Appendix C

(Page 271)

Trial of the Ex-King Of Dehli

The Judge-Advocate-General then addressed the Court as follows:–

Gentlemen, – It will be my object, in the present address, to collect the different facts which have been elicited in the course of these proceedings, and to furnish them to you, as far as possible, in the order in which they originally occurred. Our investigation has involved inquiry over a period of several months, when rebellion was rampant in this city; and I trust we have succeeded in tracing, with considerable minuteness, many of the different events as they evolved themselves during the time to which I have referred. Our labours, indeed, have not had this limit, or we should only have accomplished what might, I think, be termed the least important part of our ditties. in immediate connection with the facts elicited are the charges on which the prisoner has been arraigned; and, though his former rank and royalty will doubtless add somewhat of temporary importance to the verdict which you will this day be called upon In record, yet whether it be one of acquittal or conviction, it must, I imagine,

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prove light in the balance when weighed against those more monstrous points to which so much attention has been, and for a long time will still lie, directed. I, of course, allude to the causes, either remote or immediate, which gave rise to a revolt unparalleled in the annals of history, either for the savagery which has been its distinguishing feature, or for the suddenness with which elements, hitherto deemed utterly discordant on the score of religion, have united themselves in a common crusade against a faith which, as regards the inhabitants of this country, whether Muhammadan or Hindu. was certainly a most unaggressive one. I fear, however, the subject is still but imperfectly elucidated, and I may, perhaps, be in error in attributing to a religious influence a movement which, after all, may prove to have been merely a political one; a struggle ‘ of the natives for power and place, by the expulsion from the country of a people alien in religion, in blood, in colour, in habits, in feelings and in every thing. Whatever the final opinion on this subject may be, the questions which, as far as I am aware of, have not as yet found a satisfactory solution, are, by what circumstances was this most atrocious revolt, with its series of massacres, brought about,. and who were its prime original instigators? I feel sure the members of this Court will join with me in deeming that our proceedings do not furnish a full and complete answer to such questions; and why do they not? I believe it is simply owing to the circumstance that any merely local investigation must be inadequate to collect evidence from the different quarters and sources, which are no doubt available elsewhere. We may still, however, hope that our efforts on this point have not been fruitless or unavailing; if we cannot congratulate ourselves on an on the success, we may perhaps be allowed credit for a near approach to it. Few, I imagine, will peruse these voluminous proceedings without coming to the conclusion that intrigues and conspiracy have long been rife at this fostering court of Dehli. Insignificant and contemptible as to any outward show of power, it would appear that this possessor of mere nominal royalty has ever been looked upon by Muhammadan fanaticism as the head and culminating star of its faith. In him have still been centre 1 the hopes and aspirations of millions. They have looked up to him as the source of honour, and, more than this, he has proved the rallying point not only to Muhammadans, but to thousands of others with whom it was supposed no bond of fanatical union could possibly be established. To throw the fullest light on a subject like this is not the work of a day or of a mouth. Time, the great revealer of secrets, will doubtless, sooner or later, lay bare the springs from which a stream of so much evil and misery has flowed; but, till then, we must be content with such views as our present investigation taints. That we have been able to unravel many of the secret workings of the conspirators will, I believe, be conceded; but let me not anticipate. This is a point of our inquiry on which I purpose to offer some observations hereafter; but a concise narrative of events will perhaps best suit the commencement of this address.

I may state, then, that 85 men, non-commissioned officers and troopers

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of the 3rd Light Cavalry, who were tried by general court-martial at Mirath in May last, for refusing their cartridges, had their sentence read to them and were ironed on the parade-ground early on the morning of the 9th of May, and that the mutiny of the three native regiments at Mirath first openly developed itself at about half-past six o’clock on the evening of the 10th of May, during which interval of nearly 36 hours there were, of course, plenty of opportunities for interchange of communications between the Native troops who first rebelled at Mirath, and those who joined them at this station. To travel from one place to another by coach used ordinarily to take about five hours; and that the mutineers availed themselves of this facility of mutual intercourse has, I think, been clearly established by the evidence of Captain Tytler. It appears, from his statement, that a coach full of these Mirath mutineers, came on Sunday evening to the lines of the 38th Native Infantry, doubtless to prepare the Sipahis of this station for the arrival and suitable reception, on Monday morning, of their rebel comrades; and, although we may not possess positive evidence to the fact, yet it may fairly be presumed that Sunday evening was not the first occasion that these plotters of evil held their secret and sinister councils together. Indeed we have it on record that, even before the Court, which tried the mutinous cavalry at Mirath, had come to any decision on their ease, a comp act had been entered into to the effect that, if the use of greased cartridges was persisted in, the troops at Mirath and Dehli would unite, and at once unfurl the standard of revolt; and so fully had this arrangement been perfected and agreed on, that it is related that the Sipahi guards at the gate of the Palace on Sunday evening made no secret of their intentions, but spoke openly among themselves of what they expected to occur on the morrow. To understand the merits and demerits of the whole transaction, it must be recollected that, at the time when these resolutions were arrived at, there was not a single greased cartridge in the magazines of either of the three native regiments at. Mirath, nor, as far as I have been informed, of those at Dehli either. It must be further borne in mind that the native soldiers themselves were the persons who were perhaps the best informed on these points; that the cartridges for practice had, from time immemorial, been manufactured in the regimental magazines by persons of their own colour, creed, and religious persuasion; that it was absolutely impossible to palm off on them a spurious article; that the regimental khalasis, who were employed in making these cartridges, must have at once discovered their impurity, if such had really existed; that, in fact, objectionable cartridges (I mean such as would affect the religious prejudices of either Musalman or Hindu), could not possibly have been made in their regimental magazines as in such case the very men to be employed in their manufacture would have refused their work; but, more than this, let it be remembered that the Muhammadan has no caste, that even the hybrid such as the Muhammadan of Central India has become, half Musalman and half Hindu, does not pretend to a loss of religion, even from touching pork. Who is there amongst us that has not and does not almost daily witness these Muhammadans,

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in the capacity of table servants, carrying plates and dishes which openly contain the very substance which, in reference to the cartridges, has been made the pretence and the stumbling block of their offence? Even if we were to admit that all the cartridges were thoroughly saturated with pig’s and with cow’s fat, still what real valid of objection on the score of their religion could the Muhammadan Sipahis have had in using them? Their brothers and other relatives in the private service of officers never hesitate to handle or cook the dishes which they are required to bring to our tables. The objections of the Muhammadan Sipahis on this head are so transparently false, that it can hardly be a matter of wonder that not one man of sense or respectability among them appears ever to have come forward to seek information or satisfy himself as to the truth or falsity of rumours so industriously circulated about these cartridges that were to be the means of depriving them of their faith. Some few – very few – honourable exceptions have certainly held aloof from and openly repudiated the conduct of their brethren; but such men have wanted neither guarantees nor explanations in regard to a matter which was patent to all, but have come to their own conclusions on a subject where error had no abiding place and mistake is incredible. That neither Musalman nor Hindu had any honest objection to the use of any of the cartridges at Mirath or at Dehli is sufficiently proved by the eagerness with which they sought possession of them, and the alacrity with which they used them, when their aim and object was the murder of their European officers, or when, united under the banners of the prisoner at your bar, they for months constantly went forth to fight against the power to which they owed fealty and allegiance. Among the very numerous petitions which have been brought under your notice during these proceedings, it may have struck the Court as very strange that there is not a single one in which the slightest allusion is made to what the Sipahis would have its believe to be their great and particular grievance. We have had upwards of 180 petitions before the Court, written on all possible subjects, from the tinkering of a cooking pot to the recovery of a mule or a crack in a horse’s hoofs; and each thought worthy of the sign manual of royalty; but in the free indulgence of such correspondence, when they evidently unburthened their minds to their adopted sovereign, and were certainly not restrained by any delicacy of language or of feeling from venting their acerbity against their quondam European masters, we can find no trace of the original sin, no grease spot staining these effusions of disloyalty. How instructive is it that, among themselves, and when applying to us such language as “damnable, hell-doomed infidels,” they apparently forego the first specific offence, which they would have us believe has lab them to mutiny and rebellion, and the perpetration of crimes at which humanity shudders. When with each other, and, as they conceived, safe from the intrusion and inquiries of British officers, that insurmountable obstacle to their fidelity and allegiance, the greased cartridge, is apparently altogether lost sight of. Not a whisper is heard of a grievance which, if a substantial one, must ever have been uppermost In the memories of all; must have been continually

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rankling in their minds and embittering their thoughts; must have influenced them in their blood-thirstiness; and to themselves have been their only extenuation for crimes such as may well exclude them from mercy. What a contrast this to their speeches when uttered with a prospect of reaching European ears. Greased cartridges are then always brought forward; the use of them forms the one continuous night-mare of the Sipahis existence. Really, if we reflect seriously on this – if we remember that in reality there was not a single greased cartridge among either of the three regiments which first broke out into mutiny, murdering not only men, but unoffending women and children, and that the Sipahis were perfectly aware of this; when we call to mind that, even if greased cartridges had existed, and the use of them been required at the hands of these miscreants, not one of the Muhammadans at any rate could possibly have been injured thereby in any caste prejudice, or placed even in temporary difficulty with regard to his religious tenets – when to this we add, what is well known to every one in India, whether Hindu, Muhammadan, or European, viz., that the native soldier has but to ask for his discharge, and that in time of peace it is at once granted to him, without inquiry or difficulty of any kind, it seems beyond the bounds of reason to imagine that these men were drawn into acts of such revolting atrocity by any grievances either real or imagined. Let the chimeras, the disturbed dreams of fanaticism, of wickedness, or of folly have been what they may; let the instigations to evil have been as industrious as possible, and then allow that the Sipahis to be worked upon were as credulous as the grossest ignorance could make them, still, if the greased cartridge had been the only weapon the tamperer had to work with, but the one envenomed shaft in their quiver, how easy was the remedy. It required no depth of knowledge, no philosopher to inform them that they could at once escape from every possible perplexity by simply applying for their discharge. I know not, gentlemen, what conclusion you may arrive at on this much-vexed question, but, after pondering it in every way in which my reason has presented it to me, I am obliged to infer that something deeper and more powerful than the use of greased cartridges has been resorted to.

The machinery that has set in motion such an amount of mutiny and murder, that has made its vibrations felt almost at one and the same moment from one end of India to the other, must have been prepared, if not with foreseeing wisdom, yet with awful craft, and most successful and commanding subtlety. We must recollect, too, in considering this subject, that in many of the places where the native troops have risen against their European officers there was no pretext even in reference to cartridges at all; numbers of these mutinied, apparently, because they thought there was a favourable opportunity of doing so; because they were a hundred to one against those in authority, and fancied that they might pillage, plunder, and massacre, not only with impunity, but with advantage. Is it possible that such fearful results as these could have at once developed themselves had the native army, previous to the cartridge question, been in a sound and well-affected state? Can any one imagine that that rancorous, widespread

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enmity, of which we have lately had such terrible proofs, had been the result of feelings suddenly and accidentally irritated? Does it appear consistent with the natural order of events that such intense malignity should start into existence on one single provocation? Or can it be reconciled with the instincts, the traditions, or the idiosyncrasies of the Hindus, that they should recklessly, without inquiry, and without thought, desire to imbrue their hands in human blood, casting aside the pecuniary and other advantages that bound them to the cause of order and of the Government? Or, more than this, can it be imagined that the three regiments at Mirath, even when joined by those at Dehli, could have conceived an idea so daring as that of overthrowing, by themselves, the British Government in India?

I think, gentlemen, every one must allow that if we had no other evidence of a plot, no testimony indicative of a previous conspiracy, the very nature of the outbreak itself must have convinced us of the existence of one. In the moral, as in the physical world, there must be cause and effect; and the horrible butcheries of the past year would remain an anomaly and a mystery for ever, could we trace them to nothing more occult and baneful than a cartridge of any kind. It will be observed, that this point of the cartridges, so openly and frequently insisted on at Mirath and elsewhere, before the 10th of May, gradually becomes more and more indistinct as the plot gathers strength and matures itself, and after furnishing the mutineers with their first war cry at Dehli, it seems to have answered its purpose, and thenceforward was allowed to sink into disuse and neglect. With little or no vitality at starting, it soon died a natural death, and was succeeded by a reality of purpose, and a fixedness of resolve, that would have been worthy of a better cause. If we review the actions and whole conduct of these mutineers, we shall soon see that, from the very commencement, they bear the impress of cunning and of secret combination. For instance, 85 of their comrades were ironed before them and sent off to jail in their presence on the morning of the 9th of May; but this occasioned no outbreak of fury. Not a sound or tune of dissatisfaction escaped from the men, who, then and long before, must have had rebellion in their hearts; no gesture indicative of sympathy with the culprits was exhibited by any; in fact, as far as appearances could be trusted, the infantry regiments at Mirath, and the remaining portion of the 3rd Cavalry, were as obedient and loyal as could possibly be desired: and this deception was successfully resorted to till their plans were matured, and the moment for open revolt hail arrived. The night of the 9th of May, twelve hours after the imprisonment of the 3rd Cavalry mutineers had taken place, was as favourable an opportunity as the night following, for a march upon the nearest magazine; but there had not then been time for preparing the Dehli Sipahis for a movement which the progress of events at Mirath had doubtless precipitated sooner than their first calculations had led them to expect. Hence the necessity for communicating afresh with Dehli, and acquainting the Sipahis there with the drama that was to be enacted on Monday the 11th. That such was done is established by the evidence of

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Captain Tytler; for it would be difficult to assign any other motive for a carriage full of Sipahis coming over from Mirath on Sunday evening, and driving straight into the lines of the 38th Native Infantry.

Again, we can perceive, in the very hour chosen for the outbreak at Mirath, the same evidence of cunning and of craft. The plan, too, of the Mirath cantonments gave considerable facilities for carrying out their plot. The native lines are so completely separated from that portion of the cantonments where the European troops reside, that the disturbance and uproar attendant even upon open mutiny could not be heard, or even known, from one to the other until specially communicated. Officers may naturally have been to intent on quelling the rebellion of their men to think of officially reporting it. Be this as it may, there would be some delay in turning out and supplying the Europeans with cartridges, assembling their officers, and marching down a distance of not less than two miles: so that, taking one delay with another, the mutineers might fairly calculate, considering it was an utter surprise to all, on hours of safe and uninterrupted progress, and, as the outbreak commenced at half-past six, this would have secured them darkness and comparative security for their further operations. This was what, in effect, actually took place. On the Europeans reaching the native lines, it was already dark; no Sipahis were to be seen, and no one could tell whither they had gone. Subsequent inquiry revealed that, guided by the instinct of cunning, the rebels had not, at first, taken the direct or main road to Dehli, neither had they left Mirath in military formation, but, as dusk set in, had gone forth in parties of five, six or ten, to their fixed place of assembly. This was judicious for their departure from Mirath, but would have been highly impolitic for their entry into Dehli, where there were no European troops to avoid. Something more imposing and demonstrative was required here, and accordingly we find them crossing the bridge simultaneously massed in columns, and in complete military array, with a portion of the cavalry sent forward as a regular advanced guard.

It is on this occasion that we first prove the mutineers in immediate connection with the prisoner at your bar. The first point to which they turn, the first person to whom they address themselves, is the titular majesty of Dehli. This circumstance has much significance, and, at any rate, tends to show that previous concert existed between them. The prisoner’s complicity, however, was, immediately after, openly to commence. Scarcely had the very serious nature of the outbreak had time to develop itself, than his own special servants – in the very precincts of his palace – and almost, as it were, before his own eyes, rush to imbrue their hands in the blood of every European they can meet with; and, when we remember that two of these were young and delicate women, who could have given no offence, whose sex and age might have tamed any hearts less pitiless than those of the human demons who destroyed them, we are able to realise some slight portion of the horribly unnatural influences that appear innate to Muhammadan treachery. How otherwise was it possible that education, the pride of royal ancestry, a life of tranquil ease and comparative

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refinement should not have exempted this old and grey-headed man from all connection with deeds which seem too barbarous for the very outcasts of humanity, or even for the untamed but less savage denizens of the jungle?

