INDIA.
Lord Aberdeen, who did not hope very great things from the war which
had initiated during his Ministry, had yet deemed it possible that
Eastern Europe might reap from it the benefit of a quarter of a
century's peace. He was curiously near the mark in this estimate; but
neither he nor any other English statesman was unwary enough to risk
such a prophecy as to the general tranquillity of the Continent. In
fact, the peace of Europe, broken in 1853, has been unstable enough
ever since, and from time to time tremendous wars have shaken it.
Into none of these, however, has Great Britain been again entrapped,
though the sympathies of its people have often been warmly enlisted
on this side and that. A war with China, which began in 1857, and
cannot be said to have ended till 1860, though in the interim a
treaty was signed which secured just a year's cessation of
hostilities, was the most important undertaking in which the allied
forces of France and England took part after the Crimea. In this war
the allies were victorious, as at that date any European Power was
tolerably certain to be in a serious contest with China. The closing
act of the conflict--the destruction of the Summer Palace at Pekin,
in retaliation for the treacherous murder of several French and
English prisoners of distinction--was severely blamed at the time,
but defended on the ground that only in this way could any effectual
punishment of the offence be obtained. That act of vengeance and the
war which it closed have an interest of their own in connection with
the late General Gordon, who now entered on that course of
extraordinary achievement which lacks a parallel in this century, and
which began, in the interests of Chinese civilisation, shortly after
he had taken a subordinate officer's part in the work of destruction
at Pekin.
From this date England did not commit itself to any of the singular
series of enterprises which our good ally, the French Emperor, set on
foot. A feeling of distrust towards that potentate was invading the
minds of the very Englishmen who had most cordially hailed his
successes and met his advances. "The Emperor's mind is as full of
schemes as a warren is full of rabbits, and, like rabbits, his
schemes go to ground for the moment to avoid notice or antagonism,"
were the strong words of Lord Palmerston in a confidential letter of
1860; and when he could thus think and write, small wonder if calmer
and more unprejudiced minds saw need for standing on their guard.
Amid all the flattering demonstrations of friendship of which the
French court had been lavish, and which had been gracefully
reciprocated by English royality, the Prince Consort had retained an
undisturbed perception of much that was not quite satisfactory in the
qualifications of the despotic chief of the French State for his
difficult post. Thus it is without surprise that we find the Queen
writing in 1859, as to a plan suggested by the Emperor: "The whole
scheme is the often-attempted one, that England should take the
chestnuts from the fire, and assume the responsibility of making
proposals which, if they lead to war, we should be in honour bound to
support by arms." The Emperor had once said of Louis Philippe, that
he had fallen "because he was not sincere with England"; it looked
now as though he were steering full on the same rock, for his own
sincerity was flawed by dangerous reservations.
England remained an interested spectator, but a spectator only, while
the French ruler played that curiously calculated game of his, which
did so much towards insuring the independence of Italy and its
consolidation into one free monarchy. It was no disinterested game,
as the cession of Nice and Savoy to France by Piedmont would alone
have proved. It was daring to the point of rashness; for as a French
general of high rank said, there needed but the slightest check to
the French arms, and "it was all up with the dynasty!" Yet the "idea"
which furnished the professed motive for the Emperor's warlike action
was one dear to English sympathies, and many an English heart
rejoiced in the solid good secured for Italy, though without our
national co-operation. There was a proud compensating satisfaction in
the knowledge that, when a crisis of unexampled and terrible
importance had come in our own affairs, England had perforce dealt
with it single-handed and with supreme success.
Those who can remember the fearful summer of 1857 can hardly recall
its wild events without some recurrence of the thrill of horror that
ran through the land, as week after week the Indian news of mutiny
and massacre reached us. It was a surprise to the country at large,
more than to the authorities, who were informed already that a spirit
of disaffection had been at work among our native troops in Bengal,
and that there was good reason to believe in the existence of a
conspiracy for sapping the allegiance of these troops. Later events
have left little doubt that such a conspiracy did exist, and that its
aim was the total subversion of British power. Our advance in
Hindostan had been rapid, the changes following on it many, and not
always such as the Oriental mind could understand or approve. Early
in the reign, in 1847, an energetic Governor-General, Lord Dalhousie,
went out to India, who introduced railways, telegraphs, and cheap
postage, set on foot a system of native education, and vigorously
fought the ancient iniquities of suttee, thuggee, and child-murder.
