CHAPTER X.

OUDE, ROHILCUND, AND THE DOAB: JUNE.

The course of events now brings us again to that turbulent country, Oude, which proved itself to be hostile to the British in a degree not expected by the authorities at Calcutta. They were aware, it is true, that Oude had long furnished the chief materials for the Bengal native army; but they could not have anticipated, or at least did not, how close would be the sympathy between those troops and the Oude irregulars in the hour of tumult. Only seven months before the beginning of the Revolt, and about the same space of time after the formal annexation, a remarkable article on Indian Army Reform appeared in the _Calcutta Review_, attributed to Sir Henry Lawrence; in which he commented freely on the government proceedings connected with the army of Oude. He pointed out how great was the number of daring reckless men in that country; how large had been the army of the king before his deposition; how numerous were the small forts held by zemindars and petty chieftains, and guarded by nearly sixty thousand men; how perilous it was to raise a new British-Oudian army, even though a small one, solely from the men of the king’s disbanded regiments; how serious was the fact that nearly a hundred thousand disbanded warlike natives were left without employment; how prudent it would have been to send Oudians into the Punjaub, and Punjaubees into Oude; and how necessary was an increase in the number of British troops. The truth of these comments was not appreciated until Sir Henry himself was ranked among those who felt the full consequence of the state of things to which the comments referred. Oude was full of zemindars, possessing considerable resources of various kinds, having their retainers, their mud-forts, their arsenals, their treasures. These zemindars, aggrieved not so much by the annexation of their country, as by the manner in which territorial law-proceedings were made to affect the tenure of their estates, shewed sympathy with the mutineers almost from the first. The remarks of Mr Edwards, collector at Boodayoun, on this point, have already been adverted to (p. 115). The zemindars did not, as a class, display the sanguinary and vindictive passions so terribly evident in the reckless soldiery; still they held to a belief that a successful revolt might restore to them their former position and influence as landowners; and hence the formidable difficulties opposed by them to the military movements of the British.

Sir Henry Lawrence, as chief authority both military and civil in Oude, found himself very awkwardly imperiled at Lucknow in the early days of June. Just as the previous month closed, nearly all the native troops raised the standard of rebellion (see p. 96); the 13th, 48th, and 71st infantry, and the 7th cavalry, all betrayed the infection, though in different degrees; and of the seven hundred men of those four regiments who still remained faithful, he did not know how many he could trust even for a single day. The treasury received his anxious attention, and misgivings arose in his mind concerning the various districts around the capital, with their five millions of inhabitants. Soon he had the bitterness of learning that his rebellious troops, who had fled towards Seetapoor, had excited their brethren at that place to revolt. The Calcutta authorities were from that day very ill informed of the proceedings at Lucknow; for the telegraph wires were cut, and the insurgents stopped all dâks and messengers on the road. About the middle of the month, Colonel Neill, at Allahabad, received a private letter from Lawrence, sent by some secret agency, announcing that Seetapoor and Shahjehanpoor were in the hands of the rebels; that Secrora, Beraytch, and Fyzabad, were in like condition; and that mutinous regiments from all those places, as well as from Benares and Jounpoor, appeared to be approaching Lucknow on some combined plan of operations. He was strengthening his position at the Residency, but looked most anxiously for aid, which Neill was quite unable to afford him. Again, it became known to the authorities at Benares that Lawrence, on the 19th, still held his position at Lucknow; that he had had eight deaths by cholera; and that he was considering whether, aid from Cawnpore or Allahabad being unattainable, he could obtain a few reinforcements by steamer up the Gogra from Dinapoor. Another letter, but without date, reached the chief-magistrate of Benares, to the effect that Lawrence had got rid of most of the remaining native troops, by paying them their due, and giving them leave of absence for three months; he evidently felt disquietude at the presence even of the apparently faithful sepoys in his place of refuge, so bitterly had he experienced the hollowness of all protestations on their part. He had been very ill, and a provisional council had been appointed in case his health should further give way. Although the Residency was the stronghold, the city and cantonment also were still under British control: a fort called the Muchee Bhowan, about three-quarters of a mile from the Residency, and consisting of a strong, turreted, castellated building, was held by two hundred and twenty-five Europeans with three guns. The cantonment was northeast of the Residency, on the opposite side of the river, over which were two bridges of approach. Sir Henry had already lessened from eight to four the number of buildings or posts where the troops were stationed—namely, the Residency, the Muchee Bhowan, a strong post between these two, and the dâk-bungalow between the Residency and the cantonment; but after the mutiny, he depended chiefly on the Residency and the Muchee Bhowan. News, somewhat more definite in character, was conveyed in a letter written by Sir Henry on the 20th of June. So completely were the roads watched, that he had not received a word of information from Cawnpore, Allahabad, Benares, or any other important place throughout the whole month down to that date; he knew not what progress was being made by the rebels, beyond the region of which Lucknow was more immediately the centre; he still held the fort, city, Residency, and cantonment, but was terribly threatened on all sides by large bodies of mutineers. On the 27th he wrote another letter to the authorities at Allahabad, one of the very few (out of a large number despatched) that succeeded in reaching their destination. This letter was still full of heart, for he told of the Residency and the Muchee Bhowan being still held by him in force; of cholera being on the decrease; of his supplies being adequate for two months and a half; and of his power to ‘hold his own.’ On the other hand, he felt assured that at that moment Lucknow was the only place throughout the whole of Oude where British influence was paramount; and that he dared not leave the city for twenty-four hours without danger of losing all his advantages. His sanguine, hopeful spirit shone out in the midst of all his trials; he declared that with one additional European regiment, and a hundred artillerymen, he could re-establish British supremacy in Oude; and he added, in a sportive tone, which shewed what estimate he formed of some, at least, of the contingent corps, ‘a thousand Europeans, a thousand Goorkhas, and a thousand Sikhs, with eight or ten guns, will thrash anything.’ The Sikhs were irregulars raised in the Punjaub; and throughout the contests arising out of the Revolt, their fidelity towards the government was seldom placed in doubt.

The last day of June was a day of sad omen to the English in Lucknow. On the evening of the 29th, information arrived that a rebel force of six or seven thousand men was encamped eight miles distant on the Fyzabad road, near the Kookra Canal. Lawrence thereupon determined to attack them on the following day. He started at six o’clock on the morning of the 30th, with about seven hundred men and eleven guns.[23] Misled, either by accident or design, by informants on the road, he suddenly fell into an ambush of the enemy, assembled in considerable force near Chinhut. Manfully struggling against superior numbers, Lawrence looked forward confidently to victory; but just at the most critical moment, the Oude artillerymen proved traitors—overturning their six guns into ditches, cutting the traces of the horses, and then going over to the enemy. Completely outflanked, exposed to a terrible fire on all sides, weakened by the defection, having now few guns to use, and being almost without ammunition, Sir Henry saw that retreat was imperative. A disastrous retreat it was, or rather a complete rout; the heat was fearful, the confusion was dire; and the officers and men fell rapidly, to rise no more. Colonel Case, of H.M. 32d, receiving a mortal wound, was immediately succeeded by Captain Steevens; he in like manner soon fell, and was succeeded by Captain Mansfield, who escaped the day’s perils, but afterwards died of cholera.