We stop to inquire whether it has been proved in this court, and will be repeated in after years, that the last king of the imperial house of Taimur was an accomplice in this villainy. The circumstances shall now be fairly stated. These murders were committed in the broad glare of day, before dozens of witnesses, and without the slightest attempt at concealment. They were perpetrated, as has been already stated, by the prisoner’s own retainers and within the limits of his palace, where, be it remembered even under the Company’s Government, his jurisdiction was paramount. I shall not, however, attempt to infer that these murders must have been previously sanctioned by the prisoner; mere inferences on such a point cannot be accepted in a court of justice. I prefer to quote from the evidence. It is Ahsan Ulla Khan, the physician, who is speaking, and who says, that at the time referred to, he and Ghulam Abbas, the attorney in court, were with the king, when it was told them that the troopers had killed Mr. Fraser and had gone up to Captain Douglas to kill him, and that this was instantly confirmed by the return of the palki bearers, who told them that they had witnessed Mr. Fraser’s murder; that his body was in the gateway, and that the troopers had ascended to the upper building for the purpose of murdering those there. Why the witness suppresses all mention of the prominent part the king’s own servants took in these massacres can easily be imagined. In a subsequent part of his examination he even asserts that he never heard that any of the king’s servants joined in these , murders, nay, more, that it was not generally known who committed them. Such is the evasion of the king’s own physician, who doubtless was aware of the importance that would necessarily attach to this paint. It was not generally known who committed these murders, and yet, at this lapse of time, we have had no difficulty in tracing the individuals, and ascertaining their names. It was not generally known that the king’s own servants were the murderers, and yet we find this very circumstance prominently and specifically mentioned at the time in the native newspapers of the city. I need not, after this, recapitulate the evidence of all those who have clearly and satisfactorily proved that the king’s servants were the murderers; for their testimony stands unshaken and unrefuted. It will amply suffice if I quote the statement of one of them, and which is as follows: “At this time Mr. Fraser remained below trying to suppress the disturbance, and while thus engaged, I noticed that Haji, lapidary, cut him down with a talwar, and almost at the same instant, some of the king’s servants cut at him with swords till he was dead. One of Mr. Frazer’s murderers was an Abyssinian. After this they made a rush to the upper apartments, when I immediately ran round another door and closed the door at the top of the stairs. I was engaged in shutting all the doors, when the crowd found entrance by the southern stair, and, having forced one of the doors on that side, came and gave admission to the men who

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had assisted in murdering Mr. Fraser. These immediately rushed into the apartments where the gentlemen, viz., Captain Douglas, Mr. Hutchinson and Mr. Jennings, had retired, and attacking them with swords, at once murdered them and the two young ladies. On this I ran down the staircase. As I got to the bottom, I was laid hold of by one Mundoh, a bearer in the service of the king, who said, ‘Tell me where Captain Douglas is; you have concealed him.’ He forced me upstairs with him; I said, ‘You have yourselves killed all the gentlemen already;’ but, on reaching the room where Captain Douglas was, I saw that he was not quite dead. Mondoh, perceiving this also, hit him with a bludgeon on the forehead, and killed him immediately.” Having now established that the murderers of these ladies were the special servants of the prisoner, it will be well to revert to the testimony of the physician, Ahsan Ulla Khan, and to ascertain from him the steps the prisoner took on the murders being reported to him. The only order he gave on this occasion appears to have been to close the gates of his palace; and we naturally inquire whether this was for the purpose of preventing the escape of the murderers. The evidence distinctly proves that it was not. The physician, being further interrogated, is obliged to confess that the prisoner took no steps whatever either to discover, to secure, or to punish the guilty, and attributes it to there being much confusion at the time; but if the king’s authority had actually been set aside, and by his own servants too, this would have been the most forcible of all reasons for immediately re-establishing it, by at once bringing the offenders to justice. That this was not done we have been already informed, and we can only account for it on the supposition that these acts of the prisoner’s servants, if not instigated by himself, had yet actually anticipated his wishes. We are thus perfectly prepared for what is to follow, viz., that no servant was ever dismissed, and not the slightest investigation or inquiry was ever instituted; in fact, in the words of the question put to the witness, the king continued these murderers both in his pay and in employment, and this too, as we have seen, when the very newspapers of the day gave information against them. After this, is it necessary to question whether he adopted these deeds as his own or not? I need not quote what may be the law of the land on such a point, for there is a yet higher law which must acquit or condemn him, the law of conscience and of sense; that law which every one who hears me can apply, and which carries with it a verdict more terrible than that which is pronounced in mere conformity to legal codes or military legislation: it is a law that clues not depend upon local constitutions, upon human institutes, or religious creeds: it is a law fixed in the heart of man by his Maker; and can it now here he set aside?

Perhaps it may now be time to turn our attention to what was doing at the magazine, and to trace the further steps of the mutineers in that direction. Captain Forrest has told us that it was about 9 o’clock in the morning when the main body of the native troops from Mirath was passing over the bridge in military formation (that is, in subdivisions of companies), with fixed bayonets and sloped Arms, the cavalry being in front. It was

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actually in less than one hour after this that a subahdar of the 38th Native Infantry, who was commanding the magazine guard outside the gate, informed them that the King of Dehli had sent a guard to take possession of the magazine, and to bring all the Europeans there up to his palace, and that, if they did not consent to this, none of them were to be allowed to leave the magazine. Captain Forrest adds that he did not see the guard at this time, but that he saw the man who had brought this message, and he was a well-dressed Musalman. Nor was this all, for, shortly after the above, a native officer in the king’s service arrived with a strong guard of the king’s own soldiers in their uniform, and told the above-mentioned subahdar and the non-commissioned officers that he was sent down by the king to relieve them of duty.

We thus see with what alertness and despatch this most important object, the seizure of the magazine, was attempted. Is it, however, to be believed that such was the ready, immediate, and, as it were, impulsive decision of the king, or of those who formed the court? To attribute to them anything of this nature would be to give them credit for a coolness of calculation, combined with a quickness of apprehension, such as pertains only to the more gifted of mankind. The scope and entire progress of the scheme speak loudly of a plan previously arranged, and of deliberations long matured by the counsels of many. Indeed, it is difficult to conceive that any one, not previously initiated in the secret, could, on the moment, so promptly and so effectually have entered upon and adopted the details necessary for carrying it out. You will recollect the extreme importance of the decision, the magnitude of the interests at stake. You will call to mind the cogent reasons and the numerous arguments that would naturally array themselves against adopting so headlong and precipitate a measure. It was, in fact, an invitation to a king to league himself with ruffians and with cut-throats. Any inducement or prospective advantage that they could hold out to him was faint and almost imperceptible, compared with the open risk which he was to encounter. By embarking in so forlorn a cause he imperilled everything; his own life, and those of all belonging to him, and for what? The distant glimmer of a crown, which common reason, or the slightest consideration, would have convinced him was a mere ignis fatuus – a mockery of a sceptre, that would evade his grasp. Are we to imagine that it was under such circumstances that this weak and tremulous old man seized and improved his occasion, and with all the rapid instinct of determination directed his own troops upon the magazine, to establish himself there as the one point of primary and most vital importance: and this too in the first moment of a surprise when nothing but riot and disorder reigned supreme? Or are we to suppose that there was a secret and a deeper knowledge of what the other portions of the army were already ripe for, and that the five or six regiments to commence with were but the instalments of those that were to follow? Or, if such previous understanding and collusion did not exist either with the king or any of those immediately about him, are we to attribute to superstition and the pretended revelation of dreams, circumstances which scarcely admit of

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satisfactory solution by any more sober process? We have all heard, in this court, of the vision of a hurricane that was to arise from the west with a great flood of water, devastating the whole country, but bearing up on its surges this descendant of ancient royalty, and that this vision, as interpreted by Hasan Askari, the priest, signified annihilation to the English infidels by the power of the King of Persia, who was to restore sovereignty to the heirs of the throne of Hindustan. Was it a reliance upon this that expedited the otherwise tardy movements of these Asiatics, and gave breadth and boldness to their decisions? I am aware that under other circumstances, and in any but an eastern land, such unmeaning flights of a bewildered imagination would be too trivial to dwell upon, too unsubstantial for the gravity of comment; but here, in seriously considering the nature and progress of an extensive military revolt, they obtrude themselves on the mind as subjects capable of influencing for evil the destinies of thousands.

These observations have been elicited by the marked and unusual energy displayed in making the magazine the point of instant attack. It seems to me that such cannot be accounted for by conspiracy among the Sipahis alone, for it was the king’s own troops who were the first to seek possession, and the military and systematic way in which this was done betrays the authority by which the orders were issued. There was no confusion here, no attempt at pillage: non-commissioned officers were appointed to the separate guards for the different gates of the magazine, while another guard superintended the labourers who were removing the stores that happened to be outside. How could such decision, such instant transformation from chaos to system and to order, have resulted had not the king or some of his officials been intrusted with a sort of programme of events? How, in fact, could the king’s troops have been in readiness and preparation for such work without warning of some kind?

If I have not succeeded in tracing to the king himself a foreknowledge of the leading events that were to take place on Monday the 11th of May, I trust it has been made obvious that the secret was in the possession of some influential inmates of the palace. The babbling garrulity of the prince Jawan Bakht sufficiently indicates this, for such is his joy at the anticipation of murdering the English, that he is unable to restrain his expressions of it. My chief object, however, has been to reader clear what I believe to be the truth, viz., that the conspiracy, from the very commencement, was not confined to the Sipahis, and did not even originate with them, but had its ramifications throughout the palace and the city: and do not the murders which we have already adverted to tend to corroborate this fact? We have evidence that the mutineers of the 11th and 20th regiments of Native infantry, before the magazine was exploded, proceeded to attack and escalade it, and it is then, for the first time, that we find the king, through his troops, acting in open alliance with these traitors to their government. From that moment there is no further disguise, and no attempt at concealment. Fairly launched into the stream of sedition, he is hurried onward by the swollen flood, which was not, however,

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to bear him, as he imagined, to the throne of Hindustan, but to leave him in its ebb a mere helpless wreck upon the sands.

I would here pause for a second, to refer to Lieutenant Willoughby, and to the brave men under him, who for so long a time held, against unnumbered odds, the magazine intrusted to them. One hardly knows which to admire most, the penetration and sagacity which, at a glance, foresaw the possible necessity for its destruction, and made arrangements accordingly; or the undaunted resolution with which the final sacrifice was accomplished. To do justice to such heroism will be the pleasing duty of the historian. I can merely give it a passing notice, having to dilate on other matters more immediately connected with the proceedings before us.

With the explosion of the magazine at Dehli, every hope of stemming the torrent of rebellion seems to have vanished; resistance had been there protracted to its utmost possible extent; the sacrifice was a final one; and thenceforward the European community, if, in isolated spots, still preserving the appearance of government authority, were left without one vestige of real power, so that it soon became a duty to the state and to themselves to save their lives by a timely retreat. Dehli was consequently abandoned to the miscreants who had, in the short space of 2½ hours, stained themselves with crimes which can scarcely be equalled in all the catalogues of bygone iniquity. It is now that we find the king coming personally forward as the chief actor in that great drama which had more than England and Europe for its spectators, the progress of which was watched with such absorbing interest everywhere by the antagonistic powers of civilisation and of barbarism. The evidence shows that on the afternoon of the 11th of May, the king, haying entered the hall of special audience, seated himself in a chair, when the soldiery, officers and all, came forward one by one and bowed their heads before him, asking him to place his hands on them. The king did so, and each then withdrew, saying whatever came into his mind. The witness, viz., Ghulam Abbas, the prisoner’s attorney in court, informs us that this ceremony of the king putting his hands on the heads of the soldiery was equivalent to accepting their allegiance and services; and he further states, that though he is not aware of any regular proclamation having been made in Dehli in reference to the king assuming the reins of government, yet that such may have been done without his hearing of it; but that on the very day of the outbreak the king’s authority was established, and that night a royal salute was fired of about 21 guns.

These matters bring us to the charges against the prisoner, and it may perhaps be as well now to consider them, not so much in regard to dates as the sequence in which they have been drawn up. The first charge against Muhammad Bahadur Shah, ex-king of Dehli, is: “For that he, being a pensioner of the British Government in India, did, at Dehli, at various times between the 10th of May and 1st of October, 1857, encourage, aid, and abet Muhammad Bakht Khan, subahdar of the regiment of artillery, and divers others, native commissioned officers and soldiers unknown, of the East India Company’s Army, in the crimes of mutiny and rebellion

Map Showing Track of Rebels under Tantia Topi

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against the State.” I am not going to weary the Court by repeating even a tenth part of the evidence which has been brought forward to establish these charges, but it is perhaps necessary to show that proof of them has been recorded. Mr. Saunders, Officiating Commissioner and Agent to the Lieutenant-Governor, has explained under what circumstances the prisoner became a pensioner of the British Government in India, viz., that his grandfather, Shah Alam, after having been kept in rigorous confinement by the Marathas, on their defeat by the English in 1803, applied to the British Government for protection. This was accorded, and from that moment the titular kings of Dehli became pensioned subjects of the British. It will be seen, then, that, as far as this family is concerned, there was no wrong to be complained of, and nothing but benefits to be remembered. The prisoner’s grandfather, Shah Alam, had not only lost his throne, but had his eyes put out, and been subjected to every species of indignity, and was still kept in most rigorous confinement, when the English, under Lord Lake, appeared as his deliverer, and, with generous sympathy for his misfortunes, bestowed on him rank and pension which continued to his successors, have maintained them in honour and in influence, till, like the snake in the fable, they have turned their fangs upon those to whom they owed the very means of their existence. The evidence that connects the prisoner with Muhammad Bakht Khan, subahdar of the artillery, and which of itself will be sufficient to establish the charge, is a document from beginning to end in the prisoner’s own handwriting:

“To the especial Slave, the Lord Governor, Muhammad Bakht Khan Bahadur.

“Receive our favour, and understand that, whilst the Nimach force have reached Alapur, its baggage is still here, and that you are therefore directed to take 200 troopers and five or seven companies of infantry, and have all the baggage alluded to, such as tents, &c., together with commissariat supplies, conveyed by the ghari to Alapur. You are further directed not to allow the infidels staying near the Idgah to advance. Be it known to you further, that if the army returns without victory, and divested of its appliances of war, the consequence must be disastrous. You have been premonished, and you are to consider these orders stringent.”

It is true there is no date to this communication, but the allusions in it leave no possible doubt as to its having been written within the period embraced by the terms of the first charge.

