We shall find the present part of the chapter an equally convenient place in which to notice a series of operations strikingly opposed to those just described—slow travelling as compared with quick telegraphy. It is full of instruction to see how earnestly anxious Viscount Canning was to send troops up to the northern provinces; and how he was baffled by the tardiness of all travelling appliances in India. The railway was opened only from Calcutta to Raneegunge, a very small portion of the distance to the disturbed districts. The history of the peregrinations of a few English troops in May will illustrate, and will receive illustration from, the matters treated in Chapter I.
The European 84th regiment, it will be remembered, had been hastily brought from Rangoon in the month of March, to assist in disbanding the sepoys who had shewn disaffection at Barrackpore and Berhampore. When the troubles began at Meerut and Delhi, in May, it was resolved to send on this regiment; and the governor-general found no part of his onerous duties more difficult than that of obtaining quick transmission for those troops. On the 21st of May he telegraphed to Benares: ‘Pray instruct the commissariat officer to prepare cooking-pots and other arrangements for the 84th regiment, now on its way to Benares; and the barrack department to have cots ready for them.’ On the 23d, Sir Henry Lawrence asked: ‘When may her Majesty’s 84th be expected at Cawnpore?’ to which an answer was sent on the following day: ‘It is impossible to convey a wing of Europeans to Cawnpore (about six hundred and thirty miles) in less time than twenty-five days. The government dâk and the dâk companies are fully engaged in carrying a company of the 84th to Benares, at the rate of 18 men a day. A wing of the Madras Fusiliers arrived yesterday, and starts to-day; part by bullock-train, part by steamer. The bullock-train can take 100 men per day, at the rate of thirty miles a day. The entire regiment of the Fusiliers, about 900 strong, cannot be collected at Benares in less than 19 or 20 days. About 150 men who go by steam will scarcely be there so soon. I expect, that from this time forward troops will be pushed upwards at the rate of 100 men a day from Calcutta; each batch taking ten days to reach Benares; from Benares they will be distributed as most required. The regiments from Pegu, Bombay, and Ceylon will be sent up in this way. Every bullock and horse that is to be had, except just enough to carry the post, is retained; and no troops will be sent by steam which can be sent more quickly by other means.’ These details shew that Cawnpore and Benares were both asking for troops at the same time; and that the governor-general, even if he possessed the soldiers, had not the means of sending them expeditiously. On the 24th, a message was sent to Raneegunge, ordering that a company of Madras troops might be well attended to, when they arrived by railway from Calcutta; and on the next day, Benares received notice to prepare for four companies proceeding thither by bullock-train, one company per day. The Benares commissioner announced the arrival of fifteen English soldiers, as if that were a number to be proud of, and stated that he would send them on to Cawnpore. (It will be seen, on reference to a map, that Benares lies in the route to almost all the upper and western provinces, whether by road or by river.) The Raneegunge agent telegraphed on the 26th: ‘If the men reach Sheergotty, there is no difficulty in conveying them to Benares; the only difficulty is between Raneegunge and Sheergotty. Ekahs are not, I think, adapted for Europeans; nor do I think that time would be gained.’ An ekah or ecka, we may here remark, is a light pony-gig on two wheels, provided with a cloth cushion on which the rider (usually a native) sits cross-legged. It shews the nature of Indian travelling, to find the officials discussing whether English soldiers should be thus conveyed—one cushioned vehicle to convey each cross-legged soldier. At Benares, the commissioner borrowed from the rajah the use of a house in which to lodge the English troops as fast as they came; and he sent them on by dâk to Allahabad and Cawnpore. Nevertheless Sir Henry Lawrence, disturbed by ominous symptoms, wished for ekahs, dâks—anything that would give him English soldiers. He telegraphed on this day: ‘I strongly advise that as many ekah-dâks be laid as possible, from Raneegunge to Cawnpore, to bring up European troops. Spare no expense;’ and on the next day he received the reply: ‘Every horse and carriage, bullock and cart, which could be brought upon the road, has been collected, and no means of increasing the number will be neglected.’ On the 27th it was announced from Benares that ‘the steamer had stuck,’ and that all the land-dâks were being used that could possibly be procured. On the same day the Allahabad commissioner spoke hopefully of his plan that—by the aid of 1600 siege-train bullocks from that place, 600 from Cawnpore, the government bullocks, the private wagon-trains, and magazine carts—he might be able to send 160 Europeans per day up to Cawnpore. On the 28th, the Calcutta authorities sent a telegram to Benares, to announce that ‘Up to the 1st of June seven dâk-carriages will be despatched daily, with one officer and 18 soldiers. On the 1st of June, and daily afterwards, there will be despatched nine dâk-carriages, with one officer and 24 Europeans; and 28 bullock-carts, with one officer, 90 Europeans, a few followers, and provisions to fill one cart. The Calcutta steamer and flat, with four officers, 134 Europeans, and proportion of followers; and the coal-steamer, with about the same numbers, will reach Benares on the 10th or 11th of June.’ From this it will be seen that a ‘dâk-carriage’ conveyed three soldiers, and a ‘bullock-cart’ also three, the ‘followers’ probably accompanying them on foot. The Benares commissioner on the same day said: ‘Happily we have good metalled roads all over this division’—thereby implying what would have been the result if the roads were not good. The use of bullocks was more particularly adverted to in a telegram of the 30th of May: ‘Gun-bullocks would be most useful between Raneegunge and the Sone, if they could be sent from Calcutta in time; if there are carts, the daily dispatches can be increased; not otherwise. Gun-bullocks would save a day, as they travel quicker than our little animals.’ Immediately afterwards, forty-six elephants were sent from Patna, and one hundred from Dacca and Barrackpore, to Sheergotty, to assist in the transport of troops. On a later occasion, when more troops had arrived from England, Viscount Canning sent two steamers from Calcutta to Pegu, to bring over cargoes of elephants, to be used as draught-animals!
Thus it continued, day after day—all the servants of the Company, civil and military, calculating how long it would take to send driblets of soldiers up the country; and all harassed by this dilemma—that what the Ganges steamers gained in roominess, they lost by the sinuosities of the river; and that what the dâks and bullock-trains gained by a direct route, they lost by the inevitable slowness of such modes of conveyance, and the smallness of the number of soldiers that could be carried at a time. Thankful that they possessed telegraphs, the authorities had little to be thankful for as concerned railways or roads, vehicles or horses.
We now return to the proceedings of Sir Henry Lawrence at Lucknow.
Before the collective minutes of the five members of the Supreme Council were fully settled, he had acted on the emergency which gave rise to them. He held a court of inquiry; the result of which was that two subadars, a jemadar, and forty-four sepoys of the mutinous 7th were committed to prison; but he resolved not at present to disband the regiment. His grand durbar has been already described. In the middle of the month, as just shewn, he sent many brief telegrams indicating that, though no mutinies had occurred at Lucknow, there was nevertheless need for watchfulness. He had asked for the aid of some Sikhs, but said, on the 18th: ‘As there is difficulty, do not send the Sikhs to Lucknow.’ On the next day, his message was: ‘All very well in city, cantonment, and country;’ but after this, the elements of mischief seemed to be gathering, although Lawrence prepared to meet all contingencies resolutely. ‘All quiet,’ he said on the 21st, ‘but several reports of intended attacks on us.’ He was, however, more solicitous about the fate of Cawnpore, Allahabad, and Benares, than of Lucknow.
