_1858-1859. DINAPORE. PLYMOUTH_
Record of events--Various--Proclamation--Parliamentary debates--
Sikhs--Ghoorka “allies”--Rainy season--Last of H.E.I.C.--Rebel
forces--Native comments--Warrant for A.M.D.--Subjects of talk--
The drama ended--Personal chagrin--Farewell service--March
away--Parisnath--Raneegunge--Embark and sail--Order by
Government--On board ship--England.
A period of rest in cantonments had become a matter of necessity to
restore physical efficiency to our regiment, worn out as men and
officers were by service in the field. The ordinary duties incidental
to barrack existence in India were performed by all, our spare time
devoted to current records of events announced from day to day by the
newspapers. A few examples now follow.
No sooner had our force departed from Jugdispore than the rebels
returned to their former positions in the extensive jungle by
which that place is surrounded. Among the proceedings taking place
elsewhere was the defeat, by Sir Hope Grant, of a strong rebel force
at Nawabgunge. In the vicinity of Shahjehanpore, the Moulvie already
mentioned was killed by the troops of a Rajah[196] who had risen
against his authority. Gwalior had been recaptured; the Ranee of Jhansi
killed while leading her troops at that place against the Central India
Force. Reports of disaffection in certain Bombay regiments. In our own
near neighbourhood, a threatened outbreak by the prisoners in Patna
gaol led to the dispatch thither of two companies of the 10th. The
rebels had collected in a body of considerable strength at Chuprah,
from which position they were committing depredations on trading boats
on the Ganges; a portion of the 35th was accordingly dispatched against
them. Another party of rebels threatening Bulliah, a detachment of
the 10th proceeded by steamer towards that place. Various lines of
communication were kept open by parties of troops placed at suitable
points along them. The position at Arrah was so strengthened as to
be secure against attack. The arrival of a small kind of gunboat
intended for use on rivers was in its way important, as indicating the
introduction of a new means of attack.
At this time the issue of certain Proclamations by Government seemed to
attract much attention among the rebels still in the field; the tenor
of the one an invitation to them to lay down their arms, the other in
effect confiscating the property of landowners in Oude, with a few
exceptions. “It is all very well,” said they, “to invite us to come in,
lay down our arms, and accept forgiveness; but why make the offer if
you have the power to subdue us?” “Hitherto, if we committed murder,
robbery, or burnt houses, we were hanged, imprisoned, or put on the
roads for life; now we have done all these things, and we are invited
to accept forgiveness. Truly this is a great raj; may it live for
ever!...” Adverting to the first of those Proclamations, Lord Canning
had expressed himself: “It is impossible that the justice, charity, and
kindliness, as well as the true wisdom which mark these words, should
not be appreciated.” That is the way they were so. The second was at
once called “the Confiscation Proclamation”; its almost immediate
effect, an outbreak of hostility among chiefs who were otherwise more
or less ready to remain passive if not actually favourable to existing
law. At a subsequent date it was cancelled.
The debates in Parliament on these dispatches and many other comments
on them were daily perused with great interest, not only by ourselves,
but, as we learnt, by the rebels still in arms, the several views
expressed by them somehow reaching cantonments.
The publication of orders, in which it was considered that services
performed by the Sikhs were referred to in exaggerated terms as
compared with the purely British, produced for the time being one
effect to which allusion may here be made. “Why,” said a very
intelligent officer of that nationality, who was well known to most
of us in cantonments, “you admit yourselves that we saved India for
you; if we can do that for you foreigners, why should we not take
the country for ourselves?” At the very time he spoke there were
82,000 Sikh troops in British employ. It was therefore not altogether
subject of surprise to learn, as we did, that a mutinous plot had been
discovered in the 10th Sikh Infantry at the distant station of Dhera
Ishmail Khan.
Nor were matters satisfactory on the part of the Ghoorkhas, recently
our “allies.” The circumstance transpired that correspondence had
been discovered between some of the higher authorities of Nepaul and
the Royal family of Oude; that Jung Bahadur had expressed himself
dissatisfied with degree of acknowledgment awarded by the Indian
Government for services rendered by himself and by his troops.
With the advance of the rainy season sickness and death made sad
havoc among our ranks. Meanwhile a state of unrest among the general
population became more and more apparent, fanned as it was by reports
circulated among them that large reinforcements from England would
speedily arrive. Nor was that unrest confined to the non-military
sections; some of the remaining sepoys believed to be “staunch” were
said to have been detected in treasonable correspondence with their
brethren in open rebellion; that representatives of mutineers had taken
service in the ranks of the police force.
The 1st of November, 1858, began an era memorable in the history of
India. On that day was read at every military station throughout the
country the Proclamation by the Queen, declaring the transference to
Her Majesty of the governing power hitherto exercised by the Honourable
East India Company, the 10th Regiment and other troops occupying our
present station being paraded at the civil station of Bankipore to
impart additional splendour to an otherwise imposing ceremony. The
Proclamation was read by the Commissioner of the district, an immense
concourse of natives being present on the occasion.
