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Chapter 3

The little cloud, January, 1857

The anxieties which Henry Lawrence carried with him to Lakhnao had then, for some weeks, been disquieting the mind of the Governor-General. The old year had died out, apparently leaving to its successor no greater troubles than those which were inseparable from the Persian war; but before the new year was many days old, there arose upon the horizon that little cloud, no bigger than a man’s hand, of which Lord Canning, at the great Farewell Banquet of the Company, had prophetically spoken. It might be little; it might be much. It might be blown away by a breath of wind; or it might expand into terrific dimensions, covering the whole heaven as with a pall. Anyhow, it had an angry threatening aspect; and the looker-on, being no alarmist, might well wish it away.

Retrospect, 1856

Memorable, and, doubtless, well remembered is it that, when Lord Dalhousie bade farewell to the cares of Indian Government, he placed upon record an opinion that the condition of the Native soldiery left nothing to be desired. There was no reason why Lord Canning, at the outset of his career, should not take this assertion on trust; no reason why he should not hold to it for a while. He went out to India, prepossessed in favour of “the faithful Sipahi.” He had, doubtless, read the noble picture which, nearly forty years before, his father had drawn of the fidelity of the Native soldiery of the Company, unshaken by threats, unallured by temptations183. There were no flutterings of disquiet apparent

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on the surface to raise anxious doubts and misgivings. But he had not long taken up the reins of Government, when the subject of the Native Army began to occupy his thoughts and to afford matter for much grave correspondence. The vast extension of territory which had made famous the career of Lord Dalhousie had not been followed by any corresponding extension of the Agency by which all this new country was to be administered. As so much more civil duty was to be done, it seemed, in strict logical sequence, that there was an increased demand for civil servants, and that this demand should have been supplied. But government by the Civil Service of the Company was costly; and to have called for increased agency of this kind. would perhaps have supplied Leadenhall Street with an argument against the profitableness of annexation. Moreover, there was much rough work to be done in our newly-acquired provinces, for which, on the whole, perhaps, military administrators were better suited than civilians. So the military officer, as has before been said, was taken from his regimental duties to share in the civil administration of the country. Great had been, for this purpose, the drain upon the Native regiments, before the annexation of Oudh. That event brought the ascendant evil to a climax; and Lord Canning wrote home that it had become necessary to add two officers to each Native Infantry regiment and four to the Europeans. “A request,” he wrote, in the early part of April, “for an addition to the number of officers in each Infantry regiment – European and Native – goes home by this mail. Four for each European and two for each Native regiment are asked. The application comes singly and in a bald shape; because the necessity of an

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immediate increase is urgent, and because I have had no time to go into the complicated questions of our military wants generally.”

“More officers”

There was, indeed, nothing more difficult to understand aright than these military questions; difficult to experienced statesmen; altogether embarrassing and bewildering to a Governor in his novitiate. Even this matter of “more officers,” so smooth as it appeared to be on the surface, when you came to gauge it, was found to contain a deposit of doubt and conflict. It was held by some, who had studied well all the deteriorating influences of which so much has been said in these pages, that the cry for “more officers “ was one to be responded to with caution; that, indeed, the Native Army had already too many officers; and that now to increase their number would be to increase one of the evils that had long been impairing its efficiency. That Lord Canning, fresh from England, should have taken the more popular view of this want of officers, was natural; and, indeed, it may be said that it was a plain common-sense view, not wanting in a certain kind of logic. It had become a proverb that the English officer was the Backbone of the Native regiment; and, assuredly, the administrative demands of our new provinces had left these Native regiments, according to the recognized reading, sadly enfeebled and incapacitated. All that he now sought to do was to restore them somewhat more nearly to their normal condition. The remedy seemed to lie on the surface, and straightway he exerted himself to supply it. But the theory of the Backbone accepted, it was still possible that the vertebral column might be weakened by having too many joints; and therefore it was said by a few thoughtful and experienced men, emphatically by Sir George Clerk184, that there was more danger in giving our Native regiments too many English officers than in giving them too few; and for this reason, that being many they formed a society apart and kept aloof from their men, and became altogether in their ways of life too European. Doubts such as these, and from such a quarter, brought clearly to Lord Canning’s mind the fact that the Native Army question was a very difficult one; that it was almost impossible, indeed, whilst avoiding one rock, to escape from steering upon another. But the call for more officers had been made; and, perhaps, with no

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want of wisdom. For, although there was profound truth in what was said about the evil of too much Englishism in the Native Army, the Regular Regiments of the Company had been formed upon the European model, and the principle of command by many officers was a vital part of the system. The Irregular system might have been better than the Regular, but a Regular Regiment denuded of its officers fulfilled the condition of neither. So the Home Government recognized the want of more officers, and responded to the appeal.

Evils of extended dominion

Another, and still more important question, soon came up for solution. The specific evils, which resulted from the extension of our dominions, varied in accordance with the direction in which we had extended them.. The acquisition of new territory on the south-eastern coast had caused but little political excitement in India; but the very circumstance to which we owed our exemption from evils of one kind was the immediate source of another class of evils. It has been said that the intervention of the black waters of the Bay of Bengal cut off the sovereigns of Burmah from the brotherhood of the Princes of the great continent of India, and made it a matter of small concern whether we gained battles or lost them in that part of the world185. But that very black water made it difficult for us to garrison the country which we had won.

Military defence of Pegu

The new province of Pegu had been brought administratively under the Supreme Government of India, and in the first arrangements made for its military defence, the regiments planted there had been drawn from the Bengal Army. But the great bulk of that Army eschewed Foreign Service186. It was not part of the conditions under which they had enlisted, that they should cross the seas. The Sipahi, on taking service, swore that he would never forsake or abandon his colours, and that he would march whithersoever he was directed, whether within or beyond the territories of the Company. Out of the seventy-four regiments

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composing the Native Infantry of the Bengal Army, six only were recruited for general service.

