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Chapter 5

In all countries, and under all forms of government, the dangers which threaten the State, starting in the darkness, make headway towards success before they are clearly discerned by the rulers of the land. Often so much of time and space is gained, that the slow and complex action of authority cannot overtake the mischief and intercept its further progress. The peculiarities of our Anglo-Indian Empire converted a probability into a certainty. Differences of race, differences of language, differences of religion, differences of customs, all indeed that could make a great antagonism of sympathies and of interests, severed the rulers and the ruled as with a veil of ignorance and obscurity. We could not see or hear with our own senses what was going on, and there was seldom any one to tell us. When by some accident the truth at last transpired, generally in some of the lower strata of the official soil, much time was lost before it could make its way upwards to the outer surface of that authority whence action, which could no longer be preventive, emanated in some shape of attempted suppression. The great safeguard of sedition was to be found in the slow processes of departmental correspondence necessitated by a system of excessive centralisation. When prompt and effectual action was demanded, Routine called for pens and paper. A letter was written where a blow ought to have been struck, and the letter went, not to one who could act, but was passed on to another stage of helplessness, and then on to another, through all gradations, from the subaltern’s bungalow to the Government House.

The direction of the military affairs of our Indian Empire was supposed to be confided to the Commander-in-Chief. But there was a general power of control in the Governor-General that made the trust little more than nominal. So little were the limits of authority prescribed by law, or even by usage,

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that, it has already been observed, there was often a conflict between the Civil and the Military Chiefs, which in time ripened into a public scandal, or subsided into a courteous compromise, according to the particular temper of the litigants. Sensible of his power, the Governor-General was naturally anxious to leave all purely military matters in the hands of the Commander-in-Chief; but in India it was bard to say what were “purely military” matters, when once the question emerged out of the circle of administrative detail. As harmonious action was constitutionally promoted by the bestowal upon the Commander-in-Chief of a seat in Council, there would have been little practical inconvenience in the division of authority if the Civil and the Military Chiefs had always been in the same place. But it often happened that the Governor-General, with his official machinery of the Military Secretary’s office, was at one end of the country, and the Commander-in-Chief, with the Adjutant-General of the Army, at the other. And so it happened in the early part of 1857. Lord Canning was at Calcutta. General Anson was officially in the Upper Provinces; personally he was somewhere in Lower Bengal209. The Adjutant-General was at Mirath. The Adjutant-General’s office was in Calcutta. The Inspector-General of Ordnance was in Fort William. All these authorities had something to do with the business of the greased cartridges, and it was a necessity that, out of a system which combined a dispersed agency with a centralised authority, there should have arisen some injurious delay.

But the delay, thus doubly inevitable, arose rather in this instance from the multiplicity of official agencies, than from the distance at which they were removed from each other. On the 22nd of January, Lieutenant Wright, who commanded the detachment of the 70th Sipahis at Damdamah, reported to the commanding officer of the musketry depot the story of the greased cartridges, and the excitement it had produced. Major Bontein, on the following day, reported it to the commanding officer at Damdamah, who forthwith passed it on to the General

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commanding the Presidency division at Barrackpur. On the same day, General Hearsey forwarded the correspondence to the Deputy-Adjutant-General, who remained in charge of the office at Calcutta in the absence of his chief. But, though thus acting in accordance with military regulations, he took the precaution to add that he forwarded the correspondence “for immediate submission to the Government of India, through its Military Secretary,” and suggested that the Sipahis at the Rifle Depot should be permitted to grease their own cartridges. General Hearsey’s letter must have reached the Adjutant-General’s office on the 24th of January; perhaps not till after office hours. The following day was the Sabbath. The letter of “immediate transmission” was dated, therefore, on the 26th210. On the following day, the Government of India, through its Military Secretary, addressed a letter to the Adjutant-General’s office sanctioning Hearsey’s suggestion. On the 28th, the General received the official sanction, and at once directed the concession to be made known to all the regiments in Barrackpur. But it was too late. On the previous day, a significant question had been put by a Native officer on parade, as to whether any orders had been received. The reply was necessarily in the negative. Had it not been for the intervention of the Adjutant-General’s office, General Hearsey might have received his reply four days before. Whilst we were corresponding, our enemies were acting; and so the lie went ahead of us apace.

Onward and onward it went, making its way throughout Upper India with significant embellishments, aided by the enemies of the British Government, whilst that Government looked at the matter in its naked reality, divested of all the outer crust of lies which it had thus acquired. Confident of their own good intentions, the English chiefs saw only an accident, an oversight, to be easily rectified and explained. There did not seem to be anything dangerously irreparable in it. But it was, doubtless, right that they should probe the matter to its very depths, and do all that could be done to allay the inquietude in the Sipahi’s mind. It was hardly to be expected that the Governor-General, who at that time had

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been less than a year in India, should see at once all the difficulties of the position. But he had men of large experience at his elbow; and it was wise to confide in them. In such an emergency as had then arisen, the Military Secretary to the Government of India was the functionary whose especial duty it was to inform and advise the Governor-General. That office was represented by Colonel Richard Birch, an officer of the Company’s Army, ‘‘ho had served for many years at the head of the Judge Advocate’s department, and was greatly esteemed as an able, clear-headed man of business, of unstained reputation in private life. Lord Dalhousie, no mean judge of character, had selected him for this important office, and Lord Canning soon recognised the wisdom of the choice. The Military Secretary had no independent authority, but in such a conjuncture as this much might be done to aid and accelerate the movements of Government; and had he then sat down idly and waited the result, or had he suffered any time to be lost whilst feebly meditating action, a heavy weight of blame would have descended upon him, past all hope of removal. But, when he heard that the detachments at Damdamah were in a state of excitement, his first thought was to ascertain the truth or the falsehood of the alleged cause of alarm; so he went at once to the Chief of the Ordnance Department to learn what had been done.

At that time, the post of Inspector-General of Ordnance was held by Colonel Augustus Abbott, an Artillery officer of high repute, who had earned a name in history as one of the “Illustrious Garrison of Jalalabad.” His first impression was, that some greased cartridges had been issued to the Depot at Damdamah, and it was admitted that no inquiries had been made into the natural history of the lubricating material. But he was relieved from all anxiety on this score by a visit from Major Bontein, the Instructor, who asked Abbott to show him a greased cartridge. The fact was, that though large numbers had been manufactured, none had ever been issued to the Native troops at Damdamah or any other station in the Presidency Division211. The discovery, it was thought, had been

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made in time to prevent the dangerous consequences which might have resulted from the oversight. It would be easy to cease altogether from the use of the obnoxious fat; easy to tell the Sipahis that they might grease the cartridges after their own fashion. The uneasiness, it was believed, would soon pass away, under the influence of soothing explanations. It was plain, however, that what had happened at Damdamah might happen at the other military stations, where schools of musketry had been established and the new rifles were being brought into use. The regiments there would assuredly soon hear the alarm-note pealing upwards from Bengal. But, though some time had been lost, the “lightning-post” might still overtake the letters or messages of the Sipahis before they could reach Ambalah and Sialkot.

