The History of the Indian Revolt and of the Expeditions to Persia, China and Japan, 1856-7-8

by George Dodd

Notes.

The official documents referred to in this chapter are of so much importance, in reference to the political history of the Indian Revolt, and to the opinions entertained by public men concerning the feelings of the natives, that it may be well to present the chief of them in full. Owing to the length of time necessary for the transmission of letters between England and India, two or more of these documents were crossing the ocean at the same time, in opposite directions, and therefore could not exactly partake of the nature of question and answer. We shall attempt no other classification than that of placing in one group the documents written in India; and in another those written in London—observing, in each group, the order of dates.

A.

The first document here given is a letter dictated by Viscount Canning when at Allahabad, and signed by his secretary, Mr Edmonstone. It was addressed to Sir James Outram, in his capacity of chief-commissioner of Oude, and was written at a time when the fall of Lucknow was soon expected:

‘Allahabad, March 3, 1858.

‘Sir—I am directed by the Right Honourable the Governor-general, to enclose to you a copy of a proclamation which is to be issued by the chief-commissioner at Lucknow, as soon as the British troops under His Excellency the Commander-in-chief shall have possession or command of the city.

‘2. This proclamation is addressed to the chiefs and inhabitants of Oude only, and not to the sepoys.

‘3. The governor-general has not considered it desirable that this proclamation should appear until the capital is either actually in our hands or lying at our mercy. He believes that any proclamation put forth in Oude in a liberal and forgiving spirit would be open to misconstruction, and capable of perversion, if not preceded by a manifestation of our power; and that this would be especially the case at Lucknow—which, although it has recently been the scene of unparalleled heroism and daring, and of one of the most brilliant and successful feats of arms which British India has ever witnessed—is still sedulously represented by the rebels as being beyond our power to take or to hold.

‘4. If an exemption, almost general, from the penalties of death, transportation, and imprisonment, such as is now about to be offered to men who have been in rebellion, had been publicly proclaimed before a heavy blow had been struck, it is at least as likely that resistance would have been encouraged by the seeming exhibition of weakness, as that it would have been disarmed by a generous forbearance.

‘5. Translations of the proclamation into Hindee and Persian accompany this dispatch.

‘6. It will be for the chief-commissioner in communication with His Excellency the Commander-in-chief, to determine the moment at which the proclamation shall be published, and the manner of disseminating it through the province; as also the mode in which those who may surrender themselves under it shall be immediately and for the present dealt with.

‘7. This last question, considering that we shall not be in firm possession of any large portion of the province when the proclamation begins to take effect, and that the bulk of our troops, native as well as European, will be needed for other purposes than to keep guard through its districts—is one of some difficulty. It is clear, too, that the same treatment will not be applicable to all who may present themselves.

‘8. Amongst these there may be some who have been continuously in arms against the government, and who have shewn inveterate opposition to the last, but who are free from the suspicion of having put to death or injured Europeans who fell in their way.

‘9. To these men their lives are guaranteed and their honour; that is, in native acceptation—they will neither be transported across sea, nor placed in prison.

‘10. Probably the most easy and effectual way of disposing of them, in the first instance, will be to require that they shall reside in Lucknow under surveillance and in charge of an officer appointed for that purpose.

‘11. Their ultimate condition and place of residence may remain to be determined hereafter, when the chief-commissioner shall be able to report fully to the governor-general upon the individual character and past conduct of each.

‘12. There will be others who, although they have taken up arms against the government, have done so less heartily, and upon whom, for other causes, the chief-commissioner may not see reason to put restraint. These, after surrendering their arms, might be allowed to go to their homes, with such security for their peaceable conduct as the chief-commissioner may think proper to require.

‘13. One obvious security will be that of making it clearly understood by them, that the amount of favour which they shall hereafter receive, and the condition in which they shall be re-established, will be in part dependent upon their conduct after dismissal.

‘14. The permission to return to their homes must not be considered as a reinstatement of them in the possession of their lands, for the deliberate disposal of which the government will preserve itself unfettered.

‘15. There will probably be a third class, less compromised by acts of past hostility to the government, in whom the chief-commissioner may see reason to repose enough of confidence to justify their services being at once enlisted on the side of order, towards the maintenance of which in their respective districts they might be called upon to organise a temporary police.

‘16. The foregoing remarks apply to the thalookdars and chiefs of the province. As regards their followers who may make submission with them, these, from their numbers, must of necessity be dismissed to their homes. But before this is done, their names and places of residence should be registered, and they should receive a warning that any disturbance of the peace or resistance of authority which may occur in their neighbourhood, will be visited, not upon the individual offenders alone, but by heavy fines upon the villages.

‘17. I am to observe that the governor-general wishes the chief-commissioner to consider what has been above written as suggestions rather than instructions, and as indicating generally the spirit in which his lordship desires that the proclamation should be followed up, without tying down the action of the chief-commissioner in matters which may have to be judged under circumstances which cannot be foreseen.

‘18. There remains one more point for notice.

‘19. The proclamation is addressed to the chiefs and inhabitants of Oude, not to mutineers.

‘20. To the latter, the governor-general does not intend that any overture should be made at present.

‘21. But it is possible that some may surrender themselves, or seek terms, and it is necessary that the chief-commissioner should be prepared to meet any advances from them.

‘22. The sole promise which can be given to any mutineer is, that his life shall be spared; and this promise must not be made if the man belongs to a regiment which has murdered its officers, or if there be other primâ facie reason to suppose that he has been implicated in any specially atrocious crime. Beyond the guarantee of life to those who, not coming within the above-stated exception, shall surrender themselves, the governor-general cannot sanction the giving of any specific pledge.

‘23. Voluntary submission will be counted in mitigation of punishment, but nothing must be said to those who so submit themselves which shall bar the government from awarding to each such measure of secondary punishment as in its justice it may deem fitting.—I have, &c.,

(Signed) ‘G. F. Edmonstone.

’Allahabad, March 3, 1858.’

B.

The proclamation referred to in the above letter ran as follows:

‘PROCLAMATION.

‘The army of His Excellency the Commander-in-chief is in possession of Lucknow, and the city lies at the mercy of the British government, whose authority it has for nine months rebelliously defied and resisted.

‘This resistance, begun by a mutinous soldiery, has found support from the inhabitants of the city and of the province of Oude at large. Many who owed their prosperity to the British government, as well as those who believed themselves aggrieved by it, have joined in this bad cause, and have ranged themselves with the enemies of the state.

‘They have been guilty of a great crime, and have subjected themselves to a just retribution.

‘The capital of their country is now once more in the hands of the British troops.

‘From this day it will be held by a force which nothing can withstand, and the authority of the government will be carried into every corner of the province.

‘The time, then, has come at which the Right Honourable the Governor-general of India deems it right to make known the mode in which the British government will deal with the thalookdars, chiefs, and landholders of Oude, and their followers.

‘The first care of the governor-general will be to reward those who have been steadfast in their allegiance at a time when the authority of the government was partially overborne, and who have proved this by the support and assistance which they have given to British officers.

‘Therefore the Right Honourable the Governor-general hereby declares that

• ‘Drigliejjie Singh, Rajah of Bulrampore;
• ‘Koolwunt Singh, Rajah of Pudnaha;
• ‘Rao Hurdeo Buksh Singh, of Kutiaree;
• ‘Kasheepershaud, Thalookdar of Sissaindee;
• ‘Zuhr Singh, Zemindar of Gopaul Kheir; and
• ‘Chundeeloll, Zemindar of Moraon (Baiswarah),

are henceforward the sole hereditary proprietors of the lands which they held when Oude came under British rule, subject only to such moderate assessment as may be imposed upon them, and that those loyal men will be further rewarded in such manner and to such extent as, upon consideration of their merits and their position, the governor-general shall determine.

‘A proportionate measure of reward and honour, according to their deserts, will be conferred upon others in whose favour like claims may be established to the satisfaction of the government.

‘The governor-general further proclaims to the people of Oude that, with the above-mentioned exceptions, the proprietary right in the soil of the province is confiscated to the British government, which will dispose of that right in such manner as it may seem fitting.

‘To those thalookdars, chiefs, and landholders, with their followers, who shall make immediate submission to the chief-commissioner of Oude, surrendering their arms and obeying his orders, the Right Honourable the Governor-general promises that their lives and honour shall be safe, provided that their hands are unstained with English blood murderously shed.

‘But, as regards any further indulgence which may be extended to them, and the condition in which they may hereafter be placed, they must throw themselves upon the justice and mercy of the British government.

‘To those among them who shall promptly come forward and give to the chief-commissioner their support in the restoration of peace and order, this indulgence will be large, and the governor-general will be ready to view liberally the claims which they may thus acquire to the restitution of their former rights.

‘As participation in the murder of Englishmen and Englishwomen will exclude those who are guilty of it from all mercy, so will those who have protected English lives be specially entitled to consideration and leniency.

‘By order of the Right Honourable the Governor-general of India.

‘G. F. Edmonstone,

Secretary to the Government of India.’

C.

Sir James Outram, not fully satisfied with this proclamation, directed his secretary, Mr Couper, to write as follows to Mr Edmonstone:

‘Camp, Chimlut, March 8, 1858.

‘Sir—I am directed to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, No. 191, dated 3d inst., enclosing a proclamation to be issued to the landholders, chiefs, and inhabitants of Oude, upon the fall of the capital.

‘2. In this proclamation a hereditary title in their estates is promised to such landholders as have been steadfast in their allegiance, and, with these exceptions, the proprietary right in the soil of the province is confiscated.

‘3. The chief-commissioner desires me to observe that, in his belief, there are not a dozen landowners in the province who have not themselves borne arms against us, or sent a representative to the durbar, or assisted the rebel government with men or money. The effect of the proclamation, therefore, will be to confiscate the entire proprietary right in the soil; and this being the case, it is, of course, hopeless to attempt to enlist the landowners on the side of order; on the contrary, it is the chief-commissioner’s firm conviction that as soon as the chiefs and thalookdars become acquainted with the determination of the government to confiscate their rights, they will betake themselves at once to their domains, and prepare for a desperate and prolonged resistance.

‘4. The chief-commissioner deems this matter of such vital importance, that, at the risk of being deemed importunate, he ventures to submit his views once more, in the hope that the Right Hon. the Governor-general may yet be induced to reconsider the subject.

‘5. He is of opinion that the landholders were most unjustly treated under our settlement operations, and even had they not been so, that it would have required a degree of fidelity on their part quite foreign to the usual character of an Asiatic, to have remained faithful to our government under the shocks to which it was exposed in Oude. In fact, it was not until our rule was virtually at an end, the whole country overrun, and the capital in the hands of the rebel soldiery, that the thalookdars, smarting as they were under the loss of their lands, sided against us. The chief-commissioner thinks, therefore, that they ought hardly to be considered as rebels, but rather as honourable enemies, to whom terms, such as they could without loss of dignity accept, should be offered at the termination of the campaign.

‘If these men be given back their lands, they will at once aid us in restoring order; and a police will soon be organised with their co-operation, which will render unnecessary the presence of our enormous army to re-establish tranquillity and confidence.

‘But, if their life and freedom from imprisonment only be offered, they will resist; and the chief-commissioner foresees that we are only at the commencement of a guerrilla war for the extirpation, root and branch, of this class of men, which will involve the loss of thousands of Europeans by battle, disease, and exposure. It must be borne in mind that this species of warfare has always been peculiarly harassing to our Indian forces, and will be far more so at present, when we are without a native army.

‘6. For the above reasons, the chief-commissioner earnestly requests that such landholders and chiefs as have not been accomplices in the cold-blooded murder of Europeans may be enlisted on our side by the restoration of their ancient possessions, subject to such restrictions as will protect their dependents from oppression. If his lordship agree to this proposition, it will not yet be too late to communicate his assent by electric telegraph before the fall of the city, which will probably not take place for some days. Should no such communication be received, the chief-commissioner will act upon his present instructions, satisfied that he has done all in his power to convince his lordship that they will be ineffectual to re-establish our rule on a firm basis in Oude.—I have, &c.,

(Signed) ‘G. Couper,

‘Secretary to Chief-commissioner.

‘Chief-commissioner’s Office, Camp, Chimlut, March 8.’

D.

Mr Edmonstone, on the part of Viscount Canning, wrote the following brief reply, suggesting an additional clause to the proclamation, and promising a more detailed communication at a future time:

‘Allahabad, March 10, 1853.

‘Sir—Your secretary’s letter of the 8th instant was delivered to me at an early hour this morning, by Captain F. Birch, and it will receive a detailed reply in due course.

‘Meanwhile, I am desired by the Right Honourable the Governor-general to subjoin a clause which may be inserted in the proclamation (forwarded with my letter, No. 191, of the 3d instant), after the paragraph which ends with the words, “justice and mercy of the British government.”

‘“To those amongst them who shall promptly come forward, and give to the chief-commissioner their support in the restoration of peace and order, this indulgence will be large, and the governor-general will be ready to view liberally the claims which they may thus acquire to a restitution of their former rights.”

‘2. This clause will add little or nothing to your discretionary power, but it may serve to indicate more clearly to the thalookdars the liberal spirit in which the governor-general is prepared to review and reciprocate any advances on their part.

‘3. It is expected that you will find means to translate this additional clause into the vernacular languages, and that you will be able to have copies of the proclamation, so amended, prepared in sufficient numbers for immediate use. If more should be required, the magistrate of Cawnpore will lithograph them on your requisition.

‘4. It is very important, as you will readily see, that every copy of the vernacular version of the proclamation sent to you, with my letter of the 3d instant, should be carefully destroyed.—I have, &c.,

(Signed) ‘G. F. Edmonstone,

‘Secretary, Government of India, with the

Governor-general.

‘Allahabad, March 10, 1858.’

E.

It was not until after a lapse of three weeks that the promised detailed reply was sent to Sir James Outram, in the following terms:

‘Allahabad, March 31, 1858.

‘Sir—In replying at once on the 10th inst. to your secretary’s letter of the 8th, in which you urged reasons against the issue of the proclamation to the thalookdars and landholders of Oude, which had been transmitted to you by the Right Hon. the Governor-general, my answer was confined to communicating to you the addition which his lordship was willing to make to that proclamation, without entering into the general questions raised in your letter. The governor-general desires me to express his hope that you will not have supposed that the arguments adduced by you were not fully weighed by him, or that your opinion upon a subject on which you are so well entitled to offer one, has not been received with sincere respect, although he was unable to concur in it.

