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Chapter 7

May, 1857

The month of May, with its fiery heat and glare, and its arid dust-charged winds, found Lord Canning in Calcutta watching eagerly, but hopefully, the progress of events, and the signs and symptoms of the excitement engendered in men’s minds by the great lie which had been so insidiously propagated among them. From the multitude of conflicting statements and opinions which reached him from different quarters, it was difficult to extract the truth; but taking a comprehensive view of all that was manifest to him, from the plains of Bengal to the hills of the Himalaya, he could not discern in those first days of May that the clouds were gathering around him denser and blacker than before. If there were any change, indeed, it was rather a change for the brighter and the better. At Barrackpur there had been no more overt acts of mutiny. The Native regiments were doing their duty, sullenly, perhaps, but still quietly. At Damdamah the detachments in the Rifle depot, under the new system of drill, were proceeding to ball practice without any visible signs of discontent. It was hoped, indeed, that the troops in the immediate neighbourhood of Calcutta were yielding to the explanations and assurances which had been given to them, and slowly returning to reason. At the Rifle depots also in the Upper Country the drill was quietly proceeding. At Sialkot, the detachments from the Native regiments in the Panjab, Regular and Irregular, were firing the new pieces without a murmur. Sir John Lawrence went to that station, at the beginning of the month, “to see the new School of Musketry, as well as to judge with respect to the feeling among the Sipahis;” and he wrote to Lord Canning that all were “highly pleased with the new musket, and quite ready to adopt it. They already perceive how great an advantage it will give them in mountain warfare.” The officers assured him that no bad feeling had been shown, and he himself “could perceive no hesitation or

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reluctance on the part of any of the Sipahis252.” From Ambalah, General Barnard wrote on the first day of the month, that he had reported to Head-Quarters that so far from any insubordinate feeling existing at that place, he had reason to be satisfied with the patience, zeal, and activity that the men had shown on the severe night-picket work necessitated by the incendiary fires. “I have no reason,” he added, “to accuse the Sipahi of causing these fires – no overt act has been elicited, and no instance of insubordination has occurred. The musket practice has been resumed with apparent good will and zeal. I have frequently attended it myself, and I will answer for it that no ill feeling exists in these detachments253.”

Thus it was that, in the first days of May, there was apparent to the eyes of the Governor-General something like a lull; and it seemed that at the Rifle depots, which were the great central points of danger, the difficulty had been tided over. From Mirath, too, no fresh tidings of disturbance came. The men of the 3rd Cavalry were being tried by Court-martial; and it did not appear that any of their comrades were about to follow their insubordinate example. There were circumstances that rendered it probable that the motives which had driven these men into mutiny were altogether of an exceptional character. So Lord Canning, in the early part of this month of May, was able to direct his thoughts to all parts of the country, and to fix them on many topics of Indian government and administration, as calmly and as philosophically as in the quietest of times. He was corresponding with Lord Elphinstone on the subject of the Treaty with Persia and the Expenses of the War: with Lieutenant-Governor Colvin on Education Grants and Female Schools, and the Dehli Succession – little thinking how that last question would soon settle itself; with Major Davidson, the Resident at Haidarabad, about the recognition of a successor to the Nizam (his Highness being nigh unto death from a surfeit of prawns); with Sir Richmond Shakespear, Resident at Barodah, on the Finances of the Gaikwar; and with Colonel Durand, the Governor-General’s agent at Indur, about the large amount of Native deposits in the Residency Treasury. Indeed, the current business of Government was but little interrupted. There was no fear in Government House.

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But, although at this time the Governor-General was cheerful and hopeful, and believed that the clouds of trouble would soon, by God’s providence, be dispersed, be had some especial causes of anxiety. The dawn of the month of May found the 34th Regiment at Barrackpur still awaiting its sentence. The Jamadar of the Quarter-Guard, Isri Pandi, had been hanged on the 22nd of April, in the presence of all the troops, at Barrackpur. He had confessed his guilt on the scaffold, and with his last breath had exhorted his comrades to be warned by his example254. It was believed that this public execution of a commissioned officer would have a salutary effect upon the whole Native Army. But the punishment of one man, though that punishment were death, could not wipe out the offence of the regiment, or vindicate the authority of the Government. The great defect of Lord Canning, as a ruler in troubled times, was an excess of conscientiousness. The processes by which he arrived at a resolution were slow, because at every stage some scruple of honesty arose to impede and obstruct his conclusions. On the score both of justice and of policy he doubted whether the prompt disbandment of the 34th would be right. It was certain that some companies were true to their colours, and he did not clearly see that all the rest were faithless. He had caused a searching inquiry to be made into the condition of the regiment, and he had hoped, up to the end of the third week of April, that all the requirements of the case might be satisfied by the dismissal of some of the more patent offenders. But the weight of military authority was strongly in favour of disbandment. General Hearsey, at Barrackpur, was fully convinced that no measure short of this would produce the desired effect; and General Anson wrote earnestly from Simla urging the expediency of such a course. The whole question was fully and anxiously discussed in Council; and at last, on the 30th of

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April, Lord Canning recorded a minute declaratory of his opinion that no penalty less general than disbandment “would meet the exigencies of the case, or be effectual as an example.” But even then there were doubts with respect to the men who were to be exempted from punishment, and not until the 4th of May was the discussion exhausted and the order given for the disbandment of the regiment255.

Disbandment of the 34th

Two days afterwards, in the presence of all the troops at Barrackpur, of the detachments from Damdamah, and of the 84th (Queen’s) from Chinsurah, the seven companies of the 34th, who had witnessed the great outrage of the 29th of March, were drawn up, before the sun had risen, to receive their sentence. There was to be no mitigation of their punishment, as in the case of the 19th; so when they laid down their arms, the uniforms which they had disgraced were stripped from their backs, and they were marched out of cantonments under an escort of Europeans. And thus a second time the number of the guilty 34th was erased from the Army List; and five hundred more desperate men, principally Brahmans and Rajputs, were cast adrift upon the world to work out their own schemes of vengeance.

