[November, 1841.]

Progress of the Insurrection—Attempted Movement on the City—Attack on Mahomed Sheriff’s Fort—Loss of the Commissariat Fort—Captain Mackenzie’s Defence—Capture of Mahomed Sheriff’s Fort—Attempts to corrupt the Enemy.

On this disastrous 2nd of November, the British authorities in the Caubul cantonments, instead of acting to-day, had, I have said, been talking about doing something to-morrow. That something was a conjoint movement from the cantonments and the Balla Hissar on the Lahore gate of the city. “We must see,” wrote Elphinstone to Macnaghten, “what the morning brings, and then think what can be done.” The morning was one of early bustle and activity throughout the British cantonment. Before day had broken, the drums beat to arms. Intelligence had come in that a large body of men were marching over the Seeah Sungh hills. They were believed to be enemies, but they proved to be friends. The 37 Regiment of Native Infantry had been called in from Koord-Caubul on the preceding day; and it had made good its march, in the face of no feeble opposition, bringing in its baggage and its sick in an orderly manner, very creditable to the commanding officer.[120] Two guns of the mountain-train accompanied the regiment. Any addition to the cantonment force was valuable at such a time; and the 37th Regiment was regarded as one of the best in the service. Still, although when our resources were thus increased, a movement was made upon the city, so small a force was sent out that it was compelled to retreat.

The movement, such as it was—the first attempted by the British troops—was made three hours after noon. The enemy had by this time increased mightily in numbers. Thousands, long ripe for revolt, were now ready to declare themselves on the side of the national party. All the surrounding villages poured in their tributaries,[121] and swelled the great tide of insurrection. At noon, on the preceding day, the road between the cantonments and the city had been scarcely passable; and now all this intervening ground was alive with an angry enemy. In the face of a hostile multitude, it was little likely that a weak detachment could penetrate into the city. The party sent out on this hazardous service, under Major Swayne, consisted of one company of H. M.’s 44th Regiment, two companies of the 5th Native Infantry, and two horse artillery guns. The whole affair was a failure. The only fortunate circumstance was that this feeble detachment retired in good time. Owing to some misconception of orders, no party had been detached to co-operate with them from the Balla Hissar; and if they had forced their way to the Lahore gate of the city, the whole detachment would have been cut to pieces. As it was, the party was fired upon from the Kohistan gate, near which it ought not to have gone;[122] and it was soon only too obvious that a further advance, in the face of such an enemy, would be a profitless sacrifice of life. Major Swayne brought back his detachment, and so ended the first attempt to operate upon the city.

It is hard to say why a stronger force, with a fair allowance of cavalry, was not sent out in the first instance; or why, on the return of Swayne’s weak detachment, it was not re-inforced and sent out against the enemy. There was daylight enough left to do good execution with an adequate force, adequately commanded. But the evening of this day, like that of the preceding one, closed in upon an inactive and dispirited British force, and an undisciplined enemy emboldened by impunity and flushed with success.

The aspect of affairs now became more threatening. Before noon, on the preceding day, the Envoy and his family had vacated the Residency, and sought a more secure asylum within the walls of the cantonments. Now preparations were being made to place those cantonments in a state of defence. This was no easy matter. The works were of “frightful extent;” and demanded a much larger body of troops and greater number of guns, than were at the disposal of the General, to defend them even against the “contemptible enemy” that was now collecting around them. It was not long after the commencement of the outbreak, before Lieutenant Eyre, the ordnance commissariat officer, had placed every available gun in position. But the want of artillery in this conjuncture was soon lamentably apparent. There had, at no time, been a sufficiency of this important arm; but one portion of the miserable allowance was now with Sale’s force, another in the Balla Hissar, and the wretched remnant was in cantonments.

It was impossible now any longer to close one’s eyes against the real state of affairs. They were growing rapidly worse and worse. The Envoy sate down to his desk and wrote importunate letters to Captain Macgregor, urging him to bring back Sir Robert Sale’s force to Caubul. At the same time he wrote to Candahar, to arrest the march of the troops that were about to return to India, and to despatch them with all speed to his relief. Nothing came of these mandates but disappointment. It would have been better if the Caubul force had trusted wholly to itself.