Sir Henry Lawrence now found himself in a grave difficulty. The English position at Lucknow needed all the strengthening he could impart to it. He had held, as already explained, not only the Residency, but the fort of Muchee Bhowan and other posts. The calamity of the 30th, however, having weakened him too much to garrison all, or even more than one, he removed the troops, and then blew up the Muchee Bhowan, at midnight on the 1st of July, sending 240 barrels of gunpowder and 3,000,000 ball-cartridges into the air. From that hour the whole of the English made the Residency their stronghold. Later facts rendered it almost certain that, if this abandonment and explosion had not taken place, scarcely a European would have lived to tell the tale of the subsequent miseries at Lucknow. By incessant exertions, he collected in the Residency six months’ food for a thousand persons. The last hour of the gallant man was, however, approaching. A shell, sent by the insurgents, penetrated into his room on this day; his officers advised him to remove to another spot, but he declined the advice; and on the next day, the 2d of July, another shell, entering and bursting within the same room, gave him a mortal wound. Knowing his last hour was approaching, Sir Henry appointed Brigadier Inglis his successor in military matters, and Major Banks his successor as chief-commissioner of Oude.

Grief, deep and earnest, took possession of every breast in the Residency, when, on the 4th of July, it was announced that the good and great Sir Henry Lawrence had breathed his last. He was a man of whom no one doubted; like his gifted brother, Sir John, he had the rare power of drawing to himself the respect and love of those by whom he was surrounded, almost without exception. ‘Few men,’ said Brigadier Inglis, at a later date, ‘have ever possessed to the same extent the power which he enjoyed of winning the hearts of all those with whom he came in contact, and thus insuring the warmest and most zealous devotion for himself and the government which he served. All ranks possessed such confidence in his judgment and his fertility of resource, that the news of his fall was received throughout the garrison with feelings of consternation only second to the grief which was inspired in the hearts of all by the loss of a public benefactor and a warm personal friend.... I trust the government of India will pardon me for having attempted, however imperfectly, to portray this great and good man. In him every good and deserving soldier lost a friend and a chief capable of discriminating, and ever on the alert to reward merit, no matter how humble the sphere in which it was exhibited.’ Such was the soldier whom all men delighted to honour,[24] and to whom the graceful compliment was once paid, that ‘Sir Henry Lawrence enjoyed the rare felicity of transcending all rivalry except that of his illustrious brother.’

How the overcrowded Residency at Lucknow bore all the attacks directed against it; how the inmates, under the brave and energetic Inglis, held on against heat, disease, cannon-balls, thirst, hunger, and fatigue; how and by whom they were liberated—will come for notice in proper course.

The other districts of Oude fell one by one into the hands of the insurgents. The narratives subsequently given by such English officers as were fortunate enough to escape the perils of those evil days, bore a general resemblance one to another; inasmuch as they told of faith in native troops being rudely broken, irresolute loyalty dissolving into confirmed hostility, treasuries of Company’s rupees tempting those who might otherwise possibly have been true to their salt, military officers and their wives obliged to flee for succour to Nynee Tal or some other peaceful station, the families of civilians suddenly thrown homeless upon the world, and blood and plunder marking the footsteps of the marauders who followed the example set by the rebellious sepoys and troopers. A few examples will suffice to illustrate the general character of these outbreaks.

The mutiny at Fyzabad, besides being attended with a sad loss of life, was note-worthy for certain peculiarities in the tactics of the insurgents—a kind of cool audacity not always exhibited in other instances. A brief description will shew the position and character of this city. In a former chapter (p. 83) it was explained that Oude or Ayodha, the city that gave name to the province, is very ancient as a Hindoo capital, but has become poor and ruinous in recent times; and that the fragments of many of its old structures were employed in building Fyzabad, the Mohammedan Ayodha, nearly adjoining it on the southwest. It was scarcely more than a hundred and thirty years ago that the foundation of Fyzabad was established, by Saadut Ali Khan, the first nawab-vizier of Oude; its advance in prosperity was rapid; but since the selection of Lucknow as the capital in 1775, Fyzabad has fallen in dignity; the chief merchants and bankers have migrated to Lucknow, and the remaining inhabitants are mostly poor.

On the 3d of June, rumours circulated in Fyzabad that the mutinous 17th regiment B. N. I. was approaching from Azimghur. Colonel Lennox, the military commandant, at once conferred with the other officers, and formed a plan for defending the place. The immediate alarm died away. On the 7th, however, renewed information led the colonel to propose an advance to Surooj-khoond, a place about five miles away, to repel the mutineers before they could reach Fyzabad. The native troops objected to go out, on the plea of disinclination to leave their families and property behind; but they promised to fight valiantly in the cantonment if necessary, and many of them shook hands with him in token of fidelity. The evening of the 8th revealed the hypocrisy of this display. The native troops, cavalry, infantry, and artillery, joined in a demonstration which rendered all the officers powerless; every officer was, in effect, made a prisoner, and placed under armed guard for the night; two tried to escape, but were fired at and brought back. The leader of the mutiny, Dhuleep Singh, subadar-major of the 22d regiment, came to Colonel Lennox in the morning, and told him plainly that he and the other officers must yield to the course of circumstances; that boats would be provided to take them down the river Gogra towards Dinapoor, but that he would not guarantee their safety after once they had embarked. There was a cool impudence about the proceeding, unlike the wild confusion exhibited at many of the scenes of outbreak. A moulvie, who had been imprisoned in the quarter-guard for a disturbance created in the city, and who had just been liberated by the mutineers, sent the sub-assistant surgeon to Colonel Lennox with a message; thanking him for kindnesses received during the imprisonment, and requesting that the colonel’s full-dress regimentals might be sent to the moulvie. The native surgeon begged pardon for his change of allegiance; urging that times were altered, and that he must now obey the mutineers. There was something more than mere effrontery, however, in the proceedings of these insurgents;[25] there was a subordination amid insubordination. ‘The men,’ said one of the narrators, ‘guarded their officers and their bungalows after mutinying, placed sentries over the magazines and all public property, and sent out pickets to prevent the towns-people and servants from looting. They held a council of war, in which the cavalry proposed to kill the officers; but the 22d, objecting to this, informed their officers that they would be allowed to leave, and might take with them their private arms and property, but no public property—as that all belonged to the King of Oude.’

