When an officer has been tried by an honourable military tribunal,
composed of fifteen British officers, and the sentence of the
court-martial has been sanctioned and approved by a most merciful and
gracious sovereign, it were as fruitless, as it would be highly improper
and presumptuous, for the sentenced individual to urge anything further
in his defence. I, therefore, as a sincere admirer of my country's laws,
bow most humbly to my fate; I love my country as truly as ever I did,
and would as willingly as ever risk my life to support its laws and
freedom.
During the trial, which lasted thirteen days, I was exceedingly
harassed, and my feelings were worked up to a state bordering on frenzy.
There was a host against me, and I had not a soul to advise me how to
proceed. I stood alone and unaided, with a limited education, to rebut
the whole mass of evidence adduced against me.
The time necessarily occupied in sending the proceedings of the
court-martial to my native country, and the long period which elapsed
before its return, were spent in the bosom of domestic bliss, where I
found refuge from the storm. The contemplation of my recent fall would
at times sink me in gloomy despair, and it was my wife only who could
divert my mind from useless forebodings, and whisper in my ear sweet
hopes of better days to come. I removed some miles from the regiment, as
I could not bear the commiserating remarks of the soldiers as they
passed me, which only served to plunge me deeper in the vortex of
despondency. From these motives I was induced to remove from that
station where my profession had been my pride and boast, to where I
should not meet the pitying countenances of those brave fellows with
whom I had often shared in glory, and where I could, unmolested and
undisturbed, think of the future, and compose my feelings. On leaving
the regiment, and passing by the houses of the officers, that hung on
the rapid Ganges, my feelings can be better imagined than described.
Need I be ashamed to confess that I felt the tear trickling down my
cheek, and a weight at my heart that the utmost ingenuity of man cannot
accurately describe. I could not help comparing my then forlorn
situation with the day I looked back on the little white village spire
out-topping the high poplars that reared their heads over the
briar-woven grave of my mother, save that I had now one near and dear to
me, and ever ready to share the cup of sorrow. Many of the men whom I
had befriended and had got promoted, followed my boat on the banks of
the river, wishing me every prosperity, till prudence bade them return
to their lines. The feelings I experienced on this occasion are such as
the tyrant soldier never knows, and never ought to know. These friendly
greetings of the men gratified my pride, but only sunk my heart deeper
in anguish. Scarcely were my feelings so composed as to reconcile me in
some degree to my fate, when an event, the most dreadful and agonizing,
and which of all others I was the least prepared for, happened to her on
whom I had built my most felicitous hopes, when more halcyon days should
visit our humble cot. I could have borne poverty with a smile of
contentment; but this blow was vital, and at once dashed the flattering
cup of hope from my lips. During my long and harassing trial, such was
the anxiety of my wife, that a premature birth of a boy was the
consequence. This had nearly deprived me of her who was my best friend
and guide; but, by dint of great care and good nursing, she recovered,
and was at this moment in all the health and beauty of twenty-two, and
expected shortly to present me with another pledge of mutual love. A
strange coincidence brought her good mother, brother, and sister to the
station, neither of whom we could have expected, and we all waited the
happy issue of this event. I cannot relate our preliminary proceedings
and great anxiety. Suffice it that, on the following morning, having
given birth, after twelve hours' protracted labour, to a beautiful boy,
she was a corpse, having that morning completed her two-and-twentieth
year. All my former misfortunes now rushed upon my distracted mind with
tenfold force, and this last blow seemed to bereave me of all that on
earth I could love; and my poor child, kissing the cold lips of his dead
mother, and pathetically beseeching her to get up and speak to him,
roused me to a full sense of my utter misery and woe. Neither his uncle
nor his aunt could drag him from embracing the corpse of his dear
mother; his cries were dreadful; and it was imagined, for some time
after, that the dear boy's intellect had received a shock that was
likely to prove lasting. He frequently wept bitterly, and would
affectionately hug and kiss, a thousand times, any little thing that had
been his mother's, preserving most carefully even little pieces of rag
or paper that he knew had been hers. My poor mother-in-law scarcely ever
spoke for the long period of six months, after this dreadful shock, but
lay in a melancholy state of insensibility, not knowing even her little
grandson, who would linger over her sick-bed for whole days together.