The next day was one of more appalling disaster. It brought to light a new evil that threatened destruction to the beleagured force. The commissariat fort—the magazine in which all the stores, on which our troops depended for subsistence, were garnered up—was outside the cantonment walls. It was situated about 400 yards from the south-west bastion of the cantonment. On the preceding day, the detachment in charge of the fort had been raised to a subaltern’s guard of eighty men. It was now threatened by the enemy. Another fort, still nearer cantonments, known as Mahomed Sheriff’s Fort, was already in possession of a hostile garrison;[123] and the King’s gardens, between which and the cantonments this fort was situated, were swarming with the insurgents. The communications between the British cantonments and the commissariat fort were thus intercepted by the enemy; and the position of the slender guard posted for the defence of the latter was therefore one of imminent peril. The enemy laid siege to the fort; and began to mine beneath the walls. Surrounded as he was by a far superior force, and seeing no possibility of repelling the assaults of the enemy, Lieutenant Warren, who commanded the guard, officially reported the danger of his position; and set forth that, unless re-inforced, he should be obliged to abandon his post. The letter was conveyed to the General, who ordered out two companies of the 44th Regiment, under Captains Swayne and Robinson, to reinforce the party at the commissariat fort, or enable them to evacuate it in safety.[124] They had not proceeded far, when the enemy, posted in Mahomed Sheriff’s Fort opened upon them with deadly execution. The galling fire of the concealed marksmen checked their progress. Captains Swayne and Robinson were shot dead. Other officers were wounded. There seemed to be no chance of success. To move onward would only have been to expose the detachment to certain destruction. The officer upon whom the command of the party had devolved, determined, therefore, to abandon an enterprise from which nothing but further disaster could arise. He brought back his party to cantonments; and so another failure was added to the list.

Another was soon to be recorded against us. In the course of the afternoon, the General determined to try the effect of sending out a party, consisting mainly of cavalry, to enable Lieutenant Warren to evacuate the commissariat fort. But this party suffered more severely than the preceding one. From the loopholes of Mahomed Sheriff’s Fort—from every tree in the Shah’s garden—from whatever cover of wood or masonry was to be found—the Afghan marksmen poured, with unerring aim, their deadly fire upon our advancing troops. The unseen enemy was too strong for our slight detachment. The troopers of the 5th Cavalry fell in numbers beneath the fire of the Afghan matchlocks. The forward movement was checked. The party retreated; and again the enemy gathered new courage from the contemplation of our reverses.

In the mean while, it had become known to the commissariat officers that the General contemplated the abandonment of the fort, in which not only our grain, but our hospital stores, our spirits, wine, beer, &c., were garnered. Dismayed at the thought of a sacrifice that must entail destruction on the entire force, Captain Boyd, the chief commissariat officer, hastened to General Elphinstone’s quarters, and entreated him not to withdraw Lieutenant Warren from the fort, but to reinforce him with all possible despatch. The General, ever ready to listen to advice, and sometimes to take it, heard all that was advanced by the commissariat officer, readily assented to its truth, and promised to send out a reinforcement to the fort. But no reinforcement was sent. Night was closing in upon the cantonment, and Captain Boyd, to his bitter disappointment, perceived that no preparations were making for the promised movement towards the fort. Asking Captain Johnson to accompany him, he again proceeded to the General’s quarters, where the two officers, in emphatic language, pointed out the terrible results of the sacrifice of our supplies. Again the General listened; again he assented; and again he would have promised all that was required; but other officers were present, who put forth other opinions; talked of the danger of the movement; urged that it would be necessary, in the first instance, to capture Mahomed’s Sheriff’s Fort; and so the General wavered. But at this juncture, another letter from Lieutenant Warren was brought in. It represented that his position had become more insecure; that the enemy were mining under the walls, and the Sepoys escaping over them; and that if reinforcements were not speedily sent, he should be compelled to abandon his position.

This brought the General round again to the opinion that reinforcements ought to be sent; he promised that, soon after midnight a detachment should be under arms to take Mahomed Sheriff’s Fort, and to strengthen Warren’s position; and the requisite orders were accordingly issued. But later counsels prevailed. The march of the detachment was postponed to the following morning; and, before it moved, the little garrison had abandoned the fort and returned to cantonments, leaving all our supplies in the hands of the enemy, and inspiring them with fresh confidence and courage. Warren, a man of a reserved and taciturn nature, but of great courage and resolution, had done his best to defend the place; and had set an example of personal daring to his men, which ought to have inspired and invigorated them. On one occasion, amidst a deadly shower from the Afghan jezails, he had advanced alone, and torn down the national standard which the Afghans had planted at the gate of the fort. But the Sepoys had lost heart. It was impossible to continue the defence of the place. So the little party escaped by working a hole from the interior of the fort underneath the walls, by the aid of tools which had been sent them for a different purpose on the preceding night.[125]

