India Under British Rule from the Foundation of the East India Company

by James Talboys Wheeler

The test.

At last General Hewitt determined to bring the sepoys to the test in the presence of the European force, and, if necessary, to stop the contagion by condign punishment. The regiment of sepoy cavalry was selected. A parade of ninety men of the several squadrons was ordered for the morning of the 6th of May. The old cartridges were issued, the same which had been used for generations, but eighty-five men stood out and refused to handle them. The delinquents were arrested and tried by a court martial of sepoy officers. They were all convicted of mutiny; eighty were sentenced to imprisonment with hard labour for ten years, and the remaining five to a like imprisonment for six years. All were recommended to the mercy of General Hewitt, but the recommendation was ignored, and it was determined to carry out the sentence at once in accordance with orders received by telegram from Lord Canning.

Parade for punishment.

The mutineers were placed under a strong European guard, consisting of two companies of the 60th Rifles, and twenty-five men of the Carabineers. The parade for punishment was held at daybreak on Saturday the 9th of May. The three regiments of sepoys were drawn up to behold the disgrace of the delinquents; and the men of the sepoy cavalry also were brought out to look on the degradation of their comrades. The sepoys on parade must have felt their hearts burning within them, but they were powerless to save. The Carabineers and Rifles were on the ground, and were ordered to load and be ready. The batteries of artillery were in position, and received the same orders. The slightest movement of disaffection or revolt would have been followed by a terrible slaughter. Not a sepoy stirred from the ranks. The prisoners were brought on the ground, stripped of their uniforms and accoutrements, and put in irons. They were utterly broken in spirit. They put up their hands and cried for mercy, and were then led away, cursing their comrades for not coming to their rescue.

Folly and mischief.

Then followed an act of inconceivable folly. The eighty-five sepoys who had been kept for three days under a strong guard of European soldiers, were made over to the civil authorities, and lodged in the civil jail, only two miles from the sepoy cantonments, under the charge of Asiatic warders. The consequence was that the sepoys brooded over the fate of their comrades, and secretly determined on rescuing them from the jail, and murdering their European officers.

Sunday morning.

Strange to say, not an idea of danger seems to have crossed the minds of the British authorities at Meerut. The Europeans went to church on Sunday morning, lounged through the heat and languor of the day, and prepared for church in the evening. Meanwhile there had been agitation and excitement in the sepoy lines, but nothing to excite alarm. The native women of the bazaar taunted the sepoys of the cavalry with not having rescued their comrades, and that was all.

Mutiny and massacre.

Suddenly, about five o'clock on that Sunday afternoon, the sepoys seized their arms and ammunition, and rushed out of their lines, with loud shouts and discharges of musketry. A detachment of sepoy cavalry galloped off to the jail, and liberated not only their eighty-five comrades, but all the other prisoners, 1,500 in number. The whole body then returned to the cantonment and joined the sepoys, who were burning down bungalows, and murdering every European they met, regardless of sex and age. Ladies riding in carriages, and officers driving in their buggies, who had left their homes without a suspicion of evil, were assaulted and fired at as they drove along. In a word, within a brief space of time the sepoy cantonments, and the roads round about, were a scene of riot, bloodshed, and outrage, which are beyond description. At last, fearing that the European soldiers would soon fall upon them, the whole mass of sepoys, the cavalry in front and the infantry straggling behind, rushed off to Delhi. The movement was only natural. Delhi was the only walled city in the North-West Provinces in which they could find a refuge. No European troops were quartered within the city or the suburbs; and a vast magazine of arms and ammunition was seated in the heart of the city, mostly in charge of Asiatics, who would doubtless open the gates at the first demand for surrender.