Oudh

In the quarter to which a large number of them made their way, as the 19th had made their way before them – in Oudh, the signs of approaching trouble increased. To no place, from one end of India to another, did the mind of the Governor-General, in this conjuncture, turn with more painful interest than to this newly-annexed province, the nursery of the Bengal Army. Henry Lawrence’s letters to the Governor-General were wholly silent on the subject of the Nana’s visit to Lakhnao. But they spoke of much that pressed heavily on his mind. Recognising so many causes of popular discontent in Oudh, and knowing well how large a portion of the Native Army was drawn from that province, he could not, at such a time, regard without much anxiety the demeanour of the Sipahis around him. There was one regiment at Lakhnao, whose conduct, although it had been betrayed into no overt act of

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insubordination, was of a suspicious, almost of a threatening character, and it seemed desirable that it should be removed from the province. There was no doubt that some of the chief people of the city were tampering with its allegiance; and much danger might therefore be averted if it could be removed to another station beyond the limits of the province. The suggestion was made, and Canning responded to it, giving full authority to Henry Lawrence to move the tainted regiment to Mirath. “Let the Commander-in-Chief know,” wrote the Governor-General, “if you find it necessary to send it away; but do not wait for any further authority If you have regiments that are really untrustworthy, there must be no delicacy in the matter.” But before the letter sanctioning his proposal had arrived, Henry Lawrence had thought long and deeply about the results of such a measure; and on the 1st of May he wrote to Lord Canning, saying “Unquestionably we should feel better without the 48th, but I do not feel confident that the feeling in the other regiments is materially better; and there is little doubt that the 48th would not be improved by a move, which is an important point of consideration in the present general condition of the Army.” He was right; the removal of a single regiment could not benefit Oudh, but it might do injury elsewhere by tainting other parts of the Army.

Mutiny in the Oudh irregulars

That other components of the Oudh force were equally disaffected was presently apparent. On the 2nd of May, Captain Carnegie, who was Magistrate of the in city of Lakhnao, and who had the superintendence. of the Police – a man described by his immediate superior as “prudent and active, though so quiet in manner, and implicitly to be relied upon” – reported to Henry Lawrence that there had been a strong demonstration against the cartridges in the 7th Regiment of Oudh Irregulars. At first he was fain to believe that the story might be exaggerated; but there was soon undeniable evidence that it was only too true. The regiment, which had been in the King’s service, was posted at a distance of some seven miles from Lakhnao. A fortnight before, the recruits of the regiment had commenced practice with ball-cartridge, and had done their duty without any manifestations of discontent. But by the end of the month it was clear that the great fear, which was travelling about the country, had taken possession of their minds, and that they were on the very verge of revolt. Whether they had been

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wrought upon by emissaries from the city, or whether any of the disbanded men of the 19th had, by this time, found their way to Lakhnao, is matter only of conjecture256; but as the month of May dawned upon them, they were ripe for rebellion – not only themselves prepared to resist, but eager to incite others to resistance. They had written a letter to the men of the 48th, urging them to rise for their religion; and no soothing explanations from their officers could induce them to shake off the mistrust which had fastened upon them. On the second day of the month the Brigadier rode out with his Staff to the Lines of the 7th, and found them “as obstinate as possible with regard to the cartridges257.” Returning at nightfall to Lakhnao, he wrote at once to Lawrence, telling him the state of the regiment, and adding, “I think myself that this affair has been a long time brewing.’

May 3

The next morning258 brought with it no consolation. The 7th were in a worse state than before. They had been sullen and obstinate on the preceding day. Now in a state of feverish excitement, violent, desperate, they assumed a menacing attitude, and talked openly of murdering their officers. It was obvious that a crisis was approaching, and that no time was to be lost; so Henry Lawrence, when he heard that the regiment was in this defiant and dangerous state, determined at once to disarm, and, if resisted, to destroy it. On that evening he moved up an overwhelming

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force of all arms to the parade ground of the 7th. The day was far spent when he commenced the march. “It was a ticklish matter,” he wrote to Mr. Colvin, “taking the 48th down on Sunday night; but I thought that they were safer in our company than behind in cantonments. We had to pass for two miles through the city; indeed, Her Majesty’s 32nd had four miles of it. I therefore hesitated as to moving after; but the moon was in its third quarter; and the first blow is everything. So off we started; and concentrated from four points, accomplishing the seven miles in about three hours259.”

The moon had risen, bright in an unclouded sky, on that Sabbath evening, when Henry Lawrence, accompanied by his Staff, appeared with the Brigade before the lines of the 7th. The regiment was drawn up on parade, in a state of vague uncertainty and bewilderment, not knowing what would come of this strange nocturnal assembly. But when they saw the Europeans, the Cavalry, and the guns, taking ground in their front and on their flanks, the Native regiments being so placed as to destroy all hope of their aiding their comrades, the mutineers knew that their game was up, and that there would be death in further resistance. What might then have happened if the course of events had not been determined by an accident, cannot be distinctly declared. The mutinous regiment had obeyed the word of command, and some of the men had expressed contrition; but it happened that, by some mistake, .an artilleryman lighted a port-fire. The guns were pointed towards the mutineers, and though Lawrence and his Staff were posted between them and the Artillery, and would probably have been swept away by the first round, the Sipahis of the guilty regiment believed that the battery was about to open upon them. A panic then seized the 7th. First one man, then another, broke away from his comrades and fled, throwing down his arms as he went in the overwhelming consternation of the moment; and presently great gaps appeared in the line, and only a remnant of the regiment was left to obey the orders of the English officer. To these men, whilst the Cavalry went in pursuit of the fugitives, Henry Lawrence rode up; and as they broke into exclamations of “Jai Kampani Bahadurko!” – “Victory to the great Lord Company!” – ordered them to lay

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down their arms, and to strip off their accoutrements. They obeyed without hesitation; and, an hour after midnight, the Brigade had returned to Lakhnao, carrying with it all the arms of the 7th, and escorting, under guards of the same force, the men who had so lately borne them. In the critical state of the other Native regiments, it was not thought wise to divide the Europeans.

Next day Henry Lawrence wrote to the Governor-General, saying, “The coup is stated to have had great effect in the city. But people go so far as to tell me that the 48th last night abused the 7th for running away, and said, that if they had stood, the 48th would not have fired. 1 don’t believe one quarter of these reports.” But, although there is always, in seasons of great popular excitement, a vast amount of exaggeration afloat, and Henry Lawrence, therefore, received with caution the stories that were brought to him, he was not one to disregard the signs of the times, and to close his eyes to the dangers that were surrounding him. As time advanced, these signs increased in significance. Some fifty of the ringleaders of the 7th Irregulars had been seized and confined, and a Court of Inquiry had been assembled to investigate the causes of the outbreak in that regiment; but little or nothing had been elicited. As at Ambalah, and other places, the mouths of the Sipahis were sealed. They might contend among themselves, but in their reticence, when the English sought to probe their discontents, they acted as one man. Words were not forthcoming, but there was one form of expression, well known to the Native soldiery in times of trouble, to which they betook themselves, as they had before betaken themselves elsewhere, and thus gave utterance to the strong feelings within them. On the 7th of May, the lines of the 48th were burnt down. The fire commenced in the hut of the Subahdar who had given up the seditious letter addressed by the 7th Irregulars to the men of his regiment. There could be no doubt that it was the work of an incendiary. On the following day, Lawrence visited the scene of the conflagration, and found the men outwardly civil and respectful in their demeanour, but heavy and downcast at the thought of their loss of property. It was not easy to read the state of feeling which then existed in the Oudh Army, so vague and varied was it; but if any man could have rightly discerned it, Henry Lawrence was that man. For he had free intercourse with those who were most likely to be its exponents, and had the gift, so rare

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among our countrymen, of inspiring confidence in the breasts of the people. After much communing with others and with himself, he came to the conclusion that the strongest feeling that held possession of the Sipahi’s mind was a great fear, that this fear had long been growing upon him, and that it had only culminated in his belief in the story of the greased cartridges260.

