CHAPTER IX.

BENGAL AND THE LOWER GANGES: JUNE.

When, through the media of telegrams, dispatches, and letters, the

tragical events at Cawnpore became known in England, and were invested

with an additional horror on account of a vague suspicion that worse

remained untold, a painful and widely spread sensation was produced.

Nay, more; in almost every part of the civilised world, whether or not

in harmony with the British government on political and international

questions, astonishment was excited by these recitals of unapproachable

barbarity among a people who had acquired a sort of traditional

character for mildness and gentleness. It was about the end of June when

news of the Meerut outbreak reached London; and from that time each

fortnightly mail revealed the truth that a larger and larger area of

India was becoming involved in the troubles of insurrection—that a

gradually increasing number of military officers and civil servants of

the Company, with their wives and children, were placed in circumstances

of imminent peril. Residents in the United Kingdom, any of whose

relations and friends were stationed at Cawnpore, sought eagerly and

anxiously, as each mail arrived, for indications that escape had been

effected, or a rescuing force obtained. No such news came, no such hopes

were realised; darker and more silent was everything relating to that

much-dreaded city, until at length the frightful climax became known.

There has been a designed avoidance, in the preceding chapters of this

work, of any account of the measures adopted by the British government

in military matters, or by the British nation in active benevolence, to

remedy the disasters and allay the sufferings to which the Anglo-Indians

had so suddenly been exposed; for, in truth, India knew little of such

measures until August was far advanced. Whether all was done that might

have been done to expedite the passage of British troops to India, is a

question that will have to be considered in its proper place; the

significant truth now to be borne in mind is that the Calcutta

government had to meet the difficulties as best it could, with the

scanty supply of troops at that time in India—sending to the Mauritius

and the Cape of Good Hope for such reinforcements as might be available,

but knowing that aid from England could not arrive for many months. The

mode of treatment adopted here is naturally suggested by the course of

events themselves. When the ramifications of the Revolt have been traced

throughout the month of June, a chapter will then be devoted to the

subjects above indicated; for, although Cawnpore carried us into July,

we have yet to watch what was concurrently passing at other places.

We begin with the region extending from the Burmese frontier to the

Doab, and forming the eastern portion of Northern India; it may for

convenience be called Bengal, without any rigid adherence to territorial

subdivision.

The Indian government was not as yet troubled with any serious outbreaks

at Chittagong or Dacca, or in any of the districts bounding the Bay of

Bengal on the north and east. There were a few native troops at the

first named of these two towns, belonging to one of the mutinous

regiments at Barrackpore; but tranquillity was not disturbed by them. It

is true that, when the disloyalty of the 34th became known, the

inhabitants of Chittagong and Tipperah experienced some alarm lest the

detachment of this regiment stationed at the first-named town might

follow the pernicious example; but the Company’s collector, having three

lacs of rupees in hand, quietly removed his treasure on board a steamer;

and all uneasiness was soon allayed. Along the extreme eastern border of

the Bengal presidency, from Assam down through Dacca to Chittagong, the

month of June similarly passed over without any disturbances calling for

notice, although a temporary panic was excited in more than one spot. At

Dacca, for instance, the approach of disbanded native mutineers was

apprehended; and a mischievous set of Mohammedans, under one Keramut

Ali, were detected in the endeavour to sow the seeds of disaffection;

but by the firmness of the civil authorities, and the arrival of a

hundred seamen in two pinnaces from the Company’s steamers _Zenobia_ and

_Punjaub_, tranquillity was soon restored.

In the Calcutta and Barrackpore district, although no actual mutiny

occurred, symptoms were presented that gave much anxiety to the

Europeans residing at the capital, and prompted energetic preventive

measures. We have seen, in Chapter II., that much discontent was

exhibited at Dumdum, Barrackpore, and Berhampore, between the months of

January and May, by the native troops; that this discontent was

(professedly) associated with the affair of the greased cartridges; that

insubordination led to disarming and disbandment; that the news of the

Meerut and Delhi atrocities in May greatly alarmed the Calcutta

inhabitants; and that many addresses of loyalty and sympathy with the

government were thenceforth presented. During the first half of June,

the European residents looked with a sort of suspicious watchfulness at

everything that was occurring around them, prepared to find the native

troops treacherous, yet hoping for better things. The reliable forces in

Calcutta at that time comprised H.M. 53d foot, nine hundred strong, and

five hundred of H.M. 37th. A company of the 3d battalion Madras

artillery; No. 2 horse field-battery; forty men of the royal artillery,

recently arrived from Ceylon; and a wing of H.M. 35th foot, were at

Barrackpore. The 78th Highlanders were at Chinsura. On the 13th of June,

Calcutta was thrown into great agitation. A messenger was captured by

the authorities, and confessed that the sepoys at Barrackpore and

Calcutta had agreed to mutiny on that very night. Arrangements were

immediately made for defending the city by the aid chiefly of

volunteers, who had before then begun to organise themselves. The

civilians took arms, marshalled themselves into companies and corps, and

paraded the streets in the English part of the city. During the two

following nights, this patrolling was conducted very vigilantly; and

every native met in the streets was required to give an account of his

movements. On one occasion, Lady Canning, accompanied by the

governor-general, the commander-in-chief, Generals Windham and Beatson,

and a glittering staff, went to the parade-ground; where, the volunteers

being all drawn up in full array, her ladyship presented them with

colours, and made a complimentary address; to which Major Turnbull

replied, as commandant of the ‘Calcutta Volunteer Guards.’

The military proceedings on this occasion were as follow. Before light

on Sunday morning the 14th, in consequence of a message received from

head-quarters, a body of the 78th Highlanders was sent off hastily from

Chinsura to Barrackpore, to disarm the native troops there; while five

hundred of her Majesty’s 37th foot, landed from Ceylon only the day

before, were marched off to a point about midway between Calcutta and

Barrackpore, to command the road during the disarming. About midnight an

order arrived that some of the 37th should return instantly to the

capital. It had been discovered that the deposed King of Oude, residing

in a handsome house at Garden Reach, was engaged in some machinations

with a prince of the Delhi family, inimical to the interests of the

Europeans. A military force marched to his house at four o’clock on the

morning of the 15th, surrounded the grounds, entered, and seized the

king and his prime minister, together with a large quantity of papers.

Arrangements were immediately made for the safe custody of the two

Oudians, until the papers could be fully examined. A document came to

light, containing a Mohammedan sketch-map of Calcutta, dividing the city

into sections; together with the plan for a general rising of natives on

the centenary day of the battle of Plassy, the murder of all the

Feringhees, and the establishment of a native ‘raj’ or dynasty on the

ruins of that of the Company. It was deemed proper to adopt prompt

measures on this occasion; all the native troops in Calcutta were

disarmed as a precautionary measure, including the Calcutta militia, but

excluding the governor-general’s body-guard. The sepoys, who made no

demur whatever, were disarmed in parties wherever they happened to be—at

the Government House guard, the treasury, the mint, the bank, and the

fort. Each party was confronted by a party of Europeans, and gave up

arms on being so commanded; the arms and ammunition were then taken away

by the European soldiers, nothing being left with the sepoys but their

ramrods, with which to ‘shoulder arms.’ It was explained to them that

the disarming was only a temporary precautionary measure; that they

would receive pay and perform sentinel-duty as before; and that the arms

would be restored to them as soon as public tranquillity was insured.

The inhabitants of Calcutta long continued to bear well in remembrance

the 14th of June. For nearly a month the civilians had been in the habit

of taking revolvers with them to church, balls, and parties; but on this

day, such were the vague terrors of slaughter whispered from mouth to

mouth, that the excitement rose to a height of panic. One who was there

at the time said: ‘The infection of terror raged through all classes.

Chowringhee and Garden Reach were abandoned for the fort and the vessels

in the river. The shipping was crowded with fugitives; and in houses

which were selected as being least likely to be attacked, hundreds of

people gladly huddled together, to share the peculiar comfort which the

presence of crowds imparts on such occasions. The hotels were fortified;

bands of sailors marched through the thoroughfares, happy in the

expectation of possible fighting and the certainty of grog. Every group

of natives was scanned with suspicion. The churches and the course were

abandoned for that evening. A rising, either of Hindoos or of

Mussulmans, or perhaps of both, was looked upon as certain to happen in

the course of the night. From Chandernagore the whole body of European

and East Indian inhabitants emigrated to Calcutta; the _personnel_ of

government, the staff of the army, all in short who had anything to

lose, preferred to come away and run the risk of losing it, rather than

encounter the unknown danger.’ A somewhat unworthy timidity seems, at

first sight, to mark all this; but the civilians and private families of

Calcutta, utterly unused to war, had been so horror-stricken by the

accounts of murders of officers, violations of women, mutilations of

little children, burnings of sick and wounded, and other atrocities

perpetrated in Upper India, as to become in a certain sense paralysed.

After the decisive measures adopted by the government on the 14th and

next following day, the inhabitants of the capital gradually recovered

their equanimity; and the month closed peacefully.

