family,  seizing  or  destroying 
his  property,  and  humiliating  the  members  and  de- 
pendents of  his  House. 

It  has  been  shown  that  Wajid  Ali,  when  he  saw  Movements 
that  all  hope  of  saving  his  dominions  from  the  great  ^^^  ®** 
white  hand  that  had  been  laid  upon  them  had  utterly 
gone  from  him,  had  talked  about  travelling  to  Eng- 
land and  laying  his  sorrows  at  the  foot  of  the  Throne. 
But,  in  truth,  travelling  to  England,  or  to  any  other 
place,  was  a  thing  rather  to  be  whined  about  than 
to  be  done,  by  one  so  destitute  of  all  activities, 
physical  and  mental,  and  it  was  almost  certain  that 
he  would  hitch  somewhere ;  not  improbably  at  the 
first  stage.  And  so  he  did.  Halting  not  far  from 
Lucknow,  the  King  awaited  the  on-coming  of  his 
minister,  Ali  Nuckee  Khan,  a  man  not  wanting  in 
activities  of  any  kind,  who  had  been  detained  at 
the  capital  to  aid  in  the  "  transfer  of  the  Govern- 
ment," out  of  which  he  had  been  ousted.  But  after 
a  while  King  and  Minister,  and  other  regal  appen- 
dages, male  and  female,  moved  on  towards  Calcutta 
— the  first  stages  by  land ;  then  afterwards  taking  the 
river-steamer,  at  a  time  of  year  when  there  is  em  A 

2d 


402  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

1856.  scant  supply  of  water  for  such  travelling,  they  were 
constrained  to  go  "  round  by  the  Sunderbunds,"  and 
make  a  long  and  by  no  means  a  pleasant  voyage  to 
the  English  capital ;  of  which  necessity  Lord  Can- 
ning shrewdly  observed  that  it  would  give  his  Majesty 
such  a  foretaste  of  life  on  board  as  would  inevitably 
drive  out  of  him  any  lingering  thought  of  the  passage 
across  the  black  water  to  England. 

And  so  it  was.  The  King  arrived  at  Calcutta  when 
the  month  of  May  had  burnt  itself  half  out,  and  was 
soon  domiciled  in  a  house  on  the  river-side,  which  had 
erst  been  the  suburban  villa  of  an  English  Chief- 
Justice.  It  was  enough  for  him  to  see  the  steamers 
smoking  past  him  sea- wards;  and  to  keep  steadily 
before  him  the  conviction  that  for  a  man  of  his  tastes 
and  habits,  to  take  no  account  of  his  girth,  Garden- 
Reach  was  a  more  recommendable  place  than  the  Bay 
of  Bengal,  the  Red  Sea,  or  the  Mediterranean.  But 
still  the  pilgrimage  to  the  foot  of  the  Throne  was  to 
be  undertaken,  not  by  but  for  the  last  of  the  Oude 
Kings.  Without  any  sacrifice  of  his  personal  ease, 
or  any  abandonment  of  the  delights  of  the  Zenana,  he 
might  enter  a  vicarious  appearance  at  St.  James's  by 
sending  the  chief  members  of  his  family — ^the  nearest 
of  his  kindred,  in  each  stage  and  relation,  before, 
beside,  and  after  him — his  mother,  his  brother,  and 
his  son,  with  agents  and  ministers,  black  and  white, 
to  plead  against  the  seizure  of  his  dominions. 
The  Oude  There  was  one  of  the  royal  party  with  some  sub- 

Mission.  ml        *-       J 

stance  of  masculine  vigour  still  left  as  God  had  given 
it ;  and  that  one  was  not  the  Heir- Apparent,  or  the 
so-called  General,  or  a  bom  manhood  of  any  kind, 
but  the  Queen-Mother,  who  set  the  example  of  going 
across  the  dreary  waste  of  black  water  and  level  sand 
straight  to  the  feet  of  the  Queen  of  Englarid.     And 


THE  OLDE  MISSION.  403 

they  went,  not  scantily  attended  either,  those  three,      1856. 
like  thieves  in  the  night,  embarking  secretly  in  the 
darkness,  and  taking  Government  House  by  surprise 
with  the  report  of  the  accomplished  fact  of  their  de- 
parture.    Not  that  Government  House  would  have 
opposed  any  obstacle  to  their  going  in  broad  daylight, 
with  drums  beating  and  flags  flying;  but  that  the 
steam-company,  with  an  eye  to  business,  thought  it 
better  to  make  a  secret  of  it ;  such  fellow-travellers, 
according  to  European  notions,  not  increasing  the 
comforts  of  the  voyage.    As  to  the  Governor-General, 
all  he  could  say  was,  "  Let  them  go ;"  pitying  the 
East  India  Company,  thus  compelled  to  receive  such 
troublesome  visitors,  but  claiming  for  them  kindly 
and  courteous  treatment  at  the  hands  of  the  mag- 
nates of  Leadenhall.     And  so  those  representatives  of 
the  exploded  kingship  of  Oude  went  westward,  with 
vague  but  extensive  ideas  of  a  recovery  past  look- 
ing for  on  this  side  of  eternity,  buoyed  up  and  en- 
couraged by  men  who  well  knew  the  hopelessness 
of  the  endeavour.     The  *'case"  was  miserably  mis- 
managed.     There  was   much    internal   strife,    and 
scarcely  an  attempt  to  strike  out  against  the  common 
foe.     The  so-called   "Mission"  went  to  pieces  and 
rotted  piecemeal.     Not  merely  waste  of  treasure  was 
there,  but  waste  of  life.     The  Queen-Mother  and  the 
Prince-General  died,  and  were  buried  in  the  great 
cemetery  of  P^re  la  Chaise.      The   Heir -Apparent, 
money-bound  and  helpless,  threw  himself  upon  the 
mercy  of  the  enemy,  borrowed  from  them  half  a  lakh  • 
of  rupees,  and  was  carried   homewards,   somewhat 
dazed  and  bewildered  as  to  the  upshot  or  no  upshot 
of  the  whole  aflkir,  but  with  a  prevailing  sense  of 
escape  and  relief  that  it  was  all  over.     And  the  rest 
of  the  luckless  embassy  went  at  last,  leaving  behind 

2d2 


404  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

1866.      them  some  scum  of  official  trouble  and  mishap,  and 
some  legal  perplexities  not  readily  soluble  by  any 
"  perfection  of  human  reason"  known  in  our  English 
courts. 
Grief ances  of      Meanwhile,    in  the   name   of  the   King    himself, 
the  cx-King.  jnjnisterial  activities  had  not  been  wanting  in  India 
to  make  substantial  grievance,  not  so  much  of  the 
thing  done  (for  that  was  left  to  the  "  Mission")  as 
of  the  manner  of  doing  it,  which  had  not  been  all 
right.     In  the  Humanities,  wherein  is  included  the 
great  art  of  letting  down  easily,  good  to  be  learnt 
alike  by  Men   and  by   Governments,  we   had  not 
taken  first-class  honours.     Not  without  some  red- 
denings   of  shame  is  it  to   be  recorded  that  the 
wrongs  inflicted  upon  the  Princes  of  India  in  the 
shape  of  territorial  dispossessions  and  titular  extinc- 
tions had  been   sometimes  supplemented  by  lesser 
wrongs,  more  grievous  to  bear  upon  the  one  side  and 
less  to  be  justified  on  the  other.     For  there  is  some 
dignity  in  great  wrong,  doing  or  suffering ;  and  a 
persuasion,  in  one  case,  not  without  sincerity  at  the 
bottom,  that  wrong  is  right.     But  look  at  the  matter 
in  what  light  we  may,  it  can  be  nothing  but  miserable 
wrong  to  make  these  dispossessions  and  extinctions, 
which  may  be  for  the  national  good,  the  forerunners 
of  personal  distresses  and  humiliations  to  individuals 
thus  dispossessed  and  extinguished.     Yet  men  and, 
redder  shame   still,  feeble  Zenana-bred  women  had 
brought  this  charge  against  the  strong  Government  of 
.   the  British,  before  the  kingdom  of  Oude  was  marked 
for  extinction ;  and  now  again  the  same  complaint  of 
supplemental  cruelties  and  indignities,  more  galling 
than  the  one  great  wrong  itself,  went  up  from  Wajid 
Ali,  or  was  uttered  in  his  name.     It  was  charged 
against  us  that  our  officers  had  turned  the  stately 
palaces   of  Lucknow   into  stalls  and   kennels,  that 


GRIEVANCES  OF  THE  OLDE  FAMILY.  405 

delicate  women,  the  daughters  or  the  companions  of  1856. 
Kings,  had  been  sent  adrift,  homeless  and  helpless, 
that  treasure-houses  had  been  violently  broken  open 
and  despoiled,  that  the  private  property  of  the  royal 
family  had  been  sent  to  the  hammer,  and  that  other 
vile  things  had  been  done  very  humiliating  to  the 
King's  people,  but  far  more  disgraceful  to  our  own. 

Not  only  so  disgraceful,  but  so  injurious  to  us,  so 
great  a  blunder,  indeed,  would  such  conduct  have 
been,  that  all  who  had  any  hope  of  the  restoration  of 
the  Oude  monarchy  must  have  devoutly  wished  the 
story  to  be  true.  There  were  those  who  had  such 
hope.  How  could  it  be  hopeless,  when  it  was  re- 
membered that  the  Sepoy  Army  of  the  Company  was 
full  of  men  whose  homes  were  in  Oude ;  when  it  was 
believed  that  the  great  flood  of  English  rule  was 
sweeping  away  all  existing  interests,  and  destroying 
all  the  influential  classes  alike  in  the  great  towns  and 
in  the  rural  districts  ?  The  ministers  and  courtiers 
of  the  King  of  Oude  were  at  large  in  Calcutta  and 
the  neighbourhood,  and  might  journey  whithersoever 
they  pleased.  Vast  fields  of  intrigue  were  open  before 
them.  The  times  were  propitious.  It  was  plain  that 
there  was  a  feeling  of  inquietude  in  the  native  mind, 
and  that  fear  had  engendered  discontent.  It  was 
certain  that  the  British  Government  were  weak,  for 
the  country  was  stripped  of  European  troops.  The 
good  day  might  yet  come.  Meanwhile,  it  might  be 
something  to  spread  abroad,  truly  or  fakely,  a  story 
to  the  efiect  that  the  English,  adding  insult  to  injury, 
had  cruelly  humiliated  all  the  members  of  the  Oude 
family  left  behind  in  Lucknow. 

In  these  stories  of  official  cruelty  Canning  had 
small  faith.  But  the  honour  of  his  Government  de- 
manded that  they  should  be  inquired  into  and  con- 
tradicted, and  he  urged  the  Chief  GommiiH^oer  at 


406  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

1856.      once  to  investigate  and  report  upon  the  charges  put 
forth  by  the  creatures  of  the  King.     But  Jackson, 
full  of  his  own  wrongs,  failed  to  see  the  importance 
of  the  task  assigned  to  him,  and  his  answers  were 
unsatisfactory  and    apparently  evasive.      Privately 
as  well  as  publicly  he  was  urged  by  the  Governor- 
General  to  address  himself  seriously  to  the  work  of 
effacing  from  the  nation  the  dishonour  with  which 
the  dependents  of  the    old  Court  of  Lucknow  had 
endeavoured   to  besmear  the   British    name.      But 
the  result  was  not  what  Lord  Canning  had  sought, 
not  what  he  had  expected.  So  at  last,  bitterly  grieved 
and  disappointed  by  the  manner  in  which  his  repre- 
sentative had  dealt  with  a  subject,  at  once  of  so 
delicate  and  so  important  a  nature,  the  Governor- 
General  thus  becomingly  poured  forth  his  indig- 
Octoher  19,  nation  :  "I  will  not  conceal  from  you,"  he  wrote  to 
Mr.  Jackson,  "  my  disappointment  at  the  manner  in 
which  from  first  to  last  you  have  treated  this  matter. 
Instead  of  enabling  the  Government  to  answer  dis- 
tinctly and  categorically  every  complaint  which  the 
King  has  preferred,  you  have  passed  over  unnoticed 
some  upon  which  you  must  have  known  that  the 
Government  were  without  materials  for  reply.    Upon 
placing  your  answers,  now  that  all  have  been  re- 
ceived, side  by  side  with  the  King's  letters,  I  find 
myself  quite  unable  to  say  whether  any  buildings 
such  as  he  describes  have  been  pulled  down,  and  if 
so,  why  ? — although  one  building,  the  Jelwa  Khana, 
had  been  especially  mentioned  to  the  King,   as  in 
course  of  demolition — whether  dogs  or  horses  have 
been  quartered  in  the  Chutter  Munzil,  and  especially 
whether*  a  stoppage  of  the  allowances  to  the  King's 
descendants  has  been  threatened,  a  statement  to  this 
effect  being  pointedly  made  in  the  King's  letter  of 
the  14th  of  September.     You  t«ll  me  that  you  have 


SnORT-COMINGS  OF  THE  CHIEF  COMMISSIONER.        407 

delayed  your  answers  in  order  that  they  may  be  more  1856. 
complete.  I  can  hardly  think,  therefore,  that  these 
matters  have  escaped  you,  and  yet  I  do  not  know 
how  otherwise  to  account  for  their  being  passed  by. 
Be  this  as  it  may,  the  result  of  your  course  of  pro- 
ceeding is  that  the  Governor-General  is  placed  in  an 
unbecoming,  not  to  say  humiliating  position  towards 
the  King  of  Oude.  The  King  brings  complaints, 
which,  whether  true  or  false,  are  plain  enough  against 
the  officers  of  Government,  and  the  Governor-Gene- 
ral, after  assuring  the  King  that  as  soon  as  reference 
shall  have  been  made  to  the  Chief  Commissioner, 
satisfactory  explanation  shall  be  given,  and  relying, 
as  he  has  a  right  to  do,  that  that  officer  will  obey 
his  instructions  and  do  his  duty,  finds  himself  alto- 
gether mistaken,  and  defeated  upon  points  which, 
however  unworthy  of  notice  they  may  appear  to  the 
Chief  Commissioner  at  Lucknow,  cannot  be  slurred 
over  by  the  Government  in  Calcutta.  It  matters 
nothing  that  these  charges  are  instigated  by  dis- 
reputable hangers-on  of  the  King,  or  that  they  are 
wholly  or  partly  untrue,  or  even  impossible.  There 
they  are  in  black  and  white,  and  they  must  be 
answered.  It  is  surprising  to  me  that  you  should 
have  failed  to  appreciate  the  necessity." 

And  it  was  surprising;  but  Coverley  Jackson,  at 
that  time,  could  scarcely  appreciate  any  necessity  save 
that  of  riding  roughshod  over  Gubbins  and  Ommaney, 
and  keeping  them  down  to  the  right  subordinate  level. 
How  far  these  charges  of  cruel  indifference  to  the  feel- 
ings of  the  Oude  family  were  true,  to  what  extent  the 
dependents  of  the  late  King  were  wronged  and  hu- 
miliated, and  the  nobles  of  the  land  despoiled  and 
depressed;  how,  indeed,  the  revolution  affected  all 
existing  interests,  are  subjects  reserved  for  future  in- 
quiiy.  It  would  have  been  well  if  the  Chief  Commiw- 


408  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

sioDcr  had  done  as  much  to  mollify  Ihese  poor  people 
as  to  exasperate  his  own  colleagues.  But  the  temper 
of  the  man  was  to  the  last  degree  arbitrary  and  ex- 
acting, and  Lord  Canning,  though  with  admirable 
patience  and  moderation  he  strove  to  control  the  ex- 
cesses of  his  agent,  could  not  hold  them  in  che<^. 
Pointing  to  the  great  exemplar  of  John  Lawrence,  the 
Oude  administration  having  been  constructed  on  the 
Punjabee  model,  he  showed  that  the  reins  of  govern* 
ment  might  be  held  with  a  firm  and  vigorous  hand  by 
one  not  grasping  at  all  departmental  authority.  But 
these  kindly  teachings  were  in  vain.  The  old  strife 
continued.  Striking  with  one  hand  at  Gubbins,  and 
with  the  other  at  Ommaney,  the  Chief  Commissioner 
was  continually  in  an  attitude  of  offence ;  and  the  ad- 
ministration was  likely  to  be  wrecked  altogether  upon 
the  lee-shore  of  these  internal  contentions.  So,  at 
last,  the  Governor-General  was  forced  upon  the  con- 
viction that  he  had  selected  the  wrong  man  to  preside 
in  Oude,  and  that  the  sooner  he  could  be  removed 
from  it  the  better  for  the  province. 

The  readiest  means  of  effecting  this,  without  any 
public  scandal  or  any  recorded  reproach  injurious  to 
Jackson's  career,  was  by  the  restoration  of  James 
Outram  to  the  post  which  the  civilian  had  been  hold- 
ing for  him.  Very  unfit,  doubtless,  was  the  "  officiating 
Chief  Commissioner"  for  that  post ;  but  he  had  done 
good  service  to  the  State,  he  had  some  commendable 
points  of  character,  and  even  at  the  bottom  of  his 
proved  incapacity  for  this  particular  office  there  might 
be  nothing  worse  than  a  distempered  zeal.  So  Lord 
Canning,  in  the  exercise  of  what  is  called  a  "  sound 
discretion,"  as  well  as  in  obedience  to  the  dictates  of  a 
kind  heart,  sought  to  accomplish  the  end  in  view  by 
a  return  to  the  status  ante  in  the  natural  order  of 
things,  rather  than  by  any  violent  supersession  of  his 


WAR  WITH  PERSIA.  409 

unfortunate  nominee.  It  was  doubly  a  source,  there-  1856, 
fore,  of  satisfaction  to  him  to  learn  that  Outram, 
whose  shattered  health  at  the  time  of  his  departure  in 
the  spring  had  excited  sad  forebodings  in  the  mind  of 
the  Grovemor-General,  now  in  the  autumn  declared 
himself  convalescent  and  about  to  return  to  his  work. 
But  the  work,  the  very  thought  of  which  had  brealJied 
into  the  veins  of  the  soldier-statesman  new  health,  and 
revived  all  his  prostrate  activities,  was  not  administra- 
tive business  in  Oude.  It  was  altogether  work  of 
another  kind  and  in  another  place,  far  enough  away 
from  the  scene  of  all  his  former  endeavours;  work 
the  account  of  which  must  be  prefaced  by  some 
historical  explanations. 


Scarcely  had  Lord  Canning  taken  his  place  in  The  rupture 
Government  House,  when  the  question  of  a  war  mth  -P«»>*' 
Persia  began  to  assume  portentous  dimensions.  Truly, 
it  was  not  his  concern.  Ever  since  the  days  when, 
nearly  half  a  century  before,  there  had  been  a  strange 
mad  scramble  for  diplomatic  supremacy  in  Persia  be- 
tween the  delegates  of  the  Governor-General  and  of 
the  Court  of  St.  James's,  the  position  of  the  Govern- 
ment of  India  towards  our  Persian  Mission  and  our 
Persian  policy  had  been  very  indistinctly  defined.  The 
financial  responsibility  of  the  Company  had  been  at 
all  times  assumed,  and  the  executive  assistance  of  the 
Indian  Government  had  been  called  for,  when  our  re- 
lations with  that  perfidious  Court  had  been  beset  with 
difficulties  beyond  the  reach  of  diplomatic  address. 
But  the  political  control  had  been  vested  in  the  Im- 
perial Government,  as  represented  by  the  Foreign 
Office;*   and  the  officers  of  the  Mission  had  been 

*  Except  during  a  brief  intenral ;  delegated  partiallj  the  management 
that  ia,  between  tne  yean  1836  and  of  affaira  to  the  Go? ernor-General, 
1835,  when  the  Kiog'a  GofonuMoi    oaij  to  naume  it  whollj  again. 


410  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINT. 

1856.  nominated  by  the  Crown.  Affairs  were  still  in  this 
state  when  Lord  Canning  assumed  the  Government 
of  India,  and  found  that  Great  Britain  was  rapidly 
drifting  into  a  war  with  Persia,  which  it  would  be  his 
duty  to  direct,  and  the  resources  for  which  must  be 
suppUed  from  the  country  under  his  charge. 

The  difficulties,  which  now  seemed  to  render  war 
inevitable,  were  chronic  difficulties,  which  were  fast 
precipitating  an  acute  attack  of  disease.  They  were 
an  after-growth  of  the  great  convulsion  of  1838,  which 
had  culminated  in  the  war  in  Afghanistan.  We  had 
tried  to  forget  that  hated  country ;  but  there  was  a 
Nemesis  that  forbade  oblivion.  It  was  an  article  of 
our  political  faith  that  Herat  must  be  an  independent 
principality,  and  we  clung  to  it  as  if  the  very  salvation 
of  our  Indian  Empire  depended  on  the  maintenance 
of  this  doctrine.  But  there  was  nothing  in  the  whole 
range  of  Eastern  politics  so  certain  to  engender  con- 
tinual tribulation,  and  at  last  to  compel  us  to  apostatise 
in  despair.  The  independence  of  Herat  was  a  shadowy 
idea ;  it  never  could  be  a  substantial  reality.  With 
an  Army  of  Occupation  in  Afghanistan,  and  with 
British  officers  freely  disbursing  British  gold  at  the 
"gate  of  India,"  we  had  for  a  while  maintained  the 
outward  independence  of  the  principality  under  Shah 
Kamran  of  the  Suddozye  House  of  Caubul ;  but  even 
then  the  minister,  Yar  Mahomed,  was  continually  de- 
claring that  his  heart  was  with  Iran,  and  threatening 
to  throw  himself  into  the  arms  of  the  Persian  King. 
When  the  British  Army  had  evacuated  Afghanistan, 
the  bold,  unscrupulous  minister,  having  soon  relieved 
himself  of  the  nominal  sovereignty  of  the  Suddozye, 
began  to  rule  the  country  on  his  own  account.  And 
he  ruled  it  well :  that  is,  he  ruled  it  with  vigour ;  and 
for  some  ten  years,  by  astute  diplomacy,  the  soul  of 


THE  POLITICS  OF  HERAT.  411 

which  was  a  sj^tem  of  small  concesiuons  to  Persia,  1868. 
which  soothed  her  pride  and  averted  great  demands, 
he  governed  the  principality  in  peace,  and  maintained 
its  nominal  integrity.  But  his  son,  Syad  Mahomed, 
who  succeeded  him,  had  none  of  the  essentials  of  a 
great  ruler.  Plentifully  endowed  with  his  father's 
wickedness,  he  lacked  all  his  father's  vigour.  Trea- 
cherous and  unscrupulous,  but  feeble  in  the  extreme, 
he  was  ready,  on  the  first  appearance  of  danger,  to 
become  a  creature  of  the  Persian  Court.  Persia 
eagerly  seized  the  opportunity;  and  again  England 
appeared  upon  the  scene. 

In  the  course  of  1852,  a  Persian  Army  marched 
upon  Herat.  Not,  indeed,  in  open  defiance ;  not  with 
any  avowed  object  of  conquest ;  but  nominally,  as  a 
powerful  ally,  to  perform  an  office  of  friendship.  On 
the  death  of  Yar  Mahomed  the  affairs  of  the  princi- 
pality had  fallen  into  confusion,  and  the  Persian 
Army  went  forth  with  the  benevolent  design  of  re- 
storing them  to  order  and  prosperity.  But  the  mask 
was  soon  thrown  aside.  The  real  object  of  the  expe- 
dition proclaimed  itself.  Herat  was  declared  to  be  an 
appendage  of  the  Persian  monarchy.  This  was  not 
to  be  borne.  To  maintain  the  independence  of  Herat, 
England  a  few  years  before  had  been  prepared  to 
send  her  legions  to  the  gates  of  the  city.  And  now 
Persia  was  destroying  it  by  a  trick.  So,  fortified  by 
instructions  from  Downing-street,  the  British  minister 
resisted  the  outrage.  On  pain  of  an  entire  forfeiture 
of  the  friendship  of  Great  Britain,  the  Persian  Govern- 
ment were  called  upon  to  withdraw  their  army,  and  to 
enter  into  a  solemn  covenant  binding  them  to  recog- 
nise and  respect  the  independence  of  Herat.  There 
were  then  the  usual  displays  of  trickery  and  evasive- 
ness ;  but  overawed  at  last  by  the  resolute  bearing  of 


412  OUTBREAK  OP  THE  MUTIMT. 

1853.  the  British  minister,  the  required  pledge  was  given, 
and  Persia  bound  herself  to  acknowledge  the  inde- 
pendence which  she  was  so  eager  to  crush.  But  she 
was  sorely  disturbed  and  irritated  by  our  interference 
with  her  schemes  of  ambition ;  and  thenceforth  the 
British  Mission  became  an  object  of  dislike  and  sus- 
picion at  Teheran ;  and  a  rupture  between  the  two 
Courts  was  only  a  question  of  time. 

The  war  in  the  Crimea  delayed — it  did  not  avert — 
the  inevitable  crisis.  The  genius  of  Persia  had  then 
free  scope  for  exercise,  and  turned  to  the  best  account 
its  opportunities  of  double-dealing.  Waiting  the  sen- 
tence of  the  great  Judge  of  Battles,  she  coquetted 
both  with  Russia  and  with  the  Allies,  and  was  ready 
to  sell  her  good  offices  to  the  stronger  party,  or  in  a 
time  of  uncertainty  to  the  higher  bidder.  But  when 
the  war  ceased,  her  importance  was  gone;  she  had 
not  been  able  to  turn  her  position  to  account  during 
the  day  of  strife,  and  when  peace  dawned  again  upon 
Europe,  she  tried  in  vain  to  be  admitted  to  the  great 
international  Council,  which  made  the  work  of  re- 
conciliation complete.  Disappointed  and  offended, 
perhaps,  not  thinking  much  of  our  boasted  victory, 
for  Russia  had  been  successful  in  Asiatic  Turkey,  and 
Persia  knew  less  about  Sebastopol  than  about  Kars, 
she  could  see  no  profit  in  the  English  alliance.  The 
minister  who  then  directed  her  affairs  had  no  feeling 
of  affection  for  the  British  representative  at  her  Court. 
A  strong  personal  prejudice,  therefore,  came  in  to 
aggravate  the  national  antipathy ;  and  before  the  end 
of  1855,  the  Mission  had  been  so  grievously  insulted 
that  Mr.  Murray  hauled  down  the  British  Flag,  and 
set  his  face  towards  the  Turkish  frontier. 

1865.  Into  the  details  of  this  affair  it  is  unnecessary  to 

enter.     Another  event  occurred  about  the  same  time. 


DOST  MAHOMED  KHAN.  413 

A  rebellion  broke  out  in  Herat.  Syad  Mahomed  was  1866- 
killed.  In  his  place  was  installed  a  member  of  the 
old  Suddozye  House,  a  nephew  of  Shah  Kamran, 
Yusoof  Khan  by  name,  who  had  no  peculiar  qualifi- 
cations for  empire,  but  who  could  not  be  worse  than 
the  man  whom  he  had  supplanted.  A  revolution  of 
this  kind  is  so  much  in  the  common  course  of  Afghan 
history,  that  we  need  not  seek  to  account  for  it  by 
any  other  than  internal  causes.  But  it  was  said  that 
it  had  been  fomented  by  Persian  intrigue ;  and  it  is 
certain  that  the  Government  of  the  Shah  were  eager 
to  profit  by  the  crisis.  The  times  were  propitious. 
There  was  in  Central  Asia  at  that  time  one  great  man, 
whose  movements  were  regarded  at  the  Persian  Court 
with  alarm  not  altogether  feigned,  though  sometimes 
exaggerated  for  a  purpose.  Ever  since  the  British 
had  set  the  seal  on  their  confession  of  gigantic  failure 
in  Afghanistan  by  restoring  Dost  Mahomed  to  empire, 
the  energies  and  activities  of  the  old  Ameer  had  ex- 
pended themselves  on  the  consolidation  of  his  Former 
dominions;  and  now  he  was  hot  to  extend  them  to 
the  westward.  It  was  not  merely  an  impulse  of  ambi- 
tion. In  part,  at  least,  it  was  an  instinct  of  self- 
preservation.  The  pretensions  of  Persia  were  not 
limited,  and  her  encroachments  were  not  likely  to  be 
confined,  to  the  principality  of  Herat.  Already  she 
had  established  a  dominant  influence  in  Candahar, 
and  did  not  scruple  to  talk  about  her  rights  of 
dominion.  It  was  impossible  for  Dost  Mahomed  to 
regard  this  with  unconcern.  That  Persia  had  views 
of  extended  influence,  if  not  of  actual  conquest,  in 
Afghanistan  was  certain.  She  had  proposed  to  the 
Ameer  himself  to  reduce  the  whole  country  to  the 
condition  of  a  protected  State.  The  time  had  now 
come  for  him  to  put  forth  a  mighty  hand  and  a 


414  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

1865.  stretched-out  arm  for  the  mamtenance  of  the  inde- 
pendence of  Afghanistan.  Kohun-dil-Khan,  his  half- 
brother,  the  Chief  of  Candahar,  died  in  the  autumn 
of  1855.  Dost  Mahomed  had  never  trusted  him ;  and 
his  son  was  not  to  be  trusted.  So  the  Ameer,  who 
had  no  love  for  half-measures,  annexed  Candahar  to 
the  kingdom  of  Caubul ;  and  the  Persian  Government 
believed,  or  pretended  to  believe,  that  he  included 
Herat  itself  in  his  scheme  of  conquest. 

He  had  at  that  time  no  such  design.  But  it  was  a 
favourite  trick  of  Persia  to  justify  her  own  acts  of 
aggression  by  a  reference  to  some  alleged  danger  and 
the  necessity  of  self-preservation.  So,  seeing  in  the 
internal  state  of  Herat  an  encouraging  opportunity, 
and  in  the  movements  of  Dost  Mahomed  a  plausible 
pretext  for  evading  their  obligations,  the  Government 
of  the  Shah  tore  the  convention  of  1853  into  shreds, 

1856.  and  again  marched  an  army  upon  Herat.  But  it  met 
with  no  welcome  there.  Alarmed  by  the  movements 
of  the"  Caubul  Ameer,  and  threatened  with  a  counter- 
revolution at  home,  the  nominal  ruler  of  Herat  had 
turned  towards  the  Persians  for  assistance,  but  when 
he  found  that  the  chief  people  of  the  place  were  op- 
posed to  such  an  allian(5e,  and  that  a  strong  national 
Sooneeism  prevailed  among  them,  he  hoisted  British 
colours  and  invited  Dost  Mahomed  to  come  to  his  aid. 
The  characteristic  bad  faith  of  the  Suddozye  Princes 
was  conspicuous  in  this  wretched  man.  His  own 
people  could  not  trust  him.  The  Persians  were  in- 
vesting the  place,  and  it  was  feared  that  Yusoof  Khan 
would  betray  the  city  into  their  hands.  It  was  easy, 
therefore,  to  raise  a  party  against  him.  So  Eesa  Khan, 
the  Deputy  or  Lieutenant-Governor  of  the  place,  caused 
him  to  be  seized,  and  sent  him  a  prisoner  into  the 
enemy's  camp,  with  a  letter  declaring  that  he  was  of 


VIEWS  OF  LORD  CANNING.  415 

no  use  in  Herat,  and  that  the  Persians  might  do  with      1856. 
him  as  they  liked. 

To  this  point  events  had  progressed  when  Lord 
Canning  was  called  upon  to  address  himself  seriously 
to  the  consideration  of  the  troubled  politics  of  Central 
Asia.  To  the  new  Governor-General  these  complica- 
tions were  a  source  of  no  common  anxiety,  for  he  could 
see  clearly  that  England  was  drifting  into  war,  and 
that,  however  little  he  might  have  to  do  with  it  in  its 
origin  and  conception,  its  execution  would  be  en- 
trusted to  him.  There  was  a  bitter  flavour  about  the 
whole  afiair  that  was  distasteful  in  the  extreme  to  the 
Governor-General.  "  My  hope  of  an  accommodation," 
he  wrote  to  the  President  in  August,  "has  almost 
died  out,  and  I  contemplate  the  prospect  of  the  in- 
glorious and  costly  operations  which  lie  before  us 
with  more  disgust  than  I  can  express."*  He  had 
gone  out,  as  others  had  gone  before  him,  with  an 
avowed  and  a  sincere  desire  for  peace ;  but  warned 
by  their  cruel  disappointments,  he  had  laid  fast  hold 
in  India  of  the  resolution  which  he  had  formed  in  Eng- 
land, and  he  was  not  by  any  adverse  or  any  alluring 
circumstances  to  be  driven  or  enticed  into  unnecessary 
war.  "Do  not,"  he  said,  "be  afraid  of  my  being 
unduly  hasty  to  punish  Persia.  Unless  the  Shah 
should  steam  up  the  Hooghly,  wdth  Murray  swinging 
at  his  yard-arm,  I  hope  that  we  shall  be  able  to  keep 
the  peace  until  your  instructions  arrive."t  And  he 
was  anxious  to  avoid,  not  only  aggressive  measures 
from  the  side  of  India,  but  any  diplomatic  entangle- 
ments that  might  at  some  future  time  be  a  cause  of 
perplexity  to  his  Government.  The  politics  of  Central 
Asia  he  regarded  with  extreme  aversion.    Remember- 

♦  Lord  Cannin*?  to  Mr.  Vernon        f  The  same  to  the  same,  April  22, 
Smith,  August  8,  1866.-r-JI/5'.  1856.— Jlf^. 


1856. 


416  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

1856.  ing  the  fearful  lessons  of  the  Past,  he  determined,  not 
of  his  own  free  will,  to  send  a  single  maa  into  Afghan- 
istan  ;  and  he  resisted  the  promptings  of  Ministers  at 
home,  when  it  was  suggested  to  him  somewhat  pre- 
maturely that  seasonable  donatives  might  convert 
Dost  Mahomed  into  an  effective  ally,  willing  and 
ready  to  apply  a  blister  from  the  side  of  Gandahar. 

Aja^t,  And  when,  at  a  later  period,  instructions  came  from 
England  to  supply  the  Ameer  with  arms  and  money, 
and  authority  was  given  to  the  Governor-General  to 
send  a  British  Mission  to  Herat,  he  shrunk  from 
acting  upon  the  latter  suggestion.  "  I  do  not  pur- 
pose," he  wrote,  "to  use  the  permission  to  send 
British  officers  to  Herat.  We  know  much  too  little 
of  things  there  to  justify  this  step,  which  would  for 
certain  be  full  of  risk.  The  place  is  hard  pressed  by 
famine  as  well  as  by  the  enemy.  Our  officers  could 
take  with  them  no  relief  nor  any  promise  of  it,  for  we 
are  not  going  to  march  to  Herat  ourselves,  and  we 
cannot  afford  to  promise  on  the  faith  of  the  Ameer  s 
performances." 

But  this  resolute  non-interference  from  the  side  of 
India  could  not  be  maintained  in  the  face  of  the  war- 
policy  which  was  making  headway  from  the  west- 
ward. Wisely  or  unwisely,  Downing-street  ruled  that 
the  issue  should  be  war.  The  year  had  scarcely 
dawned,  when  such  an  upshot  began  to  be  discussed 
as  something  of  no  very  remote  reality,  and  before 
Parliament  had  broken  up  and  her  Majesty's  Ministers 
had  dispersed  for  the  autumn,  an  expedition  to  the 
Persian  Gulf  had  been  decreed.  The  independence 
of  Herat  was  to  be  maintained  at  any  cost ;  and  Lord 
Canning,  liking  it  much  or  liking  it  little,  truth  being 
that  he  liked  it  not  at  all,  was  bound  to  do  his  best  to 
work  out  this  policy  to  a  successful  ending.     But  of 


THE  PERSUN  EXPEDITION.  417 

all  imaginable  moonshines  he  held  this  moonshine  of  1856. 
the  independence  of  Herat  to  be  the  most  unsub- 
stantial and  evanescent ;  a  feeble  glimmer  that  must 
some  day  glimmer  itself  out  into  total  darkness ;  and 
he  looked  at  the  beginning  of  the  war  with  unavailing 
regret,  mingled  with  a  feeling  of  vague  alarm,  when 
he  sought  to  penetrate  the  future,  and  could  not 
clearly  see  the  end  of  it  all.  But  there  was  work  to 
be  done.  The  orders  from  Home  were  that  all  pre- 
parations should  be  made  for  the  despatch  of  a  mili- 
tary and  naval  expedition  from  Bombay  to  the  Per- 
sian Gulf;  but  that  pending  the  progress  of  some 
further  diplomacies  in  Europe,  which  might  end  in 
concessions,  no  actual  start  should  be  made.  It  was 
not  until  the  end  of  September  that  her  Majesty's 
Government,  through  the  legal  channel  of  the  Secret 
Committee  of  the  Court  of  Directors  of  the  East  India 
Company,  sent  out  final  instructions  for  the  sailing 
of  the  expedition  and  the  commencement  of  the  war. 
On  the  evening  of  the  last  day  of  October,  these 
instructions  reached  the  Governor-General  in  Cal- 
cutta, and  on  the  following  morning — day  of  evil  November 
omen,  for  eighteen  years  before  it  had  delivered  itself  ^*'" 
of  the  sad  Afghan  manifesto — a  proclamation  of  war 
was  issued.  On  the  same  day  it  was  sent  to  Lord 
Elphinstone  at  Bombay,  and  the  General  in  command 
was  charged  with  instructions  respecting  the  conduct 
of  the  expedition,  and  ordered  straightway  to  be^n. 

The  question  of  the  command  of  the  expedition  The  question 
had  been  one,  which  Lord  Canning  by  no  means  ^^  ^°°^°^"  • 
found  it  easy  to  solve.  Many  names  had  been  sug- 
gested to  him,  and  among  them  that  of  General 
Windham — "Windham  of  the  Redan" — who  had 
performed  feats  of  gallantry  in  the  Crimea,  and  was 
ready  for  hard  service  in  any  part  of  the  world. 

2  E 


418  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

1850.  But  Lord  Canning,  whikt  thoroughly  appreciating 
Windham's  gallant  services  in  the  field,  and  knowing 
well  that  his  appointment  would  be  "popular  in  Eng- 
land," saw  that  there  were  strong  reasons  against  it. 
"  In  a  mixed  force  of  Queen's  and  Company's  troops," 
he  said,  "  it  is  of  great  importance  that  there  should 
be  a  willing  and  earnest  co-operation  of  all  subordi- 
nate officers  with  the  Commander,  and  it  is  more 
difficult  to  obtain  this  for  a  stranger  than  for  one  who 
is  known.  The  Commander  should  have  some  ac- 
quaintance with  the  Indian  Army,  if  he  has  to  lead 
a  large  force  of  it  into  an  unknown  and  difficult 
country.  He  should  know  something  of  its  constitu- 
tion, temper,  and  details — of  what  it  can  and  what  it 
can  not  do.  This  would  not  be  the  case  with  Wind- 
ham, fresh  landed  from  England."  And  it  is  not  to 
be  doubted  that  he  was  right.  If  the  force  had  been 
on  a  larger  scale,  the  Commander-in-Chief  himself 
might  perhaps  have  been  placed  at  its  head ;  but  Lord 
Canning,  with  the  highest  possible  opinion  of  General 
Anson's  fine  temper,  of  the  assiduity  with  which  he 
had  addressed  himself  to  the  business  of  his  high 
office,  and  the  ability  with  which  he  had  mastered  its 
details,  had  still  some  misgivings  with  respect  to  his 
prejudices,  and  doubted  whether  he  had  not  formed 
certain  conclusions  unjust  to  the  Company's  Army. 

On  the  whole,  it  was  better,  in  any  circumstances, 
that  an  Indian  officer  should  command;  and  Lord 
Canning  was  resolute  that  such  should  be  the  arrange- 
ment. But  he  had  been  somewhat  perplexed  at  first 
as  to  the  choice  to  be  made,  and  he  had  consulted 
Sir  John  Lawrence,  as  the  man  of  all  others  who, 
not  being  by  profession  a  soldier,  had  the  finest 
soldierly  instincts  and  the  keenest  appreciation  of  the 
essential  qualities  demanded  for  the  conunand  of  such 


THE  QUESTION  OF  COMMAND.  419 

an  expedition.     What  the  great  Punjabee  adminis-      1856. 
trator  said  in  reply  was  an  utterance  of  good  sense 
and  good  feeling,  the  fulness  of  which,  however,  was 
not  then  as  discernible  as  it  now  is,  viewed  by  the 
light  of  intervening  history.     About  the  answer  to  be 
given  there  was  no  doubt ;  but  clearly  there  was  some 
difficulty.     For  the  man  whom  of  all  men  in  India  he 
held  to  be  best  fitted  for  the  work  in  hand  was  his 
o>vn  brother.  Sir  Henry  Lawrence ;  and  if  he  could  Henry 
go,  accompanied  by  Colonel  Sydney  Cotton,  all  would  •^^'^'®'*°®- 
be   well.     "  Cotton,"   wrote  John  Lawrence  to  the 
Governor- General,  "  is  one  of  the  best  officers  I  have 
seen  in  India.     He  is  a  thorough  soldier,  loves  his 
profession,  and  has  considerable  administrative  talent. 
Of  all  the  officers  I  have  noted,  with  one  exception, 
Sydney  Cotton  is  the  best."     But  his  experiences, 
great  as  they  were,  had  not  lain  in  the  line  of  diplo- 
matic action,  and,  if  it  were  necessary,  as  Lawrence 
believed,  to  unite  the  political  and  the  military  au- 
thority in  the  same  person.  Cotton,  good  soldier  as  he 
was,  might  clearly  lack  some  of  the  essential  qualifi- 
cations for  the  double  office.    So  John  Lawrence  pro- 
ceeded to  say:  "The  man  whom  I  would  name  for 
the  command  of  such  an  expedition  is  my  brother 
Henry.     I  can  assure  your  lordship  that  I  am  not  in 
the  slightest  degree  biased  in  his  favour.     He  has 
seen  a  good  deal  of  service,  having  been  in  the  first 
Burmese  war,  in  the  second  Afghan  war,  and  in  both 
the  Sutlej  campaigns.     He  is  not  an  officer  of  much 
practical  knowledge,  except  in  his  own  branch  (the 
Artillery),  and  he  is  not  fond  of  details.     But,  on  the 
other  hand,  he  has  great  natural  ability,  immense 
force  of  character,  is  very  popular  in  his  service,  has 
large  political   acumen,    and   much    administrative 
ability.     I  do  not  think  that  there  is  a  military  man 

2£2 


420  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

1856.  in  India  who  is  his  equal  in  these  points.  He  is  also 
in  possession  of  his  full  vigour,  both  of  mind  and 
body,  and  there  is  not  a  good  soldier  of  the  Bengal 
Army,  in  the  Punjab  or  perhaps  in  Upper  India,  but 
would  volunteer  to  serve  under  him.  With  him  as 
the  Commander,  and  Sydney  Cotton  as  the  Second- 
in-Command,  the  arrangement  would  be  complete. 
Cotton  is  master  of  all  technical  details  of  every  arm 
of  the  service,  and  devotes  his  entire  energies  and 
thoughts  to  the  welfare  of  his  soldiers." 

All  this  might  have  been  misunderstood ;  and  a 
little  man,  in  such  a  case,  would  perhaps  have  hesi- 
tated to  recommend  his  brother ;  but  John  Lawrence 
knew  that  the  advice  was  good,  and  that  he  was  in- 
capable of  offering  it  if  it  had  not  been.  "  If  I  know 
myself,"  he  wrote,  "  I  would  revolt  against  such  con- 
duct." But  though  strong  in  the  conviction  that  of 
all  men  living  Henry  Lawrence  was  the  best  suited  to 
the  work  in  hand,  he  was  loud  in  his  praise  of  other 
good  officers,  and  had  various  plans  to  recommend, 
any  one  of  which  might  have  a  successful  issue.  If 
Sydney  Cotton  were  sent  in  command,  it  would  be 
well  to  associate  with  him  such  an  officer  as  Herbert 
Edwardes,  in  the  character  of  political  adviser.  "  But, 
in  such  matters,"  said  John  Lawrence,  "imity  in 
council  and  action  is  of  the  highest  importance,  and 
a  commander  who  unites  the  military  and  political 
functions  is  most  desirable.  If  your  lordship  does 
not  take  my  brother,  and  Outram  is  available,  I 
would  be  inclined  to  recommend  him.  I  never  met 
this  officer;  but  he  has  a  high  reputation."  And 
John  Jacob,  as  having  much  military  ability  and  con- 
siderable political  experience,  was  a  man  not  to  be 
overlooked  in  the  account  of  available  capacity  for 
such  an  enterprise. 


LORD  ELPHINSTONE  AND  GENERAL  STALKER.  421 

But  not  only  in  Calcutta  and  in  the  Punjab  was  1856. 
this  question  of  the  command  of  the  expedition  being 
considered.  It  was  well  pondered  at  Bombay  and  in 
England,  taking  a  shape  eventually  to  overrule  all 
other  decisions.  The  expedition  was  to  sail  from 
Bombay,  and  all  the  arrangements  for  its  organisation 
and  equipment  were  proceeding  there.  Lord  Elphin-  Lord 
stone  was  Governor  of  that  Presidency.  Twenty  years  ^  ^^  ^"^* 
before  he  had  been  Governor  of  Madras.  At  that  time 
he  was  young,  and  not  so  serious  and  sedate  as  some 
people  thought  the  head  of  a  Government  ought  to 
be.  "  We  want  a  Governor,"  it  was  said,  somewhat 
bitterly,  "  and  they  send  us  a  Guardsman  ;  we  want 
a  statesman,  and  they  send  us  a  dancer."  But  he  had 
ripened  into  what  these  people  wanted,  and  now  with 
a  higher  sense  of  the  responsibilities  of  office,  with 
a  keener  pleasure  in  his  work,  and  a  statesmanlike 
assiduity,  for  which  the  companions  of  his  youth  had 
not  given  him  credit,  he  was,  a  second  time,  ad- 
ministering the  affairs  of  an  Indian  Presidency,  and 
busying  himself  with  our  external  relations.  The 
troops  to  be  despatched,  in  the  first  instance,  to  the 
Persian  Gulf  were  mainly  Bombay  troops,  and  it 
seemed  fitting  that  the  choice  of  a  Commander  should 
be  made  from  the  Bombay  Army.  If  under  stress 
of  circumstance  the  war  should  assume  more  im- 
portant dimensions,  and  the  military  force  be  pro- 
portionably  extended,  another  selection  might  be 
made.  But  meanwhile,  Elphinstone  was  requested 
to  name  some  officer  attached  to  his  own  Presidency, 
in  whom  the  troops  of  all  arms  would  have  common 
confidence.  So  he  named  General  Stalker,  not  with- 
out a  pang  of  regret  that  he  could  not  select  Colonel 
Hancock — Hancock,  the  Adjutant -General  of  the 
Bombay  Army — ^whom  ill  health  was  driving  to  Eng- 


Oatram. 


422  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

1856.  land.  Stalker  was  the  senior  gf  <ihe  available  officers, 
so  there  were  no  heart-burnings  from  supersession; 
he  had  seen  much  sendee,  he  was  experienced  in  com- 
mand, and  it  was  believed  that  the  appointment 
would  be  both  a  popular  and  a  safe  one.  "  I  hear 
favourable  accounts  of  his  good  sense  and  temper," 
sg,id  Lord  Canning ;  "  and  that  is  what  is  wanted  for 
the  service  before  him,  which  mil  require  more  of 
patient  and  enduring  than  of  brilliant  qualities." 
James  So  Grcncral  Stalker  was  appointed  to  the  command 

of  the  expedition  to  the  Persian  Gulf.  But  whilst 
these  and  other  arrangements  were  being  made  in 
India,  in  the  belief  that  ere  long  they  would  be 
merged  into  others  of  a  more  comprehensive  cha- 
racter, the  question  of  the  chief  command  was  being 
solved  in  England  in  a  manner  hardly  anticipated 
by  the  Governor-General.  In  the  month  of  May  he 
had  taken  leave  of  Sir  James  Outram,  with  painful 
misgivings  raised  in  his  mind  by  the  sight  of  the  Gene- 
ral's shattered  frame  and  feeble  bearing.  He  had  sus- 
pected that  the  mischief  was  far  greater  than  Outram 
himself  acknowledged  or  believed,  and  thought  that 
years  must  elapse  before  he  would  be  fit  again  for 
active  service.  And  so  thought  all  his  friends  in  Eng- 
land. He  appeared  among  them  as  the  Avreck  only  of 
the  strong  man  who  had  left  them  a  short  time  before ; 
and  they  grieved  to  see  the  too  visible  signs  of  weak- 
ness and  sufibring  which  every  look  and  gesture  af- 
forded. The  summer  faded  into  autumn  ;  but  there 
was  little  change  for  the  better  apparent  in  his  outer 
aspect,  when  suddenly  they  were  startled  by  the  an- 
nouncement that  he  was  about  forthwith  to  proceed 
to  the  Persian  Gulf  and  take  command  of  the  ex- 
pedition. 

Nobody  knew,  nobody  knows,  how  it  happened 


flE  J1ME3  onuiL  423 

that  suddenly  in  this  conjuncture^  James  Oatnm  ISScl 
shook  off  the  inciunbrances  of  disease,  rose  up  finom 
the  prostration  of  the  sick-room,  and  stood  erect, 
active,  robust  before  the  world  with  the  harness  of 
war  on  his  back.  It  was  the  autumnal  season,  when 
men  scatter  and  disperse  themselves  in  strange  placeSi 
and  dude  in  a  vagrant  life  the  rumours  of  the  distant 
world ;  so  there  were  many  firiends  ^o,  having  left 
him  at  the  sunmier's  dose  a  feeble  invalid,  were  struck 
with  a  strange  surprise  when,  returned  or  returning 
homewards,  they  were  met  by  the  news  that  Outram 
had  gone  or  was  going  to  Persia  to  take  command  of 
the  invading  force.  The  wonder  soon  gave  place  to 
delight ;  for  they  knew  that  though  he  was  moved  by 
strong  ambitions,  there  was  ever  within  him  a  sense 
of  duly  still  stronger,  and  that  on  no  account  would 
he  jeopardise  the  interests  of  the  State  by  taking  upon 
himself  responsibilities  which  he  had  not  full  assurance 
in  his  inmost  self  of  his  ample  competence  to  dis- 
charge. And  so  it  was.  The  sound  of  the  distant 
strife  had  rekindled  all  his  smouldering  energies. 
There  was  work  to  be  done,  and  he  felt  that  he  could 
do  it.  On  the  pleasant  Brighton  esplanade,  saunter- 
ing alone  meditative,  or  perhaps  in  the  stimulating 
companionship  of  a  stalwart  friend  and  high  func- 
tionary, the  Chairman  of  the  Court  of  Directors  of  the  Colonel 
East  India  Company,  Master  of  Masters,  new  hopes  ^  ^* 
were  wafted  upon  him  with  the  sea-breezes,  and  his 
step  grew  firmer,  his  carriage  more  erect,  as  with 
strong  assurance  of  support  fix)m  Leadenhall-street, 
he  resolved  to  tender  his  services  to  her  Majesty's 
Government  for  employment  in  Persia  with  a  joint 
military  and  diplomatic  command. 

This  was  at  the  beginning  of  the  last  week  of 
October.     On  tiie  26tii  he  wrote  to  Lord  Canning 


424  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINT. 

1856.  that  he  purposed  returning  to  India  by  the  mail  of 
the  20th  of  December,  "  having  perfectly  recovered 
from  the  illness  which  drove  him  home."  And  he 
added,  "  In  the  supposition  that  I  may  be  more  use- 
fully employed  with  the  army  about  to  proceed  to 
Persia  than  necessary  to  your  lordship  in  Oude,  where 
everything  is  progressing  so  satisfactorily,  I  have 
offered  my  services  to  the  President  (of  the  Board  of 
Control),  should  it  be  deemed  advisable  to  entrust  to 
me  diplomatic  powers  in  conjunction  with  the  military 
command,  and  I  believe  that,  should  your  lordship  be 
disposed  so  to  employ  me,  the  home  authorities  would 
not  object.  In  that  case  your  lordship's  commands 
would  meet  me  at  Aden,  whence  I  would  at  once 
proceed  to  Bombay."* 

This  letter  reached  Calcutta  on  the  2nd  December. 
By  the  outgoing  mail  of  the  8th,  Lord  Canning  wrote 
to  Outram  at  Aden,  rejoicing  in  his  complete  recovery, 
"  on  every  account,  public  and  private,"  but  question- 
ing the  policy  of  the  Persian  appointment.  The  ex- 
pedition, he  said,  was  not  likely  to  increase  in  magni- 
tude ;  it  was  not  probable  that  there  would  be  any 
operations  beyond  the  seaboard  during  the  winter,  or 
that  any  diplomatic  action  would  be  taken  to  call  for 
the  employment  of  a  high  political  functionary ;  if, 
indeed,  overtures  were  to  be  made,  they  would  most 
probably  be  addressed  through  some  friendly  power  to 
London ;  there  would  be  little  scope,  therefore,  for  his 
services  with  the  Persian  expedition,  and  it  would  be 
better,  therefore,  that  he  should  return  to  his  old  ap- 
pointment. "  0  ude  is  completely  tranquil, ' '  wrote  Lord 
Canning,  "  and  generally  prospering.     Nevertheless, 

*  So  full  was  Outram  at  this  time  advent  of  the  happy  day  of  release, 
of  the  thought  of  his  departure  in  that  he  dated  this  letter  "Decem- 
December,  aod   so    eager  for   the    ber"  instead  of  October. 


APPOINTMENT  TO  THE  PERSIAN  COMMAND.  425 

I  shall  be  very  glad  to  see  you  resume  your  command  1856. 
there."  The  fact  was  that  the  Administration  was  by 
this  time  plunged  into  such  a  hopeless  condition  of 
internecine  strife,  that  the  Governor-General  could 
in  no  way  see  any  outlet  of  escape  from  the  per- 
plexities besetting  him  except  by  the  removal  of 
Chief-Commissioner  Jackson ;  and  now  here  was  the 
opportimity,  for  which  he  had  been  waiting,  to  ac- 
complish this  end  in  an  easy  natural  manner,  without 
any  official  scandal,  or  the  infliction  of  any  personal 
pain. 

But  it  was  not  to  be  so  accomplished.  Before  the 
end  of  November  the  question  of  Outram's  command 
of  the  Persian  expedition  had  been  fiilly  discussed  in 
the  English  Cabinet.  Downing-street  had  laid  fast 
hold  of  the  idea,  and  pronoimced  its  full  satisfaction 
with  it.  Her  Majesty  the  Queen  had  stamped  the 
commission  with  the  seal  of  her  approbation,  and  the 
public  voice,  with  one  accord,  had  proclaimed  that  a 
good  thing  had  been  done,  and  that  the  right  man 
would  soon  be  in  the  right  place.  That  it  was  thus 
virtually  settled,  past  recal,  went  out,  under  the  Pre- 
sident's hand  by  the  mail  of  the  26th  of  November, 
and  greeted  Lord  Canning  with  the  new  year.  In 
official  language,  however,  of  Court  of  Directors,  or 
Secret  Committee  thereof,  it  took  the  shape  not  of  an 
announcement  of  a  thing  done,  but  of  a  recommenda- 
tion that  it  should  be  done ;  for  it  was  substantially  an 
interference  with  the  prerogative  of  the  Governor- 
General,  and  was  to  be  softened  down  so  as  in  no  wise 
to  give  offence.  But  Lord  Canning  was  not  a  man, 
in  such  a  case,  to  raise  a  question  of  privilege,  or, 
assured  that  it  was,  actually  or  presumedly,  for  the 
official  good,  to  shoot  out  any  porcupine-quills  from 
his  wounded  official  dignity.  He  took  the  interference 


426  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

1866.  in  good  part ;  thanked  the  Chairman  for  the  delica<y 
with  which  it  had  been  communicated,  and  promised 
to  give  Outram  his  best  support.  He  had  doubted, 
he  said,  whether  Outram's  health  and  strength  would •, 
be  sufficient  to  bear  the  burdens  that  would  be  im- 
posed upon  him.  "But  the  Queen's  Government," 
he  continued,  "  and  the  Secret  Committee  have  seen 
him  in  recovered  health,  and  if  they  are  satisfied  that 
he  is  in  a  condition  to  undertake  the  labour  and  trial 
of  such  a  command,  ^vithout  risk  to  the  interest  con- 
fided to  him,  I  have  no  objection  to  make,  nor  any 
wish  to  shake  myself  clear  of  responsibility."  And 
then,  with  a  reference  to  a  memorandum  on  the  future 
conduct  of  the  campaign  which  Outram  had  drawn 
up  in  England,  the  Governor-General  added,  "  It  is  a 
pleasure  to  me  to  declare  that  I  have  been  greatly 
struck  by  all  that  has  proceeded  from  General  Outram 
in  regard  to  future  operations  in  Persia.  I  think  his 
plans  excellent,  prudent  for  the  present,  and  capable 
of  easy  expansion  hereafter,  and  the  means  which  he 
proposes  for  carrying  them  out  for  the  most  part  well 
suited.  For  everything  that  I  have  yet  heard  of  his 
proposals  he  shall  have  my  cordial  support." 
1857.  Whilst  the  first  division  of  the  expeditionary  force 

Central-Asian  under  Stalker  was  commencing  operations  with  good 
Policy.  success  in  the  Persian  Gulf,    the  new  year  found 

Outram  at  Bombay  superintending  the  despatch  of 
the  second.  But  it  was  not  only  by  these  move- 
ments from  the  sea-board  that  an  impression  was 
now  to  be  made  on  the  fears  of  the  Court  of  Teheran. 
Diplomacy  was  to  do  its  work  in  the  country  which 
lay  between  India  and  Persia.  Reluctant  as  he  had 
been,  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  year,  to  commit  him- 
self to  any  decided  course  of  Central-Asian  policy. 
Lord  Canning  now  began  to  discern  more  clearly 


CENTBAL-ASUN  POLICY.  427 

the  benefits  that  might  arise  from  a  friendly  alliance  1856. 
with  the  Ameer  of  Caubul.  There  was  no  longer  any 
chance  of  a  pacific  solution  of  our  difficulties.  War 
had  been  proclaimed.  Herat  had  fallen.  Dost  Ma- 
homed had  put  forth  plentiful  indications  of  a  strong 
desire  for  an  English  alliance ;  and  the  English  Go- 
vernment at  home  appeared  to  be  not  unwilling  to 
meet  his  cashes.  That  some  action  must  now  be 
taken  in  that  direction  was  certain.  Already  had 
arms  and  money  been  sent  into  Afghanistan ;  but 
with  no  specific  undertaking  on  the  one  side  or  the 
other,  and  it  appeared  desirable  to  put  the  matter 
now  upon  a  more  secure  and  a  more  dignified  footing 
than  that  of  temporary  shifts  and  expedients.  But 
there  were  great  diversities  of  opinion  as  to  the  shape 
which  should  be  taken  by  British  action  in  the 
Afghan  countries.  Lord  Canning  had  always  had  at 
least  one  clear  conception  about  the  matter ;  that  it 
was  better  to  do  little  than  to  do  much,  and  wise  not 
to  do  that  little  a  day  sooner  than  was  needed.  The 
terrible  lessons  which  had  been  burnt  into  us  sixteen 
years  before  had  lost  none  of  their  significance.  The 
warning  voice  was  still  sounding  in  our  ears;  the 
saving  hand  was  still  beckoning  us  away  from  those 
gloomy  passes.  It  could  never  again  enter  into  our 
imaginations  to  conceive  the  idea  of  turning  back  the 
tide  of  Russo-Persian  invasion  by  making  war  against 
the  national  will  and  the  substantive  Government  of 
the  Afghans.  But  the  monitions  of  the  Past  did  not 
stop  there.  They  cautioned  us  against  ever  sending 
a  tingle  British  regiment  across  the  Afghan  frontier. 
Neither  the  Princes  nor  the  People  of  Afghanistan 
were  to  be  trusted,  if  the  memories  of  their  wrongs 
were  to  be  reawakened  within  them  by  the  presence 
of  that  which  had  done  them  such  grievous  harm. 


428  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

1856.  So,  although  among  the  schemes  which  were  dis- 
cussed, and  in  some  military  quarters  advocated,  was 
the  project  of  an  auxiliary  British  force,  acting  in 
close  alliance  with  the  Afghans,  it  was  never  for  a 
moment  seriously  entertained  in  the  CouncU  Cham- 
ber.  But  to  assail  Persia  in  some  measure  from  that 
side,  whilst  we  were  operating  upon  the  sea-board; 
to  recover  Herat,  and,  at  the  same  time,  to  occupy 
some  of  the  littoral  provinces  of  the  Persian  Empire ; 
was  doubtless  to  put  enormous  pressure  upon  the 
Shah,  to  hold  him,  as  it  were,  in  a  vice,  helpless  and 
agonised,  and  to  extort  from  him  all  that  we  might 
want.  This,  peradventure,  might  be  done,  by  con- 
tinuing to  send  British  bayonets  into  Afghanistan, 
but  without,  as  of  old,  British  valour  to  wield  them ; 
so  many  thousands  of  stands  of  arms,  not  so  many 
thousands  of  soldiers  ;  and  British  money,  lakhs 
upon  lakhs,  but  no  British  hands  to  dispense  it.  In 
a  word,  if  we  could  manage  successfully  to  subsidise 
Dost  Mahomed,  and  hold  him,  by  the  bonds  of  self- 
interest,  to  a  friendly  covenant,  Avhereby,  whilst  aid- 
ing us  he  would  aid  himself,  we  might  bring  the  war 
much  more  rapidly  to  a  conclusion  than  if  no  such 
alliance  were  formed. 
Dost     ^  But  there  were  strong  doubts  of  the  good  faith  of 

Dost  Mahomed.  The  wily  old  Ameer,  it  was  said, 
was  waiting  upon  the  shore  of  circumstance,  willing 
to  sail  in  the  same  boat  with  us,  if  tide  and  stream 
should  be  in  our  favour  and  a  fair  wind  setting  in 
for  success.  For  some  time,  there  had  been  going  on 
between  the  Governor-General  of  India  and  the 
Ruler  of  Caubul  certain  passages  of  diplomatic 
coquetry,  which  had  resulted  rather  in  a  promise 
of  a  close  alliance,  a  kind  of  indefinite  betrothal, 
than  in  the  actual  accomplishment  of  the  fact.     We 


Mahomed. 


DOST  MAHOMED  KUAN.  429 

had  condoned  the  offence  committed  by  the  Ameer  1849. 
at  the  close  of  the  last  war  in  the  Punjab,  when  he 
had  sent  some  of  his  best  troops,  in  the  uniforms  of 
our  own  slaughtered  soldiers,  to  aid  the  Sikhs  in 
their  efforts  to  expel  us ;  and  whilst  Dalhousie  was 
still  the  ruler  of  India,  an  engagement  of  general  March  30, 
amity  had  been  negotiated  by  John  Lawrence  on  the  ^^^^' 
one  side,  and  Hyder  Khan  on  the  other,  between  the 
English  and  the  Afghans.  It  was  probably  intended, 
with  a  forecast  of  the  coming  rupture  with  Persia, 
that  this  should  in  time  be  expanded  into  a  more 
definite  treaty  with  Dost  Mahomed ;  and  more  than 
two  years  before  the  occasion  actually  arose,  the  sub- 
sidising of  the  Ameer  loomed  in  the  distance.*  It 
was  an  old  idea.  Mr.  Henry  Ellis  had  entertained 
it;  Sir  John  M'Neill  had  entertained  it;f  and  if 
Lord  Auckland's  Secretaries  had  allowed  him  to 
entertain  it,  it  is  probable  that  the  events  of  which  I 
am  about  to  write  would  never  have  afforded  me 
a  subject  of  History.  In  an  hour  of  miserable  in- 
fatuation, we  had  played  the  perilous  game  of  King- 
making,  and  had  forced  an  unpopular  pageant  upon 

*  It  was  talked  of,  indeed,  before  interference  beyond  the  passes,  and 

the  compact  of  1855,  but  did  not  no  backing  ot   one  party   or   an- 

form  a  part  of  it.  In  1854  (June  19),  other." 

Sir  Henry  Lawrence  wrote  to  the  f   One    passage    in    Sir    John 

author :  *'  I  fancy  that  we  shall  have  McNeill's    early    correspondence  I 

some  sort  of  Treaty  with  Dost  Ma-  cannot  help  quoting.    There  is  rare 

homed,  unless  Lord  Dalhousie  oyer-  prescience  in  it:  "Dost  Mahomed 

reach  himself  by  too  great  anxiety  Khan,  with  a  little  aid  from  us, 

and  by  agreeing  to  pay  him  a  suIk-  could  be  put  in  possession  of  both 

sidy.    If  Persia  attack  Afghanistan,  Candahar  and  Herat.    I  anxiously 

the  heln  we  should  give  the  latter  hope  that  aid  will  not    be  with- 

should  DC  by  attacking  Persia  from  held.    A  loan  of  money  would  pro- 

the  Gulf.    We  should  not  send  a  bably  enable  him  to  do  this,  and 

rupee  or  a  man  into  Afghanistan,  would  give  us  a  great  hold  upon 

"We  should  express  readiness  to  for-  him.  .  .  .  Until  Dost  Mahomed  or 

S're  and  forget,   to  cry  quits  in  some  other  Afghan  shall  ha?e  got 

fghan  matters,    and  pledge  our-  both  Candahar  and  Herat  into  nis 

selves  to  li?e  as  good  neighbours  in  hands,  oar  position  here  must  oon- 

future ;  bat  there  ought  to  be  no  tinoe  to  be  a  fidse  one." 


430  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

1856.      a  reluctant  people.     Now,  after  bitter  experience,  we 
were  reverting  to  the  first  conception  of  our  diplo- 
matists; but  mild  as  comparatively  the  interference 
was,  it  was  held  by  some  great  authorities  to  be  wiser 
to  leave  Afghanistan   and  the  Afghans  altogether 
alone.    In  spite  of  the  present  benefit  to  be  derived 
from  applying  in  that  quarter  a  blister  to  the  side  of 
Persia,  it  might  be  better  to  suflFer  the  old  Ameer  to 
make  the  most  of  the  crisis  after  his  o^vn  fashion. 
He  would  not  fight  our  battles  for  us  without  sub- 
stantial help ;  but  he  might  fight  his  own,  and  there 
could  be  no  time,  for  the  extension  of  his  dominion 
•to  Herat,  so  opportune  as  that  which  saw   Persia 
entangled  in  a  Avar  with  England.     But  Dost  Ma- 
homed had  too  clear  a  knowledge  of  the  English, 
and  Afghan  cupidity  was  too  strong  within  him,  to 
suffer  this  gratuitous  co-operation.     He  knew  that  if 
he  waited,  we  should  purchase  his  aid ;  so  he  magni- 
fied the  difficulties  of  the  march  to  Herat,  talked  of 
the  deficiency  of  his  resources,  and  otherwise  pre- 
tended that  he  lacked  strength  for  a  successful  enter- 
prise  without   continuous  pecuniary   aid   from  the 
English.     Whether,  having  received  such  assistance 
from  us,  he  would  render  effectual  service  in  return 
for  it,  seemed  to  some  of  our  Indian  statesmen  ex- 
tremely doubtful,  for  there  was  the  lowest  possible 
estimate  in  their  minds  of  Afghan  truth  and  Afghan 
honour.     There  was  the  fear  that  the  old  Ameer 
would  set  an  extravagant  price  on  his  services,  and 
that  by  disappointing  his  expectations,  if  not  scout- 
ing his  pretensions,  we  might  inopportunely  excite 
his  animosities  against  us.     Some,  indeed,  thought 
that  he  looked  eagerly  to  the  conjuncture  as  one  that 
might  help  him  to  realise  his  old  day-dream,  the 
recovery  of  Peshawur.    There  was,  in  truth,  no  lack 


HERBERT  EDWARDES.  431 

of  sagacity  in  these  anticipations ;  but,  perhaps,  at  1856. 
the  bottom  of  them  there  lay  too  deep  a  distrust  of 
the  personal  character  of  the  Ameer.  He  had,  in  all 
candour  it  must  be  admitted,  too  much  reason  to 
doubt  the  good  faith  of  the  English.  He  could 
fathom  the  depths  of  our  selfishness  as  well  as  we 
could  fathom  the  depths  of  his  guile.  In  truth,  there 
were  causes  of  mutual  suspicion ;  and  little  good  was 
likely  to  come  from  the  distant  fencing  of  diplomatic 
correspondence.  So  at  last  it  was  resolved  to  test 
the  sincerity  of  the  Ameer  by  inviting  him  to  a  con- 
ference on  the  frontier. 

At  that  time,  Herbert  Edwardes,  he  of  whose  Herbert 
glorious  youthful  impulses  I  have  spoken  in  the  first  ^*  ^** 
chapter  of  this  work,  was  Commissioner  of  Peshawur. 
He  had  grown,  by  good-service  brevet,  rather  than 
by  the  slow  process  of  regimental  promotion,  from 
Lieutenant  to  Lieutenant-Colonel.  His  career  had 
been  a  prosperous  one,  and  its  prosperity  was  well 
deserved.  The  great  reputation  which  he  had  gained 
as  an  ambitious  subaltern,  brought  down  upon  him 
at  one  time  a  shower  of  small  jealousies  and  detrac- 
tions. He  had  been  feasted  and  flattered  in  England, 
and  there  were  some  who,  doubtless,  with  a  certain 
self-consciousness  of  what  would  be  likely  to  flow 
from  such  adulations,  said  that  his  head  was  turned, 
and  that  he  had  been  overrated.  But  one,  the  noble 
helpmate  of  a  truly  noble  man,  wrote  to  me  at  this  Honoria 
time,  as  one,  however,  not  doubting,  for  I  had  like  *^^"^' 
faith,  that  Herbert  Edwardes  was  one  of  Nature's 
true  nobility,  and  that  surely  I  should  live  to  know 
it.  It  was  right.  Under  the  La^vrences,  Henry  and 
John,  both  of  whom  he  dearly  loved,  he  grew  to  be 
one  of  the  main  pillars  of  the  Punjabee  Administra- 
tion ;  and  now  he  was  in  charge  of  that  part  of  the 


432  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

1856.  old  domimons  of  Runjit  Singh  which  lay  beyond 
the  Indus ;  the  Proconsulate  of  Peshawur.  Planted 
thus  upon  the  frontier  of  Afghanistan,  it  was  one  of 
his  special  duties  to  watch  the  progress  of  events  in 
that  country,  and  duly  to  report  upon  them  to  the 
higher  authorities.  Of  direct  diplomatic  action  there 
had  been  little  or  none ;  but  no  one  knew  what  a 
day  might  produce,  and  it  was  ever  therefore  among 
the  responsibilities  of  the  Peshawur  Commissioner  to 
be  well  versed  in  the  politics  of  Caubul,  and  pre- 
pared, in  any  conjuncture,  to  counsel  the  course  to  be 
taken  by  the  British  Government. 

For  some  time  there  had  been  much  to  observe 
and  much  to  report,  and  now  a  conjuncture  had 
arisen,  which  seemed  to  require  from  us  that  we 
should  act.  Persia  was  doing  all  that  could  be  done 
to  enlist  the  sympathies  of  Central  Asia  on  her  side, 
even  in  the  far  off  regions  of  Bokhara  and  Eokund, 
by  sending  abroad,  as  a  proof  of  the  dangers  of  Eng- 
lish friendship,  copies  of  the  pro-Christian  Firman 
of  the  Sultan,  which  had  been  issued  at  the  close  of 
the  Russian  war.  It  was  fortunate,  therefore,  that  at 
this  time  the  political  animosities  of  the  Afghans 
were  strongly  excited  against  the  Persians,  for,  per- 
haps, under  such  pressure,  the  chronic  sectarian  jea- 
lousies which  kept  the  two  nations  apart  might  for  a 
while  have  been  merged  in  a  common  religious 
hatred  of  the  Feringhees.  A  very  little  done,  or  left 
undone  on  our  part,  to  offend  the  old  Ameer,  might 
have  lost  to  us  for  ever  the  only  serviceable  Mahome- 
dan  alliance  that  could  have  availed  us  in  such  a 
crisis.  To  no  man  was  the  value  of  this  alliance  so 
apparent  as  to  Herbert  Edwardes;  no  man  pressed 
its  importance  so  earnestly  upon  the  Governor-Gene- 
ral.    He  believed  that  Dost  Mahomed  would  respond 


INVITATION  TO  DOST  MAHOMED.  433 

with  pleasure  to  an  invitation  to  meet  on  the  1857. 
frontier  of  the  two  States  a  representative  of  the 
British  Government,  and  to  discuss  the  terms  of  a 
friendly  alliance ;  and  he  recommended  that  this  in- 
vitation should  be  sent  to  him.  Reluctant  as  Lord 
Canning  had  been  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  year  to 
commit  himself  to  any  decided  course  of  Afghan 
policy,  he  now  before  the  close  of  it,  in  the  altered 
circumstances  that  had  arisen,  yielded  to  this  sug- 
gestion, and  aftenvards,  with  that  frankness  which  sat 
so  becomingly  upon  him,  gracefully  acknowledged 
its  wisdom,  and  thanked  the  suggester. 

So  Dost  Mahomed  was  invited  to  a  conference  at 
Pcshawur.  He  was,  if  willing  to  meet  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  British  Government,  to  discuss  per- 
sonally Avith  them  the  terms  of  the  alliance.  Either 
Sir  John  Lawrence,  accompanied  by  Colonel  Ed- 
wardes,  or  Colonel  Edwardes  alone,  as  might  be  de- 
termined between  them,  was  to  meet  the  old  Ameer 
on  the  frontier,  to  feel  his  pulse,  and  to  prescribe 
accordingly.  It  would  have  been  a  great  oppor- 
tunity for  the  younger  man  ;  but  Edwardes,  to  whom 
the  decision  was  left  by  LaA\Tence,  for  ever  giving 
the  lie  to  all  that  had  been  charged  against  him  on 
the  score  of  vanity  and  self-assertion,  strongly  urged 
that  the  Mission  should  be  headed  by  his  beloved 
Chief.  Lawrence  much  doubting,  however,  whether 
the  Ameer  would  come,  and  little  expecting  a  suc- 
cessful issue  if  he  should  come,  lauded  the  magna- 
nimity of  his  more  sanguine  friend,  •  and  prepared 
himself  with  all  the  earnestness  of  his  nature  to  prove 
the  groundlessness  of  his  own  anticipations  of  failure. 

They  were  groundless.  The  Ameer  accepted  the 
invitation,  marched  doAvn  with  two  of  his  sons,  some 
of  his  chosen  counsellors,  and  a  body  of  picked  troops, 

2f 


434  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

Janna^  1,  to  the  frontier :  and  on  the  first  day  of  the  new  year 
received  in  the  Kliybur  Pass  the  first  visit  of  the 
British  Commissioners.  It  was  with  no  eommon  in- 
terest that  LaAvrence,  Edwardes,  Sydney  Cotton,  and 
the  other  English  officers  who  accompanied  them, 
looked  into  the  face  of  the  old  Ameer,  whose  white 
beard  and  venerable  aspect  had,  fifteen  years  before, 

been  so  familiar  to  the  eves  of  the  dwellers  in  Cal- 

•I 

cutta,  and  who  in  his  fallen  fortunes,  half-prisoner 
and  half-gnest,  had  been  a  not  unworthy  object  of 
our  sympathies.  When,  nearly  half  a  century  before, 
the  representatives  of  the  British  Government  had 
been  received  almost  on  the  same  spot  by  Shah 
Soojah,  they  had  found  the  Caubul  ruler  arrayed  in 
gorgeous  apparel,  his  whole  person  a  blaze  of  jewel- 
lery, with  the  Koh-i-noor  outshining  it  all ;  but  the 
English  gentlemen  now  saAV  before  them  only  a  hale 
old  man,  very  simply  attired  in  a  garment  of  the 
coarse  camel-hair  of  the  country.  They  found  him 
full  of  energy,  full  of  sagacitj^ ;  courteous  and  friendly 
in  his  outer  manner ;  glad  to  welcome  them  to  his 
camp.  It  was  only  a  visit  of  ceremony ;  repaid,  two 
days  later,  by  the  Ameer,  who  was  received  in  the 
grand  English  style  near  Peshawur.  Our  troops 
formed  a  street  more  than  a  mile  long,  and  after 
the  Durbar  marched  past  the  Ameer  and  his  host  in 
review  order.  More  than  seven  thousand  British 
fighting  men  were  assembled  there,  and  among  them 
were  three  complete  European  regiments,  whose 
steady  discipline,  and  solidity,  and  fine  soldieriy 
bearing,  made  a  strong  impression  on  the  minds  of 
the  Afghan  visitors,  from  the  aged  Ameer  himself  to 
the  youngest  trooper  of  his  escort. 

The  formal  interviews  thus  accomplished,  the  se- 
rious business  of  the  conference  commenced  on  the 


THE  PESIUWUR  COXFEREXCES.  435 

5th  of  January.  The  Ameer  had  pitched  his  Camp  1857- 
at  Jumrood,  and  there  La^vrence  and  Edwardes 
visited  him,  accompanied  by  Major  Lumsden  of  the 
Guides.  Dost  Mahomed,  his  sons  standing  behind 
him,  and  a  few  chosen  Sirdars  on  his  left,  opened  the 
discussions  with  a  long  exposition  of  the  recent 
struggles  in  Herat^  and  of  the  policy  which  he  had 
himself  pursued.  He  had  entertained  no  schemes  of 
conquest  embracing  that  principality.  The  move- 
ments which  the  Persians  had  thus  pretended  to  in- 
terpret were  directed  only  towards  Candahar.  But 
he  frankly  avoAved  his  eager  longing  to  recover 
Herat ;  and,  please  God  and  the  English,  he  would 
take  it  from  the  Persians.  Swearing  by  Allah  and 
the  Prophet  that,  from  that  time,  he  would  be  our 
friend,  let  all  the  world  be  against  him,  he  declared, 
as  his  enthusiasm  kindled,  that  let  the  English  but 
make  a  diversion  in  the  Persian  Gulf  and  supply  him 
with  money  and  with  arms,  he  would  mine  the  walls 
of  Herat,  blow  up  the  towers,  and  take  the  place  at 
the  point  of  the  sword ;  or  raise  such  a  flame  in  the 
surrounding  country  as  fairly  to  burn  the  Persians 
out  of  it.  The  Toorcomans  and  the  Usbegs  would 
rise  at  his  bidding,  and  join  against  a  common  foe. 

From  that  distant-frontier  post,  on  the  very  out- 
skirts of  our  empire,  the  telegraphic  wires  ran  right 
up  to  the  vice-regal  capital,  and  the  Governor-Gene- 
ral and  the  Chief  Commissioner  were  corresponding 
by  the  "  lightning  post"  between  Calcutta  and  Pesha- 
wur.  So  it  happened  that  Avhilst  John  LaA\Tence  and 
Dost  Mahomed  were  in  conference,  a  horseman  gal- 
loped up  'with  a  message  from  the  former,  despatched 
on  the  preceding  day.  In  it  Lord  Canning  told 
La'wrence  that  a  reinforcement  of  five  thousand  men 
would  be  sent  as  quickly  as  possible  to  the  Persian 

2f2 


486  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

1857.       Gulf;  and  that  amongst  the  conditions  of  Peace  with 
Persia  would  be  a  stipulation  that  she  should  with- 
draw her  troops  from  Herat,  and  renounce  for  ever 
her  pretensions  to  interfere  with  Afghanistan.     The 
significant  words,  "  You  may  make  use  of  this,"  were 
included  in  the  message.     But  the  time  had  not  then 
come  for  the  best  use  to  be  made  of  it;  so   John 
La^vrence,   reserving  the  rest  for  more   opportune 
disclosure,  announced  only  that  the  reinforcements 
were  about  to  be  despatched  to  the  Gulf.     It  w^as  his 
design,  at  that  first  meeting,  to  elicit  the  views  and 
intentions  of  the  Ameer  rather  than  to  disclose  those 
of  his  o^vn  Government.*    So,  making  no  promises  of 
any  kind,  he  indicated  the  difficulties  that  seemed  to 
lie  in  the  way  of  the  Afghan  ruler,  and  asked  for  a 
recital  of  the  means  and  resources,  by  which  they 
were  to  be  overcome,  already  at  his  disposal,  and  the 
extent  of  the  aid  which  he  w^ould  require  from  the 
English.     But  this  was  too  momentous  a  question  to 
be  answered,  without  much  thought  and  calculation ; 
so  the  Ameer,  seeking  time  for  deliberation,  said  that 
he  would  unfold  his  views  fuUy  at  the  next  meeting ; 
and  so  the  conference  broke  up  for  the  day. 
January?,        On  the  7th,   Dost  Mahomed,   attended  by  a  few 
chosen  counsellors,  visited  the  British  Camp,  and  the 
conferences  were  renewed  in  the  Chief  Commissioner's 
tent.    Pursuing  the  old  process  of  drawing-out,  John 
Lawrence,  at  the  outset,  reminded  the  Ameer  of  his 

♦  This  course,  though  doubtless  can  contribute  towards  it,  even  whilst 

the  one  that  would  have  supjgested  it  continues  the  same.     For  these 

itself  to  John  Lawrence's  unaided  reasons,  it  is  necessary  first  that  we 

judgment,  was  expressly  dictated  by  should  know  what  he  caii  do ;  and 

Lord  Canning,  who  had  written  on  next,  that  we  should  come  to  a  clear 

the  2nd  of  December  to  the  Chief  understanding  as  to  the  conditions 

Commissioner,  saying,  "  It  is  not  cer-  upon  which  lie  shall  receive  aid  in 

tain  that  our  object  will  continue  the  doing  it.  The  meeting  ought  to  clear 

same  as  the  Ameer's ;  neither  is  it  up  the  first  point  at  once." — MS, 

certain  to  what  extent  the  Ameer  Corretpond^nce, 


1867. 


VIEWS  OF  THE  AMEER.  437 

promise  to  state  fully  his  views  and  intentions ;  but  1857. 
it  required  some  resolution  and  perseverance  to  keep 
the  old  Afghan  to  this  point,  and  it  was  not  without 
difficulty  that  the  promised  revelation  was  extorted 
from  him.  At  last  he  explained  that,  owing  to  the 
state  of  the  season,  he  could  not  commence  his  march 
on  Herat  until  after  the  expiration  of  a  period  of  two 
months ;  grass  and  young  grain  would  then  be  spring- 
ing  up,  and  with  the  aid  of  some  not  very  elaborate 
commissariat  arrangements,  he  would  be  able  to  find 
provisions  for  his  troops ;  that  he  proposed  to  march 
one  column  from  Balkh  and  another  from  Candahar. 
The  muster-roll  of  his  troops  showed  some  thirty-five 
thousand  men  and  sixty  guns.  These,  he  said,  should 
be  raised  to  fifty  thousand  men  with  a  hundred  guns ; 
four-fifths  of  the  men  and  nearly  the  whole  of  the 
guns  should,  he  said,  be  moved  upon  Herat.  "  But," 
he  added,  "if  you  say  take  more  troops,  I  will  take 
more ;  if  you  say  less  will  suffice,  I  will  take  less.  I 
have  given  you  my  own  opinion,  but  you  Sahibs 
know  Persia  best."  But  when  pressed  for  a  state- 
ment of  the  amount  of  aid  he  would  require,  he  said, 
that  on  the  morrow  morning  his  son,  Azim  Jah, 
would  wait  upon  the  English  gentlemen  with  all  the 
required  information  in  a  digested  form,  in  order  that 
they  might  judge  for  themselves. 

So  the  conference  broke  up ;  and  on  the  following 
day  the  Ameer's  sons,  accompanied  by  a  few  of  his 
ministers,  waited  upon  John  Lawrence,  and  laid 
before  him  a  detailed  statement  of  the  finances  of 
Afghanistan,  and  of  the  military  resources  of  the 
empire ;  together  'snth  an  estimate  of  the  aid  that 
would  be  required  from  the  English  to  enable  the 
Afghans  to  drive  the  Persians  out  of  Herat,  and  to 
hold  their  own  against  all  comers.     The  aid  that  was 


438  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

1857.  thus  sought  amounted  in  money  to  sixty-four  lakhs 
of  rupees  a  year,  whilst  the  war  lasted,  and  in  mimi- 
tions  to  more  than  fifty  guns,  eight  thousand  stands  of 
small  arms,  and  ammunition  at  discretion.  It  was  more 
than  the  English  Government  were  likely  to  be  will- 
ing to  give,  but  not  more  than  appeared  really  to  be 
wanted.  The  largeness  of  the  demand,  however,  sug- 
gested the  idea  of  a  less  extensive  enterprise ;  and  so 
Lawrence  asked  what  would  be  required  to  enable 
the  Afghans,  abandoning  all  aggi^essive  movements, 
to  hold  their  own,  without  danger  of  encroachments 
from  the  westward.  The  question  was  not  a  welcome 
one.  The  Afghans  were  hot  for  an  advance  on  Herat. 
If  they  were  to  sit  doAvn  within  their  own  dominions, 
the  Persians  would  assuredly  occupy  Furrah.  It  was 
for  the  English,  of  course,  to  decide  upon  the  course 
to  be  pursued,  but  it  was  more  in  accordance  'Nvith 
the  genius  and  temper  of  the  Afghans  to  take  vigorous 
action  in  advance.  Still,  however,  John  La^vrence 
pressed  for  a  statement  of  the  requirements  of  the  Af- 
ghans if  a  strictly  defensive  policy  were  maintained. 
The  Sirdai's  could  give  no  answer  without  consulting 
the  Ameer,  so  the  conference  broke  up;  and  next 
day  they  returned  with  the  statement  that,  in  addi- 
tion to  what  had  already  been  supplied,  four  thou- 
sand muskets  would  be  required,  and  money  to  pay 
eight  thousand  regular  troops ;  one-half  to  be  em- 
ployed in  the  Gandahar  countrj',  and  the  other  half 
^  in  ]>alkh.  But  still  they  were  eager  for  the  larger 
enterprise  ;  and  one  of  them  whispered  to  Edwardes 
that  the  enmity  between  the  Afghans  and  the  Persians 
was  not  merely  an  affair  of  this  world,  for  that 
Sheeahs  and  Soonees  must  alwavs  hate  each  other  in 
the  world  to  come.  There  was  nothing  more  now 
to  be  said.     The  Afghans,  on  their  part,  had  made 


TELEGRAPHIC  ACTION.  439 

knowii  their  wishes ;  and  all  the  English  gentlemen      1857. 
could  say  in  reply  was,  that  they  would  at  once  com- 
municate with  their  Government. 

