8. Restrictions on Marriage of European Soldiers.—Great restrictions were, in bygone years, imposed by the Company on the marriage of European soldiers; and a shameful disregard shewn for the homes of those who were married. Edwardes condemned this state of things; and Lawrence shared his views to a great extent. He asserted that men are not better soldiers for being unmarried—rather the reverse; and that women and children, in moderate numbers, need not be any obstruction to military arrangements. Some change in this matter he recommended. He pointed out, however, that in reference to the comfort of married soldiers, great improvements had been introduced into the Punjaub, and improvements to a smaller extent in other parts of British India. He fully recognised the bounden duty of the government so to construct barracks as to provide for the proper domestic privacy of married soldiers and their families.
9. Connection of the Government with the Opium-trade.—Edwardes dwelt on the objectionable character of this connection. Lawrence replied that the English were not called upon to decide for the Chinese how far the use of opium is deleterious; and that, until we checked our own consumption of intoxicating liquors, we were scarcely in a position to take a high moral tone on this point. He nevertheless fully agreed that it was objectionable in any government to encourage the growth of this drug, actively supervising the storing and selling, and advancing money for this purpose to the cultivators. It was a revenue question, defensive wholly on financial grounds. How to provide a substitute for the £4,000,000 or £5,000,000 thus derived would be a difficult matter; but he thought the best course would be to sever the connection between the government and the opium-trade, and to lay a heavy customs duty on the export of opium from India.
10. Indian Excise Laws.—It was contended by Edwardes that the government encouraged intemperance by farming out to monopolists the right of manufacturing and selling intoxicating drugs and spirits. Lawrence contested this point. He asserted that there is less drunkenness in India, less spirit-drinking and drug-chewing, than under the former native rule, when the trade was open to all. As a question of morals, the Indian government does no more than that of the home country, in deriving a revenue from spirituous liquors; as a question of fact, the evils are lessened by the very monopoly complained of.
Sir John Lawrence, in a few concluding remarks, expressed a very strong belief that Christian civilisation may be introduced gradually into India if a temperate policy be pursued; but that rash zeal would produce great disaster. ‘It is when unchristian things are done in the name of Christianity, or when Christian things are done in an unchristian way, that mischief and danger are occasioned.’ He recommended that as soon as the supreme government had organised the details of a just and well-considered policy, ‘it should be openly avowed and universally acted on throughout British India; so that there may be no diversities of practice, no isolated or conflicting efforts, which would be the surest means of exciting distrust; so that the people may see that we have no sudden or sinister designs; and so that we may exhibit that harmony and uniformity of conduct which befits a Christian nation striving to do its duty.’ Finally, he expressed a singularly firm conviction that, so far as concerns the Punjaub, he could himself carry out ‘all those measures which are really matters of Christian duty on the part of the government:’ measures which ‘would arouse no danger, would conciliate instead of provoking, and would subserve the ultimate diffusion of the truth among the people.’
It wants no other evidence than is furnished by the above very remarkable correspondence, to shew that the future government of India must, if it be effective, be based on some system which has been well weighed and scrutinised on all sides. The problem is nothing less than that of governing a hundred and eighty millions of human beings, whose characteristics are very imperfectly known to us. It is a matter of no great difficulty to write out a scheme or plan of government, plentifully bestrewed with personalities and accusations; there have been many such; but the calm judgment of men filling different ranks in life, and conversant with different aspects of Indian character, can alone insure the embodiment of a scheme calculated to benefit both India and England. Whether the abolition of the governing powers of the East India Company will facilitate the solution of this great problem, the future alone can shew; it will at any rate simplify the departmental operations.
The Queen’s proclamation, announcing the great change in the mode of government, and offering an amnesty to evildoers under certain easily understood conditions, adverted cautiously to the future and its prospects. Before, however, touching on this important document, it may be well to say a few words concerning the military operations in the few weeks immediately preceding its issue.