Early in June, the sepoys cantoned at Barrackpore made the same kind of

demonstration as at an earlier date—that is, they professed fidelity,

and asked to be furnished with the new Enfield rifle. In the 43d

regiment B. N. I., there was a general application made to Major

Matthews, by native officers as well as sepoys, to this effect;

accompanied by the expression of a desire to be sent to fight against

the rebels at Delhi. The 70th B. N. I., almost to a man, came forward on

the 5th of the month, and presented a petition to Colonel Kennedy, with

a similar prayer. The petition began somewhat boastfully: ‘From the day

on which his lordship the governor-general condescended to come in

person to answer our petition, on which occasion General Hearsey

translated to us his address, and which was fully explained to us by our

colonel, interpreter, adjutant, and all the other officers of the

regiment, our honour and name have been raised amongst our countrymen;’

and it ended with an abundant profession of loyalty towards the

government. The 34th regiment B. N. I., or such of the men as were at

Barrackpore, imitated the example of their fellow-soldiers; they sent a

petition to Lieutenant-colonel Wheler on the 9th of June, expressive of

their loyalty, and requesting that the new rifle might be served out to

them. The government, in reply to all these petitions and

demonstrations, stated that the supply of Enfield rifles received from

England was too small to permit the granting of the request; but that

the request itself was received with much gratification by the

governor-general, ‘proving as it does that the men of these regiments

consider there is nothing objectionable either in the rifles or in the

cartridges to their caste or religion.’

Little was it suspected in how short a time all these complimentary

exchanges of good words would be brought to nought. On the evening of

the 13th came to light those plottings or suspicions of plottings which

led to an imperative order for the disarming of the sepoys. In a private

letter on this subject, the major-general said: ‘Some villains in the

corps were trying to incite the good men and true to mutiny; these good

men ought to have given the villains up to justice;’ but as they did

not, he thought it a safe plan to disarm them all. When this

determination was made known by the authorities, many of the English

officers of the native regiments felt much vexed and hurt; they still

relied on their men, and deemed it a humiliation to themselves that such

a course should be deemed necessary. Captain Greene, of the 70th N. I.,

wrote to Major-general Hearsey, on the Sunday morning: ‘Is it of any use

my interceding with you on behalf of my old corps, which, for nigh

twenty-five years, has been my pride and my home? I cannot express to

you the pain with which I have just heard that they are this evening to

be subjected to the indignity of being disarmed. Had the men misbehaved,

I should have felt no sympathy for them; but they have not committed

themselves in any way; and surely after the governor-general’s laudatory

order and expression of confidence, it would not be too much to expect

that a fair trial of their sincerity should be afforded.’ Captain Greene

proceeded to say that he knew the men thoroughly, and had the most firm

and undoubted reliance on their fidelity. The authorities were not

affected by this appeal. At four o’clock in the afternoon, the 35th and

78th British regiments were marched to the parade-ground at Barrackpore,

with loaded muskets, and supported by six 12-pounders loaded with

grape-shot. The native troops were then summoned to the parade, and

ordered at once to surrender their arms; this they did quietly and

promptly, for even if disposed to resist, the force against them was too

formidable. In little more than an hour, the muskets of the disarmed

regiments were on the way to Calcutta. The sepoys bore the trial

quietly, but with many expressions of mortification.

Captain Greene, in the postscript to a letter written on the following

day to the major-general, mentioned certain facts which ought to have

opened his eyes to the possibility of deceit and danger. A Mussulman

sepoy of the 70th regiment came to him on the 9th of the month, and

after conversation on some contemplated movements of the captain, said:

‘Whatever you do, do not take your lady with you.’ He gave as a reason:

‘Because the minds of the native soldiers are now in a state of

inquietude; and it would be better to let the lady remain here till

everything is settled in the country, as there is no knowing what might

happen.’ On being asked whether he had reason to doubt the regiment, he

exclaimed: ‘Who can tell the hearts of a thousand men!’ He implied that

a few evil men were endeavouring to corrupt the rest. This communicative

sepoy went on to observe, that the cartridge grievance, although founded

on a misconception in the first instance, was afterwards used as a means

of imposing on the ignorant. There were men who went about saying that

the English endeavoured to destroy the caste and religion of the people;

that the government ought to be uprooted; and that as the Company had

been driven out of Cabool, so might it be driven out of the whole of

India, if the people acted resolutely and with one accord. Another

sepoy, a Hindoo, in the same regiment, told Captain Greene that the

Mussulmans generally in all regiments were in the habit of talking to

the effect that their ‘raj’ or supremacy was coming round again. Many

others spoke indistinctly to him about dangers, and promised to protect

him if peril arose. It may not be improbable that most of the men in

that regiment were really disposed to be faithful, and that the danger

arose from a smaller number of malcontents. Captain Greene went to see

his men in the lines after the disarming; it was a painful interview to

them all. ‘I have been for upwards of an hour,’ he wrote, ‘endeavouring

to allay the excited feelings of our men, who were in such a state of

depression, that many were crying bitterly, and none could cook their

food. Some, too, had sold their cooking utensils for a mere trifle in

the bazaar.’ The regiment had not been disbanded as if in disgrace, only

disarmed as if for precaution; but the men nevertheless regarded it as a

degradation. Some budmashes (scoundrels) had been amongst them in the

night, and had urged them to desert, telling them that handcuffs and

manacles had been sent for. The captain earnestly implored that their

arms should be given back to them: ‘Unless something be speedily done to

reassure them, the influence of their European officers will cease to

exist, and a good regiment will crumble away before hopelessness and

desertion. All of us, black and white, would be so thankful to you if

you would get us back our arms, and sent away from here at once.’ This

request was not acceded to.

Within ten days after the disarming, a hundred and thirty-three men of

the disarmed regiments (2d, 34th, 43d, and 70th) deserted from

Barrackpore and Calcutta, nearly all belonging to the 43d. The

magistrates and military authorities in many parts of Bengal were

troubled with the arrival of these deserters, who came two or three at a

time, and endeavoured to excite disaffection against a government which,

as they alleged, had disgraced them without a cause. A reward of fifty

rupees was offered for the apprehension of every deserter.

Departing from Calcutta and Barrackpore as centres, it may be well now

to sketch the state of the surrounding districts during the month of

June. Towards the northeast, many towns, especially Jessore, were thrown

occasionally into excitement by occurrences which would have been

regarded as trivial if happening at any other time, but which required

watchful attention on the part of the authorities in the peculiarly

sensitive state of the native mind. In the Dinagepore district, near the

Bhotan frontier, several moulvies spread reports of the intention of the

government forcibly to convert native children to Christianity: these

reports caused many of the children in the vernacular school at

Muthoorapore to be withdrawn by their parents; and on an examination of

the moulvies being ordered by the authorities, it was found that the

fakeers and other religious mendicants were accustomed to carry

treasonable letters and concealed correspondence within the bamboo

sticks with which most of them were provided. North and west of the

Anglo-Indian capital, a similar state of public affairs was presented; a

succession of troublous symptoms that required attention, but without

entailing serious consequences. In some instances disarmed sepoys were

detected exciting disaffection; in others, seditious placards were

posted up in the towns. In the country around Ramgurh a few

circumstances transpired to produce temporary disquietude. The Ramgurh

battalion was believed to be stanch; but as some discontent had spread

among the troops in relation to the cartridge grievance, and as two or

three petty chieftains exhibited symptoms of disloyalty, judicious and

early precautions were taken against disaster—especially at Hazarebagh,

where the treasury contained a lac of rupees, and where the jail,

containing nine hundred prisoners, was guarded solely by two companies

of a native regiment: a kind of guard which had proved very perilous at

Meerut a few weeks earlier. At Midnapore, a sepoy of the jail-guard,

detected in an attempt to excite mutiny among the men of the

Shekhawuttie battalion, was tried, found guilty, and hanged.

The most serious event in the districts around Calcutta, perhaps, was

one that occurred in the Sonthal Pergunnahs; in which the 5th irregular

cavalry displayed a tendency, fatal on a small scale, and likely to have

become much more disastrous if not speedily checked. Lieutenant Sir N.

R. Leslie was adjutant of that regiment at Rohnee. On the 12th of June,

this officer, Major Macdonald, and Assistant-surgeon Grant, while

sitting in Sir Norman Leslie’s compound, in the dusk of the evening,

were suddenly attacked by three men armed with swords. Major Macdonald

received a blow which laid his head open, and rendered him insensible

for many hours; Mr Grant received sword-wounds on the arm and the leg;

while Sir Norman was so severely wounded that he expired within half an

hour. The miscreants escaped after this ferocious attack, without

immediate detection.[19] At first it was hoped and believed that the

regiment had not been dishonoured by the presence of these murderers on

the muster-roll; Mr Grant was of this opinion; but Major Macdonald,

commandant of the regiment, took a less favourable view. The offenders,

it soon appeared, belonged to the regiment; a chase was ordered; two of

the men were found after a time, with their clothes smeared with blood;

while the third, when taken, candidly owned that it was his sword that

had given the death-stroke to Leslie. The murderers were speedily

executed, but without giving any information touching the motives that

led to their crime. Three sowars of the regiment, Ennus Khan, Kurreem

Shere Khan, and Gamda Khan, received encomiums and rewards for the

alacrity with which they had pursued the reckless men who had thus

brought discredit on their corps. The official dispatches relating to

this affair comprised two letters written by Major Macdonald to Captain

Watson, an officer commanding a squadron of the same regiment at

Bhagulpore; they afford curious illustration of the cheerful, daring,

care-for-naught spirit in which the British officers were often

accustomed to meet their difficulties during those exciting scenes: ‘I

am as fairly cut and neatly scalped as any Red Indian could do it. I got

three cracks in succession on the head before I knew I was attacked. I

then seized my chair by the arms, and defended myself successfully from

two of them on me at once; I guarded and struck the best way I could;

and at last Grant and self drove the cowards off the field. This is

against my poor head, writing; but you will be anxious to know how

matters really were; I expect to be in high fever to-morrow, as I have

got a bad gash into the skull besides being scalped.’ This was written

on the day after the murderous attack; and three days later the major

wrote: ‘My dear fellow, I have had a sad time of it, and am but little

able to go through such scenes, for I am very badly wounded; but, thank

God, my spirits and pluck never left me for a moment. When you see my

poor old head, you will wonder I could hold it up at all. I have

preserved my scalp in spirits of wine—such a jolly specimen!’