Of one of these conversations a record has been left in Lawrence’s handwriting. It is so significant of the great fear that was then dominating the Army, that I give the passage as it stands. “I had a conversation,” he wrote to Lord Canning, on the 9th of May, “with a Jamadar of the Oudh Artillery for more than an hour, and was startled by the dogged persistence of the man, a Brahman of about forty years of age, of excellent character, in the belief that for ten years past Government has been engaged in measures for the forcible, or rather fraudulent, conversion of all the Natives. His argument was, that as such was the case, and that as we had made our way through India, won Bharatpur, Lahor, &c., by fraud, so might it be possible that we mixed bone-dust with the grain sold to the Hindus. When I told him of our power in Europe, how the Russian war had quadrupled our Army in a year, and in another it could, if necessary, have been interminably increased, and that in the same way, in six mouths, any required number of Europeans could be brought to India, and that, therefore, we are not at the mercy of the Sipahis, he replied that he knew that we had plenty of men and money, but that Europeans are expensive, and that, therefore, we wished to take Hindus to sea to conquer the world for us. On my remarking that the Sipahi, though a good soldier on shore, is a bad one at sea, by reason of his poor food, ‘That is just it,’ was the rejoinder. ‘You want us all to eat what you like that we may be stronger, and go everywhere.’ He often repeated, ‘I tell you what everybody says.’ But when I replied, ‘Fools and traitors may say so, but honest and sensible men cannot think so,’ he would not say that he himself did or did not believe, but said, ‘I tell you they are like sheep;

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the leading one tumbles down, and all the rest roll over him.’ Such a man is very dangerous. He has his full faculties, is a Brahman, has served us twenty years, knows our strength and our weakness, and hates us thoroughly. It may be that he is only more honest than his neighbours, but he is not the less dangerous. On one only point did he give us credit. I told him that in the year 1846, I had rescued a hundred and fifty Native children, left by our army in Kabul, and that instead of making them Christians, I had restored them to their relations 4nd friends. ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘I remember well. I was at Lahor.’ On the other hand, he told me of our making Christians of children purchased during famines. I have spoken to many others, of all ranks, during the last fortnight; most give us credit for good intentions; but here is a soldier of our own, selected for promotion over the heads of others, holding opinions that must make him at heart a traitor.” On the same day he wrote, in a similar strain, to Mr. Colvin, concluding with a significant hint to look well after the safety of the Forts in Upper India261.

If these letters from the Chief Commissioner of Oudh had been read when written, they might suggested grave thoughts of impending danger; but when they reached their destinations, they came only as commentaries upon the past, faint and feeble as seen by the glaring light of terrible realities. The Governor-General and his colleagues in the Supreme Council were discussing the conduct of the mutinous Oudh regiment, and the measure of punishment which should be meted out to it. On the 10th of May Lord Canning and Mr. Dorin recorded minutes on the subject. The Governor-General declared for disbandment. Roused to a vigorous expression of opinion by this last manifestation of a growing evil, the senior member of Council wrote – and wrote well – “The sooner this epidemic of mutiny is put a stop to the better. Mild measures won’t do it. A severe example is wanted I am convinced that timely severity will be leniency in the long run.” On the same day, General Lowe recorded a minute, in which he expressed an

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opinion that “probably the main body of the regiment, in refusing to bite the cartridge, did so refuse, not from any feeling of disloyalty or disaffection towards the Government or their officers, but from an unfeigned and sincere dread that the act of biting them would involve a serious injury to their caste.” On the 11th, Mr. Grant and Mr. Peacock placed on record their opinions, that it might be better to wait for fuller information before issuing the final orders of Government. On the 12th, the office boxes were again passing from house to house; but with the papers then circulated, there went one, small in size, scanty in words, but, although perhaps scarcely appreciated at the time, of tremendous significance. “It is to be hoped,” wrote Mr. Doris, “that the news from Mirath (in the telegraphic message from Agra in this box) is not true.” But it was true; yet, with all its terrors, only a small part of the truth.

The outbreak at Mirath, May 10, 1857

The little paper, then, on that 12th of May, travelling from house to house in the office-box, was a telegraphic message from Lieutenant-Governor Colvin, announcing to Lord Canning, that the great military station of Mirath was in a blaze, that the Cavalry had risen in a body, and that every European they had met had been slain by the insurgents. There was something terribly significant in the very form of this message. The Government at Agra had received no official tidings of the events that had occurred at Mirath. But a lady at the former place, who had been about to pay a visit to her friends at Mirath, had received a message from her niece, who was sister of the postmaster there, warning her not to attempt the journey, as the Cavalry had risen262. This was the last message despatched. Before the authorities could send intelligence of what had happened, the telegraph-wires were cut by the insurgents.

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The week of telegrams

The news, therefore, which now reached Agra, and was thence communicated to Calcutta, was of a vague, fragmentary character. Scattered facts welled up from uncertain sources, and were passed on from one station to another, suggestive rather than expressive, always indicating something more terrible in the background than the truth actually revealed. Not till some time afterwards was the whole truth apparent to the Governor-General, and therefore not now do I fill up the outlines of the story. The week that followed the 12th of May was a week of telegrams. The electric wires were continually flashing pregnant messages from North to South, and from South to North. That the Sipahis at Mirath had risen, was certain from the first. Then news came that they held some part of the road between Mirath and Dehli. Then, little by little, it transpired that the Mirath mutineers had made their way in a body to the Imperial City, and that the Dehli regiments had fraternised with them. A message from Agra, despatched on the 14th, stated, on the authority of a letter from the King of Dehli, that the town and fort and his own person were in possession of the insurgents; and it was added that Fraser, the Commissioner, and many other English gentlemen and ladies, had been murdered. Then, at last, it became apparent that the King himself had cast in his lot with the insurgents, that the rebel standard had been hoisted in the palace of the Mughul, that Englishmen and Englishwomen had been ruthlessly massacred in the streets of the city, and that the mutiny of a few regiments, by thus concentring at Dehli, was beginning to simulate a national rebellion.