‘2. I am now directed by his lordship to explain the grounds upon which the course advocated in your letter—namely, that such landholders and chiefs as have not been accomplices in the cold-blooded murder of Europeans should be enlisted on our side by the restoration of their ancient possessions, subject to such restrictions as will protect their dependents from oppression—is, in the opinion of the governor-general, inadmissible.

‘3. The governor-general entirely agrees with you in viewing the thalookdars and landholders of Oude in a very different light from that in which rebels in our old provinces are to be regarded. The people of Oude had been subjects of the British government for little more than one year when the mutinies broke out; they had become so by no act of their own. By the introduction of our rule many of the chiefs had suffered a loss of property, and all had experienced a diminution of the importance and arbitrary power which they had hitherto enjoyed; and it is no marvel that those amongst them who had thus been losers should, when they saw our authority dissolved, have hastened to shake off their new allegiance.

‘4. The governor-general views these circumstances as a palliation of acts of rebellion, even where hostility has been most active and systematic. Accordingly, punishment by death or imprisonment is at once put aside by the proclamation in the case of all who shall submit themselves to the government, and who are not murderers; and whilst confiscation of proprietary rights in the land is declared to be the general penalty, the means of obtaining more or less of exemption from it, and of establishing a claim to restitution of rights, have been pointed out, and are within the reach of all without injury to their honour. Nothing more is required for this than that they should promptly tender their adhesion, and help to maintain peace and order.

‘5. The governor-general considers that the course thus taken is one consistent with the dignity of the government, and abundantly lenient. To have followed that which is suggested in your secretary’s letter would, in his lordship’s opinion, have been to treat the rebels not only as honourable enemies, but as enemies who had won the day.

‘In the course of the rebellion, most of the leaders in it, probably all, have retaken to themselves the lands and villages of which they were deprived, by the summary settlement which followed the establishment of our government in Oude. If upon the capture of Lucknow by the commander-in-chief, before our strength had been seen or felt in the distant districts, and before any submission had been received or invited from them, the rights of the rebel chiefs to all their ancient possessions had been recognised by the government, it is not possible that the act would not have been viewed as dictated by fear or weakness. It would have led the people of Oude, and all who are watching the course of events in that province, to the conclusion that rebellion against the British government cannot be a losing game; and although it might have purchased an immediate return to order, it would not assuredly have placed the future peace of the province upon a secure foundation.

‘6. You observe, indeed, that the landholders were most unjustly treated under our settlement. The governor-general desires me to observe that if this were unreservedly the case, or if the proceedings of the commissioners by which many of the thalookdars were deprived of portions of their possessions had been generally unjust, he would gladly have concurred in your recommendation, and would have been ready, at the risk of any misinterpretation of the motives of the government, to reinstate the thalookdars at once in their old possessions. But it is not so. As a question of policy, indeed, the governor-general considers that it may well be doubted whether the attempt to introduce into Oude a system of village settlement in place of the old settlement under thalookdars was a wise one; but this is a point which need not be discussed here. As a question of justice, it is certain that the land and villages taken from the thalookdars had, for the most part, been usurped by them through fraud or violence.

‘7. That unjust decisions were come to by some of our local officers in investigating and judging the titles of the landowners is, the governor-general fears, too true; but the proper way of rectifying such injustice is by a re-hearing where complaint is made. This, you are aware, is the course which the governor-general is prepared to adopt, and to carry out in a liberal and conciliatory spirit. It is a very different one from proclaiming that indiscriminate restitution of all their ancient possessions is at once to be yielded to the landowners.

‘8. That the hostility of the thalookdars of Oude who have been most active against the British government has been provoked, or is excused, by the injustice with which they have been treated, would seem to be your opinion.

‘But I am to observe, that there are some facts which deserve to be weighed before pronouncing that this is the case.

‘9. No chiefs have been more open in their rebellion than the rajahs of Churda, Bhinga, and Gonda. The governor-general believes that the first of these did not lose a single village by the summary settlement, and certainly his assessment was materially reduced. The second was dealt with in a like liberal manner. The Rajah of Gonda lost about 30 villages out of 400; but his assessment was lowered by some 10,000 rupees.

‘10. No one was more benefited by the change of government than the young Rajah of Naupara. His estates had been the object of a civil war with a rival claimant for three years, and of these he was at once recognised as sole proprietor by the British government, losing only six villages out of more than a thousand. His mother was appointed guardian, but her troops have been fighting against us at Lucknow from the beginning.

‘11. The Rajah of Dhowrera, also a minor, was treated with equal liberality. Every village was settled with his family; yet these people turned upon Captain Hearsey and his party, refused them shelter, pursued them, captured the ladies, and sent them into Lucknow.

‘12. Ushruf Bux Khan, a large thalookdar in Gonda, who had long been an object of persecution by the late government, was established in the possession of all his property by us; yet he has been strongly hostile.

‘13. It is clear that injustice at the hands of the British government has not been the cause of the hostility which, in these instances at least, has been displayed towards our rule.

‘14. The moving spirit of these men and of others amongst the chiefs of Oude must be looked for elsewhere; and, in the opinion of the governor-general, it is to be found mainly in the repugnance which they feel to suffer any restraint of their hitherto arbitrary powers over those about them, to a diminution of their importance by being brought under equal laws, and to the obligation of disbanding their armed followers, and of living a peaceful and orderly life.

‘The penalty of confiscation of property is no more than a just one in such cases as have been above recited; and although considerations of policy and mercy, and the newness of our rule, prescribe a relaxation of the sentence more or less large according to the features of each case, this relaxation must be preceded by submission, and the governor-general cannot consent to offer all, without distinction, an entire exemption from penalty, and the restoration of all former possessions, even though they should not have been guilty of the murder of Europeans.—I have, &c.,

(Signed) ‘G. F. Edmonstone,

‘Secretary to the Government of India,

with the Governor-general.

‘Allahabad, March 31, 1858.’

F.

The following document, though not pertaining to the affairs of Oude, may usefully be given here, bearing as it does on the treatment proposed to be adopted towards mutineers and rebels. It was written, in the name of Viscount Canning, by the secretary to the government of the Northwest Provinces, and was addressed to the functionaries of the disturbed province of Rohilcund:

‘Agra, April 28, 1858.

‘Sir—I am directed to communicate to you the general principles which the Right Honourable the Governor-general desires to see followed by all civil and other officers who will exercise judicial or magisterial powers in Rohilcund, on the re-entry of British troops into that province.

‘2. The condition of Rohilcund has been, in some respects, peculiar. The progress of the Revolt in the interior has until lately suffered little check. The people, left to themselves, have in many quarters engaged actively in hostilities against each other; but direct opposition to British authority has been mainly confined to the several Sudder towns, to the frontier on the Ganges, and to the expeditions against Nynee Tal.

‘3. Under these circumstances, his lordship considers it just to distinguish, by a widely differing treatment, the simple bearing of arms, or even acts of social violence committed at a period when the check of lawful government was removed, from acts directly involving treason against the state, or a deliberate defiance of its authority. Excepting instances of much aggravation, it is not the wish of government that public prosecutions should be set on foot on account of offences of the former class.

‘4. Further, in respect of treason and defiance of British authority, his lordship desires that criminal proceedings shall be taken only against leaders, and against such persons, whether high or low, as have distinguished themselves by activity and rancour against the government, or by persistence in opposition to its authority after the advance of troops and the re-occupation of stations. The governor-general will admit to amnesty all other classes, even though they have borne arms on the side of the rebels, provided that they tender an early and complete submission. But continuance in opposition will exclude from pardon.

‘5. The governor-general has reason to believe that an impression exists in Rohilcund that the Mohammedan population, as such, is to be proscribed and crushed. It is likely that the rumour has been raised and fostered by the rebel leaders to excite apprehension and mistrust of the government. His lordship desires that every appropriate occasion may be taken to disabuse the people of this gross error. Such suspected rebels as may be brought to trial will be tried each by his own acts. Each will stand or fall by the line of conduct which he shall be proved to have followed. The government will maintain, as it has always maintained, a strict impartiality in its administration. Equal justice will be shared by all its subjects, whether Hindoos or Mohammedans. You will make public these views, and instruct the chief district officers to make them widely known, in such manner as may appear to be most effectual.

‘6. It will be your care, in accordance with the injunctions of his lordship’s orders, embodied in the circular order dated the 19th February, to bring forward, for early notice by the governor-general, the several examples of conspicuously faithful conduct exhibited by many of the inhabitants of Rohilcund, under circumstances of peculiar difficulty.—I have, &c.,

‘W. Muir,

‘Sec. to Govt. NW. P.’

G.

We now transfer attention to four of the documents written in London. The first was nominally from the ‘Secret Committee,’ really from the Earl of Ellenborough, and was suggested by the state of affairs in India during the second half of the month of February:

‘The Secret Committee of the Court of Directors of the East India Company, to the Governor-general of India in Council, March 24, 1858.

‘The telegram from Calcutta, dated the 22d ult., which arrived this morning, conveys intelligence of the concentration of the force under the commander-in-chief, and of that under Jung Bahadoor, upon Lucknow; and we trust we may indulge the expectation that, ere this, that city has been evacuated by the rebels, and that no considerable corps remains united against us in the field.

‘2. If this happy result should have been attained, it will be very satisfactory to us to learn that you have deemed yourselves sufficiently strong to be enabled to act towards the people with the generosity, as well as the justice, which are congenial to the British character.

‘3. Crimes have been committed against us which it would be a crime to forgive; and some large exceptions there must be, of the persons guilty of such crimes, from any act of amnesty which could be granted; but it must be as impossible, as it would be abhorrent from our feelings, to inflict the extreme penalty which the law might strictly award upon all who have swerved from their allegiance.

‘4. To us it appears that, whenever open resistance shall have ceased, it would be prudent, in awarding punishment, rather to follow the practice which prevails after the conquest of a country which has defended itself to the last by desperate war, than that which may perhaps be lawfully adopted after the suppression of mutiny and rebellion, such acts always being excepted from forgiveness or mitigation of punishment as have exceeded the licence of legitimate hostilities.

‘5. While we may be unable to forget the insanity which, during the last ten months, has pervaded the army and a large portion of the people, we should at the same time remember the previous fidelity of a hundred years, and so conduct ourselves towards those who have erred as to remove their delusions and their fears, and re-establish, if we can, that confidence which was so long the foundation of our power.

‘6. It would be desirable that, in every case, the disarming of a district, either by the seizure of arms or by their surrender, should precede the application to it of any amnesty; but there may be circumstances which would render expedient a different course of proceeding. Upon these exceptional cases, you and the officers acting under your orders must decide.

‘7. The disarming of a district having been effected, with exceptions, under your licence, in favour of native gentlemen, whose feelings of honour would be affected by being deprived of the privilege of wearing arms, and of any other persons in whom you may confide, we think the possession of arms should be punished in every case by a severe penalty; but unless the possession of arms should be combined with other acts, leading to the conclusion that they were retained for the perpetration of crimes, that penalty should not be death. Of course the possession of arms by Englishmen must always remain lawful.

‘8. Death has of late been but too common a punishment. It loses whatever terror it might otherwise have when so indiscriminately applied; but, in fact, in India there is not commonly a fear of death, although there ever must be a fear of pain.

‘9. In every amnestied district, the ordinary administration of the law should as soon as possible be restored.

‘10. In carrying these views into execution, you may meet with obstruction from those who, maddened by the scenes they have witnessed, may desire to substitute their own policy for that of the government; but persevere firmly in doing what you may think right; make those who would counteract you feel that you are resolved to rule, and that you will be served by none who will not obey.

‘11. Acting in this spirit, you may rely upon our unqualified support.’

H.

Three or four weeks afterwards, was written the ‘secret dispatch’ which gave rise to so vehement a debate in parliament:

‘April 19, 1858.

‘Our letter of the 24th of March 1858 will have put you in possession of our general views with respect to the treatment of the people in the event of the evacuation of Lucknow by the enemy.

‘2. On the 12th inst., we received from you a copy of the letter, dated the 3d of March, addressed by your secretary to the secretary to the chief-commissioner in Oude, which letter enclosed a copy of the proclamation to be issued by the chief-commissioner as soon as the British troops should have command of the city of Lucknow, and conveyed instructions as to the manner in which he was to act with respect to different classes of persons, in execution of the views of the governor-general.

‘3. The people of Oude will see only the proclamation.

‘4. That authoritative expression of the will of the government informs the people that six persons, who are named as having been steadfast in their allegiance, are henceforward the sole hereditary proprietors of the lands they held when Oude came under British rule, subject only to such moderate assessment as may be imposed upon them; that others in whose favour like claims may be established will have conferred upon them a proportionate measure of reward and honour; and that, with these exceptions, the proprietary right in the soil of the province is confiscated to the British government.

‘5. We cannot but express to you our apprehension that this decree, pronouncing the disinherison of a people, will throw difficulties almost insurmountable in the way of the re-establishment of peace.

‘6. We are under the impression that the war in Oude has derived much of its popular character from the rigorous manner in which, without regard to what the chief landholders had become accustomed to consider as their rights, the summary settlement had, in a large portion of the province, been carried out by your officers.

‘7. The landholders of India are as much attached to the soil occupied by their ancestors, and are as sensitive with respect to the rights in the soil they deem themselves to possess, as the occupiers of land in any country of which we have a knowledge.

‘8. Whatever may be your ultimate and undisclosed intentions, your proclamation will appear to deprive the great body of the people of all hope upon the subject most dear to them as individuals, while the substitution of our rule for that of their native sovereign has naturally excited against us whatever they may have of national feeling.

‘9. We cannot but in justice consider that those who resist our authority in Oude are under very different circumstances from those who have acted against us in provinces which have been long under our government.

‘10. We dethroned the King of Oude, and took possession of his kingdom, by virtue of a treaty which had been subsequently modified by another treaty, under which, had it been held to be in force, the course we adopted could not have been lawfully pursued; but we held that it was not in force, although the fact of its not having been ratified in England, as regarded the provision on which we rely for our justification, had not been previously made known to the King of Oude.

‘11. That sovereign and his ancestors had been uniformly faithful to their treaty engagements with us, however ill they may have governed their subjects.

‘12. They had more than once assisted us in our difficulties, and not a suspicion had ever been entertained of any hostile disposition on their part towards our government.

‘13. Suddenly the people saw their king taken from amongst them, and our administration substituted for his, which, however bad, was at least native; and this sudden change of government was immediately followed by a summary settlement of the revenue, which, in a very considerable portion of the province, deprived the most influential landholders of what they deemed to be their property—of what certainly had long given wealth, and distinction, and power to their families.

‘14. 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.

‘15. 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.

‘16. 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.