Perhaps his aggressive energy worked too fast, too fierily; perhaps
his peremptory reforms, not less than his high-handed annexations of
the Punjaub, Oude, and other native States, awakened suspicion in the
mind of the Hindoo, bound as he was by the immemorial fetters of
caste, and dreading with a shuddering horror innovations that might
interfere with its distinctions; for to lose caste was to be outlawed
among men and accursed in the sight of God.
[Illustration: Lord Canning.]
Lord Canning, the successor of Lord Dalhousie, entered on his
governor-generalship at a moment full of "unsuspected peril"; for the
disaffected in Hindostan had so misread the signs of the times as to
believe that England's sun was stooping towards its setting, and that
the hour had come in which a successful blow could be struck, against
the foreign domination of a people alien in faith as in blood from
Mohammedan and Buddhist and Brahmin, and apt to treat all alike with
the scorn of superiority. A trivial incident, which was held no
trifle by the distrustful Sepoys, proved to be the spark that kindled
a vast explosion. The cartridges supplied for use with the Enfield
rifle, introduced into India in 1856, were greased; and the end would
have to be bitten off when the cartridge was used. A report was
busily circulated among the troops that the grease used was cow's fat
and hog's lard, and that these substances were employed in pursuance
of a deep-laid design to deprive every soldier of his caste by
compelling him to taste these defiling things. Such compulsion would
hardly have been less odious to a Mussulman than to a Hindoo; for
swineflesh is abominable to the one, and the cow a sacred animal to
the other. Whoever devised this falsehood intended to imply a subtle
intention on the part of England to overthrow the native religions,
which it was hoped the maddened soldiery would rise to resist. The
mischief worked as was desired. In vain the obnoxious cartridges were
withdrawn from use; in vain the Governor-General issued a
proclamation warning the army of Bengal against the falsehoods that
were being circulated. Mysterious signals, little cakes of unleavened
bread called _chupatties_, were being distributed, as the spring of
1857 went on, throughout the native villages under British rule,
doing the office of the _Fiery Cross_ among the Scotch Highlanders of
an earlier day; and in May the great Mutiny broke out.
Some of the Bengal cavalry at Meerut had been imprisoned for refusing
to use their cartridges; their comrades rose in rebellion, fired on
their officers, released the prisoners, and murdered some Europeans.
The British troops rallied and repulsed the mutineers, who fled to
Delhi, unhappily reached it in safety, and required and obtained the
protection of the feeble old King, the last of the Moguls, there
residing. Him they proclaimed their Emperor, and avowed the intention
of restoring his dynasty to its ancient supremacy. The native troops
in the city and its environs at once prepared to join them; and thus
from a mere mutiny, such as had occurred once and again before, the
rising assumed the character of a vast revolutionary war. For a
moment it seemed that our hard-won supremacy in the East was
disappearing in a sea of blood. The foe were numerous, fanatical, and
ruthless; we ourselves had trained and disciplined them for war; the
sympathies of their countrymen were very largely with them. Yet, with
incredible effort and heroism more than mortal, the small and
scattered forces of England again snatched the mastery from the hands
of the overwhelming numbers arrayed against them.
[Illustration: Sir Colin Campbell.]
One name has obtained an immortality of infamy in connection with
this struggle--that of the Nana Sahib, who by his hideous treachery
at Cawnpore took revenge on confiding Englishmen and women for
certain wrongs inflicted on him in regard to the inheritance of his
adopted father by the last Governor-General. But many other names
have been crowned with deathless honour, the just reward of
unsurpassed achievement, of supreme fidelity and valour, at a crisis
under which feeble natures would have fainted and fallen. Of these
are Lord Canning himself, the noble brothers John and Henry Lawrence,
the Generals Havelock, Outram, and Campbell, and others whom space
forbids us even to name.