At this very crisis of my life the court-martial was communicated to me
as having been confirmed in England, and I was directed to proceed to
the Presidency of Fort William, preparatory to being sent home, to be
placed on the half-pay.
This final sentence was communicated to me through the regiment, some
few days after my wife's death, who was, therefore, spared this last
pang. When the letter was delivered to me, I was sitting on a couch with
my two motherless babes, one four years old, the other but a few days.
On tracing the contents of the letter, when my eager eyes met the words
"Dismissed the service," I could not repress the tear of anguish, nor
refrain from indulging in the most unavailing grief. To wind up a
military career like mine in this manner, was distressing indeed!
From the age of nine to forty-one, I had now been in the army--a period
of thirty-two years. My services during that time are already before the
reader. In the course of those services, I had received six
matchlock-ball wounds:--
One through the forehead, just above my eyes, which has so impaired my
sight, that I have been obliged to use glasses for some years past.
Two on the top of my head, from which have, at different times, been
extracted sixteen pieces of bone. These two wounds, at every change of
the weather, cause a most excruciating headache.
One in the fleshy part of the right arm.
One through the forefinger of my left hand. Of this finger I have
entirely lost the use, and I am still obliged to nurse it with great
care, several pieces of bone having been extracted from it, and some
splinters, as I fear, being still remaining.
One in the fleshy part of the right leg.
I had also received a flesh wound in my left shoulder, with several
other slighter wounds not worth particularizing.
The above wounds, except one, having been received prior to the
munificent grant of his present Majesty to wounded officers, I never
received a farthing remuneration, except ninety-six pounds for the
last--a year's pay as ensign.
I confess, then, I had entertained a sanguine hope, that the extent and
nature of my services, and the number of wounds I had received, would
have more than outweighed the offence of which I had been convicted, and
I felt the disappointment most acutely, and could not avoid giving vent
to my agonized feelings. I was aroused by the endearing behaviour of my
child, whose arms had, on his observing my grief, encircled my neck.
"What's the matter, father? you are always crying now, since mother is
gone away," said he. This was touching a tenderer chord than the babe
imagined, for he still supposed that his dear mother was gone for a time
only, and his constant inquiries were when she would return. We were
found in this state of woe by Captain Thomas Marshall, of the Bengal
army, my neighbour. This officer was my neighbour indeed; for his
kindness, and that of his amiable wife, towards me, were unabated and
unceasing. In the affectionate bosom of this lady my orphan babe found a
foster-mother, who shared with her infant, three days older than mine,
the one half of its best comfort. Towards this dear and affectionate
couple my heart will ever cherish the fond remembrance of gratitude, and
I hope this humble declaration may meet them in the far-distant clime in
which they sojourn. When Captain Marshall saw the sentence, he turned
from me, and walked into another room--for what purpose, I leave the
sympathizing reader to guess. He soon returned to me, and said, "Come,
Shipp, you have often mounted the breach of danger--cheer up--and
recollect you have those dear babes to clothe and feed." Here my little
boy, supposing that this was meant as a kind of rebuke, said, "I don't
want anything to eat, Captain Marshall; therefore, don't cry." These are
touches which the feeling heart can alone appreciate. To prevent, for
the time, any further indulgence in sorrow, I was prevailed on to
accompany my kind neighbour to his hospitable house, where I spent the
day with him, and where a little musical party assembled in the evening,
to rouse me from the state of despondency into which this last blow had
plunged me. But all attempts to divert me from the recollections of my
misfortunes were fruitless. Music and society but added to my pain; and
I found that I was never, for a length of time, so composed as in those
days and nights which I spent free from all company but that of my two
motherless babes, with whom only I could, if I may so express myself,
luxuriate in grief.
[Illustration: GHAUT ON THE GANGES.
From a Drawing by W. DANIELL, R.A.]
In one month after the confirmed sentence of the court-martial had been
made known to me, I was compelled to obey the orders which I had
received to repair to Calcutta, previous to embarkation for England. To
enable me to comply with these directions, I was obliged to sacrifice
all my property for a mere nothing, and I set out for the Presidency
with my little boy, now my only comfort, having made the little infant
over to my brother-in-law, J.P. Mellaird, Esq., indigo-planter Tirhoot,
where his grandmother, somewhat recovered, found refuge also.