‘17. We cannot but think that the precedents from whom 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.

‘18. We desire that you will mitigate in practice the stringent severity of the decree of confiscation you have issued against the landholders of Oude.

‘19. We desire to see British authority in India rest upon the willing obedience of a contented people; there cannot be contentment where there is general confiscation.

‘20. Government cannot long be maintained by any force in a country where the whole people is rendered hostile by a sense of wrong; and if it were possible so to maintain it, it would not be a consummation to be desired.’

I.

The Court of Directors, before the secret dispatch became known to them, adopted courteous language in the following letter of instructions sent to Viscount Canning, referring to an earlier communication:

‘May 5, 1858.

‘1. You will have received, by the mail of the 25th of March, a letter from the secret committee, which has since been laid before us, respecting the policy which it becomes you to pursue towards those natives of India who have recently been in arms against the authority of the British government.

‘2. That letter emphatically confirms the principles which you have already adopted, as set forth in your circular of the 31st of July 1857, by impressing upon you the propriety of pursuing, after the conquest of the revolted provinces, a course of policy distinguished by a wise and discriminating generosity. You are exhorted to temper justice with mercy, and, except in cases of extreme criminality, to grant an amnesty to the vanquished. In the sentiments expressed by the secret committee we entirely concur. While there are some crimes which humanity calls upon you to punish with the utmost severity, there are others of a less aggravated character, which it would be equally unjust and impolitic not to pardon and to forget.

‘3. The offences with which you will be called upon to deal are of three different kinds. Firstly, high crimes, instigated by malice prepense, and aggravated by treachery and cruelty. Secondly, offences the results rather of weakness than of malice, into which it is believed that many have been drawn by the contamination of example, by the fear of opposing themselves to their more powerful countrymen, or by the belief that they have been compromised by the acts of their associates, rather than by any active desire to embarrass the existing government. And, thirdly, offences of a less positive character, amounting to little more than passive connivance at evil, or at most to the act of giving such assistance to the rebels as, if not given, would have been forcibly extorted, and which in many cases it would have been death to refuse to bodies of licentious and exasperated mutineers.

‘4. It is the first only of these offences, the perpetrators of which, and their accomplices, it will be your duty to visit with the severest penalty which you can inflict; and it is, happily, in such cases of exceptional atrocity, that you will have the least difficulty in proving both the commission of the offence and the identity of the offender. In the other cases you might often be left in doubt, not only of the extent of the offence committed, but of its actual commission by the accused persons; and although we are aware that the retribution which might be righteously inflicted upon the guilty may be in some measure restricted by too much nicety of specification, and that, in dealing with so large a mass of crime, it is difficult to avoid the commission of some acts of individual injustice, we may still express our desire that the utmost exertion may be made to confine, within the smallest possible compass, these cases of uncertain proof and dubious identity, even though your retributary measures should thus fall short of what in strict justice might be inflicted.

‘5. As soon as you have suppressed the active hostility of the enemy, your first care will be the restoration of public confidence. It will be your privilege when the disorganised provinces shall no longer be convulsed by intestine disorder, to set an example of toleration and forbearance towards the subject people, and to endeavour by every means consistent with the security of the British empire in the east, to allay the irritation and suspicion, which, if suffered to retain possession of the minds of the native and European inhabitants of the country, will eventually lead to nothing less calamitous than a war of races.

‘6. In dealing with the people of Oude, you will doubtless be moved by special considerations of justice and of policy. Throughout the recent contest, we have ever regarded such of the inhabitants of that country as—not being sepoys or pensioners of our own army—have been in arms against us as an exceptional class. They cannot be considered as traitors or even rebels, for they had not pledged their fidelity to us, and they had scarcely become our subjects. Many, by the introduction of a new system of government, had necessarily been deprived of the maintenance they had latterly enjoyed; and others feared that the speedy loss of their means of subsistence must follow from the same course. It was natural that such persons should avail themselves of the opportunity presented by the distracted state of the country, to strike a blow for the restoration of the native rule, under which the permitted disorganisation of the country had so long been to them a source of unlawful profit. Neither the disbanded soldiers of the late native government, nor the great thalookdars and their retainers, were under any obligation of fidelity to our government for benefits conferred upon them. You would be justified, therefore, in dealing with them as you would with a foreign enemy, and in ceasing to consider them objects of punishment after they have once laid down their arms.

‘7. Of these arms they must for ever be deprived. You will doubtless, in prosecution of this object, address yourself in the first instance to the case of the great thalookdars, who so successfully defied the late government, and many of whom, with large bodies of armed men, appear to have aided the efforts of the mutinous soldiery of the Bengal army. The destruction of the fortified strongholds of these powerful landholders, the forfeiture of their remaining guns, the disarming and disbanding of their followers, will be amongst your first works. But, whilst you are depriving this influential and once dangerous class of people of their power of openly resisting your authority, you will, we have no doubt, exert yourself by every possible means to reconcile them to British rule, and encourage them, by liberal arrangements made in accordance with ancient usages, to become industrious agriculturists, and to employ in the cultivation of the soil the men who, as armed retainers, have so long wasted the substance of their masters and desolated the land. We believe that these landholders may be taught that their holdings will be more profitable to them under a strong government, capable of maintaining the peace of the country, and severely punishing agrarian outrages, than under one which perpetually invites, by its weakness, the ruinous arbitration of the sword.

‘8. Having thus endeavoured, on the re-establishment of the authority of the British government in Oude, to reassure the great landholders, you will proceed to consider, in the same spirit of toleration and forbearance, the condition of the great body of the people. You will bear in mind that it is necessary, in a transition state from one government to another, to deal tenderly with existing usages, and sometimes even with existing abuses. All precipitate reforms are dangerous. It is often wiser even to tolerate evil for a time, than to alarm and to irritate the minds of the people by the sudden introduction of changes which time can alone teach them to appreciate, or even, perhaps, to understand. You will be especially careful, in the readjustment of the fiscal system of the province, to avoid the imposition of unaccustomed taxes, whether of a general or of a local character, pressing heavily upon the industrial resources and affecting the daily comforts of the people. We do not estimate the successful administration of a newly acquired province according to the financial results of the first few years. At such a time we should endeavour to conciliate the people by wise concessions, and to do nothing to encourage the belief that the British government is more covetous of revenue than the native ruler whom it has supplanted.’

K.

The last document here given is a letter of instructions from the Court of Directors, kind and courteous towards the governor-general, but evidently conveying an opinion that the proposed proclamation, unless modified and acted on with caution, would be too severe for the purpose in view:

‘Political Department, 18th of May (No. 20) 1858.

‘1. The secret committee has communicated to us the governor-general’s secret letter, dated 5th March (No. 9) 1858, with its enclosures, consisting of a letter addressed to the chief-commissioner of Oude, dated 3d of March, and of the proclamation referred to therein, which was to be issued by Sir James Outram to the chiefs and inhabitants of Oude as soon as the British troops should have possession or command of the city of Lucknow.

‘2. We have also received communication of the letter addressed to your government by the secret committee, under date the 19th of April last, on the subject of the draft of proclamation.

‘3. Our political letter of the 5th of May has apprised you of our strong sense of the distinction which ought to be maintained between the revolted sepoys and the chiefs and people of Oude, and the comparative indulgence with which, equally from justice and policy, the insurgents of that country (other than sepoys) ought to be regarded. In accordance with these views, we entirely approve the guarantee of life and honour given by the proposed proclamation to all thalookdars, chiefs, and landholders, with their followers, who should make immediate submission, surrender their arms, and obey the orders of the British government, provided they have not participated in the murder “of Englishmen or Englishwomen.”

‘4. We are prepared to learn that in publicly declaring that, with the exception of the lands of six persons who had been steadfast in their allegiance, the proprietary right in the soil of the province was confiscated to the British government, the governor-general intended no more than to reserve to himself entire liberty of action, and to give the character of mercy to the confirmation of all rights not prejudicial to the public welfare, the owners of which might not, by their conduct, have excluded themselves from indulgent consideration.

‘5. His lordship must have been well aware that the words of the proclamation, without the comment on it which we trust was speedily afforded by your actions, must have produced the expectation of much more general and indiscriminate dispossession than could have been consistent with justice or with policy. We shall doubtless be informed, in due course, of the reasons which induced the governor-general to employ those terms, and of the means which, we presume, have been taken of making known in Oude the merciful character which we assume must still belong to your views. In the meantime, it is due to the governor-general that we should express our entire reliance that on this, as on former occasions, it has been his firm resolution to shew to all whose crimes are not too great for any indulgence, the utmost degree of leniency consistent with the early restoration and firm maintenance of lawful authority.

‘We accordingly have to inform you, that on receiving communication of the papers now acknowledged, the Court of Directors passed the following resolution:

‘“Resolved—That in reference to the dispatch from the secret committee to the governor-general of India, dated the 19th ult., with the documents therein alluded to, and this day laid before the Court of Directors, this court desires to express its continued confidence in the governor-general, Lord Canning, and its conviction that his measure for the pacification of Oude, and the other disturbed districts in India, will be characterised by a generous policy, and by the utmost clemency that is found to be consistent with the satisfactory accomplishment of that important object.”—We are, &c.

(Signed)

‘F. Currie,

W. J. Eastwick,

&c. &c.

‘London, May 18, 1858.’

Ganges Transport Boat.

---

[157]. See Note G, at the end of the chapter.

[158]. See notes A and B, at the end of the chapter; where many of the documents here referred to are printed in full.

[159]. See Note H.

[160]. ‘1. That it appears, from papers laid upon the table of this House, that a dispatch has been addressed by the Secret Committee of the Court of Directors, to the governor-general of India, disapproving a proclamation which the governor-general had informed the court he intended to issue after the fall of Lucknow.

‘2. That it is known only from intelligence that has reached this country, by correspondence published in newspapers, that the intended proclamation has been issued, and with an important modification, no official account of this proceeding having yet been received; that this House is still without full information as to the grounds upon which Lord Canning had acted, and his answer to the objections made to his intended proclamation in the dispatch of the Secret Committee cannot be received for several weeks.

‘3. That, under these circumstances, this House is unable to form a judgment on the proclamation issued by Lord Canning, but thinks it right to express its disapprobation of the premature publication by her Majesty’s ministers of the dispatch addressed to the governor-general; since this public condemnation of his conduct is calculated to weaken the authority of the governor-general of India, and to encourage those who are now in arms against this country.’

[161]. ‘That this House, whilst it abstains from expressing any opinion on the policy of any proclamation which may have been issued by the governor-general of India with relation to Oude, has seen with great and serious apprehension that her Majesty’s government have addressed to the governor-general of India, through the Secret Committee of the East India directors, and have published, a dispatch condemning in strong terms the conduct of the governor-general. And this House is of opinion that such a course upon the part of her Majesty’s government must tend, under the present circumstances of India, to produce a most prejudicial effect, by weakening the authority of the governor-general, and encouraging further resistance on the part of those who are still in arms against us.’

[162]. See Note C.

[163]. See Note D.

[164]. See Note E.

Jung Bahadoor, of Nepaul.

CHAPTER XXVIII.
MILITARY OPERATIONS IN APRIL.

The British officers and soldiers in India looked forward, not without anxiety, to a hot-weather campaign in the summer of 1858. Much disappointment was felt, too, in England, when necessity for such a campaign became manifest. Persons in all ranks had fondly hoped that, when Sir Colin Campbell had spent two or three months in preparing for the siege of Lucknow, he would be enabled so to invest that city as to render the escape of the mutineers impossible; and that in conquering it, the heart of the rebellion would be crushed out. The result did not answer to this expectation. Lucknow was conquered; but the prisoners taken could be reckoned simply by dozens; nearly all the rebels who were not killed escaped into the provinces. It is true that they were now a dispersed body instead of a concentrated army; but it is also true that, in abandoning Lucknow, they would retire to many towns and forts where guns could be found, and where a formidable stand might be made against British troops. Let the summer approach, and the ratio of advantages on the two sides would be changed in character. Hot weather may affect the sepoy, but it affects him relatively less than the Englishman. It is heart-breaking work to a gallant soldier to feel his bodily strength failing through heat, at a time when his spirit is as heroic as ever. The rebels were astute enough to know this. The lithe Hindoo, with supple limbs and no superfluous flesh, can make great marches—especially when he retreats. His goods and chattels are few in number; his household arrangements simple; and it costs him little time or thought to shift his quarters at a short notice, in a period of peace. During war or rebellion, when he becomes a soldier, his worldly position is even more simple than before. A man who can live upon rice, parched corn, and water, and to whom it is a matter of much indifference whether he is clothed or not, has a remarkable freedom of movement, requiring little intricacy of commissariat arrangements. The English, during the war of the mutiny, had ample means of observing this mobility of the native rebel troops, and ample reasons for lamenting its consequences. If this were so during the winter, it would be still more decidedly the case during a hot-weather campaign, when exhaustion and coups de soleil work so terribly on the European constitution. It was this consideration, as we have said, that gave rise to much disappointment, both in India and in England, when the real sequel of the siege of Lucknow became apparent. The disappointment resolved itself in some quarters into adverse criticism on Sir Colin Campbell’s tactics; but even those who deemed it wise and just to postpone such criticism, could not postpone their anxiety when they found that the rebels, fleeing from Lucknow, assumed such an attitude elsewhere as would render a summer campaign necessary.

The long sojourn of the commander-in-chief in and near the Oudian capital, and the frequent communications between him and the governor-general, told of serious and weighty discussions concerning the policy to be pursued. Rumours circulated of an antagonism of plans; of one project for leaving the rebels unmolested until after the hot season should have passed, and of another for crushing them in detail before they could succeed in recombining. But whatever might have been the rumours, the policy adopted followed the latter of these two courses. The army of Lucknow, broken up into divisions or columns, was set again to work, to pursue and defeat those insurgents who kept the field with a pertinacity little expected when the mutiny began. So much of those operations as took place during the month of April, it is the purpose of this chapter to narrate; but a few words may previously be said concerning the state of affairs in Bengal, more dependent on Calcutta than on the army of Oude or the commander-in-chief.