Never since, a century before, the foundation of our great Indian Empire had been laid by the conquest of Bengal, had such tidings as these been brought to the council-chamber of the English ruler. The little cloud no bigger than a man’s hand, which had risen in the first month of the new year, and had been growing in its density and darkness until it had overshadowed the heavens, was now discharging its tempestuous terrors upon us. There was little before the eyes of Lord Canning but the one naked fact of the junction of the Mirath and Dehli troops, and the proclamation of the restored empire of the Mughul. With a feeling of wondering anxiety be awaited, all through that terrible week in May, the details which seemed as though they would never come, and the explanations of all that seemed so inexplicable to him. Most of

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all, he marvelled what our people had been doing, or not doing, in this conjuncture, that such a post as Dehli, scarcely equalled in military, wholly unequalled in political importance, should thus in an hour have been wrested from their grasp. It seemed incredible that with a regiment of British Cavalry at Mirath, and the largest body of Artillery in the country gathered there at its head-quarters, such a catastrophe as this should have occurred. Was there no one, he asked, to do with the Carabineers and the Horse Artillery what Gillespie, half a century before, had done with his Dragoons and galloper-guns? But if such were the result in places where our English officers had Cavalry and Artillery to aid them, how would it fare with them at stations where no such help was to be had? There was no hope now that the conflagration would not spread from cantonment to cantonment; no hope now that the whole country would not soon be in a blaze.

Measures of Lord Canning

So Canning arose, and with his still, calm face, confronted the dire calamity. A braver heart than his never beat in a human breast. Happy was it for the nation that in him, to whom its honour was confided in that conjuncture, there was a resolute manhood of the finest, most enduring temper. Many thoughts pressed upon him, but dominant over all was a strong sense of the paramount duty of maintaining before all men a serene aspect and a confident demeanour. There was great work to be done, nothing less than the salvation of an empire; and with a solemn sense of his responsibility, he girded himself up for the conflict, knowing in how great a measure the deliverance of his countrymen depended, under God’s good providence, upon their faith in his constancy and courage. He saw clearly that there was a tremendous danger, and he knew that the resources immediately at his command were wholly insufficient to enable him to cope with it; but even those who were nearest to his person never saw him quail for a moment, as he calculated the means and appliances of defence that could at once be brought into action, and those which might be summoned from a distance.

It was no time for lamentation; else he might have lamented that India, by a series of adverse circumstances, had been so stripped of European troops that now the whole country, with the exception of the frontier province of the Panjab, was lying naked and defenceless, without means of raising any

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barriers of resistance against the flood of rebellion that was pouring over Hindustan. He had lifted up his voice against the system, which placed it in the power of England, by giving to India either too much or too little of its manhood, to sacrifice the interests of the dependency263. He had resisted, only a little time before, an attempt to carry off some of the few English regiments at his disposal, to take a part in certain military operations against the Government of China, with which India had no concern. It had cost him much to send so many regiments to Persia; but that was a call to which he ha(. been bound to respond, and happily now the emergency was past. All that he had said by way of warning had been more than verified by the event; but it was time for looking forward, not for looking back, so he began to reckon up his available succours, and forthwith to summon them to the capital.

In the midst of all his tribulation there were some sources of unspeakable comfort. Whilst the clouds were thickening above him, before the great outburst, he had learnt with joy and gratitude that the war with Persia had been brought to a close. Outram had done his work rapidly and well. I cannot now pause to speak of his successes. What he did on the shores of the Persian Gulf must be narrated in another place. It is enough to say that Persia, alarmed by our demonstrations on the coast, and anticipating an advance into the interior of the country, thought that negotiation was better than war, acceded to our demands, and concluded, at Paris, a treaty with the British Government. The expedition which had gone forth from Bombay, was, therefore, returning to that Presidency; and a word from the Governor-General would summon it, as fast as steam could bring it, to his aid. This was his first thought, when the seizure of Dehli confirmed all his worst apprehensions of the perilous want of European troops. Then, from these Persian succours, he turned with joy and gratitude not less profound, to the thought that English troops were speeding to

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China; that the arrogance and insolence of the Chinese Government having provoked our chastisement, an expedition had been fitted out under the conduct of a civil and a military chief, and was then, perhaps, at the very point of its journey at which it might most readily be wrested from its original purpose, and diverted into another and inure necessitous channel. Rightly taking the measure of the two exigencies, and never doubting for a moment what the great interests of the nation demanded in that conjuncture, he presently determined to call these troops to his aid. The chastisement of China could wait; the salvation of India could not264; and so he resolved, even at the risk of frustrating the cherished designs of the Government in England, to call upon Elgin and Ashburnham to suspend their operations, and to send him the present help that he so much needed. It was a great responsibility, but he took it without a moment’s hesitation on himself; and he thanked God, from the very depths of his heart, that by a providential dispensation this succour, in the very crisis of his necessities, had been placed within his reach.

There were thus, in the peculiar circumstances of the moment, some sources of consolation, some good promise of relief over and above that which was to be sought in the normal condition of the empire under his charge. But it would take time to gather up the strength of these Persian and Chinese expeditions, and there were some available European troops more nearly at hand. It was another happy accident that at this time the 84th Regiment, which had been summoned from Pegu in March, was still in the neighbourhood of Calcutta. The long-delayed disbandment of the guilty companies of the 34th had not been carried into effect before the 6th of May; and the regiment had been detained until after the execution of the

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sentence. It seemed then that there was no further necessity for its presence in Bengal, but the arrangements for its return to Pegu were still incomplete, when the disastrous tidings from Upper India came to dissipate all thought of its departure. From the quarter whence it had come another English regiment might be drawn. The 35th was stationed partly at Rangun, partly at Moulmein; and a steamer was despatched to gather up the detachments and to bring them with all speed to Calcutta. At the same time, the telegraph carried to Madras a requisition to hold the 43rd Foot and the Madras Fusiliers ready for immediate embarkation; and a trusted officer was sent on board the mail-steamer to Ceylon, with an urgent request to the Governor to send him all the European troops he could spare.