Volunteer corps

When more Native troops had been required to take part in operations beyond the seas, it had been customary to call for volunteers from the limited service regiments. There had been often a free response to this invitation, and the volunteer corps had done their duty well upon Foreign service. In the old times, indeed, before the new organisation, they had in this respect shown signal devotion; they had gone willingly to remote places beyond the seas and cheerfully endured all the miseries and privations of long and boisterous voyages.

1811

In one year, seven thousand Bengal Sipahis had volunteered for service against the French in the Mauritius and in Java; and had served for many years in those islands with unvarying fidelity and good conduct187. But, even in those days, they had been at times capricious; and their caprices, as time advanced and their devotion to their officers diminished, had grown more frequent and more embarrassing188. The mutiny and massacre at Barrackpur had arisen out of the demands of the first Burmese war, and the second war in those trans-marine regions had raised up a new crop of difficulties of the old type.

1852

A few sentences will tell all that need be told of this last story: The Native troops employed in the conquest of Pegu were either Madras troops or the general-service regiments of the Bengal Army. But reinforcements were needed, and so a call was to be made for volunteers.

The 38th

The 38th Native Regiment was then at the Presidency. It had served long and fought gallantly in Afghanistan, and it was believed that it would follow its officers to any part of the world. But when the day of trial came, the result was a bitter disappointment. The Sipahis were asked whether they would embark for Rang-Lin to take part in the war, or for Arakan, there to relieve a general-service regiment, which in that case would be sent on to Burmah. Their reply was, that they were willing to march anywhere, but that they would

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not volunteer to cross the seas. Perfectly respectful in their language, they were firm in their refusal. Doubt and suspicion had taken possession of their minds. How it happened I do not know, but a belief was afterwards engendered among them that the English Government had a foul design to entrap them, and that if they commenced the march to the banks of the Irawadi, they would at a convenient point be taken to the sea-board and forcibly compelled to embark. Lord Dalhousie, taking, therefore, the prudent rather than the vigorous view of the situation, and availing himself of the advanced state of the season as a plea for the adoption of the feebler of the two courses before him, yielded to these first symptoms of danger, and decreed that the 38th should be sent neither to Rangun nor to Arakan, but to the nearer and more inland station of Dhaka. And so nothing more was heard for a time of the disaffection of the Bengal Army.

October 20, 1852

The Court of Directors of the East India Company, when this business was reported to them, saw clearly that it had become difficult to carry on the concerns of their vastly extended empire with one-half of their army, and that the more important half, bound to render them only a restricted obedience; so they wrote out to the Governor-General that they hoped soon to be put in possession of the “sentiments of his Government on the expediency of adopting such a change in the terms of future enlistments as might eventually relieve them from similar embarrassments.” But no action was taken during the remaining years of Lord Dalhousie’s administration, and Lord Canning found, on his accession, that still but a twelfth part of the Bengal Army was available for service beyond the seas.

Reliefs for Pegu

What then was to be done, when reliefs were required for Pegu? Even if the old professional ardour of the Sipahi had been restored, the occasion was scarcely one on which the Government could have called for volunteers. The formation of volunteer regiments had been confined to periods of actual warfare; and now that we required them merely to garrison our acquisitions in time of peace, the difficulty that confronted Lord Canning was one not readily to be overcome. He found at this time that of the six general-service regiments three were then in Pegu. They had embarked on a specific understanding that they should not be called upon to serve there for more than three years, and, in the rainy season of 1856, two of the three regiments were in their third year of transmarine service. In the early part of the

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following year, therefore, a relief would be necessary; but not one of the other three regiments could be despatched; for they had all returned only a year or two before from service in the same part of the country. It was clear, therefore, that the Bengal Army could not provide the means of despatching the required reliefs by water transport to Pegu.

So a question arose as to whether the relieving regiments might not, according to their bond, be marched to the Burmese coast. It was a circuitous and toilsome journey, but it had been done, under pressure of like difficulty, thirty years before, and might yet be done again. But although the improvement of the communications between the Hugli and the Irawadi was then being urged forward by the Government, there was still a break on the line from Chatgaon to Akyab, of which our Engineers could not give a sufficiently encouraging account to satisfy the Governor-General that the relieving regiments could be sent by land in the ensuing cold season. “A part of the road,” said Lord Canning, “could not be made passable for wheels by that time without the addition of eight thousand labourers to those already employed. If the use of wheeled carriages were abandoned, there would still remain encamping ground to be cleared on many parts of it; the jungle, which is already choking the tract, to be removed; preparation to be made for halting the men on the march; wells to be dug, or water to be stored, where none has yet been found; and stations and store- houses provided. Simple operations enough in themselves, but which in this case would have to be begun and completed, on two hundred miles of road, between the beginning of December, before which no work on that coast can be attempted, and February, when the troops must begin to pass over the ground, the supply of labour, as well as its quality, being very little trustworthy.” “Obstacles of this kind,” continued the Governor- General, “have been overcome again and again by the Sipahis of Bengal in their marches, whenever it has been necessary to do so; but I am of opinion that it will be better in the present instance to seek some other solution of the difficulty. And I believe that the one most available is a recourse to the Madras Army.”

Demands on the Madras Army

And why not? The Madras, or, as it was once called, the Coast Army, was enlisted for general service. Posted in the Southern Peninsula, and to a great extent along the sea-board, it was as readily available for service on the other side of the Bay as the

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Army in Lower Bengal. If the duty were unpalatable, it could not, when diffused over fifty regiments, press very heavily upon any individual soldier. Besides, service of this kind had some compensations of its own, and was not altogether to be regarded as a grievance189. So it was thought that the garrison of Pegu might, for a time at least, be drawn from the Madras Army. But ready as the solution appeared to be, it was found that here also there was some hard, gritty, insoluble matter at the bottom of the scheme. The Madras Government, though not unwilling to send troops to Pegu as a temporary arrangement, protested against being called upon to supply a permanent garrison to that part of our dominions. Such an arrangement would bring round to every regiment a tour of service beyond the sea once in every nine years, instead of once in twelve years; it would render service in the Madras Army unpopular; make recruiting difficult among the better class of Natives whom it was desired to enlist; and, inasmuch as every

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regiment lost much of its morale on Foreign service, and took two or three years to recover what was lost, the efficiency of the Madras Army would be permanently deteriorated.