So  the  telegraphic  wires  were  again  set  in  motion, 
and  the  substance  of  what  had  passed  at  the  two  last 
meetings  was  communicated  to  the  Governor-General 
at  Calcutta.     Then  there  was  doubt  in  the  Council 
Chamber.     Would  it  be  better  to  await  detailed  re- 
ports from  Peshawur  by  post,  or  at  once  to  send 
telegraphic  instructions  to  Sir  John  LawTcnce  ?    The 
fonner  course  was  determined  upon,  and  a  message 
to  that  effect  despatched  to  Peshawur.     Lawrence 
had  sent  in  detailed  reports  of  the  meetings,  and  had 
added  to  the  last  an  expression  of  his  o^vn  views  as  to 
what  should  be  done.     He  recommended  that  as- 
sistance on  the  larger  scale,  for  the  siege  of  Herat, 
should  not  be  given  to  Dost  Mahomed,  but  that  we 
should  give  lum  the  four  thousand  muskets  that  he 
required,  and  an  annual  subsidy  of  twelve  lakhs  of 
rupees,  so  long  as  England  and  Persia  might  be  at 
war  with  each  other.     But  it  did  not  seem  to  him  to 
be  wise  to  await  the  slow  process  of  correspondence 
by  letter.    The  Ameer  was  eager  to  depart ;  and  some 
time  must  be  necessarily  occupied  in  the  negotiation 
of  a  formal  agreement.     So  Lawrence   telegraphed 
the   substance  of  his  recommendation  to  Calcutta, 
urged  that  nothing  would  l)e  gained  by  awaiting  his 
more  detailed  reports,  and  asked  permission  to  com- 
municate to  the  Ameer  the  proposal  which  he  thought 
it  best  to  make.     To  this  a  message  Avas  promptly 
returned,   savino: :   "  Vou  mav  tell  the  Ameer  that 
the  terms  are  agreed  to.     Four  tliousand  stand  of 
arms  and  twelve  lakhs  a  year,  whilst  England  is  at 
war  witli  Persia.     You  Avill  proceed  to  arrange  the 
articles  of  agreement  and  report  them  by  telegraph." 


4 10  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINr. 

1857.  This   message  was   despatched   on    the    13th  of 

January.  On  the  following  morning  Lawrence  and 
Edwardes  proceeded  to  Dost  Mahomed's  camp,  and 
unfolded  to  him  the  views  and  intentions  of  the 
British  Government.  With  less  appearance  of  dis- 
appointment than  had  been  expected,  the  Ameer 
assented  to  the  abandonment  of  the  expedition  to 
Herat,  and  accepted  the  modified  proposal  of  the 
English.  But  the  despatch  of  a  party  of  British 
officers  to  Caubul,  which  was  to  form  part  of  the 
agreement,  appeared  to  be  distasteful  to  him.  When 
active  ofiensive  warfare  against  Persia  had  been  con- 
templated, he  cherished  the  thought  of  their  presence 
with  his  troops;  but  now  the  state  of  afiairs  was 
altered.  The  point,  however,  was  one  not  to  be 
yielded.  If  the  British  were  to  give  the  subsidy, 
they  were  entitled  to  see  it  rightly  appropriated. 
Then  the  Ameer  lowered  his  tone,  and  said  that  he 
was  ready  to  do  what  was  expedient ;  and  finally  he 
agreed  to  all  that  was  proposed.  But  next  day,  when 
his  son  Azim  Khan,  accompanied  by  other  chiefs, 
visited,  according  to  agreement,  the  English  Com- 
missioners, to  settle  the  precise  terms  of  agreement, 
the  question  of  the  Mission  to  Caubul  was  reopened. 
It  was  urged  that  the  appearance  of  British  officers 
at  the  Afghan  capital  might  compromise  the  Ameer 
either  with  his  own  people  or  Avith  his  English  friends. 
There  would  be  danger  in  their  path  at  Caubul ;  but 
at  Candahar,  threatened  by  the  Persians,  their  pre- 
sence would  be  better  understood,  and  they  might 
abide  in  perfect  security.  Nearly  fifteen  years  had 
passed  since  our  retributive  Army  had  set  its  mark 
upon  the  Afghan  capital ;  but  still  the  hatred  which 
our  usurpation  had  engendered  was  fresh  in  the 
minds  of  the  people,  and  Dost  Mahomed  knew  that 


THE  MISSION  TO  CANDAHAR.  441 

there  were  those  in  Caubul  whom  he  could  not  trust  1857. 
within  reach  of  an  English  throat.  It  was  a  sad 
thought;  and  Lawrence  could  not  but  ask  how  the 
alliance  between  the  two  nations  could  ever  strike 
deep  root  when  in  one  country  such  suspicions  and 
animosities  were  never  suffered  to  sleep.  What  the 
English  wanted  was  not  a  temporary  alliance  dic- 
tated by  an  emergency  of  self-interest,  but  an  en- 
during friendship  based  upon  mutual  confidence  and 
respect.  But  Dost  Mahomed  knew  the  Afghans  well, 
and  little  wisdom  would  there  have  been  in  disre- 
garding a  warning  which  every  Englishman's  heart 
must  have  told  him  was  an  utterance  of  the  voice  of 
truth.  So  it  was  resolved  that,  although  we  should 
claim,  and  duly  record,  our  right  to  send  British 
officers  to  Caubul,  as  to  other  parts  of  Afghanistan, 
yet  that  practically  the  Mission  should,  in  the  first 
instance,  proceed  only  to  Candahar.  It  was  better 
than  that  our  officers  should  be  smuggled  into  the 
capital,  surrounded  by  the  Ameer's  troops,  virtually 
prisoners  under  the  name  of  protected  guests.  There 
was,  at  all  events,  some  definite  meaning  in  their 
proceeding  to  the  more  western  city,  for  it  was  a 
better  point  from  which  to  observe  the  movements  of 
the  Persians.  But  what  route  were  they  to  take? 
It  was  the  Ameer's  wish  that  the  Mission  should  pro- 
ceed by  way  of  the  Bolan  Pass ;  but  this,  although 
the  route  by  which  Shah  Soojah  and  the  Army  of 
the  Indus  had  marched  into  Afghanistan,  was  said  to 
be  entering  the  country  by  a  back  door.  It  was, 
therefore,  finally  determined  that  the  Mission  should 
proceed  by  way  of  the  Paiwar  Pass,*  an  unexplored 

♦  "  It  was  deemed  advisable  that  been  traversed  by  Europeans,  and 

the  Mission  should  journey  to  Can-  was  consequently  unknown  prouud, 

daliar  by  the  route  of  the  Paiwar  and  full  of  interest  to  the  British  in 

Pass,  a  road  that  had  never  before  a  military  point  of  view,  as  being  one 


j.^-^^jm^a^a^tamtm-t. 


442  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINT. 

1857.  road,  to  Candahar ;  and  that  Major  Henry  Lumsden, 
of  the  Guide  corps,  an  officer  of  great  courage  and 
capacity,  versed  in  the  politics  of  Afghanistan,  who 
had  been  marked  from  the  first  for  the  conduct  of 
this  enterprise,  should  be  placed  at  its  head.  His 
brother.  Lieutenant  Peter  Lumsden,  was  to  accom- 
pany him,  and  Mr.  Henry  Bellew  was  selected  to 
take  medical  charge  of  the  Mission ;  a  post  of  more 
importance  than  it  appears  to  be  in  an  official  gazette, 
for  in  such  diplomacies  as  these  the  Medicine-chest 
and  the  Lancet  are  often  more  serviceable  than  the 
Portfolio  and  the  Pen. 

On  the  26th  of  January,  the  Articles  of  Agree- 
ment, having  by  the  aid  of  the  telegraph  been  ap- 
proved by  the  Government  at  Calcutta,  were  ready 
for  seal  and  signature ;  and  a  meeting  for  the  con- 
clusion of  the  compact  was  held  in  Dost  Mahomed's 
tent.  In  attendance  on  the  Ameer  were  his  son 
Azim  Khan  and  several  of  his  chief  counsellors, 
whijst  La\\Tence,  Edwardes,  and  Lumsden  appeared 
on  behalf  of  the  English.  Written  in  Persian  and 
in  English,  the  articles  of  agreement  were  read  aloud 
in  Durbar.  By  these  the  Ameer  engaged  to  maintain 
a  force  of  eighteen  thousand  men ;  to  allow  British 
officers  to  be  stationed  at  Caubul,  Candahar,  or 
Balkh,  or  wherever  Afghan  troops  miglit  be  posted ; 
to  receive  a  AVakcel  at  Caubul,  and  to  send  one  to 
Calcutta;  and  to  communicate  to  the  Government 
of  India  anv  overtures  that  he  miixht  receive  from 
Persia  and  from  the  Allies  of  Persia  during  tlie  war. 
On  their  part,  the  English  undertook,  during  the 
continuance  of  hostilities,  to  pay  to  tlie  Ameer  a 
monthly  subsidy  of  a  lakh  of  rupees,  to  send  him 

of  the  approaches  by  which  an  in-     piro." — D-II'irs  .Imrual  (fa  Polifi- 
vadiiig  force  from  tlic  West  ini^ht     cul  Mi!<!<i()!i  tj  Aft/hanistun  inl^ol, 
cuter  and  attack  their  Indian  Etn- 


THE  TREATY  CONCLUDED.  443 

four  thousand  stands  of  arms,  and,  as  if  the  wrong      1857. 
done  had  been  all  against  us,  to  forget  and  forgive 
the  past.     It  was  explained  that  the  British  officers 
would  in  the  first  instance  proceed  to  Candahar ;  and 
with  this  assurance  the  Ameer  was  satisfied.     So  the 
Articles  of  Agreement  were  signed  and  sealed.    Then 
came  some  discussion  and  some  interchange  of  com- 
pliments.    A   message  from  the   Governor-General 
had  been  received  by  telegraph,  desiring  Sir  John 
Lawrence  to  express  to  Dost  Mahomed  "  the  satisfac- 
tion which  he  had  derived  from  his  frank  dealing, 
and  from  the  clear  understanding  on  which  affairs 
had  been  placed,"  together  with  the  best  wishes  for 
his  health  and  long  life,  and  a  word  of  regret  that  he 
had  not  himself  been  able  to  meet  the  Ameer.     The 
message  was  now  delivered  and  received  with  mani- 
fest gratification.     It  would  have  delighted  him,  he 
said,  to  meet  Lord  Canning,  but  he  could  not  expect 
his  Lordship  to  take  so  long  a  journey  to  see  him. 
He  had  knoAvn  two  Governor-Generals,  Lord  Auck- 
land and  Lord  EUenborough,  who  had  been  kind  to 
him  in  old  times  ;  he  remembered  also  with  gratitude 
the  kindness  of  two  other  English  gentlemen,  Mr. 
Wilberforce  Bird  and  Mr.  Thoby  Prinsep,*  who  had 
paid  him  much  attention  in  Calcutta.     "And  now," 
he  said,  in  conclusion,    "I  have  made  an   alliance 
with  the  British  Government,  and  come  what  may,  I 
will  keep  it  till  death."     And  the  j)romise  thus  given 
WHS   never  broken.     He   was   true   to   the   English 
alliance  to  the  last. 

On  the  fullowin<2:  day  a  Durljar  was  held  in  tlie  January  27, 

....  .  1857 

Camp  of  the  British  Commissioner,  and  the  chief 
officers  of  the  Ameer  s  suite  attended  to  take  their 
leave  of  the  Eniii^lish  ^xcntlenien.     Dost  ^Mahomed  had 

^  Tlicn  members  of  the  Supreme  Council  of  India. 


444  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINT. 

excused  himself  on  the  plea  of  age  and  infirmity. 
The  ^nsit  to  Peshawur,  with  its  attendant  anxieties 
and  excitements,  had  visibly  affected  the  Ameer's 
health.  The  hale  old  man,  who,  three  or  four  weeks 
before,  had  spent  hours  in  the  saddle,  and  seemed  to 
be  full  of  health  and  energy,  had  lost  much  of  his 
bodily  vigour  and  his  elasticity  of  spirit.  A  sharp 
attack  of  gout  had  prostrated  him ;  and  he  seemed 
to  be  grooving  impatient  under  his  protracted  deten- 
tion  in  Camp.  So  the  conclusion  of  the  Terms  of 
Agreement  was  a  manifest  relief  to  him ;  and  it  was 
with  no  common  satisfaction  that,  on  the  day  follow- 
ing the  Farewell  Durbar,  he  set  his  face  towards 
Jellalabad,  canning  with  him,  in  bills  on  Gaubul, 
a  lakh  of  rupees  and  some  costly  presents  from  the 
British  Government.* 

Nor  was  the  gratification  experienced  at  this  time 
confined  to  the  Ameer's  camp.  Lawrence  and  Ed- 
wardes  were  well  pleased  to  think  that  all  had  gone 
off^  so  smoothly ;  that  the  friendship  of  the  Afghans 
had  been  secured  at  no  very  extravagant  cost ;  and 
that,  on  the  whole,  although  Dost  Mahomed  had  not 
obtained  all  that  he  had  asked,  he  had  taken  his 
departure  tolerably  well  satisfied  with  the  favourable 
issue  of  the  meeting.  Lord  Canning,  too,  was  more 
than  well  satisfied  with  the  manner  in  which  the 
negotiations  had  been  conducted,  and  with  the  ap- 
parent result.  He  was  one  not  stinting  in  free  out- 
spoken expressions  of  praise  and  gratitude  to  those 
who  did  good  service  to  his  Government ;  and,  both 

♦  The  only  present  made  bjr  the  ing  the  "pins  and  needles"  brought 

Afghan  ruler  to  his  allies  consisted  bjBumes,  which  had  caused  so  much 

of  u  batch  of  wretclied  horses,  all  of  disappointment  some  twenty  years 

which,  John  Lawrence  wrote,  were  before  at  Caubul,  did  not  expect,  on 

spavined  or  worn  out.    The  whole  this  occasion,  to  be  the  recipieut  of 

were  sold  for  not  more  than  100/.  anything  more  valuable. 
Perhaps  Dost  Mahomed,  remember- 


THANKS  OF  THE  GOVEBNOR-GENERAL.  445 

in  public  and  private  letters,  he  cordially  thanked  1857. 
the  Commissioners,  even  before  their  work  was  done, 
for  the  admirable  judgment  and  good  tact  which 
they  had  displayed  at  the  conferences;  giving  an 
especial  word  of  thanks  to  Edwardes  as  the  original 
suggester  of  the  meeting,*  and,  it  might  have  been 
added,  the  originator  of  the  new  policy  which  had 
more  recently  been  observed  towards  the  Afghans. 
To  Major  Lumsden  he  wrote,  at  the  same  time,  a 
letter  of  kindly  encouragement  and  good  advice, 
cordially  approving  the  selection,  "  not  only  from  his 
trust  in  Sir  John  Lawrence's  judgment  on  such 
matters,  but  from  everything  that  the  Governor- 
General  had  been  able  to  hear  of  Lumsden  from 
those  who  knew  him."  He  knew  the  power  of  such 
words ; .  as  a  statesman  he  felt  assured  that  they 
would  bear  good  fruit;  but  as  a  man  he  uttered 
them  from  the  kindness  of  his  heart. 

So  Dost  Mahomed  set  his  face  towards  Caubul,  and 
Sir  John  Lawrence,  after  a  month  of  administrative 
journeying  about  the  province,  returned  to  Lahore. 
It  need  be  no  subject  of  surprise  if  the  latter,  as  he 
went  about  his  work,  thinking  of  all  that  had  been 
done  at  Peshawur,  sometimes  asked  himself.  What 
good  ?  and  wished  that  the  monthly  lakh  of  rupees 
to  be  expended  on  the  Afghan  Army  were  available 

♦  "  I  must  ask  you,"  wrote  Lord  one.  It  would  be  a  good  thing  if  all 
Canning  to  Colonel  Edwardes  on  the  diplomatic  conferences  were  con- 
19th  of  January,  "  to  accept  my  best  ducted  so  satisfactorily,  and  set  forth 
thanks  for  the  part^ou  have  taken  in  as  lucidly  as  these  have  been."  All 
the  recent  negotiations,  and  for  their  this  was  well  deserved ;  for  the 
satisfactory  issue.  I  feel  the  more  policy  was  emphatically  Edwardes's 
bound  to  do  this,  because  the  first  policy ;  he  had  been  the  first  to  re- 
suggestion  of  a  meeting  came  from  commend,  in  Lord  Dalhousie-'s  time, 
you ;  and  so  far  as  I  can  judge  from  that  we  should  try  the  efTect  of  trust- 
the  reports  as  yet  received,  and  from  ing  the  Afghans,  and  his  recom- 
the  tone  of  the  discussion  shown  in  mendatious  uad  resulted  in  the  ge- 
them,  I  believe  that  tlie  suggestion  ucral  compact  of  1855. 
lias  proved  a  very  wise  and  useful 


446  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

1857.      for   the   improvement    of  the    province    under  his 
charge ;  for  he  had  never  liked  the  project  from  the 
berinnin":.     He  had  no  faith  in  Dost  Mahomed.     He 
had  detected  him  in  at  least  one  palpable  falsehood, 
and  the  detection  had  excited  in  the  Ameer  no  sense 
of  shame,  but  rather  a  feeling  of  admiration  at  the 
clever  incredulity  of  the  Feringhees.     The  expulsion 
of  the  Persians  from  Herat,  or  even  the  raising  of  the 
Turcoman  tribes,  was,  in  Lawrence's  opinion,  so  far 
beyond  the  power  of  the  Ameer,  that  he  believed,  on 
the  other  hand,  that  the  Pei'sians  would  have  little 
difficulty  in  seizing  Candahar.     This  belief  in  the 
weakness  of  Dost  Mahomed  was  based  upon  a  some- 
what exaggerated  estimate  of  the  disunion  among 
the  chief  people  of  the  country.     But  even  if  the 
Ameer  had  the  power,  LaAvrence  could  not  believe 
that  he  had  the  will  to  serve  the  British ;  and  he 
doubted,  therefore,  whether  the  subsidy  would  pro- 
duce any  tangible  results.     As  to  the  question  of  the 
future  of  Herat,  it  had  never  even  approached  a  solu- 
tion.    Dost   Maliomcd  had  been   assured  that  the 
evacuation  of  the  place  by  the  Persians  would  be  an 
essential  condition  of  peace;  but  he  had  not  been 
able  to  offer,  without  manifest  doubt  and  hesitation, 
any  suggestion  as  to  the  best  means  of  providing  for 
its  future  government.     In  truth,  there  was  a  lack  of 
available  capacity  in  the  direction  in  which  it  was 
most  natural  that  we  should  look  for  a  new  ruler. 
When  the  Ameer  was  asked  if  there  was  anv  member 
of  Yar  Mahomed's  family  to  whom  the  government 
could  be   entrusted,    he   replied  that   there   was  a 
brother  of  Syud  Mahomed,  but  that,  if  possible,  he 
was  a  greater  reprobate  and  a  greater  fool  than  that 
unlucky  chief.     Syud  Mahomed,  however,  had  left  a 


THE  FUTURE  OF  HERAT.  447 

son,  a  boy  of  some  ten  years,  in  whose  name  a  com- 
petent Wuzeer  might  administer  the  affairs  of  the 
principality ;  but  a  competent  Wuzeer  was  not  to  be 
found  more  readily  than  a  competent  Prince.  The 
future  of  Herat  was,  therefore,  left  to  the  develop- 
ment of  the  Chapter  of  Accidents.  In  the  mean 
while,  Lord  Canning,  though  he  had  slowly  come  to 
this  point,  believed  that  the  subsidising  of  the  Ameer 
was  not  a  bad  stroke  of  policy.  It  bound  the  Afghan 
ruler  by  strong  ties  of  self-interest  to  remain  faithful 
to  the  British  Government.  Even  neutrality  was 
great  gain  at  a  time  when  Persia  was  doing  her  best 
to  raise  a  fervour  of  religions  hatred  against  the 
English  throughout  all  the  countries  of  Central  Asia. 
The  very  knowledge,  indeed,  of  the  fact  that  Dost 
Mahomed  had  gone  down  to  Peshawur  to  negotiate  a 
closer  alliance  with  the  British,  must  have  had  a 
moral  effect  at  Teheran  by  no  means  conducive  to  an 
increased  confidence  in  the  Shah's  powers  of  resist- 
ance. Altogether,  it  was  not  an  inefficacious,  whilst 
comparatively  it  was  an  inexpensive,  mode  of  pressing 
upon  Persia  from  the  side  of  Afghanistan.  But  whilst 
he  ■went  thus  far.  Lord  Canning  was  resolute  to  go 
no  farther.  He  had  made  up  his  mind  that  the  in- 
dependence of  Herat  could  be  written  only  on  sand ; 
that  the  waves  of  circumstance  from  one  direction  or 
another  must  utterly  efface  it  after  a  while ;  and  that 
it  would  be  wiser  to  abandon  an  effort  that  was  so 
frauglit  with  tribulation,  and  so  snre  to  result  in 
failure.  Certain  he  was  that  nothing  would  ever  in- 
duce him  to  send  a  single  regiment  into  Afghanistan 
to  maintain  the  integrity  of  a  petty  state,  which 
Nature  seemed  to  have  intended  to  be  a  part  of 
Persia  or  a  part  of  Afghanistan,  and  ivhichj 


448 


OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 


1857.      national  and  religious  sense  it  assuredly  belonged  to 
the  latter,  was  certain,  if  left  to  itself,  eventually  to 


fall  into  the  right  hands.* 


riie  question 
)f  the  Oude 
2!ominis- 
uonership. 


Whilst  thus,  in  this  first  month  of  the  new  year, 
Lord  Canning  was  eagerly  watching  the  progress  of 
his  foreign  policy,  he  was  grappling  vnth  the  great 
difficulty  which  beset  his  internal  administration. 
The  question  of  the  Persian  command  had  been 
settled ;  but  it  unsettled,  by  its  solution,  that  other 
question  of  the  Oude  Commissionership.  It  was 
clearer  than  ever  that  Jackson  must  be  removed ;  but 
it  was  no  longer  possible  that  his  tenure  of  office 
should  come  to  a  natural  end  and  peacefully  die  out. 
It  was  necessary  to  lay  violent  hands  upon  it,  and 
bring  it  to  an  ignominious  close.  The  necessity  was 
painful  to  Lord  Canning ;  but  the  interests  of  the 
State  demanded  it,  and  the  Governor-General,  in  such 
a  case,  properly  overrode  the  man.  Therefore,  as 
Outram  could  not  quietly  resume  his  old  seat,  another 
officer  was  to  be  found  to  take  the  place  of  Commis- 
sioner Jackson.  Ample  admissions  were  there  of  zeal 
and  ability,  of  assiduous  devotion  to  public  business, 
of  much  good  work  well  done  in  the  province ;  but 
the  tone  and  temper  of  the  man,  his  contentious  spirit^ 
his  insolent  treatment  of  his  colleagues,  wer^past  bear- 


*  Dost  Mahomed  and  his  counsel- 
lors, during  the  eonfercnccs  at  Pesha- 
wur,  frequently  asserted  that  Persia 
had,  on  this  as  on  a  former  occasion, 
been  instigated  and  aided  by  Russia 
to  occupy  Herat.  I  can  discern  no 
evidence  of  this.  Prince  Gortscha- 
koff  assured  Lord  Granville  at  Mos- 
cow that  the  Russian  minister  at 
Teheran  had  urged  the  Persian  Go- 
vernment to  evacuate  Herat,  and  so 


to  place  themselves  in  a  better  posi- 
tion to  demand  from  others  a  L'ke 
obscn'ance  of  treaty  obligations.  It 
may  be  noted  here,  that  the  Ameer 
told  Jjawrence  at  Peshawur  that  be 
would  show  him  the  letter  which 
the  unfortunate  Russian  diplomatist, 
Viktevit  ch,  had  carried  with  him  to 
Caubul  from  the  Government  of  the 
Czar.  But  he  did  not  produce  it 
after  all. 


THE  OUDE  COMMISSIOXERSHIP.  449 

ing ;  and  communication  to  that  effect,  with  notice  of      I857. 
appointment  of  a  successor,  was  made  to  him  in  due 
course. 

The  choice  was  an  admirable  one.  It  has  been  said 
that  in  the  spring  of  1856,  Sir  Henry  Lawrence  had 
offered  his  services  to  the  Governor-General,  to  offi- 
ciate as  Chief  Commissioner  of  Oude,  in  Outram's 
absence,  and  that  the  first  disaster  that  befel  Lord 
Canning  was  that  the  offer  was  received  too  late.* 
When  Henry  Lawrence  found  that  it  was  so,  he  saw 
at  once  the  weak  point  of  the  arrangement,  and  an 
idea  struck  him  that  if  whilst  the  civil  administration 
of  the  province  was  placed  in  Jackson's  hands,  he 
himself  were  vested  with  political  and  military  au- 
thority in  Oude,  all  objects  might  be  advantageously 
secured.  It  was  but  a  passing  thought,  a  fleeting 
suggestion;  but  it  found  expression  in  a  letter  ad- 
dressed to  the  Governor-General,  who  said,  "Two 
Consuls  and  Two  Tribunes  have  worked  well  enough 
in  old  times,  as  we  all  know ;  but  Two  Commissioners 
at  Lucknow  would  have  been  at  a  dead  lock  within  a 
month  I  could  not  have  delayed  for  a  day  the  send- 
ing of  a  Third."  A  truth  not  to  be  disputed.  So 
Henry  La^vrence  had  fallen  back  upon  his  duties 
among  those  intractable  Rajpoots ;  grieving  over  their 
degeneracy,  striving  mightily,  but  with  no  great  success, 
to  evolve  something  of  good  out  of  their  transition- 
state,  and  at  last  admitting  that  the  peace  and  security 
we  had  given  them  had  not  yet  much  improved  the 
race.  All  through  the  year  he  had  gone  on,  in  his 
old  earnest,  unstinting  way,  doing  what  he  could, 
through  divers  channels  of  beneficence,  alike  for  the 
Ancient  Houses  and  the  national  Chivalries,  whereof 
History  and  Tradition  had  given  such  grand  accounts. 

*  Ante,  page  398. 


450  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINT. 

1867.  But  often  had  he  turned  aside  from  the  thought  of 
the  Princes  and  the  people  by  whom  he  was  sur- 
rounded to  consider  the  general  condition  of  our 
empire  in  the  East,  and  most  of  all  our  Military 
System,  wherein  he  discerned  some  rottenness,  which 
needed  to  be  arrested  lest  the  entire  edifice  should 
some  day  become  nothing  but  a  prostrate  ruin. 

But  as  the  new  year  approached,  certain  prompt- 
ing,  of  faUing  h<^U,  taaxdly  a<too„i«h«.  hL 
that  it  would  be  well  to  turn  his  face  towards  Eng- 
land for  a  while ;  and  he  had  just  communicated  his 
wishes  upon  this  score  to  the  Governor-General,  when 
there  sprung  up  a  great  need  for  his  services  on  a 
new  and  more  hopeftd  field  of  action.  So  the  answer 
that  went  back  contained  the  expression  of  a  hope 
that  he  would  reconsider  his  determination  to  go 
home  and  accept  the  Chief  Commissionership  of  Oude. 
"  There  is  no  person  in  whose  hands  I  would  so  gladly 
January  19.  a^^d  confidently  place  the  charge,"  wrote  Lord  Canning, 
"  and  my  only  scruple  in  oflering  it  to  you  is,  that  I 
am  proposing  that  which  will  interfere  with  the  im- 
mediate recruiting  of  your  health.  But  I  will  not  for 
this  refrain  from  executing  my  intention  to  do  so, 
which  was  formed  many  days  before  I  received  your 
letter."  And  truly  a  most  wise  intention ;  formed 
without  any  doubts  and  misgivings  upon  his  part,  for 
he  knew  the  real  character  of  the  man ;  but  not  with- 
out some  counsel  against  it,  given  in  perfect  honesly 
and  good  faith  by  one  honest  and  faithful  to  the  core, 
but  under  a  false  impression,  an  error  afterw^ards 
frankly  admitted.  Had  the  counsellors  been  many, 
and  aU  of  the  same  singleness  and  sincerity,  and  the 
same  ripe  experience,  they  could  not  have  turned 
Lord  Canning  from  his  good  purpose,  or  shaken  his 
conviction  that  he  was  right 


HENRY  LAWKENCE.  451 

The  invitation  reached  Henry  Lawrence  at  Nee-  1857. 
much.  It  came  to  him,  weak  and  dispirited  as  he 
was,  with  all  the  renovating  influence  of  a  breath  of 
his  native  air.  It  was  to  him  what  the  distant  sound 
of  the  Persian  war  had  been  to  James  Outram.  It 
made  the  blood  course  less  languidly  through  his 
veins.  With  such  work  as  lay  before  him  in  Oude,  he 
could  not  be  an  invalid.  The  head-shakings  of  the 
medical  profession  were  nothing,  if  the  practitioners 
learned  in  physical  symptoms  took  no  account  of  the 
action  of  the  mind.  It  was  the  spirit,  not  the  flesh, 
that  required  rousing.  Two  great  clouds,  coming 
from  opposite  directions,  had  overshadowed  his  life, 
blighting  both  his  honourable  ambitions  and  his 
domestic  affections ;  a  heavy  disappointment  followed 
by  a  cruel  loss.  The  black-edged  paper  on  which  he 
wrote  still  spoke  of  the  latter ;  a  certain  sadness  of 
tone  in  all  his  allusions  to  his  public  life  told  how 
fresh  were  the  wounds  of  the  former.  "  Annoyances 
try  me  much  more  than  work,"  he  now  ^vrote  to  Lord 
Canning.  "  Work  does  not  oppress  me."  He  could 
work  at  his  desk,  he  said,  for  twelve  or  fifteen  hours 
at  a  time.  He  had  just  made  a  tour  of  Guzrat,  riding 
thirty  or  forty  miles  a  day,  sometimes  being  in  the 
saddle  from  morning  to  night,  or  from  night  to  mom- 
ing.  "  But,"  he  added,  "  ever  since  I  was  so  cavalierly 
elbowed  out  of  the  Punjab,  I  have  fretted  even  to  the 
injury  of  my  health.  Your  lordship's  handsome  letter 
has  quite  relieved  my  mind  on  that  point;  so  I  re- 
peat that  if,  on  this  explanation,  you  think  fit  to  send 
me  to  Oude,  I  am  quite  ready,  and  can  be  there 
within  twenty  days  of  receiving  your  telegraphic 
reply." 

The  substance  of  this  letter  was  telegraphed  to 
Calcutta^  and  it  brought  back  a  telegraphic  answer. 

2g2 


452  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

1857.  The  convictions  on  both  sides  were  so  strong  in 
favour  of  the  arrangement  that  it  was  not  likely  to 
break  down  under  any  conditions  or  reservations  on 
either  part ;  and  so  it  was  settled  that  Henry  Law- 
rence should  be  Chief  Commissioner  of  Oude.  "I 
am  in  great  hopes,"  wrote  Lord  Canning,  "  that  the 
task  being  so  thoroughly  congenial  to  you,  it  will  sit 
more  lightly  upon  you  than,  measured  by  its  labour 
alone,  might  be  expected ;  and  as  to  my  support, 
you  shall  have  it  heartily.  The  field  before  you  is  a 
noble  one,  full  of  interest  and  of  opportunities  for 
good;  and  I  look  forward  with  the  greatest  con- 
fidence to  the  results  of  your  exertions  in  it."  So 
Henry  Lawrence  prepared  himself  to  proceed  to 
Lucknow,  and  was  soon  on  his  way  thither  by  easy 
stages ;  for  it  was  not  desired  that  he  should  assume 
office  before  the  middle  of  the  following  month. 
Halting  at  Bhurtpore,  where  he  took  counsel  with  the 
Political  agent  and  the  Engineer  officer,  and  did 
much  to  give  a  right  direction  to  their  energies,  he 
proceeded  thence  to  Agra,  which  was  then  the  seat  of 
the  Lieutenant- Governorship  of  the  North- Western 
Provinces.  It  was  vividly  remembered  afterwards  by 
Mr.  E.  A.  one  old  friend  with  whom  he  held  sweet  communion 
at  that  time,  that  though  his  thoughts  were  pregnant 
with  many  grave  matters  begotten  of  the  great  Con- 
dition-of-India  Question,  and  though  he  conversed  of 
many  things  and  many  men,  there  was  nothing  that 
seemed  to  press  more  heavily  on  his  mind  than  an 
anxious,  uncertain  feeling  with  respect  to  the  state  of 
the  Sepoy  Army.  There  were  few  civilians  in  the 
service  who  knew  the  Native  soldier  so  well  as  this 
friend ;  and  as  they  talked  over  certain  manifest  signs 
and  symptoms,  and  narrated  what  they  had  seen  and 
heard,  each  saw  plainly  that  there  was  a  painful  sense 


Beade. 


ARRIVAL  OF  LAWRENCE  AT  LUCKNOW.  453 

of  coming  danger  in  the  other's  mind.  For  twelve  1857. 
years  Henry  Lawrence  had  been  publicly  discoursing 
of  the  defects  of  our  Indian  military  system,  and 
emphatically  indicating  the  dangers  which  might 
some  day  overtake  the  State  in  the  most  terrible  of 
rfl  shapes,  an  outburst  of  the  Native  Soldiery  ;*  and 
he  now  playfully  told  his  friend,  but  with  more  of 
sadness  than  of  pleasantry  in  his  speech,  that  the 
time  was  not  far  distant  when  the  Sepoys  would 
hold  him  and  the  Lieutenant-Governor  and  other 
"  big  Brahmins,"  as  hostages  in  the.  Fort  of  Agra, 
until  all  their  demands  were  granted. 

Still  thinkmg  much  of  this,  and  mindful  that  in 
the  province  to  which  he  was  proceeding  he  would 
stand  on  vantage-ground  for  the  clear  discernment 
of  the  real  causes  of  the  malady,  Henry  Lawrence 
passed  on  to  Lucknow.  And  before  day  had  broken 
on  the  20th  of  March,  he  had  been  received,  at  the 
Residency,  by  the  man  whom  he  had  come  to  sup- 
plant. There  must  have  been  pain  and  embarrass- 
ment on  both  sides  in  such  a  meeting.  But  before 
he  had  broken  his  fast,  the  new  Commissioner  sat 
down  and  wrote  a  letter  to  Lord  Canning,  saying 
that  he  had  had  two  hours'  friendly  conversation 
with  Mr.  Jackson,  who  had  received  him  alto- 
gether "like  a  gentleman."  He  had  found  a  long 
and  encouraging  letter  from  the  Governor-General 
awaiting  him  on  his  arrival;  and  now  he  emphati- 
cally replied,  "  With  your  lordship's  cordial  support  I 

♦    See    Lawrence's    Essays,    re-  may  surely  be  expected  from  Na- 

printed  from  the  Calcutta  Review :  lives.    We  shall  oc  unwise  to  wait 

"  How  unmindful  we  have  been  that  for  such  occasion.     Come  it  will,  un- 

what  occurred  in  tiie  city  of  Caubul  less  anticipated,    A  Clive  may  not 

may    some    day    occur   at    Deliii,  be  then  at  hand."    The  emphatic 

Meenit,    or  Bareilly"    (pa;?e  51).  italics  are  Lawrence's.    Other  pas- 

Again:  "What  the  European  officers  sages  to  the  same  effect  might  be 

have  repeatedly  done  {i.e,  mutinied)  cited. 


454                        OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

1857.      have  no  fear  of  success."  His  spirit  rose  as  he  thought 
of  the  work  before  him.     What  that  work  was,  what 

he  found  done  and  what  he  found  undone  in  the 
province,  when  he  assumed  charge  of  his  new  office, 
will  be  told  in  a  subsequent  page  of  this  story. 

%*  No  better  opportunity  than  had  reccntl?  been  conferred  on  me, 
this  may  be  afforded  for  a  note  on  he  said  :  "  The  appointment  must  be 
the  opinions  of  Sir  Henry  Lawrence  one  of  the  pleasantest,  unless,  indeed, 
with  respect  to  the  maintenance  of  you  feel  as  I  do,  that  Government  is 
the  Native  States  of  India.  Having  going  too  fast,  and  that  we  are  losing 
said  elsewhere  that  be  was  on  prin-  our  good  name  among  the  Native 
ciple  opposed  to  the  "  Annexation  States.  I  confess  that  I  do  not  like 
Policy,"  I  recently  elicited  the  fol-  the  nrescnt  system,  and  that  I  would 
lowing  reply  from  a  distinguished  gladly  give  up  sahiry  to  change  to  a 
writer  in  tlie  Edinburgh  Review :  "  A  purely  civil  or  military  berth.  When 
writer  so  well  informed  as  Mr.  Kave  1  read  the  tirades  of  the  Friend  of 
need  not  liave  thus  held  on  to  the  India,  I  half  think  myself  Twith  many 
skirts  of  a  popular  delusion.  The  better  men,  including  Elphinstone, 
course  wliich  Sir  Henry  Lawrence  Munro,  and  Clerk)  a  fooL  The  doc- 
favoured  in  respect  to  Oude,  by  what-  trine  now  is  that  it  is  wicked  not  to 
ever  name  it  may  be  called,  is  plain  knock  down  and  pi  under  every  Native 
enough.  It  is  a  course  which,  if  prince.  Aly  views  are  exactly  what 
submitted  to  the  *  Law  Oificers  of  the  they  were  when  I  wrote  the  articles 
Crown,'  as  a  question  of  international  for  you  on  the  Mahrattas  and  on 
law,  would,  probably,  receive  from  Oude.  My  paper  on  Oude  would 
these  authorities  some  name  harsher  serve  as  a  guide  to  present  doings  in 
than  '  annexation.' "  To  this  I  think  all  points  save  the  disoosal  of  the 
it  right  to  reply,  that  as  any  opinion  surplus  revenue,  which  assuredly 
whicli  I  may  have  formed  of  the  ought  to  be  spent  in  Oude,  Nor, 
sentiments,  on  this  or  any  other  sub-  indeed,  do  I  tnink  that  we  should 
iect,  of  Sir  Henry  Lawrence,  has  materially  lose,  or  fail  to  gain  thereby. 
Veen  derived  either  from  oral  com-  Is  it  nothing  that  wc  should  make  a 
munication  with  him  or  from  his  garden  of  the  nursery  of  our  Sepoys, 
letters  to  myself,  I  ought  not  to  be  and  open  out  the  resources  of  a  pro- 
charged  with  *^  hanging  on  to  tiie  vince  bordering  for  a  thousand  nules 

skirts  of  a  popular  delusion."    That    on  our  old  ones  ? But  I  re- 

those  sentiments  were  what  I  have  peat,  that  my  taste  for  politics  is 

represented  them  to  be,  I  have  nuine-  gone.    There  is  no  confidence  left  in 

rous  proofs  in  his  own  handwriting,  the  country;  and  one  does  not  feel 

A  single  extract,  however,  from  his  that  the  people  about  Government 

correspondence  will  suftice  for  all  House  care  one  straw  about  one's 

purposes.  Writing  to  me  from  Mount  exertions  on  behalf  of  the   Native 

Aboo  on  the  16th  of  July,  1856,  with  States."    Surely,  the  trumpet  here 

reference  to  the  office   under  the  gives  no  "  uncerUdn  sound. 
Home  Government  of  India  which 


THE  UTTLE  CLOUD.  455 


CHAPTER  III. 

LORD  CANHIN6  AND  THE  KATIVE  AEICT — THE  CALL  TOR  "  MOBE  OPFICEHS" 
— ^DKEAD  OP  THE  BLACK  WATZB — THE  GENEBAL  8EBVICE  ENLISTMENT 
ACT — ANXIETIES  AND  ALARKS — LOBD  CANNING  AND  THE  MISSIONARY 
CAUSE — PROSELYTISING  OPPICEBS — POUTICAL  INQUIETUDES — THE  PRO- 
PHECY OP  PIPTY-8EVEN. 

The  anxieties  which  Henry  Lawrence  carried  with  The  little 
him  to  Lucknow  had  then,  for  some  weeks,  been  dis-  ji^ry^ 
quieting  the  mind  of  the  Governor-General.  The  old  ^^^''• 
year  had  died  out,  apparently  leaving  to  its  successor 
no  greater  troubles  than  those  which  were  inseparable 
from  the  Persian  war ;  but  before  the  new  year  was 
many  days  old,  there  arose  upon  the  horizon  that 
little  cloud  no  bigger  than  a  man's  hand,  of  which 
Lord  Canning,  at  the  great  Farewell  Banquet  of  the 
Company,  had  prophetically  spoken.  It  might  be 
little;  it  might  be  much.  It  might  be  blown  away 
by  a  breath  of  wind ;  or  it  might  expand  into  terrific 
dimensions,  covering  the  whole  heaven  as  mth  a  paD. 
Anyhow,  it  had  an  angry  threatening  aspect;  and 
the  looker-on,  being  no  alarmist,  might  well  wish  it 
away. 


Memorable,  and,  doubtless,  well  remembered  is  it  Retrospect, 
that,  when  Lord  Dalhousie  bade  farewell  to  the  cares 


456 


OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINT. 


1866.  of  Indian  Government,  he  placed  upon  record  an 
opinion  that  the  condition  of  the  Native  soldiery  left 
nothing  to  be  desired.  There  was  no  reason  why 
Lord  Canning,  at  the  outset  of  his  career,  should  not 
take  this  assertion  on  trust ;  no  reason  why  he  should 
not  hold  to  it  for  a  while.  He  went  out  to  India, 
prepossessed  in  favour  of  "  the  faithful  Sepoy."  He 
had,  doubtless,  read  the  noble  picture  which,  nearly 
forty  years  before,  his  father  had  drawn  of  the  fidelity 
of  the  Native  soldiery  of  the  Company,  unshaken  by 
threats,  unallured  by  temptations.*  There  were  no 
flutterings  of  disquiet  apparent  on  the  surface  to 
raise  anxious  doubts  and  misgivings.  But  he  had 
not  long  taken  up  the  reins  of  Government,  when 
the  subject  of  the  Native  Army  began  to  occupy  his 
thoughts  and  to  afford  matter  for  much  grave  corre- 
spondence. The  vast  extension  of  territory  which 
had  made  famous  the  career  of  Lord  Dalhousie  had 
not  been  followed  by  any  corresponding  extension  of 
the  Agency  by  which  all  this  new  country  was  to  be 
administered.    As  so  much  more  civil  duty  was  to  be 


*  As  President  of  the  Board  of 
Control,  George  Canning  had  moved, 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  the  vote 
of  thanks  to  Lord  Hastings's  Army 
for  its  service  in  tlie  Second  Mali- 
ratta  war,  and  in  the  course  of  his 
speech  had  paid  this  fine  tribute  to 
the  Native  Army.  "In  doing  jus- 
tice," he  said,  "  to  the  bravery  of 
the  Native  troops,  I  must  not  over- 
look anotlier  virtue,  tlieir  fidelity. 
Many  of  the  Bombay  Army  liad  been 
recruited  in  the  territories  of  the 
Feishwah  ;  their  property,  their 
friends,  their  relatives,  all  that  was 
valuable  and  dear  to  tiiem,  were  still 
in  that  prince's  power.  Previously 
to  the  commencement  of  hostilities, 
the  Peishwah  bad  spared  no  pains 
to  seduce  ^Qind  corrupt  these  troops ; 
be  abstained  from  no  threats  to  force 


them  from  their  allegiance,  bat  his 
utmost  arts  were  vain.  The  Natire 
officers  and  soldiers  came  to  tho 
British  Commanders  with  the  proofs 
of  these  temptations  in  tbeir  hands, 
and  renewea  the  pledges  of  their 
attachment.  One  man,  a  non-com- 
missioned officer,  brought  to  bis  cap- 
tain the  sum  of  5000  rupees,  which 
had  been  presented  to  him  by  the 
Peishwah  in  persou,  as  an  earnest  of 
reward  for  desertion.  The  vengeance 
denounced  by  the  Peishwah  was  not 
an  unmeaning  menace;  it  did,  in 
many  instances,  fall  heavily  on  the 
relatives  of  those  who  resisted  his 
threats  and  his  entreaties;  but  tlie 
effect  was  rather  to  exasperate  than 
to  repress  their  ardoor  in  the  service 
to  which  they  had  sworn  to  ad- 
here." 


.v* 


THE  CALL  FOR  MORE  OITIOERS.  457 

done,  it  seemed,  in  strict  logical  sequence,  that  there  1856. 
was  an  increased  demand  for  civil  servants,  and  that 
this  demand  should  have  been  supplied.  But  govern- 
ment by  the  Civil  Service  of  the  Company  was 
costly;  and  to  have  called  for  increased  agency  of 
this  kind  would  perhaps  have  supplied  Leadenhall- 
street  with  an  argument  against  the  profitableness  of 
annexation.  Moreover,  there  was  much  rough  work 
to  be  done  in  our  newly-acquired  provinces,  for 
which,  on  the  whole,  perhaps,  military  administrators 
were  better  suited  than  civilians.  So  the  military 
officer,  as  has  before  been  said,  was  taken  from  his 
regimental  duties  to  share  in  the  civil  administration 
of  the  country.  Great  had  been,  for  this  purpose, 
the  drain  upon  the  Native  regiments,  before  the 
annexation  of  Oude.  That  event  brought  the  as- 
cendant evil  to  a  climax ;  and  Lord  Canning  wrote 
home  that  it  had  become  necessary  to  add  two 
officers  to  each  Native  Infantry  regiment  and  four 
to  the  Europeans.  "A  request,"  he  wrote,  in  the 
early  part  of  April,  "  for  an  addition  to  the  number 
of  officers  in  each  Infantry  regiment — European  and 
Native — goes  home  by  this  mail.  Four  for  each 
European  and  two  for  each  Native  regiment  are 
asked.  The  application  comes  singly  and  in  a  bald 
shape ;  because  the  necessity  of  an  immediate  in- 
crease is  urgent,  and  because  I  have  had  no  time  to 
go  into  the  complicated  questions  of  our  military 
wants  generally." 

There  was,  indeed,  nothing  more  difficult  to  under-  "More 
stand  aright  than  these  military  questions;  difficult °  ^®"' 
to   experienced  statesmen:  altogether  embarrassing 
and    bewildering  to   a   Governor  in   his  novitiate. 
Even  this  matter  of  "  more  officers,"  so  smooth  as  it 
appeared  to  be  on  the  surface,  when  you  came  to 


458  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINT. 

1856.  gauge  it,  was  found  to  contain  a  deposit  ot  doubt 
and  conflict  It  was  held  by  some,  who  had  studied 
well  all  the  deteriorating  influences  of  which  so  much 
has  been  said  in  these  pages,  that  the  cry  for  "  more 
officers"  was  one  to  be  responded  to  with  caution; 
that,  indeed,  the  Native  Army  had  already  too  many 
officers;  and  that  now  to  increase  their  numbar 
would  be  to  increase  one  of  the  evils  that  had  long 
been  impairing  its  efficiency.  That  Lord  Canning, 
fresh  from  England,  should  have  taken  the  more 
popular  view  of  this  want  of  officers,  was  natural; 
and,  indeed,  it  may  be  said  that  it  was  a  plain  com- 
mon-sense view,  not  wanting  in  a  certain  kind  of 
logic.  It  had  become  a  proverb  that  the  Englbh 
officer  was  the  Backbone  of  the  Native  regiment; 
and,  assuredly,  the  administrative  demands  of  our 
new  provinces  had  left  these  Native  regiments,  ac- 
cording to  the  recognised  reading,  sadly  enfeebled 
and  incapacitated.  All  that  he  now  sought  to  do 
was  to  restore  them  somewhat  more  nearly  to  th^ 
normal  condition.  The  remedy  seemed  to  lie  on  the 
surface,  and  straightway  he  exerted  himself  to  supply 
it.  But,  tlie  theory  of  the  Backbone  accepted,  it 
was  still  possil)le  that  the  vertebral  column  might  be 
weakened  by  having  too  many  joints ;  and  therefore 
it  was  said  by  a  few  thoughtful  and  experienced  men, 
emphatically  by  Sir  George  Clerk,*  that  there  was 
more  danger  in  giving  our  Native  regiments  too 
many  English  officers  than  in  giving  them  too  few ; 
and  for  this  reason,  that  being  many  they  formed  a 
society  apart  and  kept  aloof  from  their  men,  and 
became  altogether  in  their  ways  of  life  too  European. 
Doubts  such  as  these,  and  from  such  a  quarter, 
brought  clearly  to  Lord  Canning's  mind  the  fact  that 

*  Then  Secretary  to  the  Board  of  Control. 


THE  MILITABY  DEFENCE  OF  PEGU.  459 

the  Native  Army  question  was  a  very  difficult  one;  1866. 
that  it  was  ahnost  impossible,  indeed,  whilst  avoiding 
one  rock,  to  escape  from  steering  upon  another.  But 
the  call  for  more  officers  had  been  made ;  and,  per- 
haps, with  no  want  of  wisdom.  For,  although  there 
was  profound  truth  in  what  was  said  about  the  evil 
of  too  much  Englishism  in  the  Native  Army,  the 
Regular  Regiments  of  the  Company  had  been  formed 
upon  the  European  model,  and  the  principle  of  com- 
mand by  many  officers  was  a  vital  part  of  the  system. 
The  In'egular  system  might  have  been  better  than 
the  Regular,  but  a  Regular  Regiment  denuded  of  its 
officers  fulfilled  the  condition  of  neither.  So  the 
Home  Government  recognised  the  want  of  more  of- 
ficers, and  responded  to  the  appeal. 

Another,  and  still  more  important  question,  soon  Enls  of 
came  up  for  solution.     The  specific  evils,  which  re-  domSdon. 
suited  from  the  extension  of  our  dominions,  varied  in 
accordance  with  the  direction  in  which  we  had  ex- 
tended them.     The  acquisition  of  new  territory  on 
the  south-eastern  coast  had  caused  but  little  political 
excitement  in  India;  but  the  very  circumstance  to 
which  we  owed  our  exemption  from  evils  of  one 
kind  was  the  immediate  source  of  another  class  of 
evils.     It  has  been  said  that  the  intervention  of  the 
black  waters  of  the  Bay  of  Bengal  cut  oflF  the  sove- 
reigns  of   Burmah    from   the    brotherhood   of  the 
Princes  of  the  great  continent  of  India,  and  made  it 
a  matter  of  small  concern  whether  we  gained  battles 
or  lost  them  in  that  part  of  the  world.*     But  that 
very  black  water  made  it  difficult  for  us  to  garrison 
the  country  which  we  had  won.     The  new  province  Military  de- 
of  Pegu  had  been  brought  administratively  under  ^^^  °    *^' 
the  Supreme  Government  of  India,  and  in  the  first 

♦  Jnie,  pp.  67-68. 


ps 


460  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINT. 

1856.  arrangements  made  for  its  military  defence,  the  regi- 
ments planted  there  had  been  drawn  from  the  Bengal 
Army.  But  the  great  bulk  of  that  Army  eschewed 
Foreign  service.*  It  was  not  part  of  the  conditions, 
under  which  they  had  enlisted,  that  they  should  cross 
the  seas.  The  Sepoy,  on  taking  service,  swore  that 
he  would  never  forsake  or  abandon  his  colours,  and 
that  he  would  march  whithersoever  he  was  directed,  ^ 
whether  within  or  beyond  the  territories  of  the  Com- 
pany. Out  of  the  seventy-four  regiments  composing 
the  Native  Infantry  of  the  Bengal  Army,  six  only 
were  recruite4  for  general  service.  When  more  Na- 
tive troops  had  been  required  to  take  part  in  operar 
tions  beyond  the  seas,  it  had  been  customary  to  call 

luntccr  for  volunteers  from  the  limited-service  regiments. 
There  had  been  often  a  free  response  to  this  invita- 
tion, and  the  volunteer  corps  had  done  their  duty 
well  upon  Foreign  service.  In  the  old  times,  indeed, 
before  the  new  organisation,  they  had  in  this  respect 
shown  signal  devotion ;  they  had  gone  willingly  to 
remote  places  beyond  the  seas  and  cheerfully  endured 
all  the  miseries  and  privations  of  long  and  boisterous 

1811.  voyages.  In  one  year,  seven  thousand  Bengal  Sepoys 
had  volunteered  for  service  against  the  French  in  the 
Mauritius  and  in  Java;  and  had  served  for  many 
years  in  those  islands  with  unvarying  fidelity  and 
good  conduct.f     But,  even  in  those  days,  they  had 

*  "  The  natives  of  India  have,  lion,  than  at  the  zeal  and  attacliinenfc 

fi^nerally  speaking,  a  rooted  dislike  they  liave  often  shown  upon  such 

to  the  sea;  and  when  we  consider  trying  occasions." — Sir  John  Malcolm 

the  great  privations  and  hardships  in  the  (^uarterlj/  Beview,  vol.  xviii. 

to  wiiich  Hindoos  of  high  caste  are  p.  399. 

subject  on  a  long  voyage,  during        f  The  battalions  thus  formed  were 

which  some  of  them,  from  prejudices  the  basis  of  the  six  general-service 

of  caste,  subsist  solely  on  parched  regiments,  in  the  later  organisation, 

grain,  we  feel  less  surprised  at  the  of  which  mention  is  made  iu  the 

occasional  mutinies,  which  have  been  text, 
caused  by  orders  for  their  embarka- 


CONDUCT  OF  THE  THIRTY-EIGHTH.  461 

been  at  times  capricious ;  and  their  caprices,  as  time  1856. 
advanced  and  their  devotion  to  their  officers  dimi- 
nished, had  grown  more  frequent  and  more  embar- 
rassing.* The  mutiny  and  massacre  at  Barrackpore 
had  risen  out  of  the  demands  of  the  first  Burmese 
war,  and  the  second  war  in  those  transmarine  regions 
had  raised  up  a  new  crop  of  difficulties  of  the  old 
type. 

A  few  sentences  will  tell  all  that  need  be  told  of 
this  last  story :  The  Native  troops  employed  in  the 
conquest  of  Pegu  were  either  Madras  troops  or  the  1862. 
general-service  regiments  of  the  Bengal  Army.  But 
reinforcements  were  needed,  and  so  a  call  was  to  be 
made  for  volunteers.  The  Thirty-eighth  Native  Re-  The  Thirty- 
giment  was  then  at  the  Presidency.  It  had  served  ^*8***"- 
long  and  fought  gallantly  in  Afghanistan,  and  it  was 
believed  that  it  would  follow  its  officers  to  any  part 
of  the  world.  But  when  the  day  of  trial  came,  the 
result  was  a  bitter  disappointment.  The  Sepoys  were 
asked  whether  they  would  embark  for  Rangoon  to 
take  part  in  the  war,  or  for  Arracan,  there  to  relieve 
a  general-service  regiment,  which  in  that  case  would 
be  sent  on  to  Burmah.  Their  reply  was,  that  they 
were  willing  to  march  anywhere,  but  that  they 
would  not  volunteer  to  cross  the  seas.  Perfectly 
respectful  in  their  language,  they  were  firm  in  their 
refusal.  Doubt  and  suspicion  had  taken  possession 
of  their  minds.  How  it  happened  I  do  not  kno^v', 
but  a  belief  was  afterwards  engendered  among  them, 
that  the  English  Government  had  a  foul  design  to 
entrap  them,  and  that  if  they  commenced  the  march 
to  the  banks  of  the  Irrawaddy,  they  would  at  a  con- 

*  Sir  John  Malcolm,  writing;  in  commanding  officers,  or  from  orders 

1817-18,  sajs,  that  all  the  mntinies  given  to  go  beyond  the  seaa.    See 

in  the  Bengal  Army  up  to  that  time  article,  alx)ve  qaoted,  in  Quarierfy 

bad  arisen  from  the  blunders  of  their  Review. 


462  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINI. 

1866,  venient  point  be  taken  to  the  sea-board  and  forcibly 
compelled  to  embark.  Lord  Dalhousie,  taking,  there- 
fore, the  prudent  rather  than  the  vigorous  view  of 
the  situation,  and  availing  himself  of  the  advanced 
state  of  the  season  as  a  plea  for  the  adoption  of  the 
feebler  of  the  two  courses  before  him,  yielded  to 
these  first  symptoms  of  danger,  and  decreed  that  the 
Thirty-eighth  should  be  sent  neither  to  Rangoon  nor 
to  Arracan,  but  to  the  nearer  and  more  inland 
station  of  Dacca.  And  so  nothing  more  was  heard 
for  a  time  of  the  disaifection  of  the  Bengal  Army. 

The  Court  of  Directors  of  the  East  India  Com- 
pany, when  this  business  was  reported  to  them,  saw 
clearly  that  it  had  become  difficult  to  carry  on  the 
concerns  of  their  vastly  extended  empire  with  one- 
half  of  their  Army,  and  that  the  more  important  hal^ 
bound  to  render  them  oidy  a  restricted  obedience; 
so  they  wrote  out  to  the  Governor-General  that  thqr 
hoped  soon  to  be  put  in  possession  of  the  "  senli- 
kstober20,  ments    of  his    Government   on  the   expediency  of 

1852  •  •  L  ^ 

adopting  such  a  change  in  the  terms  of  future  enlist- 
ments as  might  eventually  relieve  them  from  similar 
embarrassments."  But  no  action  was  taken  during 
the  remaining  years  of  Lord  Dalhousie's  administra- 
tion, and  Lord  Canning  found,  on  his  accession, 
that  still  but  a  twelfth  part  of  the  Bengal  Army  was 
available  for  service  beyond  the  seas.     What  then 

lUefs  for     was  to  be  done,  when  reliefs  were  required  for  Pegu  ? 

^  Even  if  the  old  professional  ardour  of  the  Sepoy  had 

been  restored,  the  occasion  was  scarcely  one  on 
which  the  Government  could  have  called  for  volun- 
teers. The  formation  of  volunteer  regiments  had 
been  confined  to  periods  of  actual  warfare ;  and  now 
that  we  required  them  merely  to  garrison  our  acqui- 
sitions in  time  of  peace,  the  difficulty  that  confronted 


BELIEFS  FOB  PEGU.  463 

Lord  Canning  was  one  not  readily  to  be  overcome.  1856. 
He  found  at  this  time  that  of  the  six  general-service 
regiments  three  were  then  in  Pegu.  They  had  em- 
barked on  a  specific  understanding  that  they  should 
not  be  called  upon  to  serve  there  for  more  than  three 
years,  and,  in  the  rainy  season  of  1856,  two  of  the 
three  regiments  were  in  their  third  year  of  trans- 
marine service.  In  the  early  part  of  the  following 
year,  therefore,  a  relief  would  be  necessary ;  but  not 
one  of  the  other  three  regiments  could  be  despatched ; 
for  they  had  all  returned  only  a  year  or  two  before 
firom  service  in  the  same  part  of  the  country.  It  was 
clear,  therefore,  that  the  Bengal  Army  could  not  pro- 
vide the  means  of  despatching  the  required  reliefs  by 
water  transport  to  Pegu. . 

So  a  question  arose  as  to  whether  the  relieving 
regiments  might  not,  according  to  their  bond,  be 
marched  to  the  Burmese  coast.  It  was  a  circuitous 
and  toilsome  journey,  but  it  had  been  done,  under 
pressure  of  like  difficulty,  thirty  years  before,  and 
might  yet  be  done  again.  But  although  the  improve- 
ment of  the  communications  between  the  Hooghly 
and  the  Irrawaddy  was  then  being  urged  forward  by 
the  Government,  there  was  still  a  break  on  the  line 
from  Chittagong  to  Akyab,  of  which  our  Engineers 
could  not  give  a  sufficiently  encouraging  account  to 
satisfy  the  Governor-General  that  the  relieving  regi- 
ments could  be  sent  by  land  in  the  ensuing  cold 
season.  "  A  part  of  the  road,"  said  Lord  Canning, 
"  could  not  be  made  passable  for  wheels  by  that  time 
without  the  addition  of  eight  thousand  labourers  to 
those  already  employed.  If  the  use  of  wheeled  car- 
riages were  abandoned,  there  would  still  remain  en- 
camping ground  to  be  cleared  on  many  parts  of  it ; 
the  jungle,  which  is  already  choking  the  tract,  to  be 


464  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

1856.  removed;  preparation  to  be  made  for  halting  the 
men  on  the  march ;  wells  to  be  dug,  or  water  to  be 
stored,  where  none  has  yet  been  found ;  and  stations 
and  storehouses  provided.  Simple  operations  enough 
in  themselves,  but  which  in  this  case  would  have  to 
be  begun  and  completed,  on  two  hundred  miles  of 
road,  between  the  beginning  of  December,  before 
which  no  work  on  that  coast  can  be  attempted,  and 
February,  when  the  troops  must  begin  to  pass  over 
the  ground,  the  supply  of  labour,  as  well  as  its 
quality,  being  very  little  trustworthy."  "  Obstacles 
of  this  kind,"  continued  the  Governor-General,  "  have 
been  overcome  again  and  again  by  the  Sepoys  of 
Bengal  in  their  marches,  whenever  it  has  been  neces- 
sary to  do  so ;  but  I  am  of  opinion  that  it  wiU  be 
better  in  the  present  instance  to  seek  some  other  solu- 
tion of  the  difficulty.  And  I  believe  that  the  one 
most  available  is  a  recourse  to  the  Madras  Army." 
Demands  on  And  why  not?  The  Madras,  or,  as  it  was  once 
Anny.  Called,  the   Coast  Army,  was   enlisted  for  generd 

service.  Posted  in  the  Southern  Peninsula,  and  to  a 
great  extent  along  the  sea-board,  it  was  as  readily 
available  for  service  on  the  other  side  of  the  Bay  as 
the  Army  in  Lower  Bengal.  If  the  duty  were  un- 
palatable, it  could  not,  when  diffnsed  over  fifty 
regiments,  press  very  heavily  upon  any  individual 
soldier.  Besides,  service  of  this  kind  had  some  com- 
pensations of  its  own,  and  was  not  altogether  to  be 
regarded  as  a  grievance.*  So  it  was  thought  that  the 

*  It  must  not  be  supposed,  how-  when   about  to  embark  at  Vuaga- 

ever,  that  the  Madras  Army  bad  patam,  and  shot  all  but  one  or  two, 

always  cheerfullj  accepted  this  ne-  who  had  contrived  to    escape  on 

cessity  for  going  upon  foreign  ser-  board  tlie  ship  whicli  was  waiting  to 

vice.    On  several  occasions  tney  had  receive  the  regiment.    In  a  former 

broken  into  mutiny  on  the  eve  of  cliapter  I  have  given  some  later  in- 

embarkation.      Once,  towards    the  stances,  and  others  might  have  been 

close  of  the  last  century,  tbey  had  cited.     But  there  are  some  noble 

risen  upon  their  European  officers,  examples  on  record  of  another  kind, 


PROTEST  OF  THE  MADRAS  GOVERNMENT. 


465 


garrison  of  Pegu  might,  for  a  time  at  least,  be  drawn  1856. 
from  the  Madras  Army.  But  ready  as  the  solution 
appeared  to  be,  it  was  found  that  here  also  there  was 
some  hard,  gritty,  insoluble  matter  at  the  bottom  of 
the  scheme.  The  Madras  Government,  though  not 
unwilling  to  send  troops  to  Pegu,  as  a  temporary 
arrangement,  protested  against  being  called  upon  to 
supply  a  permanent  garrison  to  that  part  of  our 
dominions.  Such  an  arrangement  would  bring  round 
to  every  regiment  a  tour  of  service  beyond  the  sea 
once  in  every  nine  years,  instead  of  once  in  twelve 
years ;  it  would  render  service  in  the  Madras  Army 
unpopular ;  make  recruiting  difficult  among  the 
better  class  of  Natives  whom  it  was  desired  to  enlist ; 
and,  inasmuch  as  every  regiment  lost  much  of  its 
morale  on  Foreign  service,  and  took  two  or  three 
years  to  recover  what  was  lost,  the  efficiency  of  the 
Madras  Army  would  be  permanently  deteriorated. 
So  Lord  Canning  turned  his  thoughts  in  another 


and  one  adduced  by  Sir  John  Mal- 
colm, in  the  article  above  quoted, 
deserves  to  be  recorded  here,  if  only 
as  an  illustration  of  the  influence  for 
eood  of  a  trusted  commanding  of- 
ficer. Speaking  of  the  services  of 
the  Twenty-second  Madras  Regi- 
ment, he  says :  **  This  fine  corps  was 
commanded  by  Lieatenant-Colonel 
James  Oram,  an  oflicer  not  more 
distinguished  for  his  personal  zeal 
and  gallantry  than  for  a  tliorough 
knowledge  of  the  men  under  liis 
command,  whose  temper  he  had 
completely  preserved,  at  the  same 
time  that  he  had  imparted  to  them 
the  highest  perfection  in  their  dress 
and  discipline.  When  he  proposed 
to  his  corps  on  parade  to  Tolunteer 
for  Manilla,  they  only  requested  to 
know  whether  Colonel  Oram  would 
go  with  them?  The  answer  was, 
•He  would.'  'WiU  he  stay  with 
us  f  was  the  second  question.    The 


reply  was  in  the  affirmative;  the 
whole  corps  exclaimed,  *  To  Europe ! 
— to  Europe !'  And  the  alacrity  and 
spirit  with  which  they  subsequently 
embarked,  showed  that  they  would 
as  readily  have  gone  to  the  shores  of 
the  Atlantic  as  to  an  island  of  the 
Eastern  Ocean.  Not  a  man  of  the 
corps  deserted,  from  the  period  they 
volunteered  for  service  until  they 
embarked;  and  such  was  the  con- 
tagion of  their  enthusiasm,  that 
several  Sepoys  who  were  missing 
from  one  of  the  battalions  in  garri- 
son at  Madras,  were  found,  when 
the  expedition  returned,  to  have  de- 
serted to  join  the  Twenty-second 
under  Colonel  Oram.  We  state 
this  anecdote,"  adds  Sir  John  Mal- 
colm, "  with  a  full  impression  of  the 
importance  of  the  lesson  it  conveys. 
It  is  through  their  affections  alone 
that  such  a  class  of  men  can  well  be 
commanded." 


2  H 


466  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  HUTINT. 

1856.  direction.  Madras  troops  might  be  sent  for  the 
The  General  nonce  to  Pegu,  but  the  permanent  defence  of  that 
E^tment  outlying  province  across  the  Bay  must,  it  appeared 
to  him,  be  provided  for  by  drawing,  in  some  way, 
upon  the  Bengal  Army.  There  was  then  lying,  un- 
responded  to,  among  the  Records  of  the  Military 
Department,  that  despatch  of  the  Court  of  Directors 
in  which  the  Government  of  India  had  been  urged 
to  devise  the  means  of  relieving  themselves  from  all 
such  embarrassments  by  a  change  in  the  terms  of 
future  enlistments.  After  much  inward  thought  and 
much  consultation  with  others,  he  determined,  there- 
fore, to  institute  such  a  radical  change  in  the  con- 
stitution of  the  Bengal  Army  as  four  years  before 
had  been  indicated  by  the  Home  Government.  The 
reform  which  he  contemplated  was  to  have  only  a 
prospective  effect.  It  was  to  touch  no  existing  in- 
terests; but  to  be  applied  prospectively  to  all  who 
might  enlist  into  the  military  service  of  the  State. 
Thenceforth  every  recruit  was  to  engage  himself  for 
general  service.  There  might  be  an  alteration  in 
the  form  of  tlie  oath,  or  it  might  simply  be  left  to  the 
European  officer  to  explain  to  every  recruit  that  he 
had  been  enlisted  for  general  service.  Such  had 
been  the  custom  with  respect  to  the  six  general- 
service  regiments  of  the  Bengal  Army,  and  it  had 
been  found  to  answer  every  requirement.  An  ex- 
planatory order  might  be  issued  by  the  Governor- 
General  in  Council,  and  then  the  military  autho- 
rities might  follow  up,  in  their  own  way,  the  blow 
struck  at  the  niceties  of  the  old  system.  The  Go- 
vernor-General argued,  with  irresistible  force,  that 
every  Government  should  be  master  of  its  o^vn 
Army.  He  was,  however,  at  that  time,  fresh  from 
England ;  and  he  might  be  forgiven  for  not  knowing 


THE  GENERAL-SEEVICE  ENUSTMENT  ACT.  467 

how  the  Governiiient  could  best  make  itself  the  1856. 
master  of  such  an  Artny  as  that  with  which  he  was 
then  dealing.  But  he  would  have  had  no  legitimate 
claim  to  forgiveness  if  he  had  failed  to  take  counsel 
with  those  among  his  constitutional  advisers  who 
had  spent  all  their  adult  lives  in  India,  and  who 
were  presumedly  familiar  with  the  feelings  and  opi- 
nions of  the  people.  He  did  take  counsel  with  them ; 
and  they  urged  him  to  pursue  this  course.  He  who, 
of  all  the  Councillors,  best  knew  the  Native  character.  General  Low. 
was  then  in  England ;  but  the  ablest  man  amongst 
them  argued  that  there  was  no  place  like  Calcutta  Mr.  J.  P. 
for  shipping  off  a  large  military  force,  and  that  the  '^  ' 
Bay  of  Bengal  had  become  an  Indian  Lake.  It  does 
not  seem  that  there  was  any  one  at  Lord  Canning's 
elbow  to  tell  him  that,  whatsoever  might  be  the  fa- 
cilities of  transport,  the  Bay  of  Bengal  would  still 
be  the  black  water,  the  salt  water,  in  the  thoughts 
of  the  people  from  whom  our  recruits  were  to  be 
drawn ;  still  regarded  with  mysterious  awe,  and  re- 
coiled from  with  unconquerable  aversion. 

So,  on  the  25th  of  July,  1856,  a  general  order 
was  issued  by  the  Government  of  India,  declaring 
that,  thenceforth,  they  would  not  accept  the  service 
of  any  Native  recruit  who  would  not,  "  at  the  time 
of  his  enlistment,  distinctly  undertake  to  serve  be- 
yond the  sea,  whether  within  the  territories  of  the 
Company  or  beyond  them."  In  what  light  Lord 
Canning  regarded  this  important  change,  with  what 
arguments  he  supported  the  measures,  may  be  ga- 
thered from  his  correspondence.  "You  will  see," 
he  wrote  to  the  President  of  the  India  Board,  "  that  August  9, 
a  General  Order  has  been  published  putting  an  end 
to  the  long-established,  but  most  impolitic,  embar- 
rasBing;  and  senselesd  practice  of  enlisting  the  Native 

2h2 


468  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINT. 

1856.  Army  of  Bengal  for  limited  service  only ;  the  sole 
exceptions  being  six  regiments  of  Native  Infantry, 
which  are  recruited  on  the  condition  of  serving  any- 
where, and  the  Artillery.  It  is  marvellous  that  this 
should  have  continued  so  long,  and  that  the  Govern- 
ment of  India  should  have  tolerated,  again  and  again, 
having  to  beg  for  volimteers,  when  other  Govern- 
ments, including  those  of  Madras  and  Bombay,  would 
have  ordered  their  soldiers  on  their  duty.  It  is  the 
more  surprising,  because  no  one  can  allege  any  rea- 
son for  conceding  this  unreasonable  immunity  to  the 
Bengal  Sepoy.  The  difficulties  of  Caste  furnish  none 
whatever,  for  the  Bombay  Army  is  recruited  in  great 
part  from  the  same  classes  and  districts  as  that  of 
Bengal ;  and  even  in  the  latter  the  best  Brahmin  in 
the  ranks  does  not  scruple  to  set  aside  his  prejudices, 
whenever  it  suits  him  to  do  so.  There  seems  to 
have  been  a  dim  apprehension  that  there  might  be 
risk  in  meddling  with  the  fundamental  conditions 
upon  which  the  bargain  between  the  Army  and  the 
Government  has  hitherto  rested,  and  there  are  some 
few  alarmists  on  the  present  occasion,  but  I  have  seen 
no  reason  to  fear  that  the  order  will  cause  any  bad 
feeling  in  the  Bengal  Army.  As  it  touches  no  exist- 
ing rights,  it  could  only  do  so  by  exciting  apprehen- 
sions that  something  more  remains  behind  ;  and,  pro- 
bably, this  may  prove  to  be  the  case,  for  whenever  I 
can  propose  a  reduction  in  the  numbers  of  the  Bengal 
Regiments,  I  shall  endeavour  to  do  so  upon  terms 
that  wiU  give  a  preference  of  remaining  in  the  ranks 
to  such  men  as  may  be  willing  to  accept  general 
service.  But  this  is  no  part  of,  and  is  not  necessarily 
connected  with  the  present  change ;  moreover,  as  yet 
NoyemberS,  it  is  Only  in  my  own  breast."  And  again,  a  few 
^^'      months  later,  he  wrote,  with  still  greater  confidence : 


THE  6EMERAL-SERYICE  ENLISTMENT  ACT.  469 

"  There  is  no  fear  of  feelings  of  Caste  being  excited  1856. 
by  the  new  enlistment  regulations  in  the  Bengal 
Army.  No  one  will  come  under  it  otherwise  than 
voluntarily ;  and  the  fact  that  a  vast  number  of  the 
recruits  who  join  the  Bombay  regiments  come  from 
the  same  country,  and  are  of  the  same  caste,  and 
in  every  respect  of  the  same  condition  with  the  bulk 
of  the  Army  in  Bengal,  proves  that  they  do  not,  on 
first  entering  the  service,  hold  very  closely  to  Caste 
privileges.  You  are  aware  that  the  Bombay  Army 
is  enlisted  for  general  service  without  exception.  The 
only  apprehension  I  have  ever  had  (and  that  has 
vanished)  is,  that  the  Sepoys  already  enlisted  on  the 
old  terms  might  suspect  that  it  was  a  first  step  to- 
wards breaking  faith  with  them,  and  that  on  the  first 
necessity  they  might  be  compelled  to  cross  the  sea. 
But  there  has  been  no  sign  of  any  such  false  alarm 
on  their  part." 

No  signs  truly  apparent  at  Government  House; 
but  many  and  great  in  the  Native  villages,  and  much 
talk  in  the  Lines  and  Bazaars.  It  was  hardly  right 
even  to  say  that  there  was  no  interference  with  exist- 
ing interests.  For  the  interest  of  the  Sepoy  in  the 
Bengal  Army  was  an  hereditary  interest.  If  the  Bri- 
tish Government  did  not  at  once  assume  the  right 
to  send  him  across  the  sea,  it  seemed  certain  that  his 
sons  would  be  sent.  There  was  an  end,  indeed,  of 
the  exclusive  privileges  which  the  Bengal  Sepoy  had 
80  long  enjoyed ;  the  service  never  could  be  hereafter 
what  it  had  been  of  old  ;  and  all  the  old  pride,  there- 
fore, with  which  the  veteran  had  thought  of  his  boys 
succeeding  him  was  now  suddenly  extinguished.  Be- 
sides, the  effect,  he  said,  would  be,  that  high-caste 
men  would  shrink  from  entering  the  service,  and 
that)  therefore,  the  vacant  places  of  his  brethren 


470  OUTBBEAK  OF  THE  UUXINr. 

1866.  would  be  filled  by  men  with  whom  he  could  have  no 
feeling  of  comradeship.  And  this  was  no  imaginary 
fear.  No  sooner  had  the  order  made  its  way  through 
the  Provinces,  than  it  became  patent  to  all  engaged 
in  the  work  of  enlistment  that  the  same  high-caste 
men  as  had  before  been  readily  recruited  were  no 
longer  pressing  forward  to  enter  the  British  service.* 
As  it  was  believed  that  we  had  too  many  Brahmins 
and  Rajpoots  in  the  Bengal  Army,  this  in  itself 
might  have  been  no  great  evil.  But  it  was  of  all 
things  the  least  likely  that  such  an  order  should  pass 
into  general  circulation  without  being  ignorantly 
misunderstood  by  some,  and  designedly  misinter- 
preted by  others. 
Enlistment  of  So  it  was  soon  Said  that  the  English  gentlemen 
Siklia.  were  trying  to  rid  themselves  of  their  old  high-caste 

Sepoys,  and  that  soon  the  profession  which  had  been 
followed,  with  honourable  pride,  by  generation  after 
generation  of  old  soldier-families  would  not  be  open 
to  them.  And  this  belief  was  greatly  strengthened 
by  a  rumour  which  went  forth  about  the  same  time, 
to  the  eflfect  that  Government  had  determined  on 
enlisting  thirty  thousand  more  Sikhs.  The  conquest 
of  the  Punjab  had  placed  at  our  disposal  the  services 
of  a  warlike  race,  always  eager  to  wear  the  uniform 
of  a  successful  ruler,  for  in  their  eyes  success  was 
plunder.     Less  dainty  in  the  choice  of  their  battle- 

*  Take,  in  proof  of  iliis,  the  fol-  Infantry,  in  this  place,  said  to  me 
lowinjj  extract  from  a  letter  written  last  week  that  he  bad  clearly  asoer- 
by  Sir  Henry  Lawrence  to  Lord  tained  this  fact :  Mr.  E.  A.  Reade, 
Canning,  on  the  1st  of  May,  1857 :  of  tlie  Sudder  Board,  who  was  for 
•*  The  General  Service  Enlistment  years  collector  of  Gomckpore,  had 
Oath  is  most  distastefhl,  keeps  many  the  General  Service  Order  given  to 
ont  of  the  service,  and  frightens  the  him  as  a  reason  last  year,  when  on 
old  Sepoys,  who  imagine  that  the  liis  tonr,  by  Rajpoots,  for  not  enter- 
oaths  of  the  ;^oung  recruits  affect  ing  the  service.  The  salt  water,  he 
the  whole  regiment.  One  of  the  told  me,  was  the  universal  answer." 
best  captains  of  the  13th  Native  — JUS.  Corretpondenee. 


ENLISTMENT  OF  SIKHS.  471 

fields,  and  not  less  brave  or  robust  in  battle,  they  1856. 
were  the  very  kind  of  mercenaries  that  we  wanted  to 
give  new  bone  and  sinew  to  the  body  of  our  Native 
Army.  Whether  there  were  or  were  not,  at  this 
time,  a  tendency  to  over-work  this  new  and  promising 
recruiting-ground,  it  is  certain  that  the  old  race  of 
Sepoys  believed  that  we  were  designedly  working  it 
to  their  injury  and  their  overthrow.  They  gave 
ready  credence,  therefore,  to  exaggerated  reports  of 
Sikh  enlistments,  and,  coupling  them  with  the  New 
Creneral  Service  Order,  leapt  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  English  had  done  with  the  old  Bengal  Army, 
and  were  about  to  substitute  for  it  another  that 
would  go  anywhere  and  do  anything,  Uke  cooUes 
and  pariahs. 

Moreover,  there  were  not  wanting  those  who  were  Effects  of  the 
eager  to  persuade  the  Sepoys  of  the  Bengal  Army  that  lis^tment 
this  new  Act  was  another  insidious  attempt  to  de- Order, 
stroy  the  Caste  of  the  people,  and  to  make  men  of  all 
creeds  do  the  bidding  of  the  English,  by  merging  all 
into  the  one  faith  of  the  Feringhee.  It  was  another 
link  in  the  great  chain  of  evidence  which  had  been 
artfully  employed  to  convict  the  British  Government 
of  the  charge  of  aiming  at  the  compulsory  conversion 
of  the  people.  The  season  was  most  propitious.  The 
coining  of  Lord  Canning  had,  by  some  strange  pro- 
cess of  association  which  I  find  it  impossible  to  trace, 
been  identified  with  certain  alleged  instructions  from 
England,  emanating  from  the  Queen  herself  in  Coun- 
cil, for  the  Christianisation,  by  fair  means  or  by  foul, 
of  the  great  mass  of  the  people ;  and  now  one  of  the 
first  acts  of  his  Government  was  to  issue  an  order 
making  it  compulsory  on  the  Sepoy  to  take  to  the 
transport  vessel,  to  cross  the  black  water,  and  to 
serve  in  strange  parts  of  the  world,  far  away,  per- 


urms. 


472  OUTBREAK  OF  TH£  MUTINT. 

18S6.  hapSy  from  all  the  emblema  and  observances  of  hid 
religion,  among  a  people  sacrilegious  and  midean. 
iprehen-  The  native  mind  was,  at  this  time,  in  a  most  sen- 
*"**  sitive  state,  and  easily  wrought  upon  by  suspicious 
appearances.  What  these  appearances  were,  has,  in 
some  measure,  been  shown  in  former  chapters  of  this 
narrative.  Even  the  Railway  and  the  Electric  Tele- 
graph had  been  accounted  as  blows  struck  at  the 
religions  of  the  country.  Nor  was  this  purely  a 
creation  of  the  Native  mind,  an  unaided  conception 
of  the  Priests  or  the  People;  for  the  missionaries 
themselves  had  pleaded  the  recent  material  progress 
of  the  English  as  an  argument  in  favour  of  the  adop- 
tion by  the  inhabitants  of  India  of  one  universal 
religion.  "The  time  appears  to  have  come,"  they 
said  in  an  Address  which  was  extensively  circulated  in 
Bengal  during  the  closing  years  of  Lord  Dalhousie's 
administration,  "when  earnest  consideration  should 
be  given  to  the  question,  whether  or  not  all  men 
should  embrace  the  same  system  of  religion.  Rail- 
ways, Steam-vessels,  and  the  Electric  Telegraph  are 
rapidly  uniting  all  the  nations  of  the  earth.  The 
more  they  are  brought  together,  the  more  certain 
does  the  conclusion  become  that  all  have  the  same 
wants,  the  same  anxieties,  and  the  same  sorrows;" 
and  so  on,  with  manifest  endeavour  to  prove  that 
European  civilisation  was  the  forerimner  of  an  in- 
evitable absorption  of  all  other  faiths  into  the  one 
faith  of  the  White  Ruler.  This  had  gone  forth,  an 
egregious  Christian  manifesto,  not  wanting  in  funda^ 
mental  truth,  or  in  certain  abstract  proprieties  of 
argxmient  and  diction,  to  "  Educated  Natives,"  es- 
pecially to  respectable  Mahomedans  in  Grovemment 
employment,  some  of  the  leading  Native  functionaries 
of  Bengal     What  might  truly  be  the  purport  of  it. 


MISSIONARY  MANIFESTOES.  473 

and  whence  it  came,  was  not  very  clear  at  first ;  but  1866. 
ere  long  it  came  to  be  accepted  as  a  direct  emanation 
from  Government,  intended  to  invite  the  people  to 
apostatise  from  the  religions  of  their  fathers.  And 
such  was  the  excitement  that  Commissioner  Tayler,  of 
the  great  Patna  division,  wherein  some  disquietudes 
had  before  arisen,  mainly  of  the  Mahomedan  type, 
reported  to  Lieutenant-Governor  HaUiday  that  in- 
telligent natives,  especially  the  better  class  of  Moslems, 
were  "  impressed  with  a  full  belief  that  Government 
were  immediately  about  to  attempt  the  forcible  con- 
version of  its  subjects."  It  was  added,  that  "  a  corre- 
spondence on  this  head  had  for  some  tune  been 
going  on  between  native  gentlemen  in  various  parts 
of  the  Lower  Provinces ;"  and  Lieutenant-Governor 
Halliday  saw  so  clearly  that  this  was  no  impalpable 
mare's-nest,  no  idle  scum  of  an  alarmist  brain,  that 
he  forthwith  issued  a  sedative  Proclamation ;  which 
sedative  proclamation  was  speedily  answered  anony- 
mously, but  beyond  doubt  by  an  "intelligent  native," 
or  conclave  of  "  intelligent  natives,"  clearly  sho'vving 
by  the  inevitable  logic  of  facts  that  if  this  notion  of 
a  war  against  the  religions  of  India  had  laid  hold  of 
the  national  mind,  the  Government  had  by  their  own 
measures  given  encouragement  to  the  dangerous  be- 
Uef. 

Very  obstinate,  indeed,  and  hard  to  be  removed,  was 
this  belief;  so  hard,  that  the  very  efforts  made  to 
efface  it  might  only  fix  more  ineffaceably  the 
damaging  impression  on  the  native  mind.  For  if  the 
wondering  multitude  did  not  think,  there  were  a 
crafty  few  ready  to  teach  them,  that  if  Government 
designed,  by  foul  means,  to  destroy  the  caste  of  the 
people  and  the  religions  of  the  country,  they  would 
not  hesitate  to  make  the  issuing  of  a  lying  proclama- 


474  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY, 

1856.  tion  a  part  of  the  process.  The  conviction  that  it  was 
the  deliberate  design  of  the  British  Government,  by 
force  or  fraud,  to  attain  this  great  object^  was  growing 
stronger  and  stronger  every  month,  when  Lord  Can- 
ning arrived  in  India,  and  at  once  became,  all  unwit- 
tingly, a  special  object  of  suspicion  and  alarm.  The 
lies  which  attended,  perhaps  preceded,  his  advent, 
caused  all  his  movements  to  be  narrowly  watched; 
and  it  began  soon  to  be  bruited  abroad  that  he  had 
subscribed  largely  to  missionary  societies,  and  that 
Lady  Canning,  who  was  known  to  be  in  the  especial 
confidence  of  the  Queen,  was  intent  on  making  great 
personal  exertions  for  the  conversion  of  the  women 
of  the  country. 
Lord  Canning  But  there  was  no  truth  in  all  this.  The  Govemor- 
glouai^ie-  General  had  done  no  more  than  other  Governors- 
tics.  General  had  done  before  him.  He  had  sent  a  dona- 
tion to  the  Bible  Society,  a  society  for  the  translation 
of  the  Scriptures  into  the  Oriental  languages,  and  the 
circulation  of  these  new  versions  among  the  people. 
But  the  translation  of  the  Scriptures  had  been  carried 
on  more  than  half  a  century  before,  in  the  College  of 
Fort  William,  under  tlie  especial  patronage  of  Lord 
Wellesley;  and  Lord  Wellesley's  successor,  during 
whose  reign  the  Calcutta  Bible  Society  was  esta- 
blished, headed  the  list  with  a  large  subscription. 
Lord  Hastings,  Lord  William  Bentinck,  and  Sir 
Charles  Metcalfe,  had  all  contributed  to  the  funds  of 
the  society.  But  Lord  Canning  had  also  given  a  dona- 
tion to  the  Baptist  College  at  Serampore.  What  then  ? 
It  had  been  established  in  1818,  under  the  auspices  of 
Lord  Hastings,  whose  name  had  been  published  as 
the  "First  Patron"  of  the  Institution,  and  it  had 
received  the  support  of  subsequent  Governors-Ge- 
neral without  question  or  comment.     Besides  these 


LORD  CANNING  AND  THE  MISSIONARY  SOCIETIES.      475 

donations,  he  had  made  a  contribution  to  the  support  1866. 
of  the  excellent  school  of  the  Free  Church  Mission, 
under  the  management  of  Dr.  Duff,  as  Lord  Dal- 
housie  had  done  before  him.  "I  admit,"  he  said, 
"  that  the  Head  of  the  Government  in  India  ought  to 
abstain  from  acts  which  may  have  the  appearance  of 
an  exercise  of  power,  authority,  solicitation,  or  per- 
suasion towards  inducing  natives  to  change  their 
religion.  But  if  it  is  contended  that  a  school  like 
this,  thoroughly  catholic  and  liberal,  open  to  students 
of  every  creed,  doing  violence  to  none,  and  so  con- 
ducted as  to  disarm  hostility  and  jealousy  (the  num- 
ber of  the  Hindoo  and  Mussulman  scholars  shows 
this),  is  not  to  have  countenance  and  support  from 
the  Governor-General  because  it  is  managed  by  mis- 
sionaries, I  join  issue  on  that  point.  I  am  not  pre- 
pared to  act  upon  that  doctrine." 

