‘My reception by Sir Colin Campbell and his staff was cordial and kind to the utmost degree; and if I never have more than the remembrance of their condescension and of the heartfelt congratulation of Sir James Outram and of all the officers of his garrison on my safe return to them—I shall not repine, though to be sure having the Victoria Cross would make me a prouder and a happier man.
‘James Cavanagh.
‘Camp, Alum Bagh, Nov. 24.’
Group of Mahratta Arms.—From the Collection of Sir S. Meyrick: a a, Helmet; b, Sword; c, Musket; d, Knife and Sheath; e, Mace; f, Shield.
[115]. ‘Story of the Lucknow Residency,’ chap. xix. pp. [316]-[337].
[116]. The thalookdaree system of Oude requires a little explanation, in relation to the participants in the Revolt. Most of the annexations effected by the East India Company were followed by changes either in the ownership of the soil, or in the assessment of land-tax—such land-tax being the chief item in the Company’s revenue. When the several annexations occurred, it was found throughout a great part of India that superior holders—whether proprietors, hereditary farmers of revenue, or hereditary middlemen—held large tracts of land, in a middle position between the native governments and the cultivating communities, and were responsible for the revenue to the state. In Bengal, these influential men were generally recognised by the Company as proprietors, and the rights of the sub-holders almost wholly ignored. In the Northwest Provinces, acquired by the Company at a much later date, the thalookdars, zemindars, or whatever these landowners may have been called, were generally set aside; but the asserted rights of some of them became subjects of endless litigation in the courts of law; the landowners frequently obtained decrees against the Company, and many received a percentage in compromise of their rights or claims. In Oude, annexed in 1856, the thalookdaree system was particularly strong. Almost the whole country had by degrees become parcelled out among great thalookdars or zemindars. Though under a Mohammedan government, these men were almost universally Hindoos—native chiefs who had obtained great prescription, exercised great power and authority, and were in fact feudatories of the government. They were much more than mere middlemen or farmers of revenue. They had their own forts, troops, and guns; they obeyed their nawab or king so far as they chose or were compelled; they seized with the strong hand estates which had unquestionably belonged to village communities in earlier times; and they fought with each other as English barons or Scottish clan-chieftains were wont to do in past ages. Sir William Sleeman estimated the number of armed retainers, whose services these thalookdars could command, at scarcely less than one hundred thousand; while they had nearly five hundred pieces of cannon in their several forts or strongholds. Under this system the village proprietary rights, even if not actually thrown aside and disregarded, became more weak and undefined than when the villagers held directly from the government. Hence arose a very embarrassing question when the Company took possession of Oude. With whom was the settlement to be made? The thalookdars were strong and in possession; the village communities were dormant, broken, and ill defined. It would have taken some time to suppress the one and revive the other. The opinions of revenue officers in the Northwest Provinces ran strongly in favour of village proprietaries; still stronger in the Punjaub; and Oude was treated somewhat in the same way. The result in many cases was to eject the thalookdars, and make direct settlements with the village communities. When the Revolt began, the thalookdars at first behaved well to the British personally; with the butchery by a rabble they had no sympathy; and many were the Europeans whose lives they saved. But, the Company’s government being for a time upset; and the period since the annexation having been too short to destroy the strength of the thalookdars, or to enable the village proprietors to acquire a steady possession of their rights—the thalookdars almost universally resumed what they considered to be their own. There is evidence, too, that in this course of proceeding they met with a considerable amount of popular support. It was in this way they became committed against the British government. Till Havelock’s retreat from his unsuccessful attempt to relieve Lucknow in August, the thalookdars adopted a temporising policy; but when they saw him and Outram retreat across the Ganges to Cawnpore, they thought their time had arrived. They began to act in concert—not because they had much sympathy with mutinous sepoys, with the decrepit king of Delhi, or with the deposed king of Oude—but in the hope that, amid the general anarchy, they might regain their old influence.
[117]. See Note, at the end of this chapter.
[118]. One of the two hard-worked and sorely tried chaplains, in a letter to a relation when the dangers were past, employed a few simple words that really described the position of the Residency enclosure better than any long technical details. English friends had talked and written concerning the ‘impregnable fort’ in which the garrison were confined; to which he replied: ‘We were in no fort at all; we occupied a few houses in a large garden, with a low wall on one side, and only an earthen parapet on the other, in the middle of a large city, the buildings of which completely commanded us, and swarming with thousands of our deadly foes, thirsting for our blood. God gave us protection and pluck, the former in a wonderful degree, or not one of us would be here to tell about it.... The engineers calculated that all those months never one second elapsed without a shot being thrown in at us, and at times upwards of seventy per second, besides round shot and shell.’ This probably means that the average was a shot per second for nearly five months—twelve or fourteen million deadly missiles thrown into this narrow and crowded space.