OUDE, ROHILCUND, AND THE DOAB: JUNE.
The course of events now brings us again to that turbulent country,
Oude, which proved itself to be hostile to the British in a degree not
expected by the authorities at Calcutta. They were aware, it is true,
that Oude had long furnished the chief materials for the Bengal native
army; but they could not have anticipated, or at least did not, how
close would be the sympathy between those troops and the Oude irregulars
in the hour of tumult. Only seven months before the beginning of the
Revolt, and about the same space of time after the formal annexation, a
remarkable article on Indian Army Reform appeared in the _Calcutta
Review_, attributed to Sir Henry Lawrence; in which he commented freely
on the government proceedings connected with the army of Oude. He
pointed out how great was the number of daring reckless men in that
country; how large had been the army of the king before his deposition;
how numerous were the small forts held by zemindars and petty
chieftains, and guarded by nearly sixty thousand men; how perilous it
was to raise a new British-Oudian army, even though a small one, solely
from the men of the king’s disbanded regiments; how serious was the fact
that nearly a hundred thousand disbanded warlike natives were left
without employment; how prudent it would have been to send Oudians into
the Punjaub, and Punjaubees into Oude; and how necessary was an increase
in the number of British troops. The truth of these comments was not
appreciated until Sir Henry himself was ranked among those who felt the
full consequence of the state of things to which the comments referred.
Oude was full of zemindars, possessing considerable resources of various
kinds, having their retainers, their mud-forts, their arsenals, their
treasures. These zemindars, aggrieved not so much by the annexation of
their country, as by the manner in which territorial law-proceedings
were made to affect the tenure of their estates, shewed sympathy with
the mutineers almost from the first. The remarks of Mr Edwards,
collector at Boodayoun, on this point, have already been adverted to (p.
115). The zemindars did not, as a class, display the sanguinary and
vindictive passions so terribly evident in the reckless soldiery; still
they held to a belief that a successful revolt might restore to them
their former position and influence as landowners; and hence the
formidable difficulties opposed by them to the military movements of the
British.
Sir Henry Lawrence, as chief authority both military and civil in Oude,
found himself very awkwardly imperiled at Lucknow in the early days of
June. Just as the previous month closed, nearly all the native troops
raised the standard of rebellion (see p. 96); the 13th, 48th, and 71st
infantry, and the 7th cavalry, all betrayed the infection, though in
different degrees; and of the seven hundred men of those four regiments
who still remained faithful, he did not know how many he could trust
even for a single day. The treasury received his anxious attention, and
misgivings arose in his mind concerning the various districts around the
capital, with their five millions of inhabitants. Soon he had the
bitterness of learning that his rebellious troops, who had fled towards
Seetapoor, had excited their brethren at that place to revolt. The
Calcutta authorities were from that day very ill informed of the
proceedings at Lucknow; for the telegraph wires were cut, and the
insurgents stopped all dâks and messengers on the road. About the middle
of the month, Colonel Neill, at Allahabad, received a private letter
from Lawrence, sent by some secret agency, announcing that Seetapoor and
Shahjehanpoor were in the hands of the rebels; that Secrora, Beraytch,
and Fyzabad, were in like condition; and that mutinous regiments from
all those places, as well as from Benares and Jounpoor, appeared to be
approaching Lucknow on some combined plan of operations. He was
strengthening his position at the Residency, but looked most anxiously
for aid, which Neill was quite unable to afford him. Again, it became
known to the authorities at Benares that Lawrence, on the 19th, still
held his position at Lucknow; that he had had eight deaths by cholera;
and that he was considering whether, aid from Cawnpore or Allahabad
being unattainable, he could obtain a few reinforcements by steamer up
the Gogra from Dinapoor. Another letter, but without date, reached the
chief-magistrate of Benares, to the effect that Lawrence had got rid of
most of the remaining native troops, by paying them their due, and
giving them leave of absence for three months; he evidently felt
disquietude at the presence even of the apparently faithful sepoys in
his place of refuge, so bitterly had he experienced the hollowness of
all protestations on their part. He had been very ill, and a provisional
council had been appointed in case his health should further give way.
Although the Residency was the stronghold, the city and cantonment also
were still under British control: a fort called the Muchee Bhowan, about
three-quarters of a mile from the Residency, and consisting of a strong,
turreted, castellated building, was held by two hundred and twenty-five
Europeans with three guns. The cantonment was northeast of the
Residency, on the opposite side of the river, over which were two
bridges of approach. Sir Henry had already lessened from eight to four
the number of buildings or posts where the troops were stationed—namely,
the Residency, the Muchee Bhowan, a strong post between these two, and
the dâk-bungalow between the Residency and the cantonment; but after the
mutiny, he depended chiefly on the Residency and the Muchee Bhowan.
News, somewhat more definite in character, was conveyed in a letter
written by Sir Henry on the 20th of June. So completely were the roads
watched, that he had not received a word of information from Cawnpore,
Allahabad, Benares, or any other important place throughout the whole
month down to that date; he knew not what progress was being made by the
rebels, beyond the region of which Lucknow was more immediately the
centre; he still held the fort, city, Residency, and cantonment, but was
terribly threatened on all sides by large bodies of mutineers. On the
27th he wrote another letter to the authorities at Allahabad, one of the
very few (out of a large number despatched) that succeeded in reaching
their destination. This letter was still full of heart, for he told of
the Residency and the Muchee Bhowan being still held by him in force; of
cholera being on the decrease; of his supplies being adequate for two
months and a half; and of his power to ‘hold his own.’ On the other
hand, he felt assured that at that moment Lucknow was the only place
throughout the whole of Oude where British influence was paramount; and
that he dared not leave the city for twenty-four hours without danger of
losing all his advantages. His sanguine, hopeful spirit shone out in the
midst of all his trials; he declared that with one additional European
regiment, and a hundred artillerymen, he could re-establish British
supremacy in Oude; and he added, in a sportive tone, which shewed what
estimate he formed of some, at least, of the contingent corps, ‘a
thousand Europeans, a thousand Goorkhas, and a thousand Sikhs, with
eight or ten guns, will thrash anything.’ The Sikhs were irregulars
raised in the Punjaub; and throughout the contests arising out of the
Revolt, their fidelity towards the government was seldom placed in
doubt.
The last day of June was a day of sad omen to the English in Lucknow. On
the evening of the 29th, information arrived that a rebel force of six
or seven thousand men was encamped eight miles distant on the Fyzabad
road, near the Kookra Canal. Lawrence thereupon determined to attack
them on the following day. He started at six o’clock on the morning of
the 30th, with about seven hundred men and eleven guns.[23] Misled,
either by accident or design, by informants on the road, he suddenly
fell into an ambush of the enemy, assembled in considerable force near
Chinhut. Manfully struggling against superior numbers, Lawrence looked
forward confidently to victory; but just at the most critical moment,
the Oude artillerymen proved traitors—overturning their six guns into
ditches, cutting the traces of the horses, and then going over to the
enemy. Completely outflanked, exposed to a terrible fire on all sides,
weakened by the defection, having now few guns to use, and being almost
without ammunition, Sir Henry saw that retreat was imperative. A
disastrous retreat it was, or rather a complete rout; the heat was
fearful, the confusion was dire; and the officers and men fell rapidly,
to rise no more. Colonel Case, of H.M. 32d, receiving a mortal wound,
was immediately succeeded by Captain Steevens; he in like manner soon
fell, and was succeeded by Captain Mansfield, who escaped the day’s
perils, but afterwards died of cholera.