Perhaps this will be the best place for the few observations I have to offer on the defence. The prisoner, like every other that we have tried, has, according to his own showing, been the mere victim of circumstances; declares that he had no intelligence on the subject previous to the outbreak; that the mutinous soldiery surrounded him completely, and placed sentries on all sides: and that, fearing for his life, he kept quiet, and went

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to his own private apartments; that the mutinous soldiery kept the men, women, and children prisoners: that he twice saved their lives by entreaty and persuasion, and that the third time he did all in his power to save them, but that the rebellions soldiery would not heed him, and eventually carried out their purpose of slaying those poor people against his orders. Now the chief objection to all this is, that it is not only unsupported by evidence, but is directly in the teeth of all the testimony, whether oral or written, and whether given by his own servants or by others. The entire defence indeed is a mere tissue of denials of guilt; assertions of his not having been a free agent; and an endeavour to put the onus of his misconduct upon others. He cannot challenge the authenticity of the documents against him, or the evidence of his own handwriting, or his own seal; and his only expedient consists in asserting, that what he wrote was by compulsion, and that his seal was affixed in the same way. The only dilemma that he appears unable to extricate himself from, to his own satisfaction, in this way, is the going out to Humayun’s tomb, and coming in again. It was, of course, necessary to state that the last was by his own choice and free will; and this would scarcely have been possible had his going out been represented as compulsory; for, if the Sipahis had forcibly taken him out, they would hardly allow him voluntarily to return, so we are treated with the following curious account:– “When the revolted and rebellious troops prepared to abscond, finding, an opportunity, I got away secretly under the palace windows, and went and stayed in Humayun’s mausoleum.” One would have thought that if he wished to separate himself from the rebellious troops, his best plan would have been to have stayed in Dehli, when they were preparing to abscond, instead of secretly planning to go out with them. However, I do not mean to take the defence, paragraph by paragraph, and thus refute it. My best reply to it, I believe, will be by showing how fully and completely the charges have been proved, and to this task I now again address myself, and proceed to the consideration of the second count, which is, if possible still more fully established than the first. It runs as follows:– “ For having at Dehli, at various times between the 10th of May and 1st October, 1857, encouraged, aided and abetted Mirza Mughul, his own son, a subject of the British Government in India, and divers others unknown, inhabitants of Dehli, and of the North West provinces of India, also subjects of the said British Government, to rebel and wage war against the State.” The documents and other evidence in support of this charge are so numerous that it would be tedious even to reckon them. The newspapers speak of the appointment Mirza Mughul to the office of commander-in-chief; of his investiture with a dress of honour; and other matters relating thereto. The oral testimony is very strong on the same subject, while the discovered correspondence shows that Mirza Mughul, the son, was perhaps, next to his father, the leading chief of the rebels in Dehli. I shall for form’s sake give a short extract from a petition of Maulavi Muhammad Zohar Ali, police-officer of Najafgarh. It is as follows:–

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“To the King! Shelter of the World!

“Respectfully sheweth, – That the orders of the royal missive have been fully explained to all the Thakurs, Chaudharis, Kanungos, and Patwaris of this township of Najafgarh, and that the best arrangements have been established. Further, that, agreeably to your Majesty’s injunctions, steps are being taken to collect horsemen and footmen, and it is explained to them, that their allowances will be paid from the revenue of this division of the district. Your slave’s assurances on this point, however, will not be believed till some Ghazis, recently engaged, shall have arrived. As regards Nagli, Kakraula, Dachau Kalan and other adjacent villages, your slave has to represent that, unrestrained by the dread of consequences, and bent on all sorts of excesses, the inhabitants have commenced plundering travellers.”

This might, I think, be sufficiently conclusive as to the words of the charge in reference to “ aiding and abetting in rebellion Mirza Mughul, his own son, and divers other unknown inhabitants of Delhi, and of the North Western Provinces of India, inasmuch as the petition from which I am quoting bears the autograph order of the prisoner referring it to his son Mirza Mughul, and directing him quickly to send a regiment of infantry with its officers to Najafgarh, in accordance with the wishes, and for the purpose of aiding and abetting the petitioner’s schemes of raising horsemen and footmen to fight against the English. But there is another petition, which has not yet been submitted to the Court, having only lately come to hand, and which may appropriately be introduced here. It is from Amir Ali Khan, son of the Nawab of Khurajpura, and is dated 12th of July. It runs as follows:–

“To the King! Shelter of the World!

“Respectfully sheweth, – That your petitioner has come to your royal court, at which Darius might have served as a doorkeeper, having left his house animated by the ambition to stake his life in your Majesty’s cause, and laments that he has lived to see the day when the accursed English have presumed to direct their cannon against your royal dwelling, the guardians of which are the angels of heaven. From the first dawn of the powers of discernment, your petitioner has been trained, like the lion, to conflicts and war, and has not, like the fox, been concerned for his life –

“Leopards destroy their prey on the summits of mountains,

Crocodiles devour theirs on the banks of rivers.”

“ Your petitioner submits that if his prayer is accepted, and the plans and stratagems necessary- in this war are entrusted to his judgment, aided by your Majesty’s august auspices, he will, in three days, totally exterminate these people with white skins and dark fortunes. It was necessary,

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and I have therefore submitted it. (Prayers for the prosperity of the reign, and curses in bitter and filthy language against those who may wish it harm.) Petition of the slave Amir Ali Khan, son of Nawab Dulel Khan, son of Nawab Najabat Khan, chief of Khurajpuria.”

Autograph Order of the King, in Pencil.

“Mirza Zohuruddin will make inquiries, and will give the petitioner service.”

The third charge is – “For that he, being a subject of the British Government in India, and not regarding the duty of his allegiance, did at Dehli, on the 11th May, 1857, or thereabouts, as a false traitor against the State, proclaim and declare himself the reigning king and sovereign of India, and did, then and there, traitorously seize and take unlawful possession of the city of Dehli; and did moreover at various times between the 10th of May and 1st of October, 1857, as such false traitor aforesaid, treasonably conspire, consult, and agree with Mirza Mughul, his own son, and with Muhammad Bakht Khan, subahdar of the regiment of artillery, and divers other false traitors unknown, to raise, levy, and make insurrection, rebellion, and war against the State; and, further to fulfil and perfect his treasonable design of overthrowing and destroying the British Government in India, did assemble armed forces at Dehli, and send them forth to fight and wage war against the said British Government.”

That the prisoner was a pensioned subject of the British Government in India has been already shown in treating of the first charge; and as the British Government neither deprived him nor any member of his family of any sovereignty whatever, but, on the contrary, relieving them from misery and oppression, bestowed on them largesses and pensions aggregating many millions of pounds sterling, the duty of their allegiance will, I think, be readily admitted; yet, as we have already seen, this traitor rushes to seize the first possible opportunity of overthrowing and destroying the government of his benefactors. On the afternoon of the very first day of the outbreak in the hall of special audience, he receives the obeisances of the revolted Sipahis and by laying his hands on their heads unites with them in a common brotherhood of infamy. It is perhaps difficult to realise such a scene. An enfeebled tremulous old man striving with palsied hand to reach a sceptre far too powerful for his puny grasp. and, while bent by age and infirmity, inducting a monarch’s garb, to give, as it were, a benison and a blessing to the cause of the foulest treachery and murder! Dead to every feeling that falls honourably on the heart of man, this shrivelled impersonation of malignity must have formed no inapt centre-piece to the group of ruffians that surrounded him!

There are several witnesses who speak to the circumstance of the prisoner having been proclaimed. It is variously stated as occurring on different days, and it is more than probable that such was actually the case. One or two proclamations would hardly be sufficient to carry the

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information through all the suburbs of so large a city as Dehli. The prisoner’s attorney allows that the king’s authority was established on the 11th of May; and Gulab, messenger, being asked, “Was the king proclaimed as the reigning sovereign immediately after the outbreak?” answered, “Yes, the proclamation was made by beat of drum on the very day of the outbreak, about three in the afternoon, to the effect that it was now the king’s Government;” while Chuni, pedlar, another witness, declares that, “On the 11th of May, about midnight, some 20 guns were fired in the palace. I heard the reports at my house; and next day, at about noon, a proclamation was made by beat of drum that the country had reverted to the possession of the king.” The next paragraph in the charge is in reference to traitorously seizing and taking unlawful possession of the city of Dehli; but this is a point that I need not quote evidence to establish. It is difficult to turn our eyes in any direction without having convincing proofs of it. The charge then goes on to assert that the prisoner “did at various times, between the 10th of May and 1st of October, 1857, treasonably conspire, consult, and agree with Mirza Mughul, his son, and with Muhammad Bakht Khan, subahdar of the regiment of artillery, and divers other false traitors unknown, to raise, levy, and make insurrection and war against the State.” Mirza Mughul was publicly appointed commander-in-chief, and a special state procession in honour of his being so took place a few days after the outbreak. The witness who deposes to this is Chuni Lal, pedlar; but he is unable to specify the exact date on which he witnessed it. Mirza Mughul’s authority after this seems to have been uncontrolled, at any rate in all matters immediately relating to the army, until Subahdar Bakht Khan, of the artillery, arrived, and was appointed both Lord Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief. The date of his arrival was the 1st of July, and after that some jealousy and clashing of authority between the two Commanders-in-Chief is observable, for, on the 17th of July, Mirza Mughul writes and informs his father, that on that day he had formed up the army and taken it outside the city to attack the English, when General Bakht Khan interfered, and for a long time kept the whole force standing inactive, wanting to know by whose orders it had gone out, and, saying it was not to proceed without his permission, caused it to return. Mirza Mughul adds, “that having his orders reversed cannot but cause vexation to any officer, high or low, and begs that definite instructions may be given as to whom the real authority over the army belongs.” There is no order on this letter, nor have we any intimation what decision was come to, but that some better arrangement was the consequence is evident, for on the very next day, the 18th of July, we find Mirza Mughul and General Bakht Khan acting in concert, as the following letter from Mirza Mughul to his father will show. It is dated the 19th of July, and runs as follows:– “Since yesterday the arrangements have been completed for earning on active offensive operations both by night and day. If aid could be afforded now from the direction of Alapur, with the divine blessing, and through the influence of your Majesty’s ever-during prestige, a final and decisive victory, it is to be

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expected, would soon be obtained. I therefore pray that positive orders may be issued from the throne to the Bareli general to afford the aid in question; that is, that he be directed to proceed with troops to Alapur, and to make an attack on the infidels from that direction, while your slave, with his division of the army, makes another on this side, so that the two forces co-operating in the fight may in one or two days consign all the damnable hell-doomed infidels to hell. Moreover, it is to be expected that the force going to Alapur will cut off the enemies’ supplies. It was necessary, and has therefore been submitted.” On this letter there is an autograph order of the king to the following effect: “That Mirza Mughul will make whatever arrangements may be proper ;” and also an after order, apparently by Mirza Mughul, – “ That an order be written to the Bareli general.” I think this is conclusive of the three conspiring, consulting, and agreeing together; but it may be as well to enter here two documents which have not as yet been submitted to the Court. One is a proclamation from General Muhammad Bakht Khan, dated 12th of July, and is to the following effect. It has, I should observe, been extracted from the “Dehli Urdu News”:– “ Let it be generally known to the persons living in the city and country, such as chiefs of freeholds, pensioners, landholders of rent-free estates, &c., that if, from anxiety for their incomes, they have hitherto continued on the side of the English, and have in any way colluded with them by conveying intelligence or furnishing them with supplies, their having done so will not be considered inexcusable. It is accordingly now proclaimed, that all those who have been alluded to are to cherish full confidence that when final and complete victory shall have been obtained, provided their title-deeds, former and recent, shall on inspection be fully verified, they will have the present provisions in their favour continued to them, and that they will also receive compensation in full for the entire period during which their incomes may have been suspended owing to the present disturbances; but if, after receiving knowledge of these orders, any person shall, notwithstanding, forward intelligence or furnish supplies, &c., to the English, he will be severely punished in the way Government may determine. The chief police officer of the city is, therefore, ordered to have the signatures of all chiefs of freeholds, of rent-free estates, and pensioners residing in his jurisdiction, written on the reverse of this notification to them in this matter, in acknowledgment of their having been duly informed, and then to send the notification immediately to his Excellency.” The other document is an order from the king, dated the 6th of September 1857, and is addressed to the chief police officer of the city. It runs as follows:– “You are directed to have proclaimed throughout the city by beat of drum, that this is a religious war, and is being prosecuted on account of the faith, and that it behoves all Hindu and Musalman residents of the imperial city, or of the villages out in the country, as well as those natives of Hindustan who are arrayed against us on the ridge, or are anywhere employed on the side of the armies of the English, whether they be men of the eastern provinces, or Sikhs or foreigners, or natives of the Himalaya Hills or Nipalis, to continue

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true to their faith and creeds, and to slay the English and their servants; and you are directed to have it further proclaimed, that those who are now present with the English force on the ridge, whether they be people of Hindustan, or foreigners, or hillmen, or Sikhs, or whatever country they may be natives of, or whether they be Muhammadans, or Hindus born in Hindustan, they are not to entertain any fears or dread of the enemy. Whenever they come over to this side, kind provision will be made for them, and they will be allowed to continue in their own creed and religions. You are directed to have it proclaimed further, that all who will join in the attacks on the enemy, whether they be or be not servants, will be allowed to keep themselves whatever property they may take from the English in plunder, and that they will beside receive additional rewards from his Majesty, and will be amply provided for.” This paper, which I have just perused, is an office copy, and was found recently among other documents in the office of the king’s chief police station. It bears the seal of that office, and is actually attested as a true copy by the signature of Bhao Singh, assistant to the King’s chief police officer. A more trustworthy and convincing document could hardly be laid before a Court. It seems to me fully to complete the proof of the third charge, and to render further quotation from the numerous other documents unnecessary. It also tends to establish the latter portion of the fourth charge.

To this charge I will now turn my attention. It accuses the prisoner “of having, at Dehli, on the 16th of May, 1857, or thereabouts, within the precincts of the palace at Dehli, feloniously caused and become accessory to the murder of 49 persons, chiefly women and children of European and mixed European descent.” As far as the murder of these poor victims is concerned, I have nothing to allege; the facts have been detailed before the Court in all their horrid minuteness, and they are not such as to be easily forgotten. The cold-blooded, hardened villainy that could revel in leading women and young children to the shambles, and this, too, without the miserable apology of imagined wrong, or to the mistaken zeal of religious frenzy, is something so inhuman that the mind might well refuse to accept it as truth, did not all the force of concurrent ideas, of direct testimony, of circumstantial proof, and elsewhere repeated reactings of the same dreadful tragedies, enforce it upon our convictions. It is not, then, such admitted facts as the above that I am here called upon to establish. They are unhappily but too prominently and painfully shaped forth to require further illustration. It remains, however, to show how deeply the prisoner stands implicated in this revolting butchery, and whether, as averred in the indictment, he did “ feloniously cause and become accessory to the murder of these 49 persons.’ I shall not, in so doing, attempt to avail myself of that law which makes all persons joining in insurrection and sedition individually responsible for every act of violence that may be committed by those with whom they stand leagued in illicit combination, even though such acts may have been against their wishes of without their cognisance. I mean, however, separately to consider each

