THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (continued).
THE stipulations of the Treaty of Paris had not been fully carried out by the high contracting parties ere Britain found herself involved in war with Persia on the west, and China on the east of her Indian Empire. The Persian war had been caused by the Shah's temporary occupation of Herat on the pretext of suppressing disorder, followed by certain insults to Mr. Murray, the British representative at Teheran, events in which Lord Palmerston saw "the first opening of the trenches against India by Russia." After a mission to Constantinople had failed to effect an arrangement of the dispute, an army was sent into the country under Outram. A few months of active hostilities brought the Shah to reason, and happily released the troops employed and enabled them to return to India; while the regiments sent out from England to quell the Cantonese arrived in the Indian Ocean just in time to lend material aid in suppressing the mutiny of the Sepoy army in Bengal; and the rebellion of the people of several native States. It was the spring time of 1857. Lord Canning had been one year Governor-General of India. The King of Oude had just been deposed, and his kingdom annexed to the British dominion by Lord Dalhousie, on the ground that he was utterly unfit to rule. This act was productive of the gravest consequences, and is technically indefensible; nevertheless it was justified by its later results, and apparently excited but little notice at the time. On the surface all was peace at the opening of the year. In a few weeks there was a sputter of mutiny; in a few months an army was in revolt from Calcutta to Peshawur; the British were lying dead, or flying for their lives, or fronting and conquering the mutineers, or shut up in forts; and the last of the Great Moguls was ruler in the famous city of Delhi. There was first a struggle for existence, then a fierce and determined effort to regain ascendency; finally, well-planned and successful measures to secure what had been won back literally from the jaws of death. The mutiny of the Bengal Sepoys is an event unique in modern history. It furnishes a story of confidence abused, treachery punished, and heroism rewarded. It vindicates the moral superiority of the European over the Asiatic. But if it has illustrated our strength, it has also illustrated our weakness and folly, for from them it sprang. The Bengal native army was upwards of a hundred thousand strong. It consisted of troops of all arms. There were seventy-four regiments of regular and twenty of irregular infantry; there were ten regiments of regular and eighteen of irregular cavalry; and besides these there was a due proportion of artillery brigades. The distinction between regular and irregular regiments consisted mainly in this: that the regular had the usual number of European officers, while the irregular had only three or four. There was no substantial difference in drill and discipline. In addition to this fixed native establishment, there were five corps d'armÉe furnished by native States, and called contingents. They were drawn from Gwalior, Bhopal, Kotah, Malwa, and Joudpore. These were small armies complete in themselves: the Gwalior contingent, supplied by the Maharajah Scindia, was the most formidable of these forces, being strong in numbers of all arms, and admirably drilled. Like the regular and irregular regiments of the Bengal army, those of the contingents were officered by Europeans. In one short year the whole of this force, except five irregular cavalry regiments and three regular infantry regiments, and the whole of the contingents, had either mutinied or been disarmed. In order to form any reasonable idea of the Then there was the grave evil arising out of caste. The Bengal army was composed mainly of high-caste men from Oude and Behar and Rohilcund. A very large part came from the same districts and were relatives. The army was, in fact, a sort of military club, and caste, as in other clubs, determined admission or exclusion. But what were the consequences? The army became subject to the control of Brahmins and Fakirs. A man was not chosen on account of his fitness to be a soldier, but because he was tall and handsome and of high caste. "Whatever be his other qualifications," writes Colonel Jacob in 1851, as we must repeat, "if a man think that a stone with a patch of red paint on it is not to be worshipped as the Creator—still more, if he have been a shoemaker, etc.—he is not to be admitted into the ranks of the Bengal army, for fear of offending the lazy and insolent Brahmins. The consequences are ruinous to discipline. By reason of this, a native soldier in Bengal is far more afraid of an offence against caste than of an offence against the Articles of War, and by this means a degree of power rests with the private soldier which is entirely incompatible with all healthy rule. Treachery, mutiny, villainy of all kinds, may be carried on among the private soldiers unknown to their officers, to any extent, where the men are of one caste of Hindoos, and where the rules of caste are more regarded than those of military discipline." By this subservience to caste all real power rested in the hands of the private soldier. Thus the Bengal Sepoy would not form what is called a "working party," and it was thought a perfect wonder that in Afghanistan, when fighting for life, a Sepoy regiment handled the spade. A native cavalry regiment would not unsaddle, picket, feed, and groom its horses—a host of inferiors, grooms and grass cutters, were kept for those purposes. To such an extent was this system carried that men were kept to strike the gongs at the guard-houses; the high-caste Sepoy would not do it. And all this time—while the troops of all arms in Bengal were petted and ruined in this way, on the ground that no rule of caste must be infringed lest it should lead to mutiny—in Bombay, Sepoys from the same villages in Bengal, relatives of the pampered gentlemen we have described, did all that their officers required of them, and drilled, lived, and slept side by side with men of many inferior castes. The army wherein caste was the first thing thought of, and discipline and a soldier's duties the second, mutinied from end to end. The army wherein caste was not considered remained faithful, and did good service against the mutineers. Nor was this all. Colonel Jacob's splendid regiment of Scinde Irregular Horse was composed to a very great extent of exactly the same material as that of the Bengal army. It was disciplined on sound principles, in accordance, as we may say, with the laws of Nature. Consequently it did But there were other evils in this unhappy Bengal army. The bad system of promotion was, in the opinion of Colonel Jacob, the worst of all. "In the Bengal army," he says, "the promotion of natives is made to depend on seniority only, so that if a man keeps clear of actual crime, and lives long enough, he must become a commissioned officer, however unfit for the office. Under this system, the private soldier feels himself entirely independent of his officers; he knows that they neither hasten nor retard his advance in the service. He has nothing to do but to live and get through his duties with listless stupidity, and with the least possible trouble to himself. No exertion on his part can help him—neither talent, courage, fidelity, nor good conduct is of any avail. Confidence and pride in each other between men and officers cannot exist. There is no real co-operation; for the one being powerless to aid, the other becomes careless of offending. This is the effect on the private soldier. The system is equally if not more baneful as respects the native officers, commissioned and non-commissioned. The whole of the native commissioned officers are entirely useless; the amount of their pay is a dead loss to the State; every one of them is unfit for service by reason of imbecility, produced by old age, or where, in rare instances, the man may not be altogether in his second childhood, he is entirely useless from having been educated in a bad school." With an army managed as this was, the really surprising thing is not that it mutinied in 1857, but that it did not mutiny years before; indeed, partial revolts were of fairly frequent occurrence, especially when the Sepoys were called upon to serve out of India. Except in the mere outward show, it was not an army at all, and all that was required to destroy it was opportunity. The fact that there were good officers in the Bengal army, beloved and trusted by their men, does not invalidate the opinion we have set forth. These officers had triumphed over the system in so far as the system tended to make the Sepoy despise his officers; but