Note.

Queen’s Regiments in India in June.—Sufficient has been said in former chapters to convey some notion of the European element in the Indian army in past years; the necessity for increasing the strength of that element; the relation between the Queen’s troops and the Company’s troops; the difficulty of sparing additional troops from England; the mode in which that difficulty was overcome; and the controversy concerning the best route for troop-ships. It seems desirable to add here a few particulars concerning the actual number of European troops in India at or about the time to which this chapter relates, and the localities in which they were stationed.

The following list, correct as to the regiments, is liable to modification in respect of localities. Many of the regiments were at the time in detachments, serving in different places; in such cases, the station of the main body only is named. Other regiments were at the time on the march; these are referred to the station towards which they were marching.

QUEEN’S TROOPS IN THE BENGAL ARMY.

It may here be remarked, that the distinctions between ‘fusiliers,’ ‘foot,’ ‘light infantry,’ ‘Highlanders,’ and ‘rifles,’ are more nominal than real; these are all infantry regiments of the line, with a special number attached to each—except the particular corps called the ‘Rifle Brigade.’

Cavalry.
2dDra. Gds.,Lucknow.
6thDra. Gds.,Meerut.
7thDra. Gds.,Sealkote.
7thLt. Dra.,Lucknow.
9thLancers,Umballa.
Mil. Trn., 2d bat.,Benares.
Horse-artillery.
ETroop,Allahabad.
FTroop,Lucknow.
Foot-artillery.
2dBat. 8th Com.Benares.
3dBat. 5th Com.Calcutta.
5thBat. 4th Com.Lucknow.
6thBat. 1st Com.Moultan.
7thBat. 6th Com.Rawul Pindee.
8thBat. 3d Com.Lucknow.
9thBat. 3d Com.Dumdum.
11thBat. 6th Com.Lucknow.
12thBat. 5th Com.Lucknow.
13thBat. 5th Com.Bunnee.
13thBat. 6th Com.Lucknow.
14thBat. 3d Com.Agra.
14thBat. 4th Com.Allahabad.
14thBat. 7th Com.Futteghur.
Engineers.
4thCompany,Lucknow.
23dCompany,Lucknow.
Infantry.
5thFusiliers,Calpee.
7thFusiliers,Meean Meer.
8thfoot,Agra.
10thfoot,Dinapoor.
13thLt. Infantry,Goruckpore.
19thfoot,Barrackpore.
20thfoot,Lucknow.
23dFusiliers,Lucknow.
24thfoot,Ferozpore.
27thfoot,Umballa.
29thfoot,Rangoon.
32dLt. Infantry,Allahabad.
34thfoot,Azimghur.
35thfoot,Dinapoor.
37thfoot,Ghazeepore.
38thfoot,Lucknow.
42dHighlanders,Bareilly.
52dfoot,Sealkote.
53dfoot,Lucknow.
54thfoot,Allahabad.
60thRif., 1st bat.Shahjehanpoor.
60thRif., 2d bat.Dinapoor.
61st Delhi.
70th Peshawur.
73d Sheergotty.
75th Meerut.
77th Calcutta.
79th Futteghur.
80th Cawnpore.
81st Nowsherah.
82d Shahjehanpoor.
84th Buxar.
87th Jullundur.
88th Cawnpore.
90th Lucknow.
93d Bareilly.
97th Lucknow.
98th Campbellpoor.
Rif. Brig., 2d bat.Lucknow.
Rif. Brig., 3d bat.Lucknow.

QUEEN’S TROOPS IN THE BOMBAY ARMY.

The preceding list, relating to the Bengal army, gives the names and localities of regiments for the later weeks of June; the following, having reference to the Bombay army, applies to the earlier part of the same month; but the difference in this respect cannot be considerable.

Cavalry.
3dDrag. Guards,Kirkee.
8thHussars,Nuseerabad.
14thLight Drag.,Calpee.
17thLancers,Kirkee.
Horse-artillery.
DTroop,Poonah.
Foot-artillery.
1stBat. 8th Com.,Baroda.
4thBat. 3d Com.Rajpootana.
6thBat. 1st Com.Sinde.
11thBat. 2d Com.,Rajpootana.
11thBat. 7th Com.Bombay.
14thBat. 5th Com.Cen. India.
14thBat. 8th Com.Dharwar.
Engineers.
11thCompany,Rajpootana.
21stCompany,Cen. India.
Infantry.
4thfoot,Gujerat.
18thRoyal Irish,Poonah.
33dfoot,Poonah.
51stfoot,Kurachee.
56thfoot,Belgaum.
57thfoot,Aden.
64thfoot,Allygurh.
71stHighlanders,Calpee.
72dHighlanders,Neemuch.
78thHighlanders,Alum Bagh.
83dfoot,Rajpootana.
86thfoot,Calpee.
89thfoot,Ahmedabad.
92dHighlanders,Bombay.
95thfoot,Rajpootana.

QUEEN’S TROOPS IN THE MADRAS ARMY.

The following list applies to the state of affairs about the third week in June:

Cavalry.
1stDrag. Guards,Bangalore.
12thLancers,Kurnool.
Horse-artillery.
IITroop,Mount.
Foot-artillery.
3dBat. 3d Com.,Bangalore.
14thBat. 6th Com.,Bundelcund.
Infantry.
1stfoot, 1st Battalion,Secunderabad.
43dfoot,Bundelcund.
44thfoot,Madras.
60thRifles, 3d Battalion,Bangalore.
66thfoot,Cananore.
68thfoot,Rangoon.
69thfoot,Vizagapatam.
74thfoot,Bellary.

Summing up these entries, it will be seen that out of the 99 regiments of the line in the British army (the 100th, a new Canadian regiment, had not at that time completed its organisation), no less than 59 were in India in June 1858; with a proportion of the other branches of the military service. Nothing can more strikingly illustrate the importance attached to the state of our Indian possessions.

On the 1st of January 1857, there were about 26,000 royal troops and 12,000 Company’s European troops in India. During the ensuing fifteen months, to April 1858, there were sent over 42,000 royal troops and 5000 Company’s Europeans. These would have given a total of 85,000 British troops in India; but it was estimated that war, sickness, and heat had lessened this number to 50,000 available effective men. At that time the arrangements of the English authorities were such as to insure the speedy increase of this European element to not less than 70,000 men; and during the summer, still further advances were made in the same direction.

[180]. Chapter xxviii., p. [469].

[181]. ‘My dear Barrow—We are about to separate, perhaps for ever; but, believe me, I shall ever retain you in affectionate remembrance, and ever speak with that intense admiration which I feel for the glorious volunteers whom you have commanded with such distinction. It would afford me much pleasure to shake every one of them by the hand, and tell them how warmly I feel towards them. But this is impossible; my pressing duties will not allow me even to write a few farewell lines to each of your officers: but I trust to your communicating to them individually my affectionate adieu and sincerest wishes for their prosperity. May God bless you and them.’ From one like Sir James, who had had such special means of observing and appreciating the exertions of the volunteer cavalry, this warm and genial letter must have been doubly gratifying.

[182]. The governor of Bombay, in a public notification, used many expressions of respect towards the memory of the political agent. Adverting to the advice given to Mr Manson not to trust himself to the mercies of the Rajah of Nargoond, Lord Elphinstone said: ‘But with that noble devotion to duty, of which the recent history of India has presented so many instances, Mr Manson determined to make a final effort to save the chief, by his personal influence, from the ruin impending over him.’ He added that the facts shewed ‘that a gallant and accomplished gentleman, who had proved himself a most valuable servant of the state, has been basely murdered.’ And he concluded by announcing that ‘the body of Mr Manson has been recovered, and has been buried at Kulladgee. The Right Hon. the Governor in Council will regard it as a sacred duty to make a provision for the families of the brave men who lost their lives in defending one whose untimely fate is now so deeply deplored.’

[183]. See Chap. xvii., pp. [289], [290].

Almorah, Hill-station in Kumaon.

CHAPTER XXXII.
GRADUAL PACIFICATION IN THE AUTUMN.

If the events of the three months—July, August, and September, 1858—be estimated without due consideration, it might appear that the progress made in India was hardly such as could fairly be called ‘pacification.’ When it is found how frequently the Jugdispore rebels are mentioned in connection with the affairs of Behar; how numerous were the thalookdars of Oude still in arms; how large an insurgent force the Begum held under her command; how fruitless were all the attempts to capture the miscreant Nena Sahib; how severely the friendly thalookdars and zemindars of Oude were treated by those in the rebel ranks, as a means of deterring others from joining the English; how active was Tanteea Topee in escaping from Roberts and Napier, Smith and Michel, with his treasure plundered from the Maharajah Scindia; how many petty chieftains in the Bundelcund and Mahratta territories were endeavouring to raise themselves in power, during a period of disorder, by violence and plunder—there may be some justification for regarding the state of India as far from peaceful during those three months. But notwithstanding these appearances, the pacification of the empire was unquestionably in progress. The Bengal sepoys, the real mutineers, were becoming lessened in number every week, by the sword, the bullet, the gallows, and privation. The insurgent bands, though many and apparently strong, consisted more and more exclusively of rabble ruffians, whose chief motive for action was plunder, and who seldom ventured to stand a contest even with one-twentieth part their number of English troops. The regiments and drafts sent out from England, both to the Queen’s and the Company’s armies, were regularly continued, so as to render it possible to supply a few British troops to all the points attacked or troubled. There was a steady increase in the number of Jâts, Goorkhas, Bheels, Scindians, Beloochees, &c., enlisted in British service, having little or no sympathy with the high-caste Hindustani Oudians who had been the authors of so much mischief. There was a re-establishment of civil government in all the provinces, and (excepting Oude) in nearly all the districts of each province; attended by a renewal of the revenue arrangements, and by the maintenance of police bodies who aided in putting down rebels and marauders. There was an almost total absence of anything like nationality in the motions of the insurgents, or unity of purpose in their proceedings; the decrepit Emperor of Delhi, and the half-witted King of Oude, both of them prisoners, had almost gone out of the thoughts of the natives—who, so far as they rebelled at all, looked out for new leaders, new paymasters, new plunder. In short, the British government had gained the upper hand in every province throughout India; and preparations were everywhere made to maintain this hold so firmly, that the discomfiture of the rebels became a matter almost of moral certainty. Much remained to be done, and much time would be needed for doing it; but the ‘beginning of the end’ was come, and men could speak without impropriety of the gradual pacification of India.

The events of these three months will not require any lengthened treatment; of new mutinies there was only one; and the military and other operations will admit of rapid recital.

Calcutta saw nothing of Viscount Canning during the spring, summer, and autumn. His lordship, as governor-general, appreciated the importance of being near Sir Colin Campbell, to consult with him daily on various matters affecting the military operations in the disturbed districts. Both were at Allahabad throughout the period to which this chapter relates. The supreme council, however, remained at the presidential capital, giving effect to numerous legislative measures, and carrying on the regular government of the presidency. Calcutta was now almost entirely free from those panics which so frequently disturbed it during the early months of the mutiny; rapine and bloodshed did not approach the city, and the English residents gradually sobered down. Although the violent and often absurd opposition to the governor-general had not quite ceased, it had greatly lessened; the dignified firmness of Lord Canning made a gradual conquest. Some of the newspapers, here as at Bombay, invented proclamations and narratives, crimes and accusations, with a disregard of truth which would hardly have been shewn by any journals in the mother-country; and those effusions which were not actually invented, too often received a colour ill calculated to convey a correct idea of their nature. Many of the journalists never forgot or forgave the restrictions which the governor-general deemed it prudent to place on the press in the summer of 1857; the amount of anonymous slander heaped on him was immense. One circumstance which enabled his lordship to live down the calumnies, was the discovery, made by the journalists in the following summer, that Lord Derby’s government was not more disposed than that of Lord Palmerston to expel Viscount Canning from office—a matter which will have to be noticed more fully in another chapter. The more moderate journalists of the Anglo-Indian press, it must in fairness be stated, did their part towards bringing about a more healthy state of feeling.

That the authorities at Calcutta were not insensible to the value of newspapers and journals, in a region so far away from England, was shewn by an arrangement made in the month of August—which afforded at the same time a quiet but significant proof of an improved attention towards the well-being of soldiers. An order was issued that a supply of newspapers and periodicals should be forwarded to the different military hospitals in Calcutta at the public expense. Those for the officers’ hospital[[184]] comprised some magazines of a higher class than were included in the list for the men’s hospitals; but such were to be sent afterwards to the men’s hospitals, when the officers had perused them.

In connection with military matters, in and near the presidential city, it may be mentioned that the neighbourhood of Calcutta was the scene of a settlement or colonisation very novel, and as unsatisfactory as it was novel. It has been the custom to send over a small number of soldiers’ wives with every British regiment sent to our colonies or foreign territories. During the course of twelve months so many regiments arrived at Calcutta, that these soldiers’ wives accumulated to eighteen hundred in number. They were consigned to the station at Dumdum, a few miles north of Calcutta; and were attended by three or four surgeons and one Protestant chaplain. The accommodation provided for them was sufficient for the women themselves, but not for the children, who added greatly to their number. Many of these women, being of that ignorant and ill-regulated class from which soldiers too frequently choose their wives, brought with them dirty habits and drinking tendencies; and these, when the fierce heat of an Indian summer came, engendered dysentery and diarrhœa, from which diseases a large number of women and children died. Other irregularities of conduct appeared, among a mass of women so strangely separated from all home-ties; and arrangements were gradually made for breaking up this singular colony.

The details given in former chapters, especially in the ‘notes,’ will have shewn how large was the number of regiments conveyed from the United Kingdom and the colonies to India; and when it is remembered that far more of these landed at Calcutta than at Madras, Bombay, or Kurachee, it will easily be understood how military an aspect they gave to the first-named city. Still, numerous as they were, they were never equal to the demand. Without making any long stay at Calcutta, they marched to the scenes of action in the northwest. In the scarcity of regular troops, the Bengal government derived much valuable services from naval and marine brigades—men occupying a middle position between soldiers and sailors. Captain Sir William Peel’s naval brigade has been often mentioned, in connection with gallant achievements in Oude; and Captain Sotheby’s naval brigade also won a good name, in the provinces eastward of Oude. But besides these, there were about a dozen different bodies in Bengal, each consisting of a commandant, two under-officers, a hundred men, and two light field-guns. Being well drilled, and accustomed to active movements, these parties were held in readiness to march off at short notice to any districts where a few resolute disciplined men could overawe turbulent towns-people; and thus they held the eastern districts in quietness without drawing on the regular military strength of the presidency. The Shannon naval brigade acquired great fame; the heroic Peel had made himself a universal favourite, and the brigade became a noted body, not only for their own services, but for their connection with their late gallant commander. When the brigade returned down the Ganges, the residents of Calcutta gave them a public reception and a grand dinner. Sir James Outram was present at the dinner, and, in a graceful and appropriate way, told of his own experience of the services of the brigade at Lucknow in the memorable days of the previous winter. ‘Almost the first white faces I saw, when the lamented Havelock and I rushed out of our prison to greet Sir Colin at the head of our deliverers, were the hearty, jolly, smiling faces of some of you Shannon men, who were pounding away with two big guns at the palace; and I then, for the first time in my life, had the opportunity of seeing and admiring the coolness of British sailors under fire. There you were, working in the open plains, without cover, or screen, or rampart of any kind, your guns within musket-range of the enemy, as coolly as if you were practising at the Woolwich target. And that it was a hot fire you were exposed to, was proved by three of the small staff that accompanied us (Napier, young Havelock, and Sitwell) being knocked over by musket-balls in passing to the rear of those guns, consequently further from the enemy than yourselves.’ Such a speech from such a man was about the most acceptable compliment that the brigade could receive, and was well calculated to produce a healthy emulation in other quarters.

The authorities at all the stations were on the watch for any symptoms which, though trivial in themselves, might indicate the state of feeling among the soldiery or the natives generally. Thus, on the 10th of July, at Barrackpore, a chuprassee happening to go down to a tank near the lines, saw a bayonet half in and half out of the water. A search was thereupon ordered; when about a hundred weapons—muskets, sabres, and bayonets—with balls and other ammunition—were discovered at the bottom of the tank. These warlike materials were rendered almost valueless by the action of the water; but their presence in the tank was not the less a mystery needing to be investigated. The authorities, in this as in many similar cases, thought it prudent not to divulge the results of their investigation.

The great jails of India were a source of much trouble and anxiety during the mutiny. All the large towns contained such places of incarceration, which were usually full of very desperate characters; and these men were rejoiced at any opportunity of revenging themselves on the authorities. Such opportunities were often afforded; for, as we have many times had occasion to narrate, the mutineers frequently broke open the jails as a means of strengthening their power by the aid of hundreds or thousands of budmashes ready for any atrocities. So late as the 31st of July, at Mymensing, in the eastern part of Bengal, the prisoners in the jail, six hundred in number, having overpowered the guard, escaped, seized many tulwars and muskets, and marched off towards Jumalpore. The Europeans at this place made hurried preparations for defence, and sent out such town-guards and police as they could muster, to attack the escaped prisoners outside the station. About half of the number were killed or recaptured, and the rest escaped to work mischief elsewhere. It is believed, however, that in this particular case, the prisoners had no immediate connection with rebels or mutinous sepoys; certain prison arrangements concerning food excited their anger, and under the influence of this anger they broke forth.

So far as concerns actual mutiny, the whole province of Bengal was nearly exempt from that infliction during the period now under consideration; regular government was maintained, and very few rebels troubled the course of peaceful industry.

Behar, however, was not so fortunate. Situated between Bengal and Oude, it was nearer to the scenes of anarchy, and shared in them more fully. Sir Edward Lugard, as we have seen, was employed there during the spring months; but having brought the Jugdispore rebels, as he believed, to the condition of mere bandits and marauders, he did not think it well to keep his force in active service during the rainy season, when they would probably suffer more from inclement weather than from the enemy. He resigned command, on account of his shattered health, and his Azimghur field-force was broken up. The 10th foot, and the Madras artillery, went to Dinapoor; the 84th foot and the military train, under Brigadier Douglas, departed for Benares; the royal artillery were summoned to Allahabad; the Sikh cavalry and the Madras rifles went to Sasseram; and the Madras cavalry to Ghazeepore. Captain Rattray, with his Sikhs, was left at Jugdispore, whence he made frequent excursions to dislodge small parties of rebels.

A series of minor occurrences took place in this part of Behar, during July, sufficient to require the notice of a few active officers at the head of small bodies of reliable troops, but tending on the other hand to shew that the military power of the rebels was nearly broken down—to be followed by the predatory excursions of ruffian bands whose chief or only motive was plunder. On the 8th a body of rebels entered Arrah, fired some shot, and burnt Mr Victor’s bungalow; the troops at that station being too few to effectually dislodge them, a reinforcement was sent from Patna, which drove them away. Brigadier Douglas was placed in command of the whole of this disturbed portion of Behar, from Dinapoor to Ghazeepore, including the Arrah and Jugdispore districts; and he so marshalled and organised the troops placed at his disposal as to enable him to bring small bodies to act promptly upon any disturbed spots. He established strong posts at moderate distances in all directions. The rebels in this quarter having few or no guns left, Douglas felt that their virtual extinction, though slow, would be certain. He was constantly on the alert; insomuch that the miscreants could never remain long to work mischief in one place. Meghur Singh, Joodhur Singh, and many other ‘Singhs,’ headed small bands at this time. On the 17th, Captain Rattray had a smart encounter with some of these people at Dehree, or rather, it was a capture, with scarcely any encounter at all. His telegram to Allahabad described it very pithily: ‘Sangram Singh having committed some murders in the neighbourhood of Rotas, and the road being completely closed by him, I sent out a party of eight picked men from my regiment, with orders to kill or bring in Sangram Singh. This party succeeded most signally. They disguised themselves as mutinous sepoys, brought in Sangram Singh last night, and killed his brother (the man who committed the late murders by Sangram Singh’s orders), his sons, nephew, and grandsons, amounting in all to nine persons—bringing in their heads. At this capture, all the people of the south [of the district?] are much rejoiced. The hills for the present are clear from rebels. I shall try Sangram Singh to-morrow.’ The trunk-road from Calcutta to the upper provinces, about Sasseram, Jehanabad, Karumnassa, and other places, was frequently blocked by small parties of rebels or marauders; and then it became necessary to send out detachments to disperse them. As it was of immense importance to maintain this road open for traffic, military and commercial, the authorities, at Patna, Benares, and elsewhere, were on the alert to hunt down any predatory bands that might make their appearance.

Although Douglas commanded the district in which Jugdispore is situated, he did not hold Jugdispore itself. That place had changed hands more than once, since the day when Koer Singh headed the Dinapoor mutineers; and it was at the beginning of August held by Ummer Singh, with the chief body of the Behar rebels. Brigadier Douglas gradually organised arrangements for another attack on this place. His object was, if possible, so to surround Ummer Singh that he should only have one outlet of escape, towards Benares and Mirzapore, where there were sufficient English troops to bring him to bay. The rebels, however, made so many separate attacks at various places in the Shahabad district, and moved about with such surprising celerity, that Douglas was forced to postpone his main attack for a time, seeing that Jugdispore could not be invested unless he had most of his troops near that spot. All through the month of August we hear of partial engagements between small parties of rebels and much smaller parties of the English—ending, in almost every case, in the flight of the former, but not the less harassing to the latter. At one time we read of an appearance of these ubiquitous insurgents at Rasserah; at another at Arrah; at others at Belowtee, Nowadda, Jugragunje, Masseegunje, Roopsauguty, Doomraon, Burrarpore, Chowpore, Pah, Nurreehurgunje, Kuseea, Nissreegunje, and other towns and villages—mostly south of the Ganges and west of the Sone.

