Fortunate it was that the neighbouring native princes proved friendly, lending the aid of their troops to keep the peace, or giving more substantial assistance to the representative of that power which they had learned to look upon as paramount. Lawrence, governing a population of twenty millions, cut off from communication with his superiors, was made by force of circumstances dictator of Northern India. Not for nearly three months did a message from Calcutta reach him by the circuitous way of Bombay. The generals in the field, though owing him no formal obedience, gave in to the energy of his character and the weight of his experience. The well-provided arsenals and magazines of the Punjaub, saved from the hands of the mutineers by his vigorous action, became now the base of supplies against Delhi. Thither he kept forwarding a continual stream of stores, transport, men and money, which he had to raise by somewhat forced loans among the rich natives. Thus, in spite of a painful ailment, in spite of his longing for home and rest, he throughout masterfully maintained the British prestige within his own boundaries, while ever pressing on the capture of Delhi, as the blow which would paralyze rebellion all over India. When the great enterprise seemed on the point of failure, as a last resource he sent Nicholson's column to the front, leaving himself with only four thousand European soldiers scattered among the millions of the Punjaub, for whom that one man's strong hand was equal to a host of fighters.
Still the siege of Delhi dragged on its costly length. We must leave it for the meanwhile to see what thrilling and momentous scenes were being enacted in other parts of India, and to follow the preparations made for attacking the mutiny from the further side.
Calcutta was in a state of bewildered dismay, not to be calmed by official hopes for a speedy end to the insurrection, and soon increasing daily with worse and worse news from up-country. From Allighur, from Muttra, from Bareilly, from Moradabad, from Jhansi, from other points, one after another, came sickening tales of revolt and massacre, which would not lose in the telling. The only news of other places was an ominous silence. The great stations of Agra, Cawnpore, and Lucknow were presently cut off by a raging sea of rebellion. Rohilcund, old nursery of warriors, was overflowed, and the Doab, that fertile region between the Jumna and the Ganges, down whose thickly peopled valleys poured the irresistible flood of disorder. The tide rose to the sacred cities of Allahabad and Benares. Beyond, there were risings in Rajpootana. At Gwalior, the Maharajah's Sepoy contingent, after a time, broke away to play a considerable part in coming battles. Everywhere regiments, believed faithful, were going off like the guns of a burning ship.
The leaven of agitation naturally spread into the two other Presidencies, where the English officials could have no quiet rest till the danger in Bengal should be over. But the organization of the Madras and Bombay armies was not so dangerous for their rulers. Here men of various creeds and castes were more thoroughly mixed together in the ranks, which in Bengal had been allowed to consist too much of fellow-believers, and of cliques of the same family, caste or locality, turning every company into a clan animated by a common feeling apart from that of soldierly duty; nor, outside of Bengal, were the regiments permitted to be accompanied by squalid fakirs, to keep alive their superstitious zeal.
When Patna and Dinapore gave signs of commotion, not four hundred miles from Calcutta, the people of the capital might well look to see peril at their doors. They loudly accused Lord Canning as wanting to the exigency. He certainly seemed to go too far in trying to allay alarm by putting a calm face upon his inward anxiety. He forbore, as long as possible, to show distrust of the Sepoys in Eastern Bengal; he hesitated about accepting a contingent of Goorkhas offered him from Nepaul; he delayed in letting the inhabitants arm for their own defence. Not for a month did he allow them to form volunteer corps, and at the same time was forced to disarm the Sepoys at the neighbouring stations of Dum-Dum and Barrackpore. But rumours of what the Sepoys there had intended were already at work, producing a panic through Calcutta, where one Sunday in the middle of June a great part of the Europeans and Eurasians hastened to barricade themselves in their houses, or fled to the fort and the shipping for refuge from an imaginary foe, while the poor natives lay hid, trembling on their own account, expecting quite as groundlessly to be massacred by the white soldiers. The ludicrous terror of this "Panic Sunday" will long be remembered as a joke against the Calcutta people, who only towards evening began to see they had nothing to fear. Next day their restored confidence was strengthened by the arrest of the King of Oudh, who held a quasi-state in his palace near the city, and whose retainers were believed to have been plotting, with the now harmless Sepoys at the neighbouring stations, for a great Christian massacre.
