Note.

Nena Sahib’s Proclamations.—When Generals Neill and Havelock were at Cawnpore, during a period subsequent to that comprised within the range of the present chapter, they found many proclamations which had been printed in the Mahratta language by order of Nena Sahib, as if for distribution among the natives under his influence. These proclamations were afterwards translated into English, and included among the parliamentary papers relating to India. A few of them may fittingly be reproduced here, to shew by what means that consummate villain sought to attain his ends.

The following appears to have been issued on or about the 1st of July:—‘As, by the kindness of God and the ikbal or good-fortune of the Emperor, all the Christians who were at Delhi, Poonah, Satara, and other places, and even those 5000 European soldiers who went in disguise into the former city and were discovered, are destroyed and sent to hell by the pious and sagacious troops, who are firm to their religion; and as they have all been conquered by the present government, and as no trace of them is left in these places, it is the duty of all the subjects and servants of the government to rejoice at the delightful intelligence, and to carry on their respective work with comfort and ease.’

This was accompanied by another: ‘As, by the bounty of the glorious Almighty God and the enemy-destroying fortune of the Emperor, the yellow-faced and narrow-minded people have been sent to hell, and Cawnpore has been conquered, it is necessary that all the subjects and landowners should be as obedient to the present government as they had been to the former one; that all the government servants should promptly and cheerfully engage their whole mind in executing the orders of government; that it is the incumbent duty of all the ryots and landed proprietors of every district to rejoice at the thought that the Christians have been sent to hell, and both the Hindoo and Mohammedan religions have been confirmed; and that they should as usual be obedient to the authorities of the government, and never to suffer any complaint against themselves to reach the ears of the higher authority.’

On the 5th of the same month the Nena issued the following to the kotwal or Mayor of Cawnpore: ‘It has come to our notice that some of the city people, having heard the rumours of the arrival of the European soldiers at Allahabad, are deserting their houses and going out into the districts; you are, therefore, directed to proclaim in each lane and street of the city that regiments of cavalry and infantry and batteries have been despatched to check the Europeans either at Allahabad or Futtehpoor; that the people should therefore remain in their houses without any apprehension, and engage their minds in carrying on their work.’

Another proclamation displayed in an extraordinary way the Rajah’s mode of practising on the credulity of the natives, by the most enormous and barefaced fictions: ‘A traveller just arrived in Cawnpore from Calcutta states that in the first instance a council was held to take into consideration the means to be adopted to do away with the religion of the Mohammedans and Hindoos by the distribution of cartridges. The council came to this resolution, that, as this matter was one of religion, the services of seven or eight thousand European soldiers would be necessary, as 50,000 Hindustanis would have to be destroyed, and then the whole of the people of Hindostan would become Christians. A petition with the substance of this resolution was sent to the Queen Victoria, and it was approved. A council was then held a second time, in which English merchants took a part, and it was decided that, in order that no evil should arise from mutiny, large reinforcements should be sent for. When the dispatch was received and read in England, thousands of European soldiers were embarked on ships as speedily as possible, and sent off to Hindostan. The news of their being despatched reached Calcutta. The English authorities there ordered the issue of the cartridges, for the real intention was to Christianise the army first, and this being effected, the conversion of the people would speedily follow. Pigs’ and cows’ fat was mixed up with the cartridges; this became known through one of the Bengalese who was employed in the cartridge-making establishment. Of those through whose means this was divulged, one was killed and the rest imprisoned. While in this country these counsels were being adopted, in England the vakeel (ambassador) of the Sultan of Roum (Turkey) sent news to the sultan that thousands of European soldiers were being sent for the purpose of making Christians of all the people of Hindostan. Upon this the sultan issued a firman to the King of Egypt to this effect: “You must deceive the Queen Victoria, for this is not a time for friendship, for my vakeel writes that thousands of European soldiers have been despatched for the purpose of making Christians the army and people of Hindostan. In this manner, then, this must be checked. If I should be remiss, then how can I shew my face to God; and one day this may come upon me also, for if the English make Christians of all in Hindostan, they will then fix their designs upon my country.” When the firman reached the King of Egypt, he prepared and arranged his troops before the arrival of the English army at Alexandria, for this is the route to India. The instant the English army arrived, the King of Egypt opened guns upon them from all sides, and destroyed and sunk their ships, and not a single soldier escaped. The English in Calcutta, after the issue of the order for the cartridges, and when the mutiny had become great, were in expectation of the arrival of the army from London; but the Great God, in his omnipotence, had beforehand put an end to this. When the news of the destruction of the army of London became known, then the governor-general was plunged in grief and sorrow, and beat his head.

‘Done by order of the Peishwa Bahadoor, 13 Zekaida, 1273 Hegira.’

The Well at Cawnpore.

[16]. Report of Select Committee of House of Commons, 1832.

[17]. The number of persons in the intrenchment on that day will probably never be accurately known; but Mr Shepherd, from the best materials available to him, made the following estimate:

First company, 6th battalion, artillery,61
Her Majesty’s 32d foot,84
Her Majesty’s 84th foot,50
1st European Fusiliers,15
English officers, mostly of mutinied regiments,100
Merchants, writers, clerks, &c.,100
English drummers of mutinied regiments,40
Wives and children of English officers,50
Wives and children of English soldiers,160
Wives and children of civilians,120
Sick, native officers, and sepoys,100
Native servants, cooks, &c.,100

[18]. ‘Mamma died, July 12.’ ‘Alice died, July 9.’ ‘George died, June 27.’ ‘Entered the barracks, May 21.’ ‘Cavalry left, June 5.’ ‘First shot fired, June 6.’ ‘Uncle Willy died, June 18.’ ‘Aunt Lilly, June 17.’

House of the Rajah at Allahabad.

CHAPTER IX.
BENGAL AND THE LOWER GANGES: JUNE.

When, through the media of telegrams, dispatches, and letters, the tragical events at Cawnpore became known in England, and were invested with an additional horror on account of a vague suspicion that worse remained untold, a painful and widely spread sensation was produced. Nay, more; in almost every part of the civilised world, whether or not in harmony with the British government on political and international questions, astonishment was excited by these recitals of unapproachable barbarity among a people who had acquired a sort of traditional character for mildness and gentleness. It was about the end of June when news of the Meerut outbreak reached London; and from that time each fortnightly mail revealed the truth that a larger and larger area of India was becoming involved in the troubles of insurrection—that a gradually increasing number of military officers and civil servants of the Company, with their wives and children, were placed in circumstances of imminent peril. Residents in the United Kingdom, any of whose relations and friends were stationed at Cawnpore, sought eagerly and anxiously, as each mail arrived, for indications that escape had been effected, or a rescuing force obtained. No such news came, no such hopes were realised; darker and more silent was everything relating to that much-dreaded city, until at length the frightful climax became known.

There has been a designed avoidance, in the preceding chapters of this work, of any account of the measures adopted by the British government in military matters, or by the British nation in active benevolence, to remedy the disasters and allay the sufferings to which the Anglo-Indians had so suddenly been exposed; for, in truth, India knew little of such measures until August was far advanced. Whether all was done that might have been done to expedite the passage of British troops to India, is a question that will have to be considered in its proper place; the significant truth now to be borne in mind is that the Calcutta government had to meet the difficulties as best it could, with the scanty supply of troops at that time in India—sending to the Mauritius and the Cape of Good Hope for such reinforcements as might be available, but knowing that aid from England could not arrive for many months. The mode of treatment adopted here is naturally suggested by the course of events themselves. When the ramifications of the Revolt have been traced throughout the month of June, a chapter will then be devoted to the subjects above indicated; for, although Cawnpore carried us into July, we have yet to watch what was concurrently passing at other places.

We begin with the region extending from the Burmese frontier to the Doab, and forming the eastern portion of Northern India; it may for convenience be called Bengal, without any rigid adherence to territorial subdivision.