Sir Henry Lawrence now found himself in a grave difficulty. The English
position at Lucknow needed all the strengthening he could impart to it.
He had held, as already explained, not only the Residency, but the fort
of Muchee Bhowan and other posts. The calamity of the 30th, however,
having weakened him too much to garrison all, or even more than one, he
removed the troops, and then blew up the Muchee Bhowan, at midnight on
the 1st of July, sending 240 barrels of gunpowder and 3,000,000
ball-cartridges into the air. From that hour the whole of the English
made the Residency their stronghold. Later facts rendered it almost
certain that, if this abandonment and explosion had not taken place,
scarcely a European would have lived to tell the tale of the subsequent
miseries at Lucknow. By incessant exertions, he collected in the
Residency six months’ food for a thousand persons. The last hour of the
gallant man was, however, approaching. A shell, sent by the insurgents,
penetrated into his room on this day; his officers advised him to remove
to another spot, but he declined the advice; and on the next day, the 2d
of July, another shell, entering and bursting within the same room, gave
him a mortal wound. Knowing his last hour was approaching, Sir Henry
appointed Brigadier Inglis his successor in military matters, and Major
Banks his successor as chief-commissioner of Oude.
Grief, deep and earnest, took possession of every breast in the
Residency, when, on the 4th of July, it was announced that the good and
great Sir Henry Lawrence had breathed his last. He was a man of whom no
one doubted; like his gifted brother, Sir John, he had the rare power of
drawing to himself the respect and love of those by whom he was
surrounded, almost without exception. ‘Few men,’ said Brigadier Inglis,
at a later date, ‘have ever possessed to the same extent the power which
he enjoyed of winning the hearts of all those with whom he came in
contact, and thus insuring the warmest and most zealous devotion for
himself and the government which he served. All ranks possessed such
confidence in his judgment and his fertility of resource, that the news
of his fall was received throughout the garrison with feelings of
consternation only second to the grief which was inspired in the hearts
of all by the loss of a public benefactor and a warm personal friend....
I trust the government of India will pardon me for having attempted,
however imperfectly, to portray this great and good man. In him every
good and deserving soldier lost a friend and a chief capable of
discriminating, and ever on the alert to reward merit, no matter how
humble the sphere in which it was exhibited.’ Such was the soldier whom
all men delighted to honour,[24] and to whom the graceful compliment was
once paid, that ‘Sir Henry Lawrence enjoyed the rare felicity of
transcending all rivalry except that of his illustrious brother.’
How the overcrowded Residency at Lucknow bore all the attacks directed
against it; how the inmates, under the brave and energetic Inglis, held
on against heat, disease, cannon-balls, thirst, hunger, and fatigue; how
and by whom they were liberated—will come for notice in proper course.
The other districts of Oude fell one by one into the hands of the
insurgents. The narratives subsequently given by such English officers
as were fortunate enough to escape the perils of those evil days, bore a
general resemblance one to another; inasmuch as they told of faith in
native troops being rudely broken, irresolute loyalty dissolving into
confirmed hostility, treasuries of Company’s rupees tempting those who
might otherwise possibly have been true to their salt, military officers
and their wives obliged to flee for succour to Nynee Tal or some other
peaceful station, the families of civilians suddenly thrown homeless
upon the world, and blood and plunder marking the footsteps of the
marauders who followed the example set by the rebellious sepoys and
troopers. A few examples will suffice to illustrate the general
character of these outbreaks.
The mutiny at Fyzabad, besides being attended with a sad loss of life,
was note-worthy for certain peculiarities in the tactics of the
insurgents—a kind of cool audacity not always exhibited in other
instances. A brief description will shew the position and character of
this city. In a former chapter (p. 83) it was explained that Oude or
Ayodha, the city that gave name to the province, is very ancient as a
Hindoo capital, but has become poor and ruinous in recent times; and
that the fragments of many of its old structures were employed in
building Fyzabad, the Mohammedan Ayodha, nearly adjoining it on the
southwest. It was scarcely more than a hundred and thirty years ago that
the foundation of Fyzabad was established, by Saadut Ali Khan, the first
nawab-vizier of Oude; its advance in prosperity was rapid; but since the
selection of Lucknow as the capital in 1775, Fyzabad has fallen in
dignity; the chief merchants and bankers have migrated to Lucknow, and
the remaining inhabitants are mostly poor.
On the 3d of June, rumours circulated in Fyzabad that the mutinous 17th
regiment B. N. I. was approaching from Azimghur. Colonel Lennox, the
military commandant, at once conferred with the other officers, and
formed a plan for defending the place. The immediate alarm died away. On
the 7th, however, renewed information led the colonel to propose an
advance to Surooj-khoond, a place about five miles away, to repel the
mutineers before they could reach Fyzabad. The native troops objected to
go out, on the plea of disinclination to leave their families and
property behind; but they promised to fight valiantly in the cantonment
if necessary, and many of them shook hands with him in token of
fidelity. The evening of the 8th revealed the hypocrisy of this display.
The native troops, cavalry, infantry, and artillery, joined in a
demonstration which rendered all the officers powerless; every officer
was, in effect, made a prisoner, and placed under armed guard for the
night; two tried to escape, but were fired at and brought back. The
leader of the mutiny, Dhuleep Singh, subadar-major of the 22d regiment,
came to Colonel Lennox in the morning, and told him plainly that he and
the other officers must yield to the course of circumstances; that boats
would be provided to take them down the river Gogra towards Dinapoor,
but that he would not guarantee their safety after once they had
embarked. There was a cool impudence about the proceeding, unlike the
wild confusion exhibited at many of the scenes of outbreak. A moulvie,
who had been imprisoned in the quarter-guard for a disturbance created
in the city, and who had just been liberated by the mutineers, sent the
sub-assistant surgeon to Colonel Lennox with a message; thanking him for
kindnesses received during the imprisonment, and requesting that the
colonel’s full-dress regimentals might be sent to the moulvie. The
native surgeon begged pardon for his change of allegiance; urging that
times were altered, and that he must now obey the mutineers. There was
something more than mere effrontery, however, in the proceedings of
these insurgents;[25] there was a subordination amid insubordination.
‘The men,’ said one of the narrators, ‘guarded their officers and their
bungalows after mutinying, placed sentries over the magazines and all
public property, and sent out pickets to prevent the towns-people and
servants from looting. They held a council of war, in which the cavalry
proposed to kill the officers; but the 22d, objecting to this, informed
their officers that they would be allowed to leave, and might take with
them their private arms and property, but no public property—as that all
belonged to the King of Oude.’
Let us briefly trace the course of some of the European fugitives.
Colonel Lennox, powerless to resist, gave up his regimentals, and
prepared for a melancholy boat-departure with his wife and daughter.