The General Enlistment Act

So Lord Canning turned his thoughts in another direction. Madras troops might be sent for the nonce to Pegu, but the permanent defence of that outlying province across the Bay must, it appeared to him, be provided for by drawing, in some way, upon the Bengal Army. There was then lying, unresponded to, among the Records of the Military Department, that despatch of the Court of Directors in which the Government of India had been urged to devise the means of relieving themselves from all such embarrassments by a change in the terms of future enlistments. After much inward thought and much consultation with others, he determined, therefore, to institute such a radical change in the constitution of the Bengal Army as four years before had been indicated by the Home Government. The reform which he contemplated was to have only a prospective effect. It was to touch no existing interests; but to be applied prospectively to all who might enlist into the military service of the State. Thenceforth every recruit was to engage himself for general service. There might be an alteration in the form of the oath, or it might simply be left to the European officer to explain to every recruit that he had been enlisted for general service. Such had been the custom with respect to the six general- service regiments of the Bengal Army, and it had been found to answer every requirement. An explanatory order might be issued by the Governor-General in Council, and then the military authorities might follow up, in their own way, the blow struck at the niceties of the old system. The Governor- General argued, with irresistible force, that every Government should be master of its own Army. He was, however, at that time, fresh from England; and he might be forgiven for not knowing how the Government could best make itself the master of such an Army as that with which he was then dealing. But he would have had no legitimate claim to forgiveness if he had failed to take counsel with those among his constitutional advisers who had spent all their adult lives in India, and who were presumably familiar with the feelings and opinions of the people.

General Low

He did take counsel with them; and they urged him to pursue this course. He who, of all the Councillors, best knew the Native character, was then in

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England; but the ablest man amongst them argued that there was no place like Calcutta for shipping off a large military force, and that the Bay of Bengal had become an Indian Lake.

Mr J. P. Grant

It does not seem that there was any one at Lord Canning’s elbow to tell him that, whatsoever might be the facilities of transport, the Bay of Bengal would still be the black water, the salt water, in the thoughts of the people from whom our recruits were to be drawn; still regarded with mysterious awe, and recoiled from with unconquerable aversion.

So, on the 25th July, 1856, a General Order was issued by the Government of India, declaring that, thenceforth, they would not accept the service of any Native recruit who would not, “at the time of his enlistment, distinctly undertake to serve beyond the sea, whether within the territories of the Company or beyond them.” In what light Lord Canning regarded this important change, with what arguments he supported the measures, may be gathered from his correspondence. “You will see,” he wrote to the President of the India Board, “that a General Order has been published putting an end to the long-established, but most impolitic, embarrassing, and senseless practice of enlisting the Native Army of Bengal for limited service only; the solo exceptions being six regiments of Native Infantry, which are recruited on the condition of serving anywhere, and the Artillery. It is marvellous that this should have continued so long, and that the Government of India should have tolerated, again and again, having to beg for volunteers, when other Governments, including those of Madras and Bombay, would have ordered their soldiers on their duty. It is the more surprising, because no one can allege any reason for conceding this unreasonable immunity to the Bengal Sipahi. The difficulties of Caste furnish none whatever, for the Bombay Army is recruited in great part from the same classes and districts as that of Bengal; and even in the latter the best Brahman in the ranks does not scruple to set aside his prejudices, whenever it suits him to do so. There seems to have been a dim apprehension that there might be risk in meddling with the fundamental conditions upon which the bargain between the Army and the Government has hitherto rested, and there are some few alarmists on the present occasion, but I have seen no reason to fear that the order will cause any bad feeling in the Bengal Army.

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As it touches no existing rights, it could only do so by exciting apprehensions that something more remains behind; and, probably, this may prove to be the case, for whenever I can propose a reduction in the numbers of the Bengal Regiments, I shall endeavour to do so upon terms that will give a preference of remaining in the ranks to such men as may be willing to accept general service. But this is no part of, and is not necessarily connected with, the present change; moreover, as yet it is only in my own breast.”

November 8, 1856

And again, a few months later, he wrote, with still greater confidence “There is no fear of feelings of Caste being excited by the new enlistment regulations in the Bengal Army. No one will come under it otherwise than voluntarily; and the fact that a vast number of the recruits who join the Bombay regiments come from the same country, and are of the same caste, and in every respect of the same condition with the bulk of the Army in Bengal, proves that they do not, on first entering the service, hold very closely to Caste privileges. You are aware that the Bombay Army is enlisted for general service without exception. The only apprehension I have ever had (and that has vanished) is, that the Sipahis already enlisted on the old terms might suspect that it was a first step towards breaking faith with them, and that on the first necessity they might be compelled to cross the sea. But there has been no sign of any such false alarm on their part.”

No signs truly apparent at Government House; but many and great in the Native villages, and much talk in the Lines and Bazaars. It was hardly right even to say that there was no interference with existing interests. For the interest of the Sipahi in the Bengal Army was an hereditary interest. If the British Government did not at once assume the right to send him across the sea, it seemed certain that his sons would be sent. There was an end, indeed, of the exclusive privileges which the Bengal Sipahi had so long enjoyed; the service never could be hereafter what. it had been of old; and all the old pride, therefore, with which the veteran had thought of his boys succeeding him was now suddenly extinguished. Besides, the effect, he said, would be, that high-caste men would shrink from entering the service, and that, therefore, the vacant places of his brethren would be filled by men with whom he could have no feeling of comradeship. And this was no imaginary fear. No sooner had the order made its way through the Provinces, than it

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became patent to all engaged in the work of enlistment that the same high-caste men as had before been readily recruited were no longer pressing forward to enter the British service190. As it was believed that we had too many Brahmans and Rajputs in the Bengal Army, this in itself might have been no great evil. But it was of all things the least likely that such an order should pass into general circulation without being ignorantly misunderstood by some, and designedly misinterpreted by others.

