[* As they entered the hall at the end opposite the throne, they saw their own figures reflected in the large mirror, which stands behind the throne; and, taking them to be their enemy preparing to charge, they poured their first volley into the mirror, by which many lives were saved at the expense of the glass.]
The Delhi princess, the chief consort of the deceased King, a modest, beautiful, and amiable young woman, who had been forced to join the Begum, in order to give some countenance to the daring enterprise, was, as soon as the guns opened, carried by her two female attendants in her litter to a small side-room, facing the palace at the east end of the throne-room. One of these females had her arm shattered by grape shot, but the other tied some clothes together, and let the princess and her wounded attendant down from a height of about twenty-four feet into a court-yard, whence they were conveyed to her palace by some of her attendants, and all three escaped. The sipahees occupied both of the flights of steps in the northern face of the baraduree. She was afraid, to trust herself to them, and saw no other way of escape than that described.
It was nine o'clock before the palace could be cleared of the insurgents; and the Resident was very anxious that the new Sovereign should be crowned, as soon and as publicly as possible, in order to restore tranquillity to the city, which had become greatly disturbed from the number of loose and desperate characters that always abound in it, and are at all times ready to make the most of any tumult that may arise from whatever cause. The new Sovereign had become greatly agitated and alarmed at the danger to which he and his family had been so long exposed, and at the fearful scene which they witnessed at the close; and the Resident exerted himself to soothe and prepare him for the long and tedious ceremonies of the coronation, while the killed and wounded were being removed and the throne-room and the other halls of the baraduree cleaned out and properly arranged and furnished. When all was ready the Resident conducted him from the palace through the court-yard to the baraduree, accompanied by the brigadier and all the principal officers of the British force and the Court, seated him on the throne, placed the crown on his head, under a royal salute, repeated from every battery in the city, and proclaimed him King of Oude, in presence of all the aristocracy and principal persons of Lucknow, who had flocked to the place on hearing that the danger had passed away.
From the time that the Resident discovered that the King was dead, till the arrival of the five companies under Colonel Monteath, the whole of the British force in this vast city, containing a population of nearly a million persons, amounted to only two companies and a half of sipahees under native officers. One of the companies guarded the Resident's Treasury, one constituted the honorary guard of the Resident, and the half company guarded the gaol. A part of the honorary guard, with as many sipahees as could be safely spared from the Treasury and gaol, were taken by Captain Paton to the palace, and distributed as already mentioned. They all stood nobly to their posts during the long and trying scene, and no attempt was made to concentrate them for the purpose of arresting the tumultuous advance of the Begum's forces. Collectively they would have been too few for the purpose, and it was deemed unsafe to remove them from their respective charges at such a time. The Resident relied upon the minister's repeated assurances that he had taken all necessary precautions to prevent her approach; upon the two companies, called the Khas companies, under the command of Mujd-od Dowlah; and the squadron of one hundred and fifty horse, under Rajah Bukhtawur Sing, whom he had himself ordered to guard the passage by which they entered. Of all these men not one was employed for the purpose. They and their Commanders all stood aloof, and left the British soldiers to their fate.
The minister was a fool, under the tutelage of his deputy, Sobhan Allee Khan, a great knave, who disappeared as soon as he heard that the Begum was approaching with his son-in-law, Khadim Hoseyn. Mozuffer Allee Khan, a person in high office and confidence under the late King, did the same. The minister and the Durbar Wakeel were the only officers of the State of Oude who stood by the new King and the British Resident. The minister afterwards declared that a strong detachment of troops had been placed outside the gate through which the Begum ultimately forced her way, as well as at the other passages leading to the palace and baraduree; and Captain Shakespear, on his way to the new Sovereign, ascertained that guards had actually been posted outside all the other gates leading to the palace and baraduree. From this, the supineness and seeming apathy of many of the palace guards and servants, and the perversion of the orders sent by him before and during the tumult, the minister concluded that there must have been many about him interested in promoting the enterprise of the Begum; and that the approach to the gate through which she forced her way must have been purposely left unguarded. There is now little doubt, that from the time that it became known, that the contest was between Moonna Jan and Nuseer-od Dowlah, a person but little known except as a prudent and parsimonious old man, a large portion not only of the civil and military establishments, but of the population of the city, felt anxious for the success of the Begum's enterprise; for both had, under the harsh treatment of the last two sovereigns, become objects of sympathy.