The Indian government was not as yet troubled with any serious outbreaks at Chittagong or Dacca, or in any of the districts bounding the Bay of Bengal on the north and east. There were a few native troops at the first named of these two towns, belonging to one of the mutinous regiments at Barrackpore; but tranquillity was not disturbed by them. It is true that, when the disloyalty of the 34th became known, the inhabitants of Chittagong and Tipperah experienced some alarm lest the detachment of this regiment stationed at the first-named town might follow the pernicious example; but the Company’s collector, having three lacs of rupees in hand, quietly removed his treasure on board a steamer; and all uneasiness was soon allayed. Along the extreme eastern border of the Bengal presidency, from Assam down through Dacca to Chittagong, the month of June similarly passed over without any disturbances calling for notice, although a temporary panic was excited in more than one spot. At Dacca, for instance, the approach of disbanded native mutineers was apprehended; and a mischievous set of Mohammedans, under one Keramut Ali, were detected in the endeavour to sow the seeds of disaffection; but by the firmness of the civil authorities, and the arrival of a hundred seamen in two pinnaces from the Company’s steamers Zenobia and Punjaub, tranquillity was soon restored.

In the Calcutta and Barrackpore district, although no actual mutiny occurred, symptoms were presented that gave much anxiety to the Europeans residing at the capital, and prompted energetic preventive measures. We have seen, in Chapter II., that much discontent was exhibited at Dumdum, Barrackpore, and Berhampore, between the months of January and May, by the native troops; that this discontent was (professedly) associated with the affair of the greased cartridges; that insubordination led to disarming and disbandment; that the news of the Meerut and Delhi atrocities in May greatly alarmed the Calcutta inhabitants; and that many addresses of loyalty and sympathy with the government were thenceforth presented. During the first half of June, the European residents looked with a sort of suspicious watchfulness at everything that was occurring around them, prepared to find the native troops treacherous, yet hoping for better things. The reliable forces in Calcutta at that time comprised H.M. 53d foot, nine hundred strong, and five hundred of H.M. 37th. A company of the 3d battalion Madras artillery; No. 2 horse field-battery; forty men of the royal artillery, recently arrived from Ceylon; and a wing of H.M. 35th foot, were at Barrackpore. The 78th Highlanders were at Chinsura. On the 13th of June, Calcutta was thrown into great agitation. A messenger was captured by the authorities, and confessed that the sepoys at Barrackpore and Calcutta had agreed to mutiny on that very night. Arrangements were immediately made for defending the city by the aid chiefly of volunteers, who had before then begun to organise themselves. The civilians took arms, marshalled themselves into companies and corps, and paraded the streets in the English part of the city. During the two following nights, this patrolling was conducted very vigilantly; and every native met in the streets was required to give an account of his movements. On one occasion, Lady Canning, accompanied by the governor-general, the commander-in-chief, Generals Windham and Beatson, and a glittering staff, went to the parade-ground; where, the volunteers being all drawn up in full array, her ladyship presented them with colours, and made a complimentary address; to which Major Turnbull replied, as commandant of the ‘Calcutta Volunteer Guards.’

The military proceedings on this occasion were as follow. Before light on Sunday morning the 14th, in consequence of a message received from head-quarters, a body of the 78th Highlanders was sent off hastily from Chinsura to Barrackpore, to disarm the native troops there; while five hundred of her Majesty’s 37th foot, landed from Ceylon only the day before, were marched off to a point about midway between Calcutta and Barrackpore, to command the road during the disarming. About midnight an order arrived that some of the 37th should return instantly to the capital. It had been discovered that the deposed King of Oude, residing in a handsome house at Garden Reach, was engaged in some machinations with a prince of the Delhi family, inimical to the interests of the Europeans. A military force marched to his house at four o’clock on the morning of the 15th, surrounded the grounds, entered, and seized the king and his prime minister, together with a large quantity of papers. Arrangements were immediately made for the safe custody of the two Oudians, until the papers could be fully examined. A document came to light, containing a Mohammedan sketch-map of Calcutta, dividing the city into sections; together with the plan for a general rising of natives on the centenary day of the battle of Plassy, the murder of all the Feringhees, and the establishment of a native ‘raj’ or dynasty on the ruins of that of the Company. It was deemed proper to adopt prompt measures on this occasion; all the native troops in Calcutta were disarmed as a precautionary measure, including the Calcutta militia, but excluding the governor-general’s body-guard. The sepoys, who made no demur whatever, were disarmed in parties wherever they happened to be—at the Government House guard, the treasury, the mint, the bank, and the fort. Each party was confronted by a party of Europeans, and gave up arms on being so commanded; the arms and ammunition were then taken away by the European soldiers, nothing being left with the sepoys but their ramrods, with which to ‘shoulder arms.’ It was explained to them that the disarming was only a temporary precautionary measure; that they would receive pay and perform sentinel-duty as before; and that the arms would be restored to them as soon as public tranquillity was insured.

The inhabitants of Calcutta long continued to bear well in remembrance the 14th of June. For nearly a month the civilians had been in the habit of taking revolvers with them to church, balls, and parties; but on this day, such were the vague terrors of slaughter whispered from mouth to mouth, that the excitement rose to a height of panic. One who was there at the time said: ‘The infection of terror raged through all classes. Chowringhee and Garden Reach were abandoned for the fort and the vessels in the river. The shipping was crowded with fugitives; and in houses which were selected as being least likely to be attacked, hundreds of people gladly huddled together, to share the peculiar comfort which the presence of crowds imparts on such occasions. The hotels were fortified; bands of sailors marched through the thoroughfares, happy in the expectation of possible fighting and the certainty of grog. Every group of natives was scanned with suspicion. The churches and the course were abandoned for that evening. A rising, either of Hindoos or of Mussulmans, or perhaps of both, was looked upon as certain to happen in the course of the night. From Chandernagore the whole body of European and East Indian inhabitants emigrated to Calcutta; the personnel of government, the staff of the army, all in short who had anything to lose, preferred to come away and run the risk of losing it, rather than encounter the unknown danger.’ A somewhat unworthy timidity seems, at first sight, to mark all this; but the civilians and private families of Calcutta, utterly unused to war, had been so horror-stricken by the accounts of murders of officers, violations of women, mutilations of little children, burnings of sick and wounded, and other atrocities perpetrated in Upper India, as to become in a certain sense paralysed. After the decisive measures adopted by the government on the 14th and next following day, the inhabitants of the capital gradually recovered their equanimity; and the month closed peacefully.

Early in June, the sepoys cantoned at Barrackpore made the same kind of demonstration as at an earlier date—that is, they professed fidelity, and asked to be furnished with the new Enfield rifle. In the 43d regiment B. N. I., there was a general application made to Major Matthews, by native officers as well as sepoys, to this effect; accompanied by the expression of a desire to be sent to fight against the rebels at Delhi. The 70th B. N. I., almost to a man, came forward on the 5th of the month, and presented a petition to Colonel Kennedy, with a similar prayer. The petition began somewhat boastfully: ‘From the day on which his lordship the governor-general condescended to come in person to answer our petition, on which occasion General Hearsey translated to us his address, and which was fully explained to us by our colonel, interpreter, adjutant, and all the other officers of the regiment, our honour and name have been raised amongst our countrymen;’ and it ended with an abundant profession of loyalty towards the government. The 34th regiment B. N. I., or such of the men as were at Barrackpore, imitated the example of their fellow-soldiers; they sent a petition to Lieutenant-colonel Wheler on the 9th of June, expressive of their loyalty, and requesting that the new rifle might be served out to them. The government, in reply to all these petitions and demonstrations, stated that the supply of Enfield rifles received from England was too small to permit the granting of the request; but that the request itself was received with much gratification by the governor-general, ‘proving as it does that the men of these regiments consider there is nothing objectionable either in the rifles or in the cartridges to their caste or religion.’

