Such were a few of the points brought under consideration, in connection with the schemes for sending troops to India. We mention them here, because they bore intimately on the mutiny and its history. A compromise between the various schemes was effected by the government, in this way:—The ten thousand troops intended to be sent out, as reinforcements, reliefs, and recruits, before the news of the disasters reached England, were despatched as originally intended, in ordinary sailing-vessels; the four thousand additional troops, immediately applied for by the Company, were despatched, half in screw-steamers, and half in fast-sailing clippers; while the six thousand supplied on a still later requisition were sent almost wholly in steamers. It was not until late in the year, when the slowness of most of the voyages had been made manifest, that the superiority of steaming became unquestionable—provided the various coal-depôts could be kept well supplied. Setting aside all further controversy as to the best mode of transit, the activity of the movements was unquestionable. In May and June few of the regiments and ships were ready, and therefore few only were despatched; but after that the rapidity was something remarkable. In July more than thirty troop-laden ships departed from our shores, carrying numbers varying from 131 to 438 soldiers each. August was a still more busy month, in relation both to the number of ships and the average freight of each; there being forty troop-laden ships, carrying from 208 to 1057 soldiers each. In July not a single steam-ship was included in the number; but in August nearly half were steamers. The most remarkable shipments were those in the James Baines clipper sailing-ship (1037 men of the 42d and 92d foot), the Champion of the Seas clipper (1032 men of the 42d and 20th foot) and the Great Britain screw-steamer (1057 men of the 8th Hussars and 17th Lancers). In these three splendid ships the troops were conveyed with a degree of comfort rarely if ever before attained in such service. While the necessary arrangements were in progress for shipping off the twenty-four thousand men chosen by the middle of July, other plans were being organised for despatching further regiments; insomuch that, by the end of the year, very nearly forty thousand men had been sent off to the scene of mutiny. In what order and at what times these troops reached their destination, may usefully be noted in a later page. Towards the close of the year the Suez route was adopted for a few regiments; and the rapidity of passage was such as to lead to much expression of regret that that route had not been adopted earlier—although an opinion continued to prevail on the part of the government and the Company that it would not have been practicable to send the bulk of the army by that means.
Another important question arose during the year, how these troops ought to be clothed, and their health secured. English soldiers complain of their tightly buttoned and buckled garments in hot weather, even in an English climate; but in an Indian summer the oppression of such clothing is very grievous; and much anxiety was manifested, when it became known that thirty or forty thousand troops were to set out for the East, as to the dress to be adopted. The War-office issued a memorandum on the subject, chiefly with the view of allaying public anxiety;[[38]] but it became afterwards known that, owing to blunders and accidents similar to those which so disastrously affected the Crimean army, the light clothing, even if sufficient in quantity, was not in the right place at the right time; and our gallant men were only kept from complaining by their excitement at the work to be done. It must at the same time be admitted that, owing to the slowness of the voyages, the majority of the reinforcements did not land in India till the intense heat of summer had passed. In reference to the important question of the health of the troops, Dr James Harrison, of the Company’s service, drew up a series of rules or suggestions, for the use of officers in the management of their troops. These rules, which received the approval of Sir Colin Campbell, bore relation to the hours of marching; the length of each march; the kind of beverage best for the soldier before starting; the marching-dress in hot weather; the precautions against sitting or lying in wet clothes; the necessity for bathing; the best choice of food and the best mode of cooking; the stimulants and beverages, &c.
It would be difficult to enumerate all the modes in which the government, the legislature, and the press, sought to meet the difficulties and remedy the evils arising out of the Indian mutiny; nor would such an enumeration be necessary, further than concerned the really practicable and adopted measures. At a time when each mail from India increased the sum-total of disastrous news, each grievance found its own peculiar expositor, who insisted that that particular grievance had been the main cause of the mutiny, and that a remedy must be found in that particular direction. Nevertheless, in a series of short paragraphs to close the present chapter, it may be possible to sketch the general character of the plans and thoughts that occupied the public mind.