In Cuttack, bounding the northwest corner of the Bay of Bengal, many

Mohammedans were detected in the attempt to sap the loyalty of the

Shekhawuttie battalion. Lieutenant-colonel Forster, with the

head-quarters of that corps at Midnapore, succeeded by his personal

influence in keeping the men from anything beyond slight acts of

insubordination; but he had many proofs, in that town and in the Cuttack

district, that the Company’s ‘raj’ or rule was being preached against by

many emissaries of rebellion.

This rapid sketch will have shewn that the eastern divisions of Bengal

were not disturbed by any very serious tumults during the month of June.

Incipient proofs of disaffection were, it is true, manifested in many

places; but they were either unimportant in extent, or were checked

before they could rise to perilous magnitude. In the western divisions,

however, the troubles were more serious; the towns were further from

Calcutta, nearer to the turbulent region of Oude; and these conditions

of locality greatly affected the steadiness and honesty of the native

troops.

During the earlier days of the month, considerable excitement prevailed

in the districts of which Patna and Dinapoor are the chief towns; in

consequence of the general spread of a belief, inculcated by the

deserters from Barrackpore, that the government contemplated an active

interference with the religion of the people. A similar delusion, it was

speedily remembered, had existed in the same parts about two years

earlier; the government had adopted such measures as, it was hoped,

would remove the prejudice; but the events of 1857 shewed that the

healing policy of 1855 had not been effective for the purpose in view.

Until the 13th of June, the disaffection was manifested only by sullen

complainings and indistinct threats; but on that day matters presented a

more serious aspect. The various magistrates throughout the Patna

division reported to the lieutenant-governor of Bengal, that although no

acts of violence had been committed, the continuance of tranquillity

would mainly depend on the fidelity of the native troops at Dinapoor,

the most important military station in that part of India. Dinapoor may,

in fact, be regarded as the military post belonging to the great city of

Patna, which is about ten miles distant.[20] The magistrates also

reported, as one result of their inquiries, that the Mohammedans in that

division were thoroughly disaffected; and that if any disturbance

occurred at head-quarters (Dinapoor), a rapid extension of the revolt

would be almost inevitable. When these facts and feelings became known,

such precautionary measures were adopted as seemed best calculated to

avert the impending evils. An increase was made in the police force at

Behar; the ghats or landing-places were carefully watched and regulated;

the frontiers of the neighbouring disaffected districts were watched; a

portion of the Company’s treasure at Arrah and Chupra was sent off to

Calcutta, and the rest removed to Patna for safe custody under a guard

of Sikhs; a volunteer guard was formed in that city; measures were taken

to defend the collectorate and the opium factories; six companies of the

Sikh police battalion were marched from Soorie to Patna; and places of

rendezvous for European residents were appointed at many of the

stations, to facilitate a combined plan of action in the event of

mutinous symptoms appearing among the native troops. The Rajahs of

Bettiah and Hutwah addressed letters expressive of loyalty and affection

towards the government, and placed men and elephants at the disposal of

the local authorities, to assist in the maintenance of tranquillity.

Towards the middle of the month, an alarm prevailed at Chupra and Arrah,

consequent on the mutinous proceedings in certain towns further to the

west, presently to be noticed. Large works were under construction near

those places in connection with the East India Railway; and the

Europeans engaged in those operations, as well as others resident in the

two towns, made a hasty retreat, and sought for refuge at Dinapoor. The

magistrates and most of the civil officers remained at their posts, and

by their firmness prevented the alarm from degenerating into a panic. At

Gayah or Gya, a town between Patna and the great trunk-road—celebrated

for its Bhuddist and Hindoo temples, and the great resort of pilgrims of

both religions—considerable apprehension prevailed, on account of the

unprotected state of a large amount of Company’s treasure in the

collectorate; an apprehension increased by the presence of many

desperate characters at that time in the jail, and by the guard of the

jail being wholly composed of natives who would remain steady only so

long as those at Dinapoor were ‘faithful to their salt.’ Fortunately,

the authorities were enabled to obtain a guard of European soldiers,

chiefly from her majesty’s 64th regiment; and thus the ruffians, more to

be dreaded than even the rebellious sepoys, were overawed.

It is impossible to avoid seeing, in the course of events throughout

India, how much importance ought to be attached to the matter just

adverted to—the instrumentality of robbers and released prisoners in

producing the dreadful scenes presented. India swarms with depredators

who war on the peaceful and industrious inhabitants—not merely

individual thieves, but robber-tribes who infest certain provinces,

directing their movements by the chances of war or of plunder. Instead

of extirpating these ill-doers, as Asiatic sovereigns have sometimes

attempted to do, the East India Company has been accustomed to capture

and imprison them. Hence the jails are always full. At every important

station we have several hundred, sometimes two or three thousand, such

prisoners. The mutiny set loose these mischievous elements. The release

of crowds of murderers and robbers from prison, the flocking of others

from the villages, and the stimulus given to latent rogues by the

prospect of plunder, would account for a large amount of the outrage

committed in India—outrage which popular speech in England attaches to

the sepoys alone.

On the 13th of June, the first indications of a conspiracy at Patna were

detected. A nujeeb of the Behar station guards was discovered in an

attempt to tamper with the Sikhs of the police corps, and to excite them

to mutiny: he was tried, convicted, sentenced to death, and hanged;

while three Sikhs, who had been instrumental in his apprehension, were

publicly rewarded with fifty rupees each. In singular contrast to this,

three other nujeebs of the same force, on the same day, placed in the

commissioner’s hands a letter received from sepoys at Dinapoor, urging

the Behar guards to mutiny, and to seize the treasure at Patna before

the Sikhs could arrive to the rescue: this, as a valuable service

rendered at a critical period, was rewarded by donations of two hundred

rupees to each of the three men. The next symptoms were exhibited by

certain members of the Wahabee sect of Mohammedans at Patna. The

fanatical devotion of these Mussulmans to their spiritual leaders, their

abnegation of self, and their mode of confidential communication with

each other without written documents, render it at all times difficult

to produce legal proof of any machinations among them; while their

mutual fidelity enables them to resist all temptation to betrayal. The

commissioner of Patna, having suspicions of the proceedings of the

Wahabees in that city, deemed it politic to detain four of their number

as hostages for the sect generally—a sect formidable for its

organisation, and peculiarly hostile to Christians. They were placed in

a sort of honourable confinement, while a general disarming of the

inhabitants took place. On another occasion a police jemadar, Waris Ali,

was ascertained to be in possession of a large amount of treasonable

correspondence; he was known to be in some way related to the royal

family of Delhi; and the letters found in his house threw suspicion on

more than one native official in the service of the Company.

The most serious affair at Patna, however, occurred about the close of

the period to which this chapter more particularly relates. At about

eight o’clock in the evening of the 3d of July, a body of Mohammedans,

variously estimated from eighty to two hundred, assembled at the house

of one of their number, one Peer Ali Khan, a bookseller, and proceeded

thence to the Roman Catholic church and mission-house in Patna, with two

large green flags, a drum beating, and cries of ‘Ali! Ali!’ The priest,

whom they probably intended to murder, fortunately escaped. They emerged

into the street, reiterated their cries, and called on the populace to

join them. Dr Lyell, principal assistant to the opium agent, immediately

went to the spot, accompanied by nine Sikhs. He rode ahead of his

support, was shot down by the rioters, and his body mangled and

mutilated before the Sikhs could come up. A force of Sikhs and nujeebs

speedily recovered the unfortunate gentleman’s body, killed some of the

insurgents, and put the rest to flight. This appeared at first to be a

religious demonstration: a Mohammedan fanatic war-cry was shouted, and

the property of the Catholic mission was destroyed, but without any

plunder or removal. Thirty-six of the insurgents were afterwards

captured and tried; sixteen of the number, including Peer Ali Khan, who

was believed to be the murderer of Dr Lyell, were condemned to death;

eighteen, including a jemadar, were sentenced to various terms of

imprisonment; and two were acquitted. All the facts of this temporary

outbreak were full of significance; for it soon became evident that

something more than mere religious hostility had been intended. Peer Ali

Khan was offered a reprieve if he would divulge the nature of the

conspiracy; but, like a bold, consistent fanatic, he remained defiant to

the last, and nothing could be got out of him. It was afterwards

ascertained that he had been in secret communication with an influential

native at Cawnpore ever since the annexation of Oude, and that the

details of some widely-spread plot had been concerted between them. The

capture of the thirty-six rioters had been effected by the disclosures

of one of the band, who was wounded in the struggle; he declared that a

plot had been in existence for many months, and that men were regularly

paid to excite the people to fight for the Padishah of Delhi. Letters

found in Peer Ali’s house disclosed an organised Mussulman conspiracy to

re-establish Mohammedan supremacy on the ruins of British power; and

besides the correspondence with Cawnpore and Delhi, a clue was obtained

to the complicity of an influential Mohammedan at Lucknow.

