Sir Colin Campbell has been in a state of delight ever since his favourite 93rd landed five days ago.[43] He went to see them on board their transport before they disembarked, and when Lord Canning asked how he found them, replied that the only thing amiss was that they had become too fat on the voyage, and could not button their coats. But, indeed, all the troops of the China force have been landed in the highest possible condition of health and vigour. The 23rd, from its large proportion of young soldiers, is perhaps the one most likely to suffer from the climate and the hardships of the Service—for, although no care or cost will be spared to keep them in health and comfort, Lord Canning fears that hardships there must be, seeing how vast an extent of usually productive country will be barren for a time, and that the districts from which some of our most valuable supplies, especially the supply of carriage animals, are drawn, have been stripped bare, or are still in revolt. As it is, the Commander-in-Chief has most wisely reduced the amount of tent accommodation for officers and men far below the ordinary luxurious Indian allowance.
The presence of the ships of the Royal Navy has been of the greatest service. At least eleven thousand seamen and marines have been contributed by them for duty on shore, and the broadsides of the Sanspareil, Shannon, and Pearl, as they lie along the esplanade, have had a very reassuring effect upon the inhabitants of Calcutta, who, until lately, have insisted pertinaciously that their lives and property were in hourly danger.[44]
No line-of-battle ship has been seen in the Hooghly since Admiral Watson sailed up to Chandernagore just a hundred years ago;[45] and certainly nothing in his fleet was equal to the Sanspareil. The natives stare at her, and call her "the four-storied boat."
INDIA
For the future, if Delhi should fall and Lucknow be secured, the work of pacification will go forward steadily. Many points will have to be watched, and there may be occasional resistance; but nothing like an organised contest against authority is probable. The greatest difficulties will be in the civil work of re-settlement. The recent death of Mr Colvin,[46] the Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces, has removed an officer whose experience would there have been most valuable. He has died, fairly exhausted; and is the fourth officer of high trust whose life has given way in the last four months.
One of the greatest difficulties which lie ahead—and Lord Canning grieves to say so to your Majesty—will be the violent rancour of a very large proportion of the English community against every native Indian of every class. There is a rabid and indiscriminate vindictiveness abroad, even amongst many who ought to set a better example, which it is impossible to contemplate without something like a feeling of shame for one's fellow-countrymen. Not one man in ten seems to think that the hanging and shooting of forty or fifty thousand mutineers, besides other Rebels, can be otherwise than practicable and right; nor does it occur to those who talk and write most upon the matter that for the Sovereign of England to hold and govern India without employing, and, to a great degree, trusting natives, both in civil and military service, is simply impossible. It is no exaggeration to say that a vast number of the European community would hear with pleasure and approval that every Hindoo and Mohammedan had been proscribed, and that none would be admitted to serve the Government except in a menial office. That which they desire is to see a broad line of separation, and of declared distrust drawn between us Englishmen and every subject of your Majesty who is not a Christian, and who has a dark skin; and there are some who entirely refuse to believe in the fidelity or goodwill of any native towards any European; although many instances of the kindness and generosity of both Hindoos and Mohammedans have come upon record during these troubles.
THE POLICY OF CLEMENCY
To those whose hearts have been torn by the foul barbarities inflicted upon those dear to them any degree of bitterness against the natives may be excused. No man will dare to judge them for it. But the cry is raised loudest by those who have been sitting quietly in their homes from the beginning and have suffered little from the convulsions around them unless it be in pocket. It is to be feared that this feeling of exasperation will be a great impediment in the way of restoring tranquillity and good order, even after signal retribution shall have been deliberately measured out to all chief offenders.47
Lord Canning is ashamed of having trespassed upon your Majesty's indulgence at such length. He will only add that he has taken the liberty of sending to your Majesty by this mail a map which has just been finished, showing the distribution of the Army throughout India at the time of the outbreak of the Mutiny. It also shows the Regiments of the Bengal Army which have mutinied, and those which have been disarmed, the number of European troops arrived in Calcutta up to the 19th of September, and whence they came; with some few other points of information.