CHAPTER XVII.

England and Her Indian Empire.

[=The Black Hole of Calcutta=]

In 1756, in the town of Calcutta, the headquarters of the British in India, there occurred a terrible disaster. A Bengalese army marched upon and captured the town, taking prisoner all the English who had not escaped to their ships. The whole of these unfortunates, 146 in number, were thrust into the "black hole," a small room about eighteen feet square, with two small windows. It was a night of tropical heat. The air of the crowded and unventilated room soon became unfit to breathe. The victims fought each other fiercely to reach the windows. The next morning, when the door was opened, only twenty-three of them remained alive. Such is the famous story of the "black hole of Calcutta."

[=Clive and the Battle of Plassey=]

In the following year (1757) this barbarism was avenged. On the battlefield of Plassey stood an army of about 1,000 British and 2,100 Sepoys, with nine pieces of artillery. Opposed to them were 50,000 native infantry and 18,000 cavalry, with fifty cannon. The disproportion was enormous, but at the head of the British army was a great leader, Robert Clive, who had come out to India as a humble clerk, but was now commander of an army. A brief conflict ended the affair. The unwieldy native army fled. Clive's handful of men stood victorious on the most famous field of Indian warfare.

This battle is taken as the beginning of the British Empire in India. It is of interest to remember that just one hundred years later, in 1857, that empire reached the most perilous point in its career, in the outbreak of the great Indian mutiny. Plassey settled one question. It gave India to the English in preference to the French, in whose interest the natives were fighting. The empire which Clive founded was organized by Warren Hastings, the ablest but the most unscrupulous of the governors of India. At the opening of the nineteenth century the British power in India was firmly established.

[=Wellesley's Career in India=]

In 1798 the Marquis of Wellesley--afterwards known as Lord Wellington--was made governor. Even there he had his future great antagonist to guard against, for Napoleon was at that time in Egypt, and was thought to have the design of driving the British from India and restoring that great dominion to France. Wellesley's career in India was a brilliant one. He overthrew the powerful Marhatta Confederacy, gained victory after victory over the native chiefs and kings, captured the great Mogul cities of Delhi and Agra, and spread the power of the British arms far and wide through the peninsula.

In the succeeding years war after war took place. The warlike Marhattas rebelled and were again put down, other tribes were conquered, and in 1824 the city of Bhartpur in Central India, believed by the natives to be impregnable, was taken by storm, and the reputation of the British as indomitable fighters was greatly enhanced. Rapidly the British power extended until nearly the whole peninsula was subdued. In 1837 the conquerors of India began to interfere in the affairs of Afghanistan, and a British garrison was placed in Cabul, the capital of that country, in 1839.

[=The Terrible Retreat from Cabul=]

Two years they stayed there, and then came to them one of the greatest catastrophes in the history of the British army. Surrounded by hostile and daring Afghans, the situation of the garrison grew so perilous that it seemed suicidal to remain in Cabul, and it was determined to evacuate the city and retreat to India through the difficult passes of the Himalayas. In January, 1842, they set out, 4,000 fighting men and 12,000 camp followers. Deep snows covered the hills and all around them swarmed the Afghans, savage and implacable, bent on their utter destruction, attacking them from every point of vantage, cutting down women and children with the same ruthless cruelty as they displayed in the case of men. One terrible week passed, then, on the afternoon of January 13th, the sentinels at the Cabul gate of Jelalabad saw approaching a miserable, haggard man, barely able to sit upon his horse. Utterly exhausted, covered with cuts and contusions, he rode through the gate, and announced himself as Dr. Brydan, the sole survivor of the army which had left Cabul one week before. The remainder, men, women, and children,--except a few who had been taken prisoners,--lay slaughtered along that dreadful road, their mangled bodies covering almost every foot of its bloodstained length.

The British exacted revenge for this terrible massacre. A powerful force fought its way back to Cabul, defeated the Afghans wherever met, and rescued the few prisoners in the Afghan hands. Then the soldiers turned their backs on Cabul, which no British army was to see again for nearly forty years.

[=The War With the Sikhs=]

Three years afterwards the British Empire in India was seriously threatened by one of the most warlike races in the peninsula, the Sikhs, a courageous race inhabiting the Punjab, in northern India, their capital the city of Lahore. In 1845 a Sikh army, 60,000 strong, with 150 guns, crossed the Sutléj River and invaded British territory. Never before had the British in India encountered men like these. Four pitched battles were fought, in each of which the British lost heavily, but in the last they drove the Sikhs back across the Sutléj and captured Lahore.