And  what  had  Lady  Canning  done?  She  had 
taken  a  true  womanly  interest  in  the  education  of 
native  female  children.  She  had  visited  the  female 
schools  of  Calcutta  in  a  quiet,  unobtrusive  way ;  but 
once  only  in  each  case,  save  with  a  notable  exception 
in  favour  of  the  Bethune  Institution,  which  had  been 
taken  by  Lord  Dalhousie  under  the  special  care  of  the 
Government.*  In  this  Lady  Canning  had  taken  some 
observable  interest.  But  as  the  Managing  Committee 
of  the  school  was  composed  of  high-caste  Hindoo  gen- 
tlemen, there  was  assuredly  no  apparent  necessity  for 
restraining  her  womanly  instincts  and  shrinking  into 
apathy  and  indolence,  as  one  regardless  of  the  hap- 
piness and  the  dignity  of  her  sex.  Whatsoever  may 
have  been  the  zeal  for  the  conversion  of  the  Heathen 
that  pervaded  Government  House,  there  were  no  in- 
discreet manifestations  of  it.     There  are  times,  how- 

♦  JnU,  page  187. 


476  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINT. 

1856.  ever,  when  no  discretion  can  wholly  arrest  the  growth 
of  dangerous  lies.  A  very  littie  thing,  in  a  season  of 
excitement,  will  invest  a  colourable  falsehood  with  the 
brightest  hues  of  truth,  and  carry  conviction  to  the 
dazzled  understanding  of  an  ignorant  people.  The 
sight  of  Lady  Canning's  carriage  at  the  gates  of  the 
Bethune  school  may  have  added,  therefore.  Heaven 
only  knows,  some  fresh  tints  to  the  picture  of  a  caste- 
destroying  Government,  which  active-minded  emis- 
saries of  evil  were  so  eager  to  hang  up  in  the  public 
places  of  the  land. 
Projfresi  of  It  was  not  much ;  perhaps,  indeed,  it  was  simply 
'  nothing.  But  just  at  that  time  there  was  a  movement, 
urged  on  by  John  Grant  and  Barnes  Peacock,  in  the 
purest  spirit  of  benevolence,  for  the  rescue  of  the 
women  of  India  from  the  degradation  in  which  they 
were  sunk.  It  happened — truly,  it  happened,  for  it 
was  wholly  an  accident — that  one  of  the  first  mea- 
sures, outwardly,  of  Lord  Canning's  Government  was 
the  formal  passing  of  the  bill  "  to  remove  all  legal 
obstacles  to  the  marriage  of  Hindoo  widows,"  which 
had  been  introduced,  discussed,  and  virtually  carried, 
during  the  administration  of  his  predecessor.*  And 
this  done,  there  was  much  said  and  written  about  the 
restraints  that  were  to  be  imposed  on  Hindoo  poly- 
gamy ;  and  every  day  the  appearance  of  a  Draft  Act, 
formidable  in  the  extreme  to  Brahminism,  was  looked 
for,  with  doubt  and  aversion,  by  the  old  orthodox 
Hindoos.  For  they  saw  that  in  this,  as  in  the  matter 
of  Re-Marriage,  some  of  their  more  free-thinking 
countrymen,  mostly  of  the  younger  generation, 
moved  by  the  teachings  of  the  English,  or  by  some 
hope  of  gain,  were  beseeching  Government  to  relieve 
the  nation  from  what  they  called  the  reproach  of  Ku- 

*  Ante,  page  190. 


RESTRICTIONS  ON  POLYGAMY,  477 

linism.  And,  at  such  a  time,  Orthodoxy,  staggering  I860, 
under  blows  given,  and  shrinking  from  blows  to  come, 
looked  aghast  even  at  such  small  manifestations  as 
the  visits  of  the  wife  of  the  Governor-General  to  tlio 
Bethune  female  school.  It  was  clear  that  the  English, 
with  their  overpowering  love  of  rule,  were  about  now 
to  regulate  in  India,  after  their  own  fashion,  the 
relations  of  the  two  sexes  to  each  other.* 

Lord  Canning  found  this  movement  afoot ;  he  in 
no  wise  instituted  it.  He  found  that  Lord  Dalhousie, 
after  an  experience  of  many  years,  believed  these 
social  reforms  to  be  practicable  and  safe ;  he  found 
that  the  ablest  member  of  his  Council,  who  had  spent 
all  his  adult  life  in  India,  was  with  all  his  heart  and 
soul  eager  for  their  promotion,  and  Mrith  all  the 
activity  of  his  intellect  promoting  them.  As  to  this 
movement  against  Hindoo  polygamy,  which  was  in- 
tended to  prune  down  the  evil,  not  wholly  to  enuli- 
cate  it,  there  was  something,  to  his  European  under- 
standing^ grotesque  in  the  notion  of  a  Christian  I^egiik 
lature  recognising  certain  forms  of  polygamy,  and 
addressing  itself  only  to  the  abuses  of  the  systcrm,  as 
though  to  Christian  eyes  it  were  not  altogethi^  an 
abuse.  But  he  could  see  plainly  enough  that  only  by 
admitting  such  a  compromise  could  the  goo^l  thing  be 
done  at  all ;  and  seeing  also  the  necessity  of  prrx^ee^]- 
ing  warily  with  such  a  delicate  operation,  he  wan  not 
disposed,  in  the  first  instance,  to  do  more  than  to  f^ 
the  pulse  of  the  pwple.     It  would  be  wis^  to  dfrkiy 


*  Sir   Betrj   Lcvroee   ^losry  vjw  ^ta^ac^auA  'wtk  la^t  iM^jon  tf 

diuened  t^  iiiu"  U  viHa^  md  a  yxjpisaxj.    Is  vvt^  uj:  vt  tidli^iu: 

an  atiele  m  ttc'  Ct^amtU  teriim,  W  Vwm.  ram  at/^  tm,  itan^x  ta  ** 

wriUcs  m  \\SK,  yjmoA  x  nc :  T^  ^/uml^    jU  IC17  nor,  vm,  li^e 

kle  tcMi^*  Ic  wrsut,  "ia^  yrutoM.  T'jum,  ruCM»  *•<»(  m^vn  jmsC  v( 

▼cry  Iml    li»v  t^mt  jsqaiham  mau.  mut  *Att 


478  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

1856.      actual  legislation  until  public  opinion  should  have 
been  more  unmistakably  evoked.* 

In  the  personal  action  of  Lord  Canning  during 
this  year  of  his  novitiate,  in  the  promotion  either  of 
the  religious  conversion  or  the  social  reformatioh  of 
the  people,  I  can  see  no  traces  of  intemperate  zeaL 
But  it  is  not  to  be  questioned  that  just  at  this  time 
there  was  a  combination  of  many  untoward  circum- 
stances to  strengthen  the  belief,  which  had  been 
growing  for  some  years,  that  the  English  Government 
were  bent  upon  bringing,  by  fair  means  or  by  foul, 
all  the  nations  of  India  under  the  single  yoke  of  the 
White  Man's  faith.  Nor  is  it  less  certain  that  at  such 
a  time  the  order  for  the  enlistment  of  Native  troops 
for  general  service  appeared  to  their  unaided  compre- 
hensions, and  was  designedly  declared  by  others,  to  be 
a  part  of  the  scheme.     There  were  those,  indeed,  who 

*  Lord  Canning's  opinions  are  so  a  monstrous  horror  would  be  put  an 
clearly  expressed  in  the  following  end  to,  and  we  might  keep  ourselves 
passage,  that  it  b  riglit  that  his  straight  even  in  appearance  by  mak- 
words  should  be  given :  "  It  will,  no  ing  it  very  clear  in  the  pVeamble  that 
doubt,  be  a  little  staggering  to  find  the  act  is  passed  at  the  desire  of  the 
ourselves  drawing  up  a  law  by  which,  Hindoos  to  rescue  their  own  law  and 
although  a  horrible  abuse  of  poly-  custom  from  a  great  abuse,  and  that 
gamy  will  be  checked,  a  very  liberal  in  no  respect  is  it  proposed  to  sub- 
amount  of  it  will  be  sanctioned,  and  stitute  English  law  for  the  laws  of 

which  must  recognise  as  justifying  it  that  people Upon  the  whole, 

reasons  which  we  believe  to  be  no  I  come,  without  hesitation,  to  the 
justification  wliatever.  It  may  be  conclusion  that  the  movement  ought 
said  that  we  shall  only  be  enforcing  to  be  encouraged  to  our  utmost,  and 
Hindoo  law,  and  that  we  arc  con-  that  the  existence  and  strength  of  it 
stantly  doing  this  in  many  ways  ought  to  be  made  generally  known, 
which  abstractedly  we  should  not  The  presentation  of  the  petitions  to 
approve.  But  I  do  not  know  that  the  Lei^islative  Council,  and  their 
we  have  any  examples  of  laws  of  our  publication,  will  effect  this.  How 
own  making  and  wording,  by  which  soon  the  introduction  of  a  bill  should 
anything  so  contrary  to  our  convic-  follow,  or  how  much  time  should  be 
tions  of  right  and  wrong  as  the  given  to  seeing  whether  serious  op- 
taking  of  a  second  wife,  for  the  rea-  position  is  evoked,  I  should  like  to 
sons  allowed  by  Menu  (or  at  least  talk  over  with  you  some  day,  as  also 
for  eight  of  them  out  of  ten),  is  de-  the  scope  of  the  bill" — Lord  CauHWff 
dared  lawful.  This,  however,  is  a  to  Mr.  J.  F,  Grant,  June  20,  1856. 
matter  of  appearance  and  feeling  MS,  Correspondence, 
rather  than  of  substance.  Practically, 


MISSIONARY  COLONELS.  479 

saw,  or  professed  to  see,  in  this  matter,  the  very  root  1856. 
of  our  cherished  desire  for  the  conversion  of  the 
people.  It  was  said  that  we  wished  to  bring  them  all 
to  our  OAvn  faith  in  order  that  we  might  find  them 
-willing  to  do  our  bidding  in  all  parts  of  the  world, 
that  they  might  shrink  from  no  kind  of  work  by  sea 
or  by  land,  and  even  fight  our  battles  in  Europe ;  for 
it  was  plain  that  England  had  sad  lack  of  fighting 
men,  or  she  would  not  have  drawn  upon  India  for 
them  during  the  Crimean  war.  In  the  art  of  what  is 
called  "putting  tvvo  and  two  together,"  there  were 
many  [intelligent  natives  by  no  means  deficient,  and 
deeper  and  deeper  the  great  suspicion  struck  root  in 
the  popular  mind. 

There  was  another  ugly  symptom,  too,  at  this 
time,  which  greatly,  in  some  particular  quarters, 
strengthened  this  impression  of  coming  danger 
among  the  Sepoys  of  the  Bengal  Army.  There  were 
among  the  European  officers  of  that  army  many 
earnest-minded,  zealous  Christians ;  men  whose  hearts 
were  -wrung  by  the  sight  of  the  vast  mass  of  heathen- 
dom around  them,  and  who  especially  deplored  the 
darkness  which  brooded  over  their  companions  in 
arms,  their  children  in  the  service  of  the  State,  the 
Sepoys  who  looked  up  to  and  obeyed  them.  Some, 
in  their  conscientious  prudence,  grieved  in  silence, 
and  rendered  unto  Ca3sar  the  homage  of  a  wise  for- 
Ijearance.  Others,  conscientiously  imprudent,  be- 
lieved that  it  was  their  duty  to  render  unto  God  the 
just  tribute  of  an  apostolic  activity.  It  was  the  creed 
of  these  last  that  all  men  were  alike  to  them,  as  having 
souls  to  be  saved,  and  that  no  external  ch'cumstances 
affected  their  own  inalienable  right  to  do  their  great 
Master's  work.  If  under  the  pressure  of  these  con- 
victions they  had  changed  the  red  coat  for  the  black, 


480  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

1856.  and  the  sword  for  the  shepherd's  crook,  they  would 
have  fairly  earned  the  adnairation  of  all  good  men. 
But  holding  fast  to  the  wages  of  the  State,  they  went 
about  with  the  order-book  in  one  hand  and  the  Bible 
in  the  other ;  and  thus  they  did  a  great  and  grievous 
wrong  to  the  Government  they  professed  to  serve.  To 
what  extent  this  missionary  zeal  pervaded  our  English 
officers,  it  is  not  easy,  with  much  precision,  to  declare. 
But  there  were  some  of  whose  missionary  zeal  there 
is  now  no  remnant  of  a  doubt — some  who  confessed, 
nay,  openly  gloried  in  their  prosel)i:ising  endeavours. 
One  officer,  who  in  1857  was  commandant  of  a  regi- 
ment of  Infantry,  said  vauntingly  in  that  year :  "  I 
beg  to  state  that  during  the  last  twenty  years  and 
upwards,  I  have  been  in  the  habit  of  speaking  to 
natives  of  all  classes,  Sepoys  and  others,  making  no 
distinction,  since  there  is  no  respect  of  persons  with 
God,  on  the  subject  of  our  religion,  in  the  highways, 
cities,  bazaars,  and  villages — ^not  in  the  Lines  and 
regimental  Bazaars.  I  have  done  this  from  a  convic- 
tion that  every  converted  Christian  is  expected,  or 
rather  commanded,  by  the  Scriptures  to  make  known 
the  glad  tidings  of  salvation  to  his  lost  fellow-crea- 
tures, Our  Saviour  having  offered  himself  up  as  a 
sacrifice  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world,  by  which 
alone  salvation  can  be  secured.  He  has  directed  that 
this  salvation  should  be  freely  offered  to  all  without 
exception."  Again,  in  another  letter,  he  wrote :  "  As 
to  the  question  whether  I  have  endeavoured  to  con- 
vert Sepoys  and  others  to  Christianity,  I  would 
humbly  reply  that  this  has  been  my  object,  and  I  con- 
ceive is  the  aim  and  end  of  every  Christian  who 
speaks  the  word  of  God  to  another — merely  that  the 
Lord  would  make  him  the  happy  instrument  of  con- 
verting his  neighbour  to  God,  or,  in  other  words,  of 


COLONEL  WHELER's  MANIFESTO.  481 

rescuing  him  from  eternal  destruction."  "On  mat-  1856. 
ters  connected  with  religion,"  he  added,  "  I  feel  myself 
called  upon  to  act  in  two  capacities — *  to  render  unto 
Caesar  (or  the  Government)  the  things  that  are 
Caesar's,  and  to  render  unto  God  the  things  that  are 
God's.'  Temporal  matters  and  spiritual  matters  are 
thus  kept  clearly  under  their  respective  heads.  When 
speaking,  therefore,  to  a  native  on  the  subject  of 
religion,  I  am  then  acting  in  the  capacity  of  a 
Christian  soldier  under  the  authority  of  my  heavenly 
superior;  whereas  in  temporal  matters  I  act  as  a 
general  officer,  under  the  authority  and  order  of  my 
earthly  superior."*  Reading  this,  one  does  not  know 
whether  more  to  admire  the  Christian  courage  of  the 
writer  or  to  marvel  at  the  strange  moral  blindness 
which  would  not  suffer  him  to  see  that  he  could  not 
serve  both  God  and  Mammon;  that  ignoring  the 
known  wishes  and  instructions  of  his  temporal 
master,  he  could  not  do  his  duty  to  his  spiritual 
Lord ;  and  that  if  in  such  a  case  the  two  services 
were  antagonistic  to  each  other,  it  was  his  part,  as  a 
Christian,  to  divest  himself  of  his  purchased  alle- 
giance to  the  less  worthy  Government,  and  to  serve 
the  Other  and  the  Higher  without  hindrance  and 
without  reproach.  He  was  not  bound  to  continue  to 
follow  such  a  calling,  but  whilst  following  it  he  was 
bound  to  do  his  duty  in  that  state  of  life  to  which 
it  had  pleased  God  to  call  him. 

Whilst  all  these  disturbing  influences  were  at 
work,  and  on  many  accounts  most  actively  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Calcutta,  there  came  from  afar, 
across  the  North- Western  frontier,  a  current  of  poli- 
tical agitation,  which  was  met  by  other  streams  of 

*  Lieutenant-Colonel  Wheler  to  GoTernment,  April  15,  ISbT.^^frtMied 
J^apen. 

2  I 


482  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINT. 

1866.      native  origin,  tur^d  also  with  troublous  rumours. 
The  Persian  Government,  in  best  of  times  given  to 
treachery  and  trickery,  even  under  the  fairest  outside 
show  of  friendship,  were  not  likely  in  such  a  con- 
juncture as  had  arisen  at  the  end  of  1856,  to  let  slip 
any  available  means  of  damaging  an  enemy.    Holding 
fast  to  the  maxim  that  "  All  is  fair  in  war,"  they  en- 
deavoured, not  unwisely  after  their  kind,  to  raise 
manifold  excitements  on  our  Northern  frontier,  and 
somehow  to  "create  a  diversion."    There  might  be 
some  inflammable  materials  strewn  about,  to  which  a 
firebrand  skilfully  applied,  or  even  a  spark  dropped 
seemingly  haphazard,   might    produce    the    desired 
result  of  combustion.    Truly  it  was  worth  a  trial.     In 
spite  of  Sectarian  diflFerences  something  perhaps  might 
be  done  by  an  appeal  to  the  common  faith  of  the  fol- 
lowers of  the  Prophet.     The  Kng  of  Delhi,  though 
not  much  as  a  substantial  fact,   was  a  great  and 
potential  name ;  there  was  some  vitality  in  the  tradi- 
tions which  were  attached  to  it  and  the  associations 
by  which  it  was  surroimded.    The  Mogul  himself  was 
a  Soonee,  and  the  people  of  Delhi  and  its  surround- 
ings were  mostly  Soonees,  and  there  was  doubtless  a 
difficulty  in  this,  but  not  one  that  might  not  be  sur- 
mounted.    So  Persia  sent  forth  her  emissaries  noise- 
lessly to  the  gates  of  the  Imperial  City,  perhaps  with 
no  very  clear  conception  of  what  was  to  be  done,  but 
with  a  general  commission  to   do  mischief  to  the 
English.     Mahomedans  of  all  sects  might  be  invited 
to  lay  aside  their  doctrinal  differences  for  a  while  and 
to  unite  against  a  common  enemy.     There  might  be 
great  promises  of  the  restoration  of  a  magnificent 
Mahomedan  Empire ;  and,  as  the  least  result  of  the 
scattering  of  such  seed,  the  minds  of  the  people  might 
be  unsetded,  and  something  might  come  of  it  in  good 


POLITICAL  INQUIETUDES.  483 

time.  A  Proclamation  was  therefore  prepared,  and  in  1965. 
due  course  it  found  its  way  to  the  walls  of  Delhi,  and 
even  displayed  itself  on  the  Jumma  Musjid,  or  Great 
Mosque.  There  were  stories,  too,  in  circulation  to 
the  effect  that  the  war  on  the  shores  of  the  Persian 
Gulf  was  going  cruelly  against  us.  It  was  bruited 
abroad,  also,  that  though  the  English  thought  that 
they  had  secured  the  friendship  of  Dost  Mahomed, 
the  Ameer  was  reaUy  the  friend  and  vassal  of  Persia, 
and  that  the  amity  he  had  outwardly  evinced  towards 
them  was  only  a  pretext  for  beguiling  them  to  sur- 
render  Peshawur  to  the  Afghans. 

It  was  believed  in  Upper  India  that  this  was  to 
be  done ;  and  it  was  reported  also  about  the  same 
time  that  the  English  intended  to  compensate 
themselves  for  this  concession  by  annexing  the 
whole  of  Rajpootana.  This  last  story  was  not  one 
of  merely  native  acceptance.  It  had  been  set  forth 
prominently  in  some  of  the  Anglo-Indian  newspapers, 
and  unhappily  there  had  been  nothing  in  our  past 
treatment  of  the  Native  States  of  India  to  cause  it 
to  be  disbelieved.  In  the  North- Western  regions  of 
India  disturbing  rumours  commonly  assume  a  poli- 
tical colour,  whilst  lower  down  in  Bengal  and  Behar, 
their  complexion  is  more  frequently  of  a  religious 
cast.  The  rumour  of  the  coming  ab«iorption  of  these 
ancient  Hindoo  principalities  into  the  great  new 
Empire  of  the  British  was  well  contrived,  not  only 
to  excite  the  anxieties  and  resentments  of  the  Raj- 
poot races,  but  to  generate  further  political  mistrust 
throughout  all  the  remaining  states  of  the  country. 
It  was  so  mischievous  a  report  that,  when  it  reached 
England  and  obtained  further  currency  in  our  jour- 
nals, even  the  Court  of  Directors  of  tiie  East  India 

2  I  2 


484  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY.      . 

1856.  Company,  the  most  reticent  of  all  political  bodies, 
broke,  as  I  have  before  said,  through  their  habitual 
reserve,  and  authoritatively  contradicted  it. 

Seldom  is  it  that  the  English  themselves  discern 
the  effects  of  these  disquieting  rumours  upon  the 
minds  of  the  people.  In  ordinary  official  language, 
at  this  time,  all  was  quiet  in  Upper  India.  But  ever 
and  anon  some  friendly  Mahomedan  or  Hindoo  spoke 
of  certain  significant  symptoms  of  the  unrest  which 
was  not  visible  to  the  English  eye  ;*  and  vague  re- 
ports of  some  coming  danger  which  no  one  could 
define,  reached  our  functionaries  in  the  North- 
West ;  and  some  at  last  began  to  awaken  slowly  to 
the  conviction  that  there  were  evil  influences  at 
work  to  unsettle  the  national  mind.  The  new  year 
dawned,  and  there  was  something  suggestive  in  the 
number  of  the  year.  In  1757  the  English  had  esta- 
blished their  dominion  in  India  by  the  conquest  of 

*  The  old  Afghan  chief,  Jan  should  be,  'Prevention  better  than 
Fishan  Khan,  who  nad  followed  our  cure,'  and  that,  with  enemies  at  the 
fortunes  and  received  a  pension  from  gate,  we  should  take  care  to  keep 
the  British  Government,  told  Mr.  the  inmates  of  the  house  our  friends. 
Greathed,  Commissioner  at  Cawn-  He  appeared  quite  relieved  to  re- 
pore,  in  February,  1S57,  that  these  ceive  my  assurance  that  there  was 
rumours  had  produced  a  very  bad  no  probability  of  either  of  the  appre- 
effect.  A  private  note  from  that  bended  events  coming  to  pass.  It 
officer  to  Mr.  Colvin,  the  Lieute-  would  hardly  have  been  worth  while 
nant-Govemor,  is  worthy  of  citation  to  mention  this  incident,  but  that 
in  this  place:  "Jan  Fishan  Khan  we  so  rarely  receive  any  indication 
paid  me  a  visit  a  few  days  ago  with  of  the  political  gossip  of  the  day 
the  special  object  of  communicating  among  the  native  community ;  and 
his  apprehensions  on  the  present  we  may  feel  quite  sure  that  Jan 
state  of  political  affairs  in  India.  Fishan  was  actuated  by  fears  for  our 
He  brought  several  members  of  his  welfare,  and  not  by  "hopes  of  our 
family,  evidently  to  be  witnesses  of  overthrow,  when  he  gave  credence 
the  interview,  and  prefaced  his  ad-  to  the  reports.  I  am  afraid  the  fre- 
dress  with  a  recitation  of  the  fruit-  quent  reports  of  annexation  in  Rai- 
less  warnings  he  had  given  Sir  Wm.  pootana  have  agitated  the  pubhc 
MacNaghten  of  the  course  affairs  mind  and  bred  distrust  among  the 
were  taking  in  Cabul.  His  fears  Bajpoots.  It  is  a  pity  so  many 
for  our  safety  rested  on  his  belief  years  have  elapsed  since  a  Govemor- 
that  we  intended  to  give  up  Fesha-  General  had  an  opportunity  of  per- 
wurto  Dost  Mahomed,  and  to  annex  sonally  assuring  tnem  of  their  poli- 
Rajpootana.     He  said,  our  maxim  tical  safety." 


THE  CENTENARY  PROPHECY.  485 

Bengal  For  a  hundred  years  they  had  now,  by  the  1856. 
progressive  action  of  continued  encroachments,  been 
spreading  their  paramount  rule  over  the  whole 
country;  and  there  were  prophecies,  said  to  be  of 
ancient  date,  which  foretold  the  downfal  of  the  Eng- 
lish power  at  the  end  of  this  century  of  supremacy. 
Ever  in  times  of  popular  excitement  are  strange  pro- 
phecies afloat  in  the  social  atmosphere.  Whether 
they  are  revivals  of  old  predictions,  or  new  inven- 
tions designed  to  meet  the  requirements  of  the  mo- 
ment, it  is  often  difficult  even  to  conjecture.*  But 
whether  old  or  new,  whether  uttered  in  good  faith  or 
fraudulently  manufactured,  they  seldom  failed  to 
make  an  impression  on  the  credulous  minds  of  the 
people.  Coming  upon  them  not  as  the  growth  of 
human  intelligence,  but  as  the  mysterious  revelations 
of  an  unseen  power,  they  excited  hopes  and  aspira- 
tions, perhaps  more  vital  and  cogent  from  their  very 
vagueness.  The  religious  element  mingled  largely 
with  the  political,  and  the  aliment  which  nourished 
the  fanaticism  of  believers  fed  also  their  ambition 
and  their  cupidity.  In  the  particular  prophecy  of 
which  men  at  this  time  were  talking  there  was  at 
least  something  tangible,  for  it  was  a  fact  that  the 
first  century  of  British  rule  was  fast  coming  to  an 
end.  This  in  itself  was  sufficient  to  administer 
largely  to  the  superstition  and  credulity  of  the  people, 
and  it  was  certain,  too,  that  the  prediction  based 
upon  it  was  not  now  heard  for  the  first  time.  Lightly 
heeded,  when  long  years  were  to  intervene  before  its 

*  It  is  certain,  however,  that  the  pointing  to  the  downfal  of  the  Eug- 

most  preposterous  claims  to  anti-  lish  at  this  time;  in  other  words, 

quitj  are  sometimes  advanced  on  that  our  destruction  bad  been  pre- 

tneir  behalf.    For  example,  it  was  dieted  many  hundred  years  before 

paveW  stated  in  a  Irading  Calcutta  we    had   ever   been   seen   in   the 

jounuu,  that  a  prophecy  had  been  country,  or  ever  heard  of  by  the 

disooTcred,  a  thooMiid  yean  old,  people. 


486  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

1866.  possible  realisation,  now  that  the  date  of  the  pre- 
diction  had  arrived,  it  took  solemn  and  significant 
shape  in  the  memories  of  men,  and  the  yeiy  excite- 
ment that  it  engendered  helped  in  time  io  bring 
about  its  fulfilment.* 

*  Whether  the  prophecy  was  of  mj  remarking  to  a  chowrej  Brah- 

Hindoo  or  Mahomedan  origin  is  still  mm,  whose  loyalty  was  conspicuoos 

a  moot  question.     The  following,  throoghout  the  period  (he  was  after- 

from  a  memorandum  famished  to  me  terwards  killed  in  Achin  with  the 

by  Mr.  E.  A.  Beade,  throws  some  rebels),  soon  after  the  battle  of  Oct. 

li^ht  on  the  subject  and  will  be  read  11, 1857,  that  the  Sumbut  1915  was 

with  no  little  interest : — "I  do  not  passing  away  without  the  fulfilment 

think  I  erer  met  one  man  in  a  hun-  of  the  centenary  prophecy,  that  he 

dred  that  did  not  nve  the  Mahome-  replied  with  some  anxiety,  there  was 

dans  credit  for  tms  prediction.    I  yet  a  remainder  of  the  year,  t.^.  till 

fully   belie?e   that   tne  notion   of  March  20,  1858 ;  and  before  that 

change  after  a  century  of  tenure  was  time,  in  183S,  the  Subadar,  a  Te- 

general,  and  I  can  testify  with  others  waree,  of  a  cavalry  regiment,  in  his 

to  have  heard  of  the  prediction  at  farewell  to  a  brother  of  mine  leaving 

least  a  quarter  of  a  century  pre-  the  service  in  that  year,  coolly  telt 

viousljr.  ^  But  call  it  a  prediction  or  ing  him  that  in  another  twentv-five 

supersitition,  the  credit  of  it  must,  years  the  Company's  Baj  would  be 

I  think,  be  given  to  the  Hindoos,  at  an  end,  and  the  Hindoo  Raj  re- 

If  we  take  the  Hejra  calendar,  1757  stored.    It  certainlv  does  not  mudi 

▲.D.  corresponds  with  1171  Hejra;  matter,  but  I  think  it  is  the  safe 

1857  A.D.  with  1274  Hejra.  Whereas  view  to  accept  the  tradition  as  of 

by  the  luni-solar  year  of  the  Sumbut,  Hindoo    rather   than    Mahomedan 

1757  A.D.  is  1814  Sumbut,  and  1857  origin." 
▲.D.  1914  Sumbut.    I  remember  on 


THE  RISING  OF  THE  STORM.  487 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THX  VBW  BITLBD  MUSKBt— THB  STOBT  OF  TUB  GRBASED  CAHTaiDOES— 
DUM-DUM  AMD  BABBAC&]>OBE— BXCITEMBNT  IN  THE  MATIVJS  BEGIMEMTS 
— EVENTS  AT  BERHA.MPOBB — MUTINT  07  THE  NINETEENTH  REGIMENT 
—CONDUCT  OP  COLONEL  MITCHELL. 

The  new  year  dawned  upon  India  with  a  fair  Jan.,  1857. 
promise  of  continued  tranquillity.  But  it  was  only  a 
few  weeks  old  when  the  storm  began  to  arise.  It  is  The  storm 
in  the  cold  weather  that  the  British  pfficer  sees  most  "**°^* 
of  the  Sepoy,  and  best  understands  his  temper.  Com- 
p^y  dri^"^  »<!  «gime»tel  i»n.d«,  Jd  brigade 
exercises,  are  continually  bringing  him  face  to  face 
with  his  men,  and  he  roams  about  Cantonments  as  he 
cannot  roam  in  the  midst  of  the  summer  heats  and 
autumnal  deluges.  But  this  winter  of  1856-57  had 
nearly  passed  away,  and  he  had  seen  no  indications 
of  anything  to  disturb  his  settled  faith  in  the  fidelity 
of  the  native  soldier.  There  was  outward  serenity 
everywhere,  and  apparent  cheerfulness  and  content, 
when  suddenly  a  cloud  arose  in  an  unexpected  quar- 
ter; and  a  tremendous  danger,  dimly  seen  at  first, 
began  to  expand  into  gigantic  proportions. 

For  years  the  enemies  of  the  English,  all  who  had 
been  alarmed  by  our  encroachments,  all  who  had 
suffered  by  our  usurpations,  all  who  had  been  shorn 


488  TEE  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

1867.  by  our  intervention  of  privileges  and  perquisites 
which  they  had  once  enjoyed,  and  who  saw  before 
them  a  stiU  deeper  degradation  and  a  more  absolute 
ruin,  had  been  seeking  just  such  an  opportunity  as 
now  rose  up  suddenly  before  them.  They  had  looked 
for  it  in  one  direction ;  they  had  looked  for  it  in  an- 
other ;  and  more  than  once  they  thought  that  they 
had  found  it.  They  thought  that  they  had  found 
something,  of  which  advantage  might  be  taken  to 
persuade  the  Native  soldiery  that  their  Christian 
masters  purposed  to  defile  their  caste  and  to  destroy 
their  religion.  But  the  fake  steps,  which  we  had 
hitherto  taken,  had  not  been  false  enough  to  serve 
the  purposes  of  those  who  had  sought  to  destroy  the 
British  Government  by  means  of  a  general  revolt  of 
the  Native  Army.  For  half  a  century  there  had 
been  nothing  of  a  sufficiently  palpable  and  compre- 
hensive character  to  alarm  the  whole  Sepoy  Army, 
Mahomedan  and  Hindoo.  But  now,  suddenly,  a 
story  of  most  terrific  import  found  its  way  into  cir- 
culation.  It  was  stated  that  Government  had  manu- 
factured cartridges,  greased  with  animal  fat,  for  the 
use  of  the  Native  Army ;  and  the  statement  was  not 
a  lie. 
Brown  Bess.  The  old  infantry  musket,  the  venerable  Brown 
Bess  of  the  British  soldier,  had  been  condemned  as 
a  relic  of  barbarism,  and  it  was  wisely  determined, 
in  the  Indian  as  in  the  English  Army,  to  supersede  it 
by  the  issue  of  an  improved  description  of  fire-arm, 
with  grooved  bores,  after  the  fashion  of  a  rifle.  As  a 
ball  fi'om  these  new  rifled  muskets  reached  the  enemy 
at  a  much  greater  distance  than  the  ammunition  of 
the  old  weapon,  the  Sepoy  rejoiced  in  the  advantage 
which  would  thus  be  conferred  upon  him  in  battle, 
and  lauded  the  Government  for  what  he  regarded  as 


THE  GREASED  CARTRIDGES.  489 

a  sign  both  of  the  wisdom  of  his  rulers  and  of  their  1867. 
solicitude  for  his  welfare.  And  when  it  was  learnt 
that  dep6ts  had  been  established  at  three  great  mili- 
tary stations  for  the  instruction  of  the  Sepoy  in  the 
use  of  the  new  weapon,  there  was  great  talk  in  the 
Lines  about  the  wonderfiil  European  musket  that 
was  to  keep  all  comers  at  a  distance.  But,  unhappily, 
these  rifled  barrels  could  not  be  loaded  without  the 
lubrication  of  the  cartridge.  And  the  voice  of  joy 
and  praise  was  suddenly  changed  into  a  wild  cry  of 
grief  and  despair  when  it  was  bruited  abroad  that  the 
cartridge,  the  end  of  which  was  to  be  bitten  off  by 
the  Sepoy,  was  greased  with  the  fat  of  the  detested 
swine  of  the  Mahomedan,  or  the  venerated  cow  of  the 
Hindoo. 

How  the  truth  first  transpired  has  been  often  told,  stoij  of  the 
Eight  miles  from  Calcutta  lies  the  military  station  of  ^[^ridges. 
Dum-Dum.  For  many  years  it  had  been  the  head- 
quarters of  the  Bengal  Artillery.  There  all  the  many 
distinguished  officers  of  that  distinguished  corps  had 
learnt  the  rudiments  of  their  profession,  and  many 
had  spent  there  the  happiest  years  of  their  lives.  But 
it  was  suddenly  discovered  that  it  was  not  suited  to 
the  purpose  for  which  it  was  designed.  The  head- 
quarters  of  the  Artillery  were  removed  to  Meerut. 
The  red  coat  displaced  the  blue.  The  barracks  and  the 
mess-house,  and  the  officers'  bungalows,  were  given 
up  to  other  occupants ;  and  buildings,  which  from 
their  very  birth  had  held  nothing  but  the  appliances 
of  ordnance,  were  degraded  into  manufactories  and 
storehouses  of  small-arm  ammunition.  Thus,  by  a 
mutation  of  fortune,  when  the  Enfield  Rifle  began  to 
supersede  Brown  Bess,  Dum-Dum  became  one  of 
three  Cantonments  at  which  the  Grovemment  esta- 
blished Schools  of  Musketry  for  instruction  in  the  use 


490  THE  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINT. 

1867.  of  the  improved  rifled  weapon.  Now,  it  happened 
that)  one  day  in  January,  a  low-caste  Lascar,  or 
magazine-man,  meeting  a  high-caste  Sepoy  in  the 
Cantonment)  asked  him  for  a  drink  of  water  from 
his  lotah.  The  Brahmin  at  once  replied  with  an 
objection  on  the  score  of  caste,  and  was  tauntingly 
told  that  caste  was  nothing,  that  high-caste  and  low- 
caste  would  soon  be  all  the  same,  as  cartridges 
smeared  with  beef-fat  and  hog's-lard  were  being  made 
for  the  SepoyB  at  the  depdts,  and  would  soon  be  in 
general  use  throughout  the  army.* 

The  Brahmin  carried  this  story  to  his  comrades, 
and  it  was  soon  known  to  every  Sepoy  at  the  dep6t 
A  shudder  ran  through  the  Lines.  Each  man  to 
whom  the  story  was  told  caught  the  great  fear  from 
his  neighbour,  and  trembled  at  the  thought  of  the 
pollution  that  lay  before  him.  The  contamination 
was  to  be  brought  to  his  very  Ups ;  it  was  not  merely 
to  be  touched,  it  was  to  be  eaten  and  absorbed  into 
his  very  being.  It  was  so  terrible  a  thing,  that,  if  the 
most  malignant  enemies  of  the  British  Government 
had  sat  in  conclave  for  years,  and  brought  an  excess 
of  devilish  ingenuity  to  bear  upon  the  invention  of  a 
scheme  framed  with  the  design  of  alarming  tiie  Sepoy 
mind  from  one  end  of  India  to  the  other,  they  could 
not  have  devised  a  lie  better  suited  to  the  purpose. 
But  now  the  English  themselves  had  placed  in  the 
hands  of  their  enemies,  not  a  fiction,  but  a  fact  of 
tremendous  significance,  to  be  turned  against  them  as 
a  deadly  instrument  of  destruction.  It  was  the  very 
thing  that  had  been  so  long  sought,  and  up  to  this 
time  sought  in  vain.     It  required  no  explanation.    It 

*  No  greased  cartridges  had  been  only  in  the  rodiments  of  their  rifle- 
issued  at  Dam-Dam.  The  Sepoys  education,  and  had  not  come  yet  to 
in  the  musketry  school  there  were    need  the  application  of  the  greaae. 


SPREAD  OF  EVIL  TIDINGS.  491 

needed  no  ingenious  gloss  to  make  the  full  force  of  1867. 
the  thing  itself  patent  to  the  multitude.  It  was  not 
a  suggestion,  an  inference,  a  probability ;  but  a  de- 
monstrative fact,  so  complete  in  its  naked  truth,  that 
no  exaggeration  could  have  helped  it.  Like  the  case 
of  the  leathern  head-dresses,  which  had  convulsed 
Southern  India  half  a  century  before,  it  appealed  to 
the  strongest  feelings  both  of  the  Mahomedan  and 
the  Hindoo ;  but  though  similar  in  kind,  it  was  in- 
comparably more  offensive  in  degree;  more  insult- 
ing, more  appalling,  more  disgusting. 

We  know  so  little  of  Native  Indian  society  beyond 
its  merest  externals,  the  colour  of  the  people^s  skins, 
the  form  of  their  garments,  the  outer  aspects  of  their 
houses,  that  History,  whilst  it  states  broad  results, 
can  often  only  surmise  causes.  But  there  are  some 
surmises  which  have  little  less  than  the  force  of 
gospeL  We  feel  what  we  cannot  see,  and  have  fedth 
in  what  we  cannot  prove.  It  is  a  fact,  that  there  is  a 
certain  description  of  news,  which  travels  in  India, 
from  one  station  to  another,  with  a  rapidity  almost 
electric.  Before  the  days  of  the  "  Ughtning  post," 
there  was  sometimes  intelligence  in  the  Bazaars  of  the 
Native  dealers  and  the  Lines  of  the  Native  soldiers, 
especially  if  the  news  imported  something  disastrous 
to  the  British,  days  before  it  reached,  in  any  official 
shape,  the  high  functionaries  of  Grovemment.*  We 
cannot  trace  the  progress  of  these  evil-tidings.  The 
Natives  of  India  have  an  expressive  sa3ang,  that  ^^  it  * 
is  in  the  air."    It  often  happened  that  an  uneasy  feel- 

*  The  news  of  the  first  outbreak  Government  House  from  any  official 

and  massacre  at  Canbol,  in  1841,  quarter ;  and  the  matinv  at  barrack- 

and  also  of  the  subsequent  destrue-  pore  was  known  by  the  Sepoys  of  the 

tion  of  the  British  Army  in  the  Pass,  British  force  proceeding  to  Burmah 

reached  Calcutta  through  the  Ba-  before  it  reached  the  military  and 

saars  of  lieerut  and  Kumal  some  political  chiefs  by  special  express, 

days  before  ih^  firnnd  their  way  to  Bee  tmie,  p.  S09. 


492  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

1867.  ing — an  impression  that  something  had  happened, 
though  they  "  could  not  discern  the  shape  thereof" — 
pervaded  men's  minds,  in  obscure  anticipation  of  the 
news  that  was  travelling  towards  them  in  all  its  tan- 
gible proportions.  All  along  the  line  of  road,  from 
town  to  town,  from  village  to  village,  were  thousands 
to  whom  the  feet  of  those  who  brought  the  glad  tidings 
were  beautiful  and  welcome.  The  British  ma^trate, 
returning  from  his  evening  ride,  was  perhaps  met  on 
the  road  near  the  Bazaar  by  a  venerable  Native  on 
an  ambling  pony — a  Native  respectable  of  aspect, 
with  whit€  beard  and  whiter  garments,  who  salaamed 
to  the  English  gentleman  as  he  passed,  and  went  on 
his  way  freighted  with  intelligence  refreshing  to  the 
30uls  of  those  to  whom  it  was  to  be  communicate, 
to  be  used  with  judgment  and  sent  on  with  despatch. 
This  was  but  one  of  many  costumes  worn  by  the 
messenger  of  evil.  In  whatsoever  shape  he  passed, 
there  was  nothing  outwardly  to  distinguish  him. 
Next  morning  there  was  a  sensation  in  the  Bazaar, 
and  a  vague  excitement  in  the  Sepoys'  Lines.  But 
when  rumours  of  disaster  reached  the  houses  of  the 
chief  English  officers,  they  were  commonly  discre- 
dited. Their  own  letters  were  silent  on  the  subject 
It  was  not  likely  to  be  true,  they  said,  as  they  had 
heard  nothing  about  it.  But  it  was  true ;  and  the 
news  had  travelled  another  himdred  miles  whilst  the 
white  gentlemen,  with  bland  scepticism,  were  shaking 
their  heads  over  the  lies  of  the  Bazaar. 

It  is  difficult,  in  most  cases,  to  surmise  the  agency 
to  whose  interested  eflForts  is  to  be  attributed  this 
rapid  circulation  of  evil  tidings.  But  when  the  fact 
of  the  greased  cartridges  became  known,  there  were 
two  great  motive  powers,  close  at  hand,  to  give  an 
immediate  impulse  to  the  promulgation  of  the  story. 


DISSEMINATORS  OF  EVIL.  493 

The  political  and  the  religious  animosities,  excited  by  1867. 
the  recent  measures  of  the  English,  were  lying  in 
wait  for  an  opportunity  to  vent  themselves  in  action. 
It  happened  at  this  time,  that  the  enmities  which  we 
had  most  recently  provoked  had  their  head-quarters 
in  Calcutta.  It  happened,  also,  that  these  enmities 
had  their  root  partly  in  Hindooism,  partly  in  Ma- 
homedanism.  There  was  the  great  Brahminical  In- 
stitution, the  Doorma  Soobha  of  Calcutta,  whose 
special  function  it  was  to  preserve  Hindooism  pure 
and  simple  in  aU  ite  ancestral  integrity,  and,  there- 
fore,  to  resist  the  invasions  and  encroachments  of  the 
English,  by  which  it  was  continually  threatened. 
There  were  bygone  injuries  to  revenge,  and  there 
were  coming  dangers  to  repel.  On  the  other  side, 
there  was  the  deposed  king-ship  of  Oude,  with  all  its 
perilous  surroundings.  Sunk  in  slothfuhiess  and  self- 
indulgence,  with  little  real  care  for  anything  beyond 
the  enjoyment  of  the  moment,  Wajid  AJi  himself  may 
have  neither  done  nor  suggested  anythmg,  in  this 
crisis,  to  turn  to  hostile  account  the  fact  of  the  greased 
cartridges.  But  there  were  those  about  him  with 
keener  eyes,  and  stronger  wills,  and  more  resolute  ac- 
tivities, who  were  not  likely  to  suffer  such  an  oppor- 
tunity to  escape.  It  needed  no  such  special  agencies 
to  propagate  a  story,  which  would  have  travelled,  in 
ordinary  course  of  accidental  tale-bearing,  to  the  dif- 
ferent stations  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  capital. 
But  it  was  expedient  in  the  eyes  of  our  enemies  that 
it  should  at  once  be  invested  with  all  its  terrors,  and 
the  desired  effect  wrought  upon  the  Sepoy's  mind,  be- 
fore any  one  could  be  induced,  by  timely  official  ex- 
planation, to  believe  that  the  outrage  was  an  accident, 
an  oversight,  a  mistake.  So,  from  the  beginning,  the 
story  went  forth  that  the  English,  in  prosecution  of  a 


•■• . . 


494  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINT. 

1657.  long-cherished  design,  and  under  instructions  from 
the  Queen  in  Council,  had  greased  the  Sepoys'  car- 
tridges with  the  fat  of  pigs  and  cows,  for  the  express 
purpose  of  defiling  both  Mahomedans  and  Hindoos. 

On  the  banks  of  the  Hooghly  River,  sixteen  miles 
from  Calcutta  by  land,  is  the  great  military  sta- 
tion of  Barrackpore.  It  was  the  head-quarters  of 
the  Presidency  division  of  the  Army.  There  was 
assembled  the  largest  body  of  Native  troops  cantoned 
in  that  part  of  India.  There,  on  the  green  slopes  of 
the  river,  stood,  in  a  well- wooded  park,  the  country- 
seat  of  the  Govemor-Greneral.  Both  in  its  social  and 
its  military  aspects  it  was  the  foremost  Cantonment  of 
Bengal.  As  the  sun  declined  on  the  opposite  bank, 
burnishing  the  stream  with  gold,  and  throwing  into 
dark  relief  the  heavy  masses  of  the  native  boats,  the 
park  roads  were  alive  with  the  equipages  of  the  Eng- 
lish residents.  There  visitors  from  Calcutta,  escaping 
for  a  while  from  the  white  glare  and  the  dust-laden 
atmosphere  of  the  metropolis,  consorted  with  the 
families  of  the  military  officers ;  and  the  neighbouring 
villas  of  Titaghur  sent  forth  their  retired  inmates  to 
join  the  throng  of  "  eaters  of  the  evening  air."  There 
the  young  bride,  for  it  was  a  rare  place  for  honey- 
moons, emerging  from  her  seclusion,  often  looked  out 
upon  the  world  for  the  first  time  in  her  new  state. 
There  many  a  young  ensign,  scarcely  less  hopeful 
and  less  exultant,  wore  for  the  first  time  the  bridal 
garments  of  his  profession,  and  backed  the  capering 
Arab  that  had  consumed  a  large  part  of  his  worldly 
wealth.  It  was  a  pleasant,  a  gay,  a  hospitable  sta- 
tion ;  and  there  was  not  in  all  India  a  Cantonment 
so  largely  known  and  frequented  by  the  English. 
There  was  scarcely  an  officer  of  the  Bengal  Army  to 
whom  the  name  of  Barrackpore  did  not  suggest  some 


THE  BABRAGKPORE  BRIQAD£.  495 

familiar  associations,  wliilst  to  numbers  of  the  non-      1867. 
military  classes,  whose  occupations  tied  them  to  the 
capital,  it  was,  for  long  years,  perhaps  throughout 
the  whole  of  their  money-getting  career,  the  extreme 
point  to  which  their  travels  extended. 

At  Barrackpore,  in  the  early  part  of  1857,  were 
stationed  four  Native  Infantry  regiments.  There  were 
the  Second  Grenadiers*  and  the  Forty-third,  two  of 
the  ^^  beautiful  regiments*'  which  had  helped  General 
Nott  to  hold  Candahar  against  all  comers,  and  had 
afterwards  gained  new  laurels  in  desperate  conflict 
with  the  Mahrattas  and  Sikhs.  There  was  the  Thirty- 
fourth,  an  ill-omened  number,  for  a  few  years  before 
it  had  been  struck  out  of  the  Army  List  for  mutiny,f 
and  a  new  regiment  had  been  raised  to  fiU  the  dis- 
honourable gap.  There  also  was  the  Seventieth,  which 
had  rendered  good  service  in  the  second  Sikh  war. 
Three  of  these  regiments  had  been  recently  stationed 
in  the  Punjab,  or  on  its  frontier,  and  the  Thirty- 
fourth  had  just  come  down  from  Lucknow.  This 
last  regiment  was  commanded  by  Colonel  S.  G. 
Wheler,  who  had  but  recently  been  posted  to  it 
from  another  corps ;  the  Forty-third  was  under 
Colonel  J.  D.  Kennedy,  whose  tenure  of  command 
had  also  been  brief;  whilst  the  Seventieth  and  the 
wing  of  the  Second  were  commanded  by  officers  who 
had  graduated  in  those  regiments,  and  were  there- 
fore well  known  to  the  men.  The  station  was  com- 
manded by  Brigadier  Charles  Grant ;  and  the  General 
of  Division  was  that  brave  soldier  and  distinguished 
officer,  John  Hearsey,  of  whose  services  I  have  al- 
ready spoken  in  a  previous  chapter  of  this  work.f 

*  A  wing  of  this  regiment  was  at        |  See  Book  II.-;'Accoant  of  the 
Baneegonge.  Matinj  in  the  Punjab. 

t  jMi$.  p.  898. 


496  THE  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

1867.  On  the  28th  of  January,  Hearsey  reported  officially 

to  the  Adjutant-General's  office  that  an  ill-feeling  was 
"  said  to  subsist  in  the  minds  of  the  Sepoys  of  the 
regiments  at  Barrackpore."  "  A  report,"  he  said, 
"  has  been  spread  by  some  designing  persons,  most 
likely  Brahmins,  or  agents  of  the  religious  Hindoo 
party  in  Calcutta  (I  believe  it  is  called  the  *  Dharma 
Sobha'),  that  the  Sepoys  are  to  be  forced  to  embrace 
the  Christian  faith."  "  Perhaps,"  he  added,  "  those 
Hindoos  who  are  opposed  to  the  marriage  of  widows 
in  Calcutta*  are  using  underhand  means  to  thwart 
Government  in  abolishing  the  restraints  lately  re- 
moved by  law  for  the  marriage  of  widows,  and  con- 
ceive if  they  can  make  a  party  of  the  ignorant  classes 
in  the  ranks  of  the  army  believe  their  religion  or 
religious  prejudices  are  eventually  to  be  abolished  by 
force,  and  by  force  they  are  all  to  be  made  Christians, 
and  thus,  by  shaking  their  faith  in  Government,  lose 
the  confidence  of  their  officers  by  inducing  Sepoys  to 
commit  offences  (such  as  incendiarism),  so  difficult  to 
put  a  stop  to  or  prove,  they  will  gain  their  object." 
The  story  of  the  greased  cartridges  was  by  this  time 
in  every  mouth.  There  was  not  a  Sepoy  in  the  Lines 
of  Barrackpore  who  was  not  familiar  with  it.  There 
were  few  who  did  not  believe  that  it  was  a  deliberate 
plot,  on  the  part  of  the  English,  designed  to  break 
down  the  caste  of  the  Native  soldier.  And  many 
were  persuaded  that  there  was  an  ultimate  design  to 
bring  all  men,  along  a  common  road  of  pollution,  to 
the  unclean  faith  of  the  beef-devouring,  swine-eating 
Feringhee,  who  had  conquered  their  country  and  now 
yearned  to  extirpate  the  creeds  of  their  countrymen. 
There  was  a  time,  perhaps,  when  the  Sepoy  would 

*  The  General,  doubtless,  meant    who  are  opposed  to  the  marriage  of 
to  say,  "those  Hindoos  in  Calcutta    widows." 


.    EXCITEMENT  AT  BAKRAC&PORE.  497 

have  carried  the  story  to  his  commanding  officer,  and  1867. 
sought  an  explanation  of  it.  Such  confidences  had 
ceased  to  be  a  part  of  the  relations  between  them. 
But  it  was  not  the  less  manifest  that  the  Native 
soldiery  at  Barrackpore  were  boiling  over  with  bitter 
discontent.  They  had  accepted  not  only  the  fact  as 
it  came  to  them  from  Dum-Dum,  but  the  accom- 
panying lies  which  had  been  launched  from  Calcutta ; 
and  they  soon  began,  after  the  fashion  of  their  kind, 
to  make  a  public  display  of  their  wrath.  It  is  their 
wont  in  such  cases  to  symbolise  the  inner  fires  that 
are  consuming  them  by  acts  of  material  incendiarism. 
No  sooner  is  the  Sepoy  troubled  in  his  mind,  and 
bent  on  resistance,  than  he  begins  covertly  in  the 
night  to  set  fire  to  some  of  the  public  buildings  of 
the  place.  Whether  this  is  an  ebullition  of  childish 
anger — an  outburst  of  irrepressible  feeling  in  men 
not  yet  ripe  for  more  reasonable  action ;  or  whether 
it  be  intended  as  a  signal,  whether  the  fires  are  beacon- 
fires  lit  up  to  warn  others  to  be  stirring,  they  are 
seldom  or  never  wanting  in  such  conjunctures  as  this. 
A  few  days  after  the  story  of  the  greased  cartridges 
first  transpired  at  Dum-Dum,  the  telegraph  station 
at  BaiTackpore  was  burnt  down.  Then,  night  after 
night,  followed  other  fires.  Burning  arrows  were  shot 
into  the  thatched  roofs  of  officers'  bungalows.  It  was 
a  trick  learnt  from  the  Sonthals,  among  whom  the 
Second  Grenadiers  had  served ;  and  the  fact  that 
similar  fires,  brought  about  by  the  same  means,  were 
breaking  out  at  Raneegunge,  more  than  a  hundred 
miles  away,  stamped  their  complicity  in  the  crime, 
for  one  wing  of  the  regiment  was  stationed  there. 
These  incendiary  fires  were  soon  followed  by  noc- 
turnal meetings.  Men  met  each  other  with  muffled 
faces,  and  discussed,  in  excited  language,  the  intole- 

2  K 


pore 


498  OUTBIffiAK  OF  THE  MUTINY.     * 

1867.  rable  outrage  which  the  British  GoTemment  had 
deUberately  committed  upon  them.  It  is  probable 
that  they  were  not  all  Sepoys  who  attended  these 
nightly  musters.  It  is  probable  that  they  were  not 
all  Sepoys  who  signed  the  letters  that  went  forth 
from  the  post-offices  of  Calcutta  and  Barrackpore, 
calling  upon  the  soldiery  at  all  the  principal  stations  of 
the  Bengal  Army  to  resist  the  sacrilegious  encroach- 
ments of  the  English.  All  that  is  clearly  known  is, 
that  the  meetings  were  held,  that  the  letters  were 
sent ;  and  Cantonment  after  Cantonment  fermented 
with  the  story  of  the  greased  cartridges. 
The  mutiny  A  hundred  miles  from  Barrackpore,  to  the  north- 
^  Bcrham-  ^^vard,  on  the  banks  of  the  river,  lies  the  military  station 
of  Berhampore.  It  was  one  well  suited,  by  its  position, 
for  the  development  of  the  desired  results.  For  only 
a  few  miles  beyond  it  lay  the  city  of  Moorshedabad, 
the  home  of  the  Newab  Nazim  of  Bengal,  the  repre- 
sentative of  the  line  of  Soubahdars,  who,  under  the 
Imperial  Government,  had  once  ruled  that  great 
province.  It  was  known  that  the  Newab,  who, 
though  stripped  of  his  ancestral  power,  lived  in  a 
palace  with  great  wealth  and  titular  dignity  and  the 
surroundings  of  a  Court,  was  rankling  under  a  sense 
of  indignities  put  upon  him  by  the  British  Govern- 
ment, and  that  there  were  thousands  in  the  city  who 
would  have  risen  at  the  signal  of  one  who,  weak  him- 
self, was  yet  strong  in  the  prestige  of  a  great  name. 
At  Berhampore,  there  were  no  European  troops; 
there  were  none  anywhere  near  to  it.  A  regiment 
of  Native  Infantry,  the  Nineteenth,  was  stationed 
there,  with  a  corps  of  Irregular  Cavalry,  and  a  battery 
of  post  guns  manned  by  native  gunners.  It  was  not 
difficult  to  see  that  if  these  troops  were  to  rise  against 
their  English  officers,  and  the  people  of  Moorshedabad 


THE  THISTT-FOUKTH  AT  BESHAMPORE.  499 

were  to  fratemise  with  them,  in  the  name  of  the      1857. 
Newab,  all  Bengal  would  soon  be  in  a  blaze.     No 
thoughts  of  this  kind  disturbed  the  minds  of  our 
people,  but  the  truth  was  very  patent  to  the  under- 
standings of  their  enemies. 

It  happened,  too,  unfortunately  at  this  time,  that 
the  routine-action  of  the  British  Government  favoured 
the  growth  of  the  evil ;  for  when  the  excitement  was 
great  at  Barrackpore,  detachments  went  forth  on 
duty  from  the  most  disaffected  regiments  of  all  to 
spread  by  personal  intercourse  the  great  contagion  of 
alarm.  Firstly,  a  guard  from  the  Thirty-fourth  went 
upwards  in  charge  of  stud-horses ;  and  then,  a  week 
later,  another  detachment  from  this  regiment  marched 
in  the  same  direction  with  a  party  of  European  con- 
valescents. At  Berhampore  they  were  to  be  relieved 
by  men  from  the  regiment  there,  and  then  to  return 
to  their  own  head-quarters;  so  that  they  had  an 
opportunity  of  communicating  all  that  was  going  on 
at  Barrackpore  to  their  comrades  of  the  Nineteenth, 
of  learning  their  sentiments  and  designs,  and  carry- 
ing back  to  their  own  station,  far  more  clearly  and 
unmistakably  than  could  any  correspondence  by 
letter,  tidings  of  the  state  of  feeling  among  the  troops 
at  Berhampore,  and  the  extent  to  which  they  were 
prepared  to  resist  the  outrage  of  the  greased  car- 
tridges. 

When  the  men  of  the  Thirty-fourth  reached  Ber- 
hampore, their  comrades  of  the  Nineteenth  received 
them  open-armed  and  open-mouthed.  They  were  old 
associates,  for,  not  long  before,  they  had  been  stationed 
together  at  Lucknow ;  and  now  the  Nineteenth  asked 
eagerly  what  strange  story  was  this  that  they  had 
heard  from  Barrackpore  about  the  greasing  of  the 
cartridges.     It  was  not  then  a  new  story  in  the  lines 

2k2 


500 


OUTBREAK  OP  THE  MUTINY. 


1857  of  Berhampore,  but  was  already  two  weeks  old*  It 
had  been  carried  as  quickly  as  the  post  or  special 
messenger  could  carry  it  from  the  one  station  to  the 
other,  and  it  was  soon  afterwards  in  every  man's 
mouth.  But  it  had  wrought  no  immediate  effect 
upon  the  outer  bearing  of  the  Sepoys  of  the  Nine- 
teenth. The  story  was  carried  to  the  commanding 
officer,  who  gave  an  assuring  reply,  saying  that,  if 
there  were  any  doubts  in  their  minds,  the  men  might 
see  for  themselves  the  grease  applied  to  their  car- 
tridges ;  and  so  for  a  while  the  excitement  was  allayed. 
But  when  the  men  of  the  Thirty-fourth  went  up  from 
Barrackpore  and  spoke  of  the  feeling  there — spoke  of 
the  general  belief  among  the  Sepoys  at  the  Presidency 
that  the  Government  deliberately  designed  to  defile 
them,  and  of  the  intended  resistance  to  this  foul  and 
fraudulent  outrage — ^the  Nineteenth  listened  to  them, 
as  to  men  speaking  with  high  authority,  for  they 
came  from  the  very  seat  of  Government,  and  were 
not  likely  to  err.  So  they  took  in  the  story  as  it  was 
told  to  them  with  a  comprehensive  faith,  and  were 
soon  in  that  state  of  excitement  and  alarm  which* is 
so  often  the  prelude  of  dangerous  revolt. 

On  the  day  after  the  arrival  of  the  detachment 
from  Barrackpore,  a  parade  of  the  Nineteenth  was 
Feb,  27.  ordered  for  the  following  morning.  It  was  an  ordi- 
nary parade,  "  accidental,"  meaning  nothing.  But  it 
was  a  parade  "with  blank  ammunition,"  and  a  mean- 
ing was  found.     There  were  in  the  morning  no  ap- 


*  The  first  detachment  of  the 
Tliirty-fourth  reached  Berhampore 
on  the  18th  of  February,  the  second 
on  the  S5th.  Colonel  Mitchell, 
writhig  on  February  16,  says,  that 
about  a  fort niff lit  before  a  iBrahniin 
Pay-Havildar  had  asked  liim,  "  What 
is  this  story  that  everybody  is  talking 


about,  that  Government  intend  to 
make  the  Native  Army  nse  cow's  fat 
and  pig's  fat  with  the  ammunition 
for  their  new  rifles  P"  It  must  have 
reached  Berhampore,  therefore,  either 
by  the  post  or  by  Cossid  (messen- 
ger) at  the  very  beginning  of  the 
month  of  February. 


EXCITEMENT  IN  THE  NINETEENTH.  501 

parent  signs  of  disaflfection,  but^  before  the  evening  1857. 
had  passed  away,  Adjutant  M'Andrew  carried  to  the 
quarters  of  Colonel  Mitchell  a  disquieting  report,  to 
the  effect  that  there  was  great  excitement  in  the 
Lines;  that  when  their  percussion-caps  had  been 
served  out  to  them  for  the  moming^s  parade,  the 
men  had  refused  to  take  them,  and  that  they  had 
given  as  the  ground  of  their  refusal  the  strong  sus- 
picion they  entertained  that  the  cartridges  had  been 
defiled.  It  was  the  custom  not  to  distribute  the 
cartridges  among  the  men  before  the  morning  of 
parade ;  but  the  general  supply  for  the  regiment  had 
been  served  out  from  the  magazine,  and,  before  being 
stored  away  for  the  night,  had  been  seen  by  some  of 
the  Sepoys  of  the  corps.  Now,  it  happened  that  the 
paper  of  which  the  cartridges  were  made  was,  to  the 
outward  eye,  of  two  different  kinds,  and,  as  the  men 
had  heard  that  fresh  supplies  of  ammunition  had 
been  received  from  Calcutta  in  the  course  of  the 
month,  they  leapt  at  once  to  the  conviction  that  new 
cartridges  of  the  dreaded  kind  had  been  purposely 
mixed  up  with  the  old,  and  the  panic  that  had  been 
growing  upon  them  culminated  in  this  belief* 

Upon  receipt  of  this  intelligence,  Mitchell  at  once 
started  for  the  Lines,  and  summoned  his  native 
officers  to  meet  him  in  the  front  of  the  Quarter- 
Guard.  In  such  a  conjuncture,  a  cahn  but  resolute 
demeanour,  a  few  words  of  kindly  explanation  and  of 
solemn  warning,  as  from  one  not  speaking  for  himself 
but  for  a  benignant  and  a  powerful  Government, 
might  have  done  much  to  convince  those  Native 
officers,  and  through  them  the  Sepoys  of  the  regi- 

*  The  fact,  howerer,  was,  that    cutta,   which  consisted  mainly  of 
there  were  no  cartridges  among  the    powder  in  barrels, 
stores  recenUj  receiTcd  from  Cal- 


$02  OUTBUiK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

1S57.  ment,  that  they  had  laid  hold  of  a  dangerous  delu- 
sion. But  Mitchell  spoke  as  one  under  the  excite- 
ment of  anger,  and  he  threatened  rather  than  he 
warned.  He  said  that  the  cartridges  had  been  made 
up,  a  year  before,  by  the  regiment  that  had  preceded 
them  in  cantonments,  that  there  was  no  reason  for 
their  alarm,  and  that  if,  after  this  explanation,  they 
should  refuse  to  take  their  ammunition,  the  ^egime^t 
would  be  sent  to  Burmah  or  to  China,  where  the 
men  would  die,*  and  that  the  severest  punishmept 
>vould  overtake  every  naan  known  to  have  actively 
resisted  the  orders  of  his  Governmept.  So  the  Native 
oflScers  went  their  way,  with  no  new  confidence  de- 
rived from  the  words  that  had  fallen  from  their 
Colonel,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  strengthened  in  all 
their  old  convictions  of  infuninent  danger  to  their 
caste  and  their  religion.  He  would  not  have  sppken 
80  angrily,  they  argued,  if  naischief  had  not  been  ip- 
tended.  They  looked  upon  the  irritation  he  displayed 
as  a  proof  that  his  sinister  designs  had  been  inoppor- 
tunely discovered.! 

Such  was  the  logic  of  their  fears.  Colonel  J^itcheU 
went  to  his  home ;  but  as  he  drove  thither  through 
the  darkness  of  the  night,  with  the  Adjutant  beside 
him,  he  felt  that  there  was  danger  in  the  air,  and  that 

*  After  reading  all  the  evidence  &c.  &c. ;  for  Mitchell  had  denied  it 
that  I  can  find  throwing  light  upon  on  the  18th  of  Marcfa,  saying,  "I 
this  scene  at  the  Quarter-Guaro,  I  certainly  did  not  make  use  of  the  ex- 
am forced  upon  the  conviction  that  pressionabove  quoted." — Lieutenant' 
Colonel  Mitchell  did  use  some  such  Colonel  Mitchell  to  Assistant-A^U' 
words  as  these.  Lord  Canning  was,  taut-General.  Fublished  Papers, 
however,  under  an  erroneous  im-  f  "  He  gave  this  order  so  angrily, 
pression  when  he  wrote  in  his  minute  that  we  were  convinced  that  th^ 
of  May  13,  "  The  inconsiderate  cartridges  were  greased,  other^irise 
threat,  that  if  the  men  did  not  re-  he  would  not  have  apoken  so.**— 
ceive  their  cartridges  he  would  take  Petition  of  the  Native  Officers  of 
them  to  Burmah  or  to  China,  where  the  Nineteenth  Eegiment,  Published 
they  would  die,  which  is  not  denied  papers, 
by   Lieutenant-Colonel   Mitchell/' 


BIUnNT  OF  THE  NINETEENTH.  503 

something  must  be  done  to  meet  it.  But  what  could  1867. 
be  done?  There  were  no  white  troops  at  Berham- 
pore,  and  the  Nineteenth  Regiment  composed  the 
bulk  of  the  black  soldiery.  But  there  were  a  regi- 
ment of  Irregular  Cavalry  and  a  detachment  of 
Native  Artillery,  with  guns,  posted  at  the  station, 
and,  as  these  dwelt  apart  from  the  Infantry,  they 
might  not  be  tainted  by  the  same  disease.  Weaker 
in  numbers,  as  compared  with  the  Infantry,  they  had 
a  coimtervailing  strength  in  their  guns  and  horses.  A 
few  rounds  of  grape,  and  a  charge  of  Cavalry  with 
drawn  sabres,  might  destroy  a  regiment  of  Foot  be- 
yond all  further  hope  of  resistance.  Mitchell  might 
not  have  thought  that  things  would  come  to  this 
pass  ;  it  was  his  object  to  overawe,  and,  by  over- 
awing, to  prevent  the  crisis.  But,  whatsoever  his 
thoughts  at  that  time,  he  issued  his  orders  that  the 
Cavalry  and  Artillery  should  be  prepared  to  attend 
the  morning  parade. 

In  India,  men  retire  early  to  their  rest,  for  they 
seldom  outsleep  the  dawn.  It  was  little  past  the  hour 
of  ten,  therefore,  when  Mitchell,  just  having  betaken 
himself  to  his  couch,  heavy  with  thought  of  the 
morrow's  work,  was  startled  by  the  sound  of  a  strange 
commotion  from  the  direction  of  the  Lines.  There 
was  a  beating  of  drums,  and  there  were  shoutings 
from  many  voices,  and  a  confused  uproar,  the  mean- 
ing of  which  it  was  impossible  to  misinterpret. 
Plainly  the  Regiment  had  risen.  Ever  since  the 
Colonel's  interview  with  the  Native  officers  the  ex- 
citement had  increased.  It  had  transpired  that  the 
Cavalry  and  Artillery  had  been  ordered  out.  Sus- 
picions of  foul  play  then  grew  into  assured  convic- 
tions, and  the  Regiment  felt,  to  a  man,  tliat  the 
greaaed  cartridgjn  v]Bre  to )»  firoed  upon  them  at  the 


504  OUTBREAK  OP  THIi  MUTINY. 

1867.  muzzle  of  our  guns.  A  great  panic  had  taken  hold 
of  them,  and  it  required  but  little  to  rouse  them,  in 
an  impulse  of  self-preservation,  to  resist  the  premedi- 
tated outrage.  How  the  signal  was  first  given  is  not 
clear ;  it  seldom  is  clear  in  such  cases.  A  very  little 
'  would  have  done  it.  There  was  a  common  feding  of 
some  great  danger,  approaching  through  the  darkness 
of  the  night.  Some  raised  a  cry  of  "Fire  !";  some, 
again,  said  that  the  Cavalry  were  galloping  down 
upon  them ;  others  thought  that  they  heard  in  the 
distance  the  clatter  of  the  Artillery  gun-wheels.  Then 
some  one  sounded  the  alarm,  and  there  was  a  general 
rush  to  the  bells-of-arms.  Men  seized  their  muskets, 
took  forcible  possession  of  the  dreaded  ammunition 
stored  for  the  morning  parade,  and  loaded  their 
pieces  in  a  bewilderment  of  uncertainty  and  fear. 

Mitchell  knew  that  the  Regiment  had  risen,  but  he 
did  not  know  that  it  was  Terror,  rather  than  Revolt, 
that  stirred  them ;  and  so  hastily  dressing  himself,  he 
hurried  off  to  bring  down  upon  his  men  the  very 
danger  the  premature  fear  of  which  had  generated  all 
this  excitement  in  the  Lines.  Before  any  report  of 
the  tumult  had  reached  him  from  European  or  from 
Native  officers,  he  h^d  made  his  way  to  the  quarters 
of  the  Cavalry  Commandant,  and  ordered  him  at 
once  to  have  his  troops  in  the  saddle.  Then  like 
orders  were  given  for  the  Artillery  guns,  with  all 
serviceable  ammunition,  to  be  brought  down  to  the 
Infantry  Lines.  There  was  a  considerable  space  to 
be  traversed,  and  the  extreme  darkness  of  the  night 
rendered  the  service  difficult.  But,  after  a  while,  the 
Nineteenth  heard  the  din  of  the  approaching  danger, 
and  this  time  with  the  fleshly  ear ;  saw  the  light  of 
gleaming  torches  which  was  guiding  it  on  to  their 
destruction.     But  they  stood    there,   not  ripe   for 


MEASURES  OF  COLONEL  MITCHELL.  505 

action,  irresolute,  panic-struck,  as  men  waiting  their      1867. 
doom.     There  were  many  loaded  muskets  in  their 
hands,  but  not  one  was  fired. 

It  was  past  midnight  when  Mitchell,  having  gathered 
his  European  officers  from  their  beds,  came  down 
with  the  guns  to  the  parade-ground,  where  Alexander 
and  his  troopers  had  already  arrived.  The  Infantry, 
in  undress,  but  armed  'and  belted,  were  drawn  up  in 
line,  vaguely  expectant  of  something  to  come,  but  in 
no  mood  to  provoke  instant  collision.  A  very  little, 
at  such  a  time,  would  have  precipitated  it,  for  the  ex- 
citement of  fear,  in  such  circumstances,  is  more  to  be 
dreaded  than  the  bitterest  resentments,  and  even  if 
the  European  officers  had  then  moved  forward  in  a 
body,  the  movement  would  have  been  exaggerated  by 
the  darkness  into  a  hostile  advance,  and  the  Nine- 
teenth, under  an  impulse  of  self-preservation,  would 
have  fired  upon  them.  What  Mitchell  did,  therefore, 
in  the  unfortunate  conjuncture  that  had  arisen,  was 
the  best  thing  that  could  be  done.  He  loaded  the 
guns,  closed  the  Cavalry  upon  them,  and  sent  the 
Adjutant  forward  with  instructions  to  have  the  call 
sounded  for  an  assembly  of  the  Native  officers.  The 
summons  was  obeyed.  Again  the  Native  officers 
stood  before  their  Colonel,  and  again  there  fell  from 
his  lips  words  that  sounded  in  their  ears  as  words  of 
anger.  What  those  words  were,  it  is  now  impossible 
to  record  with  any  certainty  of  their  truth.  The 
Native  officers  believed  that  he  said  he  would  blow 
every  mutineer  from  a  gun,  although  he  should  die 
for  it  himself.  They  besought  him  not  to  be  angry 
and  violent,  and  urged  that  the  men  were  ignorant 
and  suspicious ;  that  they  were  impelled  only  by  their 
fears ;  that  believing  the  Cavalry  and  Artillery  had 

been  brought  do¥m  to  destroy  them,  they  were  wild 


506  OUTBSEAE  OF  THE  MUTINT. 

1857.  with  excitement  and  incapable  of  reasoning,  but  that 
if  the  Colonel  would  send  bade  the  troopers  and  the 
guns,  the  men  of  the  Regiment  would  soon  lay  down 
their  arms  and  return  to  their  duty. 

Then  a  great  difficulty  arose,  which,  in  the  darkness 
and  confusion  of  that  February  night,  might  have 
perplexed  a  calmer  brain  than  Mitchell's.  That  the 
Nineteenth  were  rather  panic-struck  than  mutinous, 
was  certain.  It  was  plain,  too,  that  a  mistake  had 
been  committed  in  bringing  down  the  Cavalry  and 
gims  to  overawe  the  Regiment.  It  would  have  been 
wiser,  in  the  first  instance,  to  have  used  them  only 
for  protective  purposes,  holding  tliem  in  readiness  the 
while  to  act  on  the  offensive  in  case  of  necessity. 
But,  as  they  had  been  brought  down  to  the  Infantry 
Lines,  it  was  difficult  to  withdraw  them,  until  the 
Nineteenth  had  given  in  their  submission.  The  men, 
however,  required,  as  a  condition  of  their  submission, 
that  which  Mitchell  naturally  desired  should  be  re- 
garded only  as  a  consequence  of  it.  Clinging  £ast  to 
the  belief  that  violence  was  intended,  they  v^ould  not 
have  obeyed  the  order  to  lay  down  their  arms ;  and 
Mitchell  could  not  be  certain  that  the  Native  troopers 
and  gunners  would  fall  upon  their  comirades  at  the 
word  of  command.  There  was  a  dilemma,  indeed, 
from  which  it  was  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  escape 
with  safety  and  with  honour.  As  men  are  wont  to 
do  in  such  extremities,  he  caught  at  a  compromise. 
He  would  withdraw  the  guns  and  the  Cavalry,  he 
said,  but  he  would  hold  a  general  parade  in  the 
morning ;  he  commanded  the  station,  and  could  order 
out  all  branches  of  the  service.  But  the  Native  officen 
besought  him  not  to  do  this,  for  the  Sepoys,  in  sudi 
a  case,  would  believe  only  that  the  violence  intended 
to  be  done  upon  them  was  deferred  for  a  few  howa 


i 


THE  COUBT  OF  INQUIST.  507 

So  fae  consented  at  last  to  what  they  asked;  tiie  1857. 
Cavahy  and  the  guns  were  withdrawn,  and  the  ge- 
neral parade  for  the  morning  was  countermanded. 
Whether  the  Sepoys  of  the  Nineteenth  had  shown 
signs  of  penitence  before  this  concession  was  made, 
and  had  or  had  not  begun  to  lay  down  their  arms,  is 
a  point  of  history  enveloped  in  doubt.  But  it  would 
seem  that  the  Native  officers  told  Colonel  Mitchell 
that  the  men  were  lodging  their  arms,  and  that  he 
trusted  to  their  honour.  The  real  signal  for  their 
submission  was  the  retrocession  of  the  torches.  When 
the  Sepoys  saw  the  lights  disappearing  from  the 
parade-ground,  they  knew  that  they  were  safe. 

On  the  following  morning  the  Regiment  feU  in,  for 
parade,  without  a  symptom  of  insubordination.  The 
excitement  of  the  hour  had  expended  itself ;  and  they 
looked  back  upon  their  conduct  with  regret,  and 
looked  forward  to  its  consequences  with  alarm. 
Though  moved  by  nothing  worse  than  idle  fear, 
they  had  rebelled  against  their  officers  and  the  State. 
Assured  of  their  contrition,  and  believing  in  their 
fidelity,  the  former  might  perhaps  have  forgiven 
them ;  but  it  was  not  probable  that  the  State  would 
forgive.  A  Court  of  Inquiry  was  assembled,  and 
during  many  days  the  evidence  of  European  and 
Native  officers  was  taken  respecting  the  circumstances 
and  causes  of  the  outbreak ;  but  the  men,  though 
clearly  demonstrating  their  apprehensions  by  sleeping 
round  the  bclls-of-arms,  continued  to  discharge  their 
duties  without  any  new  ebullitions ;  and  there  was 
no  appearance  of  any  hostile  combinations,  by  which 
the  mutiny  of  a  regiment  might  have  been  converted 
into  the  rebellion  of  a  province.  Under  the  guid- 
ance of  Colonel  George  Macgregor,  the  Newab  Nazim 
of  Bengal  threw  the  weight  of  his  influence  into  the 


508  OITTBUAK  OF  THE  MUTINT. 

1S57.  scales  on  the  side  of  order  and  peace;  and  whatso- 
ever might  have  been  stirring  in  the  hearts  of  the 
Mussuhnan  population  of  Moorshedabad,  in  the  ab- 
sence of  any  signal  from  their  chief^  they  remained 
outwardly  quiescent 


ACTION  OF  GOYERNHENT.  509 


CHAPTER  V. 

CAUSES  OF  DELATED  ACTION —THE  OOVERNMEHT  AHD  THE  DEPARTMENTS — 
INVESTIGATION  OF  THE  CARTRIDGE  QUESTION  ^PROORESS  OF  DISAFFEC- 
TION AT  BARRACKFORE — THE  STORY  OF  MUNOUL  PANDT — ^MUTINT  OF  THE 
THIRTY-FOURTH— DI8BANDMENT  OF  THE  NINETEENTH. 

In  all  countries,  and  under  all  forms  of  govern-  1857. 
ment,  the  dangers  which  threaten  the  State,  starting 
in  the  darkness,  make  headway  towards  success 
before  they  are  clearly  discerned  by  the  rulers  of  the 
land.  Often  so  much  of  time  and  space  is  gained, 
that  the  slow  and  complex  action  of  authority  can- 
not overtake  the  mischief  and  intercept  its  further 
progress.  The  peculiarities  of  our  Anglo-Indian 
Empire  converted  a  probability  into  a  certainty. 
Differences  of  race,  differences  of  language,  differ- 
ences of  religion,  differences  of  customs,  all  indeed 
that  could  make  a  great  antagonism  of  sympathies 
and  of  interests,  severed  the  rulers  and  the  ruled  as 
with  a  veil  of  ignorance  and  obscurity.  We  could 
hot  see  or  hear  with  our  own  senses  what  was  going 
on,  and  there  was  seldom  any  one  to  tell  us.  When 
by  some  accident  the  truth  at  last  transpired,  gene- 
rally in  some  of  the  lower  strata  of  the  official  soil, 
much  time  was  lost  before  it  could  make  its  way 


510  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  KUTIXY. 

1857.  upwards  to  the  outer  surface  of  that  authority 
whence  action,  which  could  no  longer  be  preventive, 
emanated  in  some  shape  of  attempted  suppression. 
The  great  safeguard  of  sedition  was  to  be  found  in 
the  slow  processes  of  departmental  correspondence 
necessitated  by  a  system  of  excessive  centralisation. 
When  prompt  and  eflfectual  action  was  demanded. 
Routine  called  for  pens  and  paper.  A  letter  was 
written  where  a  blow  ought  to  have  been  struck, 
and  the  letter  went,  not  to  one  who  could  act,  but 
was  passed  on  to  another  stage  of  helplessness,  and 
then  on  to  another,  through  all  gradations,  from  the 
subaltern's  bungalow  to  the  Government  House. 

The  direction  of  the  military  affairs  of  our  Indian 
Empire  was  supposed  to  be  confided  to  the  Com- 
mander-in-Chief But  there  was  a  general  power  of 
control  in  the  Governor-General  that  made  the  trust 
little  more  than  nominal.  So  little  were  the  limits 
of  authority  prescribed  by  law,  or  even  by  usage, 
that,  it  has  already  been  observed,  there  was  often 
a  conflict  between  the  Civil  and  the  Military  Chiefs, 
which  in  time  ripened  into  a  public  scandal,  or 
subsided  into  a  courteous  compromise,  according 
to  the  particular  temper  of  the  litigants.  Sensible 
of  his  power,  the  Governor-General  was  naturally 
anxious  to  leave  aU  purely  military  matters  in  the 
hands  of  the  Commander-ia-Chief ;  but  in  India  it 
was  hard  to  say  what  were  "  purely  military " 
matters,  when  once  the  question  emerged  out  of  the 
circle  of  administrative  detail.  As  harmonious  action 
was  constitutionally  promoted  by  the  bestowal  upon 
the  Commander-in-Chief  of  a  seat  in  Council,  there 
would  have  been  little  practical  inconvenience  in  the 
division  of  authority  if  the  Civil  and  the  Military 
Chiefs  had  always  been  in  the  same  place.  But  it 
often  happened  that  the  Governor-General,  with  his 


THE  DKPABTMENTS.  511 

official  machinery  of  the  Military  Secretary's  office,  1857. 
was  at  one  end  of  the  country,  and  the  Commander- 
in-Chief,  with  the  Adjutant-General  of  the  Army,  at 
the  other.  And  so  it  happened  in  the  early  part  of 
1857.  Lord  Canning  was  at  Calcutta.  Greneral  Anson 
was  officially  in  the  Upper  Provinces ;  personally  he 
was  somewhere  in  Lower  Bengal.*  The  Adjutant- 
General  was  at  Meerut.  The  Adjutant- General's 
office  was  in  Calcutta.  The  Inspector-General  of 
Ordnance  was  in  Fort  William.  All  these  autho- 
rities had  something  to  do  Avith  the  business  of  the 
greased  cartridges,  and  it  was  a  necessity  that  out  of 
f^tem  which  combined  a  dispersed  a^ncy  with  a 
centralised  authority,  there  should  have  arisen  some 
injurious  delay. 

But  the  delay,  thus  doubly  inevitable,  arose  rather 
in  this  instance  from  the  multiplicity  of  official 
agencies,  than  from  the  distance  at  which  they  were 
removed  from  each  other.  On  the  22nd  of  January, 
Lieutenant  Wright,  who  commanded  the  detachment 
of  the  Seventieth  Sepoys  at  Dum-Dum,  reported  to 
the  commanding  officer  of  the  musketry  dep6t  the 
story  of  the  greased  cartridges,  and  the  excitement  it 
had  produced.  Major  Bontein,  on  the  following  day, 
reported  it  to  the  commanding  officer  at  Dum-Dum, 
who  forthAvith  passed  it  on  to  the  General  command- 
ing the  Presidency  division  at  Barrackpore.  On  the 
same  day,  General  Hearsey  forwarded  the  correspond- 
ence to  the  Deputy- Adjutant-General,  who  remained 
in  charge  of  the  office  at  Calcutta  in  the  absence  of 
his  chief  But  though  thus  acting  in  accordance 
with  military  regulations,  he  took  the  precaution  to 

*  Just  at  this  time  General  Anson  deploys  were  in  the  first  throes  of 

was  coming  down  to  Calcutta  to  their  discontent;  but  it  does  not 

superintena  the  embarkation  of  his  appear  that  the  subject  of  the  greased 

vile  for  Enghuid.     He  must  have  cartridges  then  attracted  hia  atten* 

been  actually  in  Calcutta  when  the  tion. 


512  OUTBREAK  Ot  THE  MUTINY. 

1857.  add  that  he  forwarded  the  correspondence  "  for  im- 
mediate submission  to  the  Government  of  India, 
through  its  Military  Secretary,"  and  suggested  that 
the  Sepoys  at  the  Rifle  dep6t  should  be  permitted  to 
grease  their  own  cartridges.  General  Hearsey's  letter 
must  have  reached  the  Adjutant-General's  office  on 
the  24th  of  January;  perhaps  not  till  after  office 
*  hours.  The  following  day  was  the  Sabbath.  The 
letter  of  "  immediate  transmission"  was  dated,  there- 
fore, on  the  26th.*  On  the  following  day,  the  Go- 
vernment of  India,  through  its  Military  Secretary, 
addressed  a  letter  to  the  Adjutant-General's  office 
sanctioning  Hearsey's  suggestion.  On  the  28th,  the 
General  received  the  official  sanction,  and  at  once 
directed  the  concession  to  be  made  known  to  all  the 
regiments  in  Barrackpore.  But  it  was  too  late.  On 
the  previous  day,  a  significant  question  had  been  put 
by  a  Native  officer  on  parade,  as  to  whether  any 
orders  had  been  received.  The  reply  was  necessarily 
in  the  negative.  Had  it  not  been  for  the  interven- 
tion of  the  Adjutant-General's  office,  General  Hear- 
sey  might  have  received  his  reply  four  days  before. 
Whilst  we  were  corresponding,  our  enemies  were  act- 
ing ;  and  so  the  lie  went  ahead  of  us  apace. 