It is unnecessary to trace the operations in this province during September. There was no rebel army, properly so called; but there were small bands in various directions—plundering villages, burning indigo-works, molesting opium-grounds, murdering unprotected persons known or supposed to be friendly to the British, and committing atrocities from motives either of personal vengeance or of plunder. Of patriotism there was nothing; for the peaceful villages suffered as much from these ruffians as the servants of the state. The state of matters was well described by an eye-witness, who said that Shahabad (the district which contains Arrah and Jugdispore) ‘is one of the richest districts in Behar, and is pillaged from end to end; it is what an Irish county would be with the Rockites masters of the opportunity.’ It was a riot rather than a rebellion; a series of disorders produced by ruffians, rather than a manifestation of patriotism or national independence. To restore tranquillity, required more troops than Brigadier Douglas could command at that time; but everything foretold a gradual suppression of this state of disorder, when October brought him more troops and cooler weather.

We now pass on to the turbulent province of Oude—that region which, from the very beginning of the mutiny, was the most difficult to deal with. It will be remembered, from the details given in the former chapters, that Lucknow was entirely reconquered by the British; that the line of communication between that city and Cawnpore was safely in their hands; that after Sir Colin Campbell, Sir James Outram, and other generals had taken their departure to other provinces, Sir Hope Grant remained in military command of Oude; and that Mr Montgomery, who had been Lawrence’s coadjutor in the Punjaub, undertook, as chief-commissioner of Oude, the difficult task of re-establishing civil government in that distracted country.

It may be well here to take some notice of an important state document relating to Oude and its government, its thalookdars and its zemindars.

During the spring and summer,[[185]] the two Houses of Parliament were hotly engaged in a contest concerning Viscount Canning and the Earl of Ellenborough, which branched off into a contest between Whigs and Conservatives, marked by great bitterness on both sides. The immediate cause was a proclamation intended to have been issued (but never actually issued) by Viscount Canning in Oude, announcing the forfeiture of all estates belonging to thalookdars and zemindars who had been guilty of complicity with the rebels. The Earl of Ellenborough, during his brief tenure of office as president of the Board of Control, wrote the celebrated ‘secret dispatch’ (dated April 19th),[[186]] in which he condemned the proposed proclamation, and haughtily reproved the governor-general himself. It was a dispatch, of which the following words were disapproved even by the earl’s own party: ‘We must admit that, under these circumstances, the hostilities which have been carried on in Oude have rather the character of legitimate war than that of rebellion, and that the people of Oude should rather be regarded with indulgent consideration, than made the objects of a penalty exceeding in extent and in severity almost any which has been recorded in history as inflicted upon a subdued nation. Other conquerors, when they have succeeded in overcoming resistance, have excepted a few persons as still deserving of punishment, but have, with a generous policy, extended their clemency to the great body of the people. You have acted upon a different principle. You have reserved a few as deserving of special favour, and you have struck with what they will feel as the severest of punishment the mass of the inhabitants of the country. We cannot but think that the precedents from which you have departed will appear to have been conceived in a spirit of wisdom superior to that which appears in the precedent you have made.’

It was not until the month of October that the English public were made acquainted with Viscount Canning’s reply to this dispatch. During the interval of five or six months, speculation was active as to the mode in which he would view it, and the course he would adopt in relation to it. His reply was dated ‘Allahabad, June 17th,’ and, when at length publicly known, attracted general attention for its dignified tone. Even those who continued to believe that the much-canvassed proclamation would not have been a just one to issue, admitted (in most instances) the cogency of the governor-general’s arguments against the Ellenborough dispatch—especially in relation to the unfairness of making public a professedly ‘secret’ dispatch. The reply was not addressed to the earl, whose name was not mentioned in it throughout; its address was to ‘the Secret Committee of the Court of Directors,’ in accordance with official rule; but the earl was responsible, and alone responsible, for the dispatch and the severe language it contained. The personal part of Viscount Canning’s reply, the calm but indignant allusion to the ungenerous treatment he had received, was comprised in the first six clauses, which we give in a foot-note.[[187]] He proceeded to notice the strange way in which the Ellenborough dispatch almost justified the Oudians, as if they were fighting for a righteous cause—quite legitimate in a member of the legislature, proposing a reconsideration of the annexation of Oude; but quite unjustifiable in a minister serving Queen Victoria, who was at that moment, rightly or wrongly, the real Queen of Oude. Viscount Canning declined to discuss the policy which, two years earlier, had dictated the annexation; it was not his performance, nor was he empowered to undo it when once done. But he felt it incumbent on him to point out the disastrous effects which might follow, if the Oudians were encouraged by such reasonings as those contained in the Ellenborough dispatch. Speaking of the Begum, the Moulvie, the Nazim, and other rebel leaders in Oude, he stated that there was scarcely any unity of plan or sympathy of purpose among them; ‘but,’ he added, ‘I cannot think this want of unity will long continue. If it shall once become manifest that the British government hesitates to declare its right to possess Oude, and that it regards itself as a wrongful intruder into the place of the dynasty which the Begum claims to represent, I believe that this would draw to the side of the Begum many who have hitherto shewn no sympathy with the late ruling family, and that it is just what is wanting to give a national character to her cause. An uncompromising assertion of our authority in Oude is perfectly compatible with a merciful exercise of it; and I respectfully submit that if the government of India is not supported in making this assertion, and in declaring that the recent acts of the people of Oude are acts of rebellion, and that they may in strict right be treated as such, a powerful temptation will be offered to them to maintain their present struggle or to renew it.’

The governor-general’s defence of the proclamation itself we need not notice at any length; the proclamation was never issued in its original form—the subject being left generally to the discretion of Mr Montgomery. The tenor of his reply may be thus briefly indicated—That he went to Allahabad to reside, chiefly that he might be able personally to investigate the state of Oude; that he soon decided to make a difference between mutinied sepoys and Oudian rebels; that the latter should not be put to death for appearing in arms against the authorities, unless they had committed actual murder; that the general punishment for Oudian rebellion should be confiscation of estates, a punishment frequently enforced against rebels in past years, both by the British and by the native governments; that it is a punishment which in no way affects the honour of the most sensitive Rajpoot or Brahmin; that it admits of every gradation, according to the severity or lightness of the offence; that it would enable the government to reward friendly thalookdars and zemindars with estates taken from those who had rebelled; that most of the thalookdars had acquired their estates by spoliation of the village communities, at a time when they (the thalookdars) were acting under the native government as ‘nazims’ (governors) or ‘chuckladars’ (collectors of government rents); that, as a matter of abstract right, it would be just to give these estates back again to the village communities; but that, as there would be insuperable difficulties to this course, it would be better to take the forfeited estates of rebellious thalookdars as government property, out of which faithful villages and individuals might be rewarded.

Another reply, written by Viscount Canning on the 7th of July, was to the dispatch of the Court of Directors dated the 18th of May. In that dispatch the directors, while expressing full confidence in the governor-general, courteously requested him to furnish an explanation of the circumstances and motives which led him to frame the proclamation. This explanation he most readily gave, in terms equivalent to those above indicated. He expressed, too, his thankfulness for the tone in which the directors had written to him. ‘Such an expression of the sentiments of your honourable court would be to me a source of gratification and just pride under any circumstances; but the generous and timely promptitude with which you have been pleased to issue it, and the fact that it contains approval of the past, as well as trust for the future, has greatly enhanced its value. Your honourable court have rightly judged, that in the midst of difficulties no support is so cheering to a public servant, or so strengthening, as that which is derived from a declared approval of the spirit by which his past acts have been guided.’

It may be here remarked that some of the European inhabitants of Calcutta, who had from the first placed themselves in antagonism with Viscount Canning, prepared an address to the Earl of Ellenborough, thanking him for the ‘secret’ dispatch, denouncing the principles and the policy acted on by the governor-general, lamenting the earl’s retirement after so brief a tenure of office, denouncing the Whigs, and expressing a hope that the earl, whether in or out of office, would long live to ‘uphold the honour and interests of British India.’

We now proceed to a brief narrative of the course of events in Oude during July, August, and September.

The province, in the first of these three months, was in a remarkable condition. Mr Montgomery, as chief-commissioner, intrusted with large powers, gradually felt his way towards a re-establishment of British influence. Most of the dependants and adherents of the deposed royal family belonged to Lucknow; and it was hence in that city that they required most carefully to be watched. In the provinces, the late king’s power and the present British power were regarded with about equal indifference or dislike. A sort of feudalism prevailed, inimical to the recognition of any central authority, except in merely nominal matters. There were rebel forces under different leaders at different spots; but it is doubtful whether any of them were fighting for the deposed king; each leader had an eye to the assumption of power by or for himself. Even the Begum, one of the king’s wives, was influenced by motives very far removed from affection to her lord. Great as Montgomery’s difficulties were, therefore, they were less than would have been occasioned by a concentration of action, a unity of purpose, among the malcontents. He reorganised civil tribunals and offices in such districts as were within his power, and waited for favourable opportunities to do the like in other districts.

General Sir Hope Grant was Mr Montgomery’s coadjutor in these labours, bringing military power to bear where civil power was insufficient. In the early part of the month he remained at Lucknow, keeping together a small but efficient army, and watching the course of events around him. Later in the month, however, he deemed it necessary to take the field, and endeavour to chastise a large body of rebels who were setting up the Begum in authority at Fyzabad. On the 21st he started off in that direction, taking with him a force comprising the 1st Madras Europeans, the 2d battalion of the Rifle Brigade, the 1st Punjaub infantry, the 7th Hussars, Hodson’s Horse, twelve light guns, and a heavy train. It was considered probable that, on his way, Grant would relieve Maun Singh, the powerful thalookdar so often mentioned, who was besieged in his fort at Shahgunje by many thousand rebels. This cunning time-server had drawn suspicion upon his acts and motives on many former occasions; but as it was more desirable to have him as a friend than an enemy, and as he had unquestionably earned the enmity of the rebels by his refusal to act openly against the British, it was considered prudent to pay some attention to his present applications for aid. Grant and Montgomery, the one as general and the other as commissioner, held possession of the road from Cawnpore to Lucknow, and the road from Lucknow to Nawabgunge; it was hoped that Grant’s expedition would obtain command likewise of the road from Nawabgunge to Fyzabad. These are the three components of one main road which nearly intersects Oude from west to east; the possession of it would render practicable the gradual crushing of the rebel bands in different forts north and south of the road. The rebel leaders, about the middle of the month, were believed to comprise the Begum of Oude, her paramour Mummoo Khan, Beni Madhoo, Baboo Rambuksh, Bihonath Singh, Chandabuksh, Gholab Singh, Nurput Singh, the Shahzada Feroze Shah, Bhopal Singh, and others of less note; they had under their command sixty or seventy thousand armed men of various grades, and forty or fifty guns. More than half of the whole number were supposed to be with the Begum and Mummoo Khan, at Chowka-Ghât, beyond the river Gogra; and to these Sir Hope Grant directed his chief attention. Where Nena Sahib was hiding, the British authorities could never definitely learn; although it was known that he was near the northern or Nepaul frontier of Oude. It was believed that he, as well as the Begum, was becoming straitened for want of funds—appliances without which they could never hope to keep their rebel forces together.

The general, with his force from Lucknow, experienced no obstruction in his march towards Fyzabad. He arrived at a point within fourteen miles of that city by the 28th of July, having passed on his way through Nawabgunge—leaving the Rajah of Kupoorthulla to keep open his communications. His advance alarmed the rebel army which was at that time engaged in besieging Maun Singh in Shahgunje (twelve miles south of Fyzabad); it broke up into three divisions—one of which fled towards Gonda; a second marched for Sultanpore on the Goomtee; while a third made for Tanda on the Gogra. This precipitate flight shewed in a striking way the dread felt by the insurgents of an encounter with Sir Hope Grant; for their numbers are supposed to have been at least ten times as great as his. On the 29th, Grant entered Fyzabad, and there heard that a large body of rebels were escaping across the Gogra a mile or two ahead; he pushed on with cavalry and horse-artillery, but was only in time to send a few round-shot into their rear. On the following day, Maun Singh, now delivered from beleaguerment, had an interview with him. On the 2d of August, two of the three divisions of the rebel army contrived to join in the vicinity of Sultanpore, where they again formed a compact army of eighteen thousand men, with eleven guns. Notwithstanding the escape of the rebels, Grant’s undisputed occupation of Fyzabad made a great impression in the whole province. This place was a centre of Mohammedan influence; while near it was the very ancient though decayed city of Ayodha or Oude, one of the most sacred of Hindoo cities. Religious quarrels had often broken out between the two communities; and now the British shewed themselves masters alike over the Mohammedan and the Hindoo cities.

It was a great advantage at this time that Hurdeo Buksh, a powerful zemindar of Oude, was enabled to give practical efficiency to the friendly feeling with which he had regarded the English throughout the mutiny. At his estate of Dhurrenpore, not far from Nawabgunge, he organised a small force of retainers, which, with two guns, he employed in fighting against some of the neighbouring thalookdars and zemindars who were hostile to British interests. Such instances were few in number, but they were gradually increasing; and to such agency the ultimate pacification of Oude would necessarily be in considerable part due.

While Grant was encamped at Fyzabad, he made arrangements for routing some of the rebel bodies stationed in places to the east and southeast, whither they had fled on his approach. He made up a column—comprising the 1st Madras Europeans, the 5th Punjaub Rifles, a detachment of Madras Sappers, a detachment of the 7th Hussars, 300 of Hodson’s Horse, and a troop of horse-artillery. With this force, Brigadier Horsford was directed to proceed to Sultanpore, whither an important section of the rebels had retreated. Heavy rains prevented the departure of the brigadier so soon as had been intended; but he set forth on the 9th of August, and was joined on the way by a small force from Lucknow, comprising Brasyer’s Sikhs and two horse-artillery guns. On the 13th, Horsford took possession of Sultanpore, after a tough opposition from sixteen or eighteen thousand rebels; he not only drove the enemy across the river Goomtee, but shelled them out of the cantonments on the opposite banks. The most determined of the combatants among the rebels were believed to be those regiments of mutinied sepoys which had been known as the Nuseerabad brigade; they had established three posts to guard the ghâts or ferries across the river, and held these ghâts for a time with such obstinacy as to occasion them a severe loss.

Sultanpore occupied an important position in relation to the rest of Oude; being on the same river (the Goomtee) as Lucknow, and on the high road from Allahabad to Fyzabad. It was evident that this place, from the relative positions of the opposing forces, could not long remain at peace. The rebels endeavoured to regain possession of it after their defeat; while Sir Hope Grant resolved to prevent them. They returned to the Goomtee, and occupied many villages nearly opposite the city. On the 24th of August, Grant made preparations for crossing the river and attacking them. This plan he put in execution on the following day; when twelve hundred foot and two guns effected the passage, and seized three villages immediately in front. The rebels, however, maintained a position from which they could send over shot into the British camp; this lasted until the 29th, when they were driven from their position, and compelled to retire towards Sassenpore, where they reassembled about seven thousand of their number, with eight guns.

The first days of September found this body of rebels separating and recombining, lessening and augmenting, in a manner that renders it difficult to trace the actual movements. The real mutinous sepoys, the ‘Pandies’ of the once mighty Bengal army, were now few among them; and the fluctuating numbers were made up chiefly of the adherents of the rebellious thalookdars and zemindars of Oude—the vassals of those feudal barons—together with felons and scoundrels of various kinds. On one day they appeared likely to retire to Amethee, the stronghold of a rebel named Lall Madhoo Singh; on another, they shewed symptoms of marching to Mozuffernugger, a place about ten miles from Sultanpore; while on a third, some of them made their appearance at a town about twenty miles from Sultanpore on the Lucknow road.

At this time (September) the position of the British in Oude, so far as concerned the possession of actual governing power, was very singular. They held a belt of country right across the centre of the province from east to west; while the districts north and south of that belt were either in the possession of rebels, or were greatly troubled by them. The position was thus clearly described by the Lucknow correspondent of the Bombay Gazette: ‘The districts in our possession lie in a large ellipse, of which Lucknow and Durriabad are foci, the ends of one diameter being Cawnpore and Fyzabad. These cities are situated almost due east and west. Our civil jurisdiction extends, on the average, twenty-five miles all round Lucknow, and not much less round Durriabad. Our line of communication is uninterrupted from Cawnpore to Fyzabad, which latter borders on the Goruckpore district.’ North of this belt or ellipse were various bodies of rebels under the Begum, Mummoo Khan, Feroze Shah, Hurdut Singh, and other leaders; while south of the belt were other bodies under Beni Madhoo, Hunmunt Singh, the Rajah of Gonda, &c. Irrespective of these, were Nena Sahib and some of his relations who, though not to be encountered, were known to be still in the northeast of Oude, near the Nepaul frontier. Sir Hope Grant had immediate control over both banks of the Goomtee, near Sultanpore, and was preparing for a decisive advance against the rebels as soon as he was joined by Brigadier Berkeley, who was sent from Allahabad on an expedition presently to be noticed.

The portion of Oude nearest to Rohilcund, where the energetic Moulvie had lately lost his life, was kept for a long time in a state of anarchy by a combination of rebel chieftains, who declared hostility against the Rajah of Powayne for having betrayed and killed the Moulvie. They at first quarrelled a good deal concerning the possession of the effects of the deceased leader; but the Begum put in a claim, which seems to have been acceded to. Although the authorities at Lucknow could not at this time spare a force to rout out the insurgents on this side of Oude, the service was rendered from Rohilcund, as will be shewn shortly.

In a district of Oude between Lucknow and the Rohilcund frontier, a gallant affair was achieved by Mr Cavanagh, who had gained so much renown by carrying the message from Sir James Outram at Lucknow to Sir Colin Campbell’s camp. Being appointed chief civil officer of the Muhiabad district, he arranged with Captain Dawson and Lieutenant French to defend the district from rebels as well as they could, by the aid of a few native police and sowars. On the 30th of July a body of 1500 insurgents, with one gun, made a sudden attack on a small out-station defended only by about 70 men. The place was gallantly held until Cavanagh and French reached it. One bold charge sent the rebels fleeing in all directions; and the district was soon pacified. Mr Cavanagh had the tact to win over several small zemindars to the British cause, by threatening to punish them if insubordinate, and by undertaking to aid them if they were attacked by rebel bands; they combined to maintain four hundred matchlockmen at their own expense in the British cause. Many of the petty rajahs and zemindars had themselves been more than suspected; but the civil authorities were empowered to win them over, by an indulgent forgetfulness of their past conduct.

Interior of Hindoo Rajah’s House.

On another side of Oude, near Allahabad and the apex of the Doab, there were many bold and reckless thalookdars, who held out threats to all of their class who dared to profess friendship to the English. A loyal thalookdar, Baboo Rampursand Singh, was attacked by a number of these confederated chieftains with their retainers at Soraon; they took him and his family prisoners, destroyed his house, and sacked the village. As this course of proceeding would have deterred friendly thalookdars from a persistence in their loyalty, and still more certainly deterred waverers from making a choice adverse to the rebel cause, means were taken to check it. Brigadier Berkeley was placed in command of a ‘Soraon Field-force,’ hastily collected, comprising 200 of H.M. 32d foot, the 7th Punjaub infantry, about 150 other infantry, two troops of Lahore light horse, a detachment of Madras cavalry, detachments of horse and foot artillery, and nine guns and mortars. The brigadier set out for Allahabad, where the force had been collected, crossed the Ganges, marched to the Oude frontier, and came in sight of a body of rebels on the 14th of July, at the fort and village of Dehaign—one of the small forts in which Oude abounded. The rebels retired into the fort on his approach, allowing his skirmishers to take easy possession of the village. He encircled the fort with cavalry, and placed horse-artillery to watch any outlets of escape. A firing by heavy guns was not satisfactory to him, owing to the fort being completely hidden by trees and thick scrubby jungle; and he therefore resolved on storming the place by his infantry. The assault was speedily and thoroughly successful. About 250 of the rebels were killed in the fort and ditch; and about as many more were chased through the jungle and cut down by the cavalry and horse-artillery. The place was not properly a fort; it was a large area of jungle surrounded by a dilapidated earthen wall and ditch, and fenced with a thorny abattis, having a brick house in the centre. The rebels being driven out, Brigadier Berkeley caused the jungle to be cut, the walls to be levelled, and the house destroyed. After resting on the 15th, Berkeley proceeded on the 16th to the fort of Tiroul, seven miles north of Soraon. He found this fort in the middle of an impenetrable thorny jungle, through which a few paths were cut in directions known only to the natives; it was surrounded by a very thick thorny abattis; and it had walls, bastions, ditches, escarps, like a miniature fortress, with a stronghold in the centre to which the garrison could retire when closely pressed. There were only three guns on the bastions, but the walls were loopholed for musketry. So thick was the belt of trees and jungle around, that the brigadier could scarcely obtain a sight of the fort; he therefore deemed it prudent to employ his mortars and a 24-pounder howitzer before sending in his infantry to assault. This succeeded; the enemy evacuated the place during the night, leaving behind them their three guns and gun-ammunition. The infantry were on the alert to assist, but the enemy left them nothing to do. Fort Tiroul was then destroyed, as fort Soraon had been. The former was rather a superior example of an Oudian fort; although the walls and bastions were only of earth, they were of such considerable thickness, and were aided so greatly by loopholed parapets, ditches, breastworks, rifle-pits, thorny abattis, zigzag intrenchments, and thick jungle—that the enemy might have made a tough resistance to an infantry attack, if they had not been frightened out by shells and balls. By a somewhat similar train of operations, Brigadier Berkeley captured and destroyed a fort at Bhyspoor; and having thus finished the work intrusted to him, he returned with his temporary ‘Soraon Field-force’ to Allahabad. After a brief interval, he was again sent forth, to demolish other Oudian forts at places accessible from Allahabad, of which one was at Pertabghur; and then to advance to Sultanpore, to aid Sir Hope Grant. The two generals would then command a semicircle of country, within which most of the rebels in the eastern half of Oude would be enclosed; and an advance of other columns from Lucknow would completely hem them in. There were many symptoms, at the end of the month, that numerous zemindars and thalookdars were only waiting for a decent pretext, a decisive success of the British, to give in their adhesion.