That ended the war for the time being, but in 1848 the brave Sikhs were in arms again, and pushing the British as hard as before. On the field of Chilianwala the British were repulsed, with a loss of 2,400 men and the colors of three regiments. This defeat was quickly retrieved. Lord Gough met the enemy at Guzerat and defeated them so utterly that their army was practically destroyed. They were driven back as a shapeless mass of fugitives, losing their camp, their standards, and fifty-three of their cherished guns. With this victory was completed the conquest of the Punjab. The Sikhs became loyal subjects of the queen, and afterwards supplied her armies with the most valorous and high-spirited of her native troops.

[=The Causes of the Mutiny=]

Thus time went on until that eventful year of 1857, when the British power in India was to receive its most perilous shock. For a long time there had been a great and continually increasing discontent in India. Complaints were made that the treaties with native princes were not kept, that extortion was practised by which officials grew rapidly and mysteriously wealthy, looking upon India as a field for the acquisition of riches, and that the natives were treated by the governing powers with deep contempt, while every license was granted to the soldiery. The hidden cause of the discontent, however, lay in the deep hatred felt by the natives, Hindu and Mussulmen alike, for the dominant race of aliens to whom they had been obliged to bow in common subjection; and the fanaticism of the Hindus caused the smouldering elements of discontent to burst out into the flames of insurrection. A secret conspiracy was formed, in which all classes of the natives participated, its object being to overthrow the dominion of the English. It had been prophesied among the natives that the rule of the foreign masters of India should last only for a hundred years; and a century had just elapsed since the triumph of Clive at Plassey.

[=The Greased Cartridges=]

Small _chupatties_, cakes of unleavened bread, were secretly passed from hand to hand among the natives, as tokens of comradeship in the enterprise. This conspiracy was the more dangerous from making its way into the army, for India was a country governed by the sword. A rumor ran through the cantonments of the Bengal army that cartridges had been served out greased with the fat of animals unclean to Hindu and Mussulman alike, and which the Hindus could not bite without loss of caste, the injunction of their religion obliging them to abstain from animal food under this penalty. After this nothing could quiet their minds; fires broke out nightly in their quarters; officers were insulted by their men; all confidence was gone, and discipline became an empty form.

[=The Old Emperor Akbar=]

The sentence of penal servitude passed upon some of the mutineers became the signal for the breaking out of the revolt. At Meerut, on the Upper Ganges, the Sepoys broke into rebellion, liberated their comrades who were being led away in chains, and marched in a body to Delhi, the ancient capital of India and former seat of the Mogul empire. Here they took possession of the great military magazine and seized its stores. Those among the British inhabitants who did not save themselves by immediate flight were barbarously put to death; and the decrepit Akbar, the descendant of the Moguls, an old man of ninety, who lived at Delhi upon a pension granted to him by the East India Company, was drawn from his retirement and proclaimed Emperor of Hindostan by the rebels, his son, Mirza, being associated with him in the government.

[=The Frightful Massacre at Cawnpore=]

The mutiny spread with terrible rapidity, and massacres of the English took place at Indore, Allahabad, Azimghur, and other towns. Foremost in atrocity stands the massacre perpetrated at Cawnpore by Nana Sahib, the adopted son of the last Peishwa of the Marhattas, who, after entering into a compact with General Wheeler, by which he promised a free departure to the English, caused the boats in which they were proceeding down the river to be fired upon. The men were thus slain, while the women and children were brought back as prisoners to Cawnpore. Here they were confined for some days in a building, into which murderers were sent who massacred them every one, the mutilated corpses being thrown down a well.

[=The Scotch Slogan at Lucknow=]

In Oude, the noble-minded Sir Henry Lawrence defended himself throughout the whole summer in the citadel of Lucknow against the rebels under Nana Sahib with wonderful skill and bravery, until he was killed by the bursting of a bomb, on the 2d of July. The distress of the besieged, among whom were many ladies and children, was now extreme. But the little garrison held out for nearly three months longer against the greatest odds and amid the most distressing hardships. At length came that eventful day, when, to the keen ears of one of the despairing sufferers, a Scotch woman, came from afar a familiar and most hopeful sound. "Dinna ye hear the pibroch?" she cried, springing to her feet in the ecstacy of hope renewed.

Those near her listened but heard no sound, and many minutes passed before a swell of wind bore to their ears the welcome music of the bagpipe, playing the war-march of the Highlanders of her native land. It came from the party of relief led by General Havelock, which had left Calcutta on the first tidings of the outbreak, and was now marching in all haste to imperilled Lucknow.

