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Chapter 15

The dark side of the picture – Europeans, Christians, and servants murdered – Captain Savory – Citizens plundered – Maulavi Ahmud-oola interferes and is disgraced – Election of a King – Appointment of Commanders – Civil officers – 100,000 assailants – Efforts made to obtain money – Jealousy in the Palace – False reports – The Nana – Havelock’s progress – Captives slaughtered – Mutineers pray to be led to Kanhpur – Subterranean passages to the granaries of the city – Envoy to Delhi Emperor – Havelock’s advance to Lucknow – Citizens excited by proclamations – Retreat of the enemy, and panic – Maulavi all-powerful – Relief by Sir Colin Campbell, and rejoicing thereat

After the capture of Lucknow in March, 1858, I employed an intelligent native to collect information respecting the proceedings of the rebel government during the period we were surrounded by them, and the following summary of his labour will show how the people of Oudh governed themselves after a hundred years’ experience of the European systems of administration in India. There are separate stages of government for different stages of civilization, and no human exertion can disturb them. Governments advance or retrograde as the people they rule advance or recede in the scale of civilization. The European endeavoured to force the laws of nature upwards, but when his support was withdrawn the whole system fell to the level of the people.

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The mutineers, exulting at their success at the battle of Chinut, crossed the river Gumti at different points, and, while some invested the English entrenchment, others spread through the city in search of Europeans and Christians, and persons suspected of being partial to them; most of whom were dragged from their concealment and atrociously murdered. Captain Savory, a retired officer of the Indian service, was one of the victims, who, after surrendering his treasure on the promise of his life, was pulled from his house suffering with rheumatism, and, being unable to walk as fast as his captors, they shot and bayonetted him on the road to the Kaisarbagh Palace; where the reward subsequently demanded for his hoary head was refused, for he was held in great esteem by the nobility of Lucknow.

The city police were supposed to be staunch supporters of our authority, because they guarded the gallows at the executions before the Old Castle; were seen retreating from Chinut; and fired at the mutineers when they approached their fortified position in the square of the Great Imambarah. The most vindictive pursuit of these unlucky wretches was maintained in the city for several days, and many citizens were shot down only for resembling them. The vagabonds of the city, released from all restraint, plundered the terrified townsmen, encouraged by the soldiery, who, on the pretext of searching for Christians, entered and robbed the houses of the weak and defenceless.

The people, alarmed at the licence of the troops, began to desert the place, and to remove their valuables in the dead of the night. The conservancy establishment, organized by us, dissolved itself, and the accumulation

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of filth sickened the unfortunate inhabitants. They appealed in vain to the rebel leaders for protection, and the restoration of that order of things which they had a few days before seen extinguished with acclamations of joy. There seemed to be only one leader with the will to help them, and the Maulavi Ahmud-oolla, always anxious to be acknowledged as the head of the Government, warned the troops that they must desist, and appointed police officers, with large rapacious retinues, to enforce his authority. He had it proclaimed that the citizens might put to death all persons attempting to plunder them, and taking up his abode in the beautiful building known as the Observatory, adopted all the airs and ceremonials of royalty. The party in the Palace, annoyed at an impertinence that threatened to arrest their ambitious projects, incited the troops to resent the proclamation, which was particularly directed at them; and the Maulavi was robbed and ignominiously driven from the Observatory, to which he was afterwards only suffered to return at the entreaty of the Mahomedan cavalry. He had not yet obtained the ascendancy over the Hindu troops that subsequently gave so much trouble to the Begum and her supporters.

The mutineers, wishing to perpetuate their authority, decided upon electing a King, subject to the Emperor at Delhi. This resolution was no sooner known in the Palace, than the Queens began to hold meetings, in which the merits of the different aspirants were angrily discussed, and intrigues concocted for defeating the intention of the troops. The proposal to bestow the (Jrown on Birjis Kudur was fiercely resented, for he was regarded as the son of a low woman, purchased by Wajid Ali Shah, (the King in captivity,) and

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seduced before he saw her. But the perseverance of her paramour, Mummoo Khan, and the influence of a large bribe to the Council of Military Commanders,” subdued all opposition, and the boy mounted the throne.

The day of the coronation, mutineers, without distinction of rank, crowded into the Palace and spread through the halls, creating the utmost consternation by their disregard of all decorum, and by their noisy comments on the person and appearance of the lad. Some likened him to a god; some admonished him not to abandon himself to wine, women, and fiddler’s; and others loudly declared that he was too young and timid, as he stood trembling before the tumultuous crowd of armed men, and started at the report of the muskets discharged dose around him in honour of the occasion. The Begum, dreading the violence of the rude and disorganized soldiery, withdrew him to her private apartments, and for a while bemoaned the bad destiny of her son, whose reign threatened to be a short and dangerous one.