So Birch, having thus clearly ascertained the real fact of the greased cartridges, went at once to the Governor-General, and asked his permission to take immediate steps to re-assure the minds of the Sipahis at all the Musketry Depots.

January 27

The permission was granted, and orders were forthwith sent to Damdamah; whilst the Electric Telegraph was set at work to instruct the Adjutant-General of the Army, at Mirath, to issue all cartridges free from grease, and to allow the Sipahis to apply with their own hands whatever suitable mixture they might prefer. For, at Mirath, a large manufacture of greased cartridges was going on, without any fear of the results212. At the same time he telegraphed to the commanding officers of the Rifle Depots at Ambalah and Sialkot, not to use any of the greased cartridges that might have been issued for service with the new rifles. It was recommended, at the same time, by Birch and Abbott, that a General Order should be published by the Commander-in-Chief, setting forth that no greased cartridges would be issued to the Sipahi troops, but that every man would be permitted to lubricate his own ammunition with any materials suitable to the purpose. But plain as all this seemed to be, and apparently unobjectionable, an objection was found at Mirath to the course proposed in Calcutta; and the Adjutant-General, when he received his message, telegraphed back to the Military Secretary that Native troops had been

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using greased cartridges “for some years,” and the grease had been composed of mutton-fat. “Will not,” it was asked, “your instructions make the Sipahis suspicious about what hitherto they have not hesitated to handle?” Further orders were requested; and, on the 29th of January, a message went from Calcutta to the Head-Quarters of the Army, stating that the existing practice of greasing cartridges might be continued, if the materials were of mutton-fat and wax213.

Prompt measures having thus been taken to prevent the issue of greased cartridges prepared in Calcutta or Mirath to any Native troops – and with such success that from first to last no such cartridges ever were issued to them214 – the authorities, perhaps a little perplexed by this sudden explosion in a season of all-prevailing quiet, began to inquire how it had all happened. Not without some difficulty, for there were apparent contradictions in the statements that reached them, the whole history of the greased cartridges was at last disentangled. It was this. In 1853, the authorities in England sent out to India some boxes of greased cartridges. The lubricating material was of different kinds; but tallow entered largely into the composition of it all. It was sent out, not for service, but for experiment, in order that the effect of the climate upon the cartridges thus greased might be ascertained. But it did not wholly escape our high military functionaries in India, that these greased cartridges, if care were not taken to exclude all obnoxious materials from their composition, could not be served out to Native troops without risk of serious danger. Colonel Henry Tucker was, at that time, Adjutant-General of the Bengal Army, and he obtained the permission of the Commander-in-Chief to sound a note of warning on the subject. There was in those days even a greater complication of military authority than when Lord Canning presided over the Government.

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There was an institution called the Military Board, composed of certain ex-officio members, one special salaried member, and a Secretary who did the greater part of the work. The trite adage that “Boards are Screens” was verified in this instance, if in no other, for responsibility was effectually obscured.

December, 1853

It fell within the range of the Board’s multifarious functions to direct the experiments which were to be made with the greased cartridges; so Colonel Tucker, in due official course, addressed a letter to the Secretary to the Military Board on the subject of these experiments, adding, “lam at the same time to communicate the Commander-in-Chief’s. opinion, that, unless it be known that the grease employed in these cartridges is not of a nature to offend or interfere with the prejudices of caste, it will be expedient not to issue them for test to Native corps, but to European soldiers only to be carried in pouch.” But it does not seem that this warning had any effect upon the Military Board215. The ammunition to be tested was served out to Native Guards at Fort William, Kanhpur, and Rangun, who carried it in their pouches, and handed it from man to man every time that the guard was relieved. After being thus tested for many months, the cartridges were reported upon by Committees of European officers drawn from Native Infantry Regiments, and eventually sent back to England with these reports. No objection was ever made by the Sipahis to the handling of the cartridges, and none were ever started by their regimental officers or by the Committees.

The 60th (Queen’s) Rifles were at this time serving in India, but the weapon which they used was that known as the two-grooved rifle; and the ammunition consisted of a cartridge of powder only, and, separate from this cartridge, a ball covered

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with a “patch” of fine cloth, which was smeared with a mixture of wax and oil. When rifle-companies were raised in some of the Native regiments, this two-grooved rifle was served out to them with the ammunition above described, and no kind of objection was ever raised to its use. The grease was known to be harmless, and the paper of the cartridge was never suspected. But, in 1856, these two-grooved rifles were condemned, and new Enfield rifles issued to the 60th, and also to some of the Company’s European Infantry. The ammunition then, in the first instance, supplied to them, consisted of the residue of the greased cartridges sent from England for experiment; and, whilst these were being used up, others of the same description, in accordance with orders from England, were being made up by the Ordnance Departments at Calcutta, at Damdamah, and at Mirath. The mixture of wax and oil, though it answered the purpose of lubrication at the time of use, was not applicable to bundled cartridges, because its greasing properties soon disappeared. So the cartridges manufactured for the Enfield rifles were to be smeared with a mixture of stearine and tallow. The Ordnance Department then indented for tallow, without any specification of the nature of the animal fat composing it216; and, although no hog’s-lard was supplied, there is no question that some beef-fat was used in the composition of the tallow. This was, doubtless, an

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oversight, for it would have been easy to enter into a contract for the supply of sheep and goats’ fat, to which there would not have been the same objections; but it would seem that the Ordnance authorities had before them the fact that they were making ammunition, primarily for the use of the 60th Rifles, in accordance with instructions that had been received from England.

It was true, then, that cartridges smeared with obnoxious grease had been in course of manufacture both at Fort William and at the Head-Quarters of Artillery at Mirath. It was true that, in October, 1856, large numbers of balled cartridges had been sent up the country by steamer for the use of the Musketry Depots at Ambalah and Sialkot217. But it was not true that any had been issued to the Sipahi regiments; for the time had not yet come for the detachments at the Musketry Depots to use any kind of ammunition. These detachments had received the Enfield rifle; but they were merely learning its use; learning the construction and the properties of the new weapon; learning to take it to pieces and to put it together again; learning the mode of taking sight and aim at different distances – processes which occupied many weeks, and delayed the season of target practice. Meanwhile, the old two-grooved rifles were in full service with the rifle-companies; and cartridges, as above described, with detached balls greased with oil and wax, were in constant use for practice-drill218. To these cartridges the Commander-in-Chief referred, when he telegraphed to Calcutta that greased cartridges had been long in use without exciting any alarm. It was thought at Head-Quarters that if attention were once called to the matter of the greased cartridges, every Sipahi who had used the old “patches” would be filled with alarm.