They were escorted to the banks of the Gogra, and pushed off on their
voyage. From two in the afternoon on the 8th of June, until nearly
midnight, their boat descended the stream—often in peril from sentries
and scouts on shore, but befriended by two sepoys who had been sent to
protect them for a short distance. Much care and manœuvring were
required to effect a safe passage near the spot where the mutinous 17th
regiment was encamped; for it now became manifest that the 22d had in
effect sold the fugitives to the other corps. Early on the following
morning, information received on shore rendering evident the danger of a
further boat-voyage, the houseless wanderers, leaving in the boat the
few fragments of property they had brought away from Fyzabad, set out on
foot towards Goruckpore. With nothing but the clothes on their backs,
the family began their weary flight. After stopping under trees and by
the side of wells to rest occasionally, they walked until the heat of
day rendered necessary a longer pause. By a narrow chance they avoided
being dragged to the camp of the 17th regiment, by a trooper who
professed to have been offered two hundred rupees for the head of each
member of the family. A friendly chieftain, one Meer Mohammed Hossein
Khan, came to their rescue just at the moment of greatest peril. One of
the retainers of this man, however, more disposed for enmity than amity,
spoke to the colonel with great bitterness and fierceness of manner,
shewing that the prevalent rumours had made a deep impression in Oude;
he expressed a longing to shoot the English, ‘who had come to take away
their caste, and make them Christians.’ Meer Mohammed rebuked this man
for saying that a stable would do to shelter the refugees, for that he
was prepared ‘to kill them like dogs.’ The fugitives were taken to a
small fort, one of the numerous class lately adverted to, where the
zemindars and petty chieftains maintained a kind of feudal or clannish
independence. On the second day, the danger to sheltered Europeans
becoming apparent, Colonel Lennox, his wife, and daughter, put on native
dresses, and remained nine days concealed in a reed-hut behind the
zenana, treated very kindly and considerately by their protector. Meer
Mohammed went once or twice to Fyzabad, to learn if possible the plans
of the mutineers; he was told that they meant to attack Lucknow, and
then depart for Delhi. On the 10th day of the hiding, when news arrived
that the fort was likely to be attacked, the ladies went for shelter
into the zenana, while the colonel was hid in a dark woodshed. Happily,
however, it turned out that the suspected strangers were a party sent by
the collector of Goruckpore for the rescue of the family. Danger was now
nearly over. The fugitives reached Amorah, Bustee, Goruckpore, Azimghur,
and Ghazeepore, at which place they took steamer down to Calcutta. This
fortunate escape from great peril was almost wholly due to ‘the noble
and considerate’ Meer Mohammed, as Colonel Lennox very properly
characterises him.
Far more calamitous were the boat-adventures of the main body of Fyzabad
officers, of which an account was afterwards written, for the
information of government, by Farrier-sergeant Busher, of the light
field-battery. On the morning of the 8th, the wives and families of many
civilians, and of five non-commissioned European officers, had been sent
by Captain Orr to a place called Sheergunge, under the protection of a
friendly native, Rajah Maun Singh, to be free from peril if tumult
should arise. Early on the 9th, while Colonel Lennox was still at the
station, all or nearly all the other English were sent off by the
mutineers in four boats. One of these boats (mere dinghees, in which
little more than a bundle for each person could be put) contained eight
persons, one six, one five, and the remaining boat three. Only one
female was of the party, Mrs Hollum, wife of Sergeant-major Hollum of
the 22d native regiment. The first and second boats got ahead of the
other two, and proceeded about twenty miles down the river without
molestation; but then were seen troopers and sepoys approaching the
banks, with an evidently hostile intent. The firing soon became so
severe that the occupants of the first boat struck in for the off-shore,
and seven of them took to their heels—the eighth being unequal to that
physical exertion. They ran on till checked by a broad stream; and while
deliberating how to cross, persons approached who were thought to be
sepoys; the alarm proved false, but not before Lieutenants Currie and
Parsons had been drowned in an attempt to escape by swimming. The other
five, running on till quite exhausted, were fortunate enough to meet
with a friendly native, who sheltered them for several hours, and
supplied them with food. At midnight they started again, taking the road
to Amorah, which they were enabled to reach safely through the influence
of their kind protector—although once in great peril from a gang of
freebooters. They were glad to meet at Amorah the three occupants of the
fourth boat, who, like themselves, had escaped the dangers of the voyage
by running across fields and fording streams. At seven in the morning of
the 10th, the fugitives, now eight in company, recommenced their anxious
flight—aided occasionally by friendly natives, but at length betrayed by
one whose friendship was only a mask. They had to cross a nullah or
stream knee-deep, under pursuit by a body of armed men; here Lieutenant
Lindesay fell, literally cut to pieces; and when the other seven had
passed to the opposite bank, five were speedily hewn to the ground and
butchered—Lieutenants Ritchie, Thomas, and English, and two English
sergeants. The two survivors ran at their topmost speed, pursued by a
gang of ruffians; Lieutenant Cautley was speedily overtaken, and killed;
and then only Sergeant Busher remained alive. He, outrunning his
pursuers, reached a Brahmin village, where a bowl of sherbet was given
to him. After a little rest, he ran on again, until one Baboo Bully
Singh was found to be on the scent after him; he endeavoured to hide
under some straw in a hut; but was discovered and dragged out by the
hair of the head. From village to village he was then carried as an
exhibition to be jeered and scoffed at by the rabble; the Baboo
evidently intended the cruel sport to be followed by murder; but this
intention underwent a change, probably from dread of some future
retribution. He kept his prisoner near him for ten days, but did not
further ill treat him. On the eleventh day, Busher was liberated; he
overtook Colonel Lennox and his family; and safely reached Ghazeepore
seventeen days after his departure from Fyzabad. The boat containing
Colonel O’Brien, Lieutenants Percival and Gordon, Ensign Anderson, and
Assistant-surgeon Collinson, pursued its voyage the whole way down to
Dinapoor; but it was a voyage full of vicissitudes to the fugitives. At
many places they were obliged to lie flat in the boat to prevent
recognition from the shore; at others they had to compel the native
boatmen, on peril of sabring, to continue their tugging at the oars; on
one occasion they narrowly escaped shooting by a herd of villagers who
followed the boat. For three days they had nothing to eat but a little
flour and water; but happening to meet with a friendly rajah at Gola,
they obtained aid which enabled them to reach Dinapoor on the 17th.
The occupants of the remaining boat, the civilians, and the ladies and
children who had not been able to effect a safe retreat to Nynee Tal,
suffered terribly; many lives were lost; and those who escaped to
Goruckpore or Dinapoor arrived in distressing plight—especially a party
of women and children who had been robbed of everything while on the
way, and who had been almost starved to death during a week’s
imprisonment in a fort by the river-side. When it is stated that, among
a group of women and children who reached a place of safety after
infinite hardships, _an infant was born on the road_, the reader will
easily comprehend how far the sufferings must have exceeded anything
likely to appear in print. Many persons were shot, many drowned, while
the fate of others remained doubtful for weeks or even months. Colonel
Goldney and Major Mill were among the slain. The wanderings of Mrs Mill
and her three children were perhaps among the most affecting incidents
of this mutiny. Amid the dire haste of departure, she became separated
from her husband, and was the last Englishwoman left in Fyzabad. How she
escaped and how she fared, was more than she herself could clearly
narrate; for the whole appeared afterwards as a dreadful dream, in which
every kind of misery was confusedly mixed. During two or three weeks,
she was wandering up and down the country, living in the jungle when man
refused her shelter, and searching the fields for food when none was
obtainable elsewhere. Her poor infant, eight months old, died for want
of its proper nourishment; but the other two children, seven and three
years old, survived all the privations to which they were exposed. On
one occasion, seeing some troopers approaching, and being utterly
hopeless, she passionately besought them, if their intentions were
hostile, to kill her children without torturing them, and then to kill
her. The appeal touched the hearts of the rude men; they took her to a
village and gave her a little succour; and this facilitated their
conveyance by a friendly native to Goruckpore, where danger was over.