Patna was sufficiently well watched and guarded to prevent the

occurrence of anything of more serious import. Nevertheless, the

European inhabitants were kept in great anxiety, knowing how much their

safety depended on the conduct of the sepoys at Dinapoor. The

commissioner at the one place, and the military commandant at the other,

were naturally rejoiced to receive any demonstrations of fidelity on the

part of the native troops, even if the sincerity of those demonstrations

were not quite free from doubt. On the 3d of June, Colonel Templer

assembled the 7th regiment B. N. I. on the military parade at Dinapoor,

to read to them the flattering address which Viscount Canning had made

to the 70th regiment at Barrackpore, on the manifestation of loyalty by

that corps. On the conclusion of this ceremony, the native commissioned

officers came up to the colonel, and presented to him a petition, signed

by two subadars and five jemadars on the part of the whole regiment. The

petition is worth transcribing,[21] to shew in what glowing language the

native troops could express their grateful allegiance—but whether

sincere or insincere, no European could at that time truly tell. Colonel

Templer desired that all the men who acknowledged the petition to

contain an expression of their real sentiments and wishes, would

shoulder their arms in token thereof; on which every one present

shouldered arms. The native officers afterwards assured the colonel,

with apparent earnestness, that it was the eager wish of the whole

regiment to be afforded an opportunity of removing even a suspicion of

their disaffection. When Colonel Templer repeated this to Major-general

Lloyd, the military commander of the Dinapoor division, and when Lloyd

forwarded the communication to Calcutta, the regiment of course received

thanks for the demonstration, and were assured that ‘their good conduct

will be kept in remembrance by the governor-general in council.’ It was

not until a later month that the small value of these protestations was

clearly shewn; nevertheless the Europeans at Dinapoor continued

throughout June to be very uneasy. Almost every one lived in the square;

the guns were kept ready loaded with grape; the few European troops were

on the alert; and pickets were posted all round the station. A motley

assemblage—planters, soldiers, civilians, railway men, and others—was

added to the ordinary residents, driven in from the surrounding

districts for protection. The officers gave up their mess-house to the

ladies, who completely filled it.

In Tirhoot, a district north of Patna, on the other side of the Ganges,

the planters and others were thrown into great excitement during the

month of June, by the events occurring around them. About the middle of

the month, planters left their estates and civilians their homes, to go

for refuge to the Company’s station at Mozufferpoor. Eighty gentlemen,

thirty ladies, and forty children, were all crowded into two houses; the

ladies and children shut up at night, while the men slept in verandahs,

or in tents, or took turns in patrolling. The nujeebs, stationed at that

place, were suspected of being in sympathy with the mutineers; one of

the Company’s servants, disguised as a native, went to their quarters

one night, and overheard them conversing about murdering the Europeans,

looting the treasury (which contained seven lacs of rupees), and

liberating the prisoners. This was the alarm that led to the assembling

of the Europeans at the station for mutual protection; and there can be

little doubt that the protection would have been needed had Dinapoor

fallen. One of the Mohammedan inhabitants was seized at Mozufferpoor,

with a quantity of treasonable correspondence in his possession; and the

commandant at Segowlie condemned to the gallows with very little scruple

several suspicious characters in various parts of the district.

Advancing up the Ganges, we come to Ghazeepore, on its northern or left

bank. This town, containing forty thousand inhabitants, is rendered

somewhat famous by a palace once belonging to the Nawab of Oude, but now

in a very ruinous state; also by the beautiful Grecian tomb erected to

the Marquis of Cornwallis; and by the rose-gardens in its vicinity,

where rose-leaves are gathered for making the celebrated otto or attar.

The bungalows of the Company’s civil servants are situated west of the

town; and beyond them is the military cantonment. During the early part

of the month of June, the 65th native infantry, stationed at Ghazeepore,

was sorely tempted by the mutinying of so many other regiments at

stations within forty or fifty miles; but they remained stanch for some

time longer.

Not so the sepoys at Azimghur, a town northwest of Ghazeepore,

containing twelve or fourteen thousand inhabitants, and a military

station. At this place the 17th regiment Bengal native infantry was

posted at the beginning of June. On the 3d of the month an escort of

thirty troopers of the 13th irregular cavalry brought in seven lacs of

rupees from Goruckpore, _en route_ to Benares. At six o’clock in the

evening the treasure was started again on its journey; and in three

hours afterwards the 17th mutinied, influenced apparently rather by the

hope of _loot_ than by any political or religious motives. During

several days previously the authorities had been employed in throwing up

a breastwork around the cutchery or government offices; but this was not

finished. The sepoys killed their quartermaster, and wounded the

quartermaster-sergeant and two or three others. The officer on guard at

the fort of the cutchery sent out a picket to the lines, and ordered the

native artillerymen to load their guns: this they refused to do; and

hence the infantry were left to follow out their plan of spoliation. The

officers were at mess when the mutiny began; seeing the danger, they

placed the ladies on the roof of the cutchery. When the sepoys came up,

they formed a square round the officers, and swore to protect them; but

stated that, as some men of the regiment were very hostile, it would be

better for all the officers to depart. The men brought carriages for

them, and escorted them ten miles on the road to Ghazeepore. Many of the

civilians hurried away to the same town, reaching that place in terrible

plight. The marauders from the neighbouring villages did not fail in

their usual course; they plundered the bungalows of the Europeans at

Azimghur, or such of them as were left unprotected.

Far more serious were the events at Benares, than at any city or station

eastward of it, during the month of June. It would in all probability

have been still more deplorable, had not European troops arrived just at

that time. Lieutenant-colonel Neill reached Benares on the 3d of June,

with sixty men and three officers of the 1st Madras Fusiliers

(Europeans), of which regiment five more companies were in the rear,

expecting to reach that city in a few days. The regiment had been

despatched in great haste by Viscount Canning, in the hope that it would

appear before Cawnpore in time to relieve Sir Hugh Wheeler and his

unfortunate companions. Neill intended, after a day’s repose, to have

started from Benares for Cawnpore on the 4th; but he received timely

notice from Lieutenant Palliser that the 17th B. N. I. had mutinied at

Azimghur; and that the treasure, passing through Azimghur in its way

from Goruckpore to Benares (mentioned in the last paragraph), had been

plundered by the mutinous sepoys. Brigadier Ponsonby, the commandant at

Benares, at once consulted with Colonel Neill concerning the propriety

of disarming the 37th regiment Bengal infantry, stationed at that city.

Neill recommended this to be done, and done at once. It was then

arranged that Neill should make his appearance on parade at five o’clock

that same afternoon, accompanied by a hundred and fifty of H.M. 10th

foot, sixty of the Madras Fusiliers, and three guns of No. 12

field-battery, with thirty artillerymen. They were to be joined on

parade by the Sikh regiment, in which Lieutenant-colonel Gordon placed

full confidence, and about seventy of the 13th irregular cavalry. The

37th, suspecting what was intended, ran to the bells of arms, seized and

loaded their muskets, and fired upon the Europeans; several men fell

wounded, and the brigadier was rendered powerless by a sun stroke.

Thereupon Colonel Neill, assuming the command, made a dash on the native

lines. What was now the perplexity of the colonel, and the mortification

of Gordon, at seeing the Sikhs halt, waver, turn round, wound several of

their officers, fire at the Europeans, and disperse! It was one of those

inexplicable movements so frequently exhibited by the native troops.

Neill, now distrusting all save the Europeans, opened an effective fire

with his three guns, expelled the 37th from their lines, burnt the huts,

and then secured his own men and guns in the barrack for the night.

Early on the morning of the 5th he sent out parties, and brought in such

of the arms and accoutrements of the 37th as had been left behind; he

also told off a strong body to bring the Company’s treasure from the

civil offices to the barracks. Colonel Neill fully believed that if he

had delayed his bold proceeding twelve hours, the ill-protected treasury

would have been seized by the 37th, and that the numerous European

families in the cantonment would have been placed in great peril before

he could reach them. The barracks were between the cantonment and the

city; and near them was a building called the mint. Into this mint,

before going on parade on the 4th, he had arranged that all the families

should go for refuge in the event of any disturbance taking place. A few

of the Sikhs and of the irregular cavalry remained faithful; and Colonel

Neill, with his two hundred and forty Europeans[22] and these fragments

of native regiments, contrived to protect the city, the barracks, the

mint, and the cantonment—a trying task, to defend so large an area from

mutinous sepoys and troopers, and predatory budmashes. He had to record

the deaths of Captain Guise, an army-surgeon, and two privates; and the

wounding of about double this number—casualties surprising for their

lightness, considering that there were nearly two thousand enemies to

contend against altogether. Of the insurgents, not less than two hundred

were killed or wounded. It was at once determined to strengthen the

neighbouring fort of Chunar or Chunargur; for which duty a small

detachment of Europeans was drafted off.