Whilst thus every effort was strained to bring European troops from the southern and eastern coasts, the Governor-General was intent also on the organisation of measures for the concentration of the strength already at his disposal upon the points most exposed to danger. With this object, every available river steamer was taken up for the conveyance of troops to the Upper Provinces, and the quicker but more limited means of locomotion afforded by wheeled carriages was resorted to for the conveyance of small detachments into the interior. But it was not, in the crisis of this first peril, from the South, but from the North, that the stream of conquest was to be poured down upon the great centre of rebellion. It was not to be doubted that General Anson, whom the news of the rising at Mirath and the seizure of Dehli must have reached at Simla as soon as it reached Lord Canning at Calcutta, was doing all that could be done to despatch troops to the seat of the revolt. The telegraph, therefore, expressed only the confidence of Government that the Commander-in-Chief was bringing down to the plains the European regiments on the hills. But the main reliance of the Governor-General in this extremity was upon the military resources of the Panjab. Though all the rest of the empire was denuded. of European troops, there was no lack of this material strength in the great frontier province conquered from the Sikhs. Moreover, it was believed that the Sikhs themselves would be eager to follow their English commanders to the siege and pillage of the renowned city of the Mughuls. So, whilst a message went to Karachi, in Sindh, directing the Commissioner to send an English regiment to the Panjab to replace any that it might be found necessary to despatch

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from that province to the Lower Provinces, another went to Mr. Colvin, at Agra, saying, “Send word as quickly as possible to Sir John Lawrence that he is to send down such of the Panjab regiments and European regiments as he can safely spare. Every exertion must be made to regain Dehli. Every hour is of importance. General Hewitt has been ordered to press this on the Commander-in-Chief. If you find it necessary, you may apply, in the Governor-General’s name, to the Rajah of Patiala and the Rajah of Jhind for troops.” And he added, with that union of kindliness and sagacity which made him at all times liberal of his encouragement to his Lieutenants, “I thank you sincerely for what you have so admirably done, and for your stout heart265.” The praise, too, was well deserved. Colvin, at that time, had done all that could be done to help others at a distance, and to maintain the confidence of those around him, and he had strenuously exerted himself to forward to the Governor-General, by telegraph and by letter, all the tidings that had made their way to Agra266. “I have fairly taken upon myself,” he wrote to Lord Canning on the 15th of May, “the position of Commander-in-Chief here. The arrangements are now on the point of completion, and our position may be regarded as safe. There has been a thorough co-operation and the most excellent spirit amongst us. Sindhia and Bharatpur will be heartily with us against the new dynasty of the House of Taimur. I shall rouse the Rajput States to arrest the flight of the mutineers westward, when they are driven out of Dehli. The horrible murders, you will see, have been chiefly by Muhammadan troopers of the 3rd Cavalry. There must be a fit and fearful expiation for such atrocities.”

But for this fit and fearful expiation Lord Canning knew too well that the time had not yet come. The struggle now was for bare life. For this he had done all that could be done,

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with the scanty means at his own disposal. “The two points to which I am straining,” he wrote to the Indian Minister at home, “are the hastening of the expulsion of the rebels from Dehii, and the collection of Europeans here to be pushed up the country.” But not a day was to be lost in summoning that ulterior aid, by which not only was the safety of the empire to be secured, but the honour of the nation vindicated by the infliction of just retribution upon our enemies. The succours from Bombay he was sure to obtain; and there was something exhilarating in the thought, at a time when India had need of all her heroes, that Outram would come with them. How different would it have been if those regiments had been still engaged in the Persian Gulf!

Arrest of the China expedition

But he could not calculate with the same amount of certainty upon the succours from the Eastern seas; he could not be certain that Lord Elgin would respond to his appeal. All that he could do was to throw the whole earnestness of his nature into that appeal, and to take upon himself the full responsibility of the diversion. So he wrote officially, as the Governor-General of India, to Lord Elgin, and he wrote privately to him as an old companion and friend. In the public letter, after setting forth in emphatic language the dangers by which our empire in India was surrounded, he continued: “I place the matter briefly before your Lordship; but I hope clearly enough to enable you to come to a ready decision. I will add, that I am anxious to bear the whole responsibility of all the consequences of turning aside the troops from China to India. But I beg your Lordship to believe that, in saying this, I am not influenced by any thought that whatever may be the course for which your Lordship’s wise judgment shall decide, you will need any help from me in vindicating it to her Majesty’s Government.”

May 19, 1857

More earnest and emphatic still was his private letter; not a word of it should be omitted: “My dear Elgin, – I wish I could give you a more cheerful and acceptable greeting than you will find in the letter by which this is accompanied. As it is, you will not bless me for it, but the case which I have before me here is clear and strong. Our hold of Bengal and the Upper Provinces depends upon the turn of a word – a look. An indiscreet act or irritating phrase from a foolish commanding officer at the head of a mutinous or disaffected company, may,

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whilst the present condition of things at Dehli lasts, lead to a general rising of the Native troops in the Lower Provinces, where we have no European strength, and where an army in rebellion would have everything its own way for weeks and months to come. We have seen within the last few days what that way would be. I cannot shut my eyes to the danger, or to the urgent necessity under which I lie, to collect every European that can carry arms and aid to the Government of India in the event of such a crisis. I do not want aid to put down the Mirath and Dehli rebels; that will be done easily, as soon as the European troops can converge upon Dehli, but not sooner. Meanwhile every hour of delay – unavoidable delay – is an encouragement to the disaffected troops in other parts; and if any one of the unwatched regiments on this side of Agra should take heart and give the word, there is not a fort, or cantonment, or station in the plains of the Ganges that would not be in their hands in a fortnight. It would be exactly the same in Oudh. No help that you could give me would make us safe against this, because it cannot arrive in time. The critical moments are now, and for the next ten or twelve days to come. If we pass through them without a spread of the outbreak, I believe all will go well. If we do not, the consequences will be so frightful, that any neglect to obtain any possible accession of strength whereby to shorten the duration of the reign of terror which will ensue, would be a crime. If you send me troops, they shall not be kept one hour longer than is absolutely needed. If you come with them yourself, you shall be most heartily welcome.” – MS. Correspondence.

With this letter went another to General Ashburnham, who commanded the troops of the China expedition; and the steamer, which carried the bearer of these important missives to Galle, bore also letters from the Governor-General to the Chairman of the Court of Directors and the President of the Board of Control, calling upon them immediately to send out reinforcements from England. “Now let me beg your attention and support,” he wrote to Mr. Mangles, “to a proposal which goes to you by the mail for the immediate raising of three European regiments for Bengal. No sane man will doubt that much of increase to our European force is wanted, and that the want should be supplied with as little delay as possible is obvious from the present exposure of our weak points. I do

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not ask for an augmentation to the established number of Queen’s troops, because for permanent purposes I much prefer an addition to the Company’s Army; and for the exigencies of the moment no reinforcement, except that of the China regiments, would avail. But I do beg that you will move the Government to make up the complement of Queen’s troops, irrespectively of those which now or hereafter may come to us from China. Do not let the supply of the missing regiments depend upon the turn of affairs in China, but let the gap be filled up at once267.” In the same strain he wrote to Mr. Vernon Smith, looking rather to any aid that might be sent him from England, as a means of preventing the recurrence of like disasters in the future, than of combating those which had already arisen.

