In preceding chapters allusion has been made to the fact that the Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West Provinces had been debarred from the execution of his administrative functions by the circumstance that he was shut up in Agra. It has now to be shown what constituted the North-West Provinces, who and what kind of man was the Lieutenant-Governor, and how it had come about that he had been forced to take refuge in the famous fortress which had been one of the glories of the Mughul rule.
The provinces, named before the annexation of the Panjab, in 1849, the North-Western, and continuing in 1857 to bear that title, comprehended the country lying between the western part of Bihar, the eastern boundary of Rajputana and the Cis-Satlaj States, and the northern line of the provinces comprised in the Central Indian Agency. They touched the Himalayas, included Rohilkhand, and ran into the Central Provinces below Jhansi. Within their limits were the imperial cities of Dehli and Agra, the great Hindu city Banaras, the important station and fortress of Allahabad, the flourishing commercial centres of Mirzapur and Kanhpur. The rivers Ganges and Jamnah rolled in majestic rivalry through their length. They were peopled by a race the majority of whom we had rescued from the sway of the Marathas, and whose prosperity under our rule had enormously increased. Here, too, the descendants of the courtiers of Akbar and of Aurangzib
still confined to live, if not to flourish. For them, as for the landowners in Bihar, the action of our revenue system had been fatal. Their doom had been signalled when the Maratha supplanted the Mughul. It had been pronounced when the Frank ousted the Maratha.
But the change which had been fatal to the descendants of the men who had gained their position at the Mughul court partly by the sword, but more often by intrigue, had been extremely beneficial to the toiling masses. From the time when Mahmud of Ghazni had introduced the crescent as a sign of rule and domination in the country of the Hindus until the period when Lord Lake conquered the imperial city in 1803, the cultivators of the soil of the North-West Provinces had been in very deed hewers of wood and drawers of water. Gradually, under the fostering rule of the English, they had been emancipated from this serfage, until, under the reign of Mr. Thomason, the immediate predecessor of the Lieutenant-Governor who ruled in 1857, they had attained a flourishing position; the rights of every village, and of every man in that village, being thoroughly understood and entirely respected.
The government of the North-Western Provinces was divided into eight commissionerships, those of Banaras, Allahabad, Jabalpur, Jhansi, Agra, Rohilkhand, Mirath, and Dehli. The provinces were but poorly garrisoned by European troops. In fact, when the mutiny broke out, there was but one European infantry regiment, and one battery, at Agra. The only other European troops were at Mirath.
The Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West Provinces was Mr. John Colvin. Mr. Colvin was a man of considerable ability; conscientious, painstaking, courteous, and amiable. He was animated by a thorough sense of duty, gave all his energies to the public service, and never spared himself. It is not too much to affirm that had his lot been cast in ordinary times his reputation as Lieutenant-Governor would have rivalled that of the most eminent of those who, before and subsequently, have held that office. But with all his ability, his experience of affairs, his devotion to duty, Mr. Colvin lacked that one quality, the possession of which is absolutely necessary to enable a man to buffet successfully against the storms of fortune. Mr. Colvin wanted, in a word,
that iron firmness – that rare self-confidence – which enables a man to impress his will upon others. Supreme at Agra, his was not sufficiently, during the mutiny, the directing mind. Surrounded by civilians of high standing, men of ability and of consideration in the service, but holding, and tenaciously holding, theories regarding the mutiny diverse from his, although differing widely amongst themselves, Mr. Colvin allowed himself to be swayed too much by the views of others. It often happened that the course he had proposed to follow was a wiser course than that which he ultimately pursued. Owing possibly to the fact that the circumstances of the time differed widely from those to which he had been accustomed, he almost always renounced his own ideas, and accepted the opinions pressed upon him by one or other of his advisers. Yet, – the responsibility of every action fell upon him.
It is possible that Mr. Colvin’s earlier career was to a certain extent answerable for this defect in his character as a ruler in troublous times. He had been private secretary to Lord Auckland, when Lord Auckland was Governor-General of India. In all the arrangements which led to the Afghanistan war, with its delusive triumphs and its disastrous results, Mr. Colvin shared the responsibility with the Governor-General, of whom indeed he was believed to be the intimate adviser39. Up to the hour of the catastrophe he was jubilant regarding the success of the policy. But when the catastrophe did come, with its loss of human life, its lowering of British prestige, its humiliation to the national arms, it was a blow sufficient to destroy the convictions of a lifetime, to change a man’s nature. It is probable that, thenceforward, Mr. Colvin became less inclined to trust entirely to his own opinion, more ready to accept the suggestions of others.
The disaffection displayed by the 19th Regiment of Native Infantry at Barhampur in the early part of the year, and the events at Barrackpur which followed, had not apparently been regarded by Mr. Colvin as
indicative of any general plan of insurrection on the part of the native army. The rising at Mirath, then, on the 10th of May, took him entirely by surprise.
Mr. Colvin received intelligence of the Mirath outbreak on the 11th of May. Further information leading him to believe that the mutineers had sacked Dehli and were marching on Agra, he summoned a council of war. As the seat of the North-West Government Agra was the residence of many notabilities. There were members of the Board of Revenue, judges of the Court of Appeal, a brigadier, colonels, majors, and officers of lower grades. The scientific corps were well represented. Besides these were commissioners, magistrates, civil servants of degrees, covenanted and uncovenanted, a Roman Catholic bishop, and two Protestant chaplains.