The military position of Sir Henry towards the last week in May was this. He had armed four posts for his defence at Lucknow. In one were four hundred men and twenty guns; in another, a hundred Europeans and as many sepoys; in another was the chief store of powder, well under command. A hundred and thirty Europeans, two hundred sepoys, and six guns, guarded the treasury; the guns near the residency being under European control. The old magazine was denuded of its former contents, as a precautionary measure. Six guns, and two squadrons of the 2d Oude irregular cavalry, were at the Dâk bungalow, half-way between the residency and the cantonment. In the cantonment were three hundred and forty men of her Majesty’s 32d, with six European guns, and six more of the Oude light field-battery. By the 23d of the month, nearly all the stores were moved from the old magazine to one of the strongholds, where thirty guns and one hundred Europeans were in position, and where ten days’ supplies for five hundred men were stored. On the 29th, Lawrence’s telegram told of ‘great uneasiness at Lucknow. Disturbances threatened outside. Tranquillity cannot be much longer maintained unless Delhi be speedily captured.’ The residency, a place rendered so memorable by subsequent events, must be here noticed. The cantonment was six miles from the city, and the residency was itself isolated from the rest of Lucknow. The Rev. Mr Polehampton, describing in his letter the occurrences about the middle of May, said: ‘The sick have been brought to the residency; so have the women; and the residency is garrisoned by 130 men of the 32d, and by the battery of native artillery. All the ladies, wives of civilians, who live in different parts of the city, have come into the residency. By the residency, I mean a piece of ground a good deal elevated above the rest of the city, allotted by the King of Oude, when he first put himself under British “protection” some fifty years ago, to the British civil residents. It is walled round almost entirely; on one side native houses abut upon it, but on the other three sides it is tolerably clear. Roads without gates in some places connect it with the city; but it is not at all a bad place to make a stand—certainly the best in Lucknow, to which it is a sort of acropolis. The residency contains the chief-commissioner’s house, Mr Gubbins’s, Mr Ommaney’s, Foyne’s, the post-office, city hospital, electric-telegraph office, church, etc.’ The ever-memorable defence made by a little band of English heroes in this ‘acropolis’ of Lucknow, will call for our attention in due time. Mr Polehampton spoke of the gravity with which Sir Henry Lawrence regarded the state of public affairs; and of the caution which led him to post one English soldier at every gun, to watch the native artillerymen. The chaplain had means of knowing with what assiduity crafty lying men tried to gain over the still faithful sepoys to mutiny. ‘Another most absurd story they have got hold of, which came out in the examination of some of the mutineers before Sir Henry Lawrence. They say that in consequence of the Crimean war there are a great many widows in England, and that these are to be brought out and married to the Rajahs in Oude; and that their children, brought up as Christians, are to inherit all the estates! The natives are like babies—they will believe anything.’—Babies in belief, perhaps; but fiends in cruelty when excited.
The last two days of May were days of agitation at Lucknow. Many of the native troops broke out in open mutiny. They consisted of half of the 48th regiment, about half of the 71st, some few of the 13th, and two troops of the 7th cavalry—all of whom fled towards Seetapoor, a town nearly due north of Lucknow. Lawrence, with two companies of her Majesty’s 32d, three hundred horse, and four guns, went in pursuit; but the horse, Oude native cavalry, evinced no zeal; and he was vexed to find that he could only get within round-shot of the mutineers. He took thirty prisoners—a very inadequate result of the pursuit. Many disaffected still remained in Lucknow; four bungalows were burned, and a few English officers shot. The city was quiet, but the cantonment was in a disturbed state. In his last telegrams for the month, the chief-commissioner, who was also chief military authority, used these words: ‘It is difficult to say who are loyal; but it is believed the majority are so; only twenty-five of the 7th cavalry proved false;’ and he further said: ‘The faithful remnants of three infantry regiments and 7th cavalry, about seven hundred men, are encamped close to the detachment of two hundred of her Majesty’s 32d and four European guns.’ Even then he did not feel much uneasiness concerning the city and cantonment of Lucknow: it was towards other places, Cawnpore especially, that his apprehensive glance was directed.
What were the occurrences at Lucknow, and in other towns of the territory of Oude, in June, will be better understood when the progress of the Revolt in other places during May has been narrated.
Ekah, or Officer’s Travelling Wagon.