The banks of the Ganges nearest to the province of Oude, even so low down as Allahabad, where the governor-general and the commander-in-chief were residing, required close watching; they were infested by bands of rebels, some of whom devastated the villages, while others sought to cross the Ganges into the Doab; and carry mischief into new districts. Towards the close of July—to cite one among many instances—it became known that the rebels had collected many boats on the Oude side of the river, ready to cross over into the Doab if the fortune of war should render this desirable. The authorities at once sent up the Jumna steamer, with a party of 130 Sikhs and two guns. At Manickpore and Kunkur, some distance up the river, they found more than twenty boats, which they succeeded in destroying; but the two forts were well armed with guns and rebels, and could not be safely attacked at that time—another and stronger expeditionary force was required to effect this. In August, and again in September, small forces were sent up from Allahabad by river, which had the desired effect of checking these insurgents.

Viscount Canning and Sir Colin Campbell both remained at Allahabad throughout the period to which this chapter relates—where, indeed, they had long been located. It was convenient for each in his special capacity, owing to its central situation. Sir Colin needed to be informed daily of the proceedings of all the brigades, columns, forces, and detachments which were out on active service. Gladly would he have kept them all under cover until the rainy season had passed; but the exigencies of the service prevented this: some troops were necessarily in the field—in Behar, in Oude, in Rohilcund, in Bundelcund, in the Mahratta states, in Rajpootana; and these, whether their number were few or many, were all working to one common end. At no other city could Sir Colin receive news from all those regions more promptly than at Allahabad. Again, Viscount Canning found it necessary to be in intimate communication with the commander-in-chief, in relation to all projects and arrangements involving military operations, on which the ultimate pacification of India so much depended. It was desirable, also, that he should be near Oude, the affairs of which were far more delicate than those of any other Indian province. Many events were likely to arise, concerning which the electric telegraph, though instantaneous, might be too curt and enigmatical, and which would be much better settled by a personal conference with the chief to whom the government of the Anglo-Indian empire was consigned.

Orders and dispatches, military and political, were issued in great number from Allahabad, which was the substitute for Calcutta at that time. Much progress had been made towards the construction of a new English town, with houses, hotels, offices, and shops; and much also in the building of new barracks, for the English troops which must necessarily continue to be stationed at this important place. The governor-general and the commander-in-chief were each surrounded with his staff of officials, for the transaction of business; and both worked untiringly for the public benefit.

From time to time Viscount Canning gave effect to several recommendations made by the generals and brigadiers for an acknowledgment of the fidelity and bravery of native soldiers. At a period when the treachery of the ‘Pandies’ of the Bengal army had been productive of such bitter fruit, it was doubly desirable to praise and reward such native troops as bore up well against the temptations to which they were exposed. On one day he issued orders for the promotion of certain officers and men of the Hyderabad Contingent, for conspicuous gallantry in the action at Banda; and in orders of subsequent dates, other well-deserving native troops were singled out for reward. Ressaldars were promoted to be ressaldar-majors, duffadars to be ressaldars or jemadars, bargheers and silladars to be duffadars, naiks to be havildars, and so on—these being some of the many designations of native military officers in India. One of the higher grade of native officers in the Hyderabad Contingent, Ressaldar-major Meer Dilawar Hossein, was made a member of the First Class of ‘the Order of British India,’ with the title of ‘Sirdar Bahadoor.’ Sometimes towns themselves were complimented, as a mode of gratifying the inhabitants, when good service had been rendered. Thus Sasseram became the subject of the following order: ‘As a special mark of the consideration of government for the loyal services rendered by Shah Koobeeroodeen Ahmed of Sasseram, and his fellow towns-people, in repelling the mutineers, the Right Hon. the Governor-general is pleased to confer upon Sasseram the name of Nasirool Hook-Kusbah, “Sasseram the aider or supporter of the rulers.”’

Sir Colin Campbell’s[[188]] daily duties of course bore relation chiefly to military matters. On one occasion, while at Allahabad, he reviewed the camel-corps as one of the reinforcements which from time to time arrived at that place. This was towards the close of July. It was a curious sight to see four hundred camels going through their military evolutions on the maîdan or plain outside the city. These ungainly beasts performed almost all the usual cavalry movements. Besides an armed native driver, each camel carried an English soldier, who occupied the back seat, and was in a position to use his rifle. The camels had been trained to the word of command. On a recognised touch of the guiding-string, they dropped on their knees, the riflemen descended quickly, went on for a distance in skirmishing order, remounted on the recall being signalled, and the camels then rose in their wonted clumsy manner. This corps was likely to render very valuable service, by rapidly conveying a few skilled riflemen to distances and over tracts which would be beyond the reach of infantry.

The commander-in-chief, a man indefatigable in the performance of his duties, acquired for himself the reputation of being a general who insisted on all the duties of regimental service being properly attended to by the officers; to the effect that all alike should work for the common cause, in camps and barracks, as well as in the field. The following order, issued about the close of August, will shew how numerous were the duties thus marked out: ‘The commander-in-chief begs that general officers commanding divisions and brigades will urge commanding-officers of her Majesty’s regiments, troops, and batteries, to give their most particular attention to all points of interior economy; to examine and correct regimental books; to re-enlist soldiers of limited service willing to renew their engagements; to complete soldiers’ clothing and necessaries, examine soldiers’ accounts, soldiers’ claims, and small account-books; to close, and render to the proper departments, the accounts of deceased officers and soldiers; to examine arms, accoutrements, and ammunition, and repair deficiencies; to continue judging-distance drills and musketry-instruction, as far as the climate will permit; to provide occupation for soldiers without harassing them by mere routine drills; to consider their comforts, diet, and amusements; to re-establish the regimental school, and encourage by every means the study of the Hindustani language, both by officers and soldiers disposed to study it; to ascertain by inquiry what means exist in the neighbourhood of their quarters, both in materials and workmen, to furnish their regiments with boots and clothing, in the event of failure of the usual supply; finally, to maintain the most exact discipline, the strict performance of all duties, and proper marks of respect to officers; which will be much assisted by a proper example on the part of officers, in dress and deportment, regularity in their duties, and treatment of native servants and followers.’

This last clause, ‘treatment of native servants and followers,’ related to a serious matter. Many of the younger officers, chiefly those whose knowledge of India had extended only over a few months, had acquired the habit of speaking and writing of the natives as if they were all fiends alike, to sabre and hang whom was a pleasurable duty. The atrocities of some were visited on all. The ‘Pandies’ who had begun the mutiny were now mixed up with others in the common designations of ‘niggers’ and ‘devils;’ and the officers above alluded to were far too prone to use the stick or the whip on the shoulders of natives, simply because they were natives, even when inoffensively employed. The observant correspondents of some of the London journals were too much struck with this dangerous tendency to allow it to pass unnoticed; they commented on it with severity. The letters from officers, made public in the journals published in India, furnished abundant proof of the feelings and language adverted to, conveyed in their own terms. Unless the mutiny were to end with general enmity on both sides, it was essential that an improved tone should prevail in this matter; and to this end, many hints were given by the authorities, in England as well as in India.

A few words will suffice to say all that need be said concerning the Doab and Rohilcund, the regions in which the mutiny really commenced.

Rohilcund was troubled with nothing beyond trifling disturbances during the month of July; and these came chiefly from Oude. Rebel leaders, with small bands of depredators, crossed the frontier, and harried some of the neighbouring villages. So little, however, was there of an organised rebel army in the province, that the predatory irruptions were easily quelled by means of small detachments of troops. At one period in the month a body of Oudians crossed into the northern part of Rohilcund, and combined with a rabble under one Nizam Ali in the wild Roodurpore tract of country. As it was considered possible that an attack on Pileebheet might be contemplated, the authorities at Bareilly sent a small force—comprising the Rohilcund Horse, a troop or two of Punjaub cavalry, and three companies of the Kumaon levies—to Pileebheet; this movement caused the insurgents to retire quickly. In the neighbourhood of Mohumdee, where much fighting had taken place during Sir Colin Campbell’s campaign in the spring, bands of rebels still hovered about, looking for any chances of success, and requiring to be carefully watched. One, of about four thousand men, was under Khan Bahadoor Khan of Bareilly; a second, under Khan Ali Nazim of Oude, numbered five thousand; and a third, under Wilayut Shah, mustered three thousand. These, with twenty or thirty guns, might have wrought much mischief if combined with the Oude rebels; but they were so placed on the frontier of the two provinces as to be nearly isolated, and afraid of any bold movements. The authorities, however, were on their guard. A force, including De Kantzow’s Horse, was sent for the protection of Powayne; and Rajah Juggernath Singh, of that place, had about two thousand men who could be depended upon to oppose the rebels. In August, the town and station of Pileebheet were frequently threatened by one Kala Khan, who had three thousand budmashes at his beck, with four guns. As it was deemed necessary to defend Noria, a station about ten miles distant, a small force was sent out from Pileebheet to effect this. Kala Khan attacked the force at Sersown, and brought on an engagement in which his three thousand were opposed to about five hundred. He received a severe defeat, and lost his guns, three elephants, and a number of bullocks. This occurred during the last week in August. In September, matters remained nearly in the same state; the authorities in Rohilcund could not at once spare troops in sufficient number to put down the insurgents thoroughly; but the successes of Sir Hope Grant, in the central parts of Oude, would gradually but necessarily weaken the isolated bands of rebels on the frontier of the two provinces.

Meerut and Delhi had long been at peace. No symptoms of rebel armies appeared near those cities. Sir John Lawrence, having had the province of Delhi attached to his government of the Punjaub, was ruling it with the same vigour as his other provinces. All the natives, Hindoo and Mohammedan, saw that he was a man not to be trifled with. Many of the antiquated usages of the East India Company, in force in other provinces, he abrogated, and introduced a system more suitable to the actual condition of the country and its inhabitants. The ‘regulations,’ as they are called, he abolished altogether; and established in their place a system of government in which summary trial by vivâ voce examination was adopted. A military police was organised; and every village compelled to pay compensation for any damage done within its boundaries.

The district around Etawah was occasionally disturbed by a dacoit leader named Roop Singh, who collected a band of adherents, comprising a few of the Gwalior Contingent, a few of the mutinied troops from Scindia’s own army, and numerous matchlockmen from the ravines of the Jumna. With this motley force he levied contributions from such of the villages as were not strong enough to resist him. He made his appearance at Ajeetmul and other places early in July; but was speedily routed out by a small detachment sent in pursuit. During August, this part of India was infested by men of the same class as those who troubled so many other provinces—reckless adventurers and escaped felons, who took advantage of the state of public affairs to plunder villages, and make exactions on every side. Some of them were headed by chieftains who could boast of a few hundred retainers, and who, with retainers and rabble together, gave more organisation to the plunderers. The principal among them was Roop Singh, mentioned above, who kept armed possession of a fort at Burhee, Bhurree, or Burhay, at the junction of the Chumbul with the Jumna, and occasioned great annoyance by attacking boats and levying toll as they passed. To keep these several mischief-makers in subjection required much activity on the part of the troops belonging to the district. Towards the close of the month, a force was sent out from Etawah purposely to take this fort and disperse the rebels. This was effectually accomplished on the 28th. Suspecting what was intended, the rebels attempted to check the progress of the boats carrying the detachment, at a place called Gurha Koodor, a fortified village three miles higher up. So long as the troops were in the boats, the rebels made a show of determination on shore; but a landing soon scattered them in all directions. The troops then re-embarked, floated down to Burhee, landed, took possession of the fort, and compelled Roop Singh to make a hasty retreat. This done, they collected and secured all the boats in the neighbouring parts of the rivers Jumna, Chumbul, and Kooraree, as a measure of precaution, clearing all the rebels from the vicinity of Dholpore. They then proceeded against the chief of Chuckernuggur, another leader of rebel bands whom it was necessary to put down. In September, Etawah, like the other districts around it, was very little troubled by warlike or mutinous proceedings.

Agra found no difficulty in maintaining order in and near the city. When, in June, the temporary success of Tanteea Topee and the Gwalior mutineers gave some cause for alarm, the authorities of Agra sent out troops to escort Scindia back to the capital of his dominions; and when, at a later date, those mutineers were fleeing from Gwalior, and were believed to be on the way to Bhurtpore or Odeypore, a detachment was sent out to check their approach. This detachment consisted of the 3d Bengal Europeans and a battery of guns, and was placed in aid of Brigadier Showers’s force. The demonstration took effect; for (as we shall see more in detail presently), Tanteea Topee bent his steps southward, away from the threatened assault; and Showers was enabled to send back the detachment through Futtehpore Sikri to Agra. From that time, during the summer and autumn months, Agra and its neighbourhood were at peace.

Directing attention next to the Punjaub, we may remark that those who had the keenest sense of the value of loyal integrity in times of trouble, were anxious to see the day when some recognition should be shewn of the services of three native rajahs, without whose co-operation it would scarcely have been possible for Sir John Lawrence to have sent those troops from the Punjaub which enabled Sir Archdale Wilson to recapture Delhi. These were the Rajahs of Putialah, Jheend, and Nabah—three small states which were at one time included within Sirhind, then among the ‘Sikh protected states,’ and then among the ‘Cis-Sutlej states.’ The rajahs were semi-independent, having most of the privileges of independent rulers, but being at the same time under certain engagements to the British government. If they had swelled the ranks of the insurgents, it is difficult to see how Hindostan could have been recovered; for these states intervene between Lahore and Umritsir on the one side, and Delhi on the other. From first to last the rajahs not only fulfilled their engagements, but more; and the government had abundant reason to be glad that these three territories had not been ‘annexed;’ for annexation, if not the cause, was unquestionably one of the aggravations to mutiny. Viscount Canning, in July, rewarded these three Sikh chiefs (for they were Sikhs, though not exactly Punjaubees) with estates and honours. The Rajah—or rather Maharajah, for he was of higher grade than the other two—of Putialah received certain territories in Jhujjur and Bhudour, on a certain military tenure in return for the revenues. He also received the gift of a house at Delhi which, once belonging to one of the begums of the imperial family, had been confiscated on account of her complicity in the mutiny. Lastly, his honorary titles were increased by the following: ‘Furzund Khan, Munsoor Zuman, Ameer-ool-Omrah, Maharajah Dhurraj Rajahshur Sree Maharajah Rajgan, Nirundur Singh Mahundur Bahadoor’—an accumulation, the weight of which would be oppressive to any but an oriental prince. The translation is said to be: ‘Special Son, Conqueror of the World, Chief of the Chiefs, Maharajah of Rajahs’—and so on. The Rajah of Jheend received the Dadree territory, thirteen villages in the Koolran Pergunnah, and a confiscated royal house at Delhi. The additions were: That he be allowed a salute of eleven guns; that his presents be increased from eleven to fifteen trays; that his state visits to the governor-general be returned by the secretary; and that his honorary titles be thus increased: ‘Most cherished Son of true Faith, Rajah Surroop Singh Walee Jheend.’ The Rajah of Nabah received similar presents, and the honorary appellations of—‘Noble Son of good Faith, Berar Bunsee Sirmoor Rajah Bhurpoor Singh Malindur Bahadoor.’ The revenues made over to these rajahs amounted—to the first, about £20,000 per annum; to the second, £12,000; to the third, £11,000.

Umritsir.

We may smile at these extravagances of compliment, but the services rendered deserved a solid reward as well as an addition to honorary titles. For, it must be remembered, the Rajah of Putialah maintained a contingent of 5000 troops—protected the stations of Umballa and Kurnaul at the outbreak of the mutiny—guarded the grand trunk-road from Kurnaul to Phillour, keeping it open for the passage of British and Punjaub troops—co-operated with General Van Cortlandt in Hissar—lent money when Sir John Lawrence’s coffers were running low—and encouraged others by his own unswerving loyalty. Again: the Rajah of Jheend, whose contingent was very small, did not hesitate to leave his own territory undefended, and march towards Delhi—assisting to defend most of the stations between that city and Kurnaul, and to keep open the communication across the Jumna. Again: the Rajah of Nabah, at the very outset of the disturbances, proceeded to aid Mr Commissioner Barnes in maintaining Loodianah—supplied an escort for the siege-train—gallantly opposed the Jullundur mutineers—provided carriage for stores—and made loans to the Punjaub government in a time of monetary need. The districts given to these rajahs, at the suggestion of Sir John Lawrence, were so chosen as to furnish a prudent barrier of Sikhs between turbulent Mohammedans on the one side and equally turbulent Rajpoots on the other.

Nor did the authorities neglect to recognise the services of humbler persons, although, principally from the proverbial slowness of official movements, the recognition was often delayed to an unreasonable extent. Occasion has more than once presented itself, in former chapters, for noticing the bestowal of the much-prized Victoria Cross on officers and soldiers who had distinguished themselves by acts of personal valour. Owing to the dilatory official routine just adverted to, it was not until the 27th of July that Sergeant Smith and Bugler Hawthorne received the Victoria Cross for their intrepid services at the siege of Delhi ten months before. Their regiment, the 52d foot, was at Sealkote in the Punjaub on that date; and Brigadier Stisted had the pleasure of giving the honouring insignia to them. He told them that the Victoria Cross is in reality more honourable than the Order of the Bath, seeing that no one can obtain it except by virtue of well-authenticated acts of heroism. He gracefully admitted that his own Order of the Bath was due more to the pluck and bravery of his men than to his own individual services; and in reference to the Victoria Cross he added: ‘I only wish I had it myself.’ Another bestowal of this honour we will briefly mention, to shew what kind of spirit is to be found within the breasts of British troops. The award of the Cross, in this instance, was delayed no less than fourteen months after the achievement for which it was given; and the soldier may well have doubted whether he would ever receive it. The instance was that of Gunner William Connolly, of the Bengal horse-artillery; and the conduct for which his officer, Lieutenant Cookes, recommended him for this distinction, was recorded in a dispatch from which an extract is here given in a foot-note.[[189]]

A very unexpected event, in July, was the revolt of a regiment, or a portion of a regiment, in that region of India which was believed to be more vigorously governed and in better hands than any other—the Punjaub. The facts, as they afterwards came out (mostly, however, on hearsay evidence), appear to have been nearly as follow: The 18th Punjaub infantry, stationed at Dera Ismael Khan, on the western side of the Indus, contained among its numbers about a hundred Malwaie Sikhs, a peculiar tribe different from the other Sikhs of the Punjaub. These Malwaies planned a mutiny. On a particular night, some of them were to murder the officers of the station; the fort was to be seized; and the 39th Bengal native infantry, which had been disarmed some time previously, was to be re-armed from the magazines and stores of the fort. The two regiments of mutineers, perhaps joined by the Sikhs of Renny’s regiment at Bunnoo, were then to embark in boats on the Indus, taking with them the guns, ammunition, and treasure, and were to float down to Dera Ghazee Khan; here they expected to be joined by the native garrison, with whom they would cross the Indus to Moultan; and lastly, with two regiments from the last-named place, they hoped to march upon Lahore. Such was the account, probably magnified in some of its particulars, obtained of the plans of the mutineers. So far as concerned the actual facts, the plot was discovered in time to prevent its execution. On the evening of the 20th, Major Gardiner of the 10th Punjaub infantry, and Captain Smith of the artillery, having received from some quarter a hint of what was intended, went down to the lines at ten o’clock at night, and summoned two of the men to appear. One, a sepoy, came first; he was ordered at once to be confined; but no sooner did he hear the order, than he ran off. Just as the guard were about re-capturing this man, a jemadar rushed out, cut down one of them, and wounded another. The sepoy and the jemadar, who were the ringleaders in the plot, escaped for a time, but were captured a few days afterwards. As soon as Sir John Lawrence heard of this occurrence, he ordered the disarmed 39th to be sent to Sealkote, where their movements could be more carefully watched.

Still more serious, in its nature if not in its intention, was the outbreak of the 62d and 69th Bengal native infantry, with a native troop of horse-artillery, at Moultan. These disarmed regiments, like many others in similar plight, were a source of embarrassment to the authorities. They could not safely be re-armed, for their Hindustani sympathies caused them to be suspected; while it was a waste of power to employ English soldiers to watch these unarmed men in their lines. At length it was determined to disband the two regiments, and let the men depart, a few at a time, and under necessary precautions, to their own homes. When this order was read out to them, they appeared satisfied; but a rumour or suspicion spread that there was an intention of destroying them piecemeal on the way. Whether this or any other motive actuated them, is not fully known; but they broke out into rebellion on the 31st of August. There were at Moultan at the time about 170 of the royal artillery, a wing of the 1st Bengal Europeans, the 11th Punjaub infantry, and the 1st Bengal irregular cavalry. Just as the mid-day gun fired, the two disarmed mutinous regiments rose in mutiny, seized anything they could find as weapons, and made a desperate assault on the troops at the station not in their plot. The 62d made their attack on the artillery stables and the European barracks; the 69th went at the guns and the artillery barracks. As these mutineers had few weapons but sticks, their attack appeared so strange, and was so wholly unexpected, that the loyal troops at the station were at first hardly prepared to resist them, and a few Europeans lost their lives; but when once the real nature of the mad attempt was clearly seen, the result was fearful. The misguided men were shot or cut down by all parties and in all quarters. Of thirteen hundred mutineers, few lived to return to their own Hindostan; three or four hundred were laid low in and near Moultan, others were shot by villagers, others were captured and brought in for military execution. It was the nearest approach to the utter annihilation of two regiments, perhaps, that occurred throughout the wars of the mutiny. The sepoys sometimes behaved more like madmen, at others more like children, than rational beings. In the present case they had scarcely a chance of success; for the Sikhs and Punjaubees around them displayed no affection for Hindustanis; the soldiery shot and cut them down, while the peasantry captured them for the sake of the reward offered. They possibly reckoned on the support of the 1st Bengal irregular cavalry; but this regiment remained loyal, and assisted in cutting down the sepoys instead of befriending them.