The Chiefs of this large society responded to Mr. Colvin’s summons to what might be termed, without any decided misuse of its natural signification, a general council. Probably in the whole annals of the mutiny there never assembled a body of men whose opinions were so discordant, so distracted, so void of any fixed principle of action. Mr. Colvin himself was in favour of abandoning the station of Agra and taking up a position within the fort. Indeed, he not only announced this as his intention, but intimated that he had already issued the order for the native regiments to evacuate the fort, that the Christian population might take refuge within its walls. Against this course of action many of those present, notably Mr. Harrington – an ex-judge of the Court of Appeal, but just then nominated member of the Legislative Council of India – and Mr. Drummond, the magistrate, loudly protested. As to the actual policy to be followed, there were nearly as many opinions as counsellors. The information that the mutineers were marching on Agra – information proved that same evening to be untrue – clouded the intellects of many. At last, however, a definite decision was arrived at.
It was resolved to show a bold front to the enemy, to secure the fortress by a detachment of European troops, to raise volunteer corps, cavalry and infantry, and to hold a general parade of the troops the following morning, when the Lieutenant-Governor should deliver an address to the European and native regiments.
The troops stationed at Agra consisted of one battery of
Bengal Artillery, the 3rd European Regiment40, the 44th and 67th Native Infantry.
On the morning of the 14th41, these were brigaded on their own ground. The Lieutenant-Governor, and the principal civil officers of the station were present. Mr. Colvin addressed the European soldiers first. He told them not to distrust their native fellow-soldiers, but with an inconsequence scarcely in keeping with his recommendation, added: “the rascals at Delhi have killed a clergyman’s daughter, and if you have to meet them in the field, you will not forget this.”
He then turned to the sipahis. He told them that he fully trusted them, asked them to come forward if they had any complaints to make, and offered to discharge on the spot any man who might wish to leave his colours. “Prompted by their officers to cheer,” records a civilian of high rank, who was present on the occasion42, “the sipahis set up a yell; they looked, however, with a devilish scowl at us all.”
That yell, and that “devilish scowl,” should have opened the eyes of the Lieutenant-Governor. He might have read in the symptoms thus displayed that the sipahis of those two regiments, like the sipahis of all the other regiments of the Bengal army, were but the crisis watching their opportunity. There were not wanting at the elbow of the Lieutenant-Governor men animated by the conviction that the rebellious movement had been concerted, that the sipahis as a body were involved in it, that the time had passed by when phrases however neatly turned, and expressions of confidence however sonorous, could avail anything. The Chief Engineer, Colonel Hugh Fraser, noting the signs of the times, had advised Mr. Colvin to distrust everybody and to recognise the emergency. In plain language he counselled a removal into the fort, – a removal not only of the treasure, the records, the women and children, but likewise of the Lieutenant-Governor and his staff. But Mr. Colvin, who but the previous morning had been led by his own instincts to order an identical action, had at this time fallen under the influence of other advisers. He saw not the significance of the “devilish scowls,” and regarded
not the counsel of the engineer.
He reported to Government his confident expectation that quiet would be maintained at Agra; his opinion that it was not by shutting themselves up in forts that the British could maintain their power in India. But there was a potentate whose capital lay some seventy miles from Agra who had taken a more accurate view of the situation. This was Maharajah Jaiaji Rao Sindhia, ruler of the Maratha kingdom called generally, after the name of its capital, Gwaliar.
Maharajah Jaiaji Rao Sindhia afforded throughout his career an example of the wisdom exercised by the paramount power in dealing generously with native princes. The history is remarkable. It happened in 1843, when the Maharajah was a minor, that Gwaliar, worsted in a war which the intriguers who conducted its government had provoked, lay at the feet of the British.
Many courses lay open to the then Governor-General, Lord Ellenborough. He might annex it, as Lord Dalhousie, under precisely similar circumstances, did, six years later, annex the Panjab. He might confiscate a portion of it, just as four years later Lord Hardinge acted with regard to Jalandhar. He might lay upon it a heavy contribution in the shape of money. But Lord Ellenborough was a prescient statesman. He did none of these things. On the contrary, he conceived that it might be possible by a generous treatment of the fallen State so to bind it to the British that it might become a source of strength to our empire. To the minor Maharajah, of whose infancy his counsellors had taken advantage to provoke the war, Lord Ellenborough restored, then, the whole of his patrimony. But his army he disbanded. In place of it be raised another army, to be administered by British officers, but to be at the charge of the State of Gwaliar. He placed at the same time near the person of the Maharajah a Resident, whose duty it should be to watch over and counsel the youthful monarch.
This generous policy produced all the results which had been hoped for it by its author. The Maharajah, as he grew up and studied the history of the past, recognised in the British Government the Suzerain to whom he was bound by considerations alike of gratitude and of interest. He resolved frankly to recognise the supremacy of
that Suzerain, and to prove himself worthy of the position assigned to him – that of one of the main pillars of the British Empire of Hindustan.
When, therefore, the Mirath revolt became known at Gwaliar, the Maharajah had no hesitation as to the course it was incumbent upon him to pursue. At all risks he would support his Suzerain. The very fact of his being a native of India had given him a more complete insight into the secret reasons which prompted the revolt than could be claimed by any European. He was conscious that the dominant power was about to encounter a shock, which would tax all its resources, and which might terminate fatally for it.
