Hodson then took a carbine from one of his men, and shot them all three. Then, turning to his men, he said: “These three men whom I have just shot are the three Princes who contrived and commenced the slaughter of our innocent women and children, and thus retributive vengeance has fallen on them.”
The crowd, overawed, parted, and the carriage passed on. The bodies were exposed on the very spot where our unfortunate countrymen had been exposed. It seems cruel and vindictive, but we are judging in security. Hodson had an angry people to daunt, and their sense of justice to satisfy.
One must do our soldiers the justice to say that, though infuriated by the slaughter of their officers and countrymen, with their wives and children, inflamed by the news of the Cawnpore massacre, not an old man, not a woman or child, was wilfully hurt by them. As Seaton was waiting on the 20th by the Palace Gate, some soldiers were bringing along an old man, whom they held by the arms. He went up and said to them: “Remember you are Christian men, and he is very old.”
“Oh, sir!” was the reply, “we doesn’t forget that. We don’t mean him no harm. We only wants a bit of baccy.”
So he let them go on, and in a few minutes saw them stuffing their pipes, and the old fellow genially bringing a coal to light them.
“I have seen hundreds of instances where the greatest humanity and kindness were shown, both to young and old, as well as to females, by our noble-hearted fellows, even in their wildest moments.”
From Major-General Sir Thomas Seaton’s “From Cadet to Colonel.” By kind permission of Messrs. G. Routledge and Sons.