This occurrence strongly attracted the attention of the government. The disarmed sepoys, as has been more than once mentioned, were a source of much perplexity; it was not decided in what way best to set them free; and on the other hand, such an outbreak as this shewed that it would not be safe to re-arm them. There was at the same time a necessity for watching the Sikh and Punjaubee troops—now nearly 70,000 in number. Hitherto they had behaved admirably, fighting manfully for the government at times and places where the Hindustanis had been treacherous. That they had done so, afforded a justification for the confidence which Sir John Lawrence had placed in them; but that sagacious man saw that recruiting had gone quite far enough in this direction. It was just possible that the Punjaub army might become too strong, and rejoice in its strength by means of insubordination.

One of the incidents in the Punjaub during the month of August related to a physical rather than a moral outbreak—the overwhelming of a military station by a river torrent. The Indus, when about to enter the Punjaub from the Himalaya, passes through a narrow ravine in the Irhagan Hills. The rocks on either side here, undermined by the action of the water through unknown centuries, broke away and fell into the river. Half the water of the stream still continued to find its way onward; but the other half became dammed up, and accumulated into a vast lake. When the pressure of this body of water had augmented to an irresistible degree (which it did in fifteen days), it burst its barrier and rushed down with indescribable force, sweeping away villages on its banks. At Attock the level of the river rose fifty feet in one hour, carrying away the bridge of boats which constituted the only roadway over the Indus, and destroying workshops and timber-stores on the banks. The Cabool river, coming from Afghanistan, and joining the Indus at Attock, had its stream driven backwards or upwards with fearful rapidity; it speedily overflowed its banks, and destroyed nearly all the houses at the military station of Nowsherah. ‘The officers,’ said an eye-witness, ‘not knowing when it would stop, but hoping the flood would soon subside, put all their things on the tops of their houses; but the water still continued rising, and house after house went down before it.... The barracks were flooded and vacated by the troops; and all, gentle and simple, had to pass the night on some sand-hills.’ The barracks, being ‘pucka-built’ (burnt bricks and mortar), were not destroyed, although flooded; the other buildings, being ‘rutcha-built’ (unburnt bricks and mud), were destroyed. The troops were at once removed to Peshawur; but the destruction of the boat-bridge at Attock threatened a serious interruption to military movements.

Nothing occurred in the Punjaub during September to need record here; nor did Sinde depart from its usual peaceful condition. Both of these large provinces, filling up the western belt of India from the Himalaya to the ocean, were held well in hand by the civil and military authorities.

Attention must now be transferred to those regions which, during many months, had been disturbed by anarchy and rebellion—Bundelcund, the Mahratta States, and Rajpootana. These large territories contained many petty chieftains, among whom a considerable number were prone to seize this opportunity to strengthen themselves by plundering their neighbours. Of patriotism, there was little enough; men appeared in arms for their own interests, or what they deemed their own interests, rather than for any common cause involving nationality or affection to native princes.

Bundelcund and the Saugor provinces were chiefly under the military control of General Whitlock, who had advanced from Madras with a force consisting chiefly of Madras troops, and had gradually established regular government in districts long troubled by violence and confusion. At the end of June, as the last chapter shewed, Whitlock’s force was divided into a great many detachments, which overawed the turbulent at as many different stations; and the same state of matters continued, with slight variations, during the next three months. It must, however, be mentioned here, in relation to military commands, that—as one mode of facilitating the thorough discomfiture of the rebels—Viscount Canning made a new arrangement affecting the Saugor and Gwalior territories. That portion of India having been much disturbed during a period of more than twelve months, it was determined to establish there two military divisions instead of one, and to place in command of those divisions two of the generals who by hard fighting had become accustomed to the district and the class of inhabitants. General Whitlock was appointed to the Saugor division, which was made to extend to the Jumna, and to include the districts of Saugor, Jubbulpoor, Banda, Humeerpoor, and Calpee, with Saugor as the military head-quarters. General Napier was appointed to the Gwalior division, which was made to include Gwalior, Sepree, Goonah, and Jhansi. This arrangement, organised about the end of July, was to hold good whether any rebels should make a sudden outbreak, or whether the troops were fortunate enough to have a period of repose during the rainy season. Whitlock’s force, consisting of H.M. 43d foot, the 1st and 19th Madras native infantry, with a proportion of cavalry and artillery—was mainly in two brigades, under Brigadiers Macduff and Rice.

Brief mention was made in the last chapter of a large capture of treasure by General Whitlock. This matter must here be noticed a little more fully, on account of its connection with the intricacies of Mahratta dynastic changes. During the general’s operations in Bundelcund, he marched from Banda towards Kirwee in two brigades, intending to attack Narain Rao at the last-named place. This chieftain, a descendant of the Peishwa of the Mahrattas, possessed a rabble army, with which for a time he attempted to block up the roads of approach to Kirwee. The resistance made, however, was very slight; and shortly before Whitlock entered the place, Radha Govind, an adherent of Narain Rao, escaped from the town in the opposite direction, taking with him most of the armed men, and a large quantity of money and jewels, but no guns. Narain Rao, and another Mahratta leader named Madhoo Rao, remained at Kirwee. Their fears having been roused, they now resolved to surrender as a means of obtaining forgiveness for their rebellious proceedings. They came out to meet Whitlock, at a camping-ground a few miles from Kirwee. Delivering up their swords, they were kept securely for a time. Whitlock took possession of the town and palace, and found that the rebels had been busily engaged in casting cannon, making gunpowder, and enlisting men. In the palace and its precincts were discovered forty pieces of cannon, an immense supply of shot and powder, two thousand stands of arms, numerous swords and matchlocks, accoutrements of many of the rebel sepoy regiments, elephants and horses, and a vast store of wealth in cash and jewels. It was conjectured that the jewels might possibly be those which, half a century earlier, had mysteriously disappeared from Poonah, and were supposed to be in possession either of Scindia or Holkar, the most powerful of the Mahratta chiefs in those days; but the discovery now led to an opinion that the jewels had been stolen or appropriated by Bajee Rao, father of Narain Rao, and hidden by that family for half a century. As to the quantity and value of cash and jewels captured, it will be prudent to venture on no estimate. Some of the Anglo-Indian journals spoke of ‘a hundred and forty cart-loads of gold ingots and nuggets, and forty lacs of rupees,’ besides the jewels; but to whatever degree this estimate may have been exaggerated, the largeness of the sum gave rise to many inquiries concerning the history of the family to which it had belonged, and of which Nena Sahib was an ‘adopted’ member. It then transpired, that the first Peishwa of the Mahrattas, who died in 1720, was succeeded by Balajee Rao Sahib; one of Balajee’s sons, Ragoba Dada, died in 1784; and from him were descended Narain Rao and Madhoo Rao, by one branch, and Nena Sahib by another—or rather, all these three individuals were adopted sons of Ragoba’s descendants. According to the loose principles of oriental heirship, therefore, it was not difficult for any one among several Mahratta princes to set up a claim to the enormous wealth which, at a time of discord at the Peishwa’s court, somehow disappeared from the treasury at Poonah.

Throughout India, there was no province which more strikingly illustrated than Bundelcund the misery which some of the villages must have suffered during many months of anarchy, when predatory bands were passing to and fro, and rebel leaders were forcing contributions from all who had anything to lose. Writing early in July concerning the Banda district, a British officer said: ‘This district has suffered very extensively in the long interval of disorder to which it was abandoned; the various bands of mutineers passing up from Dinapoor did great mischief; various powerful villages preyed considerably upon their weaker neighbours; and, lastly, the Nawab and Narain Rao’s officials extracted by torture every farthing they could get. Many villages are completely deserted, and many more have been burned to the ground, and the people plundered of all the grain and cattle and other property which they possessed. They have gained a very fair idea of what they are to expect under a native government; and I firmly believe they generally hail our return with delight.’

The difficulty of supplying English troops, or reliable native troops, to the numerous points where insurgents were known to be lurking, led occasionally to rebel successes little looked for by the authorities. Thus, on the first of August, a party of mutinous sepoys, headed by a subadar, took possession of the town of Jaloun, near the frontier of Scindia’s territory; this they were enabled to do by the connivance of some of the inhabitants, who opened the gates for them. They were, however, speedily driven out by a small force from Calpee, under Brigadier Macduff. A slight but brilliant cavalry affair occurred about the middle of August, in a district of the Saugor territory placed under General Whitlock’s care. A body of a thousand rebels, under Indur Goshun and other chiefs, had for some time been committing great havoc in the district, plundering the villages, and ill-using all the inhabitants who would not yield to their demands. After having thus treated Shahpoor, they advanced to Garrakotah with similar intent. To prevent this, a small force was sent from Saugor under Captain Finch. He made a forced march; and when within a few miles of them, seeing his infantry were tired out, he rushed forward with only sixty-seven troopers. So impetuous was the charge made by these horsemen on the rebels, that they killed a hundred and fifty, took many wounded prisoners, and brought away three hundred matchlocks and swords. The leader of the rebels, Indur Goshun, was among the slain. In another part of Bundelcund, between Banda and Rewah, about the middle of August, were three groups of rebels—one under Baboo Radha Govind and Gulabraee, a second under Runmunt Singh, and a third under Punjah Singh and Dere Singh. They were supposed to amount, in all, to six thousand men; but only three hundred of these were regular sepoys, and two hundred horsemen, the rest being adventurers and rabble. After ravaging many villages, they approached the station of Kirwee on the 13th. Brigadier Carpenter at once went out to meet them with a small force from Kirwee; he found Runmunt Singh’s band drawn up as if for battle, but a few shots sent them fleeing. About the same time Punjab Singh and Dere Singh were defeated by a small force under Captain Griffin. Early in August, Captain Ashburner set out from Jhansi with five hundred men, on the duty of dispersing a few Bundela chiefs who had been engaged in rebellious machinations. The weather being very heavy, and the rebels swift of foot, a long period elapsed before anything decisive could be effected; but on the 1st of September, he came up with a body of rebels, occupying Mahoni and Mow Mahoni, two villages on the opposite banks of the small river Pooj, both surrounded by deep and difficult ravines, which rendered them strong places. After a little skirmishing, the rebels were driven by shot and shell out of Mahoni, and Ashburner crossed to attack a fort at Mow Mahoni. Symptoms soon appeared that the rebels were making off. Ashburner despatched fifty cavalry, all he had to spare at the moment, under Lieutenant Moore, to gallop after and cut them up in retreat. Moore effected this in dashing style.

We now turn to a region further west, in which the operations were more important than those of Bundelcund.

Referring to former chapters for the details of Sir Hugh Rose’s victory over the Gwalior mutineers, and of his retirement to Bombay after a long season of incessant activity; we proceed to notice the operations of the troops after he parted company from them. His small but famous army, the ‘Central India Field-force,’ was broken up into detachments about the middle of July. The hope entertained was, that the fatigued soldiers might be able to go into quarters during the rainy season, as a means of recruiting their strength for any operations that might be necessary when the cooler and more tranquil weather of the autumn arrived. To understand this, it may be well to bear in mind that the rains of Britain furnish no adequate test of those of India, which fall in enormous abundance at certain seasons, rendering field-operations, whether for industry or war, very difficult. The detachments above adverted to could only in part obtain cessation of duties during the rainy season of 1858. At Jhansi were General Napier and Colonel Liddell; with a squadron of the 14th Light Dragoons, a wing of the 3d Bombay cavalry, the 3d Bombay Europeans, the 24th Bombay native infantry, a company of Bombay Sappers, and three guns of the late Bhopal Contingent. At Gwalior, under Brigadier Stuart, were three squadrons of the 14th Light Dragoons, Meade’s Horse, a wing of the 71st Highlanders, the 86th foot, the 95th foot, the 25th Bombay native infantry, a company of Bombay artillery, a company of royal engineers, and a light field-battery. At Seepree, under Brigadier Smith, were two squadrons of the 8th Hussars, two of the 1st Bombay Lancers, the 10th Bombay native infantry, and a troop of Bombay horse-artillery. Lastly, at Goonah, were Mayne’s irregular horse. Sir Hugh Rose himself was at that time at Bombay receiving the well-won congratulations of all classes, and resting for a while from his exhausting labours.

At Gwalior, where the rainy season soon began to shew symptoms, General Napier made preparations for the comfortable housing of his troops. The Maharajah, now more firmly knit than ever in bonds of amity with the British, lent his aid in this matter. Sir Robert Hamilton again took up his permanent residence in the city, gradually re-establishing political relations with the various petty states around. During July there was scarcely any fighting in Scindia’s territory; and the component elements of the now-dissolved Central India Field-force were allowed to remain pretty well at peace.

Before tracing the Central India operations of August, it may be well to see what was doing in Rajpootana during July.

After the siege and capture of Gwalior by Sir Hugh Rose, as we have already narrated, the rebels made a hasty flight northwestward, across the river Chumbul, into Rajpootana; where a victory was gained over them by General Napier, who had been despatched after them for that purpose by Sir Hugh Rose. They appear to have separated, after that, into three bodies. The most important section, under Tanteea Topee and Rao Sahib, received the especial watchfulness of General Roberts, as comprising some of the best of the mutinied troops, and possessing a large amount of Scindia’s property. Roberts took up the work which Rose had laid down. His ‘Rajpootana Field-force,’ now that detachments had been separated from it for service in various quarters, was by no means a large one. It comprised H.M. 83d foot, a wing of the 72d Highlanders, wings of the 12th and 13th Bombay native infantry, a few squadrons of the 8th Hussars and 1st Bombay Lancers, 400 Belooch horse, a light field-battery, and a siege-train of six pieces. The chief body of rebels, under Tanteea Topee and Rao Sahib, made their appearance, a few days after their defeat at Gwalior, at a point more than a hundred miles to the northwest, threatening Jeypoor. Roberts at once marched from Nuseerabad, to check these fugitives. He reached Jeypoor without opposition on the 2d of July; and there he learned news of Tanteea’s miscellaneous force of about ten thousand men. The rebel leader was reported to have with him Scindia’s crown-jewels and treasure, the former estimated at one million sterling value, and the latter at two millions. The treasure, being mostly in silver, was of enormous weight; and Tanteea had been endeavouring to exchange it for gold, on terms that would have tempted any money-changer in more peaceful times: seeing that fifty shillings’ worth of silver was offered for gold mohurs worth only thirty shillings each. On the 5th Tanteea and his troops were at Dowlutpore, thirty-four miles south of Jeypoor; and it thereupon became a problem whether Roberts could overtake them before they reached the more southern states of Rajpootana; for he was on that day at Sanganeer, near Jeypoor. During the next few days, large bodies of rebels were seen, or reported to have been seen, at places whose names are not familiar to English readers—such as Chatsoo, Lalsoont, Tongha, Gureasa, Karier, Madhopore, Jullanee, Tonk, Bursoonie, Bhoomgurh, &c.—all situated in the northeast part of Rajpootana, and separated from the Gwalior region by the river Chumbul. We also find that General Roberts marched through or halted at many places whose names are equally unfamiliar—Sherdoss, Gurbroassa, Glooloussee, Donghur, Kukkor, Rumpore, and Bhugree. In fact, the rebels marched wherever they thought they could capture a stronghold which might serve them as a citadel; while Roberts tried every means to intercept them in their progress. On the 9th, the rebels took possession of the town of Tonk—situated on the river Bunnas, nearly due east of Nuseerabad, and about one-third of the distance from that station to Gwalior; they plundered it, captured three brass guns and a little ammunition, and besieged the Nawab in the neighbouring fort of Bhoomgurh. Roberts immediately sent on a detachment under Major Holmes, in advance of his main force; and the enemy hastily departed as soon as they heard of this. To enable him to keep up the pursuit more effectually, the general sent to Seepree for Colonel Smith’s brigade. There was strong reason to suspect that the rebels wished to penetrate into Mewar and Malwah, provinces far to the south of Gwalior and Jeypoor, and in which the Mahrattas and Rajpoots counted many leaders who were ripe for mischief. To prevent this southward progress was one of the objects which General Roberts held well in view; this was the more necessary, because the country here indicated affords many mountain fastnesses from which it would be difficult to expel insurgent bands. Roberts was disappointed in not being able to come up with the Gwalior rebels at Tonk; but a few days’ sojourn at that town greatly relieved his troops, who had suffered severely during a fortnight’s marching in sultry weather, losing many of their number by sun-stroke.

By the 23d of the month, when Major Holmes was still in pursuit of the enemy, who were reported to be approaching the fortress of Mandulghur in Mewar, Roberts broke up his temporary camp at Tonk, and recrossed the river Bunnas—his movements being greatly retarded by the swollen state of the stream and the swampy condition of the fields and roads. After wading for a whole week through an almost continuous slimy swamp, he came within twenty-four miles of Nuseerabad on the 1st of August. Sending all his sick to that station, he prepared to continue a pursuit of Tanteea Topee towards the south, with as great a rapidity as the state of the country would permit.

We now turn again to the Gwalior territory, to trace such operations as took place in the month of August.

About the middle of the month, there were no fewer than five detachments of the late Central India Field-force marching about the country on and near the confines of Scindia’s Gwalior territory. Sir Hugh Rose’s wish and expectation, that his exhausted troops would be able to remain quietly at quarters during the rainy season, were not realised; the state of affairs rendered active service still necessary. One detachment, under General Napier, had set out from Gwalior, and was on the way to Paoree, on an expedition presently to be mentioned; a second was at Burwa Saugor, on the river Betwah; a third at Nota, sixty miles from Jhansi, on the Calpee road; a fourth at Fyzabad (one of many places of that name), fifty miles from Jhansi on the Saugor road; and a fifth, consisting of Sappers and Miners, were preparing a bridge over the Betwah, ten miles from Jhansi. Colonel Liddell, at that period commandant of the Jhansi district, was on the alert to supply small detachments of troops to such places in the vicinity as appeared to need protection; and he himself started off to Burwa Saugor, near which place a rebel chieftain was marching about with three thousand men and two or three guns.

A circumstance occurred, early in August, which led to an expedition in a new direction, and to an eventual co-operation of General Napier with General Roberts in a pursuit of the rebels. This occurrence was an outbreak which required immediate attention. A petty Mahratta chieftain, Man Singh (not Maun Singh of Oude), who had conceived himself aggrieved by Scindia, put himself at the head of 2000 men, and on the 3d of the month, attacked and captured the strong fort of Paoree, southwest of Gwalior, and about eighteen miles from Seepree. Brigadier Smith, on hearing of this, started off on the 5th from the last-named station, with a force consisting of four squadrons of the 8th Hussars, the 1st Bombay Lancers, a wing of H.M. 95th foot, and three field-guns. On nearing Paoree, Man Singh sent a messenger to inquire what was the purpose of the brigadier, seeing that the quarrel was with Scindia and not with the English; he obtained an interview, and stated that his grievance arose from the refusal of Scindia to recognise his (Man Singh’s) right to succeed his father in the principality of Nerwar and the country adjacent; and he further declared that he had no connection with the mutineers and rebels who were fighting against the English. Brigadier Smith, responsible for a time for the peace of that district, could not admit such a plea in justification of the maintenance of an armed force against the sovereign of the country; it would have been dangerous. Man Singh, thereupon, increasing the number of his retainers within the fort of Paoree to three or four thousand, prepared to defend himself. Scindia had some time before stored the fort with six months’ provisions, in case he should deem it at any time necessary to defend the place from the rebels; but this proved to be an unlucky precaution, for Man Singh captured the place in a single night, and then had the six months’ supplies to count upon. Brigadier Smith, finding his eleven hundred men too few to capture the fort, sent to Gwalior for a reinforcement and for a few siege-guns. In accordance with this requisition, a force of about 600 horse and foot, with five guns and four mortars, set out from Gwalior on the 11th. General Napier, feeling the importance of settling this matter quickly, resolved to attend to it in person; he started from Gwalior, reached Mahona on the 14th, and Seepree on the 17th, and joined Smith on the 19th. On the 23d, this demonstration had its effect on Man Singh, who, with another chieftain, Ajheet Singh, had been holding Paoree. Napier poured a vertical fire into the fort for twenty-four hours, and then commenced using his breaching-batteries. But the enemy did not await the result; they evacuated the place, and fled through a jungle country towards the south. Napier entered Paoree, garrisoned it, and hastily made up a column, with which Colonel Robertson started off in pursuit of the rebels. Robertson, after many days’ rapid march, came up nearly to the rear of Man Singh’s fleeing force; but that active leader, scenting the danger, made his rebels separate into three parties, with instructions to recombine at an appointed place; and for the present pursuit was unavailable. When August closed, Man Singh was at Sirsee, north of Goonah, with (it was supposed) about sixteen hundred men, but no guns. General Napier, having destroyed the fortifications at Paoree, and burst the guns, retired to Seepree, where he was encamped at the end of the month, making arrangements for a further pursuit of Man Singh in September.