The fact has already been adverted to that the supreme government, amid all the anxiety of the rebellion in the northwest, began in the spring of the year to take measures for the better protection of Lower Bengal. That province, the most important in the whole of India, had been very little affected by the mutiny, chiefly because there were few Mohammedan leaders inclined to become rebels; but the authorities could not close their eyes to the facts that the province was very insufficiently defended, and that any successful revolt there would be more disastrous than in other regions. So long as the delta of the Ganges remained in British hands, there would always be a base of operations for reconquering Upper India, if necessary; but that delta once lost, the services of a Clive, backed by a large army from England, would be again needed to recover it. A plan was therefore formed for locating five or six thousand European troops in Bengal, quartered at Calcutta, Dumdum, Chinsura, Barrackpore, Dinapoor, Benares, and one or two other places. It became very seriously contested whether any native army whatever would be needed in the province. The Bengalees are peaceful, and have few ambitious chieftains among them; hence, it was argued, a few thousand British troops, and a few hundred seamen of the Naval Brigade, would suffice to protect the province. There were ‘divisional battalions’ of native troops still at certain stations, as a sort of military police; but the regular Bengal native army had been extinguished, or had extinguished itself. So useful had a few hundred seamen become, that their employment led to many such suggestions as the following—‘Wherever these seamen are, there is a feeling of absolute security at once from external attack and internal treachery. Bengal has now been nearly twelve months without a native army, and within that twelve months they have never once been missed. Why not retain this security? Why not strike off Bengal from the provinces to be occupied by a native force, and render our improvised force a permanent institution? A company of European sailors would be a nucleus for the armed police in each division. Why not keep them up as such, give them permanent allowances, recruit them primarily from the same useful class? There can be no want of men when once such a permanent opening is known. They would not only protect the great cities, and double the physical force on which all authority must ultimately rest, but act as a permanent check on the divisional battalions. We want such a check. These men may be as faithful as the sepoys have been false, as attached to Europeans as the sepoys have proved themselves hostile; but there can never be any proof of the fact. Let us not again trust armed natives without the precautions we take in our ships against our own sailors—a check by a different body.’ All such considerations necessarily resolved themselves into a much larger inquiry, to be conducted deliberately and cautiously—how ought the army of India to be re-constituted?

Semi-barbarous tribes in many instances took advantage of the disturbed state of British influence in India, to make inroads into districts not properly belonging to them; and it sometimes happened that the correction of these evildoers was a very difficult matter. Such an instance occurred in the month now under notice. On the borders of Assam, at the extreme northeast corner of India, were a wild mountain tribe called Abors, who had for some time been engaged in a system of marauding on the Assam side of the frontier. Captain Bivar, at Debrooghur, set forth to punish them, taking with him a mixed force of sailors and Goorkhas. The Abors retreated to their fastnesses, and Bivar attempted to follow them; but this was an unsuccessful manœuvre. The Abors brought down many of his men by poisoned arrows, and maimed others by rolling down stones upon them from the rocks; a portion of their numbers, meanwhile, making a circuit, fell upon the baggage-boats, and captured the whole of the baggage. Captain Bivar and his companions suffered many privations before they safely got back to Debrooghur. These, however, were minor difficulties, involving no very serious consequences. Throughout the northeast region of India there were few ‘Pandies,’ few sepoys of Hindustani race; and thus the materials for rebellion were deprived of one very mischievous ingredient.

The Calcutta authorities found it necessary to make stringent rules concerning ladies and children; and hence some of the magistrates and collectors, the representatives of the Company in a civil capacity in the country districts, were occasionally placed in troublesome circumstances by family considerations during times of tumult. From the first, the Calcutta government had endeavoured, by every available means, to prevent women and children from going to the scenes of danger: knowing how seriously the movements of the officers, military and civil, would be interfered with by the presence of helpless relatives during scenes of fighting and tumult. One of the magistrates, in Western Bengal, was brought into difficulty by disobedience to this order. His wife entreated that she might come to him at his station. She did so. Shortly afterwards a rumour spread that a large force of the enemy was approaching. The lady grew frightened, and the husband anxious. He took her to another place, and was thereby absent from his post at a critical time. The government suspended him from office for disobeying orders in having his wife at the station, and for quitting his district without leave at a time when his presence was imperatively needed.

One other matter may be mentioned here, in connection with the local government, before proceeding to the affairs of Oude and the northwest. The Calcutta authorities shared with the Court of Directors, the English government, and the House of Commons, the power of rewarding or honouring their troops for good services; the modes adopted were many; but amid the controversies which occasionally arose concerning military honours, medals, promotions, and encomiums, it was made very manifest during the wars of the mutiny that the Victoria Cross, the recognition of individual valour, was one of the most highly valued by the soldiery, both officers and privates. The paltriness of the bits of metal and ribbon, or the tastelessness of the design, might be abundantly criticised; but when it became publicly known that the Cross would be given only to those who had shewn themselves to be brave among the brave, the value of the symbol was great, such as a soldier or sailor could alone appreciate. From time to time notices appeared in the London Gazette, emanating from the War-office, giving the utmost publicity to the instances in which the Victoria Cross was bestowed. The name of the officer or soldier, the regiment or corps to which he belonged, the commanding officer who had made the recommendation, the dispatch in which the deed of bravery was recorded, the date and place of that deed, the nature of the deed itself—all were briefly set forth; and there can be little doubt that the recipients of the Cross would cherish that memorial, and the Gazette notice, to the end of their lives. Incidental notices of this honorary testimonial have been frequently made in former chapters; and it is mentioned again here because of its importance in including officers and privates in the same category. Thus, on the 27th of April, to give one instance, the London Gazette announced the bestowal of the Victoria Cross on Lieutenant-colonel Henry Tombs, of the Bengal artillery; Lieutenant James Hills, of the same corps; Lieutenant William Alexander Kerr, of the 24th Bombay native infantry; Sergeant John Smith, of the Bengal Sappers and Miners; Bugler Robert Hawthorne, of the 52d foot; Lance-corporal Henry Smith, of the same regiment; Sergeant Bernard Diamond, of the Bengal horse-artillery; and Gunner Richard Fitzgerald, of the same corps. Sergeant Smith and Bugler Hawthorne, it will be remembered, assisted poor Home, Salkeld, and Burgess in blowing up the Cashmere Gate at Delhi; unlike their heroic but less fortunate companions, they lived to receive the Victoria Cross.[^[165]]

Let us now pass to the stormy northwest regions. Beginning with Lucknow as a centre, it will be convenient to treat of Sir Colin’s arrangements at that place, and then to notice in succession the operations of his brigadiers in their movements radially from that centre, so far as they were connected with the month of April.

That portion of the army which remained in Lucknow found the month of April to open with a degree of heat very distressing to bear. A temperature of 100° F., under the shade of a tent, was not at all unusual. When the wind was calm, the pressure of temperature was not much felt; but the blowing of a hot wind was truly terrible—not only from the heat itself, but from the clouds of dust laden with particles of matter of the most offensive kind. Every organ of sense, every nerve, every pore, was distressed. And it was at such a time that a commander was called upon to plan, and officers and soldiers to execute, military operations with as much care and exactitude as if under a cool and temperate sky. There were putrefying bodies yet unburied in the vicinity, pools of recently dried blood in the streets and gardens, and abominations of every kind in this city of palaces: how these affected the air, in a temperature higher than is ever known in England, may be imperfectly, and only imperfectly, conceived.[^[166]]

The last chapter told in what way the treatment of the Oude rebels engaged the attention of the imperial legislature, and what were the violent discussions to which that subject gave rise. In this place it will only be necessary to state that, long before Viscount Canning came to hear the views of the two Houses of Parliament, he found it necessary to determine, if not the policy itself, at least the names of those who would have the onerous task of re-establishing civil government in the distracted province. Mr Montgomery, who, as judicial commissioner of the Punjaub, had rendered admirable service to Sir John Lawrence, was selected by the governor-general to fill the office of chief-commissioner of Oude—aided by a staff of judicial and financial commissioners, civil and military secretaries, deputy-commissioners, commissioners of divisions, deputy-commissioners of districts, and other officers. It was believed that he combined the valuable qualities of sagacity, experience, firmness, and conciliation. Oude was to be parcelled out into four divisions, and each division into three districts. The intention was, that as soon as any part of the province was brought into some degree of order by Sir Colin and his brigadiers, Montgomery should take it in hand, and bring it to order in relation to judicial and revenue affairs. Large powers were given to him, in relation to ‘proclamations’ and everything else; and it remained for time to shew the result.

While on this subject, it may be well to advert to the conduct and position of one particular native of Oude. During many months the line of policy pursued by the influential Oudian landowner, Rajah Maun Singh, was a subject of much anxiety among the British authorities. His power in Oude was very considerable, and it was fondly hoped or wished that he might prove faithful in mutinous times. This hope was founded on two kinds of evidence, positive and negative—proofs that he had often befriended the poor European fugitives in the hour of greatest need, and that on many occasions he had not injured the British when he might easily have done so. Nevertheless it was impossible to get rid of the impression that he was ‘playing fast and loose;’ reserving himself for whichever party should gain the ascendency in the Indian struggle. So much importance was attached in England to this rajah’s conduct, that the House of Commons ordered the production of any documents that might throw light upon it. The papers produced ranged over a period of six months. So early as June 1857, when the mutiny was only six or seven weeks old, Mr Tucker, commissioner of Benares, wrote to Maun Singh concerning the relations between him and the British government—acknowledging the steadiness of the rajah in maintaining the district of Fyzabad in a peaceful condition, so far as he could, and assuring him that it would be good policy for him to continue in the same path. He told him that although England was engaged in a war with China, and had only just concluded one with Persia, and that moreover her Hindustani troops had proved faithless, she would undoubtedly triumph over all opposition from within and without, and would equally remember those who had been true and those who had been false to her—to reward the one and punish the other. It was a letter of thanks for the past, and of warning for the future. During the same month, Maun Singh was in correspondence with Mr Paterson, magistrate of Goruckpore, giving and receiving friendly assurances, and impressing the magistrate with a belief in his sincere desire to remain faithful to the British government during a time of trouble. In the middle of July he was in correspondence with Mr Wingfield, British political agent with the Goorkha force at that time in the Goruckpore district. Maun Singh, it may here be remarked, had suffered severely in his estate, by the land-settlement made when the Company took possession of Oude; he had suffered, whether rightly or wrongly; and the Calcutta authorities were naturally anxious to know whether his losses had converted him into a rebel. He wrote to Mr Wingfield, promising to adhere faithfully to a course of friendliness towards the English. Mr Wingfield recommended the government to trust Maun Singh, to supply him with a certain amount of funds, and to believe that he was able and willing to keep the districts of Fyzabad and Sultanpore tolerably free from anarchy. He added: ‘All I see and hear of Maun Singh makes me think him stanch up to this moment. He has exerted himself in every way to protect the women and children that were left at Fyzabad, and to place them in safety. He sent four sergeants’ wives and seven children to this place; but we cannot expect him to sacrifice himself for us. He has doubtless already made himself obnoxious to the rebels by his open adhesion to our cause; and if fortune goes against us at Lucknow, instead of being able to render us any assistance, he will himself have to take shelter here.’ The Calcutta government authorised Mr Wingfield to thank Maun Singh for his actions and his promises, and to assist him with money to a certain prescribed amount. In August a letter was sent to the rajah himself by the government, thanking him for what he had done, and urging him to a continuance in the same course. Many months afterwards, the Calcutta authorities had again to discuss this subject. During the autumn, Maun Singh’s former promises had been a good deal belied. He had been in and near Lucknow during the period when Havelock, Outram, and Campbell were engaged in warfare at that city; and it was more than suspected that he had aided the insurgents. True, he was a man who, having something of the feelings of a gentleman, rather succoured than persecuted hapless fugitives who were powerless for aught save suffering; but his proceedings in other ways were not satisfactory. When Outram commanded in the Residency, shut up with Havelock and Inglis, he exchanged many communications with the rajah, but to no satisfactory end. During the winter, rumours reached Maun Singh that the governor-general, regarding him as a traitor in spite of his many promises, intended to deprive him of his estates, as a punishment. He wrote a reproachful letter to Mr Brereton, the magistrate at Goruckpore—complaining that this was a poor reward for his services; that he went with his family to Lucknow because he was threatened by insurgents at Fyzabad; but that throughout the various sieges at Lucknow he never joined the rebels in attacking the British. Among various letters from the officials, were two which shewed that Mr Wingfield had greatly modified his former favourable opinion of the Fyzabad rajah. On the 2d of February he wrote: ‘Maun Singh is not the man to be selected as an object of clemency. He has not the excuse of having been hurried into insurrection by the force of example, the impetuosity of his feelings, or even regard for his personal safety. He withstood all these trials; for it was on mature reflection, and after weighing all the chances on either side, that he chose that of rebellion. As long as he thought the success of the insurrection was but transient, and that our government would speedily recover its position, he professed loyalty, and even supported us; but when he heard that the Goorkhas were not to march through Fyzabad, and that Havelock had been obliged to abandon his design of relieving the Residency and to retire on Cawnpore, he thought our case hopeless, and joined what appeared the triumphant side. He has now found out his mistake, and wishes to turn again.’ Again, on the 12th of February Mr Wingfield wrote: ‘On Maun Singh’s conduct I look with some distrust, which his letter does not tend to remove. Our Fyzabad news-writer, whose information has invariably proved correct, reports that the rajah has had an interview with some of the sepoy officers, and agreed to their proposal to invade this (Goruckpore) district, and moved three of his guns down to the Ghat. It would be quite consistent with his known character for duplicity to infer that, while aiding the insurgents, he is trying to keep well with us.’ The double-dealer had, indeed, his hands full of employment; for he had been sounding Sir James Outram at the Alum Bagh, before he applied to the Goruckpore authorities, at the very time that he had on hand some sort of negotiation with the rebels. He succeeded so far as this—that no party liked absolutely to throw him off. Mr Wingfield, in writing to the government, candidly admitted that, inscrutable and unreliable as Maun Singh was, matters would have gone worse for the British in Oude if he had not been there. ‘It must be admitted that his neutrality up to the present time has paralysed the plans of the insurgents, and has made him the object of their indignation. Had he declared himself openly against us, the district of Goruckpore would long ago have been invaded.’ On the 16th of February the governor-general sent orders from Allahabad, as to the mode in which any overtures from Maun Singh should be received. He directed that the rajah should be thanked for the humanity he had shewn towards individuals; reminded that strong suspicions were entertained of his complicity with the rebels; threatened with a full and searching inquiry into his past conduct; and recommended to submit himself—without any other conditions than a promise of his life and honour—to the British authorities. But Maun Singh did not follow this advice—he remained throughout the spring months balancing and trimming between loyalty and disloyalty.