Railways were not forgotten. It was strongly urged that if Indian railways had been begun earlier, and carried to a further stage towards completion, the mutiny either could not have happened at all, or might have been crushed easily by a small force having great powers of locomotion. The disorders in India did not prevent the forwarding of schemes for new lines of railway—such as the Sinde Railway, from Kurachee to Hydrabad, there to be connected with steamers up the Indus to Moultan; the Punjaub Railway, from Moultan to Lahore, there to join the grand trunk railway; the Oude Railway, to supply Lucknow with a series of lines radiating in various directions; and the East Bengal Railway, to accommodate the region eastward of Calcutta. But besides these, the mutiny gave a new impetus to schemes for carrying railways across Western Asia towards India; either from Scutari (opposite Constantinople) to Bagdad, or from Antioch to the Euphrates, with a railway or a steam-route thence through Mesopotamia to the Persian Gulf. Some parts of these schemes were very wild; the projectors, in every case, required guaranteed interest from government, on the ground that the particular railway advocated would form a new and quick route from England to India available for government purposes; but as no guarantee was forthcoming, the schemes remained in abeyance.
Electric telegraphs did not fail to occupy a portion of public favour; and there is no question that their benefit was immense. Every lessening of the time for transmitting a message from India to London, or vice versâ, was so much gained to those responsible for quelling the mutiny. In the middle of 1857, small portions of submarine cable were immersed in the Mediterranean; but by the end of the year the islands of Corsica, Sardinia, Malta, and Corfu were all connected, greatly shortening the time for transmitting a telegram from Alexandria to Marseille. Superadded to this, the usefulness of the telegraph encouraged the projectors of new lines—from Corfu to Alexandria; from Antioch to the Euphrates and the Persian Gulf; from Suez down the Red Sea to Aden and Kurachee. Rival companies occupied much of the public attention; and, had the British government been favourably disposed towards a guarantee or subsidy, engineers were not wanting who would have undertaken to connect London with Calcutta by an unbroken wire.
River-steaming was advocated as one of the great things needed for India. One scheme was for an Indus flotilla. Supposing a hundred miles of railway to be constructed from Kurachee to Hydrabad, then the Indus would be reached at a point whence it is navigable to Moultan for five hundred and seventy miles; and it was proposed for this service to establish a flotilla of fifteen steamers, fitted up for passengers and a little cargo, and each towing two flat-bottom barges for the conveyance of troops and heavy cargo. Irrespective of the success or failure of any particular project, the establishment of steamers on the Indus was unquestionably a practical good to which India had a right to look forward; for, as a glance at a map will shew, the Indus instead of the Ganges seems the natural route of communication from Europe to the upper provinces of India. The Ganges provinces also would undergo an immense development of resources by the increase of steam-navigation on that noble river.
Gun-boats for India did not fail to find advocates. It was deemed almost a certainty that if light-draught vessels of this description had been on two or three of the Indian rivers, especially the Ganges and the Jumna, the mutineers would have met with formidable opponents; and even if the mutiny were quelled, a few gun-boats might act as a cheap substitute for a certain number of troops, in protecting places near the banks of the great rivers. Impressed with this conviction, the East India Company commissioned Messrs Rennie to build a small fleet of high-pressure iron gun-boats; each to have one boiler, two engines, two screw-propellers, and to carry a twelve-pounder gun amidships. The boats were seventy-five feet long by twelve wide, and were so constructed as to be stowed away in the hold of a ship for conveyance from England to India.