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fact connecting the prisoner with the deaths of these women and children. I will revert to the evidence of their capture, the place of their imprisonment, the fearful privations to which they were subjected, and the more than cruel treatment which they experienced from the commencement of their confinement, all of which were but too prophetic of the ultimate doom that awaited them. The first person whose testimony I shall have to quote is Ahsan Ulla Khan, the physician. When asked – “How was it that so many English women and children were brought to the palace and placed in confinement?” he replied – “The mutineers took them in and about the city, and, having established their own quarters in the palace, they brought their prisoners in with them too.” Being further interrogated, he declares that the mutineers did not retain the custody of their prisoners, but, as each successive one was brought in, reported the circumstance to the prisoner, and were told to take the Europeans to the kitchen, and keep them confined there. Being again questioned, he asserts that the king himself appointed the kitchen as the place of their confinement, and observed at the time that it was a large, capacious building; so that it appears that the prisoner not only fixed upon the building himself as the place for herding indiscriminately together men, women and children, but from its being in his own palace, and flout his volunteering a description of it, it is evident that he had some personal knowledge of what it was like. He terms it a large, capacious building, but these are not very definite terms, and when used in reference to different objects may relatively have widely different meanings. To obviate any misconception on such a point, I have, since Ahsan Ulla Khan gave this evidence, visited the place myself, and taken its measurements and description. The building is 40 feet long, 12 broad, and about 10 high. It is old, dirty, and dilapidated, and without the vestige of plaster; but it is worse than this, for it is dark, has no made flooring, no windows, and is entirely without the means of ventilation or of light There is but one aperture to it, a miserable, small wooden door; but I will now let Mrs. Aldwell describe it in her own words:– “ We were all confined in one room, very dark, with only one door, and no windows or other opening. It was not fit for the residence of any human being, much less for the number of us that were there. We were very much crowded together, and in consequence of the Sipahis, and every one who took a fancy to do so, coming and frightening the children, we were obliged frequently to close the one door that we had, which thus left us without light or air. The Sipahis used to come with their muskets loaded, and bayonets fixed, and ask us whether we would consent to become Muhammadans and also slaves, if the king granted us our lives; but the king’s special armed retainers, from whom the guard over us was always furnished, incited the Sipahis to be content with nothing short of our lives, saving we should be cut up in small pieces, and given its food to the kites and crows. We were very indifferently fed, but on two occasions the king sent us better food.” Such was the return made by this traitor for the millions of pounds sterling bestowed by the English on himself and on his family! Having, as one of the witnesses has specifically stated,

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“abundance of room where these English women and children would have been safe in the apartments occupied by the females of his own establishment,” where, it is said, “there are secret recesses in which 500 people might be concealed, and where, even had the rebels dared to violate the sanctity of the zenana, all search would have been fruitless; “ and there being, according to another witness, no scarcity of vacant buildings in the palace in which the ladies and children could have been kept in confinement, and in which they might have had every comfort; this minion of English generosity preferred to select for them the very den set apart for culprits and for felons, and where they even received far worse than a felon’s treatment, for they were crowded into a small space, and were daily exposed to the insult and cruelty of all who chose to molest them. Such was the requital to the English for a princely pension and an imperial palace! It will be observed, from the statements of Ahsan Ulla Khan and Mrs. Aldwell, that both agree in attributing, these measures personally to the king; and when we recollect the trifling matters which were, on every occasion, referred to him, and which, as has been fully demonstrated in this Court, received not only his attention but were endorsed by his own autograph instructions, is there any room left for doubt, that the more important concerns were under his special control also? Indeed, the concurrent testimony of many witnesses, and the irrefutable evidence of his own handwriting, incontestably prove that such was the case. It is thus we find the king appointing the prison; that the king’s special armed retainers were always on guard over the prisoners; that it is the king who supplies them with their very indifferent food, and on two occasions sends them some of better quality; and thus, too, the Sipahis asked them whether they would consent to become Muhammadans and slaves if the king granted them their lives; and who, on perusing even thus much of the evidence, can doubt that he had the power of doing so? Has there been one single circumstance elicited that shows that the prisoner even wished to save them, or that he even extended to them one act of common courtesy or kindness? Very far from it; for, whilst no check was given to those who showed the prisoners every specks of unmanly brutality, the ordinary charity of giving food and water to a Christian was severely punished, and a Muhammadan woman, simply on this account, was actually immured with the prisoners. Can the bitterness of rancour go further than this? Or is it possible to contemplate the place and nature of the confinement fixed for these tender women and children, without coming to the conclusion that a cruel death was from the first moment reserved for them, and that, in the words of the witness, Mukund Lal, “they were but being collected?” Indeed the edge of the sword seems to have been but a merciful deliverance from the lingering death which confinement in so loathsome a den, at such a season of the year, must eventually have inflicted on all exposed to it.

Might I not here stop, and confidently on this point await the decision of the Court against the prisoner? The proof, however, swells in volume as it proceeds, and I mean to leave no portion of it untraced. Gulab, a

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chaprasi or messenger, has distinctly stated that, a couple of days before the massacre took place, it was known that the Europeans would be killed in two days, and that, on the day fixed for the slaughter arriving, great crowds of people were flocking to the palace. Every witness to the scene who has spoken of it in Court has alluded to the crowds assembled, both as spectators and actors, on the morning in question; and, as this was at the early hour of between eight and nine, there seems no doubt that previous information of what was to take place must have been given. Nothing indicates that an outburst of fury, either on the part of the populace or military, in any way led to a catastrophe so awful. On the contrary, the witness distinctly says that without orders it could not have happened, and that there were but two sources from which such an order could have emanated, viz., the king and his son, Mirza Mughul; adding, that be does not know which of them gave the order. He, however, distinctly states that he was present at the murder of these European prisoners, and that he saw them all standing together, surrounded on all sides by the king’s special armed retainers, or what you may term his body-guard, and some of the Infantry mutineers; and that, though he did not observe any signal or order given, yet, on a sudden, the men just mentioned drew their swords, simultaneously attacked the prisoners, and continued cutting at them till they had killed them all. A second witness, viz., Chuni Lal, the news-writer, when asked by whose orders these Europeans were murdered, distinctly replies that “it was done by the king’s order: who else could have given such an order?” He and other witnesses concur in stating that Mirza Mughul, the king’s son, from the top of his house which overlooked the court-yard, was a spectator on this occasion, this Mirza Mughul being at that time second only to the king himself in authority. Is it credible, then, under such circumstances, that the king’s own body-guard, his special armed retainers, could have dared to perpetrate this frightful butchery without his order and against his wishes? If a doubt could be entertained on such a subject, it would, I think, he speedily dissipated on a perusal of the writings evidently approved by the prisoner, in which bloodthirstiness and sanguinary ferocity against the English are so glaringly conspicuous. In reference to the presence of Mirza Mughul, and in further proof that it was by the king’s own orders that these unhappy women and children were massacred, I shall quote the testimony of the king’s own secretary, Mukund Lal. To the question, “ By whose order were the ladies and children that were prisoners in the palace murdered?” he replies, “These people were being collected for three days; on the fourth day, the infantry and cavalry soldiers, accompanied by Mirza Mughul, came to the entrance of the king’ private apartments, and requested the king’s permission to kill them. The king was at this time in his own apartments. Mirza Mughul and Basant Ali Khan went inside, while the soldiery remained without. They returned in about 20 minutes, when Basant Ali Khan publicly, and in a loud voice, proclaimed that the king had given his permission for the slaughter of the prisoners, and that they could take them away. Accordingly, the king’s armed

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retainers, in whose custody the prisoners had been, took them from the place of confinement, and, in connexion with some of the mutinous soldiery, killed them.” It appears, then, Mirza Mughul had just come from the prisoner’s presence, and was armed with his authority for carrying out this most hideous deed of blood. It may seem almost superfluous to add anything to the above; but the proof furnished by the extract from the prisoner’s diary is so important and convincing that I feel bound to quote it. The evidence of the physician, Ahsan Ulla Khan, regarding it, is as follows: “Was a Court diary of occurrences at the palace kept by order of the king during the rebellion?” Answer . “The Court diary was kept up as usual, according to the custom which had long preceded the outbreak.” Question. “Look at this leaf, and see whether you can recognise the handwriting on it?” Answer. “Yes; it is in the handwriting of the man who kept the Court diary, and this leaf is a portion of it.”

Translation of an Extract from the Court diary, for the 16th of May, 1857

“The king held his court in the Hall of Special Audience; 49 English were prisoners; and the army demanded that they should he given over to them for slaughter. The king delivered them up, saying, ‘The army may do as they please,’ and the prisoners were consequently put to the sword. There was a large attendance; and all the chiefs, nobles, officers, and writers presented themselves at court, and had the honour of paying their respects.”

Here, then, we have oral as well as most unimpeachable written testimony, all concurring on this point, and it would seem nearly impossible to make the proof clearer, had we not the prisoner’s written confession of the crime. I do not mean in his defence, which is simply a document framed for this Court, and is but a mere tissue of false denials, without an effort at refuting what stands so prominently against him. I allude, of course, to his long letter to his son, Mirza Mughul, in which he actually makes merit of the slaughter of his Christian prisoners, and urges it as a reason why the soldiery should be more attentive to his commands. Alter this, to prolong any argument on the subject would be improper. There is, then, but the last portion of the fourth charge uncommented on; and to establish it we have copies of circulars addressed from the King to Rao Bhara, the Ruler of Kach Bhuj, to Ranjit Singh, Chief of Jasalmir, and to Rajah Gulab Singh, of Jammu. The following extracts will be sufficient, viz.:–

To Rao Mara, Ruler of Kach.

“It has been reported that you, ever-faithful one, have put the whole of the infidels to the sword, and have thoroughly cleansed and purified your dominions of their unclean presence. We have been extremely gratified to hear of such conduct on your part, and you are therefore

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honoured with this address, to the intent that you will institute such arrangements through your territory as that none of the creatures of God may in any way be aggrieved or oppressed. Further, should any number of the infidels reach your dominions by sea, you will have them slain. In doing this you will act entirety in accordance with our pleasure and wishes.”

To Ranjit Singh, Chief of Jasalmir.

“It is clear to our belief that throughout your dominions the name and trace of these ill-omened infidels, the English, must not have remained; if, however, by any chance or possibility some have escaped till now by keeping hidden and concealed, first slay them, and after that, having made arrangements for the administration of your territory, present yourself at our court with your whole military following. Considerations and friendliness a thousand-fold will be bestowed on you, and you will be distinguished by elevation to dignities and places which the compass of your qualifications will not have capacity to contain.”

To Rajah Gulab Singh, Ruler of Jammu.

“I have been made acquainted, by your petition, with all the particulars of the slaughter throughout your territory of the accursed unbelieving English. You are considered worthy of a hundred commendations. You have acted in this matter as all brave men ever acquit themselves; may you live and prosper.” Again: “Come to the royal presence, and slay the accursed, unbelieving English, and all other enemies, wherever you may find them on the way. Whatever may be your hopes and expectations, the dignity and elevation to which you will be promoted amongst your equals will surpass all that you may be able to imagine; and you will further be rewarded and dignified with the title of Rajah.”

On one of the petitions to the king from a duffadar of the 4th Irregular Cavalry, boasting of having murdered his officers at Muzaffarnagar, the order for an appointment in return is in the prisoner’s own handwriting.

I herewith conclude my observations on the charges, and it will now remain, gentlemen, for you by your verdict to determine whether the prisoner at your bar, in retirement and seclusion, may yet claim the respect due to deposed majesty, or whether he must henceforth rank merely as one of the great criminals of history. It will be for you to pronounce whether this last king of the imperial house of Taimur shall this day depart from his ancestral palace, bent down by age and by misfortune, but elevated, perhaps, by the dignity of his sufferings and the long-borne calamities of his race, or whether this magnificent hall of audience, this shrine of the higher majesty of justice, shall this day achieve its crowning triumph in a verdict which shall record to this and to all ages that kings by crime are degraded to felons, and that the long glories of a dynasty may be for ever effaced in a day.

The consideration of the specific charges against the prisoner being now

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closed, I trust it may not be thought presumptuous if I offer some observations on the evidence elicited as to the cause of the late rebellion, and of the existence of previous conspiracy. I have, in a former part of this address, argued that if the native regiments, previous to the cartridge question being mooted, had been in a sound and well-affected state, such a frightful and all but universal revolt could not have occurred; that there must have been some other and more latent power at work to have thus operated on a whole army scattered in different cantonments from Calcutta to Peshawur. I think that such could not have been accomplished without some secret mutual understanding, and some previous preparation, the establishment of which may appropriately be termed conspiracy. I have stated also that it seems as if it was not owing to a cartridge of any kind that such an amount of mutiny and murder has solely to be attributed, but I should be more than blind to all that has appeared on these proceedings and elsewhere if I failed to recognise in the cartridge question the immediate means or instrument adopted for bringing about a lunch-desired end. It seems to have been the spark, not accidentally shot forth, but deliberately chosen to explode a mine previously prepared. In alluding then, to the existence of a conspiracy, I do not mean to imply that we have come upon traces of a particular gang of men, specially banded together for the fixed definite object of causing the late rebellion in the native army, in any manner similar to that in which we have seen it developed, but such evidence as we have been able to obtain does appear to me to point out that, for a considerable time antecedent to the 10th of May, agitation and disaffection to British rule among the Muhammadans was more than ordinarily prevalent, and that such disaffection lad been stimulated by active and designing men, who have most craftily taken advantage of every circumstance that could be made suitable for such a purpose. The annexation of Oudh to British rule was, perhaps, one of these. It seems to have been particularly displeasing to the Muhammadans, as annihilating the last throne left to them in India; and, for some other reasons, it would appear to have been almost equally unpalatable to the Hindu Sipahi. it may, perhaps, have interfered with his position there as a privileged servant of the Company: for, instead of living to rely on the influence and prestige of the British Government in dealings or disputes with the native landholders of that province, he found himself brought at once tinder direct European control. One of the witnesses, Jat Mall, draws a marked distinction between the Hindu Sipahi and the Hindu tradesman in reference to their feelings for the British Government; and perhaps the annexation of Oudh, with other causes, may tend to account for it. Being asked whether there was any difference between the Muhammadans and Hindus in this respect, he replies,” Yes, certainly, the Muhammadans as a body were all pleased at the overthrow of the British Government, while the merchants and respectable tradesmen among the Hindus regretted it.” He, however, says that the general feeling throughout the army was the same both among the Hindus and Muhammadans, and that they were both equally bitter; and this view of the case is, I think,

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supported by our experiences of both. The great bulk of the infantry portion of the native army was undoubtedly Hindu, but we have not found this any check or restraint upon their revolting barbarity; and, as far as the army has been concerned, Hindus and Muhammadans appear to have vied with each other only in the enormity of their crimes. But, apart from the army, the revolt has perhaps assumed many of the features of a Musalman conspiracy, and it is, I think, probable that to Musalman intrigue may eventually be traced those false and fabricated rumours which, adroitly mixed up with some small portion of truth, have been so instrumental in effacing the last vestiges of fidelity in an army whose faithfulness was at one time perhaps its very chiefest pride and boast. It does not belong to such an occasion as this to revert to past years, and step by step to trace the causes which have combined to destroy the reliance once placed upon those who are now so notorious for their perfidy. Some of these causes doubtless have been beyond Government control, and were, perhaps, inherent to a state of continued progress on the one side, and an inveterate priestly opposition to it on the other. It will he sufficient if I here merely allude to several previous occasions, not of very distant date, when some regiments of the native army showed how little they were to be depended on. On those occasions also it was evident that a unity of purpose and a singleness of feeling were in a short time organised by some process not immediately patent to their European officers; a mutual correspondence either by emissaries or letters was perhaps then initiated, and the lesson thus learnt was not easily forgotten. I do not mean to argue that from that time the native Indian army became one large debating society; very far from it; I believe that in their own fashion most of the Sipahis were good and well-meaning servants of the Government. I say, in their own fashion, because it appears to me they are always deficient in natural firmness, and have no idea of strong moral rectitude; their fidelity, as long as it exists, is more of a habit than of a principle, upheld by superstition, but wanting the sustaining power of true religion. Among such a body as this there must always be some discontented intriguers; and who that knows anything of Asiatic character will not readily admit, especially with reference to Hindus, that the few are more potent for evil than the many for good? Let but three or four leaders come forth in all the open audacity of crime, or mix themselves up in the secret intrigues of sedition, and the rest, if not immediately panic-struck, never think it their duty to check or oppose them. They may excuse themselves for a time, by holding aloof from what they do not approve, but active interference, even in prevention of mutiny and murder, seems to form no part of their creed, either religious or political. The most serious crimes are thus passively encouraged; and, temporary immunity securing proselytes, all are eventually engulfed in the same depths of infamy: thus the crimes of a few lead to the ruin of many. That these influences have been vigorously at work in extending the late rebellion I think few will be inclined to deny. I am aware that no correspondence, and perhaps little direct evidence to such a point has been brought