Sultanpore was another station at which mutiny and murder occurred. On
the 8th of June, a wing of the 15th irregular cavalry entered that place
from Seetapoor, in a state of evident excitement. Lieutenant Tucker, who
was a favourite with them, endeavoured to allay their mutinous spirit,
and succeeded for a few hours; but on the following morning they rose in
tumult, murdered Colonel Fisher, Captain Gubbings, and two other
Europeans, and urged the lieutenant to escape, which he did. After much
jungle-wanderings, and concealment in a friendly native’s house, he
safely arrived at Benares, as did likewise four or five other officers,
and all the European women and children at the station. In this as in
other instances, the revolt of the troops was followed by marauding and
incendiarism on the part of the rabble of Sultanpore; in this, too, as
in other instances, the mutineers had a little affection for some one or
more among their officers, whom they endeavoured to save.
The station of Pershadeepore experienced its day of trouble on the 10th
of June. The 1st regiment Oude irregular infantry was there stationed,
under Captain Thompson. He prided himself on the fidelity of his men;
inasmuch as they seemed to turn a deaf ear to the rumours and suspicions
circulating elsewhere; and he had detected the falsity of a
mischief-maker, who had secretly caused ground bones to be mixed with
the attah (coarse flour with which chupatties are made) sold in the
bazaar, as the foundation for a report that the government intended to
take away the caste of the people. This pleasant delusion lasted until
the 9th; when a troop of the 3d Oude irregular cavalry arrived from
Pertabghur, followed soon afterwards by news of the rising at
Sultanpore. The fidelity of the infantry now gave way, under the
temptations and representations made to them by other troops. When
Captain Thompson rose on the morning of the 10th, he found his regiment
all dressed, and in orderly mutiny (if such an expression may be used).
He tried with an aching heart to separate the good men from the bad, and
to induce the former to retire with him to Allahabad; but the temptation
of the treasure was more than they could resist; they all joined in the
spoliation, and then felt that allegiance was at an end. At four in the
afternoon all the Europeans left the station, without a shot or an angry
word from the men; they were escorted to the fort of Dharoopoor,
belonging to a chieftain named Rajah Hunnewaut Singh, who treated them
courteously, and after some days forwarded them safely to Allahabad.
There was not throughout India a mutiny conducted with more quietness on
both sides than this at Pershadeepore; the sepoys had evidently no angry
feeling towards their officers. Captain Thompson remained of opinion
that his men had been led away by rumours and insinuations brought by
stragglers from other stations, to the effect that any Oude regiment
which did _not_ mutiny would be in peril from those that had; and that,
even under this fear, they would have remained faithful had there been
no treasure to tempt their cupidity. It is curious to note Colonel
Neill’s comment on this incident, in his official dispatch; his reliance
on the native troops was of the smallest possible amount; and in
reference to the captain’s honest faith, he said: ‘This is absurd; they
were as deeply in the plot as the rest of the army; the only credit due
to them is that they did not murder their officers.’
Seetapoor, about fifty miles north of Lucknow, was the place towards
which the insurgent troops from that city bent their steps at the close
of May. Whether those regiments kept together, and how far they
proceeded on the next few days, are points not clearly made out; but it
is certain that the native troops stationed at Seetapoor—comprising the
41st Bengal infantry, the 9th and 10th Oude irregular infantry, and the
2d Oude military police, in all about three thousand men—rose in mutiny
on the 3d of June. The 41st began the movement. A sepoy came to one of
the officers in the morning, announced that the rising was about to take
place, declared that neither he nor his companions wished to draw blood,
and suggested that all the officers should retreat from the station. The
regiment was in two wings, one in the town and one in the cantonment;
the plundering of the treasury was begun by the first-named party; the
other wing, obedient at first, broke forth when they suspected they
might be deprived of a share in the plunder. After the 41st had thus set
the example, the 9th revolted; then the military police; and then the
10th. Lieutenant Burnes, of the last-named regiment, entreated his men
earnestly to remain faithful, but to no effect. Seeing that many
officers had been struck down, the remainder hastily retired to the
house of Mr Christian the commissioner; and when all were assembled,
with the civilians, the ladies, and the children, it was at once
resolved to quit the burning bungalows and ruthless soldiers and seek
refuge at Lucknow. Some made their exit without any preparation; among
whom was Lieutenant Burnes—roaming through jungles for days, and aiding
women and children as best they could, suffering all those miseries
which have so often been depicted. The great body of Europeans, however,
left the station in buggies and other vehicles; and as the high roads
were perilous, the fugitives drove over hills, hollows, and ploughed
fields, where perhaps vehicles had never been driven before.
Fortunately, twenty troopers remained faithful to them, and escorted
them all the way to Lucknow, which place they reached on the night of
the third day—reft of everything they possessed, like many other
fugitives in those days. Many of the Europeans did not succeed in
quitting Seetapoor in time; and among these the work of death was
ruthlessly carried on—the sepoys being either unwilling or unable to
check these scenes of barbarity.
As at Lucknow, Fyzabad, Sultanpore, Pershadeepore, Seetapoor; so at
Secrora, Durriabad, Beraytch, Gouda, and other places in Oude—wherever
there was a native regiment stationed, or a treasury of the Company
established, there, in almost every instance, were exhibited scenes of
violence attended by murder and plunder. The lamented Lawrence, in the
five weeks preceding his death, was, as has been lately pointed out,
placed in an extraordinary position. Responsible to the supreme
government both for the political and the military management of Oude,
and knowing that almost every station in the province was a focus of
treachery and mutiny, he was notwithstanding powerless to restore
tranquillity. So far from Cawnpore assisting him, he yearned to assist
Cawnpore; Rohilcund was in a blaze, and could send him only mutineers
who had thrown off all allegiance; Meerut, after sending troops to
Delhi, was doing little but defending itself; Agra, with a mere handful
of European troops, was too doubtful of its Gwalior neighbours to do
anything for Lucknow and Oude; Allahabad and Benares were too recently
rescued, by the gallant Neill, from imminent peril, to be in a position
to send present assistance to Sir Henry; and the Nepaul sovereign, Jung
Bahadoor, had not yet been made an ally of the English in such a way as
might possibly have saved Oude, and as was advocated by many
well-wishers of India.
The position of the sovereignty just named may usefully be adverted to
here. Nepaul, about equal in area to England, is one of the few
independent states of Northern India; it reaches to the Himalaya on the
north; and is bounded on the other sides by the British territories of
Behar, Oude, and Kumaon. The region is distinguished by the magnificent
giant mountain-chain which separates it from Tibet; by the dense
forest-jungle of the Terai on the Oude frontier; by the beautiful valley
in which the capital, Khatmandoo, lies, and which is dotted with
flourishing villages, luxuriant fields, and picturesque streams; and by
its healthy and temperate climate. It is with the people, however, that
this narrative is more particularly concerned. The Nepaulese, about two
millions in number, comprise Goorkhas, Newars, Bhotias, Dhauwars, and
Mhaujees. The Goorkhas are the dominant race; they are Hindoos in
religion, but very unlike Hindoos in appearance, manners, and customs.
The Newars are the aborigines of Nepaul, decidedly Mongolian both in
faith and in features; they are the clever artisans of the kingdom,
while the Goorkhas are the hardy soldiers. The other three tribes are
chiefly cultivators of the soil. In the latter half of the last century,
Nepaul was for a short time a dependency of the Chinese Empire; but a
treaty of commerce with the British in 1782 initiated a state of affairs
which soon enabled Nepaul to throw off Chinese supremacy. Conventions,
subsidies, border encroachments, and family intrigues, checkered
Nepaulese affairs until 1812; when the Company made formal war on the
ground of a long catalogue of injuries and insults—such a catalogue as
can easily be concocted by a stronger state against a weaker. The war
was so badly conducted, that nothing but the military tact of Sir David
Ochterlony, who held one-fourth of a command which seems to have had no
head or general commander, saved the British from ignominious defeat.