Reverting to the state of affairs at Lucknow, it may here be observed that the commander-in-chief remained in that city until the middle of April. There was nothing Napoleonic, nothing rapid, in his movements after the conquest; but those who knew him best knew that he was organising plans of operation for all his brigadiers, and on all sides of the Oudian capital. So thoroughly was he master of his own secrets, and of his correspondence with the governor-general, that very little concerning his plans were known until the very day of operation. Even the higher officers had little but conjecture to rest upon; while the mere retailers of gossip were sorely puzzled for materials. It may be that the excessive publicity of the details of the Crimean war had rendered military authorities uneasy, and tended to render them chary of giving information of their plans in any subsequent wars. During the second week in the month, Sir Colin Campbell took a rapid gallop to Allahabad—a long distance and a somewhat perilous ride in such a disturbed state of the country; but he was not a man to care for distance or for danger, as personally affecting himself. He had many weighty questions to settle with Viscount Canning; and as the governor-general could not or would not go to the commander, the commander went to the governor-general. The result of the interview was the departure of Sir Colin Campbell himself, as well as his generals, for active service in districts distant from Lucknow.

It will be desirable to trace the movements of the generals and brigadiers singly before noticing those of the commander-in-chief and his head-quarters.

And first, for Sir James Outram. This eminent man, the second in influence among the military commanders in India, quitted Lucknow nearly at the same time as many other officers; but on a different mission. When that city was conquered, Outram at once became supreme authority there, as chief-commissioner of Oude. He collected round him a civil staff, and proceeded to enrol a police, establish police-stations, and restore order in the city. From these duties, however, he was summoned away. His services were needed at Calcutta. The supreme council in that city generally contained one military officer among its members, to advise on matters pertaining to war. General Low, who had for some time filled that position, retired to England; and Outram was chosen to supply his place. Personally, it was well that Sir James should quit the camp for a while, after half a year’s incessant military employment in Oude; and professionally, it was desirable that the council at Calcutta should have the benefit of his assistance, in any plans for the reorganisation of the Indian army—a most important matter, towards which the attention of the authorities was necessarily much directed. Sir James did not forget his old companions-in-arms. As soon as he reached Calcutta, he gave orders that copies of one of the newspapers should be regularly sent to the hospitals of six of the British regiments at Cawnpore, Meerut, Lucknow, and Benares; he knew how irksome are the hours in a sick-room, and how joyfully a few books or journals are hailed in such a place.

The lines of operation marked out for the other generals naturally bore relation to the real or supposed position of the insurgent forces. The rumours which reached head-quarters concerning the concentration of rebel leaders in Rohilcund, even making allowance for exaggerations, told of a somewhat formidable organisation. Among the best-known names included in the list were Khan Bahadoor Khan, Nena Sahib, Fuzul Huq, Waladid Khan, and the Nawab of Furruckabad. Khan Bahadoor Khan was chief ruler; and he appears to have organised something like a regular government, with dewans, moonshees, naibs, darogahs, kotwals, nazims, and military commanders. Nena Sahib was there as a sort of distinguished refugee; as were also two shahzadas or princes of the royal family of Delhi. Nena Sahib is supposed to have arrived at Bareilly in Rohilcund, after Sir Colin’s great victory at Lucknow, with four hundred troopers, and to have taken up his abode in the fine large native school-room built by the British in that city. One among many bazaar reports was, that Khan Bahadoor Khan began to entertain misgivings concerning the ultimate success of his rebel policy; but that Nena Sahib, acting on his fears, insisted that a drawing back would be ruinous. Another rumour, having much probability to recommend it, was to the effect that Nena Sahib looked to Central India, the region of Gwalior, Kotah, and Indore, as the field in which his own personal success might ultimately be best insured, on account of his great influence among the Mahrattas of that region; and it was supposed that, failing of success in Oude and Rohilcund, he would endeavour to cross the Ganges and the Jumna into Bundelcund and Central India. Hence one of the points of policy on the side of the commander-in-chief, was to guard those great rivers at as many ghats or passing-places as possible—in the hope that, confined to Oude and Rohilcund, the rebels might be crushed; and in the fear that, scattered over Central India, they might again become powerful. Whether his forces were sufficiently numerous for this duty, was one of the many questions that pressed upon Sir Colin Campbell. The trite saying of an enemy ‘not knowing when they were beaten,’ was many times revived by the British officers in those days; the mutineers seldom gained a victory; but on the other hand, they were not much disheartened by defeat; they retreated, only to collect and fight again; and thus the British troops seldom felt that a victory would give an unquestionably permanent advantage.

Of the leaders who had taken part in the conquest of Lucknow, Jung Bahadoor, the Nepaulese chieftain—as has been shown in a former chapter—went to Allahabad with a body-guard, to hold an interview with the governor-general. The rest of the Goorkha contingent retraced their steps by slow degrees towards their Nepaulese home. So late as the 22d of April, the main body of Goorkhas were no further from Lucknow than Nawabgunge, a town on the banks of the Gogra, northeast of the capital of Oude. On that day, they marched to Sutturgunje, and on the 23d to Durriabad. This town had a fort which might have made a stout resistance, but there were no rebel troops at hand to put the matter to proof. After remaining at Durriabad two days, the Goorkhas marched on the 25th to Shugahgunje, on the 26th to Mobarrukgunje, and on the 27th to Durabgunje—all of them places on or near the banks of the Gogra, on the route towards Fyzabad. Resting two days at Durabgunje, they marched on the 29th to Ayodha or Oude, the ancient Hindoo capital, afterwards supplanted by the Mohammedan Fyzabad, just at hand—which Fyzabad was in its turn supplanted by Lucknow. On the last day of the month, the Goorkhas were on one side of the river Gogra at Fyzabad, and a body of rebels on the other—each intently watching the other, but without fighting. Maun Singh was at that time at Fyzabad, friendly to the British. Little satisfaction appears to have been derived by any party from this co-operation of the Goorkhas with the British. In the preceding July and August, when Havelock was straining every nerve to bring a small force up to Lucknow, and when Inglis was contending against stupendous difficulties in that city—in those months, there was an army of three or four thousand Goorkhas near the eastern frontier of Oude, badly commanded and insufficiently employed. Why they were not pushed on to Lucknow, as an auxiliary force, was known only to the authorities; but, in its effect, this inactivity of the Goorkhas called forth much adverse criticism. Again, during the six months from the beginning of September to the beginning of March, the assistance from Nepaul was not of such a character as had been hoped by those who knew that the Goorkhas enlisted in the Sirmoor and Kumaon battalions were really brave and efficient troops, and who expected that Jung Bahadoor’s Goorkhas would prove to be men of the same stamp. Why the aid rendered was so small, was a politico-military question, on which very little information was afforded. When, at last, a really large Nepaulese army entered Oude, its movements were so slow that Sir Colin began the siege of Lucknow without its aid; and when the siege was over, the army began to march back again, without participating further in the war. This was a very impotent result; and the Nepaulese episode was by no means a brilliant one in the history of the wars of the mutiny. So far as concerns the march during the month of April, from Lucknow towards the Nepaul frontier, it may be remarked that the Goorkhas dreaded the approaching hot weather, that their number of sick was very large, and that the carts for their baggage were so enormous in number as greatly to impede their movements.

Goorkha Havildar or Sergeant.

Another of the generals concerned in the siege of Lucknow, Sir Edward Lugard, was intrusted by the commander-in-chief with service in a region infested by Koer Singh—the chieftain whose name had been so closely associated with the Dinapoor mutiny and the ‘disaster at Arrah,’ in the preceding summer. This rebel had worked round nearly in a circle—not metaphorically, but topographically. He had marched at the head of insurgents south and southwest from Arrah, then west into Bundelcund, then north into the Doab and Oude; and now it was his fortune to be driven east and southeast back to his old quarters in the neighbourhood of Arrah.

Before Lugard could cross the frontier into the provinces eastward of Oude, it was found necessary to bring smaller forces to bear upon bodies of rebels infesting those provinces, and threatening to command the region between the rivers Goomtee and Gogra. The city of Azimghur was in this way greatly indebted to the gallant exertions of Lord Mark Kerr. This officer, immediately on the arrival of news that Azimghur was beset by the enemy, started off from Benares on the 2d of April, with 450 men of H.M. 13th regiment and Queen’s Bays, and two 6-pounder guns. Though impeded by a train of three hundred bullock-carts laden with ammunition, Kerr pushed forward with such rapidity that he arrived in the neighbourhood of Azimghur on the third day after quitting Benares. Here he was opposed by three or four thousand rebels, comprising a large proportion of sepoys of the too celebrated Dinapoor brigade. The rebels were commanded with some skill by a subadar of one of the mutinied regiments. They occupied a position of considerable strength, on the right and left sides of the main road; their right resting on a strong village, and their left protected by a ditch and embankment. Lord Mark succeeded in dislodging those of the enemy who were immediately in his front; but while thus engaged, his convoy in the rear was attacked by eight hundred rebels, who were with great difficulty beaten off, at the expense of the life of Captain Jones, who was guarding the convoy. Overcoming all resistance, Lord Mark succeeded in reaching a point near Azimghur, and remained there until the arrival of Lugard’s column from Lucknow. This portion of the rebels did not return to the city after the action, but retired in good order, taking their guns and baggage with them.

Azimghur, however, needed the assistance of a larger force than Kerr could bring against it; for Koer Singh, with a formidable band of rebels, had to be contended against, in a region containing many large towns. Sir Edward Lugard, placed by Sir Colin Campbell in command of a column destined for service in this region, started from Lucknow during the last week in March; but the destruction of a bridge over the Goomtee at Sultanpore greatly delayed his progress, and compelled him to take a circuitous route by Jounpoor, which city he did not reach till the 9th of April. His column was a strong one; comprising three regiments of infantry, three of Sikh horse, a military train, three batteries of horse-artillery, and seven hundred carts full of warlike stores. On the evening of the 10th, he marched out from Jounpoor, to encounter Gholab Hossein, one of the rebel chuckladars or leaders. The enemy did not stay to fight, but retreated precipitately. They required close watching, however; for while Sir Edward was on the march from Jounpoor to Azimghur, a large rebel force got into his rear, and attempted to re-enter Jounpoor. This caused him to modify his plan, and to disperse the rebels before proceeding to Azimghur. In this he succeeded, but lost the services of Lieutenant Charles Havelock, nephew of the distinguished general. The gallant young officer, at the commencement of the mutiny, had been adjutant of the 12th Bengal native irregular cavalry, and was thrown out of employment by the revolt of that regiment. He then went as a volunteer with his uncle, and was for nine months more or less engaged in the operations in and around Lucknow. When Lugard left the army of Oude, and took command of the column whose operations are here being recorded, young Havelock accompanied him, holding a command in a Goorkha battalion. It was while Lugard was dispersing the rebels near Jounpoor, that the lieutenant was killed by a shot from a hut in an obscure village.

Sir Edward, resuming his march towards Azimghur, reached that city at length on the 15th, somewhat vexed at the numerous delays that had occurred on his journey. On his arrival at the bridge of boats which crossed the small river Tons at that city, he encountered a portion of Koer Singh’s main army. They fought well, and with some determination; and it was not without a struggle that he defeated and dispersed them. Mr Venables, the civilian who had gained so high a reputation for courage during the earlier mutinous proceedings in the district, was wounded on this occasion. The East India Company had reason to be proud of its civilians, for the most part, during the troubles; Mr Venables was only one among many who nobly distinguished themselves. After this battle at the bridge, it soon became evident, as in many other instances, that the rebels had been too quick for their pursuers. Koer Singh and the main body of his force were quitting Azimghur on the one side just when Lugard entered it on the other; the fighting was merely with the rear guard, and all the rest of the insurgents marched off safely. As it was by no means desirable that they should escape to work mischief elsewhere, Sir Edward, on the 16th, sent off Brigadier Douglas in pursuit of them, with the 37th and 84th regiments, some cavalry and artillery. Lugard himself proposed to encamp for a while at Azimghur.

We have now for a time to leave Sir Edward Lugard, and to notice the unsatisfactory result of the operations which he initiated. The town of Arrah was destined to be the scene of another discomfiture of British troops, as mortifying if not as disastrous as that which occurred early in the mutiny, and inflicted by the same hand—Koer Singh. When this indefatigable rebel was driven out of Azimghur, he separated from some of the other chieftains, at a point which he believed would enable him to cross the Ganges into the district of Shahabad, where Arrah would be near at hand. He marched with two thousand sepoys and a host of rabble. Brigadier Douglas pursued him with great rapidity, marching a hundred miles in five days of great heat; he came up with the rebels at Bansdeh, defeated them, and drove them to Beyriah, Koer Singh himself being wounded. On the 21st, a portion of Douglas’s force again came up with the enemy while in the act of crossing the Ganges at Seoporeghat in the Ghazeepore district. It appeared that Koer Singh had cleverly outwitted Colonel Cumberlege, who, with two regiments of Madras cavalry, was endeavouring to aid Douglas in crushing him at a particular spot. Koer Singh did not wait to be crushed, but swiftly and silently marched to the Ganges at a spot not guarded by Cumberlege. When Douglas’s troops came up, they killed a few of the rebels, and captured two guns, six elephants, and much ammunition and treasure—but the interception had not been prompt enough; for Koer Singh and the greater part of his force had safely crossed to the right bank of the river. The remainder of Douglas’s column came up on the evening of this day, quite worn out with their long march, and needing some days’ rest. Koer Singh, although beaten first by Lugard and then by Douglas, had baffled them both in reference to a successful flight; and now it was his fortune (though wounded) to baffle a third British officer. The rebels reached Koer Singh’s hereditary domain of Jugdispore. The town of Arrah was at that time occupied by 150 men of H.M. 35th foot, 150 of Rattray’s Sikhs, and 50 seamen of the Naval Brigade—the whole under Captain Le Grand. This officer, hearing of the approach of the rebels, and knowing that small bodies had often defeated large armies during the course of the war, sallied forth to prevent the march of Koer Singh to Jugdispore, or else to disturb him at that place. He found them posted in a jungle. They were nearly two thousand in number, but dispirited, and without guns. Le Grand’s small force, with the two 12-pounder howitzers, encountered the enemy about two miles from Jugdispore, at daylight on the 23d. After an ineffectual firing of the howitzers, a bugle-call threw everything into confusion. Whether Le Grand, fearing to be surrounded, sounded a retreat, or whether some other signal was misinterpreted, it appears certain that his force fell into inextricable confusion; they abandoned guns and elephants, and fled towards Arrah, followed by numbers of the enemy, who shot and cut down many of them. The 35th suffered terribly; two-thirds of their number were either killed or wounded, including Captain Le Grand himself, Lieutenant Massey, and Dr Clarke. This mortifying calamity, in which the unfortunate Le Grand is said to have disobeyed instructions given by the superior officer of the district, gave rise to much bitter controversy. The 35th was one of those regiments of which the colonel was an old man, shattered in health, and not well fitted to head his troops in active service. It was also, in the heat of controversy, brought as a charge against him that he was a martinet in matters of discipline, and kept his soldiers in red cloth and pipe-clayed belts under the tremendous heat of an Indian sun. The charges, in this as in many similar cases, may have been overwrought; but all felt that the 35th had not behaved in such a way as English troops are wont to behave when well commanded—and hence the inference that they were not well commanded.