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before the Court; indeed, in reference to the Sipahis, we have not been in a position to obtain either one or the other; still, if, as has been currently and, I believe, truly reported, that the number of letters passing among our native soldiers, for a month or two prior to the outbreak was very considerably larger than usual, this circumstance, combined with such facts as have come under our notice, would lead almost i resistibly to the conclusion that some sinister agitation had been extensively at work, and that increased disaffection and subordination would necessarily be the result; moreover, that in such a state revolt would reduce itself to a mere calculation of time. Io the above remarks I have attributed much of what has occurred to the pernicious influence of evil intriguers, and it may naturally be inquired why these should have had greater effect at the present juncture titan at any former one. Some of the causes I have already hinted at, such as the annexation of Oudh and the progress of European civilisation, outstriding, and in its natural course threatening to sweep away the puny barriers upraised by priestly cunning for the preservation of the grossest ignorance, and thus commencing the subversion of religions that are unable to bear the lights of even natural science. I believe, too, that the propagandists of sedition may artfully have availed themselves of some recent acts of the Government to spread panic and alarm in reference to future forcible interference with caste prejudices. I allude to the agitation about the remarriage of Hindu widows, the enlistment for general service, the cartridges, &c. I do not mean in this to offer the slightest apology for men whose conduct excites nothing but loathing and disgust. Pampered in their pride and besotted in their ignorance, they had as a body become too self-sufficient for military subordination and unhesitating obedience. Experienced, as they were, in mutual combination, they appear again easily to have entered into schemes for dictating to the Government their views in reference to imagined grievances; but that open, defiant mutiny had been generally resolved upon by the army – or, at any rate, by the Hindu portion of it, prior to the trial of the 3rd Light Cavalry troopers – is more, I think, than has been established. Up to that time there was, no doubt, a feeling of uneasiness, a restless apprehension, and an air of respectful mutiny pervading the native ranks. The Allis in many instances appeared to imagine that disobedience to military command was scarcely criminal if accompanied by a salute and a submissive demeanour. Habituated to combination, and well aware of the strength of numbers, they latterly had seldom lost an opportunity of bringing forward their grievances, net individually, but in masses. On such vents there was no difference between Musalman and Hindu; they could both readily unite, and hail already done so, for the purposes of insolent dictation. Indeed, if we search back into history, I believe we shall find that this has ever been what I may term the normal condition of Asiatic armies; and it is, perhaps, the necessary result of giving unity and power to large bodies of men without the checks furnished by education, loyalty, and religious principle to control them: military discipline without these auxiliaries is

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but a dangerous weapon, and one that has frequently been turned against those who have sharpened and prepared it. As a corollary to this, it may he observed that rebellion and insurrection among the unarmed and untutored people of Asia is rare indeed; even the forcible conversion of the Hindus to Muhammadanism tinder former emperors of India seems to have been insufficient to rouse them to resistance. It is, then, the attempt at domination by the Sipahi alone that has to be guarded against. Tim distinctions of caste may, to a certain extent, at former periods have proved serious obstacles to any very extensive combination of men of different sects, either for political or other purposes, but we should remember that this very circumstance of caste companionship has necessitated the existence of a number of distinct self-governing societies, has habituated the people of Hindustan to meetings among themselves where publicity is avoided. and thus, giving them their primary lessons in uniting for particular objects, has endowed them with a natural facility for more extended combinations, of a secret and sinister character. Under these circumstances, there wanted but the means and the occasion for carrying them out; and who does not perceive that the native army afforded the one, and a variety of incidents have favoured the other? Brahman and Musalman here met, as it were, upon neutral ground; they have had in the army one common brotherhood of profession, the same dress, the same rewards, the same objects to be arrived at by the same means. They frequently joined each other in their separate festivals, and the union encouraged by the favour of the Government was finally resorted to as a measure to subvert it. I do not, however, intend to dwell on all of the many influences which may have assisted in bringing about the recent catastrophe; such a discussion in this place might not be approved of. It seems to me, however, apparent that it was not and could not have been the greased cartridges alone that effected it. There was previous preparation among the Sipahis; and there was also a general unsettling of men’s minds throughout the country, and among the Muhammadans in particular. I believe, indeed, that the facts elicited on this point may he ranged appropriately under the head of “Muhammadan conspiracy,” the chief object of which seems to have been to spread disaffection and distrust of British rule, and, by the dissemination of lapse and evil reports, and by fabrications of the most insidious kind, to prepare all the people for change and insurrection. As far as can be traced, the commencement of this must have originated with the prisoner, or with some of those such as Hasan Askari and others, who were admitted to his most secret and confidential councils. Be this as it may, there cannot, I imagine, be a doubt that in sending Sidi Kambar to Persia and Constantinople as an ambassador with letters to the sovereign of that country, soliciting aid and elevation to a throne, the prisoner became the principal in a conspiracy which indirectly, at Any rate, must have been auxiliary to the recent frightful outbreak and its attendant horrors. It is worthy of particular notice, its connecting the two together, that this Sidi Kambar’s departure took place, according to the most reliable account, just two years before

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May 1857, and that his promised return, with the aid sought for, was fixed for the time when the outbreak actually took place. Coupling this with the prophecy among the Muhammadans that English sovereignty in India was to cease 100 years after its first establishment by the battle of Plassey in 1757, we are able to form something more than conjecture as to the causes which have given to Muhammadan fanaticism its delusive hope of recovering all its former prestige. I have already alluded to the dream of Hasan Askari the priest, and its interpretation so plausibly contrived to correspond with the wishes of the king, and of those about him. The circumstance may seem trivial to us, but it was doubtless a means well calculated to make a deep impression upon the superstitious minds of those to whom it was addressed, and to cause expectation and belief in what was -predicted by one said to be possessed of miraculous powers, and accredited with holding direct communication with Heaven. We learn too from the petition of Muhammad Darwesh to Mr. Colvin. the Lieutenant-Governor, dated 27th of March, 1857, that Hasan Askari had, at this time, assured the Ring of Dehli that he had certain information that the prince royal of Persia had fully taken possession of and occupied Bushir, and that he had entirely expelled the Christians, or, rather, had not left one alive there, and had taken away many of them prisoners, and that, very soon indeed, the Persian army would advance by the way of Kandahar and Kabul towards Dehli. He, moreover, adds, “That in the palace, but more especially in that portion of it constituting the personal apartments of the king, the subject of the conversation night and day was the early arrival of the Persians. Hasan Askari has, moreover, impressed the king with the belief that he has learned, through a divine revelation, that the dominion of the King of Persia will to a certainty extend to Dehli, or rather over the whole of Hindustan, and that the splendour of the sovereignty of Dehli will again revive as the sovereign of Persia will bestow the crown on the king.” The writer goes on to say that throughout the palace, but particularly to the king, this belief has been the cause of great rejoicing, so much so that prayers are offered and vows are made, while, at the same time, Hasan Askari has entered upon the daily performance, at an hour and a half before sunset, of a course of propitiatory ceremonies to expedite the arrival of the Persians and the expulsion of the Christians. It has been arranged that every Thursday several trays of victuals, wheat-meal, oil, copper money and cloth should be sent by the king in aid of these ceremonies, and they are accordingly brought to Hasan Askari.”

We thus see how early and how deeply the priesthood interested and engaged themselves in this matter, and how completely and exclusively Muhammadan in character was this conspiracy. If we could but have stepped behind the scenes, and witnessed these ceremonies at which superstition presided, and have heard these prayers and vows offered up for the arrival of the Persians and the expulsion of the Christians, we should doubtless have had depicted to us the foreshadowings of those dreadful tragedies which, to all time, will render the past year so painfully memorable.

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We may imagine and faintly conceive to ourselves some portion of the rancour of these Muhammadans, when we recollect not only their deeds, but the concentrated hatred which breathes through their petitions, and does not stop with this world, but rejoices in the idea of eternal torments for us hereafter. One cannot help inquiring whether there are really many millions of human beings in Hindustan imbued with these feelings for Europeans. I will leave those who hear me to form their own opinions on this subject without venturing to proffer mine. We learn, however, from Mrs. Aldwell that during the Muharram festival she heard the Muhammadan women praying and teaching their children to pray for the success of their faith, and these prayers were generally accompanied by execrations against the English. Nor did even accomplishing the cruel death and sufferings of helpless women and children tend in any way to abate the ferocity of their malignity, or to waken one chord of mercy or commiseration in their breasts, for we find from the local newspapers that at the time this most hideous massacre was being perpetrated about 200 Musalman were standing at the reservoir, uttering the coarsest abuse against the prisoners. Were it not too well attested, such demoniac malignity would scarcely be credible.

The next point to which I shall advert, is the circulation of the chapaties, in the form of ship biscuits. Now, whether they were sent round under the fiction of a Government older, signifying that in future there should be but one food and one faith, or whether, according to another interpretation, they were meant to sound a note of alarm and preparation, giving warning to the people to stand by one another on any danger menacing them, the contrivance was a most insidious one, and calculated to breed distrust and suspicion in the hearts of many who were strangers to such feelings before. That it created no stronger impression on the native mind than it am, perhaps attributable only to the early check it received at the hands of authority, and it would doubtless be both interesting and important if we could discover how and by whom such a proceeding was initiated. This and the false rumour about mixing ground bones with the flour had doubtless one common origin, and it is not going beyond the bounds of fair indication or reasonable inference to attribute both one and the other to the unceasing wiles of Muhammadan conspiracy. We perceive that the Hindu Sipahis, under the impulse of a first reaction in their feelings, reproached the Muhammadans with misleading them, and it is a most significant fact on these proceedings, that though we come upon traces of Musalman intrigue wherever our investigation has carried us, yet not one paper has been found to show that the Hindus, as a body, had been conspiring against us, or that their Brahmans and priests had been preaching a crusade against Christians. In their case there has been no king to set up, no religion to be propagated by the sword. To attribute to them, under such circumstances, the circulation these chapaties or the fabrications about ground bones in the flour, would be to ascribe to them acts without a meaning, and a criminal deception without any adequate motive. A very marked feature in this

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Muhammadan conspiracy is the activity and persistence with which it has been carried out; the circulation of the chapaties having been early prohibited by authority, and thus rendered non-effective for the purpose of extensive sedition, some other expedient was necessary to replace it, and we at once find the tale of the “bone-dust mingled with flour” very adroitly selected as the substitute.. It was, in fact, still adhering to the material of chapaties, and continuing the symbol of “one food, one faith.” It was indeed the chapaty without its form, and without its inconveniences. The schemers had apparently learnt that the chapaty was too specific and too tangibly open to European interference to be largely availed of as an agent for evil, and hence its transformation into flour, the bone-dust being added to the one as the equivalent of the form of the ship biscuit to the other. To give out, then, that such was the nature of the flour stored at all the depots of supplies along the Grand Trunk Road, for from them, during their marches, the Sipahis are in a manner compelled to get their food, was to attain the very object the conspirators must have most desired. If true, the Government had already commenced what would be deemed forcible conversion to Christianity. if they could, then, but establish a firm and general belief in this, their game was in their own hands; and that they did succeed in doing this to a very great extent is, I imagine, undeniable. I must own that to me this apparently natural transition from the chapaties to its component parts seems a master stroke of cunning, and evidenced most able leadership in the cause the conspirators were embarked in.

To prove, moreover, that no mean order of talent was at work, and that all the appliances that craft and treachery could avail themselves of were resorted to, we have only to refer to the extracts from the “ Authentic News,” and also to the other native publications of that period, and we shall perceive with what steadfast consistency the ulterior aim is always kept in view. The chapaties, the bone-dust in the flour, the greased cartridges, were all most appropriate for the Hindus; but a different pabulum was requisite for the Musalmans, and we shall now see with what subtlety it was administered. The first paper commences by announcing that the King of Persia had ordered a concentration of most of his troops at Teheran, and then, declaring it to be currently reported that such a demonstration against Dost Muhammad Khan was only a strategic move to cloak the King of Persia’s real design of fighting against and conquering the English, the editor makes certain that, at any rate, some change of feeling has taken place amongst the three powers. The next extract is dated the 26th of January, 1857, and commences by asserting that all the newspapers agree in declaring that the King of France and the Emperor of Turkey had not as yet openly avowed themselves the allies of either the English or the Persians. but that their ambassadors were secretly visiting and presenting their gifts to both belligerents. “Some people,” says the editor, “think that the King of France and the Emperor of Turkey will not mix themselves up in the quarrels between the Persians and the English; but most people,” he adds, “say that they will both side with

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the Persians. As for the Russians, however, they make no secret of the readiness with which they are assisting, and will continue to assist, the Persians, whether it be with funds or with forces. It may be said that virtually the Russians are the cause of the war, and that, using the Persians as a cloak, they intend to consummate their own designs regarding the conquest of Hindustan. It is to be believed that the Russians will soon take the field in great force.” Here, then, we have not only Persia and Russia advancing immediately upon India with immense armies, but France and Turkey to assist them, while the forsaken and devoted English are represented as by no means sure even of the alliance of the Afghans under Dost Muhammad. Well might the editor, after announcing such formidable coalitions, somewhat dramatically exclaim, “ Let the readers of the ‘Authentic News’ be prepared to see what the veil of futurity will disclose.” Accordingly, in the next extract, we perceive that “the King of Persia had solemnly promised to his courtiers the governorships of the different presidencies and places: one is to get Bombay, another Calcutta, and a third Punt,” while the crown of Hindustan is plainly spoken of as reserved for bestowal on the King of Dehli, this very prisoner before us. You will recollect, gentlemen, that several copies of this paper, the “Authentic News,” used to be sent to the palace, and one can imagine the joy and exultation with which such passages must have been perused, especially when added thereto is the assertion that the Emperor of Russia had sent an effective and thoroughly appointed army of 400,000 men with abundant munitions, to assist the King of Persia in his hostile designs upon India. But it was not in the palace, and by the princes alone, that such paragraphs were read with avidity; the whole population was intent on them. Sir Theophilus Metcalfe has told us that the subject of the advance of the Persians upon Herat was much discussed among the natives, and frequently in connexion with the idea of Russian aggression upon India, every newspaper having at this time its correspondent in Kabul. Nor indeed did the discussion and interest excited by these concocted hostile movements cease here, for the same witness declares that agitation about this time prevailed among the Sipahis and that about five or six weeks before the outbreak it was currently reported in their lines, and much discussed among them, that 100,000 Russians were coming from the north, and that the Company’s government would be destroyed, and in fact that the idea of a Russian invasion was universally prevalent. The venom and virus of these false publications were then taking their intended effect, and it would seem a mere perversion of reason longer to blind ourselves with the idea that the outbreak was fortuitous, or that a greased cartridge occasioned it. In a firmer article of the “Authentic News,” we have seen Dost Muhammad alluded to as but a doubtful ally of the English. In this one, however, as events progress, he is spoken of as being secretly in league with the King of Persia, and, that superstitious aid may not be lost sight of, it is remarked how wonderfully four distinct unexpected coincidences had impelled the King of Persia to declare war against the

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English. The first was that Herat, in another place described as the key of India, had so easily fallen into his possession; the second, the unforeseen coming of the Russians to assist him; the third, the nobles of Persia unanimously counselling an advance on India, and predicting that God would bestow victory; and the fourth, the simultaneous rising and assembling of the whole of Persia for the prosecution of a religious war. Portents and miracles were likewise brought forward still further to excite the Muhammadan mind, as the following extract from the “Authentic News,” dated 15th of September, 1856, will sufficiently prove. It is headed –

“Local News from the Hansi District.