But, whether this surmise were right or whether it were wrong, it is certain that the minds of the Sipahis, first in one

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station, then in another, were already becoming overwhelmed by the great fear. The lie had gone ahead of the truth. It is doubtful whether any orders or proclamations could have arrested the feeling of alarm, which was rushing, with the force of an electric current, from cantonment to cantonment, and turning the hearts of the soldiery against us. It was plain that a very dangerous delusion had taken possession of them, and it was right that everything reasonable should have been done to expel it. But the Sipahis, at a very early stage, were past all reasoning. It was not grease, animal grease, alone that disturbed them. Grease of an obnoxious kind, for long years, had been applied by Native hands to the wheels of gun-carriages and waggons, and not even a murmur of discontent had been heard. At Calcutta and at Mirath the greased cartridges had been made up by Natives, and, at the latter place, even Brahman boys had been employed in their manufacture. So it was thought that the objection might be confined to the biting off of the end of the cartridge. It was true that the grease was applied to the part farthest from that which touched the lips of the soldier; but in a hot climate grease is rapidly absorbed, and there was a not unreasonable apprehension that it would insidiously spread itself from one end to the other of the cartridge. So, on the recommendation of Major Bontein, change was introduced into the system of Rifle drill, by which the process of pinching off by the hand was substituted for biting off by the teeth. This was right, as far as it went; but it could not go far. The Sipahi was not satisfied. He argued that he had been accustomed always to bite off the end of the cartridge, and that the force of this strong habit would often bring it unwittingly to his lips, especially in the excitement of active service. There are times, doubtless, when both the Hindu and the Muhammadan have an elastic conscience. But there are seasons also when both are obdurate and unyielding. It might have been easy to persuade the Sipahis that the British Government desired to place the matter entirely in their own hands, and to leave them to grease their cartridges and to use them after their own fashion; but too many vague doubts and suspicions had been raised in past times, and too much was being poisonously instilled into them in the present, to suffer even a remnant of confidence to cling to them in this conjuncture. To beat them back at one point was only to make them take up their ground more tenaciously at another.

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Barrackpur, February, 1857

“We have at Barrackpur,” wrote General Hearsey in February, “been dwelling upon a mine ready for explosion. I have been watching the feeling of the Sipahis here for some time. Their minds have been misled by some designing scoundrels, who have managed to make them believe that their religious prejudices, their caste, is to be interfered with by Government – that they are to be ‘forced to become Christians.’ ” But day after day passed, and though it was manifest that there was an uneasy feeling in all the regiments, and especially in the 2nd and 34th, there were no overt acts of insubordination. Their commanding officers had explained to them that Government had no such designs as were imputed to them; but even when the Sipahis were assured that no greased cartridges would ever be issued to them, and that they might themselves lubricate their ammunition with wax and oil, so deeply rooted were the misgivings that had taken possession of their minds, that they began to suspect that animal grease had been used in the composition of the cartridge-paper, and that the English were only abandoning one trick to fall back upon another. There was a glazed surface on the paper, which gave it a greasy aspect, and favoured the growth of the suspicion, and, when it was burnt, it flared “with a fizzing noise, and smelt as if there was grease in it.” So the suspicion soon grew into a certainty, and the fears of the Sipahi waxed stronger and stronger every day.

This was especially apparent in the 2nd Grenadiers; so a Court of Inquiry was held to investigate the matter. The paper was examined in Court, and the Sipahis were called upon to state their objections. This they did, with an obstinate adherence to their belief that grease had been used in its composition. When asked how this suspicion could be removed from their minds, they answered that they could not remove it – that there was no means of removing it, except by substituting another kind of paper. So Government resolved to submit the obnoxious paper to a chemical test, and the Chemical Examiner reported, after due investigation, that it had not been greased or treated with any greasy or oily matter during or since its manufacture; that by operating on a large quantity of paper he had been able to extract as much oil as could be discovered by the use of a higher power of the microscope, but that the grease was no more than might be contracted from the

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hands of the workmen who had packed it219. But there was little satisfaction even in this, for so obstinate was the conviction that the English designed to pollute the Sipahis, that a belief was gaining ground among them that the paper was little more than “bladder.” The stiffness and transparency of it favoured this suspicion, and they could not rid themselves of the impression that it was an animal substance which they were called upon to use. This was a far greater difficulty than the other, for it affected not merely the Rifle Depots, but the whole Native Army; and there was no possibility of grappling with it except by ceasing altogether from musketry drill. If the fear had been only a fear of the fat of cows and swine, it might have been removed by the substitution of one grease for another; or if the external application of any kind of animal grease were objected to, oil and wax might be employed in its place; or if the touching of the unclean thing with the lips were the grievance, the end of the greased cartridge might be pinched off by the hand, and that objection removed. But to this fear of the paper used in all the cartridges issued to the Army, greased or dry, there was practically no antidote that would not have been both an admission and a concession, very dangerous for Government to make. It remained only that the English officer should persuade the Sipahi that he was wrong.

There could hardly, in such a crisis, have been a better man in command of the Division than General Hearsey; for he was one who steered wisely a middle course between the troubled waters of alarm and the dead calms of a placid sense of security. He had a large-hearted sympathy with the Sipahis in their affliction. He understood them thoroughly. He saw that they were labouring under a great fear; and he was not one, in such a case, to think that the “black fellows” had no right to suspect the designs of their white masters. He saw clearly what a tremendous significance, in the eyes both of Muhammadans and Hindus, there was in this incident of the greased cartridges, and he could not wonder at the mingled feeling of terror and resentment that it had excited. It was a case that in his opinion required kindly treatment and delicate handling; and he thought that much might be done by considerate explanations to restore confidence to their minds. So, on the

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afternoon of Monday, the 9th of February, he paraded the Brigade, and in a loud, manly voice, using good vernacular Hindustani, addressed the assembled regiments. Earnestly and emphatically he explained to them that they had laid hold of a foolish and a dangerous delusion; that neither the Government which they served, nor the officers who commanded them, had ever thought for a moment of interfering with their religious usages or depriving them of their caste; and that it was but an idle absurdity to believe that they could by any means be forced to be Christians. He told them “that the English were Christians of the Book – Protestants; that they admitted no proselytes but those who, being adults, could read and fully understand the precepts laid down therein; that if they came and threw themselves down at our feet, imploring to be made Book Christians, it could not be done; they could not be baptized until they had been examined in the truths of the Book, and proved themselves fully conversant with them, and then they must, of their own good will and accord, desire to become Christians before they could be made so.” He then asked them if they understood him; they nodded their assent, and it appeared both to the English and to the Native officers that the Sipahis were well pleased with what they had heard, and that a heaviness had passed away from their minds220.

