It was impossible for the spectators to regard without emotion the appearance of the aged monarch, the last representative of a long line of Indian potentates, thus brought as a culprit before a tribunal of English officers. Even those who considered him simply as a hoary-headed villain were interested by the proceedings. After being in attendance some time, sitting in a palanquin outside the court, under a guard of Rifles, he was summoned within at about noon. He appeared very infirm, and tottered into court supported on one side by his favourite son, Jumma Bukht, and on the other by a confidential servant. He sat coiled up on a cushion at the left of the president; and ‘presented such a picture of helpless imbecility as, under other circumstances, must have awakened pity.’ His son stood a few yards to the left, and the guard of Rifles beyond all.
After the members of the court, the prosecutor, and the interpreter, had taken the usual oaths, the prosecutor proceeded to read the charges against the prisoner. He next addressed the court in a concise and explanatory manner; and announced that, though the king would be tried to ascertain whether he were guilty or not guilty, no capital sentence could be passed upon him, in consequence of his life having been guaranteed to him by Sir Archdale Wilson, through Captain Hodson. When the king was asked, through the interpreter, whether he was guilty or innocent, he professed to be ignorant of the nature of the charges against him. This, however, was affected ignorance, for the charges had long before been presented to him, translated into his own language. After considerable delay, he pleaded ‘not guilty.’
During several sittings of the court, occupying many weeks, numerous witnesses were examined. Among them were Jutmull, Mukkhun Lall, Captain Forrest, Sir Theophilus Metcalfe, Hussun Uskeree, Bukhtawar, Kishen, Chunee, Golam, Essamoola Khan, and other persons, European, Eurasian or half-caste, and native. The evidence brought against the king was of very varied character, tending to shew that he both aided in inciting the mutiny, and in encouraging the atrocities of the mutineers. Some of the evidence proved that, so long ago as the summer of 1856, the King of Delhi had been in correspondence with the Shah of Persia, touching an overturning of the English ‘raj’ in India: in a manner and at a time corresponding with the advance of the Persians towards Herat. Other portions confirmed the fact that many of the massacres at Delhi, at the beginning of the Revolt, were sanctioned by the palace profligates, and even committed immediately under the king’s own apartments. Sir T. Metcalfe, in his evidence, stated it as his opinion, derived from an intimate acquaintance with Delhi and its inhabitants, that the Revolt was the legitimate fruit of a Mussulman conspiracy; that the courts of Delhi and Lucknow were concerned in this conspiracy; that the war with Persia helped to strengthen it; that the Hindoos were used as tools in the matter by the Mohammedans; and that the affair of the greased cartridges was regarded as a lucky opportunity for enlisting Hindoo prejudices.
During the trial the king displayed a mingled silliness and cunning that revealed much of his character. Sometimes, while the evidence was being taken, he would coil himself up on his cushion, and appear lost in the land of dreams. Except when anything particular struck him, he paid, or appeared to pay, no attention whatever to the proceedings. On one of the days he was aroused from sleep, to reply to a question put by the court. Sometimes he would rouse up, as if by some sudden impulse, and make an exclamation in denial of a witness’s statement. Once, when the intrigues of Persia were under notice, he asked whether the Persians and the Russians were the same people. On the twelfth day of the trial, the king was more animated than usual; he several times declared his innocence of everything; and amused himself by twisting and untwisting a scarf round his head.
Without tracing the incidents of the trial day by day, or quoting the evidence, it may suffice to say that the guilt of the aged sinner was sufficiently proved, on some if not all of the charges. The safety of his life being guaranteed, imprisonment became the only probable punishment. He was sentenced for the rest of his days to transportation—either to one of the Andaman Islands (a group in the eastern portion of the Bay of Bengal), or to some other place that might be selected. It may not be inappropriate to mention that some of the witnesses proved that Mr Colvin at Agra, and Sir Theophilus Metcalfe at Delhi, were told of a forthcoming Mohammedan conspiracy many weeks before the Meerut outbreak; so utterly, however, did these authorities disregard the rumour, that they did not even report it to the Calcutta government. There were only a few men in India, in the spring of 1857, who believed that the British ‘raj’ was ‘on the edge of a volcano.’
In connection with the fate of the old king, much attention was necessarily bestowed on the past conduct of his favourite young wife, the intriguing Sultana Zeenat Mahal, the ‘dark, fat, shrewd, but sensual-looking woman,’ whom Mrs Hodson visited in the prison,[[139]] in relation to the Revolt. Ever since the year 1853, a feud had existed in the royal family, arising out of the polygamic troubles so frequent in oriental countries. The king, instigated by Zeenat Mahal, wished to name the child of his old age, Mirza Jumma Bukht, heir to the throne of Akbar; but the British government insisted on recognising the superior claims of an elder son, Mirza Fukhr-oo-deen. Strife and contest immediately commenced, and never ceased until one obstacle was removed from the path. Mirza Fukhr-oo-deen died in 1856, as alleged, of cholera, but not without suspicion of foul play. From that time till the beginning of the mutiny in the following year, the imperial palace was a focus of intriguing. The sultana bent her whole energies towards obtaining the heirship to the throne of the Moguls for her own son. She was known to have declared that this object would be persistently and steadily pursued, and to have opened many communications thereon with the authorities at Calcutta. When, however, it was announced that a grandson of the king should, after him, possess all that remained of imperial power, her plans were at once dashed. It thenceforward became a question with her whether, by an overturn of the English ‘raj,’ she could obtain that which was denied to her by the government; and when other sources of revolt and rebellion appeared, there was an intelligible reason why she should encourage the insurgents. Nothing came out at the trial so clear as to fix guilt unquestionably upon her; but there remained on men’s minds a suspicion to which collateral circumstances afforded much probability.