they could not triumph over the system in so far as it affected the men. That bad influence went on with unfaltering steadiness. Day by day the Sepoys felt that they became more and more the masters of India. Day by day a sense of their own importance grew and flourished in their breasts. They were able to conspire with safety under the very noses of the Europeans; and the gulf which separated them from their officers enabled intriguers to sow the seeds of mutiny unchecked and unseen. Thus the native army of Bengal became combustible, ready to take fire and flame up if a spark fell on it. This combustible state was not produced in a year or ten years; it had been growing for a quarter of a century. In short, it grew as the vicious system of depriving commanders of power was developed; as the Sepoys, on plea of caste, shirked more and more the duties of soldiers, and as the senile system of promotion by seniority produced its inevitable effects. The recent annexation of Oude, the late Russian war, the spread of British dominion beyond the Indus, the scanty garrison of Europeans actually in India in 1857—these were only the collateral influences, and only to a limited extent causes. They were, indeed, rather occasions than causes; the root of the whole colossal evil being the absence of discipline in the Bengal army. Let the reader figure to himself this army scattered about the country in military posts, from the eastern provinces on the Irrawaddy to spurs of the mountains beyond the Indus on the north-western boundary. Here they are gathered in brigades of two or three regiments of all arms; there stands a solitary regiment of infantry or cavalry; in another place a squadron or a company. From Fort William in Calcutta, up the valley of the Ganges, and beyond it across the Punjab to Peshawur, ran a chain of military stations; throwing out detachments to the right and left, on one side towards the Himalayas and Nepaul, on the other over the jungles of Central India and Rajpootana, until the outposts touched those of Madras in Nagpore and the Deccan, and those of Bombay in the valley of the Nerbudda. In each of the stations there are the native lines with open parades in front, and the detached quarters of the European community; long rows of thatched dwellings, and cottages standing in gardens or "compounds." In some there are no European troops; indeed, so few are the Europeans in this vast region, that their presence is the exception and not the rule. For instance, the great fort and magazine of Allahabad, at the junction of the Ganges and Jumna, is in the hands of native troops. The fortified city of Delhi, with its two magazines, is entirely occupied by native infantry. In the whole of Oude there is only one European regiment, the 32nd, at Lucknow. At Cawnpore, a very important station, there are no Europeans. Mooltan, the key of the valley of the Indus, is, in like manner, almost destitute of Europeans. In Government had determined to arm the Sepoys with the MiniÉ rifle. It followed, as a matter of course, that Schools for Instruction in Musketry were established. With the old musket instruction was of little avail, for Brown Bess could not be relied on to shoot straight for a distance of a hundred and fifty yards. Therefore, at various points men from several regiments of the native army met to be taught how to load and fire the new rifle. This weapon was loaded with a greased cartridge. It was usual in those days to bite the cartridge, in order to pour out the powder. At Dumdum, near Calcutta, there was an arsenal, and here these cartridges were made up, chiefly by native servants. Early in January one of these men asked a Sepoy of the 2nd Grenadiers for a draught of water from his lotah, or brass drinking-pot. The high-caste native was astonished at the At first, indeed, the men at Dumdum appeared to be perfectly reasonable. Called on at parade to state complaints, they objected to the cartridge, and suggested the use of wax and oil. The Government ordered an investigation, and in the meantime changed the drill, so that in future the end of a cartridge was to be torn not bitten off. General Hearsey, an experienced soldier, well known to all the Sepoys, harangued his division at Barrackpore, showing them how impossible it was that they could be made Christians by the mere biting of cartridges. But all was of no avail. A native lieutenant informed the authorities that the Barrackpore brigade was preparing to mutiny. General Hearsey wrote to Calcutta, saying, "We have at Barrackpore been dwelling upon a mine ready for explosion." He admitted that the native officers were of no use, being afraid of their men, and he suggested that a European regiment should be sent up to the station. At this time, the middle of February, another singular sign was observed. A native policeman entered a village of Oude, carrying two chupatties, or cakes. He ordered his fellow official there to make ten more, and give two to each of the five nearest village policemen, with the same instructions. In a few hours the whole country was astir with watchmen flying about with these cakes. This proceeding was and remains a mystery. One officer who saw a watchman run in with his cakes, asked what it meant. He was told that when the malik, or chief, required a service from his people, he sent round these cakes to prepare them for the execution of his orders. "And what is the order now?" inquired the officer. And the answer, with a smile, was, "We don't know yet." Whatever may have been the reason for this flight of cakes, there it stands in the forefront of calamity, and is regarded as one of its signs. "How little was it thought," writes Mr. Cave Browne, "that therein was really hidden an Eastern symbol of portentous meaning! Five centuries before (1368), the Chinese had, by a somewhat similar plan, organised and carried out a conspiracy by means of which their dynasty of Mongol invaders was overthrown." This is a far-fetched illustration. No doubt, the chupatty mystery had a meaning, though it may never have been clearly ascertained. From Barrackpore a detachment of the 34th Native Infantry went to Berhampore, once a great and important station, 120 miles north of Calcutta. Here were quartered the 19th Native Infantry, the 11th Irregulars, and two guns. The 19th feasted their comrades, and these in return told the story of the cartridges with great additions. John Company had sent Lord Canning to convert India to Christianity, and he had been ordered to begin by destroying the caste of the whole army! The men of the 19th heard, and forthwith believed. They made no inquiries of the English officers. What were the "stranger gentlemen" to them? How could their words in such a matter affect what their brethren had told them? On the day after the detachment had come in, Colonel Mitchell, commanding at the station, ordered a parade for the following morning. The men were to meet for exercise with blank cartridge, and it was served out. These cartridges were not new, and had inadvertently been made of two kinds of paper, whereupon the Sepoys imagined that one sort must be the greased cartridges fatal to their caste. So the men refused to take them. Not ripe at the moment for mutiny, they yielded when threatened with a court-martial. But the same night their passions got the better of them, and they rose and seized their arms. Aroused by the noise and confusion, Colonel Mitchell ordered out the cavalry and the guns. But the night was dark. Torches were necessary. The ground was broken. Neither guns nor horsemen, it is said, could be used. Colonel Mitchell doubted whether he could depend on his native troopers and native gunners. He therefore harangued the mutineers, On learning what had happened at Berhampore, the Government in Calcutta called up the 84th Queen's Regiment from Burmah, and ordered the 19th Native Infantry to march to Barrackpore to be disbanded. As they were marching down, an emissary from the 34th met them with a proposal that, when within a march of the station, the 19th should murder their officers, while the 34th did the same; but the 19th refused, and marched quietly into the cantonment. Here they found the 84th, a wing of the 53rd Foot, two troops of horse artillery, and the Governor-General's body-guard of picked Sepoy troopers. Two days before they were disbanded, a Sepoy of the 34th, Mangul Pandy by name, endeavoured to rouse his regiment. In the presence of the guard, who stood by, he wounded Adjutant Baugh. While those were in deadly strife, the British sergeant-major dashed in; but he was cut down, and the native lieutenant and guard took part in the fray, striking the Europeans. A Mahometan, however, was faithful, and, with the assistance of General Hearsey and