Enlistment of Sikhs

So it was soon said that the English gentlemen were trying to rid themselves of their old high-caste Sipahis, and that soon the profession which had been followed, with honourable pride, by generation after generation of old soldier-families would not be open to them. And this belief was greatly strengthened by a rumour which went forth about the same time, to the effect that Government had determined on enlisting thirty thousand more Sikhs. The conquest of the Panjab had placed at our disposal the services of a warlike race, always eager to wear the uniform of a successful ruler, for in their eyes success was plunder. Less dainty in the choice of their battlefields, and not less brave or robust in battle, they were the very kind of mercenaries that we wanted to give new bone and sinew to the body of our Native Army. Whether there were or were not, at this time, a tendency to over-work this new and promising recruiting-ground, it is certain that the old race of Sipahis believed that we were designedly working it to their injury and their overthrow. They gave ready credence, therefore, to exaggerated reports of Sikh enlistments, and, coupling them with the New General Service Order, leapt to the conclusion that the English had done with the old Bengal Army, and were about to substitute for it another that would go anywhere and do anything, like coolies and pariahs.

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Effects the General Enlistment Order

Moreover, there were not wanting those who were eager to persuade the Sipahis of the Bengal Army that this new Act was another insidious attempt to destroy the Caste of the people, and to make men of all creeds do the bidding of the English, by merging all into the one faith of the Faringhi. It was another link in the great chain of evidence which had been artfully employed to convict the British Government of the charge of aiming at the compulsory conversion of the people. The season was most propitious. The coming of Lord Canning had, by some strange process of association which I find it impossible to trace, been identified with certain alleged instructions from England, emanating from the Queen herself in Council, for the Christianisation, by fair means or by foul, of the great mass of the people; and now one of the first acts of his Government was to issue an order making it compulsory on the Sipahi to take to the transport vessel, to cross the black water, and to serve in strange parts of the world, far away, perhaps, from all the emblems and observances of his religion, among a people sacrilegious and unclean.

Apprehensions and alarms

The Native mind was, at this time, in a most sensitive state, and easily wrought upon by suspicious appearances. What these appearances were, has, in some measure, been shown in former chapters of this narrative. Even the Railway and the Electric Telegraph had been accounted as blows struck at the religions of the country. Nor was this purely a creation of the Native mind, an unaided conception of the Priests or the People; for the missionaries themselves had pleaded the recent material progress of the English as an argument in favour of the adoption by the inhabitants of India of one universal religion. “The time appears to have come,” they said in an Address which was extensively circulated in Bengal during the closing years of Lord Dalhousie’s administration, “when earnest consideration should be given to the question, whether or not all men should embrace the same system of religion. Railways, Steam-vessels, and the Electric Telegraph are rapidly uniting all the nations of the earth. The more they are brought together, the more certain does the conclusion become that all have the same wants, the same anxieties, and the same sorrows;” and so on, with manifest endeavour to prove that European civilization was the forerunner of an inevitable absorption of all other

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faiths into the one faith of the White Ruler. This had gone forth, an egregious Christian manifesto, not wanting in fundamental truth, or in certain abstract proprieties of argument and diction, to “Educated Natives,” especially to respectable Muhammadans in Government employment, some of the leading Native functionaries of Bengal. What might truly be the purport of it, and whence it came, was not very clear at first; but ere long it came to be accepted as a direct emanation from Government, intended to invite the people to apostatise from the religions of their fathers. And such was the excitement that Commissioner Tayler, of the great Patna division, wherein some disquietudes had before arisen, mainly of the Muhammadan type, reported to Lieutenant-Governor Halliday that intelligent natives, especially the better class of Muslims, were “impressed with a full belief that Government were immediately about to attempt the forcible conversion of its subjects.” It was added, that “a correspondence on this head had for some time been going on between native gentlemen in various parts of the Lower Provinces;” and Lieutenant-Governor Halliday saw so clearly that this was no impalpable mare’s-nest, no idle scum of an alarmist brain, that he forthwith issued a sedative Proclamation; which sedative Proclamation was speedily answered anonymously, but beyond doubt by an “intelligent native,” or conclave of “intelligent natives,” clearly showing by the inevitable logic of facts that if this notion of a war against the religions of India had laid hold of the national mind, the Government had by their own measures given encouragement to the dangerous belief.

Very obstinate, indeed, and hard to be removed, was this belief; so hard, that the very efforts made to efface it might only fix more ineffaceably the damaging impression on the native mind. For if the wondering multitude did not think, there were a crafty few ready to teach them, that if Government designed, by foul means, to destroy the caste of the people and the religions of the country, they would not hesitate to make the issuing of a lying proclamation a part of the process. The conviction that it was the deliberate design of the British Government, by force or fraud, to attain this great object, was growing stronger and stronger every month, when Lord Canning arrived in India, and at once became, all unwittingly, a special object of suspicion and alarm. The lies which attended, perhaps preceded, his advent, caused all his movements

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to be narrowly watched; and it began soon to be bruited abroad that he had subscribed largely to missionary societies, and that Lady Canning, who was known to be in the especial confidence of the Queen, was intent on making great personal exertions for the conversion of the women of the country.