Onward  and  onward  it  went,  making  its  way 
throughout  Upper  India  with  significant  embellish- 
ments, aided  by  the  enemies  of  the  British  Govern- 
ment, whilst  that  Government  looked  at  the  matter  in 
its  naked  reality,  divested  of  all  the  outer  crust  of  lies 
which  it  had  thus  acquired.  Confident  of  their  own 
good  intentions,  the  English  chiefs  saw  only  an  acci- 
dent, an  oversight,  to  be  easily  rectified  and  explained. 
There  did  not  seem  to  be  anything  dangerously  irre- 

*  It  is  right  that  this  should  be    the  year  should  be  consulted,  that 
borue  in  mind.    In  all  cases  of  al-    account  may  be  taken  of  a  dtM  wm, 
leged  official  delays  the  almanack  of 


COLONEL  BIRCH.  513 

parable  in  it.  But  it  was,  doubtless,  right  that  they  1857. 
should  probe  the  matter  to  its  very  depths,  and  do 
all  that  could  be  done  to  allay  the  inquietude  in  the 
Sepoy's  mind.  It  was  hardly  to  be  expected  that  the 
Governor-General,  who  at  that  time  had  been  less 
than  a  year  in  India,  should  see  at  once  all  the  diffi- 
culties of  the  position.  But  he  had  men  of  large  ex- 
perience at  his  elbow ;  and  it  was  wise  to  confide  in 
them.  In  such  an  emergency  as  had  then  arisen,  the 
Military  Secretary  to  the  Government  of  India  was 
the  functionary  whose  especial  duty  it  was  to  inform 
and  advise  the  Governor-General.  That  office  was 
represented  by  Colonel  Richard  Birch,  an  officer  of 
the  Company's  Army,  who  had  served  for  many  years 
at  the  head  of  the  Judge  Advocate's  department,  and 
was  greatly  esteemed  as  an  able,  clear-headed  man  of 
business,  of  unstained  reputation  in  private  life.  Lord 
Dalhousic,  no  mean  judge  of  character,  had  selected 
him  for  this  important  office,  and  Lord  Canning  soon 
recognised  the  wisdom  of  the  choice.  The  Military 
Secretary  had  no  independent  authority,  but  in  such 
a  conjuncture  as  this  much  might  be  done  to  aid 
and  accelerate  the  movements  of  Government ;  and 
had  he  then  sate  down  idly  and  waited  the  result,  or 
had  he  suiFered  any  time  to  be  lost  whilst  feebly 
meditating  action,  a  heavy  weight  of  blame  would 
have  descended  upon  him,  past  all  hope  of  removal. 
But  when  he  heard  that  the  detachments  at  Dum- 
Dum  were  in  a  state  of  excitement,  his  first  thought 
was  to  ascertain  the  truth  or  the  falsehood  of  the 
alleged  cause  of  alarm;  so  he  went  at  once  to  the 
Chief  of  the  Ordnance  Department  to  learn  what 
had  been  done. 

At  that  time,  the  post  of  Inspector-General  of  Ord- 
nance was  held  by  Colonel  Augustus  Abbott,  an  Ar- 

2l 


514  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

1857.      tillery  officer  of  high  repute,  who  had  earned  a  name 
in  history  as  one  of  the  "  Illustrious  Garrison  of  Jd- 
lalabad.''  His  first  impression  was,  that  some  greased 
cartridges  had  been  issued  to  the  Dep6t  at  Dum- 
Dum ;  and  it  was  admitted  that  no  inquiries  had 
been  made  into  the  natural  history  of  the  lubricating 
material     But  he  was  relieved  from  all  anxiety  on 
this  score  by  a  visit  from  Major  Bontein,   the  In- 
structor, who  asked  Abbott  to  show  him  a  greased 
cartridge.     The  fact  was,  that  though  large  numbers 
had  been  manufactured,  none  had  ever  been  issued  to 
the  Native  troops  at  Dum-Dum  or  any  other  station 
in  the  Presidency  Division.*     The  discovery,  it  was 
thought,  had  been  made  in  time  to  prevent  the  dan- 
gerous consequences  which  might  have  resulted  from 
the  oversight.     It  would  be  easy  to  cease  altogether 
from  the  use  of  the  obnoxious  fat ;  easy  to  tell  the 
Sepoys  that  they  might  grease  the  cartridges  after  their 
own  fashion.     The  uneasiness,  it  was  believed,  would 
soon  pass  away,  under  the  influence  of  soothing  expla- 
nations.    It  was  plain,  however,  that  what  had  hap- 
pened at  Dum-Dum  might  happen  at  the  other  mili- 
tary stations,  where  schools  of  musketry  had  been  esta- 
blished and  the  new  rifles  were  being  brought  into  use. 
The  regiments  there  would  assuredly  soon  hear  the 
alarm-note  pealing  upwards  from  Bengal.   But  though 
some  time  had  been  lost,  the  "lightning  post"  might 
still  overtake  the  letters  or  messages  of  the  Sepoys 
before  they  could  reach  UmbaUah  and  Sealkote. 

So  Birch,  having  thus  clearly  ascertained  the  real 
fact  of  the  greased  cartridges,  went  at  once  to  the 
Governor-General,  and  asked  his  permission  to  take 

*  It  should  be  stated  that  much  the  ammunition  manufactured  there 

of  the  laboratory  work  of  the  Ar-  was  always  sent  to  the  Arsenal  and 

senal  of  Fort  William  was  actually  issued  thence  to  the  troops, 
carried  on  at  Dum-Dum ;  but  that 


ORDERS  TO  THE  RIFLE  DEPOTS.  515 

immediate  steps  to  re-assure  the  minds  of  the  Sepoys  1857. 
at  all  the  Musketry  Depots.  The  permission  was  January  27. 
granted,  and  orders  were  forthwith  sent  to  Dum- 
Dum ;  whilst  the  Electric  Telegraph  was  set  at  work 
to  instruct  the  Adjutant-General  of  the  Army,  at 
Meerut,  to  issue  all  cartridges  free  from  grease,  and 
to  allow  the  Sepoys  to  apply  with  their  own  hands 
whatever  suitable  mixture  they  might  prefer.  For, 
at  Meerut,  a  large  manufacture  of  greased  cartridges 
was  going  on,  without  any  fear  of  the  results.*  At 
the  same  time  he  telegraphed  to  the  commanding 
officers  of  the  Rifle  Dep6ts  at  Umballah  and  Sealkote, 
not  to  use  any  of  the  greased  cartridges  that  might 
have  been  issued  for  service  with  the  new  rifles.  It 
was  recommended,  at  the  same  time,  by  Birch  and 
Abbott,  that  a  General  Order  should  be  published  by 
the  Commander-in-Chief,  setting  forth  that  no  greased 
cartridges  would  be  issued  to  the  Sepoy  troops,  but 
that  every  man  would  be  permitted  to  lubricate  his 
own  ammunition  with  any  materials  suitable  to  the 
purpose.  But  plain  as  all  this  seemed  to  be,  and 
apparently  unobjectionable,  an  objection  was  found 
at  Meerut  to  the  course  proposed  in  Calcutta;  and 
the  Adjutant-General,  when  he  received  his  message, 
telegraphed  back  to  the  Military  Secretary  that  Na- 
tive troops  had  been  using  greased  cartridges  "for 
some  years,"  and  the  grease  had  been  composed  of 
mutton-fat.  "Will  not,"  it  was  asked,  "your  in- 
structions make  the  Sepoys  suspicious  about  what 
hitherto  they  have  not  hesitated  to  handle?"  Fur- 
ther orders  were  requested ;  and,  on  the  29th  of 
January,  a  message  went  from  Calcutta  to  the  Head- 

*  Materials  for  100,000  cartridges.  Calcutta  Arsenal  to  Mccmt  in  Oc- 
with  implements  of  manafacture  and  tober,  1856.  These  were  for  the  use 
paltem  cartridges,  were  sent  from  the    of  the  Sixtieth  Rifles. 

2l2 


516 


OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 


1857.  Quarters  of  the  Array,  stating  that  the  existing  prac- 
tice of  greasing  cartridges  might  be  continued,  if  the 
materials  were  of  mutton-fat  and  wax.* 

Prompt  measures  having  thus  been  taken  to  pre- 
vent the  issue  of  greased  cartridges  prepared  in  Cal- 
cutta or  Meerut  to  any  Native  troops — and  with  such 
success  that  from  first  to  last  no  such  cartridges  ever 
were  issued  to  themf — the  authorities,  perhaps  a 
little  perplexed  by  this  sudden  explosion  in  a  season 
of  all-prevailing  quiet,  began  to  inquire  how  it  had 
all  happened.  Not  without  some  diflSculty,  for  there 
were  apparent  contradictions  in  the  statements  that 
reached  them,  the  whole  history  of  the  greased  car- 
tridges was  at  last  disentangled.  It  was  this.  In  1853, 
the  authorities  in  England  sent  out  to  India  some 
boxes  of  greased  cartridges.  The  lubricating  mate- 
rial was  of  different  kinds ;  but  tallow  entered  largely 
into  the  composition  of  it  all.  It  was  sent  out,  not 
for  service,  but  for  experiment,  in  order  that  the 
effect  of  the  climate  upon  the  cartridges  thus  greased 
might  be  ascertained.  But  it  did  not  wholly  escape 
our  high  military  functionaries  in  India,  that  these 
greased  cartridges,  if  care  were  not  taken  to  exclude 
all  obnoxious  materials  from  their  composition,  could 
not  be  served  out  to  Native  troops  mthout  risk  of 
serious  danger.  Colonel  Henry  Tucker  was,  at  that 
time,  Adjutant-General  of  the  Bengal  Army,  and  he 


♦  Sec  the  tclej^ams  published  in 
the  papers  laid  before  Parliament. 
I  merely  state  the  fact  that  such 
messages  were  scut.  But  I  have 
fouud  it  impossible  to  reconcile  the 
assertion  ot  the  Adjutant-General, 
that  cartridges  smeared  with  mutton- 
fat  had  been  in  use,  with  the  actual 
facts  of  the  case,  as  given  iu  the  fol- 
lowing pages  on  the  very  highest 
authority.    I  am  assured  that  the 


only  grease  used  with  the  ammuni- 
tion of  the  old  two-grooved  rifles 
was  a  mixture  of  wax  and  oil  ap- 
plied to  the  "patch." 

f  This  was  officially  declared  by 
Grovemment,  and  in  perfect  good 
faith.  I  believe,  however,  that  some 
greased  cartridges  were  served  out 
to  a  Goorkha  regiment,  at  their 
own  request. 


COLONEL  tucker's  WARNINGS.  517 

obtained  the  pennission  of  the  Commander-in-Chief  1857. 
to  sound  a  note  of  warning  on  the  subject.  There 
was  in  those  days  even  a  greater  complication  of 
military  authority  than  when  Lord  Canning  presided 
over  the  Government.  There  was  an  institution 
called  the  Military  Board,  composed  of  certain  ex- 
officio  members,  one  special  salaried  member,  and  a 
Secretary  who  did  the  greater  part  of  the  work. 
The  trite  adage  that  "  Boards  are  Screens"  was  veri- 
fied in  this  instance,  if  in  no  other,  for  responsibility 
was  effectually  obscured.  It  fell  within  the  range  of 
the  Board's  multifarious  functions  to  direct  the  ex- 
periments which  were  to  be  made  with  the  greased 
cartridges ;  so  Colonel  Tucker,  in  due  ofiicial  course, 
addressed  a  letter  to  the  Secrefciry  to  the  Military 
Board  on  the  subject  of  these  experiments,  adding, 
"  I  am  at  the  same  time  to  communicate  the  Com-  December  17, 
mander-in-Chiefs  opinion,  that,  unless  it  be  known  ^^^^' 
that  the  grease  employed  in  these  cartridges  is  not  of 
a  nature  to  offend  or  interfere  mth  the  prejudices  of 
caste,  it  will  be  expedient  not  to  issue  them  for  test 
to  Native  corps,  but  to  European  soldiers  only  to  be 
carried  in  pouch."  But  it  does  not  seem  that  this 
warning  had  any  effect  upon  the  Military  Board.* 
The  ammunition  to  be  tested  was  served  out  to  Na- 
tive Guards  at  Fort  William,  Ca>vnpore,  and  Ran- 

♦  Colonel  Tucker  afterwards  said  Commander-in-Chief  to  address  the 

iu  a  public  jouriuil,  "  I  do  not  pre-  Military  Board,  and  for  the  Military 

sunic  t^)  say  with  whom  specifically  Board  to  address  the  Governor-Ge- 

the  blame    of   this  most  culpable  neral.    In  this  case,  however,  the 

nej;leet  may  rest.    Only  investiga-  corresnondence  never  went  further 

lion  can   settle  that   point ;   but  I  than  tiic  Military  Board ;  and  it  was 

conceive  that  cither  the    Military  not  until  after  the  mutiny  had  broken 

Secretary  or  the  officer  nresidina;  in  out,  and  Colonel  (then  Major-Gc- 

chief  over  the  Ordnance  Department  neral)  Tucker  had  publicly  referred 

in  Calcutta,  b,  one  or  both,  the  party  to  his  neglected  warnings,  that  the 

implicated."     Investigation   proves  Military  Secretary  had  any  know- 

tliat  both  officers  were  blameless,  ledge  of  the  correspondence  of  1853. 
The  routine  iu  those  days  was  for  the 


518  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

1857.  goon,  who  carried  it  in  their  pouches,  and  handed  it 
from  man  to  man  every  time  that  the  guard  was 
relieved.  After  being  thus  tested  for  many  months, 
the  cartridges  were  reported  upon  by  Committees  of 
European  officers  drawn  from  Native  Infantry  Regi- 
ments, and  eventually  sent  back  to  England  with 
these  reports.  No  objection  was  ever  made  by  the 
Sepoys  to  the  handling  of  the  cartridges,  and  none 
were  ever  started  by  their  regimental  officers  or  by 
the  Committees. 

The  Sixtieth  (Queen's)  Rifles  were  at  this  time 
serving  in  India,  but  the  weapon  which  they  used 
was  that  known  as  the  two-grooved  rifle ;  and  the 
ammunition  consisted  of  a  cartridge  of  powder  only, 
and,  separate  from  this  cartridge,  a  ball  covered  with 
a  "  patch"  of  fine  cloth,  which  was  smeared  with  a 
mixture  of  wax  and  oil.  When  rifle-companies  were 
raised  in  some  of  the  Native  regiments,  this  two- 
grooved  rifle  was  served  out  to  them  with  the 
ammunition  above  described,  and  no  kind  of  objec- 
tion was  ever  raised  to  its  use.*  The  grease  was 
known  to  be  harmless,  and  the  paper  of  the  car- 
tridge was  never  suspected.  But,  in  1856,  these  two- 
grooved  rifles  were  condemned,  and  new  Enfield  rifles 
issued  to  the  Sixtieth,  and  also  to  some  of  the  Com- 
pany's European  Infantry.  The  ammunition  then, 
in  the  first  instance,  supplied  to  them,  consisted  of 
the  residue  of  the  greased  cartridges  sent  from  Eng- 
land for  experiment;  and  whilst  these  were  being 
used  up,  others  of  the  same  description,  in  accord- 
ance with  orders  from  England,  were  being  made  up 
by  the  Ordnance  Departments  at  Calcutta,  at  Dum- 
Dum,  and  at  Meerut.  The  mixture  of  wax  and  oil, 
though  it  answered  the  purpose  of  lubrication  at  the 

*  See  orders  of  1847,  given  at  p.  655,  Addendum, 


MANUFACTURE  OF  CARTRIDGES.  519 

time  of  use,  was  not  applicable  to  bundled  cartridges,  1857. 
because  its  greasing  properties  soon  disappeared.  So 
the  cartridges  manufactured  for  the  Enfield  rifles 
were  to  be  smeared  with  a  mixture  of  stearine  and 
tallow.  The  Ordnance  Department  then  indented  for 
tallow,  without  any  specification  of  the  nature  of  the 
animal  fat  composing  it  ;*  and,  although  no  hog's- 
lard  was  supplied,  there  is  no  question  that  some  beef- 
fat  was  used  in  the  composition  of  the  tallow.  This 
was,  doubtless,  an  oversight,  for  it  would  have  been 
easy  to  enter  into  a  contract  for  the  supply  of  sheep 
and  goats'  fat,  to  which  there  would  not  have  been 
the  same  objections;  but  it  would  seem  that  the 
Ordnance  authorities  had  before  them  the  fact  that 
they  were  making  ammunition,  primarily  for  the  use 
of  the  Sixtieth  Rifles,  in  accordance  with  instruc- 
tions that  had  been  received  from  England. 

It  was  true,  then,  that  cartridges  smeared  with 
obnoxious  grease  had  been  in  course  of  manufacture 
both  at  Fort  William  and  at  the  Head-Quarters  of 
Artillery  at  Meerut.  It  was  true  that,  in  October, 
1856,  large  numbers  of  balled  cartridges  had  been 
sent  up  the  country  by  steamer  for  the  use  of  the 

♦  It  waa  a  part  of  a  contract  for  rj-gw,--,         J  For  ammmiition  pur- 

"  Petty  Stores,"  to  be  supplied  to  ^'^^^^  '  '  *  (     poses, 

the  Arsenal  of  Fort  William  for  two  Tallow      of  fFor  greasing  compo- 

Ycars,  from  the  15tli    of   August,  the  purest  <      sition     for     Minie 

1850,  entered  into  by  Ghn^pdhur  kind .  .  .  .  (     rifle  ammunition. 

Banerica  and  Co.     I'he  article  is  In  subsequent  indents  the  article  is 

dcscriDcd  in  the  contract  as  "  Grease,  sometimes    called    "  Grease,"    and 

Tallow ;"  and  it  was  to  be  supplied  sometimes   "  Tallow  " — "  Required 

at  the  rate  of  two  annas  (or  three-  for  Arsenal  purposes."    A  circular 

pence)  a  pound.    From  the  Records  was  issued  to  the  Department,  dated 

of  the  Inspector-General's  office,  it  January  29th,  1857,  directing  that, 

appears    that    after    the    contract,  wlien    applying    tallow  to   articles 

dated  16th  of  August,  1856,  was  which  Native  soldiers  are  required 

concluded.  Grease  and  Tallow  were  to  handle,  only  the  tallow  of  sheep 

indented  for  separately  at  various  or  goats  is  to  be  employed,  that  of 

times.    In  an  indent  on  the  Con-  swine  or  cows  being  most  carefully 

tractor,  dated  September,  1856,  the  excluded, 
following  entries  appear : 


520 


OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 


1857.  Musketry  Dep6ts  at  Umballah  and  Sealkote.*  But  it 
was  not  true  that  any  had  been  issued  to  the  Sepoy 
regiments ;  for  the  time  had  not  yet  come  for  the 
detachments  at  the  Musketry  Dep6ts  to  use  any  kind 
of  ammunition.  These  detachments  had  received  the 
Enfield  rifle ;  but  they  were  merely  learning  its  use ; 
learning  the  construction  and  the  properties  of  the 
new  weapon  ;  learning  to  take  it  to  pieces  and  to  put 
it  together  again  ;  learning  the  mode  of  taking  sight 
and  aim  at  different  distances— processes  which  occu- 
pied many  weeks,  and  delayed  the  season  of  target 
practice.  Meanwhile,  the  old  two-grooved  rifles  were 
in  fuU  service  with  the  rifle-companies ;  and  car- 
tridges, as  above  described,  with  detached  balls 
greased  with  oil  and  wax,  were  in  constant  use  for 
practice-drill.f  To  these  cartridges  the  Commander- 
in-Chief  referred,  when  he  telegraphed  to  Calcutta 
that  greased  cartridges  had  been  long  in  use  without 
exciting  any  alarm.  It  was  thought  at  Head-Quarters 
that  if  attention  were  once  called  to  the  matter  of  the 
greased  cartridges,  every  Sepoy  who  had  used  the 
old  "patches"  would  be  filled  with  alarm. 

But  whether  this  surmise  were  right  or  whether 
it  were  wrong,  it  is  certain  that  the  minds  of  the 
Sepoys,  first  in  one  station,  then  in  another,  were  al- 
ready becoming  overwhelmed  by  the  great  fear.  The 
lie  had  gone  a-head  of  the  truth.  It  is  doubtful 
whether  any  orders  or  proclamations  could  have  ar- 


♦  The  numbers  were  22,500  for 
the  Umballah  Depot,  and  14,000  for 
the  Sealkote  Depot,  sent  on  the  23rd 
of  October  to  Delhi,  vid  Allahabad, 
by  steamer. 

f  It  may  be  advantageous  to 
caution  the  non-professional  reader 
Jigainst  confounding  the  rifle-com- 
panies here  spoken  of  with  the  de- 


tachments at  the  Rifle  Depots.  The 
former  were  with  their  regiments, 
usin^  the  old  two-grooved  muskets ; 
the  latter  were  detached  from  their 
regiments,  learning  the  use  of  the 
Enlield  ride  in  the  schools  of  mus- 
ketry at  Dum-Dum,  Umballah,  and 
iSculkote. 


CAUSES  OF  ALARM.  521 

rested  the  feeling  of  alarm,  which  was  rushing,  with  1867. 
the  force  of  an  electric  current,  from  cantonment  to 
cantonment,  and  turning  the  hearts  of  the  soldiery 
against  us.  It  was  plain  that  a  very  dangerous  de- 
lusion had  taken  possession  of  them,  and  it  was  right 
that  everything  reasonable  should  have  been  done 
to  expel  it.  But  the  Sepoys,  at  a  very  early  stage, 
were  past  all  reasoning.  It  was  not  grease,  animal 
grease,  alone  that  disturbed  them.  Grease  of  an  ob- 
noxious kind,  for  long  years,  had  been  applied  by 
Native  hands  to  the  wheels  of  gun-carriages  and 
waggons,  and  not  even  a  murmur  of  discontent  had 
been  heard.  At  Calcutta  and  at  Meerut  the  greased 
cartridges  had  been  made  up  by  Natives,  and,  at  the 
latter  place,  even  Brahmin  boys  had  been  employed 
in  their  manufacture.  So  it  was  thought  that  the 
objection  might  be  confined  to  the  biting-off  of  the 
end  of  the  cartridge.  It  was  true  that  the  grease 
was  applied  to  the  part  farthest  from  that  which 
touched  the  lips  of  the  soldier ;  but  in  a  hot  climate 
grease  is  rapidly  absorbed,  and  there  was  a  not  un- 
reasonable apprehension  that  it  would  insidiously 
spread  itself  from  one  end  to  the  other  of  the  car- 
tridge. So,  on  the  recommendation  of  Major  Bon- 
tein,  a  change  was  introduced  into  the  system  of 
Rifle  drill,  by  which  the  process  of  pinching  off  by 
the  hand  was  substituted  for  biting  off  by  the  teeth. 
This  was  right,  as  far  as  it  went ;  but  it  could  not 
go  far.  The  Sepoy  was  not  satisfied.  He  argued 
that  he  had  been  accustomed  always  to  bite  off  the 
end  of  the  cartridge,  and  that  the  force  of  this  strong 
habit  would  often  bring  it  unwittingly  to  his  lips, 
especially  in  the  excitement  of  active  service.  There 
are  times,  doubtless,  when  both  the  Hindoo  and  the 
Mahomedan  have  an  elastic  conscience.    But  there  are 


522  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

1867.  seasons  also  when  both  are  obdurate  and  unyielding. 
It  might  have  been  easy  to  persuade  the  Sepoys  that 
the  British  Government  desired  to  place  the  matter 
entirely  in  their  own  hands,  and  to  leave  them  to 
grease  their  cartridges  and  to  use  them  after  their 
own  fashion;  but  too  many  vague  doubts  and  sus- 
picions had  been  raised  in  past  times,  and  too  much 
was  being  poisonously  instilled  into  them  in  the  pre- 
sent, to  suffer  even  a  remnant  of  confidence  to  cling 
to  them  in  this  conjuncture.  To  beat  them  back  at 
one  point  was  only  to  make  them  take  up  their 
ground  more  tenaciously  at  another. 
Barrackpore,  "  We  have  at  Barrackpore,"  wrote  General  Hearsey 
1857""^'  in  February,  "  been  dwelling  upon  a  mine  ready  for 
explosion.  I  have  been  watching  the  feeling  of  the 
Sepoys  here  for  some  time.  Their  minds  have  been 
misled  by  some  designing  scoundrels,  who  have 
managed  to  make  them  believe  that  their  religious 
prejudices,  their  caste,  is  to  be  interfered  with  by  Go- 
vernment— that  they  are  to  be  *  forced  to  become 
Christians.'  "  But  day  after  day  passed,  and  though 
it  was  manifest  that  there  was  an  uneasy  feeling  in  all 
the  regiments,  and  especially  in  the  Second  and  Thirty- 
fourth,  there  were  no  overt  acts  of  insubordination. 
Their  commanding  officers  had  explained  to  them 
that  Government  had  no  such  designs  as  were  im- 
puted to  them ;  but  even  when  the  Sepoys  were  as- 
sured that  no  greased  cartridges  would  ever  be  issued 
to  them,  and  that  they  might  themselves  lubricate 
their  ammunition  with  wax  and  oil,  so  deeply  rooted 
were  the  misgivings  that  had  taken  possession  of  their 
minds,  that  they  began  to  suspect  that  animal  grease 
had  been  used  in  the  composition  of  the  cartridge- 
paper,  and  that  the  English  were  only  abandoning 
one  trick  to  fall  back .  upon  another.     There  was  a 


THE  CARTRIDGE-PAPER.  523 

glazed  surface  on  the  paper,  which  gave  it  a  greasy  3857. 
aspect,  and  favoured  the  growth  of  the  suspicion ;  and 
when  it  was  burnt,  it  flared  "  with  a  fizzing  noise, 
and  smelt  as  if  there  was  grease  in  it."  So  the  sus- 
picion soon  grew  into  a  certainty,  and  the  fears  of  the 
Sepoy  waxed  stronger  and  stronger  every  day. 

This  was  especially  apparent  in  the  Second  Grena- 
diers ;  so  a  Court  of  Inq^ry  was  held  to  investigate 
the  matter.  The  paper  was  examined  in  Court,  and 
the  Sepoys  were  called  upon  to  state  their  objections. 
This  they  did,  with  an  obstinate  adherence  to  their 
belief  that  grease  had  been  used  in  its  composition. 
When  asked  how  this  suspicion  could  be  removed 
from  their  minds,  they  answered  that  they  could  not 
remove  it — ^that  there  were  no  means  of  removing  it, 
except  by  substituting  another  kind  of  paper.  So 
Government  resolved  to  submit  the  obnoxious  paper 
to  a  chemical  test,  and  the  Chemical  Examiner  re- 
ported, after  due  investigation,  that  it  had  not  been 
greased  or  treated  with  any  greasy  or  oily  matter 
during  or  since  its  manufacture ;  that  by  operating 
on  a  large  quantity  of  paper  he  had  been  able  to  ex- 
tract as  much  oil  as  could  be  discovered  by  the  use  of 
a  higher  power  of  the  microscope,  but  that  the  grease 
was  no  more  than  might  be  contracted  from  the  hands 
of  the  workmen  who  had  packed  it.*  But  there  was 
little  satisfaction  even  in  this,  for  so  obstinate  was 
the  conviction  that  the  English  designed  to  pollute 
the  Sepoys,  that  a  belief  was  gaining  ground  among 
them  that  the  paper  was  little  more  than  "  bladder." 
The  stiffness  and  transparency  of  it  favoured  this 
suspicion,  and  they  could  not  rid  themselves  of  the 
impression  that  it  was  an  animal  substance  which 

*  Dr.  M'Namara  to  the  Inipector-General  of  Ordnance,  Feb.  11,  1857. 
"^Publuked  papers. 


524  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINT. 

1857.  they  were  called  upon  to  use.  This  was  a  far  greater 
difficulty  than  the  other,  for  it  affected  not  merely 
the  Rifle  Dep6ts,  but  the  whole  Native  Army ;  and 
there  was  no  possibility  of  grappling  with  it  except 
by  ceasing  altogether  from  musketry  drilL  If  the 
fear  had  been  only  a  fear  of  the  fat  of  cows  and 
swine,  it  might  have  been  removed  by  the  substitu- 
tion of  one  grease  for  another ;  or  if  the  external 
application  of  any  kind  of  animal  grease  were  ob- 
jected to,  oil  and  wax  might  be  employed  in  its 
place ;  or  if  the  touching  of  the  unclean  thing  with 
the  lips  were  the  grievance,  the  end  of  the  greased 
cartridge  might  be  pinched  off  by  the  hand,  and  that 
objection  removed.  But  to  this  fear  of  the  paper 
used  in  all  the  cartridges  issued  to  the  Army,  greased 
or  dry,  there  was  practically  no  antidote  that  would 
not  have  been  both  an  admission  and  a  concession, 
very  dangerous  for  Government  to  make.  It  re- 
mained only  that  the  English  officer  should  persuade 
the  Sepoy  that  he  was  wrong. 

There  could  hardly,  in  such  a  crisis,  have  been  a 
better  man  in  command  of  the  Division  than  General 
Hearsey ;  for  he  was  one  who  steered  wisely  a  middle 
course  between  the  troubled  waters  of  alarm  and  the 
dead  calms  of  a  placid  sense  of  security.  He  had  a 
large-hearted  sympathy  with  the  Sepoys  in  their 
affliction.  He  understood  them  thoroughly.  He  saw 
that  they  were  labouring  under  a  great  fear ;  and  he 
was  not  one,  in  such  a  case,  to  think  that  the  "  black 
fellows"  had  no  right  to  suspect  the  designs  of  their 
white  masters.  He  saw  clearly  what  a  tremendous 
significance,  in  the  eyes  both  of  Mahomedans  and 
Hindoos,  there  was  in  this  incident  of  the  greased 
cartridges,  and  he  could  not  wonder  at  the  mingled 
feeling  of  terror  and  resentment  that  it  had  excited. 


IIEARSET'S  FIRST  ADDRESS.  525 

It  was  a  case  that  in  his  opinion  required  kindly  1867* 
treatment  and  delicate  handling ;  and  he  thought  that 
much  might  be  done  by  considerate  explanations  to 
restore  confidence  to  their  minds.  So,  on  the  after- 
noon of  Monday,  the  9th  of  February,  he  paraded 
the  Brigade,  and  in  a  loud,  manly  voice,  using  good 
vernacular  Hindostanee,  addressed  the  assembled 
regiments.  Earnestly  and  emphatically  he  explained 
to  them  that  they  had  laid  hold  of  a  foolish  and  a 
dangerous  delusion;  that  neither  the  Government 
which  they  served,  nor  the  officers  who  commanded 
them,  had  ever  thought  for  a  moment  of  interfering 
with  their  religious  usages  or  depriving  them  of  their 
caste ;  and  that  it  was  but  an  idle  absurdity  to  believe 
that  they  could  by  any  means  be  forced  to  be 
Christians.  He  told  them  "that  the  English  were 
Christians  of  the  book — Protestants;  that  they  ad- 
mitted no  proselytes  but  those  who,  being  adults, 
could  read  and  fully  understand  the  precepts  laid 
down  therein ;  that  if  they  came  and  threw  them- 
selves down  at  our  feet,  imploring  to  be  made  Book 
Christians,  it  could  not  be  done ;  they  could  not  be 
baptised  until  they  had  been  examined  in  the  truths  of 
the  book,  and  proved  themselves  fully  conversant  with 
them,  and  then  they  must,  of  their  own  good  will 
and  accord,  desire  to  become  Christians  before  they 
could  be  made  so."  He  then  asked  them  if  they  un- 
derstood him ;  they  nodded  their  assent,  and  it  ap- 
peared both  to  the  English  and  to  the  Native  officers 
that  the  Sepoys  were  well  pleased  with  what  they  had 
heard,  and  that  a  heaviness  had  passed  away  from 
their  minds.* 

But  the  good  effect  of  this  address  was  but  tran-  March,  1857. 

*  General  Hearsey  to  iho  Secretary  to  Govcrument,  Feb.  11,  1867. 
— Publiiked  papert. 


526 


OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 


1867.  sitory;  for  when  the  troops  at  Barrackpore  heard 
what  had  been  done  by  then*  comrades  of  the  Nine- 
teenth, there  was  great  excitement  among  them,  great 
anxiety  to  know  the  result.  It  was  plain  that  the 
game  had  commenced  in  earnest,  and  that  they  might 
soon  be  called  upon  to  take  ai  part  in  it.  But  it 
would  be  well  first  to  see  what  move  would  be  made 
by  the  Government ;  what  punishment  would  be  in- 
flicted upon  the  mutinous  regiment  at  Berhampore. 
Days  passed,  and  days  grew  into  weeks,  but  still  the 
Government  appeared  to  be  inactive.  The  Nineteenth 
were  quietly  performing  their  duties,  as  if  nothing 
had  happened.  In  the  excited  imaginations  of  the 
Sepoys  there  was  something  ominous  in  this  quietude. 
They  dimly  apprehended  the  truth,  and  the  obscurity 
of  tJieir  conceptions  caused  them  marvellously  to  ex- 
aggerate it.  They  believed  that  an  overwhelming 
European  force,  with  Cavalry  and  Artillery,  would 
come  suddenly  upon  them  and  destroy  them.* 

Their  fears  were  exaggerated;  but  they  were  not 
wholly  baseless.  When  the  tidings  of  the  mutiny  at 
Berhampore  reached  Calcutta,  the  Governor- General 
saw  at  once  that  a  great  danger  had  been  providen- 
tially escaped ;  but  with  the  sense  of  present  relief 
came  also  a  solemn  sense  of  the  magnitude  of  the 
crisis.  The  little  cloud  was  growing  larger — ^growing 
darker.  Here  was  an  act  of  overt  mutiny,  and  from 
the  very  cause  of  all  the  perilous  excitement  at  Bar- 
rackpore.    The  time  had  now  come  for  the  Govem- 


*  Take  in  illustration  the  follow- 
ing from  the  Barrackpore  corre- 
spondence of  the  day:  ''The  Drill 
Naiok  of  mj  regiment  came  to  me 
two  days  ago  (March  8),  and  said 
the  report  in  the  Lines  was,  that 
there  were  five  thousand  Europeans 
assembled   by  the  Government  at 


Howrah— that  they  had  arrived  in 
two  ships,  and  were  to  come  up  here 
during  the  Hoolee  (fettival) — ^that 
the  men  had  not  slept  tiie  preTious 
night  in  consequence  of  this  re- 
port."— Major  MaUhetPs  io  Briga- 
dier Grant — MS,  Correspondenee, 


ARRIVAL  OF  THE  EIGHTY-FOURTH.  527 

mcnt  to  do  something  to  assert  its  authority,  and  to  1857. 
strike  terror  into  the  minds  of  the  soldiery.  But 
what  was  to  be  done  ?  It  was  easy  to  decree  the  dis- 
bandment  of  the  Nineteenth,  but  it  was  not  easy  to 
accomplish  it.  There  was  but  one  European  regiment  H.  M/s  63rd. 
along  the  whole  line  of  country  from  Calcutta  to 
Dinapore,  and  one  other  at  the  latter  place,  with  a  h.  M/s.  lOth 
large  extent  of  country  to  protect.  Only  in  the  pre-  ^^^' 
sence  of  an  overawing  European  force  could  a  thou- 
sand armed  Sepoys  be  suddenly  consigned  to  penury 
and  disgrace,  and  neither  of  these  regiments  could  be 
moved  to  Berhampore  without  dangerously  laying 
bare  other  parts  of  the  lower  provinces.  For  a  whUe, 
therefore,  the  stem  resolution  of  Government  was 
shrouded  from  the  guilty  regiment.  But  the  punish- 
ment was  slowly  overtaking  them,  though  they  knew 
it  not.  A  week  after  the  commission  of  their  offence, 
Colonel  Mitchell  had  received  his  orders  to  bring 
down  the  Nineteenth  to  Barrackpore  to  be  disbanded, 
and  the  spacious  passenger-vessel  Bentinck  was  steam- 
ing across  the  Bay  of  Bengal,  charged  with  a  commis- 
sion to  bring  back  with  all  possible  haste  the  Eighty- 
fourth  British  regiment  from  Rangoon.  The  Eng- 
lish officers  at  Barrackpore,  even  Hearsey  himself 
knew  nothing  of  this,  and  laughed  at  the  credulity 
of  the  Sepoys,  who  believed,  on  the  faith  of  their 
own  news  from  Calcutta,  that  this  step  had  been 
taken  by  the  Government.  But  it  soon  became  appa- 
rent that  the  Native  soldiery  were  better  informed 
than  the  Division  Staff,  for  on  the  20th  of  March 
there  was  great  rejoicing  among  the  English  resi- 
dents in  Calcutta  and  the  neighbourhood  at  the 
thought  that  the  Bentinck  had  returned,  and  that  suc- 
cours had  arrived. 

In  the  mean  while  a  state  of  sullen  quietude  ob-  Marcb,  1857. 


a.^t^^^^m^ 


528  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINT. 

March,  1867.  tained  at  Barrackpore.  Still  clinging  to  the  belief 
that  the  Government,  detected  in  their  first  design 
to  apply  the  grease  of  cows  and  pigs  to  the  new 
rifle  cartridges,  had  purposely  employed  those  mate- 
rials in  the  manufacture  of  the  cartridge-paper,  the 
Sepoys  went  about  their  work  under  a  prevadling  sense 
of  an  impending  danger  and  the  aggravation  of  a 
great  wrong.*  It  is  probable  that  their  fears  were 
stronger  than  their  discontents.  They  believed  that 
their  lives,  and  what  was  dearer  to  them  even  than 
their  lives,  were  in  peril,  and  they  saw  no  means  of 
escape  except  by  obtaining  the  mastery  over  those 
who  threatened  to  bring  down  such  terrible  calamities 
upon  them.  To  what  extent  this  idea  of  overpower- 
ing the  Government  had  taken  possession  of  the  minds 
of  the  soldiery,  and  how  far  it  was  ever  shaped  into 
a  definite  scheme  of  action  by  those  who  were  moved 
against  us  by  religious  or  political  animosities,  can 
only  be  dimly  conjectured.  There  was  a  belief  in 
Calcutta  that  a  general  rising  of  the  Native  troops 
had  been  fixed  for  a  particular  night  in  March.  It 
happened  that,  at  this  time,  the  Maharajah  Scindiah, 
the  greatest  of  the  remaining  Mahratta  Princes,  was 
on  a  visit  to  the  English  capital.  No  one  then 
charged,  no  one  has  since  charged  him,  or  his  sa- 
gacious minister,  Dinkur  Rao,  with  any  complicity 
in  a  plot  hostile  to  the  English.  They  were  gratified 
by  the  kind  and  hospitable  reception  which  had  been 
extended  to  them  by  the  Governor-General  and  all 
the  chief  people  of  the  Presidency,  and  were  pleased 
with  everything  they  saw.     But  it  happened  that 

*  So  great  was  their  uneasiness,  ral  court-martial,  of  which  he  was 
and  so  strong  were  their  suspicions,  president,  was  in  close  consaltatioa 
that  it  was  believed  that  Colonel  with  the  Governor-General  respect- 
Whcler,  who  at  that  time  went  ing  the  forcible  or  fraudulent  con- 
daily  into  Calcutta  to  attend  a  gene-  version  of  the  Sepoys. 


SGINDIAH  AT  CALCUTTA.  529 

the  Mahratta  Prince  invited  all  the  principal  English  March,  1857, 
gentlemen  and  ladies  in  Calcutta  to  a  grand  enter- 
tainment on  the  10th  of  March.  The  fete  was  to 
have  been  given  at  the  Botanical  Gardens  on  the 
opposite  bank  of  the  Hooghly  river.  It  is  said,  that 
when  the  English  were  thus  occupied  with  the  plea- 
sure of  the  moment,  and  the  vigilance  of  the  chief 
officers  of  Government  was  temporarily  diverted,  the 
Sepoys,  stimulated  by  the  agents  of  the  King  of 
Oude,  were  to  have  risen  as  one  man,  to  have  seized 
the  Fort  and  all  the  chief  buildings  of  Calcutta,  and 
proclaimed  war  against  the  Feringhee.  That  the 
idea  of  such  a  rising  found  entrance  into  the  active 
brains  of  some  enemies  of  the  British  can  hardly  be 
doubted;  but  there  is  no  proof  that  it  ever  took 
practical  shape  as  an  organised  conspiracy,  which 
would  have  had  the  result  I  have  indicated  if 
nothing  had  occurred  to  frustrate  the  plot.  But  a 
circumstance  did  occur,  which  some  still  regard  as  a 
special  interposition  of  Providence  for  the  deliver- 
ance of  our  people.  Most  unexpectedly,  in  the  dry 
season  of  the  year,  there  was  a  heavy  storm  of  rain 
—one  of  those  mighty  tropical  down-pourings  which 
render  all  out-of-doors  recreation  wholly  an  impos- 
sibility. So  the  great  entertainment,  which  the 
Maharajah  of  Gwalior  was  then  to  have  given  to 
the  English  society  of  Calcutta,  was  postponed  to 
a  more  auspicious  moment,  and  the  evening  of 
the  10th  of  March  passed  over  as  quietly  as  its  pre- 
decessors. 

Of  this  combination  of  the  Native  troops  at  the 
Presidency  there  were,  indeed,  no  visible  signs.  Out- 
wardly it  appeared  that  only  the  Second  Grenadiers 
were  implicated  in  treasonable  schemes.  *'The  Forty- 

2  M 


530  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUnNT. 

iarch,  1857.  third/*  wTotc  Lord  Canning  to  the  Commander-in- 
Chief,  "  have  refused  to  join  in  a  dinner  or  feast  to 
which  the  Second  invited  them ;  and  some  of  the 
Seventieth  have  given  up  a  Jemadar  of  the  Second, 
who  came  into  their  Lines  and  tried  to  persuade  the 
men  not  to  bite  the  cartridges  when  the  time  for 
using  them  should  come,  and  to  deter  them  from 
finishing  their  huts,  saying  that  there  would  soon  be 
a  great  stir  at  Barrackpore,  and  that  their  huts  would 
be  burnt  down."*  Another  sign  of  this  apparent 
isolation  of  the  Second  Grenadiers  was  afforded  by 
an  incident  that  occurred  in  Calcutta.  The  Native 
Guards  for  the  Fort  and  for  the  public  buildings  in  the 
city  were  furnished  by  the  regiments  at  Barrackpore. 
On  the  evening  of  the  10th  of  March  a  detachment 
of  the  Second  was  in  the  Fort,  and  a  Soubahdar's 
guard  from  the  Thirty-fourth  was  posted  over  the 
Calcutta  Mint.  In  the  course  of  the  evening,  two 
Sepoys  from  the  Second  presented  themselves  at  the 
guard-house  and  sought  out  the  Soubahdar.  He  was 
reading  an  order  book  by  the  light  of  a  lamp  when 
the  men  appeared  before  him.  One  of  them  then  re- 
presented that  they  had  come  from  the  Fort ;  that  the 
Calcutta  Militia  were  to  join  the  Fort-Guards  at  mid- 
night; that  the  Governor-General  was  going  up  to 
Barrackpore  with  all  the  Artillery  from  Dum-Dum ; 
and  that  if  the  Soubahdar  would  march  his  guard 
into  the  Fort  and  join  their  comrades  there,  they 
might  rise   successfully   against  the    Govemmentf 

*  March  15,  IS57.—MS.  Corre-  ments  bad  a^eed  that  there  was  no 

spondence.    The  Second  and  Forty-  harm  in  their  men  dining  together. 

third  had  served  together  at  Can-  The  refusal  of  the  Fort j-third  was 

dahar,  and  were  old  friends.    The  not  Intel li;;ible  to  (henu 

proposed  dinner  was  to  be   eiven  f  Lord  Canning  to  General  Anson, 

during  the  Hooley  festival,  and  the  March  13,  1857. — MS.  Oorrt^omi- 

officers  commanding  the  two  regi-  ence. 


CONSULTATIONS  AT  CALCUTTA.         531 

This  last  was  rather  implied  than  expressed ;  but  the  March,  1867. 
meaning  of  the  men  was  sufficiently  clear;  so  the 
Soubahdar  ordered  them  to  be  arrested.  Next  morn- 
ing he  sent  them  prisoners  into  Fort  William  ;  and, 
a  few  days  afterwards,  they  were  tried  by  a  Native 
Court-martial,  found  guilty,  and  sentenced  to  impri- 
sonment  for  fourteen  years. 

This  was  a  significant  incident,  but  it  was  one,  also, 
which  might  be  turned  to  some  account ;  so  Hearsey 
determined  not  to  lose  the  opportunity.  His  former 
speech  to  the  Barrackpore  troops  had  not  accom- 
plished all  that  was  desired ;  but  it  had  at  least  been 
partially  successful,  and  he  believed  that  something 
might  now  be  done  by  another  address  to  the  Brigade. 
So  he  suggested  to  the  Govemor-Greneral  the  ex- 
pediency of  such  a  course.  On  the  14th  of  March 
they  taUced  the  matter  over  at  Government  House, 
and  Lord  Canning  assented  to  the  proposal.  But 
before  the  day  had  worn  out,  some  misgivings  assailed 
him,  as  to  whether  the  General  might  not  be  carried 
away,  by  the  strength  of  his  feelings  and  the  fluency 
of  his  speech,  to  say  a  little  too  much ;  so  after  Hear- 
sey had  returned  to  Barrackpore,  Lord  Canning  sent 
a  letter  after  him,  recapitulating  the  results  of  the 
morning  conversation,  "  in  order  to  prevent  all  mis- 
takes." This  letter  reached  Hearsey  soon  after  sun- 
rise on  the  following  morning  (it  was  Sunday),  and  he 
at  once  replied  to  it,  promising  to  take  the  greatest 
care  not  to  exceed  his  instructions.  On  the  next  day 
the  Native  officers,  who  had  been  warned  as  members 
of  the  Court-martial  ordered  to  assemble  for  the  trial 
of  the  Sepo3r8  of  the  Second,  were  to  leave  Barrack- 
pore for  Calcutta;  and  the  General  thought  it  ad- 
visable not  to  address  the  Brigade  until  after  their  de- 

2u2 


532  OUTBREAK  OP  TITE  MUTINY. 

[arcb,  1867.  parture.*  So  the  order  went  forth  for  a  general 
parade  of  the  troops  at  Barrackpore  on  the  morning 
of  Tuesday,  the  1 7th  of  March. 

There  was  no  little  tact  requisite,  in  such  a  con- 
juncture, for  the  exact  apportionment  of  the  several 
parts  of  the  speech  that  was  to  be  delivered.  The 
main  object  of  it  was  to  warn  the  troops  against  de- 
signing persons,  who  were  endeavouring  to  seduce 
them  from  their  allegiance ;  but  it  was  desirable,  abo, 
.  to  endeavour  to  pacify  and  reassure  them,  for  it  was 
plain  that  they  were  overridden  by  a  great  terror,  bom 
of  the  belief  that  the  Government  had  sent  for  Euro- 
pean troops  of  all  arms  with  the  intent  of  exterminating 
the  Brigade.  In  order  thus  to  remove  the  dangerous 
delusion  whicli  had  taken  possession  of  them,  it  was 
necessary  to  speak  of  the  designs  of  the  Government 
towards  the  mutinous  Nineteenth — ^to  show  that  retri- 
bution was  sure  to  overtake  all  whose  guilt  had  been 
proved,  but  that  there  was  no  thought  of  harming 
those  who  had  committed  no  overt  acts  of  rebellion. 
But  it  was  not  easy  in  such  a  case  to  avoid  8a3dng 
either  too  much  or  too  little.  "  I  am  afraid,"  wrote 
Lord  Canning  to  the  General,  "  that,  however  brief 
your  observations  on  that  regiment  (and  they  should, 
I  think,  be  very  brief),  you  will  find  it  a  nice  matter 
to  steer  between  exciting  undue  alarm  and  raising 
hopes  which  may  be  disappointed.  But  I  feel  sure 
that  you  will  master  the  difficulty,  and  I  leave  the 
task  in  your  hands  with  perfect  confidence  of  the  re- 

*  "  I  cannot  address  the  Brigade  Grenadiers  must  go  from  benoe  be- 
until  Tuesday  morning,  as  the  Native  fore  I  do  so.  If  they  heard  my  ad- 
commissioned  officers,  who  are  to  be  dress  to  the  men  on  pamde,  it  mig^t 
members  of  the  General  Coui*t-mar-  bias  them  in  their  judffment." — 6law- 
tial  to  be  convened  at  Calcutta  for  ral  Heartey  to  LSrd  Camwu^^  Mntk 
the  trial  of  the  Sepoys  of  the  Second  15, 1857. — MS,  ChrrftjHmdeiK^ 


H£ARS£Y'S  SECOND  ADDRESS.  533 

suit.*'*  He  was  thinking  mainly  of  the  eflfect  to  be  March,  1857. 
produced  upon  the  minds  of  the  Sepoys  of  the  Nine- 
teenth. He  did  not  wish  that  the  decision  of  Govern- 
ment should  be  announced  before  the  time  of  carrying 
it  into  eflTect ;  but  Hearsey  saw  plainly  that  it  was 
better  for  the  general  pacification  of  the  Brigade  that 
the  haze  through  which  the  intentions  of  Government 
appeared  to  the  soldiery  in  such  exaggerated  dimen- 
sions should  be  dispersed.  "  For  if  the  men  of  this 
Brigade,"  he  wrote  to  Lord  Canning,  "  know  before- 
hand what  is  to  take  place,  their  minds  will  be  made 
easy,  and  they  will  be  disabused  of  the  false  rumours 
now  spread  about  that  it  is  the  intention  of  the  Go- 
vernment to  attack  and  destroy  them  by  European 
troops  and  Artillery."f 

It  was  tnily  a  great  thing,  at  that  time,  to  remove 
from  the  minds  of  the  Barrackpore  regiments  the 
great  terror  that  held  possession  of  them ;  but-  the 
Nineteenth  had  not  then  commenced  its  march  from 
Berhampore,  and  it  is  always  a  hazardous  operation 
to  move  a  regiment,  with  sentence  of  disbandment 
proclaimed  against  it,  to  the  place  of  execution.  These 
considerations  pressed  heavily  on  Hearsey's  mind, 
when,  on  the  morning  of  the  17th  of  March,  he  rode 
out  to  the  parade-ground,  and  saw  the  Brigade  drawn 
up  before  him.  There  was  much,  however,  when  he 
prepared  to  address  them,  of  which  there  could  be  no 
doubt.  Most  of  all  was  it  necessary  to  warn  them  of 
the  evil-minded  and  designing  men  who  were  leading 
them  astray ;  so  he  began  by  telling  them  to  beware 
of  such  men,  who  were  endeavouring  to  take  the 

*  Lord  Canniiiff  to  General  Hear-  f  General  Hearsey  to  Lord  Can- 
sey,  Mareh  14,  1857.— i/^.  Cone-  ning,  March  15,  Uol.—MS.  (Jorre^ 
ifomdtmct.  tpondenee. 


534  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MimNT. 

March,  1857.  bread  from  the  mouths  of  good  Sepoj^  by  making 
them  the  instruments  of  their  schemes  of  sedition; 
then  he  spoke  of  the  discontent  still  prevailing  among 
them  with  respect  to  the  cartridge-paper,  in  which 
they  had  never  ceased  to  believe  that  animal  fat  had 
been  used.  Then  he  began  to  explain  to  them,  and 
wisely,  too,  as  he  would  explain  to  children,  that  the 
glazed  appearance  of  the  paper  was  produced  by  the 
starch  employed  in  its  composition,  and  that  the  very 
best  paper  used  by  the  Princes  of  the  land  had  the 
same  smooth  surface  and  shiny  appearance.  In 
proof  of  this,  he  produced,  from  a  bag  of  golden 
tissue,  a  letter  he  had  received,  whilst  serving  in  the 
Punjab,  from  the  Maharajah  Gholab  Sing  of  Gash- 
mere,  and,  giving  it  to  the  Native  officers,  told  them 
to  open  it  and  to  show  it  to  their  men,  that  they 
might  see  that  it  was  even  more  glossy  than  the 
paper  which  they  suspected.  Having  done  this,  he 
asked  them  if  they  thought  that  a  Dogra  Brahmin  or 
Rajpoot,  ever  zealous  in  the  protection  of  kine,  would 
use  paper  made  as  they  suspected,  and,  after  further 
illustrations  of  the  absurdity  of  their  suspicions,  told 
them,  that  if  they  did  not  then  believe  him,  they 
should  go  to  Serhampore  and  see  the  paper  made  for 
themselves.  Then  approaching  the  more  dangerous 
subject  of  the  Nineteenth,  who  had  been  led  into 
open  mutiny  by  a  belief  in  the  falsehood  of  the  defiled 
paper,  he  said  that  the  investigation  of  their  conduct 
had  been  laid  before  him  as  General  of  the  Division, 
and  that  he  had  forwarded  it  to  Government,  who 
were  exceedingly  angry,  and  would,  in  his  opinion, 
order  him  to  disband  the  regiment.  That  if  he  re- 
ceived orders  to  that  eflTect,  all  the  troops  within  two 
marches  of  the  place — Infantry,  Cavalry,  and  Ar- 
tillery, European  and  Native — ^would  be  assembled 


hearsey's  second  address.  535 

at  Barrackpore  to  witness  the  disbandment^  and  that  Mareb,  1857. 
"  the  ceremony  of  striking  the  name  and  number  of 
the  regiment  £5pom  the  list  of  the  Army  would  be 
carried  out  in  exactly  the  same  manner  as  the  old 
Thirty-fourth  Regiment  were  disbanded  at  Meerut." 
'"I  inform  you  of  this  beforehand,'*  added  the  Ge- 
neral, ^^  because  your  enemies  are  trying  to  make 
you  believe  that  European  troops  with  Cavalry  and 
Artillery  will  be  sent  here  suddenly  to  attack  you ; 
these,  and  such  lies,  are  fabricated  and  rumoured 
amongst  you  to  cause  trouble.  But  no  European  or 
other  troops  will  come  to  Barrackpore  without  my 
orders,  and  I  will  give  you  all  timely  intelligence  of 
their  coming."  Then  he  told  them  that  nothing  had 
been  proved  against  them,  and  that  therefore  they 
had  nothing  to  fear ;  that  all  their  complaints  would 
be  listened  to  by  their  officers ;  that  their  caste  and 
religious  prejudices  were  safe  under  his  protection, 
and  that  any  one  who  attempted  to  interfere  with 
them  would  meet  with  the  severest  punishment. 

Having  thus  concluded,  Hearsey  deployed  the 
Brigade,  opened  out  the  ranks  to  double  distance, 
and  rode  through  them,  stopping  to  notice  the  men 
who  wore  medals  on  their  breasts,  and  asking  them, 
with  kindly  interest,  for  what  special  services  they 
had  been  rewarded.  The  regiments  were  then  dis- 
missed, and  went  quietly  to  their  Lines,  pondering  all 
that  they  heard  from  their  General.  What  they  had 
heard  was,  perhaps,  a  little  more  than  the  Governor- 
General  had  intended  them  to  hear ;  and  Lord  Can- 
ning, thoHgh  he  much  admired  and  much  trusted 
the  fine  old  officer,  had  not  been  wholly  free  from 
alarm  lest  Hearsey  should  be  carried  away  by  his 
feelings,  and  give  vent  to  more  than  he  had  authority 
for  declaring.     But,  he  added,  "it  will  be  nothing 


536  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUnKT. 

irch,  1857.  very  mischievous  even  if  he  should  do  so."  And  he 
was  right.  Hearsey  had  intimated  that  Government 
would  disband  the  Nineteenth,  and  in  this  he  ex- 
ceeded his  instructions.  But  it  is  not  certain  that 
the  Governor-General  lamented  the  excess.  He  re- 
garded the  disbandment  of  the  Nineteenth  as  a  ne- 
cessary, but  ^^ an  odious  business ;'  and,  perhaps,  in 
his  inmost  heart  he  was  not  sorry  that  he  had  thus 
escaped  the  painful,  and  to  a  generous  mind  the 
humiliating  alternative  of  concealing  from  the  regi- 
ment the  doom  in  store  for  it^  until  he  was  strong 
enough  to  execute  the  sentence.*  Indeed,  he  wrote 
to  the  Commander-in-Chief,  saying,  "  The  Nineteenth 
are  marching  down  steadily,  and  wiU  reach  Barrack- 
pore  on  the  morning  of  the  Slst.  They  do  not  know 
for  certain  that  disbandment  is  to  be  their  punish- 
ment, and,  upon  the  whole,  I  think  it  was  better  not 
to  tell  them.  But  I  admit  that  there  were  two  sides 
to  that  question."  The  safer  course  on  one  side,  and 
the  manlier  course  on  the  other ;  and  between  these 
two  the  ruler  and  the  man  might  well  have  oscillated. 
That  there  was  danger  in  the  knowledge,  is  not  to  be 
doubted.  Hearsey  had  sought,  by  the  partial  revela- 
tions that  he  had  made,  to  soothe  the  troubled  spirit 
of  the  Barrackpore  Brigade;  but  it  soon  became 
doubtful  whether  the  knowledge  they  had  gained 
would  not  excite  within  them  more  dangerous  feel- 
ings than  those  which  he  had  endeavoured  to  allay. 
"  The  regiments  at  Barrackpore,  however,  know  it,*' 
wrote  Lord  Canning,  "or,  at  least,  fully  expect  it, 
and  to-day  it  is  confidently  said  in  the  Bazaars  that 
the  Second  Grenadiers  and  the  Thirty-fourth  intend 
to  protect  the  Nineteenth,  and  to  join  them  in  resist- 

*  Compare  Book  IT.,  page  297  ^i  sea, ;  Ck)nsiderations  on  the  subject  of 
disbandment. 


SPREAD  OF  AIARM.  537 

Ing.  This  is  leading  to  alarms  and  suggestions  on  Marcb,  1867. 
all  sides.  Colonel  Abbott,  of  Ishapore,  advbes  the 
putting  a  gag  upon  the  Native  Press  for  a  time. 
Major  Bontein  recommends  bringing  the  Nineteenth 
to  Calcutta  instead  of  Barrackpore,  and  dealing  with 
them  under  the  guns  of  the  Fort,  where  they  will  have 
no  sympathisers  within  reach.  Even  Atkinson  sug- 
gests  that  Dum-Dum  would  be  better  than  Barrack- 
pore.  I  am  not  in  any  way  moved  from  my  first 
intention,  and  nothing  but  the  opinion  of  General 
Hearsey,  who  has  to  execute  the  orders,  that  a  change 
of  plan  or  place  should  be  made,  would  dispose  me  to 
do  so.  I  do  not  think  that  he  will  give  any  such 
opinion,  and  I  hope  that  he  will  not." 

No  such  opinion  was  given;  but  it  was  plain  to 
Hearsey,  as  the  month  of  March  wore  to  a  close,  that 
the  hopes  which  he  had  once  entertained  of  the 
speedy  subsidence  of  the  alarm  which  had  taken 
possession  of  the  Sepoys  were  doomed  to  be  disap- 
pointed. For  when  the  troops  at  Barrackpore  knew 
that  the  Nineteenth  were  to  be  disbanded,  and  that 
an  English  regiment  had  been  brought  across  the 
black  water  to  execute  the  punishment,  they  be- 
lieved, more  firmly  than  they  had  believed  at  the 
beginning  of  the  month,  that  other  white  regiments 
were  coming,  and  that  the  Government  would  force 
them  to  use  the  obnoxious  cartridges,  or  treat  them 
like  their  comrades  that  were  marching  down  from 
Berhampore  to  be  disgraced.  So  the  great  terror 
that  was  driving  them  into  rebellion  grew  stronger 
and  stronger,  and  as  from  mouth  to  mouth  passed 
the  significant  words,  "  Gora-logue  ay  a" — "  the  Eu- 
ropeans have  come" — ^their  excited  imaginations  be- 
held vessel  after  vessel  pouring  forth  its  legions  of 
English  fightiiDg-men,  under  a  foregone  design  to 


538  OUTBBEAK  OP  THE  MUTINT. 

bidi,  18S7.  force  them   all  to  apostatize  at  the  point  of  the 
bayonet 

Mitchell  had  started  with  his  doomed  corps  on  the 
20th  of  Bfarch,  and  was  expected  to  reach  Barrack- 
pore  at  the  end  of  the  month.    The  behaviour  of  the 
men  of  the  Nineteenth,  ever  since  the  outburst  that 
had  irretrievably  committed  them,  had  been  orderly 
and  respectful,  and  they  were  marching  steadily  down 
to  the  Presidency,  obedient  to  their  English  officers. 
On  the  30th,  they  were  at  Barasut,  eight  miles  from 
Barrackpore,   awaiting  the  orders  of  Grovemment^ 
when  news  reached  Mitchell  to  the  effect  that  the 
troops  at  the  latter  station  were  in  a  fever  of  excite- 
ment, and  that  on  the  day  before  an  officer  had  been 
cut  down  on  parade. 
J>«  •tory  The  story  was  too  true.     On  the  29th  of  March — 

•and^**^  it  was  a  Sunday  afternoon — there  was  more  than 
common  excitement  in  the  Lines  of  the  Thirty-fourth, 
for  it  was  said  that  the  Europeans  had  arrived.  Fifly 
men  of  the  Fifty-third  had  come  by  water  from  Cal- 
cutta, and  were  disembarking  at  the  river-side.  The 
apprehensions  of  the  Sepoys  exaggerated  this  arrival, 
and  it  was  beheved  that  the  cantonment  would  soon 
be  swarming  with  English  soldiers.  On  one  man 
especially  this  impression  had  fixed  itself  so  strongly, 
that,  inflamed  as  he  was  by  bang,  which  is  to  the 
Sepoy  what  strong  drink  is  to  the  European  soldier, 
he  was  no  longer  master  of  himself.  He  was  a  young 
man,  named  Mungul  Pandy,  a  man  of  good  cha- 
racter, but  of  an  excitable  disposition,  and  seemingly 
with  some  religious  enthusiasm  wrought  upon  by  the 
story  of  the  greased  cartridges.  He  had  heard  of  the 
arrival  of  the  detachment  of  Europeans,  and  he  be- 
lieved that  the  dreaded  hour  had  come;  that  the 
caste  of  the  Sepoys  was  about  to  be  destroyed.     So, 


THE  8T0RT  OF  MUNGUL  PANDT.  539 

putting  on  his  accoutrements  and  seizing  his  musket,  Mardi,  1857. 
he  went  out  from  his  hut,  and,  caUing  upon  his  com- 
rades  to  follow  him,  if  they  did  not  wish  to  bite  the 
cartridges  and  become  infidels,  he  took  post  in  front 
of  the  Quarter-Guard^  and  ordered  a  bugler  to  sound 
the  assembly.  The  order  was  not  obeyed ;  but,  with 
an  insolent  and  threatening  manner,  Mungul  Pandy 
continued  to  stride  up  and  down,  and  when  the 
European  sergeant-major  went  out,  fired  his  piece  at 
him,  and  missed. 

All  this  time  the  Native  officer  and  men  of  the 
Thirty-fourth  on  duty  at  the  Quarter-Guard  saw 
what  was  going  on,  but  did  not  move  to  arrest  the 
drugged  fanatic  who  was  so  plainly  bent  upon  mis- 
chief. But  hastening  to  the  Adjutant's  house,  a 
Native  corporal  reported  what  had  occurred,  and 
Lieutenant  Baugh,  without  a  moment  of  unnecessary 
delay,  buckled  on  his  sword,  loaded  his  pistols, 
mounted  his  horse,  and  galloped  down  to  the  Quarter- 
Guard.  He  had  just  tightened  rein,  when  Mungul 
Pandy,  hidden  by  the  station  gun  in  front  of  the 
Guard,  took  aim  and  fired  at  the  Adjutant;  but, 
missing  him,  wounded  his  charger,  and  brought  both 
horse  and  rider  to  the  ground.  Baugh  then,  dis- 
entangling himself,  took  one  of  his  pistols  from  the 
holsters  and  fired  at  the  Sepoy.  The  shot  did  not 
take  efiect,  so  he  drew  his  sword  and  closed  with 
the  man,  who  also  had  drawn  his  tulwar,  and  then 
there  was  a  sharp  hand-to-hand  conflict,  in  which 
the  odds  were  against  the  Sepoy,  for  the  sergeant- 
major  came  up  and  took  part  in  the  aflray.  But 
Mungul  Pandy  was  a  desperate  man,  and  the  strokes 
of  his  tulwar  fell  heavily  upon  his  assailants;  and 
he  might,  perhaps,  have  despatched  them  both,  if  a 
Mahomedan  Sepoy,  of  the  Grenadier  Company,  named 


540  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

rtk,  1857.  Sheikh  Pultoo,   had  not  seized  the  mutineer  and 
averted  his  blows. 

All  this  passed  at  the  distance  of  a  few  yards  only 
fix)m  the  Quarter-Guard  of  the  Thirty-fourth,  where 
a  Jemadar  and  twenty  men  were  on  duty.  The  sound 
of  ihe  firing  had  brou^t  many  others  from  the  Lines, 
and  Sepoys  in  unifor^  and  out  of  uniform  crowdS 
around  in  a  state  of  tumultuous  excitement.  But  with 
the  exception  of  this  Sheikh  Pultoo,  no  man  moved 
to  assist  his  officer;  no  man  moved  to  arrest  the 
criminaL  Nor  was  their  guilt  only  the  guilt  of 
inaction.  Some  of  the  Sepoys  of  the  Guard  struck 
the  wounded  officers  on  the  ground  with  the  butt- 
ends  of  their  muskets,  and  one  fired  his  piece  at 
them ;  and  when  Sheikh  Pultoo  called  upon  them  to 
arrest  the  mutineer,  they  abused  him,  and  said  that  if 
he  did  not  release  Mungul  Pandy,  they  would  shoot 
him.  But  he  held  the  desperate  fanatic  until  Baugh 
and  the  sergeant-major  had  escaped,  and  doubtless  to 
his  fidelity  they  owed  their  lives. 

Meanwhile,  tidings  of  the  tumult  had  reached  the 
quarters  of  General  Hearsey.  An  orderly  rushed  into 
the  portico  of  his  house  and  told  him  that  the  Brigade 
had  risen.  His  two  sons,  officers  of  the  Sepoy  Army, 
were  with  him ;  and  now  the  three,  having  ordered 
their  horses  to  be  saddled  and  brought  round,  put  on 
their  uniform  and  accoutrements  and  prepared  at  once 
to  proceed  to  the  scene  of  action.  It  seemed  so  pro- 
bable that  all  the  regiments  had  turned  out  in  a 
fi^nzy  of  alarm,  that,  whilst  the  horses  were  being 
saddled,  Hearsey  wrote  hasty  notes,  to  be  despatched 
in  case  of  need  to  the  officers  commanding  the  Euro- 
peans at  Chinsurah  and  Dum-Dum,  calling  upon 
them  to  march  down  at  once  to  his  assistance.  He 
had  just  sealed  them,  when  first  the  Adjutant  of  the 


THE  SCENE  AT  THE  QUARTER-ODARD.  541 

Forty-third,  smeared  with  the  blood  of  the  wounded  March,  1857. 

officers,  and  then  the  Commandant  of  the  Regiment, 

came  up  to  report,  in  detail,  what  had  happened.  The 

story  then  told  him  was  a  strange  one ;  for  it  seemed 

not  that  the  Brigade,  but  that  a  single  Sepoy  had 

risen,  and  was  setting  the  State  at  defiance.     It  is 

hard  to  say  whether  the  surprise  or  the  indignation 

of  the  gallant  vet-eran  were  greater,  when  he  asked 

whether  there  was  no  one  to  shoot  or  to  secure  the 

madman.     But  it  was  plain  that  no  time  was  to  be 

lost     So,  mounting  their  horses,  Hearsey  and  his 

sons  galloped  down  to  the  parade-ground,  and  saw 

for  themselves  what  was  passing. 

There  was  a  great  crowd  of  Sepoys,  mostly  unarmed 
and  undressed,  and  there  were  several  European 
officers,  some  mounted  and  some  on  foot ;  much  con- 
fusion and  some  consternation,  but  apparently  no 
action.  Mungul  Pandy,  still  master  of  the  situation, 
was  pacing  up  and  down,  in  front  of  the  Quarter- 
Guard,  calling  upon  his  comrades  in  vehement  tones, 
and  with  excited  action,  to  follow  his  example,  as  the 
Europeans  were  coming  down  upon  them,  and  to  die 
bravely  for  their  religion.  But  the  crowd  of  Sepoys, 
though  none  remembered  at  that  moment  that  they 
were  servants  of  the  State,  none  came  forward  to 
support  discipUne  and  authority,  were  not  ripe  for 
open  mutiny ;  and  when  Mungul  Pandy  reviled  them 
as  cowards,  who  had  first  excited  and  then  deserted 
him,  they  hung  irresolutely  back,  clustering  together 
like  sheep,  and  wondering  what  would  happen  next. 
The  arrival  of  the  General  solved  the  question.  As 
soon  as  he  saw  Mungul  Pandy  in  front  of  the  Quarter- 
Guard,  he  rode  towards  it,  accompanied  by  his  sons 
and  by  his  Division-Stafl^,  Major  Ross,  and  when  an 
officer  cried  out  to  him  to  take  care,  as  the  mutineer's 


542  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINT. 

ireh,  1857.  musket  was  loaded,  answered,  ^^  Damn  his  musket^** 
and  rode  on  to  do  his  duty. 

Little  inclination  was  there  on  the  part  of  the 
Jemadar  and  the  men  of  the  Guard  to  obey  the 
General's  orders ;  but  the  manner  of  Hearsey  at  that 
moment  was  the  manner  of  a  man  not  to  be  denied  ; 
and  supported  by  his  sons,  each  of  the  gallant  Three 
with  his  hand  upon  his  revolver,  there  was  instant 
death  in  disobedience.  So  the  Jemadar  and  the 
Guard,  thus  overawed,  followed  Hearsey  and  his  sons 
to  the  place  where  Mungul  Pandy  was  striding  about 
menacingly  with  his  musket  in  his  hand.  As  they 
approached  the  mutineer,  John  Hearsey  cried  out, 
"  Father,  he  is  taking  aim  at  you."  "  If  I  fall,  John," 
said  the  General,  ^^rush  upon  him  and  put  him  to 
death."  But  Mungul  Pandy  did  not  fire  upon 
Hearsey ;  he  turned  his  weapon  upon  himself.  He 
saw  that  the  game  was  up ;  and  so,  placing  the  butt 
of  his  musket  on  the  ground,  and  the  muzzle  of  the 
piece  to  his  breast,  he  discharged  it  by  the  pressure  of 
his  foot,  and  fell  burnt  and  wounded  to  the  ground. 

As  he  lay  there  convulsed  and  shivering,  with  his 
blood-stained  sword  beneath  him,  the  officers  thought 
that  he  was  djdng.  But  medical  assistance  came 
promptly,  the  wound  was  examined  and  found  to  be 
only  superficial,  so  the  wounded  man  was  carried  to 
the  Hospital;  and  then  Hearsey  rode  among  the 
Sepoys,  telling  them,  as  he  had  often  told  them 
before,  that  their  alarms  were  groundless,  that  the 
Government  had  no  thought  of  interfering  with  their 
religion,  and  that  he  saw  with  regret  how  lamentably 
they  had  failed  in  their  duty,  in  not  arresting  or 
shooting  down  a  man  who  had  thus  shown  himself  to 
be  a  rebel  and  a  murderer.  They  answered  that 
he  was  a  madman,  intoxicated  to  frenzy  by  bang. 


THE  NINETEENTH.  543 

"  And  if  80,"  said  Hearsey,  "  why  not  have  shot  him  Marcb,  1867. 

down  as  you  would  have  shot  a  mad  elephant  or  a 

mad  dog,  if  he  resisted  you,"  Some  answered  that  he 

had  a  loaded  musket.    "  What  I"  replied  the  General, 

"are  you  afraid  of  a  loaded  musket?"    They  were 

silent;  and  he  dismissed  them  with  scorn.     It  was 

plain  that  they  had  ceased  to  be  soldiers. 

Hearsey  returned  to  his  quarters  that  Sabbath 
evening,  heavy  with  thought  of  the  work  before  him. 
He  had  received  his  orders  to  execute  the  sentence 
that  had  been  passed  on  the  Nineteenth  Regiment 
That  sentence  had  now  been  publicly  proclaimed  in  a 
general  order  to  the  whole  Anny.  On  Tuesday  morn- 
ing, in  the  presence  of  all  the  troops,  European  and 
Native,  at  the  Presidency,  the  Berhampore  mutineers 
were  to  be  turned  adrift  on  the  world,  destitute  and 
degraded ;  and  it  was  not  to  be  doubted  that  they 
would  carry  with  them  the  sympathies  of  their 
comrades  in  all  parts  of  the  country.  That  there  was 
prospective  danger  in  this  was  certain,  for  every  dis- 
banded Sepoy  might  have  become  an  emissary  of 
evil ;  but  there  was  a  great  and  present  danger,  far 
too  formidable  in  itself  to  suffer  thoughts  of  the  future 
to  prevail ;  for  it  was  probable  that  the  Nineteenth 
would  resist  their  sentence,  and  that  all  the  Native 
troops  at  the  Presidency  would  aid  them  in  their  re- 
sistance. Some  thought  that  the  Barrackpore  Brigade 
would  anticipate  the  event,  and  that  on  Monday  there 
would  be  a  general  rising  of  the  Sepoys,  and  that  the 
ofSicers  and  their  families  would  be  butchered  by  the 
mutineers.  The  first  blood  had  been  shed.  Mungul 
Pandy  was  only  the  fugleman.  So  many  of  the 
English  ladies  in  Barrackpore  left  the  cantonment 
and  sought  safety  for  a  while  in  Calcutta.  But  there 
was  no  place  at  that  time  more  secure  than  that 


544 


OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 


March,  1867.  which  they  had  qiiitted ;  and  they  found  that  the 
inmates  of  the  asylum  they  had  sought  were  as  much 
alarmed  as  themselves. 

It  has  been  said  that,  halted  at  Barasut  on  the 
30th  of  March,  the  Nineteenth  learnt  what  had 
happened  on  the  preceding  evening.  The  Thirty- 
fourth  had  sent  out  their  emissaries  to  meet  their  old 
friends  and  comrades  of  Lucknow,  to  prompt  them 
to  resistance,  and  to  promise  to  cast  in  their  own  lot 
with  their  brethren  and  to  die  for  their  religion.  And 
this,  too,  it  is  said,  with  murderous  suggestions  of  a 
general  massacre  of  the  white  officers.  But  the  Nine- 
teenth shook  their  heads  at  the  tempters.  They  had 
expressed  their  sorrow  for  what  had  happened,  and 
they  had  implored  that  they  might  be  suffered  to 
prove  their  loyalty  by  going  on  service  to  any  part  <rf 
the  world.  They  had  never  at  heart  been  mutinous, 
and  they  would  not  now  rise  against  the  Government 
whose  salt  they  had  eaten  and  whose  uniform  they 
had  worn.  But  the  bonds  of  a  great  sympathy  re- 
strained them  from  denouncing  their  comrades,  so 
they  suffered  in  silence  the  tempters  to  return  to 
their  own  Lines. 

As  the  morning  dawned  upon  them,  obedient  to 
orders,  they  commenced  the  last  march  that  they  were 
ever  to  make  as  soldiers.  Heavy-hearted,  penitent, 
and  with  the  remains  of  a  great  fear  still  clinging  to 
them,  they  went  to  their  doom.  A  mile  from  Barrack- 
pore,  Hearsey  met  them  with  his  final  orders,  and 
placing  himself  in  front  of  the  column,  rode  back  widi 
them  to  the  parade-ground  which  was  to  be  the  scene 
of  their  disbandment.  There  all  the  available  troops 
in  the  Presidency  division,  European  and  Native, 
were  drawn  up  to  receive  them.  Steadily  they 
marched  on  to  the  ground  which  had  been  marked 


March  31, 
1867. 

Disbftnd- 
ment  of  the 
Nineteenth. 


DISBANDMENT  OF  THE  NINETEENTH.  545 

out  for  them,  and  found  themselves  face  to  face  with  March,  1857. 
the  guns.  If  there  had  been  any  thought  of  resistance, 
it  would  have  passed  away  at  the  first  sight  of  that 
imposing  array  of  white  troops  and  the  two  field- 
batteries  which  confronted  them.  But  they  had  never 
thought  of  anything  but  submission.  Obedient,  there- 
fore, to  the  word  of  command,  up  to  the  last  moment 
of  their  military  existence,  they  listened  in  silence  to 
the  General's  brief  preliminary  address,  in  silence  to 
the  General  Order  of  Government  announcing  the 
sentence  of  disbandment ;  without  a  murmur,  opened 
their  ranks,  piled  their  arms  at  the  word  of  command 
as  though  they  had  been  on  a  common  parade,  and 
then  hung  their  belts  upon  their  bayonets.  The 
colours  of  the  regiment  were  then  brought  to  the 
front,  and  laid  upon  a  rest  composed  of  a  little  pile  of 
crossed  muskets.  It  was  an  anxious  moment,  for 
though  the  Nineteenth  were  penitent  and  submissive, 
the  temper  of  some  of  the  other  regiments,  and  espe- 
cially  of  the  Thirty-fourth,  was  not  to  be  trusted ; 
and  for  a  while  it  was  believed  that  the  men,  who  two 
days  before  had  thrown  off  the  mask,  were  prepared 
to  fire  upon  their  officers.  The  rumour  ran  that 
many  of  the  Sepoys  of  that  guilty  regiment  were  on 
parade  with  loaded  muskets,  and  Hearsey  was  advised 
l  prove  ftcm  by  ordering  the  «guoent  to  spring 
ramrods.  But  he  wisely  rejected  the  advice,  saying 
that  all  was  going  well,  and  that  he  would  not  mar 
the  effect  of  the  peaceable  disbandment  of  the  regi- 
ment by  a  movement  that  might  excite  a  collision. 
He  was  right.  The  work  that  he  had  in  hand  was 
quietly  completed.  The  men  of  the  Nineteenth  were 
marched  to  a  distance  from  their  arms,  and  the  pay 
that  was  due  to  them  brought  out  for  diBbarsement. 
They  had  now  ceased  to  be  soldiers ;  but  there  mv  no 

2n 


546  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

March,  1857.  further  degradation  in  store  for  them.  Hearsay  ad- 
dressed them  in  tones  of  kindness,  saying  that  though 
the  Government  had  decreed  their  summary  dismissal, 
their  uniforms  would  not  be  stripped  from  their  backs, 
and  that  as  a  reward  for  their  penitence  and  good 
conduct  on  the  march  from  Berhampore,  they  would 
be  provided  at  the  public  cost  with  carriage  to  convey 
them  to  their  homes.  This  kindness  made  a  deep  im- 
pression upon  them.  Many  of  them  lifted  up  their 
voices,  bewailing  their  fate  and  loudly  declaring  that 
they  would  revenge  themselves  upon  the  Thirty-fourth, 
who  had  tempted  them  to  their  undoing.  One  man, 
apparently  spokesman  for  his  comrades,  said,  "  Give 
us  back  our  arms  for  ten  minutes  before  we  go ;  and 
leave  us  alone  with  the  Thirty-fourth  to  settle  our 
account  with  them."* 

Whilst  the  men  of  what  had  once  been  the  Nine- 
teenth were  being  paid,  Hearsey  addressed  the  other 
Native  regiments  on  parade,  very  much  as  he  had  ad- 
dressed them  before ;  but  urging  upon  them  the  con- 
sideration of  the  fact  that  the  Nineteenth,  in  which 
there  were  four  hundred  Brahmins  and  a  hundred 
and  fifty  Rajpoots,  had  been  sent  to  their  homes,  and 
were  at  liberty  to  visit  what  shrines  they  pleased,  and 
to  worship  where  their  fathers  had  worshipped  before 
them,  as  a  proof  that  the  report  which  had  been 

*  Lord  Canning's    reasons    for  punishment  is  severe  enough  with- 

sparing  them  the  deeper  degradation  out  being  made  to  gall  and  rankle, 

are  thus  given  in  a  letter  to  General  It  was  for  this  reason  that  I  did  not 

Anson ;  "  I  sent  you  a  copy  of  the  originally  prescribe  that  the  uumber 

General  Order  yesterday.    I   have  of  the  regiment  should  be  removed 

determined  to  omit  the  words  which  from  the  Army  List,  or  that  the  men 

require  that  the  men  shall  be  dc-  should  be  turned  out  of  cantonmeur. 

prived  *of  the  uniform  which  they  ignominiously,  as  was  done  in  the 

nave  dishonoured.'     Heavy  as  has  case  of  the  Thirty-fourth  thirteen 

been  their  crime — none  heavier — it  years    ago.     The    abstaining   from 

is  not  a  mean  or  abject  one  :  such  as  stripping  their  uniforms  from  them 

refusing   to    marcii    to   a   post  of  will  be  a  further  relaxation  in  the 

danger ;  and  the  substance  of  their  same  spirit." — MS.  Correspondence , 


DISFEB8I0N  OF  THE  KINETEENTH.  547 

circulated  of  the  intention  of  Government  to  interfere  March,  1867. 
with  their  religion  was  nothing  but  a  base  falsehood. 
The  men  listened  attentively  to  what  was  said ;  and 
when  the  time  came  for  their  dismissal,  they  went 
quietly  to  their  lines.  It  was  nearly  nine  o'clock 
before  the  men  of  the  old  Nineteenth  had  been  paid 
up;  and,  under  an  European  escort,  were  marched 
out  of  Barrackpore.  As  they  moved  off,  they  cheered 
the  fine  old  soldier,  whose  duty  it  had  been  to  dis- 
band them,  and  wished  him  a  long  and  a  happy  life ; 
and  he  went  to  his  house  with  a  heart  stirred  to  its 
very  depths  with  a  compassionate  sorrow,  feeling 
doubtless  that  it  was  the  saddest  morning's  work  he 
had  ever  done,  but  thanking  God  that  it  had  been 
done  so  peacefully  and  with  such  perfect  success. 


2h2 


548  OUTBBEAK  OF  THE  HDTINT. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  MONTH  OF  AFBIL— PROGRESS  OF  ALARM — THE  PANIC  AT  UMBALLAH^ 
GENERAL  ANSOn's  ADDRESS  —  STENTS  AT  MBBRUT  —  THB  BONE-DUST 
FLOUR — THB  STORY  OF  THE  CHUPATTIES — INTRieUXS  OF  THE  NANA  SAHIB 
— AFFAIRS  AT  LUCKNOW. 

Barrackpore.      NoT  less  thankful  was  Lord  Canning,  when  tidings 
^  •  were  brought  to  him  at  Calcutta  that  all  had  passed 

off  quietly  at  Barrackpore.  He  had  sent  one  of  his 
Aides-de-camp,  Captain  Baring,  to  witness  the  dis- 
bandment  of  the  Nineteenth,  and  to  bring  back  to 
him,  with  all  possible  despatch,  intelligence  of  the 
events  of  the  morning.  And  now  that  good  news 
had  come,  he  telegraphed  it  at  once  to  the  Com- 
mander-in-Chief, and  made  it  known  throughout  the 
city,  to  the  intense  relief  of  many  frightened  resi- 
dents, who  had  anticipated  a  general  rising  of  the 
Native  troops,  and  the  massacre  of  all  the  European 
inhabitants.  For  the  moment,  at  least,  the  danger 
had  passed;  and  a  little  breathing-time  was  per- 
mitted to  Government.  Now  that  the  disbandment 
of  the  Nineteenth  had  been  effected,  and  the  men 
were  going  quietly  to  their  homes,  there  was  leisure 
to  think  of  the  far  greater  crime  of  the  Thirty-fourth. 
The  case  of  Mungul  Pandy,  who  had  cut  down  his 
officer,  was  one  to  raise  no  questionings.  Nor,  indeed, 
could  there  be  much  doubt  about  the  Jemadar  of  the 


THE  THIRTY-FOURTH.  549 

Guard,  who  had  suffered  such  an  outrage  to  be  com-  April,  1857. 
mitted  before  his  eyes.  The  former  was  tried  by 
Court-martial  on  the  6th  of  April,  and  sentenced  to 
be  hanged;  and,  on  the  10th  and  11th,  the  latter 
was  tried,  and  sentenced  to  the  same  ignominious 
death.  On  the  8th,  Mungul  Pandy  paid  the  penalty 
of  his  crime  on  the  gallows,  in  the  presence  of  all  the 
troops,  at  Barrackpore.  But  although  without  loss  of 
time  the  Jemadar  was  condemned  to  be  hanged,  the 
execution  lagged  behind  the  sentence  in  a  manner 
that  must  have  greatly  marred  the  effect  of  the  ex- 
ample. A  legal  difficulty  arose,  which,  for  a  while, 
held  retribution  in  restraint,*  and  the  men  of  the 
Brigade  began  to  think  that  Government  lacked 
the  resolution  to  inflict  condign  punishment  on  the 
offender. 