At the very time, then, when the Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West Provinces was congratulating himself, and was assuring the Supreme Government of his belief that the two native infantry regiments stationed at Agra would remain quiescent, Sindhia, well assured that the entire native army was undermined, was warning the political agent at his court that the disaffection was universal, and that the men of his own contingent would, sooner or later, follow the example of the regular army.
The ideas which Mr. Colvin had apparently imbibed at this time regarding the mutiny had taken the shape of a conviction that, far from being caused by the spontaneous action of the sipahis, it was a movement prompted by the Court of Dehli.
He considered it, then, very important to enlist on the side of the British those races which, in applies former times, had been most antagonistic to the representative of the Mughul dynasty, and whose timely support might, at this critical moment, influence the sipahis. Of these there were two in close proximity to Agra – the Marathas represented by Gwaliar; the Jats, enthroned at Bharatpur. To both of these, then, Mr. Colvin applied at once for material assistance. The replies were favourable.
Sindhia at once dispatched to Agra a battery of six guns, commanded by Captain Pearson, and Captain Alexander’s regiment of cavalry, – followed, a little later, by Captain Burlton’s regiment. On the part of Bharatpur Captain Nixon was sent to occupy the station of Mathura with a detachment of infantry.
But this timely assistance in no way retarded the quick approach of the evil which had been foreshadowed.
On the 21st news reached Agra that the native troops at Aligarh had mutinied. By this revolt direct communication with Mirath was out off. It deserves, therefore, to be recorded in full detail.
The station of Aligarh lies on the grand trunk road, not quite midway between the cities of Agra and Mirath, being distant about eighty miles from the latter, and fifty from the former. It possesses a bastioned fort, well capable of defence, and memorable in Indian history as having been the scene of the first of the many effective blows dealt by Lord Lake at the Maratha power in 1803. In May 1857, the fort was not occupied, but the station was garrisoned by four companies of the 9th Regiment of Native Infantry – a regiment which bore a very high character, and which, it was very generally believed, would prove faithful, even should all the others mutiny.
The events of the 10th of May, at Mirath, had naturally been reported at Aligarh; but the story had had no effect on the outward behaviour of the men of the 9th. Rumours of disorder in the district having subsequently reached the commanding officer, a detachment of the regiment was sent out to ascertain the truth. The detachment returned at the end of two days with a report that the rumours had been greatly exaggerated. And although it was stated that as they marched through the town to the regimental parade ground the butchers had endeavoured to work upon the minds of the sipahis and to induce them to revolt and shoot their officers, still the fact remained that they had not revolted, and that they had not shown the smallest sign of disaffection.
On the contrary, both at that time and subsequently, the sipahis delivered up to their officers men who had entered their lines to seduce them from their allegiance.
It happened, however, that one of the men thus delivered over to justice was a Brahman who had acted as the agent of some villagers in the neighbourhood. This man had imagined a plot, whereby, under cover of the noise and excitement of a simulated marriage procession, the European officers might be murdered, and the money in the treasury, amounting to about £70,000, secured for the revolters. The Brahman, caught in the act, was tried by a court composed of native officers, and condemned to be hanged on the evening of the
same day, the 20th. On that evening the native troops were drawn up, and in their presence the sentence was read to the condemned prisoner. The latter was then taken to the gallows, the rope was adjusted, the cart was taken away. During the whole of these proceedings the sipahis had maintained their usual passive demeanour.
Suddenly, however, one of their number, bolder than his comrades, stepped forth from the ranks, and pointing to the dangling corpse, exclaimed: “Behold a martyr to our religion!” This exclamation touched in the heart of the sipahis a chord which had till then lain dormant. As if struck by the wand of a magician, these men – who had passed the sentence and had assisted at the execution – broke out into open mutiny. They dismissed their officers, unharmed; but they compelled them and all other Europeans at the place to quit Aligarh43. They then plundered the treasury, opened the gates of the gaol, and went off bodily to Dehli.
This occurred on the 20th of May. There were detachments of the same regiment, the 9th Native Infantry, at Balandshahr, at Itawah, and at Mainpuri. To these stations information of the revolt at Aligarh, promptly conveyed, produced the natural result. At Balandshahr, the outbreak was attended by no violence. The sipahis simply plundered the treasury and went off. The case was different at Mainpuri and at Itawah.
Mainpuri lies seventy-one miles to the eastward of Agra. The detachment of the 9th Native Infantry at this place was commanded by Lieutenant Crawford. Information of the revolt at Aligarh reached the station the evening of the 22nd.
Mr. Power, the magistrate, who received it, at once consulted the Commissioner, Mr. Arthur Cocks, as to the course to be followed. These two gentlemen decided to send all the ladies and children into Agra and meanwhile to march the sipahis out of the station in the direction of Bhaugaon. The detachment of non-combatants set off very early the following morning under charge
of the assistant magistrate, Mr. J. N. Power.
This gentleman escorted the ladies and children one stage. There he placed them under charge of a faithful Muhammadan who saw them safely into Agra. Mr. J. N. Power, on their departure, returned to Mainpuri.
Meanwhile, the officers of the 9th Native Infantry, Lieutenants Crawford and de Kantzow, were endeavouring to induce their men to march out of the station. The sipahis set out, but on reaching the limits of their parade ground, they refused to proceed further; and breaking out into mutiny, warned their officers with menaces to depart – some even going so far as to fire at them. In the confusion that followed the officers were separated from each other. De Kantzow dismounted, and Crawford, unable to see him for the tumult, and believing he had been killed, galloped back to warn the civilians of the mutiny, and to announce his own intention of riding for Agra.