Lord Canning and the Religious Societies

But there was no truth in all this. The Governor-General had done no more than other Governors-General had done before him. He had sent a donation to the Bible Society, a society for the translation of the Scriptures into the Oriental languages, and the circulation of these new versions among the people. But the translation of the Scriptures had been carried on more than half a century before, in the College of Fort William, under the especial patronage of Lord Wellesley; and Lord Wellesley’s successor, during whose reign the Calcutta Bible Society was established, headed the list with a large subscription. Lord Hastings, Lord William Bentinck, and Sir Charles Metcalfe had all contributed to the funds of the society. But Lord Canning had also given a donation to the Baptist College at Srirampur. What then? It had been established in 1818, under the auspices of Lord Hastings, whose name had been published as the “First Patron” of the Institution, and it had received the support of subsequent Governors-General without question or comment. Besides these donations, he had made a contribution to the support of the excellent school of the Free Church Mission, under the management of Dr. Duff, as Lord Dalhousie had done before him. “I admit,” he said, “that the Head of the Government in India ought to abstain from acts which may have the appearance of an exercise of power, authority, solicitation, or persuasion towards inducing natives to change their religion. But if it is contended that a school like this, thoroughly catholic and liberal, open to students of every creed, doing violence to none, and so conducted as to disarm hostility and jealousy (the number of the Hindu and Musulman scholars shows this), is not to have countenance and support from the Governor-General because it is managed by missionaries, I join issue on that point. I am not prepared to act upon that doctrine.”

And what had Lady Canning done? She had taken a true womanly interest in the education of native female children. She had visited the female schools of Calcutta in a quiet, unobtrusive way; but once only in each ease, save with a notable

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exception in favour of the Bethune Institution, which had been taken by Lord Dalhousie under the special care of the Government191. In this Lady Canning had taken some observable interest. But as the Managing Committee of the school was composed of high-caste Hindu gentlemen, there was assuredly no apparent necessity for restraining her womanly instincts and shrinking into apathy and indolence, as one regardless of the happiness and the dignity of her sex. Whatsoever may have been the zeal for the conversion of the Heathen that pervaded Government House, there were no indiscreet manifestations of it. There are times, however, when no discretion can wholly arrest the growth of dangerous lies. A very little thing, in a season of excitement, will invest a colourable falsehood with the brightest hues of truth, and carry conviction to the dazzled understanding of an ignorant people. The sight of Lady Canning’s carriage at the gates of the Bethune school may have added, therefore, Heaven only knows, some fresh tints to the picture of a caste-destroying Government, which active-minded emissaries of evil were so eager to hang up in the public places of the land.

Progress of social reform

It was not much; perhaps, indeed, it was simply nothing. But just at that time there was a movement, urged on by John Grant and Barnes Peacock, in the purest spirit of benevolence, for the rescue of the women of India from the degradation in which they were sunk. It happened – truly, it happened, for it was wholly an accident – that one of the first measures, outwardly, of Lord Canning’s Government was the formal passing of the bill “to remove all legal obstacles to the marriage of Hindu widows,” which had been introduced, discussed, and virtually carried, during the administration of his predecessor192. And this done, there was much said and written about the restraints that were to be imposed on Hindu polygamy; and every day the appearance of a Draft Act, formidable in the extreme to Brahmanism, was looked for, with doubt and aversion, by the old orthodox Hindus. For they saw that in this, as in the matter of Re-Marriage, some of their more free-thinking countrymen, mostly of the younger generation, moved by the teachings of the English, or by some hope of gain, were beseeching Government to relieve the nation from what they called the reproach of

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Kulinism. And, at such a time, Orthodoxy, staggering under blows given, and shrinking from blows to come, looked aghast even at such small manifestations as the visits of the wife of the Governor-General to the Bethune female school. It was clear that the English, with their overpowering love of rule, were about now to regulate in India, after their own fashion, the relations of the two sexes to each other193.

Lord Canning found this movement afoot; he in no wise instituted it. He found that Lord Dalhousie, after an experience of many years, believed these social reforms to be practicable and safe; he found that the ablest member of his Council, who had spent all his adult life in India, was with all his heart and soul eager for their promotion, and with all the activity of his intellect promoting them. As to this movement against Hindu polygamy, which was intended to prune down the evil, not wholly to eradicate it, there was something, to his European understanding, grotesque in the notion of a Christian Legislature recognising certain forms of polygamy, and addressing itself only to the abuses of the system, as though to Christian eyes it were not altogether an abuse. But he could see plainly enough that only by admitting such a compromise could the good thing be done at all; and seeing also the necessity of proceeding warily with such a delicate operation, he was not disposed, in the first instance, to do more than to feel the pulse of the people. It would be wise to delay actual legislation until public opinion should have been more unmistakably evoked194.

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In the personal action of Lord Canning during this year of his novitiate, in the promotion either of the religious conversion or the social reformation of the people, I can see no traces of intemperate zeal. But it is not to be questioned that just at this time there was a combination of many untoward circumstances to strengthen the belief, which had been growing for some years, that the English Government were bent upon bringing, by fair means or by foul, all the nations of India under the single yoke of the White Man’s faith. Nor is it less certain that at such a time the order for the enlistment of Native troops for general service appeared to their unaided comprehensions, and was designedly declared by others, to be a part of the scheme. There were those, indeed, who saw, or professed to see, in this matter, the very root of our cherished desire for the conversion of the people. It was said that we wished to bring them all to our own faith in order that we might find them willing to do our bidding in all parts of the world, that they might shrink from no kind of work by sea or by land, and even fight our battles in Europe; for it was plain that England had sad lack of fighting-men, or she would not have drawn upon India for them during the Crimean war. In the art of what is called “putting two and two together,” there were many intelligent natives by no means deficient, and deeper and deeper the great suspicion struck root in the popular mind.