An attempt was made to reduce the troops to some show of subordination by appointing Generals, Brigadiers, Colonels, Majors, and Captains; but as the “Military Council” were well paid by the competitors, this difficult duty was rather slowly performed, and the nominations sometimes resisted by the soldiery, who boasted of being the Alpha and Omega of the whole administration. The civil offices of the city were nominally restored, and plunder stopped, excepting by the officials themselves, who dealt out justice to complainants according to their ability to pay, or the power of the offender to resist. The old regiments were promised more pay, and new levies were raised with

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great names and little discipline. The Court in the Kaisarbagh Palace gradually assumed an appearance of splendour, and sent proclamations into the province announcing the extermination of the English, and inviting the Barons to co-operate in restoring the rule of their rightful .sovereign. The call was responded to, and, by the close of the first month, the multitude of armed men investing the British entrenchment increased to a hundred thousand, when the streets were overrun by bands of music and numerous banners, with wretchedly mounted cavalcades behind them.

No government can exist without money, especially one composed of the most corrupt and unscrupulous men in the world; and, as the Barons of Oudh were only profuse in promises, raids were made occasionally into the country to fetch in money; bankers were cajoled and threatened; traders were squeezed; the treasures of absent noblemen were dug up from their concealment, and contracts of the revenue sold, for a fourth of their value, to Chukladars, monsters who have always been regarded as the destroyers of Oudh. All these measures, however, failed to fill the treasury, and hence the extraordinary efforts made to replenish it with the sum so zealously guarded inside the Residency, and to force on the troops, and on poor tradesmen, cheques upon the Baillie Guard 1 Financial embarrassments, and the jealousy and intrigue inherent in native administrations, produced discord in the Palace, and discontent among the troops; and the whole body would have fallen to pieces but for the presence of the resolute band of Englishmen in the Residency.

Several attempts were made to force an entry to them, and the Court thrown into paroxysms of joy and

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grief by the arrival of messengers, who first reported that the “ brave troops” were in, and fiercely fighting hand to hand with the defenders; then that they had reached the magazine and were cutting their way to the much coveted treasure; next that the English, rising from the dead, had cut off the assailants within the. Residency; and, lastly, that it was all untrue, for the assailants were safely seated behind the streets, moaning the destruction dealt by the cursed English, who had hurled them back from the barricades. Each disaster infuriated the mutineers, who invariably assailed the Palace and abused the courtiers as friends of the English, or wreaked their disappointment on unresisting tradespeople, by shooting a few in their shops for resisting their arbitrary rates, or disbelieving the story that there were only five Europeans alive in the Residency I Affairs were tending to a dissolution when news reached of the advance of Havelock and the defeat of the Nana of Bithur, who quickly followed himself. The fiend was refused a royal salute by the Begum, and, therefore, did not enter Lucknow; but his butchers from Kanhpur implored for permission to assault the British defences, and, the favour being conceded, many did not survive to repeat the offer.

The alarm produced by Havelock’s success drew the leaders together again, and the troops, instructed by the Maulavi, submitted to their authority, but refused to proceed beyond the Alum Bagh, till a. large sum of money was distributed among them; when they marched out, in great pomp, to leave their guns and shoes to the English at Oonas, Bashiratganj, and Nawabganj, to which they ventured to return only when

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well assured that the “Ironsides” were not there, but across the sacred waters of the Ganges.

The mischievous ascendancy of the Maulavi over the troops began more and more to endanger the courtiers, who struggled in vain to humble the presumptuous fanatic. He had somehow gained a high reputation for courage, of which the authorities of the Palace were utterly destitute; and, by working on the religious credulity of the troops, and encouraging their excesses, he became the hero of the army, which believed in his invulnerability, even after a bullet from a British rifle had smashed his thumb. The conceit and bombast of the fellow were peculiarly pleasing to Asiatics, who consider it the essence of authority to assume the airs of greatness, and to affect to be under the protection of the Gods.

The inaction of Havelock, for a while, greatly raised the spirit of the runaways, who entreated to be led on to Kanhpur, and only desisted on its being explained to them, that, though hitherto favoured with victory, they might fail in so desperate an undertaking, when it would be easy for the defenders of the Residency to effect their escape. The great Commanders, exhorted by the Begum, harassed the Europeans in the Residency; and, as far as arranging for their destruction, made most desperate efforts; but the troops had been so often repulsed, and were so convinced that the whole of the defences were undermined, that neither threats, rewards, nor reproaches, could get them on to the walls again. They had a wonderful opinion of our proficiency underground, and it was the current belief that we had subterranean passages to the granaries of friends in the city, through which we replenished our stores; and the

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report caused several grain merchants to be closely watched, and forbidden to go to market for more!