Broken engagements led to another war in 1816, which terminated in a
treaty never since ruptured; the Nepaulese court has been a focus of
intrigue, but the intrigues have not been of such a character as to
disturb the relations of amity with the British. Jung Bahadoor—a name
well known in England a few years ago, as that of a Nepaulese ambassador
who made a sensation by his jewelled splendor—was the nephew of a man
who became by successive steps prime minister to the king. Instigated by
the queen, and by his own unscrupulous ambition, Jung Bahadoor caused
his uncle to be put to death, and became commander-in-chief under a new
ministry. Many scenes of truly oriental slaughter followed—that is,
slaughter to clear the pathway to power. Jung Bahadoor treated kings and
queens somewhat as the Company was accustomed to do in the last century;
setting up a son against a father, and treating all alike as puppets. At
a period subsequent to his return from England, he caused a marriage to
be concluded between his daughter, six years old, and the heir-apparent
to the Nepaulese throne, then in his ninth year. Whether king or not, he
was virtually chief of Nepaul at the time when the Revolt broke out; and
had managed, by astuteness in his diplomacy, to remain on friendly terms
with the authorities at Calcutta: indeed he took every opportunity,
after his English visit, to display his leaning towards his neighbours.
Like Nena Sahib, he had English pianos and English carpets in his house,
and prided himself in understanding English manners and the English
language; and it is unquestionable that both those men were favourites
among such of the English as visited the one at Bithoor or the other at
Khatmandoo.
It has been mentioned in a former chapter (p. 115) that Goorkha troops
assisted to defend Nynee Tal when that place became filled with
refugees; and Goorkha regiments have been adverted to in many other
parts of the narrative. Jung Bahadoor permitted the Nepaulese of this
tribe to enlist thus in the Company’s service; and he also offered the
aid of a contingent, the non-employment of which brought many strictures
upon the policy of the Calcutta government. At a later date, as we shall
see, this contingent was accepted; and it rendered us good service at
Juanpore and Azimghur by protecting Benares from the advance of Oude
mutineers. About the middle of June, fifteen Europeans (seven gentlemen,
three ladies, and five children) escaped from the Oude mutineers into
the jungle region of Nepaul, and sought refuge in a post-station or
serai about ten days’ journey from Goruckpore and eighteen from
Khatmandoo. The officer at that place wrote to Jung Bahadoor for
instruction in the matter; to which he received a speedy reply—‘Treat
them with every kindness, give them elephants, &c., and escort them to
Goruckpore.’ Major Ramsey, the Company’s representative at Khatmandoo,
sent them numerous supplies in tin cases; and all the English were
naturally disposed to bless the Nepaulese chieftain as a friend in the
hour of greatest need, without inquiring very closely by what means he
had gained his power.
The course of the narrative now takes us from Oude northwestward into
the province of Rohilcund; the districts of which, named after the towns
of Bareilly, Mooradabad, Shahjehanpoor, Boodayoun, and Bijnour, felt the
full force of the mutinous proceedings among the native troops. The
Rohillas were originally Mussulman Afghans, who conquered this part of
India, gradually settled down among the Hindoo natives, and imparted to
them a daring reckless character, which rendered Rohilcund a nursery for
irregular cavalry—and afterwards for mutineers.
Brigadier Sibbald was commandant of Bareilly, one of the towns of
Rohilcund in which troops were stationed. These troops were entirely
native, comprising the 18th and 68th Bengal native infantry, the 8th
irregular cavalry, and a battery of native artillery—not an English
soldier among them except the officers. The brigadier, although these
troops appeared towards the close of the month of May to be in an
agitated state, nevertheless heard that all was well at Mooradabad,
Shahjehanpoor, Almora, and other stations in Rohilcund, and looked
forward with some confidence to the continuance of tranquility—aided by
his second in command, Colonel Troup, and the commissioner, Mr
Alexander. As a precaution, however, the ladies and children were sent
for safety to Nynee Tal; and the gentlemen kept their horses saddled,
ready for any emergency. Bareilly being a city of a hundred thousand
inhabitants, the temper of the natives was very anxiously watched.
Scarcely had the month closed, before the hopes of Brigadier Sibbald
received a dismal check, and his life a violent end. We have already
briefly mentioned (p. 114) that on Sunday the 31st, Bareilly became a
scene of violence and rapine; the brigadier himself being shot by a
trooper, the treasure seized, the bungalows plundered and burned, and
the Europeans either murdered or impelled to escape for their lives.
When Colonel Troup, who commanded the 68th native infantry, and who
became chief military authority after the death of Sibbald, found
himself safe at Nynee Tal, he wrote an official account of the whole
proceeding, corroborating the chief facts noted by the brigadier, and
adding others known more especially to himself. From this dispatch it
appears that the colonel commanded at Bareilly from the 6th to the 19th
of May, while the brigadier was making a tour of inspection through his
district; that from the 19th to the 29th, Sibbald himself resumed the
command; and that during those twenty-three days nothing occurred to
shew disaffection among the troops, further than a certain troubled and
agitated state. On that day, however, the Europeans received
information, from two native officers, that the men of the 18th and 68th
native regiments had, _while bathing in the river_, concerted a plan of
mutiny for that same afternoon. Most of the officers were quickly on the
alert; and, whether or not through this evidence of preparedness, no
émeute took place on that day. On the 30th, Colonel Troup, who had
relied on the fidelity of the 8th irregular cavalry, received
information that those sowars had sworn not to act against the native
infantry and artillery if the latter should rise, although they would
refrain from molesting their own officers. After a day and night of
violent excitement throughout the whole station, the morning of Sunday
the 31st (again Sunday!) ushered in a day of bloodshed and rapine.
Messages were despatched to all the officers, warning them of some
intended outbreak; but the bearers, sent by Troup, failed in their duty,
insomuch that many of the officers remained ignorant of the danger until
too late to avert it. Major Pearson, of the 18th, believed his men to be
stanch; Captain Kirby, of the artillery (6th company, 6th battalion), in
like manner trusted his corps; and Captain Brownlow, the brigade major,
disbelieved the approach of mutiny—at the very time that Colonel Troup
was impressing on all his conviction that the sinister rumours were well
founded. At eleven o’clock, the truth appeared in fatal colours; the
roar of cannon, the rattle of musketry, and the yells of men, told
plainly that the revolt had begun, and that the artillery had joined in
it. The 8th irregular cavalry, under Captain Mackenzie, were ordered or
invited by him to proceed against the lines of the insurgent infantry
and artillery; but the result was so disastrous, that all the Europeans,
military as well as civilians, found their only safety would be in
flight. Ruktawar Khan, subadar of artillery, assumed the rank of
general, and paraded about in the carriage of the brigadier, attended by
a numerous string of followers as a ‘staff.’ Colonel Troup, writing on
the 10th of June, had to report the deaths of Brigadier Sibbald and
three or four other officers, together with that of many of the civil
servants. About twenty-five military officers escaped; but the list of
‘missing’ was large, and many of those included in it were afterwards
known to have been brutally murdered. Captain Mackenzie, who clung to
his troopers in the earnest hope that they would remain faithful, found
only nineteen men who did so, and who escorted their officers all the
way to Nynee Tal.