While the forces in the Gwalior territory were thus employed, General Roberts was engaged in a more important series of operations in Rajpootana. On the 1st of August, as we have seen, Roberts was sufficiently near Nuseerabad to send his sick to that station, where they could be better attended to than on the march; while he himself would be more free to make a rapid advance southward. Major Holmes, many days before, had been sent from Tonk by Roberts, with a force consisting of 120 Bombay Lancers, 220 of H.M. 72d foot, four companies of the 12th Bombay N.I., and four guns—to pursue the retreating rebels in a certain (or rather an uncertain) direction. The duty was a most harassing one. It was difficult to obtain reliable information of the route taken by the rebels; and even when the route was known, they never once allowed him to overtake them—so rapid were their movements. So important was it considered to catch these Gwalior mutineers, that the Bombay government (with whom the operations in Rajpootana rested) sent out small expeditionary forces from various places, according as probabilities offered for intercepting the mutineers. Thus, on the 1st of August, Major Taylor started from Neemuch with a force, consisting of 300 of H.M. 72d Highlanders, 400 of the 13th Bombay N.I., 180 of the 2d Light Cavalry, a few engineers, four guns, and a military train. It was believed that, on that day, about seven thousand of the Gwalior mutineers were somewhere between Chittore and Rampoora, a few miles distant from Neemuch; and Major Taylor entertained a hope that he might intercept and defeat them. We have already seen that General Roberts had had a most harassing duty, attended with very little success, seeing that he could seldom manage to reach a town or village in which the rebels had halted, until after they had taken their departure; and it was now Major Taylor’s turn to share the same ill-luck. He returned to Neemuch on the 7th, disappointed. His advance-guard had seen the rebels near Rampoora in great force; yet the latter, though many times stronger than himself in troops, would not stand the chance of an engagement. The rebels escaped, and Taylor returned with his mission unfulfilled.

Jeypoor.

One advantage, at any rate, the British could count upon at this period—the fidelity of many native rajahs, who would have terribly complicated the state of affairs if they had joined the rebels. Tanteea Topee sounded the Rajah of Jeypoor, then the Rajah of Kotah, next the Rajah of Ulwar, all of them native princes of Rajpootana; and it was on account of the refusal of those rajahs to receive or countenance him, that the rebel made such strangely circuitous marches from one state to another. Whither he went, however, thither did Roberts follow him. The general, after sending his sick to Nuseerabad, marched to Champaneer on the 4th, and to Deolia on the 5th. At that time, it was believed that the rebels, checked in some of their plans by the floods, had turned aside from Mandulghur to Deekodee, in the direction of Odeypore. On the 8th—after a forced march with 500 of H.M. 83d, 200 Bombay infantry, 60 Gujerat horse, and three guns—General Roberts came up with a body of rebels near Sunganeer (not Sauganeer near Jeypoor), where they occupied a line on the opposite side of the river Rotasery. He speedily routed them; but as usual, they fled too rapidly for him to overtake them; they made towards the Odeypore road. Roberts, again disappointed of his prey, was forced to rest his exhausted troops for a while.

The general, when Major Holmes had rejoined him after a fruitless pursuit of the mutineers, again considered anxiously the conditions and possibilities of this extraordinary chase. He had, each day, to endeavour to discover the locality of the rebels, then to guess at their probable future movements, and, lastly, to lay plans for overtaking or intercepting them. On the 11th, they were supposed to be at Lawah; and on the 12th, they marched to the crest of the Chutterbhoog Ghaut, with a view of passing from Mewar into Marwar. Captain Hall, commanding at Erinpoora, held a post at the foot of this ghaut, with a small force sufficient to deter the rebels. They thereupon changed their plan, retraced their steps to some distance, and marched over a rocky country to Kattara or Katario, a village near the Nathdwara Hills; here they encamped on the 13th. Meanwhile General Roberts, with his force strengthened by that of Major Holmes, started from the vicinity of Sunganeer on the 11th, and by the evening of the 13th had marched sixty-seven miles. On that night he was at Kunkrowlee, within eight miles of the rebels; but his troops were too much exhausted to proceed further without a little rest. On the forenoon of the 14th he descried the enemy defiling through a very hilly country covered with rocks and loose stones; he had, in fact, reached Kattara, the village mentioned above. They took up an excellent position on a line of rocky hills, on the crest of which they planted four guns, which they began to work actively. Roberts thereupon sent Major Holmes by a detour into that region; for, even if the rebels were not overtaken, it would be desirable to give them no rest to consolidate their plans. At length the general had the gratification of overtaking and defeating these insurgents, in search of whom he had been so long engaged. He advanced his troops through the defile, his horse-artillery beating off the enemy until the infantry could form into line. After a brief period, the rebels shewed symptoms of retiring. On mounting the crest, the infantry saw them endeavouring to carry away two of their guns with a small escort; a volley soon set them to flight, and rendered the guns an easy capture. The flight soon became a rout; the rebels escaped in various directions, and the victors came upon a camp covered with arms and accoutrements. The cavalry and horse-artillery followed the fugitives for ten miles, cutting down great numbers. Roberts captured all the guns which the enemy had brought from Tonk, four elephants, a number of camels, and much ammunition—with surprisingly little loss to himself.

It was at this time regarded, by some of the authorities, as a hopeful symptom that the rebels were now descending to a part of India inhabited by Bheels and other half-civilised tribes, who would think much more of the wealth than of the so-called patriotism of the mutineers. Most of Tanteea Topee’s men were laden with silver coin, their share of the booty from Gwalior; this cash they carried with them, although in food and clothing they were ill provided; and there was a probability that, if once they ceased to be a compact army, they would individually be robbed by the Bheel villagers. Nevertheless, whatever may have been the hope or expectation in this respect, Roberts and his officers could never intercept the treasure which Tanteea Topee was known to have with him. This treasure, consisting of jewels and money (except the share of plunder distributed among the men) was carried on elephants; and so well were those elephants guarded, whether during fighting or fleeing, that the British could never capture them.

Few of the troops in British service had had harder work with little brilliant result than those in General Roberts’s Rajpootana Field-force. The country is wild and rugged, the weather was rainy and hot at the same time, and the duty intrusted to the troops was to chase an enemy who would not fight, and who were celebrated for their fleetness in escaping. Hence it was with more than usual pleasure that the hard-worked men regarded their victory at Kattara; they felt they had a fair claim to the compliment which their commander paid them, in a general order issued the day after the battle.[[190]]

After the victory at Kattara, Roberts left the further pursuit of the rebels for a time to Brigadier Parkes. This officer had started from Neemuch on the 11th with a miscellaneous force of about 1300 men, comprising 72d Highlanders, native infantry, Bombay cavalry, royal engineers, royal artillery, Bheels, and Mewar troopers. By a series of forced marches, Parkes headed the rebels in such a way as greatly to aid General Roberts at Kattara. A few days’ sojourn having refreshed them, the troops were again brought into action. Tanteea Topee, by amazing quickness of movement, traversed a wide belt of country eastward to the river Chumbul, which he crossed near Sagoodar on the 20th. Continuing his route, he arrived at Julra Patteen, a town on the main road from Agra to Indore; it was on the confines of the Rajpoot and Mahratta territories, and was held by a petty chieftainess or Rana. After a brief conflict, in which he was assisted by a few of the troops of the Rana, who broke their allegiance, he captured the place, levied contributions on the inhabitants, and took possession of all the guns, treasure, and ammunition he could find. Here, then, this extraordinary conflict took a new turn; a new region had to be attended to, although against the same offender as before; and new columns had to be despatched in pursuit. The flooding of the river Chumbul cut off Roberts and Parkes for a time from a further pursuit of Tanteea Topee; and therefore two new columns were sent, one from Indore under Colonel Hope, and one from Mhow under Colonel Lockhart. The great point now was to prevent Tanteea from getting into Malwah, and thence crossing the Nerbudda into the Deccan.

Before treating of the operations against this leader in September, it may be well to see what progress was made in checking the rebel leader who had appeared in Scindia’s territory—Man Singh. General Napier made up a new force, comprising certain regiments from his own and Brigadier Smith’s brigades, and placed it under the command of Colonel Robertson, with baggage and vehicles so arranged as to facilitate rapid movement. Setting out from Paoree on the 27th of August, the colonel marched eighteen miles to Bhanore; on the 28th, nineteen miles to Gunneish; and so on for several days, until he reached Burrumpore, near the river Parbuttee. Here, on the 2d of September, he learned that a body of rebels, under Man Singh, were a few miles ahead, endeavouring to reach a fort which they might seize as a stronghold. Pushing on rapidly, Robertson came up with them on the 5th, near the village of Bujeepore. They had not kept a good look-out; they had no suspicion that an active British officer was at their heels; consequently, when Robertson came suddenly upon them with horse and foot, while they were preparing their morning meal, their panic was extreme. They fled through the village, over a hill, across a river, and into a jungle; but the pursuers were so close behind them that the slaughter was very considerable. These rebels were nearly all good troops, from Scindia’s body-guard and from the Gwalior Contingent; they were supposed to have been among the fugitives from Gwalior with Tanteea Topee, but at what time or in what locality they had separated from that leader, and joined Man Singh, was not clearly known. About the middle of the month, Colonel Robertson was at Goonah; Brigadier Smith was searching for Man Singh; while General Napier was watching for any symptoms of the approach of the last-named leader towards Gwalior or its vicinity.

While affairs were thus progressing in the Mahratta country during September, new efforts were made to meet the existing state of things a little further to the west. When Tanteea Topee crossed the Chumbul towards Julra Patteen, and when that river began to swell, General Roberts’s Rajpootana Field-force was unable conveniently to continue the pursuit of the rebel; and, therefore, arrangements were made from the south. As a means of hemming in the rebels as much as possible, and preventing them from carrying their mischief into other regions, a ‘Malwah Field-force’ was sent up from Mhow, under General Michel. Tanteea Topee does not appear to have regarded Julra Patteen as a stronghold in which it was worth his while to remain; he plundered the place of some treasure and many guns, and then took his departure. He must, however, have wavered considerably in his plans; for he took a fortnight in reaching Rajghurh—a place only sixty miles distant. He was probably seeking for any rajah or chieftain who would join his standard. At Rajghurh, Tanteea Topee was joined by some of the beaten followers of Man Singh, probably by Man Singh himself, and seemed to be meditating an attack upon Bhopal. Tanteea and Michel were now both contending which should reach a particular station first, on the Bhopal and Seronj road, as the possession of that station (Beora) would give the holder a powerful command over the district—especially as it was one of the telegraph stations, by which Calcutta and Bombay held communication with each other. Michel came up with Tanteea Topee on the 15th of September, before he reached Beora. The rebels would not meet him openly in the field, but kept up a running-fight. When they saw defeat awaited them, they thought more of their elephant-loads of treasure than of their guns; they escaped with the former, and abandoned the latter, which they had brought from Julra Patteen. At the expense, of one killed and three wounded, General Michel gained a victory which cost the enemy three hundred men, twenty-seven guns, a train of draught bullocks, and much ammunition.

Towards the close of September, Tanteea Topee was in this remarkable position. He was near Seronj, on the high road from Gwalior to Bhopal, looking for any outlet that might offer, or for any chieftain who would join his standard. Roberts was on the west of him; Napier, Smith, and Robertson were on his north; Michel, Hope, and Lockhart, on the south; and Whitlock on the east. Active he assuredly had been; for since the fall of Gwalior he and his mutineers and budmashes had traversed a vast area of the Rajpoot and Mahratta territories; but he was now within the limits of a cordon, from which there was little chance of his ultimate escape.

Of the other parts of India, it is scarcely necessary here to say anything. The course of peaceful industry had been little disturbed, and the civil government had been steadily in the ascendant. All round the west and south of Rajpootana did this state of things continue, and so downward into the long-established districts of Surat, Poonah, Bombay, &c. It is well to observe, however, that even in the Bombay presidency, slight occurrences shewed from time to time that the leaven of Hindustani ‘pandyism’ was working mischief. The safety of that army depended on an admixture of different creeds and castes in its ranks; there were in it Rajpoots and Brahmins, as in the (late) Bengal native army, and these elements were sometimes worked upon by fermenters of mischief. Generally speaking, however, these, as well as the other components of the Bombay army, behaved well. Their faithfulness was shewn in the month of August, in connection with a circumstance which might else have been productive of disaster. Among the troops quartered at Gwalior after its reconquest by Sir Hugh Rose was the 25th Bombay N. I., containing, like other regiments of the same army, a small proportion of Hindustani Oudians. A non-commissioned officer of this regiment, a havildar-major, went to the adjutant, and told him that a Brahmin pundit, one Wamun Bhut, was endeavouring to tamper with the Hindustanis of the regiment, and, through them, with the regiment generally; he also expressed an opinion that there were persons in the city of Gwalior concerned in this conspiracy. Captain Little, when informed by the adjutant of this communication, laid a plan for detecting the plotters. He found Havildar-major Koonjul Singh, Naik Doorga Tewarree, and private Sunnoo Ladh ready to aid him. These three native soldiers, pretending to bend to the Brahmin’s solicitations, gradually learned many particulars of the conspiracy, which they faithfully revealed to the captain. A purwannah or written order was produced, from no less a personage than Nena Sahib, making magnificent promises if the regiment, or any portion of it, would join his standard; they were to kill all their officers, and as many Europeans as possible, and then depart to a place appointed. At length, on the 29th, the naik made an appointment to meet the two chief conspirators, a Brahmin and a Mahratta chief, under a large tree near the camp; where the havildar-major would expect to have an opportunity of reading the purwannah. Captain Little, with the adjutant and the quartermaster, arranged to move suddenly to the spot at the appointed time: they did so; the conspirators were seized, and the document taken from them. Two other leaders in the plot were afterwards seized: all four were blown from guns on the 7th of September; and many others were placed in confinement on evidence furnished by the purwannah itself. It became evident that Nena Sahib, a Mahratta, had many emissaries at work in this Mahratta territory, although he himself was hiding in inglorious security far away.

Poonah.

Lord Elphinstone, governor of Bombay, with his commander-in-chief, Sir Henry Somerset, established several new corps, as means of gradually increasing the strength of the Bombay army. Two Belooch regiments, a 2d regiment of South Mahratta Horse, and a Bombay Naval Artillery Brigade, were among the new components of the army.

The South Mahratta country, lower down the peninsula than Bombay, had quite recovered from the disturbances which marked it in earlier months. Satara, Kolapore, Sawuntwaree, Belgaum—all were peaceful. On the eastern or Madras side of the peninsula, too, troubles were few. It is true, there was a repetition in September of a dispute which had occurred three months before, between natives who wished to bring up their children in their own faith, and missionaries who wished to convert those children to Christianity; but this was a source of discord which the governor, if firm, could readily allay. Lord Harris had not an Indian reputation like that of Lawrence or Elphinstone; but he had tact and decision enough for the duties of his office—the maintenance of peace in a presidency where there were few or no Hindustani sepoys.

Of the large country of the Deccan, Hyderabad, or the Nizam’s dominions, nothing disastrous has to be told. A pleasant proof was afforded of the continuance of friendly relations between the British and the Nizam, by a grand banquet given at Hyderabad on the 2d of July by Salar Jung to Colonel Davidson. These two officers—the one prime-minister to the Nizam, the other British resident at the Nizam’s court—had throughout the mutinies acted in perfect harmony and good faith. All the British officers and their families at Secunderabad, the cantonment of the Hyderabad Contingent, were invited. The guests came from Secunderabad to the Residency at Hyderabad, and thence on elephants and in palanquins to the minister’s palace. The entertainment was in celebration of the birth of the Nizam’s son, Meer Akbar Ally, heir to the throne of the Deccan; and everything was done, by an admixture of oriental magnificence with European courtesies, to render it worthy of the occasion. It was, however, not so much the grandeur of the banquet, as the sentiment it conveyed towards the British at a critical time, that rendered this proceeding on the part of the Nizam’s prime-minister important. The Nizam’s dominions were at that time the scene of party struggles between two sets of politicians—the adherents of Salar Jung, and those of Shumsul Oomrah; but both of the leaders were fortunately advocates of an English alliance.

Hyderabad.

The northwest portion of the Nizam’s dominions, around Aurungabad and Jaulnah, in near neighbourhood to some of the Mahratta states, was troubled occasionally by bands of marauders, who hoped to establish a link of connection between the anarchists of Hindostan and those of the Deccan. They were, however, kept in check by Colonel Beatson, who brought his corps of irregulars, ‘Beatson’s Horse,’ to Jaulnah, there to remain during the rainy season—maintaining order in the surrounding districts, and holding himself ready to march with his troopers to any disturbed region where their services might be needed.

[184]. To the officers’ hospital—Calcutta Englishman, Bengal Hurkaru, Phœnix, Illustrated London News, Punch, Blackwood’s Magazine, Fraser’s Magazine, New Monthly Magazine, Monthly Army List, four copies Chambers’s Journal, four copies Family Herald. To the men’s hospitals—two copies Calcutta Englishman, two copies Bengal Hurkaru, two copies Phœnix, two copies Illustrated London News, two copies Punch, two copies Household Words, twelve copies Chambers’s Journal, twelve copies Family Herald.

[185]. See Chap. xxvii., pp. [450]-[461].

[186]. Ibid, p. [459].

[187]. ‘1. The dispatch condemns in the strongest terms the proclamation which, on the 3d of March, I directed the chief-commissioner of Oude to issue from Lucknow.

‘2. Although written in the Secret Committee, the dispatch was made public in England three weeks before it reached my hands. It will in a few days be read in every station in Hindostan.

‘3. Before the dispatch was published in England, it had been announced to parliament by a minister of the Crown as conveying disapproval in every sense of the policy indicated by the governor-general’s proclamation. Whether this description was an accurate one or not I do not inquire. The telegraph has already carried it over the length and breadth of India.

‘4. I need scarcely tell your honourable committee that the existence of such a dispatch, even had it never passed out of the records of the Secret Department, would be deeply mortifying to me, however confident I might feel that your honourable committee would, upon reconsideration, relieve me of the censure which it casts upon me. Still less necessary is it for me to point out that the publication of the document, preceded as it has been by an authoritative declaration of its meaning and spirit, is calculated greatly to increase the difficulties in which the government of India is placed, not only by weakening the authority of the governor-general, but by encouraging resistance and delusive hopes in many classes of the population of Oude.

‘5. So far as the dispatch and the mode in which it has been dealt with affect myself personally, I will trouble your honourable committee with very few words. No taunts or sarcasms, come from what quarter they may, will turn me from the path which I believe to be that of my public duty. I believe that a change in the head of the government of India at this time, if it took place under the circumstances which indicated a repudiation on the part of the government in England of the policy which has hitherto been pursued towards the rebels of Oude, would seriously retard the pacification of the country. I believe that that policy has been from the beginning merciful without weakness, and indulgent without compromise of the dignity of the government. I believe that wherever the authority of the government has been established, it has become manifest to the people in Oude, as elsewhere, that the indulgence to those who make submission, and who are free from atrocious crime, will be large. I believe that the issue of the proclamation which has been so severely condemned was thoroughly consistent with that policy, and that it is so viewed by those to whom it is addressed. I believe that that policy, if steadily pursued, offers the best and earliest prospect of restoring peace to Oude upon a stable footing.

‘6. Firm in these convictions, I will not, in a time of unexampled difficulty, danger, and toil, lay down of my own act the high trust which I have the honour to hold; but I will, with the permission of your honourable committee, state the grounds upon which those convictions rest, and describe the course of policy which I have pursued in dealing with the rebellion in Oude. If, when I have done so, it shall be deemed that that policy has been erroneous, or that, not being erroneous, it has been feebly and ineffectually carried out, or that for any reason the confidence of those who are responsible for the administration of Indian affairs in England should be withheld from me, I make it my respectful but urgent request, through your honourable committee, that I may be relieved of the office of governor-general of India with the least possible delay.’

[188]. It may here be mentioned that, about the date to which these events refer, the commander-in-chief began to be frequently designated by his peerage-title. He had been created Baron Clyde of Clydesdale, in recognition of his valuable military services. To prevent confusion, however, it may be well, in the remaining pages of this work, to retain the more familiar appellation, Sir Colin Campbell.

[189]. ‘I advanced my half-troop at a gallop, and engaged the enemy within easy musket-range. The sponge-man of one of my guns having been shot during the advance, Gunner Connolly assumed the duties of second sponge-man; and he had barely assisted in two discharges of his gun, when a musket-ball through the left thigh felled him to the ground. Nothing daunted by pain and loss of blood, he was endeavouring to resume his post, when I ordered a movement in retirement. Though severely wounded, he was mounted on his horse in the gun-team, rode to the next position which the guns took up, and manfully declined going to the rear when the necessity of his so doing was represented to him. About 11 o’clock A.M., when the guns were still in action, the same gunner, while sponging, was again knocked down by a musket-ball striking him on the hip, thereby causing great faintness and partial unconsciousness; for the pain appeared excessive, and the blood flowed fast. On seeing this, I gave directions for his removal out of action; but this brave man, hearing me, staggered to his feet and said: “No, sir; I’ll not go there while I can work here;” and shortly afterwards he again resumed his post as sponge-man. Late in the afternoon of the same day, my three guns were engaged at a hundred yards from the walls of a village with the defenders—namely, the 14th native infantry, mutineers—amid a storm of bullets, which did great execution. Gunner Connolly, though suffering severely from his two previous wounds, was wielding his sponge with an energy and courage which attracted the admiration of his comrades; and while cheerfully encouraging a wounded man to hasten in bringing up ammunition, a musket-ball tore through the muscles of his right leg. With the most undaunted bravery, he struggled on; and not till he had loaded six times, did this man give way, when, through loss of blood, he fell into my arms; I placed him upon a wagon, which shortly afterwards bore him in a state of unconsciousness from the fight.’