Crawford found assembled Mr. Arthur Cocks the Commissioner, Mr. Power the magistrate, Dr. Watson the civil surgeon, and Mr. Kellner, a missionary.
After a short consultation, Mr. Cocks, declaring that no one was bound under the circumstances to remain at Mainpuri, started off. Mr. Kellner, Mr. Power, and his brother, – who just then returned from escorting the non-combatants, – refused, with a noble devotion to duty, notwithstanding the reports of musket-firing which reached them from the parade-ground, to quit the station. In this resolve they were joined by Dr. Watson, as well as by three serjeants of the Road and Canal Departments, Mitchell, Scott, and Montgomery, and by a clerk, Mr. Glone.
The first cousin of the Rajah of Mainpuri, Rao Bhowani Singh, with a small force of horse and foot, agreed at the same time to stand by Mr. Power.
Meanwhile, de Kantzow, dismounted, had been opposing to the mutinous sipahis a firm and courageous will.
He implored them, he upbraided them, he threatened them. Muskets were levelled at him in vain. The courageous attitude of the solitary officer, endeavouring to recall to duty men whose hearts told them they were doing wrong, overbore for the moment physical force. Not, indeed, that he entirely mastered the sipahis. But they
did not kill him. They still rushed on madly towards the treasury, bearing with them their earnestly gesticulating, madly imploring lieutenant. Arrived at the iron gates of the treasury de Kantzow made one last appeal. Turning suddenly from his own sipahis, he threw himself on the loyalty of the civil guard of thirty men, posted to protect the Government money.
They responded; they rallied round him; the officials of the gaol added their efforts; and for the first time since the actual outbreak on the parade-ground the torrent was stemmed.
Even more, – it was stopped. Not, indeed, at the instant. De Kantzow, with a wisdom beyond his years, avoided precipitating a conflict. He forbade the civil guard to fire, but drew it up to oppose a resolute front to the halted sipahis, whilst with all the energy of an excited nature he again implored these not to add plunder and murder to mutiny.
For three hours his arguments, backed by the physical efforts of the civil guard, kept the rebels at bay.
The iron gates to the last resisted all the efforts made to force them. It is possible that, unaided, de Kantzow might even have persuaded the mutineers to withdraw. But help, not in numbers, but in influence greater than his own, is brought about this coveted result.
When almost exhausted by his efforts, he was joined by Rao Bhowani Singh, deputed by the magistrate, Mr. Power44. The arguments of this gentleman added to those of de Kantzow were successful. The sipahis agreed to withdraw provided that the Rao should accompany them. He did this, and the Treasury was saved.
The sipahis, after plundering their lines and other buildings, left the station. Their repulse and departure restored order and confidence throughout the city and district of Mainpuri.
The gallantry, the devotion, the cool daring of Lieutenant de Kantzow were not allowed to pass unnoticed by the Government. Lord Canning wrote to the young subaltern an autograph letter, in which in vivid and touching language he described the impression which his conduct had made upon him. “Young in
years,” he added, “and at the outset of your career, you have given to your brother soldiers a noble example of courage, patience, good judgment, and temper, from which many might profit.” None will deny that the encomium was well deserved; that an act such as that I have recorded merits to be treasured up in the archives of a nation’s history.
It remains to be added that the revolted sipahis went off to Dehli, and that de Kantzow, left by their departure without employment, was at once placed in command of a body of police for special service in the district.
The scene at Itawah was more tragic and more bloody than that just recorded. Itawah lies seventy-three miles south-west of Agra, and about a hundred miles north-west of Kanhpur. It was garrisoned by one company of the 9th Regiment of Native Infantry.
The chief civil officer was Mr. Allan Hume, the magistrate and collector. The assistant magistrate was Mr. Daniell. On receiving intelligence Mr. Hume of the events at Mirath and at Dehli had organised patrolling parties to watch the roads, to intercept, if possible, any small detached parties of mutineers, and at all risks to debar them free access to the station.
On the night of the 16th of May the patrols fell in with, and brought in as prisoners, seven troopers of the 3rd Cavalry, a regiment which had mutinied. They had however, omitted to deprive these men of their arms, and the troopers, brought face to face with the native infantry drawn up at the quarter-guard, suddenly levelled their carbines or drew their swords, and assaulted the European officers on duty. The guard instantly turned out, and in the melee that followed five of the mutineers were killed. Of the two who escaped one was shortly afterwards captured.
Three days later the patrols stopped at Jaswantnagar, ten miles from Itawah, a large cart containing several revolted troopers, all belonging to the 3rd Cavalry, and well supplied with sabres, pistols, and carbines. This time the patrols attempted to disarm their captives; but attempting it without due precaution they paid dearly for their rashness. Pretending to deliver up their arms, the troopers fell suddenly upon their captors and shot them down. Having done this they took up a position in a Hindu temple near at hand, small, but of great strength, the approach to which lay along a grove with walls on either side.