Nor  was  this  the  only  apparent  sjnnptom  of  irreso- 
lution. The  Thirty-fourth  had  been  more  guilty  than 
the  Nineteenth ;  but  punishment  had  not  overtaken 
it.  The  men  stiU  went  about  with  their  arms  in 
their  hands ;  and  there  was  scarcely  a  European  in 
Barrackpore  who  believed  that  he  was  safe  firom 
their  violence.  As  officers  returned  at  night  from 
their  regimental  messes,  they  thought  that  their  own 
Sepoys  would  faU  upon  them  in  the  darkness,  and 
social  intercourse  after  nightfall  between  the  ladies 

*  "The  execution  of  a  Native  offi-  The  delay  was  caused  by  the  Com- 

cer  of  his  rank,"  wrote  Lord  Canning  mander- in- Chief  not  having  given 

to  the  Presidfent  of  the  Board  of  authority  to  Qeneral   Hearsey,  in 

Control,  "  convicted  by  his  brother  his  warrant,  to  carry  out  sentences 

officers,  will  have  a  most  wholesome  aii^ainst  any  but  non-commissioned 

effect.    Such  a  thing  is  quite  unpre-  officers,  and  bv  an  opinion  utterly 

cedented.    There  has  been  a  delay  erroneous  of  the  Judge  Advocate, 

between  the  sentence  and  the  exe-  who  is  with  the  Conunander-in-Chief, 

cution  which  has  vexed  me,  as  it  that  the  authority  could  not  be  given, 

may  give  an  appearance  of  hesitation  Hence  nearly  a  week  was  los^  and 

to  the  proceecUngs  of  Government^  with  it  something  of  the  sharpness 

which  would  be  mischievous,  and  of  the  ezample.**-— IfiSw  Conetfond' 

which  never  has  existed  for  amoment.  mice  i^  Lard  Ctmmtig, 


550  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

pril,  1867.  of  the  station  was  suspended.*  All  this  was  known 
and  deplored ;  but  it  was  felt,  upon  the  other  hand, 
that  if  there  were  evil  in  delay,  there  was  evil  also  in 
any  appearance  of  haste.f  Mindful  that  the  dis- 
aflfection  in  the  Sepoy  regiments  had  its  root  in  fear, 
and  believing  that  any  undue  severity  would  in- 
crease their  irritation,  the  Governor-General  caused 
all  the  circumstances  of  the  excitement  of  the  Thirty- 
fourth  to  be  sifted  to  the  bottom,  and  hoped  thereby 
to  elicit  information  which  might  guide  him  to  a 
right  understanding  of  the  matter.  The  regiment 
once  disbanded,  there  would  be  no  hope  of  further 
revelations.  So  all  through  the  month  of  April  then- 
doom  was  unpronounced.  Courts  of  Inquiry  were 
being  held  for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining  the  general 
temper  of  the  regiment.  It  appeared  that  for  some 
time  there  had  been  a  want  of  loyalty  and  good  feel- 
ing in  the  Thirty-fourth ;  that  Native  officers  and 
Sepoys  had  been  disrespectful  in  their  manner  to- 
wards their  English  officers ;  and  altogether  there  had 
been  such  a  lack  of  discipline,  that  the  officers,  when 
questioned,  said  that  if  the  regiment  had  been  or- 

•  It  does  not  appear  that  any  out-  hasty  measure  of  retribution,  betray- 

rages  were  actually  committed ;  but  ing  animosity,  or  an  unjust  act  of 

one  night  a  Sepoy  appeared  sud-  severity,  would  confirm,  instead  of 

denly  in  a  threatening  attitude  be-  allaying,  the  temper  which  is  abroad, 

fore  a  young  officer,  as  he  was  on  Jt  is  not  possible  to  say  with  confi- 

hia  way  home,  upon  which,  being  a  dence  what  the  causes  are ;  but  with 

stalwart  and  brave  fellow,  the  Eng-  the  common  herd  there  is  a  sincere 

lish  subaltern  knocked  him  down.  fear  for  their  caste,  and  a  conviction 

f  A  little  later  the  Governor-Gene-  that  this  has  been  in  danger  from 

ral  wrote  :    **  The  mutinous  spirit  is  the  cartridges  and  other  causes.  This 

not  quelled  here,  and  I  feel  no  con-  feeling  is  played  upon  by  others  from 

fidence  of  being  able  to  eradicate  it  outside,  and,  to  some  extent,  with 

very  speedily,  although  the  outbreaks  political   objects.      But,   upon  the 

may  be  repressed  easily.    The  spirit  whole,  political  animosity  aoes  not 

of  disaffection,  or  rather  of  mistrust,  go  for  much  in  the  present  move- 

for  it  is  more  that,  has  spread  fur-  ment,  and  certainly  does  not  actuate 

ther  than  1  thought  six  weeks  ago,  the  Sepoys  in  the  mass." — Lord  Can- 

but  widely  rather  than  deeply,  and  ning  to  Lord  Elphinsione^   May   6, 

it  requires  very  wary  walking.     A  1857.— Jl/iSi.  Correspondence, 


TII£  THIRTY-FOUBTIL  551 

dered  on  service  they  would  have  had  little  faith  in  April,  1857. 
the  fidelity  of  the  great  bulk  of  the  soldiery.  And  at 
last  an  opinion  was  recorded  to  the  efiect  that  "  the 
Sikhs  and  Mussulmans  of  the  Thirty-fourth  Regi- 
ment of  Native  Infantry  were  trustworthy  soldiers  of 
the  State,  but  that  the  Hindoos  generally  of  that 
corps  were  not  to  be  trusted."  So  the  Government 
took  into  deliberate  consideration  the  disbandment  of 
the  regiment,  with  the  exception  of  those  officers  and 
soldiers  who  had  been  absent  from  Barrackpore  at 
the  time  of  the  outrage  of  the  29th  of  March,  or  who 
had  at  any  time  made  practical  demonstration  of 
their  loyalty  and  fidelity  to  the  State.* 

But  before  judgment  was  pronounced  and  sen- 
tence executed,  there  had  been  much  in  other  parts 
of  the  country  to  disturb  the  mind  of  the  Governor- 
General  He  was  a  man  of  a  hopeful  nature,  and 
a  courageous  heart  that  never  suffered  him  to  exag- 
gerate the  dangers  of  the  Future,  or  to  look  gloomily 
at  the  situation  of  the  Present ;  but  it  was  plain  that 
the  little  cloud  which  had  arisen  at  the  end  of 
January,  was  now,  in  the  early  part  of  April,  rapidly 
spreading  itself  over  the  entire  firmament.  Already 
the  sound  of  the  thunder  had  been  heard  from  dis- 
tant stations  beneath  the  shadow  of  the  Himalayahs, 

*  Three  companies  of  the  Thirty-  must  be  regarded  as  an  additional 

fourth  had  been  on  detachment  duty  proof  of  the  external  agency  that 

at  Chittagong.    No  suspicion  of  dis-  was,  I  believe,  at  the  beginning  of 

loTalty  had  attached  to  them,  and  1857,  employed  to  corrupt  the  Se- 

whcn  they  heard  of  what  had  passed  poys  at  the  rresidency.    it  is  a  cir- 

at  Barrackpore,  they  sent  in  a  memo-  cumstance  also  to  be  noticed,  that 

rial,  saying  that  they  had  heard  with  the  very  Jemadar  of  the  Mint-Guard^ 

extreme  regret  of  the  disgraceful  who  had  arrested  the  Sepoys  of  the 

conduct  of  Mungul  Pand][  and  the  Second  Grenadiers,  was  accused,  ia 

Guard;  that  they  well  knew  that  the  course  of  the  inquirr  into  the 

the  Goyemment  would  not  interfere  conduct  and  temper  of  tne  Thirty- 

with  their  leligion;  and  that  they  fourth,  of  being  a  prime  mover  oC 

would  remain  ''  faithful  for  erer."  if  sedition, 
they  were  aincere,  their  liiioerity 


552  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUHNT. 

April,  1857.  and  it  was  little  likely  that,  throughout  the  interven- 
ing country,  there  was  a  single  cantonment  by  which 
the  alarm  had  not  been  caught — a  single  Native  regi- 
ment in  which  the  new  rifle  and  the  greased  car- 
tridges were  not  subjects  of  excited  discussion, 
letrospcct  of  The  Head-quarters  of  the  Army  were  at  that  time 
JmWli.  ^*'  Umballah,  at  the  foot  of  the  great  hills,  a  thou- 
iirch,  1857.  sand  miles  from  Calcutta.  There  General  Anson, 
having  returned  from  his  hasty  visit  to  Calcutta,  was 
meditating  a  speedy  retreat  to  Simlah,  when  the  un- 
quiet spirit  in  the  Native  regiments  forced  itself 
upon  his  attention.  This  station  was  one  of  the 
Dep6ts  of  Instruction,  at  which  the  use  of  the  new 
rifle  was  taught  to  representative  men  from  the  dif- 
ferent regiments  in  that  part  of  the  country.  These 
men  were  picked  soldiers,  of  more  than  common 
aptitude  and  intelligence,  under  some  of  the  best 
Native  oflicers  in  the  service.  The  explanations  of 
their  instructors  seemed  to  have  disarmed  their  sus- 
picions, and  they  attended  their  instruction  parades 
without  any  sign  of  dissatisfaction.  They  had  not 
advanced  so  far  in  their  drill  as  to  require  to  use  the 
cartridges ;  and,  indeed,  the  new  ammunition  had 
not  yet  been  received  from  Meerut.  But  the  Com- 
mander-in-Chief believed  that  the  men  were  satis- 
fied, until  a  circumstance  occurred  which  loudly  pro- 
claimed, and  ought  to  have  struck  home  to  him  the 
conviction,  that  the  great  fear  which  had  taken  pos- 
session of  men's  minds  was  too  deeply  seated  to  be 
eradicated  by  any  single  measure  of  the  Government, 
and  too  widely  spread  to  be  removed  by  any  local 
orders.  What  solace  was  there  in  the  assurance  that 
no  cartridges  lubricated  with  the  obnoxious  grease 
had  been,  or  ever  would  be,  issued  to  them,  if  the 
cartridge-paper  used  by  them  were  imdean?    and 


ALARM  AT  UMBALLAH.  553 

even  if  their  own  minds  were  cleansed  of  all  foul  March,  1857. 
suspicions,  what  did  this  avail,  so  long  as  their  com-  ^"*°"™- 
rades  in  the  several  regiments  to  which  they  be- 
longed believed  them  to  be  defiled,  and  were,  there- 
fore, casting  them  out  from  the  brotherhood  ? 

The  Thirty-sixth  Regiment  formed  the  escort  of 
the  Commander-in-Chief.  There  was  a  detachment 
from  it  in  the  Rifle  Dep6t ;  and  it  happened  that  one 
day,  at  the  end  of  the  third  week  of  March,  two  non- 
commissioned officers  from  this  detachment  visited 
the  regimental  camp,  and  were  publicly  taunted  by 
a  Soubahdar  with  having  become  Christians.  They 
carried  back  this  story  to  the  Dep6t,  and  one  of 
them,  when  he  told  it  to  Lieutenant  Martineau,  the 
Instructor,  cried  like  a  child  in  his  presence,  said 
that  he  was  an  outcast,  and  that  the  men  of  his 
regiment  had  refused  to  eat  with  him.  A  man  of 
more  than  common  quickness  of  intelligence  and 
depth  of  thought,  Martineau  saw  at  once  the  terrible 
significance  of  this,  and  he  pushed  his  inquiries 
further  among  the  men  of  the  Dep6t  The  result 
left  no  doubt  upon  his  mind,  that  in  every  detach- 
ment there  was  the  same  strong  feeling  of  terror,  lest 
having  used  the  new  greased  cartridges,  or  having 
been  suspected  of  using  them,  they  should  become 
outcasts  from  their  regiments,  and  shunned  by  their 
brethren  on  returning  to  their  own  villages.  This 
was  no  mere  fancy.  Already  had  the  detachments 
found  their  intercourse  with  their  regiments  sus- 
pended. They  had  written  letters  to  their  distant 
comrades  and  received  no  answers;  and  now  they 
asked,  not  without  a  great  show  of  reason,  "  If  a 
Soubahdar  in  the  Commander-in-Chief's  camp,  and 
on  duty  as  his  personal  escort,  can  taunt  us  with  loss 
of  caste,  what  kind  of  reception  shall  we  meet  on  our 


554  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

UpcIi,  1857 .  return  to  our  own  corps  ?    No  reward  that  Govem- 
™  ment  can  offer  us  is  any  equivalent  for  being  re- 

garded as  outcasts  by  our  own  comrades."     Plainly, 
then,  it  was  Martineau's  duty  to  communicate  all 
that  he  knew  to  the  Commander-in-Chief,  and  being 
his  duty,  he  was  not  a  man  to  shrink  from  doing  it 
So  he  wrote  at  once  to  the  Assistant-Adjutant-Gteneral, 
Septimus  Becher,  and  told  his  story — ^privately  in 
the  first  instance,  but  afterwards,  at  Becher's  sug- 
gestion, in  an  official  letter.     But  already  had  the 
Commander-in-Chief  learnt  also  from  other  sources 
the  feeling  of  consternation  that  was  pervading  the 
minds  of  the  men  of  the  Dep6t.     On  the  19th  of 
March  the  Soubahdar  had  insulted  the  men  of  the 
detachment ;  on  the  20th,  Martineau  wrote  his  first 
letter  to  Anson's  Staff ;  on  the  morning  of  the  23rd 
the  Commander-in-Chief  was  to  inspect  the   Rifle 
Depot ;  and  on  the  previous  evening  a  report  reached 
him  that  the  men  of  the  detachments  wished  to  speak 
to  him,  through  their  delegates,  on  parade.     He  de- 
termined, therefore,  to  take  the  initiative,  and  to  ad- 
dress them.     So,   after  the   Inspection   parade,   he 
formed  the  detachments  into  a  hollow  square,  and 
calling  the  Native  officers  to  the  front,  within  a  short 
distance  of  his  Staff,  began  his  oration  to  the  troops. 
He  had  not  the  advantage,  which  Hearsey  enjoyed, 
of  being  able  to  address  them  fluently  in  their  own 
language.     But,  if  his  discourse  was  therefore  less 
impressive,  it  was  not  less  clear;    for  calling  Mar- 
tineau to  his  aid,  Anson  paused  at  the  end  of  each 
brief  sentence,  heard  it  translated  into  Hindostanee, 
and  asked  if  the  men  imderstood  its  import.     It  was 
thus  that  he  spoke  to  them : 
iddressofthe      "The  Commander-in-Chief  is  desirous  of  taking 
n-Chief.        this  Opportunity  of  addressing  a  few  words  to  the 


GENERAL  ANSON'S  ADDRESS.  555 

Native  officers  assembled  at  this  Dep6t,  which  has  March.  1867. 
been  formed  for  the  instruction  of  the  Army  in  the  ^ 
use  of  the  new  Rifle.  The  Native  officers  have  been 
selected  for  this  duty  on  account  of  their  superior  in- 
telligence upon  all  matters  connected  with  the  service 
to  which  they  belong.  The  Commander-in-Chief 
feels  satisfied,  therefore,  that  they  will  exercise  that 
intelligence,  and  employ  the  influence  which  their 
positions  warrant  him  in  supposing  they  possess,  for 
the  good  of  the  men  who  are  placed  under  their 
authority,  and  for  the  advantage  of  the  Army  gene- 
rally. In  no  way  can  this  be  more  beneficially 
proved  than  in  disabusing  their  minds  of  any  mis- 
taken notion  which  they  may  have  been  led  to  enter- 
tain respecting  the  intentions  and  orders  of  the  Cro- 
vemment  whom  they  have  engaged  to  serve.  The 
introduction  of  a  better  arm  has  rendered  it  neces- 
sary to  adopt  a  diff^erent  system  of  loading  it,  and  an 
improved  description  of  cartridge.  The  Commander- 
in-Chief  finds  that,  on  account  of  the  appearance  of 
the  paper  used  for  the  cartridges,  and  of  the  material 
with  which  they  are  made  up  according  to  the  pat- 
terns sent  from  England,  objections  have  been  raised 
to  their  use  by  Sepoys  of  various  Religions  and 
Castes,  and  that  endeavours  have  been  made  to  in- 
duce them  to  believe  that  it  is  the  express  object  of 
the  Government  to  subvert  their  Religion  and  to  sub- 
ject them  to  the  loss  of  Caste  on  which  they  set  so 
high  a  value. 

"  A  moment's  calm  reflection  must  convince  every 
one  how  utterly  groundless  and  how  impossible  it  is 
that  there  can  be  the  slightest  shadow  of  truth  in 
such  a  suspicion.  In  what  manner  or  degree  could 
the  Government  gain  by  such  a  proceeding?  Can 
any  one  explain  what  could  be  the  object  of  it?   The 


556  OUTBREAK  OF  TH£  MUTINT. 

larcb,  1857.  Commander-in-Chief  is  sure  that  all  will  allow  that 
""  nothing  has  ever  occurred  to  justify  a  suspicion  that 

the  Government  ever  wished  to  coerce  the  Natives  of 
India  in  matters  of  Religion,  or  to  interfere  unneces- 
sarily with  their  Customs,  or  even  with  the  cere- 
monies which  belong  to  their  different  Castes. 

"The  Commander-in-Chief  regrets  to  hear  that 
there  have  been  instances  in  the  Army  of  the  dis- 
belief of  the  Sepoys  in  the  assurances  of  their  officers 
that  they  would  not  be  required  to  use  cartridges 
which  were  made  of  materials  to  which  they  could 
reasonably  object,  and  that  they  have  acted  in  a 
manner  which  must  destroy  all  confidence  in  them 
as  soldiers,  whose  first  duty  is  obedience  to  the  Gro- 
vemment  whom  they  serve,  and  to  their  superiors. 
The  Government  will  know  how  to  deal  with  such 
instances  of  insubordination,  and  the  Commander- 
in-Chief  does  not  hesitate  to  say  that  they  should  be 
,  visited  with  the  severest  punishment. 

"  But  the  object  of  the  Commander-in-Chief  is  not 
to  threaten,  and  he  hopes  that  it  is  unnecessary  even 
to  point  out  to  those  whose  breasts  are  decorated 
with  proofe  of  gallantry  and  good  service,  what  is 
their  duty.  He  wishes  simply  to  assure  them,  on 
the  honour  of  a  soldier  like  themselves,  that  it  has 
never  been,  and  never  will  be,  the  policy  of  the 
Government  of  this  great  country  to  coerce  either 
those  serving  in  the  Army  or  the  Natives  of  India  in 
their  religious  feelings,  or  to  interfere  with  the  cus- 
toms of  their  Castes.  He  trusts  to  the  Native  officers 
who  are  present  here  to  make  this  known  to  their 
respective  regiments,  and  to  exert  themselves  in 
allaying  the  fears  of  those  who  may  have  been  mo- 
mentarily seduced  from  their  duty  by  evil-disposed 
persons.     He  is  satisfied  that  they  will  do  everything 


ALARM  OF  tHE  DETACHMENTS.  557 

in  their  power  to  prevent  the  shame  which  must  fall  March,  1867. 
upon  all  who  are  faithless  to  the  colours  under  which    ™ 
they  have  sworn  allegiance  to  the  Government,  and 
that  they  will  prove  themselves  deserving  of  the  high 
character  which  they  have  always  hitherto  main- 
tained  in  this  Army." 

The  Native  officers  in  front,  who  alone,  perhaps, 
were  enabled  by  their  position  to  hear  the  address 
of  the  Chief,  listened  attentively  and  with  a  respect- 
ful demeanour  to  what  was  said;  and  when  the 
parade  was  over,  they  expressed  to  Martineau, 
through  the  medium  of  three  of  their  body  acting  as 
spokesmen,  their  high  sense  of  the  honour  that  had 
been  done  to  them  by  the  condescension  of  His  Ex- 
ceUency  in  addressing  them  on  parade.  But  they 
urged  upon  him  that,  although  they  did  not  them- 
selves attribute  to  the  Government  any  of  the  evil 
designs  referred  to  in  that  address,  it  was  true  that 
for  one  man  who  disbelieved  the  story,  there  were 
ten  thousand  who  believed  it;  that  it  was  univer- 
sally credited,  not  only  in  their  regiments,  but  every- 
where in  their  native  villages;  and  that,  therefore, 
although  the  men  of  the  detachments  were  ready  to 
a  man  to  use  the  cartridge  when  ordered,  they  de- 
sired to  represent,  for  the  paternal  consideration  of 
the  Commander-in-Chief,  the  social  consequences  to 
themselves  of  military  obedience.  They  would  be- 
come outcasts  for  ever,  shunned  by  their  comrades, 
and  discarded  by  their  families,  and  would  thus 
suffer  for  their  obedience  the  most  terrible  punish* 
ment  that  could  be  inflicted  upon  them  upon  this 
side  of  the  grave.*    Martineau  promised  to  repre- 

*  Lieotenant  Martineaa  to  Gap-  of  intelligence  and  fidelity  thas  bc- 
tain  Septimoa  Becher.  The  writer  cornea  to  them  the  moat  fatal  curae : 
adda:  ''Their  being aelected aa men    they  will  obey  the  ordera  of  their 


558  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTIOT. 

March,  1867.  sent  all  this  to  the  Commander-in-Chief ;   and  he 
"  did  so  in  an  official  letter,  through  the  legitimate 

channel  of  the  Adjutant-General's  office.  The  matter 
was  weighing  h  Jvily  upon  Anson's  mind.  He  saw 
dearly  what  the  difficulty  was.  "  I  have  no  doubt," 
he  wrote  on  that  day  to  the  Governor-General,  "  that 
individually  they  (the  men  of  the  detachments)  are 
content,  and  that  their  own  minds  will  be  set  at  rest ; 
but  it  is  the  manner  in  which  they  will  be  received 
by  their  comrades,  when  they  regain  then-  regiments, 
that  weighs  upon  my  mind."  But  what  was  to  be 
done?  To  remove  from  their  minds  all  fear  of  the 
greased  cartridges  was  only  to  drive  them  upon  an 
equal  fear  of  the  greased  paper,  which  it  was  still 
more  difficult  to  remove.*  He  had  thought  at  one 
time  of  breaking  up  the  Dep6t,  and  sending  back  the 
detachments  to  their  regiments,  on  the  ground  of  the 
advanced  state  of  the  season ;  but  this  would  only, 

roilitaiT  superiors,  and  socially  perish  to  regard  the  greased  cartridges, 
througn  their  instinct  of  obedience,  alleged  to  be  smeared  with  cows'  and 
That  tneir  views  are  not  exaggerated,  pigs  fat,  more  as  the  medium  than 
some  knowledge  of  the  native  cha-  as  the  original  cause  of  this  wide- 
racter,  and  of  the  temper  of  the  spread  feeling  of  distrust  that  is 
Native  mind  (non-military  as  well  as  spreading  dissatisfaction  to  our  rule, 
military)  at  this  present  moment,  and  tending  to  alienate  the  fidelity 
tend  to  convince  me.  The  Asiatic  of  the  Native  Army." 
mind  is  periodically  prone  to  tits  of  *  "  I  am  not  so  much  surprised," 
religious  panic ;  in  this  state,  reason-  wrote  General  Anson  to  Lord  Can- 
ing that  would  satisfy  us  is  utterly  ning  on  the  23rd  of  March,  "  at  their 
thrown  away  upon  them ;  their  ima-  objections  to  the  cartridges,  having 
ginations  run  riot  on  preconceived  seen  them.  I  had  no  idea  they  con- 
views,  and  often  the  more  absurd  they  tained,  or  rather  are  smeared  with, 
are,  the  more  tenaciously  do  they  such  a  quantitv  of  grease,  which 
cling  to  them.  We  are  now  pass-  looks  exactly  like  fat.  After  ram- 
mg  through  one  of  these  paroxvsms,  ming  down  the  ball,  the  muzzle  of 
wmch  we  might  safelv  disre^dwere  the  musket  is  covered  with  it.  This, 
not  unfortunately  the  militarv  ele-  however,  will,  I  imagine,  not  be  the 
ment  mixed  up  in  it.  What  the  ex-  case  with  those  prepared  according 
citing  causes  are  that  at  this  present  to  the  late  instructions.  But  there 
moment  are  operating  on  the  I^ative  are  now  mis^vings  about  the  paper, 
mind,  to  an  universal  extent  through-  and  I  think  it  so  desirable  that  they 
out  these  nrovinces,  I  cannot  dis-  should  be  assured  that  no  animal 
cover;  no  Native  can  or  will  offer  grease  is  used  in  its  manufacture, 
any  explanation,  but  I  am  disposed  that  a  special  report  shall  be  made 


VIEWS  OF  LORD  CANNING.  559 

he  argued  on  reflection,  be  a  cowardly  staving-off  of  March,  1857. 
the  question,  so  he  determined  merely  to  direct  that  ^'"'^***'- 
the  drill  instruction  should  not  proceed  to  the  point 
of  firing  until  a  special  report  should  have  been  re- 
ceived from  Meerut  on  the  subject  of  the  suspected 
paper. 

To  Lord  Canning,  it  appeared  that  any  postpone- 
ment of  the  target  practice  of  the  drill  detachments 
would  be  a  mistake.  It  would  be  a  concession  to 
unreasonable  fears,  which  would  look  like  an  ad- 
mission that  there  was  reason  in  them;  so,  having 
first  telegraphed  to  Umballah  the  substance  of  his 
letter,  he  wrote  to  General  Anson,  sa3dng :  "I  '^857*' 
gather  that  you  are  not  decidedly  in  favour  of  this 
course,  and  certainly  I  am  much  opposed  to  it 
myself.  The  men,  it  seems,  have  no  objection  of 
their  own  to  use  the  cartridges,  but  dread  the 
taunts  of  their  comrades  after  they  have  rejoined. 
These  taunts  will  be  founded,  not  on  their  having 
handled  imclean  grease,  for  against  that  the  whole 
Army  has  been  protected  for  many  weeks  past  by 
the  late  orders,  but  upon  suspicions  respecting  the 
paper.  Now,  although  in  the  matter  of  grease  the 
Government  was  in  some  degree  in  the  wrong  (not 
having  taken  all  the  precaution  that  might  have 
been  taken  to  exclude  objectionable  ingredients),  in 

to  me  on  that  head  from  Meerut,  would  only  be  deferred  till  another 
and  until  I  receive  an  answer,  and  year,  and  I  trust  that  the  measures 
am  satisfied  that  no  objectionable  taken  by  the  Qovemmeut  when  the 
material  is  Ubcd,  no  firing  at  the  objection  was  first  made,  and  the 
depots  by  the  Sepoys  will  t^e  place,  example  of  the  punishment  of  the 
It  would  be  easy  to  dismiss  the  de-  Nineteenth  Native  Infantry,  and  of 
tachments  to  their  regiments  with-  the  other  delinquents  of  the  Seven- 
out  any  practice,  on  the  ground  that  tieth,  now  bein^  tried  by  a  general 
the  hot  weather  is  so  advanced,  and  court-martial,  will  hare  the  enect  we 
that  very  little  progress  could  be  desire."  [It  is  probable  that  General 
made,  but  I  do  not  think  that  would  Anson  here  referred  to  the  trial  of 
be  advisable.  The  question  having  the  men  of  the  Second  Grenadiers.] 
been  raised,  must  be  settled.     It  — MS.  Corretp<mdence. 


560  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MimNY. 

April.  1857.  the  matter  of  paper  it  is  entirely  in  the  right  There 
Umballah.  ^  nothing  offensive  to  the  Caste  of  the  Sepoys  in  the 
paper;  they  have  no  pretence  for  saying  so.  The 
contrary  has  been  proved ;  and  if  we  give  way  upon 
this  point  I  do  not  see  where  we  can  take  our  stand. 
It  may  be,  as  you  hope,  that  the  detachments  at 
Umballah,  being  well-conditioned  men,  would  not 
consider  a  compUance  with  their  request  as  a  giving 
way  on  the  part  of  the  Government,  or  as  a  victory 
on  their  own  part.  But  I  fear  it  would  be  so  with 
their  comrades  in  the  regiments.  When  the  detach- 
ments return  to  their  Head-quarters,  they  would 
give  an  account  of  the  concession  they  had  obtained, 
which  would  inevitably,  and  not  unreasonably,  lead 
to  the  suspicion  that  the  Government  is  doubtful  of 
the  right  of  its  own  case.  It  could  hardly  be  other- 
wise;  and  if  so,  we  should  have  increased  our  diffi- 
culties for  hereafter — ^for  I  have  no  faith  in  this 
question  dying  away  of  itself  during  the  idleness  of 
the  hot  season,  unless  it  is  grappled  with  at  once.  I 
would,  therefore,  make  the  men  proceed  to  use  the 
cartridges  at  practice.  It  will  be  no  violence  to 
their  own  consciences,  for  they  are  satisfied  that  the 
paper  is  harmless ;  and  it  will,  in  my  opinion,  much 
more  effectually  pave  the  way  towards  bringing  their 
several  regiments  to  reason,  whether  the  objections 
thereto  felt  are  sincere  or  not,  than  any  postpone- 
ment. Moreover,  I  do  not  think  that  we  can  quite 
consistently  take  any  other  course  after  what  has 
passed  with  the  Nineteenth  Regiment;  for,  though 
the  climax  of  their  crime  was  taking  up  arms,  the 
refusal  of  the  cartridges  has  been  declared  to  be  the 
beginning  of  the  offence.  Neither  do  I  like  the 
thought  of  countenancing  consultations  and  refe- 
rences between  the  men  of  a  regiment  upon  matters 


GENERAL  AKSON  AT  SIMLAH.  561 

in  which  they  have  nothing  to  do  but  to  obey ;  and  April,  1867. 
I  fear  that  postponement  would  look  like  an  acqui-  ^ 
escence  in  such  references.**  So  it  was  determined 
that  there  should  be  no  cowardly  postponement  of 
the  evil  day,  and  the  detachments  in  the  Musketry 
Schools  were  ordered  to  proceed,  under  the  new  regu- 
lations, to  the  end  of  their  course  of  instruction.* 

Whilst  this  letter  was  making  its  way  to  the  foot 
of  the  HiUs,  General  Anson,  whose  health  had  been 
severely  tried,  and  who  had  long  been  looking 
anxiously  towards  the  cool,  fresh  slopes  of  the 
Himalayahs,  betook  himself  hopefully  to  Simlah. 
That  paradise  of  invalids,  he  wrote  to  the  Governor- 
General,  was  ^Mooking  beautiful,  and  the  climate 
now  quite  perfect"  "I  heartily  wish,"  he  added, 
"  that  you  were  here  to  benefit  by  it."  But  it  was 
not  a  time  for  the  enjo3m[ient  of  Himalayan  delights. 
At  both  ends  of  that  long  line  of  a  thousand  miles 
between  the  great  Presidency  town  and  the  foot  of 
the  Hills  there  was  that  which,  as  the  month  ad- 
vanced, must  have  sorely  disquieted  the  minds  of 
the  civil  and  military  chiefs.  There  was  the  great 
difficulty  of  the  Thirty-fourth  to  disturb  both  the 
Governor-General  and  the  Commander-in-Chief;  and 
as  time  advanced,  there  came  from  other  parts  of  the 
country  tidings  which,  if  they  did  not  help  them  to 
fathom  causes,  brought  more  plainly  before  them  the 
probable  consequences  of  this  great  panic  in  the 

*  The  orders  issued  from  the  Ad-  their  officers  were  to  reason  with 

jntant^jeneral's   office,    in    conse-  them,  calmly  in  the  first  instance, 

qnence  of  this  decision,  were,  that  and  if  the  Dep6t,  after  such  an  ap- 

tne  detachments  should  procMd  to  peal  to  them,  were  to  refuse  to  use 

target  practice,   that   they  should  the  cartridges,  more  stringent  me»- 

choose  and  apply  their  own  grease,  sures  were  to  be  resorted  to  for  the 

and  that  they  should  pinch  or  tear  enforcement  of  discipline. — S&eLttUr 

off  the  end  of  the  cartridge  with  /hm  J^ftUatU-Oenirai  to  Ommttl 

their  fin^rs.    In  the  erent  of  the  Hmtmjf^  •»  tk^  JffmMt, 
men  hesitating  to  use  the  caitridget, 

2o 


562 


OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINt. 


April,  1857. 
Umbkllab, 


Sepoy  Army.  Those  significant  fires,  which  had  pre- 
luded the  outbreak  at  Barrackpore,  were  breaking 
out  at  other  stations.  At  Umballah  especially,  in 
the  middle  of  the  month  of  April,  they  had  become 
frequent  and  alarming.  The  detachments  in  the 
Musketry  Schools  were  now  proceeding  steadily  with 
their  target  practice.  They  dipped  their  own  cartridges 
into  a  mixture  of  beeswax  and  ghee,  and  seemed  to 
be  fully  convinced  and  assured  that  no  foul  play  was 
intended  against  them.  But  they  did  not  escape  the 
taunts  of  their  comrades ;  and  the  nightly  fires  in- 
dicated the  general  excitement  among  the  Native 
soldiery.  The  European  barracks,  the  commissariat 
store-houses,  the  hospital,  and  the  huts  in  the  Lines, 
night  after  night,  burst  out  into  mysterious  confla- 
gration. It  was  the  belief  at  Head-Quarters  that 
these  fires,  made  easy  by  the  dry  thatched  roofe  of 
the  buildings,  were  the  work  partly  of  the  Sepo3rs 
of  the  regiments  stationed  there,  and  partly  of  those 
attached  to  the  Musketry  Dep6t.  The  former  still 
looked  askance  at  the  latter,  believing  that  they 
had  been  bought  over  by  promises  of  promotion  to 
use  the  obnoxious  cartridges,  and,  as  a  mark  of 
their  indignation,  set  fire  to  the  huts  of  the  apos- 
tates in  their  absence  at  drill.  Upon  this  the  men 
of  the  Musketry  School  retaliated,  by  firing  the 
Lines  of  the  regimental  Sepoys.*  But  the  Courts  of 
Inquiry  which  were  held  to  investigate  the  circum- 
stances of  these  incendiary  fires  failed  to  elicit  any 
positive  information  ;  for  no  one  was  willing  to  give 


*  "The  nicht  before  last  a  fire- 
ball was  founa  ignited  in  the  liut  of 
a  Sepoy  of  the  Eifth  Native  Infantry. 
The  liut  was  empty,  as  the  man  is 
attached  to  the  School  of  Musketry, 
and  lives  with  them.  On  the  fol- 
lowing nif^ht  the  Lines  of  the  Sixtieth 


Native  Infantry  were  fired,  and  five 
hilts,  with  all  the  men's  property, 
destroyed.  This  was  clearly  an  act 
of  retaliation,  for  incendiaries  do  not 
destroy  themselves." — Gtneral  Bar- 
nard to  Lord  Canning.  April  24» 
1857.— i^^'.  Correspondence. 


SIR  HENRY  BARNARD.  563 

evidence,  and  nothing  was  done  to  put  pressure  upon  April,  1867. 
witnesses  to  reveal  the  knowledge  which  they  pos-    ™ 
sessed. 

At  this  time  Sir  Henry  Barnard,  an  officer  of  sir  Henry 
good  repute,  who  had  served  with  distinction  in  the  ^*™*"^- 
Crimea,  commanded  the  Sirhind  Division  of  the 
Army,  in  which  Umballah  was  one  of  the  chief  sta- 
tions. He  was  a  man  of  high  courage  and  activity, 
eager  for  service,  and  though  he  had  not  been  many 
months  in  the  country,  he  had  begun  to  complain  of 
the  dreadful  Hstlessness  of  Indian  life,  and  the  ab- 
sence of  that  constant  work  and  responsibility  which, 
he  said,  had  become  a  necessity  to  him.  "  Cannot 
you  find  some  tough  job  to  put  me  to  ?  I  will  serve 
you  faithfully,"  Thus  he  wrote  to  Lord  Canning  in 
the  last  week  of  April,  seeing  nothing  before  him  at 
that  time  but  a  retreat  to  Simlah  "  when  the  burn- 
ing mania  is  over."  Little  thought  he  then  of  the 
tough  job  in  store  for  him — a  job  too  tough  for  his 
steel,  good  as  was  the  temper  of  it.  The  Commander- 
in-Chief  wrote  from  Simlah  that  Barnard  was  learn- 
ing his  work.  "  It  will  take  him  some  time,"  said 
Anson,  "to  understand  the  Native  character  and 
system."  And  no  reproach  to  him  either;*  for 
nothing  was  more  beyond  the  ordinary  comprehen- 
sion of  men,  trained  in  schools  of  European  warfare, 
than  Sepoy  character  in  its  normal  state,  except  its 
aberrations  and  eccentricities.  Anson  had  been  two 
years  in  India;  but  he  confessed  that  what  was 
passing  at  Umballah  sorely  puzzled  him.  "  Strange," 
he  TNTote  to  Lord  Canning,  "that  the  incendiaries 
should  never  be  detected.    Every  one  is  on  the  alert 

*  That  Sir  Hcni^  Barnard  thoaght  dian  military  system,  and  the  causes 
much  and  wrote  Tery  sensibly  of  the  of  the  prevailing  disafTcction,  1  hare 
8cpoy  Army,  the  defects  of  our  In-    ample  eridencc  in  letters  before  me. 

2o2 


564  OUTKBXAK  OP  THE  MUTINT. 

AmiO,  1857.  there ;  bat  still  no  dae  to  trace  the  offenders."  And| 
^■^•"^  again,  at  the  end  of  the  month,  "  We  have  not  heea 
able  to  detect  any  of  the  incendiaries  at  UmbaUah. 
This  appears  to  me  extraordinary ;  but  it  shows  how 
dose  tiie  combination  is  among  the  miscreants  who 
have  recourse  to  this  mode  of  revenging  what  they 
conceive  to  be  their  wrongs,  and  how  great  the  dread 
of  retaliation  to  any  one  who  would  dare  to  become 
an  informer."  It  showed,  too,  how  little  power  we 
had  of  penetrating  beneath  the  surface,  and  how 
great  was  the  mistrust  of  the  English  throughout  all 
classes  of  the  Native  soldiery.  Let  what  might  be 
the  hatred  and  dissension  among  themselves,  a  com- 
mon feeling  still  stronger  closed  their  hearts  and 
sealed  their  lips  against  their  English  officers. 
Events  at  ^^J  <^i*  ^^7  this  fact  became  more  and  more 

Meerat.  apparent  To  the  most  observant  of  our  people  it 
seemed  at  first  that^  although  the  ministers  and  de- 
pendents of  the  deposed  Mahomedan  ruler  of  Oude 
might  have  been  insidiously  employed  in  the  corrup- 
tion of  our  Native  soldiery,  the  alarm,  and  therefore 
the  discontent  among  the  Sepoys,  was  for  the  most 
part  an  emanation  of  Hindooism.  The  inquiries  into 
the  state  of  the  Thirty-fourth  Regiment  at  Barrack- 
pore  had  resulted  in  a  belief  that  the  Mahomedan 
and  Sikh  soldiers  were  true  to  their  salt;  and  so 
strong  was  the  impression  that  only  the  Hindoos  of 
the  disbanded  Nineteenth  were  really  disaffected, 
that,  after  the  dispersion  of  the  regiment,  it  was  be- 
lieved that  the  whole  history  of  the  mutiny,  which 
had  ruined  them,  might  be  gathered  from  the  Mus- 
sulman Sepoys.  But,  although  a  sagacious  civil 
officer  was  put  upon  their  track,  and  every  effort 
was  made  to  elicit  the  desired  information,  the  at- 
tempt was  altogether  a  failure.  Whether  these  first 
impressions  were  right  or  wrong,  whether  the  mutiny 


FIRST  MUTINY  IN  THE  CAVALRY.  665 

was,  in  its  origin  and  inception,  a  Hindoo  or  a  Ma-  Ajpril,  1857. 
homedan  movement,  will  hereafter  be  a  subject  of 
inquiry.  But,  before  the  end  of  the  month  of  April, 
it  must  have  been  apparent  to  Lord  Canning  that 
nothing  was  to  be  hoped  from  that  antagonism  of 
the  Asiatic  races,  whidi  had  ever  been  regarded  as 
the  main  element  of  our  strength  and  safety.  Ma- 
homedans  and  Hindoos  were  plainly  united  against 
us. 

From  an  unexpected  quarter  there  soon  came  proof 
of  this  union.  As  the  new  Enfield  rifle  had  been  the 
outward  and  visible  cause  of  the  great  fear  that  had 
arisen  in  the  minds  of  the  soldiery,  it  was  natural 
that  the  anxieties  of  the  Government  should,  in  the 
first  instance,  have  been  confined  to  the  Native  In- 
fantry. In  the  Infantry  Regiments  a  very  large 
majority  of  the  men  were  Hindoos ;  whilst  in  the 
Cavalry  the  Mahomedan  element  was  proportion- 
ately much  stronger.*  But  now  there  came  from 
Meerut  strange  news  to  the  effect  that  a  Cavalry 
regiment  had  revolted. 

To  this  station  many  unquiet  thoughts  had  been 
directed ;  for  it  was  one  of  the  largest  and  most  im- 
portant in  the  whole  range  of  our  Indian  territories. 
There,  troops  of  all  arms,  both  European  and  Native, 
were  assembled.  There,  the  Head-Quarters  of  the 
Bengal  Artillery  were  established.  There,  the  Ord- 
nance Commissariat  were  diligently  employed,  in  the 
Expense  Magazine,  on  the  manufacture  of  greased 
cartridges.  There,  the  English  Riflemen  of  the 
Sixtieth,  not  without  some  feelings  of  disgust,  were 
using  the  unsavory  things.  More  than  once  there  had 

*  As  a  nile,  the  MahomedaaB  were  erer,  Uiat  in  the  Third  Remment  of 

better  horsemen  and  more  adroit  Regular  Gaval^,  which  Im  off  the 

swordsmen  than  the  Hindoos,  and  dance  of  death  at  Meerut,  there 

therefore  thej  made  more  service-  were  an  unusual  number  of  Brab- 

able  troopers.     It  is  stated,  how-  mins. 


566  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  Mumnr. 

April,  1867.  been  reports  that  the  Sepoys  had  risen  at  Meemty 
^**™^-  and  that  the  Europeans  had  been  let  loose  against 
them.  With  vague  but  eager  expectancy  the  Native 
regiments  at  all  the  large  stations  in  Upper  India 
were  looking  in  that  direction,  as  for  a  signal 
which  they  knew  would  soon  be  discerned.  Men 
asked  each  other  what  was  the  news  fiom  Meerut, 
and  looked  into  the  Native  newspapers  for  the  sug- 
gestive heading ;  for  it  was  the  cradle  of  all  sorts  of 
strange  and  disturbing  stories.  In  this  month  of  April 
its  crowded  Lines  and  busy  Bazaars  were  stirred 
by  indefinite  apprehensions  of  something  coming. 
Every  day  the  excitement  increased,  for  every  day 
some  new  story,  intended  to  confirm  the  popular 
belief  in  the  base  designs  of  the  English,  found  its 
way  into  circulation.  The  emissary  of  evU,  who,  in 
some  shape  or  other,  was  stalking  across  the  country^ 
was  at  Meerut  in  the  guise  of  a  wandering  Fakeer^ 
or  reUgious  mendicant,  ridmg  on  an  elephant,  with 
many  followers.  That  he  was  greatly  disturbing  the 
minds  of  men  was  certain ;  so  the  Police  authorities 
ordered  him  to  depart.  He  moved;  but  it  was  be- 
lieved that  he  went  no  farther  than  the  Lines  of  one 
of  the  Native  regiments.* 

In  no  place  was  the  story  of  the  greased  cartridges 
discussed  with  greater  eagerness  than  at  Meerut ;  in 

*  Compare  following  passage  in  were  moving  about  the  ooantry  ap- 

the  Meerut  Narrative  ot  Mr.  Wil-  peared  at  Meerut  in  April,  ostensibly 

liams,  Commissioner  First  Division  :  as  a  fakeer,  riding  on  an  elephant 

"  All  the  rumours    by  which    the  with  followers,  and  having  with  him 

minds  of  the  Native  soldiers  were  horses  and  native  carriages.     The 

prepared    for   revolt,    were    Indus-  frequent  visits  of  the  men  of  the 

triously    disseminated    at    Meerut,  Native  regiments  to  him  attracted 

especially  those  regarding  the  use  of  attention,    and     he    was    ordered, 

polluting  grease  in  the  preparation  of  through  the  police,  to    leave    the 

the  new  cartridges,  ana  the  mixture  place ;  he  apparently  complied,  but, 

of  ground  bones  in  flour,  by  which,  it  is  said,  he  stayed  some  time  in  the 

it  was  said.  Government  desired  to  Lines  of  the  20th  Native  InfiBUiiry.'' 

destroy  the  religion  of  the  people.  —Unjpublisked  Beeords, 
One  of  the   many  emissaries  who 


THE  THIRD  CAVALRY.  667 

no  place  was  there  a  more  disturbing  belief  that  this  Ajpril,  1857. 
was  a  part  of  a  great  scheme  for  the  defilement  of  ^^^" ' 
the  people.  It  was  of  little  use  to  declare  to  them 
that  not  a  single  soldier  would  ever  be  required  to 
use  a  cartridge  greased  by  any  one  but  himself,  for 
the  greasing  of  the  cartridges  was  in  their  estimation 
only  one  of  many  fraudulent  devices,  and  every  one 
believed  that  the  dry  cartridges  contained  the  ob- 
noxious fat.  So,  in  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  week 
of  April,  the  excitement,  which  for  many  weeks  had 
been  gromng  stronger  and  stronger,  broke  out  into 
an  act  of  open  mutiny.  The  troopers  of  the  Third 
Cavalry  were  the  first  to  resist  the  orders  of  their 
officers.  They  had  no  new  weapons ;  no  new  ammu- 
nition. The  only  change  introduced  into  their  prac- 
tice was  that  which  substituted  the  pinching  or  tear- 
ing ofi^,  for  the  biting  ofi^,  the  end  of  the  cartridges 
which  they  used  with  their  carbines.  This  change 
in  the  drill  was  to  be  explained  to  them  on  a  parade 
of  the  skirmishers  of  the  regiment,  which  was  to  be 
held  on  the  morning  of  the  24th  of  April.  On  the 
preceding  evening  a  report  ran  through  canton- 
ments that  the  troopers  would  refuse  to  touch  the 
cartridges.  The  parade  was  held,  and  of  ninety 
men,  to  whom  the  ammunition  was  to  have  been 
served  out,  only  five  obeyed  the  orders  of  their 
officers.  In  vain  Colonel  Carmichael  Smyth  ex- 
plained to  them  that  the  change  had  been  introduced 
from  a  kindly  regard  for  their  o^vn  scruples.  They 
were  dogged  and  obdurate,  and  would  not  touch  the 
cartridges.  So  the  parade  was  dismissed,  and  the 
eighty-five  troopers  of  the  Third  were  ordered  for 
Court-martial. 

All  this  made  it  manifest  to  Lord  Canning  that  The  story  of 
the  worst  suspicions  were  deeply  rooted  in  the  Sepoy  bonS!°*^" 
Army;   and  though  he  at  ail  times  maintained  a 


568  OyiBBEAK  OP  THE  IfimNT. 

April,  1857.  calm  and  cheerful  demeanour,  he  thought  much  and 
anxiously  of  the  signs  and  sjnnptoms  of  the  troubled 
spirit  that  was  abroad.  There  were  many  indications 
that  these  suspicions  were  not  confined  to  the  mili- 
tary classes,  but  were  disquieting  also  the  general 
compiunity.  Not  only  in  Meerut,  but  also  in  many 
other  parts  of  the  country,  there  was  a  belief  that 
the  English  designed  to  defile  both  Hindoos  and 
Mahomedans,  by  polluting  with  unclean  matter  the 
daily  food  of  tiie  people.  It  has  been  shown  that 
a  suspicion  of  a  similar  character  was  abroad  at  the 
time  of  the  Mutiny  at  Vellore.*  Now  the  disturbing 
rumour,  cunningly  circulated,  took  many  portentous 
shapes.  It  was  said  that  the  officers  of  the  British 
Government,  under  command  fi*om  the  Company  and 
the  Queen,  had  mixed  ground  bones  with  the  flour 
and  the  salt  sold  in  the  Bazaars;  that  they  had 
adulterated  all  the  gheef  with  animal  fat ;  that  bones 
had  been  burnt  with  the  common  sugar  of  the 
country ;  and  that  not  only  bone-dust  flour,  but  the 
flesh  of  cows  and  pigs,  had  been  thrown  into  the  wells 
to  pollute  the  drinking  water  of  the  people.  Of  this 
great  imaginary  scheme  of  contamination  the  matter 
of  the  greased  cartridges  was  but  a  part,  especially 
addressed  to  one  class  of  the  community.  All  classes, 
it  was  believed,  were  to  be  defiled  at  the  same  time ; 
and  the  story  ran  that  the  "  burra  sahibs,"  or  great 
English  lords,  had  commanded  all  the  princes,  nobles, 
landholders,  merchants,  and  cultivators  of  the  land, 
to  feed  together  upon  English  bread. 

Of  these  preposterous  fables,  the  one  which  made 
the  strongest  impression  on  the  public  mind  was  the 

*  Jnte,  page  248.     It  was  then  f  This  is  the  ordiiuurj  grease  uaed 

said  that  the  Slnglish  had  mixed  the  for  cooking  purposes   ioxoii^KNii 

blood  of  cows  and  pigs  with  all  the  India, 
newly  manufactured  salt. 


THE  BONE-DUST  FLOUB.  569 

Story  of  the  bone-dust  flour.  That  it  was  current  in  April,  1857. 
March  at  Barrackpore  is  certain,*  In  the  early  part 
of  April,  a  circumstance  occurred  which  proved  that 
the  panic  had  then  spread  to  the  Upper  Provinces. 
It  happened  that  flour  having  risen  to  an  exceptionally 
high  price  at  Cawnpore,  certain  dealers  at  Meerut 
chartered  a  number  of  Government  boats  to  carry  a 
large  supply  down  the  canal  to  the  former  place. 
When  the  first  instalment  arrived,  and  was  offered  for 
sale  at  a  price  considerably  below  that  which  had 
previously  ruled  in  the  Bazaars,  it  found  a  ready 
market;  but  before  the  remainder  reached  Cawn- 
pore, a  story  had  been  circulated  to  the  effect  that  the 
grain  had  been  ground  in  the  canal  mills,  under  Eu- 
ropean supervision,  and  that  the  dust  of  cows'  bones 
had  been  mixed  up  with  it,  with  the  intention  of 
destroying  the  caste  of  all  who  should  eat  it.  Such 
a  story  as  this,  circulated  in  the  Lines  and  the  Mili- 
tary Bazaars  of  Cawnpore,  at  once  stopped  the  sale 
of  the  Meerut  flour.  Not  a  Sepoy  would  touch  it, 
not  a  person  ef  any  kind  would  purchase  it,  cheap 
as  was  the  price  at  which  it  was  obtainable  in  com- 
parison with  all  the  other  supplies  in  the  market. 
Rapidly  spread  the  alarm  from  one  station  to  an- 
other, and  as  tidings  came  of  the  arrival  of  imaginaiy 
boat-loads  or  camel-loads  of  flour  and  bone-dust,  men 
threw  away  the  bread  that  they  were  eating,  and  be- 


*  It  was  brooght  to  the  notice  of  as  it  was  found.  But  History  re- 
General  HearseT  by  a  native  anony-  joioes  in  the  preservation  of  such 
mons  letter,  picked  up  at  the  gate  of  contemptible  productions.  I  have 
Major  Mattnews,  wno  commanded  gi^en  it  entire  in  the  Appendix, 
the  Forty-third.  The  Major  sent  it  to  There  are  many  such  in  my  j>osses- 
Hearser s  staff,  descrilnng  it  as  ''  sad  sion,  but  this  is  the  earliest  in  date, 
trash  r  and  Hmney,  in  forwarding  it  and  gives  the  most  comprehensive 
to  the  MHitaiT  Secretary,  expressed  account  of  the  rumours  circulated 
regret  that  the  contemptible  pro-  by  our  enemies, 
ductton  had  not  been  bunft  u  soon 


^fi 


570  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTIKY. 

April,  1867.  lieved  themselves  already  defiled,  •  Whether,  as  some 
said,  this  was  a  trick  of  the  Cawnpore  grain  mer- 
chants to  keep  up  the  price  of  flour,  or  whether  the 
story  had  been  set  afloat  under  the  same  influences 
as  those  which  had  given  so  false  a  colouring  to  the 
accident  of  the  greased  cartridges,  and  had  asso- 
ciated with  aU  {he  other  wild  fictions  of  which  I  have 
spoken,  cannot  with  certainty  be  declared.  But, 
whatsoever  the  origin  of  the  fable,  it  sunk  deeply 
into  men's  minds,  and  fixed  there  more  ineradicably 
than  ever  their  belief  in  the  stem  resolution  of  the 
Government  to  destroy  the  caste  of  the  people  by 
fraudulently  bringing,  in  one  way  or  other,  the  un- 
clean thing  to  their  lips, 
'h*^  "h^*^  ^^  ^*  fixed,  too,  more  firmly  than  before  in  the  mind 
patties.  of  Lord  Canning,  the  belief  that  a  great  fear  was 
spreading  itself  among  the  people,  and  that  there  was 
more  danger  in  such  a  feeling  than  in  a  great  hatred. 
Thinking  of  this,  he  thought  also  of  another  strange 
story  that  had  come  to  him  from  the  North-West, 
and  which  even  the  most  experienced  men  about  him 
were  incompetent  to  explain.  From  village  to  vil- 
lage, brought  by  one  messenger  and  sent  onward  by 
another,  passed  a  mysterious  token  in  the  shape  of 
one  of  those  flat  cakes  made  from  flour  and  water, 
and  forming  the  common  bread  of  the  people,  which, 
in  their  language,  are  called  Chupatties.  All  that 
was  knoAvn  about  it  was,  that  a  messenger  appeared, 
gave  the  cake  to  the  head  man  of  one  village,  and  re- 
quested him  to  despatch  it  onward  to  the  next ;  and 

*    Colonel  Baird  Smith  to  Mr.  of  our  stations,  and  Sepoys,  private 

Colvin — Mr.  Martin  Gubbius  to  the  servants,  Zemindars  altending  Court, 

same.    "  Once  alarmed,"  wrote  the  have  flung  away  their  roti  (bread) 

latter,  **they  drink  in  the  greatest  on  hearing  that  five  camel-loads  of 

follies.    Bone-dust  attah  alarm  has  bone-dust  attah  had  reached  the  sta- 

taken  hold  of  men's  minds  at  several  Hon,'*-  MS.  Correspondence. 


STORY  OF  THE  CHUPATTIES.  571 

that,  in  this  way,  it  travelled  from  place  to  place ;  no  April,  1867. 
one  refusing,  no  one  doubting,  few  even  questioning, 
in  blind  obedience  to  a  necessity  felt  rather  than 
understood.  After  a  while,  this  practice  became 
known  to  the  functionaries  of  the  English  Govern- 
ment, who  thought  much  of  it,  or  thought  littie  of 
it,  according  to  their  individual  dispositions,  and  in- 
terpreted it,  in  divers  ways,  according  to  the  light 
that  was  in  them.*  The  greater  number  looked 
upon  it  as  a  signal  of  warning  and  preparation,  de- 
signed to  tell  the  people  that  something  great  and 
portentous  was  about  to  happen,  and  to  prompt 
them  to  be  ready  for  the  crisis.  One  great  autho- 
rity wrote  to  the  Governor-General  that  he  had  been 
told  that  the  chupatty  was  the  symbol  of  men's  food, 
and  that  its  circulation  was  intended  to  alarm  and  to 
influence  men's  minds  by  indicating  to  them  that 
their  means  of  subsistence  would  be  taken  from 
them,  and  to  tell  them,  therefore,  to  hold  together. 
Others,  laughing  to  scorn  this  notion  of  the  fiery 
cross,  saw  in  it  only  a  common  superstition  of  the 
country.  It  was  said  that  it  was  no  unwonted  thing 
for  a  Hindoo,  in  whose  family  sickness  had  broken 
out,  to  institute  this  transmission  of  chupatties,  in  the 
belief  that  it  would  carry  off  the  disease ;  or  for  a 
community,  when  the  cholera  or  other  pestilence 
was  raging,  to  betake  themselves  to  a  similar  prac- 
tice. Then,  again,  it  was  believed  by  others  that  the 
cakes  had  been  sent  abroad  by  enemies  of  the  British 
Government,  for  the  purpose  of  attaching  to  their 
circulation  another  dangerous  fiction,  to  the  effect 

*  Mr.  Ford,  Collector  of  Goor-  vin,  who  issued  circular  orders  on 

goon,  first  brought  it  to  the  notice  the  subject  to  all  the  local  officers  in 

of  the  Lieutenant-Governor  of  the  charge  of  districts. 
North- Western  Provinces,  Mr.  Gol- 


572  OUTBBSA&  OF  THE  ICUTINT. 

pnl^  18S7.  that  there  was  bone-dost  in  them,  and  that  the  Eng- 
lish had  resorted  to  this  supplementary  method  of 
defiling  the  people.  Some,  too,  surmised  that,  by  a 
device  sometimes  used  for  other  purposes,^  seditious 
letters  were  in  this  manner  forwarded  fixmi  village  to 
village,  read  by  the  village  chief,  again  crusted  over 
with  flour,  and  sent  on  in  the  shape  of  a  chupatty, 
to  be  broken  by  the  next  recipient  But  whatsoever 
the  real  lustory  of  the  movement,  it  had  doabtless 
the  effect  of  producmg  and  keeping  alive  much 
popular  excitement  in  the  districts  through  which 
the  cakes  were  transmitted ;  and  it  may  be  said  that 
its  action  was  too  widely  dijSused,  and  that  it  lasted 
for  too  long  a  time,  to  admit  of  a  very  ready  adop- 
tion of  the  theory  that  it  was  of  an  accidental  cha- 
racter, the  growth  only  of  domestic,  or  even  of 
municipal,  anxieties.f  Some  saw  in  it  much  mean- 
ing; some  saw  none.     Time  has  thrown  no   new 

*  In  this  manner  commonication  the  direction  of  Indore.    That  city 

was  sometimes  held  with  the  in-  was  at  the  time    afliicted  with  a 

mates  of  oar  gaols.    See  the  "  Re-  severe   visitation   of   cholera,   and 

▼elations  of  an  Orderly/' by  Paunch-  numbers  of  inhabitants  died  daily, 

kowree  Khan :    "  Suppose   a  pri-  It  was  at  that  time  understood  by 

soner  is  confined  under  the  bayonet  the  people  in  Nimar,  and  is  still  be- 

of  Sepoys,  he  must  be  permitted  to  lieved,  that  the  cakes  of  wheat  were 

eat  bread.    The  preparer  of  food  is  despatched  from  Indore  after  the 

bribed,  and  a  short  note  is  put  into  pertormance  over  them  of  incanta- 

a  chupatty,  or  a  sentence  is  written  lions  that  would  ensure  the  pesti- 

on  a  plate,  and  when  the  bread  is  lence  accompanying  them.  The  cakes 

taken  up  the  prisoner  reads  what  is  did  not  come  straight  from  North 

written."  to  South,  for  they  were  received  at 

t  The  circulation  of  the  chupatties  Bujeuf^ghur,  more  than  half  way 
commenced  at  the  bc^nnninja^  of  the  between  Indore  and  Gwalior,  on  the 
year.  ''The  year  1857/'  writes  Cap-  9th  of  February,  but  had  been  dis- 
tain  Keating,  '*  opened  in  Nimar  by  tributed  at  Mundlaiser  on  the  ISth 
a  general  distribution  of  small  cakes,  of  January.  This  habit  of  passing 
which  were  passed  on  from  village  to  on  holy  and  unholy  things  is  not 
village.  The  same,  I  am  aware,  has  unknown  at  Nimar.  When  small- 
occurred  aU  over  Northern  India,  pox  breaks  out  in  a  village,  a  goat 
and  has  been  spoken  of  as  having  u  procured,  a  cocoa-nut  tiea  to 
been  a  signal  for  the  disturbances  its  neck,  and  it  is  taken  by  the 
which  took  place  later  in  the  year,  ohowkeedar  to  tlie  first  village  on 
At  the  time  they  appeared  in  Nimar,  the  road  to  Mundatta ;  it  ia  not 
they  were  everywhere  brought  from  allowed  to  enter  the  town,  but  is 


POLITICAL  INTRIGUES.  573 

light  upon  it  Opinions  still  widely  differ.  And  all  April,  1857. 
that  History  can  record  with  any  certainty  is,  that 
tiie  bearers  of  these  strange  missives  went  from  place 
to  place,  and  that  ever  as  they  went  new  excite* 
ments  were  engendered,  and  vague  expectations  were 
raised. 

That  in  all  this  there  was  something  more  than  PoliUoal 
mere  mUitary  disaffection  was  manifL  to  Lord  •'*^"- 
Canning ;  but  neither  he  nor  his  confidential  ad. 
visers  could  clearly  discern  what  it  was.  He  had  a 
general  conception  that  evil-minded  men,  with  strong 
resentments  to  be  gratified  by  the  ruin  of  the  British 
Government,  were  sending  forth  their  emissaries ;  but, 
with  the  exception  of  the  ministers  of  the  dethroned 
King  of  Oude,  whom  he  had  suspected  from  the  first,* 

taken  bj  a  villager  to  the  next  *  In  m;^  mind  there  is  no  doubt 
hamlet,  and  so  passed  on  withoat  of  the  activity,  at  this  time,  of  the 
rest  to  its  destination."  Thb  last  Oade  people  at  Garden  Eeach.  The 
is  the  scripturallj  recorded  scape-  Sepojs  at  Barrackpore  were  induced 
goat.  With  respect  to  the  cbupatties,  to  believe  that,  if  tbej  broke  awaj 
consult  also  the  report  of  Major  from  the  English  harness,  they  would 
Erskine,  Commissioner  of  the  Saugor  obtain  more  lucrative  service  under 
and  Nerbudda  territories:  "So  far  the  restored  kingship  of  Oude.^  I 
back  as  January,  1857/'  he  writes,  have  before  me  some  letters,  origt- 
"  small  wheaten  cakes  (chupatties)  nal  and  translated,  of  a  Jemadar  of 
were  passed  in  a  most  mysterious  the  Thirty-fourth  Regiment,  which 
manner  from  village  to  village  in  contain  numerous  allusions  to  the 
most  of  the  districts,  and,  although  Future  of  the  King's  service.  Take 
all  took  it  as  a  signal  that  some-  the  following :  "  The  S^nd  Grena- 
thinjj  was  coming,  nobody  in  the  diers  said,  in  the  beginning  of  April, 
division,  I  believe,  knew  what  it  'We  will  go  to  our  homes  sooner 
portended,  or  whence  it  came,  and  than  bite  the  blank  ammunition/ 
it  appeared  to  have  been  little  The  regiments  were  unanimous  in 
thougut  about  except  that  in  the  joining  the  King  of  Oude."  "  The 
money-market  of  Sau^r  it  is  said  SoubaDdars  of  the  Quarter-Guard 
to  have  had  some  slight  effect  in  said, '  We  have  sided  with  the  King 
bill  transactions.  I  reported  the  of  Oude,  but  nothing  has  come  oT 
matter  to  Government  at  the  time,  it.' "  '*  Ramshaee  Lalla  said,  *  It 
but  even  now  it  is  a  matter  of  doubt  would  have  been  well  for  us.' "  This 
if  the  signal  was  understood  by  any  also  has  its  significance :  "  Soubah- 
OM,  or  if  it  referred  to  the  coming  dar  Muddeh  Khan,  Sirdar  Khan,  and 
rebellion,  though  »uch  is  now  the  Ramshaee  LaUa  said,  'The  Fering- 
gencoid  opinion."  I  have  thrown  hee  Beteechoots'  (a  vile  term  of  op- 
together  in  the  Appendix  some  fur-  probrium^  'are  unequalled  in  their 
ther  facts  and  fancies  illustrative  of  want  of  faith.  The  Xing  of  Luck- 
this  interesting  su^ect  of  inquiry.  now  put  down  his  arms,  and  the 


574  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

April,  1867.  he  could  not  individualise  his  suspicions.  How  was 
he  to  know,  how  was  any  Englishman,  shut  up  all 
day  long  in  his  house,  and  having  no  more  living 
intercourse  with  the  people  than  if  they  were  clay 
figures,  to  know  what  was  passing  beneath  the  sur- 
face of  Native  society  ?  If  anything  were  learnt  at 
that  time  to  throw  light  upon  the  sources  of  the 
great  events  that  were  to  happen,  it  was  by  merest 
accident,  and  the  full  force  of  the  revelation  was 
rarely  discernible  at  the  time.  It  was  remembered 
afterwards  that,  in  the  early  part  of  this  year,  one 
man,  a  Mahratta  by  race,  a  Brahmin  by  caste,  of 
whom  something  has  already  been  recorded  in  this 
narrative,  was  displaying,  in  his  movements,  an  un- 
wonted activity,  which  created  surprise,  but  scarcely 
aroused  suspicion.  This  man  was  Dundoo  Punt, 
commonly  known  as  the  Nana  Sahib,  of  Bhitoor — 
the  adopted  son  of  the  Peishwah,  Badjee  Rao.  He 
was  not  given  to  distant  joumeyings ;  indeed,  he 
was  seldom  seen  beyond  the  limits  of  his  own  estate. 
But  in  the  early  months  of  1857,  having  visited 
Calpee,  he  made  a  journey  to  Delhi,  and,  a  little 
later  in  the  year,  paid  a  visit  to  Lucknow.  It  was 
in  the  middle  of  April  that  he  started  on  this  last 
journey.  On  the  17th  of  that  month,  Mr.  Morland, 
then  one  of  the  Agra  Judges,  who  shortly  after  the 
Peishwah's  death  had  been  Commissioner  at  Bhitoor, 
and  who  had  endeavoured  to  rescue  from  resumption 
a  part  of  his  pension,  paid  a  visit  to  the  Nana  at  that 

Government  have  ^iven  him  no  al-  General    Hearsey,    sending  on  the 

lowance.    We  advised  the  King  to  correspondence  to  Government,  said 

put  down  his  arms.    Tlie  treachery  that  tnere  was  "  much  method  in 

of  the  Government  is  unrivalled/  "  his  supposed  madness ;"  and  added. 

Colonel  Wheler  said  that  the  writer  that  "  much  important  information 

of  these  letters  appeared  to  be  "  af-  on  the  whole  cause  and  subject  of 

fected  in  the  head.*'    It  will  be  re-  this^tf/^^c^^^Cartridge  Mutiny  might 

membered  that  the   Native  officer  be  elicited  from  him." — MS,  Corre' 

who  reported  the  coming  massacre  spondence. 
of  Vellore  was  also  said  to  be  mad. 


THE  NANA  SAHIB. 


575 


place.  The  wily  Mussulman  Agent,  Azim-ooUah  Khan,  April,  1857. 
who  had  pleaded  his  cause  in  England,  was  with 
Dundoo  Punt  when  the  English  gentleman  was  an- 
nounced, and  they  talked  freely  together,  as  friends 
talk,  no  suspicion  on  the  one  side,  and  no  appearance  of 
anything  xmwonted  on  the  other.  All  was  outwardly 
smooth  and  smiling.  The  Mahratta  was  as  profuse 
as  ever  in  his  expressions  of  respect  and  esteem ;  and 
when  Morland  took  his.  departure,  the  brother  of 
Dundoo  Punt  told  him  that  the  Nana  purposed  to 
return  the  visit  of  the  Sahib  next  day  at  Cawnpore. 
The  next  day  happened  to  be  Sunday,  and  Morland 
was  anxious,  therefore,  to  decline  the  visit ;  but  the 
Nana  Sahib  went  to  Cawnpore,  and  again  sent  Baba 
Bhut  to  the  English  gentleman  to  propose  an  inter- 
view. What  he  wished  to  say  to  the  man  who  had 
been  kind  to  him  will  now  never  be  known,  for 
Morland  declined  the  meeting,  on  the  plea  that  it 
was  the  Sabbath,  and  expressed  regret  that  the 
Nana  Sahib  should  have  made  the  jomney  to  no 
purpose.  To  this  the  Brahmin  repUed,  that  his 
brother  was  on  his  way  to  Lucknow  to  visit  one 
of  the  Newabs.  There  was  something  in  all  this 
strange  and  surprismg.  An  English  nobleman,  in 
the  course  of  three  or  four  months,  might  visit  all 
the  chief  cities  of  Europe  without  any  one  taking 
heed  of  the  occurrence.  But  the  nobility  of  India 
are  little  given  to  travelling ;  and  the  Nana  Sahib 
had  rarely  gone  beyond   the   limits  of  Bhitoor.* 


*  A  different  statement  has,  I 
know,  been  made  and  commonly  ac- 
cepted. It  is  the  belief  that  the 
Nana  Sahib  was  frecpently  to  be 
seen  at  CSawnpore,  ridmg  or  dririnff 
on  the  Mally  and  mixing  freely  with 
the  European  residents  of  the  place. 
Bat  the  truth  is,  he  eschewed 
Cawnpoie»  for  the   reason  which 


induced  his  adoptive  father,  Badjee 
Rao,  to  eschew  it^  namely,  that  a 
salute  was  not  giTcn  to  him  on 
entering  the  canUmment.  The  per- 
son g^erally  known  in  Cawnpore 
as  the  "Nana"  was  not  Dundoo 
Punt,  but  Nana  Nerain  Bao,  the 
eldest  son  of  the  ei-Peishwah's 
chief  adriser  and  manager,  the  8ou^ 


576  OUTBKEAK  OF  THE  MUTINT. 

April,  1857.  That|  within  so  short  a  time,  he  should  make  these 
three  journeys,  was  a  &ct  to  exdte  speculation ;  but 
he  was  held  to  be  a  quiet,  inoffensive  person,  good 
natured,  perhaps  somewhat  dull,  and  manifestly  not 
of  that  kind  of  humanity  of  which  conspirators  are 
made,  so  no  political  significance  was  attached  to  the 
fact  What  likelihood  was  there,  at  that  time,  tiiat  such 
a  man  as  Dundoo  Punt,  heavy  and  seemingly  impas- 
sive, who  had  for  some  years  quietly  accepted  his  po- 
sition, and  during  that  time  done  many  acts  of  kind- 
ness and  hospitality  to  the  English  gentlemen,  should 
suddenly  become  a  plotter  against  the  State  ?  Had 
any  one  then  said  that  it  behoved  the  Grovemment  to 
mark  the  movements  of  that  man,  he  would  have 
been  laughed  to  scorn  as  an  alarmist.  We  never 
know  in  India  how  many  are  the  waiters  and  the 
watchers;  we  never  know  at  what  moment  our 
enemies,  sluggish  in  their  hatreds  as  in  all  else,  may 
exact  the  payment  of  old  scores  which  we  have  thought 
were  long  ago  forgotten. 

So  Dundoo  Punt,  Nana  Sahib,  passed  on,  about 
some  business  known  to  himself,  utterly  unknown  to 
European  functionaries,  to  Calpee,  on  the  banks  of 
the  Jumna,  to  the  great  imperial  city  of  Delhi,  and 
to  Lucknow,  the  capital  of  Oude.  In  the  last  of 
these  places,  when  the  Nana  arrived,  Henry  Law- 
rence was  diligently,  with  his  whole  good  heart, 
striving  to  make  right  all  that  had  gone  wrong 
during  the  time  of  his  predecessor.  But  again  the 
handwriting  on  the  wall  traced  those  fatal  words, 
"  Too  late."  If  he  had  but  gone  to  Lucknow  when 
he  had  first  offered  to  go,  how  different  would  all 
have  been  I  It  was  on  the  18th  of  April  that  the 
Nana  Sahib  started  on  his  journey  to  Lucknow.    On 

babdarRamchunder  Punt,  who.  after     familiaritj  witb  many  of  the  ptin- 
his  master's  death,  resided  at  Cawn-     cipal  European  residents, 
pore,  and  was  on  terms  of  social 


STATE  OF  LUCKNOW.  577 

that  day  Henry  Lawrence  wrote  a  long  letter  to  the  April,  1867. 
Governor-General,  telling  him  that  he  had  discerned  ^*^^^"®^- 
signs  of  dangerous  coalitions  between  the  regulai* 
Sepoy  regiments,  the  Irregulars  taken  into  our  service 
from  the  old  Oude  Army,  and  the  men  of  the  Police 
battalions ;  symptoms  also  of  intrigues  on  foot  among 
some  of  the  chief  people  of  the  city.  There  were 
many  elements  of  trouble ;  and  now  they  were  be- 
ginning to  develop  themselves  in  a  manner  signifi- 
cant  of  a  general  outburst  of  popular  discontent. 
"  This  city,"  wrote  Henry  Lawrence  on  that  18th  of 
April,  ^'  is  said  to  contain  some  six  or  seven  hundred 
thousand  souls,  and  does  ceitainly  contain  many 
thousands  (twenty  thousand,  I  was  told  yesterday)  of 
disbanded  soldiers,  and  of  hungry,  nay  starving,  de- 
pendents of  the  late  Government.  This  very  morn- 
ing a  clod  was  thrown  at  Mr.  Onmianey  (the  Judicial 
Commissioner),  and  another  struck  Major  Anderson 
(Chief  Engineer)  whilst  in  a  buggy  with  myself. 
....  The  improvements  in  the  cii)"  here  go  on 
very  fast — ^too  fast  and  too  roughly.  Much  discon- 
tent has  been  caused  by  demolition  of  buildings,  and 
still  more  by  threats  of  further  similar  measures; 
also  regarding  the  seizure  of  religious  and  other 
edifices,  and  plots  of  ground,  as  Huzool  or  Govern- 
ment property.  I  have  visited  many  of  these  places 
and  pacified  parties,  and  prohibited  any  seizure  or 
demolition  without  competent  authority.  The  Re- 
venue measures,  though  not  as  sweeping  as  repre- 
sented by  the  writer  whose  letter  your  Lordship  sent 
me,  have  been  unsatisfactory.  The  Talookhdars  have, 
I  fear,  been  hardly  dealt  with ;  at  least,  in  the  Fyza- 
bad  division  some  have  lost  half  their  villages,  some 
have  lost  all."  Such  stated  here,  in  the  hurried  out* 
line  of  a  letter  from  the  spot^  to  be  dwelt  upon 

2p 


578  OtTTBREAK  OF  THE  MDTINT. 

April,  1867.   in  detail  hereafter,  was  the  condition  of  affairs  which, 
Lucknow.      jj^  ^j^^  ^Ynr^  ^^^^  ^f  ^p^  ^Yie  Nana  Sahib  found  in 

Lucknow.  He  could  have  scarcely  wished  for  any 
better  materials  from  which  to  erect  an  edifice  of  re- 
bellion. 

By  this  Dundoo  Punt,  Nana  Sahib — by  all  who 
were  festering  with  resentments  against  the  English 
and  malignantly  biding  their  time,  the  annexation  of 
Oude  had  been  welcomed  as  a  material  aid  to  the 
success  of  their  machinations.  It  was  no  sudden 
thought,  bom  of  the  accident  of  the  greased  car- 
tridges, that  took  the  disappointed  Brahmin  and  his 
Mahomedan  friend  to  Lucknow  in  the  spring  of  this 
year  of  trouble.  For  months,  for  years  indeed,  ever 
since  the  failure  of  the  mission  to  England  had  been 
apparent,  they  had  been  quietly  spreading  their  net- 
work of  intrigue  all  over  the  country.  From  one 
native  Court  to  another  native  Court,  from  one  ex- 
tremity  to  another  of  the  great  continent  of  India,  the 
agents  of  the  Nana  Sahib  had  passed  with  overtures 
and  invitations,  discreetly,  perhaps  mysteriously, 
worded,  to  Princes  and  Chiefs  of  different  races  and 
religions,  but  most  hopefully  of  all  4^  the  Mahrattas. 
At  the  three  great  Mahratta  families,  the  families  of 
the  Rajah  of  Sattarah,  of  the  Peishwah,  of  the 
Boonsla,  Lord  Dalhousie  had  struck  deadly  blows. 
In  the  Southern  Mahratta  country,  indeed,  it  seemed 
that  Princes  and  Nobles  were  alike  ripe  for  rebellion. 
It  was  a  significant  fact  that  the  agents  of  the  great 
Sattarah  and  Poona  families  had  been  doing  their 
master's  work  in  England  about  the  same  time,  that 
both  had  returned  to  India  rank  rebels,  and  that  the 
first  year  of  Lord  Cannings  administration  found 
Rungo-Bapojee  as  active  for  evil  in  the  South  as 
Azim-ooUah  was  in  the  North ;  both  able  and  unscru- 


INTRIGUES  OF  THE  NANA  SAHIB.  579 

pulous  men,  and  hating  the  English  with  a  deadlier  April,  1867. 
hatred  for  the  very  kindness  that  had  been  shown  to  ^^^"®^' 
them.  But  it  was  not  until  the  crown  had  been  set 
upon  the  annexations  of  Lord  Dalhousie  by  the 
seizure  of  Oude,  that  the  Nana  Sahib  and  his  accom- 
plices saw  much  prospect  of  success.  That  event  was 
the  turning-point  of  their  career  of  intrigue.  What 
had  before  been  difficult  was  now  made  easy  by  this 
last  act  of  English  usurpation.  Not  only  were  the 
ministers  of  the  King  of  Oude  tampering  with  the 
troops  at  the  Presidency,  and  sowing  dangerous  lies 
broad-cast  over  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land, 
but  such  was  the  impression  made  by  the  last  of 
our  annexations,  that  men  asked  each  other  who  was 
safe,  and  what  use  was  there  in  fidelity,  when  so 
faithful  a  friend  and  ally  as  the  King  of  Oude  was 
stripped  of  his  dominions  by  the  Grovemment  whom 
he  had  aided  in  its  need.  It  is  said  that  Princes  and 
Chiefe,  who  had  held  back,  then  came  forward,  and 
that  the  Nana  Sahib  began  to  receive  answers  to  his 
appeals.*  But  whatsoever  may  have  been  its  effect  in 

*  Bt  those  who  systematically  re-  1868.  After  giving  a  list  of  numerous 

jeet  Native  evidence,  all  this  may  princes  and  chiefs  whom  tbs  Nana 

DC  redded  as  nothing  but  nnsul>>  had  addressed,  this  man  said :  **  The 

stantial  surmise.     But  tliere  is  no-  Nana  wrote  at  intervals,  two  or  three 

thing  in  my  mind  more  clearly  sub-  months  previous  to  the  annexation  of 

stantiated  than  the  complicity  of  the  Oude.    But  at  first  he  got  no  an- 

Nana  Sahib  in  wide-spread  intrig^ues  swers.  Nobody  had  any  hope.  After 

before  the  outbreid^  of  the  mutiny,  the  annexation  he  wrote  still  more. 

The  concurrent  testimony  of  wit-  and  then  the  Soukars  of  Lucknow 

nesses  examined  in  parts   of   the  joined  in  his  views.    Maun  Singh, 

country  widely  distant  from  each  who  is  the  Chief  of  the  Poorbeah,  or 

other  takes  this  story  altogether  out  Foordusee,  joined.   Then  the  Sepoys 

of  the  regions  of  the  conjectural.    I  began  to  make  taficii  (plans)  among 

speak  omy  of  the  broaa  fact  itself,  themselves,  and  the  Lucknow  Sou- 

With  regard  to  the  statement  in  the  kars  supported  them.     Until  Oude 

text,  tiiat  the  machinations  of  the  was  annexed,  Nana  Sahib  did  not  get 

Nana  Sahib  were  much  assisted  bv  answers  from  any  one ;  but  when 

the  annexation  ofOude,!  give  the  fol-  that  occurred,  many  hegtoi  to  take 

lowing,  jumiium  valeat^  from  the  evi-  courage  and  to  answer  him.    The 

denoe  01  a  Native  emissary  detained  plot  among  the  Sepoys  first  took 

and  exaMmad  m  Myiore,  in  January,  pkce— the   discontent    about    the 

2p2 


580  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINT. 

April,  1857.  remote  places,  it  cannot  be  questioned  that  in  the 
Lucknow.  condition  of  Oude  itself  after  annexation  there  was 
that  which  must  have  gladdened  the  heart  of  every 
plotter  against  the  State.  Such  men  as  Dundoo  Punt 
and  Azim-ooUah  Khan  could  not  pass  through  the 
streets  of  Lucknow  without  clearly  seeing  what  was 
coming.  What  they  saw  and  what  they  heard, 
indeed,  pleased  them  so  greatiy,  that  they  assumed  a 
bold  and  swaggering  demeanour,  which  attracted  the 
attention  of  the  English  functionaries  to  whom  they 
were  introduced.  For  they  made  no  secret  of  their 
visit;  but  went  about  openly  in  the  public  streets, 
with  numerous  attendants,  and  even  sought  the  pre. 
sence  of  the  Commissioner.  The  Nana  said  that  he 
had  come  only  to  see  the  sights  of  Lucknow;  so 
Henry  Lawrence  received  him  kindly,  and  ordered 
every  attention  to  be  shown  to  him  by  the  authorities 
of  the  city.  But  his  sojourn  in  Lucknow  was  brie^ 
and  his  departure  sudden.  He  went  without  taking 
leave  of  the  English  functionaries,  saying  that  busi- 
ness required  his  presence  at  Cawnpore. 

peased  cartrid^.     Then  answers  one  of  the  Lacknow  Soukars.**   The 

began  to  pear  in.    Golab  Singh,  of  former  part  of  this  statement  maj  be 

Jumraoo,  was  the  first  to  send  an  readily  accepted ;  the  latter  must  be 

answer.    He  said  that  he  was  ready  recei?ed  with  caution.     Further  ex- 

with  men,  money,  and  arms,  and  he  tracts  from  this  man's  eyidence  will 

sent  money  to  Nana  Saliib,  through  be  found  in  the  Appendix. 


THE  MONTH  OF  HAT.  581 


CHAPTER  VII. 

TUB  MONTH  OF  MAT— OSNX&AL  8UBYST  OF  AFfAIBS — 8TATB  OF  lEBLINO 
AT  THE  RIFLB  DEp6T8— THE  BISING  8T0BM  IN  OUDB — THE  BBYOLT  AT 
MEEBUT — THE  SEIZUKB  OF  DELHI— MEASUBES  OF  LOBD  CANNING — THX 
CALL  FOB  SUCCOURS. 

The  month  of  May,  with  its  fiery  heat  and  glare,  May,  1857. 
and  its  arid  dust-charged  winds,  found  Lord  Can- 
ning in  Calcutta  watching  eagerly,  but  hopefully,  the 
progress  of  events,  and  the  signs  and  symptoms  of 
the  excitement  engendered  in  men's  minds  by  the 
great  lie  which  had  been  so  insidiously  propagated 
among  them.  From  the  multitude  of  conflicting 
statements  and  opinions  which  reached  him  from  dif- 
ferent quarters,  it  was  difficult  to  extract  the  truth ; 
but  taking  a  comprehensive  view  of  all  that  was 
manifest  to  him,  from  the  plains  of  Bengal  to  the 
hills  of  the  Himalayah,  he  could  not  discern  in  those 
first  days  of  May  that  the  clouds  were  gathering 
around  him  denser  and  blacker  than  before.  If  there 
were  any  change,  indeed,  it  was  rather  a  change  for 
the  brighter  and  the  better.  At  Barrackpore  there 
had  been  no  more  overt  acts  of  mutiny.  The  Native 
regiments  were  doing  their  duty,  sullenly  perhaps, 
but  still  quietly.  At  Dum-Dum  the  detachments  in 
the  Rifle  depdt,  under  the  new  system  of  drill,  were 
proceeding  to  ball  practice  without  any  visible  signs 
of  discontent  It  was  hoped,  indeed,  that  the  troops  in 


..A^ttta 


582  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

May,  1857.  the  immediate  neighbourhood  of  Calcutta  were  peld- 
ing  to  the  explanations  and  assurances  which  had 
been  given  to  them,  and  slowly  returning  to  reason. 
At  the  Rifle  dep6ts  also  in  the  Upper  Country  the 
drill  was  quietly  proceeding.  At  Sealkote,  the  detach- 
ments from  the  Native  regiments  in  the  Punjab, 
Regular  and  Irregular,  were  firing  the  new  pieces 
without  a  murmur.  Sir  John  Lawrence  went  to 
that  station,  at  the  beginning  of  the  month,  '^  to  see 
the  new  School  of  Musketry,  as  well  as  to  judge  with 
respect  to  the  feeling  among  the  SepoyB;**  and  he 
wrote  to  Lord  Canning  that  all  were  "  highly  pleased 
with  the  new  musket,  and  quite  ready  to  adopt  it 
They  already  perceive  how  great  an  advantage  it 
will  give  them  in  mountain  warfiare."  The  officers 
assured  him  that  no  bad  feeling  had  been  shown,  and 
he  himself  "  could  perceive  no  hesitation  or  reluctance 
on  the  part  of  any  of  the  Sepoys."*  From  Umballah, 
General  Barnard  wrote  on  the  first  day  of  the  month, 
that  he  had  reported  to  Head-Quarters  that  so  far 
from  any  insubordinate  feeling  existing  at  that  place, 
he  had  reason  to  be  satisfied  with  the  patience,  zeal, 
and  activity  that  the  men  had  shown  on  the  severe 
night-picket  work  necessitated  by  the  incendiary 
fires.  "  I  have  no  reason,"  he  added,  "  to  accuse  the 
Sepoy  of  causing  these  fires — no  overt  act  has  been 
elicited,  and  no  instance  of  insubordination  has  oc- 
curred. The  musket  practice  has  been  resumed  with 
apparent  good  will  and  zeal.  I  have  frequently  at- 
tended it  myself,  and  I  will  answer  for  it  that  no  ill 
feeling  exists  in  these  detachments,  "f 

Thus  it  was  that,  in  the  first  days  of  May,  there 

*  Sir  John  Lawrence  to  Lord  f  Sir  H.  Barnard  to  Lord  Can- 
Canning,  May  4, 1857.— J/S'.  Corrt-  ning,  May  1.  1857.— Jf^l  Corre- 
tpomienee,  tpomienee. 


SYMPTOMS  OF  A  LULL.  583 

was  apparent  to  the  eyes  of  the  Governor-General  May,  1857. 
something  like  a  lull ;  and  it  seenfied  that  at  the  Rifle 
dep6ts,  which  were  the  great  central  points  of  danger, 
the  difficulty  had  been  tided  over.  From  Meerut, 
too,  no  fresh  tidings  of  disturbance  came.  The  men 
of  the  Third  Cavalry  were  being  tried  by  Court- 
martial;  and  it  did  not  appear  that  any  of  their 
comrades  were  about  to  follow  their  insubordinate 
example.  There  were  circumstances  that  rendered 
it  probable  that  the  motives  which  had  driven  these 
men  into  mutiny  were  altogether  of  an  exceptional 
character.  So  Lord  Canning,  in  the  early  part  of 
this  month  of  May,  was  able  to  direct  his  thoughts 
to  all  parts  of  the  country,  and  to  fix  them  on  many 
«pi«'«f  Indian  ^yZn^t  and  adnmuBtration, 
as  calmly  and  as  philosophically  as  in  the  quietest 
of  6mJ  He  waa'eorres^nding  »ith  Lorf  Elphin- 
stone  on  the  subject  of  the  Treaty  with  Persia  and 
the  Expenses  of  the  War ;  with  Lieutenant-Governor 
Colvin  on  Education  Grants  and  Female  Schools,  and 
the  Delhi  Succession — ^little  thinking  how  that  last 
question  would  soon  settle  itself;  with  Major  David- 
son, the  Resident  at  Hyderabad,  about  the  recogni- 
tion of  a  successor  to  the  Nizam  (his  Highness  being 
nigh  unto  death  from  a  surfeit  of  prawns)  ;  with  Sir 
Richmond  Shakespear,  Resident  at  Baroda^  on  the 
Finances  of  the  Guicowar ;  and  with  Colonel  Durand, 
the  Governor-General's  Agent  at  Indore,  about  the 
large  amount  of  Native  deposits  in  the  Residency 
Treasury.  Indeed,  the  current  business  of  Govern- 
ment was  but  little  interrupted.  There  was  no  fear 
in  Government  House. 