The means of locomotion or communication—railways, electric telegraphs, river-steamers, river gun-boats—formed only one portion of the schemes which occupied public thought during the first six months of the mutiny. Still more attention was paid to men—men for fighting in India and for defending our home-coasts. Shortly before the bad news began to arrive from India, a council order announced that the militia would not be called out in 1857; two months afterwards, in reply to a question in the House of Commons, Viscount Palmerston would not admit that circumstances were so serious as to necessitate a change in this arrangement; he thought that recruiting would be cheaper than the militia, as a means of keeping up the strength of the army. In August, however, the ministers obtained an act of parliament empowering them to embody some of the militia during the recess, if the state of public affairs should render such a step necessary. A system of active recruiting commenced, and was continued steadily during several months. These recruits were intended, not to increase the number of regiments, but to add a second battalion to many regiments, and to increase the number of men in each battalion; some of the regiments were, by this twofold process, raised from 800 or 1000 to 2000 or 2400 men each. Volunteers, also, came forward from France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, and other foreign countries; but these were mostly adventurers who sought officers’ commissions in India, and their services were not needed. The government made an attempt to encourage enlisting by offering commissions in the army to any private gentlemen who could bring forward a certain number of men each—a project not attended with much success. At certain crises, when the news from India was more than usually disastrous, appeals to patriotism shewed themselves in the newspapers—‘A Young Englishman;’ ‘Another Young Englishman;’ ‘A True Briton;’ ‘One of the Middle Class;’ or ‘A Young Scotsman’—would write to the journals, pour out his patriotism or his indignation, and shew what he would do if he only had the power. One proposed that clerks and shopmen out of situations should be embodied into a distinct volunteer corps; another said that, as he was a gentleman, and wished to avenge the foul murder of innocent women and children, he thought that he and such as he ought to be encouraged by commissions in the Indian army; another suggested that, if government would use them well, many young men would volunteer to serve in India, to return to their former mode of life when the mutiny was over. Some, rather in sarcasm than in earnest, suggested that drapers’ shopmen should drop the yard-measure, and go to India to fight; leaving to women the duty of serving muslins, and laces, and tapes. There was a certain meaning in all the suggestions, as expressive of honest indignation at the atrocities in India, especially those at Cawnpore; but, in its practical result, volunteering fell to the ground; and even the militia was not much appealed to. Various improvements were made in the condition of the common soldier; and recruits for the regular army came forward with much readiness.
We must now mention those who offered their monetary instead of their personal services in alleviation of the difficulties experienced in our Indian empire. Long before the mutinies in India had arrived at their greatest height, the question was anxiously debated both in that country and in England, what would be the worldly condition of the numerous families driven from their homes and robbed of all they possessed by the sepoys and marauders at the various stations? Every mail brought home fresh confirmation of the fact that the number of families thus impoverished was rapidly increasing; while on the other hand it was known that the East India Company could not reimburse the sufferers without much previous consideration. For, in the first place, it would have to be considered whether any distinction ought to be made between the two classes of Europeans in India—the civil and military servants of the Company, and those who, independent of the Company, had embarked capital in enterprises connected with indigo factories, opium farms, banks, printing-presses, &c.; and then would come a second inquiry whether the personal property only, or the commercial stock in trade also, should be considered as under the protection of the government. It was felt that immediate suffering ought not to wait for the solution of these questions; that when families had been burnt out or driven out of their homes, penniless and almost unclothed, immediate aid was needed from some quarter or other. This was admitted in the Punjaub, where Sir John Lawrence organised a fund for the relief of the necessitous; and it was admitted at Calcutta, where Lord and Lady Canning headed a subscription for providing shelter, raiment, and food to the hundreds of terrified fugitives who were constantly flocking to that capital. By the time the principal revolts of June were known in England, the last week of August had arrived; and then commenced one of those wonderful efforts in which London takes the lead of all the world—the collection of a large sum of money in a short time to ameliorate the sufferings arising out of some great calamity.
It was on the 25th of August that the lord-mayor presided at a meeting at the Mansion House to establish a fund for the relief of the sufferers by the Indian mutiny. The sum subscribed at the meeting did not much exceed a thousand pounds; but the whole merits of the case being set forth in newspapers, contributions poured in from all quarters, in the same noble spirit as had been manifested during the Crimean disasters. The high-born and the wealthy contributed large sums; the middle classes rendered their aid; country committees and town committees organised local subscriptions; large sums, made up of many small elements, were raised as collections after sermons in the churches and chapels; and when the Queen’s subjects in foreign and colonial regions heard of this movement, they sought to shew that they too shared in the common English feeling. Thousands swelled to tens of thousands, these to a hundred thousand, until in the course of a few months the fund rose to three or four hundred thousand pounds. In order to give system to the operations, thirty-five thousand circulars were issued, by the central committee in London, to all the authorities in church and state, to the ambassadors and ministers at foreign courts, to the governors of British colonies, and to the consuls at foreign ports.