Prompt intelligence of this untoward event was conveyed to Mr. Hume. That officer, accompanied by Mr. Daniell, proceeded to the spot, followed by some troopers and foot police. A glance at the temple showed Mr. Hume the strength of the position. The approach to it was thoroughly commanded by the carbines of the enemy. The inhabitants of the neighbouring village showed likewise a strong disposition to aid the troopers, for they not only opened communications with them, but sent them a supply of food and ammunition. To storm the temple by a front attack was dangerous, but it was the only possible course, unless the honours of the day were to be conceded to the troopers. This was not to be thought of, so Mr. Hume and Mr. Daniell, summoning the police to follow them, advanced boldly to the assault. But one man answered to their call.
He was killed, Mr. Daniell was shot through the face, and Mr. Hume thought it then advisable to renounce an undertaking which never had a chance of success. Supporting his wounded friend, he gained his carriage, and returned to Itawah.
That night the troopers, fearing lest a more formidable attack should be made upon them, evacuated their position.
The fourth day subsequent to this event the detachment of the 9th Native Infantry at Itawah mutinied. The ladies and children, accompanied by the civilian officers, and by some native officers who had remained staunch, retired in safety to Barpura, a police station on the road to Gwaliar. Itawah was sacked, the treasury was plundered, the prisoners were released from the gaol, anarchy was inaugurated. The reign of terror, however, was not of long duration. On the evening of the 24th, a regiment of the Gwaliar contingent, the 1st Grenadiers, reached Barpura.
The following morning this regiment marched on Itawah, and restored order. For the moment British authority was again supreme, though no one dared conjecture how soon or how late the restorer might become the persecutor!
Whilst the spirit of disaffection was thus spreading from station to station Mr. Colvin was cherishing the hope that even a majority of the sipahis might be amenable to reason. He believed that whilst the ringleaders had deliberately set the Government
at defiance, others had been induced to follow them solely by fear of the consequences of not following them; that to inaugurate a policy of general severity towards all, because of the misconduct of a few, would precipitate a general insurrection of the native army. But if, he argued, means of escape, by a proclamation of pardon, should be opened to all who could properly be admitted to mercy, it would gladly be seized by those who had no heart in the business.
Impressed with these views, which, it would appear, were shared by almost all the officials about him, by soldiers as well as civilians, Mr. Colvin, without awaiting the sanction, for which he applied, of the Supreme Government, issued, on the 25th of May, a proclamation giving effect to them. He was catching at a straw, but, in the sea of difficulties in which he was struggling, there was positively nothing more tangible at which the hand could grasp!
Mr. Colvin’s proclamation was disapproved of, on several grounds, by the Government of India, who substituted for it another of their own composition. There was really little substantial difference between the two, and both were useless. In point of fact, the time had not arrived to issue proclamations of pardon.
Mr. Colvin’s offer was well meant, but, though the proclamation was sown broadcast over the province it failed to bring in a single penitent sipahi. The straw at which he clutched crumbled in his hand. Mr. Colvin’s proclamation was issued on the 25th of May.
On the 30th, three companies of native infantry which happened to be at Mathura, only thirty-five miles from Agra, belonging to the two regiments stationed at Agra, suddenly mutinied, shot down one officer, wounded another, plundered the treasury, fired the houses of the English, released the prisoners from the gaol, and went off to Dehli. This was the first practical answer given by the sipahis to Mr. Colvin’s proclamation.
But the Rajah of Bharatpur had, as I have shown, despatched a detachment of his troops, under Captain Nixon, to aid the British at Mathura. When the three companies at that station mutinied on the 30th, the Bharatpur detachment was occupying a position at Waal, a small town lying between Mathuri and Dehli, thirty-seven miles north of the former and only sixty from the latter. Being on the high road, it was the place of all others to be occupied with
advantage by a body of men wishing to intercept troops marching from Mathura on Dehli.
So at least reasoned, on the morning of the 31st, Mr. Harvey; the Commissioner of Agra, who was with the Bharatpur troops; so reasoned Captain Nixon, who commanded them. A position was accordingly marked out and the troops were ordered to take it up. But here occurred an unexpected difficulty.
The sipahis of the Rajah of Bharatpur not only refused to obey, but they warned the British officers to depart. The rebellion, then, was not confined to sipahis in British pay. It was becoming hourly more national.
Remonstrances, threats, entreaties, were alike useless. It was not, however, until the guns were turned upon the group of some thirty Englishmen, who were present, that these yielded reluctantly to the mutineers. A few minutes after their departure, the shouts of the Sipahis, and huge bonfires caused by the burning of their tents and the few bungalows built for Europeans, showed that the mutiny had been consummated. The officers escaped with difficulty and after many perils to Bharatpur.
Information of the mutiny at Mathura disturbed the calculations and destroyed the hopes of Mr. Colvin. That mutiny had been the act of the men whom he had harangued on the 14th, and amongst whom his proclamation had been most freely circulated. It had been their own unadulterated work; conceived by their own brains, neither prompted from outside, nor produced by contact with other regiments. It became evident then, even to Mr. Colvin, that other means than those which he had employed would be necessary to put down “this daring mutiny.”
The news of the mutiny at Mathura reached Mr. Colvin at midnight of the same day on which it occurred. The bearer of it was Mr. Drummond, the magistrate. At the time when the first “general council” was held at Agra, Mr. Drummond had been of opinion that the disaffection was partial, and that our policy should be to appear to trust everyone. It was Mr. Drummond who had most strenuously opposed Mr. Colvin’s policy of retiring within the fort. But Mr. Drummond’s views were altered now. Far from endeavouring to restrain the action of the Lieutenant-Governor, he had now to stimulate it. Mr. Drummond, then, when he woke Mr. Colvin with the news of the Mathura disaster, pointed out to him the necessity it had
created of at once disarming the regiments at Agra.
