Recollections of a Military Life

by Sir John Adye

[48] Probably the Nana Sahib.

[CHAPTER XIV]

CAUSES OF THE MUTINY AND POLICY OF LORD CANNING

The fall of Delhi in September, the relief of Lucknow in November, and the severe conflicts round Cawnpore, had shattered, as it were, the main force of the Mutiny; and although during 1858 active military measures were carried out in various parts of the country, still in reality the great crisis was past. The absence on the part of the natives of any men of military genius to lead them, the want of mutual confidence amongst their widely dispersed forces, and their tendency to marauding expeditions rather than to combined operations, all led to their final defeat in detail. On the other hand, the vigour of our movements, and the large reserves of men, arms, and munitions brought from England, at length restored our shaken power, and enabled us gradually, but firmly, to re-establish our authority throughout the numerous provinces under our rule.

Owing to the wide distribution of the large force of artillery which had arrived from home, it was considered necessary, for administrative purposes, that General Dupuis and his staff should return to the seat of Government at Calcutta; and therefore, after the battles at Cawnpore in November and December, I took no further active part in operations in the field. Residence in India, however, was full of interest at that time, when the causes of the revolution, together with the military changes which ensued, were matters of constant discussion and consideration. The idea that the serving out of greased cartridges to the native soldiery was a dominant factor in the crisis is of course a mere exaggeration of a minor ultimate detail. It may possibly have been the final exciting cause, in the same way that a lucifer match suddenly lighted in a powder magazine may lead to a great explosion; but the causes which conduced to the revolution had been accumulating long before 1857, and were partly political, partly military; and it will be interesting to quote briefly the opinions of various statesmen and high authorities who took part in and studied the history of our conquests, and who traced the results caused by our gradual absorption of the kingdoms, principalities, and provinces into which, until our advent, the vast peninsula of India was divided.

Sir John Malcolm, in his 'Political History of India,' in 1826, wrote: 'The great empire which England has established in the East will be the theme of wonder to succeeding ages. That a small island in the Atlantic should have conquered and held the vast continent of India as a subject province, is in itself a fact which can never be stated without exciting astonishment. But that astonishment will be increased when it is added that this great conquest was made, not by the collective force of the nation, but by a company of merchants, who, originally vested with a charter of exclusive commerce and with the privilege and right to protect their property by arms, in a few years actually found themselves called upon to act in the character of sovereigns over extended dominions before they had ceased to be the mercantile directors of petty factories.'[49] Sir John goes on to show that our rapid progress was due in a great measure to two leading causes: one, that coming originally as unpretending traders, we disarmed suspicion, and were, indeed, welcomed by the natives; the other, that the gradual rise of our power was coincident with the decline of the Mogul empire.

General Sir Thomas Munro—an officer who entered the Madras service of the East India Company as a cadet in 1780, and who by his genius and statesmanlike qualities rose to be Governor of that Presidency—writing in 1817 to the Governor General on the effects of our policy, said: 'The strength of the British Government enables it to put down every rebellion, to repel foreign invasion, and to give to its subjects a degree of protection which those of no native power enjoy. Its laws and institutions also afford them a security from domestic oppression unknown in those States; but these advantages are dearly bought. They are purchased by the sacrifice of independence of national character, and of whatever renders a people respectable. The natives of the British provinces may without fear pursue their different occupations as traders, meerassidars, or husbandmen, and enjoy the fruits of their labours in tranquillity; but none of them can aspire to anything beyond this mere animal state of thriving in peace, none of them can look forward to any share in the legislation, or civil or military government of their country.'[50] ... 'It is from men who either hold, or are eligible to hold, public office that natives take their character; where no such men exist, there can be no energy in any other class of the community. The effect of this state of things is observable in all the British provinces, whose inhabitants are certainly the most abject race in India. No elevation of character can be expected among men who, in the military line, cannot attain to any rank above that of subadar, where they are as much below an ensign as an ensign is below the Commander-in-Chief, and who in the civil line can hope for nothing beyond some petty judicial or revenue office, in which they may, by corrupt means, make up for their slender salary. The consequence, therefore, of the conquest of India by the British arms would be, in place of raising, to debase the whole people. There is, perhaps, no example of any conquest in which the natives have been so completely excluded from all share of the government of their country as in British India.'

Again in 1818, in a letter to Lord Hastings, he says: 'Our Government will always be respected from the influence of our military power, but it will never be popular while it offers no employment to the natives that can stimulate the ambition of the better class of them. Foreign conquerors have treated the natives with violence and often with great cruelty, but none has treated them with so much scorn as we; none has stigmatised the whole people as unworthy of trust, as incapable of honesty, and as fit to be employed only when we cannot do without them. It seems to be not only ungenerous, but impolitic, to debase the character of a people fallen under our dominion.' Again in 1824: 'With what grace can we talk of our paternal government if we exclude them from every important office, and say, as we did till very lately, that in a country containing 150,000,000 of inhabitants no man but a European shall be trusted with so much authority as to order the punishment of a single stroke of a rattan? Such an interdiction is to pass a sentence of degradation on a whole people for which no benefit can ever compensate. There is no instance in the world of so humiliating a sentence having ever been passed upon any nation....' 'The advocates of improvement do not seem to have perceived the great springs on which it depends; they propose to place no confidence in the natives, to give them no authority, and to exclude them from office as much as possible; but they are ardent in their zeal for enlightening them by the general diffusion of knowledge. No conceit more wild and absurd than this was ever engendered in the darkest ages, for what is in every age and every country the great stimulus to the pursuit of knowledge, but the prospect of fame, or wealth, or power?' ... 'In proportion as we exclude them, we lose our hold upon them; and were the exclusion entire we should have their hatred in place of their attachment, their feeling would be communicated to the whole population and to the native troops, and would excite a spirit of discontent too powerful for us to subdue or resist....' 'It would' (he says) 'certainly be more desirable that we should be expelled from the country altogether than that the result of our system of government should be made a debasement of a whole people.' The above are wise and weighty words, and it would be well perhaps, even in these days, if more heed were taken of these outspoken opinions of Sir Thomas Munro.

There is, however, another and more recent authority, greater perhaps than any; one who, year after year, and not long before the Mutiny, urged that we should give opportunities to the natives, and enable them to rise to power, civil and military; and who predicted that unless this were done our system must collapse, either in a mutiny or in general despair. That authority is Sir Henry Lawrence, who fell at his post in the Residency of Lucknow, killed by the mutineers in the very crisis which he had, as it were, foretold. Writing in 1855[51] he pointed out that the natives had no outlet for their talents and ambition as of old, and said: 'These outlets for restlessness and ability are gone; others are closing. It behoves us therefore now, more than ever, to give legitimate rewards, and as far as practicable employment, to the energetic few, to that leaven that is in every lump—the leaven that may secure our empire, or may disturb, nay even destroy, it.' Again, he says: 'Legitimate outlets for military energy and ability in all ranks and even among all classes must be given. The minds of subadars and resseldars, sepoys and sowars, can no more with safety be for ever cramped, trammelled, and restricted as at present than can a twenty-foot embankment restrain the Atlantic. It is simply a question of time. The question is only whether justice is to be gracefully conceded or violently seized. Ten or twenty years must settle the point.'

Leaving for the moment the political results of our conquests in India, it will be well now to consider its military aspects; to trace the formation and services of our native armies, and to watch the signs of their gradual decline both in efficiency and loyalty; and I will again give short quotations from the writings of recognised authorities as conveying clear outlines of this interesting and important subject.