A despicable hoary traitor, Khan Bahadoor Khan, appears to have headed
this movement. He had for many years been in receipt of a double pension
from the Indian government—as the living representative of one of the
early Rohilla chieftains, and as a retired judge of one of the native
courts. He was an old, venerable-looking, insinuating man; he was
thoroughly relied on by the civil authorities at Bareilly; he had loudly
proclaimed his indignation against the Delhi mutineers; and yet he
became ringleader of those at Bareilly—deepening his damning atrocities
by the massacre of such of the unfortunate Europeans as did not succeed
in making their escape. It was by his orders, as self-elected chief of
Rohilcund, that a rigorous search was made for all Europeans who
remained in Bareilly; and that Judge Robertson, and four or five other
European gentlemen, were hung in the Kotwal square, after a mock-trial.
During the month of June, Bareilly remained entirely in the hands of the
rebels; not an Englishman, probably, was alive in the place; and the
Mussulmans and Hindoos were left to contend for supremacy over the
spoil.
Of Boodayoun it will be unnecessary to say more here; Mr Edwards’s
narrative of an eventful escape (pp. 115, 116), pointed to the 1st of
June as the day when the Europeans deemed it necessary to flee from that
station—not because there were any native troops at Boodayoun, but
because the mutineers from Bareilly were approaching, and joyfully
expected by all the scoundrels in the place, who looked forward to a
harvest of plunder as a natural result.
Mooradabad, which began its season of anarchy and violence on the 3d of
June, stands on the right bank of the Ramgunga, an affluent of the
Ganges, at a point about midway between Meerut and Bareilly. It is a
town of nearly 60,000 inhabitants—having a civil station, with its
cutcherry and bungalows; a cantonment west of the town; a spacious serai
for the accommodation of travellers; and an enormous jail sufficiently
large to contain nearly two thousand prisoners. In this, as in many
other towns of India, the Company’s troops were wont to be regarded
rather as guardians of the jail and its inmates, than for any active
military duties. So early as the 19th of May, nine days after the
mutineers of Meerut had set the example, the 29th regiment native
infantry proceeded to the jail at Mooradabad, and released all the
prisoners. Although Mr Saunders, collector and magistrate, wrote full
accounts to Agra of the proceedings of that and the following days, the
dâks were so completely stopped on the road that Mr Colvin remained
almost in ignorance of the state of affairs; and on that account
Saunders could obtain no assistance from any quarter. The released
prisoners, joined by predatory bands of Goojurs, Meewatties, and Jâts,
commenced a system of plunder and rapine, which the European authorities
were ill able to check. The 29th, however, had not openly mutinied; and
it still remained possible to hold control within the town and the
surrounding district; several native sappers and miners were stopped and
captured on their way from Meerut, and several of the mutinous 20th
regiment on the way from Mozuffernugger. When, however, news of the
Bareilly outbreak on the 31st reached Mooradabad, the effect on the men
of the 29th regiment, and of a native artillery detachment, became very
evident. On the 3d of June, the sepoys in guard of the treasury
displayed so evident an intention of appropriating the money, that Mr
Saunders felt compelled to leave it (about seventy thousand rupees)
together with much plate and opium in their hands—being powerless to
prevent the spoliation. The troops manifested much irritation at the
smallness of the treasure, and were only prevented from wreaking their
vengeance on the officials by an oath they had previously taken. To
remain longer in the town was deemed a useless risk, as bad passions
were rising on every side. The civil officers of the Company, with their
wives and families, succeeded in making a safe retreat to Meerut; while
Captain Whish, Captain Faddy, and other officers of the 29th, with the
few remaining Europeans, laid their plans for a journey to Nynee Tal.
All shared an opinion that if the Bareilly regiments had not mutinied,
the 29th would have remained faithful—a poor solace, such as had been
sought for by many other officials similarly placed. Mr Colvin
afterwards accepted Mr Saunders’s motives and conduct in leaving the
station, as justifiable under the trying circumstances.
Rohilcund contained three military stations, Bareilly, Mooradabad, and
Shahjehanpoor—Boodayoun and the other places named being merely civil
stations. As at Bareilly and Mooradabad, so at Shahjehanpoor; the native
troops at the station rose in mutiny. On Sunday the 31st of May—a day
marked by so many atrocities in India—the 28th native infantry rose,
surrounded the Christian residents as they were engaged in divine
worship in church, and murdered nearly the whole of them, including the
Rev. Mr M’Callum in the sacred edifice itself. The few who escaped were
exposed to an accumulation of miseries; first they sought shelter at
Mohammerah in Oude; then they met the 41st regiment, after the mutiny at
Seetapoor, who shot and cut them down without mercy; and scarcely any
lived to tell the dismal tale to English ears.
Thus then it appears that, in Rohilcund, the 18th, 68th, 28th, and 29th
regiments native infantry, together with the 8th irregular cavalry and a
battery of native artillery, rose in revolt at the three military
stations, and murdered or drove out nearly the whole of the Europeans
from the entire province—European troops there were none; only officers
and civilians. They plundered all the treasuries, containing more than a
quarter of a million sterling, and marched off towards Delhi, five
thousand strong—unmolested by the general who commanded at Meerut.
Nynee Tal became more crowded than ever with refugees from Oude and
Rohilcund. Under the energetic command of Captain Ramsey, this
hill-station remained in quiet during the month of May (p. 115); but it
was not so easily defended in June. Some of the native artillery at
Almora, not far distant, gave rise to uneasiness towards the close of
the month; yet as the ill-doers were promptly put into prison, and as
the Goorkhas remained stanch, confidence was partially restored. The
sepoys from the rebel regiments dreaded a march in this direction, on
account of the deadly character of the Terai, a strip of swampy forest,
thirty miles broad, which interposes between the plains and the hills;
but that jungle-land itself contained many marauders, who were only
prevented by fear of the Goorkhas from going up to Nynee Tal. At the end
of June, there were five times as many women and children as men among
the Europeans at that place; hence the anxious eye with which the
proceedings in surrounding districts were regarded.
The third region to which this chapter is appropriated—the Doab—now
calls for attention. Like Oude and Rohilcund, it was the scene of
terrible anarchy and bloodshed in the month of June. In its two
parts—the Lower Doab, from Allahabad to a little above Furruckabad; and
the Upper Doab, from the last-named city up to the hill-country—it was
nearly surrounded by mutineers, who apparently acted in concert with
those in the Doab itself.
Of Allahabad and Cawnpore, the two chief places in the Lower Doab,
sufficient has been said in Chapters VIII. and IX. to trace the course
of events during the month of June. About midway between the two is
Futtehpoor, a small civil station in the centre of a group of Mohammedan
villages; it contained, at the beginning of June, about a dozen civil
servants of the Company, and a small detachment of the 6th native
regiment from Allahabad. The residents, as a precautionary measure, had
sent their wives and children to that stronghold, and had also arranged
a plan for assembling at the house of the magistrate, if danger should
appear. On the 5th of the month, disastrous news arriving from Lucknow
and Cawnpore, the residents took up their abode for the night on the
flat roof of the magistrate’s house, with their weapons by their sides;
and on the following day they hauled up a supply of tents, provisions,
water, and ammunition—a singular citadel being thus extemporised in the
absence of better. On the 7th, their small detachment aided in repelling
a body of troopers who had just arrived from Cawnpore on a plundering
expedition; and the residents congratulated themselves on the fidelity
of this small band. Their reliance was, however, of short duration; for,
on the receipt of news of the Allahabad outbreak, the native officials
in the collector’s office gave way, like the natives all around them,
and Futtehpoor soon became a perilous spot for Europeans. On the 9th,
the residents held a council on their roof, and resolved to quit the
station. A few troopers befriended them; and they succeeded, after many
perils and sufferings, in reaching Banda, a town southward of the Jumna.
