The Saugor and Nerbudda provinces, of which the chief towns and stations were Banda, Jaloun, Jhansi, Saugor, Jubbulpoor, Nagode, Dumoh, Nowgong, Mundlah, and Hosungabad, were, as we have seen, in a very precarious state in the month of August. At Saugor, so early as the month of June, Brigadier Sage had brought all the Europeans into a well-armed and amply provisioned fort, guarded by a body of European gunners, and by the still faithful 31st regiment of Bengal infantry; and there the Europeans remained at the close of August, almost cut off from communication with their fellow-countrymen elsewhere. Jubbulpoor had passed through the summer months without actual mutiny; but the revolt of the 42d infantry and the 3d irregular cavalry, at neighbouring stations, and certain suspicious symptoms afforded by the 52d at Jubbulpoor itself, led Major Erskine to fortify the Residency, and provision it for six months. Banda, Jhansi, and Jaloun, had long fallen into the hands of the rebels; Mundlah and Hosungabad were at the mercy of circumstances occurring at other places; Nagode would be reliable only so long as the 50th native infantry remained true; and Dumoh would be scarcely tenable if Jubbulpoor were in danger. Thus, at the end of August, British supremacy in the Saugor and Nerbudda territories hung by a thread. The Calcutta authorities, unable to supply British troops for Bengal or Behar, were equally debarred from rendering assistance to these territories. September opened very gloomily for the officers intrusted with duties in this quarter. The Punjaub and Calcutta could only furnish trustworthy troops for the Jumna and Doab regions, where the war raged with greatest fierceness; it was from Madras and Bombay alone that aid could be expected. Fortunately, the large regions of Nagpoor and Hyderabad were nearly at peace, and thus a passage could be afforded for troops from the south which would not have been practicable had those countries been plunged in anarchy.
Towards the middle of September, Lieutenant Clark, deputy-commissioner of Jubbulpoor, learned a few facts that put him on the track of a conspiracy. It came out, on inquiry, that Rajah Shunker Shah, and many other chieftains and zemindars in the neighbourhood of Jubbulpoor, acting in concert with some of the sepoys of the 52d B. N. I., intended to attack the cantonment on the last day of the Mohurrum, murder all the Europeans, burn the cantonments, and plunder the treasury and city. By a bold and prompt movement, the chief conspirators were seized on the 14th. The lieutenant, writing to the commissioner of Nagpoor, announced the result in brief but significant language. ‘I have been fortunate enough to get conclusive evidence by means of spies, without the conspirators taking alarm; and this morning, with a party of sowars and police, bagged thirty, and two rajahs (ringleaders) among them. Of course they swing. Many of my principal zemindars, and some—I wish I knew how many—of the 52d, are in the plot.’ In Rajah Shunker’s house, among other treasonable papers, was found a sort of prayer, invoking his deity to aid him in the destruction of all Europeans, the overturning of the government, and the re-establishment of his own power. The paper was found in a silk bag in which he kept his fan, and was a scrap torn from a government proclamation issued after the massacre at Meerut. In this instance, therefore, the official expression of horror and wrath at the opening scene of the mutiny, instead of deterring, encouraged others to walk in the same bloody path. The prayer or invocation was afterwards translated from the Hindee into English, and published among the parliamentary papers.[[107]] The execution of the rajah and his son was something more terrible than was implied by the lieutenant’s curt announcement, ‘of course they swing.’ It was one among many examples of that ‘blowing away from guns’ to which the records of the mutiny habituated English newspaper readers. An officer stationed at Jubbulpoor at the time, after noticing the complicity of these two guilty men, describes the execution in a brief but painfully vivid way. ‘At the head of the conspiracy was Shunker Shah, the Ghond rajah, and his son. Their place of abode is about four miles from Jubbulpoor. In former days this family ruled over all this part of the country; they can trace their descent for sixty generations. The family had been deprived of everything by the Mahrattas, and were in great poverty when we took possession. Our government raised them up from this state, and gave them sufficient to support themselves comfortably; and now they shewed their gratitude by conspiring against us in our time of sore trial. The family have neither much property nor power, but the ancient name and prestige was a point on which to rally.... On the 18th, at 11 o’clock A.M., our two guns were advanced a few hundred yards in front of the Residency, covered by a company of the 33d and a few troopers, and it became known that the Ghond rajah and his son were about to be blown away from the cannon’s mouth. The old man walked up to the guns with a firm stride; the son appeared more dejected. The old man, with his snow-white hair and firm manner, almost excited compassion; and one had to remember, before such feelings could be checked, how atrociously he intended to deal with us had his conspiracy succeeded; the evidence of his guilt was overwhelming. All was over in a few minutes. The scattered remains were pounced upon by kites and vultures, but what could be collected was handed over to the ranee.’