Such were the military operations of the 4th and 5th of June, as told in

the brief professional language of Colonel Neill. Various officers and

civilians afterwards dwelt more fully on the detailed incidents of those

two days. The 13th irregular cavalry and the Sikhs (Loodianah regiment)

had been relied on as faithful; and the 37th had greatly distinguished

itself in former years in the Punjaub and Afghanistan. This infantry

regiment, however, exhibited signs of insubordination on the 1st of the

month; and on the 3d, Lieutenant-colonel Gordon, second in command under

Ponsonby, told the brigadier that the men of the 37th were plotting with

the ruffians of the city. The brigadier, Mr Tucker the commissioner, and

Mr Gubbins the judge, thereupon conferred; and it was almost fully

determined, even before Colonel Neill’s arrival, and before the receipt

of disastrous news from Azimghur, that the disbandment of the regiment

would be a necessary measure of precaution. The irregular cavalry were

stationed at Sultanpore and Benares, and were called in to aid the

Europeans and Sikhs in the disarming. A few of the officers, unlike

their brethren, distrusted these troopers; and the distrust proved to be

well founded. The Sikhs, at the hour of need, fell away as soon as the

37th had seized their arms; and the irregulars were not slow to follow

their example; so that, in effect, the insurgents were to the Europeans

in the ratio of eight or ten to one. One of the English officers of the

37th has placed upon record a few facts shewing how strangely unexpected

was this among many of the Indian outbreaks, by the very men whose

position and experience would naturally lead them (one might suppose) to

have watched for symptoms. In the first instance, Major Barrett,

indignant at the slight which he believed to have been put upon the good

and faithful sepoys of the 37th, by the order for disarming, went openly

towards the regiment during the struggle at the bells of arms, to shew

his confidence in them; but when he saw some of his men firing at him,

and others approach him with fixed bayonets, he felt painfully that he

must both change his opinions and effect a retreat. Some of the 37th

did, however, remain ‘true to their salt;’ and these, under the major,

who had escaped the shots aimed at him, were among the troops sent to

guard Chunar Fort. As a second instance: after Captain Guise, of the

13th irregulars, had been shot down by men of the 37th, the brigadier

appointed Captain Dodgson to supply his place; but the irregulars,

instead of obeying him, flashed their swords, muttered some indistinct

observations, fired at him, and at once joined the rebels whom they had

been employed and expected to oppose. A third instance, in relation to

the Sikhs, shall be given in the words of the officer above adverted to:

‘Just as the irregulars were flashing their swords in reply to Captain

Dodgson’s short address, I was horrified by noticing about a dozen of

the Sikhs fire straight forward upon the European soldiers, who were

still kneeling and firing into the 37th. The next moment some half-dozen

of their muskets were staring me in the face, and a whole tempest of

bullets came whizzing towards me. Two passed through my forage-cap, and

set my hair on fire; three passed through my trousers, one just grazing

my right thigh. I rushed headlong at one of the fellows whom I had

noticed more especially aiming at me, but had scarcely advanced three

paces when a second volley of bullets saluted me.’ This volley brought

the officer low; he lay among the wounded, unrecognised for many hours,

but was fortunate enough to obtain surgical aid in time to avert a fatal

result. Many circumstances afterwards came to light, tending to shew

that, had not Neill and Ponsonby taken the initiative when they did, the

native troops would probably have risen that same night, and perhaps

imitated the Meerut outrages. One of the missionaries at Benares, who

escaped to Chunar as soon as the outbreak occurred, said in a letter:

‘Some of the 37th have confessed to their officers that they had been

told out in bands for our several bungalows, to murder all the Europeans

at ten o’clock that night; and that, too, at the time they were

volunteering to go to Delhi, and Colonel Spottiswoode was walking about

among them in plain clothes with the most implicit confidence.’

The fighting, during this exciting day at Benares, was practically over

as soon as the rebels began to retreat; but then the perils of the

civilians commenced. More correctly, however, it might be said that the

wild confusion began earlier; for while the brief but fierce military

struggle was still in progress on the parade-ground, the native guards

of the 37th at the treasury, the hospital, the mess-house, the bazaar,

and other buildings, broke from their duty, and proceeded to molest the

Europeans, with evident hopes of plunder. A Sikh, one Soorut Singh, has

been credited with an act which saved many lives and much treasure. He

was among the Sikhs of the treasury-guard; and when the rising began,

talked to his comrades, and prevented them from rising in mutiny; many

civilians, with their families, who had taken refuge in the collector’s

cutcherry, were saved through this friendly agency; while the treasure

was held intact till the following morning, when European troops

convoyed it to a place of safety. The Rev. Mr Kennedy, a resident in

Benares at that time, states that the faithfulness of these Sikhs, about

seventy in number, was deemed so remarkable under the circumstances,

that £1000 was given to them as a reward for their safe guardianship of

the £60,000 in the treasury. After the discomfiture on the

parade-ground, the rebels, maddened by defeat and thirsting for blood,

streamed through many of the compounds in the cantonment as they

retreated, and fired as they passed, but happily so much at random that

little danger was done. Several of the Europeans took refuge in stables

and outhouses. Others climbed to the roofs of their houses, and hid

behind the parapets. At the house of the commissioner, Mr Tucker, many

ladies and children found concealment under straw on the flat roof;

while the gentlemen stood by to defend them if danger should approach.

Three or four families took boat, and rowed out into the middle of the

Ganges, there to remain until news of returning tranquillity should

reach them; much booming of cannon and rattling of musketry, much

appearance of fire and smoke hovering over city and cantonment, kept the

occupants of the boats in constant anxiety; but when victory had

declared for the British, and these boat-parties had returned to land,

escorts arrived to convey the non-combatants and some of the officers to

the mint, in accordance with the arrangement already made. They arrived

at that building about midnight. Mr Kennedy described in a letter the

scene presented at the mint when he and his family reached it: ‘What a

scene of confusion and tumult was there. All in front, bands of English

soldiers, ready to act at a moment’s notice; men, women, and children,

high and low, huddled together, wondering at meeting at such a time and

in such a place, not knowing where they were to throw themselves down

for the night, and altogether looking quite bewildered.’ A young

officer, throwing into his narrative that light-heartedness which so

often bore up men of his class during the troubles of the period, gave a

little more detail of the first night and day at the place of refuge: ‘I

found everybody at the mint, which several had only reached after many

adventures. We bivouacked in the large rooms, and slept on the

roof—ladies, children, ayahs, and punkah-coolies; officers lying down

dressed, and their wives sitting up fanning them. In the compound or

enclosure below, there was a little handful of Europeans, perhaps a

hundred and fifty in all; others were at the barracks half a mile off.

There was a picknicking, gipsifying look about the whole affair, which

prevented one from realising that the small congregation were there

making a stand for a huge empire, and that their lives were upon the

toss-up of the next events.’

During a considerable portion of the month of June, the Europeans made

the mint their chief place of residence, the men going out in the

daytime to their respective duties, and the ladies and children

remaining in their place of refuge. On the 5th, few ventured out of the

building, unless heavily armed or strongly escorted. The mint had a most

warlike appearance, bristling with arms, and soon became almost

insupportably hot to the numerous persons congregated within it. The hot

winds of Benares at that time, nearly midsummer, were terrible for

Europeans to bear.

[Illustration:

Mess-house of the Officers of the 6th Native Infantry at ALLAHABAD.

]

On the 7th, which was Sunday, Mr Kennedy performed divine service at the

mint, and a church-missionary at the barracks. Gradually, on subsequent

days, whole families would venture out for a few hours at a time, to

take a hasty glance at homes which they had so suddenly been called upon

to quit; but the mint continued for two or three weeks to be the refuge

to which they all looked. As European troops, however, were arriving at

Benares every day, on the way to the upper provinces, it soon became

practicable, under the energetic Neill, to insure tranquillity in and

near that city with a very small number of these so much-valued Queen’s

troops. The capture and execution of insurgents, under the combined

orders of Neill, Tucker, and Gubbins, respectively the commandant,

commissioner, and judge, were conducted with such stern promptness as

struck terror into the hearts of evildoers. It may be instructive to see

in what light Mr Kennedy, as a clergyman, regarded these terrible

executions, which are admitted to have been very numerous: ‘The gibbet

is, I must acknowledge, a standing institution among us at present.

There it stands, immediately in front of the flagstaff, with three ropes

always attached to it, so that three may be executed at one time.

Scarcely a day passes without some poor wretches being hurled into

eternity. It is horrible, very horrible! To think of it is enough to

make one’s blood run cold; but such is the state of things here, that

even fine delicate ladies may be heard expressing their joy at the

rigour with which the miscreants are treated. The swiftness with which

crime is followed by the severest punishment strikes the people with

astonishment; it is so utterly foreign to all our modes of procedure, as

known to them. Hitherto the process has been very slow, encumbered with

forms, and such cases have always been carried to the Supreme Court for

final decision; but now, the commissioner of Benares may give

commissions to any he chooses (the city being under martial law), to

try, decide, and execute on the spot, without any delay and without any

reference.’

Jounpoor or Juanpoor, a town about thirty miles northwest of Benares,

was one of those which shared with that city the troubles of the month

of June. A detachment of the Loodianah Sikh regiment, under Lieutenant

Mara, stationed at that place, mutinied most suddenly and unexpectedly

on the 5th, within less than an hour after they had shaken hands with

some of the European residents as a token of friendly feeling. The men

revolted through some impulse that the English in vain endeavoured to

understand at the time; but it was afterwards ascertained that some of

the mutinous 37th from Benares had been tampering with them. In the

first whirl of the tumult, the lieutenant and a civilian were shot down,

and the rest of the Europeans sought safety by flight. Information

reached Benares, after some days, that the fugitives were in hiding; and

a small detachment was at once despatched for their relief. It was now

found, as in many other instances, that amid all the brutality and

recklessness of the mutineers and budmashes, there were not wanting

humane natives in the country villages, ready to succour the distressed;

one such, named Hingun Lall, had sheltered and fed the whole of the

fugitives from Jounpoor for five days.