And when Mr. Colvin, only half-convinced, seemed inclined to hesitate, the magistrate called attention to the fact that any sudden outbreak on the part of the Sipahis would probably result in the liberation of the prisoners from the gaol, with its consequent disorder and possible disaster. Then Mr. Colvin hesitated no longer. The order was at once issued for a general parade the following morning.
At dawn of day on the 31st of May the troops were drawn up on the Agra parade-ground. There was Captain D’Oyley’s battery, the 3rd Europeans, and the two native regiments – these so posted as to be under the fire of the Europeans. The Brigadier – Brigadier Polwhele – an officer of the Indian army – then directed the commandants of the native infantry regiments to order arms to be piled. The order was given. “There was a moment of hesitation, a look of discontent. The officers sternly reiterated the order.
Silent and sullen, the sipahis obeyed – piled their arms, and marched off to their lines. The 44th and 67th Regiments, whose colours had waved from the Indus to the Brahmaputra, were no more45.”
Fuller effect was now given to the carrying out of the resolution passed at the general council regarding the organisation of volunteers, horse and foot. The class appealed to, composed of clerks in the public offices, pensioned soldiers, Eurasians, tradesmen, independent gentlemen, responded freely to the call. A body of infantry was formed for the protection of the station itself, whilst Horse Volunteers were enrolled to guard and escort to the fort the women and children in case of a sudden rising, and to afford aid to fugitives from neighbouring stations.
Notwithstanding the disarming of the Sipahis, the mind of Mr. Colvin was far from easy. The country around Agra was in a blaze. Direct communication with the district to the north-west had been cut off in the last week of May; that with Calcutta was
severed the first week in June. In the capital of his own provinces the Lieutenant-Governor was isolated. One by one the towns and districts around him fell away from his grasp. The disbanding of the Sipahis, and the presence of a regiment of European infantry and of a battery of European artillery, had for the moment saved Agra. But Agra was within seventy miles of the capital of the greatest of the Maratha rulers, faithful himself to the British, but whose troops, levied in the recruiting ground which had supplied the British native army, were not to be perfectly trusted. Agra again was the natural and historical point of attack for the contingents of the native princes of Central India, – and, however favourable might have been Mr. Colvin’s opinion of the native princes, the example of Bharatpur had led to the inference that their contingents sympathised with the mutineers.
Mr. Colvin’s position, then, even after he had, by disbanding his two native regiments, removed the immediate danger, was extremely critical. Every day events were passing beyond his control; his power to initiate was disappearing; it was becoming more incumbent upon him to shape his action so as to meet the manoeuvres of others. The initiative in fact had passed into the hands of the rebels.
The danger nearest to him was that which might come from the Gwaliar contingent. I have stated in a preceding page that immediately after the outbreak at Mirath Sindhia had placed a considerable body of troops of his contingent, commanded by British officers, at the disposal of the Lieutenant-Governor. But these men were the brothers of our sipahis, allied to them by caste, by religion, by sympathy. Sindhia not only did not trust them, but he had warned the British political agent at his Court, Major Charters Macpherson, that they would inevitably seize their opportunity to follow the example set them at Mirath and Dehli.
Major Macpherson, an officer of a stamp especially fostered by the East India Company, thoroughly acquainted with the natives of India and trusted by them, pointed out then to the Maharajah, that, holding the convictions he had expressed regarding the men of his contingent, it his would become him to show the sincerity of his attachment to his suzerain by placing his bodyguard, Marathas of his own kindred or caste, at the disposal of
the Lieutenant-Governor. To this proposal Sindhia had acceded, and the bodyguard had been sent off to Agra. Later events were to show that not even the comrades and kinsmen of the Maharajah had been able to escape the infection.
The Gwaliar contingent was composed of four field batteries of artillery, a small siege train, two regiments of cavalry, and seven of infantry, aggregating eight thousand three hundred and eighteen men. The greater portion of the force was stationed at Gwaliar, under the command of Brigadier Ramsay, with outposts at Sipri and Agra.
The cantonment at Gwaliar was occupied by the officers of the contingent, their wives and families. It may excite surprise that with the avowed conviction of the Maharajah regarding the degree of confidence that could be placed in the soldiers of the contingent – convictions shared by his Prime Minister, Dinkar Rao; by the Resident, Major Macpherson; and communicated, it must be presumed, to the Lieutenant-Governor – the ladies and children should not have been placed in security, whilst yet there was time to remove them.
The subject had not been neglected. The Maharajah himself had, so early as the last week of May, suggested the removal of the ladies and children from the cantonment to the Residency, which was beyond the city, and about five miles from the cantonment. It so happened that, on the 28th of May, in consequence of a strong impression that the sipahis would rise, the ladies did actually spend a night there, protected by a portion of the Maharajah’s own guard. Well would it have been if they had been allowed to remain, or if they had been sent to Agra!
But on receiving a remonstrance from the native officers, affirming the excellent disposition of their men, and protesting against the slur which had been cast upon them by the transfer to the protection of the Maharajah of the ladies and children, the Brigadier recalled the latter to the station.