March, 1857

But the good effect of this address was but transitory; for when the troops at Barrackpur heard what had been done by their comrades of the 19th, there was great excitement among them, great anxiety to know the result. It was plain that the game had commenced in earnest, and that they might soon be called upon to take a part in it. But it would be well first to see what move would be made by the Government; what punishment would be inflicted upon the mutinous regiment at Barhampur. Days passed, and days grew into weeks, but still the Government appeared to be inactive. The 19th were quietly performing their duties, as if nothing had happened. In the excited imaginations of the Sipahis there was something ominous in this quietude. They dimly apprehended the truth, and the obscurity of their conceptions caused them marvellously to exaggerate it. They believed that an overwhelming European force, with Cavalry and

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Artillery, would come suddenly upon them and destroy them221.

Their fears were exaggerated; but they were not wholly baseless. When the tidings of the mutiny at Barhampur reached Calcutta, the Governor-General saw at once that a great danger had been providentially escaped; but with the sense of present relief came also a solemn sense of the magnitude of the crisis. The little cloud was growing larger – growing darker. Hero was an act of overt mutiny, and from the very cause of all the perilous excitement at Barrackpur. The time had now come for the Government to do something to assert its authority, and to strike terror into the minds of the soldiery. But what was to be done? It was easy to decree the disbandment of the 19th, but it was not easy to accomplish it.

H.M.’s 53rd

H.M.’s 10th Foot

There was but one European regiment along the whole line of country from Calcutta to Danapur, and one other at the latter place, with a large extent of country to protect. Only in the presence of an overawing European force could a thousand armed Sipahis be suddenly consigned to penury and disgrace, and neither of these regiments could be moved to Barhampur without dangerously laying bare other parts of the lower provinces. For a while, therefore, the stern resolution of Government was shrouded from the guilty regiment. But the punishment was slowly overtaking them, though they knew it not. A week after the commission of their offence, Colonel Mitchell had received his orders to bring down the 19th to Barrackpur to be disbanded, and the spacious passenger vessel Bentinck was steaming across the Bay of Bengal, charged with a commission to bring back with all possible haste the 84th British regiment from Rangun. The English officers at Barrackpur, even Hearsey himself, knew nothing of this, and laughed at the credulity of the Sipahis, who believed, on the faith of their own news from Calcutta, that this step had been taken by the Government. But it soon became apparent that the Native soldiery were better informed than the Division

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Staff, for on the 20th March there was a great rejoicing among the English residents in Calcutta and the neighbourhood at the thought that the Bentinck had returned, and that succours had arrived.

March, 1857

In the meanwhile a state of sullen quietude obtained at Barrackpur. Still clinging to the belief that the Government, detected in their first design to apply the grease of cows and pigs to the new rifle cartridges, had purposely employed those materials in the manufacture of the cartridge-paper, the Sipahis went about their work under a prevailing sense of an impending danger and the aggravation of a great wrong222. It is probable that their fears were stronger than their discontents. They believed that their lives, and what was dearer to them even than their lives, were in peril, and they saw no means of escape except by obtaining the mastery over those who threatened to bring down such terrible calamities upon them. To what extent this idea of overpowering the Government had taken possession of the minds of the soldiery, and how far it was ever shaped into a definite scheme of action by those who were moved against us by religious or political animosities, can only be dimly conjectured. There was a belief in Calcutta that a general rising of the Native troops had been fixed for a particular night in March. It happened that, at this time, the Maharajah Sindhia, the greatest of the remaining Maratha Princes, was on a visit to the English capital. No one then charged, no one has since charged him, or his sagacious minister, Dinkar Rao, with any complicity in a plot hostile to the English. They were gratified by the kind and hospitable reception which had been extended to them by the Governor-General and all the chief people of the Presidency, and were pleased with everything they saw. But it happened that the Maratha Prince invited all the principal English gentlemen and ladies in Calcutta to a grand entertainment on the 10th of March. The fête was to have been given at the Botanical Gardens on the opposite bank of the Hugli river. It is said, that when the English were thus occupied

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with the pleasure of the moment, and the vigilance of the chief officers of Government was temporarily diverted, the Sipahis, stimulated by the agents of the King of Oudh, were to have risen as one man, to have seized the Fort and all the chief buildings of Calcutta, and proclaimed war against the Faringhi. That the idea of such a rising found entrance into the active brains of some enemies of the British can hardly be doubted; but there is no proof that it ever took practical shape as an organised conspiracy, which would have had the result I have indicated if nothing had occurred to frustrate the plot. But a circumstance did occur, which some still regard as a special interposition of Providence for the deliverance of our people. Most unexpectedly, in the dry season of the year, there was a heavy storm of rain – one of those mighty tropical downpourings which renders all out-of-doors recreation wholly an impossibility. So the great entertainment, which the Maharajah of Gwaliar was then to have given to the English society of Calcutta, was postponed to a more auspicious moment, and the evening of the 10th of March passed over as quietly as its predecessors.

Of this combination of the Native troops at the Presidency there were, indeed, no visible signs. Outwardly it appeared that only the 2nd Grenadiers were implicated in treasonable schemes. “The 43rd,” wrote Lord Canning to the Commander-in-Chief, “have refused to join in a dinner or feast to which the 2nd invited them; and some of the 70th have given up a Jamadar of the 2nd, who came into their Lines and tried to persuade the men not to bite the cartridges when the time for using them should come, and to deter them from finishing their huts, saying that there would soon be a great stir at Barrackpur, and that their huts would be burnt down223.” Another sign of this apparent isolation of the 2nd Grenadiers was afforded by an accident that occurred in Calcutta. The Native Guards for the Fort and for the public buildings in the city were furnished by the regiments at Barrackpur. On the evening of the 10th of March a detachment of the 2nd was in the Fort, and a Subahdar’s

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guard from the 34th was posted over the Calcutta Mint. In the course of the evening, two Sip(this from the 2nd presented themselves at the guard-house and sought out the Subahdar. He was reading an order book by the light of a lamp when the men appeared before him. One of them then represented that they had come from the Fort; that the Calcutta Militia were to join the Fort-Guards at midnight; that the Governor-General was going up to Barrackpur with all the Artillery from Damdamah; and that if the Subahdar would march his guard into the Fort and join their comrades there, they might rise successfully against the Government224. This last was rather implied than expressed; but the meaning of the men was sufficiently clear; so the Subahdar ordered them to be arrested. Next morning he sent them prisoners into Fort William and, a few days afterwards, they were tried by a Native court-martial, found guilty, and sentenced to imprisonment for fourteen years.