Transferring attention from Delhi to Rohilcund and the Hills, it may at once be explained that little occurred during the month of February requiring detailed notice. The time had not yet arrived when Sir Colin Campbell could send strong columns to sweep away the rebels in that quarter. Bareilly was still the head-quarters of a rebel force, which ruled almost the whole of Rohilcund. Khan Bahadoor Khan, the self-appointed chief, had still around him a large body of revolted sepoys and insurgent retainers; and in the whole region between Oude on the one side, and Delhi and Meerut on the other, very little was under British control. The time, however, for making a demonstration in this quarter was approaching. Among other military arrangements planned about the middle of February, was the formation of a movable column at Meerut, to be held in readiness to march anywhere at a short notice. It was to consist of a squadron of Carabiniers, a wing of the 60th Rifles, a wing of the Belooch battalion, the 1st Punjaub infantry, the Moultanee horse, a field-battery, two 18-pounders, and one 8-inch howitzer. There was at the same time at Looksar, near Roorkee, a small force under Captain Brind, consisting of a squadron of Carabiniere, Hughes’s irregular cavalry, detachments of Coke’s Rifles, of the Nusseree battalion, and of the 3d Punjaub infantry, and a troop of horse-artillery. At Roorkee another corps was to be formed, under Major Coke, to consist of Punjaub regiments about to arrive. It was proposed that these three bodies—the movable column at Meerut, Brind’s corps at Looksar, and Coke’s corps at Roorkee—should ultimately form a Rohilcund field-force, under General Penny. What was effected by means of this force, will come for notice in a future page; little could be achieved until the commander-in-chief had broken the strength of the enemy in Oude, now the great centre of rebellion.
The hilly country in and around Kumaon, although too far removed from the Jumna regions to be frequently engaged in the horrors of war, was nevertheless occasionally made a battle-ground between hostile forces. Early in February, Colonel M’Causland, commanding in Kumaon, formed a camp at Huldwanee, to protect the Kumaon hills, and to clear the Barbur and Turale districts of rebels. He found two formidable bodies of the enemy threatening that region. One, under a leader named Fuzul Huq, consisting of 4000 men and 6 guns, was encamped at Sunda, in a strong position on the banks of the Sookhee river, about fifteen miles from Huldwanee, on the Peleebheet road. The other, under Khali Khan, consisting of 5000 men and 4 guns, was encamped at Churpurah, on the Paha Nuddee, sixteen miles from Huldwanee, on the Bareilly road. So far as could be judged, it appeared as if these 9000 men intended to make a combined attack on Huldwanee, and then to force the hill-passes. To encounter these enemies, M’Causland’s force was but small, consisting of 700 Goorkha infantry, 200 horse, and 2 field-guns; nevertheless he resolved to confront them boldly. On the 9th of February he commenced a movement intended to prevent the junction of the two hostile forces. In the dead of the night, leaving his tents to be guarded by a few men in a barricaded square called the Mundee, he marched out as quietly as possible to the place occupied by Khali Khan’s army. He came up to them at daybreak on the 10th, and found them encamped in a strong position; with their rear and left protected by the Paha Nuddee, a small village filled with infantry on their right flank, their front protected by rough ground intersected with nullahs and long jungle-grass, and the road commanded by four pieces of artillery. So completely did he surprise them, that when his cavalry first appeared, the rebels thought their allies under Fuzul Huq had arrived. Finding the enemy’s right flank the best to attack, the colonel sent most of his men to that point, covered by the fire of his two guns. The contest was sharp and severe. In about an hour the Goorkhas had captured the enemy’s guns, cut down every artilleryman serving them, and dislodged the enemy from the village. Meanwhile the few horse made a gallant charge, repulsing a superior body of the enemy’s cavalry, and taking a standard. The colonel’s two guns worked immense execution among the enemy’s cavalry, ‘into which’ (to use the professional language of the commander) ‘they poured shrapnel with beautiful precision and tremendous effect.’ The victory was complete. The enemy lost their guns, ammunition, standing-camp, baggage, 300 killed, and 600 wounded. The colonel, having thus defeated nearly six times his number, returned to Huldwanee—his gallant Goorkhas having marched thirty-four miles and fought a severe battle in thirteen hours. It was deemed necessary to return at once, lest their prolonged absence from Huldwanee should tempt Fuzul Huq, whose army was not far distant, to make a dash on the camp and station.
Nynee Tal was deeply interested in all these movements. During February it was hemmed in by the rebels on one side, and by the hill-snows on the other. The enemy, deterred by the gallant force at Huldwanee, hoped to penetrate to the little colony by a detour through the Kulleedongee Pass. This hope, however, was not worth much to them; for the pass was long and fatiguing; and near its top was a small body of Goorkhas, who, with a few guns, were determined to make a stout resistance if any attack were made.
The Punjaub and Sinde were nearly at peace. The few instances of turbulence, or of military operation, may pass without record here.