[190]. The major-general commanding has sincere pleasure in congratulating the troops under his command on the great success achieved by them yesterday. All have shewn most conspicuous gallantry in action; and the patient unmurmuring endurance of fatigue during the recent forced marches has enabled them to close with an enemy proverbially active in movements. The horse-artillery and cavalry (the latter nineteen hours in the saddle) have by their spirit and alacrity completed the success, and inflicted a most signal punishment on the rebels. The major-general tenders his hearty thanks to all, and doubts not but their brave and earnest devotion will meet with the approval of his excellency the commander-in-chief.

Government Buildings, Madras.—From a Drawing by Thomas Daniell.

CHAPTER XXXIII.
LAST DAYS OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY’S RULE.

The demise of the great East India Company has now to be recorded—the cessation of functions in the mightiest and most extraordinary commercial body the world ever saw. The natives of India never did and never could rightly understand the relations borne by the Company to the crown and nation of England. They were familiar with some such name as ‘Koompanee;’ but whether this Koompanee was a king, a queen, a viceroy, a minister, a council, a parliament, was a question left in a state of ludicrous doubt. And no wonder. It has at all times been difficult even for Englishmen, accustomed to the daily perusal of newspapers, to understand the relations between the Crown and the Company. Men asked whether the Punjaub was taken possession of by the Queen or by the Company; and if by the Queen, why the Company was made to bear the expense of the Punjaub war? So of the war in Persia, the annexation of Oude, the disastrous campaign in Afghanistan, the Burmese war—were these operations conducted by and for the Queen, or by and for the Company?—who was to blame if wrong?—who to bear the cost whether right or wrong?—who to reap the advantage? Even members of parliament gave contradictory answers to these and similar questions; nay, the cabinet ministers and the Court of Directors disputed on these very points. The Company was gradually shorn of its trading privileges by statutes passed in the years 1813, 1833, and 1853; and as its governing privileges had, in great part, gone over to the Board of Control, it seemed by no means clear for what purpose the Company continued to exist. There was a guarantee of 10½ per cent. on £6,000,000 of India stock, secured out of the revenues of India—the stock to be redeemable by parliament at cent. per cent. premium after the year 1874; and it appeared as if the whole machinery of the Indian government was maintained merely to insure this dividend, and to obtain offices and emoluments for persons connected with the Company. The directors always disowned this narrow view of the Company’s position; and there can be no doubt that many of them and of their servants had the welfare of the magnificent Indian empire deeply at heart. Still, the anomaly remained, of a governing body whose governing powers no one rightly understood.

When the Revolt began in 1857, the nation’s cry was at once against the East India Company. The Company must have governed wrongly, it was argued, or this calamity would never have occurred. Throughout a period of six months did a storm of indignation continue, in speeches, addresses, lectures, sermons, pamphlets, books, reviews, magazines, and leading articles in newspapers. By degrees the inquiry arose, whether the directors were free agents in the mode of governing India; whether the Board of Control did not overrule them; and whether the disasters were not traceable fully as much to the Board as to the directors? Hence arose another question, whether the double government—by a Court sitting in Leadenhall Street, and a Board sitting in Cannon Row—was not an evil that ought to be abolished, even without reference to actual blame as concerning the Revolt? The virulent abuse of the Company was gradually felt to be unjust; but the unsatisfactory nature of the double government became more and more evident as the year advanced.

There was a preliminary or short session of parliament held in that year, during a few days before Christmas, for the consideration of special business arising out of the commercial disasters of the autumn; but as every one knew that India and its affairs must necessarily receive some notice, the speech from the throne was looked for with much eagerness. On the 3d of December, when parliament met, the ministers put into the Queen’s mouth only this very brief allusion to projected changes in the Indian government: ‘The affairs of my East Indian dominions will require your serious consideration, and I recommend them to your earnest attention.’ These vague words were useless without a glossary; but the glossary was not forthcoming. Ministers, when questioned and sounded as to their plans, postponed all explanations to a later date.

The first public announcement of the intentions of the government was made shortly before Christmas. A General Court of Proprietors of the East India Company was held on the 23d of December, for the discussion of various matters relating to India; and, in the course of the proceedings, the chairman of the Company announced that, on the 19th, an official interview had been held, by appointment, with Lord Palmerston. On this occasion, the prime minister informed the Court of Directors that it was the intention of the ministry, early in the approaching year, to bring a bill into parliament for the purpose of placing the government of British India under the direct authority of the crown. In this interview, as in the royal speech, no matters of detail were entered upon. The members of parliament in the one assembly, the proprietors of East India stock in the other, were equally unable to obtain information concerning the provisions of the intended measure. All that could be elicited was, that the ‘double government’ of India would cease; and a written notice or letter to this effect was transmitted from the First Lord of the Treasury to the Court of Directors on the 23d.

During the period of six or seven weeks between the preliminary and the regular sessions, the journalists had full scope for their speculations. Those who, from the first, had attributed the Revolt in India to the Company’s misgovernment, rejoiced in the hoped-for extinction of that body, and sketched delightful pictures of happy India under imperial sway. Those who supported the Company and vested interests, predicted the utter ruin of British influence in India if ‘parliamentary government’ were introduced—a mode of government, as they alleged, neither cared for nor understood by the natives of that region, and utterly unsuited to oriental ideas. Those, the moderate thinkers, who believed that on this as on other subjects the truth lies between two extremes, looked forward hopefully to such a change as might throw new vigour, and more advanced ideas, into the somewhat antiquated policy of the East India Company, without destroying those parts of the system which had been the useful growth of long experience. Many things had transpired during the year, tending to shew that the Court of Directors had been more prompt than the Board of Control, in matters requiring urgent attention; and that, therefore, whatever might be the evils of the double government, it would not be just to throw all the onus on the Company.

Early in January 1858, on a requisition to that effect, a special Court of Proprietors was summoned, to meet on the 15th, for considering ‘the communication addressed to the Court of Directors from the government respecting the continuance of the powers of this Company.’ At this meeting, it transpired that the directors had written to Lord Palmerston, just before the Christmas vacation; but as no cabinet council had been held in the interim, and as no reply to that letter had been received, it had been deemed most courteous towards the government to withhold the publication of the letter for a time. A long debate ensued. One of the proprietors brought forward a resolution to the effect, ‘That the proposed transfer of the governing power of the East India Company to the crown is opposed to the rights and privileges of the East India Company, fraught with danger to the constitutional interests of England, perilous to the safety of the Indian empire, and calls for the resistance of this corporation by all constitutional means.’ Many of the supporters of this resolution carried their arguments to the verge of extravagance—asserting that ‘our Indian empire, already tottering and shaking, will fall to the ground without hope of recovery, if the East India Company should be abolished’—and that ‘by means of the enormous patronage that would be placed in the hands of the government, ministers would possess the power of corrupting the people of this country beyond the hope of their ever recovering their virtue or their patriotism.’ Most of the defenders of the Company, however, adopted a more moderate tone. Colonel Sykes, speaking for himself and some of his brother-directors, declared: ‘If we believed for one moment that any change in the present administration of the government of India would be advantageous to the people of India, would advance their material interests, and promote their comforts, we should gladly submit to any personal suffering or loss contingent upon that change.’ He added, however, ‘By the indefeasible principles of justice, and the ordinary usages of our courts of law, it is always necessary that a bill of indictment with certain counts should be preferred before a man is condemned; and I am curious to know what will be the counts of the indictment in the case of this Company; for at present we have nothing but a vague outline before us.’ Finally it was agreed to adjourn the discussion, on the ground that, until the views of the government had been further explained, it would be impossible to know whether the words of the resolution were true, that the proposed change would be ‘fraught with danger to the constitutional interests of England, and perilous to the safety of the Indian empire.’

On the renewal of the debate at the India House, on January 20th, the directors presented a copy of a letter which they had addressed to the government on the last day of the old year. In this letter they said: ‘The court were prepared to expect that a searching inquiry would be instituted into the causes, remote as well as immediate, of the mutiny in the Bengal native army. They have themselves issued instructions to the government of India to appoint a commission in view to such an inquiry; and it would have been satisfactory to them, if it had been proposed to parliament, not only to do the same, but to extend the scope of the inquiry to the conduct of the home government, for the purpose of ascertaining whether the mutiny could, wholly or partially, be ascribed to mismanagement on the part of the court acting under the control of the Board of Commissioners. But it has surprised the court to hear that her Majesty’s government—not imputing, so far as the court are informed, any blame to the home authorities in connection with the mutiny, and without intending any inquiry by parliament, or awaiting the result of inquiry by the local government—should, even before the mutiny was quelled, and whilst considerable excitement prevailed throughout India, determine to propose the immediate supersession of the authority of the East India Company; who are entitled, at least, to the credit of having so administered the government of India, that the heads of all the native states, and the mass of the population, amid the excitements of a mutinous soldiery inflamed by unfounded apprehension of danger to their religion, have remained true to the Company’s rule. The court would fail in their duty to your lordship and to the country if they did not express their serious apprehension that so important a change will be misunderstood by the people of India.’ This letter failed to elicit any explanatory response from the government. Lord Palmerston, in a reply dated January 18th, after assuring the directors that their observations would be duly considered by the government, simply added: ‘I forbear from entering at present into any examination of those observations and opinions; first, because any correspondence with you on such matters would be most conveniently carried on through the usual official channel of the president of the Board of Control; and, secondly, because the grounds on which the intentions of her Majesty’s government have been formed, and the detailed arrangements of the measure which they mean to propose, will best be explained when that measure shall be submitted to the consideration of parliament.’ The directors about the same time prepared a petition to both Houses of Parliament, explanatory of the reasons which induced them to deprecate any sudden transference of governing power from the Company to the Crown. As this petition was very carefully prepared, by two of the most eminent men in the Company’s service; as it contains a considerable amount of useful information; and as it presents in its best aspects all that could be said in favour of the Company—it may fittingly be transcribed in the present work. To prevent interruption to the thread of the narrative, however, it will be given in the Appendix (A), as the first of a series of documents.[[191]]

When these various letters and petitions came under the notice of the Court of Proprietors, they gave rise to an animated discussion. Most of the proprietors admired the petition, as a masterly document; and many of the speakers dwelt at great length on the benefits which the Company had conferred upon India. One of the directors, Sir Lawrence Peel, feeling the awkwardness of dealing with a government measure not yet before them, said: ‘I have not signed the petition which you have just heard read; and I will shortly state the reason why. I entirely concur in the praises which have been bestowed upon that document. It is a most ably reasoned and worded production; it does infinite credit to those whose work it is; and it is much to the honour of this establishment that it has talent capable of producing such a document. But I have not signed the petition, because I have not thought it a prudent course to petition against a measure, the particulars of which I am not acquainted with.’ The debate was further adjourned from the 20th to the 27th, and then to the 28th, when the speeches ran to great length. On one or other of the four days of meeting, most of the directors of the Company expressed their opinions—on the 13th, Mr Ross D. Mangles (chairman), and Colonel Sykes; on the 20th, Sir Lawrence Peel and Captain Eastwick; on the 27th, Mr Charles Mills, Sir Henry Rawlinson, Captain Shepherd, Mr Macnaghten, and Sir F. Currie (deputy-chairman); on the 28th, Mr Prinsep and Mr Willoughby. As might have been expected, a general agreement marked the directors’ speeches; they were the arguments of men who defended rights which they believed to be rudely assailed. Some of the directors complained that the government notice was not explicit enough. Some thought that, at any rate, it clearly foreshadowed the destruction of the Company’s power. Some contended that, if the Company did not speak out at once, it would in a few weeks be too late. Some insisted that the government brought forward the proposed measure in order to shift the responsibility for the mutiny to other shoulders. Some accused the ministers of being influenced by a grasping for patronage, a desire to appropriate the nominations to appointments. One of the few who departed from the general tone of argument was Sir Henry Rawlinson, who assented neither to the resolution nor to the petition. He dwelt at some length on the two propositions mainly concerned—namely, ‘that the transfer of the government of India to the Crown would be unjust to the East India Company;’ and that such transfer ‘would be fatal to British rule in India.’ Most of the other speakers had contended or implied that the first clause of this statement involved the second; that the transfer would be equally unjust to the Company, and injurious to India. Sir Henry combated this. He contended that the connection was not a necessary one. After a very protracted debate, the original resolution was passed almost unanimously; and then the petition to both Houses of Parliament was sanctioned as that of the Company generally.

Just at this period, the directors caused to be prepared, and published at a cheap price, an elaborate ‘Memorandum of the Improvements in the Administration of India during the last Thirty Years.’ It was evidently intended to fall into the hands of such members of parliament as might be disposed to take up the cause of the Company in the forthcoming debates, and to supply them with arguments in favour of the Company, derived from a recital of the marked improvements introduced in Indian government. To this extent, it was simply a brief placed in the hands of counsel; but the Memorandum deserves to be regarded also in a historical light; for nothing but a very narrow prejudice could blind an observer to the fact that vast changes had been introduced into the legislative and administrative rule of India, during the period indicated, and that these changes had for the most part been conceived in an enlightened spirit—corresponding in direction, if not in intensity, with the improved state of public opinion at home on political subjects.

Parliament reassembled for the regular session on the 4th of February, fully alive to the importance of attending to all matters bearing on the welfare of India. Earl Grey, on the 11th, presented to the House of Lords the elaborate petition from the East India Company, lately adverted to. Characterising this as a ‘state paper deserving the highest commendation,’ the earl earnestly deprecated the abolition of the Court of Directors, and the transfer of their authority to the ministry of the day; grounding his argument on the assumption that the interposition of an independent body, well informed on Indian affairs, between the government and the natives of that country, was essential to the general welfare. He admitted the need for reform, but not abolition. The Duke of Argyll, on the part of the government, admitted that the Company’s petition was temperate and dignified, but denied that its reasoning was conclusive. The Earl of Ellenborough, agreeing that the Queen’s name would be powerfully influential as the direct ruler of India, at the same time doubted whether any grand or sweeping reform ought to be attempted while India was still in revolt. The Earl of Derby joined in this opinion, and furthermore complained of discourtesy shewn by the ministers toward the directors, in so long withholding from them a candid exposition of the provisions of the intended measure.

On the following day, the 12th of the month, the long-expected bill was introduced to the House of Commons by Lord Palmerston—or rather, leave to bring in the bill was moved. The first minister of the Crown, in his speech on the occasion, disowned any hostility to the Company, in reference either to the Revolt or to matters of general government. He based the necessity for the measure on the anomaly of the Company’s position. When the commercial privileges were withdrawn, chiefly in 1833, the Company (he urged) became a mere phantom of what it had been, and subsided into a sort of agency of the imperial government, without, however, responsibility to parliament. Admitting the advantages of checks as securities for honesty and efficiency in administrative affairs, he contended that check and counter-check had been so multiplied in the ‘double government’ of India, as to paralyse action. He considered that complete authority should vest where complete responsibility was expected, and not in an irresponsible body of merchants. His lordship concluded by giving an outline of the bill by which the proposed changes were to be effected.

As the Palmerston Bill, or ‘India Bill, No. 1,’ as it was afterwards called, was not passed into a law, it will not be necessary to reprint it in this work; nevertheless, to illustrate its bearing on the subsequent debates, the pith of its principal clauses may usefully be given here: The government of the territories under the control of the East India Company, and all powers in relation to government vested in or exercised by the Company, to become vested in and exercised by the sovereign—India to be henceforth governed in the Queen’s name—The real and personal property of the Company to be vested in Her Majesty for the purposes of the government of India—The appointments of governor-general of India, with ordinary members of the Council of India, and governors of the three presidencies, now made by the directors of the Company with the approbation of her Majesty, and other appointments, to be made by the Queen under her royal sign-manual—A council to be established, under the title of ‘The President and Council for the Affairs of India,’ to be appointed by her Majesty—This council to consist of eight persons, exclusive of its president—In the first nomination of this council, two members to be named for four years, two for six, two for eight, and two for ten years—The members of council to be chosen from among persons who had been directors of the East India Company, or ten years at least in the service of the Crown or Company in India, or fifteen years simply resident in India—Members of council, like the judges, only to be removable by the Queen, on an address from both Houses of Parliament—The president of the council eligible to sit in the Commons House of Parliament—Four members of council to form a quorum—Each ordinary member to receive a yearly salary of £1000; and the president to receive the salary of a secretary of state—The council to exercise the power now vested in the Company and the Board of Control; but a specified number of cadetships to be given to sons of civil and military servants in India—Appointments hitherto made in India to continue to be made in that country—Military forces, paid out of the revenues of India, not to be employed beyond the limits of Asia—Servants of the Company to become servants of the crown—The Board of Control to be abolished.

Such was the spirit of the bill which Lord Palmerston asked leave to introduce. Mr T. Baring moved as an amendment, ‘That it is not at present expedient to legislate for the government of India.’ Thereupon a debate arose, which extended through three evenings. The government measure was supported by speeches from Lord Palmerston, Sir Erskine Perry, Mr Ayrton, Sir Cornwall Lewis, Mr Roebuck, Mr Lowe, Mr Slaney, Sir W. Rawlinson, Mr A. Mills, Sir Charles Wood, and Lord John Russell; while it was opposed on various grounds by Mr T. Baring, Mr Monckton Milnes, Sir J. Elphinstone, Mr Ross D. Mangles, Mr Whiteside, Mr Liddell, Mr Crawford, Colonel Sykes, Mr Willoughby, Sir E. B. Lytton, and Mr Disraeli. The reasonings in favour of the government measure were such as the following: That the proper time for legislation had come, when the attention of the country was strongly directed to Indian affairs; that all accounts from India shewed that some great measure was eagerly expected; that it was dangerous any longer to maintain an effete, useless, and cumbrous machine, which the Court of Directors had virtually become; that the Company’s ‘traditionary policy’ unfitted it to march with the age in useful reforms; that as the Board of Control really possessed the ruling power, the double government was a sham as well as an obstruction; that the princes of India felt themselves degraded in being the vassals and tributaries of a mere mercantile body; that, such was the anomaly of the double government, it was possible that the Company might be at war with a power with which her Majesty was at peace, thus involving the nation in inextricable embarrassment; that, with the exception of a very small section of the covenanted civil servants, the European community and the officers of the Indian army would prefer the government of the crown to that of the Company; that the natives of India having been thrown into doubt concerning the intentions of the Company to interfere with their religion, some authoritative announcement of the Queen’s respect for their views on that subject would be very satisfactory; and that as the native Bengal army had disappeared, as India must in future be garrisoned by a large force of royal troops, and as the military power would then belong to the crown, it was desirable that the political power should go with it. Among the pleas urged on the opposite side were such as follow: That the natives of India would anticipate an increased stringency of British power, under the proposed régime; that the ministerial influence and patronage, in Indian matters, would be dangerous to England herself; that as the Whig and Conservative parties had both supported the system of double government in the India Bill of 1853, there was no reason for making this sudden change in 1858; that before any change of government was effected, it was imperatively necessary that an inquiry should be made into the causes and circumstances of the Revolt; that the direct exercise of governing power by a queen, formally designated ‘Defender of the Faith,’ could not be agreeable either to the Hindoos or the Mohammedans of India, whose ideas of ‘faith’ were so widely different from those of Christians; that, as all previous organic changes in the administration of the government of India had been preceded by an inquiry into the character of that government, so ought it in fairness to be in the present case; that if the proposed change were effected, European theories and novelties, owing to the pressure of public opinion on the ministry, would be attempted to be grafted on Asiatic prejudices and immobility, without due regard to the inherent antagonism of the two systems; and that the enormous extent, population, revenue, and commerce of India ought not to be imperiled by a measure, the consequences of which could not at present be foreseen.

This debate ended on the 18th; the House of Commons, by a majority of 318 to 173, granting leave for the introduction of the bill—it being understood that a considerable time would elapse before the second reading, in order that the details of the measure might be duly considered by all who took an interest in the matter.

Before, however, any very great attention could be given to the subject, either in or out of parliament, a most unexpected change took place in the political relations of the government. The same minister who, on the 18th of February, obtained leave to bring in the India Bill, was placed on the 19th in a minority which led to the resignation of himself and his colleagues. Circumstances connected with an attempted assassination of the Emperor of the French induced the Palmerston government to bring in a measure which proved obnoxious to the House of Commons; the measure was rejected by 234 against 219, and the government accordingly resigned. So far as concerned the immediate effect, the most important fact connected with India was the offer by the Earl of Derby, the new premier, of the presidency of the India Board to the Earl of Ellenborough. This nobleman had long been in collision with the East India Company and its civil servants. Twice already had he been president of the Board of Control, and in 1842-3-4 he had filled the responsible office of governor-general of India. In both offices, and at all times, he had cherished as much as possible the royal influence in India against the Company’s, the military against the civil. As a consequence, his enemies were bitter, his friends enthusiastic. The author of an anonymous ‘red pamphlet,’ which attracted much notice during the Revolt, spoke of the Earl of Ellenborough as the one great man who could alone be the saviour of India—as the chivalrous knight who would shiver to atoms the ‘vested rights’ and ‘traditionary policy’ of the Court of Directors. It was natural, therefore, that the accession of the earl to the new government should be regarded as an important matter, either for good or evil.

It speedily became apparent that the new president of the Board of Control would find difficulty in framing a line of proceeding on Indian affairs. His own predilections were quite as much against the Company, as those of his predecessor; but many of his colleagues in the Derby government had committed themselves, when out of office, to a defence of the Company, and to a condemnation of any immediate alteration in the Indian government. Either he must change his opinions, or they belie their own words. The Court of Directors would fain have expected indulgent treatment from the Derby administration, judging from the speeches of the two preceding months; but their past experience of the Earl of Ellenborough threw a damp over their hope.