The Governor-General remained calm, resolute, and intrepid amidst the
panic and the rage which shook Calcutta when the first appalling news
of the Mutiny broke upon it. He disdained the cruel counsels of fear,
and steadily refused to confound the innocent with the guilty among
the natives; but he knew where to strike, and when, and how. On his
own responsibility he stayed the British troops on their way to the
scene of war in China, and made them serve the graver, more immediate
need of India, doing it with the concurrence of Lord Elgin, the envoy
responsible for the Chinese business; and he poured his forces on
Delhi, the heart of the insurrection, resolving to make an end of it
there before ever reinforcement direct from England could come. After
a difficult and terrible siege, the place was carried by storm on
September 20th, 1857--an achievement that cost many noble lives, and
chief among them that of the gallant Nicholson, a soldier whose mind
and character seem to have made on all who knew him an impression as
of supernatural grandeur.
Five days later General Havelock and his little band of heroes--some
one thousand Englishmen who had marched with him from Allahabad,
recaptured by Neill for England, and on to ghastly Cawnpore--arrived
at Lucknow, and relieved the slender British force which since May
had been holding the Residency against the fierce and ever-renewed
assaults of the thousands of rebels who poured themselves upon it. He
came in time to save many a brave life that should yet do good
service; but the noblest Englishman of them all, the gentle,
dauntless, chivalrous Sir Henry Lawrence, Governor of Oude, had died
from wounds inflicted by a rebel shell many weeks before, and lay
buried in the stronghold for whose safe keeping he had continued to
provide in the hour and article of death. His spirit, however, seemed
yet to actuate the survivors. Havelock's march had been one
succession of victories won against enormous odds, and half
miraculous; but even he could work no miracle, and his troops might
merely have shared a tragic fate with the long-tried defenders of
Lucknow, but for the timely arrival of Sir Colin Campbell with five
thousand men more, to relieve in his turn the relieving force and
place all the Europeans in Lucknow in real safety. The news was
received in England with a delight that was mingled with mourning for
the heroic and saintly Havelock, who sank and died on November 24th.
A soldier whose military genius had passed unrecognised and almost
unemployed while men far his inferiors were high in command, he had
so more than profited by the opportunity for doing good service when
it came, that in a few months his name had become one of the dearest
in every English home, a glory and a joy for ever. It is rarely that
a career so obscured by adverse fortune through all its course blazes
into such sunset splendour just at the last hour of life's day.
[Illustration: Henry Havelock.]
Those months which made the fame of Havelock had been filled with
crime and horror. The first reports of Sepoy outrages which
circulated in England were undoubtedly exaggerated, but enough
remains of sickening truth as to the cruelties endured by English
women and children at the hand of the mutineers to account for the
fury which filled the breasts of their avenging countrymen, and
seemed to lend them supernatural strength and courage, and, alas! in
some instances, to merge that courage in ferocity. Delhi had been
deeply guilty, when the mutineers seized it, in respect of inhuman
outrage on the helpless non-combatants; but the story of Cawnpore is
darker yet, and is still after all these years fresh in our memories.
A peculiar blackness of iniquity clings about it. That show of amity
with which the Nana Sahib responded to the summons of Sir Hugh
Wheeler, the hard-pressed commanding officer in the city, only that
he might act against him; those false promises by which the little
garrison, unconquerable by any force, was beguiled to give itself up
to mere butchery; the long captivity of the few scores of women and
children who survived the general slaughter, only, after many dreary
days of painful suspense, to be murdered in their prison-house as
Havelock drew near the gates of Cawnpore: all these circumstances of
especial horror made men regard their chief instigator rather as one
of the lower fiends masquerading in human guise than as a
fellow-creature moved by any motives common to men. It was perhaps
well for the fair fame of Englishmen that the Nana never fell into
their hands, but saved himself by flight before the soldiers of
Havelock had looked into the slaughter-house all strewn with relics
of his victims and grimly marked with signs of murder, or had gazed
shuddering at the dreadful well choked up with the corpses of their
countrywomen. It required more than common courage, justice, and
humanity, to withstand the wild demand for mere indiscriminating
revenge which these things called forth. Happily those highest in
power did possess these rare qualities. Lord Canning earned for
himself the nickname of "Clemency Canning" by his perfect
resoluteness to hold the balance of justice even, and unweighted by
the mad passion of the hour. Sir John (afterwards Lord) Lawrence, the
Chief Commissioner of the Punjaub, who, with his able subordinates,
had saved that province at the very outset, and thereby in truth
saved India, was equally firm in mercy and in justice. The Queen
herself, who had very early appreciated the gravity of the situation
and promoted to the extent of her power the speedy sending of aid and
reinforcement from England, thoroughly endorsed the wise and clement
policy of the Governor-General. Replying to a letter of Lord
Canning's which deplored "the rabid and indiscriminate vindictiveness
abroad," Her Majesty wrote these words, which we will give ourselves
the pleasure to quote entire:--
[Illustration: Sir John Lawrence.]