The Court of Lucknow, anxious for encouragement from the Emperor, despatched a special envoy to Delhi loaded with presents, which were received without any particular mark of condescension; and, after staying several days to observe the desperate and disheartening posture of affairs in that doomed city, the envoy returned to Lucknow with letters overflowing with joy at the extirpation of the infidels, and a mouth full of lying stories of the marvellous valour of the mutineers within, and the deplorable condition of the British troops outside the stone fortifications of Delhi. Letters of congratulation were afterwards exchanged, and their arrival at Lucknow was always announced by Royal salutes, and dancing and singing in the city; the noise of which reached the Residency defenders, without exciting more than intense curiosity to know the cause of so much gladness. The last Imperial missive was followed by a messenger from the Ganges with intelligence that Havelock was building a bridge of boats, and a few days later that he was crossing into Oudh; which suddenly stopped the fiddlers and dancers, and threw the whole city into a panic. Councils met and dispersed without fixing on any plan of resistance, and leaders swore to the courage and fidelity of their troops without going out to prove it. The hour of trial brought discord and dissension among the Chiefs, and shameful reproaches from the Begum, which only produced the customary amount of oaths to vanquish the cursed infidel, or die in attempting it. Rajah Man Singh, up to this time, had kept his force of guns and matchlock-men away from the rebel camp, and given the Chiefs no more than his

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hearty good wishes; but now he joined the bewildered Council, and restored its confidence by offering to go himself and beat back the impudent invaders.

The citizens were warned, by proclamations, that the English would surely convert them to Christianity if victorious, and exhorted, in the name of God, to cooperate in defending the religion of their fathers. They were reminded of the massacres at Kanhpur and elsewhere, and assured that the English would avenge them, in Lucknow, by the indiscriminate slaughter of women and children; and they were told that the infidel army was so small that it must be defeated if courageously opposed. The mass of citizens remained at home, and made their preparations for leaving the city, knowing pretty well, from experience, to which side the hand of victory pointed. Mutineers and matchlock-men from the province, after tying up their valuables to be handy for flight, proceeded to the Alum Bagh in the wake of Mummoo Khan, the paramour, who was dragged there in a rickety carriage-and-four.

Outram and Havelock again crossed the Ganges, unencumbered by baggage, and rapidly advanced, through torrents of rain, to cut their way to the little garrison of Lucknow. A short fight won the Alum Bagh, and the following morning, after an obstinate resistance, the enemy were driven from the masonry bridge leading into the city. The prodigious mass of undisciplined and disheartened rebels fell back upon the palaces and mansions skirting the river, creating the utmost alarm. The Begum and ladies of the Kaisarbagh, fearing for their lives, implored to be allowed to leave the city, from which thousands were already in full flight. Shurf-ood-dowlah, the Prime Minister,

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aware that little more was needed to drive the whole of the troops away, stopped them, and, placing himself at the head of a band of volunteers, issued from the Palace to oppose Sir James Outram and Havelock as they approached the Red Gate. A shell bursting among them threw the whole gang into disorder, and the minister was carried back, groaning, with a disabled arm, for which he afterwards got very great praise.

Some Europeans, Christians, and friendly natives, (amounting to about thirty,) captured in Lucknow, and sent in from the Province, were retained in prison, where they endured hunger and insult more horrible than death. After the defeat at the Alambagh, a mutineer regiment, encouraged by the Maulavi, demanded the surrender of the prisoners, who, enclosed in a rope, were led outside the Kaisarbagh and slaughtered, the women being exposed naked to the ribaldry of the executioners. The troops were led to commit this atrocious deed by a suspicion that the courtiers would secure their own safety through the English captives, and afterwards betray them; and, by murdering the prisoners, they hoped to compromise them to an unpardonable degree.

The British leaders reached the Residency, and, dreading to pursue their success too far, with their reduced force, remained there; and, in a few days, the camp of the mutineers rang with cries of victory, which fetched back the host of cowards that quitted the city, to re-enact, for nearly two months more, with few variations, the farce already described. The Maulavi’s reputation for valour reached so great a height that he boasted of being an Incarnation of the Deity, and the folks of the Palace found it difficult to prevent his

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usurping the entire control of affairs. His predictions of complete success; of the ultimate extension of the rule of the army to the sea; and of “ beating his drum in London,” flattered the misguided wretches, and hurried them on to repeated assaults on the new positions occupied by General Outram, from which many never returned. The mutineers were increased by fugitives from Delhi, who, however, were held in small estimation by the Oudhians, and kept at a distance, in order that they might have no pretext for sharing in the booty of the Residency.

The advance of Sir Colin Campbell, for the final relief of the beleaguered garrison, was prepared for in a more orderly manner than before, after the troops had extorted more money; but his fiery progress quickly produced a panic, which lasted till the withdrawal of the heroic defenders of Lucknow, and the retreat of the English; a movement the rebels viewed with surprise, and celebrated by rejoicings. Before the termination of the siege, they buried upwards of ten thousand men!

This collection transcribed by Chris Gage
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