Little was it suspected in how short a time all these complimentary exchanges of good words would be brought to nought. On the evening of the 13th came to light those plottings or suspicions of plottings which led to an imperative order for the disarming of the sepoys. In a private letter on this subject, the major-general said: ‘Some villains in the corps were trying to incite the good men and true to mutiny; these good men ought to have given the villains up to justice;’ but as they did not, he thought it a safe plan to disarm them all. When this determination was made known by the authorities, many of the English officers of the native regiments felt much vexed and hurt; they still relied on their men, and deemed it a humiliation to themselves that such a course should be deemed necessary. Captain Greene, of the 70th N. I., wrote to Major-general Hearsey, on the Sunday morning: ‘Is it of any use my interceding with you on behalf of my old corps, which, for nigh twenty-five years, has been my pride and my home? I cannot express to you the pain with which I have just heard that they are this evening to be subjected to the indignity of being disarmed. Had the men misbehaved, I should have felt no sympathy for them; but they have not committed themselves in any way; and surely after the governor-general’s laudatory order and expression of confidence, it would not be too much to expect that a fair trial of their sincerity should be afforded.’ Captain Greene proceeded to say that he knew the men thoroughly, and had the most firm and undoubted reliance on their fidelity. The authorities were not affected by this appeal. At four o’clock in the afternoon, the 35th and 78th British regiments were marched to the parade-ground at Barrackpore, with loaded muskets, and supported by six 12-pounders loaded with grape-shot. The native troops were then summoned to the parade, and ordered at once to surrender their arms; this they did quietly and promptly, for even if disposed to resist, the force against them was too formidable. In little more than an hour, the muskets of the disarmed regiments were on the way to Calcutta. The sepoys bore the trial quietly, but with many expressions of mortification.

Captain Greene, in the postscript to a letter written on the following day to the major-general, mentioned certain facts which ought to have opened his eyes to the possibility of deceit and danger. A Mussulman sepoy of the 70th regiment came to him on the 9th of the month, and after conversation on some contemplated movements of the captain, said: ‘Whatever you do, do not take your lady with you.’ He gave as a reason: ‘Because the minds of the native soldiers are now in a state of inquietude; and it would be better to let the lady remain here till everything is settled in the country, as there is no knowing what might happen.’ On being asked whether he had reason to doubt the regiment, he exclaimed: ‘Who can tell the hearts of a thousand men!’ He implied that a few evil men were endeavouring to corrupt the rest. This communicative sepoy went on to observe, that the cartridge grievance, although founded on a misconception in the first instance, was afterwards used as a means of imposing on the ignorant. There were men who went about saying that the English endeavoured to destroy the caste and religion of the people; that the government ought to be uprooted; and that as the Company had been driven out of Cabool, so might it be driven out of the whole of India, if the people acted resolutely and with one accord. Another sepoy, a Hindoo, in the same regiment, told Captain Greene that the Mussulmans generally in all regiments were in the habit of talking to the effect that their ‘raj’ or supremacy was coming round again. Many others spoke indistinctly to him about dangers, and promised to protect him if peril arose. It may not be improbable that most of the men in that regiment were really disposed to be faithful, and that the danger arose from a smaller number of malcontents. Captain Greene went to see his men in the lines after the disarming; it was a painful interview to them all. ‘I have been for upwards of an hour,’ he wrote, ‘endeavouring to allay the excited feelings of our men, who were in such a state of depression, that many were crying bitterly, and none could cook their food. Some, too, had sold their cooking utensils for a mere trifle in the bazaar.’ The regiment had not been disbanded as if in disgrace, only disarmed as if for precaution; but the men nevertheless regarded it as a degradation. Some budmashes (scoundrels) had been amongst them in the night, and had urged them to desert, telling them that handcuffs and manacles had been sent for. The captain earnestly implored that their arms should be given back to them: ‘Unless something be speedily done to reassure them, the influence of their European officers will cease to exist, and a good regiment will crumble away before hopelessness and desertion. All of us, black and white, would be so thankful to you if you would get us back our arms, and sent away from here at once.’ This request was not acceded to.

Within ten days after the disarming, a hundred and thirty-three men of the disarmed regiments (2d, 34th, 43d, and 70th) deserted from Barrackpore and Calcutta, nearly all belonging to the 43d. The magistrates and military authorities in many parts of Bengal were troubled with the arrival of these deserters, who came two or three at a time, and endeavoured to excite disaffection against a government which, as they alleged, had disgraced them without a cause. A reward of fifty rupees was offered for the apprehension of every deserter.

Departing from Calcutta and Barrackpore as centres, it may be well now to sketch the state of the surrounding districts during the month of June. Towards the northeast, many towns, especially Jessore, were thrown occasionally into excitement by occurrences which would have been regarded as trivial if happening at any other time, but which required watchful attention on the part of the authorities in the peculiarly sensitive state of the native mind. In the Dinagepore district, near the Bhotan frontier, several moulvies spread reports of the intention of the government forcibly to convert native children to Christianity: these reports caused many of the children in the vernacular school at Muthoorapore to be withdrawn by their parents; and on an examination of the moulvies being ordered by the authorities, it was found that the fakeers and other religious mendicants were accustomed to carry treasonable letters and concealed correspondence within the bamboo sticks with which most of them were provided. North and west of the Anglo-Indian capital, a similar state of public affairs was presented; a succession of troublous symptoms that required attention, but without entailing serious consequences. In some instances disarmed sepoys were detected exciting disaffection; in others, seditious placards were posted up in the towns. In the country around Ramgurh a few circumstances transpired to produce temporary disquietude. The Ramgurh battalion was believed to be stanch; but as some discontent had spread among the troops in relation to the cartridge grievance, and as two or three petty chieftains exhibited symptoms of disloyalty, judicious and early precautions were taken against disaster—especially at Hazarebagh, where the treasury contained a lac of rupees, and where the jail, containing nine hundred prisoners, was guarded solely by two companies of a native regiment: a kind of guard which had proved very perilous at Meerut a few weeks earlier. At Midnapore, a sepoy of the jail-guard, detected in an attempt to excite mutiny among the men of the Shekhawuttie battalion, was tried, found guilty, and hanged.

The most serious event in the districts around Calcutta, perhaps, was one that occurred in the Sonthal Pergunnahs; in which the 5th irregular cavalry displayed a tendency, fatal on a small scale, and likely to have become much more disastrous if not speedily checked. Lieutenant Sir N. R. Leslie was adjutant of that regiment at Rohnee. On the 12th of June, this officer, Major Macdonald, and Assistant-surgeon Grant, while sitting in Sir Norman Leslie’s compound, in the dusk of the evening, were suddenly attacked by three men armed with swords. Major Macdonald received a blow which laid his head open, and rendered him insensible for many hours; Mr Grant received sword-wounds on the arm and the leg; while Sir Norman was so severely wounded that he expired within half an hour. The miscreants escaped after this ferocious attack, without immediate detection.[[19]] At first it was hoped and believed that the regiment had not been dishonoured by the presence of these murderers on the muster-roll; Mr Grant was of this opinion; but Major Macdonald, commandant of the regiment, took a less favourable view. The offenders, it soon appeared, belonged to the regiment; a chase was ordered; two of the men were found after a time, with their clothes smeared with blood; while the third, when taken, candidly owned that it was his sword that had given the death-stroke to Leslie. The murderers were speedily executed, but without giving any information touching the motives that led to their crime. Three sowars of the regiment, Ennus Khan, Kurreem Shere Khan, and Gamda Khan, received encomiums and rewards for the alacrity with which they had pursued the reckless men who had thus brought discredit on their corps. The official dispatches relating to this affair comprised two letters written by Major Macdonald to Captain Watson, an officer commanding a squadron of the same regiment at Bhagulpore; they afford curious illustration of the cheerful, daring, care-for-naught spirit in which the British officers were often accustomed to meet their difficulties during those exciting scenes: ‘I am as fairly cut and neatly scalped as any Red Indian could do it. I got three cracks in succession on the head before I knew I was attacked. I then seized my chair by the arms, and defended myself successfully from two of them on me at once; I guarded and struck the best way I could; and at last Grant and self drove the cowards off the field. This is against my poor head, writing; but you will be anxious to know how matters really were; I expect to be in high fever to-morrow, as I have got a bad gash into the skull besides being scalped.’ This was written on the day after the murderous attack; and three days later the major wrote: ‘My dear fellow, I have had a sad time of it, and am but little able to go through such scenes, for I am very badly wounded; but, thank God, my spirits and pluck never left me for a moment. When you see my poor old head, you will wonder I could hold it up at all. I have preserved my scalp in spirits of wine—such a jolly specimen!’

In Cuttack, bounding the northwest corner of the Bay of Bengal, many Mohammedans were detected in the attempt to sap the loyalty of the Shekhawuttie battalion. Lieutenant-colonel Forster, with the head-quarters of that corps at Midnapore, succeeded by his personal influence in keeping the men from anything beyond slight acts of insubordination; but he had many proofs, in that town and in the Cuttack district, that the Company’s ‘raj’ or rule was being preached against by many emissaries of rebellion.