Let us briefly trace the course of some of the European fugitives. Colonel Lennox, powerless to resist, gave up his regimentals, and prepared for a melancholy boat-departure with his wife and daughter. They were escorted to the banks of the Gogra, and pushed off on their voyage. From two in the afternoon on the 8th of June, until nearly midnight, their boat descended the stream—often in peril from sentries and scouts on shore, but befriended by two sepoys who had been sent to protect them for a short distance. Much care and manœuvring were required to effect a safe passage near the spot where the mutinous 17th regiment was encamped; for it now became manifest that the 22d had in effect sold the fugitives to the other corps. Early on the following morning, information received on shore rendering evident the danger of a further boat-voyage, the houseless wanderers, leaving in the boat the few fragments of property they had brought away from Fyzabad, set out on foot towards Goruckpore. With nothing but the clothes on their backs, the family began their weary flight. After stopping under trees and by the side of wells to rest occasionally, they walked until the heat of day rendered necessary a longer pause. By a narrow chance they avoided being dragged to the camp of the 17th regiment, by a trooper who professed to have been offered two hundred rupees for the head of each member of the family. A friendly chieftain, one Meer Mohammed Hossein Khan, came to their rescue just at the moment of greatest peril. One of the retainers of this man, however, more disposed for enmity than amity, spoke to the colonel with great bitterness and fierceness of manner, shewing that the prevalent rumours had made a deep impression in Oude; he expressed a longing to shoot the English, ‘who had come to take away their caste, and make them Christians.’ Meer Mohammed rebuked this man for saying that a stable would do to shelter the refugees, for that he was prepared ‘to kill them like dogs.’ The fugitives were taken to a small fort, one of the numerous class lately adverted to, where the zemindars and petty chieftains maintained a kind of feudal or clannish independence. On the second day, the danger to sheltered Europeans becoming apparent, Colonel Lennox, his wife, and daughter, put on native dresses, and remained nine days concealed in a reed-hut behind the zenana, treated very kindly and considerately by their protector. Meer Mohammed went once or twice to Fyzabad, to learn if possible the plans of the mutineers; he was told that they meant to attack Lucknow, and then depart for Delhi. On the 10th day of the hiding, when news arrived that the fort was likely to be attacked, the ladies went for shelter into the zenana, while the colonel was hid in a dark woodshed. Happily, however, it turned out that the suspected strangers were a party sent by the collector of Goruckpore for the rescue of the family. Danger was now nearly over. The fugitives reached Amorah, Bustee, Goruckpore, Azimghur, and Ghazeepore, at which place they took steamer down to Calcutta. This fortunate escape from great peril was almost wholly due to ‘the noble and considerate’ Meer Mohammed, as Colonel Lennox very properly characterises him.

Far more calamitous were the boat-adventures of the main body of Fyzabad officers, of which an account was afterwards written, for the information of government, by Farrier-sergeant Busher, of the light field-battery. On the morning of the 8th, the wives and families of many civilians, and of five non-commissioned European officers, had been sent by Captain Orr to a place called Sheergunge, under the protection of a friendly native, Rajah Maun Singh, to be free from peril if tumult should arise. Early on the 9th, while Colonel Lennox was still at the station, all or nearly all the other English were sent off by the mutineers in four boats. One of these boats (mere dinghees, in which little more than a bundle for each person could be put) contained eight persons, one six, one five, and the remaining boat three. Only one female was of the party, Mrs Hollum, wife of Sergeant-major Hollum of the 22d native regiment. The first and second boats got ahead of the other two, and proceeded about twenty miles down the river without molestation; but then were seen troopers and sepoys approaching the banks, with an evidently hostile intent. The firing soon became so severe that the occupants of the first boat struck in for the off-shore, and seven of them took to their heels—the eighth being unequal to that physical exertion. They ran on till checked by a broad stream; and while deliberating how to cross, persons approached who were thought to be sepoys; the alarm proved false, but not before Lieutenants Currie and Parsons had been drowned in an attempt to escape by swimming. The other five, running on till quite exhausted, were fortunate enough to meet with a friendly native, who sheltered them for several hours, and supplied them with food. At midnight they started again, taking the road to Amorah, which they were enabled to reach safely through the influence of their kind protector—although once in great peril from a gang of freebooters. They were glad to meet at Amorah the three occupants of the fourth boat, who, like themselves, had escaped the dangers of the voyage by running across fields and fording streams. At seven in the morning of the 10th, the fugitives, now eight in company, recommenced their anxious flight—aided occasionally by friendly natives, but at length betrayed by one whose friendship was only a mask. They had to cross a nullah or stream knee-deep, under pursuit by a body of armed men; here Lieutenant Lindesay fell, literally cut to pieces; and when the other seven had passed to the opposite bank, five were speedily hewn to the ground and butchered—Lieutenants Ritchie, Thomas, and English, and two English sergeants. The two survivors ran at their topmost speed, pursued by a gang of ruffians; Lieutenant Cautley was speedily overtaken, and killed; and then only Sergeant Busher remained alive. He, outrunning his pursuers, reached a Brahmin village, where a bowl of sherbet was given to him. After a little rest, he ran on again, until one Baboo Bully Singh was found to be on the scent after him; he endeavoured to hide under some straw in a hut; but was discovered and dragged out by the hair of the head. From village to village he was then carried as an exhibition to be jeered and scoffed at by the rabble; the Baboo evidently intended the cruel sport to be followed by murder; but this intention underwent a change, probably from dread of some future retribution. He kept his prisoner near him for ten days, but did not further ill treat him. On the eleventh day, Busher was liberated; he overtook Colonel Lennox and his family; and safely reached Ghazeepore seventeen days after his departure from Fyzabad. The boat containing Colonel O’Brien, Lieutenants Percival and Gordon, Ensign Anderson, and Assistant-surgeon Collinson, pursued its voyage the whole way down to Dinapoor; but it was a voyage full of vicissitudes to the fugitives. At many places they were obliged to lie flat in the boat to prevent recognition from the shore; at others they had to compel the native boatmen, on peril of sabring, to continue their tugging at the oars; on one occasion they narrowly escaped shooting by a herd of villagers who followed the boat. For three days they had nothing to eat but a little flour and water; but happening to meet with a friendly rajah at Gola, they obtained aid which enabled them to reach Dinapoor on the 17th.

The occupants of the remaining boat, the civilians, and the ladies and children who had not been able to effect a safe retreat to Nynee Tal, suffered terribly; many lives were lost; and those who escaped to Goruckpore or Dinapoor arrived in distressing plight—especially a party of women and children who had been robbed of everything while on the way, and who had been almost starved to death during a week’s imprisonment in a fort by the river-side. When it is stated that, among a group of women and children who reached a place of safety after infinite hardships, _an infant was born on the road_, the reader will easily comprehend how far the sufferings must have exceeded anything likely to appear in print. Many persons were shot, many drowned, while the fate of others remained doubtful for weeks or even months. Colonel Goldney and Major Mill were among the slain. The wanderings of Mrs Mill and her three children were perhaps among the most affecting incidents of this mutiny. Amid the dire haste of departure, she became separated from her husband, and was the last Englishwoman left in Fyzabad. How she escaped and how she fared, was more than she herself could clearly narrate; for the whole appeared afterwards as a dreadful dream, in which every kind of misery was confusedly mixed. During two or three weeks, she was wandering up and down the country, living in the jungle when man refused her shelter, and searching the fields for food when none was obtainable elsewhere. Her poor infant, eight months old, died for want of its proper nourishment; but the other two children, seven and three years old, survived all the privations to which they were exposed. On one occasion, seeing some troopers approaching, and being utterly hopeless, she passionately besought them, if their intentions were hostile, to kill her children without torturing them, and then to kill her. The appeal touched the hearts of the rude men; they took her to a village and gave her a little succour; and this facilitated their conveyance by a friendly native to Goruckpore, where danger was over.