This was a significant incident, but it was one, also, which might be turned to some account; so Hearsey determined not to lose the opportunity. His former speech to the Barrackpur troops had not accomplished all that was desired; but it had at least been partially successful, and he believed that something might now be done by another address to the Brigade. So ho suggested to the Governor-General the expediency of such a course. On the 14th of March they talked the matter over at Government House, and Lord Canning assented to the proposal. But before the day had worn out, some misgivings assailed him, as to whether the General might not be carried away, by the strength of his feelings and the fluency of his speech, to say a little too much; so after Hearsey had returned to Barrack-pin., Lord Canning sent a letter after him, recapitulating the results of the morning conversation, “in order to prevent all mistakes.” This letter reached Hearsey soon after sunrise on the following morning (it was Sunday), and he at once replied to it, promising to take the greatest care not to exceed his instructions. On the next day the Native officers, who had been warned as members of the Court-martial ordered to assemble for the trial of the Sipahis of the 2nd, were to leave Barrackpur for Calcutta; and the General thought it advisable not to address the Brigade

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until after their departure225. So the order went forth for a general parade of the troops at Barrackpur on the morning of Tuesday, the 17th of March.

There was no little tact requisite, in such a conjuncture, for the exact apportionment of the several parts of the speech that was to be delivered. The main object of it was to warn the troops against designing persons, who were endeavouring to seduce them from their allegiance; but it was desirable, also, to endeavour to pacify and reassure them, for it was plain that they were overridden by a great terror, born of the belief that the Government had sent for European troops of all arms with the intent of exterminating the Brigade. In order thus to remove the dangerous delusion which had taken possession of them, it was necessary to speak of the designs of the Government towards the mutinous 19th – to show that retribution was sure to overtake all whose guilt had been proved, but that there was no thought of harming those who had committed no overt acts of rebellion. But it was not easy in such a case to avoid saying either too much or too little. “I am afraid,” wrote Lord Canning to the General, “that, however brief your observations on that regiment (and they should, I think, be very brief), you will find it a nice matter to steer between exciting undue alarm and raising hopes which may be disappointed. But I feel sure that you will master the difficulty, and I leave the task in your hands with perfect confidence of the result226.” He was thinking mainly of the effect to be produced upon the minds of the Sipahis of the 19th. He did not wish that the decision of Government should be announced before the time of carrying it into effect; but Hearsey saw plainly that it was better for the general pacification of the Brigade that the haze through which the intentions of Government appeared to the soldiery in such exaggerated dimensions should be dispersed. “For if the men of this Brigade,” he wrote to Lord Canning, “know beforehand what is to take place, their minds will be made easy, and they will be disabused of the false rumours now

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spread about that it is the intention of the Government to attack and destroy them by European troops and Artillery227.”

It was truly a great thing, at that time, to remove from the minds of the Barrackpur regiments the great terror that held possession of them; but the 19th had not then commenced its march from Barhampur, and it is always a hazardous operation to move a regiment, with sentence of disbandment proclaimed against it, to the place of execution. These considerations pressed heavily on Hearsey’s mind, when, on the morning of the 17th of March, he rode out to the parade-ground, and saw the Brigade drawn up before him. There was much, however, when he prepared to address them, of which there could be no doubt. Most of all was it necessary to warn them of the evil-minded and designing men who were leading them astray; so he began by telling them to beware of such men, who were endeavouring to take the bread from the mouths of good Sipahis by making them the instruments of their schemes of sedition; then he spoke of the discontent still prevailing among them with respect to the cartridge-paper, in which they had never ceased to believe that animal fat had been used. Then he began to explain to them, and wisely, too, as he would explain to children, that the glazed appearance of the paper was produced by the starch employed in its composition, and that the very best paper used by the Princes of the land had the same smooth surface and shiny appearance. In proof of this, he produced, from a bag of golden tissue, a letter he had received, whilst serving in the Panjab, from the Maharajah Gulab Singh of Kashmir, and, giving it to the Native officers, told them to open it and to show it to their men, that they might see that it was even more glossy than the paper which they suspected. Having done this, ho asked them if they thought that a Dogra Brahman or Rajput, ever zealous in the protection of kine, would use paper made as they suspected, and, after further illustrations of the absurdity of their suspicions, told them, that if they did not then believe him, they should go to Srirampur, and see the paper made for themselves. Then approaching the more dangerous subject of the 19th, who had been led into open mutiny by a belief in the falsehood of the defiled paper, he said that the investigation of their conduct had been laid before him as General of the Division, and that he had forwarded it to

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Government, who were exceedingly angry, and would, in his opinion, order him to disband the regiment. That if he received orders to that effect, all the troops within two marches of the place – Infantry, Cavalry, and Artillery, European and Native – would be assembled at Barrackpur to witness the disbandment, and that “the ceremony of striking the name and number of the regiment from the list of the Army would be carried out in exactly the same manner as the old 34th Regiment were disbanded at Mirath.” “I inform you of this beforehand,” added the General, “because your enemies are trying to make you believe that European troops with Cavalry and Artillery will be sent here suddenly to attack you; these, and such lies, are fabricated and rumoured amongst you to cause trouble. But no European or other troops will come to Barrackpur without my orders, and I will give you all timely intelligence of their coming.” Then he told them that nothing had been proved against them, and that therefore they had nothing to fear; that all their complaints would be listened to by their officers; that their caste and religious prejudices were safe under his protection, and that anyone who attempted to interfere with them would meet with the severest punishment.

Having thus concluded, Hearsey deployed the Brigade, opened out the ranks to double distance, and rode through them, stopping to notice the men who wore medals on their breasts, and asking them, with kindly interest, for what special services they had been rewarded. The regiments were then dismissed, and went quietly to their Lines, pondering all that they heard from their General. What they had heard was, perhaps, a little more than the Governor-General had intended them to hear; and Lord Canning, though he much admired and much trusted the fine old officer, had not been wholly free from alarm lest Hearsey should be carried away by his feelings, and give vent to more than he had authority for declaring. But, he added, “it will be nothing very mischievous even if he should do so.” And he was right. Hearsey had intimated that Government would disband the 19th, and in this he exceeded his instructions. But it is not certain that the Governor-General lamented the excess. He regarded the disbandment of the 19th as a necessary, but “an odious business”; and, perhaps, in his inmost heart he was not sorry that he had thus escaped the painful, and to a generous mind the humiliating alternative of concealing from the regiment the doom in store for it, until

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he was strong enough to execute the sentence228. Indeed, he wrote to the Commander-in-Chief, saying, “The 19th are marching down steadily, and will reach Barrackpur on the morning of the 31st. They do not know for certain that disbandment is to be their punishment, and, upon the whole, I think it was better not to tell them. But I admit that there were two sides to that question.” The safer course on one side, and the manlier course on the other; and between these two the ruler and the man might well have oscillated. That there was danger in the knowledge, is not to be doubted. Hearsey had sought, by the partial revelations that he had made, to soothe the troubled spirit of the Barrack-Or Brigade; but it soon became doubtful whether the knowledge they had gained would not excite within them more dangerous feelings than those which he had endeavoured to allay. “The regiments at Barrackpur, however, know it,” wrote Lord Canning, “or, at least, fully expect it, and to-day it is confidently said in the Bazaars that the 2nd Grenadiers and the 34th intend to protect the 19th, and to join them in resisting. This is leading to alarms and suggestions on all sides. Colonel Abbott, of Ishapur, advises the putting a gag upon the Native Press for a time, Major Bontein recommends bringing the 19th to Calcutta instead of Barrackpur, and dealing with them under the guns of the Fort, where they will have no sympathisers within reach. Even Atkinson suggests that Damdamah would be better than Barrackpur. I am not in any way moved from my first intention, and nothing but the opinion of General Hearsey, who has to execute the orders, that a change of plan or place should be made, would dispose me to do so. I do not think that he will give any such opinion, and I hope that he will not.”