This rapid sketch will have shewn that the eastern divisions of Bengal were not disturbed by any very serious tumults during the month of June. Incipient proofs of disaffection were, it is true, manifested in many places; but they were either unimportant in extent, or were checked before they could rise to perilous magnitude. In the western divisions, however, the troubles were more serious; the towns were further from Calcutta, nearer to the turbulent region of Oude; and these conditions of locality greatly affected the steadiness and honesty of the native troops.

During the earlier days of the month, considerable excitement prevailed in the districts of which Patna and Dinapoor are the chief towns; in consequence of the general spread of a belief, inculcated by the deserters from Barrackpore, that the government contemplated an active interference with the religion of the people. A similar delusion, it was speedily remembered, had existed in the same parts about two years earlier; the government had adopted such measures as, it was hoped, would remove the prejudice; but the events of 1857 shewed that the healing policy of 1855 had not been effective for the purpose in view. Until the 13th of June, the disaffection was manifested only by sullen complainings and indistinct threats; but on that day matters presented a more serious aspect. The various magistrates throughout the Patna division reported to the lieutenant-governor of Bengal, that although no acts of violence had been committed, the continuance of tranquillity would mainly depend on the fidelity of the native troops at Dinapoor, the most important military station in that part of India. Dinapoor may, in fact, be regarded as the military post belonging to the great city of Patna, which is about ten miles distant.[[20]] The magistrates also reported, as one result of their inquiries, that the Mohammedans in that division were thoroughly disaffected; and that if any disturbance occurred at head-quarters (Dinapoor), a rapid extension of the revolt would be almost inevitable. When these facts and feelings became known, such precautionary measures were adopted as seemed best calculated to avert the impending evils. An increase was made in the police force at Behar; the ghats or landing-places were carefully watched and regulated; the frontiers of the neighbouring disaffected districts were watched; a portion of the Company’s treasure at Arrah and Chupra was sent off to Calcutta, and the rest removed to Patna for safe custody under a guard of Sikhs; a volunteer guard was formed in that city; measures were taken to defend the collectorate and the opium factories; six companies of the Sikh police battalion were marched from Soorie to Patna; and places of rendezvous for European residents were appointed at many of the stations, to facilitate a combined plan of action in the event of mutinous symptoms appearing among the native troops. The Rajahs of Bettiah and Hutwah addressed letters expressive of loyalty and affection towards the government, and placed men and elephants at the disposal of the local authorities, to assist in the maintenance of tranquillity.

Towards the middle of the month, an alarm prevailed at Chupra and Arrah, consequent on the mutinous proceedings in certain towns further to the west, presently to be noticed. Large works were under construction near those places in connection with the East India Railway; and the Europeans engaged in those operations, as well as others resident in the two towns, made a hasty retreat, and sought for refuge at Dinapoor. The magistrates and most of the civil officers remained at their posts, and by their firmness prevented the alarm from degenerating into a panic. At Gayah or Gya, a town between Patna and the great trunk-road—celebrated for its Bhuddist and Hindoo temples, and the great resort of pilgrims of both religions—considerable apprehension prevailed, on account of the unprotected state of a large amount of Company’s treasure in the collectorate; an apprehension increased by the presence of many desperate characters at that time in the jail, and by the guard of the jail being wholly composed of natives who would remain steady only so long as those at Dinapoor were ‘faithful to their salt.’ Fortunately, the authorities were enabled to obtain a guard of European soldiers, chiefly from her majesty’s 64th regiment; and thus the ruffians, more to be dreaded than even the rebellious sepoys, were overawed.

It is impossible to avoid seeing, in the course of events throughout India, how much importance ought to be attached to the matter just adverted to—the instrumentality of robbers and released prisoners in producing the dreadful scenes presented. India swarms with depredators who war on the peaceful and industrious inhabitants—not merely individual thieves, but robber-tribes who infest certain provinces, directing their movements by the chances of war or of plunder. Instead of extirpating these ill-doers, as Asiatic sovereigns have sometimes attempted to do, the East India Company has been accustomed to capture and imprison them. Hence the jails are always full. At every important station we have several hundred, sometimes two or three thousand, such prisoners. The mutiny set loose these mischievous elements. The release of crowds of murderers and robbers from prison, the flocking of others from the villages, and the stimulus given to latent rogues by the prospect of plunder, would account for a large amount of the outrage committed in India—outrage which popular speech in England attaches to the sepoys alone.

On the 13th of June, the first indications of a conspiracy at Patna were detected. A nujeeb of the Behar station guards was discovered in an attempt to tamper with the Sikhs of the police corps, and to excite them to mutiny: he was tried, convicted, sentenced to death, and hanged; while three Sikhs, who had been instrumental in his apprehension, were publicly rewarded with fifty rupees each. In singular contrast to this, three other nujeebs of the same force, on the same day, placed in the commissioner’s hands a letter received from sepoys at Dinapoor, urging the Behar guards to mutiny, and to seize the treasure at Patna before the Sikhs could arrive to the rescue: this, as a valuable service rendered at a critical period, was rewarded by donations of two hundred rupees to each of the three men. The next symptoms were exhibited by certain members of the Wahabee sect of Mohammedans at Patna. The fanatical devotion of these Mussulmans to their spiritual leaders, their abnegation of self, and their mode of confidential communication with each other without written documents, render it at all times difficult to produce legal proof of any machinations among them; while their mutual fidelity enables them to resist all temptation to betrayal. The commissioner of Patna, having suspicions of the proceedings of the Wahabees in that city, deemed it politic to detain four of their number as hostages for the sect generally—a sect formidable for its organisation, and peculiarly hostile to Christians. They were placed in a sort of honourable confinement, while a general disarming of the inhabitants took place. On another occasion a police jemadar, Waris Ali, was ascertained to be in possession of a large amount of treasonable correspondence; he was known to be in some way related to the royal family of Delhi; and the letters found in his house threw suspicion on more than one native official in the service of the Company.

The most serious affair at Patna, however, occurred about the close of the period to which this chapter more particularly relates. At about eight o’clock in the evening of the 3d of July, a body of Mohammedans, variously estimated from eighty to two hundred, assembled at the house of one of their number, one Peer Ali Khan, a bookseller, and proceeded thence to the Roman Catholic church and mission-house in Patna, with two large green flags, a drum beating, and cries of ‘Ali! Ali!’ The priest, whom they probably intended to murder, fortunately escaped. They emerged into the street, reiterated their cries, and called on the populace to join them. Dr Lyell, principal assistant to the opium agent, immediately went to the spot, accompanied by nine Sikhs. He rode ahead of his support, was shot down by the rioters, and his body mangled and mutilated before the Sikhs could come up. A force of Sikhs and nujeebs speedily recovered the unfortunate gentleman’s body, killed some of the insurgents, and put the rest to flight. This appeared at first to be a religious demonstration: a Mohammedan fanatic war-cry was shouted, and the property of the Catholic mission was destroyed, but without any plunder or removal. Thirty-six of the insurgents were afterwards captured and tried; sixteen of the number, including Peer Ali Khan, who was believed to be the murderer of Dr Lyell, were condemned to death; eighteen, including a jemadar, were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment; and two were acquitted. All the facts of this temporary outbreak were full of significance; for it soon became evident that something more than mere religious hostility had been intended. Peer Ali Khan was offered a reprieve if he would divulge the nature of the conspiracy; but, like a bold, consistent fanatic, he remained defiant to the last, and nothing could be got out of him. It was afterwards ascertained that he had been in secret communication with an influential native at Cawnpore ever since the annexation of Oude, and that the details of some widely-spread plot had been concerted between them. The capture of the thirty-six rioters had been effected by the disclosures of one of the band, who was wounded in the struggle; he declared that a plot had been in existence for many months, and that men were regularly paid to excite the people to fight for the Padishah of Delhi. Letters found in Peer Ali’s house disclosed an organised Mussulman conspiracy to re-establish Mohammedan supremacy on the ruins of British power; and besides the correspondence with Cawnpore and Delhi, a clue was obtained to the complicity of an influential Mohammedan at Lucknow.