But^  although  at  this  time  the  Governor-General 
was  cheerful  and  hopeful,  and  believed  that  the 
clouds  of  trouble  would  soon,  by  God's  providence, 


584 


OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 


May,  1867.  be  dispersed,  he  had  some  especial  causes  of  anxiety. 
The  dawn  of  the  month  of  May  found  the  Thirty- 
fourth  Regiment  at  Barrackpore  still  awaiting  its 
sentence.  The  Jemadar  of  the  Quarter-Guard,  Issuree 
Pandy,  had  been  hanged  on  the  22nd  of  April,  in 
the  presence  of  all  the  troops,  at  Barrackpore.  He 
had  confessed  his  guilt  on  the  scaffold,  and  with  his 
last  breath  had  exhorted  his  comrades  to  be  warned 
by  his  example.*  It  was  believed  that  this  public 
execution  of  a  commissioned  officer  would  have  a 
salutary  effect  upon  the  whole  Native  Army.  But 
the  punishment  of  one  man,  though  that  punishment 
were  death,  could  not  wipe  out  the  offence  of  the 
regiment,  or  vindicate  the  authority  of  the  Govern- 
ment. The  great  defect  of  Lord  Canning,  as  a  ruler 
in  troubled  times,  was  an  excess  of  conscientiousness. 
The  processes  by  which  he  arrived  at  a  resolution 
were  slow,  because  at  every  stage  some  scruple  of 
honesty  arose  to  impede  and  obstruct  his  conclusions. 
On  the  score  both  of  justice  and  of  policy  he  doubted 
whether  the  prompt  disbandment  of  the  Thirty- 
fourth  would  be  right.  It  was  certain  that  some 
companies  were  true  to  their  colours,  and  he  did  not 
clearly  see  that  all  the  rest  were  faithless.  He  had 
caused  a  seco'ching  inquiry  to  be  made  into  the  con- 
dition of  the  regiment,  and  he  had  hoped,  up  to  the 
end  of  the  third  week  of  April,  that  all  the  require- 


*  There  were  many  erroneous 
Tersions  at  the  time  of  Issuree 
Fand/s  speech  from  the  scaffold. 
Tiie  words  which  he  uttered,  lite- 
rally translated,  were  these :  '*  Listen, 
Behaudur  Sepoys.  In  such  a  manner 
do  not  let  any  one  act !  I  have  be- 
haved in  such  a  rascally  way  to  the 
Government,  that  I  am  aboat  to  re- 
ceive my  just  punishment.  There- 
forr,  let  no  Benaudur  Sepoy  behave 


in  this  wretched  manner,  or  he  may 
receive  the  same  punishment.''  This 
is  ^ven  on  the  authority  of  Colonel 
Mitchell  of   the    Nineteenth,  who 
brought  the  prisoner  from  the  Quar- 
ter-Guard of  the  Eifty-third  to  the 
foot  of  the  gallovrs,  and  whose  own 
impressions  were  confirmed  by  the 
three   orderlies    who    accompanied 
him* 


DISBANDMENT  OF  THE  THIRTT-FOUBTH.  585 

ments  of  the  case  might  be  satisfied  by  the  dismissal  May,  1867. 
of  some  of  the  more  patent  offenders.  But  the  weight 
of  mihtary  authority  was  strongly  in  favour  of  dis- 
bandment.  General  Hearsey,  at  Barrackpore,  was 
fully  convinced  that  no  measure  short  of  this  would 
produce  the  desired  effect ;  and  General  Anson  wrote 
earnestly  from  Sunlah  urging  the  expediency  of  such 
a  course.  The  whole  question  was  fully  and  anxiously 
discussed  in  Council;  and  at  last,  on  the  30th  of 
April,  Lord  Canning  recorded  a  minute  declaratory 
of  his  opinion  that  no  penalty  less  general  than  dis- 
bandment  ^^  would  meet  the  exigencies  of  the  case, 
or  be  effectual  as  an  example."  But  even  then  there 
were  doubts  with  respect  to  the  men  who  were  to  be 
exempted  from  punishment,  and  not  until  the  4th  of 
May  was  the  discussion  exhausted  and  the  order 
given  for  the  disbandment  of  the  regiment.* 

Two  days  afterwards,  in  the  presence  of  all  the  Disbandment 
troops  at  Barrackpore,  of  the  detachments  from  Dum-  fourth. 
Dum,  and  of  the  Eighty-fourth  (Queen's)  from  Chin- 
surah,  the  seven  companies  of  the  Thirty-fourth,  who 
had  witnessed  the  great  outrage  of  the  29th  of  March, 
were  drawn  up,  before  the  sun  had  risen,  to  receive 
their  sentence.  There  was  to  be  no  mitigation  of 
their  punishment,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Nineteenth ; 
so  when  they  laid  down  their  arms,  the  uniforms 
which  they  had  disgraced  were  stripped  from  their 
backs,  and  they  were  marched  out  of  cantonments 
under  an  escort  of  Europeans.  And  thus  a  second 
time  the  number  of  the  guilty  Thirty-fourth  was 
erased  from  the  Army  List ;  and  five  hundred  more 

*  It  is  especially  to  be  noted  that  should  be  exempted,  as  a  faithful 

a  question  arose  as  to  whether  the  servant,  or,  on  account  of  later  reve- 

Jemadar  of  the   Mint-Guard,  who  lations,  condemned  as  a  traitor.  The 

had  anprebended  the  men  of   the  decision  was  ultimately  in  his  favour. 
Secona  Grenadiers  (anie,  page  630), 


586  OUTBUAK  OF  THE  MUTINT. 

May,  1857.  desperate  men,  principally  Brahmins  and  Rajpoots^ 
were  cast  adrift  upon  the  world  to  work  out  their 
own  schemes  of  vengeance. 
Oade.  In  the  quarter  to  which  a  large  number  of  them 

made  their  way  as  the  Nineteenth  had  made  their 
way  before  them — ^in  Oude,  the  signs  of  approaching 
trouble  increased.  To  no  place,  from  one  end  of 
India  to  another,  did  the  mind  of  the  Gkivemor- 
General,  in  this  conjuncture,  turn,  with  more  painful 
interest,  than  to  this  newly-annexed  province,  the 
nursery  of  the  Bengal  Army.  Henry  Lawrence's 
letters  to  the  Governor-General  were  whoUy  silent 
on  the  subject  of  the  Nana's  visit  to  Lucknow.  But 
they  spoke  of  much  that  pressed  heavily  on  his 
mind.  Recognising  so  many  causes  of  popular  dis- 
content in  Oude,  and  knowing  well  how  large  a  por- 
tion of  the  Native  Army  was  drawn  from  that  pro- 
vince, he  could  not,  at  such  a  time,  regard  without 
much  anxiety  the  demeanour  of  the  Sepoys  around 
him.  There  was  one  regiment  at  Lucknow,  whose 
conduct,  although  it  had  been  betrayed  into  no 
overt  act  of  insubordination,  was  of  a  suspicious, 
ahnost  of  a  threatening,  character,  and  it  seemed 
desirable  that  it  should  be  removed  from  the  pro- 
vince. There  was  no  doubt  that  some  of  the 
chief  people  of  the  city  were  tampering  with  ila 
allegiance;  and  much  danger  might  therefore  be 
averted  if  it  could  be  removed  to  another  station 
beyond  the  limits  of  the  province.  The  suggestion 
was  made,  and  Canning  responded  to  it,  giving  full 
authority  to  Henry  Lawrence  to  move  the  tainted 
regiment  to  Meerut.  "  Let  the  Commander-in-Chief 
know,"  wrote  the  Governor-General,  "  if  you  find  it 
necessary  to  send  it  away ;  but  do  not  wait  for  any 

further  authority If  you  have   regiments 

that  are  really  untrustworthy,  there  must  be  no  deli- 


MUTINY  AT  LUCKNOW.  587 

cacy  in  the  matter."  But  before  the  letter  sanction-  May,  1857. 
ing  his  proposal  had  arrived,  Henry  Lawrence  had  ^*'*'- 
thought  long  and  deeply  about  the  results  of  such  a 
measure ;  and  on  the  1st  of  May  he  wrote  to  Lord 
Canning,  sajdng:  ^^Unquestionably  we  should  feel 
better  without  the  Forty-eighth,  but  I  do  not  fed 
confident  that  the  feeling  in  the  other  regiments  is 
materially  better ;  and  there  is  little  doubt  that  the 
Forty-eighth  would  not  be  improved  by  a  move, 
which  is  an  important  point  of  consideration  in  the 
present  general  condition  of  the  Army."  He  was 
right;  the  removal  of  a  single  regiment  could  not 
benefit  Oude,  but  it  might  do  injury  elsewhere  by 
tainting  other  parta  of  the  Army. 

That  other  components  of  the  Oude  force  were  Matins  in  the 
equally  disaffected  was  presently  apparent.  On  the  ^^^  i™gu- 
2nd  of  May,  Captain  Carnegie,  who  was  Magistrate 
of  the  city  of  Lucknow,  and  who  had  the  superin- 
tendence of  the  Police — a  man,  described  by  his  im- 
mediate superior  as  ^'  prudent  and  active,  though  so 
quiet  in  manner,  and  implicitly  to  be  relied  upon" 
— ^reported  to  Henry  Lawrence  that  there  had  been 
a  strong  demonstration  against  the  cartridges  in  the 
Seventh  Regiment  of  Oude  Irregulars.  At  first  he 
was  fain  to  believe  that  the  story  might  be  exagge- 
rated ;  but  there  was  soon  undeniable  evidence  that 
it  was  only  too  true.  The  regiment,  which  had  been 
in  the  King's  service,  was  posted  at  a  distance  of 
some  seven  miles  firom  Lucknow.  A  fortnight  before, 
the  recruits  of  the  regiment  had  commenced  practice 
with  ball-cartridge,  and  had  done  their  duty  without 
any  manifestations  of  discontent.  But  by  ^e  end  of 
the  month  it  was  clear  that  the  great  fear,  which  was 
travelling  about  the  country,  had  taken  possession  of 
their  minds,  and  that  they  were  on  the  very  verge  of 
revolt.     Whether  they  had  been  wrought  upon  by 


588 


OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 


May.  1867. 


Mar, 
Oiidc 


Mays. 


emissaries  from  the  city,  or  whether  any  of  the  dis- 
bonded  men  of  the  Nineteenth  had,  by  this  time, 
found  their  way  to  Lucknow,  is  matter  only  of  con- 
jecture;* but  as  the  month  of  May  dawned  upon 
them,  they  were  ripe  for  rebellion — ^not  only  them- 
selves  prepared  to  resist,  but  eager  to  incite  others  to 
resistance.  They  had  written  a  letter  to  the  men  of 
the  Forty-eighth,  urging  them  to  rise  for  their  reli- 
gion ;  and  no  soothing  explanations  from  their  of- 
ficers could  induce  them  to  shake  off  the  mistrust 
which  had  fastened  upon  them.  On  the  second  day 
of  the  month  the  Brigadier  rode  out  with  his  Staff 
to  the  Lines  of  the  Seventh,  and  found  them  ^^as 
obstinate  as  possible  with  regard  to  the  cartridges."! 
Returning  at  nightfall  to  Lucknow,  he  wrote  at  once 
to  Lawrence,  telling  him  the  state  of  the  regiment, 
and  adding,  ^^I  think  myself  that  this  affair  has 
been  a  long  time  brewing."  The  next  morningj 
brought  with  it  no  consolation.  The  Seventh  were 
in  a  worse  state  than  before.  They  had  been  sullen 
and  obstinate  on  the  preceding  day.     Now  in  a  state 


*  It  has  been  stated  that  both  the 
Nineteenth  and  Thirty-fourth  were 
stationed  at  Lucknow  at  the  time  of 
annexation ;  and  it  was  believed  that 
they  were  there  first  infected  with 
rebellion.  Henry  Lawrence  wrote 
that  he  had  ascertained  that  in  the 
Nineteenth  there  must  have  been 
nearly  seven  hundred  Oude  men. 
By  this  time,  they  had  mostly  found 
their  way  back  to  their  native  pro- 
vince. 

t  The  official  report  said  that 
the  rc^ment  ''refused  to  bite  the 
cartri(§es  when  ordered  by  its  own 
officers,  and  again  by  the  Bru;adier." 
How  it  happened  that,  afier  the 
change  introduced  into  the  drill,  the 
Sepoys  at  Lucknow  were  ordered  to 
bite  the  cartridge  at  all,  it  is  impos- 
sible to  say.    This  did  not  escape 


Lord  Canning,  who,  in  a  minute 
written  on  the  10th  of  May,  said : 
"  It  appears  that  the  revised  in- 
structions for  the  platoon  exercise, 
by  which  the  biting  of  the  cartridge 
is  dispensed  with,  had  not  oome  into 
operation  at  Lucknow.  Explana- 
tion of  this  should  be  asked."  But 
the  time  for  explanation  was  past. 
It  was  ascertained,  however,  thai 
the  new  drill  instructions  were  sent 
to  the  Oude  Irregular  force  in  the 
middle  of  April. 

X  So  difficult  is  the  attainment  oC 
perfect  accuracy  in  an  historical  nar- 
rative, that  even  Mr.  Gubbins,  whose 
work  on  the  Mutinies  of  Oude  is  the 
best  and  safest  authority  extant, 
says  that  these  events,  which  he  wit- 
nessed himself,  happened  on  Sunday, 
the  10th  of  May. 


DISARMING  OF  THE  SEVENTH.  589 

of  feverish  excitement,  violent,  desperate,  they  as-  May,  1867. 
sumed  a  menacing  attitude,  and  talked  openly  of 
murdering  their  officers.  It  was  obvious  that  a  crisis 
was  approaching,  and  that  no  time  was  to  be  lost ; 
so  Henry  Lawrence,  when  he  heard  that  the  regi- 
ment was  in  this  defiant  and  dangerous  state,  deter- 
mined at  once  to  disarm,  and,  if  resisted,  to  destroy 
it  On  that  evening  he  moved  up  an  overwhelming 
force  of  all  arms  to  the  parade-ground  of  the  Seventh. 
The  day  was  far  spent  when  he  commenced  the  , 
march.  "  It  was  a  ticklish  matter,"  he  wrote  to  Mr. 
Colvin,  "taking  the  Forty-eighth  down  on  Sunday 
night;  but  I  thought  that  they  were  safer  in  our 
company  than  behind  in  cantonments.  We  had  to 
pass  for  two  miles  through  the  city;  indeed.  Her 
Majesty's  Thirty-second  had  four  miles  of  it.  I  there- 
fore hesitated  as  to  moving  after ;  but  the  moon  was 
in  its  third  quarter ;  and  the  first  blow  is  everything. 
So  off  we  started ;  and  concentrated  from  four 
points,  accomplishing  the  seven  nules  in  about  three 
hours."* 

The  moon  had  risen,  bright  in  an  unclouded  sky, 
on  that  Sabbath  evening,  when  Henry  Lawrence, 
accompanied  by  his  Staff,  appeared  with  the  Brigade 
before  the  Lines  of  the  Seventh.  The  regiment  was 
drawn  up  on  parade,  in  a  state  of  vague  uncertainty 
and  bewilderment,  not  knowing  what  would  come  of 
this  strange  nocturnal  assembly.  But  when  they 
saw  the  Europeans,  the  Cavalry  and  the  guns,  taking 
ground  in  their  front  and  on  their  flanks,  the  Native 
regiments  being  so  placed  as  to  destroy  all  hope  of 
their  aiding  their  comrades,  the  mutineers  knew  that 
their  game  was  up,  and  that  there  would  be  death  in 

*  Sir  Heiu^  Lawrence  to  Mr.  Ck>lfiii,  Locknow,  May  6,  1857. — 


590  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTIOT. 

■ 

Mat,  1857.    further  recdstance.     What  might  then  have  happened 
Oude.  j£  ^j^^  course  of  events  had  not  been  determined  by 

an  accident,  cannot  be  distinctly  declared.  The  mu- 
tinous regiment  had  obeyed  the  word  of  command, 
and  some  of  the  men  had  expressed  contrition  ;  but 
it  happened  that,  by  some  mistake,  an  artiUeryman 
lighted  a  port-fire.  The  guns  were  pointed  towards 
the  mutineers,  and  though  Lawrence  and  his  Staff 
were  posted  between  them  and  the  Artillery,  and 
would  probably  have  been  swept  away  by  the  first 
round,  the  Sepoys  of  the  guilty  regiment  believed 
that  the  battery  was  about  to  open  upon  them.  A 
panic  then  seized  the  Seventh.  First  one  man,  then 
another,  broke  away  from  his  comrades  and  fled, 
throwing  down  his  arms  as  he  went  in  the  over- 
whehnmg  consternation  of  the  moment;  and  pre- 
sently  great  gaps  appeared  in  the  Line,  and  only  a 
remnant  of  the  regiment  was  left  to  obey  the  orders 
of  the  English  officer.  To  these  men,  whilst  the 
Cavalry  went  in  pursuit  of  the  fugitives,  Henry  Law- 
rence rode  up ;  and  as  they  broke  into  exclamations 
of  "  Jye  Coompanee  Behaudur  Ko !" — "  Victory  to 
the  great  Lord  Company !"— ordered  them  to  lay 
down  their  arms,  and  to  strip  off  their  accoutrements. 
They  obeyed  without  hesitation ;  and,  an  hour  after 
midioight,  the  Brigade  had  returned  to  Lucknow, 
canying  with  it  all  the  arms  of  the  Seventh,  and 
escorting,  under  guards  of  the  same  force,  the  men 
who  had  so  lately  borne  them.  In  the  critical  state 
of  the  other  Native  regiments,  it  was  not  thought 
wise  to  divide  the  Europeans. 

Next  day  Henry  Lawrence  wrote  to  the  Govemor- 
Greneral,  saying,  "The  coup  is  stated  to  have  had 
great  effect  in  the  city.  But  people  go  so  far  as  to 
tell  me  that  the  Forty-eighth  last  night  abused  the 


FIRES  IN  LUCKNOW.  591 

Seventh  for  running  away,  and  said,  that  if  they  May,  1857. 
had  stood,  the  Forty-eighth  would  not  have  fired.  I  ^"^'• 
don't  believe  one  quarter  of  these  reports."  But,  al- 
though there  is  always,  in  seasons  of  great  popular 
excitement,  a  vast  amount  of  exaggeration  afloat,  and 
Henry  Lawrence,  therefore,  received  with  caution  the 
stories  that  were  brought  to  him,  he  was  not  one  to 
disregard  the  signs  of  the  times,  and  to  dose  his  eyes 
to  the  dangers  that  were  surrounding  him.  As  time 
advanced,  these  signs  increased  in  significance.  Some 
fifty  of  the  ringleaders  of  the  Seventh  Irregulars 
had  been  seized  and  confined,  and  a  Court  of  In- 
quiry had  been  assembled  to  investigate  the  causes  of 
tiie  outbreak  in  that  regiment.  But  little  or  nothing 
had  been  elicited.  As  at  Umballah,  and  other  places, 
the  mouths  of  the  Sepoys  were  sealed.  They  might 
contend  among  themselves,  but  in  their  reticence, 
when  the  English  sought  to  probe  their  discontents, 
they  acted  as  one  man.  Words  were  not  forthcoming, 
but  there  was  one  form  of  expression,  weU  known  Z 
the  Native  soldiery  in  times  of  trouble,  to  which  they 
betook  themselves,  as  they  had  before  betaken  them- 
selves elsewhere,  and  thus  gave  utterance  to  the  strong 
feelings  within  them.  On  the  7th  of  May,  the  Lines 
of  the  Forty-eighth  were  burnt  down.  The  fire  com- 
menced in  the  hut  of  the  Soubahdar  who  had  given 
up  the  seditious  letter  addressed  by  the  Seventh  Irre- 
gulars to  the  men  of  his  regiment  There  could  be 
no  doubt  that  it  was  the  work  of  an  incendiary.  On 
the  following  day,  Lawrence  visited  the  scene  of  the 
conflagration,  and  found  the  men  outwardly  civil  and 
respectful  in  their  demeanour,  but  heavy  and  down- 
cast at  the  thought  of  their  loss  of  property.  It  was 
not  easy  to  read  the  state  of  feeling  which  then  ex- 
isted in  the  Oude  Army,  so  vague  and  varied  was  it ; 


592  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINT. 

May,  1857.    but  if  any  man  could  have  rightly    discerned  it^ 
^'*^®-  Henry  Lawrence  was  that  man.     For  he  had  free  in- 

tercourse with  those  who  were  most  likely  to  be  its 
exponents,  and  had  the  gift,  so  rare  among  our 
countrymen,  of  inspiring  confidence  in  the  breasts  of 
the  people.  After  much  communing  with  others  and 
with  himself,  he  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
strongest  feeling  that  held  possession  of  the  Sepoy  s 
mind  was  a  great  fear,  that  this  fear  had  long  been 
growing  upon  him,  and  that  it  had  only  culminated 
in  his  belief  in  the  story  of  the  greased  cartridges.* 

Of  one  of  these  conversations  a  record  has  been  left 
in  Lawrence's  handwriting.  It  is  so  significant  c( 
the  great  fear  that  was  then  dominating  the  Army, 
that  I  give  the  passage  as  it  stands.  ^^  I  had  a  con- 
versation," he  wrote  to  Lord  Canning,  on  the  9th  of 
May,  "with  a  Jemadar  of  the  Oude  Artillery  for  more 
than  an  hour,  and  was  startled  by  the  dogged  per- 
sistence of  the  man,  a  Brahmin  of  about  forty  years 
of  age,  of  excellent  character,  in  the  belief  that  for  ten 
years  past  Government  has  been  engaged  in  measures 
for  the  forcible,  or  rather  fraudulent  conversion  of  all 
the  Natives.  His  argument  was,  that  as  such  was  the 
case,  and  that  as  we  had  made  our  way  through 
India,  won  Bhurtpore,  Lahore,  (fee,  by  fraud,  so 
might  it  be  possible  that  we  mixed  bone-dust  with 
the  grain  sold  to  the  Hindoos.  When  I  told  him  of 
our  power  in  Europe,  how  the  Russian  war  had 
quadrupled  our  Army  in  a  year,  and  in  another  it 
could,  if  necessary,  have  been  interminably  increased, 

*  One  of  the  earliest  indications  hy  the  Sepojs,  and  was  belie? ed  to 

of  this  alarm  appeared  at  Lucknow,  be  a  deliberate  scheme  to  poUate 

when  an  Assistant-Surgeon  in  the  them.  Soon  afterwards  the  Ikmiw  of 

Hospital  of  the  Fortj-eighth  iuad-  the  doctor  was  burnt  to  the  gtoud 

▼ertently  put  a  phial  of  medicine  to  bj  the  Sepojs  of  his  rcgimeiit. 
Jiis  lips  to  test  it.    This  was  seen 


SYMPTOMS  OF  DISCONTENT.  593 

and  that  in  the  same  way,  in  six  months,  any  re-  May,  1857. 
quired  number  of  Europeans  could  be  brought  to 
India,  and  that,  therefore,  we  are  not  at  the  mercy 
of  the  Sepoys,  he  replied  that  he  knew  that  we  had 
plenty  of  men  and  money,  but  that  Europeans  are 
expensive,  and  that,  therefore,  we  wished  to  take 
Hindoos  to  sea  to  conquer  the  world  for  us.  On  my 
remarking  that  the  Sepoy,  though  a  good  soldier  on 
shore  is  a  bad  one  at  sea,  by  reason  of  his  poor  food, 
*  That  is  just  it,'  was  the  rejoinder.  *  You  want  us 
all  to  eat  what  you  like  that  we  may  be  stronger,  and 
go  everywhere.'  He  often  repeated,  *  I  tell  you  what 
everybody  says.'  But  when  I  replied,  *  Fools  and 
traitors  may  say  so,  but  honest  and  sensible  men  can- 
not think  so,'  he  would  not  say  that  he  himself  did  or 
did  not  believe,  but  said,  *  I  tell  you  they  are  like 
sheep ;  the  leading  one  tumbles  down,  and  all  the 
rest  roll  over  him.'  Such  a  man  is  very  dangerous. 
He  has  his  full  faculties,  is  a  Brahmin,  has  served  us 
twenty  years,  knows  our  strength  and  our  weakness, 
and  hates  us  thoroughly.  It  may  be  that  he  is  only 
more  honest  than  his  neighbours,  but  he  is  not  the 
less  dangerous.  On  one  only  point  did  he  give  us 
credit.  I  told  him  that  in  the  year  1846,  I  had 
rescued  a  hundred  and  fifty  Native  children,  left  by 
our  army  in  Caubul,  and  that  instead  of  making  them 
Christians,  I  had  restored  them  to  their  relations  and 
friends.  *  Yes,'  he  replied,  *  I  remember  well.  I  was 
at  Lahore.'  On  the  other  hand,  he  told  me  of  our 
making  Christians  of  children  purchased  during 
famines.  I  have  spoken  to  many  others,  of  all  ranks, 
during  the  last  fortnight;  most  give  us  credit  for 
good  intentions ;  but  here  is  a  soldier  of  our  .own, 
selected  for  promotion  over  the  heads  of  others, 
holding  opinions  that  must  make  him  at  heart  a 

2q 


594  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

May,  1857.  traitor."  On  the  same  day  he  wrote,  in  a  similar 
strain,  to  Mr.  Colvin,  concluding  with  a  significant 
hint  to  look  well  after  the  safety  of  the  Forts  in 
Upper  India.* 

If  these  letters  from  the  Chief  Commissioner  of 
Oude  had  been  read  when  written,  they  might  have 
suggested  grave  thoughts  of  impending  danger ;  but 
when  they  reached  their  destinations,  they  came  only 
as  conmientaries  upon  the  past,  faint  and  feeble  as 
seen  by  the  glaring  light  of  terrible  realities.  The 
Governor-General  and  his  colleagues  in  the  Supreme 
Council  were  discussing  the  conduct  of  the  mutinous 
Oude  regiment,  and  the  measure  of  punishment 
which  should  be  meted  out  to  it.  On  the  10th  of 
May  Lord  Canning  and  Mr.  Dorin  recorded  minutes 
on  the  subject.  The  Governor-General  declared  for 
disbandment.  Roused  to  a  vigorous  expression  of 
opinion  by  this  last  manifestation  of  a  growing  evil, 
the  senior  member  of  Council  wrote — and  wrote  well 
— "The  sooner  this  epidemic  of  mutiny  is  put  a  stop 
to  the  better.     Mild  measures  won't  do  it.     A  severe 

example  is  wanted I  am  convinced  that 

timely  severity  will  be  leniency  in  the  long  nm." 
On  the  same  day,  General  Low  recorded  a  minute, 
in  which  he  expressed  an  opinion  that  "  probably  the 
main  body  of  the  regiment,  in  refusing  to  bite  the 
cartridge,  did  so  refuse,  not  from  any  feeling  of  dis- 
loyalty or  disaffection  towards  the  Government  or 
their  officers,  but  from  an  unfeigned  and  sincere 
dread  that  the  act  of  biting  them  would  involve  a 
serious  injury  to  their  caste."     On  the   11th,   Mr. 

*  In  the  letter  to  Mr.  Gohin,  Sir  ceal  not  only  that  he  and  all  oibera 

Henry  Lawrence  says  that  the  Je-  saw  no  absurdity  in  the  ffrommd^bomet 

madar    "went  over  all  our  anti-  aita  belief,  but  that  he  oonaidered 

Hindoo  acts  of  the  last  ten  years,  in-  we  were  quite  up  to  sndi  a  dodge." 

eluding  Gaol-Messing,  the  General-  — MS,  Correspondence, 
Service  Oath,  ftc.,  and  did  not  con- 


THE  OUTBREAK  AT  MEERUT.  595 

Grant  and  Mr.  Peacock  placed  on  record  their  opi-  May,  1867. 
nions,  that  it  might  be  better  to  wait  for  fuller  in- 
formation before  issuing  the  final  orders  of  Govern- 
ment. On  the  12th,  the  office-boxes  were  again 
passing  from  house  to  house;  but  with  the  papers 
then  circulated,  there  went  one,  small  in  size,  scanty 
in  words,  but,  although  perhaps  scarcely  appreciated 
at  the  time,  of  tremendous  significance.  "  It  is  to 
be  hoped,"  wrote  Mr.  Dorin,  "that  the  news  from 
Meerut  (in  the  telegraphic  message  from  Agra  in  this 
box)  is  not  true."  But  it  was  true ;  yet,  with  all  its 
terrors,  only  a  small  part  of  the  truth. 

The  little  paper,  then,  on  that  1 2th  of  May,  tra-  The  outbreak 
veiling  from  house  to  house  in  the  office-box,  wa8  5j^^^™35y 
a  telegraphic  message  from  Lieutenant-Governor 
Colvin,  announcing  to  Lord  Canning  that  the  great 
military  station  of  Meerut  was  in  a  blaze,  that  the 
Cavalry  had  risen  in  a  body,  and  that  every  Euro- 
pean they  had  met  had  been  slain  by  the  insurgents. 
There  was  something  terribly  significant  in  the  very 
form  of  this  message.  The  Government  at  Agra  had 
received  no  official  tidings  of  the  events  that  had  oc- 
curred at  Meerut.  But  a  lady  at  the  former  place, 
who  had  been  about  to  pay  a  visit  to  her  friends  at 
Meerut,  had  received  a  message  from  her  niece,  who 
was  sister  of  the  postmaster  there,  warning  her  not 
to  attempt  the  journey,  as  the  Cavalry  had  risen.* 

*  The  fc^owing  were  the  words  find  near  the  Lines.  If  aont  intends 

of  the  message:  "Mm^W,  1867.—  starting  to-morrow  evening,  please 

Last  night,  St  nine  o  cloek,  a  tele-  detain  ner  from  doing  so,  as  the  van 

graph  message  was  received  here  by  has  been  prevented  from  leaving  the 

a  lady  from  her  nieoe,  sister  of  the  station.'    No  later  message  has  oeen 

postmaster  at  Meent,  to  the  follow-  received,  and  the  communication  by 

ing  effect :  '  The  Ctvalrj  have  risen,  telegram  has  been  interrupted ;  how, 

setting  fire  to  their  own  booses  and  not  Known.    Any  intelligence  which 

several  officers'  houses^  besides  hav«  may  reach  will  be  sent  on  imme- 

ing  killed  and  wounded  all  Euro-  diately." — Publitked  Corm^fmdenee, 

pcan  officers  and  soldinrs  they  could  Parliameniary  Paper9, 

2q2 


596  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

Mat,  1857.  This  was  the  last  message  despatched.     Before  the 
authorities  could  send  intelligence  of  what  had  hap- 
pened, the  telegraph-wires  were  cut  by  the  insur- 
gents. 
Thcwcckof       The  news,  therefore,   which  now  reached  Agra, 

c  t^rwBOB.      ^^^  ^^  thence  communicated  to  Calcutta,  was  of  a 

vague,  fragmentary  character.  Scattered  facts  welled 
up  from  uncertain  sources,  and  were  passed  on  from 
one  station  to  another,  suggestive  rather  than  expres- 
sive, always  indicating  something  more  terrible  in  the 
background  than  the  truth  actually  revealed.  Not 
till  some  time  afterwards  was  the  whole  truth  appa- 
rent to  the  Governor-General,  and  therefore  not 
now  do  I  fill  up  the  outlines  of  the  story.  The 
week  that  followed  the  12th  of  May  was  a  week  of 
telegrams.  The  electric  wires  were  continually  flash- 
ing pregnant  messages  from  North  to  South,  and  from 
South  to  North.  That  the  Sepoys  at  Meerut  had 
risen,  was  certain  from  the  first.  Then  news  came 
that  they  held  some  part  of  the  road  between  Meerut 
and  Delhi.  Then,  little  by  little,  it  transpired  that 
the  Meerut  mutineers  had  made  their  way  in  a  body 
to  the  Imperial  City,  and  that  the  Delhi  regiments 
had  fraternised  with  them.  A  message  from  Agra, 
despatched  on  the  14th,  stated,  on  the  authority  of  a 
letter  from  the  King  of  Delhi,  that  the  town  and  fort 
and  his  OAvn  person  were  in  possession  of  the  insur- 
gents; and  it  was  added  that  Fraser,  the  Conmus- 
sioner,  and  many  other  English  gentlemen  and  ladies, 
had  been  murdered.  Then,  at  last,  it  became  appa- 
rent that  the  King  himself  had  cast  in  his  lot  with 
the  insurgents,  that  the  rebel  standard  had  been 
hoisted  in  the  palace  of  the  Mogul,  that  Englishmen 
and  Englishwomen  had  been  ruthlessly  massacred  in 
the  streets  of  the  city,  and  that  the  mutiny  of  a  few 


THE  SEIZURE  OF  DELHI.  597 

regiments,  by  thus  concentring  at  Delhi,  was  begin-  May,  1857. 
ning  to  simulate  a  national  rebellion. 

Never  since,  a  century  before,  the  foundation  of  our 
great  Indian  Empire  had  been  laid  by  the  conquest  of 
Bengal,  had  such  tidings  as  these  been  brought  to 
the  council-chamber  of  the  English  ruler.  The  little 
cloud  no  bigger  than  a  man's  hand,  which  had  risen 
in  the  first  month  of  the  new  year,  and  had  been 
growing  in  its  density  and  darkness  until  it  had  over- 
shadowed the  heavens,  was  now  discharging  its  tem- 
pestuous terrors  upon  us.  There  was  little  before 
the  eyes  of  Lord  Canning  but  the  one  naked  fact  of 
the  junction  of  the  Meerut  and  Delhi  troops,  and  the 
proclamation  of  the  restored  empire  of  the  Mogul. 
With  a  feeling  of  wondering  anxiety  he  awaited, 
all  through  that  terrible  week  in  May,  the  details 
which  seemed  as  though  they  would  never  come,  and 
the  explanations  of  all  that  seemed  so  inexplicable  to 
him.  Most  of  all,  he  marvelled  what  our  people  had 
been  doing,  or  not  doing  in  this  conjuncture,  that 
such  a  post  as  Delhi,  scarcely  equalled  in  military, 
wholly  unequalled  in  political  importance,  should  thus 
in  an  hour  have  been  wrested  from  their  grasp.  It 
seemed  incredible  that  with  a  regiment  of  British 
Cavalry  at  Meerut,  and  the  largest  body  of  Artillery 
in  the  country  gathered  there  at  its  head-quarters, 
such  a  catastrophe  as  this  should  have  occurred.  Was 
there  no  one,  he  asked,  to  do  with  the  Carabineers 
and  the  Horse  Artillery  what  Gillespie,  half  a  century 
before  had  done,  with  his  Dragoons  and  galloper- 
guns  ?  But  if  such  were  the  result  in  places  where 
our  English  officers  had  Cavalry  and  Artillery  to  aid 
them,  how  would  it  fare  with  them  at  stations  where 
no  such  help  was  to  be  had?  There  was  no  hope 
now  that  the  conflagratian  would  sot  qpretd  frc^ 


598  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

May,  1857.  Cantonment  to  cantonment ;  no  hope  now  that  the 

whole  country  would  not  soon  be  in  a  blaze. 
Measures  of       So  Canning  arose,  and  with  his  still,   calm  face, 
ning.  confronted  the  dire  calamity.     A  braver  heart  than 

his  never  beat  in  a  human  breast.     Happy  was  it  for 
the  nation  that  in  him,  to  whom  its  honour  was  con- 
fided in  that  conjuncture,  there  was  a  resolute  man- 
liood  of  the  finest,  most  enduring  temper.     Many 
thoughts  pressed  upon  him,  but  dominant  over  iJl 
was  a  strong  sense  of  the  paramount  duty  of  main- 
taining before  all  men  a  serene  aspect  and  a  confident 
demeanour.      There  was  great  work   to   be   done, 
nothing  less  than  the  salvation  of  an  empire ;  and 
with  a  solemn  sense  of  his  responsibility,  he  girded 
himself  up  for  the  conflict,  knowing  in  how  great 
a  measure  the  deliverance  of  his  countrymen  de- 
pended, under  God's  good  providence,   upon  their 
faith  in  his  constancy  and  courage.     He  saw  clearly 
that  there  was  a  tremendous  danger,  and  he  knew 
that  the  resources  immediately  at  his  command  were 
wholly  insufficient  to  enable  him  to  cope  with  it; 
but  even  those  who  were  nearest  to  his  person  never 
saw  him  quail  for  a  moment,  as  he  calculated  the 
means  and  appliances  of  defence  that  could  at  once 
be  brought  into  action,  and  those  which  might  be 
summoned  from  a  distance. 

It  was  no  time  for  lamentation ;  else  he  might  have 
lamented  that  India,  by  a  series  of  adverse  circum- 
stances, had  been  so  stripped  of  European  troops  that 
now  the  whole  country,  with  the  exception  of  the 
frontier  province  of  the  Punjab,  was  Ijdng  naked  and 
defenceless,  without  means  of  raising  any  barriers  erf 
resistance  against  the  flood  of  rebellion  that  was 
pouring  over  Hindostan.  He  had  lifted  up  his  voice 
against  the  system,  which  placed  it  in   the  power 


SOURCES  OF  CONSOLATION. 


599 


of  England,  by  giving  to  India  either  too  much  May,  1857. 
or  too  little  of  its  manhood,  to  sacrifice  the  interests 
of  the  dependency.*  He  had  resisted,  only  a  little 
time  before,  an  attempt  to  carry  off  some  of  the  few 
English  regiments  at  his  disposal,  to  take  a  part  in 
certain  military  operations  against  the  Government 
of  China,  with  which  India  had  no  concern.  It  had 
cost  him  much  to  send  so  many  regiments  to  Persia ; 
but  that  was  a  call  to  which  he  had  been  bound  to 
respond,  and  happily  now  the  emergency  was  past 
All  that  he  had  said  by  way  of  warning  had  been 
more  than  verified  by  the  event ;  but  it  was  a  time 
for  looking  forward,  not  for  looking  back,  so  he 
began  to  reckon  up  his  available  succours,  and  forth- 
with to  summon  them  to  the  capital. 

In  the  midst  of  all  his  tribulation  there  were  some 
sources  of  unspeakable  comfort.  Whilst  the  clouds 
were  thickening  above  him,  before  the  great  out- 
burst, he  had  learnt  with  joy  and  gratitude  that  the 
war  with  Persia  had  been  brought  to  a  close.  Outram 
had  done  his  work  rapidly  and  well.  I  cannot  now 
pause  to  speak  of  his  successes.  What  he  did  on  the 
shores  of  the  Persian  Gulf  must  be  narrated  in  an- 
other place.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  Persia,  alarmed 
by  our  demonstrations  on  the  coast^  and  anticipating 
an  advance  into  the  interior  of  the  country,  thought 
that  negotiation  was  better  than  war,  acceded  to  our 
demands,  and  concluded,  at  Paris,  a  treaty  with  the 
British  Government.    The  expedition  which  had  gone 


•  "The  interests  of  India,"  he 
wrote  on  April  22nd, "  do  not  always 
make  themself  es  heard  in  England, 
when  other  imoortant  matters  are 
uppermost;  ana  I  am  opposed  to 
putting  into  the  bands  of  the  Go- 
vernment at  home  an  increased 
power  to  dinunish  our  main  strength 


here  for  the  purpose  of  meetin||f 
exigencies  elsewhere.  Such  a  dimi- 
nution was  made  in  1854  by  with- 
holding  two  refpments  which  have 
not  yet  been  given,  although  six 
regiments  have  been  sent  out  of 
liSlia  to  Persia."— if^.  Correspond* 
enee  of  Lord  Canning, 


600  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

May,  1857.  forth  from  Bombay,  was,  therefore,  returning  to  that 
Presidency;    and  a  word  from  the  Govemor-Grene- 
ral  would  summon  it,  as  fast  as  steam  could  bring 
it,  to  his  aid.      This  was  his  first  thought,  when 
the  seizure  of  Delhi  confirmed  aU  his  worst  appre- 
hensions  of  the  perilous  want  of  European  troops. 
Then,  from  these  Persian  succours,  he  turned  with  joy 
and  gratitude  not  less  profound,  to  the  thought  that 
English   troops  were  speeding  to  China;  that  the 
arrogance  and  insolence  of  the  Chinese  Government 
having  provoked  our  chastisement,  an  expedition  had 
been  fitted  out  under  the  conduct  of  a  civil  and  a 
military  chief,  and  was  then,  perhaps,  at  the  very 
point  of  its  journey  at  which  it  might  most  readily 
be  wrested  from  its  original  purpose,  and  diverted 
into  another  and  more  necessitous  channel.      Rightly 
taking  the  measure  of  the  two  exigencies,  and  never 
doubting  for  a  moment  what  the  great  interests  of 
the  nation  demanded  in  that  conjuncture,  he  pre- 
sently determined  to  call  these  troops  to  his  aid.   The 
chastisement  of  China  could  wait;  the  salvation  of 
India  could  not  ;*  and  so  he  resolved,  even  at  the 
risk  of  frustrating  the  cherished  designs  of  the  Gro- 
vemment  in  England,  to  call  upon  Elgin  and  Ash- 
burnham  to  suspend  their  operations,  and  to  send 
him  the  present  help  that  he  so  much  needed.     It 

*  I  did  not  think,  when  I  wrote  stopped  at    Singapore.      Yeh  naT 

these  words,  that  I  had  done  more  wait ;  but  Bengal,  with  its  atreta 

than  express  the  natural  feeling  in  of  seven  hundred    and   fiftj  miln 

Lord  Canning's  breast  at  that  time ;  from  Barrackpore  to  Agra,  guarded 

but  I  have  since  found  that  he  gave  by  nothing^  but  the   lOth  Queen's, 

utterance  almost  to  the  very  words :  cannot  wait,  if    the    flame  ahouki 

*'  I  have  sent  ano£5cer,"  he  wrote  to  spread.    And  who  shall-  say  that  it 

the  Commander-in-Chief,  "  to  Galle  will  not  P    No  precaution  against 

by  the  mail  to  meet  Ashbumham,  such    a   contingency    can    be    too 

and  I  hope  Elgin,  with  an  earnest  re-  great."— if^.  (hrrespomdemce  ofhari 

quest  for  the  first  use  of  the  ren-  ijamdng. 
meuts  bound  to  China,  if  they  can  be 


THE  CALL  FOR  SUCCOURS.  601 

was  a  great  responsibility,  but  he  took  it  without  a  May,  1857. 
moment's  hesitation  on  himself;  and  he  thanked 
God,  from  the  very  depths  of  his  heart,  that  by  a 
providential  dispensation  this  succour,  in  the  very 
crisis  of  his  necessities,  had  been  placed  within  his 
reach. 

There  were  thus,  in  the  peculiar  circumstances  of 
the  moment,  some  sources  of  consolation,  some  good 
promise  of  relief  over  and  above  that  which  was  to 
be  sought  in  the  normal  condition  of  the  empire 
under  his  charge.  But  it  would  take  time  to  gather 
up  the  strength  of  these  Persian  and  Chinese  expe- 
ditions, and  there  were  some  available  European 
troops  more  nearly  at  hand.  It  was  another  happy 
accident  that  at  this  time  the  Eighty-fourth  Regiment, 
which  had  been  sunmioned  from  Pegu  in  March,  was 
still  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Calcutta.  The  long- 
delayed  disbandment  of  the  guilty  companies  of  the 
Thirty-fourth  had  not  been  carried  into  eflfect  before 
the  6th  of  May;  and  the  regiment  had  been  de- 
tained until  after  the  execution  of  the  sentence.  It 
seemed  then  that  there  was  no  further  necessity  for 
its  presence  in  Bengal,  but  the  arrangements  for  its 
return  to  Pegu  were  still  incomplete,  when  the  disas- 
trous tidings  from  Upper  India  came  to  dissipate  all 
thought  of  its  departure.  From  the  quarter  whence 
it  l)ad  come  another  English  regiment  might  be 
drawn.  The  Thirty-fifth  was  stationed  partly  at 
Rangoon,  partly  at  Moulmein ;  and  a  steamer  was  de- 
spatched to  gather  up  the  detachments  and  to  bring 
them  with  all  speed  to  Calcutta.  At  the  same  time, 
the  telegraph  carried  to  Madras  a  requisition  to  hold 
the  Forty-tliird  Foot  and  the  Madras  Fusiliers  ready 
for  immediate  embarkation ;  and  a  trusted  officer 
was  sent  on  board  the  mail-steamer  to  Ceylon,  with 


602  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTIKT. 

May,  1857.  an  urgent  request  to  the  Governor  to  send  him  all 
the  European  troops  he  could  spare. 

Whilst  thus  every  effort  was  strained  to  bring  Eu- 
ropean troops  from  the  southern  and  eastern  coasts, 
the  Govemor-Greneral  was  intent  also  on  the  organisa- 
tion of  measures  for  the  concentration  of  the  strength 
Bkeadj  at  his  disposal  upon  the  points  most  exposed 
to  danger.     With  this  object,  every  available  river- 
steamer  was  taken  up  for  the  conveyance  of  troops 
to  the  Upper  Provinces,  and  the  quicker  but  more 
limited  means  of  locomotion  afforded  by  wheeled  car- 
riages was  resorted  to  for  the  conveyance  of  small 
detachments  into  the  interior.     But  it  was  not,  in 
the  crisis  of  this  first  peril,  from  the  South,  but  from 
the  North,  that  the  stream  of  conquest  was  to  be 
poured  down  upon   the  great  centre  of  rebellion. 
It  was  not  to  be  doubted  that  General  Anson,  whom 
the  news  of  the  rising  at  Meerut  and  the  seizure  of 
Delhi  must  have  reached  at   Simlah  as  soon  as  it 
reached  Lord  Canning  at  Calcutta,  was  doing  all  that 
could  be  done  to  despatch  troops  to  the  seat  of  the 
revolt.     The  telegraph,  therefore,  expressed  only  the 
confidence  of  Government  that  the  Commander-in- 
Chief  was  bringing  dovm  to  the  plains  the  European 
regiments  on  the  hills.     But  the  main  reliance  of  the 
Governor-General  in  this  extremity  was   upon  the 
military  resources  of  the  Punjab.     Though   all  the 
rest  of  the  empire  was  denuded  of  European  troops, 
there  was  no  lack  of  this  material  strength  in  the 
great  frontier  province  conquered  from  the   Sikhs. 
Moreover,  it  was  believed  that  the  Sikhs  themselves 
would  be  eager  to  follow  their  English  commanders 
to  the  siege  and  pillage  of  the  renowned  city  of  the 
Moguls.     So,  whilst  a  message  went  to  Kurrachee,  in 
Scinde,  directing  the  Commissioner  to  send  an  Eng- 
lish regiment  to  the  Punjab  to  replace  any  that  it 


MEASURES  OF  DEFENCE. 


603 


might  be  found  necessary  to  despatch  from  that  pro-  May,  1857. 
vince  to  the  Lower  Provinces,  another  went  to  Mr. 
Colvin,  at  Agra,  saying,  "  Send  word  as  quickly  as 
possible  to  Sir  John  Lawrence  that  he  is  to  send 
down  such  of  the  Punjab  regiments  and  European 
regiments  as  he  can  safely  spare.  Every  exertion 
must  be  made  to  regain  Delhi.  Every  hour  is  of 
importance.  General  Hewitt  has  been  ordered  to 
press  this  on  the  Commander-in-Chief  If  you  find 
it  necessary,  you  may  apply,  in  the  Governor-Gene- 
ral's name,  to  the  Rajah  of  Pateeala  and  the  Rajah 
of  Jheend  for  troops."  And  he  added,  with  that 
union  of  kindliness  and  sagacity  which  made  him  at 
all  times  liberal  of  his  encouragement  to  his  Lieute- 
nants, "  I  thank  you  sincerely  for  what  you  have  so 
admirably  done,  and  for  your  stout  heart."*  The 
praise,  too,  was  well  deserved.  Colvin,  at  that  time, 
had  done  all  that  could  be  done  to  help  others  at  a 
distance,  and  to  maintain  the  confidence  of  those 
around  him,  and  he  had  strenuously  exerted  himself 
to  forward  to  the  Governor-General,  by  telegraph 
and  by  letter,  all  the  tidings  that  had  made  their  way 
to  Agra.f  "  I  have  fairly  taken  upon  myself,"  he 
wrote  to  Lord  Canning  on  the  15th  of  May,  "  the 
position  of  Commander-in-Chief  here.  The  ar- 
rangements are  now  on  the  point  of  completion,  and 
our  position  may  be  regarded  as  safe.  There  has 
been  a  thorough  co-operation  and  the  most  excellent 


*  In  a  letter  to  Mr.  Vernon  Smith 
of  abont  the  same  date,  Lord  Can- 
ning says  :  **  Sonth  of  Delhi,  Colvin 
at  Agra  is  engaged  in  keeping  the 
roads  quiets  oollecting  troops  from 
Gwalior  (Sdndiah  has  come  forward 
loyally),  and  encouraging  his  own 
natife  garrison  to  fldelity.  He  is 
conBdent  of  keeping  them  straight, 
and  he  deserves  to  succeed.  Uis 
courage  and  judgment  arc  beyond 


praise." — MS.  CorretpondeMee  ofLord 
Cannina* 

t  The  importance  of  this  service, 
at  a  time  when  communication  both 
by  Post  and  Telegraph  was  so  greatly 
interrupted,  can  naraly  be  over-esti- 
mated. The  Commander-in-Chiefs 
letters  of  the  14th  and  16th  of  May 
did  not  reach  Calcutta  before  the 
7th  of  June. 


604  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTIXY. 

May,  1857.  spirit  amongst  us,  Scindiah  and  Bhurtpore  will  be 
heartily  with  us  against  the  new  dynasty  of  the 
House  of  Timour.  I  shall  rouse  the  Rajpoot  States 
to  arrest  the  flight  of  the  mutineers  westward,  when 
they  are  driven  out  of  Delhi.  The  horrible  murders, 
you  will  see,  have  been  chiefly  by  Mahomedan 
troopers  of  the  Third  Cavalry.  There  must  be  a  fit 
and  fearful  expiation  for  such  atrocities." 

But  for  this  fit  and  fearful  expiation  Lord  Canning 
knew  too  well  that  the  time  had  not  yet  come.     The 
struggle  now  was  for  bare  life.     For  this   he  had 
done  all  that  could  be  done,  with  the  scanty  means 
at  his  own  disposal.     "The  two  points  to  which  I 
am  straining,"  he  wrote  to  the  Indian  Minister  at 
home,   "  are  the  hastening  of  the  expulsion  of  the 
rebels  from  Delhi,  and  the  collection  of  Europeans 
here  to  be  pushed  up  the  country."     But  not  a  day 
was  to  be  lost  iu  summoning  that  ulterior  aid,  by 
which  not  only  was  the  safety  of  the  empire  to  be 
secured,  but  the  honour  of  the  nation  vindicated  by 
the  infliction  of  just  retribution  upon  our  enemies. 
The  succours  from  Bombay  he  was  sure  to  obtain ; 
and  there  was  something  exhilarating  in  the  thought^ 
at  a  time  when  India  had  need  of  all  her  heroes,  that 
Outram   would   come   with   them.      How    dififerent 
would  it  have  been  if  those  regiments  had  been  still 
Arrest  of  the  engaged  in  the  Persian  Gulf  1     But  he  could  not  cal- 
Cbma  expedi-  ^^late  with  the  Same  amount  of  certainty  upon  the 
succours  from  the  Eastern   seas;   he  could  not  be 
certain  that  Lord  Elgin  would  respond  to  his  appeaL 
All  that  he  could  do  was  to  throw  the  whole  earnest- 
ness of  his  nature  into  that  appeal,  and  to  take  upon 
himself  the  full  responsibility  of  the  diversion.     So 
he  wrote  oflicially,  as  the  Governor-General  of  India, 
to  Lord  Elgin,  and  he  wrote  privately  to  him  as  an 


ARREST  OP  TUE  CHINA  EXPEDITION.  605 

old  companion  and  friend.  In  the  public  letter,  after  M«y,  1857. 
setting  forth  in  emphatic  language  the  dangers  by 
which  our  empire  in  India  was  surrounded,  he  con- 
tinued :  "  I  place  the  matter  briefly  before  your  Lord- 
ship; but  I  hope  clearly  enough  to  enable  you  to 
come  to  a  ready  decision.  I  will  add,  that  I  am 
anxious  to  bear  the  whole  responsibility  of  all  the 
consequences  of  turning  aside  the  troops  from  China 
to  India.  But  I  beg  your  Lordship  to  believe  that, 
in  saying  this,  I  am  not  influenced  by  any  thought 
that  whatever  may  be  the  course  for  which  your 
Lordship's  wise  judgment  shall  decide,  you  will  need 
any  help  from  me  in  vindicating  it  to  her  Majesty's 
Government." 

More  earnest  and  emphatic  still  was  his  private  May  19, 1857. 
letter;  not  a  word  of  it  should  be  omitted:  "My 
dear  Elgin, — I  wish  I  could  give  you  a  more  cheerful 
and  acceptable  greeting  than  you  will  find  in  the 
letter  by  which  this  is  accompanied.  As  it  is,  you 
will  not  bless  me  for  it,  but  the  case  which  I  have 
before  me  here  is  clear  and  strong.  Our  hold  of 
Bengal  and  the  Upper  Provinces  depends  upon  the 
turn  of  a  word— a  look.  An  indiscreet  act  or  irri- 
tating  phrase  from  a  foolish  commanding  officer  at 
the  head  of  a  mutinous  or  disaffected  company, 
may,  whilst  the  present  condition  of  things  at  Delhi 
lasts,  lead  to  a  general  rising  of  the  Native  troops  in 
the  Lower  Provinces,  where  we  have  no  European 
strength,  and  where  an  army  in  rebellion  would  have 
everything  its  own  way  for  weeks  and  months  to 
come.  We  have  seen  within  the  last  few  days  what 
that  way  would  be.  I  cannot  shut  my  eyes  to  the 
danger,  or  to  the  urgent  necessity  under  which  I  lie, 
to  collect  every  European  that  can  carry  arms  and 
aid  to  the  Government  of  India  in  the  event  of  such 


606  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

May,  1867.  a  crisis.  I  do  not  want  aid  to  put  down  the  Meerut 
and  Delhi  rebels ;  that  will  be  done  easily,  as  soon  as 
the  European  troops  can  converge  upon  Delhi,  but 
not  sooner.  Meanwhile,  every  hour  of  delay — im- 
avoidable  delay — ^is  an  encouragement  to  the  dis- 
affected troops  in  other  parts ;  and  if  any  one  of  the 
unwatched  regiments  on  this  side  of  Agra  should 
take  heart  and  give  the  word,  there  is  not  a  fort,  or 
cantonment,  or  station  in  the  plains  of  the  Ganges 
that  would  not  be  in  their  hands  in  a  fortnight.  It 
would  be  exactly  the  same  in  Oude.  No  help  that 
you  could  give  me  would  make  us  safe  against  this, 
because  it  cannot  arrive  in  time.  The  critical  mo- 
ments are  now,  and  for  the  next  ten  or  twelve  days  to 
come.  If  we  pass  through  them  without  a  spread  of 
the  outbreak,  I  believe  all  will  go  well.  If  we  do  not, 
the  consequences  will  be  so  frightful,  that  any  neglect 
to  obtain  any  possible  accession  of  strength  whereby 
to  shorten  the  duration  of  the  reign  of  terror  which 
will  ensue,  would  be  a  crime.  If  you  send  me  troops, 
they  shall  not  be  kept  one  hour  longer  than  is  abso- 

MS  Corre-    ^^^^Y  i^^eded.     If  you  come  with  them  yourself,  you 

spondenoe.     shall  be  most  heartUy  welcome." 

With  this  letter  went  another  to  General  Ashbum- 
ham,  who  commanded  the  troops  of  the  China  expe- 
dition ;  and  the  steamer,  which  carried  the  bearer  of 
these  important  missives  to  Galle,  bore  also  letters 
from  the  Governor-General  to  the  Chairman  of  the 
Court  of  Directors  and  the  President  of  the  Board 
of  Control,  calling  upon  them  immediately  to  send 
out  reinforcements  from  England.  "Now  let  me 
beg  your  attention  and  support,"  he  wrote  to  Mr. 
Mangles,  "to  a  proposal  which  goes  to  you  by  the 
mail  for  the  immediate  raising  of  three  European 
regiments  for  Bengal     No  sane  man  will  doubt  that 


MEASURES  OF  MORAL  FORCE.  607 

much  of  increase  to  our  European  force  is  wanted,  May,  1867. 
and  that  the  want  should  be  supplied  with  as  little 
delay  as  possible  is  obvious  from  the  present  expo- 
sure of  our  weak  points.  I  do  not  ask  for  an  aug- 
mentation to  the  established  number  of  Queen's 
troops,  because  for  permanent  purposes  I  much  prefer 
an  addition  to  the  Company's  Army;  and  for  the 
exigencies  of  the  moment  no  reinforcement,  except 
that  of  the  China  regiments,  would  avail.  But  I  do 
beg  that  you  will  move  the  Government  to  make  up 
the  complement  of  Queen's  troops,  irrespectively  of 
those  which  now  or  hereafter  may  come  to  us  from 
China.  Do  not  let  the  supply  of  the  missing  regi- 
ments depend  upon  the  turn  of  affairs  in  China,  but 
let  the  gap  be  filled  up  at  once."*  In  the  same 
strain  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Vernon  Smith,  looking  rather 
to  any  aid  that  might  be  sent  him  from  England,  as 
a  means  of  preventing  the  recurrence  of  like  disasters 
in  the  future,  than  of  combating  those  which  had 
already  arisen. 

Whilst  the  first  efforts  of  the  Governor-General  Moral  force 
were  thus  directed  towards  the  pressing  duty  of  ex-  *PP®*^' 
tinguishing,  by  sheer  animal  strength,  the  fires  that 
had  been  kindled  in  Upper  India,  he  was  endeavour- 
ing also  to  prevent  by  moral  means  the  flames  from 
spreading  to  parte  of  the  country  not  yet  in  a  blaze. 
It  was  plain  that  a  great  fear,  bom  of  a  terrible  mis- 
apprehension,  was  driving  the  soldiery  to  madness. 
Might  not  something,  then,  be  done — might  not  some 
authoritative  declaration  be  put  forth  by  Govern- 
ment, solemn  and  irresistible  in  ite  denials  of  the  im- 
puted treachery,  to  pacify  men's  minds,  and  to  cast 
out  from  them  the  foul  suspicions  which  were  turn- 
ing loyal  soldiers  into  rebels  and  murderers?     It 

*  Lord  Caimiiig  to  Mr.  Mangles,  May  19^  1857.— J^^.  Correipondenee. 


"'■  -  — 


608  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINT. 

Maj,  1S67.  was  true  that  they  had  been  told  this  before  by  the 
Governor-General,  by  the  Commander-in-Cliirf,  by 
Generals  of  Division,  and  Regimental  Commandants  ; 
but  these  appeals  had  been  of  local  character  and 
limited  influence,  and  it  was  thought  that  sonoiething 
might  yet  be  done   by  a  general  Proclamation  ad- 
dressed to  the  whole  Army,  and  distributed  through- 
out the  country.     It  was  not  doubted,  that  whatso- 
ever might  have  been  the  external  agencies  employed 
to  keep  alive  this  perilous  excitement,  there  was  at 
the  bottom  of  it^  in  the  breasts  of  the  Sepoys,  a 
deeply-rooted  fear  for  the  sanctity  of  their  religion 
and  the  purity  of  their  caste.     If  they  could  once  be 
persuaded  to  believe  that  the  British   Government 
had  never  meditated  any  injury  or  offence  to  the  re- 
ligious or  social  prejudices  of  the  people,  there  might 
be  a  return  to  quietude  and  to  reason.     It  was  wise, 
at  least,  to  make  one  more  trial.     So  a  Proclamation 
was  issued,  setting  forth  that  the  Govemor-Greneral 
knew  that  endeavours  had  been  made  to  persuade 
Hindoos  and  Mussulmans,  both  soldiers  and  civil  sub- 
jects, that  their  religion  was  openly  as  well  as  secretly 
threatened  by  acts  of  the  Government,  who  were  be- 
lieved to  be  seeking  by  various  ways  to  entrap  them 
into  loss  of  caste  for  purposes  of  their  own  ;  but  that 
they  had  never  yet  deceived  their  subjects,  and  they 
now,  therefore,  called  upon  all  men  to  refuse  their 
belief  to  the  seditious  lies  of  designing  traitors^  who 
were  leading  good  men  to  their  ruin.     Translated 
into  the  vernacular,  this  Proclamation  was  sent  to 
the  military  authorities  to  be  distributed  among  the 
soldiery  in  all  parts  of  the  country,  whilst  the  words 
of  it  were  telegraphed  to  the  Lieutenant-Governor  at 
Agra,  with  emphatic  instructions  to  "  disseminate  it 
in  every  town,  village,  bazaar,  and  serai."     "  It  is 


REWARDS  AND  PUNISHMENTS.  609 

for  the  people  as  well  as  for  the  troops."    It  was  yet  May,  1857. 
hoped  that  it  might  bear  the  good  fruit  of  a  return 
to  order  and  tranquillity.* 

At  the  same  time,  it  appeared  to  the  Governor- 
General  to  be  in  the  highest  degree  important  to  arm 
the  miUtary  authorities  with  new  powers  both  for  the 
prompt  reward  of  good  and  loyal  soldiers,  and  the 
prompt  punishment  of  mutineers.     The  first  might 
be  done  by  a  simple  order  of  the  Government.     The 
latter  required  the  interposition  of  the  Legislature. 
So  an  act  was  passed  to  facilitate  the  trial  and  punish-    Maj  16. 
ment  of  ofi^ences  against  the  articles  of  war  for  the 
Native  Army,  by  which  commanding  officers  of  Divi- 
sions, Brig^es,  and  Stations,  were  authorised  to  as- 
semble  general  and  other  Courts-martial,  and  to  pro- 
ceed to  carry  sentence  into  efiect  without  reference 
to  Head-Quarters.     In  such   an  emergency  as  had 
then  arisen,  Centralisation  could  not  stand  its  ground. 
So  whilst  increased  power  was  thus  given  to  com- 
manding   officers    to    overawe   rebellion,    increased 
power  to  encourage  loyalty  and  good  conduct  was 
delegated  to  them  and  to  certain  high  civil  and  poli- 
tical functionaries.     They  were  empowered  to  pro- 
mote Native  soldiers  and  non-commissioned  officers 
on  the  scene  of  their  good  deeds,  and  to  confer  upon 

*  It  has  been  often  said  that  this  the  mutiny  in  the  Madras  Army.  It 

Proclamation,  which  will  be  found  is,  however,  very  doubtful  whether 

in  the  Appendix,  ought  to  have  been  such  manifesto^!   have  any  effect 

issued  at  an  earlier  period.    Ck)lonel  upon  the  Native  mind,  when  once 

Birch  advised  the  Governor-General,  any  popular  belief  of  the  intentions 

when  the  excited  state  of  the  Native  of  Government  has  taken  fast  hold 

soldiery  first  became  apparent,  to  of  it.   I  have  already  observed,  that 

issue  a  proclamation  or  this  kind,  those  who   entertain  a  conviction 

and  Lord  Canning  afterwards  frankly  that  the  Government  have  formed  a 

expressed  his  regret  that  he  had  not  deliberate  design  to  trick  the  people 

taken  the  advice  of  his  military  se-  out  of  their  religion,  are  not  liicely  to 

cretary.    On  turning  back  to  page  find  any  diffieiutjr  in  believing  that 

843,  the  reader  will  perceive  that  a  the  issue  of  a  lying  proclamation  is 

similar  delay  in  issuing  a  sedative  a  part  of  the  plot, 
proclamation  ocoorred  in  1806,  after 

2b 


610  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

May,  1867.  them  the  "  Order  of  Merit,"*  "  in  order  that  the  re- 
ward for  eminent  gallantry,  loyalty,  and  good  con- 
duct might  be  prompt,  and  might  be  conferred  on 
the  soldier  in  the  sight  of  his  comrades."     But  no 
General        proclamations  and  general  orders — ^nothing  that  the 
Order,  Legislature  could  decree  or  the  Executive  Grovem- 

ment  publish — ^no  words  that  men  could  utter,  in 
that  extremity,  could  avail  to  arrest  the  fury  of  the 
storm  that  was  bursting  over  their  head.  It  was  too 
late  for  words,  for  none  would  hear.  It  was  left  to 
the  English  only  to  strike. 

Thus  Canning  did  all  that  could  be  done,  and 
waited  for  the  issue — waited,  fearfully  and  hopefully, 
for  tidings  of  new  disasters  in  one  direction,  and  of 
coming  succours  from  another.  As  he  thus  waited 
and  watched,  and  pondered  new  details  of  the  great 
rising,  which  every  day  added  something  to  the 
clearness  and  completeness  of  the  story,  there  were 
times  when  he  felt  in  his  inmost  heart  that  there 
were  no  better  resources  than  a  few  brave  hearts 
and  a  few  strong  heads  upon  whose  courage  and 
coolness  he  could  rely.  It  must  be  said,  sorrowfully, 
and  I  would  fain  not  say  it,  but  History  admits  of  no 
such  reservations,  that  Lord  Canning  felt  bitterly 
that,  with  some  few  honourable  exceptions,  the  Eng- 
lish officers  at  the  Presidency  were  not  giving  him 
the  moral  support  which,  in  such  a  crisis,  would  have 
been  so  grateful  and  refreshing  to  him,  and  for  which 
truly  he  had  a  right  to  look.  It  is  impossible  to 
describe  his  mortification.  Where  he  had  hoped  to 
see  strength  he  saw  only  weakness.  Men  whom  he 
thought  to  see  sustaining  and  encouraging  others  by 

*  Authority  in  this  latter  respect  Western  Proyinces,  and  to  the  Chief 
was  confined  to  the  Lieutenant-  Gommisaioners  in  Oade  and  the 
Governor  of  Bengal  and  the  North-    Punjab. 


DANGEROUS  ALARMISTS.  611 

their  own  resolute  bearing  and  their  cheerfulness  of  May,  1867- 
speech,  went  about  from  place  to  place  infecting  their 
friends  with  their  own  despondency,  and  chilling  the 
hearts  which  they  should  have  warmed  by  their  ex- 
ample.    Such  a  spectacle  as  this  was  even  more 
painful  than  the  tidings  of  disaster  and  death  which 
came  huddling  in  from  all  parts  of  the  country. 
No  one  knew  better,  and  no  one  more  freely  acknow- 
ledged that  the  men  of  whom  he  complained  were 
"  brave  enough  with  swords  by  their  sides."    They 
would  have  faced  death  for  their  country's  good  with 
the  courage  of  heroes  and  the  constancy  of  martyrs ; 
but  strong  as  they  would  have  been  in  deeds,  they 
were  weak  in  words,  and  they  went  about  as  pro- 
phets of    evil,   giving  free  utterance  to  all  their 
gloomiest  anticipations,  and  thus  spreading  through 
all  the  strata  of  English  society  at  the  capital  the 
alarm  which  a  more  confident  demeanour  in  the 
upper  places  might  have  arrested.     And  so  strong 
was  Lord  Canning's  sense  of  the  evil  that  had  arisen, 
and  that  might  arise  from  this  want  of  reserve,  that 
he  wrote  specially  to  the  authorities  in  England  to 
receive  with  caution  the  stories  that  were  likely  to  be 
sent  home  in  the  private  letters  which  the  mail  was 
about  to  carry  from  Calcutta. 

But  the  shame  with  which  he  beheld  the  failure  of  Hams  and 
some  of  his  countrymen  at  Calcutta,  made  him  turn  P*^^^"*- 
with  the  greater  pride  and  the  greater  confidence 
towards  those  who  were  nobly  seconding  his  efibrts 
from  a  distance.  The  Governors  of  Madras  and  of 
Bombay,  Harris  and  Elphinstone,  had  responded  to 
his  appeals,  and  without  any  selfish  thoughts  of  their 
own  wants,  any  heed  of  dangerous  contingencies  at 
home,  were  sending  him  the  succours  he  so  much 
needed;  and  he  was  profoundly  grateful  for  their 

2r2 


rtnccs. 


612  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

Maj,  1857.  aid.  The  promptitude  with  which  they  responded  to 
the  call  for  help  was  something  almost  marvellous. 
The  electric  telegraph  might  fail  us  in  some  parts,  but 
in  others  it  did  its  work  well.  On  the  18th  of  May, 
Canning  knew  that  the  Madras  Fusiliers  were  already 
embarking,  and  had  thanked  Harris  by  telegraph  for 
his  "  great  expedition."  On  the  22nd  he  learnt  that 
the  first  instalment  of  the  troops  from  Persia  had 
reached  Bombay,  and  that  a  steamer  had  already 
started  for  Calcutta  with  a  wing  of  the  Sixty-foiuth 
Queen's.  The  fire-ship  was  doing  its  work  as  well  as 
the  lightning-post. 

The  Law-  But  although  there  was  to  the  Governor-General 

great  consolation  in  the  thought  that  he  would  lack 
no  material  or  moral  support  that  Harris  and  Elphin- 
stone  could  give  him,  it  was,  in  a  conjuncture  so  im- 
minent^ to  the  individual  characters  of  men  actually 
confronting  the  dangers  which  threatened  the  empire, 
that  he  looked  with  the  most  eager  anxiety.  And 
there  were  no  points  to  which  he  turned  his  eyes  with 
a  keener  interest  than  to  those  two  great  provinces, 
the  history  of  the  annexation  of  which  I  have  written 
in  the  early  part  of  this  book,  the  great  provinces  of 
the  Punjab  and  of  Oude.  It  was  from  Oude  that  so 
large  a  part  of  the  Bengal  Army  had  been  drawn ; 
it  was  in  Oude,  the  last  of  our  acquisitions,  that  the 
animosities  and  resentments  bom  of  the  great  revo- 
lution we  had  accomplished  were  festering  most 
freshly ;  it  was  in  Oude  that  we  had  to  contend 
with  the  reviving  energies  of  a  dynasty  scarcely  yet 
extinct,  and  ah  aristocracy  in  the  first  throes  of  its 
humiliation.  All  this  Lord  Canning  distinctly  saw. 
It  was  in  the  Punjab  that  all  external  dangers  were 
to  be  encountered ;  it  was  from  the  Punjab  that  Delhi 
was  to  be  recovered.     There  was  consolation  in  the 


THE  LAWRENCES.  613 

thought  that  only  a  few  months  before  the  good  May,  1857. 
offices  of  Dost  Mahomed  had  been  purchased  in  the 
manner  most  likely  to  secure  his  neutrality.  But 
death  might,  any  day,  remove  the  old  Ameer  from 
the  scene ;  there  would,  in  such  a  case,  be  interna^ 
convulsions,  out  of  which  would  probably  arise  an 
invasion  of  our  frontier  by  one  contending  faction 
or  another:  and,  therefore,  much  as  troops  were 
needed  below,  a  still  greater  danger  might  be  in- 
curred by  weakening  the  force  on  the  frontier.  In 
other  parts  of  the  country  there  might  be  merely  a 
military  mutiny;  but  in  Oude  and  the  Punjab  the 
Government  was  threatened  -with  the  horrors  of  a  po- 
pular rebellion,  and  the  embarrassments  of  a  foreign 
war. 

But  if  there  were  much  trouble  and  anxiety  in 
these  thoughts,  they  had  their  attendant  consolations. 
Let  what  might  happen  in  Oude  and  the  Punjab,  the 
Lawrences  were  there.  The  Governor-General  had 
abundant  faith  in  them  both  ;  faith  in  their  courage, 
their  constancy,  their  capacity  for  command ;  but, 
most  of  all,  he  trusted  them  because  they  coveted 
responsibility.  It  is  only  from  an  innate  sense  of 
strength  that  this  desire  proceeds ;  only  in  obedience 
to  the  unerring  voice  of  Nature  that  strong  men  press 
fo'nvard  to  grasp  what  weak  men  shrink  from  pos- 
sessing. Kno^ving  this,  when,  on  the  16th  of  May, 
Henry  Lawrence  telegraphed  to  the  Governor-Ge- 
neral, "  Give  me  plenary  military  power  in  Oude ; 
I  will  not  use  it  unnecessarily,"  not  a  moment  was 
lost  in  flashing  back  the  encouraging  answer,  "  You 
have  full  military  powers.  The  Governor-General 
will  support  you  in  everjrthing  that  you  think  ne- 
cessary." 

With  John  Lawrence  it  was  less  easy  to  comma- 


614  OUTBREAK  OF  THS  MUnNT. 

May,  1867.  nicate.  A  short  time  before  the  outbreak  of  the 
mutiny,  the  Chief  Commissioner  of  the  Punjab, 
whose  health  had  been  sorely  tried  by  incessant  woil, 
had  proposed  to  the  Governor-General  to  occupy  a 
.part  of  the  approaching  hot  weather  in  a  tour 
through  Cashmere,  but  Lord  Canning,  on  political 
grounds,  had  discouraged  the  proposal ;  for  Gholab 
Singh  lay  dying,  and  it  was  believed  that  such  a  visit 
to  the  dominions  of  the  Maharajah  would  be  asso- 
ciated in  men's  minds  with  some  ulterior  project  of 
their  annexation.  John  Lawrence,  therefore,  had 
happily  not  gone  to  Cashmere.  When  the  news  of 
the  outbreak  at  Meerut  reached  the  Punjab  he  was, 
on  his  way  to  the  Murree  Hills,  at  Rawul-Pindee ; 
and  thence,  having  first  telegraphed  to  them  both,  he 
wrote,  on  the  13th  of  May,  to  the  Governor-General 
and  the  Commander-in-Chief.  Nine  daj^s  afterwards 
Lord  Canning  received  the  missive  which  had  been 
addressed  to  him,  together  with  a  copy  of  the  Commis- 
sioner's earnest  appeal  to  Anson  to  be  up  and  doing. 
In  the  former,  Lawrence  urged  upon  the  Governor- 
General  the  expediency  of  raising  for  immediate  ser- 
vice a  large  body  of  Sikh  Irregulars.  "  Our  European 
force  in  India,"  he  wrote,  "is  so  small,  that  it  may 
gradually  be  worn  down  and  destroyed.  It  is  of  tjie 
highest  importance,  therefore,  that  we  should  increase 
our  Irregular  troops.  ...  In  the  event  of  an  emer- 
gency, I  should  like  to  have  power  to  raise  as  fer  as 
one  thousand  Horse ;  I  will  not  do  this  unless  abso- 
lutely necessary."  Five  days  before  this  letter  had 
reached  Calcutta,  Lord  Canning  had  telegraphed  his 
consent  to  the  proposal,  adding,  "  You  will  be  sup- 
ported in  every  measure  that  you  think  necessary  for 
safety."  He  was  unstinting  in  his  expressions  of 
confidence  to  those  who  deserved  it. 


SUGGESTIONS  AND  RECOMMENDATIONS. 


615 


Those  were  days  when  the  best  men  stood  upon  the  May,  1857, 
least  ceremony,  and  if  they  had  a  suggestion  to  offer 
to  Government^  offered  it  with  the  full  assurance 
that  they  were  doing  their  duty,  and  would  not  be 
charged  with  presumption.  So  General  Hearsey, 
when  he  learnt  the  news  that  had  come  from  Meerut 
and  Delhi,  had  written  to  the  Military  Secretary  to 
urge  the  Government  to  call  for  troops  from  Madras 
and  Bombay  and  the  Persian  Gulf,  and  to  arrest 
the  China  expedition.  So  Henry  Lawrence  had 
telegraphed  to  the  Governor-General  to  get  every 
available  European  "  from  China,  Ceylon,  and  else- 
where, also  all  the  Goorkhas  from  the  Hills.''  So 
Patrick  Grant,  the  Commander-in-Chief  at  Madras, 
had  telegraphed  to  him  to  send  a  swift  steamer  at 
once  to  intercept  the  China  expedition  ;*  and  John 
Lawrence  had  sent  a  message  setting  forth  these  and 


*  There  has  been  some  discussion, 
I  believe,  respecting  the  qoarter 
whence  the  suggestion  to  intercept 
the  China  troops  first  emanated. 
I  can  see  no  reason  to  think  that 
Lord  Canning  required  any  prompt- 
ing. But  if  the  question  is  to  be 
sonrcd  by  reference  to  a  priority  of 
recorded  date,  it  is,  firstly,  to  Gene- 
ral Hearsey,  and  secondly  to  Sir 
Henry  Lawrence,  that  the  merit  b 
to  be  assigned.  On  the  15tb  of  May, 
General  Hearsey  wrote  to  Colonel 
Birch,  saying:  "Send  steamers  to 
meet  and  bring  the  £uro])ean  troops 
now  on  their  way  to  China  (Hong- 
Kong)  to  Calcutta.  Do  not  delay 
domg  this."  On  the  16th  of  May, 
Henry  Lawrence  telegraphed  to  Lord 
Canning:  "  Get  every  European  you 
can  from  China,  Ceylon,  and  else- 
where." On  the  17th,  Sir  Patrick 
Grant  sent  his  message,  more  detailed 
and  emphatic :  "  I  must  earnestly  re- 
commend thedespatch  to  Singapore  of 
the  swiftest  steamer  obtainaole,  with 
an  earnest  request  to  Lord  Elgin  to 


forward  on  to  you  the  whole  of  the 
troops  intendea  for  China.  Whether 
China  is  coerced  now,  or  months 
hence,  is  of  no  moment.  The  moral 
effect  of  such  a  force  being  brought 
to  the  spot  would  be  inodculablep 
and  be  regarded  as  something  mira- 
culous and  supernatural."  At  what 
Srccise  moment  Lord  Canning  first 
etermined  to  arrest  the  China  ex- 
pedition, is  not  apparent  on  the  face 
of  the  records ;  out  on  the  18th  he 
telegraphed  to  Agra:  "I  hope  to 
eaten  the  regiments  on  their  way  to 
China."  During  the  week  imme- 
diately following  the  outbr^dc  at 
Meerut,  Lord  Canning  scarcely  re- 
sorted to  the  post-office  at  all.  The 
only  letter  that  I  can  find  is  one  to 
General  Anson,  dated  the  ISth,  in 
which  he  does  not  mention  the  in- 
tended arrest  of  the  China  troops; 
but  at  that  time  he  had  receiyed  no 
detailed  account  of  events  at  Meerut 
and  Delhi,  and  scarcely  knew  the 
extent  of  the  evil  with  which  he  had 
to  contend. 


616  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  MUTINT. 

May,  1867  other  means  of  meeting  the  crisis.  For  all  these 
suggestions  Lord  Canning  was  grateful;  but  it  was 
with  much  satisfaction,  perhaps  with  some  pride,  that 
when  the  detailed  plans  of  the  Chief  Commissioner 
of  the  Punjab  were  laid  before  him,  he  sent  back  a 
message,  through  the  Lieutenant-Governor  of  Agra, 
saying,  "  Every  precaution  which  your  message  sug- 
gests has  been  ta^en  long  ago." 

Then,  every  effort  made,  and  every  precaution 
taken  to  save  alike  the  Christian  people  and  the  great 
empire  committed  to  his  care,  there  was  an  interval 
of  reflection  ;  and,  with  a  feeling  of  solenm  wonder. 
Canning  dwelt  upon  the  causes  of  all  this  tremen- 
dous excitement,  and  asked  himself  whether  it  could 
be  only  a  military  mutiny  that  he  was  combating. 
It  did  not  seem  as  though  the  origin  of  such  a  com- 
motion were  to  be  found  only  in  the  unaided  in- 
stincts of  the  soldiery.  It  might  be  that  the  acti- 
vities then  discernible  were  purely  military  activi- 
ties, but  it  did  not  follow  that  external  influences 
had  not  been  at  work  to  produce  the  state  of  mind 
that  was  developing  such  terrible  results.  There 
were  even  then  some  dawning  apprehensions  that, 
with  the  best  possible  intentions,  grave  mistakes  might 
have  been  committed  in  past  years,  and  that  the  tree 
of  benignant  error  was  now  bearing  bitter  fruit.  He 
thought  over  all  that  had  been  done  by  his  great 
predecessor ;  the  countries  that  had  been  annexed  to 
the  British  Empire,  the  powerful  interests  that  had 
suffered  so  grievously  by  our  domination,  the  mani- 
fold encroachments,  material  and  moral,  of  English 
muscle  and  English  mind.  Not  at  first  did  he  per- 
ceive all  that  was  afterwards  made  clear  to  him,  for 
at  the  time  of  which  I  am  now  writing  there  were 
many  breaks  in  the  great  chain  of  postal  and  tele- 


MUTINY  OR  REBELUON  ?  617 

graphic  communicatioD,  and  it  was  not  easy  to  form  May,  1857. 
a  right  conception  of  the  actual  situation  of  affairs  in 
the  Upper  Provinces.  But  he  soon  ceased  to  speak 
of  the  mutiny,  and  called  it  a  "  rebellion" — a  "  re- 
volt." Early  in  the  year,  he  had  felt  disposed  to 
attach  some  importance  to  the  idea  of  political  causes, 
but,  as  he  wrote  on  more  than  one  occasion,  "  not 
much."*  Now  his  uncertainty  upon  this  point  began 
to  disappear,  and  he  wrote  to  the  Indian  Minister  at 
home  that  he  had  not  a  doubt  that  the  rebellion  had 
been  fomented  "by  Brahmins  on  religious  pretences, 
and  by  others  for  political  motives."!  He  saw,  in- 
deed, that  for  some  years  preceding  the  outbreak  the 
English  in  India,  moved  by  the  strong  faith  that  was 
in  them,  had  striven,  with  a  somewhat  intemperate 
zeal,  to  assimilate  all  things  to  their  own  modes  of 
thought,  and  that  the  Old  Man  had  risen  against  the 
New,  and  resented  his  ceaseless  innovations.  To  this 
pass  had  the  self-assertions  of  the  national  character 
brought  us.  The  Indian  Empire  was  in  flames.  But, 
with  a  proud  and  noble  confidence,  Canning  felt  that 
this  great  national  character  which  had  raised  the 
conflagration  would,  by  God's  blessing,  ere  long 
trample  it  out.  Even  those  whose  despondency  had 
so  pained  him  would,  he  knew,  when  called  upon  to 
act,  belie  the  weakness  of  their  words  by  the  bravery 
of  their  deeds.  Looking  into  the  future,  he  saw  the 
fire  spreading ;  he  saw  the  heathen  raging  furiously 
against  him,  and  a  great  army,  trained  in  our  own 

*  See  note,  ante,  paffo  550.  a  proclamation,  which  goes  to  you 

f  Writing  also  to  tlic  Chairman  herewith,  has  been  issued  with  a 

of  the  Court  of  Directors  (Mr.  Ross  view  of   arresting   the  eviL    But 

Mangles),  Lord  Canning  said :  "  I  political  animosity  goes  for  some- 

bftTe  learnt  unmistakably  tliat  the  thinij  among  the  causes,  though  it  is 

apprehension  of  some  attempt  upon  not,  in  my  opinion,  a  chief  one." — 

Caste  18  growing  stronger,  or  at  May  19,  1857.  —  MS,  Correip(md- 

least    is    more  sedulously  spread.  fHce. 
Mr.  Colfin  baa  found  the  same ;  and 


618 


OUTBBEAK  OF  THE  HDTINT. 


Ibj,  1867-  schools  of  warfare,  turning  against  va  the  lessons  we 
had  tau^t  them,  stimiilated  by  the  Priesthood,  en- 
couraged, perhaps  ^ded,  by  the  nobles  of  the  land, 
and  with  all  the  resources  of  the  country  at  th^ 
conunand;  but  seeing  this,  he  saw  also  Bomething 
beyond,  grand  in  the  distance ;  he  saw  Uie  manhood 
of  England  going  out  to  meet  it. 


APPENDIX. 


CIVIL  PRIVILEGES  OF  THE  SEPOT8. 

[The  following  is  the  memorandum  to  which  reference  is 
made  at  page  256 :] 

^^  By  the  regulations  in  force  for  the  administration  of  Civil 
Justice,  the  Courts  were  prohibited  from  corresponding  by 
letter  with  parties  in  suits  before  them,  or  from  receiving 
pleadings  or  other  applications  in  such  cases  except  from  the 
parties  or  their  authorised  representatives.  All  causes  were 
required  to  be  heard  in  the  order  in  which  they  stood  on  the 
file  of  the  Court,  and  the  laws  which  required  the  use  of 
stamped  paper  in  judicial  proceedings  were  very  strict,  and 
for  a  length  of  time  of  universal  application. 

^^  In  all  these  respects  a  great  change  was  made  in  the  year 
181 G  in  favour  of  the  Bengal  Sepoy. 

^Thc  regulation  passed  in  that  year  made  no  change  in 
respect  of  claims  originating  in  loans  granted  by  a  Native 
officer  or  Sepoy,  or  in  pecuniary  transactions  of  a  commercial 
nature ;  but  in  all  other  respects  the  position  of  the  Native 
soldier,  as  a  party  to  a  suit  in  a  Court  of  Civil  Justice,  was 
materially  improved. 

^^  If  a  Native  soldier  was  desirous  of  instituting  a  suit  in  any 
Court,  he  had  only  to  inform  his  conmianding  officer  of  his 
intention,  and  to  execute  a  deed  authorising  any  member  of 
his  family  to  appear  and  act  for  him.    This  document  was  to 


620  APPENDIX. 

be  sent  by  post  by  the  commanding  officer  to  the  Jadge  of 
the  Court  having  jurisdiction  in  the  matter,  who  was  then  re- 
quired to  take  die  necessary  steps  for  giving  information  to 
the  party  appointed  to  act  for  the  applicant,  and  to  afford 
every  facility  for  carrying  on  the  cause.     In  like  manner,  if 
the  Sepoy  was  the  defendant  in  a  case,  the  usual  notice  was 
to  be  served  upon  him  through  his  commanding  ofHcer,  and 
similar  facilities  were  to  be  afforded  to  him  in  defending  as  in 
prosecuting  a  case.    If  the  Sepoy  himself  obtained  furlough 
for  the  purpose  of  instituting  or  defending  a  suit,  he  carried 
with  him  a  letter  from  his  commanding  officer  to  the  Judge^ 
who  was  then  required  to  hear  the  case  without  reference  to 
its  order  on  the  file,  and  to  pass  judgment  in  it  with  as  little 
delay  as  possible. 

"No  stamps  were  to  be  required,  and  if  judgment  went 
against  the  Sepoy,  and  any  land  or  rent  property  belonging 
to  him  was  attached  in  execution  of  the  judgment,  the  Court 
was  required  to  postpone  the  sale  of  it  for  such  period  as 
might  appear  reasonable  for  the  purpose  of  affording  the 
Native  soldier  an  opportunity  of  discharging  the  amount  ad- 
judged against  him. 