other officers Baugh was rescued and Mangul Pandy seized. Riding up to the mutinous guard, with a loaded pistol in one hand, and ordering them back, Hearsey threatened to shoot the first man who disobeyed him, and on this they returned to their posts. Mangul Pandy and the native lieutenant were hanged in due course, and the Mahometan and sergeant-major were rewarded; but for these acts, such was the style of management that prevailed in Bengal, General Hearsey was reprimanded! Otherwise the regiment was unpunished. On the 31st of March—a long delay caused by the fact that there was absolutely no regiment that could be trusted with the disarmament until the return of the 84th Foot from Burmah—the 19th were deprived of their arms, paid up all their arrears, solemnly lectured in the presence of the whole force at the station, European and native, disbanded, marched out of the station, and sent to their homes. The 19th were really not so much in fault as appeared, for they offered, if pardoned, to serve in China or anywhere; but Government held it necessary to make an example. For now the fires in cantonments were more rife than ever all up the valley of the Ganges, the midnight meetings of the Sepoys more numerous, and the excitement of the whole army was fast rising to a climax. These symptoms of mutiny were manifest in Oude and in the North-West. General Anson, the Commander-in-Chief, was on his way to comfortable quarters in the hills. He was altogether unfitted for the deadly conflict impending. He did not understand its gravity, and if he had caught a glimpse of the facts, he would have been unable to deal with them. In the middle of March, with the 36th Native Infantry for escort, he went to Umballa. Two non-commissioned officers of this regiment were at the rifle school. They went out to meet their comrades, and were by them repulsed as outcasts—men who had touched greased cartridges and were defiled. In fact, these natives had not touched greased cartridges, for there were none in the school. But that made no difference to the infatuated 36th. The Sepoys pretended that the rifle with its cartridge was "a Government missionary to convert the whole army to Christianity." By this time the whole army had become aware of its strength, and was in communication from Calcutta to Peshawur. General Anson inspected the depÔt, and suspended the musketry practice of the Sepoys until further orders. He ordered an inquiry, and when all the symptoms were disclosed to him, he actually censured the Sepoys who had made known the fact that they had been repulsed and treated as outcasts by their corps! He next forced the Sepoys, not yet ripe for revolt, to use the cartridge. They did so, but at night they burnt a number of Government buildings. A Sikh now reported the existence of a conspiracy which was to break out in the beginning of May, either at Delhi, Umballa, or Meerut. But General Anson would not believe the information. He was already nestled snugly in the hills, playing whist. And so the month passed away, lighted at its close by blazing cantonments, and marked by the most flagrant signs of universal military disaffection. In addition to this the agents of the King of Delhi and the Shah of Persia and the Moslem priests were at work, preaching a religious war by stealth, while the Hindoo pundits openly prophesied that the reign of the English had lasted its appointed time, and that it was now coming to an end. The month of May came. It was the height of This scene at Lucknow aroused the Government at Calcutta. But mild measures were the order of the day. A native lieutenant at Barrackpore had been caught in the lines of the 70th, urging his men to revolt. He was tried by a native court-martial and sentenced to dismissal. The effect on the Sepoys is indescribable. "This," they said, "the only punishment for mutiny! They are afraid of us; we can do as we like." But, alarmed by the mutiny at Lucknow, Lord Canning determined to disband another regiment. The corrupted 34th was to be so punished this time. Directing the 84th Queen's, a wing of the 53rd, and two batteries of artillery upon Barrackpore, he ordered the officer commanding at the station to disband the mutinous regiment. It was done, but the punishment was felt to be no punishment and the men went off exulting with their pay. In the order of the Governor-General, disaffected soldiers were told that mutiny would draw down upon them sharp and certain punishment like that inflicted The town and station of Meerut lies about forty-five miles north of Delhi, in the upper part of the Doab of the Jumna and Ganges. As no European troops could be stationed in Delhi, without violating the arrangements made when the Great Mogul was dispossessed of his territories, Meerut was fixed on as a station for European troops, and here were the 6th Dragoon Guards, or Carabineers, the 1st Battalion of the 60th Rifles, and two troops of Horse Artillery. There were also the 11th and 20th Native Infantry and the 3rd Native Cavalry. The commander of the station was General Hewitt, a worn-out old officer, of whom it had once been reported officially that he was totally unfit for any command. As the disaffection of the Sepoys was manifest, Colonel Carmichael Smith, of the 3rd Cavalry, determined to bear it no longer. He paraded a part of the regiment, ninety men, and ordered them to take the cartridges, showing them, at the same time, that the end was to be torn not bitten off. Only five obeyed. The rest were deaf to exhortations and warnings. They stood still, in passive mutiny. This fact was reported to Brigadier Archdale Wilson, and by his order the whole of the mutineers were arrested. They were tried, as usual, by a native court-martial and sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. On the 9th of May, by order of General Hewitt, the whole of the force in the cantonment, European and native, was paraded. As soon as they were drawn up, the Europeans were directed to load. Then the mutineers were marched in, and so placed that any resistance would be followed by their destruction. Their uniforms were stripped off and they were placed About five o'clock next day the quiet of the evening was broken. A rocket flew upwards in the Sepoy lines. The 3rd Cavalry rushed forth, seized their arms, and slew at once four of their officers. A party of them gallop away to the gaol, whirling their sabres over their heads. There is only a native guard at the gaol; the doors are thrown open with shouts; they set their imprisoned comrades free. Fourteen hundred convicts are at the same time let loose, who rush eagerly away to reap the harvest of plunder and violence. A party of the Sowars, with the 20th, went to the lines of the 11th, to turn the tide of disaffection in its ranks, for it was not yet entirely gained over. Colonel Finnis was there, endeavouring to address the men and keep them to their duty. They instantly fired at the unfortunate gentleman, whose death decided the wavering regiment. The Sepoys of the 11th now joined with the rest, but protected the officers and ladies. It was the plan of the mutineers to set upon and massacre the Europeans assembled in church. Fortunately, the signal was given too early. The Sepoys fall upon and kill everybody they meet; joined with the rabble of the bazaars, they run to plunder the long line of beautiful cottages in which the European families resided. They push their muskets into the thatch, and fire; in a few minutes they are all in a blaze. Ladies and children are seized with exultation and tormented to death. The Europeans who get clear fly away to the English barracks. All the bungalows in the native lines are burned and sacked. For two hours the work of hell goes on—tumult, murder, pillage, conflagration. They fight for the spoil and kill one another. And what are our soldiers doing? They are all armed and ready, panting with fury, eager to rescue their dying countrywomen, eager for blood and vengeance. To them thus ready for the fray General Hewitt's order comes. What is it? "Defend your lines!" Such was the fatal order. Instead of attacking the mutineers with horse, foot, and artillery, he stood on the defensive. At length he was prevailed on to move; but when he did, the mischief had been completed and the mutineers were speeding southward to Delhi. Moving in the gloom, the angry Europeans came up within sight of some of their foes, and the guns poured a shower of grape into the darkness as the Sepoys vanished. There was no pursuit. Captain Rosser offered to ride after them with horsemen and guns, and follow them to Delhi; but General Hewitt would not hear of it, and returned to his lines! In Delhi all was peace. There were no signs of mutiny in the city or cantonments. There had