Sultanpore was another station at which mutiny and murder occurred. On the 8th of June, a wing of the 15th irregular cavalry entered that place from Seetapoor, in a state of evident excitement. Lieutenant Tucker, who was a favourite with them, endeavoured to allay their mutinous spirit, and succeeded for a few hours; but on the following morning they rose in tumult, murdered Colonel Fisher, Captain Gubbings, and two other Europeans, and urged the lieutenant to escape, which he did. After much jungle-wanderings, and concealment in a friendly native’s house, he safely arrived at Benares, as did likewise four or five other officers, and all the European women and children at the station. In this as in other instances, the revolt of the troops was followed by marauding and incendiarism on the part of the rabble of Sultanpore; in this, too, as in other instances, the mutineers had a little affection for some one or more among their officers, whom they endeavoured to save.

The station of Pershadeepore experienced its day of trouble on the 10th of June. The 1st regiment Oude irregular infantry was there stationed, under Captain Thompson. He prided himself on the fidelity of his men; inasmuch as they seemed to turn a deaf ear to the rumours and suspicions circulating elsewhere; and he had detected the falsity of a mischief-maker, who had secretly caused ground bones to be mixed with the attah (coarse flour with which chupatties are made) sold in the bazaar, as the foundation for a report that the government intended to take away the caste of the people. This pleasant delusion lasted until the 9th; when a troop of the 3d Oude irregular cavalry arrived from Pertabghur, followed soon afterwards by news of the rising at Sultanpore. The fidelity of the infantry now gave way, under the temptations and representations made to them by other troops. When Captain Thompson rose on the morning of the 10th, he found his regiment all dressed, and in orderly mutiny (if such an expression may be used). He tried with an aching heart to separate the good men from the bad, and to induce the former to retire with him to Allahabad; but the temptation of the treasure was more than they could resist; they all joined in the spoliation, and then felt that allegiance was at an end. At four in the afternoon all the Europeans left the station, without a shot or an angry word from the men; they were escorted to the fort of Dharoopoor, belonging to a chieftain named Rajah Hunnewaut Singh, who treated them courteously, and after some days forwarded them safely to Allahabad. There was not throughout India a mutiny conducted with more quietness on both sides than this at Pershadeepore; the sepoys had evidently no angry feeling towards their officers. Captain Thompson remained of opinion that his men had been led away by rumours and insinuations brought by stragglers from other stations, to the effect that any Oude regiment which did _not_ mutiny would be in peril from those that had; and that, even under this fear, they would have remained faithful had there been no treasure to tempt their cupidity. It is curious to note Colonel Neill’s comment on this incident, in his official dispatch; his reliance on the native troops was of the smallest possible amount; and in reference to the captain’s honest faith, he said: ‘This is absurd; they were as deeply in the plot as the rest of the army; the only credit due to them is that they did not murder their officers.’

Seetapoor, about fifty miles north of Lucknow, was the place towards which the insurgent troops from that city bent their steps at the close of May. Whether those regiments kept together, and how far they proceeded on the next few days, are points not clearly made out; but it is certain that the native troops stationed at Seetapoor—comprising the 41st Bengal infantry, the 9th and 10th Oude irregular infantry, and the 2d Oude military police, in all about three thousand men—rose in mutiny on the 3d of June. The 41st began the movement. A sepoy came to one of the officers in the morning, announced that the rising was about to take place, declared that neither he nor his companions wished to draw blood, and suggested that all the officers should retreat from the station. The regiment was in two wings, one in the town and one in the cantonment; the plundering of the treasury was begun by the first-named party; the other wing, obedient at first, broke forth when they suspected they might be deprived of a share in the plunder. After the 41st had thus set the example, the 9th revolted; then the military police; and then the 10th. Lieutenant Burnes, of the last-named regiment, entreated his men earnestly to remain faithful, but to no effect. Seeing that many officers had been struck down, the remainder hastily retired to the house of Mr Christian the commissioner; and when all were assembled, with the civilians, the ladies, and the children, it was at once resolved to quit the burning bungalows and ruthless soldiers and seek refuge at Lucknow. Some made their exit without any preparation; among whom was Lieutenant Burnes—roaming through jungles for days, and aiding women and children as best they could, suffering all those miseries which have so often been depicted. The great body of Europeans, however, left the station in buggies and other vehicles; and as the high roads were perilous, the fugitives drove over hills, hollows, and ploughed fields, where perhaps vehicles had never been driven before. Fortunately, twenty troopers remained faithful to them, and escorted them all the way to Lucknow, which place they reached on the night of the third day—reft of everything they possessed, like many other fugitives in those days. Many of the Europeans did not succeed in quitting Seetapoor in time; and among these the work of death was ruthlessly carried on—the sepoys being either unwilling or unable to check these scenes of barbarity.

As at Lucknow, Fyzabad, Sultanpore, Pershadeepore, Seetapoor; so at Secrora, Durriabad, Beraytch, Gouda, and other places in Oude—wherever there was a native regiment stationed, or a treasury of the Company established, there, in almost every instance, were exhibited scenes of violence attended by murder and plunder. The lamented Lawrence, in the five weeks preceding his death, was, as has been lately pointed out, placed in an extraordinary position. Responsible to the supreme government both for the political and the military management of Oude, and knowing that almost every station in the province was a focus of treachery and mutiny, he was notwithstanding powerless to restore tranquillity. So far from Cawnpore assisting him, he yearned to assist Cawnpore; Rohilcund was in a blaze, and could send him only mutineers who had thrown off all allegiance; Meerut, after sending troops to Delhi, was doing little but defending itself; Agra, with a mere handful of European troops, was too doubtful of its Gwalior neighbours to do anything for Lucknow and Oude; Allahabad and Benares were too recently rescued, by the gallant Neill, from imminent peril, to be in a position to send present assistance to Sir Henry; and the Nepaul sovereign, Jung Bahadoor, had not yet been made an ally of the English in such a way as might possibly have saved Oude, and as was advocated by many well-wishers of India.