"  In  Uke  manner,  if  any  estate  belonging  to  a  Native  soldier 
became  liable  to  sale  for  the  recovery  of  an  arrear  of  revenue, 
information  of  the  same  was  to  be  given  to  him  through  his 
commanding  officer,  and  every  indulgence  was  to  be  shown  to 
him  before  the  last  step  of  selling  the  estate  was  taken. 

*^  By  the  same  regulation,  the  sub-treasurer  at  the  Presi- 
dency, the  collectors  of  land  revenue,  and  the  several  pay- 
masters in  the  Presidency  of  Fort  William,  including  the  pay- 
masters serving  beyond  the  territories  of  the  East  India  Com- 
pany, were  authorised  to  grant  bills  payable  at  sight  without 
deduction  of  any  kind,  and  at  the  usual  rate  of  exchange,  on 
any  other  treasury,  for  any  siuns  which  might  be  paid  into 
their  respective  treasuries  on  account  of  Native  ofBcers  or 
soldiers,  who  ijiight  be  desirous  of  remitting  money  from  one 
part  of  the  country  to  another." — MS.  Memorandum. 


APPENDIX. 


621 


GA8TE  AND  BAGE  IN  THE  SEPOY  ABMY. 

[The  following  statements,  referred  to  at  page  330,  are 
taken  from  the  Appendix  to  the  Report  of  the  Boyal  Com- 
mission on  the  organisation  of  the  Indian  Army.  It  will  be 
observed  that  the  Bengal  reports  relate  only  to  the  remnant 
of  the  Sepoy  Army  after.the  mutiny :] 

ExTUACTS  from  the  Official  Eeturn  sbowing  the  Namber,  Caste,  and 
Country  of  the  Native  Officers  and  Soldiers  of  each  Regiment,  R^lar 
and  Irregular,  of  each  Presidency,  confined  to  Regiments  borne  on  the 
Returns  of  each  Army  respectively ;  so  far  as  can  be  stated  from  the 
Records  in  this  House. — ifast  India  House,  Sept.  1858. 

BENGAL. 

Native  Infantky,  7  Regiments,  viz. :  21st,  Slst,  47th,  65th,  66th,  70th, 

and  73rd. 

NoN-CoanossioKED,  Raitk  and 
File. 
Caste. 

Mahomedans 1,170 

Brahmins 1,878 

Rajpoots  2,637 

Hindus  of  Inferior  descrip- 
tion     2,057 

Sikhs  and  Funjaubecs 54 


Native  OrncEBB. 

Caste, 

Mahomedans   25 

Bralimins 52 

Rajpoots 39 

Hindus  of  inferior  descrip- 
tion    23 


139 


7,796 


Ikbegulae  and  Local  Infantrt,  12  Regiments,  viz. :  Regiment  of  Khelat- 
i-Ghilzic,  Regiment  of  Ferozepore,  Regiment  of  IxxKlianah,  Simoor 
Battalion,  Kemaon  Battalion,  Nusseree  Battalion,  Hill  Rangers,  Assam 
Light  InfiEmtry  Battalion,  Mhairwarrah  Battalion,  Sylhet  Lignt  Infantry 
Battalion,  Arracan  Battalion,  and  Shekhawattee  Battalion. 

NON-COMMI88IONED,  RaNK  AND 

File. 
Caste, 

Mahomedans 1,185 

Brahmins 849 

Rajpoots  2,711 

Hindus  of  inferior  descrip- 
tion     2,247 

Sikhs 1,309 

Hill  men  1,112 

Mughs  705 

Burmese   6 

Munniporees 167 

Jhats 48 


Native  OFncEBs. 

Caste. 

Mahomedans   38 

Brahmins 23 

Rajpoots .^...  59 

Hindus  of   inferior  descnp- 

tion  43 

Sikhs    17 

Hill  men  16 

Mnghs 6 

Burmese  1 

Munniporees   1 


204 


10,339 


622 


APPENDIX. 


IN  ii 


I    > 


MADRAa 
Native  Cavalet,  7  Eegiments. 


Natiyx  Off  icsbb. 

Qute. 

Mahomedans   68 

Mahraitas    6 

Rajpoots 8 

Indo-Britona  0 


77 


Ckmntiy, 
Central    Carnatic,    Madras, 

Vellore,  &c 64 

Southern    Camatic,    Trichi- 

nopoly 7 

Mysore 3 

Tanjore,  Madura,  and  Tinne- 

veUj 1 

Ceded  districts    2 


NoH-Coiaas8ioviD  Rahk  asb 

FiLB. 

Qiite. 

Christians 38 

Mahomedans 1,956 

Rajpoote  90 

Mahrattas 800 

Other  castes 8 

Indo-Britons 159 


3,539 


77 


Qmntry. 

Hindoostan  28 

Northern  Circars 67 

Central  Camatic,  Madras, 

Vellore,  &c 1,841 

Southern  Camatic,  Trichi- 

nopoly  805 

Baramanal 48 

Ceded  districts 54 

Mysore 818 

Tanjore,  Madura,  and  Tin- 

neyelly 90 


3,539 


Native  Inpantey,  52  Regiments. 
Native  Officees. 


Catte, 

Christians  4 

Mahomedans..... 584 

Brahmins  and  Rajpoots 83 

Mahrattas 12 

Telingas  (Gentoo) 242 

Tamil 97 

Othcrcastes  8 

Indo-Britons 0 


1,030 


NoN-CoMMissioyED,  Rank  Aim 
Pile. 
Catie. 

Christians  1,853 

Mahomedans  15,272 

Brahmins  and  Rajpoots ...     1^22 

Mahrattas  385 

Telingas  (Gentoo) 15,371 

Tamil  4,275 

Other  castes   1,616 

Indo-Britons  1,011 


41,705 


Country, 

Hindoostan    51 

Northem  Circars  317 

Central  Camatic,    Madras, 

Vellore,  &c 239 

Southern  Camatic,  Trichi- 

nopoly    177 

Carried  forward 784 


Country, 

Hindoostan 1,938 

Northern  Circars   16,938 

Central  Camatic,  Madras, 

Vellore,  &c 8.841 

Southern  Camatic,  Trichi- 

nopoly 4J60 

Carried  forward...    32,477 


APPENDIX. 


628 


ConiUry. 

Brooght  forward...  784 

Baramahal 29 

Ceded  districts 33 

Mysore  69 

Tanjore.  Madura,  and  Tin- 

nefellj   119 

Deocan  and  Mahratta  7 


1,030 


Omniry, 

Bronght  forward...  32,477 

Baramahal  1,022 

Ceded  districts  1,705 

Mysore 2,698 

Tanjore,  Madura,  and  Tin- 

nerelly    3,617 

Canara,  Moulmein,  Jaul- 

nah,  and  Belffaom 28 

Deccan  and  Mahratta 99 

Portugal 1 

Other  parts 58 

41,705 


BOMBAT. 
Native  Cayauelt,  3  Begiments. 


Native  Officebs. 

CatU. 

Christians    1 

Mahomedans   12 

Brahmins  and  Rajpoots 9 

Mahrattas    • 1 

Telingas  (Qentoo)   0 

Tamil   0 

Other  castes 12 

Indo-Britons  1 


CoMiUry. 

Hindoostan 

Northern  Circars 

Central    Camatic,    Madras, 

YeUore,  &c 

Southern    Camatic,    Trichi- 

nopoly 

Deccan 

Concan 

Mysore 

Tanjore,  Madura,  and  Tinne- 

velly 

Bombay  


36 


29 
1 

2 

0 
2 
1 
0 

0 
1 


36 


NON-COMMISSIONED,  RaNK  AND 

File. 
CcaU, 

Christians 66 

Mahomedans 459 

Brahmins  and  Rajpoots  ....  252 

Mahrattas 118 

Telingas  (Gentoo) 0 

TamU 0 

Other  castes  508 

Indo-Britons 22 


1,425 

Cwntry, 

Hindoostan  1,073 

Northern  Circars 21 

Central,  Camatic,  Madras, 

VeUore,  &c 30 

Southern  Camatic,  Trichi- 

nopoly  0 

Deccan 125 

Concan 114 

Mysore 0 

Tanjore,  Madura,  and  Tin- 

nevelly 0 

Guzerat 14 

Persia  1 

Lisbon  4 

Africa   2 

Bombay 4 

Punjab  and  Scinde  21 

Cabool  and  Aifghaniatan ...  15 

Europe 1 

1,425 


G24 


APPENDIX. 


Natitz  Invaktbt,  29  Regiments. 


Native  Officebb. 

Quie. 

Christians 5 

Mahomedans   Ill 

Brahmins  and  Rajpoots 18S 

Mahrattas    116 

Telimras  (Gentoo)  6 

Tair3\... 1 

Jews 3 

Other  castes 130 

Indo-Britons   0 

Purwarrees 3 


563 


NoN-GoianssioMED,  Rank 
File. 
Caiie, 

Christians  

Mahomedans  

Brahmins  and  Rajpoots... 

Mahrattas  

Telingas  (Gentoo) 

Jews    

Other  castes 

Indo-Britons  

Purwarrees..... 

Mochees 

Sikhs  


Avn 


270 

2,04S 

6,421 

7,980 

107 

55 

12 

7,728 

22 

170 

29 

2S 


24,870 


Hindoostan 

Northern  Circars 

Central    Camatic,    Madras, 

Vellore,  &c 

Southern    Camatic,    Trichi- 

nopolj 

Decoan 

Concan 

Mysore 

Tanjorc,  Madura,  and  Tinne- 

▼eUj 

Gozerat    


268 

7 

37 

13 

57 

173 

4 

0 
4 


563 


Country. 

Hindoostan 11,0S9 

Northern  Circars    135 

Central  Carnatic,  Madras, 

Vellore,  &c 412 

Southern  Carnatic^  Trichi- 

nopoly 20S 

Deccan    1,820 

Concan   10,878 

Mysore   S6 

Tanjore,  Madura,  and  Tin- 

nevelly  33 

Mysore  and  Punjab 28 

Guzerat  go 

Scinde,  Punjab,  and  Raj- 

pootana 155 

Europe   1 

^,870 


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APPENDIX.  627 


[In  Chapter  I.,  Book  III.,  some  extracts  are  given  from  an 
interesting  memorandum  furnished  by  Sir  Robert  Phillimore, 
which  is  now  given  in  its  integrity.] 

MEMORIALS  OF  THE  EARLY  LIFE  OF  EARL  OANNING.      BY  SIR 
ROBERT  PHILLIMORE,  QUEEN'S  ADVOCATE. 

"  When  young  Canning  was  eleven  years  old,  his  father  took 
the  usual  steps  for  procuring  his  admission  to  Eton,  the  scene 
on  which  his  own  brilliant  talents  had  given  the  first  promise  of 
tliat  future  excellence  which  they  afterwards  so  fully  realised. 
Mr.  (afterwards  Bishop)  Chapman  went,  at  the  request  of  the 
Provost,  Dr.  Goodall,  in  1824,  to  Gloucester  Lodge,  and  in 
the  presence  of  the  great  statesman  examined  his  boy,  in  order 
that  there  might  be  no  doubt  as  to  his  fitness  to  be  placed  in 
the  upper  school.  The  well-known  description  of  the  storm 
in  the  First  ^neid,  ^  Interea  magno  misceri  murmure  pon- 
tum,'  &c.,  was  the  passage  chosen  for  the  trial  of  his  pro- 
ficiency; and  the  Bishop  now  remembers  the  anxiety  with 
which  the  father  watched  the  essay  of  his  son,  and  the  smile 
of  approval  which  greeted  his  rendering  of  the  rather  difBcult 
transition,  ^  Quos  ego  sed  motos,'  &c.,  and  the  final  ^  not  so 
bad,'  which  followed  at  the  close  of  the  whole  translation. 

"  Young  Canning  was  entered  on  the  4th  September,  1824, 
at  the  house  of  Mr.  Chapman.  According  to  the  records  of 
the  school,  he  was  *  plus  vice  simplici,'  sent  up  *  for  good,' 
the  only  distinction  at  that  time  attainable  at  Eton.  Ilis  re- 
putation, however,  at  school  was  rather  for  intelligence,  accu- 
racy, and  painstaking  than  for  refined  scholarship,  or  any 
remarkable  powers  of  composition.  The  inten^al  between 
Eton  and  Oxford  was  passed  with  a  private  tutor,  the  Reverend 
Thomas  Shore,  a  nephew  of  Lord  Teignmouth,  who  resided 
at  Potton,  Bedfordshire,  but  who  discharged  no  public  func- 
tions as  a  clergyman  at  that  place.  It  is  probable  that  lie 
derived  great  benefit  from  the  tuition  of  Mr.  Shore.  While 
imder  the  care  of  this  gentleman  he  formed  an  intimate  friend- 
ship with  the  eldest  son  of  the  late  Lord  Harris  (afterwards  a 
conterai>orary  at  Christ  Churcli),  which  continued  witliont 
intermission  to  the  last  hour  of  his  life.     By  a  singular  turn 

282 


628  APPENDIX. 

of  fortune,  Earl  Canning  became  Governor-General  of  India 
while  his  friend  Lord  Harris  was  Governor  of  Madrajs.  Upon 
the  death  of  Mr.  Canning  in  1827,  Mrs.  Canning  was  created 
a  Viscountess,  with  remainder  to  her  son.  It  was,  neverthe- 
less, wisely  determined  not  to  send  young  Canning  to  Oxford 
as  the  son  of  a  nobleman,  but  to  obtain  for  him  a  studentship 
of  Christ  Church,  and  thereby  to  place  him  in  exactly  the 
same  position  at  the  University  which  his  father  had  formerly 
occupied.  It  appears  that  he  was  nominated  by  Dr.  Pett,  the 
old  friend  and  tutor  of  his  father,  and  one  of  the  canons  of 
Christ  Church,  as  a  student  on  the  roll  which  was  made  up 
December  24,  1827 ;  but  he  was  actually  made  a  student  by 
the  Dean  in  filling  up  a  roll  dated  December  20,  1828,  Mn 
return  for  Dr.  Pett's  nomination'  having  been  given  up  (a 
practice  not  imfrequent  at  that  time)  to  the  Dean  ^  in  the  last 
roll.' 

"  Mr.  Gladstone,  Lord  Elgin  (then  Mr.  Bruce),  Mr.  Henry 
Denison  (a  distinguished  scholar),  and  Sir  Robert  Phillimore, 
were,  among  others,  brother  students  with  him ;  and  in  the 
number  of  his  contemporaries  at  Christ  Church,  who  after- 
wards became  his  colleagues  in  public  life,  were  Lord  Dal- 
housie  and  the  Duke  of  Newcastle.  He  lived  chiefly  with  a 
few  intimate  friends,  among  whom  was  Lord  De  Tabley,  one 
of  his  executors.  To  them  his  natiurally  happy  and  cheerful 
temperament,  his  keen  perception  of  character,  his  fund  of 
quiet  humour,  his  accomplishments  as  a  scholar,  and,  above 
all,  his  loyal  and  affectionate  heart,  made  him  a  delightful 
companion.  He  was  not  generally  popular,  and  to  those 
without  his  own  immediate  circle  Ids  manners  were  shy  and 
reserved.  He  took  at  that  time  no  particular  interest  in 
politics,  and  whether  from  a  feeling  that  his  father^s  great 
name  imposed  upon  him  an  arduous  responsibility,  or  from 
extreme  sensitiveness  to  failure,  did  not  then  appear  desirous 
to  embark  upon  that  stormy  ocean  of  public  life  on  which  he 
afterwards  so  gallantly  sailed  and  so  nobly  died. 

"  Those  who  heard  his  speech  at  the  banquet  given  to  him 
by  the  India  House  previous  to  his  departure  as  Governor- 
General,  know  that  he  could,  when  strongly  urged,  put  forth 
oratorical  powers  of  a  high  order ;  but  at  Oxford,  as  in  after- 


APPEXDIX.  629 

life,  lie  showed  no  natural  aptitude  or  inclination  for  speaking 
in  public.  His  fastidious  accuracy  of  language,  his  sensitive 
and  proud  nature,  and  a  certain  physical  difficulty,  as  well, 
perhaj)s,  as  the  ever-present  recollection  of  his  father^s  un- 
rivalled success  as  a  parliamentary  chieftain,  combined  to 
dissuade  him  from  often  attempting  this  particular  path  to 
distinction.  But  at  Christ  Church  he  acquired,  or  matured 
that  conmiand  of  pure  English,  and  that  excellent  style  which 
in  every  letter  or  even  note  which  he  wrote  excited  just  ad- 
miration. 

"  In  the  year  1831  he  won  the  Christ  Church  prize  for  Latin 
verse.  The  subject  was  ^  Caractacus  captivus  Romam  ingre- 
ditur.'  The  verses  were  as  usual  recited  in  the  hall.  It  was 
a  remarkable  scene.  In  that  magnificent  banqueting-room 
are  hung  the  portraits  of  students  who  have  reflected  honour 
upon  the  House  which  reared  them,  by  the  distinctions  which 
they  have  won  in  after-life. 

"  Underneath  the  portrait  of  George  Canning,  the  recollec- 
tion of  whose  brilliant  career  and  untimely  end  was  still  fresh 
in  the  memory  of  men,  stood  the  son  in  the  prime  of  youth, 
recalling,  by  his  eminently  handsome  countenance,  the  noble 
features  of  the  portrait,  while  repeating  the  classical  prize 
poem  which  would  have  gladdened  his  father^s  heart.  (Gene- 
rally speaking,  the  resident  members  of  Christ  Church  alone 
compose  the  audience  when  the  prize  is  recited,  but  on  this 
occasion  there  was  one  stranger  present — the  old,  faithful 
friend  of  Mr.  Canning,  his  staimch  political  adherent  through 
life,  Mr.  Sturges  Bourne.  He  had  travelled  from  London 
for  the  express  purpose  of  witnessing  the  first  considerable 
achievement  of  the  younger  Canning. 

"  He  closed  his  career  at  the  University  with  distinguished 
success,  obtaining,  in  Easter  Term,  1833,  a  first-class  in  clas- 
sical and  a  second-class  in  mathematical  honours.  He  took 
the  degree  of  B.A.  in  the  same  year,  but  never  proceeded  to 
the  degree  of  M.A." — MS.  Memorandum, 


630  APPENDIX. 


FINAL  ORDERS  TO  THE  MUSKETRY  SCHOOLS- 

[The  following  is  the  letter  referred  to  at  page  561 — ^note :] 

The  Adjutant'General  of  the  Army  to  Major- General  Hearsey. 

"  Adjutant-Gencral's  Office,  Simlah,  April  13, 1857. 
"  Sir, — Referring  to  the  telegraph  message  from  this  office 
dated  the  23rd  ultimo  (and  your  acknowledgments  of  the 
25th  idem),  conmiunieating  the  Commander-in-Chiefs  orders 
to  postpone  the  target  practice  of  the  Native  soldiers  at  the 
Rifle  Depot  at  Dum-Dimi,  pending  further  instmctions  from 
this  Department,  I  am  now  desired  to  request  you  will  be  good 
enough  to  inform  the  officer  commanding  at  Dum-Dum,  and 
through  him  the  Depdt  authorities  concerned,  that  the  course 
of  instruction  is  to  be  completed  by  the  Native  details,  and 
that  their  target  practice  is  to  be  commenced  as  soon  as  prac- 
ticable after  the  GFovemment  General  Order  disbanding  the 
Nineteenth  Regiment  of  Native  Infantry  has  been  read  to  the 
troops  at  the  station,  including  the  detachments  of  Native  re- 
giments at  the  Depot. 

"  2.  The  grease  for  the  cartridge  is  to  be  any  unobjectionable 
mixture  which  may  be  suited  for  the  purpose,  to  be  provided 
by  selected  parties  comprising  all  castes  concerned,  and  is  to 
be  applied  by  the  men  themselves. 

"  3.  The  paper  of  which  the  cartridges  are  constructed 
having  been  proved  by  chemical  test,  and  otherwise,  to  be 
perfectly  free  from  grease,  and  in  all  respects  unobjection- 
able ;  and  all  possible  grounds  for  objection  in  regard  to  the 
biting  of  the  cartridge,  and  the  nature  of  the  grease  to  be 
used,  having  been  removed,  it  is  not  anticipated  that  the  men 
will  hesitate  to  perform  the  target  practice ;  but,  in  the  event 
of  any  such  miexpected  result,  the  Commander-in-Chief  de- 
sires that  their  officers  may  be  instructed  to  reason  calmly 
with  them,  pointing  out  the  utter  groundlessness  for   any 
objection  to  the  use  of  the  cartridges  now  that  biting  the 
end  has  been  dispensed  with,  and  the  provision  and  applica- 
tion of  the  necessary  greasing  material  has  been  left  to  them- 
selves ;  and,  further,  to  assure  them  that  any  one  who  shall 


APPENDIX.  631 

molest  or  taunt  them  on  return  to  their  corps,  shall  be  visited 
with  severe  punishment, 

"  4.  The  officer  commanding  the  Depot  will  be  held  respon- 
sible that  the  above  directions  respecting  the  greasing  mixture, 
and  those  recently  issued  in  regard  to  the  new  mode  of  load- 
ing, are  strictly  observed. 

^^  5.  If,  notwithstanding  all  these  precautions  and  considerate 
measures,  any  disinclination  to  use  the  cartridges  shall  be 
manifested,  the  parties  demurring  are  to  be  warned  calmly 
and  patiently,  but  firmly,  that  a  persistence  in  such  unjusti- 
fiable conduct  will  be  viewed  as  disobedience  of  orders  and  in- 
subordination, and  treated  accordingly,  and  in  the  event  of 
any  individuals  after  such  warning  obstinately  refusing  to  fire, 
the  officer  commanding  at  Diun-Dum  will  at  once  place  such 
parties  in  arrest  or  confinement,  according  to  the  rank  of  the 
offenders,  and  cause  them  to  be  tried  by  Court-Martial. 

"  6.  If,  however,  the  entire  Dep6t  shall  combinedly  refuse  to 
fire,  which  is  very  improbable,  the  Commander-in-Chief, 
under  such  circumstances,  empowers  you  to  place  all  the 
Native  officers  in  arrest  pending  his  Excellenc/s  further 
orders,  which  you  will  immediately  apply  for ;  to  deprive  the 
non-commissioned  officers  and  Sepoys  of  their  arms  and  ac- 
coutrements, and  to  pay  them  up  and  summarily  discharge 
them  on  the  spot,  excepting,  of  course,  any  ringleaders  in 
these  latter  grades  or  parties  whose  refusal  may  be  accom- 
panied by  insolence  or  insubordination,  who  are  to  be  placed 
under  arrest  or  confinement,  in  view  of  their  being  arraigned 
before  a  District  or  General  Court-Martial,  as  the  case  may 
require. 

"  7.  This  communication  is  to  be  considered  purely  confi- 
dential, and  his  Excellency  relies  implicitly  on  your  carrying 
out  the  instructions  it  contains  with  the  utmost  caution  and 
discretion. 

"  I  have  the  honour  to  be,  Sir, 

"  Your  most  obedient  servant, 

"  C.  ClIESTEE,  Col. 
^^AdjL'Gen.  of  the  Army:' 
— MS.  Records, 


632  APPENDIX. 


THE  CHUPATTIES* 

[It  is  Stated  at  page  571  that  Mr.  Ford,  Magistrate  and 
Collector  of  Goorgaon,  was  the  first  to  call  the  attention  of 
the  Government  of  the  North-Westem  Provinces  to  this  sub- 
ject. His  letter^  addressed,  in  official  course,  to  the  Gommis* 
sioner  of  Delhi,  is  appended :] 

*'  Goorgaoa  Magistraoj,  February  19, 1857. 

^^  Snt, — ^I  have  the  honour  to  inform  you  that  a  signal  has 
passed  through  numbers  of  the  villages  of  this  district,  the 
purport  of  which  has  not  yet  transpired. 

^  The  Chowkeydars  of  the  villages  bordering  on  those  be- 
longing to  Mutra  have  received  small  baked  cakes  of  atta, 
with  orders  to  distribute  them  generally  through  this  district 

^  A  Chowkeydar,  upon  receiving  one  of  these  cakes,  has  had 
five  or  six  more  prepared,  and  thus  they  have  passed  from 
village  to  village;  so  quickly  has  the  order  been  executed, 
that  village  after  village  has  been  served  with  this  notice. 

^^  This  day,  cakes  of  this  description  have  arrived  and  been 
distributed  in  the  villages  about  Goorgaon,  and  an  idea  has 
been  industriously  circulated  that  GU)vemment  has  ^ven  the 

order.  "W.  Fobd,  Ma^strate. 

"  To  Simon  Fraser,  Bsq., 
**  Commissioner,  Delhi." 


[In  the  course  of  the  trial  of  the  King  of  Delhi  great  pains 
were  taken  to  extract  from  the  witnesses,  both  European  and 
Native,  some  explanation  of  the  "Chupatty  mystery  ;**  but 
nothing  satisfactory  was  elicited.  The  following  opinions, 
however,  were  recorded :] 

From  the  Evidence  of  Jat  Mally  News-writer  to  the  ZAetUenani' 

Governor. 

"  Q.  Did  you  ever  hear  of  the  circulation  of  chupatties  about 
the  country  some  months  before  the  outbreak ;  and  if  so^  what 
was  supposed  to  be  the  meaning  of  this  ? 

A.  Yes,  I  did  hear  of  the  circumstance.  Some  people  said 
that  it  was  a  propitiatory  observance  to  avert  some  impending 


APPENDIX.  633 

calamity;  others^  that  they  were  circulated  by  the  Govern- 
ment to  signify  that  the  population  throughout  the  country 
would  be  compelled  to  use  ^e  same  food  as  the  Christians, 
and  thus  be  deprived  of  their  religion ;  while  others,  again, 
said  that  the  chupatties  were  circulated  to  make  it  known  that 
Government  was  determined  to  force  Christianity  on  the 
country  by  interfering  with  their  food,  and  intimation  of  it 
was  thus  given  that  they  might  be  prepared  to  resist  the 
attempt. 

Q.  Is  sending  such  articles  about  the  coimtiy  a  custom 
among  the  Hindoos  or  Mussulmans ;  and  would  tiiie  meaning 
be  at  once  imderstood  without  any  accompanying  explanar 
tion? 

A*  No,  it  is  not  by  any  means  a  custom ;  I  am  fifty  years 
old,  and  never  heard  of  such  a  thing  before. 

Q.  Did  you  ever  hear  that  any  message  was  sent  with  the 
chupatties  ? 

A.  No ;  I  never  heard  of  any. 

Q.  Were  these  chupatties  chiefly  circulated  by  Mahomedans 
or  Hindoos  ? 

A.  They  were  circulated  indiscriminately,  without  refer- 
ence to  either  religion,  among  the  peasantry  of  the  country." 


From  the  Evidence  of  Sir  TheopkUue  Metcalfe. 

^^  Q.  Can  you  give  the  Court  any  information  about  the 
chupatties  which  were  circulated  from  village  to  village  some 
months  before  the  outbreak ;  and  has  it  been  ascertained  how 
they  originated,  or  what  was  the  purport  of  their  being  circu- 
lated? 

A.  There  is  nothing  but  conjecture  regarding  them,  but 
the  first  suggestion  made  by  the  Natives  in  reference  to  them 
was,  that  they  were  thus  sent  about  in  connexion  with  some 
sickness  that  prevailed ;  but  this  was  clearly  an  error,  as  I  took 
the  trouble  of  ascertaining  that  these  chupatties  were  never 
sent  into  any  Native  States,  but  were  confined  always  to  Gtx- 
vemment  villages ;  they  were  spread  through  only  five  villages 
of  the  Delhi  territory,  when  diey  were  immediately  stopped 
by  authority,  and  they  never  proceeded  farther  up-country. 


634  APPENDIX. 

I  sent  for  the  men  who  had  brought  them  from  the  district  of 
Bolondshnhr,  and  their  apology  for  circulating  them  was  that 
they  believed  it  to  be  done  by  order  of  the  English  GFovom- 
menty  that  they  had  received  them  elsewhere,  and  had  but 
forwarded  them  on.  I  believe  that  the  meaning  of  the 
chupatties  was  not  understood  in  the  Delhi  district;  but 
originally  they  were  to  be  taken  to  all  those  who  partook  of 
one  kind  of  food,  connecting  a  body  of  men  together  in  con- 
tradistinction to  those  who  lived  differently  and  had  different 
customs.  I  think  these  chupatties  originated  at  Lucknow, 
and  were,  no  doubt,  meant  to  sound  a  note  of  alarm  and  pre- 
paration, giving  warning  to  the  people  to  stand  by  one  another 
on  any  danger  menacing  them." 


Fnrm  the  Evidence  of  Chunij  News-^writer. 

"  Q.  Do  you  recollect  the  circumstance  of  chupatties  bdng 
circtdated  from  village  to  village  ? 

A,  Yes,  I  remember  hearing  of  it  before  the  outbreak. 

Q.  Was  the  subject  discussed  in  the  Native  newspapers; 
and  if  so,  what  was  considered  the  meaning  of  it  ? 

A.  Yes,  it  was  alluded  to,  and  it  was  supposed  to  portend 
some  coming  disturbance,  and  was,  moreover,  understood  as 
implying  an  invitation  to  the  whole  population  of  the  country 
to  unite  for  some  secret  object  afterwards  to  be  disclosed. 

Q.  Do  you  know  whence  these  chupatties  originated,  or  to 
what  quarter  general  opinion  among  the  Natives  attributed 
them? 

A,  I  have  no  knowledge  as  to  where  they  were  first  started, 
but  it  was  generally  supposed  that  they  came  from  Eumanl 
and  Pauceput." 


From  the  Evidence  of  Captain  Martineau. 

"  Q.  Had  you  any  conversation  with  these  men  (t.  e.  with  the 
men  assembled  at  Umballah  for  musketiy  instruction)  relative 
to  some  chupatties  that  were  circulated  to  different  villages  in 
these  districts  before  the  outbreak  ? 


APPENDIX.  635 

A.  Yes,  I  had  frequent  conversations  >vith  various  Sepoys 
on  this  subject.  I  asked  them  what  they  understood  in  re- 
ference to  them,  and  by  whom  they  supposed  that  they  were 
circulated ;  they  described  them  to  me  as  being  in  size  and 
shape  like  ship  biscuits,  and  believed  them  to  have  been  distri- 
buted by  order  of  Government  through  the  medium  of  their 
servants  for  the  purpose  of  intimating  to  the  people  of  Hin- 
doostan  that  they  should  all  be  compelled  to  eat  the  same  food, 
and  that  was  considered  as  a  token  that  they  should  likewise 
be  compelled  to  embrace  one  faith,  or,  as  they  termed  it,  *  One 
food  and  one  faith/ 

Q.  As  far  as  you  could  understand,  was  this  idea  generally 
prevalent  among  all  the  Sepoys  of  the  various  detachments  at 
the  Depot  ? 

A.  It  was  prevalent,  as  far  as  I  could  judge,  among  all  the 
Sepoys  of  every  regiment  that  furnished  a  detachment  to  the 
Depot  at  Umballah. 

Q.  Was  there  any  report  of  the  Government  having  mixed 
ground  bones  with  flour  for  the  purpose  of  having  it  distri- 
buted to  the  Sepoys,  and  so  destroying  their  caste  t 

A.  Yes,  I  heard  of  this  in  the  month  of  MarcL  It  was 
told  me  that  all  the  flour  retailed  from  the  Government 
Depots  for  the  supply  of  troops  on  the  march  was  so  adul- 
terated. 

Q.  Do  you  think  the  Sepop  generally  firmly  believed 
this? 

A.  I  have  seen  correspondence  from  various  men,  which 
the  Sepoys  of  the  Depot  voluntarily  placed  in  my  hands,  the 
writers  of  which,  themselves  Sepoys,  evidently  believed  that 
such  was  the  case. 

Q.  Did  the  Sepoys  ever  speak  to  you  about  any  other  cause 
of  complaint,  or  points  on  which  they  sought  information  ? 

A,  Their  complaint,  or  rather  fear,  was  this:  they  appre- 
hended that  Government  was  going  forcibly  to  deprive  them 
of  their  caste. 

Q.  Did  any  of  them  ever  speak  about  Government  inter- 
ference regarding  the  re-marriage  of  Hindoo  widows  t 

A.  Yes,  they  alluded  to  that  2vs  an  invasion  of  their  social 
rights." 


636  APPENDIX. 


FT(ym  the  Statement  of  Hakim  Ahsan  UUahj  Confidential  Pky- 

sician  to  the  King  of  Delhi. 

"  Nobody  can  tell  what  was  the  object  of  the  distribution  of 
the  chupatties.  It  is  not  known  who  first  projected  the  plan. 
All  the  people  in  the  palace  wondered  what  it  could  mean.  I 
had  no  conversation  with  the  King' on  the  subject ;  but  others 
talked  in  his  presence  about  it,  wondering  what  could  be  the 
object. 

**  I  consider  that  the  chupatty  affair  probably  originated  vrith 
the  Native  troops,  and  the  distribution  first  commenced  in 
Oude.  I  also  wondered  what  it  was,  but  considered  that  it 
implied  something. 

^^  I  consider  that  the  distribution  of  the  chupatties  first  b^an 
in  Oude. 

"  It  was  the  opinion  of  some  that  the  Native  troops  had  de- 
signed these  chupatties  as  emblematical  of  some  particular 
object.  Others  believed  that  there  was  some  charm  attached 
to  them,  inasmuch  as  they  were  distributed  imknown  all  over 
the  country,  and  without  it  being  known  who  first  originated 
the  idea,  and  whence  they  were  first  sent  out.  People  also 
believed  that  these  chupatties  were  the  invention  of  some 
adept  in  the  secret  arts,  in  order  to  preserve  unpolluted  the 
religion  of  the  country,  which,  it  was  reported,  the  Govern- 
ment had  proposed  to  themselves  to  subvert  in  two  years." 


[The  following  extracts  from  published  works  bear  upon 
the  subject  of  inquiry.  In  the  first,  the  preceding  statement 
that  the  circulation  of  the  chupatties  commenced  in  Oude,  is 
corroborated :] 

"  Some  time  in  February,  1857,  a  curious  occurrence  took 
place.  It  began  on  the  confines  of  Oude.  A  Chowkeydar 
ran  up  to  another  village  with  two  chupatties.  He  ordered 
his  fellow-official  to  make  ten  more,  and  give  two  to  each  of 
the  five  nearest  village  Chowkeydars  with  the  same  instruc- 
tions. In  a  few  hours  the  whole  country  was  in  a  stir,  from 
Chowkeydars  flying  about  with  these  cakes.  The  signal  spread 


APPENDIX.  637 

ill  directions  with  wonderful  celerity.    The  magistrates 

1  to  stop  it,  but,  in  spite  of  all  they  could  do,  it  passed 

tfiig  to  the  borders  of  the  Punjab.  There  is  reason  to  believe 

t  this  was  originated  by  some  intriguers  of  the  old  Court  of 

cimow.    Its  import  has  not  been  satisfactorily  explained, 

^^l  was  probably  not  understood  by  many  who  helped  it 

*"Kng»    But  the  same  thing  occurred  in  Behar  and  about 

••^aiiri  in  connexion  with  the  discontent  caused  by  the  new 

^MTcome-tax.    It  has  been  stated  by  a  Native  authority,  pub- 

by  Mr.  Russell  of  the  Times  (see  Friend  of  Indioj  March 

Oy  1859),  that  the  first  circulation  of  the  chupatties  was 

at  the  suggestion  of  a  learned  and  holy  pundit,  who  told 

ijah  Madhoo  Singh  that  the  people  would  rise  in  rebellion 

^nf  it  were  done,  and  that  the  person  in  whose  name  the  cakes 

jrere  sent  would  rule  all  India.    This,  however,  is  very  doubt- 

,** — Siege  of  Delhi,  by  an  Officer  who  served  there. 


''That  remarkable  and  still  unexplained  passage  through 
Oode,  and  elsewhere,  of  the  chupatty  symbol,  occurred  early 
in  1857,  and,  from  the  first  movement  of  its  advent  into  Oude, 
spread  with  such  amazing  rapidity,  that  it  was  calculated  ten 
days  more  than  sufficed  for  every  village  Chowkeydar  in 
Onde  to  have  received  the  little  bread-cake,  and  made  and 
passed  on  similar  little  bread-cakes  to  every  village  Chow- 
keydar within  the  ordinary  radius  of  his  travels.  The  Natives 
generally  may  have  viewed  this  sign-manual  flying  through 
their  villages — so  common  a  method  amongst  men  in  the  early 
stages  of  civilisation  to  warn  all  for  cither  peace  or  war — as  a 
forerunner  of  some  universal  poptdar  outbreak,  but  by  whom 
or  with  what  class  the  standard  of  rebellion  would  be  raised 
certainly  was  not  generally  known." — Narrative  of  the  Mutinies 
in  Oudej  compiled  from  Authentic  Records,  by  Captain  6r. 
Hutchinsony  Military  Secretary  to  the  Chief  Commissionery 
Oude. 


"In  the  North- West  Provinces  it  was  discovered  that 
chupatties  were  being  circulated  throughout  the  coimtry  in 


638  APPENDIX. 

a  somewhat  mysterious  manner.*  Tlie  fact  was  duly  re- 
ported from  various  quarters ;  inquiries  were  ordered  to  be 
set  on  foot,  but  nothing  further  could  be  traced  as  to  their 
origin  or  object,  and  they  were  suffered  to  travel  on  from 
village  to  viUage  with  little  let  or  hindrance.  Some  fifty 
years  before  a  similar  appearance  in  Central  India  had  per- 
plexed the  authoritieSyt  but  no  solution  of  the  mystery  had 
been  gained,  and  as  nothing  had  then  resulted  from  it,  the 
hope  was  grasped  at  that  in  the  present  instance  also,  if  not 
meaningless,  it  might  prove  equally  harmless :  it  might  be 
some  superstitious  spell  against  disease,  for  cholera  had 
ravaged  several  districts  during  the  previous  autumn,  or 
against  some  impending  calamity,  for  the  whole  country 
teemed  with  forebodings  of  coming  trouble.  At  all  events, 
the  idea  was  scouted  of  its  having  any  political  meaning; 
and  far-seeing  old  Indians,  who  dared  to  look  gravely  on 
the  *chupatty  mystery,'  were  denounced  as  croakers." — TTie 
Punjab  and  I)eUii  in  1857,  by  the  Rev.  T.  Cave-Browne,  Chap- 
lain of  the  Punjab  Moveable  Column, 


"  The  leaders  and  promoters  of  this  great  rebellion,  whoever 
they  may  have  been,  knew  well  the  inflammable  condition, 
from  these  causes,  of  the  rural  society  in  the  North-Western 
Provinces,  and  they  therefore  sent  among  them  the  chupatties, 
as  a  kind  of  fiery  cross,  to  call  them  to  action.     The  cakes 

*  One  district  officer,  who  saw  a  f  Mr.  Browne,  in  his  yery  interest- 
chupatty-laden  messenger  arrive  in  ing  and  trustworthy  work,  quotes, 
a  yillage,  and  observed  nim  breaking  as  his  authority  for  this,  "  Kaje's 
his  cake  into  pieces  and  distributing  Life  of  Metcaffe ;"  but  I  have  no 
them  among  tne  men  of  the  village,  recollection  of  the  statement,  and  I 
asked  what  it  meant ;  he  was  told  have  caused  a  diligent  search  to  be 
that  there  was  an  old  custom  in  made  through  the  work,  but  with  no 
Hindoostan,  that  when  their  flMr/»X^,  or  success.  1  remember,  however,  to 
chief,  required  any  service  from  his  have  read  in  the  papers  of  Sir  John 
people,  he  adopted  this  mode  to  pre-  Malcolm  a  statement  to  the  effect 
pare  them  for  receiving  his  orders,  that,  at  a  time  of  political  excitement, 
and  every  one  who  partook  of  the  chu-  I  believe  just  before  the  mutiny  of 
patties  was  held  pled|;ed  to  obey  the  the  Coast  Army  in  1806,  there  had 
order  whenever  it  might  come,  and  been  a  mysterious  circulation  of 
whatever  it  might  be.  "  What  was  sugar.  There  was  also,  in  1818,  a 
the  nature  of  the  order  in  the  pre-  very  perplexing  distribution  of  cocoa- 
sent  case  P"  he  asked.  The  answer,  nuts  in  Central  India ;  but  it  subse- 
accompanied  by  a  suspicious  smile,  quently  appeared  to  have  been  the  re- 
was,  "We  don  t  know  yet."  suit  of  a  mere  accident.— J.  W.  K. 


APPENDIX.  639 

passed  with  the  most  amazing  rapidity  over  the  length  and 
breadth  of  the  land.    Where  they  came  from  originally,  it  is 
impossible  to  say,  but  I  believe  Barrackpore  was  the  starting- 
point,  where  large  masses  of  mutinous  Sepoys  were  congre- 
gated.   The  chupatties  entered  my  district  from  the  adjoining 
one  of  Shajehanpoor,  a  village  watchman  of  that  place  giving 
to  the  watchman  of  the  nearest  Budaon  village  two  of  the 
cakes,  with  an  injunction  to  make  six  fresh  ones,  retain  two 
for  his  own,  and  give  the  others  to  the  watchman  of  the  next 
village,  who  would  follow  the  same  course,  and  continue  the 
manufacture  and  distribution.     I  truly  beUeve  that  the  rural 
population  of  all  classes,  among  whom  these  cakes  spread, 
were  as  ignorant  as  I  was  myself  of  their  real  object ;  but  it 
was  clear  they  were  a  secret  sign  to  be  on  the  alert,  and  the 
minds  of  the  people  were  through  them  kept  watchful  and 
excited.    As  soon  as  the  disturbances  broke  out  at  Meerut 
and  Delhi,  the  cakes  explained  themselves,  and  the  people  at 
once  perceived  what  was  expected  of  them." — Personal  Adverts 
tares  during  the  Indian  Rebellion  in  Mohilcundj  Futtehghury 
and   Oudey  by   William  Edwardes^   Esq.^  B.C.S.J  Judge  0/ 
BenareSy  and  late  Magistrate  and   Collector  of  Budaon^  in 
BohUcund. 

[Compare  also  the  statement  at  page  647.] 


THE  BONE-DUST  STORY. 


[The  following  translations  from  Native  letters  and  papers 
show  how  general  was  the  belief  among  the  Sepoys  in  all 
parts  of  the  coimtry  that  the  Government  had  mixed  ground 
bones  with  the  flour,  and  purposed  to  compel  or  to  delude  them 
to  eat  it :] 

Translation  of  an  Anonymous  Petition  senty  in  March^  1857,  to 
Major  MatthewSy  commanding  the  43rd  Regiment  at  Barrack^ 
pore. 

"  The  representation  of  the  whole  station  is  this,  that  we  will 
not  give  up  our  religion.  We  serve  for  honour  and  religion  ; 
if  we  lose  our  religion,  the  Hindoo  and  Mahomedan  religions 


640  APPENDIX. 

will  be  destroyed.  If  we  live,  what  shall  we  do  ?  You  are 
the  masters  of  the  countiy.  The  Lord  Sahib  has  given 
orders,  which  he  has  received  from  the  Company,  to  all  com- 
manding officers  to  destroy  the  religion  of  the  country.  We 
know  this,  as  all  things  are  being  bought  up  by  GK)vemment. 
The  officers  in  the  Salt  Department  mix  up  bones  with  the 
salt.  The  officer  in  charge  of  the  ghee  mixes  up  fat  with  it ; 
this  is  well  known.  These  are  two  matters.  The  third  is 
this :  that  the  Sahib  in  charge  of  the  sugar  bums  up  bones 
and  mixes  them  in  the  syrup  the  sugar  is  made  of;  this  is 
well  known — all  know  it.  The  fourth  is  this :  that  in  the 
country  the  Burra  Sahibs  have  ordered  the  Rajahs,  Thakurs, 
Zemindars,  Mahajans,  and  Ryots,  all  to  eat  together,  and 
English  bread  has  been  sent  to  them;  this  is  well  known. 
And  this  is  another  affair,  that  throughout  the  country  the 
wives  of  respectable  men,  in  fact,  all  classes  of  Hindoos,  on 
becoming  vridows,  are  to  be  married  again ;  this  is  known. 
Therefore  we  consider  ourselves  as  killed.  You  all  obey  the 
orders  of  the  Company,  which  we  all  know.  But  a  king^  or 
any  other  one  who  acts  unjustly,  does  not  remain. 

"  With  reference  to  the  Sepoys,  they  are  your  servants ;  but, 
to  destroy  their  caste,  a  council  assembled  and  decided  to  give 
them  muskets  and  cartridges  made  up  with  greased  paper  to 
bite ;  this  is  also  evident.  We  wish  to  represent  this  to  the 
General,  that  we  do  not  approve  of  the  new  musket  and 
cartridge ;  the  Sepoys  cannot  use  them.  You  are  the  masters 
of  the  country ;  if  you  will  give  us  all  our  discharge  we  will 
go  away.  The  Native  officers,  Soubahdars,  Jemadars,  are  all 
good  in  the  whole  Brigade,  except  two,  whose  faces  are  like 
pigs :  the  Soubahdar  Major  of  the  70th  Regiment,  who  is  a 
Christian,  and  Thakur  Msser,  Jemadar  of  the  43rd  Regiment 
Light  Infantry. 

"  Whoever  gets  this  letter  must  read  it  to  the  Major  as  it  is 
written.  If  he  is  a  Hindoo  and  does  not,  his  crime  will  be 
equal  to  the  slaughter  of  a  lakh  of  cows ;  and  if  a  Mussul- 
man, as  though  he  had  eaten  pig ;  and  if  a  European,  must 
read  it  to  the  Native  officers,  and  if  he  does  not,  his  going  to 
church  will  be  of  no  use,  and  be  a  crime.  Thakur  Misser 
has  lost  his  religion.   Chattrees  are  not  to  respect  him.   Brah- 


APPENDIX.  641 

mins  are  not  to  salute  or  bless  him.  If  they  do^  their  crime 
will  be  equal  to  the  slaughter  of  a  lakh  of  cows.  He  is  the 
son  of  a  Chumar.  The  Brahmin  who  hears  this  is  not  to 
feed  him ;  if  he  does,  his  crime  will  be  equal  to  the  murdering 
of  a  lakh  of  Brielhmins  or  cows. 

"  May  this  letter  be  given  to  Major  Matthews.  Any  one 
who  gets  it  is  to  give  it,  if  he  does  not,  and  is  a  Hindoo^  his 
crime  will  be  as  the  slaughter  of  a  lakh  of  cows ;  and  if  a 
Mussulman,  as  if  he  had  eaten  pig ;  and  if  he  is  an  officer  he 
must  give  it." 


Translation  of  a  Letter  from  InayutrOolah  Goohoiheey  of 
Boolundshu/iry  to  his  Brother  Fyzool  Hussauj  Extra  Assistanty 
Rawul  Pindee. 

" The  reason  of  my  letters  not  reaching  you  is 

this  :  that  on  the  12th  of  Ramyan,  in  Meerut  ^  Khas^  such  a 
fight  occurred  between  the  Native  and  European  troops  on 
a  point  of  religion  as  cannot  be  described.  The  foimdation 
of  the  quarrel  was  this :  that  thousands  of  maunds  of  atta 
was  taken  into  every  ressalah  and  regiment;  and  with  this 
atta  was  mixed  the  ground  bones  of  the  cow  and  pig ;  and 
the  cartridges  were  also  made  with  the  fat  of  the  cow  and  pig. 
The  shopkeepers  in  the  city  were  ordered  to  purchase  "  atta" 
from  Government  and  sell  it  in  all  the  villages.  It  was 
ordered  by  beat  of  drum  that  atta  be  not  ground  in  any  vil- 
lage,  and  that  in  every  district  all  the  mills  should  be  con- 
fiscated to  Government.  It  was  also  ordered  that  ten  maimds 
of  atta  be  thrown  into  every  well,  kuchcha  or  pukka,  in  every 
village  and  town.  The  troops  at  every  station  with  one  ac- 
cord said,  that  if  the  troops  at  Meerut  should  receive  the  atta 
and  cartridges,  they  would  receive  them  without  objection. 
A  few  European  officers  assembled  at  Meerut,  and  having 
collected  the  officers  of  the  pultun  and  ressalah,  ordered 
them  to  take  the  atta  from  the  Government  and  to  bite  the 
cartridges  with  the  mouth.  A  few  Sirdars  objected  to  do 
so ;  but  two,  one  a  Hindoo  and  the  other  a  Mussulman,  bit 
the  cartridge  with  the  mouth.  A  reward  of  one  hundred 
rupees  was  immediately  paid  to  both.     The  rest  said  that 

2t 


642  APPENDIX. 

they  would  consult  each  other  during  the  night,  and  intimate 
the  result  the  next  morning.  There  were  about  eightv-four 
men.  They  were  instantly  sent  to  jail  in  irons.  One  among 
them,  a  Syud^  who  was  f asting,  struck  his  head  on  the  ground 
and  died.  About  two  hours  before  sunset  the  troops  girded 
on  their  loins  and  killed  all  the  European  soldiers  and  officers 
that  were  present.  Only  the  Commissioner  and  the  District 
Officer  escaped.  The  rest  of  the  principal  Europeans  were 
killed — ^women  nor  even  children,  all  that  were  Europeans, 
escaped.  Aftenvards  they  went  to  the  jail.  Tliere  was  a 
sentiy  at  the  gate,  whom  they  asked  to  open  it.  The  sentiy 
refused,  upon  which  a  Sowar,  who  was  a  Syud,  advanced, 
and,  with  the  name  of  God  in  his  mouth,  forced  open  the 
gate  with  a  kick.  They  then  collected  blacksmiths  from  the 
city,  and,  taking  them  to  the  jail,  unfettered  several  thousand 
prisoners.  Both  the  jails  were  broken  through.  Then  they 
went  to  and  sacked  tlie  treasury.  This  state  of  things  con- 
tinued for  two  days.  The  people  of  the  city  of  Meerut  also 
joined  them,  as  also  the  Sjmds  of  Ubdoollapoor,  a  village 
near  Meerut.  The  whole  of  the  cantonment  was  fired ;  not 
a  single  bimgalow  escaped.  The  ^Dewanee  Duftui'  was 
also  burnt.  On  the  third  day  they  went  away  to  Delhi; 
small  bodies  of  them  also  scattered  themselves  in  different  dis- 
tricts. Three  days  afterwards  the  troops  at  Umballah  burnt 
that  cantonment  and  went  away  to  Delhi.  The  Native  troops 
at  Roorkee  also  fired  that  station,  and  went  over  to  Meerut. 
The  residue  of  the  European  troops,  being  joined  by  others, 
demanded  their  arms  from  the  Native  soldiery,  but  they  re- 
fused. The  European  troops  surrounded  them  with  guns. 
In  a  single  volley  forty  of  the  Natives  were  killed,  but  the 
latter  in  their  turn  sent  sixty-five  Gorahs  to  hell  by  a  single 
volley  of  their  muskets.  The  Native  troops  then  took  their 
way  to  Delhi.  A  few  went  to  the  village  of  Ubdoollapoor, 
the  Syuds  of  which  place  gave  them  refuge  and  consolation. 
But  secretly  they  sent  a  man  and  informed  the  Conmiis- 
sioner,  who  proceeded  with  ten  guns  to  Ubdoollapoor,  and  cut 
off  the  road  to  Meerut  and  Delhi.  Then  the  scoundrels 
(Syuds  of  Ubdoollapoor)  informed  the  refugees  that  they  had 
given  them  shelter,  but  that  Government  troops  had  arrived. 


APPENDIX.  643 

The  poor  fellows  then  fled,  but  in  their  fliglit  about  fifteen  or 
twenty  were  killed  and  several  wounded ;  but  they  also  killed 
about  forty  men,  and  then  went  to  Delhi.  In  short,  from  all 
sides  the  Native  troops  assembled  at  Delhi  and  desired  the 
King  to  ascend  the  throne*  His  Majesty  refused;  but  the 
Sepoys  said :  ^  Do  you  ascend  the  throne,  else  we  shall  cut 
off  your  head  and  bury  your  body  underneath  the  throne,  and 
place  one  from  among  ourselves  on  the  throne.'  They  then 
placed  Shahzadah  Jewan  Bukht  on  the  throne.  They  then 
fired  the  Tuhseel  stations  at  Ghazeeabad,  Mooradnuggur, 
Mooradabad,  and  Cawnpore,  &c.,  and  Thanas  of  the  Badsha 
were  located  there.  One  month's  pay  has  been  distributed  to 
the  troops  by  the  King.  The  King  also  wrote  to  the  Eng- 
lish, telling  them  that  their  troops,  having  been  dissatisfied 
with  them,  had  come  over  to  the  King  and  to  take  them 
away.  The  English  replied,  that  the  King  himself  should 
send  them  back.  A  Moulavee  from  Meerut  and  another  from 
some  other  place  have  gone  over  to  Delhi  with  about  six 
thousand  men  to  make  religious  war.  The  Royal  mandates 
were  issued  to  the  different  Rajahs  to  wait  upon  the  Eling. 
It  is  said  that  the  Rajah  of  Bullubgurh  has  waited  upon  his 
Majesty  with  his  troops ;  and  it  is  also  said  that  the  Eling  has 
raised  new  troops,  and  has  fixed  the  pay  of  the  Foot  soldier 
at  twelve  rupees,  and  that  of  the  Sowar  at  thirty  rupees,  per 
mensem.  I  have  sent  a  man  to  Delhi  to  ascertain  the  course 
of  events  there ;  when  he  comes  back  the  real  state  of  things 
will  be  known.  Traffic  has  ceased  in  several  districts.  The 
Jats  and  Goojurs  have  commenced  plundering,  and  news 
arrives  daily  of  the  plundering  of  villages  hcre*and  there.  A 
revolution  has  occurred  in  the  whole  country " 


^^Newafrom  Meerut''— Translated  from  tlie  ^^Soobah  Sadik^'* 

published  at  Madras, 

"  The  same  newspaper*  tells  us  that  in  the  Patau  Bil6 
Camp,  at  Meerut,  the  same  cartridges  arrived,  on  account  of 
which  the  Barrackpore  officers  had  earned  a  reputation,  on 

*  Tlic  Jami-Jawukid  of  Meerut. 

2t2 


644  APPENDIX. 

the  18th  or  19th  of  the  current  month ;  and  the  flouivboxes, 
which  had  been  publicly  stated  to  contain  hogs'  bones  mixed 
up  in  them,  also  came.  The  order  was  that  the  men  of  the 
regiment  should  purchase  the  flour.  On  this  account  no 
one  ate  food,  and  refused  to  take  the  flour  or'  the  cartridges. 
Tliough  it  is  not  right  to  suspect  the  Sirkars — as  they  have 
nothing  to  do  with  religion — ^yet  in  this  business  there  is  no 
doubt  that,  in  the  wisdom  of  Government,  they  have  suddenly 
withdrawn  from  kindly  feeling  towards  the  hearts  of  their 
subjects.  It  is  very  lamentable.  The  sky  kisses  the  earth 
from  grief." 


THE  NANA  SAHIB  AND  AZIM-OOLLAH  KHAN 

[Tlie  visit  of  the  Nana  Sahib  to  Lucknow,  in  April,  1857, 
referred  to  at  page  576,  is  thus  described  by  Mr.  Martin 
Gubbins  in  his  history  of  the  Mutinies  in  Oude :] 

^^  I  must  here  mention  a  visit  which  was  made  to  Lucknow, 
in  April,  by  the  Nana  of  Bithoor,  whose  subsequent  treachery 
and  atrocities  have  given  him  a  pre-eminence  in  infamy.  He 
came  over  on  pretence  of  seeing  the  sight  at  Lucknow,  ac- 
companied by  his  younger  brother  and  a  numerous  retinue, 
bringing  letters  of  introduction  from  a  former  Judge  of 
Cawnpore  to  Captain  Haye-s  and  to  myself.  He  visited  me, 
and  his  manner  was  arrogant  and  presimiing.  To  make  a 
show  of  dignity  and  importance,  he  brought  six  or  seven  fol- 
lowers with  him  into  the  room,  for  whom  chairs  were  de- 
manded. One  of  these  men  was  his  notorious  agent,  Azim- 
oollah.  His  younger  brother  was  more  pleasing  in  appearance 
and  demeanour.  The  Nana  was  introduced  by  me  to  Sir 
Henry  Lawrence,  who  received  him  kindly,  and  ordered  the 
authorities  of  the  city  to  show  him  every  attention.  I  subse- 
quently met  him  parading  through  Lucknow  with  a  retinae 
more  than  usually  large.  He  had  promised  before  leaving 
Lucknow  to  make  his  final  call  on  the  Wednesday.  On  the 
Monday,  we  received  a  message  from  him  that  urgent  busi- 
ness required  his  attendance  at  Cawnpore,  and  he  left  Luck- 
now accordin^y.  At  the  time  his  conduct  excited  little  atten- 


APPENDIX.  645 

tion;  but  it  was  otherwise  when  affairs  had  assumed  the 
aspect  which  they  did  at  Oawnpore  by  the  20th  of  May. 
His  demeanour  at  Lucknow  and  sudden  departure  to  Cawn- 
pore  appeared  exceedingly  suspicious,  and  I  brought  it  to  the 
notice  of  Sir  Henry  Lawrence.  The  Chief  Commissioner 
concurred  in  my  suspicions,  and  by  his  authority  I  addressed 
Sir  Hugh  Wheeler,  cautioning  him  against  the  Nan^  and 
stating  Sir  Henry's  belief  that  he  was  not  to  be  depended  on. 
The  warning  was  unhappily  disregarded,  and,  on  the  22nd  of 
May,  a  message  was  received  stating  that  Hwo  guns  and 
three  hundred  men,  cavaby  and  infantry,  furnished  by  the 
Maharajah  of  Bithoor,  came  in  this  morning.' " 


[At  pages  579-80  (note)  there  is  an  extract  from  the  evi- 
dence of  a  Native  emissary,  taken  by  the  Hon.  H.  B.  Deve- 
reux,  Judicial  Commissioner  of  Mysore.  This  man,  Seetaram 
Bawa  by  name,  was  very  distinct  and  emphatic  in  his  decla^ 
ration  diat  the  Nana  Sahib  had  been,  for  some  time  before 
the  outbreak,  stirring  up  this  revolt  against  the  English.  The 
following  further  passages  from  this  man's  evidence,  whether 
or  not  accepted  as  truth,  will  be  read  with  interest :] 

"  Then  Bajee  Rao  died  at  Bithoor.  He  left  a  widow  and 
an  adopted  son  named  Nana  Sahib,  who  was  always  a  worth- 
less and  not  very  clever  fellow,  and  never  woidd  have  been 
anything  but  for  the  tuition  of  his  Gooroo,  Dassa  Bawa  (said 
to  have  come  from  a  place  called  Kalee  Dhar,  beyond 
Kangra,  this  side  of  Jummoo).  Tliree  years  ago,  or  per- 
haps a  month  less,  Nana  Sahib  gave  the  Gooroo,  Dassa  Bawa, 
a  sunnud,  granting  a  five-lakh  jaghir  rfnd  five  nachatras,* 
because  Dassa  Bawa  had  told  him  that  he  would  become  as 
powerful  as  the  Peishwah  had  once  been ;  and  the  sunnud 
was  to  take  effect  when  he  came  into  power.  Dassa  Bawa 
then  made  a  Hunooman  horoscope  of  eight  angles.  Nana 
then,  after  seven  days  of  pray^k*,  went  to  sleep  on  the  horo- 
scope, and  Hunooman  having  revealed  to  him  that  he  would 
be  victorious,  he  felt  that  the  truth  of  the  prediction  had  been 
confirmed,  ant  at  once  presented  Dassa  Bawa  with  twenty- 

**  Kettle-drums — marks  of  di:'-:  '. 


646 


APPENDIX. 


five  thousand  rnpees^  worth  of  jewels*  Dassa  Bawa  then 
went  to  Nepaul^  &c.  Dassa  Bawa  is  the  person  who  has 
helped  and  advised  the  Nana  throughout.  The  Nana  giva 
him  much  money.  .      .  .^ 


*^  Q.  How  and  when  were  the  Sepoys  induced  to  j<Hn  in  the 
revolt  T 

A.  Not  before  the  annexation  of  Oude,  but  before  the 
affair  of  the  greased  cartridges^  which  was  a  ra&re  pretext 
After  that.  Maun  Singh  sent  four  or  five  Poorbeahs  to  every 
regiment  in  the  service  of  the  Company,  and  by  their  means 
all  communications  took  place.  Even  down  at  the  French 
Rocks  there  were  men.  They  were  able  to  enlist  in  the  cause 
the  Poorbeahs,  Hindostanees,  and  many  Mussulmans,  but  in 
no  instance  did  they  attempt  to  gain  over  the  Tamil  or  Tdegoo 
Sepoys,  or  other  Hindoos  of  this  side  of  India,  for  they  knew 
it  would  be  useless.  They  eat  differently,  and  do  not  inter- 
marry. The  Hindoos  of  the  South  have  no  sympathy  with 
those  of  the  North,  whereas  the  Mahomedans  are  united  in 
feeling  throughout  India.  If  a  EQndoo  is  glad,  nobody  but 
his  own  nearest  people  will  sympathise ;  but  if  a  Mussulman 
is  glad,  all  Mussulmans  rejoice. 

Q.  Explain  what  the  plan  of  attack  really  was. 

A.  A  night  was  to  have  been  fixed  on  which,  without  risk- 
ing anything,  the  whole  of  the  European  oflScers  were  to  have 
been  killed,  and  the  treasuries  plundered.  The  magazines 
were  to  have  been  taken  possession  of  when  possible,  or  else 
blown  up.  But  it  was  never  intended  to  injure  women  or 
children.  Nearly  all  were  of  one  mind  in  the  different  regi- 
ments. It  is  not  the  Brahmins  and  great  men  that  have  de- 
stroyed helpless  children,  women  with  child,  and  poor  women. 
[He  spoke  this  with  great  excitement.]  It  was  the  intention 
to  destroy  your  men,  but  it  was  villagers  and  savages  who  de- 
stroyed your  women  and  children,  such  as  Maun  Singh  and 
his  Poorbeahs.  Nana  Sahib,  though  always  a  worthless  fellow, 
and  nothing  without  Dassa  Bawa,  could  never  have  ordered 
the  massacre  of  the  women  and  children.  Had  they  no 
mothers  or  sisters !     Had  they  no  heart  for  them  I     I  heard 


APPENDIX.  647 

of  what  happened  with  sorrow.    We  object  to  your  raj.    All 
men  have  peace  and  freedom  under  it — such  freedom  as  we 
never  enjoyed  before — ^but  we  sorrow  for  our  caste.    I  am 
speaking  of  Brahmins.     Brahmins  love  good  food  and  ease. 
The  Company  does  not  give  it  (muft)  gratis,  and  we  wish  for 
a  return  of  that  which  will  enable  us  to  obtain  it,  or  rather 
place  matters  in  such  a  position  that  we  can  obtain  it.     We 
feel  the  pressure  of  your  rule  in  this  respect.     Nana  Sahib 
wrote  both  to  Gholab  Singh  and  to  Russia,  and  he  got  an 
answer  from  Russia.    In  that  answer  he  was  told  that  no  as- 
sistance could  be  given  him  unless  he  could  take  and  could 
hold  Delhi ;  but  that,  if  he  coidd  succeed  in  that,  then  assist- 
ance would  be  given  him  to  drive  us  from  Calcutta.    The 
letter  was  sent  to  Jummoo,  and  forwarded  on  from  thence  by 
the  hands  of  the  people  who  bring  almonds  and  fruit.    The 
country  beyond  Jummoo  is  said  to  be  pure  Mussulman,  but  I 
do  not  know  anything  about  it.    First,  Gholab  Singh  joined, 
and  as  soon  as  the  union  of  the  Mussulmans  and  Hindoos  was 
settled,  several  letters  were  sent  to  Russia. 

Q.  Can  you  explain  anything  about  the  chupatfy  cakes 
which  were  passed  over  India  before  the  insurrection  ? 

A.  The  cakes  in  question  were  a  jadoo  or  charm,  which 
originated  with  Dassa  Bawa,  who  told  Nana  Sahib  that  he 
would  make  a  jadoo,  and,  as  far  as  these  magic  cakes  should 
be  carried,  so  far  should  the  people  be  on  his  side.  He  then 
took  the  reed  of  the  lotus,  or  rumul,  called  mukhana,  and 
made  an  idol  of  it.  He  then  reduced  the  idol  to  very  small 
pills,  and,  having  made  an  immense  number  of  cakes,  he  put 
a  pillet  in  each,  and,  as  far  as  the  cakes  were  carried,  so  far 
would  the  people  determine  to  throw  off  the  Company's  raj. 
None  came  as  far  as  this  country. 

Q.  What  made  Nana  Sahib  originate  this  conspiracy  ? 
A.  The   Company  Sirkar  placed  all  the  treasure  of  his 
father  under  attachment,  and  he  wanted  to  gain  possession  of 
it.  The  people  about  liim  urged  him — the  opportunity  offered, 
and  he  took  advantage  of  it. 
Q.  How  do  you  know  all  this  ? 

A.  Every  person,  particularly  every  Bralimin,  is  well  ac- 
quainted with  all  this,  and  the  fact  of  these  letters  hanng 


648  APPENDHL 

been  written.    Why,  every  Baboo  in  Calcutta  knew  of  it,**- 
MS.  Records. 


[Many  readers  will  smile  at  the  statement  that  the  Nana 
Sahib  was  in  correspondence  with  Russia,  and  received  an 
answer  to  his  overtures.  But,  it  is  by  no  means  improbable 
that  Azim-oollah  Khan  entered  into  communication  with  some 
Bussian  officers,  responsible  or  irresponsible,  and  it  is  cei^ 
tain  that  at  the  time  of  the  Crimean  war  nothing  could  have 
better  served  the  interests  of  Bussia  than  a  revolt  in  India. 
That  Azim-oollah  visited  the  Crimea,  we  know  upon  the 
best  possible  authority — ^that  of  Mr.  Bussell,  who  has  given, 
in  liis  "  Diary  in  India,"  the  following  interesting  account  of 
his  meeting  with  the  Nana's  agent  in  the  trenches  before 
Sebastopol :] 

"  Whilst  I  am  writing  about  it,  I  may  as  well  relate  an  inci- 
dent in  connexion  with  one  of  the  Nana's   chief   advisers, 
which  I  mentioned  to  the  Governor-General,  who  appeared 
much  struck  with  it.     After  the  repulse  of  the  allies  in  their 
assaidt  on  Sebastopol,  18  th  June,  an  event  closely  followed 
by  the  death  of  Lord  Baglan  and  a  cessation  of  any  opera- 
tions, except  such  as  were  connected  with  a  renewed  assault 
upon  the  place,  I  went  down  for  a  few  days  to  Constantinople, 
and,  whilst  stopping  at  Misseri's  Hotel,  saw,  on  several  occa- 
sions, a  handsome  slim  young  man,  of  dark-olive  complexion, 
dressed  in  an  Oriental  costume  which  was  new  to  me,  and 
covered  with  rings  and  fineiy.     He  spoke  French  and  Eng- 
lish, dined  at  the  table  (Thotey  and,  as  far  as  I  could  make  out, 
was  an  Indian  Prince,  who  was  on  his  way  back  from  the  pro- 
secution of  an  unsuccessful  claim  against  the  East  India  Com- 
pany in  London.    He  had  made  the  acquaintance  of  Mr. 
Doyne,  who  was  going  out  to  the  Crimea  as  the  superin- 
tendent of  Sir  Joseph  Paxton's  Army  Works  Corps,  and  by 
that  gentleman  he  was  introduced  to  me  one  fine  summei^s 
evening,  as  we  were  smoking  on  the  roof  of  the  hotel.     I  did 
not  remember  his  name,  but  I  recollect  that  he  expressed 
great  anxiety  about  a  passage  to  the  Crimea,  ^as,'  said  he, 
^  I  want  to  see  this  famous  city,  and  those  great  Boostums — 
the  Bussians — who  have  beaten  French  and  English  together*' 


APPENDIX.  649 

Indeed,  he  added  that  he  was  going  to  Calcutta,  when  the 
news  of  the  defeat  of  June  18th  reached  him  at  Malta,  and 
he  was  so  excited  by  it  that  he  resolved  to  go  to  Constanti- 
nople, and  endeavour  thence  to  get  a  passage  to  Balaklava* 
In  the  course  of  conversation  he  boasted  a  good  deal  of  his 
success  in  London  society,  and  used  the  names  of  people  of 
rank  very  freely,  which,  combined  with  the  tone  of  his  re- 
marks, induced  me  to  regard  him  with  suspicion,  mingled,  I 
confess,  with  dislike.  He  not  only  mentioned  his  bonnes 
fortunes^  but  expressed  a  very  decided  opinion  that  tmless 
women  were  restrained,  as  they  were  in  the  East,  ^  like  moths 
in  candlelight,  they  will  fly  and  get  burned.'  I  never  saw  or 
heard  anything  more  of  him  till  some  weeks  afterwards,  when 
a  gentleman  rode  up  to  my  hut  at  Cathcart's  Hill,  and  sent 
me  in  a  note  from  Mr.  Dojoie,  asking  me  to  assist  his  friend 
Azim-oollah  Khan  in  visiting  the  trenches,  and  on  going  out 
I  recognised  the  Indian  Prince.  I  had  his  horse  put  up,  and 
walked  to  the  General's  hut  to  get  a  pass  for  him.  The  sun 
was  within  an  hour  of  setting,  and  the  Russian  batteries  had 
just  opened,  as  was  their  custom,  to  welcome  our  reliefs  and 
working-parties,  so  that  shot  came  bounding  up  towards  the 
hill  where  our  friend  was  standing,  and  a  shell  burst  in  the 
air  at  apparently  near  proximity  to  his  post.  Some  delay 
took  place  ere  I  could  get  the  pass,  and  when  I  went  with  it  I 
found  Azim-oollah  had  retreated  inside  the  cemetery,  and  was 
looking  with  marked  interest  at  the  fire  of  the  Russian  guns. 
I  told  him  what  he  was  to  do,  and  regretted  my  inability  to 
accompany  him,  as  I  was  going  out  to  dinner  at  a  mess  in  the 
Light  Division.  ^  Oh,'  said  he,  ^  this  is  a  beautiful  place  to 
see  from ;  I  can  see  everything,  and,  as  it  is  late,  I  will  ask 
you  to  come  some  other  day,  and  will  watch  here  till  it  is 
time  to  go  home.'  He  said,  laughingly,  *  I  think  you  will 
never  take  that  strong  place ;'  and  in  reply  to  me,  when  I 
asked  him  to  come  to  dine  with  me  at  my  friend's,  where  I 
was  sure  he  would  be  welcome,  he  said,  with  a  kind  of  sneer, 
^  Thank  you,  but  recollect  I  am  a  good  Mahomedan !'  ^  But,' 
said  I,  ^you  dined  at  Misseri'sT'  ^Oh,  yes:  I  was  joking. 
I  am  not  such  a  fool  as  to  believe  in  these  foolish  things.  I 
am  of  no  religion.'     When  I  came  home  that  night  I  found 


650  APPENDIX. 

he  was  asleep  in  my  camp-bed,  and  my  servant  told  me  he 
had  enjoyed  my  stores  very  freely.  In  the  morning  he  was 
tip  and  oS,  ere  I  was  awake.  On  my  table  I  found  a  piece 
of  paper — ^Azim-ooIIah  E^han  presents  his  compliments  to 
Russelly  Esquire,  and  begs  to  thank  him  most  trulj  for  his 
kind  attentions,  for  which  I  am  most  obliged.' 

^^  This  fellow,  as  we  all  know,  was  the  Nana's  secretaiy,  and 
chief  ad^aser  in  the  massacres  at  Cawnpore.    Now,  is  it  not 
curious  enough  that  he  should  have  felt  such  an  interest  to 
see,  with  his  own  eyes,  how  matters  were  going  on  in  the 
Crimea  f     It  would  not  be  strange  in  a  European  to  evince 
such  curiosity ;  but  in  an  Asiatic,  of  the  non-military  caste,  it 
certainly  is.     He  saw  the  British  army  in  a  state  of  some  de- 
pression, and  he  formed,  as  I  have  since  heard,  a  very  im- 
favourable  opinion  of  its  morale  and  phyaiquej  in  comparison 
with  that  of  the  French.     Let  us  remember,  that  soon  after 
his  arrival  in  India  he  accompanied  Nana  Saliib  to  Liucknow, 
where  they  remained  some  time,  and  are  thought  by  those 
who  recollect  their  tone  and  demeanour,  to  have  exhibited 
considerable  insolence  and  hauteur  towards  the   Europeans 
they  met.    Afterwards  the  worthy  couple,  on  the  pretence  of 
a  pilgrimage  to  the  hills — ^a  Hindoo  and  Mussulman  joined  in 
a  holy  excursion ! — ^visited  the  military  stations  all  along  the 
main  trunk-road,  and  went  as  far  as  Umballah.     It  has  been 
suggested  that  their  object  in  going  to  Simlah  was  to  tamper 
with  the  Goorkha  regiment  stationed  in  the  hills ;  but  that, 
finding  on  their  arrival  at  Umballah  a  portion  of  the  regiment 
were  in  cantonments,  they  were  unable  to  effect  their  pur- 
pose with  these  men,  and  desisted  from  their  proposed  jommqr 
on  the  plea  of  the  cold  weather.   That  the  Nana's  demeanour 
towards  us  should  have  undergone  a  change  at  this  time  is 
not  at  all  wonderful ;  for  he  had  learned  the  irrevocable  de- 
termination of  the  authorities  to  refuse  what  he — and,  let  me 
add,  tlie  majority  of  the  millions  of  Hindoos  who  knew  the 
circumstances — considered  to  be  his  just  rights  as   adopted 
heir  of  the  ex-Peishwah  of  the  Mahrattas.     When  the  great 
villany  was  planned  is  not  now  ascertainable ;  but  it  must  be 
remarked,  as  a  piece  of  evidence  in  some  degree  adverse  to 
the  supposition  that  Nana  Saliib  had  successfully  tampered 


APPENDIX.  651 

with  the  troops  at  Oawnpore,  that  the  latter  did  not  evince 
any  design  of  making  him  their  leader,  nor  did  thej  hold  any 
conmmnication  with  him  on  their  revolt,  and  that  they  were 
all  marching  ofiF  for  Delhi  when  he  and  his  creatures  went  to 
theur  camp,  and  by  his  representations,  promises,  and  actual 
disbursements,  induced  them  to  go  back  and  assault  Wheeler 
in  his  feeble  entrenchments/' 

[The  statement  in  the  above,  that  the  Nana  Sahib  visited 
Umballah  in  the  spring  of  1857,  is  new.  Azim-oollah  Khan 
was  certainly  there ;  for  Captain  Martineau,  who  had  pre- 
viously made  acquaintance  with  him  on  board  a  steamer,  on 
his  return  to  India,  met  him  at  that  station  in  the  early  part 
of  the  year,  but  was  not  aware  that  he  accompanied  the  Nana.] 


NATIVE  VERSION  OF  THE  BEGINNING  OF  THE  MUTINY. 

[The  subjoined  letter,  the  original  of  which  fell  into  the 
hands  of  the  Pimjabee  officials,  is,  on  many  accounts,  curious 
and  interesting.  It  is  important,  too,  as  showing  how  general 
was  the  beUef  that  the  whole  army  was  to  "  take  time"  from 
the  Meerut  Brigade.  The  statement  in  this  letter  may  be 
advantageously  compared  with  what  is  said  on  the  same  sub- 
ject in  the  letter  at  page  641 :] 

From  Nund  Singh^  Umritmry  to  Sirdar  Nehal  Singky  Rawul 

Pindee. 

"June  10,1857. 
After  compliments, — "You  wrote  to  me  to  ascertain  the 
true  circumstances  connected  with  the  cartridges.     I  have 
made  inquiries  from  different  sources.     The  fact  is  this : 

"  Near  Calcutta,  five  coss  distant  from  it,  there  is  a  plac« 
called  Achanuk.*  There  is  a  Government  cantonment  at  that 
place.  At  that  place  a  Hindostanee  was  drawing  water  out 
of  a  well.     A  ^  Chumar'  came  in  and  asked  the  Hindostanee 

*  Barrack  pore. 


652  APPENDIX. 

to  give  him  water  to  drink.    The  Hindoetanee  told  him  that 
he  had  better  go  to  some  other  place  to  drink  water. 

^^  ^  How/  said  the  Hindostanee,  ^  can  I  give  you  water  to 
drink  ?     You  are  a  ^^  Chumar."  '• 

^^  Upon  this  words  were  exchanged  between  them.  The 
Ghmnar  said : 

"  *  You  do  not  give  me  water  to  drink,  and  affect  to  be  so  re- 
ligious ;  and  the  fat  of  the  cow  and  pig  which  I  prepare  with 
my  own  hands  you  will  bite  off  with  your  teeth.* 

^^  These  and  similar  words  having  been  exchanged  between 
them,  they  came  to  blows.  The  other  people,  who  had  heard 
the  talk  about  the  ^  fat,'  rescued  the  ^  Chumar,'  and  made  in- 
quiries from  him  in  a  conciliatory  manner. 

"  Then  two  men  went  along  with  him  to  that  place,t  which 
was  a  little  removed  from  the  cantonment.  There  they  saw 
with  their  own  eyes  about  fifty  or  sixty  Chumars  working  and 
putting  on  the  fat  of  both  the  animals  on  the  cartridges. 
They  returned  from  thence  homewards,  and  described  all  to 
the  Soubahdars  and  other  officers. 

^^  It  was  agreed  between  them  that  they  should  remain  silent 
at  the  time,  but  refuse  to  receive  the  cartridges  when  they 
should  be  given  to  them. 

"  *  It  would  then  be  proper  to  remonstrate.  Let  them  (the 
Government)  be  doing  whatever  they  like  in  private.  What 
business  have  we  to  murmur  I ' 

^^  For  this  reason,  for  some  time  nothing  broke  out.  About 
two  or  one  and  a  half  months  afterwards  the  regiment  was 
ordered  to  receive  these  cartridges,  (and  it  was  explained  to 
them)  that,  in  the  first  place,  the  greased  cartridges  easily 
went  down  into  the  musket ;  and,  secondly,  they  prevented 
the  musket  from  being  affected  by  the  damp.  But  as  the 
men  already  knew  (all  about  them),  they  refused  to  recei\'e 
them.  The  European  officers  at  that  place  (Barrackpore) 
were  very  hot-tempered;  therefore,  in  consequence  of  this 
refusal  a  quarrel  soon  sprung  up.  Immediately  the  European 
troops  were  brought  out,  and  surrounded  the  regiment.  The 
latter  were  ordered  to  give  up  their  arms.    They  replied: 

*   The  lowest  class  among  the        f  The  place  where  cartridges  were 
Hindoos,  who  work  in  leather.  said  to  be  made. 


APPENDIX.  653 

*  Give  us  our  pay  and  take  away  the  arms.'  The  regiments 
were  then  made  to  put  down  their  arms,  and  they  having  re- 
ceived their  pay  each  went  away  to  their  home.  All  the 
Sepoys  in  this  country,  at  Kumaul,  Meerut,  &c.,  were  some 
way  or  other  related  (to  those  of  the  disbanded  regiments). 
(The  men  of  the  latter)  wrote  to  the  former,  telling  them  what 
had  occurred,  and  stated  Hhat  we  have  on  this  account 
quitted  the  service,  and  have  seen  all  with  our  own  eyes. 
We  have  written  this  to  you  for  your  information.  If  you 
should  receive  these  cartridges,  intermarriage,  and  eating  and 
drinking  in  common,  shall  cease  between  yourselves  and  us.' 

"  When,  at  Dinapore,  the  cartridges  were  distributed  by  the 
Eni?lish,  they  were  refused ;  the  men  stated  that  ^  Meerut  is 
th7pri^cipal  cantonment.  Distribute  the  cartridges  there 
first  of  all,  and  we  will  take  them  afterwards.' 

^^  The  distribution  of  the  cartridges  having  been  ordered  at 
Meerut,  and  the  men  having  been  already  acquainted  with 
the  circumstances  connected  with  them,  refused  to  receive 
them.  But  a  company  which  was  sent  for  to  receive  the 
cartridges,  not  having  obeyed  the  order,  were  placed  in  con- 
finement by  the  European  officers.  Intelligence  of  this 
having  reached  the  rest  of  the  troops,  all  attacked  the  jail, 
and  set  at  liberty  the  men  of  the  company,  and  also  the  other 
prisoners.     The  disturbance  then  grew  high. 

"  At  the  very  first,  when  the  regiment  at  Achanuk  (Barrack- 
pore)  was  disbanded,  a  requisition  was  made  to  England  for 
twenty  more  European  regiments.  But  these  did  not  sail  in 
steamers,  but  are  coming  in  other  ships  which  sail  with  the 
force  of  the  wind. 

*^  The  truth  appears  to  be,  that  the  report  of  the  fat  being 
used  is  not  altogether  untrue ;  much  is  commonly  made  of  a 
little  thing,  but  it  cannot  be  that  anything  can  be  produced 
from  nothing.  Is  ever  a  tree  produced  without  the  seed? 
It  cannot  be.  And  now  that  orders  have  been  read  to  all  the 
regiments  to  the  effect  that  these  cartridges  will  not  be  served 
out,  and  shall  either  be  cut  up  or  flooded,  consider  that  the 
very  circumstance  of  such  an  order  having  been  read,  anni- 
hilates the  belief  that  there  was  nothing  wrong  in  these 
cartridges. 


654  APPENDIX. 


^  You  are  wise  yourself ;  the  real  foundation  of  this  dis- 
turbance is  what  I  have  described*  But  all  things  are  known 
to  God  only,  who  is  omniscient.*' — MS.  Records. 


THE  MAY  PBOCLAMATION. 

[The  following  is  the  proclamation  referred  to  at  page  608 :] 

*'  Fort  William,  Home  Department^  May  16, 1857. 
"  Proclamatian. 

"  The  Governor-General  of  India  in  Council  has  warned  the 
Army  of  Bengal,  that  the  tales  by  which  the  men  of  certain 
Regiments  have  been  led  to  suspect  that  offence  to  their  Reli- 
gion or  injury  to  their  Caste  is  meditated  by  the  Government 
of  India,  are  malicious  falsehoods. 

"  The  Governor-General  in  Council  has  learnt  that  this  sus- 
picion continues  to  be  propagated  by  designing  and  evil- 
minded  men,  not  only  in  the  Army,  but  amongst  other 
classes  of  the  people. 

*^  He  knows  that  endeavours  are  made  to  persuade  Hindoos 
and  Mussulmans,  Soldiers  and  Civil  Subjects,  that  their  reli- 
gion is  threatened  secretly,  as  well  as  openly,  by  the  acts  of 
the  Government,  and  that  the  Government  is  seeking  in 
various  ways  to  entrap  them  into  a  loss  of  Caste  for  purposes 
of  its  own. 

^^  Some  have  been  already  deceived  and  led  astray  by  these 
tales. 

'^  Once  more,  then,  the  Gt)vemor-General  in  Council  warns 
all  classes  against  the  deceptions  that  are  practised  on  them. 

*^  The  Government  of  India  has  invariably  treated  the  reli- 
gious feelings  of  all  its  subjects  with  careful  respect.  The 
Governor-General  in  Council  has  declared  that  it  will  never 
cease  to  do  so.  He  now  repeats  that  declaration,  and  he  em- 
phatically proclaims  that  the  Government  of  India  entertains 
no  design  to  interfere  with  their  Religion  or  Caste,  and  that 
nothing  has  been,  or  will  be  done  by  the  Government  to  affect 


APPENDIX.  Bri/5 


the  free  exercise  of  the  observances  of  Eeb'gion  or  Caste  by 
every  class  of  the  people. 

"  The  Government  of  India  has  never  deceived  its  subjects, 
therefore  the  Govemoi>GeneraI  in  Council  now  calls  upon 
them  to  refuse  their  belief  to  seditious  lies. 

"  This  notice  is  addressed  to  those  who  hitherto,  by  habitual 
loyalty  and  orderly  conduct,  have  shown  their  attachment  to 
the  Government,  and  a  well-founded  faith  in  its  protection  and 
justice. 

"  The  Governor-General  in  Council  enjoins  all  such  persons 
to  pause  before  they  listen  to  false  guides  and  traitors  who 
would  lead  them  into  danger  and  disgrace. 

"  By  Order  of  the  Governor-General  of  India  in  Council, 

"  Cecil  Beadon, 
"  Secretary  to  the  Government  of  India." 


ADDENDUM. 

AMMUNITION  FOE  TWO-GROOVED  RIFLES. 

After  the  statements  at  pages  516-18,  respecting  the  com- 
position of  the  greasing  materials  used  with  the  old  two- 
grooved  rifles,  was  in  type,  I  succeeded  in  tracing  the  ori- 
ginal orders  on  the  subject,  drawn  up  by  the  Military  Board 
in  1847.  The  following  is  the  material  part  of  the  Board's 
Memorandum,  approved  by  the  Conunander-in-Chief  and  the 
Governor-General : 

**  1st.  The  ammunition  of  two-grooved  rifles  is  to  be  pre- 
pared as  blank  cartridge  of  three  drachms  of  musketry  pow- 
der, in  blue  paper,  made  up  in  bundles  of  ten. 

^^  2nd.  The  balls  to  be  put  up,  five  in  a  string,  in  small 
cloth  bags,  with  a  greased  patch  of  fine  cloth — a  portion  car- 
ried in  a  ball-bag  attached  to  the  girdle  on  the  right  side,  and 
the  remainder  in  pouch. 

"3rd.  Patches  to  be  made  of  calico  or  long  cloth,  and 
issued  ready  greased  from  magazines ;  a  portion  of  greasing 
composition  will  also  be  issued  with  the  patches  for  the  pur- 


.», 


I  I 


656  APPENDIX. 

pose  of  renewal  when  required,  and  instnietions  for  its  pre- 
paration forwarded  to  magazine  officers  by  the  Military 
Board." 