There was another ugly symptom, too, at this time, which greatly, in some particular quarters, strengthened this impression

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of coming danger among the Sipahis of the Bengal Army. There were among the European officers of that army many earnest-minded, zealous Christians; men whose hearts were wrung by the sight of the vast mass of heathendom around them, and who especially deplored the darkness which brooded over their companions in arms, their children in the service of the State, the Sipahis who looked up to and obeyed them. Some, in their conscientious prudence, grieved in silence, and rendered unto Caesar the homage of a wise forbearance. Others, conscientiously imprudent, believed that it was their duty to render unto God the just tribute of an apostolic activity. It was the creed of these last that all men were alike to them, as having souls to be saved, and that no external circumstances affected their own inalienable right to do their great Master’s work. If under the pressure of these convictions they had changed the red coat for the black, and the sword for the shepherd’s crook, they would have fairly earned the admiration of all good men. But holding fast to the wages of the State, they went about with the order-book in one hand and the Bible in the other; and thus they did a great and grievous wrong to the Government they professed to serve. To what extent this missionary zeal pervaded our English officers, it is not easy, with much precision, to declare. But there were some of whose missionary zeal there is now no remnant of a doubt – some who confessed, nay, openly gloried in their proselytising endeavours. One officer, who in 1857 was commandant of a regiment of Infantry, said vauntingly in that year: “I beg to state that during the last twenty years and upwards I have been in the habit of speaking to natives of all classes, Sipahis and others, making no distinction, since there is no respect of persons with God, on the subject of our religion, in the highways, cities, bazaars, and villages – not in the Lines and regimental Bazaars. I have done this from a conviction that every converted Christian is expected, or rather commanded, by the Scriptures to make known the glad tidings of salvation to his lost fellow-creatures, Our Saviour having offered Himself up as a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, by which alone salvation can be secured. He has directed that this salvation should be freely offered to all without exception.” Again, in another letter, he wrote: “As to the question whether I have endeavoured to convert Sipahis and others to Christianity, I would humbly reply that this has been my object, and I

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conceive is the aim and end of every Christian who speaks the word of God to another – merely that the Lord would make him the happy instrument of converting his neighbour to God, or, in other words, of rescuing him from eternal destruction.” “On matters connected with religion,” he added, “I feel myself called upon to act in two capacities – ‘ to render unto Caesar (or the Government) the things that are Caesar’s, and to render unto God the things that are God’s.’ Temporal matters and spiritual matters are thus kept clearly under their respective heads. When speaking, therefore, to a native on the subject of religion, I am then acting in the capacity of a Christian soldier under the authority of my heavenly superior; whereas in temporal matters I act as a general officer, under the authority and order of my earthly superior195.” Reading this, one does not know whether more to admire the Christian courage of the writer or to marvel at the strange moral blindness which would not suffer him to see that he could not serve both God and Mammon; that ignoring the known wishes and instructions of his temporal master, he could not do his duty to his spiritual Lord; and that if in such a case the two services were antagonistic to each other, it was his part, as a Christian, to divest himself of his purchased allegiance to the less worthy Government, and to serve the Other and the Higher without hindrance and without reproach. He was not bound to continue to follow such a calling, but whilst following it he was bound to do his duty in that state of life to which it had pleased God to call him.

Whilst all these disturbing influences were at work, and on many accounts most actively in the neighbourhood of Calcutta, there came from afar, across the North-Western frontier, a current of political agitation, which was met by other streams of native origin, turgid also with troublous rumours. The Persian Government, in best of times given to treachery and trickery, even under the fairest outside show of friendship, were not likely in such a conjuncture as had arisen at the end of 1856 to let slip any available means of damaging an enemy. Holding fast to the maxim that “All is fair in war,” they endeavoured, not unwisely after their kind, to raise manifold excitements on our Northern frontier, and somehow to “create

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a diversion.” There might be some inflammable materials strewn about, to which a firebrand skilfully applied, or even a spark dropped seemingly haphazard, might produce the desired result of combustion. Truly it was worth a trial. In spite of Sectarian differences something perhaps might be done by an appeal to the common faith of the followers of the Prophet. The King of Dehli, though not much as a substantial fact, was a great and potential name; there was some vitality in the traditions which were attached to it and the associations by which it was surrounded. The Mughul himself was a Suni, and the people of Dehli and its surroundings were mostly Sunis, and there was doubtless a difficulty in this, but not one that might not be surmounted. So Persia sent forth her emissaries noiselessly to the gates of the Imperial City, perhaps with no very clear conception of what was to be done, but with a general commission to do mischief to the English. Muhammadans of all sects might be invited to lay aside their doctrinal differences for a while and to unite against a common enemy. There might be great promises of the restoration of a magnificent Muhammadan Empire; and, as the least result of the scattering of such seed, the minds of the people might be unsettled, and something might come of it in good time. A Proclamation was therefore prepared, and in due course it found its way to the walls of Dehli, and even displayed itself on the Jami Masjid, or Great Mosque. There were stories, too, in circulation to the effect that the war on the shores of the Persian Gulf was going cruelly against us. It was bruited abroad, also, that though the English thought that they had secured the friendship of Dost Muhammad, the Amir was really the friend and vassal of Persia, and that the amity he had outwardly evinced towards them was only a pretext for beguiling them to surrender Peshawar to the Afghans.

It was believed in Upper India that this was to be done; and it was reported also about the same time that the English intended to compensate themselves for this concession by annexing the whole of Rajputana. This last story was not one of merely native acceptance. It had been set forth prominently in some of the Anglo-Indian newspapers, and unhappily there had been nothing in our past treatment of the Native States of India to cause it to be disbelieved In the North-Western regions of India disturbing rumours commonly assume a political colour, whilst lower down in Bengal and Bihar, their

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complexion is more frequently of a religious cast. The rumour of the coming absorption of these ancient Hindu principalities into the great new Empire of the British was well contrived, not only to excite the anxieties and resentments of the Rajput races, but to generate further political mistrust throughout all the remaining states of the country. It was so mischievous a report that, when it reached England and obtained further currency in our journals, even the Court of Directors of the East India Company, the most reticent of all political bodies, broke, as I have before said, through their habitual reserve, and authoritatively contradicted it.