been a sign of Mahometan disaffection, for a placard had been posted on the walls of the Jumma Musjid, declaring that the Shah of Persia was coming to drive the Europeans from India. The old King of Delhi and his sons and grandsons could not be expected to love us or be loyal to us. They lived a life of conspiracy in those stormy times; they were all sensual, cruel, and idle; but they dared not act openly against the Company. There were three native regiments in the city and cantonments, the 38th, 54th, and 74th, and a native battery. Brigadier Graves commanded the brigade, and he and all the officers had the most complete confidence in the loyalty of their men. It was nine o'clock; from the magazine, which also looked on to the river, a sharp eye saw a body of troopers coming down the Meerut road. The news spread to the Europeans; one after the other they heard of these galloping horsemen. The brigadier, warned by Mr. Hutchinson, at once ordered the 54th, under Colonel Ripley, and two guns, to march. Sir Thomas Metcalfe warned Lieutenant Willoughby at the magazine, and wished that two guns might be planted to sweep the bridge. Fraser and Captain Douglas went into the palace to rouse and induce the king to exert his influence. In the meantime the troopers had ridden up to the bridge, had cut down the sergeant in charge, had crossed over, and were in the palace and the city. They were prompt men, these troopers. So long as there was one white face left, they felt that they were not masters. So when Mr. Fraser expostulated with them, they shot at him, wounded Mr. Hutchinson, and killed a European clerk. Brigadier Graves had not been idle. He first sent word that all Europeans in the city should muster at the Flagstaff Tower, a stone building, with battlements, standing on the centre of the ridge; but his orders were too late, or rather the troopers and felons were too speedy for the orders to be of service. Then, as we have stated, he sent the 54th, followed by two guns, to quell any tumult. But the 54th had no sooner entered the Cashmere Gate than some troopers rode up and shot Colonel Ripley and all his officers, except three who got away. Major Patterson now entered with the guns, and at sight of these the troopers rode off. But the 54th immediately broke up and joined the mutineers. Brigadier Graves sent down three companies of the 74th and two more guns. These only provided fresh mutineers, for not a man would obey orders. The guns were ordered back; but on their road a party of mutineers met them, wounded the horse of the officer in charge and carried the guns back to Delhi. All the Sepoys now became active mutineers. There were two magazines in the station: a large one, containing above a thousand barrels of powder, placed two miles outside the city walls, and at anybody's mercy, and a smaller one within the walls, not far from the palace, containing not more than fifty barrels. It is of the latter we have to write. Sir Charles Napier had condemned this building. Its gates were so weak, he said, a mob could push them in. On the 11th of May there were nine officers and men to defend this magazine. They were Lieutenant George Willoughby in command, Lieutenants Forrest and Raynor; Conductors Buckley, Shaw, and Scully; Sub-Conductor Crow, and Sergeants Edwards and Stewart. Their memories are worthy of all honour. In the forenoon they were beset by a crowd, raging, tumultuous, demanding admission. Seeing this, Willoughby prepared for defence. He closed and barricaded the gates, and a train was laid by Conductors Buckley, Scully, and Sergeant Stewart, ready to be fired at a preconcerted signal, which was that of Conductor Buckley raising his hat from his head, on the order being given by Lieutenant Willoughby. The mob had been balked at the outset. They had been reinforced by a body of the king's soldiers, but still they were kept at bay. But when the old king and his counsellors found that the troops in cantonments were in revolt, that the spies he sent out returned reporting that no British were coming from Meerut, and that the Native Infantry from Meerut had entered Delhi, then fresh troops poured down upon the magazine. The whole of the besieging crowd were eager for powder and arms. The king's soldiers summoned the Europeans to surrender. They were defied. Then the crowd swarmed to the attack and opened fire. At the first round the natives in the magazine fled. But the nine Englishmen remained. Scaling-ladders were brought; Sepoys mounted the tombs in the burial-ground overlooking the enclosure, and fired on the little garrison. These plied their foes with grape, but as fast as the iron sleet swept away one body, another followed. For five hours the gallant nine maintained the unequal contest. Scully stood by the trunk of a tree, ready to fire the mine. Every moment the attack The explosion of the magazine may be regarded as the last act in defence of Delhi. The fugitives who had reached the Flagstaff Tower were now crowded within it, uncertain of their fate. The Sepoys who surrounded the two guns were watched by armed Europeans from the roof of the tower; but it would have been destruction to fire. The ladies were loosening cartridges, and the men were resolving on defence when defence was hopeless. One by one the fugitives had come in. Major Abbott had brought up a cartload of dead and wounded officers. The Sepoys were growing defiant. When the magazine blew up they became excited; they had long refused to obey orders; they now told the officers they had better be gone, "this was no longer a place for them." The words were true. All who could got carriages or horses, and those who could get neither, set out on foot. The Sepoys did not oppose them. The brave Brigadier Graves, Captain Nicholl, and Dr. Stewart lingered to the last; but at length these went also, and Delhi was in the power of the king and the Sepoys. An attempt had been made to blow up the great magazine, but the Sepoys frustrated it, and so ended the scene. One Sepoy only followed the officers in their flight. The fugitives bent their steps towards Kurnaul, and only some arrived. They were beset by the village marauders, who robbed and wounded, or murdered, all parties alike. Some were nearly naked, their clothes having been torn from them; some were severely wounded; some lay down to die from fatigue and grief. It was a dreadful night; and in Delhi there were still forty-three persons, chiefly women and children. They had taken refuge in the palace; on the 18th of May the poor creatures were given up to the mutineers, and massacred in a body by them and the king's brutal sons. Sir Henry Lawrence, ever vigilant and prompt, saved Lucknow for a time, by disarming the 7th Oude Irregulars, on the 3rd of May. On the 12th Sir Henry held a durbar, and rewarded, with solemn forms, a subahdar, a havildar, and two Sepoys, who had been instrumental directly in arresting emissaries who were preaching sedition. Sir Henry made a noble speech to the soldiers representing all the native forces in the cantonment, praised, warned, exhorted them, and so he gained a month to prepare for a doom that was inevitable; a month to prepare and provision a fortified post in the heart of Lucknow, where a handful of Europeans and a few faithful natives were destined, with endless honour, to uplift and keep flying the British standard in one of the centres of rebellion. The electric telegraph saved the Punjab. We have already told how from the office in Delhi went a message along the wire to Lahore. It was read at Umballa, en route; it was read at Lahore; it was shot north-westward to Sir John Lawrence at Rawul Pindee, and to Herbert Edwardes, John Nicholson, and Sydney Cotton at Peshawur. They had it by noon in Lahore: a messenger coming in from Meerut confirmed it. By eventide Sir John Lawrence had read the momentous words at Rawul Pindee; by midnight they were scanned at Peshawur. They fell into the hands of men prompt to face and to overcome danger; keen of sight and swift of action. There was to be no paltering with mutiny in the Punjab. The Britons were resolved to be masters in that land. The morning of the 12th of May brought fresh and fuller tidings, and out of them grew a fixed resolve. The Europeans had kept the secret imparted by the magic dial, and determined to be first in the field. There were at Mean Meer, six miles from Lahore, three regiments of native infantry and one of cavalry. These Brigadier Corbett and Mr. Montgomery and others, after brief deliberation, resolved to disarm. The means at hand were slight, but sufficient for brave men. They were the 81st Queen's, and two troops of horse, and four companies of foot artillery. A ball had been appointed for the night of the 12th, and it was agreed