[The  following  were  the  instnietions  issued  in  accordance 
with  this  Memorandum :] 

^^  The  mode  of  preparing  the  grease  and  applying  it  to  the 
cloth  to  be  as  follows: — ^To  three  pints  of  country  linseed 
oil,  add  one-fourth  of  a  pound  of  beeswax,  which  mix  by 
melting  the  wax  in  a  ladle,  pouring  the  oil  in  and  allowing  it 
to  remain  on  the  fire  until  the  composition  is  thoroughly 
melted.  The  cloth  is  then  to  be  dipped  in  it  imtil  every  part 
is  saturated,  and  held  by  one  comer  until  the  mixture  ceases 
to  run,  after  which  it  is  to  be  laid  out  as  smooth  as  possible 
on  a  clean  spot  to  cool.  The  above  quantity  of  cx>mpo6ition 
will  answer  for  three  yards  of  long  doth,  from  which  1200 
patches  can  be  made." 

[These  instructions  were  approved  by  the  Governor-General 
(Lord  Hardinge),  in  a  letter  from  the  Military  Secretary  to 
the  Adjutant-General,  dated  April  6, 1847.  I  can  trace  no 
subsequent  order  cancelling  the  above ;  and  as  I  am  assured 
by  the  officer  who  held  the  post  of  Inspector-General  of  Ord- 
nance during  the  administration  of  Lord  Dalhousie  and  Lord 
Caiming  that  this  composition  continued  in  use  up  to  1857, 1 
cannot  doubt  that  the  impression  at  head-quarters  that  the 
'^patches"  were  greased  with  mutton  fat  was  altogether  a 
mistake.] 


END  OF  VOL.  I. 


LOKDOK : 
PRIKTKD  BT  C.  WHITINO,  BEACPOKT  ROrSir,  fTBAMO. 


13,  WATEaLoo  Plack,  S.W. 

Loin>ON,  October,  1864. 


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Second  Edition,  in  Three  vols.  8yo,  price  £1  168. 

From  Family  and  State  Papers  in  the  possesdion  of  Sir  Lascelles  Wraxall, 

Bart, 


flPKcTATOu,  June  25,  18fi4. — *' A  memoir 
readable,  pictiirc!*qiic,  full  of  anecdote,  and 
nrlth  that  faintest  llavoar  of  •caudal  which 
meinoir-rcaders  love.  No  l)o<>k  haa  boon 
pablishcil  thU  year  likely  to  be  in  greater 
demand  with  Ubrariea." 

London  Rkview,  July  9,  1864— "Will 
be  read  with  frreat  intereHt,  for  it  is  cer- 
tainly the  bfst  and  fullest  account  which 
has  appeared  of  an  event  which  will  always 
poiMcsa  a  certain  degree  of  romantic  attrac- 
Uon." 

All  the  Year  KorND. — "The  memoir 
has  high  merit,  not  only  as  a  historical 
but  as  a  literary  production.  Some  of  the 
details  of  amrt  life  are  extremely  curious.*' 

Temple  Bab  — "  The  story  of  the  Queen 
of  Denmark,  who  loved  not  wimly  but  too 
well,  has  t>ecn  told  by  tflr  Laacelles  Wraxall 
with  considerable  sympathy,  frrc-at  frrasp  of 
detail,  and  in  such  a  pleasant  kindly  fashion 
as  must  commend  liis  work  alike  to  the 


historlcnl  student  and  the  reader  for  mere 
amusement" 

EDIIfBrRail  KVEXINQ  COUEAKT,  Juljf  23, 

IStJI. — •  \V*>  recommend  Sir  Lascelles  Wraz- 
all's  volumes  to  our  readers  as  frlvlng  an 
excellent  account  of  the  life  and  times  of 
the  unfortunate  queen,  and  which  fonns 
one  of  the  most  romantic  episodes  in  tlie 
history  of  the  18th  century." 

BsLL'ft  MEs.>4ENr.KR,  July  2,  1864.— "One 
of  the  most  valuable  no  less  than  one  of 
the  most  interesting  hi«torical  works  that 
fur  a  long  time  past  has  been  written." 

Illuhtbatkd  Times,  Juli/  28,  1864.— •'  In 
leaving  theMO  volumes  we  must  say  tliat 
they  are  amongst  the  most  fasclnnting  of 
the  8<>ason.  and  describe  a  most  interesting 
pa^sai'e  of  hiAtory.  The  author's  clearness 
and  industry  have  well  backed  up  the  n>a- 
terial  open  to  him,  and  the  result  is  an 
excellent  specimen  of  '  Life  and  Times  * 
literature." 


Wm.  H.  Allen  db  Co. 


THE  MYSTERIES  OF  THE  VATICAN, 


OR. 


CRIMES    OF   THE    PAPACY. 

In  Two  Vols,  post  8to,  price  £1  Is. 


GERMAN  LIFE  AND  MANNERS, 

AS   SEEN    IN    SAXONY   AT  THE    PRESENT   DAY: 

"With  an   Account  of  Village  Life— Town  Life — Fashionable  Life — Married 
life— School  and  Univendty  Life,  &c.,  of  Germany  at  the  Present  Time. 

Bluitrated  with  Bonft  and  Pioturet  of  the  Stodoat  Outonu  at  the  TTomraltj  of 

Joaa. 

By  henry  MAYHEW, 

Author  of  *'  London  Laboar  and  London  Poor/'  **  Great  World  of  London,**  Ac 

Two  Volumes,  8to,  82«. 


Athkubum,  Dectmbtr  bth^  ISeS.— "ThU 
la  a  work,  which  in  its  ontifitoken.  and 
perhaps  sometimes  boisterous  frauluiess. 
will  shock  many  admirers  of  Goethe  and 
Schiller,  and  of  the  land  they  lived  in ; 
but  which,  nereriheleas,  in  despite  of  the 
honest,  downright  blows  which  &Ir.  3Iay- 
hew  distributes  so  freely  with  his  English 
cudgel  on  the  members  of  almost  every 
Gennan  chis«  and  profession,  and  on 
almost  every  German  custom  and  insti- 
tution. Is  full  of  original  thought  and  ob- 
servation, and  may  be  studied  with  profit 
by  I>oth  German  and  English — esi>ecially 
by  the  German." 

Bkll's  Mk88E)«oek,  January  23rd;  1864. 
— *  Mr.  Mayhew's  very  amusing  Tolumea 
well  deserve  careful  perusal  The  Luther 
exploration  is  deeply  interesting." 

McRKiNO  Post,  December  31»<,  1868. — 
*'Mr.  Mayhew  has  made  up  two  very  in- 
teresting volumes." 

Illustrated  Times,  Jenitary  IfiHA,  1864. 
— "Mr.  M;iyhew  has  produced  the  most 
entertainhig  and  (to  a  careful  reader)  in- 
structive book  we  have  seen  for  a  long 
time — a  book  that  will  be  greedily  gone 
through  and  long  remembered  by  every- 
body that  takes  it  up." 


iLLuarnATSD  Naws,  Jamiarp  Snd;  lasi. 
— "  To  say  that  Ifr.  Henry  Mayhew  has 
written  two  exceedingly  entertaining 
Tolnmes  win  appear,  to  those  who  know 
anjrthing  of  his  writhigs,  equiralent  only 
to  sajring  that  he  has  written  twoTolnmea. 
He  has  now  left  English  for  Gennan  life ; 
so  far,  at  lea^^t,  as  Saxony  offers  a  spechnea 
of  it,  and  his  descriptions  are  characterised 
by  the  same  graphic,  uncorapromlKinz,  and, 
one  is  bound  to  say,  moreover,  studded, 
as  usual,  by  gems  of  wit,  humour  and 
anecdote ,  and  illustrated  by  conaparisona 
or  contrasts,  drawn  from  that  vast  stock  of 
experiences  with  which  his  acquaintance 
with  en  extensive  range  of  aociety  has 
supplied  tiim.'* 

Glasgow  MoRHnro  Jocrkal,  April  18, 
1864.—"  Mr.  Mayhew's  work  is  excessively 
interesting,  and  in  many  paasa^ca  exces- 
sively amusing,  there  can  be  no  manner  of 
of  doubt,  while  we  have  every  reason  to 
believe  that  the  picture  it  presenta  of  Ger- 
man life  and  manners  is  in  the  iMtn  atrictlT 
and  Uterally  true."  ' 

London  Review,  Joh,  161*.  1864. **  We 

do  not  know  where  to  look  for  a  better 
view  of  the  student  life  of  a  Qerman  uni- 
versity than  Mr.  Mayhew  Ktves  na  aontbM 
of  that  of  Jena."  *v^v^ 


13,  Watebloo  Place,  S.W. 


8 


"  THEIR  MAJESTIES'  SERVANTS :" 

ACTORS-AUTHORS   AND   AUDIKNCES, 

From  THOMAS  BXTTEBTOH  to  EDMUND  KEAH. 

By  Db.  DORAN,  F.S.A., 

Author  of  **  Tabl«  Tndts,"  "  livos  of  the  Qaeena  of  England  of  the  Home  of  Hanoter," 

2  Tolfl.  Sto,  82b. 


u 


BILL    OF    THE    PLAY." 


VOL.  I. 

Prologue— The  Decline  And  Fall  of  the 
Player*— The  "  Boy  Actreeiee,"  and  the 
"  Young  Ladiea  "—The  Gentlemen  of  the 
King's  Company— Thomas  Bctterton- 
** Exeunt,"  and  "Enter "—Elixabeth Barry 
—**  Their  flmt  appearance  on  thla  atage  "— 
The  I>ramatic  Poets.— Noble,  gentle,  and 
humble  Authors — Professional  Authors— 
The  Dramatic  Authoresses— The  Audiences 
of  the  Seventeenth  Century— A  Seven  Years* 
Rivalry -The  tJnlted  and  the  Disunited 
Companies— Union,  Strength,  Prosperity- 
Competition,  and  what  came  of  it— The 
Progress  of  James  Quin.  and  Decline  of 
Barton  Booth— Barton  Booth  -  Mrv.  Old- 
field— FVmn  the  Death  of  Anne  OlJfield  to 
that  of  Wilks— Robert  Wilks— Enter.  Oar> 
rick— GAnIck,  Quln,  Mrs.  Porter— Rivalry : 
and  Enter,  Spranger  Barry — The  Old 
Dublin  Theatre— Garrick  and  Quin :  Gar- 
rick  and  Barry— The  Audiences  of  1700> 
irriO— Exit,  James  Quin- England  and 
Boodand. 


VOL.  n. 
Margaret  WofOngton— Colley  Gibber— 
England  and  Ireland — Byan,  Rich,  O'Brien 
—Susanna  Maria  Clbber— Re-appearanoe 
of  Spranger  Barry.— Retirement  of  Mrs. 
I  Prlchard— The  last  Years  of  Garrick  and 
Barry— David  Garrick— Spranger  and  Anne 
Barry- Kitty  Clive,  Woodward,  Shuter— 
Samuel  Foote— Supplemental  Catalogue  of 
Mew  Plays  from  the  retirement  of  Garrick 
to  the  end  of  the  Ei^rtiteenth  Century- 
Of  Anthers,  and  particularly  of  condemned 
Authors — The  Audiences  of  the  last  half  of 
the  Eighteenth  Centur>— Charles  Macklln 
—A  Bevy  of  Ladles;  but  chiefly,  Mrs. 
Bellamy.  Miss  Farren,  Mrs.  Abington,  and 
"PerdiU"— A  Group  of  Gentlemen— John 
Henderson— Sarah  SIddons— John  Kemble 
—George  Frederick  Cooke— Maiiter  Betty 
—  Stage  Costume  and  Stage  Tricks— Pro- 
logues, Epilogues ;  Dedications,  and  Bene- 
fits— Old  Stagers  Departing— New  Ideas; 
New  Theatres;  New  Authors;  and  the 
New  Actors— Edmund  ELean. 


Athsnadc,  AIot.  21, 1863.-  •'  Dr.  Doran 
haft  contrlvHl  a  conple  o(  volumes  which, 
while  they  i>atlsfy  the  informatton-Heeking 
few,  win  l>e  rccolveil  as  a  treasury  of  amus- 
ing anecdute  by  the  lovers  of  gosjdp. 
The  stage  of  any  country,  whether  It 
flourishes  or  not.  lit  sure  to  pnxluce  a  crop 
of  go<id  tltorie^  and  no  one  can  tell  good 
stories  better  than  Dr.  Doran." 

Daily  X«w«,  Dn.  29, 1«63.— "An  elabo- 
rate history  of  the  drama  in  all  its  aspects. 
.  .  .  When  once  taken  up  it  must  be 
rend  throufrh.  Every  page  of  the  work  is 
liart)e<l  with  wit,  and  will  make  Its  way 
{mint  foremoiit  .  .  .  Tliesc  volumes 
firuvide  entertainment  for  the  most  diverse 
tastes." 


Saturdat  Rkview,  Dec.  26,  1869.—**  As 
a  collection  of  anecdotes  and  brief  Uo- 
grallhle^  Dr.  Doran's  book  leaves  little  or 
nothing  to  desire." 

MoksiiKO  Post,  Jan.  16,  1864.— *' Dr. 
Doran's  book  contains  a  copious  review  of 
all  subjects  connected  with  dramatic  litera- 
ture, with  the  lives  of  pUyers,  and  with  the 
business  of  the  stage,  during  the  whole 
Iierio<l  of  the  rise  and  growth  of  theatrical 
representations  in  England.  The  style  of 
the  volumes  is  clover  and  amusing  In  a  high 
degree ;  and  the  diverslfled  stores  of  inform 
mation  which  they  condense  entitle  them 
to  a  perusal  by  every  lover  of  the  drama, 
and  especially  by  every  aspirant  to  the 
honours  of  the  sock  and  buskin." 


Wm.  H.  Allen  &  Co., 


Skcond  Edztiok.  -* 

Dedicated,  by  Permitiion,  to  the  Biihop  of  Oxford. 

SOCIAL     LIFE    OF    MUNICH 

By  EDWARD  WILBERFORCE.  Esq. 

Post  8vrt,  cloth,  10s.  Cd. 


Munii-h  fnnn  the  Outnide. 
Maiiiuth  and  l-ui'toiua. 
UovaUv, 

"  Thf  two  Klnjrs  of '» 

Pulilic  Ituildiiiga. 
ricture  Uallerica. 
KUnstler  Fvbtc. 


CONTENTS: 

Comeliuft  in  Munich. 
KaiilUach. 
Municli  Artistic. 
Practical  Munich. 
K'lvarian  Itailways. 
The  Roval  Library. 
The  Theatre  in  Munich. 


Concerts  In  Munich . 

lieerhouses. 

Villa^  Life  in  Bararia. 

Iavtb  of  Trade. 

Laws  of  Marriage. 

Laws  of  Pollco. 


flpF.t-TATon  yor.  31. 18C3— "The  ' Social 
Life'  is  iitti>;rctlior  an  admirable  photo- 
frrdpldr  picture,  i>hurp  aud  dear,  and  true 
in  every  lijic  of  Uj^ht  and  shade." 

Rkader,  yor.  14,  1863.— "It  will  com- 
mand the  littentitin  of  every  thinking 
Gemi.nn.  Mr.  Wilberforces  intereating 
volume  embraceii  nearly  the  whole  rautn; 
of  Municli  life,  iM>litical,  social,  and  nrtiMtic 
*  Social  Life  in  Munich'  is  entirely  free 
from  the  scandalous  anec<lotes  !>>'  which 
town  travels  are  so  often  disfigured. 
Written  throughout  in  a  pleasing  lively 
strain,  it  is  evidently  the  work  of  a  keen 


observer,  who  l)enefits  the  6«nnans  whilst 
he  amuses  his  own  countrymen." 

Ql-akihas,  Ik(.  2,  1863.— "Mr.  Win>cr- 
force  hai»  written  a  clever  and  charact4a-istic 
account  of  this  famous  city  of  art." 

8,vTrEDAT  Review,  Dec.  26.  1860. — "A 
very  able  volume.  Mr.  Wiibcforce  is  a 
very  pleasant  and  agreeable  writer,  whose 
opinion  is  worth  hearing  on  the  subject  of 
modem  art,  which  enters  largely  into  the 
matter  of  his  discourse." 

Edixbuboh  Cocrant,  yat.  14,  1863.— 
"  We  welcome  this  agreeable  and  Instruc- 
tive book.*' 


SIR  EVERARD'S  DAUGHTER, 

A    NEW    NOVEL. 

By  JOHN  CORDY  JEAFFRESON, 

Author  of  "  Live  it  Down,"  Ac 
Second  Edition,  x)Ost  8vo,  10s.  Od. 


Athemjbum,  July  11, 1863.—**  It  is,  per- 
haps, the  most  remarkable  work  of  fiction 
that  Blr.  Jeaflrcson  has  written." 

Bell's  Measrnoes,  JuIu  18,  1863. — 
"  Compared  with  many  of  Mr.  Jeaffreson's 
larger  literary  productions,  this  tale  is  but 
a  sketch ;  yet  as  such  it  shows  the  hand  of 


a  master,  and  proves  that  had  he  been  at 
the  pains  to  have  elaborated  his  subject 
upon  a  broader  canvas,  it  woold  have  iMcn 
not  only  one  of  the  most  sacccssf  ui  speci- 
mens he  has  ever  prepared,  but  one  ofthe 
most  remarkable,  for  a  long  time  past 
given  to  the  public  by  any  other  modern 
novelist." 


13,  Waterloo  Plack,  S.W. 


THE  IONIAN  ISLANDS 

In  the  Tear  1863. 
By  Professor  D.  T.  ANSTED,  M.A.,  F.RS. 

8vOy  cloth,  with  Maps  and  Cuts,  16s. 


Satcbdat  Revikw,  Dee.  5,  1868.— 
**  What  Mr.  Anstcd  saw  in  the  Ionian 
Islanda  ho  saw  well,  and  under  good 
auspices,  and  has  noted  down  carefully." 

NoKCOKFOSMisT,  Dfc.  18,  1868. — "Pro- 
fessor An«tcd'8  volume  fumUhcs  interest- 
ing InfomiAtion  on  all  points  on  which  in- 
formation might  fairly  be  looked  for  in 
such  a  work.  Ills  narrative  Is  tliroughout 
light  and  agrtcable  reading." 

ATHF.if.iCL'X.  />«•.  21,  1863.— "  Through 
these  Islandu  Professor  Austed  has  accom- 
pliiihe<l  a  i)lcasant  run,  the  Incidents  of 
which  are  as  pleasantly  narrated.    What 


Professor  Ansted  effected  in  his  volume  on 
the  Channi'l  Islands  for  that  Insular  group 
in  our  own  seas,  he  has  accomplished  as 
successfully  for  these  Isles  of  Greece  in 
the  work  which  we  now  make  over  to  its 
assured  public." 

Thb  Preps,  Jan.  2-.',  1864.—"  Ilijrhly  in- 
teresting on  account  of  the  great  variety  of 
information  it  contains,  and  not  less  highly 
commendable  for  the  impartiality  with 
which  the  various  data  for  Judging  of  the 
expediency  of  the  transfer  of  the  Islands 
to  the  kingdom  of  Greece  are  placed  before 
the  reader. " 


TRAVELS  IN  MEXICO, 

SOUTH    AMEEICA,  &c.,   &c. 

By  G.  T.  VIGNE,  Esq., 

Autlior  of  "  A  Personal  'Malt  to  Ghuzni  and  Affghanlstan,"  and  **  Travels  In  Kashmir, 

Ladak."  kc. 

With  lUnstratioDs,  2  vols,  post  8to,  21s. 


Obskhtzr,  A'w.  15,  1863.— "TIic  author 
seems  to  have  travelled  ov<t  a  great  part 
of  riouth  America,  and  to  have  \ihlte<l  all 
the  princiftal  t(»wns  and  iilace*  worth 
seeing,  and  his  observatio::*.  which  axe 
mafle  with  clcverne.ss,  and  intelligence,  are 
characterized  by  rcmarkahle  freshness  of 
feeling,  an  unaffected  style,  and  a  con- 
scientious truthfulness." 

SrBCTAToR.  A'i/»  28,  1863.— •«  While  in 
Nicaragua  the  lUIbuKters  were  attracting 
the  attention  of  Kurnpo.  and  hi«  (Mr. 
Vtgn<<'!<)  i«ketch  if  the  fortunes  of  Oene- 
rai  Walkfr  up  to  his  execution  fonus  an 
•pUode  of  considerable  interest    The  spe- 


cial charm  In  Mr.  Vign«»*s  work  Is  the  kccn- 
nest  of  ills  observations  a<  a  naturalist  In 
the  c<mntry  in  which,  alK»v«  all  others, 
nature  seems  to  have  revcilvd  in  strange 
aud  fantastic  creatiouit.  Without  attempt- 
ing sot  doiicriptlons  of  extorn.il  iw-onery 
or  natural  phenomena,  he  m.inogcs,  by  the 
fidelity  and  freshness  of  style,  to  convey 
to  the  mind  of  the  reader  the  pervading 
atmosphere  of  the  scene  and  drcumstancea 
with  rare  felicity." 

llnxtiKfi,  Jan.  16, 1H64. — "  We  can  recom- 
mend this  work  as  a  plea!«antly  written 
narrative  of  travel  In  a  most  interesting 
aud  little  known  region." 


Wm.  H.  Allen  &  Co. 


VICTOR   HUGO; 

A   LIFE    RELATED    BT   ONE   WHO    HAS   WITNESSED    IT. 

INCLUDIKO 

%n  Onginal  grama,  in  %t(  %ttt, 


■ITITIiED 


C( 


INEZ     DE     CASTE  O." 

FROM    THE     FRENOH. 

Two  Vols,  poet  8vo,  £1  Is. 


Contentf: 


LaVendde. 

Marriage. 

CaniiAign  of  the  Rhine. 

Fni  DIavulo. 

Journey  into  Italy. 

Arrest  of  I^horie. 

Meeting  with  Napoleon. 

Concha  the  Monk. 

Story  of  General  Louis  Hugo. 

El  Empecinado. 

An  Idyll  at  Uayonne. 

Maascrano  Palace. 

College  of  the  Noble. 

France  Invaded. 

Dourbonii. 

The  Hundred  Days. 

The  Foolish  Things  Master  Hngo  did 

before  he  was  fully  ilcdged. 
First  Introduction  to  the  Academy. 
A  Word  for  Chateaubriand. 
Death  of  the  Mother. 


Lamennala  beoomea  Victor  Hngo*a 

Confeseor. 
A  Wedding. 
AVislttoBloiB. 
Coronation  of  Charles  X. 
Msit  to  Lamartine. 
M.  Victor  Hugo's  Recital, 
lietter  from  Lunenuaia. 
Cromwell. 
Amy  Robsart. 
The  Scalfold. 
The  Consequences  of  **  The  lAst  Day 

of  a  Convict." 
EmanL 

Notre  Dame  de  Paris. 
Marion  de  Lorme. 
Lucrczia  Borgia. 
Marie  Tudor. 
La  Esmeralda. 
F6te  at  Versailles. 


ATHSN.SU1C,  /mm  27,  1868.— "The  story 
of  such  a  life  as  M.  Victor  Hugo,  told  by  a 
witness,  can  hardly  fall  to  be  a  tale  which 
will  make  Europe  sit  still  to  listen." 

Prssb,  Jutv  25,  1893.— "These  Tolnmes 
contain  a  wonderful  wealth  of  anecdote, 
and  we  predict  that  they  will  be  read  with 
great  aviditj'." 

LoHDOv  Revibw,  Jui^  25,  186S.— "We 
have  said  enough,  we  hope,  to  show  our 
readers  that  the  present  volumes  will  repay 
perusal.  From  beginning  to  end  we  have 
found  them  full  of  lively  and  interesting 
gossip,  with  numerous  passages  which  have 
also  an  historical  value." 


Stakdaxi),  8g>i.  29, 184SS.->"Thia  is  alto* 
gether  a  very  charming  little  book;  its 
contents  are  so  various  that  no  reader  can 
fail  to  be  pleased,  and  the  style — light, 
graceful,  and  piquant— is  the  p<»ff ection  of 
chatty  biography.** 

NovcoHFORXisT,  Stpi.  2,  ISO. — •*  A  work 
which  is  sure  to  attract  much  attention.** 

EoiKBUROH  CouRAirr,  SepL  19,  l^en,-^ 
**  The  anecdotes— the  pictures— the  sketches 
of  continental  men  and  women— oil  of 
which  follow  each  other  naturally  In  the 
story  of  the  career  of  a  f  amoua  Frenchman, 
make  this  life  as  instructive  as  it  la  amua* 
ing  to  British  readers." 


J' 


13,  Waterloo  Place,  S.W. 


Im  One  handsome  8vo  volume,  with  72  lUustrationt  on  Wood  by  Tizstxixt,  Loddax, 
NicHOixB,  and  Hast,  aUo  teith  a  Map^  price  £1  6t. 

THE    CHANNEL  ISLANDS: 

OOHTADiniO 

Fart  I.— PHYSICAL  OEOOBAPHY. 

The  Cbannel  and  Channel  Islands — Aldemey,  Ortach,  and  the  Oasqnets — 
Island  and  Coast  of  Qnemsey — Islands  and  Bocks  near  Quernsey — Jersey 
and  adjacent  Rocks — Chaussey  Archipelago  and  the  Minquiers— Climate, 
Meteorology,  and  Sanitary  Condition. 

Fart  n.— HATXntAL  HISTOBT. 

Yegetaible  prodactions  nataral  to  the  Islands — Animals  in  the  Islands  and 
adjacent  Seas — Geology  and  Mineralogy,  Ancient  Formations — Modem  De- 
struction  and  Renovation — Fauna  and  Flora,  considered  in  reference  to  their 
Physical  Geography  and  Gkology. 

Fart  m.— CIYIL  HISTOBT. 

Pagan  and  Legendary  Period — German  Period — Norman  Conquest  to  begin- 
ning of  Civil  Wars— Civil  Wars — Accession  of  William  the  Tlurd  to  present 
Time — ^Antiquities  and  Archaeology— Language  and  Literature. 

Fart  lY.— ECM>H0MIC8  and  TBABE. 

Agriculture — ^Horticulture — Trade,  Commerce,  and  Manufactures — Con- 
stitution and  Laws — Manners  and  Customs — Principal  Public  Institutions — 
Hints  to  Tourists— Money,  Weights,  and  Measures — Statistics. 

By  DAVID  THOMAS  ANSTED,  MA.,  F.R.S.,  Ac., 
ROBERT  GORDON  LATHAM,  M.A.,  M.D.,  F.R.S. 

ne  IttuMtraiknu  draw4  on  Wood  expreuljf  for  this  Work,  hif  Paul  J.  Naftel,  Member  of 

the  London  Society  of  Painters  in  Water  Colours. 


Sattkdat  RKvnnr,  April  4,  1863.— 
**  Thla  U  a  really  valuable  work.  A  book 
which  will  long  remain  the  standard  an- 
thority  on  Ita  fabject  No  one  who  haa 
been  to  the  Channel  lalands,  or  who  pur- 
poflca  grolng  there,  will  be  insensible  of  its 
value" 

ATHaw/Km,  Nov.  1«,  1862.— ••  It  is  the 
prottwc  of  many  hands,  and  every  hand  a 
fr<)0<i  one.  Nearly  everything  which  a  man 
can  desire  to  kntiw  about  Jersey,  Quernsey, 
Aldemey,  and  Hark,  about  their  history, 
g^eotrrapliy,  and  natural  Idstory,  Professor 
Ansted  and  l>r.  Latham  have  contrived  to 
teU." 

RracTATOR,  Jan.  24,  1863.—"  We  are 
qnite  sure  that  to  all  classes  of  readers 
UdM  worii  will  prove  exceedingly  interest- 


ing, while  scientiflc  men  win  acknowledge 
that  it  leaves  no  room  for  any  future 
history  of  the  Islands." 

LoiTDoK  Rrview,  Jan.  17,  1868.— "We 
can  safely  say  that  no  one  can  visit  the 
Channel  Iitlands  without  finding  much  to 
Interest  and  inform  in  the  work  before  us." 

0B8KRVER,  Xov.  30, 1862.—*'  As  gems  of 
art,  tliese  illustrations  have  rarely  been 
e<iualled,  and  certainly  have  never  been 
surpassed.  They  are  alone  sufficient  to 
confer  a  listing  popularity  and  pennanent 
vahu;.  The  volume,  however,  |M>ssesscs  an 
Intrinsic  worth  irrespective  of  all  its  graces 
of  adornment,  which  will  not  fall  to  com- 
mand it  the  liearty  approbation  of  every 
reader." 


8 


Wh.  H.  Allen  &  Co., 


SECOND    EDITION. 

AN  INQUIRY  INTO  THE  THEORIES  OF  HISTORY, 

CHANCE,  LAW,  WILL; 

With  SPECIAL  BEFSBEffCE  to  the  FBDICIPLES  of  F08ITIYE 

FHILOSOPHT. 

By    WILLIAM    ADAM. 

8to.  cloth,  168. 


Westmixsteb  Review.—"  The  '  In- 
qnlry  Into  the  Theoriei  of  Ulrtory,' 
althougrh  anonymung,  ii»  a  fir^it-nite  book. 
Its  t>bjirct  1h  to  recoiuilo  Theism  with  the 
scientific  conception  of  law,  and  from  that 
reconciliation  to  tictluco  a  true  tlicory  of 
hintiiry.  Tiie  l)oolc  cont&inx  a  most  able 
and  effect  utti  vindicntiou  of  TheUm,  and  of 
a  rational,  as  op(>o«eU  to  irrational,  Posi- 
tivism." 

ConxiiiLL  MAflAzntK. — "Written  with 
remarkable  ability,  and,  considering  its 
mtlemical  spirit,  witii  excellent  temper. 
Tl)e  style  is  alwavM  animnti'd,  and  at  times 
fclicltomL  The  Volume  gives  ample  prtK>f 
of  metaphysical  acuteness.  One  pood 
service  It  will  certainly  effect — namely, 
that  of  fastening  the  attention  of  its 
readers  on  the  great  fundamental  problems 
of  historical  science." 

Spectator  — "  The  whole  book  bears  the 
evident  mark  of  maturity  of  thought.    The 


third  chapter  is  full  of  thonghtf ol  and  able 
argument,  in  which  the  positions,  not  only 
of  Comte,  but  often  of  Mill,  are  powerfully 
and  successfully  assailed." 

Athkk^um. — "The  book  now  under 
notice  is  no  doubt  heavy  and  massive,  bat 
no  competent  critic  will  be  prepared  to 
pronounce  it  dulL  It  is  excoe<iln;;ly  calm 
and  candid,  clear-sighted,  and  ingcnions  in 
an  eminent  degree.  It  is  well  thought  and 
weightily  written.  We  have  not  come 
across  a  book  of  the  present  day  for  a  con- 
siderable while  so  far  removed  from  the 
common  run  of  writing  and  of  thinking  as 
this  one  is.  Tills  auth(^  manifests  tliat 
1  "-iginality  which  always  goes  U)  tiie  centre 
of  a  question,  whether  well  or  ill  conceived, 
and  takes  sundry  important  and  fresh 
views  of  the  entire  problem  before  turning 
aside  from  the  contemplation  of  it.  Be  the 
writer  who  he  may,  be  has  the  credit,  at 
least,  of  producing  a  highly  original  work." 


THE    POLISH    CAPTIVITY: 

An   AOCOUKT  of  the   PBESEKT  POSITIOH  and  PB08PECT8   of  the 

POLES  in  the  KIHODOM  of  POLAND, 

And  ni  thb  Polish  Provinoes  or  Austria,  Prussia,  ahd  Russia. 

By  SUTHERLAND  EDWARDS. 
Two  Yolames,  Svo,  with  Chromo-Lithographio  lUustiations,  26s. 


Times,  April  2, 1863.—"  A  highly  oppor- 
tune production." 

Spectatob,  March  28,  1863.— "The 
<  PolUh  Captivity  '  is  full  of  light  but  sug- 
gestive sketches,  pitcts  jmtiJkaHrt*  of 
historic  value,  national  songs  and  stories, 
descriptions  of  Polish  towns,  Polish  nota- 
bilities, and  Polish  women,  and  is,  besides, 
a  book  an  English  lady  might  read  with 
twice  the  ease  of  Blr.  TroUope'a  latest 
novei" 


ATHBN.BU1C,    Marvh     21,     1863. "lir 

Edwards*  book  will  be  read  with  deep  in^ 
terest  It  is  well  written,  and  tho  narra- 
tives are  well  constructed.*' 

LoKDON   Review,    March    2S,     1868 

"The  book  in  which  Mr.  Sutherland 
Edwards  has  depicted  the  *  Polish  Cap- 
tivity •  would  have  been  valuable  at  any 
time,  but  the  opportuneness  of  its  arriv^ 
so  enhances  Its  merits,  that  it  is  certain  to 
command  a  greats  tlian  ordinary  succeia.** 


13,  Watekloo  Place,  S.W. 


9 


SECOND    EDITION. 

THE    RUSSIANS    AT    HOME: 

UNPOLITICAL    SKETCHES. 

Showing  what  Newspapers  they  read  ;  what  Theatres  they  frequent ;  and 
how  they  eat,  drink,  and  enjoy  themselves ;  with  other  matter  relating 
chiefly  to  Literature,  Mobic,  and  to  Places  of  Historical  and  Beligioos  Interest 
in  and  about  Moscow. 

By  SUTHERLAND  EDWAUDS,  Esq. 
Second  Edition,  in  poet  8to,  with  Illustrations,  price  lOs.  6d. 


EDiN'BUBon  Evmrnro  Courant. — •'  It  if 
a  book  that  we  can  acrioiuly  recommend, 
not  only  to  those  who  are  deflirou«  of 
abundant  and  reliable  information  respect- 
ing  the  social  economy  of  the  Kuatdan 
people,  but  to  those  who  seek  an  entertain- 
ing volume,  that  may  be  i  temped  in  any 
part  with  both  profit  and  amusement." 

Globb. — "  This  book  Is  full  of  useful  in- 
formation and  sensible  comment  on  a 
Eople  and  country  which  are  very  little 
own  in  England,  even  among  the  culti- 
vated and  traveUlug  classes." 


Illustrated  Times.— "The  book  may 
be  rcconmiended  as  cmbod>ing  a  large 
amount  cf  varied  informaUon  concerning 
Unssia  in  the  pleasantest  fiossible  form. 
Every  page  has  the  advantage  of  being 
readable,  and  is  always  fresh  in  what  It  hat 
to  say  and  in  the  manner  of  saying  it" 

Spectator. — "This  is  not  only  one  of 
the  most  amusing  books  that  we  have  read 
for  a  long  time,  but  also  the  best  and  most 
reliable  account  of  Russian  life  and  manners 
wldch  has  hitherto  beta  given  to  the 
public." 


SECOND    EDITION. 


THE    HISTORY    OF    THE    OPERA, 

From  Monteverde  to  Donizetti. 

By  SUTHERLAND   EDWARDS,  Esq. 

2  yob.  post  8vo,  21s. 


The  Times. — '^llie  new  history  of  the 
lyrical  drama  with  which  Air.  Sutherland 
Edwards  favours  the  public,  has  three 
qualities  to  recommend  it  In  the  first 
place,  it  contains,  for  its  size,  a  very  com- 
plete account  of  tlie  progress  of  an  art, 
which  now,  beyond  all  others,  occupies  the 
attention  of  the  civilized  world;  in  the 
second  place,  it  is  one  of  those  treasures  of 
amoiting  anecdote  that  may  l^e  taken  op 
and  laifl  down  at  a  moment's  notice ;  in  the 
third  place,  it  al)Ounds  with  the  observa- 
tions  of  a  shrewd  and  independent  thinker, 
who  has  seen  luucb,  read  mucli,  and 
travelled  much,  and  who  approaches  hb 
subject  less  as  a  professed  mnsiciAn  than  as 
one  of  those  cultivated  men  wlio  take  a 
position  between  the  artist  and  the  multi- 
tude, and  who,  after  all,  constitute  the 
body  upon  whom  the  general  appreciation 
of  every  art  depends.  .  .  .  I1ie  anec- 
dotes, which  we  have  given  in  lllu»tration 
of  an  extremely  short  and  inglorious  {leriud 
of  operatic  history,  occupy  but  very  few 
Mjcea  in  Mr.  E<lwards*  l>ook ;  and,  m  hen  we 
Inform  oar  readers  that  his  two  volumes  are 


replete  with  matter  of  the  same  kind,  they 
will  caitily  judge  of  the  amount  of  enter- 
tainment to  be  derived  from  his  labours. 
So  abundant  \n  his  material,  that  he  mii^ht, 
if   be  had  plcascti,    have  filled  a   dozen 

J[uartos;  and,  as  he  himself  confesses,  be 
ound  the  task,  of  omiiMiion  heavier  than 
that  of  collection.  Let  us  add,  that  he 
has  omittc<l  well,  and  that  he  hax  seasoned 
a  pleasant  and  instructive  history  with  the 
very  concentrated  essence  of  agreeable 
goship." 

IIkkald. — "  Mr.  Edwards  has  here  pro- 
duce<i  a  work  which  oufrht  to  command  a 
great  sale,  if  its  merits  and  the  preat 
number  of  opera-goers  may  be  considered. 
Complet'.'ly  master   of   his    subject,    and 

EyBM-uiuy:  a  ready  and  plcai^ing  pen,  Mr. 
dwardh  In  these  volumes  gives  us  an  ex- 
ceeding: y  interesting  history  of  operatic 
fierformanceH." 

8iK.-">Ve  commend  these  light  and 
pleasant  vulunits  to  all  lovers  of  musical 
ami  dramatic  art,  assuring  them  they  will 
find  ample  entertainment  in  their  animated 
pages." 


10 


Wm.  H.  Allen  k  Co. 


SECOND    EDITION. 


LADY    MORGAN'S    MEMOIRS: 

Autobiogrs^hy,  DiarieSj  and  Correspondence. 

IKCLUDIHO 

LETTERS    FROM 


KIBO  JKROm, 
MASAXl   PATTERSON 

BOHAPARTI, 
TBB  DUKB  Of  DKTOH- 

SniRB, 
DVOHISS  OT  DITOH- 

SHIRE, 
DDKK  Of   LIXVBTER, 
MARQUIS  WSLLI8L1T, 
MARQUIS   Of   ANOLRSIT, 
MARQUIS   Of  ABKRC0R9, 
MAAOBIOHISB  OT  ABKR- 

0OR5. 


THR  lARL  or  ABRRDKKV, 
THB  RARL  Of  OARUSLI, 
LORD  MRLBOURRR, 
LADT  CAROLINE  LAMB, 
LORD  CLONCURRT, 
LADT  STANLEY, 
LORD  DARNLET, 
THE  COUNTESS  Of  CORK 

AND  ORRERY, 
LADY  LETTRIX, 
LORD  DUNGANNON, 
LORD  MACAULAY, 
LORD  ER8KINE, 


JOSEPH   HUMS, 

DANIEL  O'OONNRLL, 

SHEIL, 

B.  JENNER, 

LA   f AYETTX, 

BYRON, 

00UNTBS8   OUIOOIOLI, 

MOORS, 

DOUGLAS  JSSROLD, 

SIR  B.  BULWBR  LYRON, 

THOMAS  OAJfPBBLL^ 

MRS.  HBMANS, 

RET.  BIDNST  SMITH. 


Obsssvxr.— "  Fun  of  i^easant  memoin 
and  piqumnt  reading.** 

Datlt  TKLBOitAnL— "The  book  that 
tells  the  story  of  Ladv  Morgan's  life  will 
always  be  of  value  for  its  pictorra  of  a 
state  of  society  which,  with  mnch  of  its 
good,  and  more  of  its  evil,  has  passed 
away  for  ever." 

Daily  News.—'*  Sanreying,  m  they  do, 


considerably  more  than  half  the  last  hai> 
dred  years,  and  teuching  npon  some  of  the 
most  instructive  evenuof  that  period,  thow 
volames,  it  need  hardly  be  said,  are  most 
interesting.  Princes,  dukea,  and  nobles, 
authors,  artists,  and  literati  of  every  pro- 
fessien,  crowd  the  pages  of  the  work.'* 

Manchbstbr  Examinkb. — "On«  of  the 
most  pleasant  books  of  its  class  witl^  which 
we  are  acquainted.  ** 


In  Two  Volumes,  8vo,  price  208. 

With  a  Portrait  of  Lady  Morgan,  bj  Sir  Thomas  Lawrence,  and  a  Porirmit 

of  Sir  Charles  Morgan. 


THE  NATIONALITIES  OF  EUROPE. 

5y  Db.  R.  G.  LATHAM. 
Two  Vols.  8vo,  828. 

OBSKBVB&— "  The  mass  of  facts  gathered  fhnn  all  quarters  and  orowded  toMtlicr 
in  the  pages  of  these  volumes  is  something  wonderful**  ^ 


13,  Waterloo  Place,  S.W. 


11 


THIRD    EDITION. 

HISTORY  OF  THE  BRITISH  EMPIRE 

IN    INDIA. 

By  EDWARD  THORNTON,  Esq. 

Contaiiiing  a  copiooB  Glossary  of  Indian  Terms,  and  a  complete  Cimmological 
Index  of  Brents,  to  aid  the  aspirant  for  Public  Examinations. 

One  Vol.  Sto,  with  Map,  price  128. 


Thb  Tnm.— "Mr.  Thornton  is  master 
of  a  style  of  great  perspicuity  and  Tigour, 
always  interesting,  and  frequently  rising 
into  eloquence.  His  power  of  painting 
character  and  of  bringing  b<tfore  the  eye  of 
the  reader  the  events  which  he  relates,  is 
renurkable ;  and  if  the  knowledge  of  India 
can  be  nuuie  popular,  we  should  say  his  is 
the  pen  to  dfect  it" 

Olobc— **  Mr.  Thornton's  history  is  com- 
prehensiTe  in  its  plan,  clear  and  forcible  in 
its  style,  and  impartial  in  its  tone." 


EonrBusoH  EvcNnro  ConKAar.— "The 
writer  evinces  diligence  and  research  into 
original  authorities ;  his  style  is  easy,  and 
the  intrinsic  interest  of  the  important  events 
of  Indian  history  is  thus  increased  by  a 
popular  and  amusing  narrative." 

Patriot.— "The  style  of  the  woric  is 
free,  rapid,  and  spirited,  and  bears  marks 
of  a  thorough  familiarity  with  the  subject 
Every  EngUshman  ought  to  be  acquainted 
with  the  history  of  the  British  Empire  in 
India,  and  we  therefore  oordially  recom- 
mend this  work  to  our  readers." 


The  LiB&ART  Editioh  in  Six  Vols,  may  be  had,  £2  8b, 
In  One  YoL  8yo,  pp.  1015,  with  Map,  price  £1  Is., 

A   GAZETTEER   OF    INDIA, 

Compiled  ohiefly  from  the  Baoordi  at  the  India  Offloe. 
By  EDWARD  THORNTON,  Esq. 

*«*  The  chief  objects  in  Tiew  in  compiling  this  Qaietteer  are  : — 

Ist.  To  fix  the  rebitiTe  position  of  the  Tarioos  cities,  towns,  and  villages,  with 

as  much  precision  as  possible,  and  to  exhibit  with  the  greatest  practicable 

brevity  all  that  ia  known  respecting  them  ;  and, 
2ndly.  To  note  the  various  countries,  provinces,  or  territorial  divisions,  and 

to  describe  the  physio&l  characteristics  of  each,  together  with  their 

statistical,  social,  and  political  circumstances. 

To  these  are  added  minute  descriptiona  of  the  principal  rivers  and  chains  of 
mountains  ;  thus  presenting  to  the  reader,  within  a  brief  compass,  a  mass  of 
information  which  cannot  otherwise  be  obtained,  except  from  a  multiplicity 
of  volumes  and  manuscript  records.  The  work,  in  short,  may  be  regarded  aa 
an  epitome  of  all  that  has  been  written  and  published  respecting  the  terri- 
tories under  the  government  or  political  superintendence  of  the  British  power 
in  India. 

The  Library  Edition,  in  Four  Vols.  8vo,  with  Notes,  Marginal  References, 

and  Map,  prioe  £2  16b. 


12 


Wm.  H.  Allen  &  Co. 


FOURTH  EDITION. 

AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

OF 

MISS    COKNELIA    KNIGHT, 

LadT-CompttnioB  to  th«  FrineeM  Charlotte  of  Wales, 
Wmi  EXTKACTS  FROM  HER  JOURNALS  AND  ANECDOTE  BOOKS. 

In  Two  Y0I&   8yo,  with  Fortz^t  of  the  Frxkcess  Chabloite  of   Wales, 

price  26b. 


Times. — "  WHiy  we  should  turn  to  ihvtuo 
volamcs  m  amongr  the  mott  lnt«mtlnfr  uf 
the  roccnt  Mason  will  be  suflicicutly  evident 
as  we  Indicate  their  contents." 

MoKKlvo  Stas,  Jirfy  T2,  IML— "Em- 
phatically a  readable  book  ii»  this  autobio- 
graphy. *  Indeed,  havinjc  once  oponod  It, 
the  reader  cannot  easily  lav  it  aside  until 
be  has  pot  throifgh  the  whole.  Niit  tlie 
least  interesting  {lart  is  the  collection  of 
niiscoUanoouB  anecdotes  of  perMius  and 
cvcBts  which  are  clustered  together  as  a 


sort  of  appendix  at  the  close.  It  is  a  book 
fit  to  be  roaii,  but  fit  also  for  si^mcthing 
better  than  a  casual  reading ;  worthy  of  a 
higher  rvpute  than  an  evanescent  p<.ipa- 
larity,  merely  founded  niion  the  great 
names  It  Introduces,  and  the  amusing  scrsps 
of  go«dp  it  contaius." 

AxnEM.vuM,  Jkw  8,  1861.— "Of  the 
p(>pularity  of  these  volumes,  on  account  of 
their  hiKtoricjil  ss  well  as  gossiping  merits, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  whatever." 


THE    KEPUBLIC    OF    FOOLS: 

BfilllG 

THE  HI8T0BT  OF  THE  STATE  ANB  PEOPLE  OF  ABBERA,  IH 

THSACE. 

TRANSLATED    FROM   THE    GERMAN    OF    C.   M.   VON   WIELAND, 

By  the  Rev.  H.  CHRIST.\LAS. 

In  Two  YoliuneB,  ])08t  8to,  doth,  price  ISs. 


OBitEBVKS.— "As  a  prose  satire,  the  His- 
tory of  the  Abdcritcs  yields  only  in  breadth 
of  humour  and  pungcucy  of  wit  to  Dean 
Bwlft's  immortal  Travels  of  Captain  Lcmncl 
GnlUver;  and  of  works  of  that  class,  we 
know  of  none  in  any  language  that  can 
compare  with  either  of  the  two." 

Loudon  Rbvibw.—"  Here  Is  enjoyment 
for  maii>'  a  Christmas  to  come,  for  many 
thousands  of  English  boys,  and  many 
thousands  Of  Englisli  men  and  women. 
Unfortunately  for  the  world,  PlitUitratus 
Caxton  deiwrted  this  life  without  having 
made  any  contribution  towards  the  great 
history  of  human  folly,  save.  Indeed,  by 
the  records  of  his  own.  Mr.  Christmas  lias 
given  us  something  eren  better  in  his 
translation  of   Wi<uand's  Abderites;  and 


In  the  simplest,  most  racy,  and  vemacular 
English,  has  enriched  our  literature  with 
another  ctuiractcr  of  tlie  f.tmily  dear  to 
mankind,  of  the  Quixotes,  Gullivers  ami 
other  human  foils  of  human  self-love  and 
vanity.  If  the  addition  to  our  shelves  of  a 
book  to  delight  the  young  and  instruct  the 
old,  overflowing  with  wit,  fun,  drollery  in- 
expressible, wisdom,  depth  and  knowledge, 
is  an  achievement  dc8er>ing  of  national 
thanks,  we  undertake  to  convey  our  share 
to  Mr.  Christmas,  fearing  only  K*st  we 
should  not  have  thanked  him  sufficiently." 

MoRNiKO  Herald.—**  Tlierc  Is,  hideed, 
about  it,  nothing  of  the  stiffness  of  a  tran»- 
lation;  and  the  work  reads  with  all  the 
case  and  freedom  of  an  original  compo- 
■iUon." 


13,  Waterloo  Place,  S.W. 


13 


THE    HISTORY    OF    CHESS, 

From  the  Time  of  the  Early  Invention  of  the  Game  in  India  till  the 
Period  of  its  EstabliBhment  in  Western  and  Central  Europe. 

By  DUNCAN  FORBES,  LL.D. 

8to,  15s. 


Hbsald. — "  Tbif  Tolame  will  be  a  wel- 
come addition  to  the  library  of  every  lover 
of  the  noble  game  of  chess.  Oar  author 
makes  a  stout  Aght  for  the  Hindoos  as  the 
inventors  of  the  game,  and  adduces  many 
cogent  proofs  in  support  of  his  opinion. 
He  shows  how  the  game  is  played  in  other 
countries,  how  it  lias  been  modified  both  in 
the  names  of  the  pieces  and  the  names  of 
the  game  by  the  peculiarities  of  the 
country  or  the  national  temperament  of 
the  inhabitants;  and  then  traces  the  steps 
bv  which  it  has  arrived  at  its  present  place 
of  honour  in  civilized  and  intellectual 
Europe.    The  book   is   therefore  fuU  of 


carious  lore,  that  lean  on  other  and  higher 
subjects  than  chess-playing,  for  it  involvea 
dissertations  on  ethnology,  comparative 
etymology,  the  dispersion  and  settlement 
of  nations,  and  the  manners  and  customs 
of  different  countries,  to  a  degree  that 
would  not  be  at  all  anticipated  by  a  penton 
who  contented  himself  by  reading  the 
title-page.  All  this  information  b  given, 
not  in  any  dnr,  repulsive,  or  even  technical 
style,  but  freshly,  clearly,  and  in  an 
animated  manner — the  style  that  would 
naturally  be  adopted  by  a  gentleman  and 
man  of  the  world." 


THE  ARMIES  OF  THE  GREAT  POWERS. 

By  LASCELLES  WBAXALL. 

Post  8vo,  10s.  6<L 

*«*  "The  object  of  this  work  is  to  furnish  a  correct  and  detailed  account  of  the  amount 
and  nature  of  the  forces  belonging  to  the  Great  Powers.  At  a  glance  may  be  perceived 
the  strength  of  the  respective  armies,  and  characteristics  of  their  troops,  their  drill, 
discipline,  and  uniform.  Although  Mr.  Wraxall  treats  more  especially  of  the  Annies  of 
France,  Austria,  England,  Russia,  and  Prussia,  he  has  not  omitted  those  of  Sardinia. 
Turkey,  and  Anglo-India.  The  value  of  such  a  numual  can  hardly  be  over  estimated  at 
the  present  moment'* 


Satusdat  Raviiw. — "To  all  whose 
interest  in  the  noble  art  of  national  self- 
defence  is  as  real  as  it  should  be,  a  compila- 


tion like  Mr.  Wraxall*s 
value." 


has  considerable 


SIN:   ITS  CAUSES  AND  CONSEQUENCES. 

AN   ATTEMPT  TO   INVESTIGATE  THE   ORIGIN,   NATURE,   EXTENT,    AND 

RESULTS  OF  MORAL  EVIL. 

m    Setteis    of    %tnt    ILectured* 

Bt  the  Rev.  HENRY  CHRISTMAS,  M.A.,  F.R.S. 

Post  8vo,  cloth,  price  5s. 


Civil  Skbticx  G azkttk. — "  These  lectures 
are  learned,  eloquent,  and  tamest,  and 
though  they  approach  the  *lin)its  of  re- 
ligious thought,'  they  do  not  transgress 
those  Umita ;  and  they  present  the  reader 


with  a  comprehensive  review,  based  upon 
revelation,  of  the  nature,  extent,  and  con- 
sequences of  moral  cvii  or  sin,  both  in  this 
world  and  the  world  to  come." 


14                                 Wm.  II.  AiiEN  , 

HUNGARY    AND    T 

In  1862. 

Bv  PiioFEMOR  D.  T.  AXSTEI 
In  post  Sto,  price  8 

AniRArK./<iHl«.  IRCl— "  PrelcHOt 

nFiliHM    jtltMlnR   tlw  ururiry    of    ■ 
m\H,Mc  <.l«rW,  .ya.      IIU  volum.  It 

louritU  <k>wn  Ibt  Uunb*." 

nail  11 

s 

MEMOIUBLE  EVENTS  OF  ] 

By  3.  Q.  EDO 
In  One  cIiMely-|irinl«J  post  Sto  Tolaiiie,  «i 
***  A  Tolame  nu-iatiiig  the  Hixtoiy  of  t 


Europe,  snil  calcuUt«i]  to  serve  at  tmoe  u  >i 

Pnnw,  M,  i,  ltKia.-"Mr.  EUgm   It  [    Mr.  R 

iilwayii  pure,  cicpuit.  Ind  vlevrouii.    llB 

lolly  1 

llt«u< 

DWD  vnlnly  MilYe  lo  »|iiln  Imm  nit,  tho 

■nd  rmlMy.     Uotdnalth  |hiih.^1  Ihli 

Hkn. 

KMoT  Hi  <in>l  w,  know  «f  (rw  Bilrn,. 

paniy  irrllcn  In  ths   EiMrll«h  ]*i>Kiug« 

who  pOHCH  It  lo  IB  Bqiul  ilrigres  with    1    of  but 

Id  Sto,  with  Bumeraiu  DIdi 

THE    SCIENCE    OF 

Br  »K.  A.  J.  BEI 

'  Protetior  of  Chemirtry  kt  St.  1 

com^nnxa 

HmI  In  id  ReljtkHi  to  ThlDgi  In  OeaenL 

OnSoi 

Un  Ihf  rhyiOal    UriallOdii  of  th>  Atmn- 

JUKI 

.|,hcn  »  ^«t«d  by  Jl«t.  Motatiire, 

?n-, 

ThTwrnwiJif ri  In  ReUtlon  lo  Vtget«blii 

Thfll. 

■iHl  AniKu.1  Ufo. 

OnCialiind»-osl-0««. 

Thf  111 

13,  Watekloo  Place,  S.W. 


15 


A    COURSE 


or 


ELEMENTARY    MATHEMATICS, 

FOm  THB  UBI  Of  CAKDIDATn  FOB  ADXISnoV  UTO  KITHXft  Of  THI 

MIUTAKT  colleges; 

Of  AFFUCAHTS  fOB  AFFOnmiKSTS  Dl  THE  HOME  OB  OTOIAV  CITIL  BEBTICB ; 

AID  OF  XATHEJtATICAL  STUDESTS  OEVEEALLT. 

By  Pbofessor  J.  R  YOUNG. 
In  One  closely-printed  Volume,  8to,  pp.  64S,  price  128. 


.  March  9,  18«L— "In  the 

work  before  as  he  has  digeated  a  complete 
Elementary  Cootm  by  aid  of  his  long 
experience  as  a  teacher  and  a  writer;  and 
he  has  produced  a  very  nsef  nl  book.  .... 
Mr.  Yomig  has  not  allowed  his  own 
taste  to  rule  the  distribution,  but  has 
adjusted  his  parts  with  the  skill  of  a 
reteran." 

Th»  LoaiDOV  Revikw,  April  6,  1861.— 
**  Mr.  Young  is  well  known  as  the  author 
of  nndoubteiUy  the  best  treatise  on  the 
*  Theory  of   Equations'   which  is  to  be 


found  in  our  language— a  treatise  distin- 
guished by  originality  of  thought,  gr»at 
learning,  and  admiralile  perspicuity.  Nor 
are  these  qualities  wanting  in  tlie  wi^k 
which  we  are  reriewing.  .  .  .  (.V,n- 
s&dering  the  difficulty  of  the  task  which 
Mr.  Young  has  undotaken  to  di«charge, 
and  the  extent  of  UMsf  ul  knowledge  he  has 
succeeded  in  imparting  accurately  and 
lucidly  in  so  small  a  oomioiM,  we  can  with- 
out hesitation  commend  this  work  Ut  tlie 
public  as  l^y  far  the  best  elementary  courM 
of  mathematics  in  our  language." 


ANOTHER    BLOW    FOR    LIFE. 

By  GEORGE  GODWIN.  Esq.,  F.R.S., 

Author  of  "  London  Shadows,  Town  Swamps,  and  Social  Bridges,"  Editor  of 

"The  Builder,"  Ac,  Ac 

ASSISTED  BY  JOHN  BROWN. 

WITH    FORTY-ONE    ILLUSTRATIONS. 

In  fcap.  4to,  cloth,  price  58. 


Obsestkb,  Jan.  8,  1864.—"  This  book 
should  be  studied  by  all  who  have  a  gndn 
of  kindly  feeling  towards  their  poorer 
neighbours,  and  erery  one  should  strive  to 
find  some  means  of  allevisting  the  niiserv 
it  points  out.  The  illustrations  with  which 
the  book  is  liberally  supplied  will  go  far  to 
make  the  subject  better  understood." 

Bill's  Mkaskkoks,  J€m.  16,  1864.— 
**  *  Another  Blow  for  Life'  is  a  great  and 
good  book,  and  does  honour  to  its  author's 
head  and  heart." 


The  Rkadib,  Jan,  9, 1864,— "The  anthor 
deserves  honour  for  the  |»enievcring  and 
indomiuble  energy  with  which  ho  has 
faithfully  chronichMl  all  those  uinterlitl 
dilapidations  and  fllth  which  are  tins  In- 
evitable conconiltantii  of  moral  dfcailcnrf , 
and  we  hope  hU  bfx>k  will  InW  Into  tlio 
thankful  IiandM  of  evttry  tliinklnv  man  and 
escape  the  Uxt  fnyiiivnt  fnt*;  of  IxMiks  chro- 
nicling disagnMtabIti  trntlm  which  vhhw 
unpleasantly, '  iMstweeii  the  wind  and  our 
nobility.'" 


10 


Wm.  H.  Allen  &  Co. 


ILLUSTRATED    HORSE   DOCTOR : 

Being  an  Accurate  and  Detailed  Account,  accompanied  by  more  than  400 
Pictorial  Representations,  characteristic  of  the  Tarions  Diseases  to  which  the 
Equine  Race  are  subjected  ;  together  with  the  latest  Mode  of  Treatment,  and 
all  the  Requisite  Prescriptions  written  in  Plain  English. 

By  EDWARD  MAYHEW.  M.R.C.V.S.. 

Author  of  **The  Ulostmied  Hone  Management" 
In  8vo,  price  18s.  6d.  cloth. 


Mr.  3fapheiD*a  Illustrated  Hobsb  Doctor,  and  hU  companion  volume. 
The  Illustrated  Horse  Manaoement,  should  he  in  the  possession  of  all 
vlio  keep  horses. 


CONTENTS. 


TiiK  Braik  akd  Nkrvous  System. — 
rbrcnltU;  Ab^ceu  within  the  brain; 
Stairtrors ;  8U^py  iStaggt'r*  and  Mad 
StaKK'^^rs ;  Mi'trriniB;  lIydro]ihobia; 
Tetanus;  Stringhalt;  Partial  ParalyMla; 
Gutta  Serena. 

ToK  Eyes.— Simple  Ophthalmia;  Specl- 
Ac  Ophthalmia;  Cataract;  Fungoid 
Tumours  within  the  sulistancc  of  the 
Kye;  Lacerate<i  Eyelid;  luiiHidimcot  in 
the  Lachrymal  Duct. 

The  Mouxn. — Exporiate<l  Angles  of  the 
Mouth;  Parrot  Mouth ;  Lampas;  In- 
juries to  tlic  Jaw;  Aphtha;  Lacerated 
Ton^nic;  Teeth;  Scald  Mouth. 

The  Nostrils.— Cold;  Nasal  Polypus; 
Nasal  Gleet;  llighblowing  and  Wheez- 
ing. 

The  Throat. — Sore  Throat;  Congh; 
Laryngitis;  Roaring;  Cholcing;  Rupture 
and  Stricture  of  the  OSsophagus ;  Bron- 
chocelo. 

The  Cuest  and  rrs  Coxtekts — Conges- 
tion In  the  Field;  Congestion  in  tlie 
Stable;  Hronchitis,  or  Intiunmiation  of 
the  Air  Pas.«ages ;  Pueumouia,  or  Infiam- 
matiun  of  the  Lungs;  Pleurisy;  Ilydro- 
thoriix;  Dlbcase  of  the  Heart. 

TnE  Stomach,  Livkr,  &c, — Spasm  of  the 
Diaphragm;  Acute  Gastritis;  Chronic 
Gnstritlik;  Bote;  Chronic  Hepatitis; 
Crib-biting. 

The  Abdomkr.— Enteritis;  Acute  Dysen- 
tery; Chronic  Dysentwy;  Acltes,  or 
Dropsy  of  the  Ab<Iomen;  Influenza; 
Abtlomhiul  Injuries;  Worms;  Spasmodic 
Colic,  l-Yet,  Gripes;  Windy  CoUc 


The  Urinary  Orgars.— Nephritis,  or  In- 
flammation of  the  Kidneys;  Cvstitia, 
or  Inflammation  of  tlie  Bladder ;  Spasm 
of  the  Urethra;  Calculi;  llsnmturia,  or 
Bloody  Urine;  Diabetes  Insipidos,  or 
Profuse  Staling;  Albumlnoas  Urine. 

The  Skix— Mange;  Pnirigo;  Ringworm; 
Surfeit;  Hide-bound;  Lice;  I^irva  in 
the  Skin;  Warts;  Tamour«;  Swollen 
Legs;  Sitfast;  Grease;  Mallendera  and 
Sallenders ;  Cracked  UeeU. 

Specific  Diseases.— Broken  Wind;  Mel- 
lauo-ois:  Water  Farcy;  Purpura  H»- 
morrhagtca;  Strangles j  Glanders. 

Limbs.  —  OsseoHS  Dopoel  t  s ;  Spavin ; 
Splint ;  Uiiifrbone ;  Strain  of  the  Flexor 
Tendon;  Ciup  of  tho  back  Sinews; 
Sprain  of  the  Back  Sinews ;  Breaking 
Down;  Curb;  Occult  Spavin;  Kheu- 
matium;  Windgalls;  Bog  Spavin; 
Thoroughpin;  Copped  Knee;  Capped 
Hock  i  Capped  Elbow ;  Luxation  of  the 
PateUa;  Blood  Spavm. 

The  Feet. — Lameness;  Pomice  Footj 
Sandcrack ;  False  Quarter ;  See<ly  Toe ; 
Tread  and  Over-reach ;  Corns;  Quittor; 
Canker;  Thrujih;  Os.'ufied  CartiUges; 
Acute  Laminitis,  or  Fever  in  the  Feet; 
Sub- Acute  Laminltis,  Navicular  Disease. 

IsjuRiEA— Poll  Evil;  Fistulous  Withers; 
Fistulous  Parotid  Duct:  Phlebitis,  or 
Inflammation  of  the  Vein ;  Broken 
Knees ;  Open  Sj-novial  Cavities  j  Open 
S>'novial  Joints ;  Womids. 

OPERATION'S.  —  Tracheotomy ;  Periosteo- 
tomy; Neurotomy;  Division  of  the 
Tendons;  Quittor. 


13,  Watehloo  Place.  S.W. 


17 


MAVHEW'S  ILLUSTMTKD   HORSE  DOCTOR. 

CRITICAL    NOTICES. 


FiEi.i>,  July  28,  18C3.— "The  book  c«n- 
t.^im  iii«iirly  «;00  pa;;us  of  valunhltt  matter, 
which  nflfct*  (rn>at  croilit  on  it«  author, 
and,  owinj;  to  itx  iimcticul  (IvtaiK  tlie 
result  of  (let-p  ccientitiu  research,  dcjjervcs 
a  place  In  the  lll>rary  of  medicaU  vcteri- 
u.ir>',  and  nuu-profeiMionul  rcadurd." 

A 1 II  r.N.*:rM,  A  inj  'tt  4,  iMfiO.— •  •  >I  r. 
M.iyhi;\v  li  »  written  hevenil  workn  on  the 
disfAv  ?«.  with  dctiiiN  of  the  anatomy,  of 
aniiiinT<*.  Hid  accunu-y  i.s  pn'at  The 
chApttr-*  .in-  Will  arra::;,'od.  Kach  ?j:cakfl 
of  the  dheahCH  of  one  pnrt  of  the  c(|uine 
frame.  The  illu-<t rations  to  thoite  are  ex- 
cellent. Thy  opi.TatioiH  are  awruratelj* 
desiTilMMl;  not  the  hli^'iiti'.Ht  u<M*ful  hint  is 
forpmiten;  while  to  rvn<Ier  this  ]»ortion 
more  intelii<dl»le,  diu;:rRni<i  of  the  parts  to 
be  opcrati-d  on.  with  vit?wM  uf  the  instru- 
nu'ut-,  ;ire  pciienilly  Kivrn ;  a*id  tlie  j.re- 
scriptioni,  as  statcij  in  the  titlc-pa^o.  ure 
niaile  out  in  Kn::li<>h.  The  cuuHe4, 
symptouiH.  atid  treatment  of  di*>eaii(>s  arc 
bniMy  rfcurd«'d  in  u  nummary,  forming  an 
apin-iidix  We  (■■•n'Indv  by  romniendini? 
Mr.  Muyhcw's  lM».ik,  iii'in^cially  to  every 
pfmiH->is«'r  of  the  most  useful  of  the  'ser- 
vants uf  man.' " 

Ili.i -TrATKii  Nkwq. — "Tlic  jm?at  maw 
of  the  iUn-tritlint  are  wun>lorfu<ly  fairh- 
ful.  an>l  thi  y  arc  •>o  vari«:d  and  intcn-tin(( 
that  we  wdulil  un'Icrtake  to  |r<-t  rid  of  tlu^ 
mort  conti:m<^l  bure  that  e%«r  prei'-ed 
heavilv  on  mankind  for  a  {!*'*A  tivo  hours 
by  onfy  h:indi(i^  him  the  \tottk.  an>i  dir(:et- 
ing  iii^  attention  to  thwm.  It  ii  a  well- 
known  fact  that  (TTfioms  only  n^me-nb'.r 
the  names  of  four  *\t  fivi*  diiiMft^n,  and  nr«: 
■adly  indiii<:hndnate  in  thfir  knowiHf^e  iff 
■ymptunui.  Tidn  \r >'*'*.  furai'heN  nt  once 
the  bane  and  tlif"  anti  lot".  a«  th-:  drawin?4 
■how  the  horie  not  only  Hufferinir  from 
ever>-  kind  of  dl*«'ii«f.  but  in  th»-  different 
Bt.itres  of  it.  wliiii;  th«'  aiphaMti'-ai  sum- 
mary at  the<-nd  trivi-s  the  cause,  n^nipUjm.i, 
and  treatment  uf  each." 

iiiJtfiY.. — "Every  i^nth'mun  who  t.i».. 
se!*'>e4  or  care^  for  hornf  h.  w<iuM  d-f  w«:ii  to 
k(«p  this  l^.«ik  In  liii  li'u^f-." 


Kra.— "We  advisedly  say  that  'The 
Illustrated  Horse  Doctor '  la  the  very  best 
book  of  the  kind  which  wo  know;  and 
wliut  firives  it  an  es|>eclal  charm  i^  that  tho 
author  so  thoronfrhly  syraitatliiscn  with  tho 
noble  animal  which  he  dehcrlbcs.  WlUiout 
pretendlnfc  to  ko  into  any  analysit  of  tills 
valuable  work,  we  at  once  pnmounce  h  u 
scieiitinc.  yet  intellliriblc ;  infonnlng,  yet 
hifchlv  amuslnir;  acceptable  to  the  pro- 
founrl  horiie-doctor,  yet  the  work  of  all 
others  for  the  bookshelves  In  every  gcutlc- 
uun's  sanctum." 

Armt  and  Navi  Gazkttb.— "  Mr. 
Mayhew  s  volume  will,  we  imagine,  meet 
witli  a  licarty  welcome.  It  is  Junt  such  a 
good  jtractical  work  on  the  Veterinary  Art 
as  mo^t  of  us  hor^e-UHintjr  (and  not  unfre- 
quently.  we  fear,  aliuMnt?)  Engllithmen 
have  long  felt  the  need  of. — We  must  not 
conclude  our  remarks  without  conmienting 
on  the  numemus  w(KHi-cuts  with  which  tlie 
volume  is  embellished.    It  Is  truly,  as  It 


profesiies 


to    be,    an    *  lUiutraleU   Jloru 


Ii.Lt'-tntATF.D  TiMH.-* — ".Many  ye-irs  apo 
the  writer  of  the.««r  lliici  was  Incidtntally 
'read  uji'  In  hort"  literature.  a;id  a  k'^hI 
deal  in  the  way  of  pp^jrting  iH-opie.  His 
n.'ading  and  obtM'Tv.ition  in  that  way  have 
b^-en  \ftTy  plr-a.^antly  recidleil  by  tldM  wt»lfl 
h'lok.  M  e  ne4:d  not  wa^ii;  words  alHiut  this 
a'bi:ir:ibl«  v<»lume — maiiual.  we  wi-re  t,'oing 
to  ^ay.  but  it  is  more  uf  an  armful  than  a 
haniif ul.  It  iit  qiiite  Ix-yond  pralne  of  ours 
in  its  rompb-ifnehs  and  K^'nt-ral  czcellrni-e. 
concrned  as  it  is  our  lot  to  \a:  with  th«* 
study  initteail  *}l  the  hieeii.  Hut  we  hIjow.  ■] 
it  to  a  friend  of  ours  liviui;  nt  HorM-ly- 
down).  who  ^{fendt  hi*  iir.>ndiig>  at  'iattir- 
sairn  and  his  uftern<Kjnfi  at  the  Alhamhra, 
and  hi4  evenintri  at  AstleyX  aud  his  en- 
tici.»ni  was  '.-Olive. ed  in  these  cmpharic 
words.  *Hir.'  ^aid  be  his  name  is  K>di-r;, 
it  i<«  the  Itii'-han'H  Ii«ime<>ii';  MedirUif;  i.f 
th<-»tdble;  the  mantle  of  HuC'phala*  has 
f.i!l«;ii  up'.n  Mr.  Mayhew.'  Kvery  w.-iv 
the  work  i*  intfrr-htln^r.  and  it  i«  beautifuuy 
ifot  up:  the  \,n\^'T  and  print  toeing  the  Uii 
v.e  hav;  >e«:n  fi<r  ^  t.i'-  time." 


TIIK 

FORESTS   AND   liAUI)K\S   OF  SOITJI    INMA. 

liv  iir:oii  cLT:r;iioRX.  m.d..  r.L.s., 

T' n-'r^.ffT  of  Tor-t-.  MM<irax  l*ri;-M»Tiey. 
In  fv.-.t  ^\%  with  Mip  and  nnm'^Touh  Illu-tril;or-.i,  price  Via. 
Daily  NEWr. — "Tullof  voia^Me  inf-^nnation,  and  thor-u/h'y  r^I.ablt  in  all  ita  sute- 

lOClillL" 


18 


Wm.  H.  Allen  &  Co. 


HORSE    MANAGEMENT, 

coHTiimiro 

DBSC&IFTIVB  BBMARKS  UPON  ANATOKT,  MBDICINB,  8H0EINQ, 

TEETH,  FOOD,  VICES,  STABLES; 
UKiwin 

A  PLAIN  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  SITUATION,  NATT^RE,  AND 
VALUE  OF  THE  VARIOUS  POINTS; 

TOOITBIB  WITH 

COMMENTS    ON    OROOMS»    DEALERS,    BREEDERS,    BREAKERS^    AND 

TRAINERS; 

ALSO  ON  CABRIAGES  AND  HARNESS. 

SmbelliilMd  with  more  tlian  400  EngrsTingi  from  Originftl  Dedgiis 

mftde  ezprMsTy  for  thii  Work. 

By    EDWARD    MAYHEW,    M.RC.V.S., 

Author  of  *'  The  Illiutratod  Hone  Doctor,**  and  other  works. 
In  One  Volume  8to,  pp.  612,  price  ISb.  6d. 


CONTENTS: 


The  body  of   the  horae  anatomically  con* 

nider^. 
Pin-Hit'.— The  mode   of   adminlatcring  it, 

aiid  mintir  o{)cration8. 
SiioEixc — It«   origin,    ita   naes,  and  ita 

varioticii. 
Til  a  TKKTii.— Their   natural  groin-th,  and 

the  nbiLHca  to  which  they  are  liable. 
Food,— The  fittont  time  for  feeding,  and 

the  liind  of  food  which  the  hone  natu- 

rally  consuine*. 
TiiK  Eviui  which  arc  occaaioned by  modem 

htabh-R. 
TiiK  VAI-LT8  inttcparable  from  most  present 

erect  ions  which  ure  usotl  aa  stablca. 

TlIK  SJM'ALLKU    '*  llCCJU*ACITATIN(i   VICEH," 

widch  are  the  reaolta  of  injury  or  of 
dlaease. 


Stables  as  they  abould  be 

Grooms. -Their  prejudice,  their  injuries, 

and  tlicir  duties. 
HoESE  DEALERS. — Who   they  arc :    their 

mode  of   dealing:    their   profits:    their 

morality,  and  their  secrets. 
Points.— Their   relative   importanco,  and 

where  to  look  for  their  development. 
Breeding.— Its  inconsistencies  snd  its  dis- 

sppointmentt. 
Breaking   and    xsAiNiyG.— Their   errors 

and  their  results. 
Carhiaues.— Their  cost:  their  make :  their 

excellences  and  their  management 

SaDDLEKY,  HASXksiS,  AKP  iKTABLK  SL1CDRIE9. 

—  Of  what  these  consist;  their  applies* 
tion  and  their  preservation. 


Mr.  Mayhevp*8  Illustrated  Horse  Doctor,  and  his  companion  volume^ 
The  Illustrated  Horse  Mahagement,  should  ht  in  the  pouemon  of  all 
who  keep  horses. 


13,  Watebloo  Place,  S.W. 


10 


MAYHEW'S 

ILLUSTKATED    HORSE    MANAGEMENT. 


CRITICAL    NOTICES. 


Atkenjrum,  Ftb.  20,  18C4.— "  Mr.  May- 
hew  thuroui^hly  coinprfhonds  the  matter, 
ftn<l  all  nianicrH  of  ntuUs — wo  may  say, 
ercry  owner  of  a  sinfrlc  iM)ny  or  &»% — will 
derive  much  pruiit  aud  an  equal  amoant  of 
pleasure  by  pcru:iing  this  volume ;  for  the 
book  b  not  only  dUtin|ral»hed  by  common 
sense,  but  by  Its  power  of  amusing.  Wo 
never  met  with  a  volume  which  more 
honestly  und  cfHcioiitly  carried  out  the 
promise  made  on  its  title-page.  A  largo 
amount  of  Flngllsh  life,  ways,  manners, 
morals,  dodges  and  doings  is  dcscnbod  by 
Mr.  Mnyhew,  as  well  as  more  serious 
mutter  connected  with  the  question  which 
he  so  ably  handles.** 

Standaru,  Jan.  27,  1864.— "It  is,  per- 
haps, the  most  perfect  work  yet  published 
upon  the  majingcment  of  horses.  Every- 
where Mr.  Mayhcw  writes  al)ly  and 
readably,  and  with  neither  f<;ar  nor  favour ; 
ins  ob8(>r\'ations  alw^ays  commend  tliem- 
sclvcH  to  one's  understandhig,  and  he  hits 
fairly  many  blots  in  our  present  system  of 
management  The  engravings  are  exceed- 
ingly well  executed,  and  they  illustrate  the 
text  actually  as  well  as  nominally.*' 

Obskr\'£R,  Jan.  10,  18fi4.— "Mr.  May- 
hew  is  aLready  favourably  known  to  a  largo 
number  of  perjcons  interested  in  the 
management  of  hori<es  by  a  former  worl^ 
with  the  title  of  the  'Illustrated  Horse 
Doctor,'  and  the  volume  cmder  notice  will 
certainly  add  considerably  to  his  reputa- 
tion for  extensive  knowledge  and  thorough 
acquaintance  with  the  sublect  with  which 
he  profe<isoH  to  deal.  Mr.  Mayhew  also  has 
some  very  useful  remarks  on  tlie  situation, 
uuture  and  value  of  the  various  points  to 
be  iookcil  for  by  the  purchaser  of  a  horse, 
and  this  useful  information  is  supplenienteil 
by  some  very  excellent  and  truthful  re- 
marks xiyioii  grooms,  dealers,  breeders, 
breakers  and  trainers,  the  whole  forming  a 
most  valuable  work  for  guidance  and  refe- 
rence, and  displaying  in  every  i)ago  an 
earnest  desire  to  improve  the  coniUtion  and 
treatment  of  one  of  the  noblest  and  most 
serviceable  animals  provided  for  the  use  of 
man.** 

Spectator,  Feb.  «,  18G4.  —  •'  No  horse- 
man who  can  aff<ird  to  buy  it  will  regret 
the  purchaso  of  Mr.  Mayhew^s  '  Illustrated 
Horse  Management.'  " 


Bell's  Meshrnges. — "  There  con  be  no 
question  that  Mr.  Mayhew  is  the  most  com- 
petent man  of  tiic  day  for  the  task  which 
he  has  undertaken,  and  wo  must  add  most 
satisfactorily  accomplished.  *Tho  Ulus- 
tratcd  Horse  Management*  may  be  fitly 
termed  an  enc>'clopivdia  of  all  that  relates 
to  the  horse,  aud  the  several  uses  to  which 
it  can  be  applied.  Wo,  therefore,  earnestly 
recommend  this  handsome  voluuie  to  our 
readers,  with  the  conviction  that  every  ona 
who  cares  for  Ids  horse  can  prolitably  and 
pleasurably  consult  its  well-stored  pages.'* 

Sew,  Jan.  1»,  1804.—"  We  have  read  Mr. 
Bfavhew's  book  with  all  the  attention 
which  it  so  eminently  merits,  and  we  liava 
no  hesitation  in  at>svrtiiig  that  it  is  tho  most 
comprehensive  and  in.<»tructive  work  on  the 
subject  of  horse  management  which  we 
have  ever  had  the  luck  to  meet  with.  The 
*  Illustrated  Horse  Management'  is  a 
work  which  should  find  a  place  in  the 
library  of  every  comitry  gentleman,  for 
tho  most  experienced  may  derive  benefil 
from  its  perusal" 

Nonconformist,  March  9,  1864.— 
"Grooms  hate  their  masters  to  be  too 
knowing,  but  whoever  shall  quietly  study 
this  boolc,  and  make  it  his  guide  for  a  few 
weeks  in  the  observation  and  control  of  his 
own  stable,  will  not  afterwards  feel  himself 
to  be  deiicndent  on  his  ^ervants.  Mr.  May- 
hew writes  clearly,  forcibly,  and  delight- 
fully, and  we  earnestly  recommend  his 
book  to  every  (»ne  who  Is  the  owner  of 
even  a  pony  for  hb  children*8  use,  while 
those  who  have  extensive  stables  should 
read  and  read  again  every  paragraph  of 
its  closely  packed  contents." 

Glodk,  /V6.  22,  lR64.-"Mr.  Mayhew 
writes  on  a  isubject  of  which  he  is  mat-ter ; 
and  his  new  lMH)k  is  a  work  of  caro,  expe- 
rience and  general  enlightenment,  as  cou- 
ccms  the  management  of  horses." 

Economist,  Matrh  5, 1864.— "Tl»e  'Illus- 
trated Horse  Management,*  by  Edward 
Mayhew,  is  really  a  very  useful  book  to  all 
who  are  concerned  with  horses,  either  for 
pleiisure  or  profit.  To  English  farmers, 
who  may  bo  induced  to  breed  horses,  the 
various  points  of  management  which  are 
insisted  on  by  "Sir.  Mayhew  In  ample  detail 
have  a  money  value.*' 


20 


Wm.  H.  Allen  &  Co.,  18,  Waterloo  Tulce,  S.W. 


THE  HORSES  OF  THE  SAHARA, 

%nti  tit  Planners  of  %  gtstrt* 

By  E.  DAUMAS, 

General  of  the  rivUion  Commanding  at  nonlcaux,  Senator,  Ac,  Jcc 
WITH  COMMENTAUIEfl  IIY  THE   EMIR  ABD-EL-KADEU  (Authorized  Edition  . 

In  Sra,  cloth,  price  lOs.  6d.,  by  post  lis.  2d. 

CONTENTS : 


Parti. 

SOL'RCF.S  OF  iNPORMATIiiN. 

Roninrkrt  liy  th<»  I'nilr  Abd-cl-KaJor. — Trcn- 

ti>i'  «>n  thi*  Ilomc. 
Ox  TiiK  Onii;iN  OF  the  Ar.vb  Horse. — 

Four  tfrcat  oiiocht ;  Creation  of  tlie  hontc ; 

Clianf^e  of  coat;   Mural  qualitica  of  the 

thonmfirlt-hreiL 
The  Rarb. — OnenoM  of  the  rare ;  Letter 

from  M.  IiOa<iepfl  on  the  Ali'xandrla  races; 

Wcijrht  carrliHl  liv  African  hor»<'!«. 
Traditional  love  o/  tho  honw;   Arab  pro- 

vorbH. 
SiiiHTlority  of  tho  hor«e«  of  tho  Sahara. 
Bur.i:i>.-4.  —  Invtmtoxt.iblo    purity     of    tlie 

Salian-iic  H:irb ;  Kiidtirancc  of  tlio  Arab ; 

Two  vari»'tloii  of  tho  hon«c. 
Tnc  SiKK  AN'it  TiiK  I>AM. — Miirc  and  foal; 

IniliK-nce  of  tlii'  ^In* ;  Turity  of  race. 
Rkakim;  and  itiiLAKiNO  IN.— Early  tndn- 

iiij;;  Klrnuntar}-  Exen-iM.*d:  Namoi*. 
Diet. -Camel':*  and  ewe'8  millc;    Dates; 

Gn'on  fvKKl ;  Re|H>«o  and  fat  injurious  to 

a  horxe. 
QuooMiNG,   nvoiENB,  PcoroRTios?.— Se- 
lection of  fo<Ml  anil  water;  How  toforctrll 

llic  sixo  and  character  of  a  horse;   lugu- 

nious  uien»urenifiitH. 
CoATf*. — Varli'ty  of  colonra ;  White  spots ; 

Tufts;   Favourite  coats;    Objectionable 

coats. 

On  I^IIOO^INO  AND  PlIlCIIArtlXO  HORRKtI. 

Shoeing.— Farriers;  their  privileges  and 

tiKils;  (!old  enhoeintf. 
The  Harness.— The  Arab  saddle;  Advan- 

ta^reii  of  the  Arab  ttystcm. 
Maxims  ok  the  Arab  Cavalier.— Endur- 

aiK-e :  Making;  tlie  luirse  a  Ktudy. 
HoriH^-niciuK  ainonpr  the  Aralts. 

Al<Ii-»L-KAUEtt    ON    THE    ArvB    HORSE. — 

Kxaiuplos  of  endurance;  Reasons  for 
early  trnlninpr;  High  price  of  marcs; 
Identity  of  the  Arab  and  the  Barb;  Ge- 
neral inittnictions;  Draught  horses. 
The  Wak  HoRdK.— His  form  and  quali- 
ties. 


OnsfRVER,  J/ciy  3. 1803.— "There  is  not 
A  pn^'c  in  this  book  from  which  we  may 
not  gather  useful  bints  or  valuable  informa- 
tion rci^pcctinfr  tlie  noturo,  habits  and 
management  of  horses.*' 


Part  IL— The  Manners  of  thc<  Desert. 

The  Arab  horse  derives  h'u  charact«r  fruin 
his  Arab  ma-^ter. 

The  .^ahar.v,  er  AKT>-r[<-R4DER. 

The  K.vzzi.v.— Three  kinds  of  razzia  :  the 
Tehha,  the  Khrotef.i,  the  Ttrlii^ue; 
Episodes;  Fopular  ch.-iunt;  The  com- 
bat ;  Circumstantial  di-taili. 

The  K1IKIAM4,  or  Tubft.  -Ilorw,  camel, 
and  Klieop  i«tealing  ;  Sui)erstitlons. 

Wah  betwekn  De-^ert  TeikE"*.— M'ltirrs; 
Pn>claiuatlon  of  war ;  Suinnioning  allies ; 
Departure;  Amorous  iutrigue»;  Tlirft^; 
Scout.4 :  I'reliuiinarivs  of  peace ;  S.iha- 
rene  dipIonia<:v ;  Couclusiun  of  jM-acc  ; 
Ho<itilitie7< ;  Tlie  eve  of  battle:  Ch*!- 
Ionises;  War  cries;  The  Battle;  Defeat; 
Victory ;  Anecdotes. 

Lament.itionii  of  an  Arab  warrior. 

L'sAOhs  OK    War.  —  Diiitribution    of    the 

J>lunder  ;  The  chief ;  L.(un  of  a  horse ; 
'Vmale  spectators  of  the  battle. 

The  horse  of  noble  race 

Ostrkii  HiNTiSfj. — On hortfel>ack ;  Detaili 
of  the  oxcunion:  From  an  ambu«h: 
Habits  of  theustiiclL 

Gazem.e  HCSTIN'O. — TuK  Greihoum). 

Hawk  I  NO. 

The  Cmaof.,  bt  Abp-el-Kader.  —  The 
gazelle ;  The  hynna :  The  panther  ;  The 
lion:  modes  of  hunting. 

The  Camel.— Management.  Diet,  Ac. 

The  Sheep. — Imm«iu<e  flocks ;  Tlieir  uie- 
fulue»s  in  tho  Sahara. 

Like  in  the  Df.*kkt.— The  villager;  The 
master  of  the  tent;  Sobriety;  Rannent; 
Inventory  of  a  wealthy  Arab's  fortuue; 
His  <MX*upationH ;  Armourers;  Ij4rgi«la- 
tioii;  Women  s  eiiiploynicnt ;  Hospitalit)-; 
Mendicants;  Soirererit;  Magic;  IMigioiL 

I'liE  Arab  Aristot  u.vct,  —  Tho  tliomy 
shrub  and  the  date-tree;  Tlie  Shorifs*; 
The  marabouts  and  tlie  4,hu*tJ:  A  groAt 
tent;  The  vendi-tta:  Examples;  Bh>.»il- 
money;  Lex  talioui*;  Birth,  etloi:atio:i, 
and  marriage;  Polygamy;  An  Anib  inte- 
rior; Amusements;  Death;  Funeral rite». 


EniNiuRon  CoxmAVT.  —"We  have  niV-v 
read  a  work  tHving  a  more  picturi>.si\u>  .lii'l. 
at  tlio  Siime  time,  pr.ictical  account  of  thf 
manners  and  custom.<t  of  a  pe<iplc,  lltan 
this  book  on  tho  Arabs  and  their  horses." 


•    .    t9- 


></■    .   -;.,  V'