Although Lieutenant Clark was thus enabled, by mingled caution and decision, to frustrate the atrocious plot of which Jubbulpoor was to have been the theatre, he could not prevent the mutiny of the 52d native regiment. That corps revolted, albeit without perpetrating the cruelties and rapine intended. It was on the 18th that this rising took place, the troops at once marching off quietly towards Dumoh. One old subadar they tied on a horse, because he did not wish to join, and because they did not choose to leave him behind. It was supposed that the 52d had gone towards Dumoh, to capture guns there, and then return to plunder Jubbulpoor. Two days before this, namely, on the 16th, the greater part of the 50th regiment Bengal infantry threw off allegiance. Being stationed at Nagode, they suddenly rose, released the prisoners from the jail, burned the bungalows, and rendered the place no longer safe for Europeans. Mr Ellis and the other civilians fled to Paunna, while Colonel Hampton and the other military officers made their escape towards Jokhie—leaving every vestige of their property behind, except the clothes on their backs. Two companies of the regiment, remaining faithful, accompanied their officers safely to Mirzapore, a journey which occupied them twelve days.
The Europeans at Dumoh, a civil station on the road from Saugor to Jubbulpoor, were thrown into much tribulation by news of these mutinies at other places. When both the 50th and 52d regiments had ‘gone’—a term that acquired much significance in India at that time—Major Erskine, chief-commissioner of the Saugor and Nerbudda territories, who happened to be at Dumoh, summoned a council of war on the 20th of September, to consider what was best to be done. It was resolved that Dumoh could not long be held against any considerable body of mutineers; and that advantage should be taken of the temporary presence of a column of Madras native troops to employ that column as an escort for the civilians and the Company’s treasure from Dumoh to Jubbulpoor. There was a detachment of the still faithful 31st at Dumoh; and this was sent to join the main body of the regiment at Saugor, to be out of the way of temptation from mutinous sepoys.
This convoy of men and money from Dumoh led to a smart military encounter. The Madras movable column which afforded the required protection numbered about 500 men of all arms, under Colonel Miller. Leaving Dumoh on the 21st, and being much obstructed in passing the river Nowtah, Colonel Miller reached Sigrampore on the 26th; where he heard that the main body of the mutineers were at Konee, on the banks of a river which the column would need to cross on its way to Jubbulpoor. The colonel at once despatched a force of about 100 men, under Lieutenant Watson, to secure the boats on the river; but the enemy baffled this officer, who had much difficulty in preserving his men. Miller then advanced with his whole column, met the enemy, and fought a brief but decisive battle, which ended in the utter rout of the rebel sepoys. If it had been a purely military affair, the colonel was strong enough to defeat a more numerous body of the enemy; but he was hampered by the presence of civilians, treasure, and 120 sepoys of the 52d, who had been disarmed at Dumoh on news of the revolt of the main body, and whom it was necessary to take with the column. It was, indeed, a strange state of things; for the disarmed men were of course eager enough to rush over and join their companions of the same regiment.
It is not matter for censure if men placed in authority at different stations, in time of peril, occasionally differed concerning the relative importance of those stations. Thus, when the 50th and 52d native regiments mutinied, a question arose which principal city, Saugor or Jubbulpoor, should be regarded as a last stronghold in the event of the British being nearly overpowered. Major Erskine, at Jubbulpoor, urged the claims of that city, as having certain facilities for the receipt of reinforcements, should such happily be afforded; and as having many European women and children within the fort, who could not be removed without danger. Brigadier Sage, on the other hand, urged—‘Whatever you do, let me retain Saugor. It is the key to Central India. It has a good fort and magazine. It is provisioned for six or eight months for three hundred men, and has thirty thousand maunds of grain in addition. It has a siege-train, which will fall into the hands of the enemy if we leave the place. It contains 170 women and children, who could not be withdrawn without danger.’ In such or similar words was the retention of Saugor advocated. The discussion happily ended by both towns being retained. Those officials of the Company, military or civil, who resolutely fortified, instead of abandoning their positions, were in most instances rewarded with success—unless the enemy were in unusually overwhelming force.