“A man just come from the country tells the editor that, unlike other places, the Huli is being burnt there at this season of the year, and the saturnalia attending the festival are now going on. The man who states this ascertained, on inquiry, that the reason for the unseasonable observance of this festival is, that three girls were born at a birth, and the three spoke immediately. The first said: ‘The coming year will be one of great calamities; various calamitous visitations will afflict the nation:’ the second said: ‘Those who live will see;’ and the third, in an impressive and forcible tone, said: ‘If the Hindus burn the Huli in the present season, they will escape all these evil. God alone is omniscient.’”

It is too much, I am afraid, the case, with persons accustomed to European habits of thinking to view such statements and articles as these merely in reference to the impression they would be likely to make on themselves. The taking of Herat, the predictions of the nobles, &c., and the fabulous prophecies of these girls would, in that case, receive hardly passing attention. But we should commit a grievous and most fatal error if we were to gauge Asiatic thoughts and understandings by the same measure that would be applicable to our own. If, avoiding this mistake, we proceed to consider the above editorials in relation to the people they were written for, we shall find that they are not only most insidiously worked up to meet their peculiar prejudices, but are also made to bear a striking affinity to the fulfilment of their prophecies; to the dreams of Hasan Askari; to the negotiations of Sidi Kambar, and to the ancient traditions of Muhammadanism. Are we, then, to suppose that in all this there was no connexion between the palace and the press? Were all these concurrences fortuitous? Can it be that the dreams of the priests, the plots of the court, and the fabrications of the newspapers worked accidentally together? We have already seen the decoys by which the Hindu Sipahis were to be gained; and is it not the same spirit of evil that we can recognise here? Are the circumstances appealing to Muhammadan pride, to their superstitious bigotry, to their list for religious war, and to their hatred for the English, dwelt upon with a less perfect knowledge of their peculiar inherences? In an extract from the ‘Authentic News,’ dated the 19th of March, it is stated that 900 Persian soldiers, with some officers of high rank, had entered India, and that 500 more

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were then staying in Dehli itself in various disguises. It is true that this is given out on the authority of one Sadik Khan, a person whose identity not being established, was evidently in disguise even to his name; but this very circumstance was no doubt a part of the scheme. It gave an air of greater mystery to the announcement of the paper, and seems to have ban purposely contrived to let the imagination of the readers supply an exaggerated idea of his real rank and importance. How, it may be asked, even under this cloak of a false name, could such a statement be given forth in the leading newspaper of the city without some deep and ulterior object? It not only assigns deep conspiracy to the Persians, but, if false, as we know it to have been, is proof of conspiracy in the editor and those who employed him. This name of Sadik Khan, be it remembered, was the one attached to the proclamation purporting to be from Persia, and put up in the Jammi Masjid. The proclamation, then, and the assertion about these 900 Persian soldiers, were evidently parts of one and the same scheme, and seem to have been thus linked together that the one might, in a measure, support the other. If, for instance, any questioned the authority of the proclamation, there was the answer ready that the bringer of it was actually in the city with 500 other Persians also in disguise, and vice versa. If the advent of the Persians was disbelieved, was not the proclamation a voucher for its reality? The same depth of artifice is apparent everywhere; and the more we consider the subject the more fully convinced we shall be of the wiles and stratagems so systematically resorted to. For instance, what would such a proclamation as that attributed to the King of Persia have been without some demonstration, feigned or real, to support it? The sword depicted on one side, and the shield on the other, would have been equally meaningless but for the story of the men in disguise, and the officers of high tank who evidently must have been deputed to carry it through. The proclamation, so evidently false, is, for that very reason, one of our truest and most reliable expositors of conspiracy, and of Musalman conspiracy too. It is, in fact, impossible to account for it under any other hypothesis. Who, then, was it that designed and wrote the proclamation? This question, I believe, could be answered in every detail by the editor of the paper, who has recurred to it so frequently. It is evidently a pet subject of his, one on which he seems to be thoroughly at home. He has the exact transcript of it, is able to epitomise it, and no doubt was equally well informed as to the preparation of it.

I do not mean to wade through and to quote all the extracts from the newspapers that hear out the fact of a Muhammadan conspiracy. That appears to me unnecessary, for I believe I shall have no difficulty in establishing it by other testimony. however, there is one other extract, which it would be wrong to leave unnoticed. It bears date the 13th of April, and must have been the origin of the report that Sir Theophilus Metcalfe alludes to, when he says that, about fifteen days before the outbreak, it was currently reported that an anonymous petition had been presented to the magistrate, stating, “that the Kashmir Gate would be

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taken from the English. This being the chief stronghold in the city and main connexion with the cantonments of Dehli, it would naturally be the first point seized in any attempt at insurrection in the city, and, being the only gate at which there was any military guard, the importance of it, in a strategical point of view, must have been obvious to all.” Sir Theophilus Metcalfe proceeds to say, “that this petition was never received; but that the current report about it was indicative of what was then occupying the thoughts of many of the natives.” So, no doubt, it was; but it was also much more than this, for it was the real exposition of an article which the editor dare not, without disguising it, put into print. With what ingenuity and craft the idea is worked out, so as to become intelligible only to those who were meant to understand it, must now be obvious to all. The editor says several petitions have been given into the magistrate’s court, and in these it is also mentioned that “a month hence from this date an overwhelming attack will be made on Kashmir, of the salubrity and beauty of which a poet has said, that should a parched and burnt-up soul reach Kashmir, though he might be a roasted fowl, he would recover his wings and feathers,’ and that this cool and heavenly country will come into the possession of the writers of the petition.” How, it may be asked, were the writers of the petitions given into the magistrate’s court at Dehli to take Kashmir, and who does not now perceive that the Kashmir gate of the city of Dehli was thus indicated by the country from which it derives its name, and that the salubrity and beauty of the former were to represent the importance, and its fitness for their objects, of the latter? I shall not here pause to consider whether, under the simile of a parched and burnt-up fowl, the prisoner before us was intended. He no doubt expected to recover some of his lost plumage by seizing the gate, and with it was meditating a flight to a higher elevation. In declaring, on the 13th of April, that in one month from that date, an overwhelming attack would be made on this very point – for it was here the officers were shot down – the editor of the “Authentic News” was either the confidant and accomplice of conspiracy, or had soared into the regions of actual prophecy.

The coincidence of the above cautiously worded announcement of the editor, and the indiscreet revelations of Jawan Bakht, are certainly startling. The doubly foretold attack took place on the 11th of May, and, after what has been proved in regard to Muhammadan treachery, is there any ore who hears me that can believe that a deep-planned and well-concerted conspiracy had nothing to do with it?

The proofs of the intimate connexion of the prisoner with it do not, however, rest here, for Mujud, the Abyssinian, who was not merely in the service of the king, but was his private special attendant, and was always near his person, takes Mr. Everett aside and tells him that he had bitter leave the Company’s service, and, with his troop, go over to the king, as this hot weather the Russians could be all over the place. Mr. Everett seems to have laughed at this, and to have thought it but the man’s foolishness; but we have now direct proof that it was something far

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deeper than that; for at their next meeting, which occurred about a month after the outbreak had been accomplished, Mujud says to him, “Did I not tell you to come away?” And then, as it were in explanation of the warning, proceeds to reveal to him the whole of the Sidi Kambar transaction: how, two years before, he had been sent to Constantinople as ambassador from the King of Dehli; how he had started on the pretence of going to Mekka, and how he had promised that he would return when the two years had expired. This explanation seems to be a very remarkable one. It shows clearly that it was not merely on the basis of an expected disturbance at Mirath that such a proposal was made, but that a far wider web of sedition was weaving. Who can now believe that none of the Muhammadan native officers and men of the regiments at Dehli and Mirath had been tampered with? Mr. Everett, as a Christian, was surely one of the last the conspirators would apply to. It should be remembered likewise, that Mr. Everett had none of his regiment with him at Dehli, and that, had there been any Musalman officers of the corps present, they would doubtless have been preferred to a Christian. At the time too when the application was made to -him the sentence of the Mirath court-martial must have been unknown in Dehli. It was not, then, as a consequence of, but as an addition and an adjunct to, what Was anticipated at Mirath, that preparation was being made here; and by whom was this being done? Could a mere private servant and personal attendant, however great and favourite he might be, offer service to a risaldar and a whole troop of cavalry, withdrawing their allegiance from the Government, without any authority for so doing from his master? Who could have given the king’s service to so large a body but the king himself? I would beg those who hear me, seriously to consider these questions, and then determine whether the answers to them do not bring home personal complicity in compassing the rebellion, to the prisoner in Court. We have been informed, too, by Mukund Lal, the secretary, that it is now about three years since some infantry soldiers stationed at Dehli became disciples of the king, and that, on that occasion, the king gave each of them a document detailing the names and order of those who had preceded him in the direct line of disciples to each other, himself included, together with a napkin dyed pink as an emblem of his blessing. Now, three years ago from the present date is about the time of Sidi Kambar’s embassy to Persia, and of the apparent first commencement of Muhammadan conspiracy; and it certainly is a somewhat instructive fact to find that the occasion chosen for such an unwonted manifestation of piety on the one hand, and such an unusual display of kingly condescension on the other, was precisely that in which intimate relations between them of a more political character were beginning to be thought of. The Agent of the Lieutenant-Governor, of course, put a stop to these exhibitions; but from that day, adds the witness, it may be said that a sort of understanding was established between the army and the king. I think it will be conceded, that in addition to the charges five facts have been established, viz., the concerted dreams and predictions of Hasan Askari, the priest;

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the mission to Persia and Constantinople of Sidi Kambar, the Abyssinian: a deliberate continuous plan of exciting distrust and revolt among the Hindus; a similar plan, by the fabrications of the native press, far inciting the Musalmans to a religious war; and lastly, by these means and others, an indirect, and also a personal, tampering with the fidelity of the Hindus and Musalman of the native army. has or has not a guilty participation in all these five points been traced to the prisoner? If the question (as I believe it will be) should be answered in the affirmative, there will still remain another to be responded to, of perhaps still greater importance, viz., Has he in these transactions been the leader, or the led? has he been the original mover, the head and front of the undertaking, or has he been but the consenting tool, the willing instrument in the hands of others; the forward, unscrupulous, but still pliant puppet, tutored by priestly craft for the advancement of religious bigotry? Many persons, I believe, will incline to the latter. The known restless spirit of Muhammadan fanaticism has been the first aggressor, the vindictive intolerance of that peculiar faith has been struggling for mastery, seditious conspiracy has been its means, the prisoner its active accomplice, and every possible crime the frightful result. It was, however, rather as the head of the Muhammadan religion in India than as the descendant of a line of kings that I believe the prisoner’s influences were desired; the one indeed is so inseparable from the other that it is difficult to say where the difference commences. It was the union of the two, the religious and the political, that gave such importance to the prisoner as one of the abettors of conspiracy.

Thus the bitter zeal of Muhammadanism meets us everywhere. It is conspicuous in the papers, flagrant in the petitions, and perfectly demoniac in its actions. There seems, indeed, scarce any exemption from its contagious touch. The Prince Mirza Abdulla, robbing his confiding visitor and former friend, and then sending his uncle to compass her death, seems no exaggerated instance of it. It is again represented by the Muhammadan officer Mirza Taki Beg, at Pashawar, who, while in high employment and pay by the British Government, complacently quotes from his books that a change will take place, and that the British rule will soon be overthrown. It finds a still more unmistakable disciple in Karim Baksh, of the Dehli Magazine, who, while drawing English pay, avails himself of his scholarship and knowledge of Persian to send circulars to the native regiments to the effect that the cartridges prepared in the magazine had been smeared with a composition of fat, and that the Sipahis were not to believe their European officers if they said anything in contradiction of it. It will be recollected how active in his enmity this man proved when the king’s troops were attacking the magazine; how he kept up a secret communication with them, and how completely he identified himself, from the commencement, with the conspirators. Can there be a doubt that he was one of those who had been successfully tampered with; that, while ostensibly serving the English, he was, in reality, in the pay and confidence of those seeking their destruction?

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But why multiply instances of this sort? I would gladly cite some of a different tendency, and the petition of Muhammad Darwesh, in his admirable letter to Mr. Colvin, must not be passed over. It is one noble instance of faithfulness from a Muhammadan to the British. I am sorry I cannot class with it the petition purporting to be from Nabi Baksh Khan to the king, pronouncing it unlawful to slay women, and calling for a decree to that effect from the doctors of the Muhammadan religion; for since I delivered the paper into Court considerable doubt has been thrown on its having been written at the time indicated, and it seems by no means improbable that it was fabricated after the capture of Dehli, for the purpose of obtaining rewards and other advantages. Indeed, a further attentive perusal of it has convinced me that it is so; for no one in the situation of Nabi Baksh Khan would have dared to advise or propose to the king to let the soldiery first wreak their rage on his own royal person, as Nabi Baksh Khan pretends to have done. There are certainly a few instances in which the Muhammadans have behaved with kindness to the English, and not the less pleasing, on account of the humble grades in which these instances occur. We may, perhaps, deduce from this, that the teachings such as are prescribed by their prophet have no softening effects on the hearts of his followers; nay, more, that education in such doctrines leads to ferocity and revolting crime, and is utterly incompatible with feelings of even ordinary humanity.

In the course of this address I have dwelt, long and frequently, upon those circumstances which appear to demonstrate that to Musalman intrigue and Muhammadan conspiracy we may attribute the dreadful calamities of the year 1857. I have endeavoured to point out how intimately the prisoner, as the head of the Muhammadan faith in India, has been connected with the organisation of that conspiracy, either as its leader or its unscrupulous accomplice. I have alluded to the part taken by the native press and Muhammadans, in general, as preparing the Hindus for insurrection, and the native army, in particular, for revolt ; and perhaps, in further corroboration of such facts, it may be as well to advert to the share that may be assigned to the Muhammadans in getting the cartridges refused on the parade ground of the 3rd Light Cavalry. Out of these 85 troopers the far larger moiety was Muhammadan. These men had no caste, and to them it could not possibly have in whether pig’s and cow’s fat was smeared on the cartridges or not. Captain Martineau tells us that at the Ambalah depot, as far as the cartridge question was concerned, the Muhammadan Sipahis laughed at it, and we thus perceive that these men initiated open mutiny without one pretext for so doing, or the shadow of an excuse. They had not even the extenuation of a pretended grievance; yet they at once leagued themselves in rebellion against us, and induced the Hindus to join them, by speciously exciting them on that most vulnerable of points, the few of being forcibly deprived of their caste. I say, induced the Hindus to join them, for such is the evidence before us, and this too on a pretext in which the Muhammadans could have had no possible sympathy with them. Nor indeed were the Hindus long in discovering

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this, for as a witness, who has been frequently quoted, us, “ immediately after the battle of the Hindan they spoke with much regret of the turn that affairs had taken, reproached the Muhammadans for having deceived them, and seemed to doubt greatly that the English Government had really had any intention of interfering whit their caste. Great numbers of the Hindu Sipahis at this time declared that, if they could be sure their lives would be spared, they would gladly go back to the service of the Government; but the Muhammadans, on the contrary, used to assert that the king’s service was much better than that of the English; that the nawabs and rajahs would supply the king with large forces, and that they must eventually conquer.” If we now take a retrospective view of the various circumstances which we have been able to elicit during our extended inquiries, we shall perceive how exclusively Muhammadan are all the prominent points that attach to it. A Muhammadan priest, with pretended visions and assumed miraculous powers – a Muhammadan King his dupe and his accomplice – a Muhammadan clandestine embassy to the Muhammadan powers of Persia and Turkey resulting Muhammadan prophecies as to the downfall of our power – Muhammadan rule as the successor of our own – the most cold-blooded murders by Muhammadan assassins – a religious war for Muhammadan ascendancy – a Muhammadan press unscrupulously abetting – and Muhammadan Sipahis initiating the mutiny. Hinduism, I may say, is nowhere either reflected or represented; if it be brought forward at all, it is only in subservience to its ever-aggressive neighbour.