Not all of them, however. Mr Robert Tucker, the judge, resisting
entreaty, determined to remain at his post to the last. He rode all over
the town, promising rewards to those natives who would be faithful; he
endeavoured to shame others by his heroic bearing; he appealed to the
gratitude and good feeling of many of the poorer natives, who had been
benefited by him in more peaceful times. But all in vain. The jail was
broken open, the prisoners liberated, and the treasury plundered; and Mr
Tucker, flying to the roof of the cutcherry, there bravely defended
himself until a storm of bullets laid him low. Robert Tucker was one of
those civilians of whom the Company had reason to be proud.
Advancing to the northwest, we come to a string of towns and
stations—Etawah, Minpooree, Allygurh, Futteghur, Muttra, Bolundshuhur,
Mozuffernugger, &c.—which shared with Oude and Rohilcund the wild
disorders of the month of June. The mutiny at Futteghur has already
engaged our notice (p. 133), in connection with the miserable fugitives
who swelled the numbers put to death by Nena Sahib at Bithoor and
Cawnpore. It needs little further mention here. The 10th native
infantry, and a small body of artillery, long resisted the temptation
held out by mutineers elsewhere; but, on the appearance of the insurgent
regiments from Seetapoor, their fidelity gave way. Four companies went
off with the treasure; the remainder joined the other mutinous regiments
in besieging the fort to which so many Europeans had fled for refuge,
and from which so disastrous a boat-voyage was made down the Ganges. Mr
Colvin, at Agra, knew of the perilous state of things at Futteghur; he
knew that a native nawab had been chosen by the mutineers as a sort of
sovereign; but, as we shall presently see, he was too weak in reliable
troops to afford any assistance whatever. Thus it happened that the two
boat-expeditions, of June and July, ended so deplorably to the
Europeans, and left Futteghur so wholly in the hands of the rebels. It
was a great loss to the British in many ways; for most of the Company’s
gun-carriages were made, or at least stored, at Futteghur; and the
agency-yard was surrounded by warehouses containing a large supply of
material belonging to the artillery service. Indeed it was this
court-yard of the gun-carriage agency that constituted the fort, as soon
as a few defensive arrangements had been made. Many circumstances had
drawn rather a large English population to Futteghur; and hence the
terrible severity of the tragedy. There were officers of the 10th
regiment; other military officers on leave; gun-carriage agents; civil
servants; merchants and dealers; a few tent-makers and other artisans;
indigo-planters from the neighbouring estates; and many native
Christians under the care of the American Presbyterian mission.
We have already seen (pp. 112, 113) by how small a number of native
troops several stations were set in commotion in May. The 9th regiment
Bengal native infantry was separated into four portions, which were
stationed at Allygurh, Bolundshuhur, Etawah, and Minpooree,
respectively; and all mutinied nearly at the same time. The fortune of
war, if war it can be called, at these stations during the month of
June, may be traced in a very few words. It was on the 20th of May that
the four companies at Allygurh mutinied; and on the 24th that one-half
of Lieutenant Cockburn’s Gwalior troopers, instead of assisting him to
retain or regain the station, rose in mutiny and galloped off to join
the insurgents elsewhere. There were, however, about a hundred who
remained faithful to him; and these, with fifty volunteers, made an
advance to Allygurh, retook it, drove out the detachment of the 9th
native regiment, released a few Europeans who had been in hiding there,
captured one Rao Bhopal Singh, and hanged him as a petty chieftain who
had continued the rapine begun by the sepoys. Throughout the month of
June this station was maintained in British hands—not so much for its
value in a military sense, as for its utility in keeping open the roads
to Agra and Meerut; but, in the direction of Delhi, the volunteers could
obtain very little news, the dâks being all cut off by the Goojurs and
other predatory bands. At Minpooree the three companies of the 9th
checked, it will be remembered, by the undaunted courage and tact of
Lieutenant de Kantzow, departed to join the insurgents elsewhere; but
Minpooree remained in British hands. The remaining companies mutinied at
Etawah and Bolundshuhur without much violence.
[Illustration:
SIMLA, the summer residence of the Governor-general of India.
]
Agra, when the narrative last left it (p. 111), had passed through the
month of May without any serious disturbances. The troops consisted of
the 44th and 67th regiments Bengal native infantry, the 3d Europeans,
and a few artillery. After two companies of these native troops had
mutinied while engaged in bringing treasure from Muttra to Agra, Mr
Colvin deemed it necessary to disarm all the other companies; and this
was quietly and successfully effected on the 1st of June, by the 3d
Europeans and Captain D’Oyley’s field-battery. Many facts afterward came
to light, tending to shew that if this disarming had not taken place,
the 44th and 67th would have stained their hands with the same bloody
deeds as the sepoys were doing elsewhere. The native lines had been more
than once set on fire during the later days of May—in the hope, as
afterwards appears, that the handful of Europeans, by rushing out
unarmed to extinguish the flames, would afford the native troops a
favourable opportunity to master the defences of the city, and the six
guns of the field-battery. A curious proof was supplied of the little
knowledge possessed by the Europeans of the native character, and the
secret springs that worked unseen as moving powers for their actions.
There had long seemed to be an angry feeling between the 44th and the
67th; and Mr Colvin, or the brigadier acting with him, selected one
company from each regiment for the mission to Muttra, in the belief that
each would act as a jealous check upon the other; instead of which, the
two companies joined in revolt, murdered many of their officers, and
carried off their treasure towards Delhi. After the very necessary
disarming of the two regiments, the defence of this important city was
left to the 3d European Fusiliers, Captain D’Oyley’s field-battery of
six guns, and a corps of volunteer European cavalry under Lieutenant
Greathed. Most of the disarmed men deserted, and swelled the ranks of
the desperadoes that wrought so much ruin in the surrounding districts—a
result that led many military officers to doubt whether disarming
without imprisonment was a judicious course under such circumstances;
for the men naturally felt exasperated at their humbled position,
whether deserved or not; and their loyalty, as soldiers out of work, was
not likely to be in any way increased. Whether or not this opinion be
correct, the Europeans in Agra felt their only reliance to be in each
other. During the early days of June, most of the ladies resorted at
night to certain places of refuge allotted by the governor, such as the
fort, the post-office, the office of the _Mofussilite_ newspaper, and
behind the artillery lines; while the gentlemen patrolled the streets,
or maintained a defensive attitude at appointed places. Trade was
continued, British supremacy was asserted, bloodshed was kept away from
the city, and the Europeans maintained a steady if not cheerful
demeanour. Nevertheless Mr Colvin was full of anxieties; he was
responsible to the Calcutta government, not only for Agra, but for the
whole of the Northwest Provinces; yet he found himself equally unable to
send aid to other stations, and receive aid from them. Agra was troubled
on the night of the 23d of June by the desertion of the jail-guard, to
whom had been intrusted the custody of the large central prison. A guard
from the 3d Europeans was thereupon placed on the outside; while the
inside was guarded by another force under Dr Walker the superintendent.