The voyage down the lonely river Ganges was not calculated to soothe my
sorrows or to cheer my prospects. I reached Calcutta in safety, and
remained there a considerable time waiting for a ship, where, strange to
say, I received an order to proceed home with invalids, and to place
myself immediately under the command of Captain Mathers, of his
Majesty's 59th regiment. This order I was bound to obey; but it
prevented me from bringing home my little boy, as every part of the ship
was taken up for the troops, and the captain of the vessel would not
accommodate me under a thousand rupees--a sum which I had not to give. A
smaller foreign ship would have brought both myself and child home for
what the Company allow for officers sent home--fifteen hundred rupees.
By this I was deprived of the satisfaction of bringing home my child,
who remains in India with my brother-in-law to this day.
In the beginning of the month of April, 1825, I embarked on board the
free-trader, _Euphrates_, Captain Mead commanding, with an insufficient
crew, as they did not exceed twenty-three hands in all, and winter was
before us for the whole voyage. This would not have been a very pleasant
prospect to the shattered nerves of an old Indian; but mine, although I
had been so many years in that hot country, did not come under that
description, and I had learnt long since to endure hardships. I was
never much addicted to look on the dark side of things, but now it was
impossible to refrain from thinking of the situation in which I stood. I
was proceeding to a country, and that country my native home; but it was
not endeared to me by a solitary relative that I knew of. I could not
help comparing the close of my military career with its commencement. I
was then friendless and isolated; and who had I now but those who
mourned my departure from a land which I was compelled to quit for ever?
I left England, when a child, without one friend or relative to bid me
adieu, and I was now returning to it without one to bid me welcome! Yet
there is something pleasing to every British bosom, in the anticipation
of returning to the land of one's birth; and, although my prospects were
anything but bright, I felt, notwithstanding, that I could be content to
live in my native country, even in poverty. But the necessity which
compelled me to leave behind me my two sweet babes distressed me
exceedingly, and my eye seemed riveted on the arid sand along the banks
of the river that had some few days before borne my boy from my sight.
On the spot on which we parted I gazed with indescribable sensations,
and I found that the more I gazed the dearer it grew in my estimation.
There are few who have not experienced delight in revisiting, after many
years' absence, the scenes of their childhood. When I returned to my
native land from India, in the year 1807, after an absence of twelve
years, I was proceeding home to visit my family; but when I reached
Colchester (the place, as the reader will probably recollect, where I
commenced "soldiering"), all the gambols and tricks I had played there
when a boy, rushed upon my mind, and the place seemed endeared to me by
a thousand recollections. Such was my wish to re-explore this place,
that I forfeited my coach-hire for the rest of the journey, and stopped
there that night. Early on the following morning I sauntered along to
the lanes that stood in the vicinity of the barracks, and, on coming to
a certain lane that ran behind them, where we went every day to
practice, I found my name still on a stile. This had been cut by me when
I frequented the place as a little fifer, twelve years before. Such were
my feelings on this simple occasion, that I could scarcely restrain a
tear, and I sat on the stile for an hour, looking on my own name a
hundred times over. It will not, therefore, be wondered at, if the eye
of a fond father should fondly linger on the spot where he took leave
of, and last saw his motherless babe.
The scene before me in the vessel soon diverted me from the
contemplation of all other subjects. I could have brooded over the fate
of my dear little ones the whole night; but the din and tumult of more
than two hundred soldiers, with their friends from shore, all rioting in
the cup of inebriety, tumbling over each other, blaspheming, fighting,
singing, fifing, and fiddling, and all huddled together in a confined
space, with their beds, bedding, parrots, minors, and other birds,
roused me to a lively sense of the scene before me.
On the following morning we bade farewell to Fort William, under whose
proud battlements we had been lying. The wind was serene and fair, and
the wave had scarcely a ripple on its silvery surface. Would that my
bosom had been equally composed and tranquil; but my heart sickened
within me when I felt the beautiful ship smoothly gliding down the rapid
stream, and bearing me from that country and that service in which I had
spent the prime of my life, and, I may say, the happiest of my days. The
rapid Ganges soon bore me from the sight of the English flag, and I
dropped a tear to the recollection of the many happy days I had spent at
Fort William.