[=The March of Havelock=]

On his way Havelock had encountered the mutineers at Futtipur and gained a brilliant victory. Three days later Cawnpore was reached. There the insurgent Sepoys fought with desperation, but they were defeated, and the British entered the town, but not in time to rescue the women and children, whose slaughter had just taken place. What they saw there filled the soldiers with the deepest sentiments of horror and vengeance. The sight was one to make the blood run cold. "The ground," says a witness of the terrible scene, "was strewn with clotted blood, which here and there lay ankle deep. Long locks of hair were scattered about, shreds of women's garments, children's hats and shoes, torn books and broken playthings. The bodies were naked, the limbs dismembered. I have seen death in all possible forms, but I could not gaze on this terrible scene of blood."

The frightful slaughter was mercilessly avenged by the infuriated soldiers on the people of Cawnpore and on the prisoners they had taken. Havelock then crossed the Ganges and marched into Oude. Fighting its way through the difficulties caused by inclement weather and the continual onslaughts of the enemy, Havelock's regiment at last effected a coalition with the reinforcements under General Outram, and together they marched towards Lucknow, which was reached at the end of September.

An especial act of heroism was achieved during the siege of Lucknow by Mr. Kavanagh, an official, who offered, disguised as a native, to penetrate through a region swarming with enemies, to communicate with the general of the approaching relieving force. He happily accomplished his dangerous exploit, from which he obtained the honorable nickname of "Lucknow Kavanagh."

[=The Relief of Lucknow=]

As the army of relief drew near, the beleaguered people heard with ears of delight the increasing sounds of their approach, the roar of distant guns reaching their gladdened ears. Yet the enterprise was a desperate one and its success was far from assured. Havelock and Outram had no more than 2,600 men, while the enemy was 50,000 strong. Yet as the sound of the guns increased there were evidences of panic among the natives. Many of the town people and of the Sepoys took to flight, some crossing the river by the bridge, some by swimming. At two o'clock the smoke of the guns was visible in the suburbs and the rattle of musketry could be heard. At five o'clock heavy firing broke out in the streets, and in a few minutes more a force of Highlanders and Sikhs turned into the street leading to the residency, in which the besieged garrison had so long been confined. Headed by General Outram, they ran at a rapid pace to the gate, and, amid wild cheers from those within, made their way into the beleaguered enclosure, and the first siege of Lucknow was at an end.

[=The Suffering at Lucknow=]

The garrison had fought for months behind slight defences and against enormous odds. They were well supplied with food and water, but they had been exposed to terrible heat and heavy and incessant rains. The Sepoys had been drilled by British officers, were well supplied with arms and ammunition, and from the housetops of the town kept up an incessant fire that searched every corner of the defended fortress. Sickness raged in the crowded and underground rooms in which shelter was sought against the constant musketry, and death had reaped a harvest among the gallant and unyielding few who had so long held that almost untenable post.

[=The Coming of Campbell=]

Havelock's men were able to do no more than reinforce the garrison. After fighting their way with heavy losses into the citadel, they found that it was impossible, with their small army, to force a retreat through the ranks of the enemy with the women, children and invalids, surrounded by the swarms of rebels who surged round the walls like a foaming sea. They were compelled, therefore, to shut themselves up, and await fresh reinforcements. Provisions, however, now began to diminish, and they were menaced with the horrors of starvation; but matters did not reach this last extremity. Sir Colin Campbell, the new commander-in-chief, with 7,000 well-equipped troops, was already on the way. He arrived at Lucknow on the 14th of November, made a bold and successful attack on the fortifications, and liberated the besieged. Unable to hold the town, he left it to the enemy, being obliged to content himself with the rescue of the people in the residency. Eight days afterwards Havelock died of cholera. His memory is held in high esteem as the most heroic figure in the war of the mutiny.

[=Siege and Capture of Delhi=]

Meanwhile Delhi was under siege, which began on June 8th, just one month after the original outbreak. It was, however, not properly a siege, for the British were encamped on a ridge at some distance from the city. They never numbered more than 8,000 men, while within the walls were over 30,000 of the mutineers. General Nicholson arrived with a reinforcement in middle August, and on September 14th an assault was made. The city was held with desperation by the rebels, fighting going on in the streets for six days before the Sepoys fled. Nicholson fell at the head of a storming party, and Hodson, the leader of a corps of irregular horse, took the old Mogul emperor prisoner, and shot down his sons in cold blood.

[=Final Operations Against Lucknow=]

It was not until three months and a half after the release of the garrison at Lucknow that Sir Colin Campbell, having dealt out punishment to the mutineers at many of the stations where they still kept together, and having received large reinforcements of men and artillery from home, prepared for the crowning attack upon that place. On the 4th of February he advanced from Cawnpore, with three divisions of infantry, a division of cavalry, and fifteen batteries, and on the 1st of March operations began; General Outram, with a force of 6,000 men and thirty guns, crossing the Goomtee, and reconnoitering the country as far as Chinhut. On the following day he invested the king's race-house, which he carried the next day by assault, and on the 9th Sir Colin Campbell's main force captured, with a slight loss, the Martinière, pushed on to the bridges across the river, and carried, after some hard fighting, the Begum's palace. Two days later the Immaumbarra, which had been converted into a formidable stronghold and was held by a large force, was breached and stormed, and the captors followed so hotly upon the rear of the flying foe that they entered with them the Kaiserbagh, which was regarded by the rebels as their strongest fortress. Its garrison, taken wholly by surprise, made but a slight resistance. The loss of these two positions, on which they had greatly relied, completely disheartened the enemy, and throughout the night a stream of fugitives poured out of the town.