So far as concerned military disturbances within the city, Mr Colvin was
not at that time under much apprehension; but he knew that certain
regiments from Neemuch—the mutiny of which will be described in the next
chapter—had approached by the end of the month to a point on the high
road between Agra and Jeypoor, very near the first-named city; and he
heard that they contemplated an attack. He estimated their strength at
two regiments of infantry, four or five hundred cavalry, and eight guns;
but as the whole of the civil and military authorities at Agra were on
the alert, he did not regard this approaching force with much alarm. To
strengthen his position, and maintain public confidence, he organised a
European militia of horse and foot, among the clerks, railway men, &c.,
to which it was expected and desired that nearly all civilians should
belong. This militia, placed under the management of Captains
Prendergast and Lamb, Lieutenants Rawlins and Oldfield, and Ensign
Noble, who had belonged to the disarmed native regiments, was divided
into two corps, to which the defence of the different parts of the
station was intrusted. How the Europeans, both military and civilians,
became cooped up in the fort during July, we shall see in a future
chapter.
Meerut, during June, remained in the hands of the British; but there was
much inactivity on the part of the general commanding there, in relation
to the districts around that town. On the 10th of May, when the mutiny
began (p. 50), there were a thousand men of the 60th Rifles, six hundred
of the Carabiniers, a troop of horse-artillery, and five hundred
artillery recruits—constituting a force unusually large, in relation to
the general distribution of English troops in India. Yet these fine
soldiers were not so handled as to draw from them the greatest amount of
service. They were not sent after the three mutinous regiments who
escaped to Delhi; and during the urgent and critical need of Lawrence,
Colvin, and Wheeler, Major-general Hewett kept his Europeans almost
constantly in or near Meerut. It is true that he, and others who have
defended him, asserted that the maintenance of the position at Meerut, a
very important consideration, could not have been insured if he had
marched out to intercept rebels going from various quarters towards
Delhi; but this argument was not deemed satisfactory at Calcutta;
Major-general Hewett was superseded, and another commander appointed in
his place. It was not until June that dâks were re-established between
Meerut and Agra on the one hand, and Meerut and Kurnaul on the other.
Some of the Europeans were sent off to join the besieging army before
Delhi; while a portion of the remainder were occasionally occupied in
putting down bands of Goojurs and other predatory robbers around Meerut.
The town of Sirdhana, where the Catholic nuns and children had been
placed in such peril (p. 57), was too near Meerut to be held by the
rebels. Early in June, one Wallee Dad Khan set himself up as subadar or
captain-general of Meerut, under the King of Delhi; raised a rabble
force of Goojurs; held the fort of Malagurh with six guns; and seized
the district of Bolundshuhur. News arriving that he was advancing with
his force towards Meerut, about a hundred European troops, Rifles and
Carabiniers, with a few civilians and two guns, started off to intercept
him. They had little work to do, however, except to burn villages held
by the insurgents; for the robber Goojurs having quarrelled with the
robber Jâts about plunder, the latter compelled Wallee Dud Khan and his
general, Ismail Khan, to effect a retreat before the English came up. In
the last week of the month the force at Meerut, chiefly in consequence
of the number sent off to Delhi, was reduced to about eight hundred;
these were kept so well on the alert, and the whole town and cantonment
so well guarded, that the Europeans felt little alarm; although vexed
that they could afford no further assistance to the besiegers of Delhi,
nor even chastise a portion of the 4th irregular cavalry, who mutinied
at Mozuffernugger. All the English, civilians and their families as well
as military officers, lived at Meerut either in barracks or tents—none
venturing to sleep beyond the immediate spot where the military were
placed.
Simla, during these varied operations, continued to be a place where, as
at Nynee Tal, ladies and children, as well as some of the officers and
civilians, took refuge after being despoiled by mutineers. A militia was
formed after the hasty departure of General Anson; Simla was divided
into four districts under separate officers; and the gentlemen aided by
a few English troops, defended those districts, throughout June. The
people at the bazaar, and all the native servants of the place, were
disarmed, and the arms taken for safe custody to Kussowlie.
Delhi—a place repeatedly mentioned in every chapter of this
narrative—continued to be the centre towards which the attention of all
India was anxiously directed. Fast as the native regiments mutinied in
Bengal, Oude, Rohilcund, the Doab, Bundelcund, and elsewhere, so did
they either flee to Delhi, or shape their course in dependence on the
military operations going on there; and fast as the British troops could
be despatched to that spot, so did they take rank among the besiegers.
But in truth this latter augmentation came almost wholly from the
Punjaub and other western districts. Lloyd, Neill, Wheeler, Lawrence,
Hewett, Sibbald, were so closely engaged in attending to the districts
around Dinapoor, Benares, Allahabad, Cawnpore, Lucknow, Meerut, and
Bareilly, that they could not send aid to the besiegers of Delhi, during
several weeks of siege operations. These operations will be noticed in
systematic order, when the other threads of the narrative have been
traced to the proper points. Meanwhile the reader will bear in mind that
the siege of Delhi was in progress from the middle of June to an
advanced period in the summer.
[Illustration:
Tomb at Futtehpore Sikri.
]
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Footnote 23:
_Artillery_: 4 guns, horse light field-battery; 6 guns, Oude
field-battery; and 1 8-inch howitzer. _Cavalry_: 120 troopers of 1st,
2d, and 3d Oude irregular cavalry; and 40 volunteer cavalry, under
Captain Radcliffe. _Infantry_: 300 of H.M. 32d foot; 150 of 13th
native infantry; 60 of the 48th native infantry; and 20 of the 71st.
Footnote 24:
‘Every boy has read, and many living men still remember, how the death
of Nelson was felt by all as a deep personal affliction. Sir Henry
Lawrence was less widely known, and his deeds were in truth of less
magnitude than those of the great sea-captain; but never probably was
a public man within the sphere of his reputation more ardently
beloved. Sir Henry Lawrence had that rare and happy faculty (which a
man in almost every other respect unlike him, Sir Charles Napier, is
said also to have possessed) of attaching to himself every one with
whom he came in contact. He had that gift which is never acquired, a
gracious, winning, noble manner; rough and ready as he was in the
field, his manner in private life had an indescribable charm of
frankness, grace, and even courtly dignity. He had that virtue which
Englishmen instinctively and characteristically love—a lion-like
courage. He had that fault which Englishmen so readily forgive, and
when mixed with what are felt to be its naturally concomitant good
qualities, they almost admire—a hot and impetuous temper; he had in
overflowing measure that Godlike grace which even the base revere and
the good acknowledge as the crown of virtue—the grace of charity. No
young officer ever sat at Sir Henry’s table without learning to think
more kindly of the natives; no one, young or old, man or woman, ever
heard Sir Henry speak of the European soldier, or ever visited the
Lawrence Asylum, without being excited to a nobler and truer
appreciation of the real extent of his duty towards his neighbour. He
was one of the few distinguished Anglo-Indians who had attained to
something like an English reputation in his lifetime. In a few years,
his name will be familiar to every reader of Indian history; but for
the present it is in India that his memory will be most deeply
cherished; it is by Anglo-Indians that any eulogy on him will be best
appreciated, it is by them that the institutions which he founded and
maintained will be fostered as a monument to his memory.’—_Fraser’s
Magazine_, No. 336.
Footnote 25:
The troops stationed at that time at Fyzabad comprised the 22d
regiment native infantry; the 6th regiment irregular Oude infantry;
the 5th troop of the 15th regiment irregular cavalry; No. 5 company of
the 7th battalion of artillery; and No. 13 horse-battery. The chief
officers were Colonels Lennox and O’Brien; Major Mill; Captain Morgan;
Lieutenants Fowle, English, Bright, Lindesay, Thomas, Ouseley,
Cautley, Gordon, Parsons, Percival, and Currie; and Ensigns Anderson
and Ritchie. Colonel Goldney held a civil appointment as commissioner.