No such opinion was given; but it was plain to Hearsey, as the month of March wore to a close, that the hopes which he had once entertained of the speedy subsidence of the alarm which had taken possession of the Sipahis were doomed to be disappointed. For when the troops at Barrackpur knew that the 19th were to be disbanded, and that an English regiment had been brought across the black water to execute the punishment, they believed, more firmly than they had believed at the beginning of the month, that other white regiments were

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coming, and that the Government would force them to use the obnoxious cartridges, or treat them like their comrades that were marching down from Barhampur to be disgraced. So the great terror that was driving them into rebellion grew stronger and stronger, and as from mouth to mouth passed the significant words, “Gora-log aya” – “the Europeans have come” – their excited imaginations beheld vessel after vessel pouring forth its legions of English fighting-men, under a foregone design to force them all to apostatise at the point of the bayonet.

Mitchell had started with his doomed corps on the 20th of March, and was expected to reach Barrackpur at the end of the month. The behaviour of the men of the 19th, ever since the outburst that had irretrievably committed them, had been orderly and respectful, and they were marching steadily down to the Presidency, obedient to their English officers. On the 30th, they were at Barsat, eight miles from Barrackpur, awaiting the orders of Government, when news reached Mitchell to the effect that the troops at the latter station were in a fever of excitement, and that on the day before an officer had been cut down on parade.

The story of Manghal Pandi

The story was too true. On the 29th of March – it was a Sunday afternoon – there was more than common excitement in the Lines of the 34th, for it was said that the Europeans had arrived. Fifty men of the 53rd had come by water from Calcutta, and were disembarking at the river-side. The apprehensions of the Sipahis exaggerated this arrival, and it was believed that the cantonment would soon be swarming with English soldiers. On one man especially this impression had fixed itself so strongly, that, inflamed as he was by bang, which is to the Sipahi what strong drink is to the European soldier, he was no longer master of himself. He was a young man, named Manghal Pandi, a man of good character, but of an excitable disposition, and seemingly with some religious enthusiasm wrought upon by the story of the greased cartridges. He had heard of the arrival of the detachment of Europeans, and he believed that the dreaded hour had come; that the caste of the Sipahis was about to be destroyed. So, putting on his accoutrements and seizing his musket, he went out from his hut, and, calling upon his comrades to follow him, if they did not wish to bite the cartridges and become infidels, he took post in front of the Quarter-Guard, and ordered a bugler to sound the assembly.

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The order was not obeyed; but, with an insolent and threatening manner, Manghal Pandi continued to stride up and down, and when the European sergeant-major went out, fired his piece at him, and missed.

All this time the Native officer and men of the 34th on duty at the Quarter-Guard saw what was going on, but did not move to arrest the drugged fanatic who was so plainly bent upon mischief. But hastening to the Adjutant’s house, a Native corporal reported what had occurred, and Lieutenant Baugh, without a moment of unnecessary delay, buckled on his sword, loaded his pistols, mounted his horse, and galloped down to the Quarter-Guard. He had just tightened rein, when Manghal Pandi, hidden by the station gun in front of the Guard, took aim and fired at the Adjutant; but, missing him, wounded his charger, and brought both horse and rider to the ground. Baugh then, disentangling himself, took one of his pistols from the holsters and fired at the Sipahi. The shot did not take effect, so he drew his sword and closed with the man, who also had drawn his tulwar, and then there was a sharp hand-to-hand conflict, in which the odds were against the Sipahi, for the sergeant-major came up and took part in the affray. But Manghal Pandi was a desperate man, and the strokes of his tulwar fell heavily upon his assailants; and he might, perhaps, have despatched them both, if a Muhammadan Sipahi, of the Grenadier Company, named Shekh Paltu, had not seized the mutineer and averted his blows.

All this passed at the distance of a few yards only from the Quarter-Guard of the 34th, where a Jamadar and twenty men were on duty. The sound of the firing had brought many others from the Lines, and Sipahis in uniform and out of uniform crowded around in a state of tumultuous excitement. But with the exception of this Shekh Paltu, no man moved to assist his officer; no man moved to arrest the criminal. Nor was their guilt only the guilt of inaction. Some of the Sipahis of the Guard struck the wounded officers on the ground with the butt-ends of their muskets, and one fired his piece at them; and when Shekh Paltu called upon them to arrest the mutineer, they abused him, and said that if he did not release Manghal Pandi, they would shoot him. But he held the desperate fanatic until Baugh and the sergeant-major had escaped, and doubtless to his fidelity they owed their lives.

Meanwhile, tidings of the tumult had reached the quarters of

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General Hearsey. An orderly rushed into the portico of his house and told him that the Brigade had risen. His two sons, officers of the Sipahi Army, were with him; and now the three, having ordered their horses to be saddled and brought round, put on their uniform and accoutrements and prepared at once to proceed to the scene of action. It seemed so probable that all the regiments had turned out in a frenzy of alarm, that, whilst the horses were being saddled, Hearsey wrote hasty notes, to be despatched in case of need to the officers commanding the Europeans at Chinsurah and Damdamah, calling upon them to march down at once to his assistance. He had just sealed them, when first the Adjutant of the 43rd, smeared with the blood of the wounded officers, and then the Commandant of the Regiment, came up to report, in detail, what had happened. The story then told him was a strange one; for it seemed not that the Brigade, but that a single Sipahi had risen, and was setting the State at defiance. It is hard to say whether the surprise or the indignation of the gallant veteran were greater, when he asked whether there was no one to shoot or to secure the madman. But it was plain that no time was to be lost. So mounting their horses, Hearsey and his sons galloped down to the parade-ground, and saw for themselves what was passing.