A new series of operations became necessary as a consequence of this disaster near Jugdispore. The news hastened the movements of Brigadier Douglas, who on the 25th crossed the Ganges at Seenaghat, and pushed on the 84th foot and two guns towards Jugdispore. It was, however, not till the month of May that that jungle-haunt of rebels was effectually cleared out. Meanwhile a little had been doing at another spot in the same region. When, after the action at the bridge of Azimghur, Koer Singh’s force divided into three, one of these divisions, with several horse-artillery guns, marched towards Ghazeepore. Brigadier Gordon, at Benares, at once ordered two companies of H.M. 54th to proceed to Ghazeepore by hasty marches, half the number being carried on elephants or in ekahs. It was hoped that these troops, coming in aid of small numbers of royal troops, European cavalry, Madras cavalry, and two 6-pounder guns, already at Ghazeepore, would suffice to protect that important city from the rebels; and this hope was realised. Considerably to the northwest, between Goruckpore and the Oude frontier, Colonel Rowcroft maintained a small force, with which from time to time he repelled attacks made by the enemy. On the 17th of April, when at Amorah, his camp was attacked by three thousand rebels; the attack was not effectually resisted without eight hours’ hard fighting. The sepoys, almost for the first time in the war, endeavoured to resist a cavalry charge in British fashion, by kneeling in a line with upturned bayonets; but a corps of Bengal yeomanry cavalry made the charge with such impetuosity that the enemy were overthrown and a victory gained.

Such, in brief, was the general character of the operations eastward of Oude. We have next to touch upon those of Sir Hope Grant, in Oude itself.

This gallant general, as colonel of a cavalry regiment, had commenced his share in the war as a subordinate to one or more brigadiers; but he had since proved himself well worthy of the command of a column under his own responsibility. When Sir Colin Campbell parcelled out among his chief officers various duties consequent on the flight of the insurgents from Lucknow, a column or division was made up, to be commanded by Sir Hope Grant, to look after such of the rebels as had taken a northerly direction. His column consisted of H.M. 38th foot, one battalion of the Rifle Brigade, a regiment of Sikhs, H.M. 9th Lancers (Hope Grant’s own regiment), a small body of reliable native cavalry, two troops of horse-artillery, and a small siege and mortar train. It was known or believed that the Moulvie of Fyzabad had collected a force near Baree, about thirty miles north of Lucknow; and that the Begum of Oude, with several cart-loads of treasure, had fled for concealment to Bitowlie, the domain of a rebel named Gorhuccus Singh. To what extent Sir Hope Grant would be able to capture, intercept, or defeat the rebels in the service of these leaders, was a problem yet to be solved. He set out from Lucknow on the 11th of April, with Brigadier Horsford as his second in command. In the first three days the troops marched to Baree, on the Khyrabad road; and then was experienced one of the perplexities of the campaign. Every brigadier or divisional general was painfully impressed with the danger of moving in a country where the mass of the population was unfriendly. In many provinces the towns-people and villagers were for the most part disposed, if not to aid the British, at least to hold aloof; but the fact could not be concealed that the Oudians generally were in a rebellious state of feeling, and would gladly have aided to cut off the resources of Sir Colin’s lieutenants. It was merely one among many examples, when Sir Hope Grant set out towards the Gogra, in hopes to overtake the Begum and her fleeing forces; his column or field-force was accompanied by no less than 6000 hackeries or vehicles of various kinds, forming a line of nearly twenty miles; and it was essentially necessary, while assuming the offensive in front, that the flanks and rear of this immense train should be protected—a difficult duty in a hostile country. Scarcely had Grant approached near Baree, when the cavalry of the Moulvie’s rebel force got into his rear, and attempted to cut off the enormous baggage-train. Sir Hope was too good a general to be taken by surprise; but his rear-guard found enough to do to repel the attack made upon them, and to protect the enormous baggage-train. This done, and some horse-artillery guns captured, Sir Hope Grant resumed his march. Turning eastward from Baree, he marched towards the Gogra, in the hope of intercepting the flight of the Begum of Oude, her paramour Mummoo Khan, and a large force of rebels. On the 15th he reached Mohamedabad, on this route; and on the 17th he halted at Ramnuggur for a few days, while a strong reconnoitring party set forth to ascertain if possible the exact position and strength of the rebels. The news obtained was very indefinite, and amounted to little more than this—that the Begum and Mummoo Khan were retreating northward with one large force, and the Moulvie westward with another; but that it would not be very easy to catch either, as the sepoys were celebrated for celerity of movement during a retreat. Sir Hope Grant dispersed various bodies of rebels, and disturbed the plans of the Begum and the Moulvie; but he returned to Lucknow towards the close of the month without having caught either of those wily personages, and with many of his troops laid prostrate by the heat of the sun.

Ghazeepore.

We turn now towards the west or northwest, on the Rohilcund side of Oude. It has already been mentioned, that after the fall of Lucknow, many of the rebel leaders fled to Rohilcund, with the hope of making a bold stand at Bareilly, Shahjehanpoor, Moradabad, and other towns in that province. Khan Bahadoor Khan, the self-appointed chief of Bareilly, was nominally the head of the whole confederacy in this region; but it depended on the chapter of accidents how long this leadership would continue. At any rate, Sir Colin Campbell saw that he could not allow this nest of rebels to remain untouched; Bareilly must be conquered, as Delhi and Lucknow had been. The veteran commander probably mourned in secret the necessity for sending his gallant troops on a long march, into a new field of action, with a sun blazing on them like a ball of fire; but seeing the necessity, he commanded, and they obeyed. His plan of strategy comprised a twofold line of action—an advance of one column northwestward from Lucknow; and an advance of another southeastward from Roorkee; the two columns to assist in clearing the border districts of Rohilcund, and then to meet at Bareilly, the chief city of the province. We will notice first the operations of the force on the northeast border.

Brigadier Jones, with the Roorkee field-force, commenced operations in the eastern part of Rohilcund, about the middle of April. His force consisted of H.M. 60th Rifles, the 1st Sikh infantry, Coke’s Rifles, the 17th Punjaub infantry, the Moultan Horse, with detachments of artillery and engineers. The force numbered three thousand good troops in all, and was strengthened by eight heavy and six light guns. Major (now Brigadier) Coke, whose Punjaub riflemen had gained for themselves so high a reputation, commanded the infantry portion of Jones’s column. The column marched from Roorkee on the 15th, and made arrangements for crossing to the left bank of the Ganges as soon as possible. A large number of the enemy having intrenched themselves at Nagul, about sixteen miles below Hurdwar on the left bank, Jones made his dispositions accordingly. He determined to send his heavy guns and baggage to the ghat opposite Nagul; while his main body should cross at Hurdwar, march down the river on the other side, and take the intrenchment in flank. This plan was completely carried out by the evening of the 17th—Nagul being taken, the enemy driven away with great loss, and the whole column safely encamped on that side of the Ganges which would afford easier access to the hot-bed of the rebels at Bareilly. Four days afterwards, Brigadier Jones encountered the Daranuggur insurgent force near Nageena or Nuggeena, on the banks of a canal. The insurgents maintained a fire for a time from nine guns; but Jones speedily attacked them with his cavalry, outflanked them, charged, captured the guns and six elephants, and put the enemy speedily to flight, after very considerable loss. Jones’s killed and wounded were few in number; but he had to regret the loss of Lieutenant Gostling, who was shot through the heart while heading some of the troops. The brigadier resumed his march. Luckily for British interests, Mooradabad was not so deeply steeped in rebellion as Bareilly; and the Rajah of Rampore, not far distant, was faithful so far as his small power would extend. The benefit of this state of affairs was felt at the time now under notice. Feroze Shah, one of the Shahzadas or princes of Delhi in league with the Bareilly mutineers, marched on the 21st of April towards Mooradabad, to demand money and supplies. He was refused; and much fighting and pillage resulted as consequences. Brigadier Jones’s column came up opportunely; he entered Mooradabad on the 26th, checked the plundering, drove out the rebels, captured many insurgent chieftains, and re-established the confidence of the towns-people. At the end of the month, Jones was still in Mooradabad or its neighbourhood, ready for co-operation in May with another column which we must now notice.

While Jones had been thus occupied, Bareilly and the rebels were threatened on the other side by the Rohilcund field-force. During the first two or three weeks after the conquest of Lucknow, Sir Colin Campbell was engaged in various plans which did not permit of the immediate dispatch of troops to Rohilcund; but on the 7th of April several regiments began to assemble at the Moosa Bagh, to form a small special army for service in that province. Why they were not despatched earlier, was one of the many problems which the commander-in-chief kept to himself. On the 9th this minor army, the Rohilcund field-force, set out, with General Walpole as its commander, and Brigadier Adrian Hope at the head of the infantry. The distance from Lucknow to Bareilly, about fifteen marches, was through a region so ill provided with roads that few or no night-marches could be made; it was necessary to have the aid of daylight to avoid plunging into unforeseen difficulties and dangers. As a consequence, the troops would be exposed to the heat of an Indian sun during their journey, and had to look forward to many trials on that account. Not the least among the numerous perplexities that arose out of the defective state of the roads, was the difficulty of dragging the guns which necessarily accompanied such a force; cavalry and infantry were, in all such cases, inevitably delayed by the necessity of waiting until the ponderous pieces of ordnance could arrive.[^[167]]

Walpole’s field-force, resting at night under shady groves, it was hoped might reach Bareilly about the 24th of the month; and this was the more to be desired, seeing that Rohilcund, from its position in relation to numerous rivers, becomes almost impassable as soon as the rains set in—about the end of May or the beginning of June. Marching onward in accordance with the plan laid down, Walpole came on the 14th of April to one of the many forts which have so often been mentioned in connection with the affairs of Oude. The name of the place, situated about fifty miles from Lucknow, and ten from the Ganges, was variously spelled Rhodamow, Roodhamow, Roer, and Roowah; but whatever the spelling, the fort became associated in the minds of the British troops with more angry complainings than any other connected with the war; since it was the scene of a mortifying repulse which better generalship might have avoided, and which was accompanied by the death of a very favourite officer. Rhodamow was a small fort or group of houses enclosed by a high mud-wall, loopholed for musketry, provided with irregular bastions at the angles, and having two gates. It was a petty place, in relation to the largeness of the force about to attack it—nearly six thousand men. While marching through the jungle towards Rohilcund, Walpole heard that fifteen hundred insurgents had thrown themselves into this fort of Rhodamow; but the number proved to be much smaller. He attacked it with infantry without previously using his artillery, and without (as it would appear) a sufficient reconnaissance. He sent on the 42d Highlanders and the 4th Punjaub infantry to take the fort; but no sooner did the troops approach it than they were received by so fierce and unexpected a fire of musketry, from a concealed enemy, that not only was the advance checked, but the gallant Brigadier Adrian Hope was killed at the head of his Highlanders. The troops could not immediately and effectually reply to this fire, for their opponents were hidden behind the loopholed wall. Everything seems to have been thrown into confusion by this first fatal mistake; the supports were sent up too late, or to the wrong place; and the exasperated troops were forced to retire, amid yells of triumph from the enemy. The heavy guns were then brought to do that which they ought to have done at first; they began to breach the wall, but the enemy quietly evacuated the fort during the night, with scarcely any loss. Besides Adrian Hope, several other officers were either killed or wounded, and nearly a hundred rank and file. During this mortifying disaster, in which the Highlanders were particularly unfortunate in the loss of officers, Quartermaster Sergeant Simpson, of the 42d, displayed that daring spirit of gallantry which so endears a soldier to his companions. When the infantry had been recalled from the attack, Simpson heard that two officers of his regiment had been left behind, dead or wounded in the ditch outside the wall. He rushed out, seized the body of Captain Bromley, and brought it back amid a torrent of musketry; setting forth again, he brought in the body of Captain Douglas in a similar way, and he did not cease until seven had been thus brought away—to be recovered if only wounded, to be decently interred if dead. It was a day, however, the memory of which could not be sweetened by any such displays of gallantry, or by many subsequent victories; the men of the two Highland regiments felt as if a deep personal injury had been inflicted on them by the commander of the column. Sir Colin Campbell, when the news of this untoward event reached him, paid a marked compliment to Adrian Hope in his dispatch. ‘The death of this most distinguished and gallant officer causes the deepest grief to the commander-in-chief. Still young in years, he had risen to high command; and by his undaunted courage, combined as it was with extreme kindness and charm of manner, had secured the confidence of his brigade in no ordinary degree.’ Viscount Canning, in a like spirit, officially notified that ‘no more mournful duty has fallen upon the governor-general in the course of the present contest than that of recording the premature death of this distinguished young commander.’

General Walpole pursued his march, and had a successful encounter on the 22d with a large body of the enemy at Sirsa. His cavalry and artillery attacked them so vigorously as to capture their guns and camp, and to drive them over the Ramgunga in such haste as to leave them no time for destroying the bridge of boats at that place. This achievement was fortunate, for it enabled Walpole on the 23d to transport his heavy guns quickly and safely over the Ramgunga at Allygunje. A few days after this, he was joined by the commander-in-chief, whose movements we must next notice.