Nor was this our only loss. The commissariat fort, in which the supplies for Shah Soojah’s force were stored, was on the outskirts of the city. In 1840, when a general rising was deemed no unlikely occurrence, Captain Johnson laid in a supply of 17,000 maunds of attah for Shah Soojah’s force, and had erected godowns for their reception within the Balla Hissar, where early in 1841 the grain was all laid up in store. The King, however, subsequently exercised the royal privilege of changing his mind. The godowns were inconveniently situated; and Captain Johnson was ordered to remove the grain from the citadel, and, having no better place for its reception, to convert his camel-sheds, on the outskirts of the city, into a godown fort.[126] In this fort, on the 2nd of November, there were about 8000 maunds of attah. Captain Mackenzie (who had then been for some months in charge of the executive commissariat of the Shah’s troops), an officer of high character, greatly and deservedly esteemed by the Envoy and all the officers of the force, was at this time in charge of the fort. On the morning of the 2nd of November, it was attacked by the armed population of Deh-Afghan. Throughout the whole of that day Mackenzie held his post with unvarying constancy and unshaken courage. Everything was against the little garrison. Water was scarce; ammunition was scarce. They were encumbered with baggage, and overwhelmed with women and children. Reinforcements were written for in vain. Captain Trevor, who occupied, with his family, a neighbouring fort, despatched repeated letters to cantonments, importuning the Envoy to reinforce these isolated posts. But in vain they turned their straining eyes towards the cantonment, “looking for the glittering bayonets through the trees.”[127] Not a company came to their relief. Instead of assistance they received nothing but melancholy tidings of disaster. A demonstration from the cantonment would have saved them. Captain Lawrence had volunteered to take two companies to the relief of the fort; but permission was denied to him. The Kuzzilbashes, too, were ready to declare themselves on the side of the British. Khan Sheeren Khan was, indeed, at Trevor’s house. But when the chiefs saw that not an effort was made by the British commanders to vindicate our authority, or to save the lives of our officers, they prudently held aloof and refused to link themselves with a declining cause.

On the 3rd of November, “about the middle of the day,” the enemy got possession of Trevor’s house; and it soon became certain that Mackenzie, with all his gallantry and all his laborious zeal—working day and night without food and without rest—conducting the defence with as much judgment as spirit—could not much longer hold his post. His men were wearied out; his ammunition was exhausted; his wounded were dying for want of medical aid. He had defended his position throughout two days of toil, suffering, and danger; and no aid had come from cantonments—none was likely to come. So yielding at last to the importunity of others, he moved out of the fort, and fought his way, by night, to cantonments. It was a difficult and hazardous march; and, almost by a miracle, Mackenzie escaped to encounter new dangers, to sustain new trials, and to live in habitual gratitude to God for his wonderful preservation.

The abandonment of our commissariat stores not only threatened the British force with instant starvation, but made such a lamentable exposure of our imbecility, that all who had before held aloof, thinking that the British nation would arise and crush the insurgents, now gathered heart and openly declared themselves against us. The doubtful were assured; the wavering were established. There was a British army looking over the walls of their cantonment at an ill-armed enemy—almost a rabble—gutting their commissariat fort. There were the spoliators, within four hundred yards of our position, carrying off our supplies, as busily as a swarm of ants. “The godown fort,” wrote Captain Johnson in his journal, “was this day something similar to a large ants’ nest. Ere noon, thousands and thousands had assembled from far and wide, to participate in the booty of the English dogs, each man taking away with him as much as he could carry—and to this we were all eye-witnesses.” The troops were grievously indignant at the imbecility of their leaders, who had suffered them to be so ignominiously stripped of the very means of subsistence; and clamoured to be led out against the enemy, who were parading their spoils under the very walls of the cantonment.

The feeling was not one to be checked. Lieutenant Eyre went to the quarters of the General, urged him to send out a party for the capture of Mahomed Sheriff’s Fort, and volunteered to keep the road clear for the advance of the storming party. With some reluctance the General assented, and wrote to the Envoy saying, that after due consideration he had determined on attacking the fort, with fifty men of the 44th, and 200 Native Infantry. “We will first try to breach the place,” he added, “and shell it as well as we can. From information I have received respecting the interior of the fort, which I think is to be relied on, it seems the centre, like our old bazaar, is filled with buildings; therefore, if we succeed in blowing open the gate, we should only be exposed to a destructive fire from the buildings, which, from the state of preparation they evince, would no doubt be occupied in force, supported from the garden. Carrying powder-bags up under fire would have a chance of failure. Our men have been all night in the works, are tired, and ill-fed; but we must hope for the best, and securing our commissariat fort with the stores.”[128]