There were many stations at which the number of insurgent troops was

greater; there were many occasions on which the Europeans suffered more

general and prolonged miseries; there were many struggles of more

exciting character between the dark-skinned soldiers and the light—but

there was not perhaps, throughout the whole history of the Indian

mutinies, an outbreak which excited more astonishment than that at

Allahabad in the early part of June. It was totally unexpected by the

authorities, who had been blinded by protestations of loyalty on the

part of the troops. This place (see p. 107) occupies a very important

position in relation to Upper India generally; being at the point where

the Jumna and Ganges join, where the Benares region ends and the Oude

region begins, where the Doab and Bundelcund commence, where the

river-traffic and the road-traffic branch out in various directions, and

where the great railway will one day have a central station. As stated

in a former page, the 6th Bengal Native Infantry, stationed at

Allahabad, voluntarily came forward and offered their services to march

against the Delhi mutineers. For this demonstration they were thanked by

their officers, who felt gratified that, amid so much desertion,

fidelity should make itself apparent in this quarter. Rather from a

vague undefined uneasiness, than from any suspicion of this particular

regiment, the Europeans at Allahabad had for some time been in

uneasiness; there had been panics in the city; there had been much

patrolling and watching; and the ladies had been looking anxiously to

the fort as a place of refuge, whither most of them had taken up their

abode at night, returning to their homes in the cantonment or the city

in the daytime. From Benares, Lucknow, or other places, they apprehended

danger—but not from within.

It was on the 5th of June that Colonel Simpson, of the 6th regiment,

received Viscount Canning’s instructions to thank his men for their

loyal offer to march and fight against the rebels at Delhi; and it was

on the same day that news reached Allahabad, probably by telegraph, of

the occurrences at Benares on the previous day, and of the possible

arrival of some of the insurgents from that place. The officers still

continued to trust the 6th regiment, not only in virtue of the recent

protestation of fidelity by the men, but on account of their general

good conduct; indeed, this was one of the most trusted regiments in the

whole native army. Nevertheless, instructions were given to arm the

civilians as well as the military, and to prepare for making a good

stand at the fort. Many civilians, formed into a militia, under the

commandant of the garrison, slept in the fort that night, or relieved

each other as sentinels at the ramparts. There were at that time in the

fort, besides the women and children, about thirty invalid artillerymen,

under Captain Hazelwood; a few commissariat and magazine sergeants;

about a hundred volunteer civilians; four hundred Sikhs, of the

Ferozpore regiment, under Lieutenant Brasyer; and eighty men of the 6th

regiment, guarding the main gate. Several Europeans with their families,

thinking no danger nigh, slept outside the fort that night. Two

companies of the native regiment under three English officers, and two

guns under Captain Harward, were sent to guard the bridge of boats

across the Ganges in the direction of Benares. Captain Alexander, with

two squadrons of the 3d regiment Oude irregular cavalry, was posted in

the Alopee Bagh, a camping-ground commanding the roads to the station.

The main body of the 6th remained in their lines, three miles from the

fort. All proceeded quietly until about nine o’clock on the evening of

the 6th of June; when, to the inexpressible astonishment and dismay of

the officers, the native regiment rose in revolt. The two guns were

seized by them at the bridge-head, and Harward had to run for his life.

In the cantonment the officers were at mess, full of confidence in their

trusted troops, when the sepoys sounded the alarm bugle, as if to bring

them on parade; those who rushed out were at once aimed at, and nearly

all shot dead; while no fewer than nine young ensigns, mere boys who had

just entered on the career of soldiering, were bayoneted in the

mess-room itself. It was a cruel and bloody deed, for the poor youths

had but recently arrived, and were in hostility with none. Captain

Alexander, when he heard of the rising, hastened off to the lines with a

few of his troopers; but he was caught in an ambush by a body of the

sepoys, and at once shot down. The sepoys, joined by released prisoners

and habitual plunderers, then commenced a scene of murder and

devastation in all directions; Europeans were shot wherever they could

be seen; the few English women who had not been so fortunate as to seek

refuge in the fort, were grossly outraged before being put to death; the

telegraph wires were cut; the boats on the river were seized; the

treasury was plundered; the houses of native bankers, as well as those

of European residents, were pillaged; and wild licence reigned

everywhere. Terrible were the deeds recorded—a whole family roasted

alive; persons killed by the slow process of cutting off in succession

ears, nose, fingers, feet, &c.; others chopped to pieces; children

tossed on bayonets before their mother’s eyes.

An affecting incident is related of one of the unfortunate young

officers so ruthlessly attacked at the mess-house. An ensign, only

sixteen years of age, who was left for dead among the rest, escaped in

the darkness to a neighbouring ravine. Here he found a stream, the

waters of which sustained his life for four days and nights. Although

desperately wounded, he contrived to raise himself into a tree at

night-time, for protection from wild beasts. On the fifth day he was

discovered, and dragged by the brutal insurgents before one of their

leaders. There he found another prisoner, a Christian catechist,

formerly a Mohammedan, whom the sepoys were endeavouring to terrify and

torment into a renunciation of Christianity. The firmness of the native

was giving way as he knelt before his persecutors; but the boy-officer,

after anxiously watching him for a short time said: ‘Oh, my friend, come

what may, do not deny the Lord Jesus!’ Just at this moment the arrival

of Colonel Neill and the Madras Fusiliers (presently to be noticed) at

Allahabad was announced; the ruffians made off; the poor catechist’s

life was saved; but the gentle-spirited young ensign sank under the

wounds and privations he had endured. When this incident became known

through the medium of the public journals, the father of the young

officer, town-clerk of Evesham, told how brief had been the career thus

cut short. Arthur Marcus Hill Cheek had left England so recently as the

20th of March preceding, to commence the life of a soldier; he arrived

at Calcutta in May, was appointed to the 6th native regiment, reached

Allahabad on the 19th of the same month, and was shot down by his own

men eighteen days afterwards.

The inmates of the fort naturally suffered an agony of suspense on the

night of the 6th. When they heard the bugle, and the subsequent firing,

they believed the mutineers had arrived from Benares; and as the

intensity of the sound varied from time to time, so did they picture in

imagination the varying fortunes of the two hypothetical opposing

forces—the supposed insurgents from the east, and the supposed loyal 6th

regiment. Soon were they startled by a revelation of the real truth—that

the firing came from their own trusted sepoys. The Europeans in the

fort, recovering from their wonder and dismay, were fortunately enabled

to disarm the eighty sepoys at the gate through the energy of Lieutenant

Brasyer; and it was then found that these fellows had loaded and capped

their muskets, ready to turn out. Five officers succeeded in entering

during the night, three of them naked, having had to swim the Ganges.

For twelve days did the Europeans remain within the fort, not daring to

emerge for many hours at a time, lest the four hundred Sikhs should

prove faithless in the hour of greatest need. The chief streets of the

city are about half a mile from the fort; and during several days and

nights troops of rioters were to be seen rushing from place to place,

plundering and burning. Day and night the civilians manned the ramparts,

succeeding each other in regular watches—now nearly struck down by the

hot blazing sun; now pouring forth shot and shell upon such of the

insurgents as were within reach. The civilians or volunteers formed

themselves into three corps; one of which, called the Flagstaff

Division, was joined by about twenty railway men—sturdy fellows who had

suffered like the rest, and were not slow to avenge themselves on the

mutineers whenever opportunity offered. After a time, the volunteers

sallied forth into the city with the Sikhs, and had several skirmishes

in the streets with the insurgents—delighted at the privilege of

quitting for a few hours the hot crowded fort, even to fight. It was by

degrees ascertained that conspiracy had been going on in the city before

the actual outbreak occurred. The standard of insurrection was unfurled

by a native unknown to the Europeans: some supposed him to be a moulvie,

or Mohammedan religious teacher; but whatever may have been his former

position, he now announced himself as viceroy of the King of Delhi. He

quickly collected about him three or four thousand rebels, sepoys and

others, and displayed the green flag that constitutes the Moslem symbol.

The head-quarters of this self-appointed chieftain were in the higher

part of the city, at the old Mohammedan gardens of Sultan Khoosroo;

there the prisoners taken by the mutineers were confined—among whom were

the native Christian teachers belonging to the Rev. Mr Hay’s mission.