The position of the sovereignty just named may usefully be adverted to here. Nepaul, about equal in area to England, is one of the few independent states of Northern India; it reaches to the Himalaya on the north; and is bounded on the other sides by the British territories of Behar, Oude, and Kumaon. The region is distinguished by the magnificent giant mountain-chain which separates it from Tibet; by the dense forest-jungle of the Terai on the Oude frontier; by the beautiful valley in which the capital, Khatmandoo, lies, and which is dotted with flourishing villages, luxuriant fields, and picturesque streams; and by its healthy and temperate climate. It is with the people, however, that this narrative is more particularly concerned. The Nepaulese, about two millions in number, comprise Goorkhas, Newars, Bhotias, Dhauwars, and Mhaujees. The Goorkhas are the dominant race; they are Hindoos in religion, but very unlike Hindoos in appearance, manners, and customs. The Newars are the aborigines of Nepaul, decidedly Mongolian both in faith and in features; they are the clever artisans of the kingdom, while the Goorkhas are the hardy soldiers. The other three tribes are chiefly cultivators of the soil. In the latter half of the last century, Nepaul was for a short time a dependency of the Chinese Empire; but a treaty of commerce with the British in 1782 initiated a state of affairs which soon enabled Nepaul to throw off Chinese supremacy. Conventions, subsidies, border encroachments, and family intrigues, checkered Nepaulese affairs until 1812; when the Company made formal war on the ground of a long catalogue of injuries and insults—such a catalogue as can easily be concocted by a stronger state against a weaker. The war was so badly conducted, that nothing but the military tact of Sir David Ochterlony, who held one-fourth of a command which seems to have had no head or general commander, saved the British from ignominious defeat. Broken engagements led to another war in 1816, which terminated in a treaty never since ruptured; the Nepaulese court has been a focus of intrigue, but the intrigues have not been of such a character as to disturb the relations of amity with the British. Jung Bahadoor—a name well known in England a few years ago, as that of a Nepaulese ambassador who made a sensation by his jewelled splendor—was the nephew of a man who became by successive steps prime minister to the king. Instigated by the queen, and by his own unscrupulous ambition, Jung Bahadoor caused his uncle to be put to death, and became commander-in-chief under a new ministry. Many scenes of truly oriental slaughter followed—that is, slaughter to clear the pathway to power. Jung Bahadoor treated kings and queens somewhat as the Company was accustomed to do in the last century; setting up a son against a father, and treating all alike as puppets. At a period subsequent to his return from England, he caused a marriage to be concluded between his daughter, six years old, and the heir-apparent to the Nepaulese throne, then in his ninth year. Whether king or not, he was virtually chief of Nepaul at the time when the Revolt broke out; and had managed, by astuteness in his diplomacy, to remain on friendly terms with the authorities at Calcutta: indeed he took every opportunity, after his English visit, to display his leaning towards his neighbours. Like Nena Sahib, he had English pianos and English carpets in his house, and prided himself in understanding English manners and the English language; and it is unquestionable that both those men were favourites among such of the English as visited the one at Bithoor or the other at Khatmandoo.

It has been mentioned in a former chapter (p. 115) that Goorkha troops assisted to defend Nynee Tal when that place became filled with refugees; and Goorkha regiments have been adverted to in many other parts of the narrative. Jung Bahadoor permitted the Nepaulese of this tribe to enlist thus in the Company’s service; and he also offered the aid of a contingent, the non-employment of which brought many strictures upon the policy of the Calcutta government. At a later date, as we shall see, this contingent was accepted; and it rendered us good service at Juanpore and Azimghur by protecting Benares from the advance of Oude mutineers. About the middle of June, fifteen Europeans (seven gentlemen, three ladies, and five children) escaped from the Oude mutineers into the jungle region of Nepaul, and sought refuge in a post-station or serai about ten days’ journey from Goruckpore and eighteen from Khatmandoo. The officer at that place wrote to Jung Bahadoor for instruction in the matter; to which he received a speedy reply—‘Treat them with every kindness, give them elephants, &c., and escort them to Goruckpore.’ Major Ramsey, the Company’s representative at Khatmandoo, sent them numerous supplies in tin cases; and all the English were naturally disposed to bless the Nepaulese chieftain as a friend in the hour of greatest need, without inquiring very closely by what means he had gained his power.

The course of the narrative now takes us from Oude northwestward into the province of Rohilcund; the districts of which, named after the towns of Bareilly, Mooradabad, Shahjehanpoor, Boodayoun, and Bijnour, felt the full force of the mutinous proceedings among the native troops. The Rohillas were originally Mussulman Afghans, who conquered this part of India, gradually settled down among the Hindoo natives, and imparted to them a daring reckless character, which rendered Rohilcund a nursery for irregular cavalry—and afterwards for mutineers.

Brigadier Sibbald was commandant of Bareilly, one of the towns of Rohilcund in which troops were stationed. These troops were entirely native, comprising the 18th and 68th Bengal native infantry, the 8th irregular cavalry, and a battery of native artillery—not an English soldier among them except the officers. The brigadier, although these troops appeared towards the close of the month of May to be in an agitated state, nevertheless heard that all was well at Mooradabad, Shahjehanpoor, Almora, and other stations in Rohilcund, and looked forward with some confidence to the continuance of tranquility—aided by his second in command, Colonel Troup, and the commissioner, Mr Alexander. As a precaution, however, the ladies and children were sent for safety to Nynee Tal; and the gentlemen kept their horses saddled, ready for any emergency. Bareilly being a city of a hundred thousand inhabitants, the temper of the natives was very anxiously watched. Scarcely had the month closed, before the hopes of Brigadier Sibbald received a dismal check, and his life a violent end. We have already briefly mentioned (p. 114) that on Sunday the 31st, Bareilly became a scene of violence and rapine; the brigadier himself being shot by a trooper, the treasure seized, the bungalows plundered and burned, and the Europeans either murdered or impelled to escape for their lives. When Colonel Troup, who commanded the 68th native infantry, and who became chief military authority after the death of Sibbald, found himself safe at Nynee Tal, he wrote an official account of the whole proceeding, corroborating the chief facts noted by the brigadier, and adding others known more especially to himself. From this dispatch it appears that the colonel commanded at Bareilly from the 6th to the 19th of May, while the brigadier was making a tour of inspection through his district; that from the 19th to the 29th, Sibbald himself resumed the command; and that during those twenty-three days nothing occurred to shew disaffection among the troops, further than a certain troubled and agitated state. On that day, however, the Europeans received information, from two native officers, that the men of the 18th and 68th native regiments had, _while bathing in the river_, concerted a plan of mutiny for that same afternoon. Most of the officers were quickly on the alert; and, whether or not through this evidence of preparedness, no émeute took place on that day. On the 30th, Colonel Troup, who had relied on the fidelity of the 8th irregular cavalry, received information that those sowars had sworn not to act against the native infantry and artillery if the latter should rise, although they would refrain from molesting their own officers. After a day and night of violent excitement throughout the whole station, the morning of Sunday the 31st (again Sunday!) ushered in a day of bloodshed and rapine. Messages were despatched to all the officers, warning them of some intended outbreak; but the bearers, sent by Troup, failed in their duty, insomuch that many of the officers remained ignorant of the danger until too late to avert it. Major Pearson, of the 18th, believed his men to be stanch; Captain Kirby, of the artillery (6th company, 6th battalion), in like manner trusted his corps; and Captain Brownlow, the brigade major, disbelieved the approach of mutiny—at the very time that Colonel Troup was impressing on all his conviction that the sinister rumours were well founded. At eleven o’clock, the truth appeared in fatal colours; the roar of cannon, the rattle of musketry, and the yells of men, told plainly that the revolt had begun, and that the artillery had joined in it. The 8th irregular cavalry, under Captain Mackenzie, were ordered or invited by him to proceed against the lines of the insurgent infantry and artillery; but the result was so disastrous, that all the Europeans, military as well as civilians, found their only safety would be in flight. Ruktawar Khan, subadar of artillery, assumed the rank of general, and paraded about in the carriage of the brigadier, attended by a numerous string of followers as a ‘staff.’ Colonel Troup, writing on the 10th of June, had to report the deaths of Brigadier Sibbald and three or four other officers, together with that of many of the civil servants. About twenty-five military officers escaped; but the list of ‘missing’ was large, and many of those included in it were afterwards known to have been brutally murdered. Captain Mackenzie, who clung to his troopers in the earnest hope that they would remain faithful, found only nineteen men who did so, and who escorted their officers all the way to Nynee Tal.