Though confidence had disappeared, the illusion was maintained. This, too, despite the fact that almost every post brought to Gwaliar convincing proofs that of all possible illusions this was the most baseless. With rumours of the wildest character from the North-West there came from places nearer at hand accounts in detail the truth of which was apparent. Now it was that the
troops at Ajmir and at Nasirabad had mutinied, and had made their way to Dehli; now, that their example had been followed by the Nimach garrison: now, that the province of Rohilkhand had risen; now that there had been a massacre at Jhansi; and now that the panic had even reached Calcutta. From Kanhpur, from Allahabad, and from the stations in their vicinity, the absence of news gave birth to even more sinister forebodings.
Such was the life from day to day in Gwaliar during the first fortnight of June 1857. It was a life of terrible suspense, of pressure on the nervous system, difficult to endure46. “Suspense,” wrote Mr. Disraeli, “suspense is agony, but decision may be despair.” There were some of our country women at Gwaliar, one certainly of the fairest and most gifted amongst them, to whom it was allotted to pass through the suspense to succumb in the end to the ruthless and too cruel decision. At one time during that fortnight it had been almost resolved to send the ladies into Agra, and a proposal to that effect had been made to the Lieutenant-Governor.
The idea that he would accede to this plan kindled some hope in the minds of those most interested. But on the 12th that hope was blighted. A telegram from Mr. Colvin directed that the ladies were not to be sent into Agra until mutiny should have broken out at Gwaliar47.
At last the crisis came. It was Sunday, the 14th of June. The Europeans in Gwaliar had attended the service of the Church in the morning, passing on their way many sipahis loitering about the road. During the day fuller details of the Jhansi massacre had been received – details but ill-calculated to dispel the gloom that hung over the station. The prevailing idea in the minds of the residents as they read those details was that the same fate was reserved for themselves, – “for now they were more than ever isolated, revolted provinces on three sides of them, and the telegraphic communication with Agra severed48.” Suddenly, about midday, the alarm was given that one of the bungalows was on fire.
This circumstance, the unvarying precursor elsewhere of a rising, warned the residents that their hour had arrived. But they had prepared themselves for a crisis of that character. Waterpots had been stored up in readiness. On the alarm then being given the occupiers of the several thatched houses had their roofs well saturated. But the wind was high, incendiaries were creeping about, and there were some houses not at the moment occupied. The fire caught one of these, then speedily spread to the Mess-house, and thence to a large swimming bath-house adjoining it. These and the bungalow first attacked by the flames were burnt to the ground. But the further progress of the fire was then arrested. The wind fell, precautions had been taken, every European was on the look-out, and the day had not waned.
Few, however, doubted as to the course events would take as soon as darkness should set in. A little incident confirmed the already too certain conviction. Mrs. Coopland, the wife of the chaplain of Gwaliar, relates49 how on that afternoon she and her husband went for a drive. “We saw scarcely anyone about, everything looked as it had done for days past; but as
we were returning, we passed several parties of sipahis, none of whom saluted us. We met the Brigadier and Major Blake, who were just going to pass a party of sipahis, and I remember saying to my husband, ‘If the sipahis don’t salute the Brigadier the storm is nigh at hand.’ They did not.”
The instincts of Mrs. Coopland were true. The storm was nigh at hand.
That night, immediately after the firing of the evening gun – 9 P.M. – the sipahis of the Gwaliar contingent rose in revolt. They rushed from their huts in tumultuous disorder, sounded the alarm, discharging their loaded muskets, and then set fire to the lines. The officers, as in duty bound, galloped down to the lines in the vain endeavour to recall their men to order. They were met by murderous volleys directed at them. Captain William Stewart, commanding a battery of artillery, was severely wounded, and afterwards when a prisoner was deliberately shot dead. The return of his riderless horse to the house-door conveyed the sad news to his wife. She herself, fair and bright as the Morning Star, did not long survive him. She, too, was shot dead, and her boy with her. The sipahis spared her little girl. Major Hawkins, also commanding a battery, Majors Shirreff and Blake, commandants of infantry regiments, shared the same fate. Dr. Kirk, the superintending surgeon, was discovered in the place in which he had sought refuge and was killed before the eyes of his wife50.
Mr. Coopland, violently separated from his wife, who was spared, was murdered51. Others managed to escape; but of the fourteen British officers present that morning at
Gwaliar one half were slain. With them likewise, three women and three children, and six sergeants and pensioners52.
Those who escaped, men, women, and children, made their way as best they could, some in parties, one or two almost singly, into Agra53. Their sufferings were great. The agony of that terrible night weighed upon them long afterwards. The widowed wife, the orphaned child, the bereaved mother, were indeed bound to each other by the sympathy of a common sorrow. But until Agra was reached danger seemed still to threaten them all. They, the survivors, could derive little satisfaction from the fact that their dear ones had been shot down solely because the Government had been afraid to show mistrust of the sipahis. They could not but know that their actual condition was the result of that simulated reliance. They felt, then, as they had felt before, that the timely withdrawal of the ladies and children would have at least given the officers a chance of escape. But now all was over. The murdered husbands had died in the performance of rigorous duty. The wives, the children, who had perished, had been the holocausts of a policy, timid, irrational, even provocative of disaster. In deciding to have recourse to such a policy the impress of a strong character had been painfully and fatally wanting,
Intelligence of the Gwaliar mutiny reached Agra on the 15th. Following it came likewise the information that the Maharajah, and his able minister, Dinkar Rao, still loyal and true, would use every means in their power to restrain the over-charged aspirations of their followers and
their sipahis. But graver events were at hand.