"Lord Canning will easily believe how entirely the Queen shares his
feelings of sorrow and indignation at the unchristian spirit, shown,
alas! also to a great extent here by the public, towards Indians in
general, and towards Sepoys _without discrimination!_ It is, however,
not likely to last, and comes from the horror produced by the
unspeakable atrocities perpetrated against the innocent women and
children, which make one's blood run cold and one's heart bleed! For
the perpetrators of these awful horrors no punishment can be severe
enough; and sad as it is, _stern_ justice must be dealt out to all
the guilty.
"But to the nation at large, to the peaceable inhabitants, to the
many kind and friendly natives who have assisted us, sheltered the
fugitive, and been faithful and true, there should be shown the
greatest kindness. They should know that there is no hatred to a
brown skin--none; but the greatest wish on their Queen's part to see
them happy, contented, and flourishing."
These words well became the sovereign who, by serious and cogent
argument, had succeeded in inducing her Ministers to strike strongly
and quickly on the side of law and order, they having been at first
inclined to adopt a "step-by-step" policy as to sending out aid,
which would not have been very grateful to the hard-pressed
authorities in India; while the Queen and the Prince shared Lord
Canning's opinion, that "nothing but a long continued manifestation
of England's might before the eyes of the whole Indian empire,
evinced by the presence of such an English force as should make the
thought of opposition hopeless, would re-establish confidence in her
strength."
The necessary manifestation of strength was made; the reputation of
England--so rudely shaken, not only in the opinion of ignorant
Hindoos, but in that of her European rivals--was re-established
fully, and indeed gained by the power she had shown to cope with an
unparalleled emergency. The counsels of vengeance were set aside, in
spite of the obloquy which for a time was heaped on the true wisdom
which rejected them. We did not "dethrone Christ to set up Moloch";
had we been guilty of that sanguinary folly, England and India might
yet be ruing that year's doing. On the contrary, certain changes
which did ensue in direct consequence of the Mutiny were productive
of undoubted good.
It was recognised that the "fiction of rule by a trading company" in
India must now be swept away; one of the very earliest effects of the
outbreak had been to open men's eyes to the weak and sore places of
that system. In 1858 an "Act for the better Government of India" was
passed, which transferred to Her Majesty all the territories formerly
governed by the East India Company, and provided that all the powers
it had once wielded should now be exercised in her name, and that its
military and naval forces should henceforth be deemed her forces. The
new Secretary of State for India, with an assistant council of
fifteen members, was entrusted with the care of Indian interests
here; the Viceroy, or Governor-General, also assisted by a council,
was to be supreme in India itself. The first viceroy who represented
the majesty of England to the Queen's Indian subjects was the
statesman who had safely steered us through the imminent, deadly
peril of the Mutiny, and whom right feeling and sound policy alike
designated as the only fit wearer of this honour. Under the new
regime race and class prejudices have softened, education is
spreading swiftly, native oppression is becoming more difficult, as
improved communications bring the light of day into the remoter
districts of the immense peninsula. The public mind of England has
never quite relapsed into its former scornful indifference to the
welfare of India; rather, that welfare has been regarded with much
keener interest, and the nation has become increasingly alive to its
duty with regard to that mighty dependency, now one in allegiance
with ourselves. There was much of happy omen in the reception
accorded by loyal Hindoos to the Queen's proclamation when it reached
them in 1858. While the mass of the people gladly hailed the rule of
the "Empress," by whom they believed the Company "had been hanged for
great offences," there were individuals who were intelligent enough
to recognise with delight that noble character of "humanity, mercy,
and justice," which was impressed by the Queen's own agency on the
proclamation issued in her name. We may say that the joy with which
such persons accepted the new reign has been justified by events, and
that the same great principles have continued to guide all Her
Majesty's own action with regard to India, and also that of her
ablest representatives there.