Patna was sufficiently well watched and guarded to prevent the occurrence of anything of more serious import. Nevertheless, the European inhabitants were kept in great anxiety, knowing how much their safety depended on the conduct of the sepoys at Dinapoor. The commissioner at the one place, and the military commandant at the other, were naturally rejoiced to receive any demonstrations of fidelity on the part of the native troops, even if the sincerity of those demonstrations were not quite free from doubt. On the 3d of June, Colonel Templer assembled the 7th regiment B. N. I. on the military parade at Dinapoor, to read to them the flattering address which Viscount Canning had made to the 70th regiment at Barrackpore, on the manifestation of loyalty by that corps. On the conclusion of this ceremony, the native commissioned officers came up to the colonel, and presented to him a petition, signed by two subadars and five jemadars on the part of the whole regiment. The petition is worth transcribing,[[21]] to shew in what glowing language the native troops could express their grateful allegiance—but whether sincere or insincere, no European could at that time truly tell. Colonel Templer desired that all the men who acknowledged the petition to contain an expression of their real sentiments and wishes, would shoulder their arms in token thereof; on which every one present shouldered arms. The native officers afterwards assured the colonel, with apparent earnestness, that it was the eager wish of the whole regiment to be afforded an opportunity of removing even a suspicion of their disaffection. When Colonel Templer repeated this to Major-general Lloyd, the military commander of the Dinapoor division, and when Lloyd forwarded the communication to Calcutta, the regiment of course received thanks for the demonstration, and were assured that ‘their good conduct will be kept in remembrance by the governor-general in council.’ It was not until a later month that the small value of these protestations was clearly shewn; nevertheless the Europeans at Dinapoor continued throughout June to be very uneasy. Almost every one lived in the square; the guns were kept ready loaded with grape; the few European troops were on the alert; and pickets were posted all round the station. A motley assemblage—planters, soldiers, civilians, railway men, and others—was added to the ordinary residents, driven in from the surrounding districts for protection. The officers gave up their mess-house to the ladies, who completely filled it.

In Tirhoot, a district north of Patna, on the other side of the Ganges, the planters and others were thrown into great excitement during the month of June, by the events occurring around them. About the middle of the month, planters left their estates and civilians their homes, to go for refuge to the Company’s station at Mozufferpoor. Eighty gentlemen, thirty ladies, and forty children, were all crowded into two houses; the ladies and children shut up at night, while the men slept in verandahs, or in tents, or took turns in patrolling. The nujeebs, stationed at that place, were suspected of being in sympathy with the mutineers; one of the Company’s servants, disguised as a native, went to their quarters one night, and overheard them conversing about murdering the Europeans, looting the treasury (which contained seven lacs of rupees), and liberating the prisoners. This was the alarm that led to the assembling of the Europeans at the station for mutual protection; and there can be little doubt that the protection would have been needed had Dinapoor fallen. One of the Mohammedan inhabitants was seized at Mozufferpoor, with a quantity of treasonable correspondence in his possession; and the commandant at Segowlie condemned to the gallows with very little scruple several suspicious characters in various parts of the district.

Advancing up the Ganges, we come to Ghazeepore, on its northern or left bank. This town, containing forty thousand inhabitants, is rendered somewhat famous by a palace once belonging to the Nawab of Oude, but now in a very ruinous state; also by the beautiful Grecian tomb erected to the Marquis of Cornwallis; and by the rose-gardens in its vicinity, where rose-leaves are gathered for making the celebrated otto or attar. The bungalows of the Company’s civil servants are situated west of the town; and beyond them is the military cantonment. During the early part of the month of June, the 65th native infantry, stationed at Ghazeepore, was sorely tempted by the mutinying of so many other regiments at stations within forty or fifty miles; but they remained stanch for some time longer.

Not so the sepoys at Azimghur, a town northwest of Ghazeepore, containing twelve or fourteen thousand inhabitants, and a military station. At this place the 17th regiment Bengal native infantry was posted at the beginning of June. On the 3d of the month an escort of thirty troopers of the 13th irregular cavalry brought in seven lacs of rupees from Goruckpore, en route to Benares. At six o’clock in the evening the treasure was started again on its journey; and in three hours afterwards the 17th mutinied, influenced apparently rather by the hope of loot than by any political or religious motives. During several days previously the authorities had been employed in throwing up a breastwork around the cutchery or government offices; but this was not finished. The sepoys killed their quartermaster, and wounded the quartermaster-sergeant and two or three others. The officer on guard at the fort of the cutchery sent out a picket to the lines, and ordered the native artillerymen to load their guns: this they refused to do; and hence the infantry were left to follow out their plan of spoliation. The officers were at mess when the mutiny began; seeing the danger, they placed the ladies on the roof of the cutchery. When the sepoys came up, they formed a square round the officers, and swore to protect them; but stated that, as some men of the regiment were very hostile, it would be better for all the officers to depart. The men brought carriages for them, and escorted them ten miles on the road to Ghazeepore. Many of the civilians hurried away to the same town, reaching that place in terrible plight. The marauders from the neighbouring villages did not fail in their usual course; they plundered the bungalows of the Europeans at Azimghur, or such of them as were left unprotected.

Far more serious were the events at Benares, than at any city or station eastward of it, during the month of June. It would in all probability have been still more deplorable, had not European troops arrived just at that time. Lieutenant-colonel Neill reached Benares on the 3d of June, with sixty men and three officers of the 1st Madras Fusiliers (Europeans), of which regiment five more companies were in the rear, expecting to reach that city in a few days. The regiment had been despatched in great haste by Viscount Canning, in the hope that it would appear before Cawnpore in time to relieve Sir Hugh Wheeler and his unfortunate companions. Neill intended, after a day’s repose, to have started from Benares for Cawnpore on the 4th; but he received timely notice from Lieutenant Palliser that the 17th B. N. I. had mutinied at Azimghur; and that the treasure, passing through Azimghur in its way from Goruckpore to Benares (mentioned in the last paragraph), had been plundered by the mutinous sepoys. Brigadier Ponsonby, the commandant at Benares, at once consulted with Colonel Neill concerning the propriety of disarming the 37th regiment Bengal infantry, stationed at that city. Neill recommended this to be done, and done at once. It was then arranged that Neill should make his appearance on parade at five o’clock that same afternoon, accompanied by a hundred and fifty of H.M. 10th foot, sixty of the Madras Fusiliers, and three guns of No. 12 field-battery, with thirty artillerymen. They were to be joined on parade by the Sikh regiment, in which Lieutenant-colonel Gordon placed full confidence, and about seventy of the 13th irregular cavalry. The 37th, suspecting what was intended, ran to the bells of arms, seized and loaded their muskets, and fired upon the Europeans; several men fell wounded, and the brigadier was rendered powerless by a sun stroke. Thereupon Colonel Neill, assuming the command, made a dash on the native lines. What was now the perplexity of the colonel, and the mortification of Gordon, at seeing the Sikhs halt, waver, turn round, wound several of their officers, fire at the Europeans, and disperse! It was one of those inexplicable movements so frequently exhibited by the native troops. Neill, now distrusting all save the Europeans, opened an effective fire with his three guns, expelled the 37th from their lines, burnt the huts, and then secured his own men and guns in the barrack for the night. Early on the morning of the 5th he sent out parties, and brought in such of the arms and accoutrements of the 37th as had been left behind; he also told off a strong body to bring the Company’s treasure from the civil offices to the barracks. Colonel Neill fully believed that if he had delayed his bold proceeding twelve hours, the ill-protected treasury would have been seized by the 37th, and that the numerous European families in the cantonment would have been placed in great peril before he could reach them. The barracks were between the cantonment and the city; and near them was a building called the mint. Into this mint, before going on parade on the 4th, he had arranged that all the families should go for refuge in the event of any disturbance taking place. A few of the Sikhs and of the irregular cavalry remained faithful; and Colonel Neill, with his two hundred and forty Europeans[[22]] and these fragments of native regiments, contrived to protect the city, the barracks, the mint, and the cantonment—a trying task, to defend so large an area from mutinous sepoys and troopers, and predatory budmashes. He had to record the deaths of Captain Guise, an army-surgeon, and two privates; and the wounding of about double this number—casualties surprising for their lightness, considering that there were nearly two thousand enemies to contend against altogether. Of the insurgents, not less than two hundred were killed or wounded. It was at once determined to strengthen the neighbouring fort of Chunar or Chunargur; for which duty a small detachment of Europeans was drafted off.