A despicable hoary traitor, Khan Bahadoor Khan, appears to have headed this movement. He had for many years been in receipt of a double pension from the Indian government—as the living representative of one of the early Rohilla chieftains, and as a retired judge of one of the native courts. He was an old, venerable-looking, insinuating man; he was thoroughly relied on by the civil authorities at Bareilly; he had loudly proclaimed his indignation against the Delhi mutineers; and yet he became ringleader of those at Bareilly—deepening his damning atrocities by the massacre of such of the unfortunate Europeans as did not succeed in making their escape. It was by his orders, as self-elected chief of Rohilcund, that a rigorous search was made for all Europeans who remained in Bareilly; and that Judge Robertson, and four or five other European gentlemen, were hung in the Kotwal square, after a mock-trial. During the month of June, Bareilly remained entirely in the hands of the rebels; not an Englishman, probably, was alive in the place; and the Mussulmans and Hindoos were left to contend for supremacy over the spoil.

Of Boodayoun it will be unnecessary to say more here; Mr Edwards’s narrative of an eventful escape (pp. 115, 116), pointed to the 1st of June as the day when the Europeans deemed it necessary to flee from that station—not because there were any native troops at Boodayoun, but because the mutineers from Bareilly were approaching, and joyfully expected by all the scoundrels in the place, who looked forward to a harvest of plunder as a natural result.

Mooradabad, which began its season of anarchy and violence on the 3d of June, stands on the right bank of the Ramgunga, an affluent of the Ganges, at a point about midway between Meerut and Bareilly. It is a town of nearly 60,000 inhabitants—having a civil station, with its cutcherry and bungalows; a cantonment west of the town; a spacious serai for the accommodation of travellers; and an enormous jail sufficiently large to contain nearly two thousand prisoners. In this, as in many other towns of India, the Company’s troops were wont to be regarded rather as guardians of the jail and its inmates, than for any active military duties. So early as the 19th of May, nine days after the mutineers of Meerut had set the example, the 29th regiment native infantry proceeded to the jail at Mooradabad, and released all the prisoners. Although Mr Saunders, collector and magistrate, wrote full accounts to Agra of the proceedings of that and the following days, the dâks were so completely stopped on the road that Mr Colvin remained almost in ignorance of the state of affairs; and on that account Saunders could obtain no assistance from any quarter. The released prisoners, joined by predatory bands of Goojurs, Meewatties, and Jâts, commenced a system of plunder and rapine, which the European authorities were ill able to check. The 29th, however, had not openly mutinied; and it still remained possible to hold control within the town and the surrounding district; several native sappers and miners were stopped and captured on their way from Meerut, and several of the mutinous 20th regiment on the way from Mozuffernugger. When, however, news of the Bareilly outbreak on the 31st reached Mooradabad, the effect on the men of the 29th regiment, and of a native artillery detachment, became very evident. On the 3d of June, the sepoys in guard of the treasury displayed so evident an intention of appropriating the money, that Mr Saunders felt compelled to leave it (about seventy thousand rupees) together with much plate and opium in their hands—being powerless to prevent the spoliation. The troops manifested much irritation at the smallness of the treasure, and were only prevented from wreaking their vengeance on the officials by an oath they had previously taken. To remain longer in the town was deemed a useless risk, as bad passions were rising on every side. The civil officers of the Company, with their wives and families, succeeded in making a safe retreat to Meerut; while Captain Whish, Captain Faddy, and other officers of the 29th, with the few remaining Europeans, laid their plans for a journey to Nynee Tal. All shared an opinion that if the Bareilly regiments had not mutinied, the 29th would have remained faithful—a poor solace, such as had been sought for by many other officials similarly placed. Mr Colvin afterwards accepted Mr Saunders’s motives and conduct in leaving the station, as justifiable under the trying circumstances.

Rohilcund contained three military stations, Bareilly, Mooradabad, and Shahjehanpoor—Boodayoun and the other places named being merely civil stations. As at Bareilly and Mooradabad, so at Shahjehanpoor; the native troops at the station rose in mutiny. On Sunday the 31st of May—a day marked by so many atrocities in India—the 28th native infantry rose, surrounded the Christian residents as they were engaged in divine worship in church, and murdered nearly the whole of them, including the Rev. Mr M’Callum in the sacred edifice itself. The few who escaped were exposed to an accumulation of miseries; first they sought shelter at Mohammerah in Oude; then they met the 41st regiment, after the mutiny at Seetapoor, who shot and cut them down without mercy; and scarcely any lived to tell the dismal tale to English ears.

Thus then it appears that, in Rohilcund, the 18th, 68th, 28th, and 29th regiments native infantry, together with the 8th irregular cavalry and a battery of native artillery, rose in revolt at the three military stations, and murdered or drove out nearly the whole of the Europeans from the entire province—European troops there were none; only officers and civilians. They plundered all the treasuries, containing more than a quarter of a million sterling, and marched off towards Delhi, five thousand strong—unmolested by the general who commanded at Meerut.

Nynee Tal became more crowded than ever with refugees from Oude and Rohilcund. Under the energetic command of Captain Ramsey, this hill-station remained in quiet during the month of May (p. 115); but it was not so easily defended in June. Some of the native artillery at Almora, not far distant, gave rise to uneasiness towards the close of the month; yet as the ill-doers were promptly put into prison, and as the Goorkhas remained stanch, confidence was partially restored. The sepoys from the rebel regiments dreaded a march in this direction, on account of the deadly character of the Terai, a strip of swampy forest, thirty miles broad, which interposes between the plains and the hills; but that jungle-land itself contained many marauders, who were only prevented by fear of the Goorkhas from going up to Nynee Tal. At the end of June, there were five times as many women and children as men among the Europeans at that place; hence the anxious eye with which the proceedings in surrounding districts were regarded.

The third region to which this chapter is appropriated—the Doab—now calls for attention. Like Oude and Rohilcund, it was the scene of terrible anarchy and bloodshed in the month of June. In its two parts—the Lower Doab, from Allahabad to a little above Furruckabad; and the Upper Doab, from the last-named city up to the hill-country—it was nearly surrounded by mutineers, who apparently acted in concert with those in the Doab itself.

Of Allahabad and Cawnpore, the two chief places in the Lower Doab, sufficient has been said in Chapters VIII. and IX. to trace the course of events during the month of June. About midway between the two is Futtehpoor, a small civil station in the centre of a group of Mohammedan villages; it contained, at the beginning of June, about a dozen civil servants of the Company, and a small detachment of the 6th native regiment from Allahabad. The residents, as a precautionary measure, had sent their wives and children to that stronghold, and had also arranged a plan for assembling at the house of the magistrate, if danger should appear. On the 5th of the month, disastrous news arriving from Lucknow and Cawnpore, the residents took up their abode for the night on the flat roof of the magistrate’s house, with their weapons by their sides; and on the following day they hauled up a supply of tents, provisions, water, and ammunition—a singular citadel being thus extemporised in the absence of better. On the 7th, their small detachment aided in repelling a body of troopers who had just arrived from Cawnpore on a plundering expedition; and the residents congratulated themselves on the fidelity of this small band. Their reliance was, however, of short duration; for, on the receipt of news of the Allahabad outbreak, the native officials in the collector’s office gave way, like the natives all around them, and Futtehpoor soon became a perilous spot for Europeans. On the 9th, the residents held a council on their roof, and resolved to quit the station. A few troopers befriended them; and they succeeded, after many perils and sufferings, in reaching Banda, a town southward of the Jumna. Not all of them, however. Mr Robert Tucker, the judge, resisting entreaty, determined to remain at his post to the last. He rode all over the town, promising rewards to those natives who would be faithful; he endeavoured to shame others by his heroic bearing; he appealed to the gratitude and good feeling of many of the poorer natives, who had been benefited by him in more peaceful times. But all in vain. The jail was broken open, the prisoners liberated, and the treasury plundered; and Mr Tucker, flying to the roof of the cutcherry, there bravely defended himself until a storm of bullets laid him low. Robert Tucker was one of those civilians of whom the Company had reason to be proud.