Moral force appeals

Whilst the first efforts of the Governor-General were thus directed towards the pressing duty of extinguishing, by sheer animal strength, the fires that had been kindled in Upper India, he was endeavouring also to prevent by moral means the flames from spreading to parts of the country not yet in a blaze. It was plain that a great fear, born of a terrible misapprehension, was driving the soldiery to madness. Might not something, then, be done – might not some authoritative declaration be put forth by Government, solemn and irresistible in its denials of the imputed treachery, to pacify men’s minds, and to cast out from them the foul suspicions which were turning loyal soldiers into rebels and murderers? It was true that they had been told this before by the Governor-General, by the Commander-in-Chief, by Generals of Division, and Regimental Commandants; but these appeals had been of local character and limited influence, and it was thought that something might yet be done by a general Proclamation addressed to the whole Army, and distributed throughout the country. It was not doubted that whatsoever might have been the external agencies employed to keep alive this perilous excitement, there was at the bottom of it, in the breasts of the Sipahis, a deeply-rooted fear for the sanctity of their religion and the purity of their caste. If they could once be persuaded to believe that the British Government had never meditated any injury or offence to the religious or social prejudices of the people, there might be a return to quietude and to reason. It

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was wise, at least, to make one more trial. So a Proclamation was issued, setting forth that the Governor-General knew that endeavours had been made to persuade Hindus and Musulmans, both soldiers and civil subjects, that their religion was openly as well as secretly threatened by acts of the Government, who were believed to be seeking by various ways to entrap them into loss of caste for purposes of their own; but that they had never yet deceived their subjects, and they now, therefore, called upon all men to refuse their belief to the seditious lies of designing traitors, who were leading good men to their ruin. Translated into their vernacular, this Proclamation was sent to the military authorities to be distributed among the soldiery in all parts of the country, whilst the words of it were telegraphed to the Lieutenant-Governor at Agra, with emphatic instructions to “disseminate it in every town, village, bazaar, and serai.” “It is for the people as well as for the troops.” It was yet hoped that it might bear the good fruit of a return to order and tranquillity268.

At the same time, it appeared to the Governor-General to be in the highest degree important to arm the military authorities with new powers both for the prompt reward of good and loyal soldiers, and the prompt punishment of mutineers. The first might be done by a simple order of the Government. The latter required the interposition of the Legislature.

May 16

So an Act was passed to facilitate the trial and punishment of offences against the articles of war for the Native Army, by which commanding officers of Divisions, Brigades, and Stations were authorised to assemble general and other Courts-martial, and to proceed to carry sentence into effect without reference

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to Head-Quarters. In such an emergency as had then arisen, Centralisation could not stand its ground. So whilst increased power was thus given to commanding officers to overawe rebellion, increased power to encourage loyalty and good conduct was delegated to them and to certain high civil and political functionaries. They were empowered to promote Native soldiers and non-commissioned officers on the scene of their good deeds, and to confer upon them the “Order of Merit,”269 “in order that the reward for eminent gallantry, loyalty, and good conduct might be prompt, and might be conferred on the soldier in the sight of his comrades.”

General Order, May 19

But no proclamations and general orders – nothing that the Legislature could decree or Executive Government publish – no words that men could utter, in that extremity, could avail to arrest the fury of the storm that was bursting over their head. It was too late for words, for none would hear. It was left to the English only to strike.

Thus Canning did all that could be done, and waited for the issue – waited, fearfully and hopefully, for tidings of new disasters in one direction, and of coming succours from another. As he thus waited and watched, and pondered new details of the great rising, which every day added something to the clearness and completeness of the story, there were times when he felt in his inmost heart that there were no better resources than a few brave hearts and a few strong heads upon whose courage and coolness he could rely. It must be said, sorrowfully, and I would fain not say it, but History admits of no such reservations, that Lord Canning felt bitterly that, with some few honourable exceptions, the English officers at the Presidency were not giving him the moral support which, in such a crisis, would have been -so grateful and refreshing to him, and for which truly he had a right to look. It is impossible to describe his mortification. Where he had hoped to see strength he saw only weakness. Men whom he thought to see sustaining and encouraging others by their own resolute bearing and their cheerfulness of speech, went about from place to place infecting their friends with their own despondency, and chilling the hearts which they should have warmed by

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their example. Such a spectacle as this was even more painful than the tidings of disaster and death which came huddling in from all parts of the country. No one knew better, and no one more freely acknowledged that the men of whom he complained were “brave enough with swords by their sides.” They would have faced death for their country’s good with the courage of heroes and the constancy of martyrs; but strong as they would have been in deeds, they were weak in words, and they went about as prophets of evil, giving free utterance to all their gloomiest anticipations, and thus spreading through all the strata of English society at the capital the alarm which a more confident demeanour in the upper places might have arrested. And so strong was Lord Canning’s sense of the evil that had arisen, and that might arise from this want of reserve, that he wrote specially to the authorities in England to receive with caution the stories that were likely to be sent home in the private letters which the mail was about to carry from Calcutta270.

Harris and Elphinstone

But the shame with which he beheld the failure of some of his countrymen at Calcutta, made him turn with the greater pride and the greater confidence towards those who were nobly seconding his efforts from a distance. The Governors of Madras and of Bombay, Harris and Elphinstone, had responded to his appeals, and without any selfish thoughts of their own wants, any heed of dangerous contingencies at home, were sending him the succours he so much needed; and he was profoundly grateful for their aid. The promptitude with which they responded to the call for help was something almost marvellous. The electric telegraph might fail us in some parts, but in others it did its work well. On the 18th of May, Canning knew that the Madras Fusiliers were already embarking, and had thanked Harris by telegraph for his “great expedition.” On the 22nd he learnt that the first instalment of the troops from Persia had reached Bombay, and that a steamer had already started for Calcutta with a wing of the 64th Queen’s. The fire-ship was doing its work as well as the lightning-post.