Seldom is it that the English themselves discern the effects of these disquieting rumours upon the minds of the people. In ordinary official language, at this time, all was quiet in Upper India. But ever and anon some friendly Muhammadan or Hindu spoke of certain significant symptoms of the unrest which was not visible to the English eye196; and vague reports of some coming danger which no one could define, reached our functionaries in the North-West; and some at last began to awaken slowly to the conviction that there were evil influences at work to unsettle the national mind. The new year dawned,

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and there was something suggestive in the number of the year. In 1757 the English had established their dominion in India by the conquest of Bengal. For a hundred years they had now, by the progressive action of continued encroachments, been spreading their paramount rule over the whole country; and there were prophecies, said to be of ancient date, which foretold the downfall of the English power at the end of this century of supremacy. Ever in times of popular excitement are strange prophecies afloat in the social atmosphere. Whether they are revivals of old predictions, or new inventions designed to meet the requirements of the moment, it is often difficult even to conjecture197. But whether old or new, whether uttered in good faith or fraudulently manufactured, they seldom failed to make an impression on the credulous minds of the people. Coming upon them not as the gi owth of human intelligence, but as the mysterious revelations of an unseen power, they excited hopes and aspirations, perhaps more vital and cogent from their very vagueness. The religious element mingled largely with the political, and the aliment which nourished the fanaticism of believers fed also their ambition and their cupidity. In the particular prophecy of which men at this time were talking there was at least something tangible, for it was a fact that the first century of British rule was fast coming to an end. This in itself was sufficient to administer largely to the superstition and credulity of the people, and it was certain, too, that the prediction based upon it was not now heard for the first time. Lightly heeded, when long years were to intervene before its possible realisation, now that the date of the prediction had arrived, it took solemn and significant shape in the memories of men, and the very excitement that it engendered helped in time to bring about its fulfilment198.

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Footnotes

183. As President of the Board of Control, George Canning had moved, in the House of Commons, the vote of thanks to Lord Hastings’s Army for its service in the second Maratha war, and in the course of his speech had paid this fine tribute to the Native Army: “In doing justice,” ho said, “to the bravery of the Native troops, I must not overlook another virtue, their fidelity. Many of the Bombay Army had been recruited in the territories of the Peshwa; their property, their friends, their relatives, all that was valuable and dear to them, were still in that prince’s power. Previously to the commencement of hostilities, the Peshwa had spared no pains to seduce and corrupt these troops; he abstained from no threats to force them from their allegiance, but his utmost arts were vain. The Native officers and soldiers came to the British Commanders with the proofs of these temptations in their hands, and renewed the pledges of their attachment. One man, a non-commissioned officer, brought to his captain the sum of 5000 rupees, which had been presented to him by the Peshwa in person, as an earnest of reward for desertion. The vengeance denounced by the Peshwa, was not an unmeaning menace; it did, in many instances, fall heavily on the relatives of those who resisted his threats and his entreaties; but the effect was rather to exasperate than to repress their ardour in the service to which they had sworn to adhere.”

184. Then Secretary to the Board of Control.

185. Ante, pp. 47–49.

186. “The natives of India have, generally speaking, a rooted dislike to the sea; and when we consider the great privations and hardships to which Hindus of high caste are subject on a long voyage. during which some of them, from prejudices of caste, subsist solely on parched grain, we feel less surprised at the occasional mutinies, which have been caused by orders for their embarkation, than at the zeal and attachment they have often shown upon such trying occasions.” – Sir John Malcolm in the Quarterly Review, vol. xviii. p. 399,

187. The battalions thus formed were the basis of the six general-service regiments, in the later organisation, of which mention is made in the text.

188. Sir John Malcolm, writing in 1817–18, says, that all the mutinies in the Bengal Army up to that time had arisen from the blunders of their commanding officers, or from orders given to go beyond the seas. See article, previously quoted, in Quarterly Review.

189. It must not be supposed, however, that the Madras Army had always cheerfully accepted this necessity for going upon foreign service. On several occasions they had broken into mutiny on the eve of embarkation. Once, towards the close of the last century, they had risen upon their European officers, when about to embark at Vizagpatan, and shot all but one or two, who had contrived to escape on board the ship which was waiting to receive the regiment. In a former chapter I have given some later instances, and others might have been cited. But there are some noble examples on record of another kind, and one adduced by Sir John Malcolm, in the article previously quoted, deserves to be recorded here, if only as an illustration of the influence for good of a trusted commanding officer. Speaking of the services of the 22nd Madras Regiment, he says: “This fine corps was commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel James Oram, an officer not more distinguished for his personal zeal and gallantry than for a thorough knowledge of the men under his command, whose temper he had completely preserved, at the same time that he had imparted to them the highest perfection in their dress and discipline. When he proposed to his corps on parade to volunteer for Manilla, they only requested to know whether Colonel Oram would go with them? The answer was, ‘He would.’ ‘Will he stay with us?’ was the second question. The reply was in the affirmative. The whole corps exclaimed, ‘To Europe! – to Europe!’ And the alacrity and spirit with which they subsequently embarked, showed that they would as readily have gone to the shores of the Atlantic as to an island of the Eastern Ocean. Not a man of the corps deserted, from the period they volunteered for service until they embarked; and such was the contagion of their enthusiasm, that several Sipahis who were missing from one of the battalions in garrison at Madras, were found, when the expedition returned, to have deserted to join the 22nd under Colonel Oram. We state this anecdote,” adds Sir John Malcolm, “with a full impression of the importance of the lesson it conveys. It is through their affections alone that such a class of men can well be commanded.”