There was a great crowd of Sipahis, mostly unarmed and undressed, and there were several European officers, some mounted and some on foot; much confusion and some consternation, but apparently no action. Manghal Pandi, still master of the situation, was pacing up and down, in front of the Quarter-Guard, calling upon his comrades in vehement tones, and with excited action, to follow his example, as the Europeans were coming down upon them, and to die bravely for their religion. But the crowd of Sipahis, though none remembered at that moment that they were servants of the State, none came forward to support discipline and authority, were not ripe for open mutiny; and when Manghal Pandi reviled them as cowards, who had first excited and then deserted him, they hung irresolutely back, clustering together like sheep, and wondering what would happen next. The arrival of the General solved the question. As soon as he saw Manghal Pandi in front of the Quarter-Guard, he rode towards it, accompanied by his sons and by his Division-Staff, Major Ross, and when an officer cried out to him to take care, as the

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mutineer’s musket was loaded, answered, “Damn his musket!” and rode on to do his duty.

Little inclination was there on the part of the Jamadar and the men of the Guard to obey the General’s orders; but the manner of Hearsey at that moment was the manner of a man not to be denied; and supported by his sons, each of the gallant Three with his hand upon his revolver, there was instant death in disobedience. So the Jamadar and the Guard, thus overawed, followed Hearsey and his sons to the place where Manghal Pandi was striding about menacingly with his musket in his hand. As they approached the mutineer, John Hearsey cried out, “Father, he is taking aim at you.” “If I fall, John,” said the General, “rush upon him and put him to death.” But Maughal Pandi did not fire upon Hearsey; he turned his weapon upon himself. He saw that the game was up; and so, placing the butt of his musket on the ground, and the muzzle of the piece to his breast, he discharged it by the pressure of his foot, and fell burnt and wounded to the ground.

As he lay there convulsed and shivering, with his bloodstained sword beneath him, the officers thought that he was dying. But medical assistance came promptly, the wound was examined and found to be only superficial, so the wounded man was carried to the Hospital; and then Hearsey rode among the Sipahis, telling them, as he had often told them before, that their alarms were groundless, that the Government had no thought of interfering with their religion, and that he saw with regret how lamentably they had failed in their duty, in not arresting or shooting down a man who had thus shown himself to be a rebel and a murderer. They answered that he was a madman, intoxicated to frenzy by bang. “And if so,” said Hearsey, “why not have shot him down as you would have shot a mad elephant or a mad dog, if he resisted you.” Some answered that he had a loaded musket. “What!” replied the General, “are you afraid of a loaded musket? “They were silent, and he dismissed them with scorn. It was plain that they had ceased to be soldiers.

Hearsey returned to his quarters that Sabbath evening, heavy with thought of the work before him. He had received his orders to execute the sentence that had been passed on the 19th Regiment. That sentence had now been publicly proclaimed in a General Order to the whole Army. On Tuesday morning, in the presence of all the troops, European and Native,

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at the Presidency, the Barhampur mutineers were to be turned adrift on the world, destitute and degraded; and it was not to be doubted that they would carry with them the sympathies of their comrades in all parts of the country. That there was prospective danger in this was certain, for every disbanded Sipahi might have become an emissary of evil; but there was a great and present danger, far too formidable in itself to suffer thoughts of the future to prevail; for it was probable that the 19th would resist their sentence, and that all the Native troops at the Presidency would aid them in their resistance. Some thought that the Barrackpur Brigade would anticipate the event, and that on Monday there would be a general rising of the Sipahis, and that the officers and their families would be butchered by the mutineers. The first blood had been shed. Manghal Pandi was only the fugleman. So many of the English ladies in Barrackpur left the cantonment and sought safety for a while in Calcutta. But there was no place at that time more secure than that which they had quitted; and they found that the inmates of the asylum they had sought were as much alarmed as themselves.

It has been said that, halted at Banat on the 30th of March, the 19th learnt what had happened on the preceding evening. The 34th had sent out their emissaries to meet their old friends and comrades of Lakhnao, to prompt them to resistance, and to promise to cast in their own lot with their brethren and to die for their religion. And this, too, it is said, with murderous suggestions of a general massacre of the white officers. But the 19th shook their heads at the tempters. They had expressed their sorrow for what had happened, and they had implored that they might be suffered to prove their loyalty by going on service to any part of the world. They had never at heart been mutinous, and they would not now rise against the Government whose salt they had eaten and whose uniform they bad worn. But the bonds of a great sympathy restrained them from denouncing their comrades, so they suffered in silence the tempters to return to their own Lines.

March 31, 1857

Disbandment of the 19th N.I.

As the morning dawned upon them, obedient to orders, they commenced the last march that they were ever to make as soldiers. Heavy-hearted, penitent, and. with the remains of a great fear still clinging to them, they went to their doom. A mile from Barrackpur Hearsey met them with his final orders, and

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placing himself in front of the column, rode back with them to the parade-ground which was to be the scene of their disbandment. There all the available troops in the Presidency division, European and Native, were drawn up to receive them. Steadily they marched on to the ground which had been marked out for them, and found themselves face to face with the guns. If there had been any thought of resistance, it would have passed away at the first sight of that imposing array of white troops and the two field-batteries which confronted them. But they had never thought of anything but submission. Obedient, therefore, to the word of command, up to the last moment of their military existence, they listened in silence to the General’s brief preliminary address, in silence to the General Order of Government announcing the sentence of disbandment; without a murmur, opened their ranks, piled their arms at the word of command as though they had been on a common parade, and then hung their belts upon their bayonets. The colours of the regiment were then brought to the front, and laid upon a rest composed of a little pile of crossed muskets. It was an anxious moment, for though the 19th were penitent and submissive, the temper of some of the other regiments, and especially of the 34th, was not to be trusted; and for a while it was believed that the men, who two days before had thrown off the mask, were prepared to fire upon their officers. The rumour ran that many of the Sipahis of that guilty regiment were on parade with loaded muskets, and Hearsey was advised to prove them by ordering the regiment to spring ramrods. But he wisely rejected the advice, saying that all was going well, and that he would not mar the effect of the peaceable disbandment of the regiment by a movement that might excite a collision. He was right. The work that he had in hand was quietly completed. The men of the 19th were marched to a distance from their arms, and the pay that was due to them brought out for disbursement. They had now ceased to be soldiers; but there was no further degradation in store for them. Hearsey addressed them in tones of kindness, saying that, though the Government had decreed their summary dismissal, their uniforms would not be stripped from their backs, and that as a reward for their penitence and good conduct on the march from Barhampur, they would be provided at the public cost with carriage to convey them to their homes. This kindness made a deep impression upon

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them. Many of them lifted up their voices, bewailing their fate and loudly declaring that they would revenge themselves upon the 34th, who had tempted them to their undoing. One man, apparently spokesman for his comrades, said, “Give us back our arms for ten minutes before we go; and leave us alone with the 34th to settle our account with them229.”