Nearly all parts of the Saugor and Nerbudda territories were in wild confusion at the close of September. The Kamptee column of Madras troops had, as we have just seen, broken up the 52d mutineers; but still those rebels lay concealed in jungles, ready for mischief whenever an opportunity might offer; while the Madrasses, distracted by many applications from different quarters, had been unable to prevent the mutinous 50th regiment, at Nagode, from marching off to join the Dinapoor mutineers near Banda. At Saugor, Brigadier Sage and the British were safe, because they were in a strong and well-provisioned fort, and because the 31st native infantry exhibited no signs of disaffection; nevertheless the whole country around was in the hands of rebellious chieftains. On one occasion he sent out the greater part of his force to attack the Rajah of Bankipore at Nurriowlee, ten miles from Saugor; but the attack was unskilfully made—it failed, and greatly lowered British prestige in the neighbourhood.
As in September, so in October, these provinces were held by a very slender tie. Nearly all the chiefs of Bundelcund, on the border, were ready to rise in rebellion at news of any discomfiture of the British. Numerous thakoors had risen, and, with their followers, were plundering the villages in every direction. At Jubbulpoor, Hosungabad, Nursingpore, Jaloun, Jhansi, Saugor, Mundlah, Dumoh, there was scarcely an English soldier; and the presence of a few hundred Madras troops alone stood between the authorities and frightful anarchy. Indeed, Jaloun, Jhansi, and Dumoh were out of British hands altogether. The commissioner of Nagpoor was unable to send up any more Madrasses from the south; Mr Grant was unable to send any from Benares; the independent and half-distrusted state of Rewah lay on one border; the thoroughly rebellious state of Banda on another—and thus Major Erskine looked with gloomy apprehensions on the fate of the provinces under his charge. As the month drew to a close, his accounts were still more dismal. In one letter he said: ‘The mass of native chiefs disbelieve in the existence of a British army; and nothing but the presence of troops among them will convince them of their error.’ Again find again were such messages and representations sent to Viscount Canning, as chief authority in India; again and again did he announce that he had no British troops to spare. To Major Erskine’s letters he replied that he ‘must say broadly and plainly that he would consider the sacrifice of the garrison in Lucknow as a far greater calamity and reproach to the government than an outbreak of the Rewah or Bundelcund states, even if followed by rebellion and temporary loss of our authority in our own territories on the Nerbudda.’ At the close of the month, Koer Singh and the Dinapoor mutineers were somewhere between Banda and Calpee; while Captain Osborne-one of the most remarkable men whom the Indian Revolt brought into notice—still maintained his extraordinary position at Rewah.
We pass now further to the west—to the cities and towns on the Jumna river, and to the regions of Central India between that river and Bombay. Here, little need detain us until we come to Agra. Futtehpoor, Cawnpore, and Futteghur, though not in Oude, were on its frontier, and were involved in the fortunes of that province. Captain Peel’s movements with his naval brigade, in the Doab, may be left for treatment in connection with the affairs of Lucknow.
Agra experienced a loss early in September, in the death of John Russell Colvin, the lieutenant-governor of the Northwest Provinces. He fell from sickness, brought on mainly by the intense anxieties arising out of his position. He was a remarkable man, a true specimen of those civilians developed into usefulness by the unique policy of the East India Company. In England a public man becomes a statesman through a multitude of minor and exceptional causes; in India, under the Company’s ‘raj,’ statesmen were educated professedly and designedly for their work. In England, we have seen the same statesman transferred from the Exchequer to the India Board, and from thence to the Admiralty, as if the same kind of knowledge were required for all three situations; in India, the statesman’s education bore more close relation to the duties of the offices he was likely to fill. No defects in the Company’s government, no evils arising out of ‘traditional policy,’ no favouritism or nepotism—can blot out the fact that the system brought out the best qualities of the men in their service. Well will it be if the imperial government, in future ages, is served so faithfully, skilfully, and energetically in India as the Company’s government, during the last half-century, has been served by the Malcolms, Metcalfes, Munros, Birds, Thomasons, Elphinstones, Montgomerys, Outrams, Lawrences, and Colvins—most of them civilians, whose apprenticeship to Indian statesmanship began almost from boyhood.