The arguments in reference to a Muhammadan conspiracy are now closed. I do not mean that many others might not be deduced from the proceedings before us, for I have selected only those that appeared to me the most prominent. I would wish, however, before sitting down, to quote one question and answer from Captain Martineau’s evidence: “Did you ever hear any of the Sipahis speak complainingly of the efforts of English missionaries to convert natives to Christianity ?” Answer. – “No, never in my life, I don’t think they cared one bit about it.” I believe there is no officer whose duties have given him much experience of the Sipahi character or any insight into his feelings and prejudices but will readily confirm the correctness of this opinion. There is no dread of an open avowed missionary in India. It is not the rightful conversion to Christianity that either Sipahis or natives are alarmed at. If it be done by the efforts of persuasion, of teaching, or of example – the only means by which it can be done – it offends no caste prejudice, excites no fanatical opposition. A candid, undisguised endeavour to gain followers to Christ has never, that I am aware of, been viewed with the slightest sign of disapprobation by any portion of the natives, and, were it more constantly before their eyes, who can doubt that it would remove this present dark and debasing error that Christianity is itself a caste, and its only distinguishing tenet the privilege of eating everything? If this degrading idea were removed, the chief fear of the Hindus would vanish with it. Let them see that it is impossible to make converts to Christianity by force,

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and you deprive the seditious of their most potent weapon of mischief. Christianity, when seen in its own, pure light, has no terrors for the natives. It is only when kept in the shade that its name can be perverted to an instrument of evil. But I may, if I proceed further, be trenching on questions of State policy. I beg, then, to tender my thanks to the Court for the patient hearing they have given me, and to Mr. Murphy, the interpreter, for the able assistance he has, in that capacity, afforded me on this and the other State trills. His very high attainments as an Oriental scholar have been most conspicuous. In the fluency of viva voce examinations; in the quick readiness with which all kinds of papers, in different hands, have been deciphered and read; and in the correctness and spirit of the written translations of documents of no ordinary difficulty his complete knowledge both of Urdu and Persian has been thoroughly attested. The notes appended to many of these papers are valuable in themselves, and speak more forcibly than I can do of Mr. Murphy’s very high proficiency as an interpreter. I should be wanting, both to him and myself, if I did not thus record my obligations to him.

FINDING. – The Court, on the evidence before them, are of opinion that the prisoner Muhammad Bahadur Shah, ex-King of Dehli, is guilty of all and every part of the charges preferred against him.

M. Dawes, Lieut.-Colonel, President.

Dehli, 9th March, 1838.

F. J. Harriott, Major, Deputy Judge Advocate-General.

Approved and confirmed.

N. Penny, Major-General, Commanding Meerut Division.

Camp Saharan, 2nd April, 1858.

Copy of a letter of the Chief Commissioner of the Panjab forwarding to the Governor-General of India the proceedings on the trial of the King of Dehli.

From R. Temple, Esq., Secretary to Chief Commissioner of the Panjab to G. F. Edmonstone, Esq., Secretary to Government of India with the Governor-General.

Lahor, 29 April, 1858.

Sir, – I am now directed to forward for submission to the Right Honourable the Governor-General, the proceedings211 and papers in the trial of

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Muhammad Bahadur Shah, ex-King of Dehli. As a supplement to the above, I am also to transmit translation of evidence of Ahsun ulla Khan, late confidential physician of the ex-King, taken before the Secretary to the Chief Commissioner. It will be in the recollection of his Lordship that the physician’s life was guaranteed on the condition of his answering satisfactorily such questions as might be put to him.

2. The trial was commenced on the 27th January, 1858, and was concluded on the 9th of March, 1858. The proceedings are very voluminous, and have only recently been received from the General commanding Mirath division. The evidence relates not only to the specific charges on which the prisoner was arraigned, but also to the origin and character of the outbreak; and it lays bare the policy of the king’s government and the internal economy of the rebel army during the siege of Dehli. On the whole, it is deeply interesting and instructive, whether viewed practically, politically, or historically.

3. In brief terms, it may be said that the documentary evidence comprises the system in which the general government was conducted; the raising of loans; military arrangements; the communication with foreign powers and neighbouring chiefs; the passages in the native newspapers relating to the war between the English and the Persians. There are also, of course, many papers of a miscellaneous character. The oral evidence describes the occurrences of the outbreak, and the sad circumstances connected with the massacre of the Christians in the palace; it also throws some light on the origin of the mutiny and the rebellion. The general effect of the evidence, documentary and oral, is to present to the mind a wonderfully vivid picture of all that happened at Dehli during the eventful months between the 12th May and 20th September, 1857.

4. The papers referring to the system of the king’s government exhibit in a remarkable manner the active personal share which the king himself took in the conduct of affairs. However wrongly he had assumed his position, it must be admitted that his orders were not unworthy of the situation. He did make some effort to preserve order in the city, to repress rapine and murder in the villages, to check malversation, to restrain the excesses of the soldiery; but it is clear, from first to last, he was unable to establish an administration either within or Without the city. In the tracts nominally ruled by the king there was scarcely the semblance of authority; nor was there any protection for life or property. In but few cases did the king’s agents succeed in collecting, revenue from the districts. From its own records, the Mughul rule, while it lasted, seems to have been a reign of terror, and a period of intolerable anarchy to the people. Then the papers show the financial straits to which the king driven, and the numerous forced loans and other contributions exacted from the moneyed classes in Pali. The military papers do not materially elucidate the plan of the operations, but they show that the mutinous army was utterly insubordinate to the government it had set up, and that its discipline was entirely relaxed. The papers comprising the correspondence with other powers indicate the deputations despatched by the King of

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Dehli to the Shah of Persia; but they do not show an actual connexion between these intrigues and the Bengal mutinies. Whether, in the absence of any proof, there is reason to infer such connexion will be considered presently. The correspondence with Indian chiefs proves that the chiefs round Delhi were in subjection to the king; but there is nothing to show that any considerable number of princes gave in their adhesion, nor that any sovereign or powerful prince intrigued with the king. The extracts from the native newspapers at Dehli certainly breathe a hostile spirit to the British, and abound with absurd stories of the successes of the Persians in the war then waging, and their probable advance upon India.

5. The oral evidence goes far to show, that while the troops at Dehli were prepared for the outbreak, and the palace retainers were in some measure ready for mischief, yet the king himself and his counsellors had not contemplated taking the lead in so serious a movement. Consequently, when the mutineers first arrived, the king’s conduct was mo.t, He asked them why they had come to him, for he had no means of maintaining them. They replied that, unless he joined them, they could not make head against the English. He immediately yielded, however; and by his subsequent behaviour he identified himself with the cause of the rebels, and made their acts his own. As regards the massacre of forty-nine Christians within the palace walls, it is probable that the king himself was not a prime mover in that dreadful deed, and that, if left to his own devices, he would not have had the prisoners murdered. There is little doubt that he could have saved them had he been so minded. It is quite certain that he made no effort to do so, and, from his own subsequent letters, it is clear that he was a consenting party to the murder.

6. Upon all this evidence, the Court have found the prisoner guilty of four charges, which may be thus epitomised:–

1st. Aiding and abetting the mutinies of the troops.

2nd. Encouraging and assisting divers persons to wage war against the British Government.

3rd. Assuming the sovereignty of Hindustan.

4th. Causing and being accessory to the murder of the Christians.

Concurring in the justice of the verdict, and considering the prisoner to have been guilty of these grave felonies, the Chief Commissioner has to recommend, that the said prisoner shall be dealt with as a felon, regard only being had to the guarantee of his life, which was granted to him at the time of his capture. And the Chief Commissioner has arrived at the deliberate opinion of the prisoner’s guilt, after having carefully examined the evidence adduced at the trial, and after having tested it by all the information which he has obtained since the commencement of the outbreak, and by his personal knowledge of the character both of the prisoner and of the Muhammadan population of Dehli.

7. After the above brief analysis of the proceedings in this most remarkable trial, I am now to submit the Chief Commissioner’s opinions on the real causes and origin of the mutiny and rebellion. A right understanding

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of this matter is of the last importance to the future stability of the empire.

8. In the first place, it is to be observed that the prisoner was not charged with any offence previous to the 11th May, 1857. Whatever may have been the king’s participation in the events subsequent to that date, nothing has transpired on the trial, or on any other occasion, to show that he was engaged in a previous conspiracy to excite a mutiny in the Bengal army. Indeed, it is Sir John Lawrence’s very decided impression that this mutiny had its origin in the army itself; that it is not attributable to any external or any antecedent conspiracy whatever, although it was afterwards taken advantage of by disaffected persons to compass their own ends; and that its proximate cause was the cartridge affair, and nothing else. Sir John Lawrence has examined many hundreds of letters on this subject from natives, both soldiers and civilians. He has, moreover, conversed constantly on the matter with natives of all classes, and he is satisfied that the general, and indeed almost the universal, opinion in this part of India is to the above effect.

9. It may be true that discontented Sipahis worked upon the minds of their less guileless comrades, and persuaded them that a sinister but systematic attempt was about to be made on their ceremonial religion; and that in many regiments the majority was misled by designing individuals. But, as a body, the native army did really believe that the universal introduction of cartridges destructive of their caste was a matter only of time. They heard (and believed as they heard) that the measure had been resolved on, and that some Sipahis had been punished even by death for refusing to use the objectionable cartridges. They thought, therefore that their only chance of escape was to band together, to refuse the cartridges, and to resist if force should be attempted by the Government; and the incendiary fires at the different stations were intended by the Sipahis as a warning to their officers and to their Government of the Feelings which had taken possession of the native army. Such truly was the origin of the mutiny; and this, I am to repeat, is the one circumstance which has forced itself upon the Chief Commissioner’s conviction in all that he has seen and heard. This is the one fact which stands out prominently in all the native letters which he has examined, in all the statements of the natives whom he has cross-questioned, and in all the conversations between the natives themselves which have been reported by our spies in Dehli and elsewhere.

10. As against the above conclusion, it might perhaps be urged that the mutiny first broke out at Mirath, where the new cartridges had never been used; and it is no doubt true that the men of the 3rd Light Cavalry had never been asked to use the new cartridges, and were imprisoned for refusing cartridges of the old description, and perfectly unobjectionable. But the Chief Commissioner has always understood that the cartridges which these men did refuse happened to be enveloped in paper of a colour different from that generally used before, and he believes that this unfortunate circumstance would account for the bitter mistrust which was

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excited in their minds. Indeed, a similar circumstance produced the same effect upon the 19th Native Infantry and other regiments in Bengal. Any person conversant with native character can understand how easily such a thing might be misinterpreted by men whose imagination and feelings had been wrought up to the belief that an attempt was in contemplation to injure them in so vital a point as that of caste and religion. Again, it has been said that the Sipahis after the mutiny fired off some of these impure cartridges against our loyal troops during the siege of Dehli; but it is very doubtful whether this really took place. If it did, however, still the men might have escaped the fancied pollution by the refraining from biting the cartridges, or they might have had the cartridges remade in a manner which would obviate the supposed impurity; or the cartridges might have been used only when the mutineers were becoming desperate, as their final defeat drew near. On the whole, the Chief Commissioner considers that neither of the above arguments is at all sufficient to weaken a conclusion so strong upon other grounds.

11. As an instance of the evidence which might be produced in favour of the above conclusions, I am to mention an important and interesting conversation which the Chief Commissioner and Brigadier General Chamberlain recently held at Ambalah with a jamadar of the 3rd Panjab Native Infantry. This man, a Bhajpuria Rajput by caste, and a native of Hindustan, was at Ghazipur on furlough when the mutiny broke out; he and his two brothers joined an English indigo planter, and during seven months were of great use to that gentleman on several occasions of difficulty and disturbance. He was on his way thence to rejoin his regiment in the Panjab when he met the Chief Commissioner’s camp at Ambalah. Though holding a certificate of his good conduct and services at Ghazipur, he still, even at Ambalah, seemed doubtful of the reception he would meet with. He was reserved at first, and it was only during a lengthened examination that he by degrees described what he had heard and seen. In this conversation he affirmed that there was a general belief among the Hindustani Sipahis that the destruction of their caste and religion had been finally resolved on by the English. “So strong was this” he said, “that when I talked with the relations and friends of Sipahis, and endeavoured to combat their views, I ended in almost believing that they were right. Then, again, when I talk to you and hear what you say, I see how foolish such ideas were.” He added that the English officers little knew how strong this impression had become in the native army; that more than five years ago the belief had existed, and had nearly brought on an émeute; that the caravanserais for travellers and the supply depots (sarais and bardashtkhanas) erected by Government on the Grand Trunk Road were said to be devised with the object of destroying castes, and that before long impure kinds of food would be prepared in them which the people would be forced to buy and eat.

12. Such was the prevalent belief in the native army before the outbreak. The first excitement, according to the Chief Commissioner’s belief, the first feeling of disaffection, arose among the high caste Hindus,

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Brahmans, and Rajputs of both the infantry and the cavalry; this disaffection then spread to the Muhammadans of the same regiments. With them also the feeling was at first a desire to resist the infringement of their caste and religion. Then, when they saw that the mutiny, which had now settled deep in the minds and hearts of the Hindu, might be expanded into a political movement calculated to subserve Musalman interests, they sedulously fanned the flame. But, while thus the Hindus and Muhammadans of the line had united to mutiny, the Chief Commissioner’s impression is, that in the first instance the Irregular Cavalry did not join in the combination. While the regular army chiefly came from Oudh and the districts surrounding it, the irregular troopers were drawn from the districts within a circle of a hundred miles round Dehli. They had, therefore, no personal connexion with the line; and, except the mutual bond of religion, they had little or nothing in common even with the Muhammadans of the regular cavalry. In the many native letters which he examined at the outset of the disturbances the Chief Commissioner found nothing to implicate the irregulars, though the misconduct of the 10th Irregular Regiment at Naushahra is a grave exception to what has been said above in regard to this branch of the service. But, of course, when Dehli had been seized by the mutineers, and when rebellion spread to the very districts whence the irregulars came, then very many of them also joined the movement. From that time the Muhammadan soldiers and the Muhammadan population became more actively hostile than the Hindus. This, indeed, it is easy to understand, fanaticism and ferocity being especially inculcated by the tenets of their religion.