A day or two later, Sir Patrick Grant, Commander of the Madras army, arrived to assume command in Bengal. He did not feel himself equal to taking the field in person, but made the fortunate choice of Brigadier-General Havelock to advance against the rebels, as soon as there should be an army ready to lead. The officer, who during the last months of his life was to burst forth as a popular hero, had passed obscurely a long life of eastern military service. In India, indeed, he was well known for the earnest piety which had leavened the ranks of his comrades. "Havelock's Saints," a name given in mockery, became a title of honour, when it was found that the little band among whom he preached and prayed so zealously were the best and most trustworthy soldiers of the regiment. By his superiors he had been recognized as a brave and intelligent officer; and he had served creditably in Burma, in Afghanistan, in the Punjaub, and in Persia, without attracting much public notice or rising to high command. Now, at length, this saintly veteran, all his life a careful student of the art of war, had the chance to show what he was as a general; but not till June 25 could he leave Calcutta, picking up as he went the scattered fragments of his force, which had been pushed on to meet immediate needs of succour.
A month earlier, Neill with the 1st Madras Fusiliers had gone on as forerunner of the help that would by and by be pouring in to the rescue of our imperilled countrymen. As far as Allahabad he could travel by railway, yet he did not arrive there for nearly three weeks, delayed through turning aside to repress mutiny at Benares, and by making grim examples to teach the cowering natives that the British raj was still to be feared. At Allahabad he found his presence sorely needed by a handful of Europeans shut up in the fort along with a band of hardly controllable Sikhs. The mutiny here had been marked by painful as well as curious features. The Sepoys at first showed themselves enthusiastically loyal, giving every sign of affection to their officers, then rose against them in a sudden fit of cruel fury, immediately after volunteering, with apparent heartiness, to march against their comrades at Delhi. Seven or eight boy-ensigns were murdered by the regiment they had just joined. The rebels bombarded the locomotives on the new railway, which they took for mysterious engines of warfare. There were the usual sickening massacres of women and children. A general destruction had reigned without check, in which helpless Hindoo pilgrims came off almost as ill as the Christians at the hands of a Mohamedan mob. This short triumph of disorder was with terrible and too little discriminating justice chastised by Neill, stern Scotchman that he was. What between the mutineers and the British soldiery, the inhabitants of the district had cause to rue these troubles; and again our civilization was disgraced by a blind fury of vengeance. Neill was more successful in restoring order among the populace than in restraining his own soldiers, who gave way to excesses of drink that fatally nursed the seeds of cholera, when not a man could be spared from the trying task before them.[2]
By the end of June, Havelock reached Allahabad, to take the head of an army that hardly numbered two thousand fighters. Nineteen officers and men made all his cavalry. But such news here met him, he could not lose a day in flinging this small force among myriads of bitter foes, at whose mercy lay the lives of many Christian women and children. Yet it was no horde of undisciplined savages from whom he must wrest those hapless captives. Throughout the war, our troops had to face, at enormous odds of number, ranks trained and armed by ourselves, supplied from our own captured stores, and in a large degree led by the establishment of native officers whom we had taught how battles should be won. Never perhaps has it been so well proved, as by the result of this apparently unequal conflict, what advantage lies in pride and strength of race!
FOOTNOTES:
[2] One of the severest punishments inflicted on mutineers was forcing them under the lash, before being hanged, to sweep up the blood of their supposed victims, so as, in their ideas, to pollute them to all eternity. A generation later, this General Neill's son was murdered, it is said, by the vengeful son of a native officer thus punished.