Whilst the men of what had once been the 19th were being paid, Hearsey addressed. the other Native regiments on parade, very much as he had addressed them before; but urging upon them the consideration of the fact that the 19th, in which there were four hundred Brahmans and a hundred and fifty Rajputs, had been sent to their homes, and were at liberty to visit what shrines they pleased, and to worship where their fathers had worshipped before them, as a proof that the report which had been circulated of the intention of Government to interfere with their religion was nothing but a base falsehood. The men listened attentively to what was said; and when the time came for their dismissal, they went quietly to their lines. It was nearly nine o’clock before the men of the old 19th had been paid up; and, under an European escort, were marched out of Barrackpur. As they moved off, they cheered the fine old soldier, whose duty it had been to disband them, and wished him a long and a happy life; and he went to his house with a heart stirred to its very depths with a compassionate sorrow, feeling doubtless that it was the saddest morning’s work he had ever done, but thanking God that it had been done so peacefully and with such perfect success.

Footnotes

209. Just at this time General Anson was coming down to Calcutta to superintend the embarkation of his wife for England. He must have been actually in Calcutta when the Sipahis were in the first throes of their discontent; but it does not appear that the subject of the greased cartridges then attracted his attention.

210. It is right that this should be borne in mind. In all cases of alleged official delays the almanack of the year should be consulted, that account may be taken of a dies non.

211. It should be stated that much of the laboratory work of the Arsenal of Fort William was actually carried on at Damdamah; but that the ammunition manufactured there was always sent to the Arsenal and issued thence to the troops.

212. Materials for 100,000 cartridges, with implements of manufacture and pattern cartridges, were sent from the Calcutta Arsenal to Mirath in October, 1856. These were for the use of the 60th Rifles.

213. See the telegrams published in the papers laid before Parliament. I merely state the fact that such messages were sent. But I have found it impossible to reconcile the assertion of the Adjutant-General, that cartridges smeared with mutton-fat had been in use, with the actual facts of the case, as given in the following pages on the very highest authority. I am assured that the only grease used with the ammunition of the old two-grooved rifles was a mixture of wax and oil applied to the “patch.”

214. This was officially declared by Government, and in perfect good faith. I believe, however, that some greased cartridges were served out to a Gurkha regiment, at their own request.

215. Colonel Tucker afterwards said in a public journal, “I do not presume to say with whom specifically the blame of this most culpable neglect may rest. Only investigation can settle that point; but I conceive that either the Military Secretary, or the officer presiding in chief over the Ordnance Department in Calcutta, is, one or both, the party implicated.” Investigation proves that both officers were blameless. The routine in those days was for the Commander-in-Chief to address the Military Board, and for the Military Board to address the Governor-General. In this case, however, the correspondence never went further than the Military Board; and it was not until after the Mutiny had broken out, and Colonel (then Major-General) Tucker had publicly referred to his neglected warnings, that the Military Secretary had any knowledge of the correspondence of 1853.

216. It was a part of a contract for “Petty Stores,” to be supplied to the Arsenal of Fort William for two years, from the 15th of August, 1856, entered into by Gangadarh Banerji and Co. The article is described in the contract as “Grease, Tallow;” and it was to be supplied at the rate of two annas (or threepence) a pound. From the Records of the Inspector-General’s office, it appears that after the contract, dated 1611- of August, 1856, was concluded, Grease and Tallow were indented for separately at various times. In an indent on the Contractor, dated September, 1856, the following entries appear:

Grease – For ammunition purposes.

Tallow of the purest kind – For greasing composition for Minié rifle ammunition.

In subsequent indents the article is sometimes called “Grease,” and sometimes “Tallow” – “Required for Arsenal purposes.” A circular was issued to the Department, dated January 29th, 1857, directing that, when applying tallow to articles which Native soldiers are required to handle, only the tallow of sheep or goats is to be employed, that of swine or cows being most carefully excluded.

217. The numbers were 22,500 for the Ambalah Depot, and 14,000 for the Sialkot Depot, sent on the 23rd of October to Dehli, via Allahabad, by steamer.

218. It may be advantageous to caution the non-professional reader against confounding the rifle-companies here spoken of with the detachments at the Rifle Depots. The former were with their regiments, using the old two-grooved muskets; the latter were detached from their regiments, learning the use of the Enfield rifle in the schools of musketry at Damdamah, Ambalah, and Sialkot.

219. Dr. McNamara, to the Inspector-General of Ordnance, Feb. 11, 1857. – Published Papers

220. General Hearsey to the Secretary to Government, Feb. 11, 1857. – Published Papers.

221. Take in illustration the following from the Barrackpur correspondence of the day: “The Drill Naik of my regiment came to me two days ago (March 8), and said the report in the Lines was, that there were five thousand Europeans assembled by the Government at Haurah – that they had arrived in two ships, and were to come up here during the Huli (festival) – that the men had not slept the previous night in consequence of this report.” – Major Matthews to Brigadier Grant. – MS. Correspondence.

222. So great was their uneasiness, and so strong were their suspicions, that it was believed that Colonel Wheler, who at that time went daily into Calcutta to attend a general court-martial, of which he was president, was in close consultation with the Governor-General respecting the forcible or fraudulent conversion of the Sipahis.

223. March 15, 1857. – MS. Correspondence. The 2nd and 43rd had served together at Kandahar, and were old friends. The proposed dinner was to be given during the Huli festival, and the officers commanding the two regiments had agreed that there was no harm in their men dining together. The refusal of the 43rd was not intelligible to them.

224. Lord Canning to General Anson, March 12, 1857. – MS. Correspondence.

225. “I cannot address the Brigade until Tuesday morning, as the Native commissioned officers, who are to be members of the General Court-martial to be convened at Calcutta for the trial of the Sipahis of the 2nd Grenadiers, must go from hence before I do so. If they heard my address to the men on parade, it might bias them in their judgment.” – General Hearsey to Lord Canning, March 15, 1857. – MS. Correspondence.

226. Lord Canning to General Hearsey, March 14,1857. – MS. Correspondence.

227. General Hearsey to Lord Canning, March 15, 1857. – MS. Correspondence.

228. Compare Book II., page 218 et seq.: Considerations on the subject of disbandment.

229. Lord Canning’s reasons for sparing them the deeper degradation are thus given in a letter to General Anson: “I sent you a copy of the General Order yesterday. I have determined to omit the words which require that the men shall be deprived ‘of the uniform which they have dishonoured.’ Heavy as has been their crime – none heavier – it is not a mean or abject one: such as refusing to march to a post of danger; and the substance of their punishment is severe enough without being made to gall and rankle. It was for this reason that I did not originally prescribe that the number of the regiment should be removed from the Army List, or that the men should be turned out of cantonment ignominiously, as was done in the ease of the 34th thirteen years ago. The abstaining from stripping their uniforms from them will be a further relaxation in the same spirit.” – MS. Correspondence.

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