I soon found that I had a queer set to deal with, without the means of
checking any indiscretion that drunkenness might drive them to commit.
The captain commanding the detachment was in a dying state, and indeed
did die on his passage home; consequently, all the trouble, anxiety, and
care, fell upon me. I can venture to assert that, with the exception of
about twenty men, a more disorderly and mutinous set than the fellows I
had now under my charge, never disgraced the garb of soldiers.
An Eastern voyage, either home or out, is dull and monotonous enough,
even with an agreeable party. Passengers we had none, save one lady and
her little girl, her sick husband, the captain of the detachment, then
lingering on the brink of the grave, and a young officer of the
Company's Bengal Artillery, who survived but a few days the tossing of
the ship, and was committed to a watery grave, ere the bloom of boyhood
had left his cheek. We had one doctor on board, and a young officer of
the Company's service, in charge of the Company's troops. Of the misery
of the passage the reader may have some idea, when he is informed that
we had upwards of two hundred men on board, some without legs, others
without arms, and twenty of whom had been removed from hospital only a
week or ten days before we sailed. Every man had a box or trunk, bed and
bedding, with parrots, minors, and cockatoos, and all these poor
creatures, with four women and four children, were huddled on one small
deck, every one that could move endeavouring to seize the more secure
spot, and tumbling over and treading on those who were unable, either
from sickness or drunkenness, to move or assist themselves. The smell
and heat below were beyond description. Added to all this, the men were,
during the whole voyage, in a state of continual drunkenness, having
means of procuring liquor privately, by some device which I never could
discover. All my exertions were insufficient to check them in this
practice, or indeed to keep them in any kind of order, from want of the
usual means of enforcing obedience, there being neither a place of
confinement, nor handcuffs, nor any other means of securing the
ringleaders, in the ship. Nothing but the greatest personal risk on my
part, and that of the Company's officer, Lieutenant Rock, prevented open
mutiny among the troops; and I consider it a mercy that we were not both
thrown overboard, which was more than once threatened.
Some of the more refractory among the soldiers soon discovered that my
means to enforce obedience were limited; in consequence of which
three-fourths of them set my orders at defiance, refusing in the most
peremptory manner to obey me, even to clearing away their own filth and
dirt; and I was ultimately obliged, rather than provoke that spirit of
rebellion which I could evidently see only wanted some pretext to show
itself, to pay a set of men daily, as a working party, to clear the
deck, and keep off disease, so often occasioned on shipboard from a want
of cleanliness. This I did by allowing those men two extra drams per day
for their labour.
After a voyage of six months, spent in constant riot and anxiety, and
the misery of the whole increased by scurvy, which prevailed on board,
and the number of deaths which occurred during the passage, we at length
reached our native land in safety, having, in the course of the voyage,
thrown overboard the captain of the detachment, a lieutenant, who was a
passenger, thirty-eight soldiers, and one child, all of whom had died in
that short space of time. Most of the men fell victims to their
intemperance in drink.
We reached England in the month of October, landed at Gravesend, and, on
the following day, marched to the depot at Chatham, where the detachment
was drawn up on parade, and I left them in charge of the staff-officer
of Fort Pitt Barrack.
The parade on which I then stood finished my military career of upwards
of thirty years--five-and-twenty of which I had spent on the burning
soil of India. I had but little cause to feel regret in resigning my
command over the turbulent and drunken set whom I now was about to
quit; but, situated as I was myself, I could not even leave those poor
creatures without a tear; and, when I reflected that I was no longer a
soldier, I felt a weight at my heart that sunk me almost to the earth.
The public are now in possession of a faithful account of the
vicissitudes which have marked the career of one who, in misfortune, can
pride himself on having performed his duty to his country, loyally,
faithfully, and, he trusts, bravely.
From my military readers I feel it impossible to part without a few
valedictory words. Brothers in arms, farewell! May the bright star from
heaven shine on your efforts, and may you be crowned with glory! May the
banner of Albion be hoisted in victory wherever it goes! As long as my
mortal sight will guide me along the annals of war, I will exult and
triumph in your successes, and drop a tear of pity for those that fall.
Comrades, farewell!
[Illustration]
[Illustration]