that this festivity should be held, and that the troops should parade on the morning of the 13th. The 12th brought fresh news. A Sikh discovered and revealed a plot to seize the fort in Lahore, and massacre every white man. The authorities kept their discovery to themselves, and prepared by a bold stroke to anticipate the conspirators. The ball was held. The revel was kept On the same day there were other deeds performed between the Ravee and Sutlej. On the right bank of the latter river, and commanding the Great Road from Delhi to Lahore, stands the fort of Philour. To the south-east, over the river, is the cloth-working town of Loodiana, also on the Great Road, and to the north-west the cantonment of Jallandhar. Philour was wholly in the hands of the Sepoy guard, and a native regiment, the 3rd, was encamped under its walls. There were only eight Europeans in the fort, one of whom, Mr. Brown, had arrived on the 12th of May with telegraphic apparatus to open communication with Jallandhar. For when the At Jallandhar itself very vigorous measures had been taken. We have seen how Philour was saved. Mr. Ricketts, at Loodiana, was also warned to look sharply after the bridge of boats which carries the traffic of the Great Road over the Sutlej. The troops at Jallandhar were, the 6th Cavalry, the 36th Native Infantry, and the 61st Native Infantry, the 8th Queen's, and one troop of Horse Artillery. Brigadier Hartley would have disarmed the natives, but he feared for the out-stations; so he contented himself with taking ample precautions, by an able disposition of his guns and his European infantry. The civil chief of the station appealed for aid to the Rajah of Kuppoorthulla, a Sikh chief, whose territories lie between the Beas and the Sutlej, and the Rajah responded with promptitude, bringing up at once a body of troops and guns. This was the first evidence of the goodwill of the Sikh chieftains in this district. They were destined to render the most valuable services in the trying days at hand. Thus was mutiny for a time parried at Jallandhar. Far different had been the incidents of the crisis at Ferozepore. This town stands on the left bank of the Sutlej, nearly due south of Lahore, and below Loodiana; it contained the largest arsenal in Upper India and its importance was immense. The brigade at the station consisted of the 10th Cavalry, the 45th and 57th Native Infantry, the 61st Queen's, and three batteries; the whole under Brigadier Innes, who had just arrived from Mooltan. Strong symptoms of disaffection had appeared among the 57th but not in the 45th, or the 10th Cavalry. When on the 13th decisive news arrived, the brigadier held a council of war; but here, as in all other stations, his avowed suspicions of the native troops were sharply combated by their own officers. He adopted a half measure: he resolved to divide the two native regiments, placing them so that the Europeans and the guns would be between them, and he intended to disarm them the next day. On the evening of the 13th he held a parade, at the same time threw a hundred men of the 61st into the magazine, and selected the best positions for his artillery. From the parade he directed the 57th to march in one direction, and the 45th in another. The former obeyed, and encamped quietly in their new quarters; but the 45th took a route that brought them in sight of the magazine, which they made an unsuccessful attempt to rush. In the meantime the 61st had to guard the barracks, where the women and children had sought shelter, as well as the magazine, and thus were compelled to look on while the mutineers and the mob burnt the cantonments. The 57th took no part in the mischief, and the next day gave up their arms and colours. The 45th were still bent on wrong doing, and as a precaution, the brigadier blew up the regimental magazines. Then the 45th, except a few, broke into open mutiny, and set out for Delhi, pursued by the Europeans and the 10th. Very few escaped, for the 10th caught some, and the villagers brought in others. Brigadier Innes had now leisure to secure all the powder and stores. Of the native force, the 10th alone retained their arms and received General Anson's thanks for their loyalty. In a few weeks they too were mutineers. There were three other points of moment: one of supreme importance in the Punjab-Peshawur. The others were Kangra and Mooltan. Kangra was to the Rajpoots of the hills what Umritsir was to the Sikhs of the plains—a place invested with a moral prestige. Major Lake, getting one of Mr. Montgomery's notes from Lahore, marched a body of Punjab police into Kangra and it was secured. We have already seen the men of the 8th enter Philour at dawn. Mooltan, standing on the left bank of the Chenab, a few miles above its junction with the Indus, was the key of the whole country around the point where the five rivers become one. It commanded the navigation; it was the connecting link between the Punjab and Scinde and the Punjab and South Afghanistan. There were only sixty Europeans there, and 3,500 natives. Of these the most dreaded were the 62nd and 69th Native Infantry; their officers alone were full of trust in them. Major Crawford Peshawur was, after all, the critical point in the Punjab. Five infantry regiments of the Bengal army were there, the 21st, 24th, 27th, 51st, and 64th; three cavalry regiments, the 5th Regulars, and the 17th and 18th Irregulars. In three adjacent forts were detachments of a Hindoo regiment, called the Khelat-i-Gilzies. The British force consisted of the 70th and 87th, and four batteries; in all about 2,000 men. At Noushera, the station at the east end of the Peshawur Valley, and more than twenty miles off, were the 27th Queen's, the 55th Native Infantry, the 10th Irregulars, and a battery. At Hotee Murdan, a mountain station, sixteen miles north of Noushera, were the Guides, natives, but true as steel, because raised, officered, and disciplined on sound principles. These were the forces, native and British, north of the Indus. The Europeans were outnumbered by three to one. The telegram from Lahore was received here and kept secret. The men who had to deal with probable mutiny were Brigadier Sydney Cotton, Colonels Edwardes, Nicholson, and Neville Chamberlain, for General Reid, the Commander-in-Chief, was not one of the prime moving spirits. On the morning of the 12th a council was held, and swift were its decisions. The bold spirit of John Nicholson suggested at once that the British should take the initiative and form a movable column, so that aid might be rendered where it was required, and visible tangible power shown to all. To form this column, the 55th Native Infantry were ordered to occupy Hotee Murdan; so that the Guides might join the 27th Queen's at Noushera, and that these two should form the kernel of the column. At the same time the 64th Native Infantry were split up into three parts, and sent to the forts near Peshawur. The next morning, the 13th, the council heard the news of the disarming at Lahore, and proceeded with the work. Sir John Lawrence, though at Rawul Pindee, talked with his coadjutors by telegraph, and at his suggestion General Reid joined him, and thus the heads of the two public services were united. The measures taken extended over a wider field. The Punjabee infantry and the Sikh regiments, the remains of the old Khalsa army, were called in from all quarters to join the movable column. Not only was the station made safe, and the passage of the Indus at Attock secured, but Edwardes and Nicholson took advantage of their popularity on the frontier to call for aid from the very tribes whom it had been their business to rule, and to rule with no unsteady hand. For the moment these men, by boldness, promptitude, and sagacity, held down the raging element of mutiny on both banks of the Indus, and finally drew its teeth with little loss. But for the present we must leave them with these armed traitors all around, to show what General Anson was doing in the first week after the outbreak at Meerut. We have already caught a glimpse of General Anson, whose distinction among men it was to be the greatest whist-player in either hemisphere. We have seen him at Umballa, misunderstanding the mutiny, and snubbing Sepoys and Sepoy officers for telling tales. He was on the road to Simla, and to Simla he went. Below him were spread out the Cis-Sutlej States, governed chiefly by native Sikh chiefs who owned allegiance to the Company. It was among these that we had sought and found our earliest allies. We have seen how the Rajah of Kuppoorthulla cast his lot at once with ours. There were others ready to follow his example. The whole country below had been for three days in the ferment of mutiny; the troops at Lahore had been disarmed; the