It was immediately after Sir Colin Campbell’s return from his interview with the governor-general at Allahabad, that he withdrew from Lucknow all the remaining troops, except those destined for the defence of that important city, and for the re-establishment of British influence in Oude. He formed an expeditionary army, which he headed himself—or rather, the army set forth from Lucknow to Cawnpore, and the commander-in-chief joined it at the last-named place on the 17th of April. The result of the conference at Allahabad had been, a determination to march up the Doab to Furruckabad, and to attack the Rohilcund rebels on a side where neither Jones nor Walpole could well reach them. The heat was great, the rivers were rising, and the rains were coming in a few weeks; and it became now a question whether the movements from Lucknow as a centre had or had not been too long delayed. Sir Colin with his column—for, being a mere remnant, it was too small a force to designate an army—took their departure from Cawnpore on the 18th, leaving that city in the hands of a small but (at present) sufficient body of troops. On the 19th he advanced to Kilianpore, on the 20th to Poorah, and on the 21st to Urrowl—marching during early morn, and encamping in the hotter hours of the day. The day’s work commenced, indeed, so early as one o’clock in the morning; when the elephants and camels began to be loaded with their burdens, the equipage and tents packed up, and the marching arrangements completed. Between two or three o’clock, all being in readiness, away went infantry, cavalry, artillery, engineers, commissariat, and a countless host of natives, horses, camels, elephants, bullocks, and vehicles—covering an area of which the real soldiers occupied but a very small part. They marched or rode till about six o’clock; when all prepared for breakfast, and for a hot day during which little active exertion was possible without imminent danger of coup de soleil. Sir Colin’s train of munition and supplies was enormous; for, in addition to the usual baggage of an army, he had to take large commissariat supplies with him. The villagers held aloof in a manner not usual in the earlier stages of the mutiny, and in other parts of India; they did not come forward to engage in a traffic which would certainly have been profitable to them, in selling provisions to the army. Whether this arose from inability or disinclination, was a matter for controversy; but the fact itself occasioned embarrassment and uneasiness to a commander who had to drag with his army a huge train of animals and vehicles filled with food. The enormous number of natives, too, that accompanied the force, with their wives and families, exerted its usual cumbrous effect on the movements of the troops; so that the fighting-men themselves bore but a minute fractional ratio to the living and dead accompaniments of the column. It is useless to complain of this. An army of five thousand, or any other number, of British troops must have a large train of native attendants, to contend against the peculiarities of Indian climate and Indian customs. Mr Russell, marching with this portion of the late ‘Army of Oude,’ said: ‘If the people we see around us, who are ten or twelve to one as compared with us in this camp, were—not to arm and cut our throats, or poison us, or anything of that kind—but simply bid us a silent good-bye this night, and leave us, India would be lost to us in a day. It requires only that, and all the power of England could not hold the eastern empire. We could not even strike our tents without these men to-morrow. We are dependent on them—even the common soldier is—for the water we drink and the meals we eat, for our transport, for all but the air we breathe; and the latter, it must be admitted, is not improved by them sometimes. The moment that such a thing becomes possible as a popular desertion, through patriotic or any other motives, from the service of the state, it becomes impossible to hold India except upon sufferance. It is the rupee, self-interest, and the necessities of a population trained to follow camps, which afford guarantees against such a secession—unlikely enough indeed in any nation, and scarcely possible in any war.... We are, in fact, waging war against Hindoos and Mussulmans by the aid and with the consent of other Hindoos and Mussulmans, just as Alexander was able to beat Porus by the aid of his Indian allies; and no European or other state can ever rule in India without the co-operation and assistance of a large proportion of the races which inhabit the vast peninsula.’

Sir Colin marched on the 22d to Meerun-ke-serai, near the ruins of the ancient city of Canouje; on the 23d to Gosaigunje; and on the 24th to Kamalgunje—approaching each day nearer to Furruckabad. Every day’s camping-ground was selected near the Ganges, both for the sake of salubrity, and to check if possible the passage of rebel bands over the river from Oude into the Doab. On the 25th the column reached Furruckabad, or rather the adjacent English station of Futteghur. General Penny came from a neighbouring district to confer with the commander-in-chief on matters connected with the Rohilcund campaign, and then returned to the column or brigade which he commanded. Futteghur had regained a part of its former importance, as the place where most of the artillery-carriages and sepoy-clothing were made, and where vast quantities of timber and cloth had fallen as spoil to the enemy.

The sojourn at Futteghur was very brief. The electric telegraph had been busy transmitting information to and from Allahabad; and as Sir Colin’s plans were already made, he lost no time in putting them in execution. The main plan comprised four movements—Campbell from Futteghur, Walpole from Lucknow, Jones from Roorkee, and Penny from Puttealee; all intended to hem the rebels into the middle of Rohilcund, and there crush them. The marches of Walpole and Jones have already been noticed; Penny was to march his column towards Meerunpore Muttra, between Shahjehanpoor and Bareilly, after crossing the Ganges near Nudowlee; while the commander-in-chief was to enter Rohilcund directly from Futteghur. In the middle of the night between the 26th and 27th his column, elephants and guns and all, crossed the Ganges by the bridge of boats, and entered the province which was to be a scene of hostilities. After a few hours the column reached the river Ramgunga, which it crossed by the bridge of boats fortunately secured by Walpole as the fruit of his victory at Allygunje; and soon afterwards the commander-in-chief effected a junction with Walpole, at Tingree near the Ramgunga. No very long time for repose was allowed; stern work was to be done, and the sooner commenced, the less would it be checked by heat and prohibited by rains. A march of a few hours brought the now united columns to Jelalabad—one of many places of that name in India. It was a fort which had lately been occupied by a small body of matchlockmen, who had precipitately abandoned it when news of Sir Colin’s approach reached them. A small village lay near, and was governed by the fort. The Moulvie of Fyzabad was believed to have intended to make a stand at this place, but to have abandoned it for a larger stronghold at Shahjehanpoor. On the 29th, a further approach was made to Kanth. Each day was pretty well like that which preceded it—the same early marching, camping, and resting, and the same struggle with the camp-followers, who, however closely watched, pertinaciously plundered the villages through or near which they passed—thereby terrifying and exasperating all villagers alike, whether friendly or unfriendly to the British. This system of plunder by the camp-followers was one of the greatest troubles to which the generals of the several columns were exposed; severe punishments were threatened, but all in vain.

It was on the last day of the month that Sir Colin Campbell and General Walpole arrived at Shahjehanpoor; and then it was to learn that the wily and active Moulvie had again outmanœuvred them. The plan had been to draw a cordon more and more closely round the rebels at Shahjehanpoor and Bareilly, and thus to catch them as in a trap. But the Moulvie would not enter the trap. He held Shahjehanpoor, with a considerable force of men and guns, as long as he deemed it safe, and then escaped just at the right moment. It was well to regain Shahjehanpoor, after that place had been eleven months in the hands of rebels; but it was vexing to learn that the Moulvie had retreated towards Oude—the very province where his presence was least desired by the British. Nena Sahib, it was also ascertained, had quitted Shahjehanpoor a few days earlier, and just before leaving, had ordered the government buildings to be destroyed, in order that the British troops might find no shelter when they arrived. This cowardly, ruthless, but active and inventive chieftain succeeded in his aim in this matter; there were few roofed buildings left, and the encampment had to be effected under a tope of trees, with earthen intrenchments thrown up around.

It is evident, from this summary of Rohilcund affairs, that the operations against the rebels in that province did not advance far during the month of April, as concerns any effective crushing of the rebellion. The insurgents were beaten wherever met with; but their ubiquity and vitality greatly puzzled Sir Colin and his brigadier; and it remained to be seen how far the month of May would witness the re-establishment of British authority in Rohilcund and Oude. Some of the columns and field-forces had penetrated from the east and south as far as Shahjehanpoor, others from the west and northwest as far as Mooradabad; but Bareilly, the chief city in Rohilcund, had not been reached by any of them at the end of April.

Few events caused more regret in the army at this period than the death of Captain Sir William Peel, the gallant seaman who had earned so high a reputation as commander of the Naval Brigade. After his wound, received at Lucknow, he was carried in a doolie or litter to Cawnpore; and when at that station he gradually became able to walk about slowly by the aid of a stick. He soon, however, exhibited symptoms of small-pox, which, acting on a system at once ardent and debilitated, proved fatal. He died at Cawnpore after Sir Colin Campbell’s force had departed from that place towards Futteghur; and thus the Queen and the country lost the services of an eminent son of an eminent statesman. Every one felt the justice of the special compliment paid to this gallant naval officer by the governor-general, in the official order issued immediately on the receipt of the news of Peel’s death.[^[168]] Throughout the Crimean, Persian, and Indian wars, the British navy had been engaged in less fighting than many of its ardent members wished; and it was therefore all the more incumbent on the authorities to notice the exertions of naval brigades when on shore.

Throughout the extent of the Upper Doab, the British officers found much difficulty in maintaining a fair stand against the rebels. Not that there were large bodies of trained sepoys in the field, as in the regions just described, and in Central India; but there were numerous chieftains, each at the head of a small band of followers, ready to harass any spot not protected by English troops. Brigadier Penny, in command of a field-force organised at Delhi, was watching the district between that city and the Ganges—ready to put down insurgents wherever he could encounter them, and hoping to assist the commander-in-chief in Rohilcund. Another column, under Brigadier Seaton, controlled the region around Futteghur before Sir Colin reached that place; and he, like Penny, Jones, Walpole, Hope Grant, Lugard, and all the other commanders of sections of the army, found an active watchfulness of the enemy necessary. One among Seaton’s engagements in the month of April may be briefly noticed. On the 6th, when evening had darkened into night, he marched from Futteghur to attack a body of rebels concerning whom he had received information. He took with him about 1400 men—comprising 600 of H.M. 82d under Colonel Hall, 400 Sikhs under Captain Stafford, 150 cavalry under Lieutenant St John, and 200 of the Futteghur mounted-police battalion under Lieutenant de Kantzow—together with five guns under Major Smith. After marching all night, Seaton came up with the enemy at seven in the morning, at a place called Kankur. The enemy’s force was very large, though not well organised, and included nearly a thousand troopers well mounted and armed. After an artillery-fire on both sides, and a sharp fire from Enfield rifles, the 82d rushed forward, entered the village, and worked terrible execution. The rebels fled, abandoning their camp, ammunition, and stores; together with papers and correspondence which threw light on some of the hitherto obscure proceedings of the mutineers. The rebel Rajah of Minpooree was the chief leader of the insurgents, and with him were Ismael Khan and Mohson Ali Khan.

The Minpooree district was much troubled by this rebellious rajah; but as Futteghur on the one side, and Agra on the other, were now in English hands, the rebels were more readily kept in subjection. Agra itself was safe, and so was the main line of road thence through Muttra to Delhi.

One of the few pleasant scenes of the month, at Delhi, was the awarding of honour and profit to a native who had befriended Europeans in the hour of greatest need. Ten months before, when mutiny was still new and terrible, the native troops at Bhurtpore rose in revolt, and compelled the Europeans in the neighbourhood to flee for their lives. The poor fugitives, thirty-two in number—chiefly women and children—roamed from place to place, uncertain where they might sleep in peace. On one day they arrived at the village of Mahonah. Here they met with one Hidayut Ali, a ressaldar (troop-captain), of a regiment of irregular cavalry which had mutinied at Mozuffernugger; he was on furlough or leave of absence at his native village, and did not join his mutinous companions. He received the fugitives with kindness and courtesy, fed them liberally, gave them a comfortable house, renewed their toil-worn garments, posted village sentries to give notice of the approach of any mutineers, disregarded a rebuke sent to him by the insurgents at Delhi, formed the villagers into an escort, and finally placed the thirty-two fugitives in a position which enabled them safely to reach Agra. This noble conduct was not forgotten. In April the commissioner held a grand durbar at Delhi, made a complimentary speech to Hidayut Ali, presented him with a sword valued at a thousand rupees, and announced that the government intended to bestow upon him the jaghire or revenues of his native village.

Good-fortune continued to mark the wide and important region of the Punjaub, in the absence of any of those great assemblages of rebels which so distracted the provinces further to the southeast. Nevertheless Sir John Lawrence found a demand on him for unceasing watchfulness. The longer the struggle continued in Hindostan and Central India, the more danger was there that the Punjaubees, imbibing an idea that the British were weak, would encourage a hope of regaining national independence. There was also a grave question involved in the constitution of the native army. When the troubles began in the month of May, and when Canning was beset with so many difficulties in his attempt to send up troops from Calcutta, John Lawrence came to the rescue in a manner deserving the lasting gratitude of all concerned in the maintenance of British rule in India. He felt a trusty reliance that the inhabitants of the Punjaub, governed as he (aided by Montgomery, Cotton, Edwardes, and other energetic men) had governed them, would remain faithful, and would be willing to accept active service as soldiers in British pay. His trust was well founded. He sent to Delhi those troops, without which the conquest of the city could not have been effected; and he continued to raise regiment after regiment of Sikhs and Punjaubees—equipping, drilling, and paying a number so large as to constitute in itself a powerful army. But there would necessarily be a limit to this process. The Sikhs were faithful so far; but what if they should begin to feel their power, and turn to a national object the arms which had been given to them to fight in the British cause? Not many years had elapsed since they had fought fiercely at Moultan and Lahore, Sobraon and Chillianwalla, Moodkee and Ferozshah, against those very English whom they were now defending; and it was at least possible, if not probable, that dreams of reconquest might occupy their thoughts. Sir John Lawrence brought to an end his further raising of regiments; and there can be little doubt that the governor-general and the commander-in-chief appreciated the motives by which he had been influenced. In political affairs the Punjaub was very active; for not only did Lawrence become chief authority over a larger region than before, but many of his assistants were taken away from him. When Sir James Outram went to Calcutta as a member of the supreme council, Mr Montgomery was appointed chief-commissioner of Oude, and took with him many of the most experienced civilians from Lahore to Lucknow. This necessitated great changes in the personnel of the Punjaub civil service, the commissionerships and sub-commissionerships of districts, &c.

Peshawur, the most remote portion of Northwest India, was throughout the period of the Revolt more troubled by marauding mountaineers than by revolted sepoys. Very few Hindoos inhabited that region; the population was mostly Mussulman, especially among the hills; and these followers of Islam had but little sympathy with those in Hindostan Proper. The disturbances, such as they were, were of local character. In April, it became necessary to visit with some severity certain tribes which throughout the winter had been engaged in rebellion and rapine. General Cotton and Colonel Edwardes, two of the most trusted officers in the Indian army, collected a column at Nowsherah for service against the hill-men; and at the close of the month there were nearly four thousand men in rendezvous, ready for service. It comprised detachments of H.M. 81st and 98th foot; of the 8th, 9th, and 18th Punjaub infantry; of other native infantry; of the 7th and 18th irregular cavalry; of the Guide cavalry; and of various artillery and engineer corps. On the 28th of the month, Cotton was at a place among the hills called Mungultana, a stronghold of some of the frontier fanatics. The place was easily taken, and the insurgents dispersed; as they were at Jelemkhana, Sitana, and other places, soon afterwards; but it was hard work for the troops, over very bad roadless tracks in hot weather.

Fort of Peshawur.