Advancing to the northwest, we come to a string of towns and stations—Etawah, Minpooree, Allygurh, Futteghur, Muttra, Bolundshuhur, Mozuffernugger, &c.—which shared with Oude and Rohilcund the wild disorders of the month of June. The mutiny at Futteghur has already engaged our notice (p. 133), in connection with the miserable fugitives who swelled the numbers put to death by Nena Sahib at Bithoor and Cawnpore. It needs little further mention here. The 10th native infantry, and a small body of artillery, long resisted the temptation held out by mutineers elsewhere; but, on the appearance of the insurgent regiments from Seetapoor, their fidelity gave way. Four companies went off with the treasure; the remainder joined the other mutinous regiments in besieging the fort to which so many Europeans had fled for refuge, and from which so disastrous a boat-voyage was made down the Ganges. Mr Colvin, at Agra, knew of the perilous state of things at Futteghur; he knew that a native nawab had been chosen by the mutineers as a sort of sovereign; but, as we shall presently see, he was too weak in reliable troops to afford any assistance whatever. Thus it happened that the two boat-expeditions, of June and July, ended so deplorably to the Europeans, and left Futteghur so wholly in the hands of the rebels. It was a great loss to the British in many ways; for most of the Company’s gun-carriages were made, or at least stored, at Futteghur; and the agency-yard was surrounded by warehouses containing a large supply of material belonging to the artillery service. Indeed it was this court-yard of the gun-carriage agency that constituted the fort, as soon as a few defensive arrangements had been made. Many circumstances had drawn rather a large English population to Futteghur; and hence the terrible severity of the tragedy. There were officers of the 10th regiment; other military officers on leave; gun-carriage agents; civil servants; merchants and dealers; a few tent-makers and other artisans; indigo-planters from the neighbouring estates; and many native Christians under the care of the American Presbyterian mission.

We have already seen (pp. 112, 113) by how small a number of native troops several stations were set in commotion in May. The 9th regiment Bengal native infantry was separated into four portions, which were stationed at Allygurh, Bolundshuhur, Etawah, and Minpooree, respectively; and all mutinied nearly at the same time. The fortune of war, if war it can be called, at these stations during the month of June, may be traced in a very few words. It was on the 20th of May that the four companies at Allygurh mutinied; and on the 24th that one-half of Lieutenant Cockburn’s Gwalior troopers, instead of assisting him to retain or regain the station, rose in mutiny and galloped off to join the insurgents elsewhere. There were, however, about a hundred who remained faithful to him; and these, with fifty volunteers, made an advance to Allygurh, retook it, drove out the detachment of the 9th native regiment, released a few Europeans who had been in hiding there, captured one Rao Bhopal Singh, and hanged him as a petty chieftain who had continued the rapine begun by the sepoys. Throughout the month of June this station was maintained in British hands—not so much for its value in a military sense, as for its utility in keeping open the roads to Agra and Meerut; but, in the direction of Delhi, the volunteers could obtain very little news, the dâks being all cut off by the Goojurs and other predatory bands. At Minpooree the three companies of the 9th checked, it will be remembered, by the undaunted courage and tact of Lieutenant de Kantzow, departed to join the insurgents elsewhere; but Minpooree remained in British hands. The remaining companies mutinied at Etawah and Bolundshuhur without much violence.

Agra, when the narrative last left it (p. 111), had passed through the month of May without any serious disturbances. The troops consisted of the 44th and 67th regiments Bengal native infantry, the 3d Europeans, and a few artillery. After two companies of these native troops had mutinied while engaged in bringing treasure from Muttra to Agra, Mr Colvin deemed it necessary to disarm all the other companies; and this was quietly and successfully effected on the 1st of June, by the 3d Europeans and Captain D’Oyley’s field-battery. Many facts afterward came to light, tending to shew that if this disarming had not taken place, the 44th and 67th would have stained their hands with the same bloody deeds as the sepoys were doing elsewhere. The native lines had been more than once set on fire during the later days of May—in the hope, as afterwards appears, that the handful of Europeans, by rushing out unarmed to extinguish the flames, would afford the native troops a favourable opportunity to master the defences of the city, and the six guns of the field-battery. A curious proof was supplied of the little knowledge possessed by the Europeans of the native character, and the secret springs that worked unseen as moving powers for their actions. There had long seemed to be an angry feeling between the 44th and the 67th; and Mr Colvin, or the brigadier acting with him, selected one company from each regiment for the mission to Muttra, in the belief that each would act as a jealous check upon the other; instead of which, the two companies joined in revolt, murdered many of their officers, and carried off their treasure towards Delhi. After the very necessary disarming of the two regiments, the defence of this important city was left to the 3d European Fusiliers, Captain D’Oyley’s field-battery of six guns, and a corps of volunteer European cavalry under Lieutenant Greathed. Most of the disarmed men deserted, and swelled the ranks of the desperadoes that wrought so much ruin in the surrounding districts—a result that led many military officers to doubt whether disarming without imprisonment was a judicious course under such circumstances; for the men naturally felt exasperated at their humbled position, whether deserved or not; and their loyalty, as soldiers out of work, was not likely to be in any way increased. Whether or not this opinion be correct, the Europeans in Agra felt their only reliance to be in each other. During the early days of June, most of the ladies resorted at night to certain places of refuge allotted by the governor, such as the fort, the post-office, the office of the _Mofussilite_ newspaper, and behind the artillery lines; while the gentlemen patrolled the streets, or maintained a defensive attitude at appointed places. Trade was continued, British supremacy was asserted, bloodshed was kept away from the city, and the Europeans maintained a steady if not cheerful demeanour. Nevertheless Mr Colvin was full of anxieties; he was responsible to the Calcutta government, not only for Agra, but for the whole of the Northwest Provinces; yet he found himself equally unable to send aid to other stations, and receive aid from them. Agra was troubled on the night of the 23d of June by the desertion of the jail-guard, to whom had been intrusted the custody of the large central prison. A guard from the 3d Europeans was thereupon placed on the outside; while the inside was guarded by another force under Dr Walker the superintendent. So far as concerned military disturbances within the city, Mr Colvin was not at that time under much apprehension; but he knew that certain regiments from Neemuch—the mutiny of which will be described in the next chapter—had approached by the end of the month to a point on the high road between Agra and Jeypoor, very near the first-named city; and he heard that they contemplated an attack. He estimated their strength at two regiments of infantry, four or five hundred cavalry, and eight guns; but as the whole of the civil and military authorities at Agra were on the alert, he did not regard this approaching force with much alarm. To strengthen his position, and maintain public confidence, he organised a European militia of horse and foot, among the clerks, railway men, &c., to which it was expected and desired that nearly all civilians should belong. This militia, placed under the management of Captains Prendergast and Lamb, Lieutenants Rawlins and Oldfield, and Ensign Noble, who had belonged to the disarmed native regiments, was divided into two corps, to which the defence of the different parts of the station was intrusted. How the Europeans, both military and civilians, became cooped up in the fort during July, we shall see in a future chapter.