Such were the military operations of the 4th and 5th of June, as told in the brief professional language of Colonel Neill. Various officers and civilians afterwards dwelt more fully on the detailed incidents of those two days. The 13th irregular cavalry and the Sikhs (Loodianah regiment) had been relied on as faithful; and the 37th had greatly distinguished itself in former years in the Punjaub and Afghanistan. This infantry regiment, however, exhibited signs of insubordination on the 1st of the month; and on the 3d, Lieutenant-colonel Gordon, second in command under Ponsonby, told the brigadier that the men of the 37th were plotting with the ruffians of the city. The brigadier, Mr Tucker the commissioner, and Mr Gubbins the judge, thereupon conferred; and it was almost fully determined, even before Colonel Neill’s arrival, and before the receipt of disastrous news from Azimghur, that the disbandment of the regiment would be a necessary measure of precaution. The irregular cavalry were stationed at Sultanpore and Benares, and were called in to aid the Europeans and Sikhs in the disarming. A few of the officers, unlike their brethren, distrusted these troopers; and the distrust proved to be well founded. The Sikhs, at the hour of need, fell away as soon as the 37th had seized their arms; and the irregulars were not slow to follow their example; so that, in effect, the insurgents were to the Europeans in the ratio of eight or ten to one. One of the English officers of the 37th has placed upon record a few facts shewing how strangely unexpected was this among many of the Indian outbreaks, by the very men whose position and experience would naturally lead them (one might suppose) to have watched for symptoms. In the first instance, Major Barrett, indignant at the slight which he believed to have been put upon the good and faithful sepoys of the 37th, by the order for disarming, went openly towards the regiment during the struggle at the bells of arms, to shew his confidence in them; but when he saw some of his men firing at him, and others approach him with fixed bayonets, he felt painfully that he must both change his opinions and effect a retreat. Some of the 37th did, however, remain ‘true to their salt;’ and these, under the major, who had escaped the shots aimed at him, were among the troops sent to guard Chunar Fort. As a second instance: after Captain Guise, of the 13th irregulars, had been shot down by men of the 37th, the brigadier appointed Captain Dodgson to supply his place; but the irregulars, instead of obeying him, flashed their swords, muttered some indistinct observations, fired at him, and at once joined the rebels whom they had been employed and expected to oppose. A third instance, in relation to the Sikhs, shall be given in the words of the officer above adverted to: ‘Just as the irregulars were flashing their swords in reply to Captain Dodgson’s short address, I was horrified by noticing about a dozen of the Sikhs fire straight forward upon the European soldiers, who were still kneeling and firing into the 37th. The next moment some half-dozen of their muskets were staring me in the face, and a whole tempest of bullets came whizzing towards me. Two passed through my forage-cap, and set my hair on fire; three passed through my trousers, one just grazing my right thigh. I rushed headlong at one of the fellows whom I had noticed more especially aiming at me, but had scarcely advanced three paces when a second volley of bullets saluted me.’ This volley brought the officer low; he lay among the wounded, unrecognised for many hours, but was fortunate enough to obtain surgical aid in time to avert a fatal result. Many circumstances afterwards came to light, tending to shew that, had not Neill and Ponsonby taken the initiative when they did, the native troops would probably have risen that same night, and perhaps imitated the Meerut outrages. One of the missionaries at Benares, who escaped to Chunar as soon as the outbreak occurred, said in a letter: ‘Some of the 37th have confessed to their officers that they had been told out in bands for our several bungalows, to murder all the Europeans at ten o’clock that night; and that, too, at the time they were volunteering to go to Delhi, and Colonel Spottiswoode was walking about among them in plain clothes with the most implicit confidence.’

The fighting, during this exciting day at Benares, was practically over as soon as the rebels began to retreat; but then the perils of the civilians commenced. More correctly, however, it might be said that the wild confusion began earlier; for while the brief but fierce military struggle was still in progress on the parade-ground, the native guards of the 37th at the treasury, the hospital, the mess-house, the bazaar, and other buildings, broke from their duty, and proceeded to molest the Europeans, with evident hopes of plunder. A Sikh, one Soorut Singh, has been credited with an act which saved many lives and much treasure. He was among the Sikhs of the treasury-guard; and when the rising began, talked to his comrades, and prevented them from rising in mutiny; many civilians, with their families, who had taken refuge in the collector’s cutcherry, were saved through this friendly agency; while the treasure was held intact till the following morning, when European troops convoyed it to a place of safety. The Rev. Mr Kennedy, a resident in Benares at that time, states that the faithfulness of these Sikhs, about seventy in number, was deemed so remarkable under the circumstances, that £1000 was given to them as a reward for their safe guardianship of the £60,000 in the treasury. After the discomfiture on the parade-ground, the rebels, maddened by defeat and thirsting for blood, streamed through many of the compounds in the cantonment as they retreated, and fired as they passed, but happily so much at random that little danger was done. Several of the Europeans took refuge in stables and outhouses. Others climbed to the roofs of their houses, and hid behind the parapets. At the house of the commissioner, Mr Tucker, many ladies and children found concealment under straw on the flat roof; while the gentlemen stood by to defend them if danger should approach. Three or four families took boat, and rowed out into the middle of the Ganges, there to remain until news of returning tranquillity should reach them; much booming of cannon and rattling of musketry, much appearance of fire and smoke hovering over city and cantonment, kept the occupants of the boats in constant anxiety; but when victory had declared for the British, and these boat-parties had returned to land, escorts arrived to convey the non-combatants and some of the officers to the mint, in accordance with the arrangement already made. They arrived at that building about midnight. Mr Kennedy described in a letter the scene presented at the mint when he and his family reached it: ‘What a scene of confusion and tumult was there. All in front, bands of English soldiers, ready to act at a moment’s notice; men, women, and children, high and low, huddled together, wondering at meeting at such a time and in such a place, not knowing where they were to throw themselves down for the night, and altogether looking quite bewildered.’ A young officer, throwing into his narrative that light-heartedness which so often bore up men of his class during the troubles of the period, gave a little more detail of the first night and day at the place of refuge: ‘I found everybody at the mint, which several had only reached after many adventures. We bivouacked in the large rooms, and slept on the roof—ladies, children, ayahs, and punkah-coolies; officers lying down dressed, and their wives sitting up fanning them. In the compound or enclosure below, there was a little handful of Europeans, perhaps a hundred and fifty in all; others were at the barracks half a mile off. There was a picknicking, gipsifying look about the whole affair, which prevented one from realising that the small congregation were there making a stand for a huge empire, and that their lives were upon the toss-up of the next events.’

During a considerable portion of the month of June, the Europeans made the mint their chief place of residence, the men going out in the daytime to their respective duties, and the ladies and children remaining in their place of refuge. On the 5th, few ventured out of the building, unless heavily armed or strongly escorted. The mint had a most warlike appearance, bristling with arms, and soon became almost insupportably hot to the numerous persons congregated within it. The hot winds of Benares at that time, nearly midsummer, were terrible for Europeans to bear.

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

On the 7th, which was Sunday, Mr Kennedy performed divine service at the mint, and a church-missionary at the barracks. Gradually, on subsequent days, whole families would venture out for a few hours at a time, to take a hasty glance at homes which they had so suddenly been called upon to quit; but the mint continued for two or three weeks to be the refuge to which they all looked. As European troops, however, were arriving at Benares every day, on the way to the upper provinces, it soon became practicable, under the energetic Neill, to insure tranquillity in and near that city with a very small number of these so much-valued Queen’s troops. The capture and execution of insurgents, under the combined orders of Neill, Tucker, and Gubbins, respectively the commandant, commissioner, and judge, were conducted with such stern promptness as struck terror into the hearts of evildoers. It may be instructive to see in what light Mr Kennedy, as a clergyman, regarded these terrible executions, which are admitted to have been very numerous: ‘The gibbet is, I must acknowledge, a standing institution among us at present. There it stands, immediately in front of the flagstaff, with three ropes always attached to it, so that three may be executed at one time. Scarcely a day passes without some poor wretches being hurled into eternity. It is horrible, very horrible! To think of it is enough to make one’s blood run cold; but such is the state of things here, that even fine delicate ladies may be heard expressing their joy at the rigour with which the miscreants are treated. The swiftness with which crime is followed by the severest punishment strikes the people with astonishment; it is so utterly foreign to all our modes of procedure, as known to them. Hitherto the process has been very slow, encumbered with forms, and such cases have always been carried to the Supreme Court for final decision; but now, the commissioner of Benares may give commissions to any he chooses (the city being under martial law), to try, decide, and execute on the spot, without any delay and without any reference.’