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The Lawrences

But although there was to the Governor-General great consolation in the thought that he would lack no material or moral support that Harris and Elphinstone could give him, it was, in a conjuncture so imminent, to the individual characters of men actually confronting the dangers which threatened the empire, that he looked with the most eager anxiety. And there were no points to which he turned his eyes with a keener interest than to those two great provinces, the history of the annexation of which I have written in the early part of this book, the great provinces of the Panjab and of Oudh. It was from Oudh that so large a part of the Bengal Army had been drawn; it was in Oudh, the last of our acquisitions, that the animosities and resentments born of the great revolution we had accomplished were festering most freshly; it was in Oudh that we had to contend with the reviving energies of a dynasty scarcely yet extinct, and an aristocracy in the first throes of its humiliation. All this Lord Canning distinctly saw. It was in the Panjab that all external dangers were to be encountered; it was from the Panjab that Dehli was to be recovered. There was consolation in the thought that only a few months before the good offices of Dost Muhammad had been purchased in the manner most likely to secure his neutrality. But death might, any day, remove the old Amir from the scene; there would, in such a case, be internal convulsions, out of which would probably arise an invasion of our frontier by one contending faction or another: and, therefore, much as troops were needed below, a still greater danger might be incurred by weakening the force on the frontier. In other parts of the country there might be merely a military mutiny; but in Oudh and the Panjab the Government was threatened with the horrors of a popular rebellion, and the embarrassments of a foreign war.

But if there were much trouble and anxiety in these thoughts, they had their attendant consolations. Let what might happen in Oudh and the Panjab, the Lawrences were there. The Governor-General had abundant faith in them both; faith in their courage, their constancy, their capacity for command; but most of all, he trusted them because they coveted responsibility. It is only from an innate sense of strength that this desire proceeds; only in obedience to the unerring voice of Nature that strong men press forward to grasp what weak men shrink from possessing. Knowing this, when, on the 16th of May,

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Henry Lawrence telegraphed to the Governor-General, “Give me plenary military power in Oudh; I will not use it unnecessarily,” not a moment was lost in flashing back the encouraging answer, “You have full military powers. The Governor-General will support you in everything that you think necessary.”

With John Lawrence it was less easy to communicate. A short time before the outbreak of the mutiny, the Chief Commissioner of the Panjab, whose health had been sorely tried by incessant work, had proposed to the Governor-General to occupy a part of the approaching hot weather in a tour through Kashmir, but Lord Canning, on political grounds, had discouraged the proposal; for Gulab Singh lay dying, and it was believed that such a visit to the dominions of the Maharajah would be associated in men’s minds with some ulterior project of their annexation. John Lawrence, therefore, had happily not gone to Kashmir. When the news of the outbreak at Mirath reached the Panjab, he was, on his way to the Marri Hills, at Rawalpindi; and thence, having first telegraphed to them both, he wrote, on the 13th of May, to the Governor-General and the Commander-in-Chief. Nine days afterwards Lord Canning received the missive which had been addressed to him, together with a copy of the Commissioner’s earnest appeal to Anson to be up and doing. In the former, Lawrence urged upon the Governor-General the expediency of raising for immediate service a large body of Sikh Irregulars. “Our European force in India,” he wrote, “is so small, that it may gradually be worn down and destroyed. It is of the highest importance, therefore, that we should increase our Irregular troops. ... In the event of an emergency, I should like to have power to raise as far as one thousand Horse; I will not do this unless absolutely necessary.” Five days before this letter had reached Calcutta, Lord Canning had telegraphed his consent to the proposal, adding, “You will be supported in every measure that you think necessary for safety.” He was unstinting in his expressions of confidence to those who deserved it.

Those were days when the best men stood upon the least ceremony, and if they had a suggestion to offer to Government, offered it with the full assurance that they were doing their duty, and would not be charged with presumption. So General Hearsey, when he learnt the news that had come from Mirath

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and Dehli, had written to the Military Secretary to urge the Government to call for troops from Madras and Bombay and the Persian Gulf, and to arrest the China expedition. So Henry Lawrence had telegraphed to the Governor-General to get every available European “from China, Ceylon, and elsewhere, also all the Gurkhas from the Hills.” So Patrick Grant, the Commander-in-Chief at Madras, had telegraphed to him to send a swift steamer at once to intercept the China expedition; and John Lawrence had sent a message setting forth these and other means of meeting the crisis. For all these suggestions Lord Canning was grateful; but it was with much satisfaction, perhaps with some pride, that when the detailed plans of the Chief Commissioner of the Panjab were laid before him, he sent back a message, through the Lieutenant-Governor of Agra, saying, “Every precaution which your message suggests has been taken long ago.”

Then, every effort made, and every precaution taken to save alike the Christian people and the great empire committed to his care, there was an interval of reflection; and with a feeling of solemn wonder, Canning dwelt upon the causes of all this tremendous excitement, and asked himself whether it could be only a military mutiny that he was combating. It did not seem as though the origin of such a commotion were to be found only in the unaided instincts of the soldiery. It might be that the activities then discernible were purely military activities, but it did not follow that external influences had not been at work to produce the state of mind that was developing such terrible results. There were even then some dawning apprehensions that, with the best possible intentions, grave mistakes might have been committed in past years, and that the tree of benignant error was now bearing bitter fruit. He thought over all that had been done by his great predecessor; the countries that had been annexed to the British Empire, the powerful interests that had suffered so grievously by our domination, the manifold encroachments, material and moral, of English muscle and English mind. Not at first did he perceive all that was afterwards made clear to him, for at the time of which I am now writing there were many breaks in the great chain of postal and telegraphic communication, and it was not easy to form a right conception of the actual situation of affairs in the Upper Provinces. But he soon ceased to speak of the mutiny, and called it a “rebellion” – a “revolt.” Early in the

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year, he had felt disposed to attach some importance to the idea of political causes, but, as he wrote on more than one occasion, “not much.” Now his uncertainty upon this point began to disappear, and he wrote to the Indian Minister at home that he had not a doubt that the rebellion had been fomented “by Brahmans on religious pretences, and by others for political motives271.” He saw, indeed, that for some years preceding the outbreak the English in India, moved by the strong faith that was in them, had striven, with a somewhat intemperate zeal, to assimilate all things to their own modes of thought, and that the Old Man had risen against the New, and resented his ceaseless innovations. To this pass had the self-assertions of the national character brought us. The Indian Empire was in flames. But, with a proud and noble confidence, Canning felt that this great national character which had raised the conflagration would, by God’s blessing, ere long trample it out. Even those whose despondency had so pained him would, he knew, when called upon to act, belie the weakness of their words by the bravery of their deeds. Looking into the future, he saw the fire spreading; he saw the heathen raging furiously against him, and a great army, trained in our own schools of warfare, turning against us the lessons we had taught them, stimulated by the Priesthood, encouraged, perhaps aided, by the nobles of the land, and with all the resources of the country at their command; but seeing this, he saw also something beyond, grand in the distance; he saw the manhood of England going out to meet it.