Meerut, during June, remained in the hands of the British; but there was much inactivity on the part of the general commanding there, in relation to the districts around that town. On the 10th of May, when the mutiny began (p. 50), there were a thousand men of the 60th Rifles, six hundred of the Carabiniers, a troop of horse-artillery, and five hundred artillery recruits—constituting a force unusually large, in relation to the general distribution of English troops in India. Yet these fine soldiers were not so handled as to draw from them the greatest amount of service. They were not sent after the three mutinous regiments who escaped to Delhi; and during the urgent and critical need of Lawrence, Colvin, and Wheeler, Major-general Hewett kept his Europeans almost constantly in or near Meerut. It is true that he, and others who have defended him, asserted that the maintenance of the position at Meerut, a very important consideration, could not have been insured if he had marched out to intercept rebels going from various quarters towards Delhi; but this argument was not deemed satisfactory at Calcutta; Major-general Hewett was superseded, and another commander appointed in his place. It was not until June that dâks were re-established between Meerut and Agra on the one hand, and Meerut and Kurnaul on the other. Some of the Europeans were sent off to join the besieging army before Delhi; while a portion of the remainder were occasionally occupied in putting down bands of Goojurs and other predatory robbers around Meerut. The town of Sirdhana, where the Catholic nuns and children had been placed in such peril (p. 57), was too near Meerut to be held by the rebels. Early in June, one Wallee Dad Khan set himself up as subadar or captain-general of Meerut, under the King of Delhi; raised a rabble force of Goojurs; held the fort of Malagurh with six guns; and seized the district of Bolundshuhur. News arriving that he was advancing with his force towards Meerut, about a hundred European troops, Rifles and Carabiniers, with a few civilians and two guns, started off to intercept him. They had little work to do, however, except to burn villages held by the insurgents; for the robber Goojurs having quarrelled with the robber Jâts about plunder, the latter compelled Wallee Dud Khan and his general, Ismail Khan, to effect a retreat before the English came up. In the last week of the month the force at Meerut, chiefly in consequence of the number sent off to Delhi, was reduced to about eight hundred; these were kept so well on the alert, and the whole town and cantonment so well guarded, that the Europeans felt little alarm; although vexed that they could afford no further assistance to the besiegers of Delhi, nor even chastise a portion of the 4th irregular cavalry, who mutinied at Mozuffernugger. All the English, civilians and their families as well as military officers, lived at Meerut either in barracks or tents—none venturing to sleep beyond the immediate spot where the military were placed.

Simla, during these varied operations, continued to be a place where, as at Nynee Tal, ladies and children, as well as some of the officers and civilians, took refuge after being despoiled by mutineers. A militia was formed after the hasty departure of General Anson; Simla was divided into four districts under separate officers; and the gentlemen aided by a few English troops, defended those districts, throughout June. The people at the bazaar, and all the native servants of the place, were disarmed, and the arms taken for safe custody to Kussowlie.

Delhi—a place repeatedly mentioned in every chapter of this narrative—continued to be the centre towards which the attention of all India was anxiously directed. Fast as the native regiments mutinied in Bengal, Oude, Rohilcund, the Doab, Bundelcund, and elsewhere, so did they either flee to Delhi, or shape their course in dependence on the military operations going on there; and fast as the British troops could be despatched to that spot, so did they take rank among the besiegers. But in truth this latter augmentation came almost wholly from the Punjaub and other western districts. Lloyd, Neill, Wheeler, Lawrence, Hewett, Sibbald, were so closely engaged in attending to the districts around Dinapoor, Benares, Allahabad, Cawnpore, Lucknow, Meerut, and Bareilly, that they could not send aid to the besiegers of Delhi, during several weeks of siege operations. These operations will be noticed in systematic order, when the other threads of the narrative have been traced to the proper points. Meanwhile the reader will bear in mind that the siege of Delhi was in progress from the middle of June to an advanced period in the summer.

Footnote 23:

_Artillery_: 4 guns, horse light field-battery; 6 guns, Oude field-battery; and 1 8-inch howitzer. _Cavalry_: 120 troopers of 1st, 2d, and 3d Oude irregular cavalry; and 40 volunteer cavalry, under Captain Radcliffe. _Infantry_: 300 of H.M. 32d foot; 150 of 13th native infantry; 60 of the 48th native infantry; and 20 of the 71st.

Footnote 24:

‘Every boy has read, and many living men still remember, how the death of Nelson was felt by all as a deep personal affliction. Sir Henry Lawrence was less widely known, and his deeds were in truth of less magnitude than those of the great sea-captain; but never probably was a public man within the sphere of his reputation more ardently beloved. Sir Henry Lawrence had that rare and happy faculty (which a man in almost every other respect unlike him, Sir Charles Napier, is said also to have possessed) of attaching to himself every one with whom he came in contact. He had that gift which is never acquired, a gracious, winning, noble manner; rough and ready as he was in the field, his manner in private life had an indescribable charm of frankness, grace, and even courtly dignity. He had that virtue which Englishmen instinctively and characteristically love—a lion-like courage. He had that fault which Englishmen so readily forgive, and when mixed with what are felt to be its naturally concomitant good qualities, they almost admire—a hot and impetuous temper; he had in overflowing measure that Godlike grace which even the base revere and the good acknowledge as the crown of virtue—the grace of charity. No young officer ever sat at Sir Henry’s table without learning to think more kindly of the natives; no one, young or old, man or woman, ever heard Sir Henry speak of the European soldier, or ever visited the Lawrence Asylum, without being excited to a nobler and truer appreciation of the real extent of his duty towards his neighbour. He was one of the few distinguished Anglo-Indians who had attained to something like an English reputation in his lifetime. In a few years, his name will be familiar to every reader of Indian history; but for the present it is in India that his memory will be most deeply cherished; it is by Anglo-Indians that any eulogy on him will be best appreciated, it is by them that the institutions which he founded and maintained will be fostered as a monument to his memory.’—_Fraser’s Magazine_, No. 336.

Footnote 25:

The troops stationed at that time at Fyzabad comprised the 22d regiment native infantry; the 6th regiment irregular Oude infantry; the 5th troop of the 15th regiment irregular cavalry; No. 5 company of the 7th battalion of artillery; and No. 13 horse-battery. The chief officers were Colonels Lennox and O’Brien; Major Mill; Captain Morgan; Lieutenants Fowle, English, Bright, Lindesay, Thomas, Ouseley, Cautley, Gordon, Parsons, Percival, and Currie; and Ensigns Anderson and Ritchie. Colonel Goldney held a civil appointment as commissioner.