These operations, large as they were, had resolved themselves into the hunting down of desperate bands, rather than the fighting of great battles with a military opponent. Throughout the whole of India, in the months of October and November, disturbances had been nearly quelled except in two regions—Oude, with portions of the neighbouring provinces of Rohilcund and Behar; and Malwah, with portions of Bundelcund and the Nerbudda provinces. Of the rest—Bengal, Assam and the Delta of the Ganges, Aracan and Pegu, the greater portion of Behar and the Northwest Provinces, the Doab, Sirhind and the hill regions, the Punjaub, Sinde, Cutch and Gujerat, Bombay and its vicinity, the Deccan under the Nizam, the Nagpoor territory, the Madras region, Mysore, the South Mahratta country, the south of the Indian peninsula—all were so nearly at peace as to excite little attention. Of the two excepted regions, a few details will shew that they were gradually falling more and more under British power.
In the Oude region the guiding spirit was still the Begum, one of the wives of the deposed king. She had the same kind of energy and ability as the Ranee of Jhansi, with less of cruelty; and was hence deserving of a meed of respect. Camp-gossip told that, under disappointment at the uniform defeat of the rebel troops whenever and wherever they encountered the English, she sent a pair of bangles (ankle-ornaments) to each of her generals or leaders—scoffingly telling him to wear those trinkets, and become a woman, unless he could vanquish and drive out the Feringhees. This had the effect of impelling some of her officers to make attacks on the British; but the attacks were utterly futile. There were many leaders in Oude who fought on their own account; a greater number, however, acknowledged a kind of suzerainty in the Begum. If she did not win battles, she at least headed armies, and carried on open warfare; whereas the despicable Nena Sahib, true to his cowardice from first to last, was hiding in jungles, and endeavouring to keep his very existence unknown to the English. The military operations in Oude during the month of October were not extensive in character. Sir Colin Campbell (Lord Clyde), waiting for the cessation of the autumnal rains, was collecting several columns, with a view of hemming in the rebels on all sides and crushing them. That they would ultimately be crushed, everything foretold; for in every encounter, large or small, they were so disgracefully beaten as to shew that the leaders commanded a mere predatory rabble rather than a brave disciplined soldiery. These encounters were mostly in Oude, but partly in Behar and Rohilcund. In the greater number of instances, however, the rebels ran instead of fighting, even though their number was tenfold that of their opponents. The skilled mutinied sepoys from the Bengal army were becoming daily fewer in number, so many having been struck down by war and by privation; their places were now taken by undisciplined ruffians, who, however strong for rapine and anarchy, were nearly powerless on the field of battle. Thousands of men in this part of India, who had become impoverished, almost houseless, during a year and a half of anarchy, had strong temptation to join the rebel leaders, from a hope of booty or plunder, irrespective of any national or patriotic motive. Sir Colin, when the month of November arrived, entered personally on his plan of operations; which was to bar the boundaries of Oude on three sides—the Ganges, Rohilcund, and Behar—and compel the various bodies of rebels either to fight or to flee; if they fought, their virtual annihilation would be almost certain; if they fled, it could only be to the jungle region on the Nepaul frontier of Oude, where, though they might carry on a hide-and-seek game for many months, their military importance as rebels would cease. In the dead of the night, between the 1st and 2d of November, the veteran commander-in-chief set forth from Allahabad with a well-selected force, crossed the Ganges, and advanced into Oude. His first work was to issue a proclamation,[[203]] sternly threatening all evildoers. A few days earlier, at Lucknow, Mr Montgomery, as chief-commissioner, had issued a proclamation for the disarming of Oude—requiring all thalookdars to surrender their guns, all persons whatever to surrender their arms, all leaders to refrain from building and arming forts; and threatening with fine and imprisonment those who should disobey. It was intended and believed that the three proclamations should all conduce towards a pacification—the Queen’s (presently to be noticed) offering pardon to mutineers who yielded; the Commander-in-chief’s, threatening destruction to all towns and villages which aided rebels; and the commissioners’, lessening the powers for mischief by depriving the inhabitants generally of arms. With Sir Colin advancing towards the centre of Oude by Pertabghur, troops from Seetapoor, Hope Grant from Salone, and Rowcroft from the Gogra at Fyzabad, the Begum and her supporters were gradually so hemmed in that they began to avail themselves of the terms of the Queen’s proclamation by surrender. It was to such a result that the authorities had from the first looked; but never until now had all the conditions for it been favourable. One of the first to surrender was Rajah Lall Madhoo Singh, a chieftain of great influence and energy, and one whose character had not been stained by deeds of cruelty.