With reference to the portions of that Proclamation in which, under
certain specified conditions, pardon and amnesty are offered to rebels,
the _Punjabee_ newspaper of October 30 publishes a return of the army
still opposed to us in Oude alone, comprising, according to figures
there given, 79 chiefs, with an aggregate of 271 guns, 11,660 cavalry,
242,100 infantry, or 253,760 men in all; an imposing force indeed,
considering that the suppression of the outbreak is declared to have
been accomplished.
From the rebels still in the field, various comments on the terms
so offered reached our cantonments. They considered that for crimes
committed the sepoys deserved punishment by death, nor could they
understand the exemption to that penalty now expressed. “As an
earthquake”--according to their “prophets”--“has three waves, so will
there be three shocks to British power in India: one we have just
had; a second will occur a few years hence; the last after a longer
interval, when the British position in India will vanish.”
The arrival of papers with a new warrant[197] for the Medical
Department of the Army naturally enough was of considerable interest
to those of us who belonged to that branch of the military service.
As expressed in my diary at the time: “Most liberal it is, wiping away
at one swoop the grievances under which the Department has laboured,
and making it, as it ought to be, one of the best, if not the very
best, in the Army.” The great importance of the duties pertaining to
that department in relation to individual needs and general military
efficiency of a force was then prominently in my view from actual
experience.
Shortly after the Proclamation by Her Majesty was read, a counter
document of similar nature was issued by the Begum of Lucknow; but
the latter produced little if any effect upon the rebels or their
chiefs, numbers of both “coming in” one after another to make their
submission. An attempt was made by a leading journal[198] to ascertain
the number of persons who, being convicted of crimes against the
State, had suffered the penalty of death. They were, according to
that paper, as follows, from the outbreak of the Mutiny, namely:--By
military tribunal, executed by hanging, 86; by civil tribunal, 300; the
number shot by musketry, 628; blown from guns, 1,370; making a total
of 2,384. The deposed King of Delhi recently passed our station by
steamer, _en route_ to Calcutta, and finally to Rangoon, there to spend
the remaining portion of his life. The event gave rise to comment in
respect to the action of the old king against the Indian Government,
including his correspondence with the Shah of Persia in 1856; his
reputed sanction of atrocities at Delhi in May, ’57; his correspondence
with Lucknow, etc. Another subject of talk was the reported escape of
the Nana, the truth of which was soon thereafter confirmed. Lastly,
the publication of correspondence between Colonel Edwards, Sir John
Lawrence, and the Viceroy,[199] in respect to that portion of the
Proclamation which related to native customs, religious and otherwise,
afforded ample subject to discuss in our social coteries.
In the early days of 3859 came the welcome orders that all detached
parties of the 10th should rejoin Headquarters, for the purpose of
volunteering preparatory to the departure of the regiment for England.
Other orders directed various reductions to be made in military
establishments now in India; among them the withdrawal of several
time-expired regiments, and the return to their respective ships of the
Naval Brigades temporarily employed; that regiments still in the field
should proceed to quarters; brigadiers commanding columns cease to
hold appointments as such--thus declaring in effect that the campaign
connected with the great Mutiny was ended. But the facts were well
known that bodies of rebels and mutineers were in the field, special
forces actually employed against them; that bodies of disaffected had
taken refuge in Nepaul. These and various other incidents were looked
upon as so many supplements to the great drama at the end of which
official orders declared that we had arrived.
Now there occurred an event the outcome of which to several men who,
like myself, had held distinct charges of troops on active service, was
much chagrin and disappointment; namely, our supersession in promotion
by four officers, personally good, but who, though in the Crimea, had
neither there nor elsewhere held equivalent positions. Some little time
thereafter there appeared in a service journal[200] a leading article
“On the partiality and injustice to the Department exhibited in the
late promotions.” This was the first outcome of a warrant regarding
which first impressions were as already recorded.
At last came orders for the 10th to prepare for an early march towards
the port of embarkation for England, and that meantime volunteering
should be open to soldiers desiring to prolong their service in India.
All such orders were obeyed with the greatest possible alacrity. The
usual formalities on similar occasions being attended to, 141 of our
men availed themselves of the option thus given them, and so ceased to
belong to the corps in which they had performed much excellent work
under very trying circumstances. On an intervening Sunday a farewell
sermon[201] was preached to the regiment in our garrison church, and as
I noted at the time, “strange as it seems, some of the soldiers were
visibly affected thereby”; but as I have had numerous opportunities of
seeing, soldiers of the period now referred to, notwithstanding the
undoubted roughness of the great majority, had in their numbers many
men keenly sensitive to the finer impulses of our common human nature.