A good many of the members of the royal family, who were brought up from childhood with the deceased King, Nuseer-od Deen Hyder, and near his person to the last, declare that Moonna Jan was his son; but that the King was ashamed and afraid to acknowledge him after he had so frequently and so formally declared to the British Government that he was not his son, and that he had ceased to cohabit with the boy's mother for two years before his birth. But all such persons admit that Moonna Jan was a boy of ungovernable temper, and the worst possible dispositions; and that he must soon have forfeited the crown by his cruelty, bigotry, and injustice, had he been placed upon it by the British Government. I saw him in January 1838, at Chunar, and a more unpromising boy I have rarely seen.
The ministry dreaded being called to account for their malversations as much from the Begum, on account of their successful efforts to keep the King alienated from her and his son, as from Nuseer-od Dowlah, on account of his parsimony, prudence, and great experience in business during the reign of his able father, Saadut Allee Khan. But they would have a better chance of escape from the Begum and the boy than from the vigilant old man, who afterwards made them all disgorge their ill-gotten wealth; and, in consequence, they made no effort to obstruct her enterprise. The military and civil establishments were all in favour of the boy, who would probably be as regardless of their number and discipline as his father had been, while the old man would assuredly reduce the one, and endeavour, by rigorous measures, to improve the other. Hardly any one at Lucknow at present doubts that the minister and his associates caused the King to be poisoned, and employed Duljeet and the two sisters; Dhunneea and Dulwee, for the purpose, in expectation that the British Government would take upon itself the Oude administration, as the only possible means of improving it.
The respectable and peaceable portion of the city, though their sympathies were with the boy, had too much in property, and the honour of their families, at stake to aid in any movement in his favour, since it would involve a tumult, and for a time, at least, insure the supremacy of the mob. Their security and that of their families depended upon the success of the British troops; and they were all prepared to acquiesce in any cause which the British Government might adopt for the sake of order. They would rather that it should adopt that of the Begum and the boy than that of Nuseer-od Dowlah; but in either case were resolved to remain neuter, and let the representative of the British Government take his own course.
It is a fact not unworthy of remark, that more than three millions sterling, or three crores of rupees, in our Government securities, are held by persons who reside and spend the interest arising from them in the city of Lucknow; and that the fall in their value in exchange during the times that we have been engaged in our most serious wars has been less in Lucknow than in Calcutta, the capital of British India; so much greater assurance do the people feel of our resources being always equal to our exigencies. At such times the merchants of Lucknow commission their agents in Calcutta to purchase up Government securities at the rate to which they fall in Calcutta, for sale at Lucknow, where they seldom fall at all. About three crores and half of rupees, or three millions and half sterling, have been at different times contributed to our loans by the sovereigns of Oude as a provision for the different members of their respective families and dependents; and the interest is now paid to them and their descendants, at the rates which prevailed at the time of the several loans (four, five, and six per cent.) to the amount of fourteen lacs thirty-five thousand and four hundred and ten rupees a-year.
The Begum's haughty and violent temper, and inveterate disposition to meddle in public affairs, were the real cause of her continual disquietude and ultimate disgrace and ruin. The minister of the day dreaded the ascendancy of so imperious and furious a character, should she ever become reconciled to the King. During the whole reign of Ghazee-od Deen, her husband, from the 12th of July 1814, to the 20th of October 1827, her own frequent ebullitions, which often disfigured the King's robes and vests, and left even the hair on his head and chin unsafe, and Aga Meer's sagacious suggestions, satisfied him that his own personal safety and peace of mind, and the welfare of the State, depended upon his keeping as much as possible aloof from her. He was fond of his son, Nuseer-od Deen Hyder, but during his minority he always took the part of his adoptive mother, the Padshah Begum; and, in consequence, remained almost as much as she was alienated from the King, his father. His natural mother died soon after his birth; and people suspected that the Padshah Begum had her put to death that she might have no rival in his affections; and she had an entire ascendancy over him, acquired by every species of enervating indulgences; and he remained all his life utterly without character, ignorant of the rudiments of public affairs, and altogether incapable of taking any useful part in them.