Three weeks after the vote which occasioned the change of government, Lord Palmerston proposed the postponement of the second reading of his India Bill until the 22d of April—a further lapse of six weeks; and this was agreed to. He would not withdraw the bill, because he still adhered to its provisions; he would not at once proceed with it, because his opponents were now in office, and he preferred to see what course they would adopt. The fate of India was thus placed in suspense for several weeks, simply through a party struggle arising out of French affairs; the great question—’Who shall govern India?’—was made subservient to party politics.

Although Lord Palmerston had named the 22d of April as the day for reconsidering his India Bill, this did not tie down the Derby ministry to the adoption of any particular line of policy. After many discussions in the cabinet, it was resolved that the ministers should ‘eat their words’ by legislating for India, although it had before been declared a wrong time for so doing; and that, throwing Lord Palmerston’s bill aside, a new India Bill should be introduced.

Accordingly, on the 26th of March, Mr Disraeli, the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, moved for leave to bring in that which was afterwards called the ‘India Bill No. 2.’ As in a former instance, this bill may be most usefully rendered intelligible by a condensed summary: A secretary of state for India, to be appointed by the Queen—This secretary to be president of a Council of India—The council to consist of eighteen persons, nine nominated and nine elected—The nominated councillors to be appointed under the royal sign-manual by the crown, and to represent nine distinct interests—Those nine interests to be represented as follow: the first councillor to have belonged for at least ten years to the Bengal civil service; the second to the Madras service; the third to the Bombay service; and the fourth to the Upper or Punjaub provinces, under similar conditions; the fifth to have been British resident at the court of some native prince; the sixth to have served at least five years with the Queen’s troops in India; the seventh, to have served the Company ten years in the Bengal army; and the eighth and ninth, similarly in the Madras and Bombay armies—The nine nominated members to be named in the bill itself, so as to give them parliamentary as well as royal sanction—The remaining eight members of the council to be chosen by popular election—Four of such elected members to be chosen from among persons who had served the Crown or the Company at least ten years in any branch of the Indian service, or had resided fifteen years in India; and to be chosen by persons who had been ten years in the service of the Crown or the Company, or possessed £1000 of India stock, or possessed £2000 of capital in any Indian railway or joint-stock public works—The other five of such elected members to be chosen from among persons who, for at least ten years, had been engaged in the commerce of India, or in the export of manufactured articles thither; and to be chosen by the parliamentary constituencies of five large centres of commerce and manufactures in the United Kingdom, namely, London, Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, and Belfast—the Secretary of State for India to have the power of dividing the council, thus constituted, into committees, and to exercise a general supervision over these committees—The secretary alone, or six councillors in union, to have power to summon a meeting of the council—The councillors not to be eligible to sit in parliament, but to have each £1000 per annum for their services—The patronage heretofore exercised by the East India Company to be now exercised by the Council—The army of India not to be directly affected by the bill—The revenues of India to bear the expenses of the government of India—A royal commission to be sent to India, to investigate all the facts and conditions of Indian finance.

It will be seen that this remarkable scheme was based on the idea of conciliating as many different interests as possible, in England and in India. Mr Disraeli, in the course of his speech, mentioned the names of the nine gentlemen whom it was proposed to nominate to the council on the part of the crown; and in relation to the vast powers of the secretary and council, he said: ‘To establish a British minister with unrestricted authority, subject to the moral control of a body of men who by their special knowledge, their independence, their experience, their distinction, and their public merit, are, nevertheless, invested with an authority which can control even a despotic minister, and which no mere act of parliament can confer upon them, is, I admit, no ordinary difficulty to encounter; and to devise the means by which it may be accomplished is a task which only with the indulgence of this House and with the assistance of parliament we can hope to perform.’

Criticisms were much more numerous and contradictory on this than on Lord Palmerston’s bill. It was no longer a contest of Conservatives against Whigs. The new bill was examined on its merits. The friends of the East India Company, expecting something favourable from the change of government, were much disappointed; they analysed the clauses of the bill, but found not what they sought. True, the old Indian interests were to be represented in the new council; but just one-half of the members were to be nominees of the crown, and five others were to be elected by popular constituencies over which the Company possessed no control. Even those who cared little whether the Company lived or died, provided India were well governed, differed among themselves in opinion whether the popular element would be usefully introduced in the manner proposed. The objections were more extensively urged out of parliament than within; for after the first reading of the bill, on the 26th of March, the further consideration of it was postponed to the 19th of April.

The Conservatives had reproved the Whigs for discourtesy to the East India Company, in not giving due notice of the provisions of ‘Bill No. 1;’ but now equal discourtesy (if discourtesy it were) was shewn by the first-named party in reference to ‘Bill No. 2.’ On the 24th of March, at a quarterly meeting of the Company, and only two days before Mr Disraeli introduced his measure—or rather the Ellenborough measure—into the House of Commons, the chairman of the Court of Directors was asked whether he knew aught concerning the provisions of a bill so nearly touching the interests of the Company; to which he replied: ‘I know no more about the forthcoming bill than I knew of the last before its introduction into parliament.’ On the 7th of April, however, at a special Court of Proprietors, the directors presented copies of the bills, ‘No. 1’ and ‘No. 2;’ and at the same time presented a Report against both. In the debate, on the 7th and 13th, arising out of the presentation of the Report, there was a pretty general opinion among the proprietors, that if Lord Palmerston’s India Bill was bad, Mr Disraeli’s was not one whit better, in reference to the interests of the Company; and there was a final vote for the following resolution: ‘That this court concur in the opinion of the Court of Directors, that neither of the bills now before parliament is calculated to secure good government to India; and they accordingly authorise and request the Court of Directors to take such measures as may appear to them desirable for resisting the passing of either bill through parliament, and for introducing into any bill for altering the constitution of the government of India such conditions as may promise a system of administration calculated to promote the interests of the people of India, and to prove conducive to the general welfare.’ One of the proprietors having expressed an opinion that the directors ought to prepare a third bill, more just than either of the other two, the chairman very fairly pointed out that it was not the Company’s duty so to do.

Under somewhat unfavourable circumstances did the Derby ministry renew the consideration of Indian affairs after the Easter recess. Parliament, it is true, had not yet had time or opportunity to criticise ‘Bill No. 2;’ but that measure had been very unfavourably received both by the East India Company and by the newspaper press; and it became generally known that the ministers would gladly accept any decent excuse for abandoning or at least modifying the bill. This excuse was furnished to them by Lord John Russell. On the 12th of April, when the Commons resumed their sittings after the Easter vacation, his lordship expressed an opinion that the bill was ill calculated to insure the desired end; that its discussion was likely to be disfigured by a party contest; and that it would be better to agree to a set of resolutions in committee, on which a new bill might be founded. Mr Disraeli accepted this suggestion with an eagerness which led many members to surmise that a private compact had been made in the matter. He suggested that Lord John Russell should draw up the resolutions; but as his lordship declined this task, Mr Disraeli undertook it on the part of the government. Hereupon a new phase was presented by the debate. One member expressed his astonishment that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should be so ready to hand over the functions of government to the care of a private member. Another declared he could not see what advantage was to be gained by a resolution in committee in lieu of a bill in the whole House. The members of the late Whig government all condemned the plan suggested by Lord John and accepted by Mr Disraeli; but, pending the introduction of the proposed resolutions, they would not frustrate the plan. Mr Mangles, on the part of the East India Company, expressed an earnest hope that all party feeling would be excluded from the debates on India. The East India Company, he remarked, could hardly be expected to acquiesce in a measure for their own extinction; nevertheless, if such should be proved to be inevitable, the directors would give their best assistance to the perfecting of any measure which the House might think proper to adopt. Mr Disraeli finally promised to prepare a set of resolutions, and to bring them in for discussion on the 26th.

The state, then, to which this intricate discussion had been brought was this—the ‘Bill No. 1,’ proposed by Lord Palmerston, stood over for a second reading on the 22d of April; the ‘Bill No. 2,’ proposed by Mr Disraeli, was placed in abeyance for a time; while the ‘resolutions,’ to be prepared by Mr Disraeli on the suggestion of Lord John Russell, and intended as a means of improving ‘Bill No. 2,’ or perhaps of leading to a ‘Bill No. 3,’ were to be introduced on the 26th of April. It was pretty generally felt, both within and without the walls of parliament, that the whole subject was in great confusion, and that the ministers themselves had no definite notion of the best course to pursue. At the meeting of the East India Company on the 13th, Mr Mangles, who was a member of parliament as well as chairman of the Company, said: ‘After the extraordinary occurrences we have witnessed within the last six weeks, in which we have seen a minister ousted who was supposed to have the support of a most commanding majority, and another minister placed in power without having a majority, or even a considerable minority, he would be a very bold man who would prophesy what the fate of any new measure in the House of Commons would be.’

On the 23d of April, Mr Disraeli announced his intention of abandoning ‘Bill No. 2’ altogether, and of postponing the preparation of ‘Bill No. 3’ until the House should have agreed to any ‘resolutions’ bearing on the subject. Lord Palmerston would not withdraw his ‘Bill No. 1;’ he simply held it in abeyance for a time, to watch the course of pending events. On the 26th, Mr Disraeli craved four days more for the preparation of his resolutions. He made a speech, in which he praised his own ‘Bill No. 2’ at the expense of his antagonist’s ‘Bill No. 1;’ but, as he had ‘voluntarily stifled his own baby’—to use the illustration of another speaker—his arguments fell with little force. The illustration, in truth, was so tempting, that it was long made use of both in and out of parliament. Lord Palmerston said: ‘The measure, upon which the right honourable gentleman has pronounced so unbounded a funeral panegyric, has been murdered by himself. If he thought so well of the merits of the bill, why did he kill it?’ Mr Gregory, wishing, by getting rid of the proposed ‘resolutions,’ to postpone all legislation on the subject until another year, moved as an amendment—‘That at this moment it is not expedient to pass any resolutions for the future government of India.’ A general desire prevailed in the House, however, that some measure or other should be passed into a law, to strengthen and render more definite the governing authority in India; and the amendment was withdrawn.

At length, on the 30th of April, the resolutions were proposed. They departed very widely from ‘Bill No. 2.’ The members of the council, instead of being definitely eighteen in number, were to be ‘not less than twelve and not more than eighteen.’ The scheme for representing classes, services, presidencies, and commercial communities in the council was given up; as was likewise the election of a portion of the members by parliamentary constituencies. As the whole of the fourteen resolutions, if agreed to, would require a separate agreement for each, and as every member would be allowed to speak on every resolution if he so chose, there were the materials presented for a very lengthened debate. There was a preliminary discussion, moreover, on a motion intended to extinguish the resolutions altogether. Lord Harry Vane moved—‘That the change of circumstances since the first proposal by her Majesty’s late advisers, to transfer the government of India from the East India Company to the Crown, renders it inexpedient to proceed further with legislation on the subject during the present session.’ This proposal, however, was negatived by 447 to 57.

It would scarcely be possible, and scarcely worth while if possible, to follow all the intricacies of the debate on the ‘resolutions.’ Every part of the India question was opened again and again; every speaker considered himself at liberty to wander from principles to details, and back again; and hence the amount of speaking was enormous. Should there be a secretary of state for India, or only a president of a council? Should there be a council at all, or only a secretary with his subordinates, as in the home, foreign, colonial, and war departments? If a council, should it be wholly nominated, wholly elective, or part of each? Who should nominate, and who elect, and under what conditions? Should the secretary or president possess any power without his council, and how much? Should the East India Company, or not, be represented in the new council? By whom should the enormous patronage of the Court of Directors be hereafter exercised? What would become of the ‘vested rights’ of the Company, such as the receipt of dividends on the East India stock? In what relation would the governor-general of India stand to the new council? Would the local governments of the three presidencies be interfered with? Who would organise and support the Indian army? What would be done in relation to missionaries, idolatrous practices, caste, education, public works, manufactures, commerce, &c., in India?—These were some of the questions which were discussed, not once merely, but over and over again. Owing to the strange ministerial changes, the independent members in the House had had but few opportunities of fully expressing their sentiments; they did so now, at ample length. Many long nights of debate were spent over the resolutions; many amendments proposed; many alterations assented to by the ministers. It occupied three evenings—April 30, May 3, and May 7—to settle the first three resolutions; or rather, to agree to the first, to modify the second, and to withdraw the third. At this period occurred the exciting episode concerning the Oude proclamation, the censure of Viscount Canning, and the resignation of the Earl of Ellenborough.[[192]] As there was now no president of the Board of Control, the India resolutions could not conveniently be proceeded with; and therefore everything remained for a time at a dead-lock. Soon afterwards Lord Stanley, son of the Earl of Derby, accepted the seals of the office vacated by the Earl of Ellenborough. He had every claim to the indulgence of the House, in the difficulty of his new position; and this indulgence was willingly shewn to him; he was permitted to choose his own time, after the ceremony of his re-election, to bring the great question of India once again before the Commons House, in the hope of arriving at some practicable solution. For a period of one full month did the further consideration of the resolutions remain in abeyance, while these party tactics and ministerial changes were engaging public attention.

At length, on the 7th of June, when the subject was resumed, and when Lord Stanley took the lead on Indian affairs in the House of Commons, it began to be apparent that the resolutions were less valued by the government than they had before been. The debate concerning them, however, continued. When the time came for deciding how many members should compose the new Council of India, Mr Gladstone reopened the whole question by moving as an amendment, ‘That, regard being had to the position of affairs in India, it is expedient to constitute the Court of Directors of the East India Company, by an act of the present session, to be a council for administering the government of India in the name of her Majesty, under the superintendence of such responsible minister, until the end of the next session of parliament.’ Mr Gladstone proposed this amendment under a belief that it was not practicable, during the existing session of parliament, to perfect a scheme of government for India that would be worthy of the nation. The problem to be solved was one of the most formidable ever presented to any nation or any legislature in the history of the world, and the evils of delay would be insignificant in comparison with those of crude and hasty legislation. His suggestion, he contended, would not be inconsistent with the appointment of a new council in the following year, if it should be deemed desirable to make such appointment. Lord Stanley opposed this amendment—on the grounds that it had all the evils of a temporary and provisional measure; that the directors, as a council merely for one year, would be placed in an inconvenient position; that having been told that they were doomed, and that nothing could save them as a permanent body, they would slacken their zeal and energy, and impair the confidence of the public; that the much-condemned delays would still continue; and that the public service would derive no advantage. The friends of the East India Company supported this amendment; but it was rejected by 265 against 116. Mr Roebuck then made an attempt to extinguish the council both in theory and in fact. He contended that a Secretary of State, alone responsible for all his acts, relying upon his own mind for guidance and counsel, and having a more direct interest in doing right, was morally and mentally the best governor for India; he feared that a council would render the governing body practically irresponsible to the nation. Lord Stanley, on the other hand, insisted that it was quite impossible for any minister to act efficiently in such a difficult office without the aid of advisers possessing special information on Indian affairs; and as the House generally concurred in this view, Mr Roebuck’s amendment was negatived without a division. Two evenings, June 7th and 11th, were spent in discussing two resolutions. On the 14th the House was engaged many hours in considering whether the council should be elective, or nominated, or both; great diversity of opinion prevailed; and the speakers, tempted by the peculiarity of the subject, wandered very widely beyond the limits of the immediate question. Lord John Russell thought that the members of the council ought to be wholly appointed by the Crown, on the responsibility of the minister; Sir James Graham thought that the Court of Directors ought to be ex officio members of the council, to insure practical knowledge on Indian affairs; but Lord Stanley contended that the advantages of two systems would be combined if one half of the council were nominated by the Crown, and the other half elected by a constituency of seven or eight thousand persons interested in or connected with Indian affairs; and the House, agreeing with this view, voted a resolution accordingly.

Midsummer was approaching. The House of Lords had not yet had an opportunity of discussing the Indian question either in principle or in detail; and it began now to be strongly felt that, as the resolutions really did not bind the Commons to any particular clauses in the forthcoming bill, their value was doubtful. Accordingly, on the 17th of June, after a long discussion on desultory topics, Lord Stanley proposed, amid some laughter in the House, to withdraw all the remaining resolutions—a proposition that was assented to with great alacrity, shewing that the legislators were by no means satisfied with the wisdom of their past proceedings.

Thus was completed the third stage in this curious legislative achievement. Lord Palmerston’s ‘India Bill No. 1’ was laid aside, because he was expelled from office; Mr Disraeli’s ‘India Bill No. 2’ was abandoned, because it was ridiculed on all sides; and now the ‘resolutions’ were given up when half-finished, because they were found to be inoperative and non-binding. Some of the supporters of the East India Company claimed, and not illogically, a little more respect for the Company than had lately been given; the difficulty of framing a new government for India shewed, by implication, that the old régime was not so bad as had been customarily asserted.

The ‘India Bill No. 3’ was brought in by Lord Stanley on the evening (June 17th) which witnessed the withdrawal of the resolutions. The bill comprised sixty-six clauses—of the more important of which a brief outline may be given here, to furnish means of comparison with bills ‘No. 1’ and ‘No. 2:’ The government of India to revert from the Company to the Crown—A Secretary of State to exercise all the powers over Indian affairs hitherto exercised by the Court of Directors, the Secret Committee, and the Board of Control—The Crown to determine whether to give these powers to one of the four existing secretaries of state, or to appoint a fifth—The Secretary to be assisted by a ‘Council of India,’ to consist of fifteen persons—The Court of Directors to elect seven of those members from among its own body, or from among persons who had at any time been directors; the remaining eight to be nominated by the Queen—Vacancies in the council to be filled up alternately by the Crown and by the council assembled for that purpose—A majority of all the members to be chosen from among persons who had served or resided at least ten years in India—Every councillor to be irremovable during good behaviour, to be prohibited from sitting in the House of Commons, to receive twelve hundred pounds a year as salary, to be allowed to resign when he pleases, and to be entitled to a retiring pension varying in amount according to the length of service—Compensation to be given to such secretaries or clerks of the Company as do not become officers of the new department—The Secretary of State to be president of the ‘Council of India,’ to divide the council into committees for the dispatch of business, and to appoint any member as vice-president—Council meetings to be called by the Secretary, or by any five members; and five to be a quorum—Questions to be decided in the council by a majority, but the Secretary to have a veto even over the majority—The Secretary may send and receive ‘secret’ dispatches, without consulting his council at all—Most of the appointments in India to be made as heretofore—Patronage of cadetships to be exercised partly by the council, but principally by the Secretary of State, and to be given in a certain ratio to sons of persons who have filled military or civil offices in India—The property, credits, debits, and liabilities of the Company, except India stock and its dividends, to be transferred from the Company to the Crown; and the council to act as trustees in these matters—The council to present annual accounts to parliament of Indian finance and all matters relating thereto—The council to guarantee the legalised dividend on India stock, out of the revenues of India.

The ‘Bill No. 3,’ of which the above is a slight programme, came on for second reading on the 24th of June. Lord Stanley—who, as admitted by opponents as well as supporters, entered with great earnestness upon the duties of his office—stated that he had endeavoured to avail himself of all the opinions expressed during the various debates, to prepare a measure that should meet the views of a majority of the House. In the discussion that ensued, Mr Bright wandered into subjects that could not possibly be treated in the bill; he reopened the whole topic of Indian misgovernment—disapproved of governor-generals—condemned annexations—suggested new presidencies and new tribunals—and told the Commons how he would govern India if he were minister. The speech was vigorous, but inapplicable to the subject-matter in hand. The bill was read a second time without a division.

The East India Company were not silent at this critical period in their history. A meeting of proprietors on the 23d was made special for the consideration of ‘Bill No. 3,’ which was to be read a second time in the Commons on the following day; and at this meeting there was a general expression of disappointment that the Company had been treated as such a nullity. The only source of consolation was in the fact that seven members of the new council were to be chosen by the Court of Directors, from persons who then belonged or had formerly belonged to that court. The opinions of the Company were embodied in a letter addressed to Lord Stanley by the chairman and deputy-chairman, and presented to the House of Commons.

On the 25th, the House went into committee on the bill. Lord Palmerston proposed two amendments—that the members should be twelve in number instead of fifteen, and that all should be appointed by the Crown; but both amendments were rejected by large majorities as being inconsistent with the recent expression of opinion. At a further sitting on the 1st of July, the ministers shewed they had obtained a considerable hold on the House; for they succeeded in obtaining the rejection of amendments proposed by Lord Palmerston, Mr Gladstone, Sir James Graham, and Mr Vernon Smith. Lord Stanley, however, proposed many amendments himself on the part of the government; and these amendments were accepted in so friendly a spirit, that a large number of clauses were got through by the end of a long sitting on the 2d of July. One of the most interesting of the questions discussed bore relation to the Secret Committee of the past, and the proposed exercise of similar powers by the Secretary of State. Lord John Russell and Mr Mangles advocated the abolition of those powers altogether; while Sir G. C. Lewis recommended great caution in their exercise, if used. Mr Mangles, the late chairman of the Court of Directors, stated that the powers of the Secret Committee had been much more extensive than was generally supposed. ‘During many years after the conquest of Sinde, the whole government of that province was conducted by the Secret Committee, and the Court of Directors knew nothing about it. He believed that much mischief had arisen from the Secret Committee undertaking to transact business with which it had no right to interfere. The real fact was, that nine-tenths of that which came before the Secret Committee might with safety be communicated to the whole world. He wished, therefore, that there should be no Secret Committee in future. It was a mere delusion and snare. The Court of Directors had shewn themselves to be as competent to keep a secret, when there was one, as the cabinet of her Majesty; and he had no reason to think otherwise of the proposed Indian Council.’ The ministers, however, received the support of Lord Palmerston in this matter; and the continuance of the secret powers was sanctioned, although by a small majority only. On the 5th and 6th, the remaining clauses and amendments were gone through. Mr Gladstone proposed a clause enacting, ‘That, except for repelling actual invasion, or under sudden or urgent necessity, her Majesty’s forces in India shall not be employed in any military operation beyond the external frontier of her Indian possessions, without the consent of parliament.’ Lord Palmerston opposed this clause; but Lord Stanley assented to it as a wholesome declaration of parliamentary power; and it was agreed to.