Before daylight on February 10, our regiment began its march, “played
out” of Dinapore by the band of the 19th Foot. Eight days thereafter
we encamped in near vicinity of Gyah, a place sacred to Buddhists, and
interesting in other ways. Two days more and we were on the Grand Trunk
Road. Soon at the hot wells of Burkutta, the water of which, clear
and having a slight odour of sulphur, is said to have many medicinal
virtues.
In observing the necessary custom on a march, of halting on the
seventh day, an opportunity was afforded those of us interested in
such matters, to ascend the hill of Parisnath. Occupying the eastern
tableland of the Vindyha range, itself 4,449 feet in height, like Mount
Aboo on the west of the same range, its summit is covered with small
Jain temples. Its sides are clothed with dense forests of sal (_Vateria
indica_).
In the course of our march, several trains of camels or kafilats, with
their Cabulee drivers, were met, as they were on their return journey
from Calcutta to Affghanistan. In accordance with the custom of the
time, they had begun their journey from Cabul eight months previous,
and hoped to return at the end of four more, thus completing it in one
year. These kafilats brought with them for sale in India, and Calcutta
more especially, fruit of different kinds, spices, skins, asafœtida,
and salep;[202] with the proceeds of the sale of which they purchased
and carried back with them bales of cotton goods, and others of
European manufacture. These caravans, including camels, drivers, and
“followers,” presented a picturesque and patriarchal scene, as in long
lines they seemed to glide along the road. Arrived at Raneegunge, our
camp was pitched for the last time. There a delay of several days took
place, while arrangements were in progress for embarkation; hurried
journeys by rail to and from Calcutta being made by those of us whose
duty it was to carry those arrangements into effect. A series of
coal-mines situated not far from our camp were being worked; but the
industry was, comparatively speaking, in its infancy.
In the early morning of St. Patrick’s Day, the regiment, stepping out
cheerfully to the familiar music appropriate to the occasion, and dear
to Irish soldiers, marched away from camp to railway station; thence
proceeded by train to Howrah, then by river steamer to the ship _King
Philip_, and so embarked. On the second day thereafter our ship, taken
in tow by a river tug, began her homeward voyage. As we glided past
Fort William, a Royal salute, fired from its ramparts, was a gratifying
compliment paid by order of Government to the departing regiment for
services performed by it during a most eventful episode in India’s
history. Wearied and worn out as our men were as a result of those
services, no cheer was raised in response to the unusual compliment
being paid to them.
The order by Government so alluded to was in these terms:--“_The
Calcutta Gazette Extraordinary_, Friday, March 18, 1859. No. 360
of 1859. Notification. Fort William, Military Department. The 18th
March, 1859.--Her Majesty’s 10th Regiment of Foot is about to embark
for England. His Excellency the Governor-General cannot allow this
regiment to pass through Calcutta without thanking the officers and
men for all the good service which they have rendered in the last two
eventful years: first, in the outbreaks at Benares and Dinapore; next,
as a part of the Column under their former Commander, Brigadier-General
Franks; and more lately in the harassing operations conducted by
Brigadier-General Sir E. Lugard and Brigadier Douglas on either bank of
the Ganges. The Governor-General in Council desires, in taking leave of
the 10th Regiment, to place on record his cordial appreciation of their
valuable services. The regiment will be saluted by the guns of Fort
William on leaving Calcutta. By order of his Excellency the Viceroy and
Governor-General of India in Council.--R. J. H. Birch, Major-General,
Secretary to the Government of India.”
[Subsequently the officers of the 10th, including myself, received
among us nine promotions and honorary distinctions for the services
above alluded to.]
During the homeward voyage several deaths occurred among our men,
exhausted as so many of them were by fatigue and exposure on service.
Perhaps it was that the incidents of that service had to some extent
affected the feelings heretofore so often manifested by soldiers in
presence of death among their comrades; at any rate, it became a source
of regret to some of our numbers to observe now the indifference shown
on such occasions; indeed, scarcely was the solemnity of committing a
body to the deep finished than games, songs, music, or dancing were
resumed by parties of the men. The long rest afforded by the voyage
did much to restore health to men and officers, and in other ways was
beneficial to us all.
As we neared England a pilot boarded our ship. He had with him a
bundle of papers, from which we learned, among other matters, of the
occurrence of war in the Quadrilateral, full details being given of the
great battles of Magenta and Solferino. In the accounts contained in
the same papers of the state of public affairs preceding that campaign,
a probable explanation was afforded of the suddenness with which
active measures against the mutineers had ceased, and considerable
forces withdrawn from India. At Gravesend, on July 13, the regiment
transhipped to the _Himalayah_, and so was conveyed to Plymouth, there
to be quartered in the Citadel. A few days thereafter,[203] I had the
happiness of being with my beloved wife and children, grateful in
spirit to Providence that life was preserved through the arduous ordeal
now relegated to the past.