The movements of Colonel Neill must now be traced. No sooner did this

gallant and energetic officer hear of the occurrences at Allahabad, than

he proceeded to effect at that place what he had already done at

Benares—re-establish English authority by a prompt, firm, and stern

course of action. The distance between the two cities being about

seventy-five miles, he quickly made the necessary travelling

arrangements. He left Benares on the evening of the 9th, accompanied by

one officer and forty-three men of the Madras Fusiliers. The horses

being nearly all taken off the road, he found much difficulty in

bringing in the dâk-carriages containing the men; but this and all other

obstacles he surmounted. He found the country between Mirzapore and

Allahabad infested with bands of plunderers, the villages deserted, and

none of the authorities remaining. Major Stephenson, with a hundred more

men, set out from Benares on the same evening as Neill; but his

bullock-vans were still more slow in progress; and his men suffered much

from exposure to heat during the journey. Neill reached Allahabad on the

afternoon of the 11th. He found the fort almost completely invested; the

bridge of boats over the Ganges in the hands of a mob, and partly

broken; and the neighbouring villages swarming with insurgents. By

cautious manœuvring at the end of the Benares road, he succeeded in

obtaining boats which conveyed him and his handful of men over to the

fort. He at once assumed command, and arranged that on the following

morning the enemy should be driven out of the villages, and the bridge

of boats recaptured. Accordingly, on the morning of the 12th he opened

fire with several round-shot, and then attacked the rebels in the

village of Deeragunge with a detachment of Fusiliers and Sikhs: this was

effectively accomplished, and a safe road opened for the approach of

Major Stephenson’s detachment on the evening of that day. On the 13th

the insurgents were driven out of the village of Kydgunge. Neill had now

a strange enemy to combat within the fort itself—drunkenness and relaxed

discipline. The Sikhs, during their sallies into the city before his

arrival, had gained entrance into some of the deserted warehouses of

wine-merchants and others in the town, had brought away large quantities

of beverage, and had sold these to the European soldiers within the

fort—at four _annas_ (sixpence) per bottle for wine, spirits, or beer

indiscriminately; drunkenness and disorganisation followed, requiring

determined measures on the part of the commandant. He bought all the

remaining liquors obtainable, for commissariat use; and kept a watchful

eye on the stores still remaining in the warehouses in the town. Neill

saw reason for distrusting the Sikhs; they had remained faithful up to

that time, but nevertheless exhibited symptoms which required attention.

As soon as possible, he got them out of the fort altogether, and placed

them at various posts in the city where they might still render service

if they chose to remain faithful. His opinion of the native troops was

sufficiently expressed in this passage in one of his dispatches: ‘I felt

that Allahabad was really safe when every native soldier and sentry was

out of the fort; and as long as I command I shall not allow one to be on

duty in it.’ Nothing can be more striking than the difference of views

held by Indian officers on this point; some distrusted the natives from

the first, while others maintained faith in them to a very disastrous

extent.

From the time when Neill obtained the upper-hand in Allahabad, he was

incessantly engaged in chastising the insurgents in the neighbourhood.

He sent a steamer up the Jumna on the 15th, with a howitzer under

Captain Harward, and twenty fusiliers under Lieutenant Arnold; and these

worked much execution among the rebels on the banks. A combined body of

fusiliers, Sikhs, and irregular cavalry made an attack on the villages

of Kydgunge and Mootingunge, on the banks of the Jumna, driving out the

insurgents harboured there, and mowing them down in considerable

numbers. On subsequent days, wherever Neill heard of the presence of

insurgents in any of the surrounding villages, he at once attacked them;

and great terror seized the hearts of the malcontents in the city at the

celerity with which guns and gibbets were set to work. On the 18th he

sent eighty fusiliers and a hundred Sikhs up the river in a steamer, to

destroy the Patan village of Durriabad, and the Meewattie villages of

Sydabad and Russelpore. It was not merely in the villages that these

active operations were necessary; a large number of the mutinous sepoys

went off towards Delhi on the day after the outbreak, leaving the

self-elected chief to manage his rabble-army as he liked; and it was

against this rabble that many of the expeditions were planned. The city

suffered terribly from this double infliction; for after the spoliation

and burning effected by the marauders, the English employed cannon-balls

and musketry to drive those marauders out of the streets and houses; and

Allahabad thus became little other than a mass of blackened ruins.

Colonel Neill organised a body of irregular cavalry by joining Captain

Palliser’s detachment of the 13th irregulars with the few men of Captain

Alexander’s corps still remaining true to their salt. A force of about a

hundred and sixty Madras Fusiliers started from Benares on the 13th,

under Captain Fraser; he was joined on the road by Captain Palliser’s

detachment of troopers, just adverted to, of about eighty men, and the

two officers then proceeded towards Allahabad. They found the road

almost wholly in the hands of rebels and plunderers; but by fighting,

hanging, and burning, they cleared a path for themselves, struck terror

into the evildoers, and recovered much of the Company’s treasure that

had fallen into hostile hands. It is sad to read of six villages being

reduced to ashes during this one march; but stringent measures were

absolutely necessary to a restoration of order and obedience. Fraser and

Palliser reached Allahabad on the 18th, and their arrival enabled Neill

to prosecute two objects which he had at heart—the securing of

Allahabad, and the gradual collection of a force that might march to the

relief of poor Sir Hugh Wheeler and the other beleaguered Europeans at

Cawnpore. During these varied operations, the officers and men were

often exposed during the daytime to a heat so tremendous that nothing

but an intense interest in their work could have kept them up. ‘If I can

keep from fever,’ wrote one of them, ‘I shan’t care; for excitement

enables one to stand the sun and fatigue wonderfully. At any other time

the sun would have knocked us down like dogs; but all this month we have

been out in the middle of the day, toiling like coolies, yet I have

never been better in my life—such an appetite!’ To meet temporary

exigencies, the church, the government offices, the barracks, the

bungalows—all were placed at the disposal of the English troops, as fast

as they arrived up from Calcutta. These reinforcements, during the

second half of the month, consisted chiefly of detachments of her

Majesty’s 64th, 78th, and 84th foot. The peaceful inhabitants began to

return to the half-ruined city, shattered houses were hastily rebuilt or

repaired, trade gradually revived, bullocks and carriages arrived in

considerable number, supplies were laid in, the weather became cooler,

the cholera abated, and Colonel Neill found himself enabled to look

forward with much confidence to the future. The fort, during almost the

whole of the month, had been very much crowded, insomuch that the

inmates suffered greatly from heat and cholera. Two steam-boat loads of

women and children were therefore sent down the river towards Calcutta;

and all the non-combatants left the fort, to reoccupy such of their

residences as had escaped demolition. Some of the European soldiers were

tented on the glacis; others took up quarters in a tope of trees near

the dâk-bungalow; lastly, a hospital was fitted up for the cholera

patients.

With the end of June came tranquillity both to Benares and to Allahabad,

chiefly through the determined measures adopted by Colonel Neill; and

then he planned an expedition, the best in his power, for Cawnpore—the

fortunes of which will come under our notice in due time.

Notes.

_The Oude Royal Family._—When the news reached England that the

deposed King of Oude had been arrested at Calcutta, in the way

described in the present chapter, on suspicion of complicity with

the mutineers, his relations, who had proceeded to London to appeal

against the annexation of Oude by the Company, prepared a petition

filled with protestations of innocence, on his part and on their

own. The petition was presented to the House of Lords by Lord

Campbell, though not formally received owing to some defect in

phraseology. A memorial to Queen Victoria was couched in similar

form. The petition and memorial ran as follows:

‘The petition of the undersigned Jenabi Auliah Tajara Begum, the

Queen-mother of Oude; Mirza Mohummud Hamid Allie, eldest son and

heir-apparent of his Majesty the King of Oude; and Mirra Mohummud

Jowaad Allie Sekunder Hushmut Bahadoor, next brother of his Majesty

the King of Oude, sheweth:

‘That your petitioners have heard with sincere regret the tidings

which have reached the British kingdom of disaffection prevailing

among the native troops in India; and that they desire, at the

earliest opportunity, to give public expression to that solemn

assurance which they some time since conveyed to her Majesty’s

government, that the fidelity and attachment to Great Britain which

has ever characterised the royal family of Oude continues unchanged

and unaffected by these deplorable events, and that they remain, as

Lord Dalhousie, the late governor-general of India, emphatically

declared them, “a royal race, ever faithful and true to their

friendship with the British nation.”

‘That in the midst of this great public calamity, your petitioners

have sustained their own peculiar cause of pain and sorrow in the

intelligence which has reached them, through the public papers, that

his Majesty the King of Oude has been subjected to restraint at

Calcutta, and deprived of the means of communicating even with your

petitioners, his mother, son, and brother.

‘That your petitioners desire unequivocally and solemnly to assure

her Majesty and your lordships, that if his Majesty the King of Oude

has been suspected of any complicity in the recent disastrous

occurrences, such suspicion is not only wholly and absolutely

unfounded, but is directed against one, the whole tenor of whose

life, character, and conduct directly negatives all such

imputations. Your petitioners recall to the recollection of your

lordships the facts relating to the dethronement of the King of

Oude, as set forth in the petition presented to the House of Commons

by Sir Fitzroy Kelly on the 25th of May last, that when resistance

might have been made, and was even anticipated by the British

general, the King of Oude directed his guards and troops to lay

aside their arms, and that when it was announced to him that the

territories of Oude were to be vested for ever in the Honourable

East India Company, the king, instead of offering resistance to the

British government, after giving vent to his feelings in a burst of

grief, descended from his throne, declaring his determination to

seek for justice at her Majesty’s throne, and from the parliament of

England.