13. But although stories against the British were fabricated and circulated by persons with ulterior designs; although individual intrigues were rife within and without the army; though the Muhammadans very frequently breathed a spirit of fanatic ferocity against the British, yet all their influences could not could not have drawn our native army from its allegiance, if it had not been already penetrated by that unfortunate belief about the cartridges. Nor would such an ill-feeling have so speedily arisen, nor would it have produced such a desperate disaffection, if the army had not been in an unsound and unsatisfactory state for some years post. That this state of things actually existed can now be ascertained from the natives themselves. At the time it would have been extremely difficult to discover as much from them, owing to their extraordinary reticence on mutters which they fear to reveal. It is only by attentive observation, by study of their character and their conduct, and by the collating of their casual remarks, that their real opinions and feelings on such subjects can be discerned. It were needless to allude to the several causes which brought about this condition. There is, however, one essential and original cause which cannot be too prominently mentioned, nor too attentively considered. This cause was, that the Sipahis were imbued with a sense of their own strength and of our weakness; and that our system consequently placed in their way temptations which encouraged

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them to revolt. They were, as they themselves said in their own phrase, the right arm, the hands and feet of the British Government. Their strength consisted in their great numbers; in their unexampled power of combination from their being one vast brotherhood, with common fatherland, language, religion, caste, and associations; and their possession of most of our magazines, many of our forts, and all our treasuries, while our weakness consisted in the paucity of European troops. Moreover, while the native regiments were kept up to their full strength, while our already overgrown native army was being gradually increased, it so happened that we had not been so weak for many years past in European troops ns we were in 1857. Some regiments had been subtracted from our complement during the Russian war; two regiments were in Persia. Those regiments we had were numerically weak; some corps had not received any fresh draughts for two years. These and all the other weak points of our system were patent to a native army, having many intelligent men in its ranks, employed promiscuously from Calcutta to Peshawar, and consequently well acquainted with our military arrangements. In short, it was a sense of overwhelming power acting upon men exasperated by a fancied wrong that led the Bengal army to mutiny. In the face of this grand motive cause for the mutiny ex sting in the army, why need we look abroad for foreign causes?

14. The real causes of the outbreak having been discussed, I am now to advert to certain circumstances which are sometimes Enid to be causes, but which in the Chief Commissioner’s judgment were probably not so.

15. In the first place, with reference to conspiracies, which have been so frequently adduced as proximate causes of the outbreak, I am to state that, in the Chief Commissioner’s belief, there was not any conspiracy in the army irrespective of the cartridge affair, and no really organised conspiracy even in respect to that. The Sipahis had corresponded in order to unite in refusing the cartridges; they had probably engaged to stand by one another in resistance to the supposed oppression; and being a fraternity with hopes, fears, prejudices, feelings, all in common, they all fit that such an engagement would be acted up to by the whole body. No doubt the course of affairs at Mirath precipitated the outbreak, and it is vain to speculate as to what could have been designed if that outbreak had been postponed. But it seems certain that no regular rising had up to that time been planned. A mass of Sipahi correspondence has been inspected, the common talk of the mutineers in Dehli has been reported, the records of the place have been ransacked, and yet no trace of any such detailed plan has been found. To show how little the course to be followed hail been pre-arranged at the time of the Mirath outbreak, one or two significant circumstances may be cited. The well-known moonshee, Mohan Lai, who was at Dehli, stated that some men of the 3rd Light Cavalry told him that when the regiment broke out at Mirath they had scared left the cantonments when they held a council of war as to what should be done next. The general voice at first was for taking refuge in Rohilkhand, but one of the men pointed out that Dehli

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was the proper place to make for. There, he said, were the magazine and the treasury; there the strong fortifications; there a large city population; there the king for a fitting instrument; and there, above all, an important point without European troops. This account of what took place on that occasion was corroborated by minute and extensive inquiries made by Brigadier-General Chamberlain after the fall of Dehli. Again, it is ascertained from Mr. Ford, Magistrate of Gurgaon, that a large party of the 3rd Cavalry troopers actually fled through Dehli onward to the Gurgaon district on the very next day after the outbreak, and that 10 men of this party and 20 of the horses were seized by the magistrate. At the same time there is no doubt that the troops at Dehli were prepared for the occurrence of an outbreak at Mirath, and were fully resolved to stand by-their comrades.

16. It was when the native army at large saw the immense success of the Mirath and Dehli mutineers, and the disasters of the British in the first instance, that they resolved to convert what had been a combination against supposed oppression into a struggle for empire and for a general military domination. The Sipahis had the command of all the public treasuries; no attempt was made to secure the treasure at out-stations; the temptation to plunder was too great for the virtue even of our best disposed regiments; each corps acquired great wealth as it mutinied; as regiment after regiment fell away the power of resistance on the part of the Government lessened; in short, so manifold were the inducements, so certain the spread of infection, so powerful the effect of example, that no man acquainted with India could fail to see that such a mutiny and rebellion, unless trampled out at once, unless quenched in the blood of the soldiers who first revolted, must extend everywhere like wild-fire.

17. Next I am to state that Sir John Lawrence does not believe that there was any previous conspiracy, Muhammadan or other, extending first through the influential classes in the country, and then to the native army. If there were such a thing, how comes it that no trace has been discovered in this part of India, the very quarter where any such conspiracy must have been hatched? How can it reasonably be explained, why none of those who have adhered to our cause were acquainted with such a conspiracy? The number of those who were with us in Hindustan may have been small, as compared with the number of those who were against us; but still the number of our adherents was considerable. Of these, many remained true to us under all trials; others again died fighting on our side, yet not one of these has ever been able to speak of any general conspiracy previous to the outbreak. Again, none of the mutineers and rebels who paid for their guilt the forfeit of their lives ever confessed in their last moments a knowledge of any such conspiracy, though they knew that any revelations on this subject would have saved them from death. Again, many papers of various kinds have come to hand, revealing important secrets, implicating many persons, jeopardising many lives, yet in all these there has been no allusion to such a conspiracy. In all his inquiries the Chief Commissioner has never heard a word from a native

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mouth, nor seen anything in any native document, that could convey even the impression that any general plot had existed.

18. Furthermore, the Chief Commissioner considers that the conduct of the people generally negatives the supposition of a general conspiracy. If the people had conspired with the army, why was not the first outbreak immediately followed by a general insurrection? If there was concert and premeditation, then, why did not the population obey the first signals of revolt, such remarkable and encouraging signals as they were? Why did not all Hindustan rebel directly that Dehli had fallen to the mutineers, when the English there had been massacred, when the troops had raised the hid characters of the city, and with their aid had seized the treasure, magazines, and fortifications; when the king’s sons, courtiers, and retainers had joined, and when the king himself had consented to head the movement? Why had not the population everywhere taken advantage immediately of our weakness? Our power in a large portion of Hindustan was temporarily paralysed. Our means were small; and those means we had were so placed as not to be capable of being at once brought to bear against the insurgents. And the Mirath force did nothing. The fact is, that at first our enemies were not prepared to profit by such unforeseen and tremendous events. It was not till afterwards that the Muhammadans of Hindustan perceived that the re-establishment of the throne of Dehli, the gradual rising of the Muhammadan population, and the losses of the British at so many stations, presented an opportunity when they might again strike for empire with some prospect of success. The fact that afterwards in many districts the people threw off or ignored our authority, and that many individuals, and some classes openly rose against us, will by no means prove a preconcerted conspiracy, but, on the contrary, will admit of much explanation. In no case did popular tumult precede the military outbreak; but, invariably where it occurred at all, it ensued upon a mutiny, like cause following effect. The population generally were passive at first. Then, as it appeared that the British were being swept off the face of the land, every village began to follow its own course. In most districts there was, of course, more or less misconduct. But through the whole time the people, even in the worst districts, never embarrassed Its half as much as they would have done had they been rebels at heart. Large masses of people were coerced by the mutineers into insurrection, if insurrection it could be called; where, again, the mutineers were beaten and expelled, the country rapidly Fettled down to peace and order. Wherever our officers were able to hold their own, the people remained wholly or partially tranquil; when British rule ceased, utter disorder necessarily followed. And certainly the common belief in Hindustan was that the British dominion had been extinguished. Furthermore, it is to be remembered that in India, as indeed in almost every other country, there exists a discontented elms ready for any change, in the hope of its improving their condition. Moreover, in India especially, there are tribes by nature predatory, who before our rule subsisted on plunder and rapine. These were subdued more than half a century ago by our arms and our

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policy. But the characteristics of those people survive in their descendants. The existing generation cling to the predatory traditions of their forefathers. They long for a return of the days of misrule – the good old times, when those might take who had the power, and those might keep who could. Most of them had indeed never seen a shot fired, and, living under the shadow of a strong Government, had become unwarlike. But, when our power became eclipsed and our prestige dimmed, the old instinct, the innate love of plunder revived, and the strong began to prey upon the weak. Then, again, a considerable section of the people, and especially the Muhammadans, are fanatical. This fanaticism, loosed from the bands of half a century, became a powerful engine against us. Whatever may be the intrinsic merits of our rule, the people of India can never forget that we are an alien race, in respect of colour, religion, habits, sympathies; while we, on the other hand, practically forgetting this, and wrapping ourselves up in our pride, self-reliance, and feeling of superiority, neglect the most ordinary precautions for our own security, and throw off even the slightest restraints on our freedom of action, though our very safety may depend upon such precautions.

19. The preceding observations convey, in the Chief Commissioner’s judgment, a fair idea of the condition of the people after the outbreak in the Dehli territory, the Duab, of the Ganges and the Jamnah, and Rohilkhand. In Oudh, however, the case was different; there the population had been long inured to danger and warfare; their martial pride had been fostered by constant success in resistance to their own rulers, and by the vast numbers employed in foreign military service under the British. They had always lived free from civil restraint, and they had never felt the weight of our military power. After the province was annexed, we had not at all a strong military position. We were virtually attempting to hold the province by troops drawn from itself; we had but one European regiment, and some European artillery, while we had upwards of 11,000 indigenous troops, and while we had no European troops ready at hand in adjacent provinces. Yet, notwithstanding all this, we did, while acting with the best intentions, carry out some measures which had the effect of irritating various influential classes. As a counterpoise to such disaffection, we might have produced contentment and loyalty among other classes; but our tenure of dominion had been too short to effect this when the outbreak burst upon us. When the influential classes, whom our policy had provoked, found that the native army were ripe for revolt, they added fuel to a rising fire; and, when the crisis arrived, ninthly was immediately followed by insurrection Had we been able at once to march European or other reliable troops into Oudh in sufficient numbers, we might even then have beaten down opposition. But this we could not ; and many months passed away. During that interval our enemies consolidated their power, and even those most friendly to our rule were, from sheer necessity, driven to swell the ranks of our opponents.

20. it may be that the Supreme Government have received information from other parts of India; but the foregoing conclusions regarding the

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absence of any conspiracy, and the general conduct of the people, are based upon Sir John Lawrence’s knowledge and experience of the countries from the Jamnah to the borders of Afghanistan, a tract of full 100,000 square miles, with a population of 30,000,000, and comprising the very centre and focus of rebellion; the place of all others where such a conspiracy, if it had existed at all, would have been most likely to be discovered.

21. It will be seen that in the Deputy Judge Advocate General’s summing up at the trial much stress is laid un the overtures made by the king to the Shah of Persia; but, as already remarked, nothing was elicited at the trial to show that these referred to a revolt either of the Bengal army or the people of Hindustan. The physician Ahsan Ullah declares, that these communications were indeed treasonable; that the king was dissatisfied chiefly because he was not allowed to set aside his eldest son in the succession to the title; and that he had an idea of obtaining help from Persia and from Oudh, to which latter Court also he despatched an emissary; but the physician adds, that although the subversion of the British Government was mentioned in these despatches, yet a revolt of the Sipahi army was never referred to as a means of accomplishing this. During the Persian war there is reason to know that intrigues were carried on between the Courts of Persia and Dehli; but it were hardly reasonable to suppose that if the Shah had really intended to give the King of Dehli any aid, or had even believed that a violent attempt would be made to subvert the British power in India, he would have made peace with us just at the critical time of our fortunes, thereby releasing, for the succour of India, the troops which would otherwise be locked up in Persia. Again, if the Shah had really been cognisant of such an attempt, would he not have sent his emissaries to Peshawar and into the Panjab? Had he done this, some signs of intrigue would have certainly been perceptible, but none whatever were discovered; in fact, all that we have learnt regarding the intrigues of the king and his party show that that he did not look to any conspiracy or combination in India itself, but rather to foreign aid from beyond the frontier, from Persia or from Russia. Indeed, the notions developed are generally so absurd as to show that these intrigues were destitute of any reasonable plan, and were conceived by persons in a great measure ignorant of the subject.

22. The Chief Commissioner’s opinions and conclusions on this important subject have now been stated without reserve. The terrible experience of Hindustan during 1857 must ever be applicable to all other provinces of the empire; it should command attention in the Panjab especially. The Chief Commissioner has every reason to speak well of the Panjabi traps, and indeed it would be difficult to praise too highly their services during the prison war; they have resisted sore temptations, nod undergone severe trials. Nevertheless, there was a time when it seemed doubtful what course they would ultimately adopt; and the Chief Commissioner fully believes that, had we failed to take Dehli last autumn, even their fidelity would not have remained proof against the bad example

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around them. At that juncture the Chief Commissioner himself could not avoid apprehending the day when, besides the British soldiers, there would be no man on our side. That such a day did not arrive is due only, in the Chief Commissioner’s eyes, to the infinite mercy of the Almighty. The misfortunes and calamities which we experienced in Afghanistan in 1842 were renewed and surpassed in Hindustan during 1857. The issue has been less disastrous, because in the last instance the country was less strong, the people less formidable, and our resources less distant; but, above all, because the Almighty Disposer of Events, though apparently determined to humble, had not resolved to destroy us. Many thoughtful and experienced men now in India believe that we have been extricated from destruction only by a series of miracle: It is no exaggeration to affirm, that in many instances the mutineers acted as if a curse rested on their cause. Had a single leader of ability risen amongst them, nay, had they followed any other course but the infatuated course which they actually did pursue in many instances, we must have been lost beyond redemption; but such a destruction was not decreed; it was a struggle between Christianity and civilisation on the one side and barbarism and heathenism on the other. That we escaped from destruction, and even obtained success, can be accounted for in no other way than by attributing it all to the operation of the Divine Will. And now, having been preserved by Providence thus far victorious, it urgently behoves us to strive to gain a right understanding of the real circumstances which brought on this crisis. If we can but acquire this, then there is hope that we may profit by a knowledge of the past, and in future avoid those errors which had well-nigh led to our ruin.

23. In conclusion, I am to submit the Chief Commissioner’s recommendation in regard to the future disposal of the prisoner Muhammad Bahadur Shah, ex-King of Dehli. The Chief Commissioner suggests, then, that the said prisoner be transported beyond the seas as a felon, and be kept in some island or settlement, where he will be entirely isolated from all other Muhammadans. As regards the prisoner’s wife, Zinat-Mahal, and his son, Jawan Bakht, no charges having been exhibited against them, and the latter being only 17 years of age, but they both having been present at Dehli, the Chief Commissioner suggests that they be allowed the option of accompanying the prisoner to his place of transportation; and that, in the event of their declining to do so, they be confined as State prisoners somewhere in the Lower Provinces of the Bengal Presidency.

24. While forwarding these proceeding, I am to state that the Chief Commissioner commends to the favourable consideration of the Supreme Government the able exertions of Major J. P. Marriott, of 3rd Light Cavalry, the Deputy Judge Advocate General, in conducting this protracted trial. The Chief Commissioner also desires to bring to notice the valuable services of Mr. James Murphy, Collector of Customs, who acted as interpreter to the Court. This gentleman, unaided by any munshi, translated all the numerous and difficult documents adduced at the trial; he also read the originals before the Court, and conducted the examination

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of the native witnesses. The translations are believed to be exceedingly faithful; and the circumstance that he was able to dispense with native assistance in the work ensured secrecy and other advantages, and evinced his eminent attainments as an Urdu and Persian scholar. The Chief Commissioner, I am to add, contemplates shortly proposing some reward in behalf of this meritorious officer.

I have, &c.

(signed) R. TEMPLE.

(true copy.)

(signed) J. W. KAYE,

Secretary in the Political and Secret Departments.

Footnotes

211. See Parliamentary Paper, No. 162 of Session 1859.

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