Footnotes

252. Sir John Lawrence to Lord Canning, May 4, 1857. – MS. Correspondence

253. Sir H. Barnard to Lord Canning, May 1, 1857. – MS. Correspondence.

254. There were many erroneous versions at the time of Isri Pandi’s speech from the scaffold. The words which he uttered, literally translated, were these: “Listen, Bahadur Sipahis. In such a manner do not let anyone act! I have behaved in such a rascally way to the Government, that I am about to receive my just punishment. Therefore, let no Bahadur Sipahi behave in this wretched manner, or he may receive the same punishment.” This is given on the authority of Colonel Mitchell of the 19th, who brought the prisoner from the Quarter-Guard of the 53rd to the foot of the gallows, and whose own impressions were confirmed by the three orderlies who accompanied him.

255. It is especially to be noted that a question arose as to whether the Jamadar of the Mint-Guard, who had apprehended the men of the 2nd Grenadiers (ante, page 389), should be exempted, as a faithful servant, or, on account of later revelations, condemned as a traitor. The decision was ultimately in his favour.

256. It has been stated that both the 19th and 34th were stationed at Lakhnao at the time of annexation; and it was believed that they were there first infected with rebellion. Henry Lawrence wrote that he had ascertained that in the 19th there must have been nearly seven hundred Oudh men. By this time, they had mostly found their way back to their native province.

257. The official report said that the regiment “refused to bite the cartridges when ordered by its own officers, and again by the Brigadier.” How it happened that, after the change introduced into the drill, the Sipahis at Lakhnao were ordered to bite the cartridge at all, it is impossible to say. This did not escape Lord Canning, who, in a minute written on the 10th of May, said: “It appears that the revised instructions for the platoon exercise, by which the biting of the cartridge is dispensed with, had not come into operation at Lakhnao. Explanation of this should be asked.” But the time for explanation was past. It was ascertained, however, that the new drill instructions were sent to the Oudh Irregular force in the middle of April.

258. So difficult is the attainment of perfect accuracy in an historical narrative, that even Mr. Gubbins, whose work on the Mutinies of Oudh is the best and safest authority extant, says that these events, which he witnessed himself, happened on Sunday, the 10th of May.

259. Sir Henry Lawrence to Mr. Colvin, Lakhnao. May 6, 1857. – MS. Correspondence.

260. One of the earliest indications of this alarm appeared at Lakhnao, when an Assistant-Surgeon in the Hospital of the 48th inadvertently put a phial of medicine to his lips to test it. This was seen by the Sipahis, and was believed to be a deliberate scheme to pollute them. Soon afterwards the house of the doctor was burnt to the ground by the Sipahis of his regiment.

261. In the letter to Mr. Colvin, Sir Henry Lawrence says that the Jamadar “went over all our anti-Hindu acts of the last ten years, including Gaol-Messing, the General-Service Oath, &c., and did not conceal not only that he and all others saw no absurdity in the ground-bones atah belief, but that he considered we were quite up to such a dodge.” – MS. Correspondence.

262. The following were the words of the message: “May 11, 1857. – Last night, at nine o’clock, a telegraph message was received here by a lady from her niece, sister of the postmaster at Mirath, to the following effect: ‘The Cavalry have risen, setting fire to their own houses and several officers’ houses, besides having killed and wounded all European officers and soldiers they could find near the Lines. If aunt intends starting to-morrow evening, please detain her from doing so, as the van has been prevented from leaving the station.’ No later message has been received, and the communication by telegram has been interrupted: how, not known. Any intelligence which may reach will be sent on immediately.” – Published Correspondence. Parliamentary Papers.

263. “The interests of India,” he wrote on April 22nd, “do not always make themselves heard in England, when other important matters are uppermost; and I am opposed to putting into the hands of the Government at home an increased power to diminish our main strength here for the purpose of meeting exigencies elsewhere. Such a diminution was made in 1854 by withholding two regiments which have not yet been given, although six regiments have been sent out of India to Persia.” – MS. Correspondence of Lord Canning.

264. I did not think, when I wrote these words, that I had done more than express the natural feeling in Lord Canning’s breast at that time; but I have since found that he gave utterance almost to the very words: “I have sent an officer,” he wrote to the Commander-in-Chief, “to Galle by the mail to meet Ashburnham, and I hope Elgin, with an earnest request for the first use of the regiments bound to China, if they can be stopped at Singapore. Yeh may wait; but Bengal, with its stretch of seven hundred and fifty miles from Barrackpur to Agra, guarded by nothing but the 10th Queen’s, cannot wait, if the flame should spread. And who shall say that it will not? No precaution against such a contingency can be too great.” – MS. Correspondence of Lord Canning.

265. In a letter to Mr. Vernon Smith of about the same date, Lord Canning says: “South of Dehli, Colvin at Agra is engaged in keeping the roads quiet, collecting troops from Gwaliar (Sindhia has come forward loyally), and encouraging his own native garrison to fidelity. He is confident of keeping them straight, and he deserves to succeed. His courage and judgment are beyond praise.” – MS. Correspondence of Lord Canning.

266. The importance of this service, at a time when communication both by Post and Telegraph was so greatly interrupted, can hardly be over-estimated. The Commander-in-Chief’s letters of the 14th and 16th of May did not reach Calcutta before the 7th of June.

267. Lord Canning to Mr. Mangles, May 19, 1857. – MS. Correspondence.

268. It has been often said that this Proclamation ought to have been issued at an earlier period. Colonel Birch advised the Governor-General, when the excited state of the Native soldiery first became apparent, to issue a proclamation of this kind, and Lord Canning afterwards frankly expressed his regret that he had not taken the advice of his military secretary. On turning back to page 177, the reader will perceive that a similar delay in issuing a sedative proclamation occurred in 1806, after the mutiny in the Madras Army. It is, however, very doubtful whether such manifestoes have any effect upon the Native mind, when once any popular belief of the intentions of Government has taken fast hold of it. I have already observed, that those who entertain a conviction that the Government have formed a deliberate design to trick the people out of their religion, are not likely to find any difficulty in believing that the issue of a lying proclamation is a part of the plot.

269. Authority in this latter respect was confined to the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal and the North-Western Provinces, and to the Chief Commissioners Oudh and the Panjab.

270. The author evidently refers here to the officers in high authority whom he does not mention in the succeeding pages. It seems to me altogether too sweeping an assertion. The “gloomy anticipations” were the result of want of confidence in the foresight and energy of the Government. – G.B.M.

271. Writing also to the Chairman of the Court of Directors (Mr. Ross Mangles), Lord Canning said: “I have learnt unmistakably that the apprehension of some attempt upon Caste is growing stronger, or at least is more sedulously spread. Mr. Colvin has found the same; and a proclamation, which goes to you herewith, has been issued with a view of arresting the evil. But political animosity goes for something among the causes, though it is not, in my opinion, a chief one.” – May 19, 1857. – MS. Correspondence.

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