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

by James Talboys Wheeler

§6. On the 21st of May, Sir Hugh Wheeler received a distinct warning that the sepoys were about to mutiny. He sent to all the European residents at Cawnpore to repair towards evening to the empty barracks. He despatched an express to Lucknow to beg Sir Henry Lawrence to spare him two or three companies of the European regiment. He was alarmed for the safety of the treasury, which was seven miles from the barracks under the charge of sepoy guards. He attempted to remove the treasure to the barracks, but the sepoys refused to part with it, declaring that they could guard it where it was. Sir Hugh Wheeler was obliged to yield, for he had no means at hand to coerce the sepoys; but he accepted the offer of Nana Sahib to place a body of his Mahratta soldiers on guard at the treasury. That very night 200 Mahratta soldiers, armed with matchlocks and accompanied by two guns, were moved from Bithoor and quartered at the treasury. The arrangements seem to have been made for the convenience of the sepoys, rather than for the security of the Europeans. The jail was close to the treasury, with its criminal inmates; so too was the magazine which contained the military stores. All three buildings were near the river Ganges on the road to Delhi.

Horrible suspense.

The confusion and terror which prevailed that night may be imagined. Ladies and children were hurried from their homes, and huddled together in the old hospital building. Guns were drawn up on each side. The children were hushed off to sleep, but the ladies were too terrified to close their eyes. Next morning eighty-four European soldiers arrived from Lucknow and cheered the inmates of the hospital and barracks. But during the week that followed, the suspense was almost beyond endurance. One lady lost her reason, and all suffered from trials, privations, exposure and alarms which cannot be described. Daily and hourly they expected an insurrection of Asiatics who knew not how to pity or how to spare. Some wished that the storm would burst upon them and put an end to the harrowing anxiety that was eating into their souls. Amidst all these dangers the British officers still slept at the sepoy lines.

Hope.

On the 31st of May, after a horrible night, the first instalment of European reinforcements arrived from Bengal. Others appeared during the two following days, and brought the joyful news that they were the forerunners of several regiments; that European troops were pouring into Calcutta from Madras, Burma and Ceylon, and were being hurried up by river steamers, bullock trains and country carriages. Sir Hugh Wheeler was so confident of being very shortly more than a match for the sepoys, that with a chivalrous regard for the safety of Sir Henry Lawrence, he sent a portion of his Europeans back to Lucknow.

Sickening delay.

Then followed the delays at Benares and Allahabad; the stoppage of reinforcements; the hope deferred that maketh the heart sick. To crown all, the Indian sun was burning fiercely on the barracks, and the hot winds of June were blowing through the rooms. Many Europeans were carried off by sickness, and their fate was almost to be envied, for life itself was becoming intolerable. Had the Europeans been all men, they might have cut their way to Agra, and forced a passage down the river to Allahabad. But Sir Hugh Wheeler had 300 women and children on his hands, and it was impossible to carry them away in the face of sepoys and rebels. No other alternative was thought of for a moment. No European could dream at such a crisis of leaving women and children to the tender mercies of sepoys.

Nana Sahib at Cawnpore.

§7. All this while there were no suspicions of treachery as regards Nana Sahib; yet in reality the Mahratta Brahman was moving about like an evil spirit in disguise. To show his loyalty and attachment to the British, he left his palace at Bithoor, and took up his quarters at a house within the civil station at Cawnpore. His real purpose was to excite the sepoys to revolt, but to prevent them from rushing off to Delhi, and rallying round a Mohammedan sovereign. He was not a Mohammedan, but a Hindu; besides that, he was a representative of Hindu sovereigns, the extinct Mahratta Peishwas, who, according to his own views, were the rightful rulers of India. In his secret heart he fondly dreamed of upsetting British supremacy, and restoring the old days of Mahratta anarchy, when the Brahman Peishwa ruled at Poona as the head of the Mahratta confederacy, whilst his lieutenants, Sindia and Holkar, plundered Hindustan in his name.

Blindness of the Europeans.