190. Take, in proof of this, the following extract from a letter written by Sir Henry Lawrence to Lord Canning, on the 1st of May, 1857: “The General Service Enlistment Oath is most distasteful, keeps many out of the service, and frightens the old Sipahis, who imagine that the oaths of the young recruits affect the whole regiment. One of the best captains of the 13th Native Infantry, in this place, said to me last week that he had clearly ascertained this fact: Mr. E. A. Reade, of the Sudder Board, who was for years collector of Gorakhpur, had the General Service Order given to him as a reason last year, when on his tour, by Rajputs, for not entering the service. The salt water, he told me, was the universal answer.” – MS. Correspondence.

191. Ante, page 136

192. Ante, page 137.

193. Sir Henry Lawrence clearly discerned the danger of this, and in an article in the Calcutta Review, written in 1856, pointed it out: “Of late years,” he wrote, “the wheels of Government have been moving very fast. Many native prejudices have been shocked. Natives are now threatened with the abolition of polygamy. It would not be difficult to twist this into an attack on Hinduism. At any rate, the faster the vessel glides, the more need of caution, of watching the weather, the rocks, and the shoals.”

194. Lord Canning’s opinions are so clearly expressed in the following passage, that it is right that his words should be given: “It will no doubt be a little staggering to find ourselves drawing up a law by which, although a horrible abuse of polygamy will be checked, a very liberal amount of it will be sanctioned, and which must recognise as justifying it reasons which we believe to be no justification whatever. It may be said that we shall only be enforcing Hindu law, and that we are constantly doing this in many ways which abstractedly we should not approve. But I do not know that we have any examples of laws of our own making and wording, by which anything so contrary to our convictions of right and wrong as the taking of a second wife, for the reasons allowed by Menu (or at least for eight of them out of ten), is declared lawful. This, however, is a matter of appearance and feeling rather than of substance. Practically, a monstrous horror would be put an end to, and we might keep ourselves straight even in appearance by making it very clear in the preamble that the act is passed at the desire of the Hindus to rescue their own law and custom from a great abuse, and that in no respect is it proposed to substitute English law for the laws of that people. ... Upon the whole, I come, without hesitation, to the conclusion that the movement ought to be encouraged to our utmost, and that the existence and strength of it ought to be made generally known. The presentation of the petitions to the Legislative Council, and their publication, will effect this. How soon the introduction of a bill should follow, or how much time should be given to seeing whether serious opposition is evoked, I should like to talk over with yon some day, as also the scope of the bill.” – Lord Canning to Mr. J. P. Grant, June 20, 1856. MS. Correspondence.

195. Lieutenant-Colonel Wheler to Government, April 15, 1857. – Printed Papers.

196. The old Afghan chief, Jan Fishan Khan, who had followed our fortunes and received a pension from the British Government, told Mr. Greathed, Commissioner at Kanhpur, in February, 1857, that these rumours had produced a very bad effect. A private note from that officer to Mr. Colvin, the Lieutenant-Governor, is worthy of citation in this place: “Jan Fishan Khan paid me a visit a few days ago with the special object of communicating his apprehensions on the present state of political affairs in India. He brought several members of his family, evidently to be witnesses of the interview, and prefaced his address with a recitation of the fruitless warnings ho had given Sir Wm. MacNaghten of the course affairs were taking in Kabul. His fears for our safety rested on his belief that we intended to give up Peshawar to Dost Muhammad and to annex Rajputana. He said our maxim should be ‘Prevention better than cure,’ and that, with enemies at the gate, we should take care to keep the inmates of the house our friends. He appeared quite relieved to receive my assurance that there was no probability of either of the apprehended events coming to pass. It would hardly have been worthwhile to mention this incident, but that we so rarely receive any indication of the political gossip of the day among the native community; and we may feel quite sure that Jan Fishan was actuated by fears for our welfare, and not by hopes of our overthrow, when he gave credence to the reports. I am afraid the frequent reports of annexation in Rajputana have agitated the public mind and bred distrust among the Rajputs. It is a pity so many years have elapsed since a Governor-General had an opportunity of personally assuring them of their political safety.”

197. It is certain, however, that the most preposterous claims to antiquity are sometimes advanced on their behalf. For example, it was gravely stated in a leading Calcutta journal, that a prophecy had been discovered, a thousand years old, pointing to the downfall of the English at this time; in other words, that our destruction had been predicted many hundred years before we had ever been seen in the country, or ever heard of by the people.

198. Whether the prophecy was of Hindu or ‘Muhammadan origin is still a moot question. The following, from a memorandum furnished to me by Mr. E. A. Reade, throws some light on the subject, and will be read with no little interest: – “I do not think I ever net one man in a hundred that did not give the Muhammadans credit for this prediction. I fully believe that the notion of change after a century of tenure was general, and I can testify with others to have heard of the prediction at least a quarter of a century previously. But call it a prediction or superstition, the credit of it must, I think, be given to the Hindus. If we take the Hejra calendar, 1757 A.D. corresponds with 1171 Hejra; 1857 A.D. with 1274 Hejra. Whereas by the luni-solar year of the Sumbut, 1757 A.D. is 1814 Sumbut, and 1857 A.D. 1914 Sumbut. I remember on my remarking to a ehowvey Brahman, whose loyalty was conspicuous throughout the period (he was afterwards killed in action with the rebels), soon after the battle of Oct. 11, 1857, that the Sumbut 1915 was passing away without the fulfilment of the centenary prophecy, that he replied with some anxiety, there was yet a remainder of the year, i.e., till March 20, 1858; and before that time, in 1832, the Subadir, a Tawari, of a cavalry regiment, in his farewell to a brother of mine leaving the service in that year, coolly telling him that in another twenty-five years the Company’s Raj would be at an end, and the Hindu Raj restored. It certainly does not much matter, but I think it is the safe view to accept the tradition as of Hindu rather than Muhammadan origin.”

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