It was in this letter, written scarcely three days after the first outbreak of the insurrection, that the General first hinted at the necessity of treating with the insolent enemy. “It behoves us,” he wrote, “to look to the consequences of failure: in this case I know not how we are to subsist, or, from want of provisions, to retreat. You should, therefore, consider what chance there is of making terms, if we are driven to this extremity. Shelton must then be withdrawn, as we shall not be able to supply him.” What hope was there for the national honour after this? What but failure was likely to result from an expedition undertaken under such auspices? The party was sent out under Major Swayne. It seems to have stood still, when it ought to have rushed forward. The opportunity was lost; and the General, who was watching the movement from the gateway, ordered the detachment to be withdrawn. The Sepoys of the 37th regiment who had been eager to advance to the capture of the fort, were enraged and disappointed at being held back; and the enemy, more confident and presumptuous than before, exulted in a new triumph.

Whilst affairs were in this distressing and dispiriting state at Caubul, our outposts were exposed to imminent danger; and it was soon only too plain that the insurrection was not confined to the neighbourhood of the capital. At Kardurrah Lieutenant Maule, of the Bengal Artillery, commanding the Kohistanee regiment, with his adjutant and sergeant-major, had been cut to pieces at the outset of the insurrection, by the men of his own corps; and now intelligence came in that the Goorkha regiment, posted at Charekur in the Kohistan, where Eldred Pottinger was acting as Political Agent, was threatened with annihilation. Captain Codrington, the commandant, and other officers had been killed; and as water was failing the garrison, there was little chance of its holding out. The Envoy communicated these sad tidings to the General, who wrote in reply, that the intelligence was “most distressing;” and asked whether “nothing could be done by the promise of a large reward—a lakh of rupees for instance, if necessary, to any of the Kohistan chiefs,” to bring off the little garrison.

This was written on the 6th of November. That day witnessed our first success. A party, under Major Griffiths, of the 37th Native Infantry, was sent out against Mahomed Sheriff’s Fort. A practicable breach was effected, and the storming party entered with an irresistible impetuosity, worthy of British troops. Ensign Raban, of the 44th regiment, was shot dead on the crest of the breach. The garrison escaped to the hills, where a party of Anderson’s horse dashed at them in gallant style, and drove them from their position. The rest of the day was spent in dubious skirmishing. All arms were employed in a wild desultory manner. Artillery, cavalry, and infantry did good independent service; but they did not support each other. Nothing great was designed or attempted. A general action might have been brought on; and, properly commanded at that time, the British troops, who were then eager to meet the enemy, might have beaten five times their numbers in the field. But General Elphinstone, long before this, had ceased to think of beating the enemy. Everything seemed possible to him but that.

We had lost our commissariat forts; but, happily, we had not lost our commissariat officers. As soon as it was perceived that our stores were in jeopardy, Captain Boyd and Captain Johnson had begun to exert themselves, with an energy as praiseworthy as it was rare in that conjuncture, to collect supplies from the surrounding villages. They were more successful than under such circumstances could have been anticipated. The villagers sold the grain which they had laid up for their own winter supplies, at no very exorbitant rates, and the horrors of immediate starvation were averted from the beleagured force. The troops were put upon half-rations. The ordinary food of the native troops—the attah, or ground wheat—was wanting, for the water-mills in the villages had been destroyed; but the unbroken grain was served out to them in its stead.

A new danger was now to be discovered. The force had been threatened with starvation; but now supplies were coming in from the surrounding villages. It would have been impossible to hold out without provisions. It would be equally impossible to hold out without ammunition. As soon as the one danger was averted, the General began to look about for the approach of the other. On the 6th of November, he again wrote to Sir William Macnaghten, suggesting the expediency of making terms, with the least possible delay:—“We have temporarily,” he said, “and I hope permanently, got over the difficulty of provisions. Our next consideration is ammunition; a very serious and indeed awful one. We have expended a great quantity; therefore it becomes worthy of thought on your part, how desirable it is that our operations should not be protracted by anything in treating that might tend to a continuance of the present state of things. Do not suppose from this I wish to recommend, or am advocating humiliating terms, or such as would reflect disgrace on us; but this fact of ammunition must not be lost sight of.” And in a postscript to this letter are these melancholy words:—“Our case is not yet desperate; I do not mean to impress that; but it must be borne in mind that it goes very fast.”[129] The Envoy needed no better proof than this that our case, if not desperate, was “going very fast.” There was an abundant supply of ammunition in store. But what hope was there, so long as the troops were thus commanded? There was no hope from our arms; but something might be done by our money. If the enemy could not be beaten off, he might be bought off. The Envoy, therefore, began to appeal to the cupidity of the chiefs.