movable column had been formed, an outbreak of the 5th and 60th Native Infantry at Umballa on the 10th of May had been frustrated by a mere accident; and blood had been shed at Ferozepore, before General Anson heard that there was any serious mutiny in the army. When the famous message from Delhi reached Umballa, General Barnard sent off Captain Barnard, his aide-de-camp, to inform the Commander-in-Chief. As he passed through Kussowlie, he warned the 75th Foot to be ready to march at a moment's notice. On the 12th he astonished the Commander-in-Chief by presenting the Delhi telegram! It was fortunate for General Anson that he had with him at that moment men like Colonel Chester and Major Norman. Whatever indecision there may have been in the mind of the chief, there was none in that of his subordinates, and when he could not decide, they decided for him. Orders were sent that very night for the march of the 75th and for the 2nd Fusiliers to be ready for marching, and the 1st Bengal Fusiliers at once to Umballa; But General Anson did not stir. Fresh news came in on the 13th, as precise as it was horrible. The Pending the arrival of General Anson the civil authorities had not been idle. Acting under the inspiration and on the orders of Sir John Lawrence, whose comprehensive mind embraced the whole state of affairs north of Delhi, Mr. Barnes and Mr. Forsyth had called upon the Maharajah of Putteeala, and the Rajahs of Jheend and Nabha, for the aid of troops, provisions, carriage, and it was instantly granted. Detachments of their forces were sent to guard fords and places of importance in the country, to Loodiana, and on the road to Kurnaul. The military commissaries could not meet the immense demand for transport; it was met by the civilians. These were days of vast activity. For the first time European soldiers mounted sentry, and European officers rode and walked in the burning sun. With the aid of the native princes the civilians took firm hold on the country between the Jumna and the Sutlej, and thus secured the road from Delhi to the Punjab, whence troops and ammunition and spirited counsels alone could come. One of the first acts of General Anson, or rather of his able staff officers, was to organise a siege train at Philour. The order, however, did not reach that fort until the 17th, and four days elapsed before it could be prepared. In the meantime, a Ghoorka battalion near Simla, which nobody doubted was badly managed, broke into mutiny, creating a disgraceful panic at Simla. The siege train had to be entrusted to the escort of the 3rd Native Infantry, encamped at Philour. Part of this regiment, and of the 4th Cavalry, had already been sent to guard a small supply of ammunition for the Europeans. It was said the 3rd had sworn the siege-train should never reach Delhi, and it is not an improbable story; nevertheless, when, hearing that the Ghoorkas were in revolt, they volunteered to act as escort, the offer was accepted. The train crossed the Sutlej, and two hours afterwards the bridge was carried away. Perplexed and harassed by the responsibility thrown upon him, General Anson reached Kurnaul on the 25th; on the 26th he was attacked by cholera, and on the 27th of May he died. It may be said he died of a consciousness of his own incapacity to contend with the gigantic difficulties around him. It was not his fault that he was neither a Lawrence nor a Montgomery, neither a Havelock nor a Campbell; but it was the fault of the British Government that they selected a man of such moderate abilities and no force of character to command the Indian army. On the 26th the Delhi Field Force under Sir Henry Barnard reached Kurnaul, and Sir Henry assumed command. It was now nearly the end of May, twenty days since the mutiny began; and here were the troops from Umballa and the brigade from Meerut converging on a point, to effect a junction and lay siege to Delhi. By this time the Punjab had been the theatre of more decision and vigour. Sir John Lawrence, Mr. Montgomery, and their able coadjutors had shown how mutiny should be dealt with. No half measures were adopted. They went upon the time-honoured principle that he who is not for us is against us. "Treason and sedition," writes one of the Punjab men, "were dogged into the very privacy of the harem, and up to the sacred sanctuaries of the mosques and shrines." Mr. Montgomery banished red tape. All letters were intercepted; all important ferries, fords, and roads were watched. Rewards were offered for fugitive mutineers, dead or alive. It was soon found that the population were on our side, and the villagers ready to stop mutineers, or to report their movements. The Hindostanee soldiers had boasted throughout the Punjab that they had conquered it, and now it was the turn of the Sikh and the Punjabee. The Sikhs were burning to march on Delhi. More than a century and a half before, Aurungzebe, the Great Mogul, had beheaded a prophet of the Sikhs in his palace at Delhi, and there was a prophecy current that the Sikhs, in conjunction with the British, should sack Delhi, and avenge the death of their martyr Gooroo. This made the work of the British leaders less difficult; but it was, in the middle of May, still a problem whether we should stand or fall. SIR JOHN LAWRENCE (AFTERWARDS LORD LAWRENCE). The Punjab still had to be made safe. Peshawur was not yet secure. The blow to be struck there by the Sepoys had only been parried. The hill tribes looked on with suspicion and doubt. The cantonments were full of intrigue. The Sepoys were the first to draw down on themselves the doom awaiting them. The 55th had been sent from Noushera to Hotee Murdan, and the 64th into their forts near Peshawur. This had reduced the force to be watched to four infantry and three cavalry regiments. They had all heard of the success of their "brothers" at Meerut and Delhi. In spite of vigilant watching and severe measures, these regiments were in close communication. But some of the letters seized not only showed that an extensive conspiracy existed, but revealed its nature. Happily, Colonel Nicholson felt danger in the air, and induced Sir John Lawrence to send back half the 27th Foot to the Indus. Happily, also, the Punjabee troops on the frontier were coming in. But there was no time to lose. The Sepoys in the station were ripe for revolt, and the plot formed was only discovered eight-and-forty hours before the time fixed for its execution. The 51st Native Infantry at Peshawur sent a letter to the 64th and the Khelat-i-Gilzies, inviting them to march into Peshawur on the 22nd of May, and hinting what should then be done. The letter got safely to hand, but the Sepoy who received it took it to the officer commanding at one of the three forts. The officer sent it back instantly to Peshawur, and thus saved the station. Now was the time to disarm the whole of the native troops. It was the 21st of May. Edwardes had just come in from Rawul Pindee. Promptly a council was held, and although the colonels of the Sepoy regiments—as they did every where—vehemently refused to believe that their men were mutinous, Cotton, Edwardes, and Nicholson saw more clearly, and would not be gainsaid. News from Noushera and Hotee Murdan quickened their resolves into acts. The 55th were in open mutiny. Brigadier Cotton decided that the 24th, 27th, and 51st Native Infantry, and the 5th Cavalry should be disarmed on the 22nd. The 21st Native Infantry and the 7th and 15th Irregular Cavalry were still trusted. The hazardous operation was performed with complete More had to be done, for the 55th were in open mutiny at Noushera and Hotee Murdan. The first-named station lies on the road from Peshawur through Attock on the Indus to Rawul Pindee and Lahore. The second lies to the north, over the Cabul river, which, twisting down through the rocky bottom of the Khyber pass, joins the Indus near Attock. The 55th had marched to Noushera on the 13th. The 27th Foot had gone eastward. The Guides were hurrying towards Delhi. The 55th held Hotee Murdan, had two companies at Noushera, and one on the right bank of the Indus, opposite Attock. There, too, were a hundred Pathans, under Futteh Khan, once a captain in the Guides, and in the fort of Attock were the 5th Punjabees. The 55th men opposite Attock tried to seduce the Pathans from their allegiance; but these were true and revealed the secret. Finding they were discovered, the 55th men mutinied and made for Noushera. Here they were met and captured by the 10th Irregulars, but from these they were rescued by their comrades in the station. It happened that Lieutenant Davies had under his orders a few men of the 27th Foot, who were guarding the sick, and the women and children of the regiment, and these, though few in number, displayed