Jounpoor or Juanpoor, a town about thirty miles northwest of Benares, was one of those which shared with that city the troubles of the month of June. A detachment of the Loodianah Sikh regiment, under Lieutenant Mara, stationed at that place, mutinied most suddenly and unexpectedly on the 5th, within less than an hour after they had shaken hands with some of the European residents as a token of friendly feeling. The men revolted through some impulse that the English in vain endeavoured to understand at the time; but it was afterwards ascertained that some of the mutinous 37th from Benares had been tampering with them. In the first whirl of the tumult, the lieutenant and a civilian were shot down, and the rest of the Europeans sought safety by flight. Information reached Benares, after some days, that the fugitives were in hiding; and a small detachment was at once despatched for their relief. It was now found, as in many other instances, that amid all the brutality and recklessness of the mutineers and budmashes, there were not wanting humane natives in the country villages, ready to succour the distressed; one such, named Hingun Lall, had sheltered and fed the whole of the fugitives from Jounpoor for five days.

There were many stations at which the number of insurgent troops was greater; there were many occasions on which the Europeans suffered more general and prolonged miseries; there were many struggles of more exciting character between the dark-skinned soldiers and the light—but there was not perhaps, throughout the whole history of the Indian mutinies, an outbreak which excited more astonishment than that at Allahabad in the early part of June. It was totally unexpected by the authorities, who had been blinded by protestations of loyalty on the part of the troops. This place (see p. [107]) occupies a very important position in relation to Upper India generally; being at the point where the Jumna and Ganges join, where the Benares region ends and the Oude region begins, where the Doab and Bundelcund commence, where the river-traffic and the road-traffic branch out in various directions, and where the great railway will one day have a central station. As stated in a former page, the 6th Bengal Native Infantry, stationed at Allahabad, voluntarily came forward and offered their services to march against the Delhi mutineers. For this demonstration they were thanked by their officers, who felt gratified that, amid so much desertion, fidelity should make itself apparent in this quarter. Rather from a vague undefined uneasiness, than from any suspicion of this particular regiment, the Europeans at Allahabad had for some time been in uneasiness; there had been panics in the city; there had been much patrolling and watching; and the ladies had been looking anxiously to the fort as a place of refuge, whither most of them had taken up their abode at night, returning to their homes in the cantonment or the city in the daytime. From Benares, Lucknow, or other places, they apprehended danger—but not from within.

It was on the 5th of June that Colonel Simpson, of the 6th regiment, received Viscount Canning’s instructions to thank his men for their loyal offer to march and fight against the rebels at Delhi; and it was on the same day that news reached Allahabad, probably by telegraph, of the occurrences at Benares on the previous day, and of the possible arrival of some of the insurgents from that place. The officers still continued to trust the 6th regiment, not only in virtue of the recent protestation of fidelity by the men, but on account of their general good conduct; indeed, this was one of the most trusted regiments in the whole native army. Nevertheless, instructions were given to arm the civilians as well as the military, and to prepare for making a good stand at the fort. Many civilians, formed into a militia, under the commandant of the garrison, slept in the fort that night, or relieved each other as sentinels at the ramparts. There were at that time in the fort, besides the women and children, about thirty invalid artillerymen, under Captain Hazelwood; a few commissariat and magazine sergeants; about a hundred volunteer civilians; four hundred Sikhs, of the Ferozpore regiment, under Lieutenant Brasyer; and eighty men of the 6th regiment, guarding the main gate. Several Europeans with their families, thinking no danger nigh, slept outside the fort that night. Two companies of the native regiment under three English officers, and two guns under Captain Harward, were sent to guard the bridge of boats across the Ganges in the direction of Benares. Captain Alexander, with two squadrons of the 3d regiment Oude irregular cavalry, was posted in the Alopee Bagh, a camping-ground commanding the roads to the station. The main body of the 6th remained in their lines, three miles from the fort. All proceeded quietly until about nine o’clock on the evening of the 6th of June; when, to the inexpressible astonishment and dismay of the officers, the native regiment rose in revolt. The two guns were seized by them at the bridge-head, and Harward had to run for his life. In the cantonment the officers were at mess, full of confidence in their trusted troops, when the sepoys sounded the alarm bugle, as if to bring them on parade; those who rushed out were at once aimed at, and nearly all shot dead; while no fewer than nine young ensigns, mere boys who had just entered on the career of soldiering, were bayoneted in the mess-room itself. It was a cruel and bloody deed, for the poor youths had but recently arrived, and were in hostility with none. Captain Alexander, when he heard of the rising, hastened off to the lines with a few of his troopers; but he was caught in an ambush by a body of the sepoys, and at once shot down. The sepoys, joined by released prisoners and habitual plunderers, then commenced a scene of murder and devastation in all directions; Europeans were shot wherever they could be seen; the few English women who had not been so fortunate as to seek refuge in the fort, were grossly outraged before being put to death; the telegraph wires were cut; the boats on the river were seized; the treasury was plundered; the houses of native bankers, as well as those of European residents, were pillaged; and wild licence reigned everywhere. Terrible were the deeds recorded—a whole family roasted alive; persons killed by the slow process of cutting off in succession ears, nose, fingers, feet, &c.; others chopped to pieces; children tossed on bayonets before their mother’s eyes.

An affecting incident is related of one of the unfortunate young officers so ruthlessly attacked at the mess-house. An ensign, only sixteen years of age, who was left for dead among the rest, escaped in the darkness to a neighbouring ravine. Here he found a stream, the waters of which sustained his life for four days and nights. Although desperately wounded, he contrived to raise himself into a tree at night-time, for protection from wild beasts. On the fifth day he was discovered, and dragged by the brutal insurgents before one of their leaders. There he found another prisoner, a Christian catechist, formerly a Mohammedan, whom the sepoys were endeavouring to terrify and torment into a renunciation of Christianity. The firmness of the native was giving way as he knelt before his persecutors; but the boy-officer, after anxiously watching him for a short time said: ‘Oh, my friend, come what may, do not deny the Lord Jesus!’ Just at this moment the arrival of Colonel Neill and the Madras Fusiliers (presently to be noticed) at Allahabad was announced; the ruffians made off; the poor catechist’s life was saved; but the gentle-spirited young ensign sank under the wounds and privations he had endured. When this incident became known through the medium of the public journals, the father of the young officer, town-clerk of Evesham, told how brief had been the career thus cut short. Arthur Marcus Hill Cheek had left England so recently as the 20th of March preceding, to commence the life of a soldier; he arrived at Calcutta in May, was appointed to the 6th native regiment, reached Allahabad on the 19th of the same month, and was shot down by his own men eighteen days afterwards.