‘That since their resort to this country, in obedience to his

Majesty’s commands, your petitioners have received communications

from his Majesty which set forth the hopes and aspirations of his

heart; that those communications not only negative all supposition

of his Majesty’s personal complicity in any intrigues, but fill the

minds of your petitioners with the profound conviction that his

Majesty would feel, with your petitioners, the greatest grief and

pain at the events which have occurred. And your petitioners desire

to declare to your lordships, and to assure the British nation, that

although suffering, in common with his heart-broken family, from the

wrongs inflicted on them, from the humiliations of a state of exile,

and their loss of home, authority, and country, the King of Oude

relies only on the justice of his cause, appeals only to her

Majesty’s throne and to the parliament of Great Britain, and

disdains to use the arm of the rebel and the traitor to maintain the

right he seeks to vindicate.

‘Your petitioners therefore pray of your lordships that, in the

exercise of your authority, you will cause justice to be done to his

Majesty the King of Oude, and that it may be forthwith explicitly

made known to his Majesty and to your petitioners wherewith he is

charged, and by whom, and on what authority, so that the King of

Oude may have full opportunity of refuting and disproving the unjust

suspicions and calumnies of which he is now the helpless victim. And

your petitioners further pray that the King of Oude may be permitted

freely to correspond with your petitioners in this country, so that

they may also have opportunity of vindicating here the character and

conduct of their sovereign and relative, of establishing his

innocence of any offence against the crown of England, or the

British government or people, and of shewing that, under every

varying phase of circumstance, the royal family of Oude have

continued steadfast and true to their friendship with the British

nation.

‘And your petitioners will ever pray, &c.’

Some time after the presentation of this petition and memorial, a

curious proof was afforded of the complexity and intrigue connected

with the family affairs of the princes of India. A statement having

gone abroad to the effect that a son of the King of Oude had escaped

from Lucknow during the troubles of the Revolt, a native

representative of the family in London sought to set the public mind

right on the matter. He stated that the king had had only three

legitimate sons; that one of these, being an idiot, was confined to

the zenana or harem at Lucknow; that the second died of small-pox

when twelve years of age; that the third was the prince who had come

to London with the queen-mother; and that if any son of the king had

really escaped from Lucknow, he must have been illegitimate, a boy

about ten years old. This communication was signed by Mahmoud

Museehooddeen, residing at Paddington, and designating himself

‘Accredited Agent to his Majesty the King of Oude.’ Two days

afterwards the same journal contained a letter from Colonel R.

Ouseley, also residing in the metropolis, asserting that _he_ was

‘Agent in Chief to the King of Oude,’ and that Museehooddeen had

assumed a title to which he had no right.

_Castes and Creeds in the Indian Army_.—The Indian officers being

much divided in opinion concerning the relative insubordination of

Mohammedans and Hindoos in the native regiments, it may be useful to

record here the actual components of one Bengal infantry regiment,

so far as concerns creed and caste. The information is obtained from

an official document relating to the cartridge grievance, before the

actual Revolt began.

The 34th regiment Bengal native infantry, just before its

disbandment at Barrackpore in April, comprised 1089 men, distributed

as follows:

┌─────────────────┬────────┬─────┬─────┬──────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┐

│ │Subadar-│Suba-│Jema-│Havil-│ Na- │Drum-│ Se- │ To- │

│ │ major. │dars.│dars.│dars. │iks. │mers.│poys.│tal. │

├─────────────────┼────────┼─────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┤

│Brahmin Caste, │ 1│ 2│ 4│ 24│ 10│ —│ 294│ 335│

│Lower Castes, │ —│ 5│ 5│ 25│ 26│ 1│ 406│ 468│

│Christians, │ —│ —│ —│ —│ —│ 10│ 2│ 12│

│Mussulmans, │ —│ 2│ 1│ 12│ 24│ 8│ 153│ 200│

│Sikhs, │ —│ —│ —│ —│ —│ —│ 74│ 74│

├─────────────────┼────────┼─────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┤

│ │ 1│ 9│ 10│ 61│ 60│ 19│ 929│ 1089│

└─────────────────┴────────┴─────┴─────┴──────┴─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┘

The portion of this regiment present at Barrackpore—the rest being

at Chittagong—when the mutinous proceedings took place, numbered

584, thus classified under four headings:

┌─────────────────┬────────┬─────┬─────┬──────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┐

│ │Subadar-│Suba-│Jema-│Havil-│ Na- │Drum-│ Se- │ To- │

│ │ major. │dars.│dars.│dars. │iks. │mers.│poys.│tal. │

├─────────────────┼────────┼─────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┤

│Brahmin Caste, │ 1│ 2│ 1│ 12│ 5│ —│ 175│ 196│

│Lower Castes, │ —│ 1│ 4│ 13│ 14│ 1│ 193│ 226│

│Mussulmans, │ —│ 1│ —│ 7│ 14│ 4│ 85│ 111│

│Sikhs, │ —│ —│ —│ —│ —│ —│ 51│ 51│

├─────────────────┼────────┼─────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┤

│ │ 1│ 4│ 5│ 32│ 33│ 5│ 504│ 584│

└─────────────────┴────────┴─────┴─────┴──────┴─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┘

When 414 of these men were dismissed from the Company’s service,

their religions appeared as follows:

┌─────────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────────┬─────────┬────────┐

│ │Commissioned │Non-commissioned │ Sepoys. │ Total. │

│ │ Officers. │ Officers. │ │ │

├─────────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────────┼─────────┼────────┤

│Brahmin Caste, │ 2│ 12│ 135│ 149│

│Lower Castes, │ 4│ 19│ 150│ 173│

│Mussulmans, │ —│ 14│ 49│ 63│

│Sikhs, │ —│ —│ 29│ 29│

├─────────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────────┼─────────┼────────┤

│ │ 6│ 45│ 363│ 414│

└─────────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────────┴─────────┴────────┘

It is not clearly stated how many Rajpoots, or men of the military

caste, were included in the Hindoos who were not Brahmins.

If the regiment thus tabulated had been cavalry, instead of

infantry, the preponderance, as implied in Chapter I., would have

been wholly on the side of the Mussulmans.

[Illustration:

Sikh Cavalry.

]

-----

Footnote 19:

The following is an extract of a letter written by Major Macdonald,

after the attack upon him and his brother-officers: ‘Two days after,

my native officer said he had found out the murderers, and that they

were three men of my own regiment. I had them in irons in a crack,

held a drumhead court-martial, convicted, and sentenced them to be

hanged the next morning. I took on my own shoulders the responsibility

of hanging them first, and asking leave to do so afterwards. That day

was an awful one of suspense and anxiety. One of the prisoners was of

very high caste and influence, and this man I determined to treat with

the greatest ignominy, by getting the lowest caste man to hang him. To

tell you the truth, I never for a moment expected to leave the hanging

scene alive; but I was determined to do my duty, and well knew the

effect that pluck and decision had on the natives. The regiment was

drawn out; wounded cruelly as I was, I had to see everything done

myself, even to the adjusting of the ropes, and saw them looped to run

easy. Two of the culprits were paralysed with fear and astonishment,

never dreaming that I should dare to hang them without an order from

government. The third said he would not be hanged, and called on the

Prophet and on his comrades to rescue him. This was an awful moment;

an instant’s hesitation on my part, and probably I should have had a

dozen of balls through me; so I seized a pistol, clapped it to the

man’s ear, and said, with a look there was no mistake about: “Another

word out of your mouth, and your brains shall be scattered on the

ground.” He trembled, and held his tongue. The elephant came up, he

was put on his back, the rope adjusted, the elephant moved, and he was

left dangling. I then had the others up, and off in the same way. And

after some time, when I had dismissed the men of the regiment to their

lines, and still found my head on my shoulders, I really could

scarcely believe it.’

Footnote 20:

Dinapoor is remarkable for the fine barracks built by the Company for

the accommodation of troops—for the officers, the European troops, and

the native troops; most of the officers have commodious bungalows in

the vicinity; and the markets or bazaars, for the supply of Europeans

as well as natives, are unusually large and well supplied.

Footnote 21:

‘At present the men of bad character in some regiments, and other

people in the direction of Meerut and Delhi, have turned from their

allegiance to the bountiful government, and created a seditious

disturbance, and have made choice of the ways of ingratitude, and

thrown away the character of sepoys true to their salt.

‘At present it is well known that some European regiments have started

to punish and coerce these rebels; we trust that by the favour of the

bountiful government, we also may be sent to punish the enemies of

government, wherever they are; for if we cannot be of use to

government at this time, how will it be manifest and known to the

state that we are true to our salt? Have we not been entertained in

the army for days like the present? In addition to this, government

shall see what their faithful sepoys are like, and we will work with

heart and soul to do our duty to the state that gives us our salt.

‘Let the enemies of government be who they may, we are ready to fight

them, and to sacrifice our lives in the cause.

‘We have said as much as is proper; may the sun of your wealth and

prosperity ever shine.

‘The petition of your servants:

HEERA SING, Subadar,

ELLAHEE KHAN, Subadar,

BHOWANY SING, Jemadar,

MUNROOP SING, Jemadar,

HEERA SING, Jemadar,

ISSEREE PANDY, Jemadar,

MURDAN SING, Jemadar,

of the Burra Crawford’s, or 7th regiment, native infantry, and of

every non-commissioned officer and sepoy in the lines. Presented on

the 3d June 1857.’

Footnote 22:

The exact components of this gallant little band appear to have been

as follow:

Guns. Officers. Men.

Artillery, 3 1 30

Queen’s troops, 0 3 150

Madras Fusiliers, 0 3 60

— — ———

3 7 240

Irrespective of the officers belonging to the mutinous regiments.