so bold a front that the mutineers recoiled, and hurried away to Hotee Murdan. But, finding that the bridge of boats over the Cabul river had been broken, the greater part marched back and only a few joined their regiment. When the 55th heard that a force under Nicholson was coming against them from Peshawur, they prepared to hurry off into the hills, but were caught and scattered like dust before the wind. From Hotee Murdan, the Peshawur column, under Colonel Chute, moved upon the three forts, garrisoned by the 64th Native Infantry and the Khelat-i-Gilzies. Chute reached the first fort, Aboozai, and easily disarmed the men of the 64th who were there. He reached Subkuddur the next day, and disarmed the men of the 64th, both in that fort and in Fort Michnee. Peshawur was no longer in danger; the whole of the trans-Indus region had been secured. It had been shown that although the Irregular Hindostanee Cavalry could not be trusted, yet that the Punjabees were true, for the men of the 5th had not hesitated a moment to shoot a cavalry mutineer, who had incited his comrades to murder an officer. Improving on their bold policy, the leaders at Peshawur levied new corps among the frontier tribes—hitherto our direst foes—and found them trusty warriors; drew enough men from the British Infantry to make a squadron of horse, and mounted them on the chargers of the disarmed native cavalry; formed in like manner a battery, took the Sikhs out of the disarmed regiments, re-armed them, and placed them in a separate regiment. The old Sikh leaders eagerly came forward, and soon there was the nucleus of a new and trusty native army of Sikhs and Punjabees. It is recorded of a frontier chief that when he heard the story of the Meerut and Delhi atrocities, filled with rage, he spat on the ground, and said with wrath, "Who can charge us with ever touching a helpless woman or defenceless child? No! we would not do it, not for a prince's ransom!" And it was true. The North-West was now completely cut off from Calcutta. The 9th Native Infantry, stationed at different towns on the trunk road between Agra and Delhi, mutinied on the 20th, 22nd, 23rd, and 24th of May, and marched to Delhi. Some gallant Europeans—Mr. Patterson Sanders, a zemindar of those parts, among them—forming a little squadron of cavalry, remained for months afterwards about Allyghur; but with this exception British rule ceased in the Doab below Delhi. At Agra, indeed, the British stood out bravely amid a sea of mutiny roaring around them, suffered their moments of peril, had their combats and hair-breadth escapes, but nevertheless survived. At the end of May mutinies increased on all sides. Let the reader bear in mind that, from the 10th of May onwards, there were, day after day, incessant explosions of Sepoy regiments, sometimes bloody and cruel, sometimes mild—that is, not followed by the slaughter of many of our kin. The track of the mutiny ran from the Delhi country eastward, through the Doab into Behar, and north and south, marking Rohilcund and Oude, and Central India, with many bloody spots; for the Sepoys were many, and the British were few—so few, that they could be reckoned by hundreds, while their exasperated foes were numbered We shall take the events in chronological order. On the 16th of May the native sappers stationed at Roorkee were ordered to march to Meerut. They mutinied, slew Captain Fraser, and strode away to Delhi. On the 20th, a spy, caught and surrendered by the 9th Native Infantry at Allyghur, was hanged in the presence of the regiment, the bulk of whom seemed to approve. But one suddenly crying, as he pointed to the corpse, "Behold a martyr to our religion!" the whole of the companies present broke into mutiny. They spared the officers, but plundered the place, liberated the convicts, and marched to Delhi. In four days the whole regiment was in revolt; but it is distinguished among other regiments, because it did not commit murder. At Mynpooree, Lieutenant De Kantzow rendered himself conspicuous by his sterling courage. He stood up against the mutineers, exhorting, remonstrating, threatening. When some pointed their muskets at him, he folded his arms and bade them fire if they dared. When they tried to storm the treasury, he was there to resist, and, aided by the gaol-guard, he induced the raging multitude to turn away. They went off to Delhi, and De Kantzow received the thanks of Lord Canning, and a command. On the 28th the Hurrianah battalion rose at Hansee and Hissar, a few miles south-west of the Great Road from Delhi to Kurnaul, and murdered every European they could overpower; and on the same day, showing how the mutineers acted from a common feeling, the 15th and 30th Native Infantry stationed at Nusseerabad, in Rajpootana, seized their arms and a native battery, and began to shed blood. The 1st Bombay Lancers charged them, but without effect, and then retreated, with the surviving Europeans, to a place of safety, while the mutineers went forth towards the common centre, Delhi. Two days afterwards, the Lucknow Brigade showed itself in its true colours; within twelve hours the Bareilly Brigade revolted, and within a week the whole of Rohilcund and Oude, save Lucknow, had been wrested from British rule. Lucknow city stands on the right bank of the Goomtee, one of the tributaries of the sacred Ganges. Within the city was a most turbulent population; without, a camp swarming with mutinous Sepoys. The only men who could be trusted wholly were the 32nd Foot and the Europeans, civilians, merchants, and traders dwelling in Lucknow. The chief commissioner was Sir Henry Lawrence; the Financial Commissioner, Mr. Gubbins. Another commissioner was Major Banks. Colonel Inglis commanded the 32nd Foot, and Brigadier Gray the native troops. In and near the cantonments were 4,800 foot, and 2,100 horse, with two batteries of artillery. In the whole of Oude there were 19,200 native troops, and only one British regiment and one company of British artillery, in all 800 men. These last were at Lucknow. Thus, there were upwards of twenty to one against us. But in the mutinies about to occur, all our enemies did not turn upon us at once; and such preparations had been made to secure a stronghold, that, when nearly all had fallen away, there still remained a place of refuge for the civilians and traders, and a place for all to defend. Nearly the whole of the troops in Oude were ripe for revolt, and the people were becoming suspicious of our ability to maintain our power. The state of transition from the rule of the ex-king to that of the Governor-General helped to create disaffection. The sway of the former was irregular and inequitable; the sway of the latter, though regular and equitable, had not come fully into play. In Oude, the maxim of all was, and had long been, every one for himself. The villagers were accustomed to resistance; the talookdars, rulers of petty and sometimes extensive districts, were accustomed to revolt. In the latter end of May Sir Henry Lawrence sent a small column, under Captain Hutchinson—who wrote an interesting memoir of the mutinies—to move about between the Goomtee and the Ganges, and fourteen miles from Lucknow this column was watched by armed villagers. The great province of Oude, so full of fighting men, had not, like the Punjab, been disarmed when it was annexed, and we were about to pay the penalty of over-confidence. This column had not been gone two days before the troops in the cantonment mutinied. As usual, they gave no premonitory sign. It was well known that the native troops might break out any day, and on the 30th of May a Sepoy reported that the troops would rise in the On the very day after this outburst at Lucknow, on Sunday, the 31st, Bareilly and Shahjehanpore were the scenes of horrible atrocities. At the latter, the 28th Native Infantry selected the moment when the Europeans were at church, and tried to slay them altogether; but they failed. Mr. Ricketts was killed in the church, with others, and Major James fell on the parade ground. The greater number took to the country, and reached Mohumdee. Here they found Captain Patrick Orr, with a company of the 9th Oude, and these were reinforced by fifty men from Seetapore. Captain Orr extracted from the native officers an oath binding them to escort the whole party to Seetapore; but they had not gone far before the troops turned them adrift to go where they pleased. They went, but the ruffian Sepoys soon followed, and near Aurungabad began the work of murder. The Sepoys, strangely enough, saved Orr and a drummer boy, and took them to Lonee Singh, of Mithowlee. The tragedy at Bareilly made a deep impression. That Sunday was a day fatal to the British. At Bareilly there were two regiments of native infantry, one