Central India had risen; Rohilkhand had risen; and it was soon seen that the safety of Agra was imperilled from without. It will be my duty now to recount the nature of these perils, and then to describe the mode in which they were met by the ruling powers of the North-Western Provinces.
39. Sir John Kaye states that Mr. Colvin was supposed to exercise over Lord Auckland, “an influence far greater than has been exercised by any officer in the same subordinate position.”
40. Now 2nd Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment.
41. Mr. Colvin in his report to Government gives the date as the 13th; but that is evidently a mistake. The general council was held on the 13th.
42. Notes on the Revolt of the North-West Provinces of India, by Charles Raikes, Judge of the Sadr Court of Agra.
43. Amongst these were Lady Outram, wife of Sir James Outram, and their son, Mr. Francis Outram, of the Civil Service. Lady Outram succeeded in reaching Agra in safety, and without molestation. Mr. Outram, and other Europeans, led by Mr. Watson, C.S., took the road to Agra, escorted by a party of the cavalry of the Gwaliar Contingent. Their adventures belong to a part of this history yet to be related.
44. Mr. Power was anxious to join de Kantzow, but he was assured by that officer, in a few lines he managed to convey to Mr. Power, that the sipahis were yelling for his life, and that he, de Kantzow, was gradually quieting them.
45. Raikes’s Notes on the Revolt. Mr. Raikes adds: “On examining the musquets, many were found loaded with ball. It was afterwards well known, that on this very Sunday morning, the Sipahis had conspired to overpower the European regiment when in church, to rush upon the guns, and then to shoot, plunder, and burn, from one end of Agra to the other.”
46. “We lived in a state of dreadful uncertainty,” writes Mrs. Coopland (A Lady’s Escape from Gwaliar). “My husband seldom undressed at night, and I had a dress always ready to escape in. My husband’s rifle was kept loaded (I learned to load and fire it), as we were determined not to die without a struggle. Oh, the misery of those days! None but the condemned criminal can know what it is to wait death passively; and even he is not kept in suspense, and knows he will be put to a merciful end.”
47. A Lady’s Escape from Gwaliar, by Mrs. Coopland. With admirable good sense Mrs. Coopland indicates the fatal error of thus keeping ladies and children in a dangerous position. “Before this,” she adds, “my husband had often wished to send me to Agra; but he would not desert his post, and I would not leave him. I have often thought since that had I done so he might have escaped, by riding off unimpeded by me; many unmarried officers have escaped in this way. When the mutinies first began, if all the ladies and children at the numerous small stations had been instantly sent away to Calcutta or some place of safety before the roads were obstructed, their husbands and fathers would probably have had a better chance of escape. Instead of which, the lives of men, women, and children were sacrificed, through the efforts to avoid arousing the suspicion of the troops.”
48. “My husband laid down and tried to get a little sleep, he was so worn out. He had just before been telling me the particulars of the Jhansi massacre, too frightful to be repeated; and we did not know how soon we might meet the same fate ourselves. I hope few will know how awful it is to wait quietly for death. There was now no escape; and we waited for our death-stroke. The dread calm of’ apprehension was awful. We indeed drank the cup of bitterness to the dregs. The words ‘O death in life, the days that are no more,’ kept recurring to my memory like a dirge. But God helps us in all our woes; otherwise we could not have borne the horrible suspense.” – Mrs. Coopland.
49. A Lady’s Escape from Gwaliar.
50. “Then poor Mrs. Kirk, with her little boy joined us. She bad that instant seen her husband shot before her eyes; and on her crying: ‘Kill me too!’ they answered, ‘No; we have killed you in killing him.’ Her arms were bruised and swollen; they had torn off her bracelets so roughly; even her wedding ring was gone. They spared her little boy, saying, ‘Don’t kill the bachcha (child); it is a missie baba (girl).’ Poor child; his long curls and girlish face saved his life. He was only four years of age” – Mrs. Coopland.
51. “We all stood up together in the corner of the hut” (to which they had been conveyed by Mr. Blake’s faithful Muhammadan servant, Mirza); “each of us took up one of the logs of wood that lay on the ground, as some means of defence. I did not know if my husband had his gun, as it was too dark in the but even to see our faces. The sipahis then began to pull off the roof; the cowardly wretches dared not come in, as they thought we had weapons. When they had unroofed the but they fired in upon us. At the first shot we dropped our pieces of wood, and my husband said, ‘ We will not die here, let us go outside.’ We all rushed out; and Mrs. Blake, Mrs. Raikes, and I, clasped our hands and cried, ‘Mat maro, mat maro (do not kill us).’ The sipahis said, ‘We will not kill the mem-sahibs (ladies) only the sahib.’ We were surrounded by a crowd of them, and as soon as they distinguished my husband, they fired at him. Instantly they dragged Mrs. Blake, Mrs. Raikes, and me back; but not into the bearer’s but; the mehter’s (sweeper’s) was good enough for us, they said. I saw no more; but volley after volley soon told me that all was over.” – Mrs. Coopland.
52. Mrs. Stewart was the only lady killed; but with her boy and her European nurse. The wife of a warrant officer was also killed. The officers murdered were Dr. Kirk, Majors Shirreff, Blake, Hawkins, Captain Stewart, Lieutenant Proctor, and the Reverend Mr Coopland.
53. Many of them came through the Dholpur country, the Rajah of which was prodigal in his attentions and in his provision of conveyances and escort.
This collection transcribed by Chris Gage