In the Arrah or Jugdispore district, in like manner, the close of the scene was foreshadowed. Ummer Singh and his confederates had long baffled Brigadier Douglas; but now that troops were converging from all quarters upon the jungle-haunt, the rebels became more and more isolated from bands in other districts, their position more and more critical, and their final discomfiture more certain. Sir H. Havelock, son of the deceased general, and Colonel Turner, pressed them more and more with new columns, until their hopes were desperate. One excellent expedient was the cutting down of the Jugdispore jungle, 23 miles in length by 4 in breadth; this useful work was begun in November by Messrs Burn, railway contractors.
In the other region of India above adverted to—comprising those districts of Malwah, Bundelcund, &c., which are watered by the Betwah, the Chumbul, the Nerbudda, and their tributaries—the leading rebel was Tanteea Topee, one of the most remarkable men brought forward by the Revolt. He had most of the qualities for a good general—except courage. He would not fight if he could help it; but in avoiding the British generals opposed to him, he displayed a cunning of plan, a fertility of resource, and a celerity of movement, quite note-worthy. The truth seems to have been, that he held power over an enormous treasure, in money and jewels, which he had obtained by plundering Scindia’s palace at Gwalior; this treasure he carried with him wherever he went; and he shunned any encounters which might endanger it. He looked out for a strong city or fort, where he might settle down as a Mahratta prince, with a large store of available ready wealth at hand; but as the British did not choose to leave him in quietude, he marched from place to place. Between the beginning of June and the end of November he traversed with his army an enormous area of country, seizing guns from various towns and forts on the way, but usually escaping before the English could catch him. Former chapters have shewn by what strange circumvolutions he arrived at Julra Patteen; and a detail of operations would shew that his subsequent movements were equally erratic. He went to Seronj, then to Esagurh, then to Chunderee, then to Peshore, then arrived at the river Betwah, and wavered whether he should go southward to the Deccan or northward towards Jhansi. Everywhere he was either followed or headed, by columns and detachments under Michel, Mayne, Parkes, Smith, and other officers. Whenever they could bring him to an encounter, they invariably beat him most signally; but when, as generally happened, he escaped by forced marches, they tracked him. He picked up guns and men as he went; so that the amount of his force was never correctly known; it varied from three to fifteen thousand. One of the most severe defeats he received was at Sindwah, on the 19th of October, at the hands of General Michel; another, on the 25th, near Multhone, from the same active general. It was felt on all sides that this game could not be indefinitely continued. Tanteea Topee was like a hunted beast of prey, pursued by enemies who would not let him rest. When it had been clearly ascertained by General Roberts, in Rajpootana, that the fleet-footed and unencumbered rebel soldiery could escape faster than British troops could follow them, a new mode of strategy was adopted; columns from four different directions began to march towards a common centre, near which centre were Tanteea and his rebels; if one column could not catch him, another could head him and drive him back. Thus it was considered a military certainty that he must be run down at last. And if he fell, the great work of pacification in that part of India would be pretty well effected; for there was no rebel force of any account except that commanded by Tanteea Topee. After his defeat at Multhone, Tanteea was in great peril; Michel literally cut his army in two; and if he had pursued the larger instead of the smaller of these two sections, he might possibly have captured Tanteea himself. On the last day in October, the rebel leader crossed the Nerbudda river, thereby turning his back on the regions occupied by the columns of Roberts, Napier, Michel, Smith, and Whitlock. During November, he made some extraordinary marches in the country immediately southward of the Nerbudda—being heard of successively at Baitool, the Sindwara hills, and other little-known places in that region. He was no better off than before, however, for forces were immediately sent against him from Ahmednuggur, Kamptee, and other places; he had lost nearly all his guns and stores, his rebel followers, though laden with wealth, were footsore and desponding; and, for the first time, his companions began to look out for favourable terms of surrender. The Queen’s proclamation was eminently calculated to withdraw his misguided followers from him; and the Nawab of Banda, the most influential among them, was the first to give himself up to General Michel.