It was a strange but hopeful sign that, amid all the sanguinary proceedings in India—the ruthless barbarities of some among the sepoys and rebels, and the military retributions wrought by the British—amid all this, the peaceful, civilising agency of railways was steadily though slowly advancing. A recent chapter shewed that the grand trunk-railway was extended into the Doab, the very hot-bed of insurrection, during the month of March: the engineers, mechanics, and labourers having been accustomed to resume their operations as soon as the insurgents were driven away from any spot where the works were in progress. In the Madras and Bombay presidencies, little affected by rebellion, various railways were gradually advancing; and now, in the month of April, the province of Sinde was to have its heyday of railway rejoicing. In an earlier portion of the volume,[^[169]] a brief account was given of the schemes, present and prospective, for supplying India with railways. Among those was one for a line, 120 miles in length, from Kurachee to Hydrabad in Sinde: expected, if no difficulties intervened, to be finished towards the close of 1859. This was to be one link in a vast and extensive chain, if the hopes of its projectors were ever realised. Kurachee is not at the mouth of the Indus; but it has an excellent harbour, in which large merchantmen can cast anchor; and engineers were enabled to shew that a little over one hundred miles of railway would connect this port with the Indus at a point above the delta of that river, and just where Hydrabad, the chief city of Sinde, is situated. Such a railway would, in fact, bear a remarkably close analogy to that in Egypt, from Alexandria to Cairo—each connecting a seaport with a capital, and avoiding delta navigation much impeded by shallows and shifting sands. From Hydrabad there are 570 miles of Indus available for river-steaming up to Moultan, in the Punjaub. From that city a railway would be planned through Lahore to Umritsir, where a junction would be formed with the grand trunk-line, and thus Kurachee connected with Calcutta by rapid means of travel—a great scheme, worthy of the age and the country. It could, however, only have small beginnings. On the 29th of April, the first sod of the ‘Sinde Railway’ was turned at Kurachee. It would be well if all rejoicings were based on such rational grounds as those which marked that day in the young Alexandria of Western India. Mr Frere, commissioner of Sinde, presided over the ceremonies. All was gaiety. The 51st regiment lent its aid in military pomp; and all the notabilities of the place—political, military, naval, clerical, commercial, and engineering—were gathered together. And not only so; but the lookers-on comprised many of those who well marvelled what a railway could be, and how a carriage could move without visible means of draught or propulsion—Parsees, Hindoos, Beloochees, Sindians, Afghans, Punjaubees—all were there, with their picturesque garments, and their little less picturesque native vehicles. How the officiating dignitary turned the sod and wheeled the barrow; how the band played and the people cheered; how the chief personages celebrated the event by a dinner; how, at that dinner, a triumphant specimen of confectionary was displayed, comprising sweetmeat Kurachees, Calcuttas, rivers, mosques, ghats, temples, wheelbarrows, pick-axes, rails, locomotives, bridges, tunnels—need not be told: they belong to one remarkable aspect of modern European and American society, which becomes doubly interesting when exhibited among the less active, more sensuous orientals.

We now turn to that stormy, unsettled region southwest of the Jumna, comprising Bundelcund, Central India, and Rajpootana.

Probably no commander had a series of more uninterrupted successes during the wars of the mutiny than Sir Hugh Rose. Looking neither to Calcutta nor to the Punjaub, for aid, but relying on the resources of the Bombay presidency, he gradually accumulated a force for service in Central India which defeated the rebels wherever they were met with. We have seen that, in January, Sir Hugh was busily engaged in defeating and dispersing rebels at Ratgurh, and in various parts of the district between Bhopal and Saugor. We find him in February relieving the British garrison which had for so many months been shut up within the fort of the last-named city, and then clearing a vast range of country in the direction of Jhansi. Lastly, we have seen how, after subduing a district in which rebellious Mahrattas were very numerous, he approached nearer and nearer to Jhansi during the early weeks of March; that he arrived within a short distance of that city on the 21st of that month, with the second brigade of the Central India field-force; that the rebels fortified the walls of the town, and shut themselves up within the town and fort; that the mutinied sepoys and rebel Bundelas in the place were computed at eleven or twelve thousand; that the Ranee of Jhansi had left her palace to seek greater safety in the fort; that Rose’s first brigade joined him on the 25th; and that he then commenced the siege in a determined manner. From this point, the narrative of Sir Hugh’s operations may be carried into the following month.

Before the first week in April had terminated, this distinguished general had gained very considerable advantages over the enemy. At daybreak on the first of the month, his force encountered an army of the enemy outside the walls of Jhansi, and completely defeated them. The rebels were commanded by a Mahratta chieftain, Tanteea Topee, a relative of Nena Sahib, who had marched thither in the hope of being able to relieve his brother rebels shut up within the beleaguered city. Sir Hugh divided his force into two parts—one to continue the siege, and the other to meet Tanteea Topee in the field. The rebels, including among their number two regiments of the traitorous Gwalior Contingent, fought desperately; but Rose succeeded in turning their left flank with artillery and cavalry, breaking up their array, and putting them to flight. It was a severe contest, for the rebels defended themselves individually to the last, even when their order of battle was broken. Rose pursued them to the river Betwah, and captured all their guns and ammunition. During the pursuit, they endeavoured to check him by setting the jungle on fire; but his cavalry and horse-artillery, nothing daunted, galloped through the flames, and kept close at the heels of the fugitives. The whole line of retreat became strewed with dead bodies; and it was estimated that the day’s sanguinary work had cost the enemy not less than fifteen hundred men.

This battle was followed by a result more favourable than Sir Hugh had ventured to hope. The ranee, shut up within Jhansi, well knew that Tanteea Topee was hastening to her assistance; for there was everywhere an intercommunication between the insurgents too close for the British to baffle. She knew of his approach, and hoped that he would be able to defeat and drive away the besiegers; but the battle of the Betwah dismayed her, and the result was very favourable to the British. In arranging for the siege, Sir Hugh divided his infantry into four detachments, two on the right and two on the left. H.M. 86th, and the 25th Bombay infantry, soon gained the walls, some by breach and others by escalade. Lieutenant Dartnell of the 86th, who was foremost in the assault, narrowly escaped being cut to pieces directly he entered the place. These two regiments were on the left attack. The attack on the right was less successful, owing to the use of defective ladders; the troops were for some time exposed to a murderous fire; but at length they entered the place, and joined their companions near the ranee’s palace. A discovery was now made. The ranee had evacuated the place during the night, with such of her troops as could break through the cordon which Rose endeavoured to draw round Jhansi. In the endeavour of the garrison to escape, the slaughter was terrible; insomuch that, during the storming of the fort and the pursuit of the garrison, more than three thousand of the rebels were laid low, besides the fifteen hundred during the battle. Much of this slaughter was within the city itself; for the towns-people were believed to have favoured the rebels, and the soldiers took severe vengeance before their officers could check the bloodshed. All this stern fighting could not be carried on without loss on the part of the British. Sir Hugh had to lament the fall of Lieutenant-colonel Turnbull, Captain Sinclair, Lieutenants Meicklejohn and Park, and Dr Stack, besides a number of non-commissioned officers and privates. The evacuation of the place in so sudden a way greatly lessened his chance of loss, for its defence might have been long continued. ‘Jhansi,’ he said in his telegraphic dispatch, ‘is not a fort, but its strength makes it a fortress; it could not have been breached; it could only have been taken by mining and blowing up one bastion after another.’

After this signal defeat of the rebels at Jhansi, the victorious army of Sir Hugh gradually prepared to move towards Calpee, a town on the Jumna, on the line of road from Jhansi to Cawnpore. Symptoms appeared to shew that a struggle would take place at this spot. Two rebel leaders made renewed exertions to regain lost ground in that region. The chief of these was Tanteea Topee, lately defeated at Jhansi; he had with him two mutinied infantry regiments, seven hundred cavalry, a large following of Ghazees or fanatics, and twelve guns. The other was Ram Rao Gobind, who had the command of three thousand rabble and four guns. These two leaders resolved to act on some common plan; and Sir Hugh Rose equally resolved to defeat them. Nevertheless this gallant officer had much need for careful planning long after he was master of Jhansi. He had a large number of sick and wounded, whose safety it would be necessary to provide for; and the roads around that city were still infested with remnants of the Kotah rebels and the Chanderee garrison. He himself remained at Jhansi until such time as he could resume his march without danger to those left behind; but he gave active employment to portions of his force. About the middle of the month he sent Major Orr with a column from Jhansi across the Betwah to Mhow, to clear that part of the country of rebels, and afterwards to join Rose and the main body of the force on the road to Calpee; the major had many small encounters with the rajahs of Bampore and Shagurh, and with detached parties of rebels. Some days afterwards, on the 21st, Sir Hugh despatched Major Gall, with detachments of cavalry and artillery, to a point on the Calpee road, to watch the enemy and aid Major Orr if necessary. Gall, besides other minor engagements, captured a fort belonging to the Rajah of Sumpter; the rebels in it proved to be disguised mutineers of the 12th Bengal native infantry, who fought desperately until all were killed. Sir Hugh, with his first brigade and head-quarters, did not take his departure from Jhansi until the 25th. He marched ten miles that day to Boregaum, on the Calpee road, and resumed his progress on subsequent days. His second brigade was soon to follow him—with the exception of detachments of the 3d Bombay Europeans, the 24th Bombay native infantry, and artillery, left under the charge of Colonel Liddell to protect Jhansi and the sick and wounded. Rumours reached Sir Hugh that four of the rebel leaders—the Ranee of Jhansi, Tanteea Topee, the Rajah of Shagurh, and the Rajah of Bampore—with seven thousand men and four guns, intended if possible to intercept him, and prevent his march to Calpee. To what result all these manœuvres on both sides led, was left to the month of May to determine.

While these operations were going on in and near the Jhansi district, General Whitlock, with a column of Madras troops, was engaged a little further eastward, in a district of Bundelcund having Banda for its chief town. He was frequently in contact with large or small bodies of rebels. One of these struggles took place on the 19th of April, when he encountered a force of seven thousand insurgents headed by the Nawab of Banda. Whitlock defeated the Nawab, captured Banda, killed five hundred of the enemy, and took several guns. After this victory, he gradually worked his way towards Calpee, to aid in Rose’s operations.

The city of Saugor remained in a somewhat peculiar condition during the spring months—secure itself, but surrounded by a disturbed district. The European residents were living in cantonments, sufficiently protected by troops left there by General Whitlock after he relieved the place early in February. These troops were neither stationary nor idle; the vicinity was swarming with rebels and malcontents, whom it was necessary to check by frequent pursuit and defeat. Those two exceptions to the generally mutinous condition of the Bengal native army, the 31st and 42d regiments, still remained in and near Saugor—or such portions of them as had not become tainted by insubordination. Divided into small detachments, they assisted the European and Madras troops in keeping open the line of communication between Saugor and the district marked by the victorious operations of Sir Hugh Rose.

Turning to the Mahratta and Rajpootana states, we find that, on the 2d of April, a large body of rebels, many thousands in number, with ten guns, crossed the Parbuttee river at Copoind into Scindia’s Gwalior territory. They were fleeing from Kotah, where a British force had severely handled them. Scindia still remained true to his alliance. Many of his officers, each with a small force, opposed the rebels at different points, drove them back across the river, and overturned many of their guns and wagons in the stream. The rebels, accompanied by large numbers of women and children, made their way by other routes towards Bundelcund.

Kotah, just mentioned, was closely connected with the insurgent and military operations in Rajpootana. It will be remembered[^[170]] that in the month of March General Roberts, commanding the Rajpootana field-force, marched from Nuseerabad towards Kotah, accompanied by Richard Lawrence as political representative; that many difficulties had to be surmounted on the march; that Kotah was reached on the 22d; and that Roberts captured that place just before the end of the month, defeating a large body of rebels, and obtaining possession of an extensive store of ordnance and ammunition. After this victory, Roberts remained a long time at Kotah. Many other places would have welcomed his appearance; but there were doubts how far Kotah could safely be left, seeing that the neighbourhood was in a very disaffected state. The Kotah rebels, on the other hand, were greatly disconcerted at the news of the fall of Jhansi, which interfered with their plans and hopes. They had been camping for a while at Kularus, on the road from Gwalior to Bombay, but began now to move off towards the south. Captain Mayne, with some of Scindia’s troops, was at that place on the 11th of April, and found that the Kotah rebels, about four thousand strong, with six guns, had joined the rebel Rajah of Nirwur, six miles distant. Captain Mayne was preparing to watch and follow them, but the troops at his command consisted of only a few hundred men, and he could do little more than reconnoitre. Later in the month, General Roberts organised a column to look after the rebels at Goonah, Chupra, and other places. The column consisted of H.M. 95th foot, the 10th Bombay native infantry, a wing of the 8th hussars, a wing of the 1st lancers, and a troop of horse-artillery; and it started from Kotah for active service on the 24th. Thus the month of April passed away; Roberts himself remaining at Kotah; while some of his officers, each with a detachment of the Rajpootana field-force, were engaged in chastising bodies of rebels in the turbulent region on the border of the Rajpoot and Mahratta territories. Like Sir Hugh Rose at Jhansi, he had to consider how his conquered city would fare if he quitted it.

The province of Gujerat, lying as it does between Rajpootana and Bombay, was narrowly watched by the government of that presidency; and as one precaution, all the inhabitants were disarmed. On the 8th of April, a field-force, comprising about a thousand men of all arms, left Ahmedabad to conduct the disarming. Another column of about the same strength was preparing to march from the same station about a week later. It was expected that the difficulties of the troops would arise, not so much from the opposition of the natives, as from the gradually increasing heat of the weather.

Southward of Bombay there was still, as in the earlier months of the year, just so much of insubordination as to need careful watching on the part of the government, but without presenting any very alarming symptoms. The small Mahratta state of Satara was a little troubled. Two officers of the recently deposed rajah, his commander-in-chief and his commandant of artillery, were detected in treasonable correspondence with Nena Sahib. One of them, having been found guilty, was sentenced to be hanged; the indignity struck with horror one imbued with high-caste notions, and he asked to be blown away from a gun as a more noble death; this was refused; and under the influence of dismay and grief, he made a confession which afforded a clue to a further conspiracy. There was much in these southern Mahrattas which puzzled the authorities. To what extent the natives were bound into a brotherhood by secret compact, the English never could and never did know. Much comment was excited by an occurrence at Kolapore, where two native officers were blown away from guns, on conviction of being concerned in the mutiny and rebellion. It was remembered that those very men had sat on courts-martial which condemned numbers of their fellow-mutineers to the same punishment which was their own ultimate doom. One of the principal witnesses against them was a colleague whom they had sentenced to death, but who escaped by making a confession which implicated them. Many others, however, condemned by the court of which these two men were members, died without making a similar confession, although it was believed that they also might have implicated their judges.