The Sepoys having mutinied or been disarmed throughout the Punjab, it became instantly necessary to supply their place if possible by trustworthy Native troops; to this task he applied himself with the utmost skill and energy. He caused the flower of the Punjab Frontier force, already mentioned in a preceding chapter, to be despatched with extraordinary expedition to Delhi. He raised fresh levies, with very suggestive aid from Edwardes at Peshawur, by selecting men from among the Sikhs and Moslems of the Punjab. He had them rapidly organised for service in every part of the country from Peshawur to Delhi. As these new troops were thus promptly formed, he kept a prudent eye on their total number. Finding this number was mounting to more than fifty thousand men of all arms, he stopped short, considering this to be the limit of safety, and he restrained the zeal of his lieutenants so as to prevent any undue or excessive number being raised. He from the first foresaw that the fresh Punjabi soldiery must not be too numerous, nor be allowed to feel that the physical force was on their side.
The selection of trustworthy Native officers for the new troops required much discrimination; but his personal knowledge of all eminent and well-informed Punjabis enabled him either to make the choice himself, or to obtain guidance in choosing.
It is hard to describe what a task he and his coadjutors had in order to provide this considerable force within a very few weeks—to raise and select trusty men from widely scattered districts, to drill, equip, clothe, arm and officer them, to discipline and organise them in marching order, to place them on garrison duty or despatch them for service in the field. A large proportion of them, too, must be mounted, and for these he had to collect horses.
Special care had to be taken by him for the watch and ward of the long frontier adjoining Afghanistan for several hundred miles, which border had been deprived of some of its best troops for service before Delhi. This critical task, too, he accomplished with entire success.
Further, one notable step was taken by him in respect to the Sepoy regiments. The Sepoys were for the most part Hindostanis, but in every corps there were some Sikhs or Punjabis; he caused these latter to be separated from their comrades and embodied in the newly-formed forces. Thus he saved hundreds of good men from being involved in mutiny.
Anticipating the good which would be exerted on the public mind by the sight of the forces of the Native States being employed under the British standard before Delhi, he accepted the offers of assistance from these loyal feudatories. Under his auspices, the Chiefs in the Cis-Sutlej States were among the first to appear in arms on the British side. Afterwards he arranged with the Maharaja of Jammu and Cashmere for the despatch of a contingent from those Himalayan regions to join the British camp at Delhi; and he deputed his brother Richard to accompany this contingent as political agent.
It was providentially fortunate for him and his that no sympathy existed between the Punjabis and the mutinous Sepoys, but on the contrary a positive antipathy. The Sepoys of the Bengal army who were mutineers nearly all belonged to Oude and Hindostan; the Punjabis regarded them as foreigners, and detested them ever since the first Sikh war, even disliking their presence in the Punjab; he was fully alive to this feeling, and made the very most of it for the good of the British cause. He knew too that they hated Delhi as the city where their warrior-prophet Tegh Behadur had been barbarously put to death, and where the limbs of the dead martyr had been exposed on the ramparts. In the first instance the Punjabis regarded the mutinies as utter follies sure to bring down retribution, and they were glad to be among his instruments in dealing out punishment to the mutineers, and so “feeding fat their grudge” against them. They told him that the bread which the Sepoys had rejected would fall to the lot of the loyal Punjab. Thus he seized this great advantage instantly, and drove the whole force of Punjabi sentiment straight against the rebels, saying in effect as Henry V. said to his soldiers,
“I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot;
Follow your spirit and upon this charge
Cry, ‘God for Harry, England, and St. George.’”
As outbreak after outbreak occurred, he pressed for the signal and condign punishment of the leaders, as a deterrent to those who might yet be wavering between duty and revolt. But this object having been secured, he instantly tried to temper offended justice with at least a partial clemency, lest men should be tempted to rebellion by despair. When batches of red-handed mutineers were taken prisoners, he would intercede so that the most guilty only should be blown from guns, and that the lives of the rest should be spared with a view to imprisonment. In such moments, he would support his appeal by invoking his officers to look into their consciences as before the Almighty. This solemn invocation—rarely uttered by him, though its sense was ever on his mind—attested the earnestness of his conviction.
By this time he and his were regarded as forming the military base of the operations against Delhi. Thither had he sent off many of his best troops and his ablest officers, besides stores and material. Prudential considerations had been duly brought to his notice in reference to the Punjab itself becoming denuded of its resources. But after weighing all this carefully yet rapidly, he decided that the claims of the British besiegers, encamped over against the rebellious Delhi, were paramount, and he acted on that decision.