The inmates of the fort naturally suffered an agony of suspense on the night of the 6th. When they heard the bugle, and the subsequent firing, they believed the mutineers had arrived from Benares; and as the intensity of the sound varied from time to time, so did they picture in imagination the varying fortunes of the two hypothetical opposing forces—the supposed insurgents from the east, and the supposed loyal 6th regiment. Soon were they startled by a revelation of the real truth—that the firing came from their own trusted sepoys. The Europeans in the fort, recovering from their wonder and dismay, were fortunately enabled to disarm the eighty sepoys at the gate through the energy of Lieutenant Brasyer; and it was then found that these fellows had loaded and capped their muskets, ready to turn out. Five officers succeeded in entering during the night, three of them naked, having had to swim the Ganges. For twelve days did the Europeans remain within the fort, not daring to emerge for many hours at a time, lest the four hundred Sikhs should prove faithless in the hour of greatest need. The chief streets of the city are about half a mile from the fort; and during several days and nights troops of rioters were to be seen rushing from place to place, plundering and burning. Day and night the civilians manned the ramparts, succeeding each other in regular watches—now nearly struck down by the hot blazing sun; now pouring forth shot and shell upon such of the insurgents as were within reach. The civilians or volunteers formed themselves into three corps; one of which, called the Flagstaff Division, was joined by about twenty railway men—sturdy fellows who had suffered like the rest, and were not slow to avenge themselves on the mutineers whenever opportunity offered. After a time, the volunteers sallied forth into the city with the Sikhs, and had several skirmishes in the streets with the insurgents—delighted at the privilege of quitting for a few hours the hot crowded fort, even to fight. It was by degrees ascertained that conspiracy had been going on in the city before the actual outbreak occurred. The standard of insurrection was unfurled by a native unknown to the Europeans: some supposed him to be a moulvie, or Mohammedan religious teacher; but whatever may have been his former position, he now announced himself as viceroy of the King of Delhi. He quickly collected about him three or four thousand rebels, sepoys and others, and displayed the green flag that constitutes the Moslem symbol. The head-quarters of this self-appointed chieftain were in the higher part of the city, at the old Mohammedan gardens of Sultan Khoosroo; there the prisoners taken by the mutineers were confined—among whom were the native Christian teachers belonging to the Rev. Mr Hay’s mission.

The movements of Colonel Neill must now be traced. No sooner did this gallant and energetic officer hear of the occurrences at Allahabad, than he proceeded to effect at that place what he had already done at Benares—re-establish English authority by a prompt, firm, and stern course of action. The distance between the two cities being about seventy-five miles, he quickly made the necessary travelling arrangements. He left Benares on the evening of the 9th, accompanied by one officer and forty-three men of the Madras Fusiliers. The horses being nearly all taken off the road, he found much difficulty in bringing in the dâk-carriages containing the men; but this and all other obstacles he surmounted. He found the country between Mirzapore and Allahabad infested with bands of plunderers, the villages deserted, and none of the authorities remaining. Major Stephenson, with a hundred more men, set out from Benares on the same evening as Neill; but his bullock-vans were still more slow in progress; and his men suffered much from exposure to heat during the journey. Neill reached Allahabad on the afternoon of the 11th. He found the fort almost completely invested; the bridge of boats over the Ganges in the hands of a mob, and partly broken; and the neighbouring villages swarming with insurgents. By cautious manœuvring at the end of the Benares road, he succeeded in obtaining boats which conveyed him and his handful of men over to the fort. He at once assumed command, and arranged that on the following morning the enemy should be driven out of the villages, and the bridge of boats recaptured. Accordingly, on the morning of the 12th he opened fire with several round-shot, and then attacked the rebels in the village of Deeragunge with a detachment of Fusiliers and Sikhs: this was effectively accomplished, and a safe road opened for the approach of Major Stephenson’s detachment on the evening of that day. On the 13th the insurgents were driven out of the village of Kydgunge. Neill had now a strange enemy to combat within the fort itself—drunkenness and relaxed discipline. The Sikhs, during their sallies into the city before his arrival, had gained entrance into some of the deserted warehouses of wine-merchants and others in the town, had brought away large quantities of beverage, and had sold these to the European soldiers within the fort—at four annas (sixpence) per bottle for wine, spirits, or beer indiscriminately; drunkenness and disorganisation followed, requiring determined measures on the part of the commandant. He bought all the remaining liquors obtainable, for commissariat use; and kept a watchful eye on the stores still remaining in the warehouses in the town. Neill saw reason for distrusting the Sikhs; they had remained faithful up to that time, but nevertheless exhibited symptoms which required attention. As soon as possible, he got them out of the fort altogether, and placed them at various posts in the city where they might still render service if they chose to remain faithful. His opinion of the native troops was sufficiently expressed in this passage in one of his dispatches: ‘I felt that Allahabad was really safe when every native soldier and sentry was out of the fort; and as long as I command I shall not allow one to be on duty in it.’ Nothing can be more striking than the difference of views held by Indian officers on this point; some distrusted the natives from the first, while others maintained faith in them to a very disastrous extent.

From the time when Neill obtained the upper-hand in Allahabad, he was incessantly engaged in chastising the insurgents in the neighbourhood. He sent a steamer up the Jumna on the 15th, with a howitzer under Captain Harward, and twenty fusiliers under Lieutenant Arnold; and these worked much execution among the rebels on the banks. A combined body of fusiliers, Sikhs, and irregular cavalry made an attack on the villages of Kydgunge and Mootingunge, on the banks of the Jumna, driving out the insurgents harboured there, and mowing them down in considerable numbers. On subsequent days, wherever Neill heard of the presence of insurgents in any of the surrounding villages, he at once attacked them; and great terror seized the hearts of the malcontents in the city at the celerity with which guns and gibbets were set to work. On the 18th he sent eighty fusiliers and a hundred Sikhs up the river in a steamer, to destroy the Patan village of Durriabad, and the Meewattie villages of Sydabad and Russelpore. It was not merely in the villages that these active operations were necessary; a large number of the mutinous sepoys went off towards Delhi on the day after the outbreak, leaving the self-elected chief to manage his rabble-army as he liked; and it was against this rabble that many of the expeditions were planned. The city suffered terribly from this double infliction; for after the spoliation and burning effected by the marauders, the English employed cannon-balls and musketry to drive those marauders out of the streets and houses; and Allahabad thus became little other than a mass of blackened ruins. Colonel Neill organised a body of irregular cavalry by joining Captain Palliser’s detachment of the 13th irregulars with the few men of Captain Alexander’s corps still remaining true to their salt. A force of about a hundred and sixty Madras Fusiliers started from Benares on the 13th, under Captain Fraser; he was joined on the road by Captain Palliser’s detachment of troopers, just adverted to, of about eighty men, and the two officers then proceeded towards Allahabad. They found the road almost wholly in the hands of rebels and plunderers; but by fighting, hanging, and burning, they cleared a path for themselves, struck terror into the evildoers, and recovered much of the Company’s treasure that had fallen into hostile hands. It is sad to read of six villages being reduced to ashes during this one march; but stringent measures were absolutely necessary to a restoration of order and obedience. Fraser and Palliser reached Allahabad on the 18th, and their arrival enabled Neill to prosecute two objects which he had at heart—the securing of Allahabad, and the gradual collection of a force that might march to the relief of poor Sir Hugh Wheeler and the other beleaguered Europeans at Cawnpore. During these varied operations, the officers and men were often exposed during the daytime to a heat so tremendous that nothing but an intense interest in their work could have kept them up. ‘If I can keep from fever,’ wrote one of them, ‘I shan’t care; for excitement enables one to stand the sun and fatigue wonderfully. At any other time the sun would have knocked us down like dogs; but all this month we have been out in the middle of the day, toiling like coolies, yet I have never been better in my life—such an appetite!’ To meet temporary exigencies, the church, the government offices, the barracks, the bungalows—all were placed at the disposal of the English troops, as fast as they arrived up from Calcutta. These reinforcements, during the second half of the month, consisted chiefly of detachments of her Majesty’s 64th, 78th, and 84th foot. The peaceful inhabitants began to return to the half-ruined city, shattered houses were hastily rebuilt or repaired, trade gradually revived, bullocks and carriages arrived in considerable number, supplies were laid in, the weather became cooler, the cholera abated, and Colonel Neill found himself enabled to look forward with much confidence to the future. The fort, during almost the whole of the month, had been very much crowded, insomuch that the inmates suffered greatly from heat and cholera. Two steam-boat loads of women and children were therefore sent down the river towards Calcutta; and all the non-combatants left the fort, to reoccupy such of their residences as had escaped demolition. Some of the European soldiers were tented on the glacis; others took up quarters in a tope of trees near the dâk-bungalow; lastly, a hospital was fitted up for the cholera patients.

With the end of June came tranquillity both to Benares and to Allahabad, chiefly through the determined measures adopted by Colonel Neill; and then he planned an expedition, the best in his power, for Cawnpore—the fortunes of which will come under our notice in due time.