The agent whom he employed was Mohun Lal. On the first outbreak in the city, the Moonshee had narrowly escaped destruction by taking refuge under the skirts of Mohamed Zemaun Khan.[130] Since that time he had resided in Caubul, under the protection of the Kuzzilbash chief Khan Shereen Khan, and had kept up a correspondence with Sir William Macnaghten, doing the Envoy’s bidding, as he said, at the risk of his life. His first experiment was made upon the corruptibility of the Ghilzyes. At the request of the Envoy, Mohun Lal opened negotiations with the chiefs of the tribe, offering them two lakhs of rupees, with an immediate advance of a quarter of the amount; but before the contract was completed, the Envoy, doubtful, perhaps, of the sincerity of the chiefs, receded from the negotiation. The Ghilzyes were mortally offended; but the Envoy had another game in hand. On the 7th of November, he wrote to Mohun Lal, authorising him to assure our friends Khan Shereen Khan and Mahomed Kumye, that if they performed the service which they had undertaken, the former should receive one lakh, and the latter 50,000 rupees, “besides getting the present, and everything else they require.” “You may assure them,” added Macnaghten, “that, whatever bluster the rebels may make, they will be beaten in the end. I hope that you will encourage Mohamed Yar Khan, the rival of Ameen-oollah; assure him that he shall receive the chiefship, and all the assistance necessary to enable him to support it. You may give promises in my name to the extent of 500,000 rupees (five lakhs).”[131]

Intelligence had by this time reached Caubul from many sources, to the effect that Mahomed Akbar Khan, the second son of Dost Mahomed, was coming in from Toorkistan, and had already advanced as far as Bameean; and Macnaghten had now begun to credit and to attach due importance to the news. Mohun Lal suggested the expediency of despatching an emissary to meet the Sirdar on the way, and offer him a handsome allowance to league himself with our party. To this the Envoy replied, that Mahomed Akbar’s arrival at Bameean was likely enough; but that there could be little use in offering him a separate remittance, if the rebels had made already overtures to him.[132] He had more hope from the good offices of the Kuzzilbash chief and others on the spot, disposed to aid us, and he commended Mohun Lal for raising money to distribute among them. But he thought that, until assured of a good return, it would be better to scatter promises than coin; and so Mohun Lal was told not to advance more than 50,000 rupees until some service had been actually rendered.

But neither money actually spent, nor larger promises given, could really aid us in such an extremity. There were too many hungry appetites to appease—too many conflicting interests to reconcile; it was altogether, by this time, too mighty a movement to be put down by a display of the money-bags. The jingling of the coin could not drown the voice of an outraged and incensed people.

I wish that I had nothing more to say of the efforts made, out of the fair field of open battle, to destroy the power of the insurgent chiefs. There is a darker page of history yet to be written. This Mohun Lal had other work entrusted to him than that spoken of in these letters. He was not directed merely to appeal to the cupidity of the chiefs, by offering them large sums of money to exert their influence in our favour. He was directed, also, to offer rewards for the heads of the principal insurgents. As early as the 5th of November, Lieutenant John Conolly, who was in attendance upon Shah Soojah in the Balla Hissar, wrote thus to Mohun Lal:

Tell the Kuzzilbash chiefs, Shereen Khan, Naib Sheriff, in fact, all the chiefs of Sheeah persuasion, to join against the rebels. You can promise one lakh of rupees to Khan Shereen on the condition of his killing and seizing the rebels and arming all the Sheeahs, and immediately attacking all rebels. This is the time for the Sheeahs to do good service. Explain to them that, if the Soonees once get the upper hand in the town, they will immediately attack and plunder their part of the town; hold out promises of reward and money; write to me very frequently. Tell the chiefs who are well disposed, to send respectable agents to the Envoy. Try and spread “nifak” among the rebels. In everything that you do consult me, and write very often. Meer Hyder Purja-Bashi has been sent to Khan Shereen, and will see you.

And in a postscript to this letter appeared the ominous words: “I promise 10,000 rupees for the head of each of the principal rebel chiefs.”

Mohun Lal received this letter, and being ready for any kind of service not in the field, began to cast about in his mind the best means of accomplishing the object spoken of in Conolly’s postscript, with the least danger to himself and the greatest benefit to his employers. It was necessary, however, to tread cautiously in so delicate a matter. The Moonshee was not yet assured of the temper of the Kuzzilbash chief; and the game might be played away by one precipitate move. So he resolved to keep the offer of the head-money in abeyance for a few days, and to watch the course of events.