of cavalry, and a battery, under Brigadier Sibbald. Happily, the women and children had been sent to the hills. There were no European troops in Rohilcund; the Sepoys had nothing to fear. They had only delayed the execution of their intentions in the hope that their officers could be induced to call their wives and children from Nynee Tal. Finding the hope vain, they mutinied in the most complete way. On that quiet Sunday, being all agreed, they suddenly opened with both grape and musketry on the officers, while a detachment released 3,000 felons, and the fierce Rohillas rushed out to burn and slay. The devastation of the camp completed the day's work. Khan Bahadar Khan, an old servant of the Company, proclaimed himself king, and appointed a native officer of artillery to be his general. Then he held a court, tried two European judges, found them guilty, and caused them to be hanged. The Bareilly Brigade was not long in marching to Delhi, but nothing, except the fatuity of General Hewitt, saved it from disruption, if not destruction, at a ferry over the Ganges. Seetapore, in the westernmost division of Oude, lies on the Sureyan river, about fifty miles north of Lucknow. It was the seat of government for Khyrabad. The commissioner there was Mr. George Christian. The troops there consisted wholly of natives, one regiment being the 41st Native Infantry, the others being Oude Irregulars. Here, too, mutiny was felt to be in the air. Here, too, the British officers refused to believe that their men could revolt, and even Mr. Christian believed he could trust the Oude Irregulars. All the troops were paid on the 2nd of June; on the 3rd they broke into mutiny. Like the regiments at Bareilly, these men reproached their officers because they had sent their women and children into the commissioner's house. How many were actually slain at Seetapore is not known, but twenty-four can be named and numbered—among them Mr. and Mrs. Christian. Among those who escaped towards the hills on the north was Captain Hearsey of the Military Police, whose men protected him and even saved two ladies. The wanderings of Captain Hearsey and the fugitives from different quarters whom he met, surpass in romantic incidents the inventions of the novelist. After eight months' wanderings, Hearsey rejoined the army of Sir Colin Campbell, by making an immense detour through the hills, and issuing into the plains far north of Meerut. The mutiny of Jhansi was even more tragic than this of Seetapore. Jhansi was formerly one of the independent principalities of the extensive region known as Bundelcund. It stands between the Betwa and the Sinde rivers, two affluents of the Jumna, and is 100 miles from Calpee and 150 from Agra. It had been annexed by Lord Dalhousie. He had refused to recognise the adopted heir of the last Rajah, and the Ranee, his wife, refused, so angered was she, to accept a pension from the British Government. There were parts of two regiments at Jhansi. The Ranee, an able and bold woman, saw her opportunity for revenge had come. As soon as she heard of the successful mutinies of the Sepoys in the North-West, she instigated the regiments in her city to follow their example. The Europeans had determined to make a stand in the fort, and this they provisioned; but a company of Sepoys entered on the 4th of June, and declared they intended to hold the fort, thus depriving the British of a defensible post. A parade was held; the Sepoys were respectful, and swore to stand by their officers. The place of refuge now selected by the residents was the town fort. In a few hours the whole native force was in revolt. The cavalry began the fray. Riding over the plain, they met and shot two officers of the 12th Native Infantry. "They then made a rush at their own commanding officer, who, well mounted, was making for the fort; but, though they managed to wound him, he reached the fort in safety, and our countrymen on the ramparts, opening fire on his pursuers, killed some five or six of them.... With loud shouts, the mutineers then proceeded against the fort, and on the second day the Ranee sent her guns and elephants to assist them. But there was not only force without, there was treachery within. The Europeans numbered only fifty-five, including women and children; the natives who were with them were numerically superior. Two of these, brothers, were discovered in the act of opening one of the gates to the enemy. Lieutenant Powys, who saw them, instantly shot one dead, and was himself cut down by the brother. Captain Burgess avenged him in a second, and the assassins lay side by side in the ditch. But provisions were failing them; two attempts to communicate with Nagode and Gwalior had been abortive; some Europeans who had tried to escape over the parapet had been caught and killed; all appeared In the interval between the 4th and the 10th of June the whole of the troops at Cawnpore and throughout Oude had revolted. Cawnpore demands a separate story, and we turn again to Oude. There were five considerable stations. On the 8th the troops at every one became their own masters. The military station in the Bareytch division, north of Lucknow, was Secrora. The Commissioner of the Division, Mr. Wingfield, later Chief Commissioner of Oude, was at Secrora. Feeling that the two regiments and battery there would mutiny, the ladies and children were sent by the officers to Lucknow on the 7th, and were met halfway by a body of Sikhs and volunteer horse, and taken to the residency. Mr. Wingfield rode off to Gonda, determined to take refuge at Bulrampore. The next day all the remaining officers, except Lieutenant Bonham, started for Gonda, for the troops rose and bade them go. Lieutenant Bonham was protected by his men for a day. Then he, too, was obliged to leave, and he made his way across country to Lucknow. The Europeans at Gonda were now forced to retreat, and they were fortunate in finding shelter at Bulrampore, and they finally got into Goruckpore, and were saved. But three officers, all in the civil service, retreating from Bareytch disguised as natives, were recognised at the main ferry over the Gogra, and all murdered, after they had made a gallant defence. The division of Fyzabad lies to the south-east of Lucknow, and extends from the Ganges to the Gogra. The chief station was Fyzabad, a town on the left bank of the Gogra, just then notorious for the sharp quarrel which had occurred in the previous February between the Moslems and Hindoos. Here lay in gaol that moulvie who had traversed Hindostan preaching sedition, and whose daring had compelled the Government to employ force against him, and to put him in prison. There were two regiments of infantry, one of cavalry, and a horse battery at Fyzabad. These were known to be so disposed to mutiny that the civilians had sent their wives and children to Shahgunge, a fort belonging to Rajah Maun Sing, a powerful talookdar. Several other European women and children joined them, but some of the officers' wives remained. On the 8th it was clear that the dreaded moment was at hand. Mutineers were coming up the river from Goruckpore and Azimghur, notably the 17th Native Infantry, whose agents entered the lines at Fyzabad, and summoned the troops there to join. This they did on the night of the 8th of June. "They did not go through the form of pretending a grievance, but said they were strong enough to turn us out of the country, and intended to do it." Nevertheless, these men would not murder their officers. They provided them with money and boats wherewith to descend the Gogra, and then, with horrible treachery, instigated the 17th to waylay the boats at Begumgunge and kill the Europeans. Twenty officers and sergeants and one lady embarked in four boats. Of these only six escaped; for as the boats approached Begumgunge, the Sepoys of the 17th opened fire on the fugitives. Some fell wounded, others were killed. At Sultanpore were Fisher's Irregulars and two foot regiments. Colonel Fisher, the commandant, sent away the ladies and children, who, befriended by Madho Sing, reached Allahabad, plundered, but alive. But the Military Police shot Colonel Fisher, his own men, who "liked him," looking on. They slew Captain Gibbings, and ordered Lieutenant Tucker to be gone. Mr. Block and Mr. Stroyan were also cruelly and treacherously murdered near Sultanpore. The British at Salone on the Sye, and Durriabad, north of the Goomtee, receiving protection from zemindars and talookdars, their lives were preserved. It was thus that, in ten days, all the native troops in Oude freed themselves from British control; and by a sort of common impulse directed their steps towards Nawabgunge Bara Baukee, which became the point of concentration for the meditated attack on Lucknow. |