[=The Storming of the Fortresses=]

The success was so unexpected that the arrangements necessary for cutting off the retreat of the enemy had not been completed, and very large numbers of the rebels escaped, to give infinite trouble later on. Many were cut down by the cavalry and horse artillery, which set out the next morning in pursuit; but, to the mortification of the army, a considerable proportion got away. The next day a number of palaces and houses fell into the hands of the advancing troops without resistance, and by midnight the whole city along the river bank was in their possession. In the meantime Jung Bahadoor, the British ally, was attacking the city with his Goorkhas from the south, and pushed forward so far that communications were opened with him halfway across the city. The following day the Goorkhas made a further advance, and, fighting with great gallantry, won the suburbs adjacent to the Charbach bridge.

The hard fighting was now over; the failure to defend even one of the fortresses upon which for months they had bestowed so much care, completely disheartened the mutineers remaining in the city. Numbers effected their escape; others hid themselves, after having got rid of their arms and uniforms; some parties took refuge in houses, and defended themselves desperately to the end. The work was practically accomplished on the 21st, and Lucknow, which had so long been the headquarters of the insurrection, was in British hands, and that with a far smaller loss than could have been expected from the task of capturing a city possessing so many places of strength, and held by some 20,000 desperate men fighting with ropes round their necks.

[=The Booty of the Soldiers=]

[=The East India Company Abolished=]

[=Victoria is Made Empress of India=]

The city taken, the troops were permitted to plunder and murder to their hearts' content. In every house were dead or dying, and the corpses of Sepoys lay piled up several feet in height. The booty which the soldiers carried off in the way of jewels and treasures of every kind was enormous. The widowed queen of Oude set out for England, to proclaim the innocence of her son "in the dark countries of the West," and to preserve to her house the shadow of an independent monarchy. She never saw her sunny India again, however; on the return journey she died of a broken heart. Though the rebellion gradually lost force and cohesion after this period, the vengeance continued for a year longer. But the chief rebel, Nana Sahib, and the two heroic women, the Begum of Oude and the Ranee of Jansee, escaped to Nepaul. In the course of the year 1858, peace and order again returned to the Anglo-Indian Empire, and the government was able to consider means of reconciliation. By a proclamation of the queen all rebels who were not directly implicated in the murder of British subjects, and would return to their duty and allegiance by January, 1859, were to obtain a complete amnesty. This proclamation also announced that the queen, with the consent of Parliament, had determined to abolish the East India Company, to take the government into her own hands, and to rule India by means of a special secretary of state and council. The Indian Empire, both within and without, had assumed such gigantic proportions that it could no longer be properly ruled by a mercantile company, and came properly under the control of the crown. In 1876 Queen Victoria assumed, by act of Parliament, the title of Empress of India. The most recent important event, in the acquisition of territory in this part of the world, was the invasion of Burmah in 1885, and its capture after a short and decisive campaign. The Indian Empire of Victoria has now grown enormous in extent, its borders extending to the Himalayas on the north, where they are in contact with the boundaries of the great imperial dominion which Russia has acquired in Asia. Whether the two great rivals will yet come into conflict on this border is a question which only the future can decide.

India possesses a population only surpassed by that of China amounting at the census of 1896 to 221,172,952. This excludes the native and partially independent states, the population of which numbers 66,050,479, making a total for the whole empire, including Burmah, of 287,223,431. Under British control the country has been greatly developed, and abundantly supplied with means of internal communication, its railroad lines covering a length of about 27,000 miles, and its telegraphs of over 45,000 miles, while the telephone has also been widely introduced. Its commerce amounts in round numbers to nearly $500,000,000 annually.

This great country has long been subject to devastating disasters. In 1876 a terrible tidal wave drowned thousands of the people and destroyed millions in value of property. In 1897 much of the country suffered frightfully from famine, being the fifteenth occasion during the century. In the same year a plague broke out in the crowded city of Bombay and caused dreadful ravages among its native population. For ages past India has been subject to visitations of this kind, which have hitherto surpassed the power of man to prevent. In the last named all the world came to the aid of the starving and science did its utmost to stay the ravages of the plague.