At length, on the 8th of July—five months after ‘Bill No. 1’ had been introduced by Lord Palmerston, and three or four months after the introduction of ‘Bill No. 2’ by Mr Disraeli—‘Bill No. 3’ was passed by the House of Commons, after a vehement denunciation by Mr Roebuck, who predicted great disaster from the organisation of the ‘Council of India.’ Lord Palmerston’s bill was withdrawn on the next day: it never came on for a second reading.

The House of Lords justly complained of the small amount of time left to them for the discussion of the bill; but there was now no help for it, short of abandoning the measure for the session; and therefore they entered at once on the discussion. On the 9th, the bill was brought in and read a first time. Between that time and the second reading, the East India Company made one more attempt to oppose the measure. They agreed to a petition for presentation to the House of Lords. It was in part a petition, in part a protest. The propriety of adopting the petition was urged by such considerations as these: ‘If we do not protest, every wrong that may be done for years to come will be laid at our doors; but with this protest upon record, history will do us the justice of stating that we have been deprived of our power without inquiry.’ The Court of Proprietors also discussed whether counsel should be employed to represent the Company before the House of Lords. Many of the directors assented to this—but only so far as concerned technical and legal points; for, they urged, it would be very undignified to employ any hired counsel to argue the moral and political question, or to defend the conduct of the Company and the rights of India. It remained yet, however, an unsettled point whether counsel would be permitted to appear at all.

On the 13th of July, after a feeble attempt to attach importance to the Company’s petition and protest, the bill was read a second time in the Lords. The most remarkable speech made on this occasion was that of the Earl of Ellenborough, Lord Stanley’s predecessor at the Board of Control. He declared that, whether in or out of office, he could not approve of the measure, the parentage of which he gave to the House of Commons rather than to the government. He disapproved of the abandonment of popular election in the proposed council; disapproved of the strong leaven of ‘Leadenhall Street’ in its composition; disapproved of competitive examinations for the Indian artillery and engineers; and expressed a general belief that the scheme would not work well. When the bill went into committee on the 16th, the earl proposed that the members of the council should be appointed for five years only, instead of for life; but this amendment was negatived without a division. Lord Broughton, who, as Sir John Cam Hobhouse, had once been president of the India Board, opposed the whole theory of a council in the strongest terms. He described in anticipation the inconveniences he believed would flow from it. ‘The council would only embarrass the minister with useless suggestions and minutes on the most trifling questions; and, if they were rejected, the minority would always be able to furnish weapons of attack against the Secretary in the House of Commons. The minister would gain no advice or knowledge from the council he could not obtain from others without the embarrassment of having official councillors.’ The Earl of Derby contested these assertions simply by denying their truth; and they had no effect on the decision of the House. All the clauses were examined during three sittings, on the 16th, 19th, and 20th of the month, and were adopted with a few amendments. During the discussions, the Earl of Derby appeared as the friend of the ‘middle classes.’ The Earl of Ellenborough having repeated his objection to competitive examination for the engineers and artillery of the Indian army, on the ground that it would lower the ‘gentlemanly’ standard of those services, the premier replied that, ‘He was not insensible to the advantages of birth and station: but he could not join with his noble friend in saying that because a person happened to be the son of a tailor, a grocer, or a cheesemonger, provided his mental qualifications were equal to those of his competitors, he was to be excluded from honourable competition for an appointment in the public service.’

On the 23d of July the India Bill was read a third time and passed by the House of Lords, with only a few observations bearing collaterally on Indian affairs. The Archbishop of Canterbury and some of the bishops made an appeal for the more direct encouragement of Christianity in India; but the Earl of Derby made a very cautious response. ‘Due protection ought to be given to the professors of all religions in India, and nothing should be done to discourage the efforts of Christian missionaries. On the other hand, he deemed it essential to the interests, the peace, the well-being of England, if not also to the very existence of her power in India, that the government should carefully abstain from doing anything except to give indiscriminate and impartial protection to all sects and all creeds; and that nothing could be more inconvenient or more dangerous on the part of the state than any open or active assistance to any attempt to convert the native population from their own religions, however false or superstitious.’ The Earls of Shaftesbury and Ellenborough joined in deploring the vindictive feeling which had sprung up between the Europeans and natives in India, and which, if continued, would neutralise all attempts at improvement. The Anglo-Indian press was severely reproved for the share it had taken in originating or fostering this feeling.

The Lords having introduced a few amendments in the India Bill, these amendments required the sanction of the Commons before they could be adopted. One of these affected the secret service of the new council; another, the mode of appointing the higher officials in India; a third, the principle of competitive examinations; a fourth, the application of Indian revenues; and so on. The Commons rejected some of these amendments, and accepted the rest, on the 27th. On the 29th the Lords met to consider whether they would abandon the amendments objected to by the Commons. This they agreed to do except in one instance—relating to competitive examinations for the Indian artillery and engineers; they still thought that commissions in these two services should be given only to ‘gentlemen,’ in the conventional sense of the term. The government, rather than run into collision with the Lords, recommended the Commons to assent to the slight amendment which had been made; and this was agreed to—but not without many pungent remarks on the course which the Upper House had thought proper to pursue. Sir James Graham adverted to a supercilious allusion by the Earl of Ellenborough to the ‘John Gilpin class,’ and added—‘Where is hereditary wisdom found? In what consists the justice of the tenet that India must henceforward be governed by gentlemen, to the exclusion of the middle classes—a gentleman being defined to be something between a peer and those who buy and sell. Is this, I would ask, the only argument that can be advanced against the system of competitive examinations? Who, let me ask, founded, who won our Indian empire?—Those who bought and sold. Who extended it?—Those who bought and sold. Who now transfer that empire to the Crown?—Those who bought and sold; a company of merchants—merchants, forsooth, whose sons are now not thought worthy to have even inferior offices in India committed to their hands. But are not the sons of those who buy and sell entitled to the appellation of gentlemen? Definitions are dangerous; but I should, nevertheless, like to know what it is that constitutes a gentleman. Why, sir, it appears to me that if a man be imbued with strong Christian principles, if he have received an enlightened and liberal education, if he be virtuous and honourable—it appears to me that such a man as that is entitled to the appellation. And who will tell me that among the sons of those who buy and sell may not be found men possessing literary attainments and a refinement of mind which place them in a position to bear comparison with the highest born gentlemen in India? Who, let me ask, were the conquerors of the country? From what class have they sprung? Who was Clive?—The son of a yeoman. Who was Munro?—The son of a Glasgow merchant. Who was Malcolm?—The son of a sheep-farmer upon the Scotch border. These, sir, are the men who have won for us our Indian empire; and I entertain no fear that the sons of those who buy and sell, and who enter the Indian service by means of this principle of open competition, will fail to maintain a high position in our army, or that they will do anything to dishonour the English name.’

When the India Bill finally passed the Lords, the Earl of Albemarle recorded a protest against it—on the grounds that the home government established by it would be inefficient and unconstitutional; that the council would be too numerous; that it would be nearly half composed of the very directors who were supposed to be under condemnation; that those directors, by self-election to the council, would establish a vicious principle; that the members of the council would be irresponsible for the use of the great amount of patronage held by them; that the change in the mode of government was too slight to insure those reforms which India so much needed; that it was pernicious, and contrary to parliamentary precedent, to allow the members of the council to hold other offices, or to engage in commercial pursuits; that the practical effect of the council would be merely to thwart the Secretary of State for India, or else to screen him from censure; and that efficient and experienced under-secretaries would be far better than any council.

The bill received the royal assent, and became an act of parliament, on the 2d of August, under the title of ‘An Act for the Better Government of India;’ 21st and 22d of Victoria, cap. 106. A brief and intelligible abstract of all the provisions of this important statute will be found in the Appendix.

One clause in the new act provided that the Court of Directors should elect seven members to the new council of India, either out of the existing court, or from persons who had formerly been directors of the Company. On the 7th of August they met, and chose the following seven of their own number—Sir James Weir Hogg, Mr Charles Mills, Captain John Shepherd, Mr Elliot Macnaghten, Mr Ross Donelly Mangles, Captain William Joseph Eastwick, and Mr Henry Thoby Prinsep. Many of the public journals severely condemned this selection, as having been dictated by the merest selfish retention of power in the directors’ own hands; but on the other side, it was urged that these seven gentlemen possessed a large amount of practical knowledge on Indian affairs; and, moreover, that the Company, owing the legislature no thanks for recent proceedings, were not bound to be disinterested in the matter.

A remarkable meeting was held by the East India Company on the 11th of August, to consider the state of affairs produced by the new act. The directors and proprietors met as if no one clearly knew what to think on the matter. They asked—What is the East India Company now? What does it possess? What can it do, or what has it got to do? Has it any further interest in the affairs of India? Is there now any use in a Court of Directors, or a Court of Proprietors, further than to distribute the dividends on India stock handed over by the new Council of India out of Indian revenues? Is the regular payment of that dividend well secured? Are the trading powers of the Company abolished; and if not, is there any profitable trade that can be entered upon? Are they to lose their house in Leadenhall Street, their museum, their library, their archives; and if so, why? If the Company at any time become involved in law-proceedings, will the costs come out of the dividends, or out of what other fund? The answers to these various questions were so very conflicting, and the state of doubt among all the proprietors so evident, that it was agreed—‘That a committee of proprietors be appointed to act in concert with the chairman and deputy-chairman of the Court of Directors, for the purpose of obtaining counsel’s opinion as to the present legal position of the Company under previous acts of parliament, as well as the present act—more especially as to the parliamentary guarantee of the Company’s stock, and the position of the Company’s creditors, Indian as well as European.’

The 1st of September 1858 was a day to be recorded in English annals—it witnessed the death of the once mighty East India Company as a governing body. ‘On this day,’ said one of the able London journals, ‘the Court of Directors of the East India Company holds its last solemn assembly. To-morrow, before the shops and the counting-houses of our great metropolis shall have received their accustomed inmates, the greatest corporate body the world has ever seen will have shrivelled into an association of receivers of dividends. The great house in Leadenhall Street will stand as it has stood for long years, and well-nigh the same business will be done by well-nigh the same persons; but the government of the East India Company will have passed into a tradition. Thousands and tens of thousands, including many of the greatest and wisest in the land, intent upon pleasure at this pleasure-seeking period of the year, will, in all human probability, not give the great change a thought. But the first and second days of September 1858, which witness the extinction of the old and the inauguration of the new systems of Indian government, constitute an epoch in our national history—nay, in the world’s history, second in importance to few in the universal annals of mankind. On this day the East India Company, which hitherto, through varied changes and gradations, has directed the relations of Great Britain with the vast continent of India, issues its last instructions to its servants in the east. On this day the last dispatches written by the authoritative “we” to our governor-general, or governors in council, will be signed by their “affectionate friends.” To-morrow the egomet of her Majesty’s Secretary of State will be supreme in the official correspondence of the Indian bureau. It may or may not be for the good of India, it may or may not be for the good of England, that the government of the East India Company should on this day cease to exist; but we confess we do not envy the feelings of the man who can contemplate without emotion this great and pregnant political change.’ There was a disposition, on this last day of the Company’s power, to look at the bright rather than the dark side of its character. ‘It has the great privilege of transferring to the service of her Majesty such a body of civil and military officers as the world has never seen before. A government cannot be base, cannot be feeble, cannot be wanting in wisdom, that has reared two such services as the civil and military services of the East India Company. To those services the Company has always been just, has always been generous. In those services lowly merit has never been neglected. The best men have risen to the highest place. They may have come from obscure farmhouses or dingy places of business; they may have been roughly nurtured and rudely schooled; they may have landed in the country without sixpence or a single letter of recommendation in their trunks; but if they have had the right stuff in them, they have made their way to eminence, and have distanced men of the highest connections and most flattering antecedents.... Let her Majesty appreciate the gift—let her take the vast country and the teeming millions of India under her direct control; but let her not forget the great corporation from which she has received them, nor the lessons to be learned from its success.’

Old East India House, Leadenhall Street.

The last special General Court of the Company was held, as we have said, on the 1st of September. The immediate purpose was a generous one: the granting of a pension to the distinguished ruler of the Punjaub, Sir John Lawrence; and this was followed by an act at once dignified and graceful. It was an earnest tender of thanks, on the part of the East India Company generally, to its servants of every rank and capacity, at home and in India, for their zealous and faithful performance of duties; an assurance to the natives of India that they would find in Queen Victoria ‘a most gracious mistress;’ an expression of hearty belief that the home-establishment, if employed by the Crown, would serve the Crown well as it had served the Company; a declaration of just pride in the sterling civilians and noble soldiers at that moment serving unweariedly in India; and an earnest hope and prayer ‘That it may please Almighty God to bless the Queen’s Indian reign by the speedy restoration of peace, security, and order; and so to prosper her Majesty’s efforts for the welfare of her East Indian subjects that the millions who will henceforth be placed under her Majesty’s direct as well as sovereign dominion, constantly advancing in all that makes men and nations great, flourishing, and happy, may reward her Majesty’s cares in their behalf by their faithful and firm attachment to her Majesty’s person and government.’

The East India House in Leadenhall Street was chosen by Lord Stanley as the office of the new Council for India, on account of its internal resources for the management of public business. During more than two centuries and a half, the city of London had contained the head-quarters of those who managed Anglo-Indian affairs. The first meeting of London merchants in 1599, on the subject of East India trade, was held at Founders’ Hall. The early business of the Company, when formed, was transacted partly at the residences of the directors, partly in the halls of various incorporated companies. In 1621 the Company occupied Crosby Hall for this purpose. In 1638 a removal was made to Leadenhall Street, to the house of Sir Christopher Clitheroe, at that time governor of the Company. In 1648 the Company took the house of Lord Craven, adjoining Clitheroe’s, and on the site of the present India House. In 1726 the picturesque old front of this mansion was taken down, and replaced by the one represented in the above cut. Finally, in 1796, the present India House was built,[[193]] and remained the head-quarters of the Company. Acquiring skill by gradual experience, the Company had rendered this one of the most perfectly organised establishments that ever existed. Ranged in racks and shelves, in chambers, corridors, and cellars, were the records of the Company’s administration; prepared by governor-generals, judges, magistrates, collectors, paymasters, directors, secretaries, and other officials abroad and at home. These documents, tabulated and indexed with the greatest nicety, related to the whole affairs of the Company, small as well as great, and extended back to the earliest period of the Company’s history. Declarations of war, treaties of peace, depositions of native princes, dispatches of governor-generals, proceedings of trials, appeals of natives, revenue assessments, army disbursements—all were fully recorded in some mode or other. The written documents relating to a hundred and fifty-five years of the Company’s history, from 1704 to 1858, filled no less than a hundred and sixty thousand huge folio volumes. These documents were so thoroughly indexed and registered that any one could be found by a very brief search. It was mentioned with pride by the staff of the India House, that when Lord Stanley, in his capacity as Secretary of State for India, made his first official visit to Leadenhall Street, he was invited to test the efficiency of this registration department, by calling for any particular dispatch, or for any document bearing upon any act or policy of the Court of Directors, throughout a period of a century and a half; a promise was given that any one of these documents should be forthcoming in five minutes. His lordship thereupon asked for a report on the subject of some occurrence which took place under his own observation while on a tour in India. The document was speedily produced, and was found to contain all the details of the transaction minutely described.

After the Court of Directors had elected seven members to the new council, the government nominated the other eight. The greatest name on the list was Sir John Laird Muir Lawrence, who was expected to return to England, and for whom a place at the council-board was kept vacant. The other seven nominated members were Sir Henry Conyngham Montgomery, Sir Frederick Currie, Major-general Sir Robert John Hussey Vivian, Colonel Sir Proby Thomas Cautley, Lieutenant-colonel Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, Mr John Pollard Willoughby, and Mr William Arbuthnot. It was considered that the fifteen members, in reference to their past experience of Indian affairs, might fairly represent the following interests:

Bengal Civil Service,Prinsep, Mangles.
Madras Civil Service,Montgomery.
Bombay Civil Service,Willoughby.
Bengal Army,Cautley.
Madras Army,Vivian.
Bombay Army,Eastwick.
The Punjaub,Lawrence.
Afghan Frontier,Rawlinson.
Native States,Currie.
Indian Law,Hogg, Macnaghten.
Shipping Interests,Shepherd.
Finance,Mills.
Indian Commerce,Arbuthnot.

This classification, however, was not official; it was only useful in denoting the kind of knowledge likely to be brought to the council by each member. When, in the early days of September, Lord Stanley presided at the first meetings of the new council, he grouped the members into certain committees, for the more convenient dispatch of business. This grouping was based in part on the previous practice of the East India Company, and in part on suggested improvements. The committees were three in number, of five members each—partly nominated, and partly elected. The functions and composition of the committees were as follow:

Finance, Home, and Public Works.
Sir Proby Cautley,}
Mr Arbuthnot,}Nominated.
Mr Mills,}
Mr Macnaghten,}Elected.
Captain Shepherd,}
Political and Military.
Sir John Lawrence,}
Sir R. Vivian,}
Sir H. Rawlinson,}Nominated.
Mr Willoughby,}
Captain Eastwick, Elected.
Revenue, Judicial and Legislative.
Sir H. Montgomery,}
Sir F. Currie,}Nominated.
Sir J. W. Hogg,}
Mr Mangles,}Elected.
Mr Prinsep,}

Lord Stanley appointed Sir G. R. Clerk and Mr Henry Baillie to be under-secretaries of state for India; and Mr James Cosmo Melvill, late deputy-secretary to the East India Company, to be assistant under-secretary. Mr John Stuart Mill, one of the most distinguished of the Company’s servants in England, was earnestly solicited by Lord Stanley to assist the new government with his services; but he declined on account of impaired health. With a few exceptions, the valued and experienced servants of the Company became servants of the new council, as secretaries, clerks, examiners, auditors, record-keepers, &c.; for the rest, arrangements were to be gradually made in the form of compensations, pensions, or retiring allowances.

One of the first proceedings under the new régime was the appointment of a commission to investigate the complicated relations of the Indian army. The heads of inquiry on which the commission was to enter included almost everything that could bear upon the organisation and efficiency of the military force in the east, under a system where the anomalous distinction between ‘Company’s’ troops and ‘Queen’s’ troops would no longer be in force. Such an inquiry would necessarily extend over a period of many months, and would need to be conducted partly in India and partly in England.

In closing this narrative of the demise of the powerful East India Company as a political or governing body, it may be remarked that all the well-wishers of India felt the change to be a great and signal one, whether for good or harm. There were not wanting prophets of disaster. The influence of parliament being so much more readily brought to bear upon a government department than upon the East India Company, many persons entertained misgivings concerning the effect of the change upon the well-being of India. Before any long period could elapse, submarine cables would probably have been sunk in so many seas, and land-cables stretched across so many countries, that a message would be flashed from London to Calcutta in a few hours. Lord Palmerston once jocularly made a prediction, ten years before the Indian mutiny broke out, to the effect that the day would come when, if a minister were asked in parliament whether war had broken out in India, he would reply: ‘Wait a minute; I’ll just telegraph to the governor-general, and let you know.’ A war in India did indeed come, before the period for the fulfilment of this prediction; but the time was assuredly approaching when the ‘lightning-post,’ as the natives of India felicitously call it, would be in operation. What would be the results? Some of the foreboders of disaster said: ‘In any great crisis, it is true, which demands prompt action on the part of the governing country, this rapid intercommunication will be a source of strength; the resources of England will be brought to bear upon any part of India four or five weeks sooner than under existing circumstances. But, on the other hand, the ordinary work of government, at either end of the wire, will be greatly complicated and embarrassed by this frequent intercommunication of ideas. The Council of India will probably not be overanxious to fetter the movements of the governor-general; nor will the Secretary of State for India be necessarily prone to send curt sentences of advice or remonstrance to the distant viceroy; but it is doubtful whether parliament would suffer the council or the Secretary to exercise this wise forbearance. There would be a tendency to govern India by the House of Commons through the medium of the electric telegraph. A sensitive governor-general would be worried to death in a few months by the interference of the telegraph with his free action; and an irritable one might be stung into indignant resignation in a much shorter time.’ All such fears are groundless. If a message from England were perilous in its tendency through its ease and quickness of transmission, a message from India pointing out this perilous tendency would be equally easy and quick. The electric messenger does its work as rapidly in one direction as the other. A governor-general, worthy of the name, would take care not instantly to obey an order which he believed to be dangerous to the welfare of the country under his charge; the wire would enable him to converse with the authorities at home in a few hours, or, at any rate, a few days, and to explain circumstances which would probably lead to a modification of the order issued. The electric telegraph being one of the greatest boons ever given by science to mankind, it will be strange indeed if England does not derive from it—in her government of India, as in other matters—an amount of benefit that will immeasurably outweigh any temporary inconveniences.

Calcutta.—Company’s Troops early in the Nineteenth Century.

[191]. Some of the documents here adverted to will be given verbatim; others in a condensed form.

[192]. See Chap, xxvii., p. [451].

[193]. See Engraving, p. [452].

W. & R. CHAMBERS LONDON & EDINBURGH

Ormuz—Entrance to the Persian Gulf.