We may not leave out of account, in reckoning the loss and gain of
that tremendous year, the extraordinary examples of heroism called
forth by its trials, which have made our annals richer, and have set
the ideal of English nobleness higher. The amazing achievements and
the swiftly following death of the gallant Havelock did not indeed
eclipse in men's minds the equal patriotism and success of his noble
fellows, but the tragic completeness of his story and the antique
grandeur of his character made him specially dear to his countrymen;
and the fact that he was already in his grave while the Queen and
Parliament were busy in assigning to him the honours and rewards
which his sixty years of life had hitherto lacked, added something
like remorse to the national feeling for him. But the heart of the
people swelled high with a worthy pride as we dwelt on his name and
those of the Lawrences, the Neills, the Outrams, the Campbells, and
felt that all our heroes had not died with Wellington.
Other anxieties and misfortunes had not been lacking while the fate
of British India still hung in the balance. The attitude of some
European Powers, whom the breaking forth of the Mutiny had encouraged
in the idea that England's power was waning, was full of menace,
especially in view of what the Prince Consort justly called "our
pitiable state of unpreparedness" for resisting attack. Prompted by
him, the Queen caused close inquiry to be made into the state of our
home defences and of the navy--the first step towards remedying the
deficiencies therein existing. Also a "cold wave" seemed to be
passing over the commercial community in England; the year 1857 being
marked by very great financial depression, which affected more or
less every department of our industries. In connection with this
calamity, however, there was at least one hopeful feature: the very
different temper which the working classes, then, as always, the
greatest sufferers by such depression, manifested in the time of
trial. They showed themselves patient and loyal, able to understand
that their employers too had evils to endure and difficulties to
surmount; they no longer held all who were their superiors in station
for their natural enemies: a happy change, testifying to the good
worked by the new, beneficent spirit of legislation and reform.
It is under the date of this year that we find Mr. Greville, on the
authority of Lord Clarendon, thus describing the very thorough and
"eminently useful" manner in which the Queen, assisted by the Prince,
was exercising her high functions:--
"She held each Minister to the discharge of his duty and his
responsibility to her, and constantly desired to be furnished with
accurate and detailed information about all important matters,
keeping a record of all the reports that were made to her, and
constantly referring to them; _e.g._, she would desire to know what
the state of the navy was, and what ships were in readiness for
active service, and generally the state of each, ordering returns to
be submitted to her from all the arsenals and dockyards, and again,
weeks or months afterwards, referring to these returns, and desiring
to have everything relating to them explained and accounted for, and
so throughout every department....This is what none of her
predecessors ever did, and it is, in fact, the act of Prince Albert."
We turn from this picture of the Sovereign's habitual occupations to
her public life, and we find it never more full of apparently
absorbing excitements--splendid hospitalities exchanged with other
Powers, especially with Imperial France, alternating with messages of
encouragement, full of cordiality and grace, to her successful
commander-in-chief in India, Sir Colin Campbell, with plans for the
conspicuous rewarding of the Indian heroes at large, with public
visits to various great English towns, and with preparations for the
impending marriage of the Princess Royal; and we realise forcibly
that even in those sunny days, when the Queen was surrounded with her
unbroken family of nine blooming and promising children, and still
had at her right hand the invaluable counsellor by whose aid England
was governed with a wisdom and energy all but unprecedented, her
position was so far from a sinecure that no subject who had his daily
bread to gain by his wits could have worked much harder.